that all the Torments of the cross and revilings of the multitude that as it were rack't him for some answer yet could draw no other from him but this father forgive them for they know not what they do But for those to whom this mercy belong'd not the Apostle tells us what he did in stead of Revilings and Threatnings he committed all to him that judgeth righteously And this is the true method of Christian patience that which quiets the mind and keeps it from the boyling Tumultuous thoughts of revenge to turne the whole matter into Gods hand to resign it over to him to prosecute when and as he thinks good Not as the most that had rather if they had power do for themselves and be their own avengers and because they have not power do offer up such bitter curses and prayers for revenge unto God as are most hateful to him and are far from this calm and holy way of committing matters to his judgment The common way of referring things to God is indeed impious and dishonourable to him being really no other but a calling of him to be a Servant and executioner to our passion We ordinarily mistake his justice and judge of it according to our own precipitant distemper'd minds If wicked Men be not cross'd in their designes and their wickedness evidently crush'd just when we would have it we are ready to give up the matter as desperate or at least abate of those confident and reverent thoughts of divine justice that we owe him Howsoever things go this ought to be fixed in our hearts that he that sits in Heaven judgeth righteously and executes that his righteous judgement in the fittest season We poor wormes whose whole life is but an hand-breadth in it self and is as nothing unto God we think a few months or years a great matter but to him that inhabites Eternity a thousand years are but as one day as our Apostle teaches us Our Saviour in that time of his Humiliation and Suffering committed himself and his cause for that is best express'd in that nothing is express'd but he committed and the issue shall be that all his enemies shall become his footstool and he himself shall judge them But that which is given us here to learn from his carriage toward them in his Suffering is that quietness and moderation of mind even under unjust Sufferings make us like him Not to reply reproach with reproach as our custom is to give an ill word for another or two for one to be sure not to be behind Men take a pride in this and think it ridiculous simplicity to suffer and this make strifes and contention so abound but 't is a great mistake you think it greatness of spirit to bear nothing to put up no wrong Whereas it is indeed great weakness and baseness 't is true greatness of Spirit to despise the most of those things that set you usually on fire one against another especially being done after a Christian manner 't were a part of the Spirit of Christ in you and is there any Spirit greater than that think you Oh! that there were less of the Spirit of the Dragon and more of that Spirit of the Dove amongst us Our obligement to the example of Christ besides its own excellency is in these two things in the words 1. The intendment of his behaviour for this use to be as an example to us 2. Our Interest in him and those his Sufferings wherein he so carried himself Leaving us an Example c. He left his footsteps as a Copy as the word is to follow every step of his a letter of this Copy and particularly in this point of Suffering he writ us a pure and perfect Copy of obedience in clear and great letters in his own blood His whole life is our Rule not his Miraculous works his footsteps walking on the Sea and such like are not for our following But his obedience and Holiness and Meekenss and Humility are our Copy which we should continualy study The shorter and more effectual way they say of teaching is by example but above all this matchless example is the happiest way of teaching He that followes me sayes he shall not walk in darkness He that aimes high shoot's the higher for 't though he shoot not so high as he aimes This is that which ennobles the Spirit of a Christian the propounding of this our high Patterne the example of Jesus Christ. The Imitation of Men in worthless things is low and servile the Imitation of their vertues is commendable but if we seek no higher 't is both imperfect and unsafe The Apostle St. Paul will have no Imitation but with regard to this Supreme Patterne be ye follewers of me as I am of Christ One Christian may take the example of Christ in many things in another but still examining all by the Original primitive Copy the footsteps of Christ himself following nothing but as it conformes with that and looking most on him as both the perfectest and most effectual example Heb. 12.2 there is a cloud of wittnesses and examples but look above them all to him that is as high above them as the Sun is above the clouds As the way is better a lively one indeed so there is this advantage in the Covenant of grace that we are not left to our own skill for following of it but taught by the Spirit In the delivery of the Law God shewed his glory and greatness by the manner of it but the Law was written only in dead Tables but Christ the living Law teaches by obeying it how to obey it and this is the advantage of the Gospel that the Law is Twice written over unto believers first in the example of Christ and then inwardly in their hearts by his Spirit There is together with that Copy of all grace in him a Spirit deriv'd from him enabling believers to follow him in their measure they may not only see him as the only begotten Son of God full of grace and truth as it is Io. 6. But as there it followes they receive of his fulness grace for grace The love of Christ makes the Soul delight to converse with him and converse and Love together makes it learn his behaviour as Men that live much together especially if they do much affect one another will insensibly contract anothers habitudes and customes The other thing obliging us is our interest in him and his Sufferings he suffer'd for us and this the Apostle returnes to Ver. 24. Observe only from the Tye of these two that if we neglect his example set before us we cannot enjoy any right assurance of his suffâ—ring for us but if we do seriously endeavour to follow him then we may be perswaded of life through his death and those steps of his wherein we walk will bring us ere long to be where he is Verse 24. Who his own self bare our sins in his own Body on the Tree
Apostles both for his Graces and his failings Eminent in zeal and courage and yet stumbling oft in his forwardness and once grosly falling and these by the Providence of God being recorded in Scripture give a check to the excess of Rome's conceit concerning this Apostle Their extolling and exalting him above the rest is not for his cause and much less to the honour of his Lord and Master Jesus Christ for he is injured and dishonoured by it but 't is in favour of themselves as Alexander distinguished his two friends that the one was a friend of Alexander the other a friend of the King That preferment they give this Apostle is not in good will to Peter but in the desire of Primacy But whatsoever he was they would be much in pain to prove Rome's right to it by succession And if ever it had any such right we may confidently say it has forfeited it long ago by departing from St. Peters footsteps and from his faith and retaining too much those things wherein he was faultie namely His uâ—willingness to hear of and consent to Christs sufferings his Master spare thy selfe or far be it from thee in those they are like him for thus they would disburden and exempt the Church from the cross from the real cross of afflictions instead of that have nothing but painted or carved or guilded Crosses these they are content to embrace and Worship too but cannot endure to hear of the other instead of the Cross of Affliction they make the Crown or Mitre the badge of their Church and will have it known by Prosperity and outward Pomp and so turn the Church Militant into the Church Triumphant not considering that it is Babilons voice not the Churches I sit as a Queen and shall see no sorrow Again his saying on the Mount at Christs Transfiguration when he knew not what he said 'T is good to be here So they have litle of the true glory of Christ but the false glory of that Monarchy on their seven hills 't is good to be here say they Again in their undue striking with the Sword not the Enemies as he but the faithful Friends and Servants of Jesus Christ but to proceed We see here S Peters Office or Title An Apostle not Chief Bishop Some in their glossing have been so Impudent as to add that beside the Text. Though Chap. 5.4 He gives that Title to Christ alone and to himself only fellow Elder and here not Prince of the Apostles but An Apostle restored and reestablished after his fall by repentance and by Christ himself after his own Death and Resurrection Ioh. 21. Thus we have in our Apostle a singular instance of humane frailty on the one side and of the sweetness of Divine grace on the other Free and rich grace it is indeed that forgives and swallowes up multitudes of sins of greatest sins not only sins before Conversion as to S. Paul but foul offences committed after Conversion as to David and to this Apostle not only once raising them from the dead but when they fall stretching out the same hand and raising them again and restoring them to their Station and comforting them in it by his free Spirit as David prayes Not only to cleanse polluted clay but to work it into Vessels of honour yea of the most defiled shape to make the most refined Vessels not vessels of honour of the lowest sort but for the highest and most honourable Services vessels to bear his own precious Name to the Nations making the most unworthy and the most unfit fit by his grace to be his Messengers Of Iesus Christ. Both as the beginning and end of his Apostleship as Christ is called Alpha and Omega Rev. 2.11 Chosen and called by him and called to this to Preach him and salvation wrought by him Apostle of Iesus Christ. Sent by him and the Message no other but his Name to make that known Anâ— what this Apostleship was then after some extraordinary way befitting these first times of the Gospel That is Now the Ministry of the word in Ordinary and therefore an imployment of more difficulty and excellency then is usually conceiv'd by many not only of those that look upon it but even of those that are exercised in it to be Ambassadourâ— for the greatest of Kings and upon no mean imployment that great treaty of peace and reconcilement betwixt him and mankind 2 Cor. 5.20 This Epistle is directed to the Elect who are described here By their Temporal and by their Spiritual conditions The first hath very much dignity and comfort in it but the other hath neither but rather the contrary of both and therefore the Apostles intent being their comfort he mentions but the one in passing to signifie to whom particularly he sent his Epistle But the other is that which he would have their thoughts dwell upon and therefore prosecutes it in his following discourse and if we look to the order of the words their temporal condition is but interjected for 't is said to the Elect first and then To the Strangers scattered c. And he would have this as it were drown'd in the other according to the foreknowledge of God the Father That those dispersed Strangers that dwelt in the Countries here named were Iews appears if we look to the foregoing Epistle where the same word is used and expresly appropriated to the Iews S Iam. 1.1 And Gal. 2. S Peter is called An Apostle of the Circumcision as exercising his Aposteship most towards them and there is in some passages of the Epistle somewhat that though belonging to all Christians yet hath in the strain and way of expression a particular fitness to the believing Iews as being particularly verified in them which was spoken of their Nation Chap. 2. v. 9.10 Some argue from the Name Strangers that the Gentiles are here meant which seems not to be For Proselyte Gentiles were indeed called strangers in Ierusalem and by the Iews But were not the Iewes Strangers in these Places Pontus Galatia Cappadocia Asia and Bithynia Not strangers dwelling together in a prosperous flourishing condition as a well planted Colonie but Strangers of the dispertion scattered too and fro and their dispersion which was partly first by the Assyrian Captivity and after that the Babylonish and by the Invasion of the Romans and it might be in these very times increased by the believing Iews flying from the hatred and persecution that was raised against them at home These places here mentioned through which they were dispersed are all in Asia So Asia here is Asiae the lesser Where it s to be observed that some of these who heard S Peter Act. 2. are said to be of those regions And if any of those then converted were amongst these dispersed the Comfort was no doubt the more grateful from the hand of the same Apostle by whom they were first converted but this is only conjecture Tho Divine truths are to be received
gave beginning to the world and to time with it made all to set forth his goodness and the most excellent of his Creatures to contemplate and enjoy it But amongst all the works that he intended before time and in time effected this is the master piece that is here said to be forâ—ordained the manifesting of God in the flesh for mans Redemption and that by his son Jesus Chirst as the first born amonst many brethren That those appointed for salvation should be rescued from the common misery and be made one mysticall body whereof Christ is the head and so entitled to that Everlasting glory and happiness that he hath purchas'd for them This I say is the great work wherein all those glorious attributes shine joyntly the Wisdom and Power and Goodness and Justice and Mercy of God as in great Maps or Pictures you will see the border decor'd with Meadows and fountains and flowers c. Represented in it but in the middle you have the main designe thus is this fore-ordained Redemption amongst the works of God all his other works in the world all the beauty of the Creatures and the succession of Ages and things that come to pass in them are but as the border to this as the main piece But as a foolish unskillfull beholder not discerning the excellency of the principall piece in such Maps or Pictures gazes onely on the fair border and goes no futher thus do the greatest part of us our eyes are taken with the goodly show of the world and appearnce of earthly things but this great work of God Christ foreordained in time sent for our Redemption though it most deserves our attentive regard yet we do not view and consider it as we ought Was manifested in those last times for you This is the performance of that purpose he was manifested both by his Incarnation according to that word of the Apostle St. Paul Manifested in the flesh c. manifested by his marvellous Works and Doctrine and by his Sufferings and Death and Resurrection and Ascension by the sending down of the Holy Ghost according to his promise and by the preaching of the Gospel in the fulness of time that God had appointed wherein all the prophecies that foretold his comeing and all the Types and Ceremonies that prefigur'd him had their accomplishment The times of the Gospell are called the last times often by the Prophets for that the Jewish Priesthood and Ceremonies being abolished that which succeeded was appointed by God to remain the same to the End of the world besides this the time of our Saviours Incarnation may be called the last tiemes because although it were not near the End of time by many ages yet in all probability it is much nearer the end of time then the beginning of it some resemble the time of his sufferings in the end of the world to the paschal Lamb in the Evening It was doubtless the 〈◊〉 time but not withstanding the Schoolmen offer at reasons to prove the fitness of it as their humour is to prove all things None dare I think conclude but if God had so appointed it might have been either sooner or later and our safest is to rest in that that it was the fit time because so it pleased him and to seek no