time for thy faith thy repentance they were transient acts such as do passe way but this Eternity abideth for ever So in that it is eternal the freenesse of it is necessarily implied What hath a cup of cold water given in the Name of Christ of condignity with an eternal reward Oh then that by faith we could fix our hearts upon this eternal life that we could say what do we here What is this life that we now live to that eternal life Why have I not this more in my thoughts and desires Why do I not rise and go to bed with hungrings and thirstings after this especially let wicked men who for to fulfill every base and unworthy lust lose this eternal life to go home weeping and howâ—ing and making bitter Lamentations For they for a lust that passeth in a moment undo themselves to all Eternity Thus you have heard the properties of it In the next place consider it comparatively with this present life and you will see what a Mole-bill is to the vast heavens that is this life to eternal life For 1. This life is but short fading and fleeth away as a shadow It 's not a life but a shadow of a life We live but in a dream We act a life upon a Stage There is but a life represented not really lived Hence the Scripture useth so many similitudes to expresse this nothing Sometimes this life is called a flower Psa 90. which though sweet for a while presently dieth Sometimes a Floud that makes a sudden noise and is immediately swallowed up in the earth Sometimes to a bubble to a vapour to a shadow to a threed Now why are all these expressions but to tell us This life is no life it deserveth not the name of a life and yet as poor and short as it is what an imbred desire have we to it Skin for skin and all that we have we would exchange for it how welcome then and desired should eternal life be which compared with this life is like the Ocean to a drop Now lay up both these lives together this fading moment and that enduring Eternity and admire the madnesse of wicked men who say Give me this life Let me here live in my pleasures and lusts though I be deprived of eternal life This foolish choice is made by every wicked man 2. This life as it is short so it is full of troubles and miseries Few and evil have my daies been said Jacob Gen. 49.9 though a godly man who had sometimes the presence of God immediatly refreshing him in this Pilgrimage It hath been the saying of some That if they were to live the life they have lived over again They would not accept of such an offer because the water of it hath been more then the wine the gall then the honey Hence Job saith Man that is born of a woman is for adversity as the sparks fly upwards Job 5.7 Nothing is so connatural and proper for man as to be miserable Compare then Eternity with this where all evil is done away Nothing but glory and fulnesse of abundance Eternal and happy may the Saints glorified say their daies are Yet here again is a great discovery of every wicked mans madnesse To have a few evil daies wherein thou hast more vexation then comfort thou wilt lose this eternal blessed life and if thou saist I hope not so I do not intend to do so that will not avail thee for this eternal life is vouchsafed to none but those that repent of and wholly forsake their sinnes Never then blinde thy eyes and delude thy self with vain hopes Thou for thy sinnes sake dost voluntarily refuse this eternal life 3. This life is full of fears We are obnoxious unto death from principles of corruption within as also from violence without So that if we could suppose an universal good in this life That we had mercies and no sorrow mingled with them yet the fear of losing them or our death no longer to enjoy them may justly be the death in the pot or the root of bitternesse in all our joys There is no ground we can shadow our selves under but a worm will arise either from it or from our selves or God will create one to destroy it so that when all things are to our hearts desire yet we are not able to say I fear not the losse of it neither death or the violence of man can deprive me of it but still we are subject every moment to an alteration set we then this eternal life by it and there we shall see how glorious that is comparatively for as there is an universal good so there is a quiet full and secure possession of it There is no danger from within or from without Adam though created happy yet was mutable The devil seduced him out of all his felicity but now there is a confirmation of the Saints in heaven if once in possession of glory there cannot be any to eject them unlesse there could be a stronger then God It 's not so much happinesse as security in happinesse that makes a man blessed Fear to lose it takes off from the enjoying of it but it 's not so with this eternal life There is all quietnesse all security and ease and certainly if the Apostle Rom 8. even in this life can make such a glorious charge Who shall separate us from the love of God through Christ Neither death nor things present nor things to come How much more shall they in heaven triumph after this manner If those that are tossed up and down in the Sea have such security what may they have who are in the haven Upon this account it is that our Saviour bids them treasure up that wealth Mat. 6.20 where theeves cannot break through and steal By that he means no secret craft or open violence can get away that treasure Here again we see the madnesse of wicked and earthly men They venture their souls and God and heaven and all to get this uncertain wealth these uncertain pleasures which when they have they may fear every moment that voice from heaven Thou Fool this night thy soul shall be taken from thee Thus they do when a secure certain and permanent treasure is to be tendered to them It 's a rule which all commend for the wisedom of it Tene certum dimitte incertum and this they will keep too in earthly affairs but then for heaven and eternal happinesse there they are devoid of all understanding 4. This life is measured by time as are all the things therein There is a succession of comforts we cannot have all comforts together All these things in the world are in a swift motion and nothing stands still The comforts we had the last year or the last day or the last hour they are gone we cannot have them any more Thus every thing in this world being measured by time is in a continual flux There
which relateth to eternity so that the first and the last thing thou hast to think on is how to come to this eternall life The Apostle useth an emphaticall word 1 Tim. 6.12 Lay hold on eternall life as a man that runneth in a race at the end thereof streacheth out himself to lay hold on the garland so that as he who runneth in a race neglects all the pleasant objects he runneth by and hath his eye only upon the prize Thus it ought to be with us neither riches honours friends or earthly advantages ought to be inordinately minded by us but eternall life that is the prize upon that our eye is to be after that we are to pray and strive But who may not blame himself and judge himself for neglect herein Oh how little is this eternall life in thy affections and hopes thy cares about thy body about thy estate will greatly condemn that sluggishness about eternall life 2. As this ought to be the great question we are to rise with and go to bed with so we must take the right way to answer it It 's not enough to make the question as Pilate did to Christ What truth was and never matter an answer but we are to be restlesse in our souls till we have a full answer till we know the way Now that we can only be instructed in from Gods Word John 6.68 Whither shall we go thou hast the words of eternall life The Scripture then is this Tree of Life the fruit thereof and the leaves likewise are for eternall healing Hence our Saviour in the next verse tels us what is the way to have this eternall life even by knowing of God and Jesus Christ As all the Heathens were in dark confused thoughts about immortallity so they were in Egyptian darknesse or like the blinde Sodomites groping and feeling for a way to it but could never get in Wouldst thou therefore be resolved in this How may I have this eternall life betake thy self then to the Scriptures make them thy counsellers do not attend to the waies of the world matter not what they say or what they do for that telleth thee the way to heaven is clean contrary to the manners and practises of the world If you do not rectifie your self by the Scripture and resolve to follow the light of this starre though you should hear many hundred Sermons of eternall life yet they would do you no good say then let me consider what way the Scripture would put me into my life I yet live is wholly repugnant to Gods Word whatsoever course that prescribeth though never so contrary to my lusts to my former practises yet I will gladly renounce all Do this and then expect eternall life 3. Consider this deeply that upon this little moment we have here depends all eternity Thou hast a short brittle life in this world and upon the good improvement of this depends all eternity Oh the searchings and turnings of heart this particular should make in you My everlasting condition that estate which is to be for ever and ever it wholly hangs upon this uncertain life It may be thou hast but a day an hour to live longer and all thy eternity depends on this Oh men foolish and unwise who will not lay these things more to heart God hath given us a candle to work by a short day we have to improve and if this passe over thy head then comes unchangeable eternity As at thy death thou art cast for eternall life or everlasting torments so it must be without ever any recovery or alteration Oh how precious should thy time be how dear should every day every hour be all this hath influence into eternity Well might the Apostle Ephes 5.16 command us to redeem the time Time is the most precious jewell in the world eternity depends on it and therefore wilt thou let thy lusts or wicked companions steal away this jewel that is more worth then all the world Oh let us so live every day every hour as those that say as I do now so will eternity be to me 4. Consider this that the most of men even called and injoying the means of grace shall misse of this eternall life What is a thunderbolt if this be not Luk. 13.24 There are few that enter into the strait gate and many are called but few chosen our Saviour used that apothegm more then once How formidable and dreadfull should these words many and few be unto us Many perish in the broad way few enter in the strait way What will make thee cast off presumption security and negligence if this do not The number of those who shall have this eternall life is very few a little flock they are comparatively to those many millions that are cast into everlasting flames Oh how long shall we hear these things and yet be void of all spirituall understanding If such an asseveration should be used concerning any temporall misery or calamity Many shall dye of the plague few shall escape Many shall be cut off by famine or the sword and a very few shall be preserved who would not fear lest he should be one of the many And yet in these things many are as idle having ears they hear not and hearts they understand not 5. Desire to have such thoughts and resolutions now as if thou wert already in eternity For if the damned in hell that see no escape from those everlasting flames were asked what they thought of their sinne how they loved it would they not make miserable howlings it 's that which hath undone us oh that is the sting that enters into the very bowels that 's the scorpion which pierceth to the very heart Oh we mad men and void of all understanding who though forewarned of this and threatned about it yet regarded nothing beleeved nothing but now oh now after millions of years in this tormented place we are as unlikely to come out as at the first Think you they are not then altered and changed do they not cry out of those bitter sinnes which were once so sweet Should God give them leave to be here again upon the earth would they not repent in sackcloth and ashes would they not day and night mourn after God and his forgivenesse Oh that every wicked man who findes pleasure and delight in his sinnes would think and say Do the damned in hell judge it so Do they feel sinne so sweet And thus also desire to have the same inlarged affections and delight in God as those glorified Saints in heaven have Dost thou finde thy heart worldly unruly distempered say Do those in eternall life rejoyce no more have they no more enlivened flames of zeal for God then I have Thus to judge as those who are in eternity would be an excellent spurre to all piety 6. Remember this likewise that it 's farre better thou hadst never been born then to misse of this eternall life
make it uselesse for there needeth not any more two meritorious causes of salvation then two Suns in the firmament or else if Christ merited as the remote cause and we as the proxime cause then salvation is to be attributed more formally to our grace then Christs sufferings So that as if the Sunne should inlighten the starres that they could make the day this would take off from the immediate glory of the Sun though that was remotely the cause of it Thus though Christ be the cause of our grace yet because our grace is in it self made the meer meritorious cause therefore it would obscure the glory of Christ Oh then let the gracious man take heed of any proud risings or stirrings of heart of any proud opinions or doctrins which may secretly fermentate him herein Fourthly Neither is the connexion between grace and glory causal in a physical and natural way as the fire burneth or as the acorn will naturally grow into a great Oak It 's ordinarily said That grace is the seed of glory or grace is glory begun and glory is grace consummated but all this is not so to be understood as if grace by any intrinsecal natural vertue did grow up to glory as a childe doth to a man No God might if he had pleased when we had done the highest acts of grace yet have annihilated us Though we had fought the good fight of faith yet he might not have given us a crown of glory for this heavenly glory accompanieth grace only by vertue of a promise Had not God promised and mercifully annexed such glorious priviledges our graces of themselves could not have procured them Fifthly Therefore is grace and glory connexed partly from the promise of God He is willing out of his free bounty to bestow heaven upon our gracious walking so that we cannot plead our graces but Gods promise onely neither is he a debtor unto us but unto himself and this is the righteousness mentioned by the Scripture when it speaks of God rewarding us as when it 's said If we confess and forsake our sins he is righteous to forgive them 1 Joh. 1.9 and so it 's just with God to remember our sufferings 2 Thess 1.6 and Paul saith It 's the righteous Judge 2 Tim. 4.6 which will give him the crown of glory Here justice and righteousness is not mentioned for strict commutative righteousness but the righteousness of Gods promise and fidelity So that God looketh upon the promise as on the rainbow which is a sure evidence that he will never destroy the world more and then grace is an antecedent to glory because Grace is an ordinable means to glory Without holiness no man shall see God Heb. 12.14 Sin cannot in it's nature be appointed the way to happiness Therefore the ancient saying is that it is via not causa regni so that by Gods commanding and appointing the way it 's as indispensably necessary as if it were a cause And then Lastly It makes for the honour and glory of God to make grace a necessary forerunner of glory For if every prophane and ungodly person might be saved this would redound greatly to Gods dishonour this would invert and contradict those places of Scripture which speak of Gods purity and holiness so that his eyes cannot behold the wicked that he will in no wise acquit the ungodly Exod. 34.7 That he is angry with the wicked all the day long Psal 7.11 Thus you see that there is an inviolable chain between sanctification and happiness and that it is gross and foul presumption for a man to separate these two to think he shall ever partak of one without exercising the other and therefore this Vse 1 In the first place doth thunder out unspeakable woe unto all wretched and ungodly men What hopes what expectations have ye of happiness Deceive not your selves any longer with such false surmises look over all the Bible and you shall see nothing but hell fire and eternal torments to such who are workers of iniquity What do you think God will alter the course of grace when he will not the course of nature Will God turn the day into night or the night into day Will he make the Sun stand still or the waters of the Sea part asunder to please the creature Yea these miracles he may and hath done but to save a wicked man living and dying in his wickednesse would be the greatest miracle that could be yea we may say such is the holiness and justice of God that he cannot do it What is it then that doth thus befot and bewitch wicked men What keepeth you from gnashing the teeth tearing the hair and crying out Oh this life those sins will as surely damn me as if I were in hell already without repentance And Vse 2 2. It speaks infinite comfort to those who have true grace though in the least degree For seeing that grace doth not as a natural cause produce glory but by the Covenant and Promise of God then the weakest grace may plead this as well as the strongest The lowest believer may say I have as good and as faithfull a promise as the stronger even a cup of cold water given to a Prophet upon right grounds shall have an everlasting Kingdom and therefore that cannot be for any worth or dignity in the good duty performed What is lesse then a cup of water and that cold yet for this there is promised an everlasting Kingdom And certainly if Paul thought 2 Cor. 4.17 these afflictions though in themselves never so great yet nothing comparable to that eternal weight of glory much lesse then are those lesse afflictions comparable to it And so I proceed to the second Doctrine Christ prayeth That believers though thus sanctified and perfected in one may be made glorious Now this plainly supposeth That Glory is a gift That it doth not follow upon our highest degree of Sanctification and therefore when the Apostle had said The wages of sin is death Rom. 6.23 he doth not also say the wages of grace is eternal life but he cals it The gift of God So that here is a difference between hell and heaven The wicked mans life deserveth hell it 's the proper reward of every ungodly action yea some say that hell is lesse then the sin God doth not punish according to the desert of it but it 's otherwise with glory and happiness for after we have done to the utmost yet it 's wholly in Gods good pleasure whether he will give a Kingdom or no. Now the Reasons Why eternal glory must be a gift even to the most godly men is 1. Because that all our best actions have some sinfulness cleaving to them insomuch that if God should deal strictly according to those adhering defects we might be damned notwithstanding the graces we have Therefore the Psalmist prayeth Psal 143.2 That God would not enter into judgement with his servant because in his sight no flesh
Thou saist I have no power I shall never be able to go through this condition or that but hath Christ no more There is power in his Death and power in his Resurrection Every thing of Christ hath power The Prophets dead body gave life to one how much rather shall Christ crucified Oh but you will say These are words These are Fancies Though Christ hath all this power I am not a whit stronger I am as unable as any I answer Thank thy self for thy unbelief All things are possible to the Beleever Christ hath power but the fruit of it is to him that beleeveth You see all the cures he worketh all the wonderfull works he did it was still beleeve and it shall be thus to you according to thy faith so be it to thee If the Fountain be never so full unlesse you come with your vessell you may be scorched with thirst You see then how all this power and greatnesse of Christ may be yours There is nothing in him but it may profit you and that is by relying on him putting confidence in him because of his promise and if thou saist how can I beleeve that is also by Praier to God Even Christ he giveth this also viz. to beleeve SERMON X. Of Predestination or Gods giving some of Mankinde to Christ not all for him to redeem And what unspeakable Grounds of Comfort to Gods People flow from thence JOH 17.2 That to as many as thou hast given him he should give Eternall Life THis latter part of the Verse containeth the use and exercise of Christs Power which he had from the Father and therein you may consider 1. The Fruit and benefit of it 2. The Subject on whom this is to be bestowed The Fruit is described in the nature of it 1. It s Life As Death is the King of Terrors so life must be the King of joys 2. The Property of this Life it 's Eternall This naturall life in the midst of the joys that may accompany it hath this bridle and check It 's but for a short uncertain time In the next place you have the manner of obtaining it It s given There is no merit no antecedent worth but it 's given O this is the benefit The Subject who is to partake of this gift is limited and restrained by this qualification To as many as the Father hath given him So we translate it regarding the sence otherwise if it should verbatim according to the Greek it would be hardly sence to an English ear For thus it is That every thing which thou hast given him to them he should give Eternall Life Neither indeed is it pure Grecisme but an Hebraisme where sometimes the Nominative case beginneth the sentence and then the sence is so cast afterwards that it quite loseth its Verb as here 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There is also the Neuter gender for the Masculine Or else it 's used emphatically to shew that not so much totus homo as the torum hominis the every thing of a godly man is given to Christ not his soul but his body also This phrase is severall times used especially Joh. 6.37 where it is said All that my Father giveth me cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out and will raise him up again Where that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 every thing implieth body as well as soul because it 's said he will raise him up Now when the Father is said to give some of mankinde to Christ that is not to be understood of his divine nature for so he hath all things as God but as a Mediatour and Redeemer so that the sence is God the Father gave some of Mankind◠to Christ committed them to his care and trust that he should be their Mediatour and obtain everlasting Salvation From whence Observe That not all but some only of Mankinde are given by God the Father to Christ to be a Mediatour for them Though Christ have a sufficiency and fulnesse in him to obtain Salvation for all yet some only are given to him intentionally by Gods Decree to be their actuall Saviour and Mediatour To as many saith the Text as the Father hath given him This place doth batter to the ground that pleasing opinion of Universal Redemption for by that not some but all are given to Christ by the Father and if so then all must be saved for mark that place Joh. 10.28 29 speaking of his Sheep They shall not perish neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand for my Father which gave them me is greater then all We need not a cleerer place for these two things 1. That there are but some that the Father hath given Christ 2. All those that are given they are sure to have eternal life because none is greater then the Father So that those two dangerous doctrines Universal Redemption and the total and final apostacy of the true Saints are evidently confuted by that place This is so clear that we need not matter their many distinctions to obscure the truth That there are some whom the Father hath thus committed to Christ to be their Mediatour appeareth by this expression us'd at other times The forementioned place Joh. 6.37 39. is considerable The occasion of that expression was from the unbelief of the Capernaits who though they had seen Christs wonders yet beleeved not but it was no wonder for saith he All that is given me of my Father shall come unto me If you had been thus given to me you would beleeve Now because it 's invisible and altogether a secret known only to God who they are that are given to Christ he sheweth a sure and certain fruit of this They will in time come to him i. e. beleeve in him and receive him so that we may invert the Saying all that do truly beleeve in Christ they are given unto him of the Father and for their encouragement he saith He will in no wise cast them out a Metaphor from the Master that takes a Scholar though dull and weak yet he will forbear and not cast him out and lest it should be thought that though it be well with them thus for the present yet for the future they may be undone he addeth v. 39. It 's the Fathers will of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing but raise it up again at the last day Oh the divine and unspeakable consolations that are here treasured up for the godly So Joh. 10.29 which you heard before One place there is that may be a stumbling-block and seem to weaken all Joh. 17.12 Those that thou gavest me I have kept and there is none lost but the Sonne of Perdition But the answer is The Apostles are said to be given to Christ in a twofold respect 1. Of sanctification and glorification and thus Judas was not 2. In respect of their Office and calling as when he said Have not I chosen twelve and one of you is
he part with his bloud and wilt not thou with a sinne which will breed nothing but torment hereafter Though it be now honey in thy mouth yet it will be gravell in the belly 2. This supposeth the security and safety of the godly Nothing can hinder them of this salvation Our life is hid with Christ in God Col. 3.3 They must pull Christ out of heaven overthrow the power of God the Father ere they can be destroied and their security stands upon a twofold bottome 1. His faithfulnesse to discharge his trust What doubt may be made seeing Christ hath undertaken the work of thy salvation Not that thou shouldst live in ease and eat and drink and take no care for thy soul This is to adde hony to poison but in respect of the meritorious and satisfactory part so Christ hath undertaken all when thou art required to believe and repent it is not to merit to satisfie it 's upon other grounds Now then will it not be blasphemy to say Christ will be found unfaithful in his trust To say that Christ should lose any of those jewels that were put into his custody indeed if our salvation and happinesse were in our keeping we should be prodigal of it every day we are found unfaithful in every temptation but so is not Christ As he is yea and Amen the same yesterday and to day and for ever so is thy salvation sure to be It must needs be sure because of the power of Christ Joh. 19.30 I and my Father are one said Christ even to this particular Now none is greater then my Father None can pluck them out of his hands Consider that they are in Gods hands he keeps them alwaies as a precious jewell and he that will destroy them must pluck them out of Gods hands whether he will or no he must be stronger then God that can do this It was Caesars boast that he had ten Legions of such valiant Souldiers that could vel ipsum coelum diruere pull down even heaven it self a vain and wicked boast but no power of men or devils are able to take these treasures out of Gods hands Vse of Examination Try whether thou art one of those that are thus given to Christ and in this I mean not thou shouldst climbe up into heaven see whether thy Name be written in the Book of Life but know this by the infallible property of him who is thus given to Christ and that is to come to him What my Father hath given me will come to me and the Father will draw him Now coming to Christ is not pedibus but affectibus Dost thou take him for thy Lord and King Art thou willing to renounce all those lusts and sins which have had dominion over thee Dost thou cry out and say Oh blessed Lord my sins my oaths my pride my uncleannesse have kept me from thee Conscience bid me come the Word of God bid me come but still this sinne or the other kept me back But now Lord I have broken all the snares here I am to do what thou wilt have me oh it 's to be lamented with bitter lamentations to see how few come to him though he giveth such encouragements SERMON XI Treateth of Eternall Life in the Nature and Properties of it JOH 17.2 That he should give eternall life to as many as thou hast given him HAving dispatched the Subject to whom this fruit of Christs power is to be vouchsafed we come now to the Fruit and benefit thereof and that is Eternal Life In which we will also comprehend the manner of obtaining it viz. by way of gift He will give The greatnesse of the gift though it may be apprehended yet it cannot be comprehended Though we had the tongue of Angels and the understanding likewise yet we should but speak as a childe and think as a childe when this matter of Divinity is our Theme Every thing is inviting Its life No rich man no poor man but desireth this It 's Eternal Life and so can be much lesse rejected and it 's by way of gift Nothing can be more welcome It 's life there is the necessity of it It 's eternal life there is the excellency of it It 's given there is the freenesse of it so that this gift here supposed is not within this Horizon nor is it made for this Meridian but it extends to the world to come The wisest of the Philosophers were in a misty darknesse about this matter It was much debated whether any happinesse did remain after this life and although sometimes confused thoughts did work on them as on that man who reading a Book of Immortality was so transported that he killed himself immediatly to enjoy it yet these were but generall indigested notions only the Scripture doth give us a distinct and accurate account of this blessednesse after our lives in this world so then we see here an unspeakable priviledge and that most certainly to be bestowed on them whatsoever their lives be here though poor though miserable though afflicted though troubled yet they shall have an eternal life Obs That Christ will give to those that are his Eternal life I shall not enlarge my self according to the vast nature of this Subject which cannot be well understood but by the fruition of it and if you should ask what it is we should desire time still to expresse it as he did what God was yet I shall limit my Discourse to a threefold general head 1. To speak of it positively what it is 2. Comparatively to this temporal and present life 3. Oppositely to eternal death And these three particulars will tend to manifest the greatest excelleneies of it Though when we have fully satisfied you with this bread it will so multiply that many fragments may be taken up First therefore positively This Eternal Life doth essentially lie in the immediate fruition and enjoyment of God This the Scripture doth often call seeing of God for howsoever it be disputed by the Learned whether the bodily eye shall be elevated so supernaturally that it shall be able to see the divine essence though spirituall and immaterial yet so farre as seeing doth imply enjoying and immediate fruition of God so farre they are sure to partake of it Now then consider how great a mercy this is To have God the Object of all our love joy and delight For he only is that universal and infinite object which can satiate and comfort the heart All these earthly comforts they are too narrow too little for the soul Divines say The soul of a man hath an infinite appetite it desireth this and it desireth that and nothing but God is such an universal good that can fully replenish it Now David even in this life he saith Whom have I in heaven and earth but thee Psa 13.35 how much rather will this be true in heaven God is the center of the soul it is unquiet and
Holy Lord God of Hosts And this is that which makes wicked men so carelesse about it They rather desire a bruitish sensuall life Let us eat and drink as if they were so many Swine but as the life of a Beast is not comparable to that of a man so neither are the pleasures and joys of the flesh like those of holinesse Hence it is that those who live holily have a taste and firstfruits of this eternal life He that beleeveth hath eternal life Joh. 6.54 He hath it already both in respect of a sure Title and interest as also of the taste and pledges of it in his soul Wonder not then if you see men given up to their lusts no waies diligent to obtain this life The holinesse of it is no motive to them no more then a Pearl doth affect a Swine They must be holy who desire such an holy life 5. It 's a spirituall life that differs from the former because it 's opposite to that animal life we live here The body is made a spirituall body we shall there no more hunger or thirst no more eat or drink All those civill and natural actions will be done away No more delight in Father in Wife in Children for the soul is wholly swallowed up with the love of and delight in God As when the Sunne ariseth we cannot see the Starres so when God shall come to fill the capacity and potentiality of the soul no more earthly comforts can be discerned by us It 's a true Rule that spirituall delights are farre more transporting and affecting the heart then any bodily can be As those who are in an extasie and rapture they minde no worldly thing Paul did not know whether he was in the body or out of the body yea the delight in study did so transport Archimedes that he was drawing lines when Syracuse the City he was in was taken so that as David said of prevailing grief some Philosophers could say of their delight in study They forgat the time to eat their bread Now spiritual delights must needs elevate higher then all these Hence it is that Divines say The beatificall vision or fruition of God makes it impossible for the Saints to sinne They cannot leave God so excellent and full to cleave to any creature As a man that hath tasted honey doth not like the taste of other things or as he who hath long gazed on the Sunne hath his eyesight taken away to behold other things The Apostle tels us 2 Cor. 4.15 that while we behold the glory of the Gospel we are transformed into his Image If faith in God in this life is so able to assimilaâ—e us unto God that he purifieth himself as God is pure If Moses by speaking with God face to face had such glory communicated to him that the people were not able to behold the glory of his face what a Transmutation will that immediare beholding of God make in us We see the Disciples in a transient sight of this were so transported that they said It is good for us to be here let us build Tabernacles They would never have gone to their former lives again If a drop do thus work what will the Ocean do Vse Of Instruction to Inform us That true happinesse which is Eternal life cannot be had on this side heaven It 's said the desire of happinesse is imbred in all No man can refuse the desire of it Ask every man in the world what he would have he will answer you happinesse Only here is the miserable corruption in us we mistake where it is we seek for it where it cannot be had The voluptuous man would have it in his pleasures The Ambitious man in honour and earthly greatnesse All seek for it in this world But how do you like the blinde Sodomites grope and feel after that which you cannot finde Go home and say I am not yet happy I am rich but not happy I have worldly comforts but this as no more happinesse then a Landfloud is to the Sea yea for all this happinesse thou hadst better never have been born Every worm every toad is happier then thou art Oh then perswade thy self thou art not yet in the haven Thou art in the Wildernesse not yet in Canaan Nulla verior miseria quam falsa laetitia and such joy such comfort such delight is all thou hast who hast not God SERMON XII A Consideration of Eternal Life compared with this present life And with its contrary viz. Eternal Death JOH 17.2 That he should give to them Eternal Life ETernal life in the nature and some properties of it hath been treated on There remains one more which I shall mention viz. that in the Text Eternall Therefore take the best wine at the last That which crowneth all and without which whatsoever happinesse or glory might be had it would in time fall as the leaf from the Tree and this is Eternity And here again we must be more in our acclamations and divine amazements at it then descriptions of it The Schoolmen they tell us that Eternity is like a fixed starre now whose whole is altogether There is no succession no former or latter in Eternity but all is together I shall not perplex you with such intricacies Eternity it self being only a fit space to know what Eternity is This only take notice of That a thing may be said to be eternal in a twofold sence 1. Absolutely and simply so that it hath neither beginning or ending and thus only God is eternal Thus Deut. 33.27 God is called the Eternall God Or else Eternal is used for that which had a beginning but never shall have an end this is called Eternum a posteriori and so this blessed life is called eternal for although it had a beginning yet it shall never have an end but after millions and millions of imaginary years they are to continue in this life as if it were the first moment Let us then consider as much as we are able what an infinite and incomprehensible happiness this is which shall be for ever Then shall we be with the Lord for ever saith Paul 1 Thes 4.17 Who is not put into extasies and raptures while he seriously meditateth on these things Alas in this life if we had the confluence of all desirable comforts yet because our life is short and uncertain our joy also can be no longer But there whatsoever glory thou dost once partake of thou shalt never lose it It will be thy Crown for ever thy Kingdom for ever thy glory is ever lasting glory O the depth and unsearchablenesse of this grace and love of God well might Christ say he would give it and Paul call Eternal Life the gift of God Rom. 6.23 For who can think that these duties which we do here are meritorious of such eternal glory for grant they were perfect and had no drosse in them yet there is no proportion in the
