Deut. 8.3 is due to this Word of Command and Benediction that the Lord at first spoke to the Creature Now concerning the particular Creation of Man not to enter into the consideration of the manner of his Creation his Essentials the Body the Soul or the nature of either but we shall enquire What is meant by the Likeness or Image of God There was a twofold Image of God 1. Essential viz. A participation in his very Essence of a Conformity to the Divine Nature which consisted in three particulars 1. That he had an Immortal Soul this is that which Wisdom 2.23 is called the Image of his Eternity 2. That he was an Intellectual Being 3. That he was a Free Agent These being essential to Man were not lost by him and for this reason God required the same severity against Murder as if Man had never fallen Gen. 9.6 For in the Image of God made he Man. 2. An Accidental Image which consisted in an adventitious Perfection which God added to Man. 1. Dominion Gen. 1.26 And let them have Dominion c. So God created Man in his own Image The Dominion which he gave to him made him resemble God and hence it is that those that have power of Command are called Gods Exod. 4.17 And thou shalt be to him instead of God. Psal 82.6 I have said ye are gods Vid. Gen. 9.2 This Dominion consisted not only in his Power to inforce his Commands by the advantages of Wit and Strength above other Creatures but likewise in a Subjection in the Creatures to his Dominion 2. An incorruptible Union between the Body and the Soul Gen. 2.17 The day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die Hence Rom. 5. the Apostle concludes Death the fruit of Sin. This might have been either by reason of the excellence of his natural Constitution or by supplying it with special Assistance by which means the Lives of the Fathers before the Flood had so long a duration or by assuming of him into Heaven without any dissolution of Soul and Body as was Enoch Gen. 5.24 3. A filling of the Intellectual Faculty with the Light and Knowledge of all things especially of his Maker And herein consisted his high degree of Happiness But as the Object or the Union of the Object to the Faculty is not of the Essence of that Intellectual Nature wherein that Faculty resides but may be removed without any essential change so was this and that herein consisted the Image of God appears by Colos 3.10 The Renovation by Christ which is renewed in knowledge after the Image of him that created him 4. Holiness or Conformity of the Will to the Will of God. This appears likewise by the state of Renovation Epes 4.24 Put on the New Man which after God is created in Righteousness and true Holiness which as it presupposeth a true Knowledge of the Will of God so it was a free choice of Obedience to it This was not essential to the Will because the Will was essentially Free but had been necessary to the Will in case the Understanding had not been abused CHAP. IV. Of the Providence of God in special concerning Man in order to his supream End. THUS much shortly touching the Creation and Man's Constitution in it the second part of the Dispensation of this Counsel is God's Providence and herein we shall pass over that part which is the General Providence of God and consider of that Special Providence or Dispensation of Divine Counsel which concerneth Man and that not meerly as a Creature but in order to his everlasting End. We shall consider therefore the course of this Providence of God in order to the Eternal End of Man under those three Conditions or Times wherein we find Man Before the Fall After the Fall In Christ Concerning the estate of Man before the Fall or sin of Adam we have already examined certain Generals that are conducible to this point viz. 1. That God did appoint Man to some End or Good answerable to the constitution and value of his Nature and this is his Happiness 2. That this Good must therefore be an Infinite Immortal Intelligible Good otherwise it could not be answerable to the Nature of Man. 3. That there is not nor can be any such Good but only God. 4. That the Actual Enjoyment of this Good is by the Union of the Soul to God and the Communion of God to the Soul. 5. That the only Means of attaining this Union and Communion must needs be such and such only as the Will of God pleaseth to appoint We shall now descend to these two particular Inquiries viz. 1. What was that great End or Happiness which Man did or might enjoy in his created condition 2. What was the Means whereby to attain and keep that Happiness 1. Concerning the former viz. What was Man's Happiness in his Creation we shall consider him in those three degrees of Living which he had 1. As a Vegetable Creature an exact Constitution and temper of Body which though naturally corruptible yet by the interposition of the Divine Power not subject to corruption those things that were for his use and sustentation the Air the Water the Fruits of the Earth most exactly conducible to the perpetuating of his Life without Pain or Sickness 2. As a Sensible Creature Exquisiteness of Sense and receptive of whatsoever the Creature could afford conducing to his Use or Delight and the Creature likewise fitted for the supply of those Senses every Herb given him for Food all the Creatures came to him to receive their Names he had Dominion over them a most pleasant Garden planted by God himself for his Habitation with a Tree of Immortality in it 3. As a Rational Creature 1. A most just and sweet Subordination of the inferiour Faculties to the superiour the sensitive Appetite the Passions and Motions of the Spirits 2. A most exact fitness and perfection of those Organs of the Body which are necessary for the operations of the Faculties of the Soul and a perfect and just Union of the Body and Soul whereby the Soul might clearly and perfectly exercise all her Faculties 3. Which is the height of all the rest fitting of those Faculties with the most perfect and suitable Object even God himself for all Faculties or Powers receive their perfection by their Objects to have an Understanding as comprehensive as Heaven to have a Will of as vast Desires as infinitude it self and not to have an Object suitable to either were a greater Unhappiness than to want the Faculties In the Creation therefore God filled the Understanding with the sight and knowledge of Himself of his Majesty Glory Bounty Goodness with the knowledge of his Will and Mind concerning Man with the knowledge of his Works and of his Workings This could not chuse but work in the Mind of Man answerable returns to the nature of this Object He is fully conceived to be the highest and most supream Good and
laid down for the Sins of the World namely the precious Life of his own Son Jesus Christ that published this Doctrine to the World And this Sacrifice and Satisfaction the glorious God would accept in a way of Justice and yet in a way of Mercy that his Justice might be satisfied his Mercy magnified and his Creature saved 8. And that because it would be neither agreeable to the Honour nor the Wisdom of Almighty God that any Man that had the use of his Reason and Understanding should have the fruit and benefit of this Mercy and Sacrifice without returning to his Duty to God by true Repentance for what he had done amiss and by better Obedience to God neither was there any fitness or suitableness between a Pure and Holy God or that Blessedness which Mankind might expect with him and a People that should yet continue desperately sinful and impure and it was also reasonable and fit that if Mankind would expect the Restitution to that everlasting Happiness that they lost by their own sins and the sin of their first Parents then they should also return to their Duty and Obedience to God and perform in some measure that End for which Mankind was at first created namely actively to glorifie that God that had made them especially after so great an addition of Mercy as the Redemption of the World by the Death of his own Son therefore he appointed and intended and published to the World that all that would have the fruit and benefit of this great Redemption should repent of their Sins and endeavour sincerely to obey the Precepts of Piety Sobriety and Righteousness commanded by Almighty God by the Message of his Son. 9. And because that if those to whom this Message of the Gospel of Christ should be published should yet not believe the same nor believe that Jesus was the true Messias or that his Doctrine was the true and real Message of Almighty God to the World it could never be expected that they would obey this Heavenly Command nor return to God or the Duty they owed him he did therefore require of all Persons that were of Understanding to whom the Gospel should be published that they should Believe it to be True and believe that Christ was the True Messias the great Sacrifice for the Sin of the World and the Doctrine which he preached was the Will of God concerning Man. 10. And thus there are these Conditions to be performed on the part of those that will expect the Benefit of the Redemption purchased by the Blood of Christ 1. That all that are of Understanding to whom the Gospel is preached should Believe it to be the Truth and rest upon it as the Truth of God 2. That they should be heartily sorry for their former Sins and Repent of them and turn from them This is Repentance 3. That they should in all Sincerity endeavour to conform their Hearts and Wills and Lives to the Precepts and Commandments of Christ and his Gospel which is called Sanctification and new Obedience 11. And because when we have done all we can yet we are in this Life compassed about with many Infirmities and Temptations and subject to fail in our Duty to God and to these Holy Precepts of the Gospel yet the merciful God hath assured us by his Son Christ Jesus that if we sincerely endeavour to obey the Precepts of the Gospel and repent for our Failings herein and so renew our Peace with God by unfeigned Repentance the same Sacrifice of his Son shall be accepted to expiate for our Sins and Failings and the blessed God will accept of our sincere though imperfect Obedience as a Performance of that part of the Covenant of the Gospel that concerns our Obedience to God and the Commands of the Gospel And this is called Evangelical Obedience which though it be not perfect yet being sincere and accompanied with real and sincere Endeavours to obey and Repentance for our daily Failings is accepted of God through the Sacrifice of Christ who is not only our Sacrifice and Propitiation but also our Intercessor and Mediator at the right hand of God. If any man sin we have an Advocate with the Father even Jesus Christ who sitteth at the right hand of the Father 1 John 2.1 Heb. 8.1 10.12 12. And because many times Example gives a great Light and Life to Precepts our blessed Saviour in his Life gave us an excellent Example of the Practice of those Precepts which he hath given to us as namely Obedience and Submission to the Will of God Invocation upon him Holiness Purity Sobriety Patience Righteousness Justice Charity Compassion Bounty Truth Sincerity Uprightness Heavenly mindedness low esteem of Worldly Glory Condescension and all those Graces and Vertues that he requires and expects from us 18. And as thus our Lord Jesus came to instruct us in all things necessary for us to believe and practise and to give us an admirable Pattern and Example of a Holy and Vertuous Life so 2. He came to die for us and to die such a Death as had in it all the Circumstances of Bitterness and yet accompanied with unspotted Innocence and incomparable Patience and he thus died for these Ends. 1. To lay down a Ransom for the Sins of Mankind and a Price for the Purchace of Everlasting Life and Happiness for all those that receive him believe in him and obey the Gospel 2. To satisfie the Justice of God to make good his Truth to vindicate the Honour of his Government and to proclaim his Justice his Indignation against Sin and yet to magnifie his Love and Mercy to Mankind in giving his Son to be a Price of their Redemption 3. To give a just indication unto all the World of the vileness of Sin the abhorrence of it that cost the Son of God his Life when he was but under the imputed guilt of it that so Mankind might detest and avoid Sin as the vilest of Evils 4. To give a most unparallel'd Instance of his Love to the World that did chuse to die for the Children of Men to redeem them from Everlasting Death 5. And thereby to oblige Mankind with the most obliging and indearing Instance to love and obey that Jesus that thus died for them and out of the common Principles of Humanity and Gratitude to love and obey him that thus loved them and laid down his Life for them 6. To give a most convincing Evidence of the Truth of his Doctrine and the Sincereness of his Professions of Love to Mankind by sealing the same with his own Blood. FINIS Considerations Seasonable at all Times for the Cleansing OF THE HEART AND LIFE Considerations Seasonable at all Times for the Cleansing OF THE HEART and LIFE 1. OF God and therein 1. Of his Purity and Holiness one that cannot endure to behold iniquity The Stars are not pure in his sight Job 25.5 Job 15.15 and his Angels he chargeth with folly Job 4.18