other Reason why having promis'd the Messiah so quickly after Man's fall he deferr'd his coming about Four Thousand years and a great part of that time shut up the knowledge of himself and the true Religion within the narrow compass of that one nation of which Christ was to be born Of these and such like things we can give no other reason but that which he teacheth us in a like case even so Father because it seemeth good unto thee For you The Apostle represents these things to those he writes to particularly for their use therefore he applies it to them but without prejudice of the Believers that went before or of those that were to follow in after ages He that is here said to be foreappointed before the foundation of the world is therefore called a Lamb slain from the foundation of the world And as the vertue of his death looks backward to all preceeding ages whose Faith and Sacrifices look'd forward to it so the same death is of force and perpetuall value to the End of the world after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever says the Apostle to the Hebâ— He sate down on the right hand of God for by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified The Crosse on which he was extended points in the length of it to Heaven and Earth reconciling them together and in the breadth of it to former and following ages as being equally salvation to both If this appropriating and peculiar interest in Jesus Christ is not happiness without which it availes not that he was ordained from Eternity and in Time manifested 't is not the Generall contemplation but the peculiar possession of Christ that gives both solid Comfort and strong persuasion to Obedience and Holyness which is here the Apostle's particular scâ—â—e Verse 21. Who by him do believe in God that raised him up from the dead and gave him glory that your Faith and hope might be in God NOW because 't is Faith that gives the soul this particular title to Jesus Christ the Apostle addes that to declare who he meant by You sayes he who by him do believe in God c. Where we have 1. The compleat Object of Faith 2. The Ground or Warrant of it The object God in Christ. The Ground or warrant In that he raised him up from the dead and gave him glory A Man may have living out of Christ yea he must he cannot chuse but have a conviction within him that there is a God and further he may have even out of Christ some kind of belief of those things that are spoken concerning God but to repose on God as his God and his Salvation which is indeed to believe in him this cannot be but where Christ is the mids through which we look upon God for so long as we look upon God through our own Guiltiness we can see nothing but his wrath and apprehend him as an armed enemy and be so far off from resting on him as our happiness that the more we view it it puts us upon the more speed to fly from him and to cry out Who can dwell with Everlasting burnings and abide with a consuming fire But our Saviour taking sin out of the way put himself betwixt our sins and God and so makes a wonderfull change of our apprehension of him When you look through a red glass the whole Heavens seem bloody But through pure uncoâ—our'd glass you receive the clear light that is so refreshing and comfortable to behold When Sin unpardoned is betwixt and we look on God through that we can perceive nothing but Anger and Enmity in his Countenance But
our miserable natural estate there is as close an union betwixt us and sin as betwixt our Souls and Bodies it lives in us and we in it and the longer we live in that condition the more the union growes and the harder it is to dissolve it and it is as old as the union of Soul and Body begun with it so that nothing but that death here spoke of can part them And this death in this relative sense is mutual in the work of conversion sin dyes and the soul dyes to sin and these two are really one and the same the spirit of God kills both at one blow Sin in the Soul and the soul to sin as the Apostle sayes of the World both are kill'd the one to the other And there are in it chiefly these two things that make the difference 1. The Solidness And 2. The universallity of this change under this notion of Death Many things may ly in a Man's way betwixt him and the acting of divers sins which possibly he affects most some restraints outward or inward may be upon him the authority of others or the fear of shame or punishment or the check of an enlightned conscience and though by reason of these he commit not the sin he would yet he lives in it because he loves it because he would commit it as we say the soul lives not so much where it animats as where it Loves And generally that kind of Metaphorical life by which a Man is said to live in any thing hath its principal Seat in the affection that 's the immediate link of the union in such a life and the untying and death consists chiefly in the disengagement of the heart breaking off the affection from it Ye that love the Lord hate evil An unrenewed mind may have some temporary dislikes even of its beloved sins in cold blood but it returnes to like them within a while A Man may not only have times of cessation from his wonted way of sinning but by reason of the Society wherein he is and withdrawing of occasions to sin and divers other causes his very desire after it may seem to him to be abated and yet he not dead to sin but only asleep to it and therefore when a temptation back'd with opportunity and other inducing circumstances comes and joggs him he awakes and arises and followes it A Man may for a while distaste some meat that he loves possibly upon a surfet but he regains quickly his likeing of it Every quarrel with sin and fit of dislike of it is not this hatred Upon the lively representing the deformity of his sin to his mind Certainly a Natural Man may fall out with it but these are but as the litle jarres of Husband and Wife that are far from dissolving the Marriage 't is not a fixed hatred such as amongst the Jews inferr'd a divorce if thou hate her put her away and that is to die to it as by a Legal Divorce the Husband and Wife are civilly dead one to another in regard of the ty and use of Marriage Again some Mens Education and Custome and morall principles may free them from the grossest kind of Sins yea a Man's temper may be averse from them but they are alive to their own kind of sins such as possibly are not so deform'd in the common account Coveteousness or Pride or hardness of heart and either a hatred or disdain of the wayes of Holiness that are too strict for them and exceed their size Beside for the good of humane Society and for the Interest of his own Church and People God restrains many Natural Men from the height of wickedness and gives them moral Vertues There be very many and very common sins that more refined Natures it may be are scarce tempted to but as in their Diet and Apparel and other things in their Natural Life they have the same kind of being with other Persons though more neat and pleasant so in this living to sin They live the same life with other ungodly Men though in a litle more deicate way They consider not that the Devils are not in themselves subject to nor capable of many of those sins that are accounted grossest amonst Men and yet are greater Rebels and Enemies to God than Men are But to be dead to sin goes deeper and extends further than all these Namely a most inward alienation of heart from sin and most universal from all sin an antipathy to the most beloved sin Not only he must forbear sin but hate it I hate vain thoughts and not only hate some but all I hate every false way A stroke at the heart does it which is the certainest and quickest Death of any wound For in this dying to sin all the whole Man of necessity dyes to it the mind dyes to the Device and study of Sin that vein and invention becomes dead the hand dies to the acting of it the ear to the delightful hearing of things profane and sinful the Tongue to the Worlds dialect of Oaths and rotten-speaking and calumny and evil speaking this is the commonest piece of the Tongues life in sin the very natural heat of sin that acts and vents most that way the Eye dead to that intemperate look that Solomon speaks of eyeing the Wine when it is red and well colour'd in the cup. Prov. 23. That is is taken with looking on the glittering skin of that Serpent till it bite and sting as there he addes Dead to that unchaste look that sets fire in the heart to which Iob blind folded and deaded his eyes by an express compact and agreement with them I have made a Covenant with mine eyes The Eye of a Godly Man is not on the false sparkling of the Worlds Pomp and Honour and Wealth 't is dead to them quite dazled with a greater beauty the grass look's fine in the morning when 't is set with those liquid Pearles the drops of dew that shine upon it but if you can look but a little while on the body of the Sun and then look down again the Eye is as it were dead sees not that faint shining on the earth that it thought so gay before and as the Eye is blinded and dies to it so within a few hours it quite evanishes and dyes it self Men think it strange that the Godly are not of their Dyet that their Appetite is not stirr'd with the delights of dainties they know not that such as be Christians indeed are dead to those things and the best dishes that are set before a dead Man give him not a stomach The Godly Mans throat is cut to those meats as Solomon advises in another subject But why may not you be a litle more sociable to follow the fashion of the World and and take a share with your Neighbours may some say without so precise and narrow examining every thing 'T is true sayes the Christian that the time was I advis'd as litle with
Conscience as others but sought my selfe and pleasd my self as they do and look't no further but that was when I was alive to those wayes but now truly I am dead to them and can you look for activity and conversation from a dead Man the pleasures of sin wherein I liv'd is still the same but I am not the same Are you such a Snake and a Fool sayes the Natural Man as to bear affronts and swallow them and say nothing Can you suffer to be abus'd so by such and such a wrong Indeed sayes the Christian again I could once have resented an injury as you or another and had somewhat of that you call high-heartedness when I was alive after your fashion but now that humour is not only something cool'd but 't is kill'd in me 't is cold dead as ye say and a greater Spirit I think than my own hath taught me another Lesson hath made me both deaf and dumb that way and hath given me a new vent and another language and another Party to speak to in such occasions see for this Psal. 38.12 13 14 15. They that seek my hurt speak mischievous things and imagine deceits all the day long What doth he in this cafe But I as a deaf man heard not and I was as a dumb Man that openeth not his mouth And why for in thee O Lord do I hope And for this deadness that you despise I have seen him that dyed for me who when he was reviled reviled not again This is the true Character of a Christian dead to sin but alas Where is this Christian to be found and yet thus is every one that truly partakes of Christ he is dead to sin really Hypocrites have a Historical kind of Death like this as Players in Tragedies Those Players have loose bags of Blood that receive the wound so the Hypocrite in some externals and it may be in that which is as near him as any outward thing his Purse he may suffer some Bloodshed of that for Christ but this death to sin is not a sounding fit that one may recover out of again the Apostle Rom. 6. addes that he is buried But this is an unpleasant Subject to talk thus of Death and Burial the very Name of Death in the softest sense it can have makes a sowr melancholly discourse It is so indeed if you take it alone if there were not for the life that 's lost a far better immediately following but so 't is here Living unto righteousness succeeds dying to sin That which makes natural death so affrightful the King of terrours as Iob calls it is mainly this faint belief and assurance of the Resurrection and glory to come And without this all mens moral resolves and discourses are too weak Cordialls against this fear they may set a good face on 't and speak big and so cover the fear they cannot cure but certainly they are a litle ridiculous that would perswade Men to be content to dy by reasoning from the necessity and unavoydableness of it which taken alone rather may beget a desperate discontent than a quiet compliance the very weakness of that Argument is that it is too strong Durum telum That of Company is phantastick it may please the imagination but satisfies not the judgement Nor are the miseries of life though somewhat Properer a full perswasive for Death the oldest decrepitest most diseased persons yet naturally fall not out with life but could have a mind to it still and the very truth is this the worst cottage any dwells in they are loath to go out till they know of a better And the reason why that which is so hideous to others was so sweet to Martyrs Heb. 11.35 And other godly Men that have heartily embrac'd death and welcom'd it though in very Terrible shapes was because they had firm assurance of Immortality beyond it the ugly Deaths head when the light of glory shines through the holes of it is comely and lovely To look upon death as Eternitie's birth day is that which makes it not only tolerable but aimiable Hic dies postremus aeterni natolis est Is the word I admire most of any Heathen Thus here the strongest inducement to this Death is the true notice and contemplation of this Life unto which it sets us over 't is most necessary to represent this for a natural Man hath as great an aversion every whit from this figurative Death this dying to sin as from natural Death and there is the more necessity of perswading him to this because his consent is necessary to 't no Man dies this Death to sin unwillingly although no Man is naturally wiling to it much of this death consists in a Man's consenting thus to dye And this is not only a lawful but a laudible yea a necessary self murder Mortify therefore your members which are upon the Earth Sayes the Apostle Col. 3.5 Now no sinner will be content to dy to sin if that were all but if it be passing to a more excellent Life then he gaineth and it were a folly not to seek this Death It was a strange power of Plato's discourse of the Souls Immortality that moved a young Man upon reading it to throw himself into the Sea that he might leap through it to that Immortality But truely were this Life of God this Life to righteousness and the excellency and delight of it known it would gain many minds to this death that steps into 't 1 There is a necessity of a new being to be the principle of new acting and motion as the Apostle sayes while ye served sin ye were free from righteousness so 't is while ye were alive to sin ye were dead to righteousness But there is a new breath of life from Heaven breathed on the Soul Then lives the Soul indeed when it is one with God and sees Light in his Light hath a Spiritual knowledge of him and therefore Soveraignely loves him and delights in his will and that is indeed to live unto righeousness which in a comprehensive sense takes in all the frame of a Christian life and all the duties of it towards God and towards Men. By this new Nature the very Natural motion of the soul so taken is obedience to God and walking in the paths of righteousness it can no more live in the habitude and wayes of sin than a Man can live under water Sin is not the Christians Element 't is too gross for his renew'd Soul as the water is for his body He may fall into 't but he cannot breath in it cannot take delight and continue to live in it but his delight is in the Law of the Lord that 's the walk that his Soul refreshes it self in he loves it entirely and loves it most where it most crosses the remainders of corruption that are in him he bends the strength of his Soul to please God aimes all at that it takes up his thoughts early and late
