God come out of Egypt out of the straits of sin and pass through a wilderness of wants and extremities towards the Land of promise the valley of Achor trouble and perplexity for the accursed thing is a door of hope husks and hunger make the Prodigal come to himself and his father Thirdly Upon this humiliation and strait of soul there ensues a deliberation a standing as the King of Babylon did Ezek. 21.21 at the parting of the way to make a true enquiry Lo saith the afflicted soul in a self-parley here is the way of life and there of death this is the way everlasting and that 's the way of time If you live after the flesh you must dye but if you mortifie the deeds of the body you shall live if you sow unto the flesh you must reap corruption if unto the spirit life everlasting O my soul be not deceived God and sin Christ and Belial heaven and hell cannot mix together Say then O my soul what wilt thou have the mess of pottage or the birth-right the pleasures of sin or those at Gods right hand the worlds trinity of lusts or communion with the blessed Trinity in heaven Thus the soul sits down and casts up the cost sin on and burn in hell for ever turn to God and shine in eternal glory spare thy lusts and damn thy soul slay thy lusts and save it Oh! what a fearful cheat is sin it proffers a profit or a pleasure and asks a soul it holds out a moment or two and would have eternity in pawn for it it tickles the sense and stabs the conscience it courts and flatters like the strange woman and leads down to hell and death Such deliberations as these make way for resignation an indeliberate resignation is but a flash and away but a deliberate one is fit to endure Fourthly After all this the holy spirit doth so far press in the holy light as to work a denial of a mans self and his lusts in some measure I say in some measure for without some measure of self-denial a man will never resign up himself to God and Christ Thus our Saviour If any man will come after me let him deny himself Mat. 16.24 first deny himself and then go to Christ and again Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden Mat. 11.28 first be weary of sin and then go to Christ no man can serve two Masters he that will follow Christ must do as Peter and Andrew did leave his nets all the entangling lusts of his heart and so follow him Whilest a man sits at the receit of custome driving on a trade of sin he cannot follow him First he must with Mathew rise up from thence and then he may follow him Also I say in some measure for the self-denial before precious faith must be distinguished from the self-denial after it self-denial before faith is wrought in us by the holy spirit making impressions and darting in light into the heart in a transient way self-denial after faith is wrought in us by the holy spirit dwelling in the heart by faith and acting therein as an abiding principle of all grace Before faith it is in a far lesser measure and degree after faith it grows up to a full stature before faith it doth in some sort cast off the soveraignty of sin the soul no longer chuses to live under its dominion but looking upon it as cruel bondage casts off its allegiance after faith it strikes at the very life of sin in the work of mortification What is said of the beasts in Daniel their dominion was taken away and yet their lives were prolonged Dan. 7.12 the same may be said of sin first it loses its crown and then its life The holy spirit in the first measure of self-denial doth as it were dethrone sin in order to resignation and in the after-measure thereof it mortifies and nails it to the cross there to dye and expire Now this measure of self-denial which precedes resignation stands in divers things First There is a denial of a mans reason Reason as the candle of the Lord is not to be denied but reason as it is a false light as it pleads for Baal the lording lust of the soul as it plays the serpent seducing from holy truths as it sows pillows under presumptuous sinning as it laughs at holiness and divine mysteries above its comprehension is surely to be denied We must become fools that we may be wise put out our lamp that it may be lighted by the spirit and crucifie our why's and wherefores that we may believe the Gospel Abraham having Gods promise for a seed considered not Rom. 4.19 and staggered not or as in the original discerned not v. 20. he did not play the critick upon the dead body and dead womb he laid by his discretion that he might give glory to God by believing Secondly There is a denial of a mans will This is the forbidden fruit and womb of concupiscence unless this be renounced there is no hope of resignation our own will is a thing of Belial and unless subdued by grace will not take Christ's yoke it is an inward Antichrist and unless consumed by the divine spirit and brightness will exalt it self above the will of God Saul must have a light from heaven and a fall to the earth a fit of trembling or else he will not resign and say Lord what wilt thou have me to do Act. 9.6 the will must be un-selved and the man become as a little child without any will of his own or else there can be no resignation Thirdly There is a denial of a mans carnal affections These are the camels which cannot go thorough the needles eye the weights and plummets which press down the soul from God unless these be cast off there can be no resignation our Saviour is positive in it how can ye believe which receive honour one of another Joh. 5.44 A soul breathed into vain-glorious air or drowned in sensual pleasures or laden with the thick clay of the world cannot resign he that will offer up himself to God must leave the world behind his back his affections must be gathered in from earth and Angel-like ascend in the flame of faith the vail of time must be put by and an entry made upon eternity Fourthly There is a denial of a mans own power Proud persons puft up in their fleshly mind vainly dream that their Reason can span all mysteries and their Will teem out all graces no temptations are too strong for them nor duties too weighty Alass these are so far from resignation that they are not come to illumination through prodigious blindness they are strong in their impotency rich in their poverty free in their chains and something in their nothingness And what should they go to God for as yet they are not so much as in the way thither but let the man put off his false ornaments and