is the first and the second and so still all is passing and what is past we have not and what is to come we do not yet enjoy so that there is nothing but the present advantages that we are properly said to possesse now put eternal life to this and it 's the clean contrary even as Eternity is to time for whereas time is in a continual transient being Eternity is an whole and full possession of all together There is no past present or to come in Eternity but Eternity comprehends all these things together even as the greater wheel comprehends at once all the motions of the lesse wheel within it and certainly this consideration is able to swallow us up Thy comforts do not flow and reflow They do not passe and others come but thou art in a stable permanent way of enjoying all happinesse together Thou canst not be lesse happy at one time then at another Thou canst not expect greater joy then thou hast neither canst thou wish for any joy that is past so great a matter is Eternity In the Last place This Life is full of dissatisfaction even in the vertical Point of all its blessednesse The heart of a man morally as well as naturally is alwaies in motion never lieth still It 's alwaies hydropical the more it drinketh the thirstier it is still Solomon you heard that made it his study and endeavour to have content in this world yet it could not be he may as soon think to make an Oistershell hold the Ocean as that these earthly things can fill the heart What man is there who liveth a meer earthly life that can say he is satisfied he desireth nothing Indeed we reade of Paul Phi. 4. saying I have all things and abound but that is through grace because enjoying of God otherwise the Air can as soon fill the hungry stomack as earthly things the appetite of the soul But compare this eternal life hereto and there is all fulnesse and satisfaction They never desire a change they cannot wish it better with them We see Peter but in a taste of it yet cried out It 's good to be here Let us dwell here he would not have parted with joy The soul in heaven is arrived at its haven it 's come to its journeys end it 's now fallen to its center it cannot go any further It now cryeth out Here is enough Lord here is enough yet this fulnesse breeds not nauseating as they were weary of Manna No it exciteth desire and yet filleth it It provoketh love and yet satiateth it so that this particular likewise proclaimeth the madnesse of all wicked men for why is thy soul like the devil compassing about the earth seeking out for this comfort and then for another Even as children cry for this thing and then quickly weary cry for another and in the mean while doth neglect that which would be instead of all Thus have we handled it comparatively the last way is to consider it oppositely for that is an old Rule contraries put together illustrate one another the more The Sunne is most glorious after the breaking out of a black thick cloud Now the contrary to Eternal life is eternal death so that we may apprehend the good of the one by the evil of the other and indeed man is so slavish and bruitish that fear doth more prevail then love Therefore though we propound all the joys of heaven and invite to this eternal life yet few make that Question as he did to Christ Master what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life but if we speak of eternal death in all the terrour of it then fear may for a while at least awaken them Let us then consider wherein the contrary to this eternal life consisteth And 1. That is in the deprivation of God and an utter departure from him and this privative part of eternal death is the great aggravation of it At the day of judgement that dreadful doom runneth thus Depart from me Mat. 25. 41. That is worse then the eternal fire they are cast into you have heard that God was the fountain of all good every creatures goodnesse is but a stream from that Fountain At thy right hand said David Psa 16.11 are rivers of pleasure for evermore So that this eternal death takes thee from the light of his countenance Thou art never to be admitted in his presence and when God departs all comfort all hope departs with him Oh that wicked men would lay this to heart you that now bid God depart from you you will have none of his knowledge none of his commands God will requite you in your own kinde he will then command you to depart from him Were it not that Athiesm and unbelief did reign in your hearts this truth would make your ears to tingle and your heart to tremble while you hear it Was it not death to Absalom to be kept from his Fathers presence Why do ye not kill me saith he to Joab rather then let it be alwaies thus yet he was but an earthly Father he could not give peace and joy to the consciences of men but this heavenly Father is a Father of spirits whom he bids Depart from him all terrour and horrour immediatly seizeth on that man There is no quietnesse in his bones Michah had lost but an Idol-God Judg. 18. and he wringeth his hand and crieth out bitterly Oh but what roarings and yellings when we shall have lost the true God and his favour for ever 2. This eternal death brings all the positive evil that can be feared or imagined upon a man For as here we told you was not one kinde of comfort but an aggression of all therefore the Scripture delights to represent it under severall desirable good things so neither is hell one kinde of misery one kinde of torment but the Scripture represents it under every thing that is terrible Because death is so much feared therefore it 's called death because fire and brimstone are so terrible in burning it 's called that Because a dark dungeon and prison with chains in the darknesse are so miserable It 's resembled to that because men in extremity of pain and misery do use to weep and wail and gnash their teeth therefore is hell set out by all these dreadful things so that as the glorified in heaven have every thing they can desire there is no good they want Thus the damned in hell have every thing they fear There is no torment or pain imaginable but they partake of it and this they are filled with having not the least ease or respite Dives desired but a drop of water to cool only the top of his tongue and he could not obtain so much Oh that men who give themselves up to the pleasures of sin would remember these torments These howlings to all Eternity What are we preaching follies and fictions to you If you beleeve the
Scripture you must beleeve those things to be the portion of every unreformed sinner O what a vast difference will there be between thy pleasures here and eternal torments hereafter and not to have a drop of ease in all thy misery 3. This eternal death as it hath fulnesse of torment so likewise Eternity For heaven and hell have no period There is no time set when the fire of hell shall go out called therefore unquenchable fire So that these two properties easelesse and endlesse might startle and amaze every ungodly man Why wilt thou buy these eternal torments at so dear a rate for a moments pleasure to have everlasting woe So that here are two Eternities before thee an Eternity of happinesse an Eternity of misery Sinne saith and the devil saith taste of the honey of sinne God saith There is eternal gall for this Now which wilt thou beleeve either sinne tempting or God threatning Was not Eve at first undone because she would hearken to the devil against God What fruit or profit had Judas for thirty peeces procuring to himself eternal horrour and trembling Thus you have seen eternal life in the contrary to it We have been upon the Mount of Blessing and upon the Mount of Cursing If good things will not allure let dreadfull things astonish and terrifie Only you must know the grand difference between eternal life and eternal death in the manner of coming to it So you see in the Text it 's given by Christ and it 's called the gift of God but eternal death comes by desert It 's the wages of sinne Rom. 6. ult Our sinnes deserve hell but our graces do not heaven and whereas it might be thought an unjust thing in God for a transient sinne to inflict eternal torments yet that is no wonder For 1. We see amongst men that Malefactors for a crime committed by them which was acted in a very short time do yet suffer death which as to this world is their eternal destruction they can never come back to live here again 2. All sinne being committed against God who is of infinite glory hath thereby an infinite guilt and so deserveth eternal damnation Hence it is that Dâ—vines say Omne peccator punitur citra condignum Even hell it self is not a punishment adequate to the nature of sinne for Gods honour is more worth then ever our sufferings can make up again And lastly There is no injustice because all those torments can never make any satisfaction For hence it is that thy misery is eternal because thou canst not pay the utmost farthing Thou art never able to discharge the debt therefore thou must for ever lie in prison Thus there is justice in every mans damnation and there is only mercy in every mans salvation For 1. Those graces and good works thou dost have no proportion to this Eternal and glorious reward The Apostle did not account his suffering which seem to be the most efficacious for salvation any whit comparable to that eternal weight of glory If a man should have the whole world given him for lifting up a straw that is not so great a disproportion as to give heaven for Martyrdom the highest act of love to God And 2. It 's only of grace because he who giveth the Crown giveth us legs and strength to runne in the race Coronat dona sua non merita nostra so that we are so farre from meriting by good works that the more we do the more we are beholding to the grace of God Vse Of Invitation Who is there of you that hath heard of the nature and properties of this eternall life that is not brought in love with it Who is there that hath heard of this pearl that will not sell all throw away every sinne to enjoy it If there were nothing but this it might work on thee Hast thou any lust that will be equivalent to eternall life that will be in stead of that to theâ— What wilt thou do when a mortall disease hath surprized thee thy friends weeping thy children crying and thou dying Will these lusts then help call to them and see if they can give thee eternall life What wilt thou be worse then Balaam he wished Oh that I might dye the death of the righteous and his later end might be like his And shall there be not so much as a desire as a sigh though if there be no more if thy life be not the righteous mans life thy death cannot be his SERMON XIII Weighty Considerations upon Eternity JOH 17.2 That to as many as thou hast given him he should give Eternall Life ETernall Life is the glorious gift mentioned in the Text and though I was concluding this verse yet the consideration of this glorious matter shall make me once more endeavour throughly to possess your hearts therewith It was the fault of one of the Kings of Israel that he did not strike arrows often enough to the ground 2 King 13.19 for then he should have obtained more victories It shall therefore be my endeavour if possible that the arrows of this truth may be stricken often even through and through your hearts And that I may further quicken you hereunto consider these particulars as so many effectuall conclusions upon this subject And first The chief and most principall and necessary question which every one should seriously propound ought to be that Luk. 18.18 What shall I do to inherit eternall life Not indeed upon such a corrupt opinion as he did who thought by his own works meerly to obtain this eternall life No that cannot be it 's the gift of God and when we have done all this eternall life is of grace not merit but in a right sense viz. what way ought we to walk in what is to be done that at last we may not eternally perish This I say is a most noble and necessary question if this were more studied and practised it would advantage the soul ten thousand times more then other unnecessary and impertinent disputations The best method in morall Philosophy is to begin first with the end because that is the chiefest there must be first a knowledge and desire of that Now all Divinity agreeth with morall Philosophy in this it 's wholly practicall The first thing then in your thoughts and meditations should be What is that end for which I was made how may I obtain that eternall life for which I came into this world Oh why are we busie in unnecessary things for what end and purpose were you made Was it to heap up wealth To satisfie the lusts and pleasures of the flesh No it was at last to injoy this eternall life The Heathen did well call man the orizon of time and eternity for in respect of his body he partaketh of time in respect of his soul eternity So then the chief and more excellent part of thee that which makes thee differ from a beast it is that
It had been farre more easie to have been an abortive or that the womb had been thy sepulchre and grave then to live here and at last to dye thus eternally Shall Job and Jeremiah so passionately curse the time of their lives and wish there had been no day or sunne and only because of some temporall extremity which yet did not endure very long what outcries and wishes shall these have who are to dye eternally and yet shall never dye Job speaks of some that desire death Job 3.21 but cannot have it thus shall all those deprived of eternall life call to mountains and hils to cover them bite the tongue with madnesse and call for death to devour them but it cannot be Though Judas could make away himself out of this hell he had here yet he cannot out of the hell afterwards 7. Consider with thy self how unable thou art to bear any extream pain though it be but for a night or day what tossings and tumblings when it 's night wishing for day and when it 's day wishing for night Now if a moments pain be so grievous what is eternall If thou art not able to endure the sudden scorch of fire what then to be in everlasting fire Isa 33.14 Who amongst us shall dwell with the everlasting burnings Oh how should this meditation even swallow us up If we are not able to endure the rod how shall we the scorpion If the gout the stone be thus grievous what is everlasting torment Should not we judge him a mad man that to have one night of quiet rest and sweet sleep would all his life after be tormented with restlesse nights and terrifying dreams such folly is in all wicked men They to have this short life of pleasures and jollity which is but a dream will undo themselves for ever in this endlesse and easelesse wo Oh remember this eternity is so incomprehensible by thee that when thou hast thought and thought ten thousand millions of imaginary years yet it is to hold as long as at the first beginning Some have represented it thus Imagine say they that all that vast space which is between heaven and earth were full of sand and once in every thousand year no oftner a bird carry away one crum of it in her bill what a long while would it be ere this vast huge heap would be carried quite away yet if the damned in hell might have ease at the period of such a time though so infinitely long yet there would be some hope but now it 's everlasting fire it 's a fire that cannot be quenched but as long as God is God so long shall they be in their chains of darknesse God you heard was properly eternall because he had neither beginning or end therefore he was said by the Heathens to be a circle whose center was every where his circumference no where Hence the Heathens represented his eternity by a snake or a ring that hath no beginning or end The Romans built their Temples round and Pythagoras rule was when to worship turn thy self round Here they had confused notions about eternity but the Scripture doth most clearly affirm his eternity Now our life is eternall only because it shall have no end and so for the future it will abide for ever and never change What a great word is this never to change thy happinesse will never change thy misery will never change These things duly pondered will be of great use But thou wilt say this subject is indeed very necessary this eternity is a wonderfull and transcendent point oh that I could rise with it and walk with it how then shall I possesse my self with it how shall I be affected with it Do these things In the first place Exercise a firm and strong faith about it that there is such a thing This is a good and necessary foundation for as long as Atheism or unbelief is in thee and thou thinkest there is nothing after this life thou doubtest whether there be any such eternity or no as long as this wicked disposition is on thee there cannot be any good in thee Faith is the substance of things hoped for Heb. 11. so that this eternall life which is the great hope and expectation of the godly by faith is made really to subsist in the heart it doth as lively imbrace it as if it were already in eternity Oh then let a firm and divine assent over-rule thy heart say I do beleeve it more then any thing of sense or of reason more then that I breath or live For the Word of God is so punctuall and positive in afirming such a condition of eternity hereafter that faith must needs bear witnesse to it Now this Divine faith of such a thing would be like so many sparks of fire in our breast it would make us speak and live and do all for this eternity we do so certainly beleeve it And 2. Do not only beleeve but accustom thy self to frequent and serious meditations about it Meditation in the Word of God is made a blessed thing and certainly this is a duty though much neglected yet wonderfully necessary to set thy self to meditate and think over and over some main points of Scripture truth whereof this eternity is not the least Meditation is like the birds sitting upon her egges if she should not be constant upon them there would never be warmth enough to cause living young ones thus it is here It 's not a transient thought it 's not a sudden motion but it must be a constant serious meditation upon eternity certainly if thou wert carefull in this thou wouldst finde it raising up thy heart heating thy affections and making of thee earnestly desire this eternall life 3. Consider this that one great end why God hath thrown so many bitter roots in every thing here below why there are so many sad exercises and afflicting troubles it is to seek after eternall life Thou hast not perfect health thou hast not full content every day hath some evil or other and why is all this because eternall life should be desired by thee God seeth thy mouth cannot be brought off from sucking the breasts of the creatures therefore they are rubbed with wormwood to wean thee As God therefore suffered the Egyptians to afflict and oppresse the Israelites that so they might be weary of Egypt and long for Canaan thus it is here God makes this world a valley of tears and fears a valley of death there is no ground but some worm or other devoureth it and all this that thou shouldst long for an haven who art tossed in this restlesse sea of the world Look then upon all the afflictions pains miseries or whatsoever bitter thing it be that thou art to grapple with and say The Lord doth this to make me undervalue these things below it 's to make me esteem a better life If every thing were here as I would have it heaven would not
be so wellcome Had the Prodigall not met with husks and extream hardship he would not have resolved to go back to his Father again Think and practise these things so wilt thou be greatly affected with eternity And to encourage thee herein consider the blessed effects which a lively meditation of eternity accompanied with a firm faith will put thee upon For first Who so hath this eternity set upon his heart he will not be immoderatly and inordinatly desirous after these things below As the beams of the sunne will put out the fire so will the thoughts and affections about eternall things overcome temporall The Apostle 1 Cor. 7. presseth all upon an hard duty To marry as if we married not to buy as if we bought not Why so because the time here is short eternity is coming upon us And thus those holy Patriarchs mentioned Heb. 11. they accounted themselves pilgrims and strangers and they sought a City to come not built with hands Thou complainest thy heart is so full of deadnesse dulnesse so full of the world the cares and distractions thereof devour thee up there is nothing will help thee against this temptation then often thoughts and affections about eternity 2. As the thoughts of eternall life will thus moderate our affections so it will work in us 〈◊〉 longing for and hasting of the coming of Christ who then will bestow this eternall life upon us We wonder how Paul should be lifted up above all these earthly comforts as to desire to depart and to be with Christ Phil. 1. It seemeth very difficult to us that any hasten in their praiers and desires Christs coming but all this is because our hearts are not as full of hope and expectation of eternall life as theirs were Alas many of us know no better and so cannot desire any better then what may be had in this world and therefore the thoughts of death and the coming of Christ are unwelcome to us Whereas to The godly it 's the coming of the bridegroom and they are to lift up their heads with joy when that approaches Matth. 26. Let then that godly soul which doth so complain that it loveth life too dearly and feareth death too immoderately let that be strengthened and comforted with the sure hopes of this eternall life If an heavenly frame of heart were powerfull in us this very world would be a wildernesse it would be tedious to us to be kept so long from that home we have in heaven The Saints have a rest provided for them and who doth not desire to be at his rest Oh blame your selves more that you have not Davids exclamation and now Lord what long I for truly my soul waiteth for thee As the heart panteth after the water brooks so doth my soul after thee O God Psal 42.1 David spake this but of enjoying God in the Ordinances in this life Oh but how greatly must the soul be inflamed for the life to come 3. Powerful thoughts of Eternity will quiet and wonderfully calm the soul under any afflictions and troubles No such antidote as this Paul abundantly witnesseth that we account not the light afflictions of this life comparable to that eternal weight of glory 2 Cor. 4. so this Eternity made him not value or regard any temporary affliction It was this that made the Martyrs joyfully take the spoiling of their goods and the losse of their lives Thus in every affliction and exercise if sanctified to thee how sweetly and joyfully maist thou dwell in heaven while thou art on earth Thou maist be in heaven every day even while thy condition is beset with many troubles It 's thy sinne and unbelief if thou makest thy house a prison Thy self a torment to thy self if thou set faith on work about this Eternity it will put thee into heaven before thou comest to possesse it Eternal Life will give thee a better body a better house a better heart oh this Eternal life it 's the health of our bones the light of our countenance a continual Feast and a perpetual cordial Hence the godly even in this life are said to have Eternal life because of the right they have to it and partly because they have the beginnings and first fruits of it upon their souls Vse of Admonition Take this Subject more into your thoughts how many roving thoughts hast thou but if placed on Eternity it would be great profit How many thoughts hast thou unbeleeving disquieting and troubling if fixed on Eternity they would all vanish especially let the wicked man turn from all sinne saying There is an Eternity If it were only death that would not so much trouble thee but it 's Eternity after Death SERMON XIV The Necessity of Divine Knowledge And Arraignment of Ignorance JOH 17.3 And this is life eternall that they might know thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent IN the Verse before we had the great priviledge vouchsafed viz. eternall Life and the Subject to whom viz. Those that are given to Christ In this Verse our Saviour informeth of the manner or way how we may come to it For to speak of eternal life and not direct to the enjoying of it is to see Canaan but to want a pillar of fire to guide to it and although our Saviour had described such as should inherit eternal life yet because it 's a secret written in Gods Book which no man can reade who are given by the Father to Christ and who not Therefore it 's necessary we should be told the way and that is done in the Text. In the words you have then affirmed the way to this happinesse This is eternal life this will make you have eternal life None can ever attain it that take not this course for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may either relate to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or else after the manner of the Hebrews be put absolutely for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This phrase is like John 12.58 Now therein Consider 1. The way or duty enjoyned 2. The object of it The duty is To know Among other distinctions this is very obvious in Scripture to speak of a twofold knowledge 1. That which is meerly speculative and apprehensive If ye know these things happy are you if ye do them Joh. 13.17 2. Which is practicall and operative for it 's a known Rule that among the Hebrews Words of Knowledge are put for all the affections and effects that use to follow such Knowledge Thus God is said to know the way of the righteous Psa 1. That is so to know as to approve and preserve the righteous and in this sence To know the true God is taken so to know as to do all those things that are commanded by him and the reason why the Scripture comprehends all under knowledge is because this is the Introduction and gate to all practicall piety Although to know here is more particularly taken for beleeving for
for our comfort that every believer though yet unborn was in Christs purpose and intention when he laid down his life as if they had been existent in the land of the living In the sixth place By this intention of Christ in his prayer and death it will inevitably and immutably be brought about that they shall in time be converted they shall believe and be brought into communion and fellowship with Christ For seeing as we have heard Christ could not but be heard in what he prayed for and the Father alwayes granted his Petition therefore it cannot be but that all those who are given to Christ shall one time or other be wrought upon by the Word Thus it 's said They believed Act. 13.48 as many as were ordained to eternal life and the Apostles were to go and preach in such places because God had much people there Act. 18. and Rom. 9. the Apostle doth fully shew That Election is the cause of all mercies vouchsafed in time and those who were not elected they were hardened and given up to a spirit of slumber Oh then the admirable love of God to those that are his there shall not be one of them but the Word of grace will finde them out They that were not his people shall be made his people Joh. 10. I have other sheep saith Christ that are not of this fold and those he will bring home Hence Rom. 8. we have that golden Chain which all the Arminian subtilties can never dissolve Whom he hath predestinated he hath called and whom he hath called he hath justified and those he hath justified he hath glorified To expound calling only of vocation to afflictions and to the cross and Justification only of the vindicating of their persons and cause against the calumnies of the world is too dilute and repugnant to the scope of the Apostle in that place we may then absolutely conclude of the conversion and believing of such who belong to Christ and that the Word preached will sometimes or other be effectual upon them In the last place It 's plain from hence That Gods Election and so Christs dying for us is not conditional or upon the supposition of our believing but our belief is the true and genuine effect of Election and Christs death For whereas Christ here prayeth for those who shall believe The Question may be Whether this belief be supposed as a Condition Antecedent to Election and Christs death or as an absolute Effect of both so that Christ doth not only pray for believers but also that they may be believers There is a great Controversie between Arminians and the Orthodox for they say God elected some such persons to eternal life indeed and gave them to Christ as a Mediatour but it was upon a supposition and fore-sight that they would believe and persevere in that faith to the end But the Orthodox do more consonantly to the Scripture and to the greater exaltation of Gods grace and magnifying of Christ affirm That God by one single act of the same time did elect a man both to grace and glory both to salvation and faith So that God did not elect us because he foresaw we would believe but he did elect us to believe as well as to salvation So that faith is not a condition but the effect and fruit of our Election This is a necessary truth to be proved and therefore the next day it is to be considered for the present I take it for granted That those who shall believe are such not who by their own power shall either believe or dispose themselves to it but who by the grace of God shall be inabled thereunto For the present consider the aggravation of this love of God in Christ to us before we had a being And 1. There is remarkable freenesse in it of grace if positively and absolutely considered For what could there be in us to move God to this mercy when we could not think or cry or pray or do any thing for our good even then God set his love upon us It was nothing in us seeing we were in the womb of nothing 2. This freeness is aggravated if comparatively considered for it 's the grace of God that makes some to believe and leaveth others in their natural corruption The Apostle considered this discriminating love of God to Jacob and Esau Rom. 9. before they had done either good or evil Oh then sit and admire the depth of grace the unsearchable riches of grace for what art thou to so many learned and noble men in the world to so many of thy own kindred and family that God hath past by yet took compassion on thee Didst thou not lie equally in the same mass of corruption and bondage to all sin 3. There is the Eternity of this love it was before the beginning of the world So that we cannot imagine any moment of time wherein Gods thoughts were not upon thee Lastly The unchangeablenesse of this love for the Councels of God and his purpose are immutable There is no change or shadow of change in him and therefore if once loved alwayes loved he predestinated thee before the world called thee out of the world justifieth thee in the world and will glorifie thee after the world Vse What infinite cause of praise and glory the people of God have Well mayest thou call upon thy soul and all within thee to praise God Well may this be the burden of every Psalm For his mercy endureth for ever yea if thou hadst the hearts of all men and Angels this were not enough neither can Eternity be long enough to glorifie God in this particular SERMON CVI. Of both the Moving Cause and Effects of Election and of Christs Prayer and Death Against Arminians and others JOH 17.20 But for them also who shall beleeve in me through their Word WE come to a Second Observation from the circumstance of the future tense Who shall beleeve in me For as was intimated there may be a twofold sence of these words 1. That this future Faith is mentioned as an effect and fruit of being given to Christ as also of Christs Prayer and Death for them So that he doth not only pray for them which shall beleeve but also that they may beleeve and in this sense the Orthodox interpret it Or 2. It may be interpreted as if Faith were here supposed as a condition on our part antecedaneous both to Gods Election and also Christs Intercession and death So that the sence should be These were given to Christ and Christ he praied and died for them because it was foreseen by God that such would beleeve upon the means of grace offered and others not In this sence Meisner a Lutheran urgeth it and thus all Arminians and others must take it who hold that we were Elected from a foresight of our Faith and perseverance therein But that this cannot be the meaning of our Saviour is evident because the ground of
Christs Prayer even in respect of those who shall beleeve is because They were given to him by the Father as appeareth vers 9. I pray not for the world but for them which thou hast given me Seeing therefore the Foundation of Christs Intercession is because they were given by Election to Christ as a people to be saved through him it 's plain that Christ praied not because he foresaw that they would beleeve but because they were Elected It 's true the Arminians do in a most violent and strange manner wrest that phrase of being given to Christ They understand it not of an action of the Father but of the disposition of the Subject Hence it is they speak so much of a probum ingenium or a docilis indoles as if it were some towardly disposition in man that fitted him for grace but thus it would be rather who have given themselves to Christ rather then that the Father had given them and indeed this is such a thorn in their sides that they cannot pull out if by such who shall beleeve were to be understood those that upon Gods foresight were known to improve the means of Faith better then others then all the difference from others and the utmost resolution of salvation yea and Election would be unto a mans self when yet the Apostle doth expresly stop such mouths What hast thou that thou hast not received and who made thee to differ from another 1 Cor. 4.7 The Text thus vindicated and explained I gather this Observation That Christ died not and so we were not Elected because we will beleeve but our beleef is the effect and fruit of Christs death and our Election Our Faith is not a condition upon which our Election or Christs Death stands suspended and indeterminate but these do make us infallibly and effectually to beleeve in time There are two common Opinions The one holding That God from all Eternity knew who would beleeve in time and persevere therein and thereupon they were Elected and Christ died for us This way go Arminians and others But 2. The Orthodox they affirm that God did from all Eternity choose some out of the corrupt masse to Eternall glory and for this end to give them Faith and holinesse as the means thereunto So that God did not elect us because we did or would beleeve but that we might beleeve we beleeve because we are Elected not Elected because we beleeve This Doctrine is very useful because it tends to humble and debase man and wholly to exalt the grace of God and therefore the more diligently to be confirmed because of late so greatly opposed And before we bring Scripture-Arguments Let us Consider some few things that will clear the state of the Question As 1. There is a difference of those who hold our Election and so Christs Death to be upon the foresight of something in us Some are more grosse then others For there are some that hold a man is Elected to glory upon the foresight of his cooperation with the grace of God as a true merit deserving this Election so that with them God did behold who by his free will would improve the offer of grace and for this as a meritorious cause they say God did Elect them unto Eternal Glory But this is so highly injurious to the Grace of God that though some Papists have maintained it yet Bellarmine Valentia and other Jesuites wholly disclaim it at least in words making no other cause of predestination in respect of all the effects of it but the sole and meer good pleasure of God 2. There are others and they say the foresight of the good or better use of our free-will then others is not a meritorious but a moving cause with God of our Election to Happinesse So that our Faith and Holinesse though they were not a meriting Cause yet were a moving Cause of our predestination but this is also too grosly repugnant and contradictory to Scripture 3. There are those who refine it more subtlely and that is That God did foresee who would beleeve and persevere therein to Death and such are peremptorily chosen to Eternall Life not that their Faith or Perseverance is any merit or moving Cause but a Conditio sine quâ non without which God would not choose such to happinesse so that say they it 's not for any intrinsecall Dignity or excellent worth in Faith but because of the many possible waies and means to Salvation God appoints this way of beleeving rather then another and thus the Arminians Only they acknowledge Holinesse of Life and Obedience to God to be thus a Condition foreseen as well as Faith though they would seem utterly to deny it 4. There are the Lutherans and they indeed hold Faith fore-seen as a Condition in our Election Only they say It 's not considered as a merit or a Cause no nor as a work but as an Instrument apprehending Christs merits and therefore make Election to be by Faith in the same sence as we are justified by Faith Hence they deny Holinesse or Obedience to be a condition ingredient to Election because Christ is not laid hold upon by that as by Faith although herein they contradict themselves because they acknowledge not Faith singly as so but Perseverance in Faith to be the Condition and that must be necessarily looked upon as a work not as an Instrument receiving Christ But the Orthodox they affirm consonantly to Scripture and sutably to the Glory of Gods Grace That God did from all Eternity choose some men out of that corrupt masse in which all were to Eternall Glory and by the same Act did prepare and appoint all those means which would effectually produce the same So that this Election is the Originall and Fountain of all Spirituall mercies because Elected Christ is appointed a Mediatour Because Elected they are called and enabled to beleeve in time So that we deny there are two Elections One to Glory another to Grace But God by the same single Act doth will both and therefore that there is not the same Reason of Election and of Justification or Salvation for these being Acts done in time do require Faith and Holinesse as antecedent but Election being an Act of God from all Eternity cannot presuppose any thing in us Now the Arguments to confirm us in this Truth they are these following First Because the Scripture when it speaketh of this great and wonderfull work of Election it doth still resolve all into the Counsell of his will not into any thing fore seen in a man Ephes 8. Roman 8. Roman 9. and in many other places it is still said He hath chosen us according to his Will according to his purpose Now if so be it were for any thing foreseen in us it would be rather according to the Counsell of our will and according to our purpose There cannot any rationall Answer be given unto this Argument for according to the Adversaries