hath no other purpose in his being and living but only to honour his Lord that 's to live to righteousness he doth not make a by-work of it a study for his spare houres no 't is his main busines his all In this law doth he meditate day and night This life as the other is in the heart and from thence diffuses to the whole Man he loves righteousness and receiveth the truth as the Apostle speaks in the love of it A natural Man may do many things that for their shell and outside are righteous But he lives not to righteousness because his heart is not possess'd and rul'd with the love of it but this life makes the godly Man delight to walk uprightly and to speak of righteousness his Language and wayes carry the resemblance of his heart Psa. 37. Ver. 30.31 I know 't is easiest to act that part of Religion that is in the Tongue but the Christian ought not for that to be Spiritually dumb Because some Birds are taught to speak Men do not for that give it over and leave off to speak the mouth of the righteous speaketh wisdom and his Tongue talketh of judgement and his feet strive to keep pace with his Tongue which gives evidence of its unfainedness None of his steps shall slide or he shall not stagger in his steps but that which is betwixt these is the common Spring the Law of God is in his heart of both and from thence as Salomon sayes are the issues of his life that Law in his heart is the principle of this living to righteousness 2 The Second thing here is the design or Intendment of this death and life in the sufferings and death of Christ he bare sin and died for it that we might dye to it Out of some conviction of the consequence of Sin many have a confus'd desire to be justified to have sin pardon'd and look no further think not on the importance and necessity of sanctification the nature whereof is express'd by this dying to sin and living to righteousness But here we see that sanctification is necessary as inseparably connexed with justification not only as its companion but as its end which in some kind raises it above the other that it was the thing which God ey'd and intended in taking away the guiltiness of sin that we might be renew'd and sanctified If we compare them in point of time either backward holiness was alwayes necessary unto happiness But satisfying for sin and the pardon of it was made necessary by sin or if we look forward the estate we are appointed to and for which we are delivered from wrath is an estate of perfect holiness When we reflect upon that great work of Redemption we see it aim'd at there Redeem'd to be holy Eph. 5.25 26. Tit. 2.14 And go yet higher to the very Spring the decree of Election And then it s said Chosen before that we should be Holy and in end it shall Suit the designe Nothing shall enter into the new Ierusalem that is defiled or unholy Nothing but all purity there not a spot of sinfull pollution not a wrinkle of the Old Man for this end was that great work undertaken by the Son of God that he might frame out of polluted Mankind a new holy generation to his Father that might compasse his throne in the Life of glory and give him pure praises and behold his face in that eternity Now for this end it was needfull according to the all-wise purpose of the Father that the guiltiness of sin and sentence of Death should be once removed and thus the burden of that lay upon Christs shoulders on the Crosse and that done it is further necessary that Souls so deliver'd be likewise purg'd and renew'd for they are design'd to perfection of holiness in end and it must begin here Yet is it not possible to perswade Men of this that Christ had this in his eye and purpose when he was lift up upon the crosse and look'd upon the whole company of those his Father had given him to save that he would redeem them to be a number of holy Persons We would be redeem'd who is there would not but he would have his redeemed ones holy and they that are not true to this his end but crosse and oppose him in it may hear of redemption long and often But litle to their comfort Are you resolv'd still to abuse and delude your selves Well whither you will believe it or no this is once more told you there is unspeakable comfort in the death of Chirst but it belongs only to those that are dead to sin and alive to righteousness This Circle shuâ—s out the impenitent world there it closes and cannot be broke through but all that are penitent are by their effectual caling lifted in to it translated from that accurs'd condition wherein they were So then if you will live in your sins you may but then resolve withal to bear them your selves for Christ in his bearing of sin meant of none but such as in due time are thus dead and thus alive with him 3. But then in the Third place Christs Sufferings and death effects all this 1. As the exemplary cause the lively contemplation of Christ crucified is the most powerful of all thoughts to separate the heart and sin But 2. besides this working as a Moral cause as that example Christ is the effective natural cause of this death and life For he is one with the Believer and there is a real influence of his death and life into their Souls This Mysterious Union of Christ and the believer is that whereon both their Justification and Sanctification and the whole frame of their Salvation and Happiness depends and in this particular the Apostle still insists on it speaking of Christ and Believers as one in his Death and Resurrection crucified with him dead with him buried with him and risen with him Rom. 6. Being arisen he applies his death to those he dyed for and by it kills the life of sin in them and so is aveng'd on it for its being the cause of his death according to that of the Psalm raise me up that I may requite them He infuses and then actuates and stirres up that faith and love in them by which they are united to him and these work powerfuly in this 3. Faith look's so stedfastly on its suffering Saviour that as they say intellectus fit illud quod intelligit it makes the Soul like him assimilates and conformes it to his Death as the Apostle speaks That which some fable of some of their Saints of receiving the impression of the wounds of Christ in their body is true in a Spiritual sense of the Soul of every one that is indeed a Saint and a believer it takes the very print of his Death by beholding him and dyes to sin and then takes that of his rising again and lives to righteousness as it applies it to justify so
to Mortify drawes vertue from it Thus sayd one Christ aim'd at this in all those Sufferings that with so much love he went through and shall I disappoint him and not serve his end 4. That other powerfull grace of Love is joynt in this work with faith for Love desires nothing more than likeness and conformity though it be a painfull resemblance so much the better and fitter to testify love therefore 't will have the Soul dye with him that dy'd for it and the very same kind of death I am crucified with Christ sayes the great Apostle The Love of Christ in the Soul takes the very Nails that fastned him to the Crosse and crucifies the Soul to the World and to Sin Love is strong as Death particularly in this the strongest and liveliest Body when Death siezes it must yield and so becomes motionless that was so vigorous before And the Soul that is most active and unwearied in Sin when this Love siezes it it is kill'd to Sin and as Death seperates a Man from his dearest Friends and Society this Love breaks all the tyes and friendship with Sin Generally as Plato hath it Love takes away ones living in them selves and transfers into the party loved but the divine Love of Christ doth it in the truest and highest manner By whose stripes ye were healed The misery of fallen Man and the mercy of his deliverance are both of them such a deep as no one expression yea no variety added one to another can reach their bottom Here we have divers very significative ones 1. The guiltiness of sin as an intollerable burden pressing the Soul and sinking it and that transfer'd and layed on a stronger Back He bare Then 2. The same wretchedness under the same notion of a strange disease by all other means incurable healed by his stripe's And 3. again represented by the forlorn condition of a Sheep wandring and our Salvation to be found only in the love and wisdom of our great Shepherd And all these are borrow'd from that sweet and clear prophecy Isa. 53. The polluted nature of Man is no other but a bundle of desperate diseases he is spiritually dead as the Scriptures often teach Now this contradicts not nor at all Lessen's the matter But only because this misery justly called death is in a Subject animated with a natural life therefore so it may bear the Name and sense of sickness or wound and therefore 't is gross misprision they are as much out in their Argument as in their conclusion that would extract out of these expressions any evidence of remains of Spiritual life or good in our corrupted Nature But they are not worthy the contest tho vain heads think to argue themselves into life and are seeking that life by Logick in Miserable Nature that they should seek by faith in Jesus Christ Namely in these his stripes by which we are healed It were a large task to name our Spiritual Maladies how much more severally to unfold their Natures such a multitude of corrupt false Principles in the mind that as Gangrens do spread themselves through the Soul and defile the whole Man and total gross blindness and unbelief in Spiritual things and that stone of the heart hardness and impenitency Lethargies of senslesness and security and then for there be such complications of Spiritual diseases in us as in Naturals are altogether impossible such burning fevers of inordinate affections desires of lust and Malice and envy such racking and tormenting cares of Covetousness and feeding on Earth and Ashes as the Prophet speaks in another case according to the deprav'd appetite that accompanies some Diseases Such tumours of Pride and self-conceit that break forth as filthy botches in Mens words and carriage one with another And in a word what a wonderful disorder must needs be in the Natural Soul by the frequent interchanges and fight of contrary passions within it and to these from without how many deadly wounds we receive from the tentations of Satan and the World We receive them and by the weapons they furnish us we willingly wound our selves as the Apostle sayes of them who will be rich they fall into divers snares and noysome lusts and pierce them selves through with many sorrowes Did we see it no Infirmery nor Hospital ever so full of loathsome and miserable Spectacles as Spiritually our wretched Nature is in any one of us apart How much more when multitudes of us are met together But our evils are hid from us and we perish miserably in a Dream of happiness That makes up and compleats our wretchedness that we feel it not with our other diseases And this makes it worse still This was the Churches disease Rev. 3. Thou sayest I am rich and knowest not that thou art Poor c. We are usually full of complaints of triffling griefs that are of small moment and think not on nor feel not our Dangerous Maladies as he who shewed a Physician his fore finger but the Physician told him he had more need to think on the cure of a dangerous Impostume within him which he perceiv'd by looking to him though himself did not feel it In dangerous Maladies or wounds there be these evils a tendency to death and with that the apprehension of the terrour and fear of it and the present distemper of the Body by them and this is in sin 1. There is the guiltiness of sin binding over the Soul to death the most frightful eternal Death 2. The terrour of conscience in the apprehension of that death or wrath that is the consequent and end of sin 3. The raging and prevailing power of sin which is the ill habitude and distemper of the soul But these stripes and that blood that issued from them are a sound cure applied unto the soul they take away the guiltiness of sin and death deserved and free us from our engagement to those everlasting scourgings and lashes of the wrath of God and likewise they are the only cure of those present terrours and pangs of Conscience arising from the sense of that wrath and sentence of death upon the Soul Our Iniquities that met on his back laid open to the rod which in it self was free those hands that never wrought iniquity and those feet that never declined from the way of righteousness yet for our workes and wandrings were pierced and that Tongue dropping with Vinegar and Gall on the Cross that never spoke a guileful nor sinful word The Blood of those stripes are that Balm issuing from that tree of Life so pierced that can only give ease to the Conscience and heal the wounds of it and they deliver from the power of sin working by their influence and loathing of sin that was the cause of them they cleanse out the vitious humours of our corrupt nature by opening up that issue of Repentance they shall look on him and mourn over him whom they have pierced Now to the end it may
equally from every Minister alike yet it must be acknowledged that there is something we know not what to call it more acceptable reception of those who at first were the means of bringing men to God then others like the opinion some have of Physitians whom they love The Apostle comforts these strangers of this dispersion by the spiritual union which they obtained by Effectual calling and so calls off their eyes from their outward dispersed and dispised condition to look above that as high as the spring of their happiness the free love and Election of God Scattered in the Countries and yet gathered in Gods Election chosen or pickt out Stangers to men amongst whom they dwelt but known and foreknown to God removed from their own Country to which men have naturally an unalterable affection but made heirs of a better as followes verse 3.4 And having within them the evidence both of Eternal Election and that expected salvaâ—ion the Spirit of holiness verse 2. At the best a Christian is bâ—t a Stranger here set him where you will as our Apostle teacheth after and 't is his priviledge that he is so and when he thinks not so he forgets and disparages himself and descends far below his quallity when he is much taken with any thing in this place of his Exile But this is the wisdom of a Christian when he can solace himself against the meaness and any kind of discomfort of his outward condition with the comfortable assurance of the love of God that he hath called him to holiness given him some measure of it and an endeavour after more and by this may he conclude that he hath ordained him unto salvation if either he is a Stranger where he lives or as a stranger deserted of his friends and very near stript of all outward comforts yet may he rejoyce in this that the Eternal unchangable Love of God that is from Everlasting to Everlasting is sealed to his soul O what will it avail a man to be compassed about with the favour of the world to sit unmolested in his own home and possessions and to have them very great and pleasant well moneyed and landed and befriended and yet estranged and sever'd from God not having any token of his special Love To the Elect The Apostle here denominates all the Christians to whom he writes by the condition of true Believers calling them Elect and sanctified c. And the Apostle St. Paul writes in the same stile in his Epistles to the Churches not that all in these Churches were such indeed but because they professed to be such and by that their profession and Calling as Christians they were obliged to be such and as many of them as were in any measure true to that their Calling and profession were really such Besides it would seem not unworthy of Consideration that in all probability there would be fewer false Christians and the number of true believers usually greater in the Churches in those Primitive times then now in the best reformed Churches because there could not then be many of them that were from their Infancy bred in the Christian Faith but for the greatest part were such as being of years of discretion were by the hearing of the Gospel converted from Paganisme and Iuduisme to the Christian Religion first and made a deliberate choise of it to which there were at that time no great outward Encouragements and therefore the lesse danger of multitudes of hypocrites which as Vermine in Summer breed most in the time of the Churches Prosperity Tho no Nation or Kingdom had then universally received the faith but rather hated and persecuted it yet were there even then amongst them as the writings of the Apostles testifie false Brethren and inordinate walkers and men of corrupt minds earthly minded and led with a spirit of envy and contention and vainglory Howsoever the question that is moved concerning the necessary qualifications of all the members of a true visible Church can no way as I conceive be decided from the Inscriptions of the Epistle but eertainly they are useful to teach Christians and Christian Churches what they ought to be and what their holy profession requires of them and sharply to reprove the gross unlikeness and inconformity that is in the most part of man to the description of Christians As there be some that are too strait in their Judgement concerning the being and nature of the visible Church so certainly the greatest part of Churches are too loose in their practice From the dissimilitude betwixt our Churches and those we may make this use of reproof That if aâ— Apostolical Epistle were to be directed to us it behoved to be Inscribed to the Ignorant prophane maliâ—ious c. As he who at the hearing of the Gospel read said Either this is not the Gospel or we are not Christians So either these Charâ—cters given in the Inscription of these Epistles are not true Characters or we are not true Christians Verse 2. Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father through Sanctification of the Spirit unto Obedience and sprinckling of the blood of Iesus Christ. IN this verse we have their Condition and Causes of it Their Condition Sanctified and Iustified the former expressed by Obedience the latter by sprinkling of the blood of Christ. The Causes 1 Eternal Election 2. The Execution of that Decree Their Effectual Calling which I conceive is meant by Election here the selecting them out of the World and joyning them to the fellowship of the Children of God so Ioh. 15.19 The former Election particularly ascribed to God the Father the latter to the Holy Spirit And the blood of Jesus Christ the Son of God is here the cause of their Justification and so the whole Trinity concurring dignifie them with this their Spiritual and happy estate First I shall discourse of these seperately and then of their Connection 1. Of the state it selfe and first of Iustification tho named last This sprinkling has respect to the Rite of the Legal Purification by the sprinkling of Blood and that appositely for these Rites of sprinkling and Blood did all point out this Blood and this Sprinkling and exhibited this true ransome of souls which was only shadowed by them As the use and end of Sprinkling was Purification and Expiation because sin merited death and that the pollutions and staines of human nature was by sin Such is the pollution that it can be no manner of way washt off but by Blood Heb. 9. â—2 Neither is there any Blood able to purge from sin except the most precious Blood of Jesus Christ which is called the blood of God Act. 20.28 That the stain of sin can only be washt off by Blood inâ—imates that it merits Death And that no Blood but that of the Son of God can do it intimates that this stain merits Eternal Death and it had been our portion except the death of the Eternal Lord of life had freed
us from it Filthiness needs sprinkling Guiltiness such as deserves death needs sprinkling of Blood and the death it deserves being Everlasting death The Blood must be the Blood of Christ. The Eternal Lord of life dying to free us from the sentence of death The Soul as the body hath its life its health its purity and the contrary of these its Death Diseases Deformities and Impurity which belong to it as to their first Subiect and to the body by participation The Soul and Body of all mankind is stained by the Pollution of sin The impure Leprosie of the Soul is not a spot outwardly but wholly inward hence as the corporal Leprosie was purified by the sprinkling of blood so is this Then by reflecting we see how all this that the Apostle St. Peter expresseth is necessary to Justification 1. Christ the Mediator betwixt God and man is God and man 2. A Mediator not only interceeding but also satisfying Eph. 2.16 3. This satisfaction doth not reconcile us unless it be applyed Therefore there is not only mention of blood but the sprinkling of it the spirit by faith sprinkleth the soul as with hysop wherewith the sprinkling was made this is it of which the Prophet speaks Isai. 52.15 So shall he sprinkle many Nations And which the Apostle to the Hebrewes prefers above all Legal sprinklings Chap. 9.12 13 14. both as to its duration and as to the excellency of its effects Men are not easily convinced and perswaded of the deep stain of sin and that no other Laâ—er can fetch it out but the sprinkling of the Blood of Jesus Christ. Some that have moral Resolutions of amendment dislike at least gross sins and purpose to avoid them and 't is to them cleanness enough to reform in those things but they consider not what becomes of the guiltiness they have contracted already and how that shall be purged how their natural pollution shall be taken away be not deceived in this 't is not an evaâ—ishing sigh or a light word or a wish of God forgive me no nor the highest current of Repentance nor that which is the truest evidence of Repentance Amendment 'T is none of these that purifies in the sight of God and expiats wrath they are all imperfect and stained themselves cannot stand and answer for themselves much less be of value to counterpoise their former guilt of sin the very tears of the purest Repentance unless they be sprinkled with this Blood are impure all our washings without this are but washings of the Blackmore it is labour in vain Ier. 2.22 Iob. 9.30 31. There is none truly purged by the Blood of Christ that do not endeavour purity of heart and Conversation but yet it is the Blood of Christ by which they are all fair and there is no spot in them here 't is said Elect to obedience but because that obedience is not perfect there must be sprinkling of the Blood too There is nothing in Religion further out of natures reach and out of its likeing and believing then the doctrine of Redemption by a Saviour and a Crucified Saviour by Christ and by his blood first shed on the Cross in his suffering and then sprinkled on the soul by his Spirit 'T is easier to make men sensible of the necessity of Repentance and amendment of life though that is very difficult then of this purging by the sprinkling of this precious Blood Did we see how needful Christ is to us we would esteem and love him more 'T is not by the hearing of Christ and of his blood in the Doctrine of the Gospel 't is not by the sprinkling of water even that water that is the sign of this blood without the blood it self and the sprinkling of it Many are present where it is sprinkled and yet have no portion in it Look to this that this blood be sprinkled on your souls that the destroying Angel may pass by you There is a Generation not some few but a generation deceived in this they are their own Deceivers pure in their own eyes Prov. 30.12 How earnestly doth David pray wash me Purge me with hysop Though bathed in tears Psa. 6.6 that satisfied not wash thou me This is the honourable condition of the Saints That they are purified and consecrated unto God by this sprinkling yea have on loâ—g while Robes washt in the Blood of the Lamb There is mention indeed of great Tribulation but there is a double comfort Joyned with it 1. They come out of it that tribulation hath an end And 2 They pass from that to glory for they have on the Robe of Candidates long white Robes washt in the blood of the Lamb washt white in blood as for this blood 't is nothing but purity and spotlesness being stained with no sin and besides hath that vertue to take away the stain of sin where 't is sprinkled My Wellbeloved is white and ruddy saith the Spouse thus in his death ruddy by bloodshed white by Innocence and purity of that blood Shall they then that are purged by this blood return to live among the Swine and tumble with them in the pudle what gross injury is this to themselves and to that Blood by which they were cleansed They that are chosen to this sprinkling are likewise chosen to Obedience this blood purifieth the heart yea This blood purgeth our Consciences from dead works to serve the living God Heb. 9.14 Vnto Obedience 'T is easily understood to whom when obedience to God is expressed by the simple absolute name of Obedience it teacheth us that to him alone belongs Absolute and Unlimited Obedience all obedience by all creatures And 't is the shame and misery of man that he hath departed from this Obedience that we are become Sons of disobedience But Grace renewing the hearts of believers changeth their natures and so their names and makes them Children of obedience As afterwards in this Chapter This Obedience consists as in the receiving Christ as our Redeemer so also at the same time as our Lord or King an intire rendring up of the whole man to his obedience This Obedience then of the only begotten Jesus Christ may well be understood not as his Actively as Beza but Objectivly as 2 Cor. 10.5 I think here 't is contain'd yea chiefly understood To signifie that Obedience which the Aposte to the Romans calls the Obedience of faith by which the Doctrine of Christ is received and so Christ himself which uniteth the believing soul to Christ he sprinkles it with his blood to the remission of sin and is the root and spring of all future obedience in the Christian life By Obedience Sanctification is here intimated it signifies then both habitual and active obedience Renovation of heart and conformity to the Divine will the mind is illuminated by the Holy Ghost to know and believe the divine will yea this Faith is the great and chief part of Obedience Rom. 1.8 the truth of the Doctrine
Iesus Christ who hath begotten us again unto this lively Hope to this Inheritance incorruptible undefiled and that fadeth not away Verse 5. Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time 'T Is no doubt a great Contentment to the Children of God to hear of the Excellencies of the life to come they are not readily weary of that subject yet there is one doubt that if it be not removed may dampt their Delight in hearing and considering of all the rest The Richer the Estate is it will the more kindle the Malice and Dilligence of their Enemies to deprive them of it and to cut them short of possessing it And this they know that those spiritual Powers that seek to ruin them do overmatch them far both in Craft and Force Against the fears of this the Apostle comforts the Heirs of Salvation assuring them that as the Estate they look for is Excellent so it is Certain and safe laid up there where it iâ— out of the reach of all adverse Powers Reserv'd in Heaven for you Besides that this is a further evidence of the worth and excellency of this Inheritance it makes it sure it confirms what was said of its Excellency for it must be a thing of greatest worth that is laid up in the highest and best place of the world namely in Heaven for you Where nothing that is impure once enters much less is laid up and kept Thus the Land where this Inheritance lyes makes good all that hath been spoken of the Dignity and Riches of it But further as it is a rich and pleasant Country where it lyeth it hath this priviledge to be the alone Land of Rest and Peace free from all possibility of Invasion There is no spoiling of it and laying it waste and defacing its Beauty by leading Armies into 't and making it the seat of war no noise of Drums nor Trumpets no Inundations of one People driving out another and sitting down in their Possessions In a word as there is nothing there subject to decay of it selfe so neither is it in danger of Fraud or Violence When our Saviour speaks of this same Happiness St. Mat. 6.20 in a like term what 's here called an Inheritance is there called a Treasure He expresses the permanency of it by these two that it hath neither Moth nor Rust in it selfe to corrupt it nor can Thieves break through and steal it There is a worm at the root of all our Enjoyments here Corrupting causes within themselves and besides that they are exposed to injury from without that may deprive us of them how many stately Pallaces that have been possibly divers years in building hath sire upon a very small beginning destroyed in a few hours What great hopes of gain by traffick hath one Tempest mocked and dissâ—pointed How many that have thought their Possessions very sure yet have lost them by some trick of Law and others as in time of war driven from them by the Sword nothing free from all danger but this Inheritance that is laid up in the hands of God and kept in Heaven for us The highest stations in the world namely the Estate of Kings they are but Mountains of prey one robbing and spoiling another but in that holy Mountain above there is none to hurt nor spoil nor offer violence What the Prophet speaks of the Church here 't is more perfectly and Eminently true of it above Isâ—i 65.25 This is indeed a necessary condition of our joy in the thoughts of this happy Estate that we have some perswasion of our Propriety that 't is ours that we do not speak and hear of it as Travellers passing by a pleasant place do behold and discourse of its fair structure the sweetness of the Seat the planting of the Gardens and Meadowes that are about it and so pass on having no further interest in it but when we hear of this glorious Inheritance this Treasure this Kingdom that is Pure and Rich and Lasting we may add it is so called and it is Mine it is reserved in Heaven and reserv'd for me I have received the Evidences and the Earnest of it and as it is kept safe for me so I shall likewise be preserv'd to it and that 's the other part of the Certainty that compleats the Comforts of it see Eph. 1.14 The salvation that Christ hath purchased is indeed laid up in Heaven but we that seek after it are on Earth Compassed about with Dangers and Tentations What avails it us that our Salvation is in Haven in the place of safety and quietness while we our selves are tossed upon the stormy Seas of this World amidst Rocks and shelves every hour in hazard of shipwrack our Inheritance is in a sure hand indeed our Enemies cannot come at it but they may overrun and destroy us at their pleasure for we are in the midst of them Thus might we think and complain and lose the sweetness of all our other thoughts concerning Heaven if there were not as firm a Promise for our own safety in the midst of our dangers as there is of the safety of our Inheritance that is out of Danger The assurance is full thus it is kept for us in Heaven and we kept on Earth for it as it is Reserved for us we are no less surely Preserv'd to it There is here 1. The Estate it selfe Salvation 2. The preservation or securing of those that expect it 3. The Time of full Possession In the last time Vnto Salvation Before it 's called an Inheritance here more particularly what meant by that namely Salvation This is more expressly sure being a deliverance from Misery and imports withal the Possession of perfect Happiness The first part of our Happiness is to be freed from those Miseries to which we are subject by our Guiltiness To be set free from the Curse of the Law and the wrath of God from everlasting death 2. From all kind of mortality or decaying 3. From all power and stain of Sin 4. From all Temptation 5. From all the Griefs and Afflictions of this Life To have the perfection of Grace to be full of Holiness and the perfection of Bliss full of joy in the continual Vision of God but how little are we able to say of this our Apostle here teacheth us that it is vailed to us only so much shines through as we are capable of here but the Revealed knowledge of it is only in the Possession 'T is to be revealed in the last time Then there is their Preservation Kept 2. The causes of it By the power of God through Faith the Inheritance is kept not only in safety but in quietness The Children of God for whom it is kept while they are here are kept safe indeed but not Unmollested and Unassaulted they have Enemies and such as are Stirring and Cunning and Powerful but in the midst of them they are Guarded and