an actual exercise of right Reason they have in all successions of times and places taken up those Laws of Nature which we call the Moral Law or the most parts of them 2. Touching the-Obligation of these Laws it was twofold 1. From the Injunction and Command of God who had an Universal Infinite and Unlimited Power over his Creature and might most justly require his Obedience And into this Power of God together with his actual Command or Prohibition is all the Obligation of all Laws whether Natural or Positive and of all inferiour Laws Compacts or Agreements to be resolved And without the due consideration of this Mankind is loose Though the natural Congruity of the Moral Law to the Nature of Man might be the means of its Publication it is the Command of God that is and ever was the cause of its Obligation 2. From the Compact and Stipulation of Man. God put into Man's hands a stock both of Blessedness and Liberty and though he might have commanded his Creature and it had bound eternally yet to add the greater engagement upon him he enters into Contract with him concerning his Obedience Hence it is called the Covenant of Works And in all ensuing times when it pleased God to reinforce the Law of Nature or Obedience he doth it by way of Compact or Covenant as well as Command to add another Obligation as well of Contract as Duty And from this grew the Universality of the Guilt that was contracted by Disobedience Adam covenanted for him and his Posterity Rom. 5.19 As the Obedience of Christ is effectual for his Seed by way of Contract and Stipulation with God the Father so was the Disobedience of Adam binding upon his Seed partly by reason of his Contract and Stipulation and so they are made there parallel Sed de hoc infra 3. The Sanction of the Law given to Adam The Violation of any Law given by him that hath Power contracts Guilt that is Obligation to Punishment the measure of this Punishment is that Sanction which God did put upon the Violation of this Law Gen. 2.17 In the day thou eatest thou shalt surely die Herein are four Particulars 1. The Offence eating the forbidden Fruit 2. The Punishment Death 3. The Time of the inflicting of it in the day 4. The Extent of it thou shalt die c. Touching the first The thing specially prohibited was eating the forbidden Fruit but that which was in the Mind of God to enjoyn was Obedience to his Command and although this particular was by God made the Experiment of Man's Obedience yet questionless the same Injunction and under the same Penalty was given to Men touching those other Moral Dictates which were received Exod. 20. which lost not their Obligation by the Fall of Man no more than if he had continued in his Integrity Gen. 4.7 If thou dost not well Sin lieth at the door and Verse 14. Cain acknowledgeth Death to be the consequent of that Guilt which he contracted by his Murder Every one that findeth me shall slay me The like of Lamech Verse 23. For the Formality of any Sin as hath been before observed consisteth in the disobedience of the Will to the Command of God By one Mans disobedience sin entred into the World. And as the object of Mans obedience was whatsoever God had injoyned so the disobedience to any one Command had contracted the like Guilt and were under the like Penalty as this though this being purely a positive Command wherein only the Obedience or Disobedience of Man could be seen was that which is here mentioned because that wherein he offended 2. Thou shalt die God made not Death saith the wise Man Wisd 1.14 but Death entred into the world by sin Rom. 5.12 It imports three things 1. A loss or loosning of that strictness of Union which was between the Body and Soul or temporal immortality This is the Argument that the Apostle makes that from the time of Adam's transgression till Moses sin was in the World because Death reigned all that while and in the place before mentioned till sin the Kingdom of Death was not upon the Earth This immortality was not essential to the Nature of man but was freely super-added to it by the Divine Will upon those terms of Obedience and he that gave it might with all imaginable Justice give it upon what terms he pleaseth and he doth it upon terms of Obedience Obedience to himself which but even now gave Man his Being and might justly exact the utmost of his Being Obedience to a Law most possible easie and quadrate to the Powers and Aids given to man Obedience ingaged by a world of Blessedness attending it and an inevitable loss ensuing the breach of it This was his Vegetable loss 2. A loss of that Happiness which accompanied this immortal Being in respect of his Senses viz. an uninterrupted stream of Pleasure and Contentment and instead thereof Shame Gen. 3.7 Pain and Slavery Verse 26. Sorrow Verse 17. anxious and painful Labour Verse 19. a Curse upon the Earth Verse 17. A loss of Eden Verse 23. 3. The withdrawing and stopping of that stream of Light and Love that passed between God and the Soul of man which filled his reasonable faculties brimful of Happiness and Contentment and instead thereof in the understanding darkness distractedness a continued motion to know and yet for want of Light not knowing what to pursue and therefore pursuing trifles and follies In the Will loss of the Good that it before injoyed yet a craving Appetite after somewhat but it knows not what and to satisfie this unsatiable desire takeâ— in whatsoever the Suggestions of the World Flesh and the Devil offers fills it self with Vanity and then with Vexation In the Affections especially our Love it hath lost what did take up the whole Vigour and Comprehension of it and what it loved it injoyed but now raves and boils like the Sea after Follies and changeable and unsatisfying pursuits The Conscience that Chamber of the Soul wherein the beams of the Light and Favour of the Creator and of the Love and Duty of the Creature met as it were in the point or angle of reflection and carried those comfortable Messages of Sincerity and Obedience of the Soul to God and delight and acceptance from God to the Soul is now become the Chamber of Death and like the Spleen to the Body the receptacle of the Melancholy and sad Convictions of a guilty and ungrateful Soul and of an injured and revenging God and pre-apprehensions of farther Misery But if in the midst of Millions of Miseries he could see his Creator inviting him to dependance and recumbance upon him the Miseries were nothing they are born by his strength upon whom he leans But when the Lord of Heaven shall give him a trembling Heart and failing of Eyes and Sorrow of mind as in that most lively Expression he threatens the Jews Deut. 28.65 66 c. and when he
be there your peace shall rest upon it And though our Saviour professeth Matth. 10.34 I came not to send peace but a sword it is ex accidente or eventu by the malignity of our own Nature and the contestation of the Devil to keep his Possession against Christ the right owner and Lord of Man His Doctrine spiritual and powerful Isaiah 11.3 4. He shall not judge after the sight of his eyes nor reprove after the hearing of his ears he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth and with the breath of his lips shall he stay the wicked The teaching of Christ in the Flesh as one having Authority and not as the Scribes Matth. 7.29 The breath or spirit of his mouth a consuming breath 2 Thes 2.8 and hence Rev. 1.16 Out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword His Sufferings Satisfaction Resurrection Intercession and Reign in his Church that Evangelical Chapter Isaiah 53. A despised man rejected when Barabbas and he in competition for Life We hid our faces from him forsaken and denied by his own Disciples Acquainted with grief we often find him in tears never in mirth He hath born our griefs and carried our sorrows in his Passion when it eclipsed the Light of his Fathers Countenance from him in his Compassion a merciful high Priest touched with our Infirmities Heb. 2. Wounded by the Souldiers by the Nails for for our Transgressions By his stripes when whipt by the Souldiers are we healed Yet this Lamb dumb before his shearers when Pilate impiously interrogated him He made his grave with the wicked being crucified between Thieves and with the rich in the Garden of a rich and honourable Joseph yet though his Soul was made an offering for sin he survived his own death saw his seed prolonged his days and the pleasure of the Almighty prospered in his hands and the two and twentieth Psalm penned as if the Passion of our Saviour had been then acted His Cry Verse 1. My God my God why hast thou forsaken me The scorns of the beholders Verse 7. All they that see me laugh me to scorn Matth. 27. Ver. 39. They that passed by reviled him wagging their heads The very Language of the reviling Scribes Verse 8. fulfilled Matth. 27.43 He trusted in God that he would deliver him c. The manner of his death Verse the 16. They pierced my hands and my feet The sharing of his Garments Verse 18. They parted my garments among them Again in several other Prophecies the several Occurrences of his Life and Death gathered up by other Prophets He never appeared more regally and triumphantly than in his Voyage to Jerusalem Matth. 21.5 and that coming of his not without a Prophecy Zach. 9.9 Behold thy King cometh unto thee meek and sitting upon an ass The price of Judas's treason and the imployment Zach. 11.13 They weighed for my price thirty pieces of silver The Vinegar that he drank upon the Cross Psal 69.21 And in my thirst they gave me Vinegar to drink The time of his Birth and Death Dan. 9.25 26. From the going forth of the Command to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks and threescore and two weeks the street shall be built again and the wall even in troublous times And after threescore and two weeks shall the Messiah be cut off but not for himself and the people of the Prince that shall come shall destroy the city and sanctuary the desolation of Jerusalem shortly following the death of our Redeemer The manner of the Calculation hath been diversly conjectured yet all concur to a very near projection of times And lastly that undeniable evident Prophecy most clearly fulfilled through millions of difficulties to the eminent knowledge of God by Christ a matter that were there nothing else were sufficient to convince all gainsaying Isa 11.20 To it shall the Gentiles seek Isa 42.1 Behold my servant c. he shall bring forth Judgment to the Gentiles and Verse 6 I will give thee for a covenant of the People for a light of the Gentiles Isa 49.6 I will give thee for a light to the Gentiles that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth Psal 72.8 His dominion shall be from sea to sea and from the river unto the ends of the earth And this began to be fulfilled in the Homage of the wise Men that came from the East Matth. 2.1 In the diversity of Tongues Acts 2.4 In Peter's Vision Acts 10.15 In Paul and Barnabas turning to the Gentiles Acts 13.46 And if a Man do but consider the Antiquity and Particularity and Positiveness of these Prophecies the improbabilities of effecting it in respect of the Persons who were to be converted tenacious to their Idolatry Have a nation changed their Gods the improbability in respect of the Means a company of poor unlearned persecuted Apostles in respect of the Religion whereunto to be called to believe in a crucified Saviour whom they never saw a Religion persecuted and condemned by the great Masters of Religion Scribes and Pharisees a Religion promising nothing within the view of Reason or use of Sense a Religion that takes Men off from all that wherein Men naturally repose their Hopes and Delights a Religion opposed by the chiefest Wits in the World the Philosophers and wise Men a Religion studied to be supprest by the greatest Power Policies and Cruelties that the World could afford and yet for all this to master all these Difficulties and bring into subjection the greatest part of the World for these sixteen hundred Years though I confess not without mixtures of great Corruptions must wring from any reasonable Man an acknowledgment both of the great Power and Providence of God in the Government of the World and also of the Truth of Christ the Messiah 2. Touching the Typical Predictions of Christ Gen. 2.9 The Tree of Life in the midst of the Garden which by the Divine Dispensation had that efficacy given to it that it should seem by Gen. 3.22 if lapsed Man had eat thereof he had recovered his lost perpetuity This was nothing else but Christ at least typically the Wisdom of God that the wisest of Men called the Tree of Life Prov. 3.18 This that Tree of Life in the midst of the Paradise of God Revel 2.7 whose Leaves were for the healing of the Nations Revel 22.2 Melchizedeck the Priest of the most high God Gen. 14.18 The Type of Christ's Eternal Priesthood Psal 110.4 Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedeck And of his peaceable Kingdom King of Salem without beginning of days or end of life Heb. 7.3 The whole State of the Jews even from Abraham was in effect Typical Abraham the Father of the Jews according to the Flesh the Father of the Faithful as believing the Promise Gal. 3 7. Rom. 9.7 Sarah and Agar typical of the Church and the World the Flesh and the Spirit the Covenant
by one Spirit unto the Father CHAP. VII Of the Efficacy of the Satisfaction of Christ and the Congruity of it to right Reason THUS for the settling of our Minds in the Truth of Christ we have considered of those clear Prophecies and Types of Christ in the Old Testament We now come to consider some Particulars concerning this great work of our Redemption 1. Wherein consists the Efficacy and Virtue of Christ's Mediation and Sacrifice 2. How it was effected Wherein we shall consider 1. His Satisfaction 2. The Application of this Satisfaction in reference to the Father his Intercession in reference to us his Word and Spirit 3. The Effects and Consequents of it 1. The Efficacy of this Satisfaction consists in that free Acceptance by God of this Sacrifice of Christ as a Satisfaction for the Sins of his Elect and to be the price of the Inheritance thereby purchased for them by an eternal Contract between the Father and the Son for otherwise it were impossible of its own nature that the Sacrifice of one could expiate for the sin of another The tenor of this great Covenant between God and Christ was that the Son should take upon him Flesh should fullfil the Law of our Creation should suffer death and rise again and that Almighty God would accept this as the satisfaction for the sins of the righteous and as the price of Eternal Life for as many as should believe in him This is effectually set forth by the Word of Truth it self John 6.37 38 39 40. All that the Father giveth me shall come unto me and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out for I came down from heaven not to do my own Will but the will of him that sent me and this is the Father's will that hath sent me that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing but should raise it up again at the last day And this is the will of him that sent me that every one which seeth the Son and believeth on him may have everlasting life and I will raise him up at the last day It is the Will of God which is nothing but the Acceptaton of God 1 John 4.10 He sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins his sending was his Acceptation Isa 53.10 When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin there was the Acceptation of the Father Again on the Son's part Psal 40.6 â— Burnt-offering and sin-offering hast thou not reâ—uired then said I Lo I come And the same Word of Truth that tells us John 3.16 That God gave his only begotten Son tells us again John 10.17 18. I lay dâ—wn my life that I may take it up again And this susception of Christ and acceptation of God though we represent it to our selves under several Notions yet it was one indivisible and eternal Counsel of the Divine Majesty Acts 2.23 Him being delivered by the determinate counsel and fore knowledge of God And this Purpose and Counsel of his only the proceed of his eternal and free Love So God loved the world John 3.16 In this was manifested the love of God towards us because he sent c. But could the Pardon of Man's Sin and his attaining of Happiness be had at no lower a rate could not God have freely forgiven the one and given the other without this great mixing of Heaven and Earth in this wonderful Mystery of the Sacrifice of the Son of God As the original Resolution of all the Works and Counsels of God must be into his own good pleasure so especially of this Ephes 1.5 He hath predestinated us to the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself according to the good pleasure of his Will. Yet we do find some Congruity of Right Reason in this course of Man's Redemption 1. To magnifie to all the World the Glory of his free Grace Ephes 1.6 and to take away all possibility of boasting in the subject of this Redemption Ephes 2.8 By Grace are ye saved through Faith and that not of your selves it is the gift of God not of works lest any man should boast 1 Cor. 1.29 That no flesh should glory in his presence The Dependence that all Creatures especially Man have upon the Creator both in their Being and Perfection doth most justly and reasonably challenge from the reasonable Creature a free Retribution of Acknowledgment of his Dependence upon the Goodness of God and it is an affection of the greatest Congruity that is imaginable yet we see how soon Man forgot that duty and would be independent upon his Lord. Now when Man had concluded all his Posterity under sin then for God freely to give such a Price of Redemption as it magnifies the Freeness and Bounty of his Goodness so it doth ingage lapsed Man to the everlasting Acknowledgment of the Free Grace of God in restoring him that so God may be all in all 2. To magnifie the Exquisiteness of his Justice In that dreadful Proclamation of the Name of God Exod. 34.6 7. we find a strange mixture of his Mercy and Justice Forgiving Iniquity Transgression and Sin and that will by no means clear the guilty and both parts essential to his Name Such a way then must be for Man's Restoration that may evidence his Mercy in pardoning as well as his Justice in punishing Sin Christ was made sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him 2 Cor. 5.21 And being made Sin for us was likewise made a Curse for us Galat. 3.13 Here we have him pardoning Iniquity Transgression and sin of Men and yet not sparing his own Son when he bore the imputed guilt of our sins 3. To magnifie the glory of his Wisdom The admirable Fabrick of the World speaks abundantly the Wisdom of our Creator but all this was inferiour and subservient unto this great Business 1 Cor. 1.24 Christ the Power of God and the Wisdom of God 1 Pet. 1.22 A Business for the inquiry and speculation of Angels Ephes 3.10 The manifold Wisdom of God the end of the Creation Colos 1.16 All things created by him and for him Colos 1.20 to reconcile all things to himself whether they be things in Heaven or things in Earth Ephes 1.10 That he might gather together in one all things in Christ The sum of this Mystery we have 1 Tim. 3.16 God manifested in the flesh justified in the Spirit seen of Angels preached to the Gentiles believed on in the world received into glory In this great frame of Man's Redemption we see the Counsel of God strangely executed his ancient Promises fulfilled the Shadows and Types of the Law unveiled the breach of the righteous Law of God punished the Righteousness thereof fulfilled the Justice of God satisfied his Mercy glorified his Creature pardoned justified glorified all those difficulties intricacies and confusions which came into the world by the sin of Man extricated ordered and salved the