infirmities 529 That such is Christs care to Believers that they are remembered in his prayer and death before they had a being 532 This truth is full of consolations ib. The aggravation of the love of Christ to Believers 535 God the Father loveth Believers even as he loveth Christ Vide Loveth 642 It is an indearing respect of Believers to God that they do own him and cleave to him when the whole world goeth quite contrary 685 Propositions clearing the point 686 Believing The Believing of Christ being sent into the world is the foundation of our conversion to God 595 Distinctions premised about Believing 596 Blessed It 's a Blessed thing truly to say at death I have glorified God and finished the work I was to do 103 Introductory particulars about Blessednesse 103 104 The Grounds of this Blessednesse 105 Bloud Christs Bloud washeth away not only the guilt of sin but the filth of it 512 C Call A Lawfull Call in those that preach is necessary and profitable both in respect of Minister and people 494 Children Children of God are of two sorts 226 Christ How Christ being God could pray 8 All the godly are under Christs Mediatory prayer 8 The matter of Christs prayer in four things 9 The nature of Christs praier by way of Mediation 10 The dignity of Christs person praying ib. His relation to God the Father ib. Q. Whether Christ was heard in every thing he prayed for or no 11 Qualifications of Christs prayer ib. The condition of Christs prayer ib. Christs prayer sanctifieth our prayers 12 How Christ who is God can be glorified 24 Christ hath power over all men 36 Six particulars to clear the nature of Christs prayer ib. The dominion of Christ appears in nine particulars 38 c. Christ compar'd to many things 45 Six practical inferences from Christs power 47 48 Three Consolations thence 49 Christ had that glory he pray'd for with the Father before the world was 149 Christ had an eternal being proved by three Arguments 150 151 Whence it is that any deny Christ to be eternal 152 Christ hath all things the Father hath 262 This appeareth in seven particulars 262 263 How all Christ hath is the Fathers 264 Christs protection and preservation to eternal life is to be improved 344 This Doctrine is opened in a fourfold principle ibid The effects of this preservation 346 Christ though God yet as man did pray unto the Father 519 Vpon what grounds Christ who was God as well as man did pray 520 The difference between Christs prayer and ours 521 What advantages believers have by Christs prayers 521 Christ is said to be in believers several waies 620 That Christ is in believers and believers are in him ibid. How Christ lives in believers 621 How Christ is in his people more particularly 624 The fruits and effects of Christs being in his people 626 As Christ is in us so the Father being in Christ is also thereby in us ib. How the Father is in Christ ib. How the Father and Christ can be in believers and yet they have such great remainders of sin in them 630 Christs prayer for his people will certainly and infallibly prevail for them 660 Christ is the original and fontal cause of all the knowledge that believers have 681 Propositions about the point 682 Church Christ is the head of his Church 45 Four things implied therein 46 c. There is a great difference between a Church under persecution and not constituted and a Church constituted 495 Church-office Christ hath a peculiar love of those that are in Church-office according to his rule and way 485 In what particulars this love is shew'd ib. The Grounds of this particular love 486 Comfort The Comfort of being like Christ in suffering 438 Condition Reasons why God sometimes changes his peoples Condition from better to worse 332 It is a very sad thing to fall into such a Condition that draws out our peculiar corruptions we are most prone unto 383 This is opened in several considerations 383 c. Try your Conditions 384 Conformity There is a two-fold Conformity to Christ 437 Conscience Often rebelling against the light of Conscience 368 Conversion Conversion is a greater wonder then a miracle 41 Corporal There is no Corporal improvement of Christ 334 Wherein mens proneness appeareth to know Christ after a Corporal manner 335 D Damn THat there are some men that are wilfull set to destroy and Damn themselves c. 364 The inward Causes that move men to Damn themselves 365 The outward Causes 371 Damnation The everlasting Damnation of men is determined 51 Dangers The greater the Dangers are Christs people are in the greater is Christs care of them 272 This is opened in four particulars 272 273 The godly mans life is full of spiritual Dangers 277 This is explained in eight particulars 278 c. Day Day of grace is to be improved 24 Day of Judgement The Day of Judgement is the greatest day that ever was or shall be ib Death Christs Death is in it self sufficient for all yet he gave himself a ransome for some only 241 Four grounds for it 242 Christ by Death went to his Father 289 The particulars implied in the point 290 Whether it be lawfull to pray for Death 442 Vide Blessed Delusions vid. Sins Depend Depend on Gods gracious power only in the way to heaven 313 Devils Devils are in subjection to Christ 3â— The Devil may foretell some things to come 395 Divisions Divisions are the fruit of the flesh 570 Remedies for preventing and healing Divisions in the Church 575 What those proper sins are that Divisions among the godly are apt to breed in the world 393 Doctrines Free-will and merit are dangerous Doctrines 125 Dying Why the expressions of Christ Dying for All is to be taken indefinitely and not universally 235 236 E Elected THat none of those that are Elected shall perish 349 Introductory Propositions to clear the same ibid. Election Election is the gift of God 250 Four Reasons of it 251 End What things do diminish the comforts of the gody at the End of their day 109 c. The End Christ propounded in his doing and suffering 116 Errours Men are prone to be lead aside to Errors 318 Errors of judgement are damnable 318 Eternal Death Eternal Death 65 Wherein it consisteth 65 66 The difference between Eternal Death and eternal life 66 It is Eternal Death not to know God 77 Eternal Life Christ gives it to those that are his 56 What it is 57 It consists in three things 57 58 It hath six properties 57 60 Eternal Life compared with this present life 63 Conclusions upon this subject 67 68 Helps to be affected with Eternal Life 70 Examples We are not to live by Examples but by precept 379 F Faith FAith in Christ as Mediator is acceptable to God 211 Why Faith is called the work of God ibid. Five Grounds why Faith in a Mediatour should be pressed 223
558 A Ministry is appointed for spiritual ends 558 Arguments to prove the perpetuity of the Ministry ibid. N Name WHat is meant by Name in Phil. 2. 28 All Church-meetings Censures and duties should be done in the Name of Christ 28 All things have their successe in Christs Name ibid. What is meant by Gods Name 162 Nature All by Nature are in a state of enmity against God 14 The humane Nature was assumed by the divine 666 The Father and Sonne are two distinct Persons yet one in Nature and Essence 582 Natural Natural knowledge insufficient to guide us in the worship of the true God 92 O Obedience THat is proper Obedience that hath the word of God requiring of it 198 There are five grounds of it 200 Oblation Two things admirable in Christs Oblation of himself 503 Office The substance of the Ministerial Office is the same with that which every Minister hath 492 That there is a distinct Office of the Ministry 498 That none may enter into that Office without an authoritative mission 499 How shall we know what is an extraordinary Office and what is an ordinary Office 558 Offices Christ is fitted in respect of his Offices to be a Prophet Priest and King 503 504 Vide Priestly P People GOds People called out of the world 172 How many wayes a People may be said to be Gods 176 The godly are Gods People in a peculiar manner 177 The opening of this in five particulars 177 178 They are the Lords upon several titles 178 179 There ought to be a practical improvement of it 180 It is a sure Character of Gods People to be a willing People 204 Seven Reasons of this 205 c. Perseverance Several particulars about Perseverance that will be as so many answers to Objections made against that truth 352 353 c. Arguments to prove those that have true grace shall persevere 357 c. Power Power as it is expressed in this word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 35 It is not enough to be put into a state of grace unlesse by Gods Power we are kept therein 307 How many wayes the Power of God doth keep us 309 Why there is such a necessity of Gods preserving Power 312 Pray Whether it be lawfull to Pray for any one man in particular 229 Whether it be lawfull to Pray for a reprobate as such 229 Whether we may Pray in faith for others as for our selves 230 It is our duty to Pray for ungodly men 231 Motives to move thereunto 231 232 Prayer The matter of Christs Prayer 1. Himself 2. Apostles 3. Others who in time should believe 2 To all instructions c. Prayers is necessary ibid. Reasons on Gods part on the Words part on mans part 4 It should come from a spiritual and heavenly heart 5 Four Requisites to spirituall Prayer 6 It s a hard thing to Pray 6 Customary Prayer receiveth nothing from God 7 Prayer is mental vocal 8 Ends in Prayer 12 Praying It is good and comfortable Praying for them that discover the signes of grace in them 229 Predestination The Doctrine of Predestination should be preached warily 52 Diligently ibid. So as not to discourage humble penitents ibid. Predictions Three sorts of Predictions 396 Priest Christ was not only Priest but Sacrifice it self 510 Priestly Concerning Christs Priestly Office consider these things 508 The Adjuncts of his Priestly Office ibid. Priesthood Propositions concerning Christs Priesthood 510 Principles Principles that do constitute a gracious disposition 32 Vniting Principles in Doctrine 577 Vide Uniting Priviledges Priviledges that come by Christs death 245 Promised Things Promised must be prayed for 137 This is explained in seven particulars 137 138 c. Six Reasons why it is so 139 What are the conditions of such a prayer 141 c. Propriety They only can plead a Propriety in God and Christ who are carefull to keep his Word 182 Gods peculiar Propriety in his people is the ground of all good that accrueth to them 255 Propositions concerning Gods Propriety in his people 255 256 Gods Propriety excludeth all other creatures ib. How the Propriety of God is the cause of all good 258 Properties The Characteristical Properties of the Persons in the God-head 584 Properties in the godly which maketh them lovely and precious in Gods sight 687 Protect The grounds why God will Protect such as are hated for his Names sake 423 Protection Christs Protection is to one believer as well as to another 527 Q Qualifications THe Qualifications of such to whom Christs death is made savingly advantagious 245 Question The great Question that all ought to put is How may I get eternal life 67 We must take the right way to answer this Question 68 Vide Eternal Life R Reading WHether Reading be preaching 496 Redeemed That not all but some of mankinde are Redeemed by Christ 51 Redemption Our Redemption obtained by Christ is a glorifying of God 113 How the maintainers of Universal Redemption differ among themselves 241 Vide Universal Relation It is of great consequence for the humbled Christian in his prayers to improve this Relation of a Father 658 Religion We are not to condemn the way of Religion though some amongst them prove scandalous 377 Some considerations to bring this home 378 The unreasonableness and sinfulness of condemning Religion for some hypocrites therein 379 Repetitions Repetions of the same matter in prayer may be usefull 133 Vide Tautology When the ground of Repetition is good 133 c. When Repetitions are forbidden 135 Reprobates Reprobates receive much benefit by Christs death 239 Righteous God whether considered as a Judge of the world or as a Father to believers is Righteous in all his wayes 674 Reasons why God is Righteous in all his administrations 674 Righteousnesse It is a dangerous sinne to trust to our own Righteousnesse as it appeareth in four particulars 219 Means to drive them out of self-Righteousnesse 220 221 How Righteousnesse may be attributed to God 674 The Righteousnesse of God as a Father to his people in all their afflictions 676 S Sacrifice THat Christ set himself apart to be a Sacrifice for us 502 What things are necessary to a Sacrifice 510 The Properties of Christs Sacrifice 511 Salvation Salvation is to be desired in subordination to Gods glory 32 The everlasting Salvation of men determined 51 Salvation is of grace 253 The Reasons of it 253 The Causes of Salvation 679 Sanctification Growth in Sanctification illustrated by the contraries unto it 464 The Word of God is the instrument of our Sanctification 468 The Explication of the Point 469 The Word is the ordinary means of our beginning and increase in Sanctification 471 Christ died not only for our Justification but Sanctification also 515 How many wayes Christ is the cause of our Sanctification 515 Sanctified How many wayes a godly man may be more Sanctified 459 Reasons why it is not enough to be Sanctified but we must be more and more holy 466 What is
come to Christ 5. This throws all merits to the ground II. In respect of Christ 1. A demonstration of the transcendent love of Christ 2. It shews the safety of the godly Vse Doct. Christ will give to those that are his Eternal life Eternal life considered I. Positively what it is 1. It consists in 1. The immediate fruition and enjoyment of God He is an universal and infinite object He is the Universal good He is an unmixed sincere good And a proper peculiar and convenient good 2. It consists in the perfect sanctifying the souâ—â—nd body thereby siâ—ting a man for the enjoyment of God 3. In a quick and lively apprehension of this happinesse And it hath these properties 1. A continued life of happinesse 2. It hath in it all desirable things 3. It is a glorious Life 4. A holy Life 5. A spiritual life Vse 6. It 's an eternall life II. Eternal Life considered comparatively with this present life 1. This life is but short 2. Full of troubles and miseries 3. Full of fears 4. Measured by time 5. Full of dissatisfaction· II. Eternal life considered oppositely to eternal death Eternal death lieth 1. In the deprivation of God 2. It is seen iâ— that it brings all the positive evil that can be feared or imagined 3. To all Eternity Life a gift death is deserved Why God for a transient sin will inflict eternal torments Vse 1. The great question that all ought to put is How may I have eternall life 2. We must take the right way to answer that question 3. Consider upon this little moment we have here depends all eternity 4. That most shall misse of eternall life 5. Desire such thoughts now as if thou wert already in eternity 6. Better a man had not been born then to misse of eternall life 7. Consider how unwilling thou art to bear any extream pains Helps to be affected with eternity The effects of lively meditations on eternity accompanied with firm faith 1. A low esteem of the world 2. A longing for the coming of Christ 3. Calm the soul under any troubles Arians and Socinians collection from the Text. The Text vindicated Observ 1. All men naturally ignorant of God in a saving manner 2. Imbred knowledge may be encreased by the contemplation of the creature 3. True knowledge to be had only within the Church 4. All true knowledge is not presently saving 5. Without knowledge no Salvation 6. The great ignorance of most to be lamented 7. We must have personal and explicit knowledge and not beleeve as the Church beleeves Reasons Why knowledge is so necessary to Salvation I. In respect of some duties we owe unto God which cannot be acceptably performed without knowledge II. From those duties we owe unto Christ III. Because grosse Ignorance is immediatly opposite to the means that bring the soul to God and Christ Obj. Answ The causes of Ignorance 1. Internal 2. External Vse Motives Observ The effects of saving knowledge I. Internall II. Externall Why knowledge that is not thus accompanied is ineffectuall Vse Observ There is one true God only to be known and served by men Explicatory considerations I. Though many Gods constituted by mans vanity yet there is but one true God II. God is known three waies III. Our knowledge of God is very imperfect IV. V. The insufficiency of naturall and acquired knowledge to guide us in the worship of God and way to salvation Inferences The sinfulness of Idolatry Vse 2. Vse 3. Vse 4. Vse 5. Observ The knowledge of the true God is not enough to salvation without the knowledge of Christ The Reasons of the Point Obj. Answ Obj. Answ Vse Obj. Answ Doct. It 's a blessed thing at death truly to say Lord I have glorified thee Consider I. There is a day of judgement when God will call every man to account II. The meanest persons have Talents to improve as well as the greatest III. None are perfect discharges of their duty IV. No merit or causality of salvation in the best work V. VI. Grounds of this blessedness At death all comforts vanish Then if ever Conscience is awakened and the devil is most busie to tempt and trouble Vse Who they are that cannot take comfort in this that they have finished the work God gave them to do 1. Such whose conversation is wicked 2. Those whose works are though not contrary yet differing from the command 3. The slothfull and negligent 4. The luke-warm What things will much diminish the joy and comfort of the godly at the end of their daies 1. Immoderate affection to worldly things 2. Formality and slothfulnesse 3. The not zealously improving opportunities 4. The doing Gods work upon constraint and not from filiall and voluntary principles 5. The more hypocrisie the lesse comfort 6. Ignorance or mistake in some points of Divinity Vse Doct. That our Redemption obtained by Christ is a glorifying of God· c. Wherein God was glorified by Christs Mediation for us Reasons Vse Obj. Answ Quest Answ Observ That Christ did fully and perfectly finish that work the Father gave him to do Observe these particulars 1. 1. 2. A Covenant between God the Father and the Sonne 3. Christs work truiy and properly obedience Quest Answ 4. Christs obedience was meriting obedience 5. Christs work heavy and grievous 6. He finished his work Obj. Answ The properties of the work which Christ finished 1. Of infinite value 2. Mediatory 3. His works are our works 4. Consider the necessity of his work 5. The visibility of it Vse Observ None may look for glory until they have finished their work Consider the Point in reference I. To Christ Glory the reward of Christs merit II. Consider the doctrine as true in our selves 1. God hath appointed this order The necessity of continual working· I. From Gods command II. God hath made them the necessary way to walk in if we will be saved III. Necessary by way of gratitude IV. Because we have so long time spent our selves in the way of Satan It 's lawful for the people of God in all they do for God to encourage themselves that eternall glory is laid up for them Doct. That Repetition of rhe same matter in praier is not alwaies sinfull Tautology but very necessary To open the Point consider these things In praier we must diligently attend to these things Why we must use our tongue in praier When Repetitions of the same matter in praier may be useful Quest Answ When repetitions are forbidden Doct. Things promised must be praied for Reasons I. Generall and common II. More proper and peculiar Reasons Quest Answ Observ That all Gods people are earnestly to pray for their glory above all earthly glory Things implied in the doctrine I. The nature of this glory viz. with God himself which implies 1. It is in the hands of God 2. God is the object of this glory 3. It 's a glory which God liketh and approveth of 4. Opposite to earthly
the causes were hid from us 3. God hath appointed an hour or time for judgement to judge the whole world To call all men to their accounts that the counsels and thoughts of all mens hearts may be made manifest This is an hour a day a set time that the word of God doth often speak of pressing every one to watch and pray lest it take us in our sinnes Luk. 12 12 39 49. c. how large and admirable is our Saviour in telling us such an hour is coming and that it will come unawares and that if any man knew at what hour of the night a Thief would come to rob and spoil he would watch and prepare how much rather now when this time is uncertain and the matter is of such everlasting consequence should we tremble and look to our selves and for this end God hath left the knowledge of that day and hour secret from men and Angels that every one might prepare themselves Oh how little do men think of this hour our Saviour saith it will come upon most men as the deluge did to those that were eating drinking and making merry or as a Snare to the Bird which is taken while she is skipping and hopping up and down Look we then to our selves Art thou in such a condition hast thou so repented of thy sinnes and made thy peace with God that if this hour were to come immediatly thou couldst think of it with joy and go out with lamp and oil enough to meet the Bridegroom 4. God hath for every particular man appointed the time and hour of his death When that fatall moment cometh no ransome can be given No art nor skill can prolong it I confesse this hath been greatly disputed whether a term be prefixed by God to every mans life beyond which he cannot goe but they must needs hold many absurdities that will tend grosly to the dishonour of God if it should be granted that our daies are not appointed by God in this world and the Scripture doth unquestionably assert it Job 4.5 His daies are determined the number of his moneths are with theâ— thou hast appointed his bounds which he cannot passe This place is so clear that I need not mention more and whereas the Scripture saith Wicked men shall not live out half their daies that is in respect of second causes for they might if we do regard nature have lived long but God for their wickednesse removeth them away and whereas the Prophet told Hezekiah that â—e must die yet upon his praier fifteen years are added That was but a conditionall threâ—â—niâ—g neither were those fifteen years added to Gods decree but in regard of Hezekiahs expectation who upon the Prophets words looked for no other but present death Neither doth this doctrine bring a Stoicall necessity as if we need not eat or drink for God hath appointed the means as well as the end Even as Paul told those in the Ship Act. 27.31 with him that none of them should die yet he bids them use the means and some got planks and boards to get to the haven We should not make such captious conclusions but with fear and patience expect till this hour come 5. The Scripture speaks of a remarkable set time of grace There is a time whilest God may be found There is a time wherein he holds out the Scepter of grace The Fountain runneth and there is an Ho to every one that thirsteth to come and drink freely of it 2 Cor. 6.2 Behold now is the accepted time speaking of that season of grace God vouchsafed them and Heb. 4. To day if you will heare harden not your hearts Hence Luk. 19.44 Christ doth so bitterly bewail Jerusalem Oh that thou hadst known in this thy day and that thou hadst known the time of thy visitation This hour is of great consequence Jerusalem had her hour all the severall Churches of Asia had their hours England Sutton every place where the Gospel is preached they have their hour Oh that then you would learn of the Ant that gathereth her meat in the Summer time While you have the day of grace be busie in praying hearing meditating and treasuring up the things that belong to your salvation When the night cometh upon thee thou canst not work and it 's but a day of grace that hastens away neither canst thou with Joshua bid this Sunne stand still Oh the bitternesse and terrour of soul that will be upon thee when thou shalt see this hour passed away and thou hast got no good There is a set time for grace and our Saviour he threatens to remove the Candlestick when men walk unworthy of the light Rev. 13.11 12. The Apostle presseth this consideration Lastly God hath appointed for his Church a set time of afflictions and troubles as also an appointed time of salvation and deliverance which made Job say that affliction riseth not out of the dust and the Psalmist Promotion cometh not from the East or West Psa 65.6 As there are times of snow and rain of winter and hard weather so there are of calamities and exercises of the Church of God Jer. 30.7 This is the time of Jacobs trouble Rev. 3.10 It 's called the hour of temptation Rev. 2.10 Fear none of these things thou shalt suffer for the devil shall cast some of you into prison and ye shall have tribulation ten daies that is a set appointed but a short time Thus you see God in his wisedome doth appoint a dark black hour sometimes for his people and then afterwards he hath the time of their deliverance The time to favour her the set time is come as Christ had the hour to suffer in so he had the hour to be glorified in So that by all these particulars concerning Christ or the Church or every beleever you see there is no such thing as blinde Fortune or chance nor is it according to the counsels and purposes of men but the great God of heaven he appoints the hours and seasons for all things and they fall out accordingly Vse of Admonition Are the times and hours for all things appointed by God and they may be divided either into the hours of his anger or the hours of his mercy then labour we for the graces sutable to such hours In the hours of anger set upon these duties 1. Humble and debase thy self in these daies It 's a time wherein God cals for mourning and weeping As God doth every thing beautifull in his season so let thy graces be beautifull in season God complaineth that when he looked for mourning and sackcloth there was jollity and carnall mirth 2. Under this dark hour be patient and submitting to God be not over-hasty before Gods hour cometh We reade in the Scripture that the more extreme and desperate his peoples case was the greater was their hour of deliverance Hab. 1. speaks much to this 3. The hour of Gods anger is farre shorter
is continuall we have occasion every day we glorifie him 1. By blessing and praising God for him God never did so much for us as when he gave Christ 2. We glorifie him when we live to him when we wholly set up Christ give him the glory of all the comfort and grace we doe partake of 3. We glorifie him when we can part with and leave all things for his sake when we can say All things are but drosse in comparison of him SERMON VI. Of Heavenly mindednesse Shewing that we should seek both Earthy and Heavenly blessings chiefly for this end viz. That God may be glorified JOH 17.1 Glorifie thy Sonne that thy Sonne may also glorifie thee THE next thing in order is the last Argument or motive Christ useth in this Praier for Glory and that is the end and motive why he desireth it which is altogether pure and sincere He desireth it not for himself or in reference meerly to his own advantage but thereby to glorifie God O admirable example of modesty and humility He that thought it no robbery to be equal with God yet as Mediatour challengeth nothing for himself ultimately He that in other places is called Alpha and Omega now denieth that prerogative and giveth it solely to God his Father so truly did he say Nulla Creatura humilior Deo that is Christ you see then this Sun of Righteousnesse making himself like one of the inferiour Starres borrowing all light and returning the same again to God and certainly if Christ himself as Mediatour will not take to himself the glory due to God then this will highly condemn all that arrogance in man who shall desire any earthly or heavenly advantages meerly for his own sake That shall desire riches honours greatnesse or heaven it self for any other end but to glorifie God thereby It 's not the much eating but the good digesting that gives health and it 's not the possessing of great abundance but the wise improving of all for Gods glory that makes happy so then this example of Christ shall be considered by us as an argument a majori ad minus That if Christ praied for all that heavenly and transcendant glory principally to glorifie God thereby and did not chiefly aim at himself then how much more should man desire either heavenly or earthly glory not so much that it is his own good as that thereby it will be instrumentall to Gods glory and hence observe That as Christ so much more all men are to pray for and desire any comfort or advantages not so much for themselves as that thereby God may be glorified that as Christ said Joh. 8 50. I seek not my own glory but the glory of him that sent me so every one should say If God make me rich great in this world I do not regard these things as my advantages but as opportunities to glorifie God It 's a Rule in Logick Media non sunt appetenda propter se sed propter finem and appetitus finis est infinitus the desire of the end is infinite but of the means is only finite and limited Thus not only all our earthly comforts here below but all that eternall glory and happinesse which we shall have in heaven is but a medium to promote the glory of God and although the salvation of our souls be in some sence the end of a man yet even this end hath a further end the glory and honour of God of which we are to say as the people of David Thou art worth ten thousand of us so is the glory and honour of God of more worth then the salvation of all mens souls But that you may all feel power coming out from this doctrine to your souls let us consider the truth of it in Christ briefly and then more largely how it is to be fulfilled in us And first For Christ Consider his two states the state of his humiliation and his exaltation for this Sunne of Righteousnesse had his setting as well as his rising and if God be said to humble himself to look on the Children of men Psa 113.6 how much more then to become a childe of man This humiliation of Christ the Apostle expresseth by an emphaticall word Phil. 2.7 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Though he was equal with God yet he laid aside all the glorious manifestation and appearance of this and was of no repuâ—ation This humiliation expressed it self two waies in his active obedience and passive in both which he still referred all to Gods glory Though he be called Heb. 1 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The brightnesse of Gods glory yet by his humiliation he is said to have no comelinesse on him a worm and no man For his active obedience subjecting himself to the Law of God teaching and declaring Gods will to all men and revealing the truth of God from the bosome of his Father He in all this professeth Joh. 8.50 He sought not his own glory but the glory of his Father If you ask him why he was born why he was baptized why he did fulfill all righteousnesse he would say for the glory of his Father Oh but in all our religious duties how much vain-glory doth infect and rotten them That is the Pirate which doth intercept the golden Fleete of our praiers that they return not again fraughted with good things for us yea that is remarkable Heb. 5.5 Christ is there said not to glorifie himself he did not undertake that office of a spirituall Priest till he was called by God he glorified not himself And as for his passive obedience all those sufferings and ignominious reproaches which he did undergo it was only thereby to glorifie the wisedom and goodnesse and infinite love of God to man which made the Apostle call Christ crucified the power and wisedom of God 1 Cor. 1.24 25. Joh. 13.31 There we have Christs glorifying of God and Gods glorifying of Christ both put together When Judas was gone out to accomplish Christs death Now saith he the Son of man is glorified and God is in him Christs sufferings were his glory and Gods glory and then mark the connexion If God be glorified by him God will glorifie him again he shall be no loser and that in himself Oh how admirable and different is that glory which God himself giveth from that which either Men or Angels can bestow so then we see all the end of Christs humiliation both in his active and passive obedience was to glorifie God There remaineth the second part of Christs state which is his Exaltation and in that we shall finde all the glory and honour he had did not stay in him but was carried out further to God the Father This glory he praied for God bestowed it on him yet so that at the last he shall deliver up the Kingdome unto his Father that so God may be all in all 1 Cor. 15.28 Not but that
by the Revelation of God and in this respect though most people may have some generall apprehensions about God yet about Christ they have none at all unlesse by hear-say It behoveth us therefore who are called Christians to know what that Christ is whom we worship and trust in for salvation and the great ignorance of Christ is present death He is the door he is the truth the way and the life Joh. 14.6 All that misse of him are carried violently to death and destruction For 1. Where this ignorance of Christ is there cannot be any historical faith which is the least degree of faith that can be and where there is no historical faith there cannot be any justifying for how can a man trust in Christ for salvation whom he doth not beleeve to be so that historical or as some call it dogmaticall faith whereby we beleeve that there was a Christ both God and man is the first stone that must be laid in our Christian building and without this we have not so much as learned the Alphabet of our Religion yet this is the case of thousands that have no explicit formal faith in this fundamental Point I grant they have a traditional forme whereby they say they beleeve in Christ but they have no expresse faith concerning the person and natures of Christ Now that traditional form is not a reasonable worship of God as the Scripture expresseth it Rom. 12. where we are commanded to give up our selves as reasonable sacrifices But here men are as bruit beasts in respect of any expresse formal faith insomuch that hundreds of people if they be asked what they beleeve concerning Christ they cannot give any knowing or expresse answer Oh how near are such foolish and stupid persons to the very brink of hellâ— and if you should say If it be Faith then it cannot be knowledge Vbi rides non est fides and by all faith and knowledge are opposed but that is to be handled afterwards viz. how that Faith doth necessarily require knowledge and yet there is some kinde of knowledge that Faith is opposite unto for the present we conclude that where there is not some knowledge of Christ there cannot be so much as a bare historical faith They have no faith that have no knowledge I know whom I have beleeved saith Paul 2 Tim. 1.12 2. Where grosse Ignorance is if there cannot be historical Faith about Christ much lesse can there be saving and justifying Faith a fiducial relying and resting of the soul upon him as the Mediatour appointed by God The Scripture doth often speak that we are justified by faith Rom. 5.1 that we have remission of sinnes through Faith in Christs bloud Rom. 3.25 So that Justification and Faith are inseparably joyned together but where ignorance of Christ is there cannot be any of this saving faith for can any man trust in that which he doth not know of yea though such ignorant men say they trust in Christ yet because they know not Christ these are but traditional and customary words They speak falsly and say they do not know what Philosophers say there is actio hominis and actio humana an humane action is that which comes expresly or impliedly from reason but actio hominis is that which is done by a man but not as a man as the moving of the foot or lifting up a straw which came from the imagination meerly So truly we may say there is actio Christiani and actio Christiani a Christian action is that which comes from knowledge and faith either directly or indirectly but that is an action of one that is a Christian in name and profession only that doth such actions as others doe but not from any knowledge or faith within only from custome and meer tradition if then knowledge be in all the historicall and justifying acts of Faith where shall the stupid and ignorant man appear 3. The grosse ignorant man cannot admire blesse and praise God for Jesus Christ the Medtatour This is evident he that knoweth not the nature office and use of Christ what he was and why he came into the world what was that which he did for us it 's impossible he should ever be affected with the love of God or with the love of Christ This made the Apostle pray that they might know the breadth and depth of the love of God through Christ Eph. 3. For without this knowledge all Gods love and Christs love is disregarded We reade of Pauls divine raptures and holy extasies because of Christ I desire to know nothing but Jesus Christ and him crucified 2 Cor. 2.2 It is impossible in a lively manner to know this divine truth of God the Fathers love in sending his only begotten Sonne to die for us and not break out in heavenly praises and admirations but the blinde ignorant man seeth nothing of this admirable mystery As he said it fell out ill with Artificers when ignorant men judged of their works Thus certainly God loseth much of his glory-Christ much of his honour when ignorant men only speak of this Doctrine As Christ Joh. 4. said to the woman of Samaria If thou hadst known who it is speaketh to thee thou wouldest have asked for the water of Life So here if thou hadst known what is in this love of God and Christ if thy heart did meditate and study on it thou wouldst be more affected and enlarged in thy affections to Christ 4. Where grosse Ignorance is of Christ there cannot be any improving of him for all these blessed effects to which he is appointed by God Christ is of God unto us wisedom righteousnesse and sanctification 1 Cor. 1. Of his Fulnesse we all receive grace for grace Joh. 3. But the ignorant and unwise man cannot make any advantage of this The ignorant man knoweth not the vertue and good use may be made of such herbs as grow in the field but the wise Artist doth Solomon asketh Why is a price put into the hands of a Fool seeing he knoweth not how to make use of it If the man in the Parable that found a Pearl had not known it to be a Pearl he would not have sold all to have bought it So then let there be never so much fulnesse and sufficiency in Christ yet he is a Fountain sealed up and a garden enclosed to the ignorant man and this must necessarily exclude such from heaven because in Christ is all our salvation whatsoever conduceth to our happinesse is bound up in him now the ignorant man not knowing this treasure must needs perish in his sinnes 5. Where a man is ignorant of Christ he must needs be in a damnable condition because thereby he is also ignorant of himself he knoweth not his own sinfulnesse and misery and so cannot desire a remedy These two are necessarily known together or unknown Christ the Physician and sinne a desperate disease Christ a Saviour and the sinner that is lost But the