be spoke too much of for 't is Vnspeakable nor too much magnified for it is Glorious To Evidence the truth of this and to confirme his Brethren in the experienc'd knowledge of it he expresses here more particularly and distinctly the causes of this their Joy which are 1. The Object or Matter of it 2. The Apprehension and appropriation of that Object which two conjoyn'd are the entire cause of all Rejoyceing The Object is Jesus Christ verse 8. And the Salvation purchased by him verse 9. For these two cannot be sever'd and these two Verses that speak of them require as is evident by their connexion to be considered together 2. The apprehension of these 1. set forth negatively not by bodily sight 2. Positively whereas that might seem to abate the certainâ—y and liveliness of their Rejoyceing that 't is of things they had not seen nor do yet see that is abundantly made up by three for one each of them more excellent then the meer bodily sight of Christ in the flesh which many had which were never the better by 't the three are those three prime Christian Graces Faith Love and Hope The two former in ver 8. the 3 d. in ver 9. Faith in Christ begetting Love to him and both these giving assured Hope of salvation by him making it as certian to them as if it were already in their hand and they in possession of it And from all those together results this Exultation or leaping for joy Ioy unspeakable and full of Glory This is that one thing that so much concerns us and therefore we mistake very far and forget our own highest interest too much when we either speak or hear of it slightly and apply not our hearts to it What is it that all our thoughts and endeavours drive at What means all that we are doing in the World tho we take several wayes to it and wrong wayes for the most part yea such wayes as lead not to it but set us further off from it yet that which we all seek after by all our labour under the Sun is something that may be matter of Contentment and rejoycing to us when we have attain'd it now here it is and in vain is it sought for elsewhere And for this end 't is represented to you that it may be yours if ye will entertain it not only that you may know this to be a truth that in Jesus Christ is laid up true Consolation and Rejoyceing that he is the Magazine and Treasury of it but that you may know how to bring him home into your hearts and lodge him there and so to have the spring of Joy within you That which gives full joy to the Soul must be something that is higher and better then it self in a word he that made it can only make it glad after this manner with unspeakable and glorious joy but the Soul remaining guilty of Rebellion against him and unreconcil'd cannot behold him but as an Enemy any belief that it can have of him while 't is in that posture is not such as can fetch Love and Hope and so Rejoycing but such as the Faith of devils produceth only begetting terrour and trembling but the light of his Countenance shining in the face of his Son the Mediator glads the heart and 't is the looking upon him so that causeth the soul to Believe and Love and Hope and Rejoyce Therefore the Apostle Eph. 2. In his description of the estate of the Gentiles before Christ was preach'd to them joynes these together without Christ that was the cause of all the rest therefore without comfort in the Promises without Hope and without God in the world So he is here by our Apostle exprest as the object In all these therefore he is the matter of our Joy because our Faith and Love and Hope of Salvation The Apostle writing to the dispersed Jewes many of whom had not known nor seen Christ in the flesh commends their Love and Faith for this reason that it did not depend upon bodily sight but was pure and spiritual and made them of the number of those that our Saviour himselfe pronounces blessed who have not seen and yet believe You saw him not when he dwelt amongst men and walked to and fro Preaching and working Miracles Many of those that did then hear and see him believed not yea they scoff'd and hated and persecuted him and in the end Crucified him you that have seen none of all those things yet having heard the Gospel that declares him you have believed Thus Observe the working or not working of Faith doth not depend upon the difference of the external Ministry and gifts of Men for what greater difference can there be that way than betwixt the Master and the Servants betwixt the great Prophet himself and his weak sinful Messengers and yet many of those that saw and heard him in Person were not converted believ'd not in him and thousands that never saw him were converted by his Apostles and as it seems even some of those that were some way accessory to his death yet were brought to Repentance by this same Apostles Sermon Act. 2. Learn then to look above the outward Ministry and any difference that in Gods dispensation can be there and know that if Jesus Christ himself were on Earth and now Preaching amongst us yet might his incomparable words be unprofitable to us not being mix'd with faith in the bearers But where that is the meanest despisable conveyance of his Message received with humility and affection will work blessed Effects Whom not seeing yet believeing Faith elevates the Soul not only above sense and sensible things but above Reason it selfe as reason corrects the Errours that sense might occasion So supernatural Faith corrects the Errours of natural Reason judging according to Sense The Sun seems less then the wheel of a Chariot but Reason teaches the Philosopher that 't is much bigger then the whole Earth and the cause why it seems so little is its great distance The Naturally wise man is as far deceiv'd by this carnal Reason in his estimate of Jesus Christ the â—un of Righteousness and the cause is the same his great distance from him as the Psalmist speaks of the wicked Psal. 10.5 Thy Iudgements are far above out of his sight He accounts Christ and his Glory a smaller matter then his own Gain Honour or Pleasure for these are near him and he sees their quantity to the full and counts them bigger yea far more worth then they are indeed but the Apostle St. Paul and all they that are enlightened by the same Spirit they know by Faith which is divine Reason that the Excellency of Jesus Christ far surpasses the worth of the whole Earth and all things earthly Phil. 3.7.8 To give a right assent to the Gospel of Christ is Impossible without divine and saving Faith infused in the Soul to believe that the Eternal Son of God cloath'd himselfe with humane
vain conversation What fruit had ye sayes the Apostle in those things whereof ye are now asham'd Either count that shame that at the best growes out of them their fruit or confess they have none therefore they are called the unfruitful works of darkness Let the Voluptuous Person say it out upon his death-bed what pleasure or profit doth then abide with him of all his former sinful delights Let him tell if there remain any thing of them all but that that he would gladly not have to remain the sting of an accusing Conscience which is as lasting as the delight of sin was short and evanishing Let the covetous and ambitious declare freely even those of them that have prospered most in their pursuit of Riches and Honour what ease all their Possessions or titles do then help them to whether their pains are the less because their Chests are full or their Houses stately or multitude of friends and servants waiting on them with Hat and Knee and if all these things cannot ease the body how much less can they quiet the mind And therefore is it not true that all pains in these things and the uneven wayes into which they sometimes stept aside to serve those ends and generally that all the wayes of sin wherein they have wearied themselves were vain Rollings and tossings up and down not tending to acertain Haven of peace and happiness 't is a lamentable thing to be deluded all a Life time with a false dream Isa. 2.8 You that are going on in the common Road of sin although many and possibly your own Parents have trod it before you and the greatest part of these you now know are in it with you and keep you Company in it yet be perswaded to stop a little and ask your selves what it is you seek or expect in the end of it would it not grieve any labouring Man to work hard all the day and have no wages to look for at night 't is a greater loss to wear out our wholâ— life and in the evening of our dayes find nothing but anguish and vexation Let us then think this that so much of our life as is spent in the wayes of sin is all lost fruitless and vain Conversation And in so far as the Apostle saye here You are redeemed from this Conversation this Imports it a â—ervile slavish Condition as the other word expresses it to live fruitless And this is the Madness of a sinner that he fancies Liberty in that which is the basest thraldome as those poor frentique Persons that are lying ragged and bound in Chaines yet Imagine that they are Kings that their Irons are Chaines of gold their rags Robes and their filthy Lodge a Pallace As 't is misery to be liable to the sentence of death so 't is slavery to be subject to the dominion of sin and he that is delivered from the one is likewise set free from the other There is one Redemption from both He that is redeem'd from destruction by the blood of Christ is likewise redeem'd from that vain and unholy Conversation that leadâ— to it So Tit. 2.14 Our Redeemer was anointed for this purpose not to free the Captives from the sentence of death and yet leave them still in Prison but to proclaim liberty to them and the opening of the Prison to those that are bound Isa. 61.1 You easily perswade your selves that Christ hath died for you and Redeem'd you from Hell but you Consider not that if it be so he hath likewise Redeem'd you from your vain Conversation and both set you free from the service of sinâ— Certainly while you find not that you can have no assurance of the other if the Chaines of sin continue still upon you for any thing you can know these Chaines do bind you over to the other Chaines of darkness the Apostle speaks of Let us not delude our selves if we find the love of sin and of the World work stronger in our hearts than the love of Christ we are not as yet partakers of his Redemption But if we have indeed laid hold upon him as our Redeemer then are we Redeem'd from the service of sin not only from the grossest Profaness but even from all kind of fruitless and vain Conversation And therefore ought to stand fast in that Liberty and not entangle our selves again to any of our former vanities Not redeemed with Corruptible things From the high price of our Redemption the Apostle doth mainly inforce our Esteem of it and the preservation of that liberty so dearly bought and the avoiding all that unholiness and vain conversation from which we are freed by that Redemption 1. He expresseth it negatively not with corruptible things Oh foolish we that hunt them as if they were Incorruptible and Everlasting treasures no not the best of them these that are in highest account with Men not with Silver and Gold these are not of any value at all towards the Ransom of Souls they cannot buy off the death of the Body nor cannot purchase the continuance of temperal life much less can they reach to the worth of Spiritual and Eternal life The precious soul could not be redeem'd but by blood and by no blood but that of this spotless Lamb Jesus Christ who is God equal with the Father And therefore his Blood is called the blood of God Act. 20. So that the Apostle may well call it here precious exceeding the whole World and all things in it in value Therefore frustrate not the sufferings of Christ if he shed his blood to Redeem you from sin be not false to his End As of a Lamb without blemish He is that great and everlasting Sacrifice that gave value and vertue to all the Sacrifices under the Law their blood was of no worth to the purging away of sin but by Relation to his blood and the Laws concerning the choyce of the Pascall Lamb or other Lambs for Sacrifice were but obscure and imperfect shadowes of his purity and perfections who is the undefiled Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the World A Lamb in meekness and silence he opened not his mouth Isa. 53.7 And in purity here without spot or blemish My well beloved sayes the Spouse is white and ruddy white in spotless Innocency and red in suffering a bloody death For as much as ye know 'T is that must make all this effectual the right Knowledge and due Consideration of it Ye do know it already but I would have you know it better more deeply and practically turn it often over be more in the study and meditation of it there is work enough in it still for the discerningest mind itâ— a mystery so deep that you shall never reach the bottom of it and withall so useful that you shall find alwayes new profit by it Our folly is we gape after new things and yet are in effect Ignorant of the things we think we know best that learned Apostle that knew
so much and spake so many tongues yet I determined sayes he to know nothing among you save Iesus Christ and him Crucified 1 Cor. 2.2 And again he expresses this as the top of his Ambition that I may know him and the power of his Resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings being made conformable unto his death That Conformity is this only knowledge He that hath his lusts unmortified and a heart unweaned from the World though he know all the history of the death and sufferings of Jesus Christ and can discourse well of them yet indeed he knows them not If you would increase much in holiness and be strong against the Tentations of sin this is the only art of it view much and so seek to know much of the death of Jesus Christ Consider often at how high a raâ—e we were redeem'd from sin and provide this answer for all the enticements of sin and the world except you can offer my soul something beyond that price that was given for it on the cross I cannot hearken to you Far be it from me will a Christian say that considers this Redemption that ever I should prefer a base lust or any thing in this World or it all to him that gave himselfe to death for me and payed my Ransom with his blood his matchless love hath freed me from the miserable Captivity of sin and hath for ever fastened me to the sweet yoke of his Obedience Let him alone to dwell and rule within me and let him never go forth from my heart who for my sake refus'd to come down from the Cross. Verse 20. Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world but was manifest in these last times for you OF all those Considerations and there are many that may move Men to Obedience there is none that persuades both more sweetly and strongly then the sense of Gods goodness and mercy towards Men and amongst all the Evidences of that there is none like the sending and giving of his Son for Mans redemption therefore the Apostle having mentioned that insists further in it and in these words expresses the performance and the Application of it 1. The purpose or Decree foreknown but 't is well rendred fore ordained for this knowing is Decreeing and there is little either solid truth or profit in the distinguishing them We say usually that where there is little wisdom there is much chance and comparitively amongst Men some are far more foresighted and of further Reach then others yet the wisest and most provident Men both wanting skill to designe all things aâ—ight and power to act as they contrive meet with many unexpected Casualties and often Disappointments in their undertakings but with God where both wisdom and power are infinite there can be neither any Chance nor Resistance from without nor any Imperfection at all in the contrivance of things neither himself can give that cause to add or abate or alter any thing in the frame of his purposes The modell of the whole world and of all the course of time was with him one and the same from all Etenity and whatsoever is brought to pass is exactly answerable to that pattern for with him there is no change nor shaddow of turning Iam. 1.17 There is nothing dark to the father of lights he sets at one view through all things and all ages from the beginning of time to the end of it yea from Eternity to Eternity And this Inccomprehensible wisdom is too wonderfull for us we do but childishly stammer when we offer to speak of it It is no wonder that Men beat their own braines and knock their heads one against another in the contest of their opinions to little purpose in their severall Mouldings of Gods Decree Is not this to cut and square Gods thoughts to ours and Examine his Soveraign purposes by the low principles of Humane wisdom how much more learned then all such knowledge is the Apostles Ignorance when he crys out O the depth of the Riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgements and his wayes past finding out Rom. 11.33 Why then should any man dâ—bate what place in the series of Gods decree is to be assign'd to this purpose of sending his son in the flesh Let us rather seeing it is manifest that it was for the Redemption of lost Mankind admire that same Love of God to mankind that appears in that purpose of our recovery by the word made flesh that before Man had made himself miserable yea before either he or the world was made this thought of boundless love was in the bosome of God to send his son forth from thence to bring fallen Man out of misery and restore him to happiness and to do this not onely by taking on his nature but the curse to shift it off from us that were sunk under it and to bear it himself and by bearing it to take it away he laid on him the iniquity of us all And to this he was appointed says the Apostle Heb. 3 2. Before the foundation of the world This we understand by Faith that the world was framed by the word of God Although the Learned probably think it evincible by humane Reason yet some of those that have gloried most in that and are reputed generally masters of Reason have not seen it by that light therefore that we may have a divine belief of it we must learn it from the word of God and be persuaded of its truth by the spirit of God that the whole world and all things in it were drawn out of Nothing by his almighty power that is the onely Eternal and Increated being and therefore the fountain and source of being to all things Foundation In this word is clâ—ar the Resemblance of the world to a building and such a building it is as doth evidence the greatness of him that fram'd it so spacious Rich and comely so firm a foundation and rais'd to so high and stately a roofe and set it with variety of stars as with Jewels therefore call'd as some conceive it Psa. 8. the work of his fingers to express the curious artifice that appears in them Though Naturalists can give the reason of the earth's stability from its heaviness which stayes it necessarily in the lowest part of the world yet that abates nothing our admiring the wisdom and power of God in laying its foundation so and establishing it for it is his will that is the first cause of that its nature and hath appointed that to be the property of its heaviness to fix it there and therefore Iob alledeges this amongst the wonderfull works of God and evidences of his power that he hangeth the earth upon nothing Before there was Time or place or any Creature God the blessed Trinity was in himselfe and as the Prophet speaks inhabiting Eternity compleatly happy in himself but intending to manifest and communicate his goodness he
know this Stone is laid but see whether you are built on it by faith The multitude of imaginary believers ly round about it but they are never the better nor the surer for that no more than stones that ly loose in heaps near unto a foundation but are not joyned to 't there is no benefit to us by Christ without union with him No comfort in his riches without interest in them and title to them by that union then is the soul right when it can say He is altogether lovely and as the spouse there He is mine my welbeloved And this union is the spring of all Spiritual consolations and faith by which we are thus united is a divine work he that laid this foundation in Sion with his own hand works likewise with the same hand faith in the heart by which it is knit to this corner stone ' its not so easy a thing as we imagine to believe Eph. 1.19 Many that think they believe are amongst the others quite contrary that the Prophet there speaks of hardened in sin and carnally secure which he calls to be in covenant with hell and death walking in sin and yet promising themselves impunity 4. There is the firmness of this building Namely He that believeth on him shall not be Confounded This firmness is answerable to the nature of the foundation Not only the whole frame but every stone of it abideth sure 'T is a simple mistake to judge the perswasion of perseverance to be self-presumption they that have it are far from building it on themselves but their foundation is that which makes them sure because it doth not only remain firm it self but indissolubly supports all that are once built on it In the Prophet whence this is cited 't is shall not make hast but the sense is one they that are disappointed and ashamed in their hopes run to and fro and seek after some new recourse This they shall not need to do that come to Christ. The believing soul makes hast to Christ but it never finds cause to hasten from him and though the comfort it expects and longs for be for a time deferr'd yet it gives not over knowing that in due time it shall rejoyce and shall not have cause to blush and think shame of its confidence in him David expresseth this distrust by making haste Psal. 31.22 and 116.11 I was too hasty when I said so Hopes frustrated especially where they have been rais'd high and continued long do reproach Men with folly and so shame them And thus do all earthly hopes serve us when we lean much upon them We find these things usually that have promis'd us most content pay us with vexation not only prove broken reeds deceiving our trust but hurtful running their broken spinters into our hand that lean'd on them This sure Foundation is laid for us that our souls may be establish'd on it and be as Mount Sion that cannot be removed Such times may come as will shake all other supports but this holds out against all Psal. 46.2 Though the earth be removed yet will not we fear Though the frame of the World were cracking about a Mans ears he may hear it unaffrighted that is built on this Foundation Why then do we chuse to build upon the sand Believe it wheresoever we lay our confidence and affection besides Christ it shall once repent us and ashame us either hapily in time while we may change them for him and have recourse to him or miserably when 't is too late Remember that we must die and must appear before the Judgment Sent of God and that the things we dote on here have neither Power to stay us here nor have we power to take them along with us nor if we could would they at all profit us there and therefore when we look back upon them all at parting we shall wonder what fools we were to make so poor a Choyce and then in that great day wherein all faces shall gather blackness and be fill'd with confusion that have neglected to make Christ their stay when he was offer'd them then it shall appear how happy they are that have trusted in him they shall not be confounded but shall lift up their faces and be acquitted in him In their present estate they may be founded and exercis'd but they shall not be confounded nor ashamed a double negation in the Original by no means they shall in all be more than Conquerours through him that hath loved them Behold The last thing Obs. is in that first word importing this work to be great and remarkable and caullng the eyes to behold it The Lord is marvellous in the least of his works but in this he hath manifested more of his wisdom and power and let out more of his love to Mankind than in all the rest but we are foolish and childishly gaze about us upon trifles and let this great work pass unregarded scarce afford it half an Eye Turn your wandring Eyes this way Look upon this precious Stone and behold him not in mere speculation but so behold him as to lay hold on him For we see he is therefore here set forth that we may believe on him and so not be confounded that we may attain this blessed union that cannot be dissolv'd all other unions are dissoluble A Man may be pluckt from his dwelling House and Lands or they from him though he have never so good title to them may be removed from his dearest friends the Husband from the Wife if not by other accidents in their lifetime yet sure by death the great dissolver of all those unions and of that straitest of the Soul with the Body but it can do nothing against this union but perfects it for I am perswaded sayes St. Paul that neither death nor life nor Angels nor Principallities nor Powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth nor any other creature shall be able to sâ—perate us from the Love of God which is in Christ Iesus our Lord. There is a twofold mistake concerning faith 1st They that are altogether void of it abusing and flattering themselves in a vain opinion that they have it and on the other side they that have it mis-judging their own Condition and so prejudging themselves of much comfort and sweetness that they might find in their believing The former is the worse and yet the far commoner evil and as one sayes of Wisdom 't is true of Faith Many would seek after it and attain it if they did not falsly imagine that they have attained it already There is nothing more contrary to the lively nature of Faith than for the soul not to be at all busied with the thoughts of its own Spiritual condition and yet this very character of unbelief passes with a great many for believing they doubt not that is indeed they consider not what they are their minds are not all in these things are not
whole Epistle Here he is representing to them the great fruit of that Love that happy and high Estate to which they are called in Christ that the chusing of Christ and Believers is as one act and they as one entire Object of it one glorious Temple He the Foundation and head corner Stone and they the Edifice one honourable Fraternity He the King of Kings and great high Priest and they likewise through him made Kings and Priests unto God the Father a Royal Priesthood c. He the Light of the World and they through him Children of Light Now that this their Dignity which shines so bright in its own innate worth may yet appear the more he sets it off by a double opposition 1. Of the misery under which others are 2 dly That Misery under which they themselves were before their calling And this being set on both sides is as a dark shadowing round about their happiness here describ'd setting off the lustre of it Their former misery express'd in the former Verse by Darkness is here more fully and plainly set before their view in these words They are borrowed from the Prophet Hosea 2.23 Where as is usual with the Prophets he is raised up by the Spirit of God from the temporal troubles and deliverances of the Israelites to consider and foretel that great restorement wrought by Jesus Christ purchasing a New People to himself made up both of Jews and Gentiles that believe and therefore the Prophecy is fit and applicable to both so that the debate is altogether needless whether it concerns the Jews or Gentiles For in its Spiritual sense as relating to the Kingdom of Christ it foretels the making up to the Gentiles that were not before the People of God and of the Jews likewise that by their Apostacies and the Captivities and Dispersions come upon them as just punishments of those Apostacies were degraded from the outward Dignities they had as the People of God and withal were Spiritually miserable and Captives by Nature and so in both respects laid equal with the Gentiles and stood in need of this Restiâ—ution as they St. Paul â—iseth it concerning the calling of the Gentiles Rom. 9. And â—ere St. Peter Writing as is most Probable particularly to the Dispersâ—d Jews applies it to them as being in the very reference it bears to the Jews truly fulfill'd in those alone that were Believers Faith making them a part of the true Israel of God to which the Promises do peculiarly belong as the Apostle St. Paul argue at large Rom. 9. Their former Misery and so their present Happiness we have here under a double expression they were not a People destitute of mercy not the People of God sayes the Prophet Not a People sayes our Apostle being not Gods People so base and miserable as not worthy the Name of a People at all as 't is taken Deut. 32.21 There is a kind of being a life that the Soul hath by a peculiar union with God and therefore in that sense the Soul without God is dead as the Body is without the Soul Eph. 2.1 Yea as the Body seperated from the Soul is not only a liveless lump but putrifies and becomes noysome and abominable thus the Soul seperated from God is subject to a more loathsome and vile putrefaction Psal. 14.3 So that Men that are yet Unbelievers are Not as the Hebrewes express'd death multitudes of them are not a People but a heap of filthy Carcases Again take our Natural Misery in the notion of a Captivity which was the judgement threatned against the Jews to make them not a People therefore their Captivity is often spoke of as a Death by the Prophets and their reduction as their resurrection Ezek. 37. And as a Captive People is civilly dead as they speak so are Souls captive to Sin and the and the Prince of darknes Spiritually dead wanting happiness and well being which if it never attain it had better for it self not be at all Nothing but disorder and confusion in the Soul without God the affections hurrying it tumultuously Thus Captive sinners are not are dead they both want that happy being that flowes from God to the Souls that are united to himself and consequently must want that Society and union one with another which results from the former from the same union that Believers have with God and the same being in Him which makes them truly worthy to be called a People and particularly the People of God His People are the only People in the World worthy to be call'd a People the rest are but refuse and dross although in the Worlds esteem that judges by its own rules and favour of it self the People of God be as no body no People a company of silly creatures yea we are made sayes the great Apostle as the filth of the World and the offscouring of all things yet in his account who hath chosen them who alone knowes the true value of things His People are the only People and all the rest of the World as nothing in his eyes He Dignifies and beautifies them and loves in them that Beauty which He hath given them But under that term is not only compriz'd that new being of Believers in each one of them apart but that tie and union that is amongst them as one People being incorporated together and living under the same Government and Laws without which a People are but as the Beasts of the Field or the Fishes of the Sea and the Creeping things that have no ruler over them as the Prophet Habak speaks That regular living in Society and Union in Laws and Polity makes many Men to be One People but the civil Union of Men in States and Kingdoms is nothing comparable to the Mysterious Union of the People of God with him and one with another That Commonwealth hath a firmer Union then all others Believers are knit together in Christ as their Head not merely a Civil or Political Head ruling them but as a Natural Head enlivening them giving them all one Life Men in other Societies though well ordered yet are but as a Multitude of trees regularly planted indeed but each upon his own Root But the Faithful are all Branches of one Root their Vnion is so Mysterious that it is resembled to the very union of Christ with his Father as indeed the product of it Ioh. 17. People of God I will say to them thou art my People and they shall say thou art my God Hos. 2.23 That Mutual Interest and possession is the very foundation of all our Comfort He is the first Chuser He first sayes My People calls them so and makes them to be so and then they say My God therefore a Relation that shall hold and shall not break because it is founded upon His choyce who changes not The tenor of an external Covenant with a People as the Jewes particularly found is such as may be broken by Mans unfaithfulness