pardon one way for the pardon of infirmities and another way for the pardon of gross sins but there is one undivided way of faith and repentance appointed for both Which being so it follows that if the believers gross sins be not forgiven till after actual faith and repentance then neither are his infirmities forgiven till then and by consequence the believer cannot continue justified no not for a minute the multitudes of infirmities which are ever swarming in him would put him into a state of death every moment Nay as worthy Mr. Wall hath well observed in ictu mortis None but Christ pag. 322. in the very last stroak of death he may perish unless the last operation of his spirit be actual faith and repentance These things perswade me that the gross sins of believers are at least in some sense pardoned before their fresh acts of faith and repentance touching which Divines speak variously Mr. Baxter saith That Believers as soon as they sin have an imperfect pardon though not plenary Lect. 113. on the 51. Psalm Mr. Hildersham saith They have a pardon upon record in heaven but not the comfort of it till by faith and repentance they sue it out and be able to shew and plead it in the Court of their own Conscience Mr. Burroughs saith When any Soul is taken into Christ Expos en Hos p. 611. it hath not only all the sins it hath committed pardoned but there is a pardon laid in for all sins to come there is no instant of time wherein it can be said that the Believer is under condemnation What is the aptest expression I shall not contend but I conceive such sins in believers are in some sort pardoned before their fresh acts of faith and repentance Neither doth this open a gap to licentiousness for it concerns only Believers whom the stings of Conscience celipses of Gods face languors of inward graces and foul blots upon their Evidences to heaven will under the influences of the Spirit press to fresh acts of saith and repentance as to duties very necessary and incumbent upon them Thus much of the continuance of this holy fruit Fourthly The fourth thing considerable is the perfection of it This holy fruit is never fully ripe till the day of Judgment Repent that your sins may be blotted out when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord saith St. Peter Acts 3.19 The day of Judgment is to a believer a time of refreshing then there will be no more scorches from the fiery Law no more stings from the old Serpent no more guilt inflaming the Conscience no more frowns from the holy God but a pure sweet refrigeration breathed out from his gracious presence Caspar Olevian in his last sickness Mâ—â—ch Aâ—um in vita ejus was in ineffable joyes so that he seemed to be in prato elegantissimo rore perfusus coelesti in a most sweet meadow with an heavenly dew distilling down upon him Such reviving refrigerations believers have sometimes here much more transcendent will their divine refreshments be at the last day The top-stone of Justification shall be then laid on to make it compleat as may appear by the ensuing Considerations First Here the Believer is justified privately by the Gospel but then he shall be justified openly by the solemn sentence of God before all the World here he hath the white-stone of Absolution given in secret but then it shall be brought forth to view glittering in all the orient colours of Free-grace It was a great honour done to Mordecai to be arraied in Royal apparel and to have it proclaimed before him Thus shall it be done to the man whom the King delighteth to honour But oh what glory will be upon the Believer at that day when he shall stand in the glorious rightcousness of Christ and hear it proclaimed before Men and Angels This is a righteous man when Christ shall confess him before his Father and the holy Angels to be a piece of himself of his flesh and of his bones As it was with the Sons of Jesse passing before Samuel Eliab came and was refused Abinadab came and was resused and so others at last David came and the Lord said Arise anoint him for this is he 1 Sam. 16th Chapter So it will be with the Sons of men at the great day of Judgment The great Potentate may come and be rejected as a vile person the rich Dives may come and be put away as dross the Learned Rabbi may come and be turned off as a fool only when the Believer comes God will say This is he this must reign in glory for ever This is a Justification before God after a most signal manner Secondly Here the Believer stands justified but in the midst of briers and thorns remaining Corruptions vex and tear his righteous soul from day to day He is in the Land of Promise but the Canaanite is not quite driven out the reliques of Sin inmates in the same heart with grace like the Liers in wait for Samson are ready to make an assault upon him Hence the Jewish Doctors say That God calls no man Saint or Holy till he be dead and in the grave because 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the concupiscential frame is not quite out of him before death but at that day there shall be nihil damnabile remaining in him Sin shall be no more no more tumors of Pride no more boilings up of Concupiscence no more spots or wrinckles or dark shades of Infirmity nothing but pure spotless Holiness Insomuch that Divines say that from henceforth our Justification shall be in another way than by imputed Righteousness because having perfect inherent Righteousness in our selves we shall need no covering If the Apostle say of a Believer that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he is justified from his sins in respect of Sanctification begun Rom. 6.7 how much more will it be true when Sin shall be no more Thirdly Here the Believer is Justified but the dust of mortality hangs about him It may be there is a Stone ready to drop into the Bladder or an Imposthume ready to break in the Head Mors latet in mediis abdita viseeribus in one part of the body or other Death is preparing his arrow upon the string to shoot man down from the perch of this life into the grave But at that day there shall be nihil corruptibile Death shall be no more Diseases which use to sound an alarum to it shall be utterly removed Tears which are Natures pay to Sorrows shall be all wiped off the corruptible shall put on incorruption Mortality shall be swallowed up of Life This is a day of redemption indeed Fourthly Here the Believer is Justified but his comfort is not alwaies the same Now the light of Gods Countenance breaks out like a clear Sun upon him and anon there is a sad eclipse leaving him in darkness one day a banquet of heavenly Comforts is