death truly to say Lord I have glorified thee in my life I have finished all the work I was to do This Subject will be very profitable and necessary you cannot expect health and life alwaies in this world your time is running your daies are decaying you are hasting to the grave who knoweth how soon God will put a period to thy life in this world What then should be more in your hearts and thoughts then this Whether have I lived to Gods glory whether have I faithfully discharged the work put upon me It 's not riches wealth greatnesse or any earthly advantages will then do you good This or nothing will then be a reviving to you We have two pregnant examples for this 2 Kin. 20.3 When that sad message was brought to Hezekiah that he must set his house in order for he must die and not live What is a comfort and a cordial to him under this bitter news Remember O Lord that I have walked before thee With an upright heart and done what was good in thy sight Hezekiah had great outward prosperity he had many earthly delights as a King but see how every earthly comfort vanisheth away That he had served God in the uprightnesse of his heart comforted him more then all earthly honour or greatnesse The other Instance is in Paul 2 Tim. 4.7 I have fought a good fight I have finished my course a Crown of glory is laid up for me If all the glory of the world had been given Paul would it have comforted him like this Testimony of a godly conversation Oh how many dying men may say I have served the devil I have fullfilled his lusts and now I goe to my everlasting torments To quicken and affect you in this Point take notice of these Introductory particulars First That there is a day of Judgement when God will call every man to account We are not to live here as we list and to do all things without controul No God hath appointed a time when every man shall appear before him and he must give an account of all his time all his Talents all his actions all his thoughts of all things in this world that have been his The Scripture is very clear in this formidable Truth 2 Cor. 5. We must all appear before the Judgement Seat of Christ to give an account for what hath been done in the flesh Mat. 12.36 yea of every idle word we must give an account yea of every secret thing Eccl. 12.16 The Parable of the Talents Mat. 25.15 where the man with ten with five with two are called to give an account of their improvement doth evidently shew that there is no good thing we have let it be health wealth riches but we as Stewards must be reckoned with concerning the good improvement of them Oh beloved what an overwhelming consideration is this to think the time is coming when every thought every word every hour every day every opportunity every penny every thing I have had will be called for who can hear these things and not tremble Never think all thy sins are forgotten no the Scripture attributes a Book to God God writeth down every thing and those Books will be opened what manner of persons should we be who beleeve these things Rev. 20.11 Is it for you to live riotously to follow all vain pleasures and delights or not rather to pray and mourn and bethink your selves what is to be done at this time 2. Take notice That there is no man or woman though never so inconsiderable but they have their severall Talents They have their peculiar work to doe and their proper relations to serve God in There is none but they have their course to finish they have the work of God to do and therefore let no man think it may be for Magistrates for Ministers for great men for rich men to look to those things but not such inferiour persons as they No he that had but one Talent that is the least ability and opportunity to glorifie God yet because he was negligent he is called an unprofitable servant and is cast out where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth So then barrennesse and unprofitablenesse in our places and relations will be a damning sinne yet who considers this Do I promote the glory of God Is God honoured by me in my place and calling Do not I hide my talent in a Napkin Am I able to answer for my great neglect For thy health who can speak for that For time and many daies given to repent who can speak for that These things will be fire in your bones They will be thunder in your ears and arrows in your heart though for the present thou dost not matter them Thirdly Though it be the duty upon all thus to glorifie God and do our work commanded yet none is able to be perfect in this None ever lived that could challenge a Crown of glory for his perfect service Indeed Christ he being God and man did all these things without sinne therefore he was a full Mediatour for us God had nothing the Law had nothing to object against him but every meer man hath a woe belonging to his best life to his best duties if God judge him in strict justice· Hence David praieth that God would not enter into judgement with him that he would not mark every thing done amisse Why because in thy sight no flesh shall be justified Psa 143.2 So David doth not only exclude himself for he had murther and adultery and many other things amisse in his life but no flesh shall be justified None though preserved from such fals And Paul whom you have heard acknowledging the good fight he had fought and looking for a Crown of glory yet doth not challenge any perfection for at another time he accounts all things dung and drosse and would be found in Christ Phil. 3. having the righteousnesse by faith so that all doctrines of perfection and a possibility to be without sinne in this life are but the proud dreams of carnal men Therefore Fourthly No service or works that we have done are any waies meritorious or have any causal influence upon our Salvation It 's very hard to preach the necessity of all holy and good works and not presently to look on them as merits and causes of Salvation but we see the Scripture doth both and therefore we are to reconcile them in our practise To be zealous of good works yet to rely only on Christs merits It 's not my purpose here to give you several grounds why the best holy action we do comes short of all kinde of merit It 's enough to inform you Rom. 4. that beleeving and working are opposed and so works and grace and indeed to hold the fulnesse of Christs merits and yet to pleade our own is to think that the light of the Sun is not able to make perfect day unlesse we light a candle
also There cannot be any more two meritorious causes of salvation then there can be two Suns in the Orb Christ will not have a copartner under any distinction whatsoever in the work of our Redemption As for the doctrine or thoughts of perfection let those be abandoned Let us walk humbly and lowly under our imperfections yet breathing after perfection Fifthly Because no works we do can be perfect hence at the end of our daies when we look over all our former life we may not put any trust or confidence in what we have done Paul that knew nothing by himself yet was not thereby justified The Pharisees are condemned for this that they trusted in their own righteousnesse yea the whole Nation of the Jews that they went about to establish their own righteousnesse and would not submit to the righteousnesse of Christ Rom. 10. Though self-righteousnesse be not a grosse scandalous sinne making men abominable and noâ—some in the world yet it is as damnable and as dangerous as those sins yea more damnable partly because it overthroweth all the principles of being cured None being more miserable then those who are so yet do not feel or think so This is like the Psalmists arrow that destroieth at mid-day and then partly because it doth so immediatly oppose Christ revealed as a Mediatour and Saviour for they that trust in their own righteousnesse are a Christ are a Saviour to themselves Lastly Though all this be true our godlinesse is no merit no ground of confidence yet a faithful zealous performing of those duties God hath required of us may as a sign and evidence wonderfully comfort and imbolden our hearts As the Rainbow is not a cause but a sign that God will never destroy the world more by water so this tendernesse and diligence of thine in all the waies of God are not a cause but a sure signe that Gods eternal love is placed on thee and that thou art in the number of those who are prepared for glory our rejoycing is this saith Paul the testimony of a good conscience 2 Cor. 1.12 and 1 Joh. 3.21 Hereby we are sure he heareth us if our hearts condemn us not Hezekiah and Paul did not mention their good life as a cause or means Neither did they put confidence in them only they took this as a comfortable signe they were in the favour of God and they looked upon these things as inseparable qualifications Even as Rahabs thred hanging out of the window was not a cause but a signe that she was in the number of those who were exempted from destruction and in this sence we maintain the doctrine That it 's a blessed thing at the end of our daies to have this testimony this cordial in our hearts Let us consider the grounds of this blessednesse 1. At the time of death all our earthly comforts they vanish away they continue with us no longer Now if thou think how rich thou hast been what pleasures and delights thou hast had this is so farre from comforting that it torments the more but a drop of this heavenly assurance of our endeavour to please God will be more precious then all the world Oh foolish people and unwise that do no more consider your latter end Can you but look on your body and say this face these arms this body will one day moulder in the dust Can you but look on your houses and habitations and say These dwellings will know me no more must every thing break thy heart thou lookest upon thy husband thy Children thy friends mourning by thee must there be such a sad and dolefull time and dost thou provide no comfort no hopes to encourage thee The Psalmist saith not as the horse and mule without understanding whose mouth must be held in by a Bridle Psa 31.9 Alas thou art worse here is a bridle put on thee to keep thee from rushing upon sinne any more and yet it will not stop thee If then all these earthly comforts will fail thee and thou shalt look back upon thy life and that torment thee that torture thee also thou art twice and thrice miserable 2. It 's a blessed thing to have this Testimony and Seal upon our hearts that we have glorified God and done his work because Conscience if ever is then awakened and the devil he is most busie to tempt and trouble He that formerly shewed only the pleasant bait of sinne will now manifest the hook He that before said you should not be damned now makes it necessary he that made pardon easie now makes it impossible and as the devil is thus a roaring Lion so conscience is a roaring witnesse within Thou hast stopt the mouth of it and muzled it a long time but now 't will speak and thou canst not make it quiet Indeed too many die like beasts rather then men They think not of their sinnes they consider not Eternity but drop into hell before they consider any thing but yet when death comes commonly there is some terrour and trembling upon the conscience and if ever any sinne did formerly sting it will then Oh then how blessed a thing is it to have such an argument in our mouths that shall quiet conscience and confound the devil when they tell thee there is no hope thou hast been an hypocrite thou canst bring this testimony out of thy bosome O Lord thou knowest though I was overtaken by many infirmities yet my heart was set to glorifie thee I was tender and careful to discharge all my work though I failed in many things this will make thee like Adamant and marble how much did the consciousnesse of the integrity which Job had strengthen him under those powerfull storms and blasts that fell upon him 3. It 's a blessed thing to be able to say thus upon just grounds because of the terrour of death to flesh and bloud We cannot be willing and ready to die all the while the worms of conscience are gnawing the soul before worms be gnawing the body When Simeon had seen Christ and taken him in his arms then he saith Lord let thy Servant depart in thy Peace Luk. 2. When Paul hath thus discharged his trust then I have fought a good fight and there is laid up for me a Crown of glory It hath been the case of many good men to have uncomfortable sicknesses and an uncomfortable death and what makes it sometimes so but want of this assurance this good testimony about themselves oh their life troubles them such sins and such barrenesse They know not what to do Their hearts are within them They think of death and their soul is troubled so that it 's a most desirable thing to have this in thy heart when thou art dying Oh thou thinkest Would I might have such a Minister such a Friend by me when I am dying I tell thee this is the best friend It was Augustus his wish that he might have an 〈◊〉
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a quiet easie death without pangs and torment but this is the easiest the comfortablest the best dying Oh that we should preferre any thing before that Oh that thou shouldst not cry out of every sin This will trouble me when I am dying 4. It 's a blessed thing to go out of the world having done Gods work because we are immediatly to appear before him No sooner is thy soul gone out of the body but it appeareth before God he either for thy sinne adjudgeth it to hell or because thou art a member of Christ appoints thee to eternall glory oh then when there is but such distance between God and thy soul how comfortable is it to have been all thy life time glorifying God Thou hast been glorifying God and God comes now to glorifie thee Thou hast been doing his work and now he is giving thee the good things promised Oh Beloved how should this prevail with you there is but a step between my soul and God how will God look on me who can endure his frowns and displeasures Doth not the Apostle say It 's a fearfull thing to fall into the hands of the living God Heb. 10.3 And now I am falling into Gods hands either the hands of a merciful Father or provoked enemy Well then while thou art in these conflicts and agonies what support is it to have this sure evidence O Lord in my life time I lived for thee and to thee now I come to live with thee O Lord In my life time I knew thee I did thy work but I was at a vast distance now I come to the immediate injoying of thee Reas 5 5. It s a blessed thing to have this evidence because it 's of that good which will be eternall Canst thou truly say thus then it 's an immortall Crown of Glory that is laid up for thee no more deaths no more changes no more fears or tears thou art made for ever But of this heretofore Vse of Admonition Let every one attend and give all diligence to get this evidence Oh the terrour and horrour that must take hold on thee if thou hast been dishonouring of God all thy life long if thou hast been doing the work that sinne and Satan tempted thee to why art thou so devoid of all understanding will thy health and strength alwaies hold Art thou exempted from the stroke of death Is not thy time running on sit down then and consider what thoughts will at thy death possesse thee What testimony have I that I have done the work of the Lord Oh doth not thy life accuse thee Is it not all over bloody Canst thou think of what thou hast been with any content Is thy life at present such that thou canst say O Lord I am doing thy work Oh the amazement and astonishment that should take hold on such men SERMON XX. Sheweth who they are that cannot at the close of their daies take comfort in this That they have finished the work God gave them to do As also what things if not avoided will much diminish the comfort of the Godly ones at that day JOH 17.4 I have glorified thee on earth c. THe Doctrine observed was That it is a most blessed and happy thing in the close of our daies to be able to say upon good grounds We have finished the work God gave us to do You have heard particulars illustrating it and the grounds of the point I shall now amplifie this and in the first place shew Who they are that cannot with any comfort or very little be able to say thus For although this truth in the general be very terrible yet in the particular it loseth its edge because every man is a self-flatterer Every one is apt to think I have done Gods work and therefore it will be well with me If therefore it be possible my endeavour shall be that this arrow of Gods truth may enter in at the joynts of thy armour seeing it cannot any where else Consider then who they are that may say they are dogs and not children so that this bread doth not belong to them And first All those who daily and constantly are doing the clean contrary work to what God requireth such whose conversation is a perpetuall reproach and dishonour to God these do not at all glorifie God These have cause to tremble and quake when death approaches and their accounts must be made and is not this the condition of most Look generally upon mens lives are they not doing the devils works are they not dishonouring God all the day long by their ungodly conversation If there be any that are tender and consciencious are they not like gleanings after a Vintage here a man and there a woman otherwise for most men you would think they thought hell and the day of judgement to be but fables and such a truth as this to be a meer bugbear But God will not be mocked neither can mans greatnesse or atheism or prophane scoffings put off these things Oh then be at last perswaded that that life thou livest will be little comfort to thee one day Oh how speechlesse and confounded wilt thou be when God shall enquire into all thy words into all thy actions and there is nothing but sinne appeareth when every thing will be turned into blood as the Egyptian punishment was into the bloud of thy soul When God looked over all his works he had done he saw them exceeding good and so blessed the seventh day but thou wilt look over all thou hast done and finde it exceeding evil and curse both the day of thy birth and the day of thy death Oh that men would be wise that they would consider their later end What wilt thou do when God when thy conscience when the law when devils will accuse thee Where wilt thou hide thy self Remember Jacob Gen. 32.13 when his brother Esau was to meet him who was enraged and provoked against him how carefull he was by Presents and humble deprecations to mitigate his anger Remember the unjust Steward Luke 16.8 who knowing he must be called to account taketh all the subtill waies he can to make himself friends when he shall be cast out of his office our Saviour speaks that parable to this purpose That when God shall say to every one of us Thou shalt be no long or steward in this relation in that condition I will have an account of all that then we manage all things so that we may be able to have some comfortable refuge 2. Those have nothing of this texts comfort who though they do not contrary work yet do different non-required work It 's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 though they do not male yet they do aliud agere a servant though he do not contrary to his Masters work yet if he do not the same he is commanded he is obnoxious to his Masters wrath And this is
the flesh which will cause great pain in the pulling out If therefore thou wouldst with much peace and joy make up thy account sit loose from all earthly things these are good but God is better to have God would be a gain to thee these are thorns and thorns in thy side they do not only choak our duty but our comforts 2. This will diminish thy comfort much though thou hast for the main been holy when too much formality and slothfulnesse hath been upon thee The want of zeal and fervency will greatly abate of thy joy Therefore the Apostle 1 Pet. 1. saith Give all diligence to make your calling sure as if he had said as long as you live slothfully and negligently you can never come to any assurance the more lazy and cold thou art the greater will thy fears and doubtings be Oh then let this be a goad in thy side to do what thou doest with all thy might love God serve God pray to God with all thy might I tell thee it will be a great grief and breaking of heart to think of all thy family duties and publique duties done in a meer customary way if thou doest them not as a dying man as a man going immediatly to give his account to God thou comest not up to thy duty Rev. 2. see how severe God is there to the Church I have something against thee because thy works are not perfect filled works They were good works but they were not filled with inward life and the substance of grace therefore he exhorts them to strengthen the things that were ready to die Oh then do thou pray that a constant fire may burn upon the altar of thy heart take heed of grievings and tormenting fears because thou wert so barren so superficiall and unhearty in the work of God though this will not break thy anchor yet it will tosse thy ship up and down very violently though it will not raze thy foundation yet it will cause great heartquakes and trembling within thee 3. This will much weaken though not quite destroy thy comfort when thou hast not been carefull and active to improve all the opportunities and prizes God put into thy hand To think this I might have done there was this excellent occasion and I neglected it These thoughts will be so many drops of gall in thy hony Therefore the Apostle presseth that duty to redeem the time Ephes 4.16 to take all the occasions and opportunities before thee We are commanded to learn of the unreasonable creatures that know their times and seasons Christs tears over Jerusalem Luk. 19.41 were because she did not know her day God doth give many gracious occasions which it may be will never be injoyed more Now as those that did not go out early to gather Manna could not have any afterwards though they would have laboured many hours and as those that did not step into the Pool while the Angel descended could not upon any terms have the benefit afterwards so it is here if thou take not the opportunity the season God offers it may never come again It 's true there is no man dying but may be greatly afflicted for mis-spent opportunities therefore you heard no man could put any confidence in the best improved life that can be only he is happy that hath lesse worms gnawing upon his conscience then others Oh then take this home with thee thou godly soul when Christ knocketh at the door there is an opportunity of doing or receiving good take heed with the Church thou do not make excuses and so make Christ depart thou maiest afterward search for him in the anguish of thy heart and not finde him 4. This will allay our comfortable account when though we have done the work of God yet we did it upon constraint and slavish fears not from filiall and voluntary principles As the heart hath been free and willing so commonly will thy joyes be When the people offered so willingly about the Temple how joyfull and glad is David blessing God Who are we that we should be able to offer thus willingly 1 Chron. 29.14 and Lord keep this alwaies in their hearts so that a ready willing minde God doth accept of and fils with consolation He hath not sowed sparingly and therefore shall not reap sparingly Wo is me saith Paul if I preach not the Gospell 1 Cor. 9.16 If I preach the Gospel willingly I have a reward but if not the dispensation of the Gospel is committed to me As if be had said If I preach the Gospel and do my duty from a ready willing minde I shall have an overflowing reward but if not there is a necessity laid upon me it is my duty I cannot put it off God will require his trust Oh then do not lose the comfort of all thy duties to do from constraint from fear because of a slavish conscience this will not produce that consolation which a voluntary free spirit will therefore as the Apostle spake concerning Ministers Heb. 3.17 people should obey them that they might give their account with joy and not with grief the same is to be applied by every one oh let me with delight and willingnesse do Gods work that I may lift up my head when death appeareth He that is haled to his duty will be haled to his account in neither will he have any joy I did such things indeed but it was meer fear of hell and torment I had no delight in God or approaches to him 5. Though we do the work God requireth yet so much insincerity and hypocrisie as there is so much will our comfort abate This I have done indeed this zeal this activity I had but it was not purely for God there were self-respects self-considerations and these will be so many thorns by thy roses if it had not been for such ingredients thy heart had been more serene and calm This was Pauls evidence not simply that he preached the Gospel but that he did it as of God and to God 2 Cor. 2. The Pharisees in all the duties they did could have no true comfort because their ends were nought Jehu and Judas these will give no comfortable account so that purity of intention and rectitude of aims will only comfort thee at thy death shouldst thou abound in the most Angelicall duties that are be admired of all yet if in all these things thou hast not been purely fixed thy hopes will fail insincerity is accompanied with sad doubts and uncertainties 6. Ignorance or a mistake in some things may make us give our account with great fear As 1. If we look for perfection in our lives being resolved like Rachel to mourn and take no comfort unless our life appear a garden to us without any weeds at all but that is reserved only for heaven If none might dye comfortably but he that hath lived perfectly then every man must go out of the world with despair
yea there is no man but his failings are more then his duties there is more corruption then grace so that if there be sincerity though imperfection we may say Lord we have finished the work thou gavest us to do Indeed humility is required because of our imperfections but not diffidence To doubt and to refuse the comfort God offers is not humility but disobedience like that of Peters who would not let Christ wash his feet 2. Another mistake may be about the nature of true faith and hope as if we were to divide between Christ and our selves and so from both conjoyned together gather our assurance even as the Papists define spes hope to be partim à gratiâ partim à meritis nostris proveniens but those that go thus to divide must needs divide themselves from comfort for the object of our faith and trust must be Christ only We may joyfully take those evidences of grace we see in our selves but to put confidence in them would be to make our selves our own saviours 3. This mistake may breed much disconsolatenesse when we limit our assurance and evidence to the time of our death that if God give us it not then we give up our case as desperate Indeed it 's a most blessed thing and a mercy much to be prayed for that as Simeon so we having seen Christ in our hearts and lives may then depart in peace It 's the haven after all the tempests we have had here but yet God may deny us this cordiall even the best of Gods children have found that God hath not kept the best wine for the last but God doth sometime to his as they did to Christ give him gall and vinegar to drink For as the wicked ungodly man who the next moment is to drop into eternall flames may yet die with great carnal presumption that God is his God that Christ is his Mediator in whom he will trust and so feareth not quakes not at the dolefull judgement coming upon him so the godly man though ready to be crowned with Immortall Glory and there is but a moment between him and everlasting happinesse yet may think his case doubtfull if not desperate may seem to have no hopes no joy yea be so tempted that he shall think all he did was but in hypocrisie and falsehood that there was no truth in him this may be Therefore let the godly not limit God to that time of death Vse of Admonition to awaken your selves at this truth Think how nearly it concerns you Dost thou live in such a way as that thou art able to make this glorious profession Is not God is not his word is not thy own conscience against thee How speechlesse and confounded wilt thou be when God shall bid thee give an account of all thy talents Oh that men should not lay this later end no more to heart that none saith O my soul now all is well now thou takest thy mirth but what a change will the hour of death make With what comfort wilt thou look upon the devils work and sins work which thou hast been doing all thy life time especially take heed of unprofitablenesse and decayings in the way of godlinesse thou that hast looked towards heaven but art turned out of the way be sure thy end will be miserable It had been better for thee saith the Apostle never to have known the way of righteousnesse You may have desires may have breakings of heart and yet return to sinne again oh think with what a violent flood these thoughts will come upon thee Oh me wretched and undone sinner I have no refuge no hope many resolutions I had but they vanished away and now I must live no longer my time is expired my course is finished Oh that God would adde as to Hezekiah some years to my life Oh that I could bid the Sun stand still or time go no further till I were at peace with God but these are vain wishes Let not then this truth go before it hath left a sting in thy very heart O Lord nothing troubleth me but that I did not think or minde these things sooner Meditate on these things your night is coming upon you Will you alwaies delay or else be secure and not matter these things many have done foolishly and dropt in a moment into hell do not thou be so overtaken May we not conclude that the auditor with whom this truth will not avail may fear he is delivered up to an impenitent heart SERMON XXI Of Gods being Glorified by Mans Salvation That Christs chief end in what he did for man was the Glory of God which bespeaks both our Imitation and unspeakable Consolation JOH 17.4 I have glorified thee on earth THe cirumstance of this holy profession which Christ made being considered Let us proceed to the Profession it self and that is He had glorified God on earth Christ in the state of humiliation was inferiour to God and so he did referre all things to his Fathers glory so that in this profession we may consider 1. What is the matter or object whereby God is glorified 2. The end or final cause that moved Christ therein The matter is our salvation and that redemption Christ purchased for us The end which Christ looked at in all this was chiefly the glory of God Indeed he looked also at his own glory and our glory but the ultimate and chiefest of all was Gods glory So that from hence we may observe That our redemption and salvation obtained by Christ is a glorifying of God and Christ did thereby chiefly aim at Gods glory We put both the matter of Gods glory and Christs end together and certainly this Truth discovered will be like that sweet box of perfume which opened caused such a fragrant smell And 1. Let us see how or wherein God was thus glorified by Christs Mediation for us It being of infinite comfort to know this for how many times are we apt to be cast down What are we that God should regard our salvation who are we that God should crown us with glory God doth not need us he is happy without us Now this may exceedingly encourage Though we be not worthy to be saved God is worthy to be glorified If there were nothing but our good and happinesse involved in Christs death who would think it probable Christ should suffer meerly and ultimately for us but there is also the glory of God deeply concerned which is more worth then all the world yea then all our souls for though one soul be more worth then a world yet Gods glory is more worth then all our souls and their salvation So that a Christian fixing his faith and meditation here may be in a transfiguration and say It is good to be here God doth not lose by thy Salvation If Gods honour were to be impaired if his truth broken if his justice violated then who dare open his mouth for salvation but God is
death but these works of God they are living works partly because they proceed from a life of grace and partly because they will live for ever they will go to the grave with thee to heaven with thee they will never forsake thee 2. It 's our duty to work because God hath made them the necessary way to walk in if we will be saved Without holinesse no man shall see God Labour for the meat that perisheth not Hence if we consider every gracious work of patience love meeknesse we shall see blessednesse is promised to them Not that these justifie only the person justified cannot be without them They are the media ordinata ordained mean in the use whereof we are to arrive at eternal happinesse It 's faith only that receiveth Christ and his righteousnesse yet this faith cannot be separated from an holy walking It 's the eye only that seeth yet the eye cannot be separated from the other parts of the body and thus the Apostle doth immediatly oppose Rom. 4. beleeving working grace and works in respect of Justification yet he doth at the same time presse the Children of God to all holinesse and the fruits of righteousnesse 3. Working is necessary by way of gratitude and thankefulnesse to God and Christ If there were nothing else but this this might pour coals of fire upon thee for how many works of Gods grace hast thou been partaker of If Gods grace did not work all the day long for thee thou couldst not be a moment preserved out of hell and as for Christs working reade the History of his Life he was alwaies finishing the work of thy Redemption and Salvation he had nothing to do for himself all was in reference to thee Oh then how unworthy wilt thou shew thy self of all that love and kindenesse which God and Christ have done for thee If thou like the Sluggard let the Field of thy Soul grow full of briars and thorns Oh how can thy heart be so cold and slothful When thou considerest grace is working for thee all the day long if Christ had no more zealously and earnestly wrought my peace for me then I do perform his duties my soul had perished irrecoverably Lastly Therefore it 's necessary we should work Gods work because we have for a long time spent our selves in the Service of Satan and doing the works of the devil Oh this should be a perpetual goad in thy side this should be fire in thy bosome to consider that there was no hour no day no season but thou didst take the opportunity to satisfie thy lusts Thou never couldst have enough of sinne No thirsty man did more greedily swallow down water then thou didst sinne yea how active to draw on others to infect others with the same plague thou hadst I tell you this will lie heavy upon the godly soul If I were to live Methusalems age it would not be time enough to do God service for the dishonour I have put upon him Thy time is short and thou hast much to do because thou hast undone so much In the next place Consider That it 's lawful for the people of God in all the work they do for God to encourage themselves with this that there is an everlasting glory laid up for them Even as Christ had an eye to this glory so it 's lawful for us Thus Moses had an eye to the recompence of the reward Heb. 11. The godly Rom. 2. are said to be such as seek for immortality and glory Rom. 5.2 They rejoyce in hope of the glory of God and Paul accounted all these sufferings but light in respect of that eternal weight of glory 2 Cor. 4.17 Indeed Gods glory is to be sought in the first place and then our glory so that it 's a shame if in all our doings and sufferings for God we are not full of joy because of that unspeakable glory apprehended by faith Faith makes it present as if we already were partakers of it So that whatsoever temptations and discouragements are in the work of the Lord this glory will abundantly make amends for it Are there reproaches and disgrace in the world All the while thou didst sin and the devils work thou hadst the love and good-will of the world but since thou hast betaken thy self to the service of God thou art the scoff and reproach of all O think of the glory God will crown thee with before all the world Again are all the works of God painful difficult and contrary to flesh and bloud thou must strive and wrastle much in praier be alwaies in a combat and conflict Remember this everlasting glory yea God therefore doth many times put his Children upon all exercises and sad temptations which make them ake at the very heart and all is to encrease their glory the more Thus Job thus Paul they had extraordinary trials that they might have extraordinary glory Furthermore is there self-denial required in Gods work Must thou part with thy pleasures with thy profit thy delights still remember this glory will make thee no loser for alas what proportion is there between these petty things thou leavest and those everlasting treasures God hath provided for thee In the sixth place That the glory of Gods people may be full he giveth them time and large opportunities of working for him and keeps thee in this world not for any earthly and outward advancement of thy self but to serve him in thy generation as it 's said David served God in his generation Act. 13.36 and God calleth Moses his servant Whatsoever thy relation thy place thy office be God hath appointed thee to work and therefore he prolongs thy life till thy work be done This is a comfortable consideration which all the godly may take that death shall not seize on them while thay have work to do for God and when that is finished then this summons to everlasting glory As for Infants this Truth reacheth not to them and if any like the Thief on the Crosse are called at the last hour and so are not able to work in the Vineyard yet even such have an habitual prepared heart for it if they had the opportunity But for others whose daies are prolonged they are thus to think with themselves I have this day this week longer to adde to my work God hath for me to doe Take heed of mispent time take heed of losing daies and weeks The night is coming when none can work Vse 1. How much comfort and joy the godly may take at the hour of death Their work is done now they have nothing but the Robes of glory to put on That fulnesse of glory they are immediatly to possesse should swallow up the fears of death and the love of the world With what joy should they cry out Farewell Friends Wife and Children welcome God welcome eternal glory Alas thou hast no glory here Thy body is a vile body thy soul a
This should be seriously thought of by thee when thou art dejected and overwhelmed saying How can this be and how can that be Say O Lord what low unworthy thoughts have I of thee Didst not thou create a world and shall I say How shall God help me in this distresse and for this reason is it that in the Psalms and Prophets Gods creating the world is often brought in as an argument to support the Children of God under all miseries Fear not God made the world SERMON XXIX Of Divine Knowledge its Excellency and Rarity Shewing That God is truely and properly known onely by the Godly And wherein their Knowledge of God differs from the Knowledge that others have of him JOH 17.6 I have manifested thy Name unto the men thou gavest me out of the world c. THis sixth Verse begins the second main general part of Christs Petition for whereas before he had praied for himself now he begins to pray for his Disciples as they were in a peculiar manner given to him as afterwards he praieth for all beleevers in the generall so that the words are a beginning of Christs Petition in a peculiar manner for the Apostles for they needed much praier and assistance who were to undertake so great a duty These were set in the forefront of the Battel These were called to labour in the heat of the day therefore there is a peculiar praier for them Now that our Saviours Petition may prevail he first declareth what he had done to them and 2. Their obedience to him in all things what he had done to them is partly related in these words I have manifested thy Name wherein first observe the person or efficient cause spoken of Christ manifested Gods Name to his Diseiples Therefore he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Christ is not to be considered onely as a Mediatour in which none can imitate him but as a Minister or Prophet The chief Shepherd Heb. 13.20 as the Scripture cals him and herein he discharged his duty in that he manifested and made known God to the world which lay in ignorance So that the Ministers duty is to bring people to know God but of that in its time 2. There is the action it self of this person or efficient I have manifested There is a twofold manifestation 1. Objective only in the externall offer and proposal of the grace of God not only to beleevers but to all the unbeleeving Jews but of this manifestation Christ doth not speak 2. There is a powerfull effectual manifestation such as begets knowledge of God and obedience unto his Word and of this Christ speaks and as for the former many have Christ and God outwardly manifested to them in the preaching of the Gospel but they have no eyes to see as the Sunne though it shineth never so gloriously yet the blinde man receiveth no benefit by it 3. Here is the Object of this action Thy Name By Name is not meant the words or Titles given to God as Adonai Elohim Jehovah as the Rabbins call God Leohem the Name but by Gods Name is meant his nature his properties and those relations especially whereby he becomes a gracious Father through Christ to an humbled sinner Lastly Here is the Subject to whom Christ doth thus manifest God and these are described 1. By their original and descent Gods gracious good will and pleasure Whom thou gavest me 2. From the state or term out of which God then gave them Out of the world I shall put Christs action and the Subject together at this time Whereas then we see though Christ preached God and his properties to all that heard him yet to none was God manifested but to beleevers From whence we observe That God is only truely and properly known by the godly Let men have never such parts knowledge or understanding and that in the Scriptures and Divinity yet none know God God is not manifested to any but to the godly This may seem Paradoxall and incredible but yet the Scripture is very clear at v. 25. The world hath not known thee but I have known thee and these have known thou hast sent me Hence Joh. 14.21 you may see Christs manifesting of himself is a priviledge bestowed only upon those that love God He that loveth me shall be loved of my Father and I will manifest my self to him This doth so affect one of the Disciples that out of a sence of Gods great goodnesse and grace to them rather then the world he saith Lord how is it that thou wilt manifest thy self to us rather then the world What are we more then others The world heard Christ preached They saw his Miracles but Christ was not manifested to them Christ likewise Joh. 8.55 telleth the Pharisees who beleeved the Scriptures and acknowledged one God Creator of the world yea and said God was their God that they did not know God so that this truth will stand good that men may have much knowledge in the Scriptures in Religion and yet no◠know God To open this Consider that several waies we may come to have some knowledge of God 1. By inward light of a natural conscience There are imbred notions and dictates about a God which all the wicked affections and lusts of men cannot wholly obscure as the blackest clouds cannot quite darken the Sunne The Apostle Rom. 1. saith God hath manifested this in them There is then a natural manifestation of God in the consciences of men whereby there is an horrour and trembling upon them upon the committing of some evil especially when the stroak of death is upon them Oh the quakings oh the confusions that are sometimes upon men what will become of them what shall they do All this cometh from some generall knowledge of a God 2. Men come to some knowledge of a God by tradition education and hearsay There being no Nation so fierce and barbarous but have told their Children of a God and the Socinians who deny any inward light of nature about a God do make this the only ground of such an apprehension an universal tradition that is upon all Now although this consent of all Nations be a great Testimony yet the other is not to be excluded If then all do acknowledge that there is a God though there be different Religions different opinions yet both Heathen Turk Jew and Christian agree in this the more inexcusable will all wicked men be who live in rebellion and disobedience to him 3. We come to know God by the Creatures All that consider the world aright must needs argue some divine hand made it The Apostle Rom. 1. instanceth in this also Men by reason and science may argue from the effect to the cause we see one man did not make himself but he had a Father and so that Father a Father and because there cannot be an infinite progresse we must stay at one first cause only you must know this Knowledge by the world
