furious beasts of prey Tantaene animis coelestibus ira O how repugnant are these practices non secus ac Cum duo conversis inimica in praelia tauri Frontibus 〈◊〉 with the study of mortification which is the great study and endeavour of all that be in Christ They that are Christs have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts So much for the order of the words the words themselves are a proposition wherein we have to consider both The 1. Subject 2. Predicate First The Subject of the proposition they that are Christs 1. viz. true Christians real members of Christ such as truly Vere Christiani qui ad Christum pertinent qui se ei dedâ—… regendâ—…s Pol. Synopsis belong to Christ such as have given themselves up to be governed by him and are indeed acted by his Spirit such all such persons for the indefinite is equipollent to a universal all such and none but such Secondly The predicate theâ—…â—…ve crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts by flesh 〈◊〉 are here to understand carnal 2. concupiscence the workings and motions of corrupt nature and by the affections we are to understand not the natural but the inordinate affections for Christ doth not abolish and destroy but correct and regulate the affections of those that are in him and by crucifying the flesh we are not to understand the total extinction or perfect subduing of corrupt nature but only the deposing of corruption from its regency and dominion in the soul its dominion is taken away though its life be prolonged for a season but yet as death surely though slowly follows crucifixion the life of crucified persons gradually departing from them with their blood so it is just so in the mortification of sin and therefore what the Apostle in this place calls crucifying he calls in Rom. 8. 13. mortifying if ye through the Spirit do mortifie 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 if ye put to death the deeds of the body but he chooses in this place to call it crucifying to shew not only the conformity there is betwixt the death of Christ and the death of sin in respect of shame pain and lingring slowness but to denote also the principle means and instrument of mortification viz. the death or cross of Jesus Christ in the vertue whereof believers do mortifie the corruptions of their flesh the great arguments and perswasives to mortification being drawn from the sufferings of Christ for sin In a word he doth not say they that believe Christ was crucified for sin are Christs but they and they only are his who feel as well as profess the power and efficacie of the sufferings of Christ in the mortification and subduing of their lusts and sinful affections And so much briefly of the parts and sense of the words The Observation followeth DOCT. That a saving interest in Christ may be regularly and strongly inferred and concluded from the mortification of the flesh with Doct. its affections and lusts This point is fully confirmed by those words of the Apostle Rom. 6. 5 6 7 8. 〈◊〉 if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection 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 for he that is dead is freed from sin now if we be dead with Christ we believe that we shall also live with him Mark the force of the Apostles reasoning if we have been planted into the likeness of his death viz. by the mortification of sin which resembles or hath a likeness to the kind and manner of Christs death as was noted above then we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection and why so but because this mortification of sin is an undoubted evidence of the union of such a soul with Christ which is the very ground-work and principle of that blessed and glorious resurrection and therefore he saith vers 11. Reckon ye also your selves to be dead indeed unto sin but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord q. d. reason thus with your selves these mortifying influences of the death of Christ are unquestionable presages of your future blessedness God never taking this course with any but those who are in Christ and are designed to be glorified with him the death of your sin is as evidential as any thing in the world can be of your spiritual life for the present and of your eternal life with God hereafter Mortification is the fruit and evidence of your union and that union is the firm ground-work and certain pledge of your glorification and so you ought to reckon or reason the case with your selves as the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there signifies Now for the stating and explicating of this point I shall in the doctrinal part labour to open and confirm these five things 1. What the mortification or crucifixion of sin imports 2. Why this work of the Spirit is expressed by crucifying 3. Why all that are in Christ must be so crucified or mortified unto sin 4. What is the true evangelical principle of mortification 5. How the mortification of sin evinces our interest in Christ. And then apply the whole First What the mortification or crucifixion of sin imports 1. And for clearness sake I shall speak to it both negatively and positively shewing you what is not intended and what is principally aimed at by the Spirit of God in this expression First The crucifying of the flesh doth not imply the total abolition of sin in Believers or the destruction of its very Neg. 1. Mortificari carnem non est eam ita perimi ut aut prorsus non sit aut nulla prava in homine desideria commoveat quod in corpore mortis bujus non contingit c. Estius in loc being and existence in them for the present sanctified souls so put off their corruptions with their bodies at death this will be the effect of our future glorification not of our present sanctification it doth exist in the most mortified Believer in the world Rom. 7. 17. it still acteth and lusteth in the regenerate soul Gal. 5. 17. yea notwithstanding its crucifixion in Believers it still may in respect of single acts surprize and captivate them Psal. 65. 3. Rom. 7. 23. This therefore is not the intention of the spirit of God in this expression Secondly Nor doth the crucifixion of sin consist in the suppression of the external acts of sin only for sin may reign over the souls of men whilst it doth not break forth into their lives in gross and open actions 2 Pet. 2. 20. Mat. 12. 43. Morality in the Heathens as Tertullian well observes did abscondere sed non abscindere vitia hide them when it could not kill them many a man shews a white and fair hand who yet hath a very foul and black
the soul from the body James 2. 26. The body without the spirit is dead Spiritual death is the privation of the principle of spiritual life or the want and absence of the quickening spirit of God in the foul the soul is the life of the body and Christ is the life of the soul the absence of the foul is death to the body and the absence or want of Christ is death to the soul. Eternal death is the separation both of body and soul from God which is the misery of the damned Now Christless and unregenerate men are not dead in the first sense they are naturally alive though they are dead while they live Nor are they yet dead in the last sense eternally separated from God by an irrevocable sentence as the damned are but they are dead in the second sense they are spiritually dead whilst they are naturally alive and this spiritual death is the fore-runner of eternal death Now spiritual death is put in scripture in opposition to a two-fold spiritual life Viz. 1. The life of Justification 2. The life of Sanctification Spiritual death in opposition to the life of Justification is nothing else but the guilt of sin bringing us under the sentence of death Spiritual death in opposition to the life of sanctification is the pollution or dominion of sin In both these fen ses unregenerate men are dead men but it is the last which I am properly concerned to speak to in this place and therefore Secondly Let us briefly consider what this spiritual death is which as before was hinted is the absence of the quickening 2. spirit of Christ from the soul of any man That soul is a dead soul into which the spirit of Christ is not infused in the work of regeneration and all its works are dead works as they are called Heb. 9. 14. For look how it is with the damned they live they have sense and motion and an immortality in all these yet because they are eternally separated from God the life which they live deserves not the name of life but is every where in scripture stiled death So the unregenerate they are naturally alive they eat and drink they buy and sell they talk and laugh they rejoyce in the creatures and many of them spend their days in pleasures and then go down to the grave This is the life they live but yet the scripture rather calls it death than life because though they live yet it is without God in the world Eph. 2. 12. Though they live yet it is a life alienated from the life of God Eph. 4. 18. And therefore while they remain naturally alive they are in scripture said to remain in death 1 John 3. 14. and to be dead while they live 1 Tim. 5. 6. And there is great reason why a Christless and unregenerate state should be represented in scripture under the notion of death for there is nothing in nature which more aptly represents that miserable state of the soul than natural death doth The dead see and discern nothing and the natural man perceiveth not the things that are of God The dead have no beauty or desirableness in them Bury my dead said Abraham out of my sight neither is there any spiritual loveliness in the unregenerate True it is some of them have sweet natural qualities and moral excellencies which are taking things but these are as so many flowers decking and adorning a dead corpse The dead are Objects of pity and great lamentation men use to mourn for the dead Eccles. 12. 5. Man goeth to his long home and the mourners go about the streets But unregenerate and Christless souls are much more the Objects of pity and lamentation How are all the people of God especially those that are naturally related to them concerned to mourn over them and for them as Abraham did for Ishmael Gen. 17. 18. O that Ishmael might live before thee Upon these and many other accounts the state of unregeneracy is represented to us in the notion of death Thirdly And that this is the state of all Christless and unsanctified persons will undeniably appear two ways 3. 1. The causes of spiritual life have not wrought upon them 2. The effects and signs of spiritual life do not appear in them and therefore they are in the state and under the power of spiritual death First The causes of spiritual life have not wrought upon them There are two causes of spiritual life 1. Principal and internal 2. Subordinate and external The principal internal cause of spiritual life is the regenerating spirit of Christ Rom. 8. 2. The law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death 'T is the spirit as a regenerating spirit that unites us with Christ in whom all spiritual life originally is John 5. 25 26. Verily I say unto you that the hour is coming and now is when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God and they that hear shall live for as the father hath life in himself so hath he given to the son to have life in himself As all the members of the natural body receive animation sense and motion by their Union with their natural head so all believers the members of Christ receive spiritual life and animation by their Union with Christ their mystical head Eph. 4. 15 16. Except we come to him and be united with him in the way of faith we can have no life in us John 5. 40. Ye will not come unto me that ye may have life Now the spirit of God hath yet exerted no regenerating quickening influences nor begotten any special saving faith in natural unsanctified men whatever he hath done for them in the way of natural or spiritual common gifts yet he hath not quickened them with the life of Christ. And as for the subordinate external means of life viz. the preaching of the Gospel which is the instrument of the spirit in this glorious work and is therefore called the word of life Phil. 2. 16. this word hath not yet been made a regenerating quickening word to their souls Possibly it hath enlightned them and convinced them it hath wrought upon their minds in the way of common illumination and upon their consciences in the way of conviction but not upon their hearts and wills by way of effectual conversion To this day the Lord hath not given them an heart opening it self in the way of faith to receive Jesus Christ. Secondly The effects and signs of spiritual life do not appear in them for First They have no feeling or sense of misery and danger I mean no such sense as throwly awakens them to apply Christ their remedy That spiritual judgment lies upon them Isa. 6. 9 10. And he said go and tell this people Hear ye indeed but understand not and see ye indeed but perceive not make the heart of this people fat and their ears heavy and
shut their eyes Secondly They have no spiritual motions towards Christ or after things that are spiritual all the Arguments in the world cannot perswade their wills to move one step towards Christ in the way of faith John 5. 40. Ye will not come unto me Were there a principle of spiritual life in their souls they would move Christ-ward and heaven-ward John 4. 14. it would be in them a well of water springing up into eternal life The natural tendency of the spiritual life is upward Thirdly The unregenerate have no appetite unto spiritual food they savour not things that are spiritual they can go from week to week and from year to year all their life time without any communion betwixt God and their souls and feel no need of it nor any hungerings nor thirstings after it which could never be iâ—… a principle of spiritual life were in them for then they would esteem the words of Gods mouth more than their necessary food Job 30. 12. Fourthly They have no heat or spiritual warmth in their affections to God and things above their hearts are as cold as a stone to spiritual Objects They are heated indeed by their lusts and affections to the world and the things of the world But O how cold and dead are they towards Jesus Christ and spiritual excellencies Fifthly They breathe not spiritually therefore they live not spiritually were there a spiritual principle of life in them their souls would breath after God in spiritual prayer Acts 9. 11. Behold he prayeth The lips of the unregenerate may move in prayer but their hearts and desires do not breath and pant after God Sixthly They have no cares or fears for self-preservation which is always the effect of life the poorest fly or silliest worm will shun danger the wrath of God hangs over them in the threatnings but they tremble not at it Hell is but a little before them they are upon the very precipice of eternal ruine yet will use no means to avoid it How plain therefore is this sad case which I have undertaken here to demonstrate viz that Christless and unregenerate souls are dead souls The uses follow Inference 1. If all Christless and unregenerate souls be dead souls then how Inference 1. little pleasure can Christians take in the society of the unregenerate Certainly 't is no pleasure for the living to converse among the dead It was a cruel torment invented by Mezentius the Tyrant to tie a dead and living man together The pleasure â—…t solent vitia alibi connata in propinqua membra perniciem Juam efflare sic improborum vitia in eos derivantur qui cum illis vitae babent consuetudinem Tertul. advers Valentin of society arises from the harmony of spirits and the hopes of mutual enjoyment in the world to come neither of which can sweeten the society of the godly with the wicked in this world 'T is true there is a necessary civil converse which we must have with the ungodly here or else as the Apostle speaks we must go out of the world There are also duties of relation which must be faithfully and tenderly paid even to the unregenerate But certainly where we have our free election we shall be much wanting both to our duty and comfort if we make not the people of God our chosen companions Excellently to this purpose speaks a Modern Author Art thou a godly master when thou takest a servant into thine house choose for God as well as thy self A godly Gurnals Christian armour part 2. p. 256. servant is a greater blessing than we think on he can work and set God on work also for his masters good Gen. 24. 12. O Lord God of my master Abraham I pray thee send me good speed this day and show kindness unto my master and sure he did his master as much service by his prayer as by his prudence in that journey Holy David observed while he was at Sauls Court the mischief of having wicked and ungodly servants for with such was that unhappy King so compassed that David compares his Court to the prophane and barbarous heathens among whom there was scarce more wickedness to be found Psal. 120. 6. Wo is me that I sojourn in Mesheck that I dwell in the Tents of Kedar i. e. among those who were as prodigiously wicked as any there and no doubt but this made this gracious man in his banishment before he came to the Crown having seen the evil of a disordered house to resolve what he would do when God should make him the head of such a Royal family Psal. 101. 7. He that worketh deceit shall not dwell within my house he that selleth lies shall not tarry in my sight Art thou godly show thy self so in the choice of husband or wife I am sure if some and those godly also could bring no other testimonial for their godliness than the care they have taken in this particular it might justly be called into question both by themselves and others There is no one thing that gracious persons even those recorded in scripture as well as others have shewn their weakness yea given offence and scandal more in than in this particular The sons of God saw that the daughters of men were fair Gen. 6. 2. One would have thought the sons of God should have looked for grace in the heart rather than beauty in the face but we see even they sometimes turn in at the fairest sign without much enquiring what grace is to be found dwelling within Look to the rule O Christian if thou wilt keep the power of holiness That is clear as a sun beam written in the scripture be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers 2 Cor. 6. 14. Inference 2. How great and wholly supernatural marvellous and wonderful is Inference 2. that change which regeneration makes upon the souls of men It is a change from death to life Luke 15. 24. This my son was dead and is alive again Regeneration is life from the dead The most excellent life from the most terrible death 'T is the life of God reinspired into a soul alienated from it by the power of sin Eph. 4. 18. There are two stupendious changes made upon the souls of men which justly challenges highest admiration viz. That 1. From sin to grace 2. From grace to glory The change from grace to glory is acknowledged by all and that justly to be a wonderful change for God to take a poor creature out of the society of sinful men yea from under the burden of many sinful infirmities which made him groan from day to day in this world and in a moment to make him a compleat and perfect soul shining in the beauties of holiness and filling him as a vessel of glory with the unspeakable and unconceivable joyes of his presence to turn his groanings into triumphs his sighings into songs of praise This I say is marvellous and yet the former
hold of us no vital act of faith can be exercised till a vital principle be first inspired of both these bonds of Union we must speak distinctly and first of the first Christ quickening us by his Spirit in order to our Union with him of which we have an account in the Scripture before us You hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins in which words we find these two things noted Viz. 1. The infusion of a vital principle of grace 2. The total indisposedness of the subject by nature First The infusion of a vital principle of grace you hath he quickened These words hath he quickened are a supplement 1. made to clear the sense of the Apostle which else would have been more obscure by reason of that long Parenthesis betwixt the first and the fifth verses for as the * Illud 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 regitur à 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 v. 5. est igitur hoc loco hyperbaton synchysis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quae est species 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cujus quidem anomaliae causa est 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 interjectio sententiae prolixioris Piscator Pooles Synop. learned observe this word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 you is governed of the verb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hath he quickened verse 5. so that here the words are transposed from the plain grammatical order by reason of the interjection of a long sentence therefore with good warrant our Translators have put the verb into this first verse which is repeated verse the fifth and so keeping faithfully to the scope have excellently cleared the Syntax and order of the words Now this verb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hath he quickened imports the first vital act of the spirit of God â—…or his first enlivening work upon the soul in order to its Union with Jesus Christ for look as the blood of Christ is the fountain of all merit so the Spirit of Christ is the fountain of all spiritual life and until he quicken us i. e. infuse the principle of the divine life into our souls we can put forth no hand or vital act of faith to lay hold upon Jesus Christ. This his quickening work is therefore the first in order of nature to our Union with Christ and fundamental to all other acts of grace done and performed by us from our first closing with Christ throughout the whole course of our obedience and this quickening act is said verse the fifth to be together Ex Christo conjuâ—…cto nobiscum ut capite cum membris profluunt in nos omnia beneficia in quorum numero est vivificatio Rolloc in Loco with Christ either noting as some expound it that it is the effect of the same power by which Christ was raised from the dead according to Eph. 1. 19. or rather to be quickened together with Christ notes that new spiritual life which is infused into our dead souls in the time of our Union with Christ for it is Christ to whom we are conjoyned and united in our regeneration out of whom as a fountain all spiritual benefits flow to us among which this vivification or quickening is one and a most sweet and precious one Zanchy Bodius and many others will have this quickening to comprize both our justification and regeneration and to stand opposed both to infernal and spiritual death and it may well be allowed but it most properly imports our regeneration wherein the Spirit in an ineffable and mysterious way makes the soul to live to God yea to live the life of God which was before dead in trespassis and sins in which words we have Secondly In the next place the total indisposedness of 2. the subjects by nature for as it is well noted by a * Non vocat hic semi mortuos aut aegrotos ac infirmos sed prorsus mortuos omni fa ultatebene cogitandi aut agendi destituti Rolloc in Loc. learned man The Apostle doth not say of these Ephesians that they were half dead or sick and infirm but dead wholly altogether dead destitute of any faculty or ability so much as to think one good thought or perform one good act you were dead in respect of condemnation being under the damning sentence of the Law and you were dead in respect of the privation of spiritual life dead in opposition to Justification and dead in opposition to regeneration and sanctification and the fatal instrument by which their Souls dyed is here shewed them you were dead in or by trespasses and sins this was the Sword that kill'd your souls and cut them off from God Some do curiously distinguish betwixt trespasses and sins as if one pointed at original the other at actual sins but I suppose they are promiscuously used here and serve to express the cause of their ruine or means of their spiritual death and destruction this was their case when Christ came to quicken them dead in sin and being so they could not move themselves towards Union with Christ but as they were moved by the quickening Spirit of God Hence the observation will be this Doct. That those Souls which have Union with Christ are quickened with a Supernatural principle of life by the Spirit of God in order Doct. thereunto The Spirit of God is not only a living Spirit formally considered but he is also the Spirit of life effectively or causally considered and without his breathing or infusing liâ—… into our souls our Union with Christ is impossible It is the observation of learned Camero that there must be Observandum est unionem unitionem inter se disserre unio est rerum actus qui formae rationem habet nempe actus rerum unitarum quâ unitae sunt unitio autem actus significat causâ—… efficientis c. Camero de Eccles p. 222. an Unition before there can be a Union with Christ. Unition is to be conceived efficiently as the work of Gods Spirit joyning the believer to Christ and Union is to be conceived formally the joyning it self of the persons together we close with Christ by faith but that faith being a vital act presupposes a principle of life communicated to us by the Spirit therefore it 's said Joh. 11. 26. whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never dye the vital act and operation of faith springs from this quickening Spirit so in Rom. 8 1 2. the Apostle having in the first verse opened the blessed estate of them that are in Christ shews us in the second verse how we come to be in him The Spirit of life saith he which is in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the Law of sin and death There is indeed a quickening work of the Spirit which is subsequent to regeneration consisting in his exciting recovering and actuating of his own graces in us and from hence is the liveliness of a Christian and there is a quickening act of the Spirit in our
regeneration and from hence is the first spiritual life of a Christian of this I am here to speak and that I may speak profitably to this point I will in the Doctrinal part labour to open these five particulars First What this spiritual life is in its nature and properties Secondly In what manner it is wrought or inspired into the Soul Thirdly For what end or with what design this life is so inspired Fourthly I shall shew this work to be wholly supernatural And then fifthly Why this quickening must be antecedent to our actual closing with Christ by Faith First We will enquire into the nature and properties of 1. this life and discover as we are able what it is And we find it to consist in that wonderful change which the Spirit of God makes upon the frame and temper of the soul by his infusing or implanting the principles of grace in all the powers and faculties thereof A change it makes upon the soul and that a marvellous one no less than from death to life for though a man be physically a living man i. e. his natural soul hath Union with his body yet his soul having no Union with Christ he is Theologically a dead man Luke 15. 24. and Col. 2. 13. alas it deserves not the name of life to have a soul serving only to season and preserve the body a little while from stinking to carry it up and down the world and only enable it to eat and drink and talk and laugh and then dye then do we begin to live when we begin to have Union with Christ the fountain of life by his Spirit communicated to us from this time we are to reckon our life * Hic jacet Similis cujus aetas multorum annorum fuit ipse septem dumtaxat annos vixit as some have done there be many changes made upon men besides this many are changed from prophaneness to Civility and from meer Civility to formality and a shadow of Religion who still remain in the state and power of spiritual death notwithstanding but when the Spirit of the Lord is poured out upon us to quicken us with the new spiritual life this is a wonderful change indeed it gives us an Esse supernaturale a new supernatural being which is therefore call'd a new creature the new man the hidden man of the heart the natural essence and faculties of the soul remain still but it is devested of the old qualities and endowed with new ones 2 Cor. 5. 17. old things are past away behold all things are become new And this change is not made by altering and rectifying the disorders of the life only leaving the temper and frame of the heart still carnal but by the infusion of a supernatural permanent principle into the soul Joh. 4. 14. it shall be in him a well of water principles are to a course of actions as fountains or springs are to the streams and rivers that flow from them and are maintain'd by them and hence is the evenness and constancy of renewed souls in the course of godliness Nor is this principle or habit acquired by accustoming our selves to holy actions as natural habits are acquired by frequent acts which beget a disposition and thence grow up to an habit or second nature but it is infused or implanted into the soul by the Spirit of God So we read Ezek. 36. 25 26. a new heart also will I give you and a new Spirit will I put within you it grows not up out of our Natures but is put or infused into us as it 's said of the two witnesses Rev. 11. 11. who lay dead in a Civil sense three days and an half that the Spirit of life from God entered into them so it is here in a spiritual sense the spirit of life from God enters into the dead carnal heart it 's all by way of supernatural infusion Nor is it limited to this or that faculty of the soul but grace or life is poured into all the faculties behold all things are become new 2 Cor. 5. 17. The understanding will thoughts and affections are all renewed by it the whole inner man is changed yea the tongue and hand the discourses and actions even all the ways and courses of the outward man are renewed by it But more particularly we shall discern the nature of this spiritual life by considering the properties of it among which these are very remarkable First The soul that is joyned to Christ is quickened with a divine life so we read in 2 Pet. 1. 4. where believers are said to be partakers or consorts of the divine nature a very high expression and warily to be understood Partakers of the divine nature not essentially so it 's wholly incommunicable to the Creature nor yet Hypostatically and personally so Christ only was a partaker of it but our participation of the Divine nature must be understood in a way proper to believers that is to say we partake of it by the inhabitation of the Spirit of God in us according to 1 Cor. 3. 16 17. know ye not that ye are the Temple of God and that the spirit of God dwelleth in you the Spirit who is God by nature dwells in and actuates the soul whom he regenerates and by sanctifying causes it to live a divine life from this life of God the unsanctified are said to be alienated Eph. 4. 18. but believers are partakers of it Secondly And being divine it must needs be the most excellent and transcendent life that any creature doth or can live in this world it surmounts the natural rational and moral life of the unsanctified as much as the Angelical life excels the life that flyes and worms of the earth do live Some think it a rare life to live in sensual pleasures but the Scripture will not allow so much as the name of life to them but tells us they are dead whilest they live 1 Tim. 5. 6. certainly it is a wonderful elevation of the nature of man to be quickened with such a life as this There are two ways wherein the blessed God hath honoured poor man above the very Angels of heaven One was by the Hypostatical Union of our nature in Christ with the divine nature the other is by uniting our persons mystically to Christ and thereby communicating spiritual life to us this later is a most glorious priviledge and in one respect a more singular mercy than the former for that honour which is done to our Nature by the Hypostatical Union is common to all good and bad even they that perish have yet that honour but to be implanted into Christ by regeneration and live upon him as the branch doth upon the Vine this is a peculiar priviledge a mercy hedg'd in from the world that is to perish and only communicated to Gods elect who are to live eternally with him in heaven Thirdly This life infused by the regenerating Spirit is a most pleasant life