Soul by Faith doth by little and little work out and extirpate Sin as the day breaks upon the Heart darkness goes off as Holiness flows in Corruption departs the more of Heaven is there the less of Earth Thirdly Faith discovers the great evil of Original Sin and so raises up an hatred against it and hatred is a murderer and would if it could annihilate its opposite Faith shews it to be an All-evil a Mother of abominations Some particular Sins are such monsters in Morality that when viewed only in the light of Nature they appear very odious such was the cruelty of Nero Effeminacy of Sardanapalus and the like much more odious when inspected by the light of Faith must that appear which is All-sin in one a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or universal Seminary of iniquity Anthony holding Caesars bloody Coat up to the People moved them against the Conspirators Faith holding up the Murders Adulteries Blasphemies Villanies in the World unto the Believers eyes stirs his Heart against the venemous root of all these Faith shews it to be an universal evil all over the Soul breaking forth like the boyls of Egypt upon man and upon beast upon the intellective and sensitive faculties and all over the Believers duties lying as the locusts there upon every herb and green thing upon the verdure and glory of every good work it is a blemish in the Believers eye a plague in his Heart an ataxy in his Affections a damp on his Prayers a cooler to his Charity and Zeal and a dead fly in all the precious Oyntment of his duties and good works Faith shews it to be an utter enemy to God Antichrist-like opposing every appearance of him in the Heart quenching every good motion trampling on every holy beam slighting at the two great periods of Mankind Heaven and Hell and jeering at that holiness and iniquity which lead thither Faith shews it to be an evil always present the Believer shakes himself and it adhers flys and it encompasses mortifies and it lives prays weeps sweats and fights and yet the Canaanite is in the land like a living man chained to a dead he carries about his own loathsomness a body of death all his days this cleaves to him as the blackness to the Ethiopian and as the fretting spreading Leprofie to the house after all his washing and scraping of himself it will yet be in him till death dissolve him into dust Such representations as these made by Faith fill the Believer with shame and self-abhorrency and raise up in him an irreconcileable hatred against it Fourthly Faith so far as it is acted though it make not a total riddance of it doth yet imprison it that it cannot go at large and riot in scandalous Sins No nor steal out in an evil thought but it will be arrested in its passage to the Will for a consent as it was Gods caution beware that there be not a thought in thy Belial-heart against Charity Deut. 15.9 So it is Faiths endeavour to stop corruption even in a thought the flesh is still a lusting and would have one piece of forbidden fruit or other in its mouth but Faith opposes and would if it could leave nothing of it to breath in the Believer This is that the Scripture calls The crucifying of the old man Faith arraigns the old man as the Arch-malefactor in the World condemns him as worthy to die strips him of his veils and false coverings and by holy restraints nails him to the Cross that unless in a slumber of Faith he cannot move or stir himself but dies away by little and little As the light of Nature being imprisoned in unrighteousness as the Apostle speaks Rom. 1.18 is every day exhausted and weakned so the corruption of Nature being thus restrained by Faith gradually loses its life and vigor Martinus Polonus tels of a terrible Dragon at Rome who killed many daily with his poysonous breath but was at last shut up with Brasen gates through the Prayers of Sylvester Bishop there Were this Fable true Faith doth a nobler work in restraining the inward Serpent of corruption whose deadly poyson hath spread it self over all Men and is eternally fatal to all but Believers To conclude In all this Faith applies it self to a Crucified Christ from thence it fetches its pattern As the pure flesh of Christ upon which as an expiatory Sacrifice the Sin of the World was laid suffered on the Cross so the corrupt flesh of Man unto which as the universal Seminary the Sin of the World may be justly imputed must suffer also Hence Saint Peter 1 Pet. 4.1 From the suffering of Christ in the flesh exhorts Believers to suffer in their corrupt flesh ceasing from Sin and from thence it derives a spirit for the work Christ offered himself through the eternal Spirit on the Cross and the Believer through the Spirit of Christ offers up his corrupt self to be crucified Hence St. Paul Rom. 6.6 saith Our old man is crucified with him that is by a secret virtue drawn from his Cross Thus far of this Fundamental Mortification I now come to particular Sins which are but the foul issues of Original breaking forth in this or that as temper education place custom or other accidents give vent thereunto these also doth Faith mortifie and that in some such way as this First Faith doth restrain the outward acts of Sin there may be many restraints in which yet there is nothing of Mortification one Sin may restrain another Vitia inter se contraria pugnant in which case Satan casts out Satan a predominant lust its opposite The fiery Law with its threats may meet a man in his perverse way as the Angel with his drawn Sword did Balaam and turn him back from committing the act nevertheless the unchanged Heart hankers and inwardly mourns after it as Phaltiel did after Michal when she was forced away from him and which is a better restraint because meerly from an in ward principle Moral Virtue may hold him back from it as it did Abimelech from Sarah yet this restraint is but partial only from outward Sins of shame and withal selfish aiming at no higher thing than repute and self-excellency But Faith restrains upon higher and nobler Motives speaking to the temptation as Joseph to his Mistress How can I do this great wickedness and sin against God May I break his Law which is more than the Interdicts of all the Princes and Potentates of the World or stain his glory which is more precious than the light of the Sun Moon and Stars or trample on that precious Blood which paid my ransom from Hell and Death or grieve away that Spirit which is the life of all my Graces and Comforts or pollute this Heart which may be a Temple or Tabernacle for the Holy One to dwell in or run my self again into the pangs of the New Birth and forget the wormwood and gall of my old Sins and eclypse the light