heed of spiritual wantonesse and luxury to make the Bible the argument of thy opinions or notions thereby to get applause and esteem No thou are to prize it for the spiritual effects of it That it cureth thee of thy blindenesse spiritualizeth thee against thy carnality quickens thee against thy formality 2. We are to prize it for the necessity of it because that containeth the words of eternal life we cannot think a thought or step a step without the guidance of it This is able to make thee wise to salvation 2 Tim. 3.15 A man cannot have any wise thought or purpose towards heaven but by this This made Job as you heard prize it more then his necessary food for the soul needeth this bread of life as much as the body doth material bread If we set up any other principle to walk by but this we run our selves into the mouth of hell 3. For the usefulnesse of it The Scripture is profitable for instruction exhortation and to make a man perfect for every good work 2 Tim. 3. There is no sin to be avoided no duty to be done but the Word of God will direct thee therein There is no temptation so subtle but this will discover it If at any time thou art unprepared and indisposed for such or such a duty thou hast no heart to pray no spirit to beleeve on the promise Come to this and it will quicken thee for it's eyesalve to thy blindenesse It 's an hammer against thy corruptions It 's fire to consume thy drosse It 's oyl for thy wounds It 's a Catholicon an universal Shop of all spiritual medicines The rich man the poor man the husband the wife all may learn from hence what to do 4. The preciousnesse and dignity of it The Word of God is full of heavenly and supernatural excellency especially the Gospel or the will of God revealed for the salvation of man Oh how welcome must these glad tidings be to the troubled sinner that hath received the sentence of condemnation upon his soul Christ with his benefits discovered are the onely treasure to a tender broken heart The Scriptures they are the Mine wherein this treasure is to be found They are the Field wherein this pearl is hid To you that beleeve Christ is precious 1 Pet. 2.7 and it must needs be so for he is the Mediatour between God and them he hath fulnesse for all their wants and necessities He is made wisedome righteousnesse and sanctification 1 Cor. 1. It 's not what they are but what Christ is Lastly They keep the Word who persevere in it notwithstanding all the temptations and difficulties It 's both against the flesh and the devil for any man to keep Christs Word and how many have begun well but at last have given over to their great destruction Therefore John saith If ye continue in my word and Mat. 13. The good ground is said to hold fast the Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the word signifieth so to hold as that many are striving to take it out of our hearts again and they are said to bring forth fruit in patience because there is great contrariety and opposition unto Gods Word if possible the fowls of the air will take away this seed as soon as it is sown The Apostle James speaks of a forgetful hearer Jam. 1.24 and therefore would have us abide looking into the glasse of the Word Oh take we heed that we be not in the number of those whose latter end is worse then the beginning Take heed it be not said They are turned out or gone from us because they were not of us Vse of Instruction what they may judge of themselves who though living long under the means of grace finde the Word hath no place in their hearts their lives their conversation proclaim to all that they care not for Gods Word Oh what a sad Symptome is this of thy obstinate incurable condition oh men to be mourned over as dead and buried in the grave of sin If ye were of God you would hear his Word It 's said of many they did not hear the Word of God because it was of the Lord to destroy them O take heed this be not true of thee Vse of Exhortation to the godly keep close to Gods Word let your thoughts your affections your actions be according to that you never wound your consciences you never bring woe to your selves you never are at a distance from God but when you go astray from this rule Keep to this as in an Ark be in all your relations by it live by it die by it you are like a tree planted by the water-side while attending to this and if you keep the Word of God Gods Word will keep you 1. In the hour of temptation that you sin not 2. At the hour of death that you sink not It will be a tree of life to you that we through the Scriptures might have consolation The Word that was your rule will now be your comfort it will speak nothing but consolation to thee It will be more then all friends all comforters whatsoever 3. It is everlasting it will abide for ever the consolations of it will be eternal SERMON XXXIV Of Growth in Grace The Duty Necessity and Glory of it JOH 17.7 Now they have known that all things whatsoever thou hast given me are of thee OUR Saviour doth still relate those commendable considerations that were in his Disciples that thereby God should hear his praier for them It was not for worldly wicked sinners but such as knew and obeyed him that he praied for This is the more to endear them to God Now as before he had commended them for their obedience so here for their faith in him as a Mediatour and this faith is necessary to all Christian obedience For without it a man by his Legal righteousnesse becomes a confident presumer trusting in his works that he doth or else despaireth Seeing it impossible that ever he should attain to such a righteousnesse that is required Therefore when we have done all and got up to the very pinacle of grace we are in matter of Justification to leave our obedience and fly to faith so then we have the disciples Faith in Christ as a Mediatour described and commended 1. By one main particular act which doth synecdochically contain the whole They have known By the next Verse it appeareth that beleeving and knowing are all one 2. There is the Object of their faith which is twofold 1. All things that the Father had given Christ 2. That they were of him the sence is They knew whatsoever Christ had it was given him of the Father and that he had these things from him to be a Mediatour Here then you see what an acceptable thing it is to God to beleeve in Christ as sent by him The poor humbled sinner he trembleth and doubteth whether he may come to this Mediatour or no
peculiar To have praied for the Reprobate and such who did not nor ever would give themselves up to Obedience had been either to pray that God would alter his eternal purpose or else the course of his justice but seeing they were both given to him by the Father and did really discover the Fruits of this gift in their lives Therefore they were fit to be recommended in Praier So that the Text doth describe the Subjects of Christs Praier And again For whom he will not pray It 's like that terrible Separation of the Sheep on the right hand and the Goats on the left It 's horrenda Sententia as one Divine cals it What not pray for the world said another I pray God none of the world hear me Though this Text hath some thorns of Controversie especially about Universal Grace and Christs death for all men yet it likewise beareth excellent practicall matter· In the words let us Consider 1. The Description of those Christ praieth for 2. The opposition for whom he will not pray Those that he doth not pray for are the world who they are and the controversal matter therein is in time to be dispatched Those he praieth for are described 1. By that relative particle Them I pray for them 2. They are described by their Original descent Those thou gavest me for they are thine For the first part the Relative particle them viz They that have thus obeyed thus beleeved From whence in the general observe First That it 's very hopeful and a good encouragement to pray for those that are godly We may learn it from the example of Christ They are such and such persons therefore I pray for them Observ 2. That the people of God are under the fruit and benefit of Christs Praier Of the First It 's good and comfortable praying for those that discover the signs of Grace in them Thus Paul Pray for us for we trust we have a good Conscience Heb. 13.18 That he makes an Argument They should pray for him in his Apostolical work and emploiment because he did with all Truth and Faithfulnesse of Conscience labour therein and on the contrary when people were come to an high degree of wickednesse The Prophet is forbid to pray for that People Jeremy 7.16 17. To open this Point Consider this particular It 's not only our duty to pray for our selves but for others also Some are said to Question Whether it be lawfull to pray for any one man in particular because say they He that praieth in the due qualifications of speeding praier doth as effectually succeed in tbat Duty as if he had been praying for any particular But this can no waies hold It 's a Duty sometimes to pray in particular for some persons as the Disciples did for Peter when he was in prison And Paul many times desireth the praiers of the Church for his own particular A Praier poured out for some particular person may have more love fervency and faith in it then when for the general especially their particular necessities are then commended to God which would not be in the general This being cleared we go on to assert that fore-mentioned Position It 's the duty of godly men to pray for others Our Saviour doth suppose that in his Form of Praier Our Father and he extends this Mat. 5. even to our very Enemies that are Enemies for our godlinesse sake persecuting and reviling us and that though continuing in their wickednesse Thus Paul is thought to be converted by Stevens Praier while he was consenting to the stoning of that first Martyr Stephen was praying that God would remove the stone from Pauls heart yea the Apostle 1 Tim. 2.1 exhorts that supplications and praiers be put up for all men That is for all sorts of men as the distribution doth evidence yet this is no contrariety to Christs Example who would not pray for the world for certainly he would not so neither may we in that sence Therefore Secondly Though it be our duties to pray for others yet we may not in generall pray for those that are reprobated formalitè as they say For that praier could not be in Faith There is a twofold Faith required in our Praier 1. That it be according to Gods will a dogmatical Faith 2. A fiducial Faith that it be with confidence in Gods Promise and Power Now he that should pray for Reprobates as Reprobates could not pray in a dogmatical Faith for he did in effect desire that God would be mutable and changeable It 's as if we should pray that God would not create the world whenas he hath done it already yet this must be very warily understood For 1. We are to pray for any particular man though never so wicked unlesse sinning a sinne unto death because we cannot tell who is given by the Father to Christ and who not So that although to pray for all men that they might be saved is against dogmatical faith in Divinity yet there is no particular man that we may exclude 2. The Apostle 1 Joh. 5.16 speaketh of a sinne unto death that we are not to pray for one guilty of that This hath much troubled the Learned The Ancients they thought it was not an absolute prohibition of all to pray for such but only that eminent men might do it They thought for an ordinary Christian to pray for such sinners it would be high presumption As it 's not for every one in the Court to speak for some hainous offender but a special Favourite When God said Though Noah Job and Daniel Eze. 14.14 should pray for that people he would not hear them This implied that they were nearer to Gods ear and might prevail sooner then others Though this Exposition be old yet the Text seemeth to be absolutely prohibitive And so Austin said that if we knew who had sinned that unpardonable sinne against the holy Ghost we were no more to pray for him then for one damned in hell Now whether such a sinne as is unto death be ordinarily committed and what it is and whether we may know when such do commit it is worth the enquiring into but is greatly extravagant unto my matter 3. To speak exactly Gods Decree about Events is not the Rule of our Praier but his Word is And therefore though it should be revealed that God would not do such or such things yet it may be our duty to pray for them As Austin instanceth If it should be revealed that my Father must die of such a disease yet I might lawfully though with submission pray for his life because it 's my duty to use all means for my Fathers Life Thus though Nathan the Prophet had told David His Childe should die yet David humbleth himself and by fasting seeketh to God for his Childes life So it 's lawfull to pray that God would wholly mortifie sinne in us yet God will not do it in this life Thus
though this be greatly controverted yet there are places very probable 2 Cor. 3. God was in Christ reconciling the world viz. of Elect Thus Christ cals himself the bread of the world and the Lamb that takes away the sinnes of the world The doubt then is in what sence the world is here used And 1. It cannot be the world of the Elect for they are expresly praied for because given of the Father to Christ Neither can it be the world of wicked men meerly as so for many wicked men that are so now yet afterwards are converted as v. 23. That the world may know thou hast sent me that is those who for the present are of the world but afterwards are converted to Faith and Repentance It remaineth therefore by the world must be understood those that are not Elected the world of Reprobates And that this is the genuine Interpretation is plain because the world is opposed to that number of men who are given by the Father to Christ as the opposition manifesteth Not for the world but those thou hast given me Neither can it be evaded as some would I pray not for the world is in the same sence and for the same things as I do for Beleevers viz. perseverance and preservation from sinne because where the Text doth not limit or distinguish we must not And besides he praieth for those Elected persons that were as yet actually of the world that they might know and beleeve in Christ which praier the Reprobates did most need and therefore if Christ had praied at all for them it would have been for that which was most necessary The sence then thus explained observe That Christs Mediatory praier and so his Death is not for all the world but only some certain persons who are given by the Father to Christ Christs praier and Death is not intended for all and every particular man but for some only The Doctrine stands upon this bottome Those that Christ would not pray for he died not for neither was he a Mediatour for but not for the world would he pray onely some Elected by the Father Therefore neither did he die for such This Point is controversall and I have no Inclination to lanch in such deeps partly because plain practical matter is more profitable for the greater part that hear It 's bread and not a stone fish and not a Serpent you ask for and then partly the Question is of so vast a comprehension that not one hour or many is sufficient to leade you into the very porch of it much lesse all the secret rooms of it and then partly it hath been agitated by the choicest men of Learning that the former or latter Ages of the Churches ever had and therefore should be handled in a Scholastical succinct manner not popular and humiletical as our Sermons are These things I say do discourage but because the doctrine of Universal grace and redemption is a gangreen every where spreading and an Idoll which flesh and bloud doth adore and many specious pretences of Scripture are brought for it Give me leave to say something and because the controversie like Moses his face shineth gloriously and is so sublime that the common eye cannot endure to look on it I will put a Vail upon it and condescend to the meanest capacity as much as the nature of the Truth will bear and shall make way to clear and state the Doctrine by several Notandum's or particular Considerations which will be to the main Truth as John Baptist was to Christ And first Consider there is a necessary connexion between Christs praier or Intercession and his Death They are of an equal latitude and extent whom he praieth for he dieth for whom he dieth for he praieth for Rom. 8.34 Christs Death Resurrection and Intercession are all in a Chain together and applied to the same Subjects And indeed it must needs be so because Christs praier is one part of his Priestly office The oblation of himself as a Sacrifice for sinne was the other Christ then as the great high-Priest did partly pray and partly offer up himself in a Mediatory way for his people We might well therefore put both these in the Doctrine praier and his Death Though the Text speak but of praier because the one is necessarily joyned to the other and this Praier therefore is made upon the oblation of himself being to leave the world As for that Praier of Christ on the Crosse Father forgive them for they know not what they do It 's to be considered that seeing the Scripture saith he was heard in what he praied for therefore all those whom he intended in that Praier had the forgivenesse of their sinnes and we may be the rather induced so to think because he names only those that did they knew not what in crucifying of him Wherefore it 's thought those three thousand Jews converted by Peters Sermon were most of those for whom Christ praied on the Crosse For the Apostle chargeth this upon them that they had crucified the Lord of glory ignorantly 2. Though Christ in his praier and death had special love and regard to some of mankinde and not all yet there is no man that is damned can lay the blame any where but upon himself That Rule is of perpetual Truth O Israel thy destruction is of thy self Hos 13.9 And thus the Scripture doth every where make death and hell the wages of sinne Therefore if any would from this doctrine inferre such Conclusions That then a man is not to be found fault with No blame is to be laid upon him but upon non-Election or the particularity of Christs death We abhorre such consequences and say with Paul to some who gathered poison out of that honey-doctrine he preached God forbid Let not then thy heart cavill prophanely in this Point for there is no eminent doctrine in Religion but if a man let loose his carnal heart he may wrest wicked Conclusions from the best premises The true cause and ground of every mans damnation is because of Impenitency and hardnesse of heart in sinne with unbelief Neither may we or can we conceive a man able to say thus O Lord I was ready and prepared to beleeve and repent There was nothing of any good desires wanting in me only the death of Christ that was too much restrained to others but not to me and therefore not for my sinne but meerly for want of a latitude in Christs death I must perish Such an Imagination as this is a meer Chimera There never was or can be any person able to pleade so so that if you take this along with you that no such absurdities and blasphemies follow from Christs speciall love in his death and Intercession you have taken away the Gorgons head that useth to make it so terrible 3. It 's good to take notice of that ordinary distinction The Sufficiency and worth of Christs death in
by Adam so all shall be made alive Behold the Lamb that taketh away the sins of the world 1 Joh. 2. He is a propitiation not for our sinnes only but the sinnes of the whole world Thus in many other places the Scripture doth expresly affirm such an universality Therefore the Question is Whether this must be understood so generally as that it shall reach to all and every singular Man and Nation and that in all Ages or only indefinitely he died for all sorts So that now no Nation is excluded nor particular person as it was among the Jews and certainly unlesse we will make Scripture both ro contradict it self and experience We must take all those phrases indefinitely and not universally 1. Because we see the Scripture expresly limiting Gods love and Christs death to some only So that those places could never be reconciled without this distinction as Joh. 10. I lay down my life for my Sheep Rom. 8. Upon Christs death we are justified and saved and above all in this Chapter we see Christ often and often again restraining all his praier and Mediation to those that the Father had given him If he would not pour out a praier will he pour out his bloud If he would not shed a tear will he shed his bloud for them So that if we will keep up other places with this we must needs say That Christ died for all indefinitely not universally Even as when we have to do with the Anthropomorphites Those that held God is a body We grant that there are innumerable places of Scripture which speak of Gods eyes arms and his hands yet we say that Scripture may not oppose Scripture There are other places though few which describe him to be a Spirit therefore we are necessitated to say the Scripture speaks so to our condescension thus it is here Though many places of Scripture speak of Christs death in such an universal sence yet other places do plainly limit is to certain persons who are Elected and given by the Father to Christ 2. We must needs interpret it so because those places which are brought for this Universality speak of the actual benefit and fruit of his Death Now it is granted by all that none do actually partake of Christs benefits but the godly as 1 Joh. 2.2 He is a propitiation not for our sins only but the whole world He is a propitiation in an actual sence and he is so a propitiation for the sins of the whole world as the Apostle saith He is for ours viz. actual believers Now then if the whole world should extend to all makinde it would follow that all are actually pardoned and saved so 1 Cor. 15.22 As in Adam all died even so in Christ all shall be made alive By being made alive is plainly meant a Resurrection to glory as the next Verse sheweth Christ the first-fruits Then they that are Christs So that if all be taken universally it would follow all and every man should be raised to glory So in that famous place The Lamb that taketh away the sinne of the world that taketh it away in an actual sence and therefore to say Christ died for all and there is universal Redemption and yet to say all are not saved is to speak not only false doctrine but meer contradiction Indeed to say universal Redimibility by Christs death may have some colour but universal Redemption and yet not all actually redeemed Universal Propitiation and yet not all have their sinnes pardoned is to say the Physician cured such a man but yet he did not cure him or a Magistrate delivered such an one out of prison yet the man was not delivered Lastly We are necessitated to limit such phrases because of experience For if Christ died for all men intentionally how is it that in the Old Testament excepting some few Proselites the offer of grace was onely to some few and though since Christs time the Gospel be said to be preached to every creature yet how many Nations and much more particular persons have there been to whom Christ with his benefits have never been offered Now who can say that Christ died for those to whom he never discovered so much as the very Name of his death It 's true this should make us adore the goodnesse of God that gives us to live where this Gospel-grace is plentifully offered What are we more then all those Heathens and Pagans who sit in darknesse and have no light who never heard of a Mediatour but oh wretched and miserable if we neglect so great salvation SERMON XLIV Reasons why the Scripture speaks thus Vniversally about Christs Death when yet but some were intended Also what Benefits Reprobates have by Christ With some arguments Further proving the Point of Christs dying not for every man but some JOH 17.9 I pray for them I pray not for the world WE are explaining this Doctrine that Christs Mediatory Praier and so his death is not for all and every one of mankinde Many introductory particulars have been commended to you The last whereof was That though the word useth universal expressions about Christs Death as all men and the world yet we are necessitated both from Scripture reason and experience not to take them in a large universality but restrained and indefinite specialis quaedam universalitas est there is a special Universality as Austin said We shall go on to further considerations And 1. There may be very good reason given why the Scripture speaketh thus universally about Christs death Not that we should deduce an error from thence contrary to other Scriptures which restrain it to those the Father hath given him Joh. 6. and Joh. 17. But 1. It may be to shew that this great benefit purchased by Christ was designed for man and not Apostate Angels For Isa 9. It is said To us a Son is born to us a childe is given not to Angels and the Apostle doth amplifie this love of God Heb. 2.17 h at Christ took not on him the nature of Angels but the Seed of Abraham Hence it 's that the Scripture speaks of his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Seeing that God so loved the nature of mankinde that he gave his Son for those that should beleeve in him passing by innumerable Angels who might have done him more service It might well be said that Christ gave himself for the sins of the world viz. men the Inhabitants thereof 2. This might be in opposition to the Jews For a long time the means of salvation were only amongst them as Joh. 4. Salvation is of the Jews Therefore we see Peter would not so much as preach the Gospel to the Gentiles till from Heaven he was admonished that he should call no person unclean Act. 9. Seeing therefore that formerly to the Jews only were the Oracles of God committed Now that by Christs coming the partition wall is broken down and God doth not
hast an Interest in Christs Death thou art not only dead to sinne but to the world God forbid that I should glory saith Paul but in the Crosse of Christ whereby the world is crucified to me and I to the world Gal. 6.14 Set your affections on things above not on things on the earth for ye are dead Col. 3.2 3. Therefore not onely grosse prophanesse doth exclude from a propriety in Christs Death but an immoderate frame of heart to these lawful things below Indeed if thy overflowing affections to these things be a burthen to thee and matter of daily conflict then it 's plain these immoderate affections are not in a quiet pacifical dominion over thee and so they are the evil thou wouldst not do And then these can never hurt non sensus but consensus nocet But if they do withall delight so possesse thy heart that they quite dead thee to God and heaven Thou sindest no rellish in heavenly things comparatively to the earthly Thou canst say contrary to David when thy Wine and Oyle encreaseth thou hast more joy then those that trust in God Psal 4. Then art thou to fear Christs Death and his Praier doth not as yet belong to thee Hence it is that the efficacy of Christs death is much discovered in the godly by this twofold Death it works on them a death to sinne and a death to the world Even his Resurrection manifests it self in quickning of us to all holinesse and seeking of those things that are above Let us then see by the effects that Christs Death belongs to thee 3. They that have an Interest in Christs Death they make that an example of all patience and humble Resignation 1 Pet. 2.21 24. Christs Death is not onely efficacious and meritorious but exemplary also So that if the Lord afflict us it is no more then what hath been done to his only Sonne already Though he were a Sonne yet he learned Obedience saith the Scripture by those sufferings Heb. 5 6. Now then behold Christ in all his sufferings when he was reviled reviled not again when he suffered threatned not What threatnings might not Christ have denounced against the Jews because they killed him who was the Prince of glory and so dear to his Father but he is like a Lamb that opens not his mouth before the shearer or the killer Oh then how should this shame us for our unruly passions for our impatient workings and commotions of soul Oh silence thy Soul saying Did Christ bear his afflictions no otherwise Did Christ refuse the bitter cup that was given him to drink Did he not say Not my will but thy will be done 4. He that hath advantage by Christs Death looks upon the bitternesse and uglinesse of sinne as being so foul that nothing but the bloud of Christ could wash it away The very thoughts of Christs Death presently makes him say Oh the cursed and foul nature of all sinne Neither men nor Angels could take away the spot of it but only Christs Death Wicked men therefore they are said to trample under feet the bloud of Christ Heb. 10. Because they have not those right precious thoughts about it as they ought to have Though the bloud of Christ speaks better things then that of Abel yet it doth in some respects speak more terrible things because by that we see how infinitely God is displeased with sinne how unsatisfied his justice was till such an atonement was made So that if we look into hell if we behold all the torments and miseries there it doth not so fully represent the foul guilt of sinne as Christ crucified on the Crosse sweating drops of bloud and crying out My God My God why hast thou forsaken me 5. They that shall have advantage by Christs Death they are infinitely affected with that love of God and Christ therein As you see in Paul That love of Christ giving himself for us sinners and enemies to be reconciled thereby to God Oh how mightily did it constrain Paul 2 Cor. 5.14 The love of Christ constraineth us holds us in an extasie working on us as the Spirit did on the Prophets in their illuminations and prophesies And why so Because we thus judge that if one died for all then were all dead To consider from what a dying damning estate Christs Death doth free us must needs be like fire burning and inflaming a man all over If we had not been desperately dead dead every way dead in sin dead in guilt dead in respect of all earthly hope Christ would not have died for us Oh then the unspeakable affections and enlargements which the Death of Christ works in those that have a propriety therein 6. They that have a propriety in Christs Death will resign all they have up unto Christ and now live no longer to themselves or to worldly motives but unto Christ Rom. 6.10 11. 1 Pet 2.24 so 1 Cor. 6.20 the Apostle urgeth because we are bought with a price therefore we are none of our own and we should glorifie God in soul and body He then that can claim a Title to Christs Death looks not upon his body his estate his health his parts the faculties and affections of his soul as his own his love is not his anger is not Oh how rare then are they who may urge this Argument Christ died Christ was crucified for me for unlesse thou art a redeemed man and that from thy self and all creatures in the world to live wholly to Christ and to resigne all up to him here is little hope for thee Observe then these qualifications and if upon true search they can be found in thee then proceed to make an application of all those glorious priviledges that come by Christs death Fear not let not the devil or thy own guilty heart keep thee off from tasting yea eating abundantly of this honey Hearken what Christ speaks to his Church concerning priviledges and gracious favours Cant. 5.1 Eat O Friends drink â—ea drink abundantly And 1. Those that can pleade Christs Death may also pleade his Resurrection Intercession and whatsoever glorious actions of his are done for his people If Christ died for thee he rose again for thee he interceded in heaven for thee When thou saiest he is an Advocate to pleade thy cause Rom 8. It 's Christ that died who is risen again so that the Death of Christ is the foundation of all his other gracious acts Hence it is that the remission of our sins is attributed to the shedding of his bloud The atonement of our iniquities is given unto his death because in it he did manifest the greatest obedience unto the will of God and the lowest humiliation of himself for us Phil. 2. If then thou hast a propriety in the death of Christ Christ hath done the utmost for thee even to die for thee You see that put him upon the greatest struglings and agonies if he would have refused in any thing it would
have been in this This was the bitterest cup he was to drink of Oh then the glorious priviledge of him who hath a propriety in the death of Christ he is thereby interested in all the Offices all the actions of Christ in all that Christ is or can doe for us 2. He that hath Interest in Christs Death hath a propriety in all the benefits of his Mediatorship Justification Sanctification Glorification Rom. 8. The Apostle hangs all these admirable benefit ultimately upon Christs Death Who shall condemn it's Christ that died So that Christ is that dead Lion wherein as Sampson we may finde so much honey not only for our selves but for the refreshment of all others This Argument cannot be denied at the Throne of grace It 's stronger then sin and devils O Lord I am one for whom Christ died Can Justice can the Law can the devil condemn Here was an atonement and Christs doing it once was enough The Apostle saith Heb. 10.14 By one offering of himself he perfected for ever all them that are sanctified The Apostle puts much in this one offering and that he did it once shewing thereby that if Christ had been crucified a thousand times over yet he could not have more perfected the salvation of the godly then he did by that once offering Say then when thou praiest for pardon for sanctification for the favour of God O Lord I ask not for such great things as thou hast done already I do not beg a Christ to die for me I do not ask a Christ to be crucified for me yet this thou hast done and therefore where the greater is granted the lesse will not be refused 3. Where we can prove an interest in Christs death there we may be sure no other good thing in heaven or earth shall be denied unto us And what can a godly man desire more If thou shouldst sit down to think and think again canst thou go beyond this Lord give me all things that are good for me Now the Apostle urgeth this Rom. 8. If he hath delivered up Christ for us how shall he not with him give us all things else all things There is nothing in heaven and earth but thou maist have from God as well as Christ and truly the argument is undeniable if God will give us his onely Sonne to die that ignominious death for us what gift can there be like to this God himself hath not a greater gift to bestow upon us There is nothing in heaven or earth can be paralleld to him if therefore thou hast Christ thou hast enough whatsoever thou wantest it is not because God doth not love thee or because his merciful thoughts are not towards thee but because many good things are not absolutely good in themselves and so not wholly necessary for thee if thou couldst be no more without riches and honours then thou canst be without Christ thou wert sure to have all these things in abundance The Apostle himself who made this Conclusion yet he tels of the manifold perplexities and afflictions he was many times in He tels us that if the godly had hope in this life only they were of all men most miserable Though he had Christ and so might have all things thereby yet thus he speaks No wonder then if the people of God do or should rejoice under miseries and troubles they have this cordial to revive them 4. He that hath a propriety in Christs death may from this special love to him rather then others have an assured perswasion of his immovable state in grace here till he be removed to glory hereafter For how can it be thought that Christ will lose that childe of his for whose sake he endured all that misery and agony as he did after he hath suffered thus many things shall it be in vain No saith Paul from the consideration of Christs death Rom. 8. Who shall separate us Shall tribulation anguish shall things present or things to come Lastly They that are planted with Christ in his Death they have this priviledge to rejoyce in all tribulations and especially to be above the fear of death For Christs death took away sinne the sting of death See how Christ triumphs and giveth every godly man leave to rejoyce 1 Cor. 15. O death where is thy sting O grave where is thy Victory For that death could have no power over Christ but he brake the bands of it asunder therefore it is that the members of Christ enjoy the same priviledge Therefore under all temptations and fears run to the death of Christ It was the death of all afflictions and death it self all the nature of such things is turned by Christs death they are mercies they are inlets to glory SERMON XLVI Of Free-Grace opposite to Arminianisme Tending to raise the hearts of those that are Godly to Joy and Thankefulnesse JOH 17.9 I pray not for the world but for those thou hast given me for they are thine WE handled that dreadful passage I pray not for the world at which saith Gerard Mundus debet coherrescere sed existimat ludum ac jocum suo cum prestantissimo exitio We come to a second description of those that are included in Christs Praier and they are characterized by this They are given by the Father to Christ Certainly there must be much in this Consideration For our Saviour doth no lesse then five times use it in this Praier and Joh. 6. it 's used severall times I handled it before but then I considered it much as it did imply the trust and charge Christ had by this gift God the Father gave them to Christ as a faithful Mediatour he betrusted him with them as a people whose Salvation he should obtain and accordingly Christ was faithfull to make these a peculiar people and Gods precious Jewels They were given him as a King to govern as a Physician to heal as a Mediatour to save and as a Shepherd to feed and this propriety that both God and Christ hath in them is a great ground why God should hear Christs Praier for them But I shall now consider this phrase as it tels us the manner how they were made Christs and that is by meer gift and grace God did not see or foresee any merits or works in those Disciples more then others for all are alike corrupted in that common masse of mankinde but it was his meer and sole good pleasure For Gratia non est gratia ullo modo nisi sit gratuiha omni modo We see then here what is the womb that first giveth a being to all those thar are saved and that is Gods grace in giving some to Christ Now what is meant by this giving to Christ It cannot be any other thing but Gods Predestination and Election of some with the necessary effects of it in time as Vocation Justification c. It 's a phrase that is like an hard stone to the Arminians teeth it troubleth them exceedingly and