have lived Vassals to your sins and dyed at last in your sins but the fruit efficacy and benefit of Christs death is yours for the killing those sins in you which else had been your ruine Fifthly Believers have Communion with Christ in his life and resurrection from the dead as he rose from the dead so do they and that by the power and influence of his vivification and resurrection 't is the Spirit of life which is in Christ Jesus that makes us free from the Law of sin and death Rom. 8. 2. our spiritual life is from Christ Eph. 2. 1. and you hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins and hence Christ is said to live in the believer Gal. 2. 20. Now I live yet not I but Christ liveth in me and it is no small priviledge to partake of the very life of Christ which is the most excellent life that ever any creature can live yet such is the happiness of all the Saints the life of Christ is manifest in them and such a life as shall never see death Sixthly To conclude Believers have fellowship with Jesus Christ in his glory which they shall enjoy in heaven with him they shall be ever with the Lord 1 Thes. 4. 17. and that 's not all though as one saith it were a kind of heaven but to look through the keyhole and have but a glimpse of Christs blessed face but they shall partake of the glory which the father hath given him for so he speaks Joh. 17. 22 24. and more particularly they shall sit with him in his throne Rev. 3. 21. and when he comes to judge the world he will come to be glorified in the Saints 2 Thes. 1. 10. So that you see what glorious and inestimable things are and will be in common betwixt Christ and the Saints His Titles his righteousness his holiness his death his life his glory I do not say that Christ will make any Saint equal with him in glory that 's impossible he will be known from all the Saints in heaven as the Sun is distinguished from the Stars but they shall partake of his glory and be fill'd with his joy there and thus you see what those things are that the Saints have fellowship with Christ in Secondly Next I would open the way and means by which 2. we come to have fellowship with Jesus Christ in these excellent priviledges and this I shall do briefly in the following Positions Position 1. First No man hath fellowship with Christ in any special saving Position 1. Soli verè fideles sunt membra Christi idque non quatenus homines sed quatenus Christiani nec secundum primam generationem sed secundum reg nerationem Polanus Syntag. lib. 6. cap. 35. priviledge by nature howsoever it be cultivated or improved but only by faith uniting him to the Lord Jesus Christ 't is not the priviledge of our first but second birth This is plain from Joh. 1. 12 13. But to as many as received him to them gave he power to become the sons of God even to as many as believed on his name who are born not of flesh nor of blood nor of the will of man but of God We are by nature children of wrath Eph. 2. 3. we have fellowship with Satan in sin and misery the wild branch hath no communication of the sweetness and fatness of a more noble and excellent root until it be ingraffed upon it and have immediate Union and coalition with it Joh. 15. 1 2. Position 2. Believers themselves have not an equal share one with another in all the benefits and priviledges of their Union with Christ but in Position 2. some there is an equality and in others an inequality according to the measure and gift of Christ to every one In Justification they are all equal the weak and the strong believer are alike justified because it is one and the same perfect righteousness of Christ which is applied to the one and to the other so that there are no different degrees of Justification but all that believe are justified from all things Acts 13. 39. and there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus Rom. 8. 1. be they never so weak in faith or defective in degrees of grace But there is apparent difference in the measures of their Sanctification some are strong men and others are babes in Christ 1 Cor. 3. 1. the faith of some flourishes and grows exceedingly 2 Thes. 1. 3. the things that are in others are ready to dye Rev. 3. 2. It 's a plain case that there is great variety sound in the degrees of grace and comfort among them that are joyntly interested in Christ and equally justified by him Position 3. The Saints have not fellowship and communion with Christ in the fore-mentioned benefits and priviledges by one and the same medium Position 3. but by various mediums and ways according to the nature of the benefits in which they participate For instance they have partnership and communion with Christ as hath been said in his righteousness holiness and glory but they receive these distinct blessings by divers mediums of communion we have communion with Christ in his righteousness by the way of Imputation we partake of his holiness by the way of infusion and of his glory in heaven by the beatifical Vision Our Justification is a relative change our sanctification a real change our glorification a perfect change by redemption from all the remains both of sin and misery Thus hath the Lord appointed several blessings for believers in Christ and several channels of conveying them from him to us by imputed righteousness we are freed from the guilt of sin by imparted holiness we are freed from the dominion of sin and by our glorification with Christ we are freed from all the reliques and remains both of sin and misery let in by sin upon our natures Position 4. That Jesus Christ imparts to all believers all the spiritual Position 4. blessings that he is filled with and with-holds none from any that have Union with him be these blessings never so great or they that receive them never so weak mean and contemptible in outward respects Gal. 3. 27. Ye are all the children of God by faith in Jesus Christ. The salvation that comes by Christ is stiled the common salvation Jude 3. and heaven the inheritance of the Saints in light Col. 1. 12. There is neither Greek nor Jew saith the Apostle Circumcision nor uncircumcision Barbarian Scythian bond or free but Christ is all and in all Col. 3. 11. he means there is no priviledge in the one to commend them to God and no want of any thing in the other to debarr them from God let men have or want outward excellencies as beauty honour riches nobility gifts of the mind sweetness of nature and all such like ornaments what is that to God he looks not at these things but respects
change from sin to grace is no way inferiour to it Nay in some respect beyond it for the change which glory makes upon the regenerate is but a gradual change but the change which regeneration makes upon the ungodly is a spiritual change Great and admirable is this work of God and let it for ever be marvellous in our eyes Inference 3. If unregenerate souls de dead souls what a fatal stroke doth death give to the bodies of all unregenerate men A soul dead in sin and Inference 3. a body dead by vertue of the curse for sin and both soul and body remaining for ever under the power of eternal death is so full and perfect a misery as that nothing can be added to make it more miserable 't is the comfort of a Christian that he can say when death comes non omnis moriar I shall not wholly die there is a life I live which death cannot touch Rom. 8. 13. The body is dead because of sin but the spirit is life because of righteousness Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first Resurrection on such the second death hath no power As death takes a believer from amidst many sorrows and troubles and brings him to the vision of God to the general assembly of all the perfected saints to a state of compleat freedom and full satisfaction so it drags the unregenerate from all his sensitive delights and comforts to the place of torments It buries the dead soul out of the presence of God for ever 'T is the king of terrours 't is a serpent with a deadly sting to every man that is out of Christ. Inference 4. If every unregenerate soul be a dead soul how sad is the case of Hypocrites Inference 4. and temporary believers who are twice dead These are those cursed trees of which the Apostle Jude speaks Jude v. 12. Trees whose fruit withereth without fruit twice dead plucked up by the roots The Apostle alludes unto dying trees Trees that are dying the first time in the spring they then fade decay and cast their leaves when other trees are fragrant and flourishing But from this first death they are sometimes recovered by pruning and dressing or watering the roots But if in Autumn they decay again which is the Critical and Climacterical time of trees to discover whether their disease be mortal or not if then they wither and decay the second time the fault is ab intra the root is rotten there is no hope of it The husbandman bestows no more labour about it except it be to root it up for fewel to the fire Just thus stands the case with false and hypocritical prosessours who though they were still under the power of spiritual death yet in the beginning of their profession they seemed to be alive They shewed the world the fragrant leaves of a fair profession many hopeful buddings of affection towards spiritual things were seen in them but wanting a root of regeneration they quickly began to wither and cast their untimely fruit However by the help of ordinances or some rouzing and awakening providences they seem to recover themselves again but all will not do the fault is ab intra from the want of a good root and therefore at last they who were always once dead for want of a principle of regeneration are now become twice dead by the withering and decay of their vain profession Such trees are prepared for the severest flames in hell Mat. 24. 51. Their portion is the saddest portion allotted for any of the sons of death Therefore the Apostle Peter tells us 2 Pet. 2. 20 21. For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ they are again intangled therein and overcome the latter end is worse with them than the beginning For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than after they have known it to turn from the holy Commandment delivered unto them Double measures of wrath seem to be prepared for them that die this double death Inference 5. If this be so then unregenerate persons deserve the greatest lamentations Inference 5. And were this truth heartily believed we could not but mourn over them with the most tender compassion and hearty sorrow If our husbands wives or children be dying a natural death how are our hearts rent in pieces with pity and sorrow for them what cries tears and wringing of hands discover the deep sense we have of their misery O Christians is all the love you have for your relations spent upon their bodies Are their souls of no value in your eyes is spiritual death no misery Doth it not deserve a tear The Lord open our eyes and duly affect our hearts with spiritual death and soul miseries Consider my friends and let it move your bowels if there be bowels of affection in you whilst they remain spiritually dead they are useless and wholly unserviceable unto God in the world as to any special and acceptable service unto him 2 Tim. 2. 21. they are uncapable of all spiritual comforts from God they cannot taste the least sweetness in Christ in duties or in promises Rom. 8. 6. They have no beauty in their souls how comely soever their bodies be 't is grace and nothing but grace that beautifies the inner man Ezek. 16. 6 7. The dead have neither comfort nor beauty in them They have no hope to be with God in glory for the life of glory is begun in grace Phil. 1. 6. Their graves must shortly be made to be buried out of the sight of God for ever in the lowest hell the pit digged by justice for all that are spiritually dead The dead must be buried Can such considerations as these draw no pity from your souls nor excite your endeavours for their regeneration Then 't is to be feared your souls are dead as well as theirs O pity them pity them and pray for them in this case only prayers for the dead are our duty who knows but at the last God may hear your cries and you may say with comfort as he did This my son was dead but is alive was lost but is found and they began to be merry Luke 15. 24. The Thirty second SERMON Sermon 32. JOHN 3. 18. Text. But he that believeth not is condemned already The Condemnation of unbelievers opened and applied because he hath not believed in the Name of the only begotten Son of God CHrist having discoursed Nicodemus in the beginning of this Chapter about the necessity of regeneration proceeds to shew in this following discourse the reason and ground why regeneration and faith are so indispensably necessary viz. Because there is no other way to set men free from the curse and condemnation of the Law The curse of the Law like the fiery serpents in the wilderness hath smitten every sinner with a deadly stroke and sting for
design thus far And this actual application is the work of the Spirit by a singular appropriation Fourthly and Lastly This expression imports the suitableness of Christ to the necessities of Sinners What they want he is made to them and indeed as money answers all things and is convertible into meat drink rayment physick or what else our bodily necessities do require so Christ is virtually and eminently all that the necessities of our souls require bread to the hungry soul and cloathing to the naked soul. In a word God prepared and furnished him on purpose to answer all our wants which fully hits the Apostles sense when he saith Who of God is made unto us wisdome and righteousness sanctification and redemption The sum of all is Doct. Doct. That the Lord Jesus Christ with all his precious benefits becomes ours by Gods special and effectual Application There is a twofold Application of our redemption one Primary the other Secondary the former is the Act of God the Father applying it to Christ our Surety and virtually to us in him the later is the Act of the holy Spirit personally and actually applying it to us in the work of conversion the former hath the respect and relation of an example model or pattern to this and this is produced and wrought by the vertue of that What was done upon the person of Christ was not only virtually done upon us considered in him as a common publick representative person in which sense we are said to dye with him and live with him to be crucified with him and buryed with him but it was also intended for a platform or Idea of what is to be done by the Spirit actually upon our souls and bodies in our single persons As he dyed for sin so the Spirit applying his death to us in the work of mortification causes us to dye to sin by the vertue of his death and as he was quickned by the Spirit and raised unto life so the Spirit applying unto us the life of Christ causeth us to live by spiritual vivification Now this personal secondary and actual application of redemption to us by the Spirit in his sanctifying work is that which I am engaged here to discuss and open Which I shall do in these following Propositions Propos. 1. The Application of Christ to us is not only Comprehensive of our Justification but of all those works of the Spirit which are known Propos. 1. to us in Scripture by the names of regeneration vocation sanctification and conversion Though all these terms have some small respective differences among themselves yet they are all included in this general the applying and putting on of Christ Rom. 13. 14. Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ. Regeneration expresses those supernatural divine new qualities infused by the Spirit into the Soul which are the principles of all holy actions Vocation expresseth the terms from which and to which the soul moves when the Spirit works savingly upon it under the Gospel call Sanctification notes that holy dedication of heart and life to God our becoming the Temples of the living God separate from all prophane sinful practices to the Lords only use and service Conversion denotes the great change it self which the Spirit causeth upon the soul turning it by a sweet irresistible efficacy from the power of Sin and Satan to God in Christ. Now all these are imported in and done by the Application of Christ to our souls for when once the efficacy of Christs death and the vertue of his resurrection come to take place upon the heart of any man he cannot but turn from Sin to God and become a new creature living and acting by new principles and rules So the Apostle observes 1 Thes. 1. 5 6. speaking of the effect of this work of the Spirit upon that people Our Gospel saith he came not to you in word only but in power and in the Holy Ghost there was the effectual application of Christ to them And you became followers of us and of the Lord ver 6. there was their effectual call And ye turned from dumb Idols to serve the living and true God ver 9. there was their conversion So that ye were ensamples to all that believe ver 7. there was their life of Sanctification or dedication to God So that all these are comprehended in effectual application Propos. 2. The Application of Christ to the souls of men is that great project Propos. 2. and design of God in this world for the accomplishment whereof all the Ordinances and all the officers of the Gospel are appointed and continued in the world This the Gospel expressly declared to be its direct and great end and the great business of all its officers Eph. 4. 11 12. And he gave some Apostles and some Prophets and some Evangelists and some pastors and teachers till we all come in the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God to a perfect man unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ i. e. the great aim and scope of all Christs Ordinances and officers is to bring men into Union with Christ and so build them up to perfection in him or to unite them to and confirm them in Christ and when it shall have finished this design then shall the whole frame of Gospel Ordinances be taken down and all its officers disbanded The Kingdom i. e. this present oeconomy manner and form of Government shall be delivered up 1 Cor. 15. 24. what are Ministers but the Bridegrooms friends Ambassadors for God to beseech men to be reconciled when therefore all the elect are brought home in a reconciled state to Christ when the marriage of the Lamb is come our work and office expire together Propos. 3. Such is the Importance and great concernment of the personal application of Christ to us by the Spirit that whatsoever the father hath Propos. 3. done in the contrivement or the Son hath done in the accomplishment of our Redemption is all inavailable and ineffectual to our Salvation without this It is confessedly true that Gods good pleasure appointing us from eternity to Salvation is in its kind a most full and sufficient Impulsive cause of our Salvation and every way able for so much as it is concerned to produce its effect And Christs humiliation and sufferings are a most compleat and sufficient meritorious cause of our Salvation to which nothing can be added to make it more apt and able to procure our Salvation than it already is yet neither the one or other can actually save any Soul without the Spirits application of Christ to it for where there are divers social causes or concauses necessary to produce one effect there the effect cannot be produced until the last cause have wrought thus it is here The Father hath elected and the Son hath redeemed but until the Spirit who is the last cause have wrought his part also we cannot be
saved For he comes in the Fathers and in the Sons name and authority to put the last hand to our Salvation work by bringing all the fruits of election and redemption home to our souls in this work of effectual vocation hence the Apostle 1 Pet. 1. 2. noting the order of causes in their operations for the bringing about of our Salvation thus states it Elect according to the fore-knowledge of God the Father through sanctification of the Spirit unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ here you find Gods election and Christs blood the two great causes of Salvation and yet neither of these alone nor both together can save us there must be added the Sanctification of the Spirit by which Gods decree is executed and the sprinkling i. e. the personal application of Christs blood as well as the shedding of it before we can have the saving benefit of either of the former causes Propos. 4. The application of Christ with his saving benefits is exactly of the same extent and latitude with the Fathers election and the Sons intention Propos. 4. in dying and cannot possibly be extended to one soul farther Whom he did predestinate them he also called Rom. 8. 30. And Acts 13. 48. as many as were ordained to eternal life believed 2 Tim. 1. 9. who hath saved and called us with an holy calling not according to our works but according to his own purpose and grace which was given us in Christ Jesus before the foundation of the world The Father Son and Spirit betwixt whom was the council of peace work out their design in a perfect harmony and consent as there was no jarr in their council so there can be none in the execution of it those whom the Father before all time did chuse they and they only are the persons whom the Son when the fulness of time for the execution of that decree was come dyed for John 17. 6. I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world thine they were and thou gavest them me and ver 19. for their sakes I sanctifie my self i. e. consecrate devote or set my self apart for a sacrifice for them And those for whom Christ died are the persons to whom the Spirit effectually applys the benefits and purchases of his blood 〈◊〉 comes in the name of the Father and Son but the world cannot receive him for it neither sees nor knows him Joh. 14. 17. they that are not of Christs sheep believe not Joh. 10. 26. Christ hath indeed a fulness of saving power but the dispensation thereof is limited by the Fathers will therefore he tells us Matth. 20. 23. it is not mine to give but it shall be given to them for whom it is prepared of my father in which words he no way denies his authority to give glory as well as grace only shews that in the dispensation proper to him as mediator he was limited by his Fathers will and counsel And thus also are the dispensations of grace by the Spirit in like manner limited both by the counsel and will of the Father and Son For as he proceeds from them so he acts in the administration proper to him by commission from both Joh. 14. 26. The Holy Ghost whom the Father will send in my name and as he comes forth into the world by this joynt Commission so his dispensations are limited in his Commission for it 's said John 16. 13. he shall not speak of himself but whatsoever he shall hear that shall he speak i. e. he shall in all things act according to his Commission which the Father and I have given him The Son can do nothing of himself but what he seeth the Father do Joh. 5. 19. And the Spirit can do nothing of himself but what he hears from the Father and Son and it 's impossible it should be otherwise considering not only the Unity of their Nature but also of their will and design So that you see the applications of Christ and benefits by the Spirit are commensurable with the Fathers secret counsel and the Sons design in dying which are the rule model and pattern of the Spirits working Propos. 5. The Application of Christ to Souls by the regenerating work of the Spirit is that which makes the first internal difference and distinction Propos. 5. among men It is very true that in respect of Gods fore-knowledge and purpose there was a distinction betwixt one man and another before any man had a being one was taken another left and with respect to the death of Christ there is a great difference betwixt one and another he laid down his life for the sheep he pray'd for them and not for the world but all this while as to any relative change of state or real change of temper they are upon a level with the rest of the miserable world The Elect themselves are by nature children of wrath even as others Eph. 2. 3. and to the same purpose the Apostle tells the Corinthians 1 Cor. 6. 11. when he had given in that black bill describing the most Iewd profligate abominable wretches in the world men whose practices did stink in the very nostrils of nature and were able to make the more sober Heathens blush after this he tells the Corinthians And such were some of you but ye are washed c. q. d. look these were your Companions once as they are you lately were The work of the Spirit doth not only evidence and manifest that difference which Gods Election hath made between man and man as the Apostle speaks 1 Thes. 1. 4 5. but it also makes a twofold difference it self namely in state and temper whereby they visibly differ not only from other men but also from themselves after this work though a man be the who yet not the what he was This work of the spirit makes us new creatures namely for quality and temper 2 Cor. 5. 17. If any man be in Christ he is a new creature old things are past away behold all things are become new Propos. 6. The Application of Christ by the work of regeneration is that which yields unto men all the sensible sweetness and refreshing comforts Propos. 6. that they have in Christ and in all that he hath done suffered or purchased for sinners An unsanctified person may relish the natural sweetness of the creature as well as he that is sanctified he may also seem to relish and tast some sweetness in the delicious promises and discoveries of the Gospel by a misapplication of them to himself but this is like the joy of a beggar dreaming he is a King but he awakes and finds himself a beggar still but for the rational solid and genuine delights and comforts of religion no man tasts it till this work of the Spirit have first past upon his soul it is an enclosed pleasure a stranger intermeddles not with it The white stone and the new