and so may experience the Incarnation of Christ But to go on unto this of the Incarnation I shall add two instances more touching Christ the one is his Death and the other is his Resurrection The experiment of both is emphatically set forth by St. Paul That I may know him and the power of his Resurrection and the fellowship of his Sufferings being made conformable to his Death Phil. 3.10 Tune recte cognoscitur Christus saith Calvin dum sentimus quid valeat Mors ejus Resurrectio Then we truly know Christ when we feel the power of his Death and Resurrection in our own hearts Jesus Christ died for us His Soul was an offering for Sin his Life 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Ransom for many He satisfied Gods Justice opened a door of Mercy and procured the effusion of the holy Spirit and all this Faith may experiment In the calms of Conscience the Believer may feel the atoning Blood of Christ purging his heart from dead works to serve the living God In the mortifying of Lusts he may find a secret virtue from Christ crucified enabling him for the work In all the sweet gales and operations of the holy Spirit he hath a proof of that meritorious Passion which procured them and when he stumbles and falls into sin and drives away that Spirit for a time in its return he hath a proof that Christ is a Priest after the Power of an endless life The vexed grieved Spirit might utterly forsake such faultring backsliding Creatures as we are and leave us desolate for an habitation of Devils and unclean spirits for ever but the endless life of Merit in Christ causes it to return to us again and thereby gives us a most precious experiment thereof At Swerin in Germany there was a little drop of Blood included in a Jasper-stone given out to be the very Blood of Christ This every Friday at a certain hour was shewn and upon view seemed to open and draw out it self as it were in three parts and then to go together again It was followed by great concourses of people and esteemed very Sacred for 300 years Had this Toy been true and genuine I might yet say as Maius the German Divine did to one who asked him If it would not be a great Consolation to a poor Thief ready to die to be told That Christ according to the Flesh is so near him that even in fune he may have him At melius in corde 't is better having the Blood of Christ in the heart than any other way such an having produces the glorious Experiments before spoken of And as the Death of Christ is experimented so is his Resurrection In the Peace of God the Believer may read that the Debt is fully paid and the Surety out of the prison of the Grave In the inward spiritual Resurrecton he may find that Almighty power which raised up Jesus from the dead In heavenly elevations and affections he may feel holy touches from Christ sitting at Gods right hand and attracting his Heart into the upper world In the excellent ministerial Gifts in the Church he may know that Christ is above and le ts drop these for the perfecting of the Saints and in his lively hope of the incorruptible Inheritance he may prove the Resurrection of Christ by which he is begotten again unto it Such Experiments as these wonderfully ratifie the Faith of Believers oyl their Obedience and multiply their Joy and Peace in Believing and make each of them able to say in particular Christ died for me and Christ rose again for me and lo here are the Witnesses of it in my heart Unto these faced Truths of the Trinity and Christ I shall only add one Instance more touching the efficacy of Grace in the hearts of men The Pelagians those Inimici gratiae ascribe almost all to Free will and little or nothing to Free-grace making Grace rather to consist in the external Doctrine than in internal Operations or if they admit any thing internal it is rather in the illumination of the Understanding than in the change of the Will But the Scriptures tells us clean contrary of opening the heart and new-making it of working the Will and a day of power causing it of raising the spiritually dead and creating us again in Christ of putting his Spirit into us and causing us to walk in his Statutes These and many more Scriptures loudly proclaim the power of Grace and the Believer may experience it This is the clearer because the sensus communis of Christians hath in all Ages run this way David upon the willing Offering utters his experience of Grace in a way of admiration Who am I and what is my people that we should be able to offer so willingly after this sort For all things come of thee 1 Chron. 29.14 All things come of thee even willingness and All In so Offering we do but give of thine own as the Greek Christians use to say in their Oblations 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thine from thine St. Paul upon his experience ascribes all to Grace I live yet not I but Christ liveth in me And I labour yet not I but the Grace of God which was with me He acknowledges no I-ness but ascribes all his Spiritual Being to Grace By the Grace of God I am what I am saith he St. Cyprian might find in himself what he so excellently said In nullo nobis gloriandum quando nostrum nihil est St. Ambrose speaking of Cain and Abel saith Cain as his name is Possession acquires and arrogates all to himself but Abel who knew his own Vanity and that he had nothing de suo nisi mendacium peccatuni referred all to God The former he calls improbum dogma the latter bonum dogma the good opinion which the just Abels are of and experience in themselves And in the last Chapter of that Book he saith Quicquid sancium cogitaveris hoc Dei munus est Dei inspiratio Dei gratia which I suppose was his own experience Blessed St. Austin that noble assertor of Free-grace of whom Prosper said Dum nulla sibi tribuit bona sit Deus illi omnia Whilest he attributed no good to himself God became all things to him could never have wrote so magniticently of Grace had he not had great experience of it In his Book De Peccatorum Meritis he gives a caution Ne putemus nastrum esse quod Dei and adds Qui error multum est Religioni pietatique contrarius To attribute that to our selves which is Gods is an error much contrary to Religion and Piety Christian sense is against it Prosper who came after St. Austin hath this passage Non est devotionis dedisse prope totum Deo sed fraudis retinuisse vel minimum gratia Dei repellitur tota nisi tota recipiatur To give 999 parts to Grace and reserve one only to Mans Will is too much true Devotion will not bear it Tutius