As well our Victory 1 Cor. 15.57 as our Deliverer from the Wrath to come 1 Thes 1.10 As well our Life Colos 3.4 as our Deliverance from Death as well our Purifier as our Redemption from Iniquity Tit. 2.14 as well our Peace Ephes 2.14 as our Price as well the Price of our purchased Inheritance as the Price of our Ransom 1 Cor. 6.20 As well our Translator into his own Kingdom as the Deliverer from the power of Darkness Colos 1.13 And this as the former we owe likewise in the original and foundation of it to the free Love and Acceptation of God 1 Cor. 1.30 Christ of God is made Righteousness and therefore called the Righteousness of God by Faith Phil. 3.19 Without this free Love of God as it is impossible to imagine a Mediator between God and Man so much more is it impossible to imagine how the Righteousness of that Mediator should be the Righteousness of a guilty sinful Man Our Redemption and Salvation by Christ hath its original and strength from the free Love and Acceptation of God. 2. How this Redemption and Salvation was immediately effected which was thus The Eternal Word took upon him the Nature of Man in the unity of one Person and in our Nature did fulfil that Righteousness which we were bound to fulfil and did undertake take our Guilt and underwent the Punishment due to that Guilt which was accepted of God as the Satisfaction for the sins of the Elect for the Remission of their sins and his Righteousness accepted as the Righteousness of those for whom he so satisfied whereby he did not only abolish Death the Curse due to our sins but brought Life and Immortality to light 2 Tim. 1.10 This Truth we shall set down in these several Positions 1 That Christ the Mediator was perfect God the Eternal begotten Son of God one Eternal Essence with the Father His Name Isa 9.6 The mighty God the Everlasting Father Matth. 1.23 Emmanuel Matth. 16.16 Thou art Christ the Son of the living God that great Confession of Peter asserted by Christ himself John 1.14 The Word was God and the Word was made Flesh John 10.30 I and the Father are one John 17.5 Glorifie me with thy own self with that glory which I had with thee before the world was John 14.9 â—e that hath seen me hath seen the Father 1 Tim. 3.16 God manifest in the flesh 1 Tim. 6.15 King of kings and Lord of lords Heb. 1.3 The brightness of the Father's glory and the express image of his person Colos 1. â—5 16. The image of the invisible God by whom all things were created and consist Colos 2.9 In him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily Phil. 2.6 Being in the form of God thought it no robbery to be equal with God Acts 20.28 Ye are redeemed with the Blood of God John 8.59 Before Abraham was I am And those speeches of our Saviour which seem to import an inequality between the Father and the Son are not to be understood in reference to this Nature of Christ but in reference to his Office of Mediator or to his Person in reference to the Humane Nature John 14.28 Ye would rejoyce because I say I go to my Father for my Father is greater than I For as the Divine Nature of Christ was never disjoyned from the Father so it went not to him consequently my Father is greater than I must be spoken in reference to him under that Nature which was To go to the Father 2. That Christ was perfect Man consisting of a reasonable Soul Matth. 26.38 My Soul is exceeding sorrowful even unto death and of a humane Body even after his Resurrection Luke 24.39 A spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have and this Humane Nature subject to natural Passions he was sorrowful hungry sensible of pain and Heb. 4.15 tempted in all things as we are yet without sin he was subject to the Infirmities of our Nature not to the Distempers of our Nature This Humane Nature he took of the Virgin Mary and so was truly the Seed of Abraham But this by a miraculous Procreation by the immediate Power of God Matth. 1.20 and that without the contagion or guilt of any sin As he did no sin nor guile was found in his mouth 1 Pet. 2.22 so he knew no sin 2 Cor. 5.21 And if he had had any Guilt of his own then he could not have been a fit Sacrifice or Priest for us 1 Pet. 1.19 A Lamb without spot or blemish Heb. 7.26 For such a high-priest became us who is holy harmless undefiled c. 3. That both these Natures were united in the Person of Christ our Mediator yet without any confusion of Natures and the conjunction so strict that in both Natures he was but one Mediator And hence it is that many of those things that were properly to be attributed to one Nature and not to the other are affirmed of the Person of Christ under the Notion proper to the other Nature of Christ Acts 20.28 Ye are redeemed with the blood of God there the act of the Humane Nature is attributed to the Person of Christ in the Notion of the Divine Nature Again John 3.13 No man hath ascended into Heaven but he that came down from Heaven even the Son of man which is in Heaven yet that Nature of the Son of man was not then in Heaven But so strict is this personal Union that whatsoever is affirmed concerning one Nature may be affirmed of the whole Person of the Mediator but yet so distinct are the Natures that nothing that is affirmed concerning one Nature can be affirmed of the other Nature the eternal Son of God dyed for us but the Deity of the Son of God dyed not Herein we therefore conclude 1. That both Natures were united into one Person 2. That both Natures thus united made up but one Mediatour and so both Natures united into one Office as well as into one Person 3. That notwithstanding the uniting of both Natures into one Person and Office yet are there acts or things that properly belong to one Nature which do not belong to the other thus the Father is said to be greater than the Son John 14.28 in reference to his humane Nature Mark 13.32 But of that day and hour knoweth no man no not the Angels which are in Heaven neither the Son but the Father For although the Natures were united in one Person yet it is not imaginable that the fullness of the Divine Nature was communicated to the humane for that were to make the humane Nature of Christ infinite and not so much assumed unto as converted into the Divine Nature and then it had been impossible he could have suffered or have had any Eclipse of the light of his Fathers Countenance as he did in his bitter cry upon the Cross at which time without all question there was not nor could be any intermission of Communion between the
way to his Happiness as one Man teacheth another though we must not exclude that powerful Co-operation of his mighty Spirit that strikes upon our Spirits even when his Word strikes upon our 〈◊〉 And herein the Pharisees spoke truth even against their own Wills Matth. 22.26 Thou teachest the way of God in Truth For God in these last times hath spoken to us by his Son Heb. 1.2 and revealed unto us the whole Counsel and Will of his Father concerning us For he spoke not of himself but the Father which sent him gave him Commandment what he should say John 12.49 And that this Doctrin of his might receive a Testimonial from Heaven it was 〈◊〉 with Miracles and with suffrages from Heaven John 12.30 This Voice came not because of me but 〈◊〉 your sakes Now among divers Particulars of the 〈◊〉 of Christ we may observe these great Master-pieces 1. Instâ—ucting us that there is a higher end for the Sons of Men to arrive unto than temporal Felicity in this Life viz. Blessedness express'd in those several Expressions of his Matth. 5.3 4. c. The Kingdom of Heaven Comfort Fulness sight of God c. And in order to this great Doctrin are those several Doctrines of the Resurrection the last Judgment the Immortality of the Soul truths that the whole World either never knew or had forgotten or doubted 2. Instructing in the true Way to attain this Blessedness teaching us that Righteousness accepted of God consists not in meer outward observations but in the integrity and sincerity of the Heart and hereby rubs off all those false glosses that the formallest of Men had put upon the Law of God teaches that the Love of God is the fulfilling of God's Commandments and the reason is because this Love of God if it be sincere will ingage the whole Man to the exact Observance of what he requires those abstruse practical Truths of Depending upon God's Providence Self-denyal Loving our Enemies Rejoycing in Affliction all flowing from the high Point of the Love of God this is the Law of Christ Gal. 6.2 3. In revealing that which is the only Means to attain the two former even that great Mystery of the Gospel that was hid with God in Christ A Man might rove at the two former though the World had almost lost them both but this latter was a mystery that the Angels themselves knew not 1 Cor. 2.16 Who hath known the Mind of the Lord that he way instruct him But we have the mind of Christ which contains the whole Counsel of God touching Man this is that which Paul calls all the Counsel of God. Acts 20.27 and Truth it self hath given us the Breviary of it John 6.40 This is the will of him that sent me that every one that seeth the Son and believeth on him may have everlasting life and I will raise him up at the last day These great Truths of so great Concernment to the Children of Men yet so far remov'd from their Understanding were the third Business of the Life of Christ 7. That Christ bearing the sins of his People did suffer the wrath of God for the Remission of their sins The sufferings of Christ did only befal his Humane Nature for his Divine Nature was impassible yet in respect of that strict union of both Natures in one Person they received a value from that divine and impassible Nature for the union of both Natures in one Person though it did not communicate the Conditions of either Nature to the other did communicate the conditions of either Nature to the same Person as is before shewn This Suffering of Christ had these several Attributions 1 It was a Voluntary Suffering and yet not without a Necessity The Suffering was Voluntary even in respect of his Humane Nature yet Obediential to the Counsel and Purpose of God Matth. 17.21 he must go and suffer Luke 24 26. Ought not Christ to have suffered these things Acts 2.23 Him being delivered by the determinate counsel and fore-knowledge of God Yet was this most Voluntary in Christ Voluntary in the original undertaking of this Work in that Eternal Susception by the Eternal Word Voluntary in the discharge of that Undertaking in the Humane Nature the Humane Nature of Christ pursuing and following the will of Eternity Luke 12.50 I have a baptism to be baptized withal and how am I straitned till it be accomplished And even when the Humane Nature did according to the Law of Nature shrink from its own dissolution yet he presently corrects that natural Passion John 12.27 Father save me from this hour But for this cause came I to this hour Father glorifie thy Name Matth. 26.39 O my Father if it be pâ—ssible let this cup pass from me nevertheless not as I will but as thou wilt whiles his Humanity trembles and startles at the Business he goes about yet his Love to his Church his Obedience to his Father his Faithfulness to his Undertaking breaks through that natural reluctance Now the Voluntariness yet obedience of Christ's suffering both consistent appears Joh. 10.15 1 Joh. 3.16 I lay down my life for my sheep No man taketh it from me but I lay it down of my self yet Isa 53.6 10. All we like sheep have gone astray and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all it pleased the Lord to bruise him when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin Psal 2.7 8. As he made himself of no reputation and humbled himself so he became obedient to death Titus 2.14 He gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity yet John 3.16 God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son c. Again 1 John 4.9 Herein perceive we the love of God because he laid down his life for us Yet Rom. 8.32 He spared not his own Son but delivered him up for us all 1 John 4.9 God sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins Psal 40.7 Then said I lo I come yet he came not without a Mission I delight to do thy will O my God. The sum of all then is the Love of God to Mankind was the absolute and original foundation of our Redemption the same act of this Love proposed and undertook the Redemption of Mankind voluntarily and freely in this way contrived by the Eternal Wisdom and Counsel of God The Humane Nature of Christ in exact and voluntary submission unto this Counsel performed it If it had been Voluntary and not in Conformity to the Will of God whose Will could be the only measure of his Satisfaction it could never have been satisfactory And if it had been meerly Passive it could not have been an Obedience which requires a free Submission and Conformity to the Will of him that injoyns without which it could never be meritorious 2. It was a Meritorious and Expiatory Suffering for by that Eternal Covenant between the Father and the Son he was to bear the sins of