to believers as their head but more particularly from the several benefits they receive from him as such for in wounding Christ by their sins First They wound their head of influence through whom they live and without whom they had still remain'd in the state of sin and death Eph. 4. 16. Shall Christ send life to us and we return that which is as death to him O how absurd how disingenuous is this Secondly They wound their head of government Christ is a guiding as well as a quickening head Col. 1. 18. the is your wisdome he guides you by his counsels to glory but must he be thus requited for all his faithful conduct what do you when you sin against him but rebel against his government refusing to sollow his counsels and obeying in the mean time a deceiver rather than him Thirdly They wound their consulting head who cares provides and projects for the welfare and safety of the body Christians you know your affairs below have not been steered and managed by your own wisdome but that orders have been given from heaven for your security and supply from day to day I know O Lord saith the Prophet that the way of man is not in himself neither is it in him that walks to direct his own steps Jer. 10. 23. It 's true Christ is out of your sight and you see him not but he sees you and orders every thing that concerns you And is this a due requital of all that care he hath taken for you Do ye thus requite the Lord for all his benefits what recompence evil for good O let shame cover you Fourthly and Lastly They wound their head of honour Christ your head is the fountain of honour to you this is your glory that you relate to him as your head you are on this account as before was noted exalted above Angels Now then consider how vile a thing it is to reflect the least dishonour upon him from whom you derive all your glory O consider and bewail it Infer 5. Is there so strict and intimate a relation and Union betwixt Christ and the Saints then surely they can never want what is good for Infer 5. Qui misit filium immisit spiritum promisit vultum quid tandem denegabit their souls or bodies Every one naturally cares and provides for his own especially for his own body yet we can more easily violate the law of nature and be cruel to our own flesh than Christ can be so to his Mystical body I know it 's hard to rest upon and rejoyce in a promise when necessities pinch and we see not from whence relief should arise but oh what sweet satisfaction and comfort might a necessitous believer find in these considerations would he but keep them upon his heart in such a day of straits First Whatever my distresses are for quality number or degree they are all known even to the least circumstance by Christ my head he looks down from heaven upon all my afflictions and understands them more fully than I that feel them Psal. 38. 9. Lord all my desire is before thee and my groaning is not hid from thee Secondly He not only knows them but feels them as well as knows them we have not an high priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities Heb. 4. 15. in all your afflictions he is afflicted tender Sympathy cannot but flow from such intimate Union therefore in Matth. 25. 35. he saith I was an hungred and I was a thirst and I was naked For indeed his Sympathy and tender compassion gave him as quick a resentment and as tender a sense of their wants as if they had been his own yea Thirdly He not only knows and feels my wants but hath enough in his hand and much 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 enough to supply them all for all things are delivered to him by the Father Luk 10. 22. all the storehouses in heaven and earth are his Phil. 4. 19. Fourthly He bestows all earthly good things even to superfluity and redundance upon his enemies they have more than heart can wish Psal. 73. 7. he is bountiful to strangers he loads his very enemies with these things and can it be supposed he will in the mean while starve his own and neglect those whom he loves as his own flesh it cannot be Moreover Fifthly hitherto he hath not suffered me to perish in any former straits when and where was it that he forsook me this is not the first plunge of trouble I have been in have I not found him a God at a pinch how oft have I seen him in the Mount of difficulties Sixthly and Lastly I have his promise and engagement that he will never leave me nor forsake me Heb. 13. 5. and Joh. 14. 18. a promise never crackt since the hour it was first made If then the Lord Jesus knows and feels all my wants hath enough and more than enough to supply them if he gives even to redundance unto his enemies hath not hitherto forsaken me and hath promised he never will why then is my soul thus disquieted in me surely there is no cause it should be so Infer 6. If the Saints are so nearly united to Christ as the members to Infer 6. the head O then how great a sin and full of danger is it for any to wrong and persecute the Saints For in so doing they must needs persecute Christ himself Saul Saul saith Christ why persecutest thou me Acts Agesilaus dicâ—…re solitus est se vâ—…hementer admirari eos non haberi in sacrilegorum numero qui laederent eos qui Deo supplicarent vel Deum venerantur quo iâ—…nuit eos non tantum Sacrilegos esse qui deos ipsos aut templorum ornatum spoliarent sed eos maxime qui deorum ministros praecones contumeliis afficiunt Aemyl Prob. 9. 4. The righteous God holds himself obliged to vindicate oppressed innocency though it be in the person of a wicked man how much more when it is in a member of Christ He that toucheth you toucheth the Apple of mine eye Zech. 2. 8. And is it to be imagined that Christ will sit still and suffer his enemies to thrust out the very Apples of his eyes no no He hath ordained his arrrows against the persecutors Psal. 7. 13. O it were better thy hand should wither and thine arm fall from thy shoulder than ever it should be lifted up against Christ in the poorest of his members Believe it Sirs not only your violent actions but your hard speeches are all set down upon your doomes-days book and you shall be brought to an account for them in the great day Jud. 15. Beware what arrows you shoot and be sure of your mark before you shoot them Infer 7. If there be such a Union betwixt Christ and the Saints as hath been described upon what comfortable terms then may believers Infer 7. part with their bodies at Death Christ your
head is above water therefore you cannot be lost nay he is not only risen from the dead himself but Templum Dei in quo spiritus inhabitat patris membrâ—… Christi non participare saâ—…utem sed in perditionem redigi dicere quomodo non maximae est blasphemiae Iren. lib. 5. is also become the first-fruits of them that sleep 1 Cor. 15. 20. Believers are his members his fulness he cannot therefore be compleat without you a part of Christ cannot perish in the grave much less burn in hell remember when you feel the Natural Union dissolving that this Mystical Union can never be dissolved the pangs of death cannot break this tye as there is a peculiar excellency in the believers life so there is a singular support and peculiar comfort in his death to me to live is Christ and to dye is gain Phil. 1. 21. Infer 8. If there be such a Union betwixt Christ and believers how doth it concern every man to try and examin his Estate Infer 8. whether he be really united with Christ or not by the natural and proper effects which alwayes flow from this Union As First The real Communication of Christs holiness to the soul we cannot be United with this root and not partake of the vital sap of sanctification from him all that are planted into him are planted into the likeness of his death and of his resurrection Rom. 6. 5 6. viz. by mortification and vivification Secondly They that are so nearly united to him as members to the head cannot but love him and value him above their own lives as we see in nature the hand and arm will interpose to save the head the nearer the Union the stronger always is the affection Thirdly The members are subject to the head Dominion in the head must needs infer subjection in the members Eph. 5. 24. in vain do we claim Union with Christ as our head whilst we are governed by our own wills and our Lusts give us law Fourthly All that are United to Christ do bear fruit to God Rom. 7. 4. fruitfulness is the next end of our Union there are no barren branches growing upon this fruitful root Infer 9. Lastly how much are believers engaged to walk as the members Infer 9. of Christ in the visible exercises of all those graces and duties which the consideration of their near relation to him exacts from them As First How contented and well pleased should we be with our outward lot however providence hath cast it for us in this world O do not repine God hath dealt bountifully with you upon others he hath bestowed the good things of this world upon you himself in Christ. Secondly How humble and lowly in spirit should you be under your great advancement It 's true God hath magnified you greatly by this Union but yet don't swell You bear not the root but the root you Rom. 11. 18. You shine but it is as the Stars with a borrowed light Thirdly How Zealous should you be to honour Christ who hath put so much honour upon you Be willing to give glory to Christ though his glory should rise out of your shame Never reckon that glory that goes to Christ to be lost to you when you lye at his feet in the most particular heart-breaking confessions ofsin yet let this please you that therein you have given him glory Fourthly how exact and circumspect should you be in all your wayes remembring whose you are and whom you represent Shall it be said that a member of Christ was convicted of unrighteous and unholy actions God forbid if we say we have fellowship with him and walkin darkness we lye 1 Joh. 1. 6. and he that saith he abideth in him ought also himself to walk even as he walked 1 Joh. 2. 6. Fifthly how studious should you be of peace among your selves who are all so nearly united to such a head and thereby are made fellow-members in the same body The heathen world was never acquainted with such an Argument as the Apostle urges for Unity in Eph. 4. 3 4. Sixthly and Lastly how joyful and comfortable should you be to whom Christ with all his treasures and benefits is effectually applyed in this blessed Union of your souls with him This brings him into your possession oh how great how glorious a person do the little weak arms of your faith embrace Thanks be to God for Jesus Christ. The Third SERMON Serm. 3. 2 Cor. 5. 20. Opening the nature and use of of the Gospel Ministry as an external means of applying Christ. Now then we are Ambassadors for Christ as though God did beseech you we pray you in Christs stead be ye reconciled to God THe Effectual Application of Christ principally consists in our Union with him but ordinarily there can be no Union without a Gospel tender and overture of him to our souls for how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard and how shall they hear without a Preacher and how shall he preach except he be sent Rom. 10. 14. IF God be upon a design of marrying poor sinners to his Son there must be a treaty in order to it that treaty requires interlocution betwixt both the parties concerned in it but such is our frailty that should God speak immediately to us himself it would confound and overwhelm us God therefore graciously condescends and accommodates himself to our infirmity in treating with us in order to our Union with Christ by his Ambassadors and these not Angels whose converses we cannot bear but men like our selves who are commissionated for the effecting of this great business betwixt Christ and us Now then we are Ambassadors for God c. In which words you have First Christs Ambassadors commissionated Secondly Their Commission opened First Christs Ambassadors commissionated Now then we are Ambassadors for Christ. The Lord Jesus thought it not sufficient to print the law of grace and blessed terms of our Union with him in the scriptures where men may read his willingness to receive them and see the just and gracious terms and conditions upon which he offers to become theirs but hath also set up and established a standing office in the Church to expound that Law inculcate the precepts and urge the promises thereof to wooe and espouse souls to Christ I have espoused you to one husband that I may present you as a chast virgin to Christ 2 Cor. 11. 20. and this not simply from their own affections and compassions to miserable sinners but also by vertue of their office and Commission whereby they are authorized and appointed to that work We then are Ambassadors for Christ. Secondly Their Commission opened wherein we find 1. Their work appointed 2. Their Capacity described 3. And the manner of their acting in that Capacity prescribed First The work whereunto the Ministers of the Gospel are appointed is to reconcile the world to God to work these sinful vain rebellious
of the power is of God and not of us as it follows in the next words To the same purpose speaks the same Apostle 1 Cor. 3. 7. So then neither is he that planteth any thing neither he that watereth but God that giveth the increase Not any thing what can be more diminutively spoken of the Gospel preachers but we must not understand these words in a simple and absolute but in a comparative and relative sence not as if they were not necessary and useful in their place but that how necessary soever they be and what excellent gifts soever God hath furnished them with yet it is neither in their power nor choice to make the word they preach effectual to men if it were then the damnation of all that hear us must needs lye at our door then also many thousands would have been reconciled to God which are yet in the state of enmity but the effect of the Gospel is not in our power Thirdly But whatever efficacy it hath to reconcile men to God it derives from the spirit of God whose Cooperation 3. and blessing which is arbitrarily dispensed gives it all the fruit it hath Ministers saith one * Mr. Anthony Burges are like Trumpets which make no sound if breath be not breathed into them Or like Ezekiels wheels which move not unless the spirit move them or like Elisha's servant whose presence doth no good except Elisha's spirit be there also for want of the spirit of God how many thousands of souls do find the Ministry to be nothing to them If it be something to the purpose to any soul it is the Lord that makes it so This spirit is not limited by mens gifts or parts he concurrs not only with their labours who have excellent gifts but ostentimes blesses mean despicable gifts with far greater success beautiful Rachel is barren and blear-ey'd Leah bears children Ex duobus aetate jam grandibus impiis cur iste ita vocetuâ—… ut vocantem sequatur ille autem non nolito judicare si non vis errare inscrutabilia sunt judica dei cujus vult misâ—…retur Aug. de bono persec Cap. 8. Suppose saith Austin there be two Conduits in a Town one very plain and homely the other built of polished marble and adorned with excellent Images as Eagles Lions Angels the water refreshes as it is water and not as it comes from such or such a Conduit 'T is the spirit that gives the word all that vertue it hath he is the Lord of all saving influences he hath dominion over the word over our souls over the times and seasons of conversion and if any poor Creature attend the Ministry without benefit if he go away as he came without fruit surely we may say in this case as Martha said to Christ in reference to her brother Lazarus Lord if thou hadst been here my brother had not dy'd so Lord if thou hadst been in this prayer in this Sermon this poor soul had not gone dead and carnal from under it And now what remains but that we apply this truth in those uses that it gives us First Use of Information Infer 1. Is the Preaching of the Gospel by Christs Ambassadors the way which God takes to reconcile sinners to himself Then how inexcusable are all those that continue in their state of enmity though the Ambassadors of peace have been with them all their lives long wooing and beseeching them to be reconciled to God O invincible obstinate incurable disease which is aggravated by the only proper remedy hath God been wooing and beseeching you by his Ambassadours so many years to be reconciled to him and will you not yield to any intreaties must he be made to speak in vain to charm the deaf Adder well when the milder Attributre hath done with you the seveer Attribute will take you in hand The Lord hath kept an account of every year and day of his patience towards you Luke 13. 7. These three years I came seeking fruit on this Fig-tree and finde none and Jer. 25. 3. These three and twenty years have I spoken unto you rising early and speaking but ye have not hearkened Well be you assured that God hath both the glass of your time and the vials of his wrath by him and so much of his abused patience as runs out of one so much of his incensed wrath runs into the other there is a time when this Treaty of peace will end when the Master of the house will rise up and the doors be shut Luke 13. 25. Then will you be left without hope and without Apology We read indeed of some poor and ineffectual pleas that will be made by some at the last day so Matth. 7. 22. We have Prophesied in thy name c. These pleas will not avail but as for you what will you plead possibly many thousand Ideots or poor weak-headed persons may perish many young ones that had little or no time in the world to acquaint themselves with matters of religion or understand the way of salvation many Millions of heathens that never heard the name of Christ nor came within the sound of Salvation who will yet perish and that justly Now whatsoever Apologies any of these will make for themselves in the last day to be sure you can make none God hath given you a Capacity and competent understanding many of you are wise and subtil in all your other concernments and only shew your folly in the great concernments of your Salvation you cannot plead want of time some of you are grown gray-headed under the Gospel you cannot plead want of means and opportunities the Ordinances and Ministers of Christ have been with you all your life long to this day sure if you be Christless now you must also be speechless then Infer 2. Hence it also follows That the world owes better entertainment Infer 2. than it gives to the Ministers of Christ. Christs Ambassadors deserve a better welcome than they find among men Your respects to them is founded upon their office and imployment for you Heb. 13. 17. and 1 Thes. 5. 12. They watch for your souls dare any of you watch for their ruine They bring glad tydings shall they return with sad tydings to him that sent them They publish peace shall they be rewarded with trouble O ungrateful world We read in Eph. 6. 20. of an Ambassador in bonds and he no ordinary one neither we read also a strange Challenge made by another at his own death Acts 7. 52. Which of all the prophets have not your fathers persecuted And they have slain them which shewed before the coming of the Just one Some that break the bread of life to you might want bread to eat for any regard you have to them The office of the Ministry speaks the abundant love of God to you your Contempt and abuse of it speaks the abundant stupidity or malignity of your hearts towards God what a
is one of the Articles or Conditions of our peace with God Isai. 55. 7. Let the wicked forsake his ways and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him turn to the Lord and he will have mercy on him and to our God and he will abundantly pardon But it 's manifest in many of us that we are no enemies to sin we secretly indulge it what bad names soever we call it by we will commit ten sins to cover one we cannot endure the most serious faithful seasonable private tender and necessary reproofs of Sin but our hearts swell and rise at it sure we are not reconciled to God whilest we embrace sin his enemy in our bofoms 5. Evidence We love not the Children of God nor are reconciled to them that bear his Image and how then can we be reconciled 5. Evid to God 1 Joh. 5. 1. He that loveth him that begat loveth them also that are begotten what at peace with the father and at War with the children It cannot be do not some that hope they have made their peace with God hate revile and persecute the Children of God Surely in that day we are reconciled to the Lord we are reconciled to all his people we shall then love a Christian as a Christan and by this we know we are passed from death to life 6. Evidence Lastly How can any man think himself to be reconciled to God who never closed heartily with Jesus Christ by 6. Evid faith who is the only dayes-man and peace-maker the alone mediator of reconciliation betwixt God and man This is a sure truth that all whom God accepts into favour are made accepted in the beloved Eph. 1. 6. If any man will make peace with God he must take hold of his strength accept and close with Christ who is the power of God or he can never make peace Isai. 27. He must be made nigh by the blood of Christ Eph. 2. 13. But alas both Christ and faith are strangers to many souls who yet perswade themselves to be at peace with God O fatal mistake 3. Use of Exhortation Lastly This point deserves a close vigorous application 3. Use. in a threefold exhortation First To Christs Ambassadors who treat with Souls in order to their reconciliation with God Secondly To those that are yet in their enmity and unreconciled state Thirdly to those that have embraced the terms of peace and submitted to the Gospel overtures First To the Ambassadors of reconciliation God hath put a 1. great deal of honour upon you in this high and noble imployment great is the dignity of your office to some you are the savour of death unto death and to others the savour of life unto life and who is sufficient for these things 2 Cor. 2. 16. But yet the Duty is no less than the dignity O what manner of men should we be for judgement seriousness affections patience and exemplary holiness to whom the management of so great a Concern betwixt God and man is committed First for Judgment and prudence how necessary is it in so weighty and difficult a business as this He had need be a man of wisdom that is to inform the ignorant of the nature and necessity of this great work and win over their hearts to consent to the Articles of peace propounded in the Gospel that hath so many subtil temptations to answer and so many intricate cases of conscience to resolve There are many strong holds of Satan to be battered and many stout and obstinate resistances made by the hearts of sinners which must be overcome and he had need be no Novice in religion to whom so difficult a province is committed Secondly Let us be Serious in our work as well as judicious Remember O ye Ambassadors of Christ you bring a message from the God of heaven of everlasting consequence to the souls of men The eternal decrees are executed upon them in your Ministry to some you are the savour of life unto life and to some the savour of death unto death 2 Cor. 2. 16. Heaven and hell are matters of most awful and solemn Consideration O what an account have we also shortly to give unto him that sent us These are matters of such deep Concernment as should swallow up our very spirits the least they can do is to compose our hearts unto seriousness in the management of them Thirdly Be filled with tender affections toward the souls Vide Bowles pastor Evang. p. 136. of men with whom you treat for reconciliation you had need be men of bowels as well as men of brains you see a multitude of poor souls upon the brink of eternal misery and they know it not but promise themselves peace and fill themselves with vain hopes of heaven and is there a more moving melting spectacle in the world than this O think with what bowels of Commiseration Moses and Paul were filled when the one desired rather to be blotted out of Gods Book and the other to be accursed from Christ than that Israel should not be saved Exod. 32. 33. and Rom. 9. 3. Think how the Bowels of Christ yearned over Jerusalem Matth. 23. 37. and over the multitude Matth. 9. 36. Let the same mind be in you which also was in Christ Jesus Fourthly Be patient and long-suffering towards sinners such is the value of one soul that it 's worth waiting all our days to save it at last the servant of the Lord must not strive but be gentle unto all men apt to teach patient in meekness instructing them that oppose themselves if God peradventure will give them repentance 2 Tim. 2. 24 25. The Lord waits with patience upon sinners and well may you Consider your selves how long was God treating with you ere you were won to him Be not discouraged if success presently answer not expectation Fifthly and Lastly be sure to back your Exhortations with drawing examples else you may preach out your last breath before you gain one soul to God The Devil and the Carnal hearts of your hearers will put hinderances enough in the way of your labours don't you put the greatest of all your selves O study not only to preach exactly but to live exactly let the misplacing of one action in your lives trouble you more than the misplacing of words in your discourses this is the way to succeed in your Embassy and give up your account with joy Secondly The exhortation speaks to all those that are 2. yet in a state of enmity and unreconciled to God unto this day O that may words might prevail and that you would now be intreated to be reconciled to God! The Ambassadors of peace are yet with you the treaty is not yet ended the Master of the house is not yet risen up nor the door of mercy and hope finally shut hitherto God hath waited to be gracious O that the long-suffering of God might be your salvation a day is hasting when God will treat
and promising natures have been passed by and left under spiritual death It was the observation of Mr. Ward upon his Brother Mr. Daniel Rogers who was a man of great gifts and eminent graces yet of a very bad temper and constitution Though my Brother Rogers said he have grace enough for two men yet not half enough for himself It may be you have pray'd and striven long with your relations and to little purpose yet be not discouraged How often was Mr. John Rogers that famous successful Divine a grief of heart to his relations in his younger years proving a wild and lewd young man to the great discouragement of his pious friends yet at last the Lord graciously changed him so that Mr. Richard Rogers would say when he would exercise the utmost degree of charity or hope for any that at present were vile and naught I will never despair of any man for John Rogers sake Infer 3. How honourable are Christians by their new birth they are born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of Infer 3. man but of God Joh. 1. 13. i. e. not in an impure or meer natural way but in a most spiritual and supernatural manner they are the off-spring of God the children of the most high as well by regeneration as by adoption which is the greatest advancement of the humane nature next to its hypostatical union with the second person Oh what honour is this for a poor sinful creature to have the very life of God breathed into his soul all other dignities of nature are trifles compar'd with this this makes a Christian a sacred hallowed thing the living temple of God 1 Cor. 6. 19. the special object of his delight Infer 4. How deplorable is the condition of the unregenerate world in no better case than dead men Now to affect our hearts with the Infer 4. misery of such a condition let ut consider and compare it in the following particulars First There is no beauty in the dead all their loveliness goes away at death there is no spiritual beauty or loveliness in any that are unregenerate 't is true many of them have excellent moral homilitical vertues which adorn their conversations in the eyes of men but what are all these but so many sweet flowers strewed over a dead Corpse Secondly The dead have no pleasure nor delight even so the unregenerate are incapable of the delights of the Christian life to be spiritually minded is life and peace Rom. 8. 6. i. e. this is the only serene placid and pleasant life when the prodigal who was once dead was alive then he began to be merry Luke 15. 24. they live in sensual pleasures but this is to be dead while alive in Scripture reckoning Thirdly The dead have no heat they are as cold as clay so are all the unregenerate towards God and things above their lusts are hot but their affections to God cold and frozen that which makes a gracious heart melt will not make an unregenerate heart move Fourthly The dead must be buried Gen. 23. 4. bury my dead out of my sight so must the unregenerate be buried out of Gods sight forever buried in the lowest hell in the place of darkness for ever Joh. 3. 3. Woe to the unregenerate good had it been sor them they had never been born Infer 5. How greatly are all men concerned to examine their condition Infer 5. with respect to spiritual life and death It 's very common for men to presume upon their Union with and interest in Christ this priviledge is by common mistake extended generally to all that profess Christian religion and practise the external duties of it when in truth no more are or can be united Praesumendo sperant sperando pereunt Ames to Christ than are quickened by the Spirit of life which is in Christ Jesus Rom. 8. 1 2. O try your interest in Christ by this rule if I am quickened by Christ I have Union with Christ. And First If there be spiritual sense in your souls there is spiritual life in them there are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 senses belonging to the spiritual as well as to the animal life Heb. 5. 14. they can feel and sensibly groan under soul pressures and burdens of sin Rom. 7. 24. the dead feel not moan not under the burdens of sin but the living do they may be sensible indeed of the evil of sin with respect to themselves but not as against God damnation may scare them but pollution doth not hell may fright them but not the offence of God Secondly If there be spiritual hunger and thirst it 's a sweet sign of spiritual life this sign agrees to Christians of a day old 1 Pet. 2. 2. even new born babes desire the sincere milk of the word if spiritual life be in you you know how to expound that Scripture Psal. 42. 1. without any other interpreter than your own experience you will feel somewhat like the gâ—…awing of an empty stomach making you restless during the interruption of your daily communion with the Lord. Thirdly If there be spiritual conflicts with sin there is spiritual life in your soul Gal. 5. 17. not only a combat betwixt light in the higher and lust in the lower faculties nor only opposition to more gross external corruptions that carry more infamy and horror with them than other sins do but the same faculty will be the seat of War and the more inward secret and spiritual any lust is by so much the more will it be opposed and mourned over In a word the weakest Christian may upon impartial observation find such signs of spiritual life in himself if he will allow himself time to reflect upon the bent and frame of his own heart as desires after God conscience of duties fears cares and sorrows about sin delight in the society of heavenly and spiritual men a loathing and burden in the company of vain and carnal persons O but I have a very dead heart to spiritual things 'T is a sign of life that you feel and are sensible of that deadness Ob. and beside there 's a great deal of difference betwixt Sol. spiritual deadness and death the one is the state of the unregenerate the other is the disease of regenerate men Some signs of spiritual life are clear to me but I cannot close with others Ob. If you can really close with any it may satisfie you though you be dark in others if a child can't go yet if it can suck Sol. if it can't suck if it can cry if it can't cry yet if it breath it is alive The Sixth SERMON Serm. 6. JOH 1. 12. Describing that Act on our part by which we do actually and effectually apply Christ to our own souls But as many as received him to them gave he power to become the sons of God even to them that believe on his name NO