and the merits of their own works eclipse Christ Hence they are like the Moon which though it receiveth all light from the Sunne yet is the only thing that obscures and ecclipseth it by its Interposition 3. To glorifie Christ is not thus only to acknowledge him and to rest on him for these are only internal acts of the soul and so a spiritual inward glory known by God only but it 's greatly seen in the outward confession and profession of him and that to the greatest reproach and danger which can be in the world Rom. 10. With the heart man beleeveth but with the tongue profession is made to Salvation He that will be saved must in the greatest danger and most scornful reproaches own Christ and his way Thus our Saviour Luk 12.8 Whosoever shall not confesse me before a crooked generation of him my Father and I will be ashamed Certainly in this particular the Disciples did highly honour Christ for we know Christ himself was both by birth and life in a most contemptible manner There was no comelinesse or desirablenesse in him and then at last was crucified in a most ignominious manner Now for the Apostles to look on him as the Messias to have such high and indeared thoughts of him when all the world held Christ wretched and accursed and would not upon any terms be of his followers this was greatly to honour him Therefore our Saviour said Blessed is he that is not offended at me Mat. 11.6 It was the greatest wonder in the world not to stumble at Christ We see the wise men the great men that lived then they were all offended at his meannesse Is not this the Carpenters Son Mar. 4. Oh how hard would it have been for us to have received him as the Messias if we had lived in those daies for those that followed Christ they were but a handful comparatively and they were of the more despicable sort and they were accounted illiterate and mad simple people that adhered to him 4. They glorifie Christ who receive him as a Lord and King to whose Laws they willingly submit themselves For the self-love of a man may make him glad of Christ as a Saviour but then to resigne up themselves in an obediential manner to all the commands of Christ in this they draw back Christ is not to be considered only as a propitiation for our sins but also as a King who doth govern his people by holy and spiritual laws and hence we may reade that he interpreted the Law in a more spiritual and strict way Mat. 5. then the Pharisaical Doctors had done and laid the axe to the very root of all corruption within us he forbids heart-lusts heart-passions these Embers in the fire though they never flame out he cals upon all to deny themselves to take up their crosse and to follow him To love him more then Father or mother If therefore we would honour Christ it 's our duty to forsake all those rebellions we are guilty of To lay down our opposition and enmity against his commands to take his yoke upon us and to think it light and easie What an honour was it to Christ to have men leave all their outward subsistence and earthly comforts to follow him Did they not hereby declare that they prized the service of Christ more then all the world and that they accounted more of his commands then the greatest Monarchs in the world So that all who walk disorderly and contrary to Christs command they say with those in the Parable Christ shall not reign over us Though he will reign over them maugre all their disobedience if he do not govern them with the Scepter of grace he will break them with a rod of Iron 5. Those that suffer and endure all persecutions willingly for his Name and Truth They do in an high degree glorifie Christ In a special manner did Christ take notice of his Disciples because they had accompanied him in his Temptations and the Apostle Peter doth at large shew how God is glorified when men suffer not for ill doing but as Christians That as they glorifie Christ so Christ makes a spirit of glory to rest upon them 1 Pet. 4.14 Those marks Paul did bear on his body They were so many Trophees Even as Souldiers count wounds a mark of honour they have received in fight for their commander When the Disciples went away rejoycing that they were accounted worthy to suffer any thing for Christs sake This did greatly redound to Christs glory Oh then let not the people of God be afraid or shrink at reproaches dishonours and troubles for Christs sake for wherein can they glorifie him more Or can the world say upon better grounds Behold how they loved Christ and his Truth better then their estates or their lives Those millions of Martyrs that have died for Christs sake brought an astonishing even to the very heathens No Emperour or Monarch No Master or Teacher ever had such a multitude of Disciples readily sacrificing their lives so that we mistake if we think the glory of Christ hath been in such an outward pomp as earthly Kings have been No by sufferings by revilings by the most cruell deaths that malicious men could invent they made the Name of Christ glorious through the whole world Even as Christ called his own death a glorifying both of himself and his Father so did the miseries and calamities of his Children redound greatly to his honour for greater love and esteem they could not shew then by laying down their lives for him 6. Those honour Christ and glorifie him who walk in an holy and worthy manner to that calling whereby Christ hath called them 2 Thes 1.12 That the Name of Christ may be glorified in them And how was that by walking worthy of their calling Even as on the other side when men live prophanely and wickedly they reproach Christ and make the Gentiles to blaspheme the Christian way Oh that this were sadly thought upon by most Is not every Town every Family full of cursing swearing drunken and unclean persons Now these are a Reproach to Christ they make the Christian Religion a scorn and the name of it even to stink Even as Salvian a zealous Writer against the prophane lives of Christians said The heathens by way of scorn might say Christiani sanctè vixissent si Christus sancta docuisset They thought the reason why Christians had no more sober chaste and godly lives was because Christ was not an holy Law-giver he did not give them holy precepts The loosenesse and prophanesse of a Servant is a disgrace to his Master and what dishonour must this be that those who call upon Christs Name yet should live according to the devils temptations that they should say they are for Christ and their lives for Satan 7. They honour and glorifie Christ who live chearfully and comfortably in the midst of all their troubles and exercises For
wrong one another Doth not the Apostle James tell them of their envyings and their devourings of one another Iam. 13.16 Why doth our Saviour above all things pray in this Chapter for the Disciples Vnity That they might be one but because of the pronenesse that is even in Gods Children to fall out with one another as Iacobs Children did Hence we see Beleever against Beleever Christian against Christian pursuing one another even to death It was Cyprians Complaint of old Madet orbis Christianus mutuo sanguine quod cum privati fecerint homicidium dicitur eum publice geritur virtus vocatur Oh what a sad thing is it not to see Sheep and Wolf but Sheep and Sheep devouring one another Doth not experience convince of this Are not many godly mens Enemies of the same house of the same Religion of the same Christian Faith with him Oh this is hard to bear if it were a prophane and wicked Instrument of the devil I could bear it but it is such an one with whom I have praied often humbled my self often They acknowledge the same principles of godlinesse the same experiences upon their souls yet are like Lyons 5. God hath made the world a troublesome world in all Conditions in all Relations so that none can finde this place any other then a Valley of Tears The Apostle 1 Cor. 7. sheweth the condition of Married Persons that they shall have trouble in the Flesh The Married Condition hath it's trouble the single hath its Trouble There is trouble in Husbands Wives Children in all Callings The Husbandmans The Citizens God will not let us have a Paradise in this world lest we do as the Reubenites that desired to sit down in a Countrey fruitful for Cattell and cared not to enter into Canaan It was Basils Opinion that the Earth before Mans Fall brought forth no Thorns or Thistles and that the Rose did grow without pricks But here is no such Blessednesse now Out of the same Fountain comes bitter and sweet From the same Root grow Figges and Thistles Grapes and Thorns There is no Mercy or outward Comfort but hath its Insufficiency and there are as many drops of Gall as there are of Honey Which made Job say That man who is born of a Woman is full of Trouble even as the Sparks fly upward Job 14. It 's as naturall as for the fire to ascend so that as it would be a miraculous and wonderfull thing to see the Fire descend downward no lesse would it be to see a man without some Trouble or other We reade of one Polycrates that never had any Adversity in his Life time and he endeavoured to put himself upon some Losse but could not for once he threw a Ring of a vast price into the Sea intending to lose it yet afterwards it was found in a Fishes Belly and he had it again But though he had no trouble for a long season yet at last he was taken by an Enemy and put to Death with most exquisite torments Though wicked men have the good things of this life yet these good things are not meerly and universally good They have a Sting as well as Honey They have Trouble as well as Comfort The Godliest men have acknowledged that their daies have been few and evil in this world Oh then expect not a Summer alwaies in this world God hath subjected all these created Comforts to changes after a Glorious day to have a dark Night Thou shalt have this Condition this Relation this Comfort thou desirest but thou shalt also have the burthen and the trouble of it which thou dost not desire Onus transit cum honore Lastly A mans Trouble doth arise from his own self If there were no devil no wicked men to trouble yet such is the Unbelief and the Discontents that are apt to rise in a Godly man that he would be a Trouble an Enemy yea a Devil to himself Doth not David often speak of the frettings and heating that his heart was in and who put him into it What made his Soul like a Foaming Sea Was it not his own diffidence his own froward heart Austin cried once Libera me Domine a meipso tanquam maximo hoste which holds true not onely in a sinfull way but in a troubling way Oh how many times doth a Christian raise up his own Fears his own Jealousies and his own Doubts So that as the Linnen breedeth the Moth that corrupteth and destroyeth it as the Tree the worm that eats it Thus from a mans own heart arise such troublesome Thoughts and Cares and Fears that he may be called a Mager Missabib Fear round about him We see then in how many particulars God is pleased to make this World a troublesome Place to us while we live and continue in it and also a very dangerous place That we should as much fear to be in it as in Sodom when Fire and Brimstone was ready to fall down from Heaven to consume it Let us in the next place Consider the Grounds and Reasons Why the world is thus made by God a disquieting and troublesome place to the Godly That they are but as Pilgrims and Strangers in it and therefore are little esteemed by it Reasons 1 And first That our Hearts may not be immoderately and inordinately cleaving to this world We see there are many strict Commands against the Love of it Now if we are so ready to love it though so troublesome what if it were nothing but content If saith Austin though it be Mundus amarus a bitter world thou lovest to eat and to feed of it what if it were dulcis a sweet world If it be Mundus periturus a perishing world and thou art so doting upon it what if it were Eternus everlasting If we can handle it with delight though full of pricks what if smooth and plain Certainly every Godly man should wean himself from these Breasts Seeing God hath rubbed them with so much bitternesse and affliction When therefore thou meetest with Crosses with Troubles with the Deceitfulnesse and Inconstancy of worldly Comforts say This is to instruct and teach me that I am not to expect an Heaven here The world is an Enemy thou must not love it though commanded to love our Enemies Here may be an over-loving an over-desiring Here the Rule is much more true then in Physicks Appetitus non est Regula Concoctionis Thou must hunger after these Earthly things no more then thou canst concoct or improve for Gods Glory and thy own particular good And let the Godly know Their greatest danger lieth in these inordinate Affections more then in grosse sinnes These Cares will grow up with Duties when open prophanesse makes a man wholly to despise them Reasons 2 Secondly The Lord makes the world thus full of Enmity to us that we might remember what our Condition is that we are but Pilgrims and Strangers and therefore are not to settle our abode here
indeared both to Father and Son and also the frequent Iteration of this might produce the more faith and confidence in the Disciples 3. This is amplified by the manner or instrumental cause how they are to be kept Through thy own Name 4. The End or Consequent of all this That they may be one as Thou and I are one Of the Mercy praied for Keep and the Subject Those thou hast given me in the first place I shall not enlarge any thing more upon this Description Neither is there any difficulty in the words only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is rendred by some serva and they take it properly for those were said to be servari who were taken in warre and so the Conquerour had full power over them to put them to death but of his clemency he saved them and thereupon were called servi but the Greek word hath no such allusion Only there is a twofold keeping external and temporal from the violence and rage of wicked men in respect of their bodies and lives because the world hates them And 2. Spiriutal and internal in grace and holinesse and this he doth principally pray for as appeareth by the matter instanced in Keep them in their outward condition that they be not destroid keep them in their spiritual condition that they lose not their faith or other graces Keep them in bono that they be not undone deficiendo Keep them a malo that it hurt them not Inficiendo If they do sinne keep them reficiendo by repairing and raising them up again If then the Disciples though thus wonderfully given by the Father to Christ do need a daily keeping lest they be undone every way then it holds true also of all beleevers Obs That even all the People of God were they not kept by Gods grace and power they would every moment be undone both in Soul and body It is not our grace our Prayer our Watchfulnesse keeps us but it is the power of God his right arm supports us We may see David praying to God that he would keep him in both these respects from temporal dangers Psa 17.8 9. Keep me as the Apple of thy Eye from the wicked that oppose me Where he doth not only pray to be kept but he doth insinuate how carefully God keeps his people and in what precious account their safety is even as the apple of the Eye and for spiritual preservation he often begs it Psa 19.13 Keep back thy Servant from presumptuous sinnes Though David be Gods Servant yet he will like a wilde Horse run violently and that into presumptuous sinnes if God keep him not back yea he prayeth that God would keep the particular parts of his body that they sinne not Psa 141.3 Keep the door of my Lips he entreateth God to keep his Lips and to set a watch about his mouth as if he were not able to set guard sure enough Thus much more are we to pray that God would keep our hearts our mindes our wils our affections for they are more masterfull Let us briefly consider the first God keepeth us from temporal dangers and that upon these grounds 1. Man hath by sinne forfeited all his temporall mercies there is nothing due to him no health no wealth not the least comfort but every man here upon the earth might be like Dives in hell begging for a drop of water and not able to attain it Gal. 3. Cursed is he that keepeth not the Law and Gen. 3. upon sinne death in all the concomitants of it came into the world so that if all these curses of the Law be not every moment inflicted upon us it 's because God keepeth us He beareth off the blows that Justice and the Law would lay upon us So that it's Gods goodnesse that keepeth thee alive that keeps thee on this side hell that keeps thee from that proper doom which belongs to thee The Sentence of death is passed upon all long agoe onely the execution of it is put off till God pleaseth Who art thou then that repinest and art troubled under such a losse such an affliction how many thousands more are there that God keeps thee from None is so miserable but he may see others more miserable then himself It is the Lord that keeps all these curses from thee and thee from them 2. The godly man would be undone if God did not keep him from his own imbecility and infirmity He hath no power to preserve himself from misery Hence man is called Enoch and in the New Testament 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So that he doth not only deserve all misery but he is prone of himself to fall into it did not God keep him Job 14.1 and Job 5.1 Man that is born of a woman is full of trouble even as the Sparks fly upwards So that as the Spark if not stopt doth of it self ascend upward Thus man of himself though there were no outward cause to drive him yet would stumble and fall into all desolation Therefore the great troubles men lye under are self-created they come by our indiscretion blindenesse or some sinful way or other Therefore Solomon observeth that a mans misery is great on the Earth because he hath not judgement to discern the times and seasons of things Eccl. 8.6 If therefore God did not keep the Godly man no Childe would sooner fall or run into the fire then he would into mischief You may reade of that good King Josiah for whom the Kingdom made such Lamentation how foolishly he ran upon his own Death 2 Chro. 33.22 3. Did not God keep us the devils rage and enmity is such that he would not onely destroy the Soul but the body You see his malice when he had liberty to possesse the bodies of many how miserably he tormented them and when God gave him leave to afflict Job in his Estate and body he did it to the utmost There wanted no evil while he could do it Now there is no reason why the Devil should not do thee the same mischief continually but onely God bindes up this roaring Lyon The Devil is said to be a Murderer from the beginning and that for the body as well as the Soul he tempted Cain to murther Abel he tempted Judas to betray Christ Oh then wonder that God keeps thee when there are such Legions of Devils crafty and potent enough to procure thy destruction 4. Did not God keep the godly he would be undone temporally because of the hatred and malice wicked men bear to every godly man Therefore Christ said they were as Sheep among Wolves Can they hope for mercy from a Wolf David complained that his Soul was among Lions and Ezechiel complained he dwelt among Scorpions Now then seeing the world is so full of malice and the number of wicked men is like the Sand upon the Sea-shoar to them They are as the Israelites Army seemed to the great power that came against them like a Flock of
what time of the Moon humours did most abound then to disturb him and no doubt but that the Heavens were made for glorious ends but not to be Books to reveal what shall come to passe Therefore that you may rest satisfied That the Scripture only can infallibly tell what is to come to passe and that it is a high wickednesse and presumption to run to Witches Sorcerers or judiciall Astrologers take these following Arguments 1. All those places of Scripture which forbid any resort to them Consider that place Lev 19.26 Ye shall not use inchantment nor observe times So Lev. 20 27. Deut. 10.11 12 13. Especially take notice of that full and efficacious place Isa 45.12 13 14. You see here by clear and plain Texts all such predictions are an abomination to God and if we should urge beside divine authority humane this would be enough to confirm us all the Fathers speak with much vehemency against them many Councels have condemned such practises yea divers Heathens have condemned them for the greatest Astrologers Ptolomy himself as the Learned shew acknowledgeth no certain Truth can be foretold by them Tully wrote several Books de Divinatione condemning such Diviners as lib. 2. de div instancing that before a great Fight some Mice had gnawn the Buckler of a Souldier the Soothsayer concluded the War would be fatal and unlucky as if saith Tully because the mice did gnaw some Books which I had of Platoes de Repub. therefore I should conclude that our Commonwealth should be destroyed The very Heathens abhorred such Divinations and we reade Act. 19.19 of many when converted brought their curious Books and burnt them which is not to be understood of meer witchery and Sorcery Books but of those that are given to vain and cousening Arts Otherwise the holy Ghost would not have expressed those wicked Books under so vile a Name as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As Authority doth condemn so Reason as we may reade at large in Pererius Spanhemius Zanchius and others For 1 If the Heavens were true and proper causes or necessary Signs yet no man could prognostique certainly by them because no man knoweth the number of the Stars nor the vertue and efficacy of them The Scripture giveth it as peculiar to God that he only knoweth the Stars and cals them by their Names but if any man could certainly divine by them he must know both the number of the Stars and their peculiar activity or influence and the degree of that activity without which they may grosly erre Again If the Heavens be causes they are only Universal Causes now from an Vniversal indeterminate cause there cannot be any special particular effect foretold For besides Universal Causes all particular interiour Causes which are many and uncertain must be known also Lastly This would bring a Contempt of God and meer Athiesm into the world The Scripture carrieth us out to God in all things to his Wisedome to his Power to his Justice but these would binde us to the Planets yea by these means the Scripture also will be despised and laid aside so that all prophanesse will thereby be introduced yea and excuses for all Vice will be pleaded how could they help it Seeing they were born under such a Starre as Austin reports of an Astrologer handsomely reproved by his Servant He had a Servant that stole from him and this Astrologer his Master going to correct him he cryeth out I could not help it I was born under Mercury They say those born under that Planet are given to stealing Thus by his Masters own principles and Rules of Art he convinced him Object One Objection they much urge is that they often foretold what is true To this it is answered And many things have been as false and untrue and if one thing fall out it is more observed then if an hundred things prove otherwise besides when they foretell many things it 's hard if they cannot foretell some one thing as a blinde man that shoots many arrows may chance once to hit the mark But then 2. If such things do come to passe it 's either by their expresse or virtuall compact with the devil and if not so as Austin well observeth it 's from a just judgement of God to thee that thou shouldst have wherewith to stumble and fall and undo thy self Deut. 13.1 Thus a wicked Prophet may foretell that which shall come to passe and why God doth thus to prove and try you Vse To abhor all commerce and resort to such persons to fly from them as from the devil Thou breakest thy Baptismal Vow if thou renouncest not such Diabolicall practises Oh that going to such men should ever be owned by Christians by Protestants Indeed Learned men observe that such delusions have prevailed in Popish and Anabaptisticall Spirits but do not thou regard such fopperies How often said Tully did I hear such men promise Pompey and Caesar that they should live long die a peaceable death and in honour when yet the clean contrary fell out and even Lapide the Jesuite on c. 19. of the Acts bewaileth while he was at Rome how much they were given to this vanity while the Astrologers would promise some long Life others 2 Cardinalship others the Popedome and yet at last all miserably deluded Vse 2. To admire the Divinity of the Scripture in this particular That it alone foretels of things to come and it must be fulfilled That speaks of a day of Judgement of an account to be given for every thing done in the flesh Beleeve this and perswade thy soul of it as really as if it were done already when Dives was in hell then he opened his eyes and saw where he was but it was too late and thus it will be with too many SERMON LXXVI The Joy of Saints handled both as a Duty and Priviledge as being one great end of Christs Prayer Command Promises and Ministry JOHN 17.13 And now I come to thee and these things I speak in the world that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves OUr Saviour having answered that great Objection and offence about the perdition of Judas he returneth again to his Disciples for whom he was pouring out this part of his prayer And 1. He repeateth that Argument he had used vers 11. Now I come to thee Here is much efficacy in this but I have already handled that fully Only take notice That some understand not this of his local motion or ascension to the Father but mental as if his meaning was by these petitions I come to thee according to that old saying Oratio est ascensus mentis in Deum but every eye seeth this improbable I therefore proceed and in the words following you may observe the description of Christs prayer at this time and the end of it His prayer is expressed in that word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with the circumstance of place in the world that is in the ears of all This
on them he addeth a Caution Let none of you suffer as a Murderer as an evil doer as a busie body in other mens matters but as a Christian that is Let him look that he do not for any wickednesse of his justly procure civil punishments but only let him keep to his Christian profession and if that be all his fault then let him not be ashamed Therefore he addeth Let such an one commit himself to God as to a faithful Creator Why Creator But because God looketh upon such Sufferers as his Creatures it 's because of my Image shining in them I cannot be a faithfull Creator and not take care of them saith God To this purpose our Saviour often because it 's not the meer sufferings but the cause and motive that is all in all If ye be persecuted for my Names sake and for Righteousnosse sake This must be the ground else we cannot pleade the promise of assistance 2. As it 's possible for a Christian to suffer for his own iniquities so nothing is more ordinary in the world though a man do suffer meerly for Christs sake yet to charge other crimes upon him and to pretend other grounds of their malice against such then meer Christianity This is good to be observed for if the Persecutors say true there was never any holy man or faithful Servant of God suffered but they made the condemnation just and thought at least some of them that they did God good service as our Saviour Joh. 16.2 Were not the Prophets of old whose bloud was shed by Jerusalem traduced as busie-bodies as Troublers of Israel as publike enemies and in Christs time Though the Sun was not more free from spots then he from sinne or any miscarriage in his Ministry yet what accusations did they frame against him and Joh. 8. It was not for the good works they said they stoned him but for his blasphemies So Joh. 18. If this man were not a malefactor we would not have delivered him to thee The Martyrs also when so many thousand of them died willingly for Christ yet by their Enemies they were represented as the vilest of men So that as they did with their bodies put them in Beasts skins that so Lyons might devour them more greedily Thus they defamed them and laid heavy crimes to their charge that so they might have the more just ground to condemn them So that when a Christian suffers as a Christian and when as a busie-body must not be determined by their Enemies nor by the greater part of the world but by Gods Word for they think all zeal against sinne rashnesse and madnesse and all reproofs of wickednesse a busie-medling more then needs Gods Word therefore must be the Star to direct in this Thirdly It must be also granted That a man suffering for those things which are against Christ which are palpably contrary to his Doctrine yet may be so farre seduced as to think he suffers for Christ This is ordinary with all heretikes who have judged themselves Martyrs and made all their sufferings to be for God when yet they blaspheme God Doth not the Papist put his sufferings upon Christs score Doth not every Heretique entitle God to his Cause Do not the Socinians who yet with their whole might oppose the Deity of Christ prerend great obedience so and adoration of him as a constituted God We grant then that men may be horribly deluded in their sufferings They may give their bodies to be burnt and not have true and sound Faith They may be acted by an heretical spirit and yet endure great miseries as the Circumcelliones out of a mad contempt of Death would make men kill them But these also have not Christs promises belonging to them unlesse it be Gods Word indeed and truly so for which the world hateth them they are not within the Ark It 's true Even such who suffer in such deluded waies may have great comfort may finde much consolation within but it 's the devil that transformeth himself into an Angel of Light It 's such comfort as mad men have that laugh and are pleased in the midst of their misery for God will never give comfort but to his own Truths The Spirit of God is not a Comforter but where it first leadeth into the Truth Indeed the confidence and comforts many have died with in their errours have been a stumbling-block but this is to be ignorant of Satans devices and the potent operations of strong delusions upon mens souls It cannot be denied but that even the best Christians who are hated and do suffer in the world have yet many imperfections cleaving to them and do discover many infirmities of the flesh so that as none can be perfect in love of God or in any other grace so neither in enduring the hatred of the world oh how hard is that Rule of our Saviours Mat. 5. when men revile to be patient when men curse to blesse and to render all good for all evil These things do so transcend humane power that many miscarriages several indiscretions and many carnal fears are apt to interweave themselves Now when the matter or cause of our sufferings in Christs and for his Name and if the heart be mainly set for God and his honour though subject to weaknesses such may pleade Christs assistance for all that neither may they fear Christ will disown them because of such adhering infirmities Do we not see the Scripture commending some as eminent when yet at that very time there was some imperfection Abrahams Faith so highly commended Rom. 4. yet had some diffidence mixed with it Jobs Patience so greatly exalted yet had some impatience breaking out God then takes not notice of thy weaknesse but of thy Grace and the godly sufferer may comfort himself that though he hath imperfections yet it is not for them the world hateth him As Bradshaw that holy Martyr said Though he was a sinner and had many Infirmities yet his Enemies did not put him to death for them but for the quarrel of Christ which he had espoused and the Truths of Christ which he preferred above his own life The Grounds of Gods endearment to protect such as are hated for his Name sake are 1. Gods propriety and interest in such It 's not their lives or Liberties are aimed at so much as his Name his Glory his Truth Now God cannot but love what is his own and that infinitely Therefore it hath alwaies been the Custome of Gods people in their Praiers to make their trouble to be in reference to him What wilt thou do for thy great Name said Joshua c. 7.9 And David It 's time to work for men have made void thy Law So it 's thy Temple thy Altars they have polluted and hence God accounts all the malice and madnesse of men discovered against his people as done to him Saul Saul why persecutest thou me Act. 9 4. Could they do that to God which
accounts madnesse To be in spiritual desertions to have no sence of Gods favour to fear himself a damned Castaway to have no rest in his bones day or night To be assaulted with the devils buffetings to be filled with hideous thoughts These things the world also knoweth not and therefore they count them melancholy and mad Such as by their too much poring about Sermons and good Books put themselves out of their wits Lastly They are not of the world in respect of their Conversation Rom. 12. they are not conformed to the fashion of the world The one goeth Westward the other Eastward as it were Their words and language are different their actions are contrary What the Righteous man loveth the wicked abominateth and what the wicked loveth the godly man abhorreth Thus as they say of the heavens the primum mobile hath one motion of its own and the inferiour Orbes a contrary motion to that Thus the godly man he moveth one way toward heaven he presseth hard thither The wicked man he maketh as much haste to hell So as there were two strugling in the Mothers womb which encreased her pain Thus there are two striving upon the face of the world an Isaac and an Ismael a Jacob and an Esau the Seed of the Woman and the Seed of the Serpent This enmity will not be extinct in this life Vse of Exhortation to the godly Remember what ye are Not of the world Therefore take heed of worldly affections worldly hearts For where your treasure is there will your heart be also If it be in God in Heaven there the heart will be If in Earth and in earthly things there it will be You tremble at the commission of grosse and grievous sins you think hell it self would immediatly devour you upon such sins Be afraid of the world Let it not be a Dalilah to thee a Judas to thee by kissing thee to destroy thee Consider therefore God hath put gall into all worldly comforts therefore every creature every condition in the world hath a sting in it that thy soul should be more on God Thou canst never live quietly till above the werld In heaven only there are no storms no waves no disquietings and this life thou maist attain unto He that is not of the world The troubles of the world hurt not him the losses of the world grieve not him The vexations of the world disquiet not him But because we are still of the world in part we are not compleatly and perfectly out of disquietnesse Therefore in this life we remain in a combating conflicting way that heaven may be the sweeter Doct. 2 Obs 2. That it is the honour of Beleevers that they are like Christ They are not of the world as he is not What a glorious condescention was this that he who is the God of all the Earth and hath all things at his command yet be in the world hated scorned and at last crucified That it shall be no better with him then it was with us Hence our Saviour added this as I am of the world both for consolation and information Information that they should look for such hatred misery and trouble as they saw him grapling with such a contradiction of sinners as he sustained and then also for consolation They could not think much if the Disciple were not above the Master so could they expect to be more loved of God then he Could they think to walk more wisely and holily then he did It must needs bring much comfort when we shall Consider that it can never be so bad with us but it was worse with Christ Are we hated so he Did he seem forsaken of God So may we be To open this Consider That there is a twofold conformity and likenesse to Christ The first is active the second passive An active conformity consists in the Imitation of Christ and resembling him in our lives That as Christ lived so we endeavour to do Although there be some things wherein it 's impossible for us to imitate him as in his actions which he did as God yet in those things which he did as being under the Law we are to conform to him We are to be humbles meek and patient as he was We are to do Gods Will and to seek Gods glory as he did Let the same minde be in you saith the Apostle which was in Christ Phil. 2.5 Christs life and death was chiefly satisfactory and meritorious but secondarily it was exemplary being as a Copy to write after Thus Paul bids them be Followers of him as he was of Christ Phil 3.17 Heathens have prescribed to have some grave sober man in our mindes alwaies to think him present but behold a greater then all men even Christ himself Check thy self when impatient discontented repining at sufferings saying Did Christ do thus 2. There is a passive Conformity of which the Text speaks To be like him in his Sufferings To have the same hard measure in the world as he had Rom 8. We are said to be predestinate to be conformable unto Christ in this very particular What befell Christ God hath so ordered that it should befal us Not indeed for the same end for Christs Sufferings were not for himself or because he had sinned but to make an atonement to God for us But our sufferings are for our sins not to satisfie Gods justice but to humble us and to make us in some measure to feel how much Christ suffered for us what the wrath and anger of God was he endured for us This passive resemblance then unto Christ in his state of humiliation God hath ordained all beleevers unto That as it behoved Christ to suffer and so to enter into Glory Thus it doth behove every godly man through many Tribulations to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven As he had a Crown of Thorns before a Crown of Glory as he must drink of the Brook and then lift up his head so it must be with all his Disciples and this is matter of Comfort though otherwise grievous to flesh and bloud For 1. Hereby we see that we may be never the lesse loved of God though greatly afflicted in this world For was not Christ though dearly beloved of his Father yet delivered up to the cruell mockings and rage of men Did not he cry out My God why hast thou forsaken me We may reade but of one Sonne of God without sin but not of one without chastisement even Christ himself drank deep of that Cup Do not thou then doubt of thy Sonship or Interest in the Fathers love because of the present afflictions that are upon thee Christ was a man of sorrows and yet God from Heaven said This is my well beloved Son in whom I am well-pleased 2. There is matter of comfort because hereby we are ascertained of our Conquest over them That no tribulation shall separate God and us for Christ hath undergone these conflicts as