his Elect and under that Condition it was necessary that he should suffer for them It was the Love of the Father to accept of Christ to bear the sins of the People and it was his Justice that disclosed his Anger against Sin although his Son did but represent the sinner and yet the merit of this Suffering hath its strength from the free acceptation of his Father according to his Eternal Covenant with his Son. 3. From hence it follows that it is a Full and Perfect Satisfaction The reason is because the measure of the Satisfaction is the Acceptation of the offended God for it appears before that there can be no other Measure or Rule to him but his own Will though that be a most Just Will. Now that God was fully satisfied and pleased in Christ we have the Testimony of Angels Luke 2.14 On earth peace good will to men Of Christ John 17.4 when by way of Anticipation he saith I have finished the work that thou gavest me to do which he fully perfected when John 19.30 he said It is finished By the eternal Father by a voice from Heaven Matth. 3.17 This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased By the Spirit of Truth Heb. 10.14 By one offering he hath perfected for ever them that be sanctified And from the sufficiency of this satisfaction doth arise that assurance in which the Apostle glories Rom. 8.33 Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's Elect c. it is Christ that died And hence called the Author and Finisher of our Faith Heb. 12.2 4. It was an Vniversal Suffering The sin of Man had an universal Contagion both upon his Body and Soul and an universal Guilt and consequently an universal Curse went over both his Soul and Body In the day that thou eatest thou shalt die the death This death extended to his Body and Soul and the whole Compositum his very Life was mingled with Death both in Sense and Expectation And answerable to the extent of this Contagion Guilt and Curse was the extent of Christ's Satisfaction who was figured by the first Adam Rom. 5.14 His Life was mingled with Pain Isa 53. A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief in his Body he suffered a cursed and a painful Death and though the nailing to the Cross was not sufficient naturally to have made a separation of the Body and Soul no more than of the two Thieves yet he had those other Concurrences to his dissolution that they had not viz. the bearing of his Cross John 19.17 His scourging and Crown of Thorns Matt. 27.26 29. But especially the suffering of his Soul the very anticipation of this suffering made him even to shrink at it John 12.27 Now is my soul troubled what shall I say Father save me from this hour And this like the Trumpet upon Sinai waxed louder and louder till his very dissolution witness his affirmation In the Garden of Gethsemane Matth. 26.28 My soul is exceeding sorrowful even unto death and that astonishing Cry of the Son of God upon the Cross Matth. 27.46 My God my God why hast thou forsaken me His sorrow and the suffering of his Soul in the Garden that was so strange as to cause a sweat of Blood had been enough without the interposition of any outward force to have caused his dissolution for it was a sorrow unto death had not God supported his Humane Nature with a supernatural aid Luk. 22.43 An angel from heaven strengthened him and when the Divine Dispensation withdrew that extraordinary supply he died Matth. 27.50 He cried with a loud voice and gave up the ghost If it be asked What was the cause of this extremity of suffering in the Soul of Christ we say as he willingly took upon him to stand in our room to bear our sins and to become Sin for us so he felt the wrath of God against that sin which he by way of imputation did bear as he bare our sins in his own Body on the Tree 1 Pet. 2.24 and God laid on him the iniquity of us all and as he was made sin for us 2 Cor. 5.21 so he trode the wine-press of his Fathers wrath for that time Isa 63.3 and was made a Curse for that Sin. The Guilt that he had was not inherent but imputed but the sense of that wrath of God against Sin was not imputed but real and inherent If it be inquired How could such a sense of the wrath of God be consistent with that union that was between his Natures in one Person such Knowledge is too wonderful for me Nevertheless thus far we may say that as in the highest extremity of the suffering of his Soul there was no interruption of that strict Union between the Humane and Divine Nature yet so it pleased God to order this great Work that the actual communication of the presence of the Divine Nature was to the sense of the Humane Nature eclipsed the Sun still remained in the Firmament yet the Light thereof Eclipsed at the time of the death of Christ Matth. 27.45 to shadow to us that interruption of Vision which was in our Redeemer that so his Soul might be made an Offering for Sin as well as his Body If it be inquired How it came to pass that a perpetual Punishment due to Man was expiated by a temporary suffering of Christ we answer Man's suffering must needs be perpetual because it could never be satisfactory Matth. 5.26 Thou shalt not come out till thou payest the uttermost farthing But Christ's suffering was satisfactory and the satisfaction being made the suffering could not continue 1. It was a Voluntary Suffering 2. An Innocent Suffering 3. A Suffering of the Son of God. 4. An Accepted Satisfaction by the offended God. 8. That Christ having suffered death did arise again from death the third day This was that which the Prophet David foretold of Christ Psal 16.10 Thou wilt not leave my soul in grave by Isa 53.10 When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin c. He shall prolong his days he shall divide the spoil with the strong because he poured out his soul unto death prefigured by Jonah and so expounded by Christ himself Matth. 12.40 and predicted by himself Matth. 20.13 And the third day shall rise again attested by an Angel Matth. 28.6 He is risen as he said And this Truth was that which was the great Means of Conversion and therefore received the greatest opposition of Devils and Men Acts 2.24 Acts 4.10.33 Acts 5.30 And as it was the greatest Caution of the High Priest if it had been possible to falsifie the Prediction of Christ concerning his Resurrection Matth. 27.63 64. So this was the Truth that they most persecuted Acts 25.19 And being a Truth of that great concernment was most evidenced by the Evangelists and Apostles whose Business it was to be Witnesses of the Resurrection Acts 1.22 1 Cor. 15. per totum for by this he was
special and peculiar way and is that very Power whereby their Acts and Motions to eternity are acted and was not communicated in that perfection till after Christ's Ascension John 16.7 If I go not away the Comforter will not come This Spirit of Christ is a Spirit of Illumination and Instruction John 14.26 The Comforter which is the Holy Ghost whom the Father will send in my Name he shall teach you all things 1 Joh. 2.27 The anointing which is from above teacheth you all things a Spirit of Conviction and Redargution John 16.8 a Spirit of Renovation and Cleansing Tit. 3.5 a Spirit of Strength Ephes 3.16 Strengthned with his might by his Spirit a Spirit of Assurance Ephes 1.13 Sealed with the Holy Spirit of Promise a Spirit of quickening Rom. 8.11 quickned by his Spirit that dwelleth in you a Spirit of Adoption and Attestation Rom. 18.15 16. We nave received the Spirit of Adoption a Spirit of Supplication and Intercession Rom. 8.26 27. The Spirit it self maketh Intercession for us The Spirit of defence against Temptation Ephes 6.17 The Sword of the Spirit which is the word of God A Spirit of Union There is a double and reciprocal means of Union between Christ and his people 1. By Faith whereby Christ is united unto them Ephes 3.17 That Christ might dwell in your Hearts by Faith. 2. By the Spirit whereby we are united unto him Rom. 8.9 If any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his Ephes 2.20 In whom also ye are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit 1 John 4.13 Hereby we know that we dwell in him and he in us because he hath given us of his Spirit 1 Cor. 6.17 He that is joyned to the Lord is one Spirit And this Union with Christ was that which he so much desired of his Father for his Church John 17.22 23. And as by Faith all that Satisfaction and Righteousness which was in him was made ours so all our Actions proceeding from this Spirit are in truth his both in virtue and acception with the Father Ephes 2.18 Through him we have access by one Spirit to the Father Gal. 2.20 I live yet not I but Christ liveth in me And by reason of this Union with Christ as he is a Son so are we Sons Rom. 8.17 Joynt Heirs with him and Galat. 4.7 an Heir of God through Christ thus we apprehend Christ and are apprehended of him Phil. 3.12 3. The third effect and end of Christ's Ascension is his perpetual Intercession in the Presence of the Glory of God for his People Christ in his humane Nature was our Sacrifice and that was but one Sacrifice and but once offered Heb. 9.28.10.14 And Christ who in both Natures was the Priest that offered that Sacrifice Heb. 9 14 25. Who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without Spot to God though he finished that part of his Priestly Office while he was with us yet as the Priesthood of Christ was for ever according to the order of Melchisedec so the exercise of that Priesthood still continues Heb. 9.24 Christ is entred into Heaven it self now to appear in the Presence of God for us And as by his Spirit which he hath given to his people he makes Intercession in them for we have Access to the Father by his Spirit so by himself he makes Intercession for us Heb. ◠25 Wherefore he is able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him seeing he ever liveth to make Intercession for them 1 John 2.1 And if any man sin we have an advocate with the Father Jesus Christ the righteous And it is the strength of this Intercession of Christ that makes the Prayers of his People effectual John 16.23 Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my Name he will grant it That Incense that was mingled with the Prayers of the Saints Revel 8.3 And here let 〈◊〉 ever admire the endless goodness of God Man is dead in trespasses and sins God sends his Son into the World with a Ransom and with Life John 1.4 In him was life and the life was the light of men But for all this the World still continues in death and darkness John 1.10 The world knew him not He therefore by his Providence conveys Truth to their Ears and by his Spirit carries Life and Light into their Souls and conquers the darkness and death that is in us And when he hath rescued us from ruine he still leaves that Spirit of his to contest with our Corruptions to discover his Mind to form us every day more and more to our lost Image to supplicate and communicate our wants and fears and though those supplications of ours are mingled with imperfections distrusts doubtings and distractions yet he that knows the mind of his own Spirit takes these Prayers of ours and cleanseth them from the dross that hangs about them mingles his own Merit with them presents them to his Father in the strength of his own Intercession and so bears the iniquity of their holy things Nay when we vex and grieve that Agent of his that he hath left in us to perfect our Blessedness and oftentimes stifle his motions and have scarce the sign of Life left in us he nevertheless makes Intercession for us Isa 53.12 He made intercession for the transgressours 3. The next inquiry is for whom the Satisfaction of Christ was 1. Christ did Intentionally lay down his Life for the sins of the Elect of God John 10.15 I lay down my life for my sheep And these Sheep of Christ as they were not confined to one time or age of the World so neither to one Nation or company of People John 10.16 Other sheep I have which are not of this fold viz. of the Nation of the Jews And thus some understand 1 John 22. And not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world using us the world as a contradistinction of the Gentiles from the Jews to whom it seems he wrote 2. As Christ died Intentionally for the Redemption of the Elect so he died Effectually for them and God hath so ordered his Counsels that those that he hath appointed to eternal Life shall use that means which he hath appointed to be instrumental for the partaking of the Efficacy of his Death John 6.37 All that the Father giveth me shall come unto me and him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out 3. Whatsoever were the Intention or Efficacy of the Death of Christ yet we are sure that all Men shall not partake of the full and compleat Effect of Christ's Satisfaction viz. Eternal Life This is a clear Truth yet all the lost Sons of Adam shall be left wholly unexcusable and condemned by the most Righteous and Natural Justice that is imaginable There have been three great Promulgations of Laws in the World. 1. The Law written in the Hearts of Men Rom 1.19 That which may be
known of God is manifest in them for God hath shewed it unto them 2. The Law pronounced given to the Jews upon Sinai 3. The Gospel of Christ shewing us what is to be believed and what to be done When the great God comes to Judge the World he will judge it according to the several Dispensations of Light Rom. 2.12 For as many as have sinned without the law shall also perish without the law and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law There is light enough or neglect enough in the most ignorant Soul in the World to charge with Guilt enough for Condemnation though he never knew of the Law promulgated to the Jew or were bound by it As we there find the division of condemned persons unto such as sin without the Law and under the Law so we find another division 2 Thes 1.8 Taking vengeance on them that know not God and obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ This seems to contain these two Rules whereby the Gentiles should be judged 1. Ignorance and want of Fear of God for such to whom the Gospel was not preached this was unexcusable ignorance and disobedience Rom. 1.20 2. Unbelief and Disobedience of the Gospel of Christ And though this be a high Truth that is not discovered by the Light of Nature yet being discovered it is an offence even against the Law of Nature not to believe it because a most high and absolute Truth 3. Not to love it and consequently obey it because the means to attain the most high and absolute Good. And as every Sin is an aversion from the chief Good either to that which is a lesser or no Good so it is impossible but the aversion from the greatest Good must needs be the greatest Sin even by the Rules of sound Reason Both these we find plainly set down John 3.36 He that believeth not the Son shall not see life but the wrath of God abideth on him John 3.19 This is the condemnation that light came into the world and men loved darkness rather than light as if he should have said that it is the most reasonable and natural Principle for reasonable Creatures to entertain and obey that Rule which will conduct them to the highest Good and therefore the condemnation of such as neglect is most reasonable and the rather for that this proceeds not originally from Ignorance but from the Perverseness of the Heart in preferring Darkness before Light. So that as Infidelity is the cause of Condemnation John 3.18 So this want of Love of the Light is the great cause of Infidelity And though Man hath put himself in that Condition that he cannot come to Christ or entertain this chiefest Good except the Father draw him John 6.44 Yet this doth neither excuse him from sin or guilt because as in the first Man he willingly contracted this disability so he doth most freely and voluntarily affect it