the second we partake with him the former is the remote the later the next cause thereof In the explication of this point I shall speak to these four things 1. What are those things in which Christ and believers have fellowship 2. By what means they come to have such a fellowship with Christ. 3. How great a dignity this is to have fellowship with Jesus Christ. 4. And then apply the whole in divers practical inferences First What are those things in which Christ and believers 1. have fellowship to which I must speak both negatively and positively First The Saints have no fellowship with Jesus Christ in Negatively those things that belong to him as God such as his consubstantiality coequality and coeternity with the father 't is the blasphemy of the wicked Familists to talk of being Godded into God and Christed into Christ neither men or Angels partake in these things they are the proper and incommunicable Justitia Christi fit nostra non quoad universalem valoremsed particularem necessitatem imputatur nobis non ut causis salvationis sed ut subjectis salvandis Bradshaw de justificatione glory of the Lord Jesus Secondlly The Saints have no communion or fellowship in the honour and glory of his mediatory works viz. his satisfaction to God or redemption of the elect 't is true we have the benefit and fruit of his mediation and satisfaction his righteousness also is imputed to us for our personal justification but we share not in the least with Christ in the glory of this work nor have we an inherent righteousness in us as Christ hath nor can we justifie and save others as Christ doth we have nothing to do with his peculiar honour and praise in these things though we have the benefit of being saved we may not pretend to the honour of being Saviours as Christ is to our selves or others Christs righteousness is not made ours as to its universal value but as to our particular necessity nor is it imputed to us as to so many causes of salvation to others but as to so many subjects to be saved by it our selves Secondly But then there are many glorious and excellent Posi ively things which are in common betwixt Christ and believers though in them all he hath the preeminence he shines in the fulness of them as the Sun and we with a borrowed and lesser light but of the same kind and nature as the Stars Some of these I shall particularly and briefly unfold in the following particulars First Believers have communion with Christ in his names and titles they are call'd Christians from Christ Eph. 3. 15. from him the whole family in heaven and earth is named this is that worthy name the Apostle speaks of James 2. 7. He is the son of God and they also by their union with him have power or authority to become the sons of God Joh. 1. 12. He is the heir of all things and they are joynt heirs with him Rom. 8. 17. He is both King and Priest and he hath made them Kings and Priests Rev. 1. 6. but they do not only partake in the names and titles but this communion consists in things as well as titles and therefore Secondly They have communion with him in his righteousness i. e. the righteousness of Christ is made theirs 2 Cor. 5. 21. and he is the Lord our righteousness Jer. 23. 6. 'T is true the righteousness of Christ is not inherent in us as it is in him but it is ours by imputation Rom. 4. 5. 11. and our union with him is the ground of the imputation of his righteousness to us 2 Cor. 5. 21. we are made the righteousness of God in him Phil. 3. 9. for Christ and believers are considered as one person in construction of Law as a man and his wife a debtor and surety are one and so his payment or satisfaction is in our name or upon our account Now this is a most inestimable priviledge the very ground of all our other blessings and mercies O what a benefit is this to a poor sinner that owes to God infinitely more than he is ever able to pay him by doing or suffering to have such a rich treasure of merit as lyes in the obedience of Christ to discharge in one entire payment all his debts to the least farthing Surely shall one say In the Lord have I righteousness Isa. 45. 24. even as a poor woman that owes more than she is worth in one moment is discharged of all her obligations by her marriage to a wealthy man Thirdly Believers have communion with Christ in his holiness or Sanctification for of God he is made unto them not only righteousness but Sanctification also and as in the former priviledge they have a stock of merit in the blood of Christ to justifie them so here they have the Spirit of Christ to sanctisie them 1 Cor. 1. 30. and therefore we are said of his fulness to receive grace for grace Joh. 1. 16. i. e. say some grace upon grace manifold graces or abundance of grace or grace for grace that is grace answerable to grace as in the seal and wax there is line for line and cut for cut exactly answerable to each other or grace for grace that is say others the free grace of God in Christ for the sanctification or filling of our souls with grace be it in which sense it will it shews the communion believers have with Jesus Christ in grace and holiness Now holiness is the most precious thing in the world it 's the image of God and chief excellency of man it is our evidence for glory yea and the first-fruits of glory in Christ dwells the fulness of grace and from him our head it is derived and communicated to us thus he that sanctifieth and they that are sanctified are all of one Heb. 2. 11. You would think it no small priviledge to have Baggs of Gold to go to and enrich your selves with and yet that were but a very trifle in comparison to have Christs righteousness and holiness to go to for your Justification and Sanctification More particularly Fourthly Believers have communion with Christ in his death they dye with him Gal. 2. 20. I am crucified with Christ i. e. the death of Christ hath a real killing and mortifying influence upon the lusts and corruptions of my heart and nature true it is he died for sin one way and we dye to sin another way he dyed to expiate it we dye to it when we mortifie it the death of Christ is the death of sin in believers and this is a very glorious priviledge for the death of sin is the life of your souls if sin do not dye in you by mortification you must dye for sin by eternal damnation if Christ had not dyed the Spirit of God by which you now mortifie the deeds of the body could not have been given unto you then you must
capistratus er at a mute muzzled as the word signifies by the clear testimony of his own conscience these accusations are the second work or office of conscience and they make way for the third namely Thirdly The sentence and condemnation of Conscience and truly this is an insupportable burthen the condemnation 3. of conscience is nothing else but its application of the condemning sentence of the Law to a mans person the Law curseth every one that transgresseth it Gal. 3. 10. conscience applys this curse to the guilty sinner So that it sentences the sinner in Gods name and authority from which there is no appeal the voice of conscience is the voice of God and what it pronounces in Gods name and authority he will confirm and ratifie 1 Joh. 3. 20. if our hearts i. e. our consciences condemn us God is greater than our hearts and knoweth all things this is that torment which no man can endure See the effects of it in Cain in Judas and in Spira 't is a real foretast of hell torments this is that worm that never dyes Mark 9. 44. For look as a worm in the body is bred of the corruption that is there so the accusations and condemnations of conscience are bred in the soul by the corruption and guilt that is there as the worm in the body preys and bites upon the tender sensible inward parts so doth conscience touch the very quick This is its third effect or work to sentence and condemn and this also makes way for a fourth namely Fourthly To upbraid and reproach the sinner under his misery 4. and this makes a man a very terrour to himself to be pittied in misery is some relief but to be upbraided and reproached doubles our affliction you know it was one of the aggravations of Christs sufferings to be reproached by the tongue of his enemies whilest he hanged in torments upon the cursed tree but all the scoffs and reproaches the bitter jeers and Sarcasâ—…s in the world are nothing to these of a mans own conscience this will cut to the very bone O when a mans conscience shall say to him in a day of trouble as Reuben to his afflicted brethren Gen. 42. 22. Spake I not unto you saying do not sin against the child and ye would not hear therefore behold also his blood is required So conscience Did I not warn you threaten you perswade you in time against these evils but you would not hearken to me therefore behold now you must suffer to all eternity for it the wrath of God is kindled against thy soul for it this is the fruit of thy own wilful madness and obstinacy Now thou shalt know the price of sinning against God against light and conscience O this is terrible every bite of conscience makes a poor soul to startle and in a terrible fright to cry Oh the worm Oh the bitter foretast of Hell a wounded spirit who can bear This is a fourth wound of conscience and it makes way for a fifth for here it is as in the pouring out of the vials and the sounding of those woe-trumpets in the Revelation one woe is past and another cometh After all these deadly blows of conscience upon the very heart of a sinner comes another as dreadful as any that is yet named and that is Fifthly The fearful expectations of wrath to come which 5. it begets in the soul of a guilty sinner of this you read Heb. 10. 27. a fearful looking for of Judgement and fiery indignation and this makes the stoutest sinner quail and faint under the burthen of sin For the tongue of man cannot declare what it is to lye down and rise with those fearful expectations the case of such sinners is somewhat like that which is described in Deut. 28. 65 66 67. The Lord shall give thee there a trembling heart and failing of eyes and sorrow of mind and thy life shall hang in doubt before thee and thou shalt fear day and night and shalt have no assurance of thy life in the morning thou shalt say Would God it were evening and at even thou shalt say Would God it were morning for the fear of thine heart wherewith thou shalt fear c. Only in this it differs in this Scripture you have the terrours of those described whose temporal life hangs in doubtful suspense but in the persons I am speaking of it is a trembling under the apprehensions and expectations of the vengeance of eternal fire Believe it Friends words cannot express what those poor creatures feel that lye down and rise under these fears and frights of conscience Lord what will become of me I am free among the dead yea among the damned I hang by the frail thred of a momentany life which will and must break shortly and may break the next moment over the everlasting burnings no pleasant bread is eaten in these days but what is like the bread of condemned men And thus you see what the burden of sin is when God makes it to bear upon the consciences of men no burden of affliction is like it losses of dearest relations sorrows for an only son are not so pungent and penetrating as these For First No creature enjoyment is pleasant under these inward troubles in other troubles they may signifie something to a mans relief but here they are nothing the wound is too deep to be healed by any thing but the blood of Jesus Christ Conscience requires as much to satisfie it as God requires to satisfie him When God is at peace with thee saith Conscience then will I be at peace with thee too but till then expect no rest nor peace from me all the pleasures and diversions in the world shall never stop my mouth go where thou wilt I will follow thee like thy shadow be thy portion in the world as sweet as it will I will drop in Gall and Wormwood into thy cup that thou shalt tast no sweetness in any thing till thou hast got thy pardon These inward troubles for sin alienate the mind from all former pleasures and delights there 's no more taste or savour in them than in the white of an Egg. Musick is out of tune all instruments jarr and groan Ornaments have no beauty what heart hath a poor creature to deck that body in which dwells such a miserable soul to feed and pamper that carcass that hath been the souls inducement to and instrument in sin and must be its companion in everlasting misery Secondly These inward troubles for sin put a dread into death beyond whatever the soul saw in it before Now it looks like the King of terrours indeed you read in Heb. 2. 15. of some that through fear of death are all their life long subject to bondage O what a lively comment is a soul in this case able to make upon such a Text they would not scare at the pale horse nor at him that sits on him though his name
in heaven in the full enjoyment of God There is a sweet calm upon the troubled soul after believing an ease or rest of the mind which is an unspeakable mercy to a poor weary soul. Christ is to it as the Ark was to the Dove when she wandred over the watery World and found not a place to rest the soal of her foot Faith centres the unquiet spirit of man in Christ brings it to repose it self and its burden on him It is the souls dropping anchor in a storm which stayes and settles it The great debate which cost so many anxious thoughts is now issued into this resolution I will venture my all upon Christ let him do with me as seemeth him good It was impossible for the soul to find rest whilest it knew not where to bestow it self or how to be secured from the wrath to come but when all is embarqued in Christ for eternity and the soul fully resolved to lean upon him and trust to him now it feels the very initials of eternal rest in it self it finds an heavy burden unloaded from its shoulders it is come as it were into a new world the case is strangely altered The word rest in this place notes and is so rendered by some a recreation 't is restored renewed and recreated as it Recreabo vos nempe à lassitudine à molestia onere Vatab. Erasm. were by that sweet repose it hath upon Christ. Believers know that faith is the sweetest recreation you can take Others seek to divert and lose their troubles by sinful recreations vain company and the like but they little know what that recreation and sweet restoring rest that faith gives the soul is You find in Christ what they seek in vain among the creatures Believing is the highest recreation known in this world But to prevent mistakes three Cautions need to be premised lest we do in ipso limine impingere stumble at the threshold and so lose our way all along afterward Caution 1. You are not to conceive that all the souls fears troubles and sorrows are presently over and at an end as soon as it is come to Caution 1. Christ by faith They will have many troubles in the world after that it may be more than ever they had in their lives Luther upon his conversion was so buffeted by Satan ut nec calor nec sanguis nec sensus nec vox superesset Our flesh saith Paul had no rest 2 Cor. 7. 5. They will be infested with many temptations after that it may be the assaults of Satan may be more violent upon their souls than ever horribilia de deo terribilia de fide Injections that make the very bones to quake and the belly to tremble they will not be freed from sin that rest remains for the people of God nor from inward trouble and grief of soul about sin These things are not to be expected presently Caution 2. We may not think that all believers do immediately enter into Caution 2. the full actual sense of rest and comfort but they presently enter into the state of rest Being justified by faith we have peace with God Rom. 5. 1. i. e. we enter into the state of peace immediately Peace is sown for the righteous and gladness for the upright in heart Psal. 97. 11. And he is a rich man that hath a thousand acres of corn in the ground as well as he that hath so much in his barn or the money in his purse They have rest and peace in the seed of it when they have it not in the fruit they have rest in the promise when they have it not in possession and he is a rich man that hath good Bonds and Bills for a great summ of money if he have not twelve pence in his pocket All believers have the promise have rest and peace granted them under Gods own hand in many promises which faith brings them under and we know that the truth and faithfulness of God stands engaged to make good every line and word of the promise to them So that though they have not a full and clear actual sense and feeling of rest they are nevertheless by faith come into the state of rest Caution 3. We may not conceive that faith it self is the souls rest but Caution 3. the means and instrument of it only We cannot find rest in any work or duty of our own but we may find it in Christ whom faith apprehends for Justification and Salvation Having thus guarded the point against misapprehensions by these needful cautions I shall next shew you how our coming to Christ by faith brings us to rest in him And here let it be considered what those things are that burden grieve and disquiet the soul before its coming to Christ and how it is relieved and eased in all those respects by its coming to the Lord Jesus and you shall find First That one principal ground of trouble is the guilt 1. of sin upon the conscience of which I spake in the former point The curse of the Law lyes heavy upon the soul so heavy that nothing is found in all the world able to relieve it under that burthen as you see in a condemned man spread a Table in Prison with the greatest dainties and send for the rarest Musicians all will not charm his sorrow but if you can produce an authentick pardon you ease him presently just so it is here faith plucks the thorn out of the conscience which so grieved it unites the soul with Christ and then that ground of trouble is removed for there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Rom. 8. 11. The same moment the soul comes to Christ it is past from death to life is no more under the Law but Grace If a mans debt be paid by his surety he need not fear to shew his face boldly abroad he may freely meet the Sergeant at the prison door Secondly The soul of a convinced sinner is exceedingly 2. burdened with the uncleanness and filthiness wherewith sin hath defiled and polluted it Conviction discovers the universal pollution of heart and life so that a man loaths and abhorrs himself by reason thereof If he do not look into his own corruptions he cannot be safe and if he do he cannot bear the sight of it he hath no quiet Nothing can give rest but what gives relief against this evil And this only is done by faith uniting the soul with Jesus Christ. For though it be true that the pollution of sin be not presently and perfectly taken away by coming to Christ yet the burden thereof is exceedingly eased for upon our believing there is an heart-purifying principle planted into the soul which doth by degrees cleanse that fountain of corruption and will at last perfectly free the soul from it Acts 15. 9. Purifying their hearts by faith and being once in Christ he is concerned for the soul as
a member now of his own mystical body to purifie and cleanse it that at last he may present it perfect to the Father without spot or wrinkle or any such thing Eph. 5. 26. The reigning power of it is gone immediately upon believing and the very existence and being of it shall at last be destroyed O what rest must this give under those troubles for sin Thirdly It was an intolerable burthen to the soul to be under the continual fears aiarms and frights of death and 3. damnation It s life hath been a life of bondage upon this account ever since the Lord opened his eyes to see his condition Poor souls lye down with tremblings for fear what a night may bring forth 'T is a sad life indeed to live in continual bondage to such fears But faith sweetly relieves the trembling Conscience by removing the guilt which breeds it fears The sting of death is sin when guilt is removed fears vanish Smite Lord smite said Luther for my sins are forgiven Now if sickness come 't is another thing than it was Feri Domine feri nam à peccatis meis absolutus sum Luth. wont to be Isai. 33. 21. The Inhabitant shall not say I am sick the people that dwell therein shall be forgiven their iniquities a man scarce feels his sickness in comparison to what he did whilst he was without Christ and hope of pardon Fourthly A convinced sinner out of Christ sees every thing 4. against him nothing yields any comfort yea every thing increases and aggravates his burthen whether he look to things past present or to come If he reflect upon things past his soul is filled with anguish to remember the sins committed and the seasons neglected and the precious mercies that have been abused if he look upon things present the case is doleful and miserable nothing but trouble and danger Christless and comfortless and if he look forward to things to come that gives him a deeper cut to the heart than any thing else for though it be sad and miserable for the present yet he fears it will be much worse hereafter all these are but the beginning of sorrows and thus the poor awakened sinner becomes a Magor missabib fear round about But upon his coming to Christ all things are marvellously altered a quite contrary face of things appears to him every thing gives him hope and comfort which way soever he looks so speaks the Apostle 1 Cor. 3. 22 23. All things are yours saith he whether life or death or things present or things to come all is yours and ye are Christs and Christ is Gods they are ours i. e. for our advantage benefit and comfort more particularly upon our coming to Christ First Things past are ours they conduce to our advantage and comfort Now the soul can begin to read the gracious end and design of God in all its preservations and deliverances whereby it hath been reserved for such a day as this O! it melts his heart to consider his Companions in sin and Vanity are cut off and he spared and that for a day of such mercy as the day of his espousals with Christ is Now all his past sorrows and deep troubles of spirit which God hath exercised him with begin to appear the greatest mercies that ever he received being all necessary and introductive to this blessed union with Christ. Secondly Things present are ours though it be not yet with us as we would have it Christ is not sure enough the heart is not pure enough sin is too strong and grace is too weak many things are yet out of order yet can the soul bless God for this with tears of joy and praise him for this brimful of admiration and holy astonishment that it is as it is that he is where he is though he be not yet where he would be O 't is a blessed life to live as a poor recumbent by acts of trust and affiance though as yet it have but little evidence that it is resolved to trust all with Christ though it be not yet certain of the issue O this is a comfortable station a sweet condition to what it was either when it wallowed in sin in the days before conviction or was swallowed up in fears and troubles for sin after conviction now it hath hope though it want assurance and hope is sweet to a soul coming out of such deep distresses now it sees the remedy and is applying it whereas before the wound seemed desperate now all hesitations and debates are at an end in the Soul 't is no longer bivious and unresolved what to do all things have been deeply considered and after consideration issued into this resolve or decree of the will I will go to Christ I will venture all upon his Command and Call I will imbarque my eternal interests in that Bottom here I fix and upon this ground I resolve to live and dye O how much better is this than that floating life it lived before rolling upon the billows of inward fears and troubles not able to drop Anchor any where nor knowing where to find an Harbour Thirdly Things to come are ours and this is the best and sweetest of all man is a prospecting creature his eye is much upon things to come and it will not satisfie him that it is well at present except he have a prospect that it shall be so hereafter but now the soul hath committed it self and all its concernments to Christ for eternity and this being done it 's greatly relieved against evils to come I cannot saith the Believer think all my troubles over and that I shall never meet any more afflictions it were a fond vanity to dream of that but I leave all these things where I have left my soul he that hath supported me under inward will carry me through outward troubles also I cannot think all my temptations to sin past O I may yet meet with sore assaults from Satan yet it is infinitely better to be watching praying and striving against sin than it was when I was obeying it in the lusts of it God that hath delivered me from the love of sin will I trust preserve me from ruine by sin I know also death is to come I must feel the pangs and agonies of it but yet the aspect of death is much more pleasant than it was I come Lord Jesus to thee who art the death of death whose death hath disarmed death of its sting I fear not its dart if I feel not its sting And thus you see briefly how by faith Believers enter into rest How Christ gives rest even at present to them that come to him and all this but as a beginning of their everlasting rest Inference 1. Is there rest in Christ for weary souls that come unto him Then certainly it 's a design of Satan against the peace and welfare Inference 1. of mens souls to discourage them from coming to Christ in
but it will be hard for you to do so whose souls burn with desire after Christ. Seventhly Blessed in this that your desires after Christ will make death much the sweeter and easier to you Phil. 1. 23. I desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ which is far better When a Christian was once asked whether he were willing to dye He returned this answer let him be unwilling to dye who is unwilling to go to Christ and Illius est nolle mori qui nolitire ad Christum much like it was that of another vivere renuo ut Christo vivam I refuse this life to live with Christ. 4th Use for Exhortation In the fourth place let me exhort and perswade all to Use 4. make Jesus Christ the desire and choice of their souls And here I fall in with the main scope and design of the Gospel and Oh that I could effectually press home this Exhortation upon your hearts Let me offer some moving Considerations to you and the Lord accompany them to your hearts First Every Creature naturally desires its own preservation do not you desire the preservation of your precious and immortal souls If you do then make Christ your desire and choice without whom they can never be preserved Jude vers 1. Secondly don 't your souls earnestly desire the bodies they live in how tender are they over them how careful to provide for them though they pay a dear rent for those Tenements they live in and is not union with Christ infinitely more desirable than the union of soul and body Oh covet union with him then shall your souls be happy when your bodies drop off from them at death 2 Cor. 5. 1 3. yea soul and body shall be happy in him and with him for evermore Thirdly How do the men of this world desire the enjoyments of it They pant after the dust of the earth they rise early sit up late eat the bread of carefulness and all this for very vanity Shall a worldling do more for earth than you for Heaven Shall the Creature be so earnestly desired and Christ neglected Fourthly What do all your desires in this world benefit you if you go Christless Suppose you had the desire of your hearts in these things how long shall you have comfort in them if you miss Christ Fifthly Doth Christ desire you who have nothing lovely or desirable in you And have you no desires after Christ the most lovely and desirable one in both worlds His desires are towards you Prov. 8. 31. O make him the desire and choice of your souls Sixthly How absolutely necessary is Jesus Christ to your souls Bread and water breath and life is not so necessary as Christ is One thing is necessary Luk. 10. 42. and that one thing is Christ if you miss your desires in other things you may yet be happy but if you miss Christ you are undone for ever Seventhly How suitable a good is Christ to your souls Comprizing whatsoever they want 1 Cor. 1. 30. Set your hearts where you will none will be found to match and suit them as Christ doth Eighthly How great are the benefits that will redound to you by Jesus Christ In him you shall have a rich inheritance setled upon you all things shall be yours when you are Christs 1 Cor. 3. 22. and is not such a Christ worth desiring Ninthly All your well-grounded hopes of glory are built upon your union with Christ 1 Cor. 1. 21. If you miss Christ you must dye without hope will not this draw your desires to him Tenthly Suppose you were at the Judgement Seat of God where you must shortly stand and saw the terrors of the Lord in that day the Sheep divided from the Goats the sentences of absolution and condemnation past by the great and awful Judge upon the righteous and the wicked would not Christ be then desirable in your eyes As ever you expect to stand with Comfort at that Bar let Christ be the desire and choice of your souls now 5th Use for Direction Do these or any other Considerations put thee upon this Use 5. enquiry how shall I get my desires kindled and inflamed towards Christ Alas my heart is cold and dead not a serious desire stirring in it after Christ to such I shall offer the following Directions Direction 1. Redeem some time every day for meditation get out of the noise and clamour of the world Psal. 4. 4. and seriously bethink your selves how the present state of your soul stands and how it is like to go with you for ever here all sound Conversion begins Psal. 119. 59. Direction 2. Consider seriously of that lamentable state in which you came into the world children of wrath by nature under the curse and condemnation of the Law So that either your state must be changed or you inevitably damned Joh. 3. 3. Direction 3. Consider the way and course you have taken since you came into the world proceeding from iniquity to iniquity What Command of God have you not violated a thousand times over What sin is committed in the world that you are not one way or other guilty of before God How many secret sins are upon your score unknown to the most intimate Friend you have in the world Either this guilt must be separated from your souls or your souls from God to all eternity Direction 4. Think upon the severe wrath of God due to every sin The wages of sin is death Rom. 6. ult and how intolerable the fulness of that wrath must be when a few drops sprinkled upon the Conscience in this world is so insupportable that it hath made some to choose strangling rather than life and yet this wrath must abide for ever upon you if you get not interest in Jesus Christ Joh. 3. 63. Direction 5. Ponder well the happy state and condition they are in who have obtained pardon and peace by Jesus Christ Psal. 32. 12. And seeing the grace of God is free and you are yet under the means thereof why may not you be as capable thereof as others Direction 6. Seriously consider the great uncertainty of your time and preciousness of the opportunities of salvation never to be recovered when they are once past Joh. 9. 4. Let this provoke you to lay hold upon those golden seasons whilst they are yet with you that you may not bewail your folly and madness when they are out of your reach Direction 7. Associate your selves with serious Christians get into their acquaintance and beg their assistance beseech them to pray for you and see that you rest not here but be frequently upon your knees begging of the Lord a new heart and a new state In Conclusion of the whole let me beseech and beg all the people of God as upon my knees to take heed and beware lest by the carelesness and scandals of their lives they quench the weak desires beginning to kindle in the hearts of