other of Hope which afforded her great Comfort in her Torments Caspar Olevian a German Divine being asked by one Whether he were certain of his Salvation answered just at the brink of death Certissimus I am most sure of it Mr. Bolton being near death expressed himself thus My whole heart is filled with joy I feel nothing within but Christ Mr. Hieron said His Soul was full of joy as if be had seen Heaven open to receive him Such Paradises of Joy Sabbatisines of Spirit and Prepossessions of Glory have the Saints found in their way to Heaven Again there being an infallible Connexion between truth of Grace and Pardon and also between Perseverance in Grace and Salvation a Believer may be assured of the truth of his Graces and so of his Pardon and again he may be assured of his Perseverance in Grace and so of his Salvation These two demonstrated will make good the Point First I say A Believer may be assured of the truth of his Graces and so of his Pardon which cannot but be where those are And for the truth of Grace a double Testimony may be vouched one from Conscience the other from the holy Spirit the Apostle mentions both The spirit it self beareth witness with our spirit Rom. 8.16 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it co-witnesseth with ours and in the mouth of two such Witnesses there must needs be establishment Hence St. Chrysostome on these words breaks out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What scruple can remain after such a Testimony I shall begin with the testimony of Conscience Conscience is a spy in our bosom which marks every thing a spiritual Eccho which returns our actions and makes them sound again after they are past and gone from us By it the Soul turns its eyes in ward and becomes a Speculum or Looking-glass to it self representing to it self its own acts By it it bends back the beams of general Truths and applys them to Particulars That Righteousness and Virtue should be followed is an universal Truth but Conscience can reflect it back upon us and bids us do so in particular and if we indeed do it Conscience will say Euge this or that is well done by us The Testimony of Conscience was of great repute among Pagans Plato calls it his Daemon and Menander a God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith he Conscience is a God to Mortals And Seneca Deus in humano corpore hospitans God dwelling in an humane body Hence came Pythagoras's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or self-reverence And Sextius his parly with himself every night what Vice he had in the day resisted and Virtue promoted And the Satyrists complaint touching the neglect of the reflexive faculty Vt nemo in sese tentat descendere nemo few or none would descend into themselves Among Christians the Testimony of Conseience must needs be sacred their Consciences not lying as the Pagans in their blood or natural pollution but being purified by the precious Blood and Spirit of Christ their lamps of Reason not lying as the others in the damp and darkness of the fall but brought forth and new-lighted at the Scripture and Sun of Righteousness shining therein as in its orb Conscience in a Believer is as St. Bernard hath it Purum Religionis speculum a pure glass of Religion And as another Major pars clavium the greatest key in the Church such an excellent Witness may well speak in this Point In David it speaks thus O Lord I have walked in my integrity Psal 26.1 that is in the exercise of Faith Love Obedience and other Graces which as so many Pearls make up Sincerity In Hezekiah it speaks much after the same manner Remember O Lord how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart Isa 38.3 And it is the more to be noted because Conscience saith so in a way of appeal even to God himself and by a right 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 holds up the truth of its Graces to so pure a Sun This is such a Testimony as St. Paul joys and glories in 2 Cor. 1.12 Est quidam modus in Conscientia gloriandi ut noveris fidem tuam esse sinceram spem tuam certam caritatem tuam sine simulatione saith St Austin There is a kind of glorying in conscience when thou knowest thy Faith sound Hope certain and Love undissembled A Man that repents believes and loves may by the pulse of Conscience know that he doth so True saith Bellarmine he may know that he doth them but not that he doth them sicut oportet as he ought to do them Unto which I answer Conscience according to its Light and Line of Principles can bear Witness to Integrity natural Conscience to natural Integrity and renewed Conscience to gracious Integrity An instance of the former we have in Abimelech whose Conscience told him That he meant not to take away another mans Wise Gen. 20.5 and of the latter in St. Paul whose Conscience told him That his Conversation was in simplicity and godly sincerity 2 Cor. 1.12 Conscience which Witnesses Integrity must look beyond the meer matter of Acts into the modus for therein Integrity especially such as is gracious consists more than in the Acts themselves Unless a man know that he repents believes and loves sicut oportet he cannot know his own Sincerity and if he know his Sincerity he knows that he repents believes and loves aright A Believer converses much between Scripture and Conscience fetching his Notions from the one and his Evidences from the other In the Word he sees the Characters of Grace and in the Conscience the