though he sins necessarily in rejecting the Light yet he sins voluntarily Now concerning those several places in holy Scripture that seem to infer the Vniversality of an intended Redemption John 3.17 John 12.47 1 John 2.2 1 Tim. 2.6 1 Tim. 2.4 1 Cor. 15.21 It may be considerable whether the intention of those places be that the Price was sufficient for all the World so that whosoever shall reject the offered Mercy shall never have this excuse that there was not a sufficiency left for him Or whether it be meant that Christ by his Death did fully expiate for all that Original Guilt which was contracted by the Fall of Adam upon all Mankind but for the Actual Offences only of such as believed that so as the voluntary sin of Adam had without the actual consent of his Posterity made them liable to Guilt so the Satisfaction of Christ without any actual application of him should discharge all Mankind from that originally contracted Guilt These disquisitions though fit yet are not necessary to be known it is enough for me to know that if I believe on him I shall not perish but have everlasting Life John 3.16 And that all are invited and none excluded but such as first exclude themselves CHAP. IX Of the Means which God hath appointed to make this Sacrifice of Christ effectual viz. Vnion with Christ and how the same is wrought on God's part 4. WE come to that Means which the Will of God hath appointed to make this Sacrifice Effectual for us God in his Eternal Counsel foreseeing the Fall of Man did from all Eternity covenant that the Eterval Word should take upon him Flesh and should be an all-sufficient Mediator between God and Man and to that End did furnish this Mediator with all things necessary for so great a Work Colos 1.19 For it pleased the Father that in him should all Fulness dwell Fulness of the Godhead Colos 2.9 For in him dwelleth all the Fulness of the Godhead bodily Fulness of Grace John 1.16 For of his Fulness we receive Grace for Grace Fulness of Wisdom and Knowledge Colos 2.3 In whom are hid all the treasures of Wisdom and Knowledge Fulness of Perfection Ephes 4.13 The measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ A Fulness of Life John 1.4 In him was life and the life was the light of men John 5.27 As the Father hath life in himself so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself A Fulness of Love Ephes 3.19 And to know the love of Christ passing knowledge All the Promises of God are in him and put into him as into a Treasury and bottomed upon him 2 Cor. 1.20 In whom all the promises of God are yea and Amen And this Plenitude of Christ was therefore in him that from him it might be communicated according to the Exigence of those for whom he was a Mediator for although the Plenitude of the Divine Nature was absolute and no way in reference to the Business of the Mediatorship yet the communication of that Plenitude to Christ as one Mediator was in order to his Office. And this Fulness of Christ was necessary to supply that Emptiness which was in Man by sin He stood in need of a sea of Love to redeem him and Christ was not without riches of Love and Compassion he had lost his Life The day that thou eatest thou shalt die the death and there was as well a Quickning as a Living Life in Christ to revive him Ephes 2.1 Those who were formerly dead in trespasses and sins hath he quickned Colos 3.4 When Christ who is our life shall appear Man had lost the whole Image of his Creator Christ who was the express Image of his Father re-imprints it again by forming himself in us Colos 3.10 Renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him Ephes 4.24 Put ye on the New Man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness The nature of Man is corrupted and Christ hath a
work of Natural Reason working Opinion or at most knowledge differs as much as knowledge and Opinion Those things of God that are discoverable by natural Reason receive another kind of impression upon the Soul by the work of God as is evident by the Effects and Operations each have upon the Soul Rom. 1.21 When they knew God yet they glorified him not as God. 3. Of Love therefore so called because the Principal part of the Message that the Soul is acquainted with is a Message of Love and Goodness and so the Will inclined and ingaged to love that Goodness And this is the fruit of the work of God's Spirit 1. Mediately and naturally presupposing the former work of Illumination for some Objects are of so light a nature that when they are known all the work of the Soul is done so they are only known that they may be known But these objects of our Faith they do include a Goodness and Conveniency for the Soul and therefore being known they are desired so that in natural Consequence the Spirit of God if it demonstrates these Truths to the Soul it doth by consequence engage the Love of the Soul to them It is true that Education Instruction and Discipline may make us know these Truths speculatively and yet our Soul not affected with them but the Conviction which is wrought by the Power of God's Spirit is not so thin or jejune a union of these Truths to the understanding but deeper and more radicated and consequently doth more effectually work upon the Will and therefore it is the Logick of the Apostle 1 John 2.4 He that saith he knoweth God and keepeth not his Commandments is a liar and the truth is not in him 2 Pet. 1.9 He that lacketh these things is blind and cannot see The Argument is from the Negation of the necessary Effect or Consequent to the Negation of the Cause or Antecedent as if he should have said Wheresoever there is no true Obedience to the Will and Command of God there is certainly no Love of God. It is the conclusion of Truth and Reason Joh. 14.23 If a man love me he will keep my words And wheresoever there is a true knowledge of God there must of necessity be a true Love unto God because it doth represent God as the chiefest only and most suitable Good to the Soul. It is true that notional and speculative knowledge of God that is wrought by natural discourse cannot or at least seldom doth arrive to that full apprehension of the Goodness of God and consequently doth not raise up the Heart to that height of Love and Obedience for our Reason is weak and the disproportion between Him and our Understanding is infinite and therefore he hath chosen to reveal it unto us in his Word and Son and by his own Power working Knowledge in us And by this we see why the renovation and conversion unto God is sometimes expressed under the name of Knowledge John 17.3 This is life eternal that they might know thee the only true God c. Colos 3.10 Having put on the new man which is renewed in knowledge 2 Cor. 4.6 For God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ c. Sometimes under the name of Trusting and depending upon God Galat. 3.6 Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for Righteousness sometimes under the name of Love Jud. 21. Keep your selves in the Love of God 1 Tim. 1.14 with faith and love which is in Christ 2 Tim. 1.13 2 Thes 2.10 Receiving the Love of the Truth sometimes under the name of Obedience James 1.27 Pure religion and undefiled c. James 2. per tot 1 John 2.29 Every one that doth righteousness is born of him so sometimes under the name of Repentance Fear of God c. For all this is but one work of this Spirit of Grace and but the several Emanations of the same work of the Spirit of God upon the Soul diversified only in the faculties or objects the first act in Nature is Light and when it convinceth the heart of the sinfulness of sin that works Repentance when of the Promises of God that breeds Dependence and Confidence when of the Goodness and Love of God in Christ that breeds Love unto him Watchfulness over our selves Obedience to his Will when of the Majesty and Justice of God it breeds Fear and Reverence when of our own vileness it breeds Humility so that all these are but the bringing home and joyning of those Convictions wrought in our Understanding unto the Will and Affections and thereupon these Effects do as naturally follow upon this work of Illumination and Conviction wrought by the Spirit of God as the like Effects do arise upon natural convictions of Objects of inferiour kinds and goodness 2. But this is not all there is a work of strength and power upon the Will Phil. 2.13 It is God that worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure As the death and disability was in both Faculties so the Life is conveyed into both universally And this Power of God's Spirit is not only in the first acts of our Conversion to him but it goes along with us All those actions which are pleasing to God are wrought by the same Spirit of Christ by which they were at first animated It is a Spirit of Supplication in our Prayers Rom. 8.26 The Spirit maketh intercession c. A Spirit of Access for our Prayers Eph. 2.18 A Spirit of Assurance and Sonship Gal. 3.6 Eph. 1.16 A Spirit of Wisdom to direct us in our difficulties Ephes 1.17 A Spirit of Comfort and Joy in our Distresses Rom. 14.17 A Spirit of Fruitfulness in our Conversation Galat. 5.22 25. A Spirit of Perseverance 1 Pet. 1.5 Ye are preserved by the power of God through faith unto salvation CHAP. X. How our Vnion with Christ is wrought on Man's part viz. By Faith Hope and Love. HITHERTO we have seen the motion of the Love of God to his Creature by which it may appear the whole Business of Man's Salvation is the work of God and Man appears in a manner passive in all the parts of it In the sending Light into his Understanding he is passive In the enabling the Understanding to receive this Light he is still passive In the subduing the Will to the entertainment of it he is still passive Yet there is some kind of motion in us which though it be the Work of our Creator in the first giving of it and againâ— his Work in reviving quickening and enabling it yet he is pleased to require it from us and to expect it of us Mori movemus And that are principally these three Faith Hope and Love we find them oftentimes joyned together 1 Tim. 1.14 The Grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant with faith and love which is
so much of the Creatures inferiour to my self as observe the Law of their Creation enjoy a measure of Perfection answerable to their Being and if interrupted in that law of their Nature they lose their Beauty if not their Being The degree of my Being was higher than theirs and so was consequently the End of my Being my Happiness of a higher Constitution than theirs And as my Debt was greater to my Creator for allowing me so high an End so was my ability proportionable to the pursuit and attaining of that End which was thus given to me But what have I been doing all this while I have measured my Heart by that great Law Thou shalt love the Lord with all thy heart and I have found my Heart full of the love of the World of Pleasures of Vanities but scarce a thought bestowed on him that gave me Power to think and which is worse my Heart hath held confederacy with all that he hath forbidden insomuch that I may justly conclude that surely nothing but a Heart hating God could so constantly and universally oppose his Will I have measured my Life by the Law of God and I can scarcely find one regular action in it my Heart hath not been so out of frame but it hath still found a full subservience of my whole Man unto it and that with greediness and yet I find all this unsatisfactory and I have cause to fear that is not all Sense doth tell me that in the pursuit of the ways of my Heart I spend my self for that which is not Bread and my labour for that which profiteth not I find no fulness in them but much vexation And Reason as well as Conscience tells me it will be bitterness in the end and the end is death I cannot but know that the great Lord of all Being hath measured out to all his Creatures their Beings and their Happiness suitable to their Beings and their Ways and Rules and Laws to attain their Happiness and if all this while I have been out of that Way I am travelling to another End If in the way of God I should have found Life and everlasting Life for my End out of that Way my End must be Death If I were now to begin my Life I should order it better Though I cannot expiate what is past yet my Soul looks upon it with Sorrow with Indignation with Amazement This is the first degree 2. That they are Vnbecoming Vngrateful and Vndutiful Returns It is implanted even in the sensitive Nature to return good for good We have received all the Good from the hands of that God against whom the practice of our Hearts and Lives hath been a continual Rebellion and upon this Consideration natural Ingenuity works a Shame in the Soul and a secret Condemnation and some kind of loathing so Ungrateful and Undutiful a Constitution 3. But hitherto the Soul looks only backward and these Considerations though they are enough to breed Shame and Despair in the Soul yet they are not strong enough to work Repentance because in those Considerations the Soul looks upon it self in an unexpiable and irrecoverable Condition The amendment will prove fruitless where the former guilt is irreversible and yet enough to sink the Soul Therefore the third Conviction is of the love of God that hath provided a means of pardon and acceptation when a Man throughly convinced of the unprofitableness and desperateness of his actions and condition his extream Ingratitude unto God shall for all this hear a voice after all those things Return back thou back-sliding Israel and I will not cause mine anger to fall upon you for I am merciful and will not keep mine anger for ever only acknowledge thine iniquity Jer. 3.12 13. This conquers the Soul not only into a dislike of sin past as dangerous and unprofitable but unto a hatred of it and of our selves for it as the enemy to such an invincible Love. The Consideration of our ways past and comparing them with the Law will enforce the Conscience to condemn them but it must be the sense of the Love and Goodness of God in Christ that can only incline us to change them as by the former he concludes his ways dangerous and unprofitable so without the latter he will conclude his Repentance unuseful And hereupon the Soul is cast into such Expressions as these O Lord I have been considering the present temper of my Heart and reviewed the course of my Life and have compared them with the Duty I owe unto thee and the Law which thou gavest me to be the Rule of that Duty and I find my heart and ways infinitely disproportionable to that Rule and thereby I conclude my self a most ungrateful and a miserable Creature But though I have sinned away that stock of Grace and Blessedness with which I was once intrusted by thee I find I have not out-sinned that Fountain of Goodness and Mercy that is in thee even whiles the sight and sense of my own Condition bids me despair either of repenting or acceptation of it yet I hear the voice of that Majesty which I have injured bids me Return and live Ezek. 18.32 Were there no acceptance of my turning from those ways of death and destruction yet it were my duty and though thy Justice might justly reject it yet it might justly require it But yet when thy merciful and free Promise shall crown my Repentance with Acceptation and Life This Love constrains beyond the sense of my own misery And when I hear the voice of my Lord calling to me to return and I will heal your backslidings that Love warms my Heart into that answer Behold I will come unto thee for thou art the Lord my God Jer 3.22 But who can come unto thee unless thou draw him send therefore thy Power along with thy Command for it is not of him that willeth nor of him that runneth Turn me and I shall be turned I will engage the uttermost of my strength to forsake my ways but I will still wait upon the same Mercy that did invite me to enable me to forsake them By that which preceeds we see a double Repentance 1. That which is Preparatory unto the receiving of Christ which is nothing else but a sense of the unhappiness and evil of our ways as destructive unto our Happiness and dissonant from that Rule of Righteousness which we cannot but naturally subscribe to be Just and Good and this doth naturally breed a Sorrow for what hath been so done and a Purpose and Inclination of Heart to forsake those ways And this was the work of the Baptist to prepare the way of the Lord his Doctrine was a Doctrine of Repentance and his Baptism a Baptism of Repentance a Seal of the Entertainment of that Doctrine to as many as received it Matth. 3.2 Luk. 3.16 Acts 19.4 2. That which is Subsequent to that entertainment of Christ in the Heart by Faith which is the sense of