every Creature is suitable to its nature You see divers Creatures feeding upon several parts of the same herb the Bee upon the flower the Bird upon the seed the Sheep upon the stalk and the Swine upon the root according to their nature so is their food sensual men feed upon sensual things spiritual men upon spiritual things as your food is so are you If carnal comforts can content thy heart sure thy heart must then be a very carnal heart yea and let Christians themselves take heed that they fetch not their Consolations out of themselves instead of Christ. Your graces and duties are excellent means and instruments but not the ground-work and foundation of your Comfort they are useful buckets to draw but not the well it self in which the springs of consolation rise If you put your duties in the room of Christ Christ will put your comforts out of the reach of your duties Inference 3. If Christ be the Consolation of Believers what a comfortable Inference 3. life should all Believers live in this world Certainly if the fault be not your own you might live the happiest and comfortablest lives of all men in the world If you would not be a discomfort to Christ he would be a comfort to you every day and in every condition to the end of your lives your condition abounds with all the helps and advantages of consolation you have the command of Christ to warrant your comforts Phil. 4. 4. You have the Spirit of Christ for a spring of comfort you have the Scriptures of Christ for the rules of comfort you have the duties of Religion for the means of comfort why is it then that you go comfortless If your afflictions be many in the world yet your encouragements be more in Christ your troubles in the world may be turned into joy but your comforts in Christ can never be turned into trouble Why should troubles obstruct your comfort when the blessing of Christ upon your troubles makes them subservient to promote your happiness Rom. 8. 28. Shake off despondency then and live up to the principles of Religion your dejected life is uncomfortable to your selves and of very ill use to others Inference 4. If Christ be the Consolation of Believers then let all that desire Inference 4. comfort in this world or in that to come imbrace Jesus Christ and get real union with him The same hour you shall be in Christ you shall also be at the fountain head of all Consolations Thy soul shall be then a pardoned soul and a pardoned soul hath all reason in the world to be a joyful soul in that day thy Conscience shall be sprinkled with the blood of Christ and a sprinkled Conscience hath all the reason in the world to be a comforting Conscience in that day you become the Children of your Father in Heaven and he that hath a Father in Heaven hath all reason to be the joyfullest man upon earth in that day you are delivered from the sting and hurt of death and he that is delivered from the sting of death hath the best reason to take in the comfort of life O come to Christ come to Christ till you come to Christ no true comfort can come to you The Sixteenth SERMON Sermon 16. EPHES. 1. 7. Text. Enforcing the general exhortation by a seventh motive drawn from the first benefit purchased by Christ. In whom we have redemption through his blood the remission of sins according to the riches of his grace SIx great Motives have been presented already from the Titles of Christ to draw the hearts of sinners to him more are now to be offered from the benefits redounding to Believers by Christ. Essaying by all means to win the hearts of men to Christ. To this end I shall in the first place open that glorious priviledge of Gospel remission freely and fully conferred upon all that come to Christ by faith in whom we have redemption by faith c. In which words we have first a singular benefit or choice mercy bestowed viz. Redemption interpreted by way of apposition the remission of sins this is a priviledge of the first rank a mercy by it self none sweeter none more desirable among all the benefits that come by Christ. And therefore Secondly You have the price of this mercy an account what it cost even the blood of Christ in whom we have redemption through his blood Precious things are of great price the blood of Christ is the meritorious cause of remission Thirdly You have here also the impulsive cause moving God to grant pardons at this rate to sinners and that is said to be the riches of his grace Where by the way you see that the freeness of the grace of God and the fulness of the satisfaction of Christ meet together without the least jar in the remission of sin contrary to the vain cavil of the Socinian adversaries In whom we have redemption even the remission of sins according to the riches of his grace Fourthly You have the qualified subjects of this blessed priviledge viz. Believers in whose name he here speaks we have remission i. e. we the Saints and faithful in Christ Jesus vers 1. we whom he hath chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world and predestinated unto the adoption of Children vers 4 5. we that are made accepted in the beloved vers 6. 't is we and we only who have redemption through his blood Hence observe DOCT. That all Believers and none but Believers receive the remission Doct. of their sins through the riches of grace by the blood of Jesus Christ. In the explication of this point three things must be spoken to 1. That all that are in Christ are in a pardoned state 2. That their pardon is the purchase of the blood of Christ. 3. That the riches of Grace are manifested in remission First That all that are in Christ are in a pardoned state where I will first shew you what pardon or the remission of sin is Secondly That this is the priviledge of none but Believers First Now remission of sin is the gracious act of God in and through Christ discharging a believing sinner from all the guilt and punishment of his sin both temporal and eternal 'T is the act of God he is the author of remission none can forgive sins but God only Mark 2. 7. against him only i. e. principally and essentially the offence is committed Psal. 51. 4. To his Judgement guilt binds over the soul and who can remit the debt but the Creditor Mat. 6. 12. 'T is an act of God discharging the sinner it is Gods loosing of one that stood bound the cancelling of his bond or obligation called therefore remission or releasing in the Text the blotting out of our iniquities or the removing our sins from us as it 's called in other Scriptures see Psal. 103. 11. Mica 7. 18 19. It is a gracious act of God the
dishonour upon God for the greatest mercy that ever was given by God to the world there is mercy with thee saith the Psalmist that thou maist be feared not that thou maist be the more abused Psal. 130. 4. Nay let me say the Devils never sinned at this rate they cannot abuse the pardoning grace of God because such grace was never offered unto them And certainly if the abuse of the common mercies of God as meat and drink by gluttony and drunkenness be an hainous sin and highly provoking to God then the abuse of the riches of his grace and the precious blood of his Son must be out of measure sinful and the greatest affront we can put upon the God of mercy Inference 5. To Conclude If this be so as ever you expect pardon and Inference 5. mercy from God come to Christ in the way of faith receive and embrace him now in the tenders of the Gospel To drive home this great Exhortation I beseech you as in the bowels of Christ Jesus and by all the regard and value you have for your own souls let these following Considerations sink down into your hearts First That all Christless persons are actually under the condemnation of God John 3. 18. He that believeth not is condemned already and it must needs be so for every soul is concluded under the curse of the Law till Christ make him free John 8. 36. Till we are in Christ we are dead by Law and when we believe unto justification then we pass from death to life A blind mistaken Conscience may possibly acquit you but assure your selves God condemns you Secondly Consider what a terrible thing it is to lye under the condemnation of God the most terrible things in nature cannot shadow forth the misery of such a state Put all sicknesses all poverty all reproaches the torments invented by all Tyrants into one Scale and the condemnation of God into the other and they will be all found lighter than a Feather Condemnation is the sentence of God the great and terrible God 'T is a sentence shutting you up to everlasting wrath 't is a sentence never to be reversed but by the application of Christ in the season thereof O souls you cannot bear the wrath of God you do not understand it if you think it tolerable one drop of it upon your Consciences now is enough to distract you in the midst of all the pleasures and comforts of this world yet all that are out of Christ are sentenced to the fulness of Gods wrath for ever Thirdly There is yet a possibility of escaping the wrath to come a dore of hope opened to the worst of sinners a day of grace is afforded to the Children of men Heb. 3. 15. God declares himself unwilling that any should perish 2 Pet. 3. 9. O what a mercy is this Who that is on this side Heaven or Hell fully understands the worth of it Fourthly This dore of mercy will be shortly shut Luk. 12. 25. God hath many ways to shut it he sometimes shuts it by withdrawing the means of grace and removing the Candlesticks a judgement at this time to be greatly feared Sometimes shuts he it by withdrawing his Spirit and blessing from the means whereby all Ordinances lose their efficacy 1 Cor. 3. 7. But if he shut it not by removing the means of grace from you certain it is it will be shortly shut by your removal from all the means and opportunities by Salvation by death Fifthly When once the dore of mercy is shut you are gone beyond all the possibilities of pardon and salvation for evermore the night is then come in which no man can work John 9. 4. All the golden seasons you now enjoy will be irrecoverably gone out of your reach Sixthly Pardons are now daily granted to others some and they once as far from mercy as you now are are at this day reading their pardons with tears of joy dropping upon them The world is full of the examples and instances of the riches of pardoning grace And whatever is needful for you to do in the way of repentance and faith to obtain your pardon how easily shall it be done if once the day of Gods power come upon you Psal. 110. 3. Oh therefore lift up your cries to Heaven give the Lord no rest take no denial till he open the blind eye break the stony heart open and bow the stubborn will effectually draw thy soul to Christ and deliver thy pardon signed in his blood The Seventeenth SERMON Sermon 17. EPHES. 1. 6. Text. Opening the eighth motive to come to Christ drawn from the second benefit purchased by Christ for Believers To the praise of the glory of his grace wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved IN our last discourse we opened to you the blessed priviledge of remission of sin from the following verse in this verse lies another glorious priviledge viz. the acceptation that Believers have with God through Jesus Christ both which comprise as the two main branches our justification before God In the words read to omit many things that might be profitably observed from the method and dependance of the Apostles discourse three particulars are observable viz. 1. The Priviledge it self 2. The Meritorous Cause 3. The ultimate end thereof First The priviledge it self which is exceeding rich and 1. sweet in its own nature he hath made us accepted the word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he hath ingratiated us or brought us into the grace favour and acceptance of God the Father endeared us to him so that we find grace in his sight Secondly The meritorious cause purchasing and procuring this benefit for us noted in these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in 2. the beloved which words are a periphrasis of Christ who is here emphatically called the Beloved the great favorite of Heaven the delight of Gods soul the prime object of his love 't is he that obtaineth this benefit for Believers he is accepted for his own sake and we for his Thirdly The ultimate end and aim of conferring this benefit upon Believers to the praise of the glory of his grace or 3. to the end that his grace might be made glorious in praises there are riches of grace in this act of God and the work and business of Believers both in this world and in that to come is to search and admire aknowledge and magnifie God for his abundant grace herein Hence the note is DOCT. That Jesus Christ hath purchased and procured special favour Doct. and acceptation with God for all that are in him This point lies plain in Scripture Ephes. 2. 13. But now in Jesus Christ ye who sometimes were afar off are made nigh by the blood of Christ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 made nigh a term of endearedness nothing is taken into the very bosom and embraces but what is very dear precious and acceptable and in Rev. 1. 5 6.
from God Hab. 1. 13. Heb. 12. 14. The enmity of our nature perfectly stopped up our way to God Col. 1. 21. Rom. 8. 7. by reason hereof fallen man hath no desire to come unto God Job 21. 14. The Justice of God like a flaming Sword turning every way kept all men from access to God and lastly Satan that malicious and armed adversary lay as a Lyon in the way to God 2 Pet. 5. 8. Oh with what strong bars were the gates of Heaven shut against our souls The way to God was chained up with such difficulties as none but Christ was able to remove and he by death hath effectually removed them all the way is now open even the new and the living way consecrated for us by his blood The death of Christ effectually removes the guilt of sin 1 Pet. 2. 24. washes off the filth of sin 1 John 5. 6. takes away the enmity of nature Col. 1. 20 21. satisfied all the demands of justice Rom. 3. 25 26. hath broken all the power of Satan Col. 2. 15. Heb. 2. 14. and consequently the way to God is effectually and fully opened to Believers by the blood of Jesus Heb. 10. 20. Secondly The blood of Christ purchaseth for Believers their right and title to this priviledge Gal. 4. 4 5. But when the fulness of time was come God sent forth his Son made of a woman made under the Law to redeem them that were under the law that we might receive the adoption of Sons i. e. both the relation and inheritance of sons There was value and worth enough in the precious blood of Christ not only to pay all our debts to justice but over and above the payment of our debts to purchase for us this invaluable priviledge We must put this unspeakable mercy of being brought to God as my Text puts it upon the account and score of the death of Christ. No Believer had ever tasted the sweetness of such a mercy if Christ had not tasted the bitterness of death for him The use of all you will have in the following Deductions of truth Deduction 1. Great is the preciousness and worth of souls that the life of Christ should be given to redeem and recover them to God As God laid out his thoughts and counsel from eternity upon them to project the way and method of their salvation so the Lord Jesus in pursuance of that blessed design came from the bosom of the Father and spilt his invaluable blood to bring them to God No wise man expends vast sums to bring home trifling commodities How cheap soever our souls are in our estimation 't is evident by this they are of precious esteem in the eyes of Christ. Deduction 2. Redeemed souls must expect no rest or satisfaction on this side Heaven and the full enjoyment of God the life of a Believer in this world is a life of motion and expectation they are now coming to God 1 Pet. 2. 4. God you see is the centre and rest of their souls Heb. 4. 9. As the Rivers cannot rest Feâ—…ti nos ad te inquietum est cor nostrum doâ—…ec requiescat in te Aug. Confess lib. 1. cap. 1. till they pour themselves into the bosom of the Sea so neither can renewed souls find rest till they come into the bosom of God There be four things which do and will break the rest and disturb the souls of Believers in this world afflictions temptations corruptions and absence from God if the three former causes of disquietness were totally removed so that a Believer were placed in such a condition upon earth where no affliction should disturb him no temptation trouble him no corruption defile or grieve him yet his very absence from God must still keep him restless and unsatisfied 2 Cor. 5. 6. Whilst we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord. Deduction 3. What sweet and pleasant thoughts should all Believers have of death When they dye and never till they dye shall they be fully brought home to God Death to the Saints is the dore by which they enter into the enjoyment of God the dying Christian is almost at home yet a few pangs and agonies more and then he is come to God in whose presence is the fulness of joy I desire saith Paul to depart and to be with Christ which is far better Phil. 1. 23. It should not scare us to be brought to death the King of terrors so long as it is the office of death to bring us to God That dreaming opinion of the soul sleeping after death is as ungrounded as it is uncomfortable the same day we loose from this shore we shall be landed upon the blessed shore where we shall see and enjoy God for ever O if the friends of dead Believers did but understand where and with whom their souls are whilst they are mourning over their bodies certainly a few believing thoughts of this would quickly dry up their tears and fill the house of mourning with voices of praise and thanksgiving Deduction 4. How comfortable and sweet should the converses and communication of Christians be with one another in this world Christ is bringing them all to God through this vale of tears they are now in the way to him all bound for Heaven going home to God to their everlasting rest in glory every day every hour every duty brings them nearer and nearer to their journeys end Rom. 13. 11. Now saith the Apostle is our salvation nearer than when we believed O what manner of heavenly communications and ravishing discourses should Believers have with each other as they walk by the way O what pleasant and delightful stories should they tell one another about the place and state whither Christ is bringing them and where they shall shortly be What ravishing transporting transforming visions they shall have that day they are brought home to God how surprizingly glorious the sight of Jesus Christ will be to them who died for them to bring them unto God How should such discourses as these shorten and sweeten their passage through this world strengthen and encourage the dejected and feeble minded and exceedingly honour and adorn their profession Thus lived the Believers of old Heb. 11. 9 10. By faith he sojourned in the land of promise as in a strange Country dwelling in Tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob the heirs with him of the same promise for he looked for a City which hath foundations whose builder and maker is God But alas most Christians are either entangled in the cares and troubles or so ensnared by the delights and plasures which almost continually divert and take up their thoughts by the way that there is but little room for any discourses of Christ and Heaven among many of them but certainly this would be as much your interest as your duty When the Apostle had entertained the Thessalonians with a lovely discourse of their meeting the Lord in the air and
being ever with the Lord he charges it upon them as their great duty to comfort one another with those words 1 Thes. 4. 17 18. Deduction 5. How unreasonable are the dejections of Believers upon the account of those troubles which they meet with in this world 'T is true afflictions of all kinds do attend Believers in their way to God through many tribulations we must enter into that Kingdom but what then Must we despond and droop under them as other men Surely no if afflictions be the way through which you must come to God then never be discouraged at affliction Troubles and afflictions are of excellent use under the blessing of the Spirit to further Christs great design of bringing you to God How often would you turn out of that way which leads to God if God did not hedge up your way with thorns Hosea 2. 6. Doubtless when you come home to God you shall find you have been as much beholding it may be a great deal more to your troubles than to your comforts for bringing you thither however the sweetness of the end will infinitely more than recompence the sorrows and troubles of the way nor are they worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in you Rom. 8. 18. Deduction 6. How much are all Believers obliged in point of interest to follow Jesus Christ whithersoever he goes Thus are the Saints described Rev. 14. 4. These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth these were redeemed from among men being the first-fruits unto God and to the Lamb. If it be the design of Christ to bring us to God then certainly it is our duty to follow Christ in all the paths of active and passive obedience through which he now leads us as ever we expect to be brought home to God at last We are made partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end Heb. 3. 14. If we have followed him through many sufferings and troubles and shall turn away from him at last we lose all that we have wrought and suffered in Religion and shall never reach home to God at last the Crown of life belongs only to them who are faithful to the death Deduction 7. Let all that desire or expect to come unto God hereafter come to Christ by faith now There is no other way to the Father but by Christ no other way to Christ but faith how vain therefore are the hopes and expectations of all unbelievers Be assured of this great truth Death shall bring you to God as an avenging Judge if Christ do not bring you now to God as a reconciled Father without holiness no man shall see God the dore of hope is shut against all Christless persons John 14. 6. No man cometh unto the Father but by me Oh what a sweet voice cometh down from Heaven to your souls this day saying As ever you expect or hope to come to God and enjoy the blessedness that is here come unto Christ obey his calls give up your selves to his conduct and government and you shall certainly be brought to God as sure as you shall now be brought to Jesus Christ by spiritual union so sure shall you be brought to God in full fruition Blessed be God for Jesus Christ the new and living way to the Father ANd thus I have finished the Motives drawn from the titles and benefits of Christ serving to enforce and quicken the great Gospel-exhortation of coming to and effectually applying the Lord Jesus Christ in the way of faith O that the blessings of the Spirit might follow these Calls and fix these Considerations as Nailes in sure places But seeing the great hindrance and obstruction to faith is the false opinion and perswasion of most unregenerate men that they are already in Christ My next work therefore shall be in a second Use of Conviction to undeceive men in that matter and that by shewing them the undoubted certainty of these two things First That there is no coming ordinarily to Christ without the Applications of the Law to our Consciences in a way of effectual Conviction Secondly Nor by that neither without the teachings of God in the way of spiritual illumination The first of these will be fully confirmed and opened in The Twentieth SERMON Sermon 20. Rom. 7. 9. Text. The great usefulness of the Law or Word of God in order to the application of Christ. For I was alive without the Law once but when the Commandment came sin revived and I died THe scope of the Apostle in this Epistle and more particularly in this Chapter is to state the due use and excellency of the Law which he doth accordingly First By denying to it power to justifie us which is the peculiar honour of Christ. Secondly By ascribing to it a power to convince us and so prepare us for Christ. Neither attributing to it more honour than belongeth to it nor yet detracting from it that honour and usefulness which God hath given it It cannot make us righteous but it can convince us that we are unrighteous it cannot heal but it can open and discover the wounds that sin hath given us which he proves in this place by an argument drawn from his own experience confirmed also by the general experience of Believers in whose persons and names we must here understand him to speak For I was alive without the Law once but when the Commandment came sin revived and I died wherein three particulars are very observable First The opinion Paul had and all unregenerate men have of themselves before Conversion I was alive once by 1. life understand here liveliness chearfulness and confidence of his good estate and condition he was full of vain hope false joy and presumptuous confidence a very brisk and jovial man Secondly The sense and opinion he had and all others will have of themselves if ever they come under the regenerating 2. work of the Spirit in his ordinary method of working I died The death he here speaks of stands opposed to that life before mentioned and signifies the sorrows fears and tremblings that seized upon his soul when his state and temper were upon the change the apprehensions he then had of his condition struck him home to the heart and damped all his carnal mirth I died Thirdly The ground and reason of this wonderful alteration and change of his judgement and apprehension of 3. his own condition the Commandment came and sin revived the Commandment came i. e. it came home to my Conscience it was set on with a divine and mighty efficacy upon my heart the Commandment was come before by way of promulgation and the literal knowledge of it but it never came till now in the spiritual sense and convincing power to his soul though he had often read and heard the Law before yet he never clearly understood the meaning and extent he never felt the mighty