state of his Soul True Repentance mourns over sin as sin hates it as the greatest evil and casts it away as an accursed thing saith the Word and such is thy Repentance saith Conscience True Faith prizes Christ overcomes the World and works by Love saith the Word and such a Faith is thine saith Conscience True Love is inflamed from Gods sweetly acquiesces in him and obedientially resignes to him saith the Word and such a Love is thine saith Conscience Interroga cortuum Ask thy heart If Love be there saith St. Austin Ask again If Faith and Repentance be there thou hast an Oracle within that can tell thee what thou lovest most trustest in most and grievest for most that can shew thee thy Uprightness witness the Truth of thy Graces and feast thee with Divine Comforts such as pass understanding It was a great Comfort to the Nobleman when his Servants met him and told him Thy Son liveth John 4.51 But oh What is it to the Believer when such an one as Conscience comes and saith Thy Faith liveth or thy Love burneth towards God or thy Repentance is pure godly forrow Then the Oyl of Joy is upon every Grace and the Cup of Consolations runneth over Conscience becomes a banquetting-house and Assurance as Latimer calls it is the Sweet-meats We have heard one Witness but the Supream who drops all
holiness and justice with his holiness providing a perfect righteousness and with his justice providing a perfect satisfaction for them in a surety hence the Apostle saith we are justified freely by his grace Rom. 3.24 Freely by his grace he uses two words the more plainly and emphatically to decipher out to us the pure fountain of love and grace out of which pardon and justification issue forth to poor sinners Secondly There must be a perfect righteousness fully answering the holy Law God cannot deny himself he cannot deny his holiness so as to justifie us without a righteousness therefore there must be one he cannot deny his truth so as to account that a righteousness which is none therefore it must be perfect fully answering the Law all-fair without any spot in it all-pure without any mixture in it all-perfect without and defect in it such a thing as is not to be found in any meer man The Jews as it seems by Josephus thought a meer outward righteousness enough but alass what is this without a pure heart The Popish Doctors look upon inherent graces as our very righteousness in justification indeed these because the denomination is à meliore parte denominate men righteous but they are but inchoate and imperfect and therefore are short of that perfect and absolute righteousness requisite to justification They denominate men righteous but they do it but in their own weak degree and not in full proportion to the holy Law a gracious man is not all grace there is flesh as well as spirit dross as well as gold water as well as wine in him his mind is not all Light his will is not all love his affections are not all harmony what of grace he hath is but in part and if this be his righteousness he can be justified but in part or rather not at all Neither can our good works no not those which flow from grace ever be our righteousness in justification Those are good as they flow from the pure fountain of the spirit but as they proceed from us in whom there is much of the old Adara they smell of the cask and soil in the channel and contract a great deal of dross from the indwelling sin Hence they are so far from justifying us that they themselves need a justification Hence holy Nehemiah prays that his good works may be remembred with a spare me O Lord according to the greatness of thy mercy Neh 13.22 Neither will it suffice to justification if our good works are more then our evil The Papists fable that Henry the second Emperour was weighed in the ballance to see whether he were worthy of heaven or hell his good works were put into one scale his evil into the other and these were like to out weigh and sink him to hell but that St. Lawrence put in the Chalice by the Emperour given him and so made the scale of good works preponderate O vain tale nothing weighs with God in the point of justification but a compleat rightcousness and that can no where be found but in Christ alone he and he only fulfilled all righteousness and therefore he is called by the Apostle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the end of the Law for righteousness to the believer Rom. 10.4 the Law hath its total sum and perfect compleature in him Thirdly There must be an expiation of sin or else there can be no justification The very Gentiles themselves stung with the conscience of sin and vengeance had their expiatory and lustratory Sacrifices The antient lews being Gods people had their offerings and sacrifices for sin to make an Atonement according to the Levitical Law The latter Jews though they reject the sacrifice of the Messiah yet that they might not be wholly without an expiation offer a cock for sin because the word Gebher in Hebrew signifies a man and in the Talmud a cock hence they say Gebher that is the man sinneth and Gebher that is the cock suffereth If the Prophet Isaias in the 53. chapter had used the word Gebher the Rabbins saith a Learned man would have turned the man into a cock but there it is not Gebher but Ish a man of sorrows But these expiations not availing God hath provided an expiation in the death of his son Without shedding of blood there is no remission saith the Apostle Heb. 9.22 and because creature-blood could not do it the blood of God was shed to redeem us from sin Jesus Christ who is God-man offered up himself through the eternal spirit to purge our consciences from dead works he paid the utmost farthing to Divine justice and hath left nothing at all to pay for the believing finner The Gentile sacrifices were no expiations at all being indeed sacrifices to devils and not to God nay in their own account they did not expiate in all cases Hence when the Emperor Constantine was haunted with the innocent blood he had shed the Gentile Flamius could tell him of no expiation But the blood of Christ is a true and universal expiation cleansing from sin and all sin 1 Joh. 1.7 The Levitical sacrifices though of Divine Institution were but types and shadows making nothing perfect But a crucified Christ is the sum and substance of them really atoning