Consideratiun of the great and high Hope to which we are restored by the purchace of Christ and the great Incongruity that there is between continuing in Sin and that Hope We expect to be brought to an innumerable company of Angels to the Assembly of the first born to the Spirits of just Men made perfect to Jesus the Mediator of the new Covenant to God the Judge of all Heb. 12.22 c. to be make like unto the Son of God and to be partakers of his Sonship and Inheritance 1 John 3.2 To partake of his Spirit to see the brightness of the glory of God in Christ now all these are holy how unsuitable a thing is it for a Man that hath his Hope not to purifie himself even as he is pure 1 John 3.3 This will teach a Man to bespeak his Heart thus Is the Presence of God thy Hope he is the Holy Holy Holy Lord that is of purer Eyes than to behold or to be beholden by any unclean thing If therefore thou commit Sin thou livest below thy Hope either therefore let thy Hope be answerable to thy Life or thy Life to thy Hope 3. A serious Consideration of the Presence of the Great and Just and Powerful God his Eyes run to and fro through the Earth to behold the Evil and the Good 2 Chron. 16.9 He is acquainted with all my ways Psal 139.3 His Eyes are upon all the ways of the Children of Men Jer. 32.19 The Hearts of Men Prov. 15.11 and all things are naked and manifest before him with whom we have to do And darest thou sin before the face of thy Judge who sees thee and whose Power or Justice thou canst not escape this is so great a Controll that were it soundly and deeply considered it would stifle even the first motions of sin and therefore it is the great work of our own wicked Heart either to gull themselves into a perswasion that God sees not Job 22.13 or else in plain English to forbid him their Hearts they say to God Depart from us for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways Job 22.14 4. A deep Consideration of the Nature and Consequences of Sin It is a Violation of a Righteous and Just Law the Law of a Just and Righteous God a Law the conformity whereunto is the Perfection and Blessedness of the Creature By this sin I lose my Communion with my Creator and consequently Peace within my self whiles I commit it my fruition is but short and mingled with Fear because the end of it Death is in some degree present with my Soul and sowers that transitory Content which I enjoy in it and when it is finished it brings forth Sorrow and Shame and Death and if that Sorrow end in Repentance yet the bitterness of that Sorrow overweighs the Pleasure that I had in its commission and according to the measure of the delight I had in my sin so and much more is the measure of my sorrow in repenting and yet for all this that Peace which I had formerly with my God and my Conscience very hardly recovered and God though he pardons my sin yet either not at all or not suddenly trusting me with that measure of Communion with him which I formerly enjoyed and abused But if the sorrow of Repentance wait not upon my sin a worse sorrow attends it the sin is past and so is the contentment but the storm that attends it is Everlasting the loss of the light of God's love the loss of an Eternal weight of Glory the terrible appearance of an angry God cloathed with as much Terror as Justice provoked Patience abused and Mercy contemned by a most indebted Creature can assume And this Terror shaken into the most tender and sensible parts of the Soul by the hand of Omnipotence it self and that unto all Eternity when my Life shall be full of nothing but the preapprehensions of my future misery my death the terrible inexorable and inevitable passage to it Shall I then so madly prize the satisfying of a base a perishing Lust for a season thus throw away my God my Happiness my self when the thing it self is so base and transitory and the wages so sad and dismal It shall be my care to avoid to subdue to crucifie that which as it cannot satisfie so it will certainly torment and ruine me And since I find my Lusts to be so easily actuated into Sin by every Temptation I shall by the Grace of God as avoid the latter so keep a strict hand over the former and it shall be my hourly care to ransack and examine and search my Heart what is moulding there and to cleanse and wash it from its pollutions or at least to mingle my Tears and Sorrows with them that so they may be weary of my Heart or my Heart of them But Lord Who understandeth the errors of his life Cleanse thou me from my secret sins and keep thy servant from presumptuous sins Psal 19.12 5. Frequent Considerations of the Shortness of Life the Lord hath given me a great Work to do to work out my salvation with fear and trembling and the Time wherein I have to do it is in this Life and that but a short and an uncertain Life the great Enemies to my Soul are the Lusts of my Flesh and of my Mind which fight against my Soul If the work be not done in my Life-time the Door is shut and who knows whether this or that Sin which I am now about to commit may not be concluded with my Life and then in what a case am I how shall I appear before the Holy and Eternal God with the stain of that sin upon me or if he prolong my days yet who knows whether he will not seal up my Soul with impenitency If my Lust prevail upon me now it gathers strength and vexeth that Spirit which must only enable me for the future to repent and resist it and if I get the Victory over the contestations of the Spirit of God my Conquest ends in my own Misery and Slavery It may be I have over-matched and stifled the Perswasions of the Spirit of God of that Lighit which he hath set up in my Conscience that did sting me in the midst of my Cariere after my Lusts and mingled them with bitterness to my discontent and now I pursue my Desires without interruption yet when I remember that Death is at my heels and will overtake me before I can overtake my Contentment in the things I pursue that if I over-live a sudden unexpected Death yet the Harbingers of Death Sickness or Age cannot be far off and either of these as they will take off the edge of my Pursuit and fruitions of my Lusts and render them insipid so they will thereby give leisure and opportunity to me to cast up the Accounts of my past Life and find therein nothing but Vanity and Unprofitableness Time that might have been improved to Eternity irrecoverably
Terrors by the least word of his Power 2. But if their Commission extend to thy very Life yet the Son of God hath taken away that sting that terror that is in Death hath by his own Death sanctified Death unto thee and made it a door unto a better Life so that Death though in it self terrible and bitter yet this Tree being himself cast into this bitter Water Exod. 15.25 hath sweetned them and as he hath taken away the Venome of it by destroying that Serpent that had the power of it Heb. 2.14 so he hath made it though not for it self yet in respect of him that stands on the other side of this Gulf with Immortality and Glory in his hand desirable Phil. 1.23 Having a desire to depart and to be with Christ which is far better It is true thou art pursued with an Army of Egyptians of Sins and of Miseries and when thou comest to the Shore thou seest a raging and a bloody Sea But remember thou hast an Angel even the Angel of the Covenant that hath gone before and yet goes with thee and turns this Sea into a Passage of Ease and Safety and though of either side the Waves may affright thy Sense they shall not hurt thee and remember that though thy Passage may be difficult and troublesome yet thou hast not as once the Israelites a Wilderness behind it but a Canaan Therefore in all Objects or Occurrences of Terror first look inward and see how the case stands between thy God and thy Conscience indeed if there remain a Guilt unwashed by the Blood of Christ a secret sin entertained and not repented of thou hast cause to fear because thy Lord is angry But if thou keep thy daily Watch upon thy Soul and thy Life if thou find the presence of thy Saviour in thy Soul and thy Heart though of it self a sinful Heart yet cleansed and delivered from the power of any evil way an honest Heart acted by the love of God in Christ thou mayest then look above them and having thine Eye fixed upon the Lord of Events walk quietly and untroubled through the midst of those dangers that do incompass thee It is true that in the great Concussions of the World God expects a suitable affection even from the most innocent Heart an affection of Reverence and awe of his Presence and working Jeremiah 10.7 Who would not fear thee O king of nations But the fear of an honest Heart is the fear of Reverence not of Consternation a Fear mingled with Love a Fear mingled with Faith and confidence a Fear mingled with Praise and Glorifying God a Fear terminated in the great Lord that works not in the Instrument not in the immediate Object of Terror a Fear mingled with Comfort not over-run with distraction When therefore thou meetest with Objects of Fear first learn to distinguish their kinds some there are that come as it were from the immediate hand of God such are Famine Pestilence Wars Fires Inundations Earthquakes and the like entertain them with Reverence to the great and Just and Powerful hand of God not slightly or saucily or presumptuously yet without consternation or distraction of Mind carry up thy Soul above the Objects to the Hand that guides them make him thy Dependance and his Will the measure of thine own under them use all warrantable means with Dependance upon his Power and Submission to his Will to avoid them The wise Man seeth the Plague and hideth himself Prov. 22.3 Prov. 27.12 If thou escape the danger bless the God that hath preserved thee if thou fall in them yet still bless the God that hath not left thee and value ten thousand Deaths with his Presence and Light upon thy Soul above the most sublimated Life without it Again there are some Objects of Fear which though they are guided and mastered by the hand of God yet they are immediately the works of Men and so less terrible such are wrought by the power oppression cruelty and malice of Men these may and ought to be entertained with more resolution and confidence That one Example may serve for all when the power and injustice of Man shall meet with an unarmed and weak innocence Dan. 3.16 O Nebuchadnezzar we are not careful to answer thee in this matter our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace and he will deliver us out of thine hand O king But if not be it known unto thee O king we will not serve thy Gods As if they should have said It is true thou art a King and where the word of a King is there is Power and to magnifie thy self and thy Glory in the face of thy Kingdom thou hast taken up this publick Resolution of the Dedication of thine Idol and this thy Purpose is stablished by a Decree a Mischief framed by a Law and this Decree armed with Death and a cruel and terrible Death we know we cross thy proud and impious Will impatient of the seeming neglect of thy Power by three poor despised Hebrews in the midst of thy Glory and People we see fury and rage enough in thy countenance to devour us before the Furnace be hot we see thy Courtiers adding fewel to thy rage and thy Instruments greedily catching after the least Warrant from thee for our Execution and we are compassed with Flesh and Blood which cannot but shrink at the preapprehension of this inevitable and terrible dissolution yet for all this know that we have learned to tutor our Fear not to fear a Man that shall die and the Son of Man that shall be made as Grass Isa 51.11 we have learned that the fear of Man bringeth a snare but he that trusteth in the Lord shall be safe Prov. 29.25 And therefore we are not much perplexed what Answer to return to these thy Commands and Threats we serve that God in whose hand thou art as the Ax or the Saw in his hand that shaketh it in whose hand thy Breath is and he can command away thy Breath and then what becomes of thy Word that Lord in whose hand thy Heart is and he can turn it as the River of Water and can set thy Command against thy Decree that God in whose hands are the issues of death and who can arm an inconsiderable Occurrence to divert and frustrate thy Purpose in whose hands are all the Powers of Heaven and Earth and can correct and controll that Fire which thou intendest for the execution of thy Fury And this is the God whom we serve and hath made a Covenant with us to preserve us in the Fire and we are no less confident of his Love and of his Truth than of his Wisdom and Power to deliver us he hath taught us that he is a present help in trouble Psal 46.1 that if we call upon him in the day of trouble he will deliver us Psal 50.15 Psalm 91.15 that in the Fire he will be with us and