frame may by the assistance of the spirit of God for which therefore they are bound to pray discern his indwelling and working in themselves Evidence 1. In whomsoever the spirit of Christ is a spirit of sanctification to that man or woman he hath been more or less a spirit of conviction and humiliation this is the order which the spirit constantly observes in adult or grown converts Joh. 16. 8 9. and when he is come he will reprove the world of sin and of righteousness and of Judgement of sin because they believed not on me This you see is the method he observes all the world over he shall reprove or convince the world of sin Conviction of sin hath the same respect unto sanctification as the blossoms of trees have to the fruits that follow them a blossom is but fructus imperfectus ordinabilis an imperfect fruit in it self and in order to a more perfect and noble fruit where there are no blossoms we can expect no fruit and where we see no convictions of sin we can expect no conversion to Christ. Hath then the spirit of God been a spirit of conviction to thee hath he more particularly convinced thee of sin because thou hast not believed on him i. e. hath he shewn thee thy sin and misery as an Unbeliever not only terrified and affrighted thy conscience with this or that more notorious act of sin but sully convinced thee of the state of sin that thou art in by reason of thy unbelief which holding thee from Christ must needs also hold thee under the guilt of all thy other sins This gives at least a strong probability that God hath given thee his spirit especially when this conviction remains day and night upon thy soul so that nothing but Christ can give it rest and consequently the great inquisition of thy soul is after Christ and none but Christ. Evidence 2. As the spirit of God hath been a convincing so he is a quickening spirit to all those to whom he is given Rom. 8. 2. The law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the Law of sin and death he is the spirit of life i. e. the principle of spiritual life in the souls whom he inhabiteth for uniting them to Christ he unites them to the fountain of life and this spiritual life in believers manifests it self as the natural life doth in vital actions and operations When the spirit of God comes into the soul of a man that was dead and senseless under sin O saith he now I begin to feel the weight and load of sin Rom. 7. 24. now I begin to hunger and thirst after Christ and his Ordinances 1 Pet. 2. 2. now I begin to breath after God in spiritual prayer Acts 9. 11. Spiritual life hath its spiritual senses and suitable operations O think upon this you that cannot feel any burthen in sin you that have no hungerings or thirstings after Christ how can the spirit of God be in you I do not deny but there may at some times be much deadness and senselesness upon the hearts of Christians but this is their disease not their nature it is but at some times not alwayes and when it is so with them they are burthened with it and complain oâ—… it as their greatest affliction in this world their spirits are not easie and at rest in such a condition as yours are their spirit is as a bone out of joint an Arm dislocated which cannot move any way without pain Evidence 3. Those to whom God giveth his spirit have a tender sympathy with all the interest and concernments of Christ this must needs be so if the same spirit which is in Christ dwelleth also in thy heart if thou be a partaker of his spirit then what he loves thou lovest and what he hateth thou hatest this is a very plain case even in nature it self we find that the many members of the same natural body being animated by one and the same spirit of life whether one member suffer all the members suffer with it or one member be honoured all the members rejoice with it now ye are the body of Christ and members in particular 1 Cor. 12. 26 27. For look as Christ the head of that body is touched with a tender sense and feeling of the miseries and troubles of his people he is persecuted when they are persecuted Acts 9. 4. so they that have the spirit of Christ in them cannot be without a deep and tender sense of the reproach and dishonours that are done to Christ this is as it were a sword in their bones Psal. 42. 3. If his publick worship cease the assemblies of his people scattered it cannot but go to the hearts of all in whom the spirit of Christ is they will be sorrowful for the solemn assemblies the reproach of them will be a burthen Zeph. 3. 18. Those that have the spirit of Christ do not more earnestly long after any one thing in this world than the advancement of Christs interest by conversion and reformation in the Kingdoms of the earth Psal. 45. 3 4. Paul could rejoice that Christ was Preached though his own afflictions were increased Phil. 1. 16. 18. and John could rejoice that Christ encreased though he himself decreased yet therein was his joy fulfilled Joh. 3. 29. so certainly the concernments of Christ must and will touch that heart which is the habitation of his spirit I cannot deny but even a good Baruch may be under a temptation to seek great things for himself and be too much swallowed up in his own concernments when God is plucking up and breaking down Jer. 45. 4 5. but this is only the influence of a temptation the true temper and spirit of a believer inclines him to sorrow and mourning when things are in this sad posture Ezech. 9. 4. Go through the midst of the City through the midst of Jerusalem and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof O Reader lay thine hand upon thine heart is it thus with thee dost thou sympathize with the affairs and concernments of Christ in the world or carest thou not which way things go with the people of God and Gospel of Christ so long as thine own affairs prosper and all things are well with thee Evidence 4. Where ever the spirit of God dwelleth he doth in some degree mortifie and subdue the evils and corruptions of the soul in which he resides this spirit lusteth against the flesh Gal. 5. 17. and believers through the spirit do mortifie the deeds of the body Rom. 8. 13. this is one special part of his sanctifying work I do not say he so kills and subdues sin in believers as that it shall never trouble or defile them any more no no that freedom belongs to the perfect state in heaven but its dominion is taken away though its
life be prolonged for a season it lives in believers still but not upon the provision they willingly make to fulfil the Lust of it Rom. 13. ult The design of every true believer is co incident with the design of the spirit to destroy and mortifie corruption they long for the extirpation of it and are daily in the use of all sanctified means and instruments to subdue and destroy it the workings of their corruptions are the afflictions of their souls Rom. 7. 24. O wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from the body of this death and there is no one thing that sweetens the thoughts of death to believers except the sight and full enjoyment of God more than their expected deliverance from sin doth Evidence 5. Where ever the spirit of God dwelleth in the way of sanctification in all such he is the spirit of prayer and supplication Rom. 8. 26. Likewise the spirit also helpeth our infirmities for we know not what we should pray for as we ought but the spirit it self maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered where ever he is poured out as the spirit of grace he is also poured out as the spirit of supplication Zech. 12. 10. his praying and his sanctifying influences are undivided There is a threefold assistance that the spirit gives unto sanctified persons in prayer he helps them before they pray by setting an edge upon their defires and affections he helps them in prayer by supplying matters of request to them teaching them what they should ask of God he assisteth them in the manner of prayer supplying to them suitable affections and helping them to be sincere in all their desires to God 't is he that humbles the pride of their hearts dissolves and breaks the hardness of their hearts out of dcadness makes them lively out of weakness makes them strong he assisteth the spirits of believers after prayer helping them to faith and patience to believe and wait for the returns and answers of their prayers O Reader reflect upon thy duties consider what spirituality sincerity humility broken-heartedness and melting affections after God are to be found in thy duties is it so with thee or dost thou shuffle over thy duties as an interruption to thy business and pleasures are they an ungrateful task imposed upon thee by God and thy own conscience are there no hungerings and thirstings after God in thy soul or if there be any pleasure arising to thee out of prayer is it not from the ostentation of thy gifts if it be so reflect sadly upon the carnal state of thy heart these things do not speak the spirit of grace and supplication to be given thee Evidence 6. Where ever the spirit of Grace inhabits there is an heavenly spiritual frame of mind accompanying and evidencing the indwelling of the spirit Rom. 8. 5 6. For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh but they that are after the spirit the things of the spirit for to be carnally minded is death but to be spiritually minded is life and peace by the mind understand the musings reasonings yea and the cares fears delights and pleasures of the soul which follow the workings and meditations of the mind as these are so are we if these be ordinarily and habitually taken up and exercised about earthly things then is the frame and state of the man carnal and earthly the workings of every creature follow the being and nature of it if God Christ Heaven and the world to come engage the thoughts and affections of the soul the temper of such a soul is spiritual and the spirit of God dwelleth there this is the life of the regenerate Phil. 3. 20. our conversation is in Heaven and such a frame of heart is life and peace a serene placid and most comfortable life no pleasure upon earth no gratifications of the senses do relish and savour as spiritual things do Consider therefore which way thy heart ordinarily works especially in thy Solitudes and hours of retirement these things will be a great evidence for or against thy soul. David could say how precious are thy thoughts unto me O God! how great is the summ of them if I should count them they are more in number than the sand when I awake I am still with thee Psal. 139. 17 18. Yet it must be acknowledged for the relief of weaker Christians that there is great odds and variety found in this matter among the people of God for the strength steadiness and constancy of a spiritual mind results from the depth and improvement of sanctification the more grace still the more evenness spirituality and constancy there is in the motions of the heart after God The minds of weak Christians are more easily entangled in earthly vanities and more frequently diverted by inward corruptions yet still there is a spiritual pondus inclination and bent of their hearts towards God and the vanity and corruption which hinders their communion with him is their greatest grief and burthen under which they groan in this world Evidence 7. Those to whom the spirit of grace is given they are led by the spirit Rom. 8. 14. As many as are led by the spirit of God they are the Sons of God sanctified souls give themselves up to the government and conduct of the spirit they obey his voice beg his direction follow his motions deny the solicitations of the flesh and blood in obedience to him Gal. 1. 16. and they that do so they are the sons of God 't is the office of the spirit to guide us into all truth and 't is our great duty to follow his guidance Hence it is that in all enterprizes and undertakements the people of God so earnestly beg direction and counsel from him Lead me O Lord in thy righteousness saith David make thy way straight before my face Psal. 8. 5. they dare not in doubtful cases lean to their own understandings yea in points of duty and in points of sin they dare not neglect the one or commit the other against the convictions and perswasions of their own consciences though troubles and sufferings be unavoidable in that path of duty when they have ballanced duties with sufferings in their most serious thoughts the conclusion and result will still be it is better to obey God than man the dictates of the spirit rather than the counsels of flesh and blood But before I leave this point I reckon my self a debtor unto weak Christians and shall endeavour to give satisfaction to some special doubts and fears with which their minds are ordinarily entangled in this matter for it is a very plain case that many souls have the presence and sanctification of the spirit without the evidence and comfort thereof Divers things are found in believers which are as so many fountains of fears and doubts to them And First I greatly doubt the spirit of God is not in me Obj. 1. saith
nature but is a pure work of creation The heathen Philosophers could neither understand nor acknowledge the creation of the world because that notion was repugnant to this maxime of reason ex nihilo nihil fit out of nothing nothing can be made thus did they insanire cum ratione befool themselves with their own reasonings and after the same manner some great pretenders to reason among us voting it an absurdity to affirm that the work of grace is not virtually and potentially contained in nature the new Creation in the old Fourthly It was the vertue and efficacy of the spirit of God which gave the natural world its being by Creation Gen. 1. 2. the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters it hovered over the chaos as the wings of a bird do over her eggs as the same word is rendred Deut. 32. 11. cherishing as it were by incubation that rude mass by a secret quickening influence by which it drew all the Creatures into their several forms and particular natures So it is in the new Creation a quickning influence must come from the spirit of God or else the new creature can never be formed in us Joh. 3. 8. So is every one that is born of the Spirit and ver 6. that which is born of the spirit is spirit Fifthly The word of God was the instrument of the first creation Psal. 33. 6 9. By the word of the Lord were the Heavens made and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth for he spake and it was done he commanded and it stood fast the word of God is also the instrument of the new Creation or work of Grace in man 1 Pet. 1. 23. Being born again not of corruptible seed but of incorruptible by the word of God which liveth and abideth for ever So James 1. 18. Of his own will beg at he us with the word of truth of his own will that was the impulsive cause with the word of truth that is the instrumental cause great respect and honour love and delight is due to the word upon this account that it is the instrument of our regeneration or new Creation Sixthly The same power which created the world still under-props and supports it in its being the world owes its conservation as well as its existence to the power of God without which it could not subsist one moment Just so it is with the new Creation which entirely depends upon the preserving power which first formed it Jude ver 1. Preserved in Christ Jesus and 1 Pet. 1. 5. Who were kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation as in a natural way we live move and have our being in God Acts 17. 28. so in a spiritual way we continue believing repenting loving and delighting in God without whose continued influence upon our souls we could do neither Seventhly In a word God surveyed the first Creation with complacence and great delight he beheld the work of his hands and approved them as very good Gen. 1. 31. so is it also in the second creation nothing pleaseth and delights God more than the works of grace in the souls of his people it is not any outward priviledge of nature or gift of Providence which commends any man to God circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing but a new creature Gal. 6. 15. And thus you see upon what grounds the work of regeneration in man is stiled a new Creature which was the first thing to be opened Secondly Next we must enquire in what respects every soul that is in Christ is renewed or made a new Creature 2. and here we shall find a threefold renovation of every man that is in Christ viz. He is renewed 1. In his state and Condition 2. In his frame and Constitution 3. In his practice and Conversation First He is renewed in his state and condition for he passeth from death to life in his Justification 1 Joh. 3. 14. he was condemned by the Law he is now Justified freely by grace through the redemption which is in Christ he was under the curse of the first Covenant he is under the blessing of the new Covenant he was afar off but is now made nigh unto God an alien a stranger once now of the houshold of God Eph. 2. 12 13. O blessed change from a sad to a sweet and comfortable condition There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus Rom. 8. 1. Secondly Every man in Christ is renewed in his frame and constitution all the faculties and affections of his soul are renewed by regeneration his understanding was dark but now is light in the Lord Eph. 5. 8. his conscience was dead and secure or full of guilt and horrour but is now become tender watchful and full of peace Heb. 9. 14. his will was rebellious stubborn and inflexible but is now made obedient and complying with the will of God Psal. 110. 2. his desires did once pant and spend themselves in the pursuit of vanities now they are set upon God Isa. 26. 8. his Love did fondly dote upon ensnaring earthly objects now it is swallowed up in the infinite excellencies of God and Christ Psal. 119. 97. his joy was once in trifles and things of nought now his rejoycing is in Christ Jesus Phil. 3. 3. his fears once were versant about noxious creatures now God is the object of the fear of reverence Act. 9. 31. and sin the object of the fear of caution 2 Cor. 7. 11. his hopes and expectations were only from the world present but now from that to come Heb. 6. 19. Thus the soul in its faculties and affections is renewed which being done the members and senses of the body must needs be destinated and imployed by it in new services no more to be the weapons of unrighteousness but instruments of service to Jesus Christ Rom. 6. 19. and thus all that are in Christ are renewed in their frame and constitution Thirdly The man in Christ is renewed in his practice and Conversation the manner of operation alwayes follows the nature of beings now the regenerate not being what they were cannot walk and act as once they did Eph. 2. 1 2 3. And you hath he quickned who were once dead in trespasses and sins wherein ye walked according to the course of this world c. they were carryed away like water by the strength of the tyde by the influence of their own corrupt natures and the customes and examples of the world but the case is now altered So in 1 Cor. 6. 11. the Apostle shews believers their old companions in sin and tells them such were some of you but ye are washed but ye are sanctified c. q. d. the world is now well altered with you thanks be to the grace of God for it This wonderful change of practice which is so universal and remarkable in all the regenerate and immediately consequent to their conversion sets
the world a wondring at them 1 Pet. 4. 4. Wherein they think it strange that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Obstupescent ut ad rei inusitatae spectaculum Beza Ils se trouvent tous nouveaux comme en 〈◊〉 autre monde you run not with them to the same excess of riot speaking evil of you they think it strange the word signifies to stand at gaze as the hen doth which hath brooded and hatched Partridge Eggs when she seeth the Chickens which she hath brought forth take the wing and fly away from her thus do the men of the world stand amazed to see their old companions in sin whose language once was vain and earthly it may be prophane and filthy now to be praying speaking of God Heaven and things spiritual having no more to do with them as to sin except by way of reprehension and admonition this amazes the world and makes them look with a strange admiring eye upon the people of God Thirdly In the next place let us enquire into the properties 3. and qualities of this new creature and shew you as we are able what they are yet Reader expect not here an exact and accurate account of that which is so great a mystery for if questions may be moved about a silly fly which may puzzle the greatest Philosopher to resolve them how much more may we conceive this great and marvellous work of God the most mysterious and admirable of all his works to surmount the understandings of the most illuminated Christians O how little do we know of the nature properties and operations of this new Creature so far as God hath revealed it to our weak understandings we may speak of it And First The Scripture speaks of it as a thing of great difficulty to be conceived by man Joh. 3. 8. The wind bloweth where it listeth and thou hearest the sound thereof but canst not tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth so is every one that is born of the spirit The original of winds is a question of great difficulty in Philosophy we hear the voice of the wind feel its mighty force and behold its strange effects but neither know whence it comes or whither it goes ask a man Do you hear the wind blow yes do you feel it blow yes very sensibly do you see the effects of it rending and overturning the trees yes very plainly but can you describe its nature or declare its original no that is a mystery which I do not understand why fo Just so it is with him that is born of the spirit the holy spirit of God whose nature and operations we understand but little of comes from heaven quickens and influences our souls beats down and mortifies our lusts by his almighty power these effects of the spirit in us we experimentally feel and sensibly discern but how the spirit of God first entred into and quickned our souls and produced this new creature in them we understand little more of it than how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with Child Eccles. 11. 5. Therefore is the life of the new creature called a hidden life Col. 3. 3. the nature of that life is not only hidden totally from all carnal men but in a very great measure it is an hidden and unknown life unto spiritual men though themselves be the subjects of it Secondly But though this life of the new Creature be a great mystery and secret in some respects yet so far as it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 â—…ppears unto us the new creature is the most 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lovely creature that ever God made for the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 himself is upon it the new man is created 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 24. as the picture is drawn after the man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God himself delineated by the spirit that admirable Artist upon the soul of man holiness is the beauty and glory of God and in holiness the new creature is created after Gods own image Col. 3. 10. the regenerate soul hereby becomes holy 1 Joh. 3. 3. not essentially holy as God is nor yet efficiently holy for the regenerate soul can neither make it self nor others holy but the life of the new creature may be said to resemble the life of God in this that as God lives to himself so the new creature wholly lives to God as God loves holiness and hates the contrary so doth the new creature 't is in these things formed after the image of him that created it when God creates this creature in the soul of man we are said then to be partakers of the divine nature 2 Pet. 1. 4. so that there can be nothing communicated unto men which beautifies and adorns their souls as this new creation doth men do not resemble God as they are noble and as they are rich but as they are holy no gift no endowment of nature imbelishes the soul as this new creature doth an awful Majesty sits upon the brow of the new creature commanding the greatest and worst of men to do homage to it Mark 6. 20. yea such is the beauty of the new creature that Christ its Author is also its admirer Cant. 4. 9. Thou hast ravished mine heart with one of thine eyes Thirdly This New Creature is created in man upon the highest design that ever any work of God was wrought the end of its creation and infusion is high and noble Salvation to the soul in which it is wrought this is both the finis operis and the finis operantis it is the design both of the work and of the workman that wrought it when we receive the end of our faith we receive the salvation of our souls Salvation is the end faith as death is the end of sin so life eternal is the end of grace The new creature doth by the instinct and steady direction of its own nature take its course as directly to God and to heaven the place of his full enjoyment as the Rivers do to the Ocean it declares it self to be made for God by its restless workings after him and as salvation is the end of the new creature so it is the express design and end of him that created it 2 Cor. 5. 5. Now he that hath wrought us for the self same thing is God by this workmanship of his upon our souls he is now polishing preparing and making them meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the Saints in light Col. 1. 12. Fourthly The new Creation is the most necessary work that ever God wrought upon the soul of man the eternal well-being of his soul depends upon it and without it no man shall see God Heb. 12. 14. and Joh. 1. 3 5. Except ye be regenerate and born again ye cannot see the Kingdom of God can you be saved without Christ you know you cannot can you have interest in Christ without the new creature my Text expressly tells you it can never be for if any man
be in Christ he is a new creature O Reader what ever slight thoughts of this matter and with what a careless and unconcerned eye soever thou readest these lines yet know thou must either be a new creature or a miserable and damned creature for ever If civility without the new creature could save thee why are not the moral Heathens saved also if strictness of life without the new creature could save thee why did it not save the Scribes and Pharisees also if an high profession of Religion without the new creature can save thee why did it not save Judas Hymeneus and Philetus also Nothing is more evident than this that no repentance obedience self-denyal prayers tears reformations or ordinances without the new creation avail any thing to the salvation of thy soul the very blood of Christ himself without the new creature never did and never will save any man Oh how necessary a work is the new creation circumcision avails nothing and uncircumcision nothing but a new creature Fifthly The new Creature is a marvellous and wonderful creature there are many wonders in the first creation the works of the Lord are great sought out of all them that have pleasure therein Psal. 111. 2. but there are no wonders in nature like those in grace is it not the greatest wonder that ever was seen in the world except the incarnation of the Son of God to see the nature and temper of man so altered and changed as it is by grace to see Lascivious Corinthians and Idolatrous Ephesians become mortified and Heavenly Christians to see a fierce and cruel persecutor become a glorious confessor and sufferer for Christ Gal. 1. 23. to see the carnal-mind of man which was lately fully set in a strong bent to the world to be wholly taken off from its lusts and set upon things that are spiritual and heavenly certainly it was not a greater miracle to see dead Lazarus come out of his Sepulchre than it is to see the dead and carnal mind coming out of its Lusts to embrace Jesus Christ. It was not a greater wonder to see the dead dry bones in the vally to move and come together than it is to see a dead soul moving after God and moving to Christ in the way of faith Sixthly The new creature is an immortal creature a creature that shall never see death Joh. 4. 14. it is in the soul of man a well of water springing up into eternal life I will not adventure to say it is immortal in its own nature for it is but a creature as my Text calls it and we know that essential interminability is the incommunicable property of God the new creature hath both a beginning and succession and therefore might also have an end as to any thing in it self or its own nature experience also shews us that it is capable both of increasing and decreasing and may be brought nigh unto death Rev. 3. 2. the works of the spirit in believers may be ready to dye but though its perpetuity flow not out of its own nature it flows out of Gods Covenant and promises which make it an immortal Creature when all other excellencies in man go away as at death they will Job 4. 21. this excellency only remains our gifts may leave us our friends leave us our estates leave us but our graces will never leave us they ascend with the soul in which they inhere into glory when the stroke of death separates it from the body Seventhly The new Creature is an heavenly creature 't is not born of flesh nor of blood or of the will of man but of God Joh. 1. 13. its descent and original is heavenly it is spirit born of spirit Joh. 3. 6. its center is heaven and thither are all its tendencies Psal. 63. 8. its proper food on which it lives are heavenly things Psal. 4. 6 7. it cannot feed as other creatures do upon earthly things the object of all its delights and loves is in heaven Psal. 73. 26. Whom have I in heaven but thee the hopes and expectations of the new creature are all from heaven it looks for little in this world but waits for the coming of the Lord the life of the new creature upon earth is a life of patient waiting for Christ his desires and longings are after Heaven Phil. 1. 23. The flesh indeed lingers and would delay but the new creature hastens and would fain be gone 2 Cor. 5. 2. it is not at home while it is here it came from Heaven and cannot be quiet nor suffer the soul in which it dwells to be so until it comes thither again Eighthly The new creature is an active and laborious creature no sooner it is born but it is acting in the soul Acts 9. 6. behold he prayeth activity is its very nature Gal. 5. 25. If we live in the spirit let us walk in the spirit Nor is it to be admired that it should be always active and stirring in the soul seeing activity in obedience was the very end for which it was created for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works Eph. 2. 10. and he that is acted in the duties of Religion by this principle of the new creature or nature will so far as that principle acts him delight to do the will of God rejoice in the way of his Commandments and find the sweetest pleasure in the paths of duty Ninthly The new creature is a thriving creature growing from strength to strength 1 Pet. 2. 2. and changing the soul in which it is subjected from glory unto glory 2 Cor. 3. 18. The vigorous tendencies and constant strivings of this new creature is to attain its just perfection and maturity Phil. 3. 11. it can endure no stints and limits to its desires short of perfection every degree of strength it attains doth but whet and sharpen his desires after higher degrees upon this account it greatly delights in the Ordinances of God Duties of Religion and Society of the Saints as they are helps and improvements to it in order to its great design Tenthly The new creature is a creature of wonderful preservations there are many wonders of divine providences in Gratia nec totaliter intermittitur nec finaliter amittitur actus omittitur habitus non amittitur actio pervertitur fides noâ—… sâ—…bvertitur concutitur non excutitur deflâ—…it fructus latâ—… succus effectus justificationis suspenditur at â—…tus justificati non dissolvitur Suffrag Brit. the preservation of our natural lives but none like those whereby the life of the new creature is preserved in our souls there are critical times of temptation and desertion in which it is ready to dye Rev. 3. 2. the degrees of its strength and liveliness are sometimes sadly abated and 〈◊〉 sweet and comfortable workings intermitted Rev. 2. 4. the evidences by which its being in us was wont to be discovered may be and often are darkned 2 Pet. 1. 9.