them Thou thinkest with thy self Oh when will the hand of the Lord be over Oh that this burthen were taken off and in the mean time praiest not watchest not lest this should any waies distemper thee and make thee sinful Vse 2. How foolish they are that wil run into any sinne so they may avoid danger That will bow their knees to Baal worship the golden Image ere they will venture any misery What saith our Saviour to such They that will thus save their lives shall lose them God frustrates their earthly Expectations and then Oh the wofull horrour sinne will leave upon them They will finde a wounded Spirit worse then any calamity in the world They will wish O that they had been wracked and tormented in their bodies so that they had never committed such sinnes as wrack and torment their Souls David when he had lost all heavenly joy and all his desirable things did perish could then tell you that sins guilt upon the Soul was worse then all the miseries and troubles that ever he did undergo SERMON LXXXVII That God hath determined a precise time to every particular man in the world how long he shall live JOHN 17.15 I pray not that thou shouldst take them out of the world c. THough we have gathered the full vintage of this Text yet there remain some gleanings of which we may say with the Prophet a blessing is in it Two remarkable truths there are implied the first in the Negative the second in the Positive part In the first in the Negative I pray not that thou shouldst take them out of the world We may observe That God hath the dominion and immediate disposing of our being and continuance in this world When his day is come when his Decree is expired then none can withstand when he commands to return to the dust from whence we came or shall say This night thy soul shall be taken away there cannot be any gainsaying This truth is the more to be regarded because it hath been doctrinally agitated by learned men Whether there be an immovable term of life in this world prefixed to every man and then practically it is of great concernment as is to be shewed But to explain this truth consider First That God hath not onely determined a general or specifical time for all in the world but an individual and peculiar for every man or woman a general term of life God hath provided so that none shall live beyond it No man ever lived a thousand years In the beginning of the world then men were longer lived but in Moses his time we see him affirming the ordinary bounds of a mans life to be threescore and ten Psa 90. For in the wilderness by their wickedness they brought short dayes upon themselves So that all creatures have a general term of life There is the maximum quod sic though some live longer then others Thus men have bounds in the general they cannot out-live But this is not enough God hath appointed to every individual man his continuance in the world so that it is God that taketh him out of the world when his time cometh 2. Though God hath thus appointed our continuance in the world so that in respect of his providence none could live longer or shorter yet if we respect second causes and speak according to them so we may truly say such might have continued longer in the world Hence wicked men are said not to live out half their dayes and Solomon saith Be not over-wicked Eccles 7.17 Why shouldst thou die before thy time Wicked men many times by their wickedness drunkennes and uncleanness kill themselves and sometimes provoke God to destroy them But though they are said not to live out half their dayes yet that is to be understood in respect of second causes not Gods appointment for so it was their whole dayes 3. Though God hath appointed the times of our abode or removal out of the world yet this decree and appointment is brought about in the use of means We are not to apprehend such a decree in God that we shall live such a time let us do what we will eat or not it 's no matter for the use of the means This is wretchedly to dishonour God for though Gods will doth not uncertainly depend upon thy will yet his appointment is with great sweetness and condescention to second causes both natural and rational so that they are moved by him according to their natures Therefore when Paul had a revelation That none in the ship with him should perish yet he tels them that unless they continued in the ship with him they should perish Act. 27.31 4. Therefore though God hath appointed the bounds of our life in this world yet he hath kept it secret from us he lets none know unless by special revelation the times of their death And therefore there is a duty imposed upon all that they use the means of life Thou shalt not kill reacheth first to a mans self and then to another Hence to live chearfully to use the help of the Physician are duties Christ said The sick need the Physician Mat. 9.12 as for secret things they belong to God The souldier knoweth not whether he shall conquer such an enemy scale such a wall yet because his General commands him he is ready to obey and thus though we cannot tell such means shall prolong our lives in the world yet Gods will cannot be neglected without great sin 5. God hath determined the time of our being in the world out of justice and wrath to the wicked out of mercy and wisdom to the godly It 's anger to the wicked for all the while they live they increase their sin they treasure up wrath so that it had been well for them if they had been cut off by death long before They live to make hell the hotter for them when they die But to the godly the time of their abode is limited in mercy The righteous is taken away from the evil to come Isa 57.1 The shepherd driveth his sheep to a refuge before the storm ariseth The jewels are safely put up when the house is in danger when Simeon had seen and imbraced Christ then he had liberty to depart The word is used in Scripture sometimes of those that are dismissed out of prison or are dispatched when their errand is done or freed from a flux or such disease that is upon them and certainly in these respects it may be applied when God taketh his out of the world it 's because they have finished this work and death freeth them from this world that was like a prison to them yea and now a stop is put to all those lusts that were like a bloody flux running from them so that the time when God takes his out of the world is from much wisdom and great mercy They shall not go sooner nor yet later then he willeth and thus many
times they are like that happy man Cui sine lassitudine peractum est iter Now that it is God that continueth and takes out of the world appointing every one their set time appeareth by evident Texts of Scripture Job 14.5 where a mans dayes in particular are said to be determined the number of his moneths and his bounds beyond which he cannot pass he speaks here of every man in particular it is not worth while to answer the cavils against this place So that as God hath appointed a set time for governments and when that period is come then all the world cannot hinder a change as Dan. 5.25 God hath numbred thy kingdom and given it away Thus he doth also to every particular person Not that men may neglect means or do what they list but he hath ordained this in and by the use of the means Thus Act. 17.26 God is said to determine the seasons and the bounds of our habitation 2. God hath appointed the time of our abode in this world because he is the daily preserver and keeper of us Should not he continue the breath of life we should presently fall into the dust out of which we came Thus Act. 17.28 In him we live and move and have our being Thus we could not stir the foot nor move the tongue did not God inable us conservation is a daily creation Hence Daniel tels that great Belteshazzar though a mighty Monarch Dan. 5.23 that he did not glorifie God in whose hand his breath was If God do but blow upon the richest greatest and healthfullest man that is he is immediately scattered as when we blow upon a little dust yea neither food would nourish us or the creatures afford any sustenance did not God give a blessing to them as you may see Exod. 23.25 He will bless thy bread and thy water and take away thy infirmities from thee Thus when the pillars of the house are removed that must presently fall into rubbish so when God takes away his arm man runneth into nothing and be David be even to admiration so affected with Gods providence in his constitution shall not the same care be shewed to his dissolution Ps 139.16 he speaks there how curiously his body was wrought even like any tapestry or needle work and that all his members were in Gods book Solomon saith There is a time to be born and a time to die But as the one is from Gods appointment so must the other be 3. It 's God only that appoints the time of our being in the world because even those deaths that seem to be the most casual and so we would think not at all under Gods providence yet are expresly attributed to him All casual murders they are by the peculiar appointment of God though men that are instruments did not intend the death of such that God is the God of death as well as of life appeareth Ps 68.20 To him belong the issues of death if by issues be meant the evasions and escapes from death it asserts this truth That it's God only who appoints when a man shall die and when he shall not some are now taken out of the world some at another time and all at the meer pleasure of God But if you understand it as some learned men do in this sense To God belongs the goings out to death then it 's more plain and indeed this is more consonant to the text for the Preposition â— will perswade this and the use of the phrase Jer. 15.1 2. where some are said to go out to death and others to captivity so that the Psalmists meaning will then be To God belongs salvation which he will shew to his people but as for the wicked he hath many wayes to bring them to death Thus you see to God belongs the whole disposing of us the continuing or taking us out of the world To this we may adde a parallel place Psal 31.15 My times are in thy hand save me from mine enemies They cannot destroy me when and where or how they please that as it was with our Saviour he had his hour wherein he was to suffer so that till then all the power of men and devils could not apprehend him Thus it is with all men they have their hour Even those that by the greatest hap come to their death are yet said to be delivered to it by God himself Exod. 21.13 cum Deu. 19.4 5 6. If a man cutting of wood have the head of his hatchet flie off and kill another God there saith He delivered that man into his hand 4. We must acknowledge God doth set bounds to every mans life because the time of their death is called their day in a peculiar manner viz. that day God had appointed for them Jer. 50.27 Wee unto them when their day shall come that day wherein God had appointed them for slaughter and Ps 37.13 The Lord will laugh for he seeth that his day is coming That look as God hath appointed a day wherein he will judge the whole world so he hath appointed a particular day for every man which is his particular day of judgement then he is adjudged either to hell or heaven Thus Nathan tels David When thy daies shall be finished and certainly this is of dreadful consideration to every wicked man Thou hast thy day of death appointed thy hour of dissolution is coming it 's thy day Now thou hast a day of jollity of mirth and quietnes but remember this thy day is coming Thou hast heard of the day of such a mans death and such an one and so thou hast thy day of death likewise 5. If Gods providence reach to the least and minute things that are much more to the taking of a mans life out of the world Mat. 6. The Sparrow fals not to the ground without Gods providence Not a bird is killed without his appointment and shall man die without it yea the hairs of our head are numbred and shall not an hair fall from an head without his appointment and shall the head it self This is so clear that we would wonder any learned men should deny a prefixed term of our life Lastly Our abiding in this world must be of Gods appointment because all the providential passages and works of God are subservient to his predestination So that our predestination might have been frustrated if God did not appoint all our lives in this world so Paul and Manasses and Austin with many others might have died before they were converted or else when converted but plunged into foul sins with David and Peter then they might die in them and not recover out of them but Gods predestination will prevent this because our birth our living and dying are to the godly effects of their predestination But let us come to the practical Use of this because it 's very fruitfull and as for the second Observation That the world aboundeth in wickedness
minde The world was not in a greater Chaos and Confusion at first then we are naturally in our Souls Not knowing understanding or beleeving any thing of God Therefore the Apostle cals such Darknesse it self Ephes 4. And darkened in the minde That is the Eye the Sunne of the Soul and if that be dark all the body must be dark This Spirituall blindenesse and Ignorance upon every mans minde is that which makes him of himself incurable We pity corporally blinde men Oh but the spiritually blinde are lamentable every one is sensible oâ—â—osing their bodily Eye Lord that I might receive my Sight saith he to Christ But oh that there were such a tendernesse and a melting affection about thy Spirituall blindenesse Now Christ hath a Propheticall Office to cure this he doth not only teach by the outward Proposition of the Object but also by giving a Seeing Eye and vouchsafing Spirituall Illumination to the minde and the Understanding In the second place we were under the guilt of our sinnes The Curse of the Law did pursue us we were no waies able to expiate the Guilt of the least sinne Though Rivers of bloud had runne down our Eyes yet they could not have cleansed one sinne or spot away The Jews offered Thousands of Sacrifices but they could not obtain by the Efficacy of them any Remâ—ssion of Sinnes The Heathens sacrificed their Sonnes and Daughters to appease the wrath and fury of their Supposed gods but that could not prevail Oh when the Conscience of a man is arraigned for Sinne when Guilt burneth in the bowels as hot as fire Then a man will think of nothing but compensation Oh that I could satisfie God Oh that I could make amends again as man may do to man but this is impossible Therefore Christ becomes a Sacrifice for this end If we cannot redeem our naturall death much lesse our Eternall Without Bloud there is no Remission of sinne Christs Death ratified and confirmed the Promise and therefore the Covenant of Grace is also called a Testament because this was confirmed by the Death of the Testator Look then as it was with those Israelites when the Destroying Angel passed by if the Posts were sprinkled with bloud then they escaped the destroying Angel so if we be watered and cleansed in the bloud of Christ then we do escape the destroying vengeance of God and thus there is his fitnesse by his Priestly Office 3. We were by sinne in a miserable bondage and captivity to sinne and Satan The Israelites bondage in Egypt or in the Babylonian Captivity was nothing to this Spiritual slavery It 's not indeed so terrible and grievous to flesh and bloud yea they like those Chains and cords of vanity well enough but when Paul is once awakened by the Spirit of Regeneration and that the power of Grace hath prevailed upon him then for those very Reliques of Corruption that are within he crieth out Oh miserable man that I am Rom. 7. Now Christ is fitted with Kingly power to conquer and destroy the power of sinne and Satan There is no lust no Corruption that is too bigge for the King of Glory to overcome Thus as the Jewish Priest represented Christ in his Priestly Office So Joshua the Sonne of Nun did Christ in his Kingly Office as the Apostle insinuateth for Heb 4.8 Heb. 7 2. as no Ogs or Sonnes or Anak the greatest Giants and warlike men in the world were able to stand before him but he did bring the People of God unto their Rest Thus also will Christ who is both the King of Righteousnesse and King of Peace subdue all our Spirituall Enemies and establish us in Everlasting Rest He will first be a King of Righteousnesse and then a King of Peace he will first conquer thy lusts and then give thee a Crown of Glory Oh then admire this fitnesse of Christ to be thy Mediatour See how admirably there is a proportionable fullnesse in him for every emptinesse of thine In the Fourth place Christ is Sanctified or prepared for this work of Redemption If you do regard the peculiar and proper benefits that accrew to us by this Sanctification It would be infinite to reckon all Consider 1. Remission and Forgivenesse of our sinnes that is often attributed to his bloud Now how great a mercy this is David will tell us Psal 32. when he saith Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth no sinne Blessed It 's the inbred appetite of all to be blessed But they mistake in what it lyeth Therefore the Psalmist telleth us The rich man The great man the prosperous man is not blessed but he whose sinnes are forgiven And indeed though a man had Solomons abundance yet if sinne be not forgiven how can he be blessed You see Cain in the midst of his Cities he was building yet he had no quiet because sinne was not forgiven yea David in the midst of all his Kingly glory did not take any rest but he was disquieted with roaring in his bones all the night long because sinne was not pardoned 2. Christ is sanctified to sanctifie us This is plain in the Text Christ died not only to take away the guilt of our sinne but to make us an holy people zealous of good works Tit. 2.14 Therefore the garments of the Saints were made white in the bloud of the Lamb Revel 7.14 Do not the Godly groan under the power of Corruption but Christ will sanctifie them as he sanctified himself to that end 3. Peace of Conscience and boldnesse at the Throne of Grace Through him we have free accesse The Apostle hopeth because of him to go boldly unto God This hand-writing against us this gulf is taken away 4. We glory in Tribulations in Afflictions because by Christs Death the sting of them is removed yea we are raised above the fears of Death Christs Death doth take away our Death O Death where is thy sting 1 Cor. 15. SERMON XCIX Sheweth further what is implied in that phrase of our Saviour I sanctifie my self Handling chiefly the Priestly-Office of Christ in Opposition to the Socinians and for the Comfort and Direction of Penitent Sinners JOHN 17.19 I sanctifie my self for them c. WE are demonstrating what is implied in this phrase I sanctifie my self for them There remain more particulars which are as follow First This signifieth That Christ was wholly set apart for us that he had no other work or imployment but to minde our good and procure it for us In the Scripture phrase to be sanctified is often used for to set apart and dedicate to such a work that if it be otherwise imployed there is a kinde of prophanation and pollution so if the vessels dedicated to Gods service and sanctified were imployed as Belshazzar did in any common use this was the polluting and defiling of those vessels In some sense it holds here Christ was made man and made under the Law not for himself
fervent affections of faith Are you to meditate on this Sacrifice This blood speaks all good things for thee SERMON C. Of Jesus Christ as Priest Sacrifice and Altar The Properties of that Sacrifice The way how men come to partake of the Benefit of it Its Efficacy as to Sanctification as well as Justification JOH 17.19 I Sanctifie my self for them c. FRom the Person Sanctifying we proceed to the Object-matter which is said to be sanctified and that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 My self The Priests in the Old Testament consecrated and offered their brute Beasts which though commanded by God to have perfect Qualifications in them yet because Beasts still therefore our Saviours Priesthood doth farre transcend that because it is his own precious body that he thus offers to be an Oblation for himself From whence Observe That Christ was not only the Priest but the Sacrifice it self He offered up himself in that bloudy and ignominious death for our sakes This is the great mystery of our Christian Religion whether you do regard the Doctrinal part of it as a Truth to be beleeved or as it 's Declarative of the love of God and Christ to his Church The Prophet Isaiah cap. 53. is of old long before it was accomplished greatly affected with it and Paul upon every occasion is largely amplifying this substantial Point To clear it Consider these Introductions First That Christ was both Priest Sacrifice and Altar Every thing in Christ is wonderful There is nothing in him after the ordinary manner of nature and therefore he may justly by the Prophet be called Wonderfull and as in other particulars so in this it is true That he should be Priest Sacrifice and Altar Priest he was in both his Natures as God and man Sacrifice he was in his humane nature because that only could suffer And Altar he was in respect of his Divine Nature because by that he was sanctified Oh then the admirable wisedom of God that hath thus appointed all fulnesse to be in him When Abraham was to offer Isaac and the Childe was bound ready to be sacrificed he asketh his Father but where is the Sacrifice God saith Abraham will provide one Thus when all mankinde like Isaac was ready to be Sacrificed to the Eternal displeasure of God even then God found a Sacrifice for us Secondly Consider what is necessary to a Sacrifice and that is That there be some kinde of destruction or annihilation of the thing to the honour and glory of God And thus a Sacrifice and a Sacrament differ a Sacrifice is by offering up of something to God a Sacrament is when God offers and giveth something to us Therefore when the Papists make the Lords Supper to be a Sacrament and a Sacrifice also they speak repugnancies In a Sacrament God giveth to us In a Sacrifice we give to God Now among the Jews there were many kindes of Sacrifices and most of them did typically represent Christ The Paschal Lamb and the Sacrificing of the Red Heifer these are plainly applied unto Christ but above all kindes of Sacrifices those that we called Holocatomata whole burnt-Offerings These did in a most lively manner typifie him for there the whole was to be burnt in fire and offered to God which denoted the great humiliation of Christ both in Soul and body and also the exquisite Torments and Sufferings which were upon him so that he was wounded all over for our Transgressions Thirdly Take notice that he offered up his body as a Sacrifice to God It was in reference to him not meerly in respect of men to witnesse the Truth of God but as every Sacrifice ought to be it was wholly in reference to God though tending thereby to our good It 's unlawful to offer Sacrifices to any but God because hereby is represented Gods supreme dominion and Majesty which is signified by the annihilation or destruction of the thing offered Now though Christ did not cease to be God yet by his Death there was a separation of the soul and body though not of the divine nature from either It was then unto God that he offered up himself Fourthly This Sacrifice it was by way of expiation and propitiation to atone and pacifie the Justice of God which otherwise would have been a consuming fire to all mankinde as it was to the Apostate Angels Sacrifices do imply some kinde of Expiation and by Heathens were used to pacifie the wrath of their gods and thus if Christs body offered was truly and properly a Sacrifice then it could be no other but by way of expiation and satisfaction Now that it was such an expiatory Sacrifice is plain by the Apostle at large in the Epistle to the Hebrews where he compareth Christ dying with those Sacrifices and sheweth the insufficiency of them in respect of Christs once Oblation of himself which comparison would be weak and absurd if Christs Death was not propitiatory No wonder then if the devil hath raised up blasphemous Heretiques to overthrow this Doctrine because in this is contained that happy Reconciliation between God and a sinner In that Christ shed his bloud to atone for us is the whole hope and comfort of the Church of God Fifthly The holy and just nature of God against sinne was such that there was a necessity of Christs sacrificing himself upon the Crosse for us It 's hotly disputed whether God might have forgiven sinne absolutely without Christs Death or by any other way then by Satisfaction But when all is said it 's acknowledged it is the most convenient way and if we do suppose that God would save mankinde no other way but by justice as well as mercy then it was absolutely necessary that Christ should become man seeing no meer man could compensate God neither could the Obedience of any man have delighted God as much as Adams disobedience did offend him Therefore it 's highly derogatory from Christ which Durand saith that if it had pleased God it might have been that as by Adams disobedience all were made sinners so by the same Adams Obedience repenting and beleeving all might have been made Righteous In the second place Consider the properties of this Sacrifice And First It had infinite worth in it Insomuch that had God ordained it so it would have procured Reconciliation for all the sins of all men in the world yea if there had been a thousand worlds of sinners This is that which Divines say That it was a sufficient price and ransome for all though not efficacious Though therefore many are damned this doth not arise from any weaknesse or insufficiency in Christs Death but from the wickednesse and rebellion of men who refuse the means to improve this Ransome for their good There is infinite worth in it and that upon a threefold respect 1. The Person offering who is God as well as man So that what dignity and worth the divine Nature can put
upon it that it is sure to have Oh that Unbelief and distrust should ever overwhelm any Godly soul Doth not the Apostle triumph and say Who can lay any thing to the charge of Gods Elect Rom. 2. It 's Christ that died Though the divine nature could not suffer yet he that suffered was God as well as man and so it is to be accounted of infinite worth This is more then the Obedience of Men and Angels put together 2. It is of infinite worth in respect of the gracious readinesse and willingnesse of him who did utter it Christ received grace into his humane nature without measure and so this being the gracious offering of him who was God and man it must have necessary acceptance 3. It had infinite worth in respect of the thing uttered which was no lesse then the precious body and bloud of Christ himself he thought not those preparatory sufferings and agonies enough but he consummates all by his Death Oh then let not the trembling sinner fear the insufficiency of the ransome doubt not whether every farthing be paid Say not though such sins may be discharged yet can this that I have committed Can the bloud of Christ cover this sinne as well as others Secondly Consider that though Christ offered up himself as a Sacrifice yet the application of it must be in such a way that God hath appointed It 's not enough that there is a potion which will cure all diseases but it must be taken in that way which the Physician doth prescribe and thus though Christ offered up himself to reconcile God to man yet this is not done till by faith it be received As the bloud of thâ— Sacrifice was to be sprinkled with hysop Thus the bloud of Christ ere it doth wash away our sins must by Faith be sprinkled upon the soul and therefore it 's not altogether here as it is when a man is indebted and lying in prison one comes and paieth the debt for him This man is released without any more a do There is no further thing required but the setting of him at lâ—berty for though Christ hath thus offerrd up himself for the pardon of sinnes yet the Father hath made such an appointment that this price should reach to none but those that beleeve and therefore this Doctrine doth not give the least security to any man to sinne for though Christ died yet his bloud may do thee no good Thou maist lie roaring in hell to all Eternity for all this because thou art not one who doth partake of this death Know the godly themselves while unconverted and abiding in their sinnes have not that actuall benefit of Justification which cometh effectually by Christs Death Thirdly Hence Christs bloud is not only cleansing and washing away the guilt of sinne but the filth of it The Apostle Tit. 3. said that he died to redeem us a peculiar people to himself zealous of good works So that there is none can pleade the justifying efficacy of Christs Death that have not also the sanctifying efficacy of it as it followeth in the Text That they might be sanctified and this will pull up by the very roots all that carnal confidence that most have That come to Christs Death as unto a common Sanctuary It 's true I am a grievous sinner but Christ died Christ was made a Sacrifice but what is this to thee who wallowest in thy filthy lusts Thou art full of thy noisome sinnes and if Christs Death did belong to thee it would wash thee it would purifie thee Do not think Christs bloud can be sprinkled on thee for the pardon of sinne and not for the washing away the filth of it This is the ruine of thousands they divide Christ and separate one effect of his death from another Fourthly Though Christ did but once offer up himself yet the vertue and power of it doth abide for ever It 's not necessary that Christ should be alwaies dying therefore he is said to be a Priest for ever yea this Death of Christ did extend to all the Godly that lived before his Sufferings Abel Abraham and all in the Old Testament had no other Sacrifice to please God with but this It is noted by a Learned man that therefore Cains Sacrifice was not accepted because he did not as Abel offer such a propitiatory Sacrifice as was a Type of Christ but rested in his own duties and works yea it 's thought God by covering Adams nakednesse with skins of Beasts did thereby teach Christs Righteousnesse Look then upon the bloud of Christ as powerfully working as if to day he had been crucified It works as a morall Cause by Covenant and agreement with the Father and therefore it doth as strongly work as ever Fifthly It 's continually useful and necessary seeing we renew sinnes daily and therefore run into new infirmities constantly therefore it behoveth us to apply this medicine continually If a man had been a hundred times stung by Serpents he was as often to look upon the exalted Serpent to be healed if therefore we fall into the mire daily we need washing as often if we get noisomenesse upon us this bloud must daily clense us and certainly we may all say with Peter Not my feet but my whole body also Let that be washed Doth not every part of us get some new pollution Are not hearts affections and mindes constantly polluted If so we cannot be a moment without the application of it as often as we breathe we need the Sprinkling of Christs bloud Sixthly We are to Consider the certain successe and prevalency of it No sooner did the Messengers say Vriah was dead but Davids anger was removed When the destroying Angel seeth this bloud he will passe by if Moses his praier could so much prevail with God that he saith Let me alone and Lot was so accepted that the Angel cannot destroy Sodom till he be removed Then how powerful and prevalent must Christs bloud be Seventhly This Sacrifice is that which Christ presents to his Father The Socinians wold have Christ performing his Priestly Office only in Heaven but it 's plain he did it on earth only what he once did he constantly presents to his Father and the minding of God with this is a farre more efficacious thing then that of the Rainbow God when he beholds this will not again drown the world and when he looketh on Christ will not condemn the humbled sinner Therefore Christ is described Rev. 10. with a Rainbow upon his head to signifie as some think the pacificatory vertue that is in Christ Eighthly The purity of the Sacrifice is not to be forgotten He is called the pure and spotlesse Lamb 1 Pet. 1.19 As it behoved us to have a Priest without sinne So a Sacrifice without any defect otherwise that Sacrifice would have needed another and so there would have been no end Therefore though all we can offer which is ours
be full of blemishes yet when we present Christ by Faith then there is no fault to be found Lastly The vertue of this Sacrifice is to make us like Christ himself he thinketh it not enough to be King and Priest himself but he maketh us also Kings and Priests for ever We offer up Praiers and Praises to him and by him we conquer all our spiritual Enemies The devil and our lusts are subdued Such glory have all they that are partakers of this Sacrifice Vse of Terrour to all wicked and ungodly men who by their Unbelief and Prophanesse reject this Sacrifice The Apostle Heb. 10. cals it trampling upon the bloud of Christ and accounting it a prophane thing Oh how many thousand live that have no esteem and make no account of this Sacrifice Oh remember that this is the last and ultimate Sacrifice He that rejects this hath no more hope There remaineth no more oblation for sinne There is not another Christ or another Sacrifice if thou refuse this Vse 2. Of Encouragement to the Godly Come to this Fountain that is set open for Judah and Jerusalem to cleanse in Doe not say because Christ crucified is a stumbling block and foolishnesse to wicked men that therefore thou wilt disesteem him also There is no sore but this blood will heal and cure Oh let the blood of thy soul be stanched with this blood of Christ This blood speaks good and comfortable things better then that of Abel SERMON CI. Of Sanctification as the Effect of Christs Death Shewing That no man truly believeth in Christ for Justification that doth not also for Sanctification JOH 17.19 And for their sakes I sanctifie my self that they also may be sanctified through the Truth WE are now come to the end of Christs Sanctification which is two-fold the finis cui and cujus We shall put them both together for so they are conjoyned in the following clause That they might be sanctified through the Truth Wherein you have 1. The final Cause 2. The Manner of accomplishing it The final Cause That they might be sanctified and from this the Socinian would argue That Sanctification in the former clause was not meant of an oblation by way of Sacrifice because the same word is applied to the Apostles in the Text and they were not to be sacrificed for us To answer this First Some Expositours do expound it of their offering up of themselves by Martyrdom to confirm the truth for Paul professeth his willingnesse herein using the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Phil. 2.15 which was used of some kinde of their Sacrifices but we need not runne to that it 's no new thing in Scripture to use the same word in one verse in different significations and it 's a Rule Talia sunt praedicata qualia permittuntur à subjectis The Apostles then needing not such a Sanctification as Christ applied to himself but that for which he prayed in the former verse We must understand it in the same sense as there It 's true by Sanctification some also will have Justification comprehended and so speak of an imputed Sanctification but we need not stretch the word violently but understand it first Of making inwardly holy and then consequently A setting apart and dedicating our selves wholly unto God by living unto him and thence observe That Christ died not only for our Justification but Sanctification also He made himself a Sacrifice not onely to remove the guilt of sinne but to remove and subdue the power of it not onely to make us happy but also holy Let us consider What is implied in this That Sanctification comes by Christs death And First We are to know that Christ is the Cause of our Sanctification several wayes partly efficiently for not only the Father and the Spirit but Christ himself also is the cause of all the holinesse we have and therefore he is called the life because he gives all supernatural life unto his and is compared to the vine Joh. 15. because as the branch separated from the Vine can bring forth no fruit so neither is a man able without Christ to do the least holy action he is also called the Head and John 1. Of his fulnesse we are all said to receive Thus as God in the course of nature is the authour of every natural gift therefore it 's said In him we live and move and have our being Act. 17.28 So in the way of grace Christ is the authour and finisher as of our faith so of every holy work in us The Author Heb. 12.2 and therefore we cannot so much as begin or meet Christ he must prevent us and the finisher for although we have begun yet we have not the same manutenency and powerfull preservation what we have begun to build would immediately fall to the ground Thus Christ is the Alpha and Omega of our spiritual life 2. Christ is the meritorious cause of our Sanctification and therefore not only remission of sin but holinesse and zeal is made the consequent of Christs death And the Apostle doth not only Rom. 7.8 shew that we are justified by Christ but also that the body of sinne is mortified thereby Thus Heb. 10. what Sanctification that Apostate had is attributed to the blood of Christ Christ then hath as efficaciously merited holinesse as happinesse He died to destroy the workes of the devil now our captivity to him was not onely in respect of guilt but that bondage and slavery we were in to all lusts and therefore those two benefits are like Castor and Pollux one cannot be without the other 3. Christ is in some large and improper sense called the formal cause of the good in us an assistant form not informing that is Christ received and applied by faith doth in a most inward and intimate manner live in us and thereby strengtheneth us so the Apostle Gal. 2.20 I no longer live but Christ in me Here you see Christ liveth in a godly man for by faith we are united unto him and thus Christ becomes our Head from whom we have all spiritual influx Now an head is a conjoyned and united cause made one with the body and thus is Christ and his Church and therefore is that similitude of an Head and the Body so often used 4 Christ is the final cause of our Sanctification that is we are made holy to this end both that we might shew forth the praises and glory of Christ as our Redeemer as also that we should live to him and set all our affections and desires upon him desiring with Paul To know nothing but Christ crucified 1 Cor. 2.1 Secondly In that by Christs death we are sanctified there is implied That we of our selves are very impure and unclean that we are like so many noisome dunghils For our being unsanctified doth imply 1. Our filthiness or uncleanness this is the state of every man till sanctified by Christ he is like an unclean leper his