what those did but typically The Rabbinical cock is a strange vanity in which we may stand and wonder at the Jewish blindness but what their vain Gebher could not do that our Ish the man of sorrows upon whom all our iniquities met hath done indeed he was wounded for our iniquities his soul was an offering for sin his life a â—â—nsom for many his blood was shed for the remission of sins he paid that he never took he made 〈◊〉 through the blood of his cross in him God is 〈◊〉 and reconciled These things being premised I say the soul by Faith doth resign up it self for pardon and justification And that I may observe my first method this resignation is made First To Jesus Christ the Mediator The believer conscious to his own spiritual poverty doth as the poor man in the Psalm commit himself or as the Original is leave himself on the Lord Psal 10.14 In stead of a perfect righteousness he hath raggs of weakness and imperfection but he leaves himself upon the perfect righteousness of Christ as a thing fully answering every jot and tittle of the Law Indeed some great Rabbies cry out upon imputative righteousness as a thing impossible calling it putative a meer imagination Luthers spectrum the pleasing dream of simple Christians but in sober sadness the dream is on their own side If imputative righteousness be impossible how can we stand before the righteous Law dooming and cursing the least defect or non-continuance in all things Imputative righteousness is impossiblé and inherent is imperfect and how can we stand if we stand the righteousness of God must be upon us Rom. 3.22 Christ must be the end of the Law for righteousness unto
willing and cries out Father thy wâ—ll be done even in the death of my darling lusts Christ died a violent death and sin must not dyâ— a natural one If it dye alone or of it self it is no sacrifice it must be cropt in the flower and stabbed at the heart and dye of its wounds the violence done to God and Christ and the Spirit must be upon it till it give up the ghost Christ died a tormenting death in pains and agonies and we must dye so to sin we must suffer in the flesh 1 Pet. 4.1 bleeding under sin and being sorrowful to the death of it Christ died a lingring death and so doth sin it doth not dye all at once but languishes by little and little the believer dies daily to sin The Colossians were dead Câ—l 3.3 and yet saith the Apostle mortisie your members v. 8. Mortification must be upon mortification because sin is long a dying the genius of faith is to have sin crucified as Christ was following his steps as much as may be Secondly He yields up his soul to Christ as the meritorious cause of mortification Christs death merited sins hence faith glories in the cross of Christ as in that whereby the world is crucified to the believer and he to the world Gal. 6.14 there it would hang up every lust as an accursed thing Faith lies at the bleeding wounds of Christ watching for the breathings of that spirit which can mortisie the deeds of the body waiting for that mind of Christ which can make us suffer in the fiesh that we may cease from sin Christ was crucified and the believer would have the old man crucified together he would dye with him as the graft doth with the stock There is a Popish fable that the angry Adriatick Sea was becalmed by one of the nails of Christs cross cast into it the moral is true the troubled sea of lust in our heart cannot be subdued but by the application of Christ death the winds and waves there obey no other voice but that of Christ crucified he yields up his soul to Christ as the royal worker of mortification When he sees his lusts as so many rebels rising up in arrns he flies to his soveraign Christ for a power to subdue them the high things and strong holds appearing in his understanding make him cry out Treason Treason the Jebusite is in the tower of David the fleshly wisdom hath got into the understanding O thou wisdom of God captivate and cast it down The Pagan lusts and Gentile-wills shewing themselves in the heart force him to break forth like the Psalmist O God the heathen are come into thine inheritance thy temple they have desiled cast them out O thou mighty Saviour that my soul may be a sanctuary for thy self When the battel is set before and behind corruptions surrounding and encompassing him his eyes are upon his Lord sitting above at the right hand of power till his enemies be made his footstool And as the believer yields up his foul to Christ for mortification of sin so also for vivisication of the soul And this in the very same respects First He yields up his soul to Christ as the grand pattern of vivisication the parallel is the Apostles own Like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father even so we also should walk in newness of life Rom. 6.4 Look what was done in the flesh of Christ in his corporeal resurrection that is done in the spirits of Christians in the spiritual resurrection there the stone was rolled away from the sepulchre here from the heart there the flesh of Christ was raised up by an Almighty power called by the Apostle the glory of the Father here the soul of the believer is raised up by the same power as appears Eph. 1.19 20. there after the corporceal resurrection Christ appeared in humane lineaments here after the spiritual resurrection the Christian appears in divine graces the genius of faith is to assimilate the Christian to Christ risen Secondly He yields up his soul to Christ as the meritorious cause of vivisication Christ merited all graces for us saith doth not dare to go immediately to God no not for holiness it self but it goes and sucks at the breasts of Christs humanity well knowing that all graces are from the spirit and the way of the spirit is by the blood as Tagmon Archbishop of Magdenburg took the last breath of his dying Master Wolfgang by applying mouth to mouth so faith applies its mouth as it were to the wounds of a dying Christ from thence to receive the spirit of all grace that love joy peace long-suffering gentleness goodness meekness temperance as so many rivers of living water may flow in the heart to make glad the habitation of God therein that the holy spirit may be as it were the soul of the soul breathing in the believers prayers and shining on his Bible and melting in his charity and impowering