ariseth Murmuring and Discontent because that which befalls him crosseth him in his self opinion of his own Merit or Desert And from hence proceeds the rejection of God and of his directions from an opinion of a self-sufficiency and fulness To cure this Distemper and the products of it labour for Poverty and Humility of Spirit upon these Considerations 1. That whatsoever thou hast of worth or good in thee it is not thy own it is a derived good the good that is most thy own even thy essential good is not thy own thou owest thy Being to somewhat without thee But grant it were thine own yet the Comfort and Life and Beauty of thy Being were nothing without a farther good that is not thy own thy Power thy Wealth thy Strength thy Knowledge these are not in thy Essence they are derived Goods and such as are not from thy self the most exact faculty of thy Soul is but empty till it be filled by an Object without thee In thy highest Fruition thou hast a just occasion to magnifie God from whom thou hast it not to magnifie thy self that dost only receive it Learn therefore the Original of that good whatever it be that thou enjoyest it will make thee thankful and keep thee humble 2. That in thy self thou hast nothing but emptiness and vanity Thou hadst a good it is true which was sent thee by the Lord of thy Being and that we have shewn was no occasion to exalt thy self because it was not thine own but even that thou hast lost now and thy Nature hath nothing left thee whereof to be Proud. 3. That it is impossible for thee to come to enjoy that which must make thee happy till thou art deeply sensible of thy own emptiness and nothingness and thy Spirit thereby brought down and laid in the dust As long as thy Soul is full of thy Honour or of thy Wealth or of the World or of thy own Righteousness or Worth there is no room for thy Saviour or his fulness thou wilt not receive him because thou findest not any want and thou canst not receive him because thou hast no room And as it indisposeth thee to receive good from God so it indisposeth as I may say God to give it for thy Pride assumeth that both from God which is his and applies it to thy self even that acknowledgment and Honour which is a Tribute wholly and only due to God and hence it is that he resists the Proud because they rob him of the Duty that by all the Laws and Reasons immaginable thou owest to him 4. That the Grace of God the Knowledge and Sense of his Love the Spirit of Christ is an humbling Spirit the more thou hast of it the more it will humble thee and it is a sign that either thou hast it not or that it is yet over-mastered by thy corruption if thy Heart be still haughty it shews thee thy self in thy true Dress and makes thee abhor thy self it shews thee the Purity and Majesty of the great God with whom thou hast to deal and teacheth thee Fear and Honour towards him it teacheth thee to live by thy Saviour's Life to be righteous by his Purity to be saved by his Sufferings to walk by his Rule and to aim at his Glory it shews thee that thou hast all from him and frames thy Heart to return all to him It restores thee to that Position and Constitution in which thou wast made and takes off that distemper of Spirit which at once hath put thee below what thou wast and yet exalteth thy foolish Spirit above it There was a third Object of our Watch proposed viz. Temptations which are either 1. For Tryal 2. To Sin of which see the Meditations upon the Lord's Prayer Afflictions c. CHAP. XXIV Of the new Life or Sanctification and the necessity of it HITHERTO we have considered the Duty and Means of Mortification the putting off of the Old Man those Distempers and Disorders of our Souls by which they become unconformable to the Image and Mind of God the Principle whereof is the Spirit and Grace of God given us in Christ and the Means of this work those which we have before mentioned Now we come to consider of that New Life which follows hereupon most necessarily 1. Because it proceeds most necessarily from the same Principle As in a natural Man fallen into some Distemper it is the same strength of Nature that conquers the Disease and it being conquered maintains the Body in its natural Operations which is Health so the same vital power of the Spirit of God is that which overmatched those Distempers in our Soul which are contrary to our spiritual Life and Motion and conserves that Constitution of Health in the Soul by which it moves regularly and according to the Will of God which is our New Life 2. Because the Motion of those Distempers which fit in our Soul doth necessarily conform our Souls to that condition in which we were created God at first created us in a Conformity unto himself our sin brought an impotency upon our Nature by which we contracted all those Corruptions and Distempers that have disordered our Souls and diverted us from God when God is pleased by the power of his own Spirit purchased for us by the Blood of Christ to put into us a Principle of life and strength to work out those Corruptions and Disorders of our Souls there must necessarily follow a life conformable to the Will of God and as there is no Medium between Life and Death so when this Death of our Souls is removed by that Principle of Life there necessarily follows a New Life and new Operations answerable to it 3. The End of the Motion of those disorders of the Soul is in order to our New Life 1 Pet. 2.24 That we being dead to sin should live to Righteousness Ephes 2.10 Created in Christ Jesus unto good works It was the end of the Death of Christ Tit. 2.14 the Tree that bore wild Figs and that which bore none were equally cursed John 15.2 Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away So then the work of Mortification and Sanctification differ only in their Relations not in themselves they are both effects of that same Life which by the Spirit of Christ and our Union to him is wrought in us they both drive to the same End even to our Conformity to our Head Christ Jesus which is our Conformity to the Will of God wherein consists the Perfection of every Creature For this is the Will of God even your Sanctification 1 Thes 4.3 The Honour and Glory of God is and ought to be the supream End of all actions and things in the World. And this is that which every Creature in his right station and condition doth drive at according to the measure and degree of its natural perfection for as the great End of God in all his actions is his own
am an unclean things and all my righteousnesses are as filthy rags Isa â—â— 6 and my own Heart tells me that even to my most exact observance there be secret adheâ— of sin and defect and how much more are thâ— in thy sight who seest through every cranny of the Soul and therefore thou mayest justly reject them yet O Lord thou knowest that that little good that is in them proceeds from an upright Heart from an unfeigned desire to obey thee that it is my Hearts desire and my hearty and daily endeavour to serve thee better that it is the sorrow and gâ—f of my Heart that my returns of obedience and conformity unto thee are so infinite short of what I every way owe unto thee I do not content my self with these loose and half performances that I make before thee and though I see my best obedience gives me daily occasions of repentance yet I will not give over but what I want in my own strength I will beg thy Grace to perfect and thy Mercy to accept according to what I have and to pardon what I want 2 Cor. 8.12 and since I have prepared my Heart to seek the Lord God the good Lord pardon me though I am not cleansed according to the purification of thy Sanctuary 2 Chron. 30.19 2. An over-matching of the Power of Sin by the Power of Sanctifying Grace It is true that in the best Condition we can arrive unto in this World there is with us a body of Sin and Death as well as a Principle of Holiness and Life Rom. 7.24 a lusting of the Flesh against the Spirit as well as of the Spirit against the Flesh Gal. 5.17 a wrestling against Flesh and Blood actuated by Principalities and Powers Ephes 6.12 But where God is pleased to begin this work in the Heart though it never arrives to the abolition of sin yet it ever ariseth to a Victory over it Rom. 6.15 Sin shall not have dominion over you because you are not under the Law but under Grace And now as where there is but one degree of heat in any subject more than there is of cold though that subject be not perfectly hot but there is a mixture of cold in every atom of it yet is denominated from the predominate quality so this Man though he be not exactly conformable to the exact Rule of Righteousness and therefore could not in the severe Justice of God be accepted but that rigorous course of the Law would lay hold upon him Gal. 3.10 Cursed be every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them which Book of the Law required a Love of God with all the Heart Might and Soul and that not only all that Heart Might and Soul which a Man now hath but which a Man once had and by his own fault hath lost and therefore that Law being weak through the Flesh Rom. 8.2 that is meeting with an impotency in us exactly to fulfil it became rather a Law of Death than Life yet when Christ came into the World and brought with him a perfect Righteousness of his own whereby to justifie us in the presence of God he did likewise by an Eternal Covenant of Peace with the Father stipulate for an acceptation of this imperfect Righteousness of ours which is wrought in us by his Grace and Spirit So that as the Righteousness of Christ the Lord our Righteousness which was perfect in Degrees was by the acceptation of the Father made our Justification so the Righteousness which is begun in us here by his Grace though mingled with our own defects is accepted by God with a Promise of increase of our Glory And the same Christ that hath fulfilled a perfect Righteousness for our Justification doth continually by his own Spirit begin and support a true though imperfect Righteousness in us to our Sanctification and helps against and pardons our many infirmities and defects as he hath promised Jer. 3.12 Return thou back-sliding Israel saith the Lord and I will not cause mine anger to fall upon you Jer. 31.19 Surely 〈◊〉 I was turned I repented Is Ephraim my dear 〈◊〉 is 〈◊〉 a pleasant child for since I spake against him I do 〈◊〉 remember him still Isa 42.3 A bruised reed shall â—e nâ—t break and smoaking flax shall he not quench Isa â—â— 11 He shall â—ed his flâ—ck like a shepherd he shall gather 〈…〉 with his 〈◊〉 and carry them in his bosom and shall gerth lead thâ—se that are with young Hos 11.3 〈◊〉 Ephraim also to go taking them by the arm Which several expressions shew 1. The Original of that initiate Righteousness in us even the Grace of God in Christ continually by degrees mastering our corruptions and in some measure conforming us unto him â— His Tenderness towards those small inceptions of his Grace in us cherishing and encouraging 〈◊〉 His Mercy and Goodness accepting of our sincerity and pardoning our weakness And this is that Evangelical Perfection of our Righteousness and Sanctification here And from this Advantage that the Grace of God hath over our Perfections do arise these four Consequents of it 1. Universality of Obedience 2. Constancy in it 3. Growth and increase in it 4. Renewing of our Repentance all which as they are the gifts of God so they do naturally flow from the over-matching of our Corruptions by Grace as appears in these Particulars 1. Vniversality of Obedience The Heart wherein the Grace of God hath over-matched his sinful Nature cannot allow it self in any known Sin or any known neglect of any one Command but hath respect to all God's Commandments Psal 119.6 Whosoever shall keep the whole yet if he offend in one point he is guilty of all James 2.10 The Grace of God and Sin are universally opposite one to another and as they are so in the abstract so are they in the concrete Where Sin hath an advantage in the Soul it doth oppose universally the whole Will of God and where Grace is in the Soul it doth oppose the whole will of Sin and therefore where any one Sin or neglect of any one Command of God is entertained knowingly and advisedly in the Soul there the Grace of God hath not the upper hand for the same Principle by which it acts viz. the Love of God equally engageth the Soul to every Duty and against every Sin according to the measure of Knowledge that is commmunicated to the Soul. 2. Constancy and Perseverance The change that is wrought in our Nature it is true is not in the essence of it but it is the presence of the Grace of Christ in the Heart that preserves and upholds the Heart and Life in Holiness and Righteousness If that could be withdrawn or intermitted we should like the Iron removed from the Fire soon return to our ancient Nature again but that great God whose presence alone supports all the things in Heaven and Earth in their being and
operations and whose Gifts and Callings are without Repentance hath promised to be with us to the end of the World He cannot sin because his sâ—â—d abideth in him 1 John 3.9 It is true there may be intermissions of the acting of Grace in the Heart and there may be falls in the Life but to be given over to a course of sin without repentance to be brought under the power and dominion of Sin as a King or a Ruler the Honour and Truth of God is engaged in it it shall not be 2 Thes 3.3 The Lord is faithful who shall stablish you John â—0 28 Nâ—er shall any man pluck them out of my hand Rom. 6.14 Sin shall not have dominion over you for 〈…〉 under the Law but under Grace And these Promises of God cannot make the Heart of any one to whom they truly belong any whit the more careless or loose in his watch over himself for that very Spirit whereby those Promises are sealed to us is an active vigilant pure Spirit and puts the Heart and Life upon those Practices that do naturally and properly conduce to this very Perseverance viz. Assiduity in Duties Humble and Watchful walking before God Examination and search of the state of our Souls and Lives Jealousie over the Treachery of our own Hearts and the snares that are within us and without us a Guard upon our Affections and Senses a frequent Consideration of the Will of God of his Goodness to us in Christ of the Price wherewith we are bought of the Hope whereunto we are redeemed and all those other helps that conduce to the settling and stablishing of our Hearts and Lives in a Conformity to the Will of God and in avoiding of all those things which are contrary thereunto and consequently as contraries do would impair corrupt and destroy that Life of Grace which he hath begun in us And from hence ariseth 3. An Increase and Growth in a more exact Conformity to the Will of God than formerly This is that which is so often commended unto us by the Spirit of God Colos 2.7 Rooted and built up in him Colos 4.12 Compleat in all the will of God Phil. 1.9 that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and in all judgment 1 Cor. 15.58 abounding in the work of the Lord Heb. 13.21 make you perfect in good works to do his will Phil. 3.13 forgetting what is past and reaching forth to the things that are before Ephes 4.13 growing to a perfect man 2.16 increase of the body 2 Pet. 3.17 beware lest ye fall from your own stedfastness but grow in grace Jude 20. building up your selves in your most holy faith Prov. 4.18 Increasing more and more unto the perfect day John 15.2 Every branch that beareth fruit he purgeth it that it may bring forth more fruit And as this is the Will of God so it is as naturally the effect of this Life that is wrought in the Heart as it is the effect of natural Life in the Body for it is an active and operative Life If any quality have got the mastery in a mixt Body it doth ever more and more by degrees waste and consume the contrary qualities and assimulates the whole unto it self And although as long as our Flesh hangs about us it is impossible that a compleat and absolute conquest can be wrought of all that Sin that is in us because it is a spring of Corruption yet it is wasted weakned and decayed By this work of Grace Saul's House waxeth weaker and weaker Every habit though it be moral or natural only receiveth an augmentation and degrees by its continual actings And the Grace of God which is more operative and active in the Heart than any habit can be for it is accompanied with the immediate Power and Efficacy of the Divine Spirit never stands still but like the little Leven that was hid in the great quantity of Meal it never gives over till the whole be leavened 4. Renewed Repentance Thy corrupt Nature is a Body of Sin and Death a spring of Corruption that will ever cast up mire and dirt and Grace in thy Heart is a spring of living Waters that as often as that corrupts will be washing it again When thou hast made the chamber of thy Heart as clean as thou canst yet there will be leaks in it that will let in Corruptions enough quickly to