upright course of life and silent innocency as a wind it breaks the waves into foam that Roar about it As free This the Apostle addes lest any should so far mistake the Nature of their Christian Liberty as to dream of an exemption from obedience either to God or to Men for his sake and according to his appointment Their freedom he grants but would have them understand aright what it is I cannot here insist at large on the Spiritual freedom of Christâ—ans nor is it here needful being mention'd onely for the clearing of it in this point but free they are and they only that are partakers of this liberty If the Son make you free you shall be free indeed the restare slaves to Satan and the World and their own lusts as the Israelites in Egypt working in the clay under hard taskmasters Much discourse and much Ink hath been spilt upon the debate of free will but truly all the liberty it hath till the Son and his Spirit free it is that miserable freedom the Apostle speaks of Rom. 6.20 While ye were servants to sin ye were free from righteousness And as we are naturally subject to the vile drudgâ—ry of sin so we are condemn'd to the proper wages of sin which the Apostle there tells us is death according to the just sentence of the Law But our Lord Christ was anointed for this purpose to set us free both to work and to publish liberty to proclaim liberty to Captives and the opening of the prison doors to them that are bound having pay'd our compleat ransome he sends his word as the message and his Spirit to perform it effectually to set us free to let us know it and to bring us out of prison He was bound and scourg'd as a slave or Malefactor to purchase us this liberty therefore ought it be our special care first to have part in it and then to be like it and stand fast in it in all points But that we deceive not our selves as too many do that have no portion in this liberty we ought to know that 't is not to inordinate walking and licentiousness as our liberty that we are call'd But from them as our thraldome not called from Obedience but to it Therefore beware that you shuffle in nothing under this specious name of Liberty that belongs not to it make it not a Cloak of maliciousness 't is too precious a garment for so base an use Liberty is indeed Christ's livery that he gives to all his followers But the sutable living of it is not wickedness and disobedience of any kind but Obedience and Holiness you are called to be the servants of God and that is your dignity and your Liberty The Apostles of this Gospel of Liberty gloried in this title the servants of Iesus Christ David before that Psalm of praise for his victories and exaltations being now settled on his throne prefixes that as more honour than all these a Psalm of David the Servant of the Lord. To Kings and Subjects and all 't is only happiness to be his Subjects 't is the glory of the Angels to be his ministring Spirits The more we attain unto the faculty of serving him cheerfully and diligently the more still we find of this Spiritual Liberty and have the more joy in it As it is the most honourable it is likewise the most comfortable and most gainful service and they that once know it will never change it for any other in the world Oh that we could live as his Servants imploying all our industry to do him service in the condition and place wherein he hath set us whatsoever it is and as faithful Servants more careful of his affairs than of our own accounting it our maine busines to seek the advancement of his glory Happy is the the servant whom the Master when he cometh shall find so doing Verse 17. Honour all men Love the Brotherhood Fear God Honour the King THis is a precious cluster of Divine Precepts the whole face of the Heavens is decored with stars But of different greatness and in some parts they are thicker set then in the rest thus is it likewise in the holy Scriptures and these are the two Books that the Psalmist sets open before us Psa. 19. The Heavens as a choyce piece of the works of God instructing us And the word of God more full and clear then they Here is a constellation of very bright stars near together These words have very briefly and yet not obscur'd by briefness but withall very plainly the Summe of our duty towards God and Men to Men both in general Honour all Men and in special Relations in their Christian or religious relation Love the Brotherhood and a chief civil relation Honour the King And our whole duty to God compris'd under the name of his fear is set in the middle betwixt these as the common Spring of all duty to Men and of all due observance of it and the Soveraigne rule by which it is to be regulated I shall speak of them as they lye in the text we need not labour about the Connexion for in such variety of brief practical directions it hath not such place as in Doctrinal discourses The Apostle having spoke of one particular wherein he would have his brethern to clear and commend their Christian profession now accumulates these directions as most necessary and after goes on to particular duties of Servants c. But first observe in general how plain and easy and how few these things are that are the rule of our life no dark sentences to puzle the understanding nor large discouses and long periods to burden the memory they are all plain There is nothing wreathed nor distorted in them as wisdom speaks of her instructions Prov. 8. And this gives check to a double folly amongst Men contrary the one to the other but both agreeing in mistaking and wronging the word of God The one is of those that despise the word and that Doctrine and Preaching that is conform to it for its plainess and simplicity These certainly doe not take the true end for which the word is design'd that it is the Law of our life and it is mainely requisite in Lawes that they be both brief and clear that it is our guide and light to happiness and if that which ought to be our Light be darkness how great will that darkness be It is true but I am not now to insist on this piont that there be dark and deep passages in Scripture for the exercise yea for the humbling yea for the amazing and astonishing of the sharpest-sighted readers But this argues much the pride and vanity of Mens minds when they busy themselves only in those and throw aside altogether the most necessary which are therefore the easiest and plainest truths in it as in nature these commodities that are of greatest necessity God hath made commonest and easiest to be had so in Religion such as
that we being dead to sin should live unto Righteousness by whose stripes ye were healed THat which is deepest in the heart is readily most in the mouth That which abounds within runs over most by the Tongue or Pen when Men light upon the speaking of that Subject that possesses the affection they can hardly be taken off or drawn from it again Thus the Apostles in their writings when they make mention any way of Christ suffering for us they love to dwell on it as that which they take most delight to speak of Such delicacy and sweetness is in it to a Spiritual taste that they like to keep it in their mouth and are never out of their theam when they insist on Jesus Christ though they have but nam'd him by occasion of some other Doctrine for he is the great subject of all they have to say Thus here the Apostle had spoke of Christ in the foregoing words very fitly to this present Subject setting him before Christian Servants and all suffering Christians as their compleat example both in point of much suffering and of perfect Innocency and Patience in suffering And express'd their engagement to study and follow that example yet he cannot leave it so but having said that all those his sufferings wherein he was so exemplary were for us as a chief consideration for which we should study to be like him he returns to that again and enlarges himself in it in words partly the same partly very near those of that Evangelist among the Prophets Esay Chap. 53. And it suits very well with his main scope to press this point as giving both very much strength and sweetness to the Exhortation as being most reasonable that we willingly conform to him in suffering that had never been an Example of suffering nor subject at all to sufferings nor capable of them but for us and most comfortable in the light sufferings of this Moment to consider that he hath freed us from the sufferings of Eternity by suffering himself in our stead in the fulness of time That Jesus Christ is in doing and suffering our Supream and Matchless Example and that he came to be so is a truth but that he is nothing further and came for no other end is you see a high point of falshood for how should Man be enabled to learn and follow that example of obedience unless there were more in Christ and what would become of that great reckoning of disobedience that Man stands guilty of No these are too narrow he came to bear our sins on his own Body on the tree and for this purpose had a Body fitted for him and given him to bear this burden to do this as the will of his Father to stand for us in stead of all Offerings and Sacrifices and by that will sayes the Apostle we are Sanctified through the offering of the body of Iesus Christ once for all This was his business not only to rectifie sinful Mankind by his example but to redeem him by his Blood he was a teacher come from God As a Prophet he teaches us the way of Life and as the best and greatest of Prophets is perfectly like his Doctrine and his actions that in all Teachers is the livelyest part of Doctrine his carriage in Life and death is our great Pattern and instruction But what is said of his forerunner is more eminently true of Christ he is a Prophet and more then a Prophet a Priest satisfying justice for us and a King conquering sin and death for us an Example in deed but more than an Example our Sacrifice and our Life and all in all 't is our Duty to walk as he walked to make him the pattern of our steps 1 Ioh. 2.6 But our comfort and salvation lyeth in this that he is the propitiation for our sins Verse 2. So in the first Chapter of that Epistle Verse 7. We are to walk in the Light as he is in the Light For all our walking we have need of that which followes that bears the great weight the Blood of Iesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin and so still that glory which he possesseth in his own Person is the pledge of ours he is there for Vs. he lives to make intercession for us sayes the Apostle and I go to prepare a place for you sayes he himself We have in the words these two great points and in the same order as the words ly 1. The nature and quality of the sufferings of Jesus Christ And 2. The end of them In the expression of his suffering we are to consider 1. The commutation of the Persons he himself for us 2. The work undertaken and performed he bare our sins in his own body on the tree 1. The Act or sentence of the Law against the breach of it standing in force and Divine justice expecting satisfaction death was the necessary and inseperable consequent of sin If you say the Supream Majesty of God being accountable to none might have forgiven all without satisfaction We are not to contest that nor foolishly to offer to sound the bottomless deep of his absolute prerogative Christ implies in his Prayer that it was impossible that he could escape that cup But the impossibility is resolv'd into his Fathers will as the cause of it But this we may clearly see following the tract of the holy Scriptures our only safe way that this way wherein our salvation is contriv'd is most excellent and suitable to the greatness and goodness of God so full of wonders of wisdom and love that the Angels as our Apostle tells us before cannot forbear looking on it and admiring it for all their exact knowledge yet they still find it infinitly beyond their knowledge still in astonishment and admiration of what they see and still in search looking in to see more Those Cherubims still haveing their eyes fixed on this Mercy Seat Justice might indeed have siez'd on rebellious Man and laid the pronounc'd punishment on him mercy might have freely acquit him and pardon'd all But can we name any place where mercy and justice as relating to condemned Man could have met and shined joyntly in full aspect save only in Jesus Christ in whom indeed Mercy and truth met and righteousness and peace kissed each other Yea in whose Person the Parties concern'd that were at so great a distance met so near as nearer can not be imagin'd And not only was this the only way for the consistence of these two Justice and Mercy but take each of them severally and they could not have been in so full lustre as in this Gods just hatred of sin did out of doubt appear more in punishing his own only begotten Son for it than if the whole race of Mankind had suffer'd for it Eternally Again it raises the notion of Mercy to the highest that sin is not only forgiven us but for this end God's own coeâ—ernal Son is given to us and for us Consider
said to be dead in it otherwayes it could not but press us and press out complaints O wretched man that I am who shall deliver me A Prophane secure sinner thinks it nothing to break the holy Law of God to please his flesh or the World counts sin a light matter makes a mock of it as Salomon sayes but a stirring Conscience is of another mind Mine iniquities is gone over my head c. Psal. 38.4 Sin is such a burden as makes the very frame of Heaven and Earth that is not guilty of it yea the whole Creation to crack and groan 't is the Apostles Doctrine Rom. 8. and yet the impenitent heart whose guiltiness it is not moved groaneth not for your accustomed groaning is no such matter Yea to consider in the present subject where we may best read what it is it was a heavy load to Jesus Christ Ps. 40. Where the Psalmist speaks in the Person of Christ he complains heavily innumerable evils have compassed me about Mine iniquities not his as done by him but yet his by reckoning to pay for them they have taken hold of me so that I am not able to look up they are more then the hairs of my head therefore my heart faileth me And sure that which press'd him so sore that upholds Heaven and Earth no other in Heaven or in Earth could have sustained and surmounted but would have sunk and and perish'd under it Was it think you the pain of that common outside of his Death though very painful that drew such a word from him My God my God why hast thou forsaken me Or was it the fear of it before hand that press'd a sweat of Blood from him No it was this burden of sin the first of which was committed in the Garden that then begun to be laid upon him and fasten'd on his shoulders in the Garden ten thousand times heavier than the Cross which he was caus'd to bear that might be a while turn'd over to another but this could not This was the cup he so trembled at that Gall and Vinegar after to be offer'd him by his Crucifiers or any other part of his External sufferings 'T was the bitter Cup of wrath due to sin that his Father put into his hand and caus'd him drink the very same thing that is here called the bearing our sins on his body And consider that the very smallest sins went in to make up this load and made it so much the heavier and therefore though sins be comparatively lesser and greater yet learn thence to account no sin in it sell small that offends the great God and lay heavy upon your great Redeemer in the day of his Sufferings At his apprehending besides the Souldiers that invisâ—ble crowd of the sins he was to suffer for came about him for it was they that laid strongest hold on him he could easily have shak'd of all the rest as appears But our sins laid the arrest on him being accounted his as 't is in that forcited place Psa. 40. Now amongst these were even those sins we call small they were of the number that took him and they were amongst