every degree thereof is from the grace of God Therefore he that praied help my unbelief Mar. 9.24 argued that he could not have one degree of faith by his own power only Christ must bestow it on him 2. As sanctifying grace is very differently given to beleevers so those common gifts which are for service Christ giveth them in much variety Eph. 4. That all these gifts are the fruit of Christs death is plain and therefore the Spirit of God is given by Christ to his Church upon his Ascension Now 1 Cor. 12. The Apostle doth there excellently shew that though there be diversity of operations yet there is still but one spirit and the Scripture much delights in the similitude of a body where there is diversity of members with their peculiar operations and it 's hard for beleevers to be content with these various Administrations Every member would be an Eye Though Christ died equally for all yet he did not give gifts and offices alike to all This variety of gifts is represented by the Kings Daughter whose cloathing was of needle work and it should not tend to envy or division but to mutuall profiting and helping of one another 3 The means of grace are likewise differently administred For although Christ died alike for all beleevers yet the means of bringing them home are not alike Some live under more powerfull means then others Some have not the Spurs and encouragement that others have to that which is holy Again some live in clearer and more evidencing times of Gods grace then others all those that lived before Christs time are said to be in the dark in comparison of the Light that did arise by Christ Many Kings and Righteous persons desired to see what the Apostles did but could not But though all have not the like means yet there is not any one godly man though in never such remote and dark corners but the converting grace of God will finde him out and therefore that is not a sufficient reason which some pleading for Christs death universall for all when urged by this argument That if Christ died for all why then have not all the means of grace why is not the Gospel preached to every one if Christ died for every one They answer thus That even those who hold Christ died for all beleevers yet grant that all beleevers have not the same means of grace to some the Kingdom of heaven draweth nigh more manifestly and evidently then to others But this as I finde is insufficient because though the means of grace to one beleever may be more then another in respect of measure and degrees of Light yet not of efficacy That little means they have is blessed by God to be as effectuall as the most eminent and glorious means whereas by their opinion Christ is supposed to die for such who yet never were sanctified by any means whether more or lesse they did enjoy 4. Their temptatious either inward or outward are greatly different Every godly man hath no◠the buffetings of Satan as Paul had neither are all Martyrs Obadiah could live quietly in Ahabs Court when at the same time Eliah was pursued to death Rev. 10. The devil shall cast some of you into prison But some only yet in these different administrations all beleevers may take the same essential comfort and look to the same substantiall happinesse you must know also that none may nourish themselves in their weaknesses for those that grow and are more strong they have many priviledges which the weak attain not to As 1. The growing Christian shall grow more he that hath it shall be still added to him 2. The strong Christian doth in Gods ordinary way attain to more solid assurance and perswasion of Gods love Therefore 1 Pet. 1. by adding one grace to another they make their calling and election sure 3. God makes peculiar promises to such that do overcome and that do continue stedfast Rev. 2. They shall have the white stone they shall be made pillars in the Church of God 4. They are more serviceable to God The more grace the more improvement for God Others they blesse God for them Many are reformed and comforted thereby Lastly Their glory shall be greater in heaven Though some make the condition of all Saints alike in heaven yet it is more consonant to Scripture to affirm degrees of glory as there have been degrees of grace Vse of Instruction That the lowest Christian in Christs School is not to be discouraged Though never so blinde and blockish as thou art yet remember Christ is a Mediatour for such as are given to him and though some exceed others in grace yet all have the same Christ As though some men have better eyes then others yet all have the same Sun the poor as well as the rich the diseased as well as the sound SERMON CV Of Christs Love and Care of every one of his before they had a being JOHN 17.20 But for them also who shall believe in me through their word WE have heard our Saviour doth in this verse passe from the Apostles to all believers and it is Transitio perfecta as Rhetoricians call it for he mentioneth them he prayed for and so proceeds to others We are in order come to the object of this enlarged prayer and therein is considerable the circumstance of time who shall believe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as before and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It 's true some Copies which Grotius also followeth reade it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the present tense for those that do believe yet because it is most universally received in the future tense and our Bibles go that way I do adhere unto that onely here is the doubt which Austin also of old made why he prayeth onely for them who shall believe for there were many at that time besides the Apostles as Nathanael Joseph of Arimathea the godly Maries and others who did believe were they then excluded from Christs prayer Some answer though they did believe at that time yet because after Christs Resurrection their faith was more clear and explicit therefore they may be comprehended in the future tense their former faith not being worthy the name of faith respectively to that they obtained afterwards But the more genuine answer seemeth to be that by the future tense is included the present tense also it being ordinary in Scripture to expresse a thing that hath a permanent duration by the future tense not excluding the present but denoting the constant succession in 1 Tim. 1.16 Therefore I obtained mercy that in me first Jesus might shew his long-suffering for the instruction of those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who should believe in time to come That Doctrine of Christs long-sufferance was demonstrated to those that believed at that time in a more remarkable manner
but because it would be a perpetual usefull document he instanceth in those that are to come yea all the believers for the time past since the beginning of the world are not excluded from this Mediatory prayer while they needed it no more then from his death for Christs prayer as his death profuit antequum fuit it profited before it was because it was present to God from eternity in which sense he is said to be a Lamb slain from the beginning of the world Observ That such is Christs care and love to his that they are remembred in his prayer and death even before they had a being when thou couldst not pray for thy self nor any else yea from eternity Christs Mediatory love and purpose was set upon thee In particular this truth is full of consolations even as the Sea is of waters to those that are members of Christ Therefore to open this First Consider that when Christ here prayeth for all believers he doth not as we do When we pray for the whole Church of God or as some say The Angels and Saints in Heaven pray viz. in a general indistinct manner not descending to every particular individual person No but Christ in this prayer being God as well as man and so cloathed with Omnisciency did in this prayer know and attend to every particular believer that should in any age of the Church be born as distinctly and nominally as I may so say as when he told Peter I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not So that here is a great difference between Christs prayer for the universall Church and ours We cannot name the particular believers that shall be in every age but Christ did represent in this prayer every individual man and had as distinct knowledge of all believers as of the Apostles whom he knew man by man Secondly This must necessarily be so because though the execution and accomplishment of those benefits we receive by Christs prayer and his death be in time yet the Decree and purpose was from all Eternity Christ did not at this time of prayer or the hour of death beginne to will good to them No that love to them was eternal and of old Insomuch that we cannot say There ever was a time when God did not purpose these glorious things for them and therefore it is that the Scripture doth often call the godly to this consideration that his mercy and love to them was of old even before they ever had a being or the world either Ephes 1.4 He hath chosen us in him before the foundations of the world and that is remarkable 2 Tim. 1.9 where this grace of God is said to be given us in Jesus Christ before the world began It 's said to be actually given us before the world began either because God had decreed to do so or else because it is as certain as if it had been done already Oh then what lively consolations should this breed in a believers breast Gods gracious thoughts of mercy were of old to me when I was many thousands of years from having any being yet even then was I in Gods minde and love No wonder if all eternity be not long enough to bless and praise God for this eternal purpose of his Yet in the third place Though we are then chosen in Christ from Eternity yet take heed of that absurd Errour which holds Our sins are pardoned and our persons justified from Eternity To say That while a man is unconverted wallowing and tumbling in his lusts that his sinnes are pardoned and that he is as well loved of God before his conversion as after is to contradict the whole course of Scripture for though we be elected and thus predestinated from Eternity yet the Effects of this are not bestowed upon us till in time and in such a manner as God pleaseth Praedestinatio est amor Ordinativus not collativus as the Schools say It 's immanent in God not transient in us Therefore you see our Saviour supposeth such to be believers who shall be made partakers of his death He doth not promiscuously pray for all men he doth not commend to Gods love every man or woman but the believer onely So that we are to distinguish between the purpose of God and the gracious effects thereof otherwise we may as well say we are glorified from Eternity Fourthly Hence in that Christ doth thus determinately pray for every individual believer It 's a plain Argument that he is God as well as man For how could those things be as present to him which yet were many years to come if he was not God Act. 15.18 Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world Thus Christ being God as well as man to him was known the state and condition of every believer not only before he was born but before the world had a being Therefore from hence it may be properly gathered that even to the humane nature of Christ was revealed the number of those persons whose salvation he was to procure So that Christ as man as well as God knew who they were that should believe in him It 's true Omnisciency could not be communicated to the humane nature as the Orthodox maintain against the Lutherans neither was the knowledge of all things revealed to it but as the Sonne of man he knew not the day of Judgement when it should determinately be and the nescience of this was not any sin in him yet the revelation of this to his humane nature viz. who they were that he should die for seemeth to be more necessary even as Divines say The humane nature of Christ shall by revelation from the Divine at the day of Judgement know all the thoughts and secrets of mans heart that so he may be the great Judge of the world in both his Natures howsoever here is a clear argument that Christ is God as well as man and that his Godhead concurreth to the work of our Redemption Therefore fifthly It is not to be thought impossible that even all things that are to come should be thus present to Christ though it be to us For our knowledge is measured by time and there is not only a successive order in the objects we know but also in the acts of knowing But the measure of Gods knowledge is by eternity wherein all things do exist together So that though in themselves one object be after another yet in respect of God they are beheld with one intuitive act As a man with one cast of an eye from some high Tower doth behold many passengers going by one after another It 's true we can no more comprehend how these things are all at once open and naked to God then a Dwarf can reach the Pyramides yet for all that we are to believe what by reason we cannot comprehend Quid enim magis contra rationem quam ratione supra rationem transcendere said Bernard It 's enough
to beleeve though it might be matter of comfort and priviledge yet it was not of duty But O how graciously hath God taught thee otherwise Now thou ar◠as much afraid not to lay hold on Christ as to commit any other sin Thou art as consciencious in believing every promise as in conforming to every command Thou darest no longer listen to doubts and fears to Satans Temptations in this matter then thou darest to the lusts and pleasures of sin 2. The Spirit of God doth instruct us in this That thus to beleeve and rest on Christ is to perform or to do that to which Justification is promised He that believeth is passed from death to life and still Remission of sins is said to be received by Faith and we are justified by Faith Rom. 5. So that when the Soul doth rest on Christ he performeth that to which Christ with all his benefits are promised Joh. 3.16 God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever beleeveth in him should not perish but have eternnl Life So that the humbled sinner having his eyes thus opened he seeth it the greatest madnesse and folly that can be not to receive Christ and to rest on him Why thus he argueth I cannot he justified I cannot partake of Christ till I do believe so that to believe is as necessary in an instrumental way as Christ in a meritorious way Shall the diseased Patient question whether he shall take that medicine which will certainly heal him Shall the hungry man doubt whether he may receive that alms which will preserve his Life Thus the humbled sinner is convinced that as he must not murther his own body wilfully by refusing to eat meat so he must not his own soul by a wilful rejecting of the promise 3. The Spirit of God instructs him in this also That by beleeving he doth not only bring comfort and salvation to his soul but in a most eminent manner doth also glorifie God As Abraham by that remarkable act of Faith is said to give Glory to God Rom. 4.20 The tempted Soul is apt to think Why should I believe this is but to seek my self This is because I would have comfort whatever becometh of Gods Glory Oh but saith the believer when thus awakened if I could perform all the Commandments of God if I could love God so as to give my body to be burnt for his Name yet I could not glorifie God so much as by believing for this acknowledgeth God in Christ wherein God is more to be admired then in the creation and government of the world Lastly He is enabled to see the folly and unprofitablenesse of Vnbelief If he go not to Christ where can Salvation be had he is sure to be damned by keeping from Christ Therefore with those Lepers he is resolved not to perish but to go to God though he seem an Enemy to him And then 2. God worketh faith in us effectively as you heard by strengthening the heart of a man fiducially to repose on Christ if other graces as love and patience do not grow of themselves in mans heart much lesse doth Faith which is so supernatural every way SERMON CIX Of Justifying Faith JOHN 17.20 But for them also who shall believe in me through their word WE are treating upon the Doctrine of Justifying Faith and certainly we may say It 's good to be on this Mount of Transfiguration and having declared that method Gods Spirit leads an humbled soul into when it 's enabled to believe We proceed to further particulars instructive in this business The ultimate and last act of justifying faith was a fiducial resting upon Christ for all spiritual benefits But to understand this further Consider that the Scripture expression of it is very emphatical and denoteth several notions in it as when it expresseth it by receiving 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is a word often applied to faith in this act it receiveth Christ Joh. 1.12 it receiveth the promise it receiveth forgivenesse of sins Act. 26.18 so that in this justifying act of faith we are to conceive a precious treasure offered by the grace of God even Christ himself and faith as the hand receiving of it and this expression is full of excellent matter for it teacheth 1. That we in this act of Justification or laying hold on Christ have nothing of our own All our righteousness is without us we are to receive it offered we have nothing inherent This Paul knew experimentally Phil. 3. when he would be found not in his own righteousness but that which is by faith His own mark that Any thing we may call our own we must not be found in and that is our own which is not only so effectivé by our own procuring and labour or merit but subjectivé which is inherent in us though it be wrought by the grace of God as the Just is said to live by his faith Hab. 2.4 It 's his faith subjectively though Gods effectively This word then receiving doth carry every man humbled Evangelically wholly out of himself and as was said to the woman looking into the Sepulchre Why look you for him he is not here he is risen So it may be said Why art thou searching and digging into thine own heart Thy works or graces these are not the object of faith It 's above thee It 's without thee though by faith applied to thee Even as the poor cripple that desired to be healed looked upon Christ expecting help from him he knew he had nothing in himself or as the indigent beggar looks without him and stretcheth out his hand to receive food or money So is it with the humbled sinner Oh then be directed here why doth God make thy own heart thy own wayes so bitter to thee Is it not because thou shouldst seek out for a Christ and look for a righteousnesse without thee 2. This word receiving implieth That we are wholly passive in our Justification That we are not justified by doing any thing or offering any thing to God but receiving from him Even as some Philosophers say Intelligere and sentire are passions Though we express them actively yet the soul therein is passive So when by believing a man is justified we are not to consider what he brings to God or doth for God but what he receiveth from him This is a fundamental principle to be grounded in it 's a mercy of mercies to be directed in the agonies of thy soul to the right way of believing to know the way to this City of refuge If a manslayer pursued by the avenger had not known the way to the City of refuge what danger had he been in It 's like the childe not coming the right way in it's birth now naturally we all think by doing to partake of Christ not receiving which made the Apostle so industriously assert this That it 's not to him that worketh but to him that believeth
the grace of God No Christ doth not call to men that sin yet laugh and make merry but that are weary and loaden to come unto him and then he will ease them Answ 2 But 2. This Doctrine of special and particular Faith doth not encourage to presumption because it cals not upon sinnâ—rs abiding and wickedly persevering so to rest on him but mourning over and abhorring their sins Therefore no man is commanded to believe this first that Christ died for him but to believe the word of God threatning and discovering the horrid pollution that is upon us as also the generall contagion in every part the insufficiency and inability to help himself the necessity of hungring thirsting and seeking out after a Saviour So that in this order and method he must by Faith lay hold on Christ Answ 3 3. This special Faith cannot be presumption or encourage thereunto because the object of it is whole Christ a Lord and Soveraign as well as a Saviour The presumer he divides Christ looketh upon him as a Saviour not as a Lord and Law-giver and therefore takes Christ but upon his own terms not in the Scripture-way and so indeed he takes not Christ but an Idol of his own making and by this it is discovered that he doth not truly believe but presume It 's true Christ as the Object of our justifying faith is to be considered as our Surety and Mediatour as a Gift of the Father to us yet he cannot truly be received as a Saviour but as a Lord and King also So that God having inseparably joyned these two together Faith dare not Faith will not divide So that this will prove Jealousie-water to the Hypocrite he professeth a belief on Christ but it is Christ divided or a part of Christ he looks upon the Atonement he made as a Saviour but not on the Obedience he owes to Christ as a King Christ doth not only promise but command he doth not only offer precious Gifts but enjoyneth strict and exact duties and faith taketh in all these Answ 4 4. Faith cannot be presumption because it doth not only receive Christ but this particular doth also cleanse and purifie the heart Act. 15. When Peters Faith was kept up then all his other graces were enlivened therefore Heb. 11. all those notable acts of high Righteousnesse and Obedience are attributed to faith so that the same Faith hath two hands one inward whereby it receiveth and embraceth Christ the other outward whereby it stirreth up and quickeneth to other Graces Justifying faith though it only justifyeth as it embraceth Christ yet at the same time also it worketh by love by patience by zeal by heavenly-mindednesse So that the exercise of all other graces is imperately from Faith though not elicitely It 's true there is a dead Faith and as Luther called it an incarnate faith a dead faith The Apostle James speaketh against c. 2. which is a bare assent and profession without any lively operation and such a kinde of believer is placed by Sebastian Franco in the Catalogue of Heretiques a luke-warm believer but that faith which doth justifie carrieth a man not only to Christ but is a general exciter and promoter to all holy duties and obedience 5. Faith special cannot comply with presumption because it doth not only believe in Christ as the special object but includeth an assent to the whole Word so that it 's as general as the Word is if therefore the Word of God doth not beget security and carnal encouragements to sin neither can Faith For presumption properly consisteth in this to divide the means from the end to think of obtaining one without the performance of the other can never be admitted by faith which in the special application of Christ is guided by the universal direction of the Scripture Vse of Instruction to humbled sinners Be well informed in this that you are not to stand in generals which are accompanied with great fears and dejections of spirit but in a particular manner to lay hold on Christ Oh let thy necessities drive thee that easelesse and restlesse condition thou art in be like a stone from the center like a bone out of joint till thou art fully united to the Lord Christ Know it is a duty That thou sinnest in an high manner while thou dost thus frowardly keep off from him Vse 2. There is the happiness of believers They receive Christ and so in him all things He that hath the Sun hath all the Stars He that hath the Fountain hath the streams if he hath given us Christ with him he will give all things Now God looks on thee in Christ The devil that seeks to devour thee must devour Christ first And O what a poor weak thing is it to doubt about earthly provision when thou hast received Christ for all things SERMON CXI That a Gospel-Ministry is to continue to the end of the world And for what ends JOHN 17.20 That shall believe through their word I Shall now finish this fruitfull Text. The last thing considerable in it is the instrumental cause of faith and that is the Apostles Ministry This faith is wrought by their word To open this Consider 1. That the word which begets faith is called Gods word vers 6. and here the Apostles word in a different sense It 's Gods word originally and efficiently because revealed by him It 's the Apostles word ministerially because they are the Embassadours to publish it Thus Paul cals it his Gospel as in other places it 's the Gospel of God because the Ministers of God are Stewards to whom is concredited the dispensation of the Word therefore it is called their word 2. Whereas Christ prayeth for all that shall believe even to the end of the world and yet they are said to believe by the Apostles word when yet thousands and thousands have believed since the Apostles death and departure It s necessary that by the Apostles we do not understand only their persons but the succeeding Ministry unto them which is to be perpetual in the Church all that now or hereafter shall beleeve though by the present Ministers that lived many hundred years after the Apostles yet may be said to obtain faith by the Apostles word because they sit in the Apostles chair they deliver the Doctrin which they delivered and succeed the Apostles though not in personal and extraordinaries yet in ordinaries in which sense Christ promiseth to be with them to the end of the world The words thus explained we may observe That God hath appointed a perpetual Ministry even to continue as long as there shall be a Church in the world All that shall beleeve are brought thereunto by the Apostles word now they being long since dead it necessarily followeth either that none can now beleeve or else that there is a Ministry to be perpetually succeeding them for this spiritual effect That the Ministry and Word preached is the means of faith
to be considered And they are these 1. It lifteth a man up above his natural reason It addeth many cubits to his stature As reason directs and corrects sense as we see in Astronomy so doth faith direct and correct reason As Zacheus because of a small stature went up into a tree to see Jesus Thus the reason of a man being too low in it self must ascend up to the Scriptures that it may behold divine things so that they wholly overthrow faith and change the nature of it who made it with Abailadus of old to be imagination or with the Socinians strength of reason Certainly Julian and the Heathens of old confound Christian Religion upon this ground because it was faith it was not a science 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it was Julians upbraiding now the Christians they gloried in this and Austin to confirm the Christian under many captious doubts saith thus Nomini te esse fidelem not rationalem To bring then divine truths to reasons comprehension is to put the Sunne under a bushell or to think to fit Goliahs shoe to Zacheus his foot 2. Though this faith lifts up reason yet it doth not contradict it When we say faith cometh by revelation not by reason flesh and blood cannot make such things known to us yet when once this revelation is discovered in the Scripture then reason doth wonderfully help to propugn and maintain this truth revelation must lay the foundation and then reason will build upon it so that inlightned reason and instructed reason out of the Word is of excellent use to explicate and clear divine mysteries Even as the Gold-smiths hammer is usefull to dilate and diffuse his golden mettal in many formes and this use all our learned Divines make against all Heretiques They doe by the help of reason and arguments out of the Scripture illustrate and confirm the Doctrine to be believed 3. This general nature of faith hath two excellent properties put together in one place Heb. 11.1 It 's there called The substance of things hoped for and evidence of things not seen It 's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We shall not dispute Whether this be a definition of faith it 's enough that two differential marks are given of it And First It 's the substance of things hoped for concerning which word learned men say divers things but it may comprehend these particulars First that Faith is not an empty flying fancy for so Aristotle useth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as opposite to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 some manifestation meerly as the colours of the Rainbow or of birds feathers when the Sunne shines These have but an intentional being there is no reall solid being in them but faith is the substance of things hoped for and certainly this is greatly to be endeavoured after that thy faith be a reall substantial thing how many mens faith are but fickle fancies and uncertain notions and therefore with their dogmatical faith they are like the Apostle James his man without faith tossed up and down with every wave Jam. 1. The Apostle Ephes 4.14 saith Be not carried about with every winde of Doctrine that denoteth the levity and emptinesse of a thing Trees that are well rooted are not blowne up and down like feathers What then is the cause of instability and uncertainty of many mens Religion It 's because they have not faith wheresoever that is it is a solid substantial bottoming of the soul 2. The word substance doth imply that it makes the things hoped for though afarre off yet present to the soul and even to subsist in the soul for faith is not hindred in its actings by distance of place for that receiveth Christ enjoyeth Christ though in Heaven and he that believeth hath eternal life Hence we are said to be already translated from death to life John 5.24 because to faith these things are as sure as if they were already done Thus Paul you see him by faith speaking as confidently as if he were in Heaven already Rom 8. Who shall separate us from the love of God shall things present or things to come Shall life or death c Hence faith is called The beholding of things not seen 2 Cor. 3. Faith makes God present Heaven present Christ present as really and truly as bodily objects are present to sense and truly for want of this it is that we are so cold languishing dejected we doe not by faith make these things present if we did they would more divinely affect us and as it is the substance of things hoped for So of things feared likewise Noah by faith moved with fear prepared an Arke Heb. 11.7 Thus faith makes hell and damnation present it doth not look upon hell as a farre off but is affected as if it did see and hear those dolefull howlings in hell and so dare no more sin then if it were in hell already Oh what a mighty change would faith thus realizing things work upon us 3. The word comprehends Assurance Confidence and so indeed is hypostasis used both in Scripture and by humane Authours now this confidence of faith and assurance is seen in the knowing and assenting acts of faith as well as applicatory witnesse those resolute and confident deportments which the Martyrs had Had not they strong assurance of the truth who could endure such exquisite torments against subtil opposers And certainly the Martyrs in Queen Maries dayes are more to be admired then those in the primitive times for they suffered upon undoubted and clear points which only the Heathens gain-said But now these suffered by them that acknowledged a Christ and pretended the Glory of Christ as well as they So that this heavenly confidence and satisfaction of the soul that they care not for further disputing and doubting in the matters they do believe is a great property in faith And this manifesteth there is little faith now in Religion wherein men are apt to think all Religions alike and that one may do as well as another In these dayes to have such a substantiating reallizing and confident assurance is a great wonder The next word describing the generall nature of it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and that doth imply First That the things believed bring an objective light with them As the object that is seen brings a visibility though faith in respect of humane reason be obscure and supernatural Arguments be inevident yet compared with the light in the Word it hath much evidence Hence the word of God is so often compared to light and that illumination which God worketh in the minde is partly faith as well as any other grace The things that are believed bring an evidence with them to the soul as the Sunne brings a visibility with it to be seen Therefore this believing is said to be by the Word set home in the demonstration of the Spirit and hence it is a man in some sense is passive
rend Pauls heart no doubt but their Unity and accord did as much rejoyce him Therefore how emphatically doth he speak Phil. 2.1 2. If any consolation if any bowels fulfill ye my joy that ye may be like minded c. It 's then the Ministers glory and the Churches glory to walk in lovely accord when in the Church as in Solomons Temple the voice of the hammer is not heard whenas God promised in respect of temporal peace The sword should be turned into plow-shares so the controversal and polemical part of Divinity shall be changed into the practical and affectionate part Again It 's the glory of the Church passively in this sense that for it we are exceedingly to glorifie and praise God We should look upon the spiritual peace of the Church as a greater mercy then all external mercies What an heavy thing is it when Jerusalem shall be made a Babel when the Church shall be like the chaos and confusion that was made at first when God shall bring such a spiritual judgement on the Church as sometimes he did a temporal one upon the enemies thereof Every mans weapon against his neighbour till they had destroyed one another When therefore we see God forming the hearts of believers to uniting terms this we ought to praise God for as being a special means to promote Christs Kingdom Now it 's the glory of believers to be at Unity 1. Because this will exalt them in the very hearts and thoughts of their greatest enemies What is glory but the clara notitia the famous acknowledging of the excellency of such a thing Now nothing will sooner divulge the fame and like the heavens make the noise thereof to go through the Land then unity and agreement As Solomons wisdom spread it self over the world Insomuch that many came from afar to see and admire it Thus it will be also for the Churches accord therefore the Psalmist put an Ecce upon it Behold how good and comely it is for brethren to be of one accord Psal 133.1 2. Thus you heard The Heathens admired the love of primitive Christians Ecce quam se muâ—uo diligenti fratres vocant whereas now we may say Behold how they hate and oppose one another calling one another by all uncharitable names It 's unity then that makes the Churches fame to be over the world 2. Vnity is the glory of the Church because it ariseth from the beauty and pulchritude of it The beauty of a thing is the glory of it now beauty doth arise from the sweet harmony and proportion of all the parts and this is the unity of the Church when every member thereof is harmoniously joyned unto another when there is no dissonancy or difference Certainly It 's a better wish to see the Church in this glory then that of Austins to see Rome in all her temporal glory If any member be deformed or unproportionable to the other parts How unlovely and uncomely doth it make that body So it is here if any make a rent be proud froward or opposite the glory thereof is departed 3. It 's part of their glory because the happinesse and blessednesse of a Church is in their Communion-graces A Church denoteth some society and company Now the advantage of such improvements is by union if one part of the body be divided from the other there is no suppeditation of mutual help therefore there are nerves and ligaments in the body to unite each part to other You see in a civil society if there be not union the glory of it presently dieth divisions like moths rise from within and do immediately consume If then the happinesse of believers lie in their communion-graces and duties What can be more glorious then unity which is the only means to procure subserviency to one another as if several Cities were supplied by pipes of water one to another if those pipes be stopt or cut it brings a necessary destruction The second main particular is That Christ purchased as Mediatour this priviledge as well as others He did not onely die to justifie them to sanctifie them but to unite them also And this should teach us several things As 1. It should not be accounted a slight and little sinne to make any breaches or divisions in Gods Church to do any thing through strife and vain-glory Why because Christ died against this he as Mediatour intended not onely to save his people but to bring them into one Why then dost thou by thy contentions by thy heretical opinions thus sinne against Christs death his intercession and his prayer are for the same effects Now you see in this Chapter that his prayer for unity is ingeminated over and over again and therefore Christ had this even in his thoughts in his very death hence it was that also at his death he appointed the Sacrament of the Lords Supper which though chiefly to seal Gods grace to us yet it did also signifie the love we ought to have to one another as the Apostle urgeth 1 Cor. 10. that as the several corns make up one bread thus do the godly make up one mystical body Divisions then in the Church are against Christs death and against the Sacrament of his death Shall we therefore runne into such sinnes that have such an hainous aggravation 2. That the people of God where they see these divisions are to improve this Argument for Vnity Even as when they groan under any corruption and would gladly have the mastery of it they runne to the blood of Christ praying O Lord Did not Christ die that these sinnes might die Was not Christ crucified to crucifie these lusts So it ought to be in matter of unity Oh Lord make all thy people of one heart of one minde and spirit because Christ died for this also let not his death be in vain Thou wouldst not suffer his bones to be broken nor his garment divided why then shall his Church be torn and divided Do not think humane policies and invented syncretisms will be able to soder together It must be this blood of Christ that obtaineth this 3. Christ did not onely meritoriously purchase this Vnity by his death but in him exemplarily and formally we are made one So that Christ is both the moral cause of this unity and the exemplar also for he by being both God and man in one Person made God and man one when there was such an infinite distance before there is made the most intimate union that can be even an hypostatical union between God and man Now though we cannot attain to such an union yet by reason of this all believers are made one with God and amongst themselves Hence is that often expression of our being in him of ingraffing in him of living in him all which do denote our intimate union with him so that as Christ is not divided in himself The Divine Nature doth not will one thing and the humane Nature the contrary