make it as foul as ever Grace by the continual examination of thy self humbling of thy Heart before God renewing thy Covenant with him doth not only pump out the filth that would poyson and drown and dam thee but stops the decays and leaks of this thy infirm Vessel When the Grace of God at first found thee thou wast dead in trespasses and sins and it came into thee and by Repentance did exercise its own act of Life to quicken thee And that same Body of Death that did at first inclose thee is still about thee and takes all opportunities to get its old mastery of thee and by this means thou catchest many a fall and bruise but that same Life by which thou livest re-acts against those inroads of sin and death and doth conquer them so that though thy renewed sins are not thy ruine yet they ought to be thy burden though they must not make thee despair yet they cannot chuse but make thee mourn though thy Saviour hath born their Guilt yet it is but equal thou shouldest bear thy shame When thou hadst no Life in thee thou couldest not feel thy self dead But now thou hast Life in thee thou canst not chuse but be sensible of thy sickness and thy hurts which thy own folly have occasioned and judge and condemn and avoid that Folly of thine that occasioned it Though thou canst not be rid of thy sins that fight against thy Life yet thou wilt not entertain them with better Entertainment than Bread of Affliction and Water of Affliction Though thou canst not expiate for any of them yet thou canst not look upon them without indignation as Traytors against thy Life and thy Peace thou canst not look upon thy self without loathing and detestation thou canst not look unto Christ without shame and confusion that one that he hath redeemed from so great a Misery with so great a Price to so great a nearness as to be a member of himself a partaker of his Spirit a Co-heir of his Glory should so unworthily so unthankfully in his sight dishonour his Head and pollute himself Thou canst not look upon what is past without Repentance nor upon what is to come without a Resolution of more Vigilance and keeping a better Guard upon thy self And yet in the midst of all these thy perplexed thoughts thou canst not chuse but admire and bless that Mercy of Christ that when thou deniest him looks back upon thee as once on Peter and with that look sends in a Messenger that makes thee go by thy self and bewail thy Relapse that leaves
thee not to a course in sin or to a death in sin but gives thee a Cordial which though it puts thee to pain preserves thy Life that though thou like a foolish misguided Sheep art stragling thou knowest not whither yet seeks thee and finds thee and reduceth thee that though thou canst so easily forget him yet he doth not forget thee and when all is done is contented to accept of that Repentance and that Sorrow which he himself gives thee and washes away thy Spot by his own Blood and looks upon thee with no less Tenderness and Love and Compassion and Goodness than if thou hadst never gone aside Ever blessed be thy Name O merciful Lord God that hast redeemed us from everlasting Death and yet when we daily endanger our selves dost rescue us by thy Grace that when we sin thou art pleased not to cast us off but fetchest us in by Repentance and when we repent art pleased not to reject us nor upbraid us with our former Falls but accept us to Pardon and Favour and blottest out our iniquities for thy great Names sake But let not thy Servants return any more to folly Amen CHAP. XXVIII Of the Parts of Sanctification and 1. In reference to our selves Sobriety THE fourth thing considerable are the Parts of that Sanctification which is required of us Sanctification is the Conformity of the whole Man to the Will of God concerning Man concerning his Life and Conversation And that Will of God respecteth three Objects Himself our Neighbour and our Selves And accordingly the Duties which lie upon us in reference to these three are shortly summed up by the Apostle Tit. 2.11 12. The grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men teaching us that denying ungodless and worldly lusts we should live soberly righteously and godly in this present world We have there the Old Man that we are to put off Ungodliness and Worldly Lusts cast by S. John into these three Ranks the Lusts of the Flesh the Lusts of the Eyes and Pride of Life 1 John 2.16 whereof before And we have that New Man Ephes 4.24 distributed into two parts Righteousness and true Holiness and here into three parts viz. Sobriety towards our selves Righteousness towards others and Godliness towards God the two latter come distinctly under the Commands of the first and second Table of the Decalogue as those Commands receive their true and spiritual interpretation by Christ the former though virtually it be therein included yet it is not expresly and directly 1. In reference to our selves Sobriety This refers either to our Judgment or Estimation of our selves or to the motions and inclinations of our sensual Appetites 1. Sobriety in our Judgments which is nothing else but a just and true Estimate of our selves Rom. 12.3 Not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think but to think soberly c. Man doth naturally inordinately love himself and that love to himself doth mislead and inhance a Man's opinion of himself even by those things that are meerly extrinsecal to him he thinks the better of himself by reason of his Wealth though that be a thing distinct from him by Nature and easily by any casualty severed from him or by reason of Esteem or Honour though that is such an accession as depends meerly upon the Will of another for if I withdraw that honour or respect which I give to a Man he is no longer honourable to me and as I may do it so may any and so may all and then he wholly ceaseth to be what he thought he was And much more Men are apt to have a high opinion of themselves in respect of that which seems most their own as Strength Beauty Elocution Wit Knowledge and the more intimate the Perfection is unto him that hath it the harder it is for that Man to be brought to that due estimation that he should have of himself that very Knowledge which must be the ground of bringing him to a right estimation of himself is ready to puff him up and that concretion that ariseth from the over-estimation of a Man's self and from his reflection upon that over-estimation is Pride and from this Pride arise those other distempers of the inward and outward Man a proud look despising the weaker or inferiour Arrogance lofty and haughty Speech Dan. 4.30 Is not this great Babylon c. Psal 73.9 They set their mouth against Heaven and their tongue walketh through the earth Exod. 5.2 Who is the Lord c. a placing of a Man's self in God's room and deifying himself implacableness with any thing that checketh the full Fruition of his own Glory though it seems never so inconsiderable the want of a Bowe from Mordecai makes Haman sick of anger and discontent Esther 3.7.5.13 and thus Pride is the foundation of Contention Prov. 13.10 because it cannot endure the competition of any thing that may allay the tumor the foundation of envy delight in flattery to feed and stroak that foolish Humour excess in Stateliness Distance Apparel singularity and the like All which are the Children of this Vanity Now as this proceeds much from the mistake of our Judgment or the want of the Exercise of it so on the other side when the judgment concerning a Mans self is rectified it produceth a clean contrary effect in the Soul the Man was mad before out of his Wits and his Carriage and Deportment was answerable thereunto but now by this right understanding himself he is sober in his right Senses and a sutable Deportment riseth thereupon he looks upon his Wealth as a thing that is lent him deposited with him only as a Steward not as an Owner as that which is uncertain vanishing subject to be easily translated from him to another as that which is external to him which he may have and be a Fool or a Man under a Curse as that which will one day inhance his Account not ease his Conscience as that which he may not it may be keep whilst he lives and is sure to lose when he dies as that which may be his snare his Temptation cannot be his Felicity as that which though never so excessive gives no greater a Priviledge than it gives his Servant that eats of it but only the bare Name of being his own He looks upon his Esteem Reputation and Honour in the World as that which meerly depends upon his inferiors Benevolence which thy may withdraw when they please as that which is external also to him may make him an Object of more Envy Danger and insecurity that ingageth to a great deal of vigilance to preserve it and is often lost without desert and yet the Man is the same He looks upon his Power and Authority as a thing that is not in himself but meerly in the Contribution of the strength of others or their voluntary denying it to themselves by a resolution of Non-resistance as that which makes no real Accession
de quibus infrá 3. From hence it is evident that I am bound to love my Neighbour This is evident and it is that great Command of the New Testament 1 John 4.20 4. From hence it is evident and it is the scoâ—â— and substance of the Command that we must love our Neighbour as our selves Now this word as imports Equality therefore it is considerable how far this Equality of Love to our Neighbour as to our selves is to be extended 1. Our Love to our Neighbour must be of equal Sincerity and Integrity with that Love a Man bears to himself A Man loves himself sincerely he doth not pretend or bear a dissembled Love to himself but it is in good earnest and with his Heart I must love my Neighbour as truly as I love my self This is an Equality of Nature or Essence 2. Our Love to our Neighbour must be of the same order or method as our Love to our selves As we are to prefer our chiefest Good before our temporal Good and the good of our Souls before that of our Bodies so we ought to hold the same order in the Love we shew to our Neighbour Levit. 19.17 Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thy heart but shalt reprove him There is sometimes a merciful Cruelty to be shewn to our Brother pulling him out of the Fire and holds resemblance to the Love of God to us that reproves that he may not strike and strikes that he may not destroy And this is an Equality of Order 3. But an Equality of Degree is not required as it seems and as is before touched But though in an Equality we may prefer our selves yet when there is a disproportion there in many cases our Neighbour's Good is to be preferred before our own 1. The salvation of our Neighbour's Soul is to be preferred before the preservation of our own temporal Life much more ought we to deny our selves in those things which are onely useful or pleasing to our Sense if the salvation of anothers Soul is concerned in it And this was that which was meant 1 Cor. 10.24 1 Cor. 8.13 Rom. 14.21 If meat make my brother offend I will eat no flesh while the world standeth lest I make my brother offend And as our Saviour laid down his natural Life to redeem our everlasting Souls from an eternal Death so hath he lefâ— the same for an Example and a Command to us John 13.34 A new command I give unto you that ye 〈◊〉 one another as I have loved you He had before commanded us that we should love our Neighbour as our selves and because we might take out that Lesson by his Example Christ the Son of God who had all perfection in himself and consequently did and must love himself yet preferred the salvation of our Souls before the preservation of his natural Life to be in this an Example to us that if the exigence of the salvation of my Brother's Soul could not consist with the preservation of my own Life I am bound to lay down that Life of mine rather than his Soul should be lost 1 John 3.16 Hereby perceive we the love of God because he laid down his life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren 2. We are by vertue of this Precept to prefer the preservation of our Neighbours temporal Life which otherwise would inevitably happen before our own Safety the hazard whereof may possibly but not necessarily endanger our own This among other Examples is evidenced in the Example of Esther Esther 4.16 A Decree was passed for the Massacre of the Jews which would necessarily have ensued if there were not a speedy prevention the only means to prevent it was Esthers Address to the King and such an immediate Address without an Invitation was present Death by the Law Esther 4.11 yet Esther resolves in that Exigence to adventure her Life Esther 4.16 I will go unto the King which is not according to the Law and if I perish I perish So that although the Concernment be equal my Neighbour's Life and my own Life in which case were there not a disproportion of the Danger I were bound to preserve my own Life rather than to lose it with the preservation of my Neighbours yet when the loss of my Neighbour Life is necessary without incurring some danger of my own I am to trust the good Providence of God with my own Life in a dangerous Adventure of it rather than to see my Brother inevitably perish And the like proportion holds in matters of a lower Concernment 3. Therefore much more it follows that if the being of my Neighbour cannot consist without the parting with somewhat that consists with my temporal well-being I am to prefer my Neighbour's being before my own well-being Thus I am bound to lose my Estate rather than see my Neighbour lose his Life if my Estate would preserve it But this is still intendible only in case of an injurious taking away his Life for if by the due course of Justice my Neighbour's Life be required I am not bound to buy his Pardon with the expence of my whole Estate and so in case my Neighbour shall wilfully cast away his own Life in such Cases there is a Latitude of Christian Discretion left unto me and I am not then a debtor to his Life 4. If my Neighbour's Necessity come in competition with my Convenience only I am bound by this Law of Love to prefer my Neighbour's Necessity before my own Convenience If there be a poor Man whose Exigences are such that he hath wherewith to preserve Life only but not to satisfie Nature and I have wherewith to satisfie the Exigences of my Nature with some Advantage I am bound out of that to supply his Necessity And though my corrupted Reason may object that my future Condition may stand in need of that which I now part with to anothers Necessity we are in this to trust the Almighty to whom I lend in this my Charity and though of his own yet he is content for his own to become my Debtor And that Man cannot want when God is pleased to become his Debtor He that giveth to the poor lendeth to the Lord and he will repay him Proverbs 19.17 Yet in the measuring of Supplies for my own Necessity I am to account for all those for whom I am bound to provide for he that provideth not for his own Family is worse than an Infidel 1 Tim. 5.8 yet herein take heed that thy Heart deceive thee not CHAP. XXXI Of the second general Precept of Righteousness Doing as we would be done unto 2. THE Second Precept Matth. 7.12 Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you do ye even so to them for this is the Law and the Prophets This is nothing else but a practical Experiment of the former for every Man is presumed to love himself and in order and subservience to that Love to be able to judge whether