those instruments of his bloodshed If the greater were as the spear that pierc'd his side the less were as the nails that pierc'd his Hands and his Feet and the very least as the Thornes that were set on his precious Head And the multitude of them made up what was wanting in their magnitude though they were small they were many 2. They were transferr'd upon him by vertue of that Covenant we spoke of They became his debt and he responsable for all they câ—me to Seeing you have accepted of this business according to my will may we conceive the Father saying to his Son you must go through with it you are engaged in it but it is no other than what you understood perfectly before you knew what it would cost you and yet out of joynt love with me to those I nam'd to be saved by you you were as willing as I to the whole undertaking now therefore the time is come that I must lay upon you the sins of all those persons and you must bear them the sins of all those Believers that lived before and all that are to come after to the end of the world The Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all sayes the Prophet took it off from us and chargd it on him made it to meet on him or to fall in together as the word is the sins of all in all ages before and after that were to be saved all their guiltiness reencountered and met together on his back upon the Crosse and whosoever of all that Number had least sin yet had â—o small Burden to cast on him and to give accession to the whole Weight Every man hath had his own way of wandering as the Prophet there expresseth it and he pay'd for all all fell on him And as in Testimony of his meekness and patience so in this regard likewise was he so silent in his Sufferings in regard that though his Enemies dealt most unjustly with him yet he stood as convicted before the Justice Seat of his Father under the imputed guilt of all our Sins and so eyeing him and accounting his business chiefly with him he did patiently bear the due punishment of all our sins at his Fathers hand and suited that of the Psalmist I was as dumb and opened not my mouth because thou didst iâ— Therefore the Prophet immediately subjoynes that of his silent carriage Isay 53. To that which he had spoken off the confluence of our iniquities upon him And if this our Sins were accounted his then in the same way and for that very reason of necessity his sufferings and satisfaction must be accounted ours as he said for his disciples to the Men that came to take him if it be me ye seek then let these go free So he said for all Believers to his father his wrath then siezing on him if on me you will lay hold then let these go free And thus the agreement was 2. Cor. 5. ult So then there is an union betwixt Believers and Jesus Christ by which this interchange is made he charg'd with their sins and they cloath'd with his satisfaction and righteousness and that union is first in Gods decree of election running this way that they should live in Christ and so chuse the head and the whole mystical body as one and reckoning their debt as his in his purpose that he might receive satisfaction and they salvation in their heâ—d Christ The execution of that purpose and union begun in Christ's incarnation being for them though the nature be more common he is said not to take on the Angels but the seed of Abraham the company of Believers he became Man for their sakes because they are Men that he is of the same nature with unbelieving Men that perish is but by accident â—s â—t were there is no
still cleave to sin and love sin better than him that suffered for it But you whose hearts the Lord hath deeply humbled in the sense of sin come to this depth of consolation and try it that you may have experience of the sweetness and â—iches of it study this point throughly and you will find it answer all and quiet your consciences Apply this bearing of sin by the Lord Jesus for you for it is publish'd and made known to you for this purpose this is the genuine and true use of it as of the Brazen Serpent not â—emptily to gaze on the Fabrick of it but to cure those that look'd on it when all that can be said is said against you ' its true may you say but it is satisfied for he on whom I rest made it his and did bear it for me The person of Christ of more worth than all Men yea than all the creatures and therefore his life a full ransome for the greatest offender And for outward troubles and sufferings which were the occasion of this Doctrine in this place they are all made exceeding light by the removal of this great pressure Let the Lord lay on me what he will seeing he hath taken off my sin and laid that on his own Son in my stead I may suffer many things but he hath bâ—rn that for me which alone was able to make me miserable And you that have this perswasion how will your hearts be taken up with his love Who thus lov'd you as to give himself for you and by interposing himself to bear off from you the stroke of everlasting death and that encountered all the wrath due to us and went through with that great work by reason of his unspeakable love Let him never go forth from my heart who for my sake refus'd to go down from the cross That we being dead to sin should live unto Righteousnesse The Lord doth nothing in vain hath not made the least of his work to no purpose in wisdom hath he made them all sayes the Psalmist and that is not only in regard of their excellent frame and Order but of their end which is a chief Point of Wisdom so then to the right knowledge of this great work put into the hands of Jesus Christ it is of special concern to understand what is this end This is the thing thâ—t his wisdom and love aim'd at in that great undertaking and therefore will be our truest wisdom and the truest evidence of our reflex Love to intend the same thing that in this the same mind may be in us that was in Christ Iesus in his suffering for us and for this very end is it express'd In this there are 3. Things 1st What this death and life is 2. The intendment of it in the sufferings and death of Jesus Christ. 3. The effecting of it by them Whatsoever this is sure 't is no small change that bears the Name of the great and last natural change that we are subject to a death and then another kind of life succeeding to it and in this the greatest part are mistaken that they take any light alteration in themselves for true conversion There be a World deluded with superficial Moral changes in their Life some rectifying of their outward actions and course of Life and somewhat too in the temper and habitude of their mind far from reaching the bottom of Natures wickedness and laying the axe to the root of the Tree 't is such a work as Men can make a shift withal by themselves but the Renovation that the Spirit of God worketh is like himself so deep and through a work that it is justly called by the Name of the most substantial works and productions a new birth and more than that a new Creation and here a Death and a kind of life following it This death to sin supposes a former living in it and to it and while a Man is so he is said indeed to be dead in sin and yet withal this is true that he lives in sin as the Apostle joynes the expressions speaking of Widowes she that lives in pleasures is dead while she liveth So Eph. 2. dead in trespasses and sins and he addes wherein ye walked which imports a life such an one as it is and more expresly Verse 3. We had our conversation in the lusts of our flesh Now thus to live in sin is call'd to be dead in it because in that condition Man is indeed dead in respect of that Divine Life of the Soul that happy being which it should have in Union with God for which it was made and without which it had better not be at all For that Life as it is different from its natural being and a kind of Life above it so it is contrary to that corrupt being and life it hath in sin and therefore to live in sin is to be dead in it being a deprivement of that Divine being that Life of the Soul in God in comparison whereof not only the base life it hath in sin but the very natural life it hath in the Body and the Body by it is not worthy the Name of Life You see the Body when the threed of its union with the Soul is cut becomes not only straightway a motionless lump but within a little time a putrified noysome Carcase and thus the Soul by sin is cut off from God who is its life as is the Soul of the Body it hath not only no moving faculty in good but fills full of rotteness and vileness as the word is Psal. 14. they are gone aside and become filthy The Soul by turning away from God turns filthy yet as a Man thus Spiritually dead lives naturally so because he acts and spends that Natural life in the wayes of sin he is said to live in sin yea there is somewhat more in that expression than the mere passing of his life in that way for in stead of that happy life his Soul should have in God he pleases himself in the miserable life of sin that which is his death as if it were the proper life of his Soul that natural propension he hath to sin and the continual delight he takes in it as in his Element and living to it as if that were the very end of his being In that estate his Body nor his mind stirreth not without sin setting aside his manifest breaches of the Law those actions that are evidently and totally sinful his natural actions his eating and drinking his religious actions his Praying and hearing and Preaching are sin at the bottom and generally his heart is no other but a forge of sin every imagination every fiction of things framed there is only evil continually or every day and all the day long 't is his very trade and Life Now in opposition to this life of Sin living in it and to it a Christian is said to dy to sin to be cut off or separated from it In
thus cure it must be applyed 't is the only receit but it must be received if for healing The most Soveraign Medicines cure not in another manner and therefore still their first letler is R recipe take such a thing This is amongst those wonders of that great work that the Soveraign Lord of all that binds and looses at his pleasure the influences of Heaven and the Power and workings of all the Creatures would himself in our flesh be thus bound the only Son bound as a Slave and scourged as a Malefactor and his willing obedience made this an acceptable and expiateing Sacrifice amongst the rest of his sufferings he gave his back to the smiters Now it cannot be that any that is thus healed reflecting upon this cure can again take any constant delight in sin 't is impossible so far to forget both the grief it bred themselves and their Lord as to make a new agreement with it to live in the pleasure of it His stripes Turn your thoughts all to consider this you that are not healed that you may be healed and you that are apply it still to perfect the cure in that part wherein it is gradual and not complete and for the ease you have found to bless and love him who endur'd so much unease to that end There is a sweet mixture of sorrow and joy in contemplating these stripes sorrow sure by sympathy that they were his stripes and joy that they were our healing Christians are too litle mindful and sensible of this and it may be somewhat guilty of that Hos. 11.3 They knew not that I healed them Verse 25. For ye were as Sheep going astray but are now returned to the Shepherd and Bishop of your Souls IN these few words we have a brief and yet clear representation of the wretchedness of our Natural condition and our happiness in Christ. The resemblance is borrow'd from the same place in the Prophet Isai. 53.6 Not to press the comparison and as it is usual in a postilling way to strain it beyond the purpose in our lost estate This is all or the main wherein the resemblance with Sheep holds our wandring as forlorn and exposed to destruction as a Sheep that is strayed and wandred from the fold So it imports indeed the loss of a better condition the safety and happiness of the Soul that good which is proper to it as the sutable good of the bruite creature here nam'd is safe and good Pasture That we may know there is none exempt in Nature from the guiltiness and misery of this wandring the Prophet is express in the universallity of it All we have gone astray And the Apostle here is particular to his Brethren so as it falls not amiss to any other Ye were as Sheep going astray Ye the Prophet there to the collective universal addes a distributive every Man to his own way Or a Man to his way They agree in this that they all wander though they differ in their several wayes There is an imbred Propension to stray in them all more than Sheep that are Creatures naturally wandring but each one hath his own way of it And this is our folly that we flatter our selves by comparison and every one is pleased with himself because he is free from some wandrings of others not considering that he is a wanderer too though in another way he hath his way as those he look's on have theirs And as Men agree in wandring though different in their way so those wayes agree in this that they lead unto misery and shall end in that Think you there is no way to Hell but the way of open Profaness Yes sure many a way that seems smooth and clean in a Man 's own eyes and yet will end in Condemnation Truth is but one Errour endless and interminable as of Natural Life and Death so of Spiritual the way to Life is one But many out of it Lethi mille aditus Each one hath not opportunity nor ability for every sin or every degree but each after his own Mode and Power Isa. 40.20 Thy Tongue it may be wanders not in the common Path road of Oathes and Curses yet it wanders in secret Calumnies in Detraction and Defaming of others though so conveyed as it scarce appears Or if thou speak them not yet thou art pleas'd to hear them It wanders in trifling away the precious hours of irrecoverable time with vain unprofitable bablings in thy Converse or if thou art much alone or in Company much silent yet is not thy foolish mind still hunting Vanity Following this selfe-pleasing design or t'other and seldom and very slightly if at all conversant with God and the things of Heaven Which although they alone have the truest and the highest Pleasure in them yet to thy Carnal Mind are tasteless and unsavory There is scarce any thing so light and Childish that thou wilt not more willingly and liberally bestow thy retired thoughts on than upon those excellent incomparable delights Oh! the foolish heart of Man when it may seem deep and serious how often is it at Domitian's Exercise in his Study catching Flies Men account litle of the wandring of their hearts and yet truly that is most of all to be consider'd For from thence are the Issues of life 'T is the heart that hath forgotten God and is roving after Vanity this causes all the Errours of Mens Words and Actions a wandring Heart makes wandring Eyes and Feet and Tongue 'T is the leading Wanderer that misleads all the rest and as we are here call'd straying Sheep so within the heart in it self of each of us there is as it were a whole wandring Flock such a Multitude of Fictions Gen. 8. Ungodly devices the Word that signifies a thought in Hebrew is from that which is feeding of a Flock and it likewise signifies wandring and so these meet in our thoughts they are a great Flock and a wandring Flock This is the Natural freedem of our thoughts they are free to wander from God and Heaven and carry us to perdition And we are guilty of many Pollutions this way that we never acted Men are less sensible of heart wickedness if it break not forth But it is far more active in sin than any of the senses or the whole body The motion of Spirits is far swifter than of bodies it can go more way in any of these wandrings in one hour than the body is able to follow in many dayes When the Body is tyed to attendance in the exercises where we are yet know you not 't is so much the more if you do not know and feel it and bewail it know you that the heart can take its liberty and leave you nothing but a Carcase This the unrenewed heart doth continually They come and sit before me c. But their heart is after their Covetousness it hath another way to go another God to wait on But are now returned c. Whatsoever