of obedience for we are created in Christ Jesus unto good works Eph. 2. 10. Rom. 7. 4. there is true spiritual opposition to sin 1 Joh. 5. 18. He that is begotten of God keepeth himself and that wicked one toucheth him not there is love to the people of God 1 Joh. 4. 7. every one that loveth is born of God there is a conscientious respect to the duties of both Tables for the new creature is created after God in righteousness and true holiness Eph. 4. 24. there is perseverance in the ways of God to the very end and victory over all temptations for whosoever is born of God overcometh the world 1 Joh. 5. 4. It were easie to run over all other particular fruits of our union with Christ and shew you every one of them in the new creature And thus much of the Doctrinal part of this point The Twenty sixth SERMON Sermon 26. 2 COR. 5. 17. Text. Therefore if any man be in Christ he is a New Creature old things are passed away behold all things are become new AFter the explication of the sense of this Scripture we observed DOCT. That Gods creating of a new supernatural work of grace in the soul of any man is that mans sure and infallible evidence of a Doct. saving interest in Jesus Christ. You have heard why the regenerating work of the Spirit is called a new creation in what respect every soul in Christ is renewed what the eximious properties of this new creature are the indispensibleness and necessity thereof hath been also proved and how it evidences our interest in Christ was cleared in the doctrinal part which we now come to improve in the several Uses serving for our 1. Information 2. Conviction 3. Examination 4. Exhortation 5. Consolation 1st Use for Information Is the new Creature the sure and infallible evidence of our Use 1. saving interest in Christ from hence then we are informed Inference 1. How miserable and deplorable an estate all unrenewed souls are in who can lay no claim to Christ during that state and Inference 1. therefore are under an impossibility of salvation O Reader if this be the state of thy soul better had it been for thee not to have been Gods natural workmanship as a man except thou be his spiritual workmanship also as a new man I know the Schoolmen determine otherwise and say that damnation is rather to be chosen than an annihilation a miserable being is better than no being and it is very true with respect to the glory of God whose justice shall triumph for ever in the damnation of the unregenerate but with respect to us 't is much better never to have been his creatures in the way of generation than not to be his new creatures in the way of regeneration So Christ speaks of Judas that Son of perdition Mark 14. 21. Good had it been for that man if he had never been born for what is a being without the comfort of it What is life without the joy and pleasure of life A damned being is a being without comfort no glimps of light shines into that darkness they shall indeed see and understand the felicity light and joy of the Saints in glory but not partake in the least measure of the comfort Lukâ—… 13. 28. They shall see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of God but they themselves shut out such a sight is so far from giving any comfort that it will be the aggravation and increase of torment O 't is better to have no being at all than to have a being only to capacitate a man for misery to desire death while death flies from him Rev. 4. 6. The opinion of the Schoolmen will never pass for sound doctrine among the damned think on it Reader and lay it to thine heart better thou hadst dyed from the womb better the knees had prevented thee and the breasts which thou hast sucked than that thou shouldst live and dye a stranger to the new birth or that thy Mother should bring thee forth only to encrease and fill up the number of the damned Inference 2. And on the contrary we may hence learn what cause regenerate Inference 2. souls have to bless God for the day wherein they were born O what a priviledged state doth the new birth bring men into 'T is possible for the present they understand it not for many Believers are like a great Heir lying in the Cradle that knows not to what an estate and honour he is born Nevertheless on the same day wherein we become new creatures by regeneration we have a firm title and solid claim to all the priviledges of the Sons of God Joh. 1. 12 13. God becomes our Father by a treble title not only the Father of our beings by nature which was all the relation we had to him before but our Father by Adoption and by Regeneration which is a much sweeter and more comfortable relation In that day the Image of God is restored Eph. 4. 24. this is both the health and beauty of the soul. In that day we are begotten again to a lively hope 1 Pet. 1. 3. a hope more worth than ten thousand worlds in the troubles of life and in the straits of death this is a creature which lives for ever and will make thy life happy for ever Some have kept their birth-day as a festival a day of rejoycing but none have more cause to rejoice that ever they were born than those that are new born Inference 3. Learn from hence that the work of grace is wholly supernatural Inference 3. 't is a creation and creation work is above the power of the creature no power but that which gave being to the world can give a being to the new creature almighty power goes forth to give being to the new creature this creature is not born of flesh or of blood nor of the will of man but of God Joh. 1. 13. the nature of this new creature speaks its original to be above the power of nature the very notion of a new creation spoils the proud boasts of the great asserters of the power and ability of the will of man When God therefore puts the question who maketh thee to differ and what hast thou that thou hast not received Let thy soul Reader answer it with all humility and thankfulness 't is thou Lord thou only that madest me to differ from another and what I have received I have received from thy free grace Inference 4. If the work of grace be a new creation let not the parents and friends of the unregenerate utterly despair of the conversion of their Inference 4. relations how great soever their present discouragements are if it had been possible for a man to have seen the rude and indigested Chaos before the Spirit of God moved upon it would he not have said can such a beautiful order of beings such a pleasant variety
heart Thirdly The crucifixion of the flesh doth not consist in the cessation of the external acts of sin for in that respect the lusts of men may dye of their own accord even a kind of natural death The members of the body are the weapons of unrighteousness as the Apostle calls them age or sickness may so blunt or break those weapons that the soul cannot use them to such sinful purposes and services as it was wont to do in the vigorous and healthful season of life not that there is less sin in the heart but because there is less strength and activity in the body Just as it is with an old Soldier who hath as much skill policy and delight as ever in military actions but age and hard services have so infeebled him that he can no longer follow the camp Fourthly The crucifixion of sin doth not consist in the fevere castigations of the body and penancing it by stripes fasting and tiresome pilgrimages This may pass for mortification among Papists but never was any lust of the flesh destroyed by this rigour Christians indeed are bound not to indulge and pamper the body which is the instrument of sin nor yet must we think that the spiritual corruptions of the soul â—…eel those stripes which are inflicted upon the body see Col. 2. 23. 't is not the vanity of superstition but the power of true religion which crucifies and destroys corruption 't is faith in Christs blood not the spilling of our own blood which gives sin the mortal wound Secondly But if you enquire what then is implied in the Posit 2. mortification or crucifixion of sin and wherein it doth consist I answer First It necessarily implies the souls implantation into Christ and union with him without which it is impossible Errant in ipsa natura mortificationis Christianae nam corporis afflictionem injuriam reputant pro vera mortificatione cum illa non ad carnem praecipue aut inferiorem animae partem sed ad mentem voluntatem maximè pertineat Davenant in Coloss. 256. that any one corruption should be mortified they that are Christs have crucified the flesh the attempts and endeavors of all others are vain and ineffectual when we were in the flesh saith the Apostle the motions of sin which were by the Law did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death Rom. 5. 7. sin was then in its full dominion no abstinence rigour or outward severity no purposes promises or solemn vows could mortifie or destroy it there must be an implantation into Christ before there can be any effectual crucifixion of sin what Believer almost hath not in the days of his first convictions tryed all external methods and means of mortifying sin and found it in experience to be to as little purpose as the binding of Sampson with green Wit hs or Cords But when he hath once come to act faith upon the death of Christ then the design of mortification hath prospered and succeeded to good purpose Secondly Mortification of sin implies the agency of the spirit of God in that work without whose assistances and aids all our endeavours must needs be fruitless of this work we may say as it was said in another case Zech. 4. 6. not by might noâ—… by power but by my spirit saith the Lord. When the Apostle therefore would shew by what hand this work of mortification is performed he thus expresseth it Rom. 8. 13. if ye through the spirit do mortifie the deeds of the body ye shall live the duty is ours but the power whereby we perform it is Gods the spirit is the only successful Combatant against the lusts that war in our members Gal. 5. 17. 't is true this excludes not but implies our endeavours for it is we through the spirit that mortifie the deeds of the body but yet all our endeavours without the Spirits aid and influence avail nothing Thirdly The crucifixion of sin necessarily implies the subversion of its dominion in the soul a mortified sin cannot be a reigning sin Rom. 6. 12 13 14. Two things constitute the dominion of sin viz. the fulness of its power and the souls subjection tâ—… it As to the fulness of its power that rises from the suitableness it hath and pleasure it gives to the corrupt heart of man it seems to be as necessary as the right hand as useful and pleasant as the right eye Mat. 5. 29. but the mortified heart is dead to all pleasures and profits of sin it hath no delight or pleasure in it it becomes its burthen and daily complaint Mortification presupposes the illumination of the mind and conviction of the conscience by reason whereof sin cannot deceive and blind the mind or bewitch and ensnare the will and affections as it was wont to do and consequently its dominion over the soul is destroyed and lost Fourthly The crucifying of the flesh implies a gradual weakning of the power of sin in the soul. The death of the Cross was a slow and lingering death and the crucified person grew weaker and weaker every hour so it is in the mortification of sin the soul is still cleansing it self from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit and perfecting holiness in the fear of God 2 Cor. 7. 1. And as the body of sin is weakned more and more so the inward man or the new creature is renewed day by day 2 Cor. 4. 16. for sanctification is a progressive work of the spirit and as holiness increases and roots it self deeper and deeper in the soul so the power and interest of sin proportionably abates and sinks lower and lower until at length it be swallowed up in victory Fifthly The crucifying of the flesh notes to us the Believers designed application of all spiritual means and sanctified instruments for the destruction of it there is nothing in this world which a gracious heart more vehemently desires and longs for than the death of sin and perfect deliverance from it Rom. 7. 2â—… the sincerity of which desires doth accordingly manifest it self in the daily application of all Gods remedies such are daily watching against the occasions of sin Job 31. 1. I have made a Covenant with mine eyes more than ordinary vigilancy over their special or proper sin Psal. 18. 23. I kept my self from mine iniquity earnest cries to Heaven for preventing grace Psal. 19. 13. keep back thy Servant also from presumptuous sins let them not have dominion over me deep humbling of soul for sins past which is an excellent preventive unto future sins 2 Cor. 2. 11. in that he sorrowed after a Godly sort what carefulness it wrought care to give no furtherance or advantage to the design of sin by making provision for the flesh to fulfill the Lusts thereof as others do Rom. 13. 13 14. willingness to bear the due reproofs of sin Psal. 141. 5. Let the righteous smite me it shall be a kindness these and such like means of
interest in Christ as my Text considers it and what an heaven upon earth must then be found in mortification These indeavours of mine to subdue and mortifie my corruptions plainly speak the Spirit of God in me and my being in Christ and O what is this What heart hath largeness and strength enough to receive and contain the joy and comfort which flowes from a cleared interest in Jesus Christ Certainly Christians the tranquillity and comfort of your whole life depends upon it and what is life without the comfort of life Rom. 8. 13. If ye through the Spirit do mortifie the deeds of the body ye shall live i. e. you shall live a serene placid comfortable life for it is corruption unmortified which clouds the face of God and breaks the peace of his people and consequently imbitters the life of a Christian. 2. Motive As the comfort of your own lives which is much so your Motive 2. instrumental fitness for the service of God which is much more depends upon the Mortification of your sins 2 Tim. 2. 21. If a man therefore purge himself from these he shall be a vessel unto honour sanctified and meet for the masters use and prepared unto every good work Where is the mercy of life but in the usefulness and serviceableness of it unto God It is not worth while to live sixty or seventy years in the world to eat and drink to buy and sell to laugh and cry and then go down to the place of silence So far as any man lives to God an useful serviceable life to his praise and honour so far only and no farther doth he answer the end of his being But it is the purged mortified soul which is the vessel of honour prepared and meet for the masters use Let a proud or an earthly heart be imployed in any service for God and you shall find that such an heart will both spoil the work by managing it for a self end as Jehu did and then devour the praise of it by a proud boast Come see my zeal When the Lord would employ the prophet Isaiah in his work and service his iniquity was first purged and after that he was imployed Isa. 6. 6 7 8. Sin is the souls sickness a consumption upon the inner man and we know that languishing consumptive persons are very unfit to be imployed in difficult and strenuous labours Mortification so far as it prevails cures the disease recovers our strength and inables us for service to God in our generations 3. Motive Your stability and safety in the hour of temptation depends Motive 3. upon the success of your mortifying endeavours Is it then a valuable mercy in your eyes to be kept upright and stedfast in the critical season of temptation when Satan shall be wrestling with you for the Crown and Prize of eternal life Then give diligence to mortifie your corruptions Temptation is a siege Satan is the enemy without the walls labouring to force an entrance natural corruptions are the Traytours within that hold correspondency with the enemy without and open the gate of the soul to receive him It was the covetousness of Judas his heart which overthrew him in the hour of Temptation They are our fleshly lusts which go over unto Satan in the day of Battel and fight against our souls 1 Pet. 2. 11. the corruptions or infectious atomes which fly up and down the world in times of Temptation as that word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 imports 2 Pet. 2. 20. are through lusts 2 Pet. 1. 4. 'T is the lust within which gives a luster to the vanities of the world without and thereby makes them strong temptations to us 1 John 2. 16. Mortifie therefore your corruptions as ever you expect to maintain your station in the day of trial cut off those advantages of your enemy lest by them he cut off your souls and all your hopes from God 4. Motive As Temptations will be irresistible so afflictions will be unsupportable to you without Mortification My friends you Motive 4. live in a mutable world providence daily rings the changes in all the Kingdoms Cities and Towns all the world over You that have husbands or wives to day may be left desolate to morrow you that have estates and children now may be bereaved of both before you are aware Sickness will tread upon the heel of health and death will assuredly follow life as the night doth the day Consider with your selves are you able to bear the loss of your sweet enjoyments with patience Can you think upon the parting hour without some tremblings O get a heart mortified to all these things and you will bless a taking as well as a giving God 'T is the living world not the crucified world that raises such tumults in our souls in the day of affliction How cheerful was holy Paul under all his sufferings and what think you gave him that peace and cheerfulness but his mortification to the world Phil. 4. 12. I know both how to be abased and I know how to abound every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry both to abound and suffer need Job was the mirrour of patience in the greatest shock of calamity and what made him so but the moâ—…tifiedness of his heart in the fullest enjoyment of earthly things Job 31. 25. 5. Motive The reputation and honour of Religion is deeply concerned in the Mortification of the Professors of it for unmortified Motive 5. professors will first or last be the scandals and reproaches of it The profession of religion may give credit to you but to be sure you will never bring credit to it All the scandals and reproaches that fall upon the name of Christ in this world flow from the fountain of unmortified corruption Judas and Demas Hymeneus and Philetus Ananias and Saphira ruined themselves and became rocks of offence to others by this means If ever you will keep Religion sweet labour to keep your hearts mortified and pure 6. Motive To conclude what an hardâ—…tug will you have in your dying Motive 6. hour except you get a heart mortified to this world and all that is in it your parting hour is like to be a dreadful hour without the help of mortification Your corruptions like glew fasten your affections to the world and how hard will it be for such a man to be separated by death O what a bitter and doleful parting have carnal hearts from carnal things whereas the mortified soul can receive the messengers of death without trouble and as cheerfully put off the body at death as a man doth his clothes at night death need not pull and hale such a man goes half way to meet it Phil. 1. 23. I desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ which is far better Christian wouldst thou have thy death bed soft and easie wouldst thou have an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the
so I do Thus let all your obedience to God turn upon the hinge of love For love is the fulfilling of the law Rom. 13. 10. Not as if no other duty but love were required in the law but because no act of obedience is acceptable to God but that which is performed in love Fifthly In a word The obedience of Christ was constant he was obedient unto the death he was not weary of his work to the last Such a patient continuance in well doing is one part of your conformity to Christ Rom. 2. 7. 't is laid upon you by his own express command and a command back'd with the most incouraging promise Rev. 2. 10. Be thou faithful unto the death and I will give thee the crown of life Pattern 3. The self-denial of Christ is the pattern of believers and their Conformity unto it is their indispensable duty Phil. 2. Vulpibus in saltu rupes excisa latebr as Praebet aereis avibus dat sylva quietem Ast hominis nato nullis succedere tectis Est licitum Heinsius 4 5 6. 2 Cor. 8. 9. For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that though he was rich yet for your sakes he became poor that ye through his poverty might be rich Jesus Christ for the glory of God and the love he bare to the elect denied himself all the delights and pleasures of this world Mat. 20. 28. The Son of man came not to be ministred unto but to minister and to give his life a ransom for many he was all his life long in the world a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief Isa. 53. 3. more unprovided of comfortable accommodations than the birds of the air or beasts of the earth Luke 9. 58. The Foxes have holes and the Birds of the air have nests but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head Yet this was the least part of Christs self-denial what did he not deny when he left the bosom of his Father with the ineffable delights and pleasures he there enjoyed from Eternity and instead thereof to drink the cup the bitter cup of his Fathers wrath for our sakes O Christians look to your pattern and imitate your self-denying Saviour There is a threesold self you are to deny for Christ. First Deny your natural self for him Luke 14. 26. Hate your own life in competition with his glory as well as your natural lusts Titus 2. 12. Secondly Deny your Civil self for Christ whether they be gifts of the mind Phil. 3. 8. or your dearest relations in the world Luke 14. 26. Thirdly deny your moral and religious self for Christ your own righteousness Phil. 3. 10. deny sinful self absolutely Col. 3. 4 5. Deny natural self conditionally i. e. be ready to forsake its interests at the call of God Deny your religious self even your own graces comparatively not in the notion of duties but in the notion of righteousness and to encourage you in this difficult work consider First what great things Christ denied for you and wâ—…at small matters you have to deny for him Secondly how readily he denied all for your sakes making no objections against the difficultest commands Thirdly How uncapable you are to put any obligation upon Christ to deny himself in the least for you and what strong obligations Christ hath put you under to deny your selves in your greatest interests upon earth for him Fourthly Remember that your self-denial is a condition consented to and subscribed by your selves if ever you received Christ aright Fifthly In a word Consider how much your self-denial for Christ makes for your advantage in both worlds Luke 18. 29. O therefore look not every man upon his own things but upon the things that are of Christ let not that be justly charged upon you which was charged upon them Phil. 2. 21. All seek their own not the things which are Christs Pattern 4. The activity and diligence of Christ in finishing the work of God which was committed to him as a pattern for all believers to imitate 'T is said of him Acts 10. 38. He went about doing good O what a great and glorious work did Christ finish in a little time a work to be celebrated to all Eternity by the praises of the redeemed Six things were very remarkable in the diligence of Christ about his Fathers work First That his heart was intently set upon it Psal. 4. 8. Thy Law is in the midst of my heart or bowels Secondly That he never sainted under the many great discouragements he frequently met withal in that work Isa. 42. 4. He shall not fail nor be discouraged Thirdly That the shortness of his time provoked him to the greatest diligence John 9. 4. I must work the work of him that sent me while it is day for the night cometh when no man can work Fourthly That he improved all opportunities companies and occurrences to further the great work which was under his hand John 4. 6 10. Fifthly nothing more displeased him than when he met with disswasions and discouragements in his work upon that accâ—…t it was that he gave Peter so sharp a check Mat. 8. 33. Get thee behind me Satan Sixthly Nothing rejoyced his soul more than the prosperity and success of his work Luke 10. 20 21. When the Disciples made the report of the success of their Ministry it is said in that hour Jesus rejoyced in spirit And O what a triumphant shout was that upon the cross at the accomplishment of his work John 19. 30. It is finished Now Christians eye your Pattern look unto Jesus trifle not away your lives in vanity Christ was diligent be not you slothful And to encourage you in your imitation of Christ in labour and diligence consider First How great an honour God puts upon you in employing you for his service Every vessel of service is a vessel of honour 2 Tim. 2. 21. The Apostle was very ambitious of that honour Rom. 15. 20. It was the glory of Eliakim to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ambio dictum verbum ab amore honoris Zanch. be fastned as a nail in a sure place and to have many people hang upon him Isa. 22. 33. Secondly Your diligence in the work of God will be your great security in the hour of temptation for the Lord is with you while you are with him 2 Chron. 15. 2. The Schoolmen put the question How the saints in heaven become impeccable and resolve it thus that they are therefore freed from sin because they are continually employed and swallowed up in the blessed visions of God Thirdly Diligence in the work of God is an excellent help to the improvement of grace For though gracious habits are not acquired yet they are greatly improved by frequent acts To him that hath shall be given Mat. 25. 29. It is a good note of Luther Fides pinguescit operâ—…us Faith is made fat by obedience Fourthly Diligence in the work
of God is the direct way to the assurance of the love of God 2 Pet. 15. 10. This path leads you into heaven upon earth Fifthly Diligence in obedience is a great security against backsliding Small remissions in duty and little neglects increase by degrees unto great Apostasies you may see how that disease is bred by the method prescribed for its cure Rev. 2. 5. Do thy first works Sixthly In a word laborious diligence in the day of life will be your singular comfort when the night of death over takes you 2 Pet. 1. 11. 2 Kings 20. 3. Pattern 5. Delight in God and in his service was eminently conspicuous in the life of Christ and is a rare pattern for believers imitation John 4. 32 34. But he said unto them I have meat to eat that ye know not of my meat is to do the will of him that sent me and to finish his work The delights of Christ were all in heaven The Son of man was in heaven in respect of delight in God while he conversed here among men And if you be Christs heavenly things will be the delight of your souls also Now spiritual delight is nothing else but the complacency and well-pleasedness of a renewed heart in conversing with God and the things of God resulting from the agreeableness of them to the spiritual temper of his mind Four things are considerable about spiritual delights First The nature of it which consisteth in the complacency rest and satisfaction of the mind in God and spiritual things The heart of a Christian is centred it is where it would be it is gratified in the highest in the actings forth of faith and love upon God as the tast is gratified with a suitable delicious relish Psal. 63. 5 6. Psal. 119. 14 24. Psal. 17. 18. Secondly The object of spiritual delight which is God himself and the things which relate to him He is the blessed Ocean into which all the streams of spiritual delight do pour themselves Psal. 73. 25. Whom have I in heaven but thee and on earth there is none that I desire incomparison of thee Thirdly The subject of spiritual delight which is a renewed heart and that only so far as it is renewed Rom. 7. 22. I delight in the Law of God after the inward man Fourthly The principle and spring of this delight which is the agreeable ess of spiritual things to the temper and frame of a renewed mind A sensitive pleasure arises from the suitableness of the faculty and object So it is here no delicious sweetness can be so pleasant to the taste or beautiful colours to the eye or melodious sounds to the ear as spiritual things to the renewed souls because spiritual senses are delicate and the objects more excellent But my business here is not so much to open its nature as press you to the practice thereof in conformity to your great pattern whose life was a life of delight in God and whose work was performed with the greatest delight for God I delight to do thy will O my God O Christians strive to imitate your pattern in this and to encourage you I will briefly hint a few things First Scarce any thing can be more evidential of sincerity than a heart delighting in God and the will of God Hypocrites go as far as others in the material part of duties but here they are defective they have no delight in God and things spiritual but do whatsoever they do in Religion from the compulsions of conscience or accommodations of self ends Secondly An heart delighting in God will be a choice help and means to perseverance The reason why many so easily part with Religion is because their souls never tasted the sweetness of it they never delighted in it but the Christian who delights in the Law of God will be meditating day and night and shall be like a tree planted by a river of water whose leaf fadeth not Psal. 1. 2 3. Thirdly This will represent Religion very beautifully and takingly to such as are yet strangers to it you will then be able to invite them to Christ by your example the language whereof will be like that Psal. 34. 8. O taste and see that God is good Fourthly This will make all your services to God very pleasing and acceptable through Christ you will now begin to do the will of God on earth as it is done in heaven your duties are so far Angelical as they are performed in the strength of delight in God But may not a sincere Christian act in duty without delight Obj. yea may he not feel some kind of weariness in duties Yes doubtless he may but then we must distinguish betwixt the Temper and Distemper of a renewed heart the best hearts Sol. are not always in their right frame Pattern 6. The inoffensiveness of the life of Christ upon earth is an excellent pattern to all his people he injured none offended none but was holy and harmless as the Apostle speaks Heb. 7. 26. He denied his own liberty to avoid occasion of offence as in the case of the Tribute Mony Mat. 19. 27. The children are free notwithstanding lest we should offend them go c. So circumspect was Christ and inoffensive among all men that though his enemies sought occasion against him yet could they find none Luke 6. 7. Look unto Jesus O ye professors of Religion imitate him in this gracious excellency of his life according to his command Phil. 2. 15. That ye may be harmless and blameless the Sons of God without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation You are indeed allowed the exercise of your prudence but not a jot farther than will consist with your innocence Be ye wise as Serpents and harmless as Doves 'T is the rule of Christ that you offend none 1 Cor. 10. 32. 2 Cor. 6. 3. And to engage you to the imitation of Christ in this I will briefly press it with a few encouragements which methinks should prevail with any heart that 's truly gracious First For the honour of Jesus Christ be you inoffensive his name is called upon you his honour is concerned in your deportment if your carriage in the world give just matter of offence Christs worthy name will be blasphemed thereby James 2. 7. Your inoffensive carriage is the only means to stop the mouths of detractours 1 Pet. 2. 15. Secondly For the sake of souls the precious immortal souls of others be wary that you give no offence wo to the world saith Christ because of offences Mat. 13. 7. Nothing was more commonly objected against Christ and religion by the heathen in Cyprians time than the loose and scandalous lives of professors Behold say they these are the men who Ecce qui jactant se redemptosà tyranni de Satanae qui praedicant se mortuos esse mundo nibi lominus vincuntur cuâ—…iditatibus sâ—…is Cyprian boast themselves to be redeemed from the
and obedience here 3. Motive The Conformity of your lives to Christ your pattern is Motive 3. your highest excellency in this world the measure of your grace is to be estimated by this rule The excellency of every creature rises higher and higher according as it approaches still nearer and nearer to its original the more you resemble Christ in grace the more illustrious and resplendent will your conversations be in true spiritual glory 4. Motive So far as you imitate Christ in your lives and no farther you will be beneficial to the world in which you live So far Motive 4. as God helps you to follow Christ you will be helpful to bring others to Christ or build them up in Christ for all men are forbidden by the Gospel to follow you one step farther than you follow Christ 1 Cor. 11. 1. and when you have finished your course in this world the remembrance of your ways will be no further sweet to others than they are ways of holiness and obedience to Christ 1 Cor. 4. 17. If you walk according to the course of this world the world will not be the better for your walking 5. Motive To walk as Christ walked is a walk only worthy of a Christian this is to walk worthy of the Lord 1 Thes. 2. 12. Col. 1. Motive 5. 10. by worthiness the Apostle doth not mean meritoriousness but comeliness or that decorum which befits a Christian as when a man walks suitably to his place and calling in the world we say he acts like himself So when you walk after Dignitatis vocabulum in scripturis non semper denotat exactam proportionem aequalitatis rei ad rem sed quandam convenieâ—…tiam decentiam quae tollit repugnantiam Davenant in Col. p. 52. Christs pattern you then act like your selves like men of your character and profession This is consonant to your vocation Eph. 4. 1. I beseech you that you walk worthy of the vocation wherewith you are called This walking suits with your obligation 2 Cor. 5. 15. For it is to live unto him who died for us This walking only suits with your designation Eph. 2. 10. For you are created in Christ Jesus unto good works which God hath before ordained we should walk in them In a word such walking as this and such only becomes your expectation 2 Pet. 3. 14. wherefore beloved seeing that you look for such things be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace without spot and blameless 6. Motive How comfortable will the close of your life be at death if you have walked after Christs pattern and example in this Motive 6. world A comfortable death is ordinarily the close of a holy life Psal. 37. 37. Mark the perfect man and behold the upright for the end of that man is peace A loose careless life puts many terrible stings into death As worms in the body are bred of the putrefaction there so the worm of conscience is bred of the moral putrefaction or corruption that is in our natures and conversations O then be prevailed with by all these considerations to imitate Christ in the whole course and compass of your coversations 3d. Use for Consolation Lastly I would leave a few words of support and comfort to such as sincerely study and endeavour according to the tendency Use 3. of their new nature to follow Christs example but being weak in grace and meeting with strong temptations are frequently carried beside the holy purposes and designs of their honest meaning hearts to the great grief and discouragement of their souls They heartily wish and aim at holiness and say with David Psal. 119. 5. O that my ways were directed to keep thy statutes They follow after exactness in holiness as Paul did Phil. 3. 12. If by any means they might attain it But finding how short they come in all things of the rule and pattern they mourn as he did Rom. 7. 24. O wretched maâ—… that I am who shall deliver me from the body of this death Well well if this be thy case be not discouraged but hearken to a few words of support and comfort with which I shall close this point 1. Support Such defects in obedience make no flaw in your Justification For your Justification is not built upon your obedience 1. Support but upon Christs Rom. 3. 24. and how incompleat and defective soever you be in your selves yet at the same instant you are compleat in him which is the head of all principality and power Col. 2. 10. Wo to Abraham Moses David Paul and the most eminent Saints that ever lived if their Justification and acceptation with God had depended upon the perfection and compleatness of their own obedience 2. Support Your deep troubles for the defectiveness of your obedience doth not argue you to be less but more sanctified than those 2. Support who make no such complaints for this proves you to be better acquainted with your own hearts than others are to have a deeper hatred of sin than others have and to love God with a more fervent love than others do the most eminent Saints have made the bitterest complaints upon this account Psal. 65. 3. Rom. 7. 23 24. 3. Support The Lord makes excellent uses even of your infirmities and failings to do you good and makes them turn to your unexpected 3. Support advantage For by these defects he hides pride from your eyes he beats you off from self-dependance he makes you to admire the riches of free grace he makes you to long more ardently for heaven and entertain the sweeter thoughts of death and doth not the Lord then make blessed fruits to spring up to you from such a bitter root O the blessed Chymistry of heaven to extract such mercies out of such miseries 4. Support Your bewailed infirmities do not break the bond of the 4. Support everlasting Covenant The bond of the Covenant holds firm notwithstanding your defects and weaknesses Jer. 32. 40. Iniquities prevail against me saith David yet in the same breath he adds as for our transgressions thou shalt purge them away Psal. 65. 3. He 's still thy God thy Father for all this 5. Support Though the defects of your obedience are grievous to God yet your deep sorrows for them are well-pleasing in his eyes 5. Support Psal. 51. 17. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit a broken and a contrite heart O God thou wilt not despise Ephraim was never a more pleasant child to his father than when he moaned himself and smote upon his thigh as thou dost Jer. 31. 20. Your sins grieve him but your sorrows please him 6. Support Though God have left many defects to humble you yet he hath given many things to comfort you This is a 6. Support comfort that the desire of thy soul is to God and to the remembrance of his name This is a comfort that thy sins are not
thy delight as once they were but thy shame and sorrow This is a comfort that thy case is not singular but more or less the same complaints and sorrows are found in all gracious souls through the world and to say all in one word This is the comfort above all comforts that the time is at hand in which all thâ—…se defects infirmities and failings shall be done away 1 Cor. 13. 10. When that which is perfect is come then that which is in part shall be done away For ever blessed be God for Jesus Christ. And thus I have finished the third general Use of Examination whereby every man is to try his interest in Christ and discern whether ever Christ hath been effectually applied to his soul. That which remains is a Use of Lamentation Wherein the miserable and most wretched state of all those to whom Jesus Christ is not effectually applied will be yet more particularly discovered and bewailed The Thirty first SERMON Sernâ—… EPHES. 5. 14. Wherefore he saith Awake thou that sleepest and rise from the dead and Christ shall give thee light Text. Of the state of Spiritual Death and the misery thereof THis Scripture represents unto us the miserable and lamentable state of the unregenerate as being under the power of spiritual death which is the cause and in-let of all other miseries From hence therefore I shall make the first discovery of the woful and wretched state of them that apply not Jesus Christ to their own souls The scope of the Apostle in this Context is to press believers to a circumspect and holy life to walk as children of light This exhortation is laid down in ver 8. and pressed by diverse arguments in the following verses First from the tendency of holy principles unto holy fruits and practices ver 9 10. Secondly from the convincing efficacy of practical godliness upon the consciences of the wicked ver 11 12 13. It awes and convinces their consciences Thirdly from the co incidence of such a conversation with the great design and drift of the scriptures which is to awaken men by regeneration out of that spiritual sleep or rather death which sin hath cast them into And this is the Argument of the Text Wherefore he saith Awake thou that sleepest c. There is some difficulty in the reference of these words Some think it refers to Isa. 26. 19. Awake and sing ye that dwell in the dust Others to Isa. 60. 1. Arise shine for thy light is come c. But most probably the words neither refer to this or that particularly but to the drift and scope of the whole Scriptures which were inspired and written upon this great design to awaken and quicken souls out of the state of spiritual death And in them we are to consider these three things more distinctly and particularly 1. The miserable state of the unregenerate they are asleep and dead 2. Their duty which is to awake and stand up from the dead 3. The power enabling them thereunto Christ shall give thee light First The miserable state of the unregenerate represented under the Notions of sleep and death both expressions intending 1. one and the same thing though with some variety of Notion The Christless and unregenerate world is in a deep sleep a spirit of slumber senselesness and security is fallen upon them though they lie exposed immediately to eternal wrath and misery ready to drop into hell every moment Just as a man that is fast asleep in a house on fire and whilst the consuming flames are round about him his fancy is sporting it self in some pleasant dream this is a very lively resemblance of the unregenerate soul. But yet he that sleeps hath the principle of life entire in him though his senses be bound and the actions of life suspended by sleep Lest therefore we should think it is only so with the unregenerate the expression is designedly varied and those that were said to be asleep are positively affirmed to be dead on purpose to inform us that it is not a simple suspension of the acts and exercise but a total privation of the principle of spiritual life which is the misery of the unregenerate Secondly We have here the duty of the unregenerate which is to awake out of sleep and arise from the dead This is their great 2. concernment no duty in the world is of greater necessity and importance to them Strive saith Christ to enter in at the strait gate Luke 13. 24. And the order of these duties is very natural First awake then arise Startling and rousing convictions make way for spiritual life till God awake us by convictions of our misery we will never be perswaded to arise and move towards Christ for remedy and safety Thirdly But you will say if unregenerate men be dead men to what purpose is it to perswade them to arise and stand up 3. The very exhortation supposes some power or ability in the Quamvis verba videntur velle primum excitari surgere deinde illuminari tamen intelligendum est vi lucis Christi excitari eum surgere Roll. in Loc. unregenerate else in vain are they commanded to arise This difficulty is solved in this very Text though the duty be ours yet the power is Gods God commands that in his word which only his grace can perform Christ shall give thee light Popish Commentators would build the power of free will upon this Scripture by a very weak argument drawn from the order wherein these things are here expressed which is but a weak foundation to build upon for it is very usual in Scripture to put the effect before and the cause after as it is here so in Isa. 26. 19. Awake and sing ye that dwell in the dust But I will not here intangle my discourse with that controversie that which I aim at is plain in the words viz. DOCT. That all Christless souls are under the power of Spiritual death Doct. they are in the state of the dead Multitudes of testimonies are given in Scripture to this truth Eph. 2. 1 5. You hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins Col. 2. 13. And you being dead in your sint and the uncircumcision of your flesh hath he quickened together with him with many other places of the same importance But the method in which I shall discourse this point will be this First I will shew you in what sence Christless and unregenerate men are said to be dead Secondly what the state of spiritual death is Thirdly how it appears that all unregenerate men are in this sad state And then apply it First In what sense are Christless and unregenerate men 1. said to be dead men To open this we must know there is a threefold death viz. Death 1. Natural 2. Spiritual 3. Eternal Natural death is nothing else but the privation of the principle of natural life or the separation of
at the Judgement Seat of Christ in the great day and verily in this thing is the love of God perfected 1 John 4. 17. O 't is a priviledge in which the grace mercy and love of God do â—…ine forth as clearly as the sun when it shineth in its full strength And certainly you will find cause to lye at the feet of God astonished and overwhelmed with the sense of this mercy when you shall find your selves freed from the condemnation of God whilst many others as good as you were are still under condemnation Yea your selves freed and many of your Superiors in the world still under the curse 1 Cor. 1. 26. Yea your selves freed and others that sate under the same means of grace and had the same external advantages you had still in chains 2 Cor. 2. 16. O brethren this is a marvellous deliverance look on it which way you will your ransome is paid and not a peny of it by you it cost you nothing to procure your pardon Your pardon is full and not one sin excepted out of it that you ever committed Your are freed and Jesus Christ condemned in your stead to procure your discharge your pardon is sealed in his blood and is irrevocable for ever so that you shall never any more come into condemnation He that heareth my word and believeth on him that sent me hath everlasting life and shall not come into condemnation but is passed from death to life John 5. 24. Let them that are so delivered spend their days on earth in praise and cheerful obedience and when they die let them not shrink away from death nor be afraid to take it by the cold hand it can do them no harm Yea let them close their dying lips with Thanks be to God for Jesus Christ. The Thirty third SERMON Sermon 33. JOHN 3. 19. Text. And this is the Condemnation that light is come into the Of the Aggravation of the sin and punishment of unbelief under the light of the Gospel world and men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil OUt of the fore-going Verse it was fully proved in our last Sermon that all Christless and unregenerate men are no better than dead men being Condemned already Our Saviour proceeds in this Verse to aggravate the misery of those that refuse and despise him yet farther and to let them know that those who remain in unbelief and the state of unregeneracy must expect some greater and sorer wrath than other men not only a simple Condemnation but an aggravated and peculiar Condemnation This is the Condemnation that light is come c. In the words we find these three parts 1. The aggravation of sin by the abuse of Gospel light Light is come c. 2. The aggravation of misery in proportion to that abuse of light this is the condemnation 3. The cause and occasion drawing men into this sin and misery because their deeds were evil First We have here the aggravation of sin by the abuse of Gospel Light Light is come By Light we are to understand 1. the knowledge discovery and manifestation of Christ and Redemption by him in the Gospel He is the Son of righteousness that arises in the Gospel upon the nations Mal. 4. 1. When he came in the flesh then did the day-spring from on high visit us Luke 1. 78. And the light may be said to come two ways either First In the means by which it is conveyed to us or Secondly in the efficacy of it upon our minds when it actually shines into our souls Light may come among a people in the means and yet they actually remain in darkness all the while As it is in nature The sun may be up and a very glorious morning far advanced whilst many thousands are drouzing upon their beds with their curtains drawn about them Light in the means we may call potential Light Light in the mind we may cali actual light It is but seldom that light comes in the means and continues long among men but some light must needs actually shine into their souls also but this actual light is twofold 1. Common and intellectual only to conviction or 2. Special and efficacious light bringing the foul to Christ by real conversion call'd in 1 Cor. 4. 6. Gods shining into the heart Where ever light comes in this last sense it is impossible that such men should prefer darkness before it but it may come in the means yea it may actually shine into the consciences of men by those means and convince them of their sins and yet men may hate it and choose darkness rather than light And this is the sense of this place Light was come in the Gospel dispensation among them yea it hath shined into many of their consciences gauled and reproved them for sin but they hated it and had rather be without such a troublesome inmate In a word by the coming of light we are here to understand a more clear and open manifestation of Christ by the Gospel than ever was made to the world before for we are not to think that there was no light in the world till Christ came and the Gospel was published in the world by the Apostles ministry For Abraham saw Christ's day John 8. 56. and all the faithful before Christ saw the promises i. e. their accomplishment in Christ afar off Heb. 11. 13. for it was with Christ the Son of righteousness as it is with the natural Sun which illuminates the hemisphere before it actually rises or shews its body above the Horizon but when it rises and shews it self the light is much Sol nonduâ—… conspectus illuminat orbem clearer so it was in this case The greater therefore was their sin that rebelled against it and preferred darkness to light this was their sin with its fearful aggravation Secondly In a most just proportion to this sin we have 2. here the aggravated condemnation of them who sinned against such clear Gospel-light This is the condemnation this is the judgement of all judgements the greatest and most intolerable judgement a severer sentence of condemnation than ever did pass against any others that sinned in the times of ignorance and darkness they that live and dye impenitent and unregenerate how few soever the means of salvation have been which they have enjoyed must be condemned yea the Pagan world who have no more but natural light to help them will be condemned by that light but this is the condemnation i. e. such sinning as this is the cause of the greatest condemnation and sorest punishment as it 's called Heb. 10. 19. Thirdly The cause and occasion drawing men into this sin and misery because their deeds were evil i. e. the convincing 3. light of truth put a great deal of vigour and activity into their Consciences which they could not endure The accusations and condemnations of Conscience are very irksome and troublesome things to
be attended p. 89 Outward troubles how cured p. 222 Oyl of gladness what it notes p. 164 P. PArdon of sin how sweet p. 188 Papists how they still Conscience p. 203 Pauses made in Conversion p. 77 Penance no act of mortification p. 460 Peace two sorts worse than trouble p. 190 Pleas for converting souls p. 21 22 Pleasures of the spiritual life p. 97 Pleasure of sin cost dear p. 186 Physitian noue like Christ p. 223 Pledge of glory what is so p. 410 Pleasure none in carnal men p. 534 Policy of Satan in what discovered p. 283 Powers of the soul twofold p. 405 Power of sin gradually weakened p. 462 Propositions about applying Christ p. 6 7 8 Persecutors warned of danger p. 42 Presumption falsely pretended p. 200 Presumption a general sin p. 350 Prayer how prevalent p. 314 Prayers of Saints desirable p. 316 Prayer evidential of the Spirit p. 417 Prayerless persons unregenerate p. 453 Probabilities of mercy incourage p. 388 Proper sins to be especially eyed p. 487 Principles of mortification what p. 467 Promises of temporals how secured p. 246 Practical nature of Gods teaching p. 399 Purity of Conscience how needful p. 484 Purposes accepted by God p. 315 Q. QUalifications of Ministers p. 63 Qualities of the new creature p. 434 Quickning of two sorts p. 94 Quickning the Spirits work in order to union with Christ p. 93 Quickning a supernatural work p. 103 Quietness of men what it argues p. 353 R. REconciliation with God what p. 51 Reconciliation wonderful p. 52 Readiness in God to grant prayer p. 313 Receiving Christ the vital act p. 115 Receiving Christ what it improts p. 116 Remission the Saints priviledge p. 299 Remission what it is p. 300 Remission none without Christ p. 305 Reconciled persons their duties p. 66 Renovation of nature p. 430 Regenerate their duties p. 445 Religion precise and strict p. 499 Religion falâ—…y charged p. 518 Represent Christ as he is p. 260 Respect due to Ministers and why p. 48 Reluctance of nature how cured p. 76 Rest coming by faith sweet p. 203 Rest of Believers present and how p. 207 Righteousness connected with holiness p. 16 Riches of Christ how great p. 178 Right to glory Christs purchase p. 341 Rome shall feel the force of prayer p. 317 Rods of affliction the Saints lot p. 325 Rules of two sorts p. 498 Rules to discern the spirit in us p. 411 Rule no man a rule to others p. 498 S. SAints have real communion with Christ p. 165 Saints honourable on what account p. 175 Satans great design opened p. 211 Satisfaction none short of glory p. 342 Satans power destroyed and how p. 327 Satans policy wherein seen p. 368 Selfishness an odious sin p. 176 Secrets of God opened to Saints p. 314 Skill bred by experience what p. 193 Signs of divine teaching p. 398 Sins evil not seen at first p. 378 Sin is long a dying in the best p. 464 Sin yields neither profit nor pleasure p. 489 Sin against the Spirit mistaken p. 200 Sins of Believers most piercing p. 319 Sound of the Gospel sweet p. 202 Sorrows of the soul not quickly over p. 206 Souls of great value p. 341 Small things accepted by God p. 314 Small remnant in Christ p. 447 Spiritual sickness a mercy p. 201 Spirits threefold power in conversion p. 363 Spirit taken two ways p. 406 Spirit the bond of union p. 408 Spirit works arbitrarily in us p. 411 Spirit works variously in men ibid. Sting of death pluckt out by Christ p. 328 Striving ineffectual when so p. 381 Stability the result of mortification p. 481 Success of the word to be waited for p. 110 Supports under defects of obedience p. 524 Supports under spiritual troubles what and whence they are p. 189 190 Sufferings for Christ honourable p. 281 Sweetness of Religion in application p. 11 Sympathy a mark of the Spirit p. 41â—… Symptoms of a desperate state p. 227 T. TEmptations not removed here p. 325 Terms on which Christ is offered p. 122 Teachings of God twofold p. 377 Teachings of God necessary p. 375 Teaching of God not opposed to mans p. 376 Teachings of God infallible p. 390 Teaching of God clear ibid. Teachings of God permanent p. 391 Teachings of God harmonical p. 399 Tenderness of Conscience p. 492 Time of conversion in the hand of the Spirit p. 364 Time of Christs incarnation exactly agreeable to the promises p. 240 Things past present and to come ours p. 209 Thoughts of death how sweetned p. 342 Troubles of Conscience great p. 188 Troubles for sin wean the heart p. 191 Troubles for sin prevent falls p. 192 Troubles for sin make Christ sweet ibid. Troubles for sin tryed p. 191 Trials of our union with Christ. p. 43 Trials of spiritual life p. 111 V. VExing the Spirit p. 489 Visions not to be expected p. 376 Unition supposed to union p. 94 Union with Christ how illustrated p. 26 Union with Christ no fancy p. 28 Union with Christ what it is not p. 30 Union mystical what it is p. 32 Union ingages to godliness p. 44 Union the ground of acceptation p. 315 Union fundamental to benefits p. 383 Unregenerate in a sad state p. 〈◊〉 110 Unbelief unreasonable p. 17 Unreconciled exhorted p. 65 Unbelief the damning sin p. 136 Unbelief the root of ingratitude p. 212 Unworthiness no bar to faith p. 245 Unbelievers their sad estate p. 294 Unbelievers under condemnation p. 541 Unbelief the evil thereof p. 543 Voluntary motions of souls to Christ p. 194 Voyce of God never heard by some p. 400 Upbraidings of Conscience what p. 187 Usefulness of the Law is great p. 204 W. WAnts relieved by union with Christ p. 40 Wants of Saints provided for p. 176 Want of outwards quietly born p. 244 Wants not to be feared p. 318 Willingness to dye what it signifies in carnal men p. 353 Will how allured by God p. 393 Workings of the word when slight p. 368 World its damping efficacy p. 369 Work of grace supernatural p. 445 Work of new creatures what p. 4â—…4 Wonderful preservation of grace p. 438 Wrath due to sin how great p. 379 Z. ZEal in wicked men dangerous Zeal improved against Zeal p. 580 FINIS This Author hath writ the several Books following A Saint indeed the great work of a Christian opened and pressed from Prov. 4. 23. a seasonable Discourse for recovery of decayed godliness A Touch-stone of Sincerity or signs of Grace and symptoms of Hypocrisie being the Second Part of the Saint Indeed Husbandry Spiritualized or the Heavenly use of Earthly things The Seamans Compass spiritually improved The Seamans Companion wherein the mysteries of Divine Providence relating to Seamen are opened the sins and dangers discovered their duties pressed their several troubles and burdens opened and profitably applied Divine Conduct or the Mystery of Providence its Being and Efficacy asserted and vindicated all the methods of Providence in our course of life opened with directions how to apply and improve them A Token for Mourners or Boundaries for Sorrow on death of Friends The Fountain of life opened or a display of Christ in his Essential and Mediatorial Glory wherein the impetration of our redemption by Christ is unfolded as it was begun carried on and finished These following Books lately Printed HEavenly and Earthly mindedness in two Parts with an Appendix about laying hold on Eternal Life The Life and Death of Mr. John Row of Credditon in Devon Emanuel or the love of Christ explicated and applied in his incarnation being made under the Law and his satisfaction in 31 Sermons all three by Mr. John Row Minister of Gods word Christs power over bodily diseases by Edward Lawrance now Minister of the Gospel in London The Saints nearness to God by Richard Vines Minister of the Gospel Of Idolatry a Discourse in which is endeavoured a declaration of its distinction from superstition by Tho. Tenison Dr. in Divinity and Chaplain in Ordinary to His Majesty FINIS