in his infirmity and honey-dropping in his converses and being a Shechinah a presence and a glory in all his ways Thirdly He yields up his soul to Christ as the Royal Donor of all quickning graces Christ as a Priest merited all graces but as a King he gives them out unto us him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour to give repentance Act. 5.31 and so to give all other graces A melting heart is but a word of power from him at Gods right hand an heavenly heart but a touch from him sitting in heaven every piece of holiness is a beam of glory from him meekness and mercy and obedience and patience are as so many pearls dropping from his crown all the sheddings of the holy spirit slow from him who is exalted above he ascended up that he might fill all things Eph. 4.10 that is all the spiritual world of believers with grace Faith therefore looks up for the sweet illapses of the spirit and waits for graces as so many golden apples dropping down from that tree of life which stands in the upper Paradise of God Secondly In and through the Mediator this resignation is made unto God it is God that sanctisieth God as the supream fountain of grace and in this resignation faith climbs up to him partly by the Attribute of free-grace cast thy burden upon the Lord saith the Psalmist Psal 55. 22. or as the Original imports omnia donabilia tua all that thou wouldest have given thee whatever thy want be mortifying grace or quickning grace faith hath an art to cast and unload all upon free-grace there being a famine of grace in lapsed nature faith brings out the empty vessel the soul void of self-worthiness and sets it under one ordinance or other waiting upon God till he rain down righteousness upon the soul This is the rain of liberalities as the Original is Psal 68.9 this faith waits for without money or price of its own
let down into his heart and another all is drawn up into heaven again His Evidences may be blurred Satan may hold up his pardoned Sins as it were in their old guilt the Arrows of God may stick fast in him and bring qualms and sick-fits upon his Conscience But at that day his Comforts shall be unvariable a nightless Day and a cloudless Horizon an eternal feast upon God and all things in him his Evidences all clear and after but this once shewing forth an everlasting possession of the expected Happiness The Accuser Satan shall be struck dumb at the blessed sentence of pardon and acceptance pronounced by God before Men and Angels God shall never frown or wound him any more but wrap him up in the arms of endless love and joy This will be a day of refreshing indeed Thus much of the perfection of this holy fruit Fifthly The last thing is the excellency of it God himself writes upon the Justified 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Blessed one Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven whose sin is covered Pal. 32.1 or as the original Blessednesses is he there is not one single Happiness but a cluster of Beatitudes in this estate Some of these I shall gather off from this Vine First The Justified person hath God for his God these two I will be merciful to their unrighteousness and I will be their God stand in conjunction in the Covenant of Grace Hebr. 8.10 and 12 verses God say the Jewish Rabbins hath the key of the Womb the key of the Grave the key of the Rain and the key of the Heart all that is in the Creation is at his dispose The Justified man hath as I may say a key into God himself He may unlock infinite Treasures and say These everlasting Arms which bear up the World are mine for protection These All-seeing Eyes which guide every wheel in Nature are mine for direction Those immense Bowels which cover all the Creation embrace and sold me up in special Love Those two all-comprizing words My God are in truth utterable by none but such as he is God is called the God of Abraham Isaack and Jacob. Cujus omnes gentes sunt quasi trium hominum Deus esset saith St. Austine as if the Great Lord of all things were appropriated to those three Men. Such honour have all Justified ones God is their own and to make this sure they have bonds and bills under Gods own hand they can in one Promise shew a title to his Power and in another to his Mercy and in a third to his Wisdom and in that I will be their God They can lay a just claim to all that is in him which what it amounts unto is more than the tongue of Men and Angels can express Secondly The Justified person hath Christ for his own When the covetous King of Egypt built an house for his great Treasures the cunning Architect left a loose Stone in the building that so he might have free access thereinto What entrance he had by craft into the Egyptian Treasures that Justified persons have by a fair grant into all the unsearchable riches of Christ Merit Spirit Life Death Righteousness Redemption Fulness Glory all that is in Christ is their own If his Righteousness can stand before God so will they If his Blood can wash away sin they shall be without spot or wrinckle at the Great day If his glorious over-measure of the Spirit cannot fail no more will their supplies of Grace If he ascended up into Heaven it was to prepare a place for them If he make Intercession above they must have access to the Throne of Grace If he sit at the Right-hand of Power and Majesty all their enemies must be made their foot-stool Oh! infinite enjoyment Eye hath not seen nor Ear heard neither can it enter into mans heart what the total sum of this is Thirdly The Justified man hath a rare priviledge in his Holy duties He hath assistance from access unto and acceptance with the great God in these He hath assistance from him Whilest he stands offering up holy Services fire comes down from heaven upon the Sacrifice The Holy Spirit inflames his heart towards God opening it in Hearing melting it in Alms and pouring it out in Prayer So that in some sence he offers up his Duties as Christ did himself through the eternal Spirit enlivening and impowering him thereunto His voyage to Heaven lies through a tract of various Duties but it never fares with him in these as it did with Sir Hugh Willoughby in his Voyage to Moscovy in which he was by extream Frosts frozen to death The warm influences of Grace keep him from freezing in this divine enterprize His heart which seeks the Lord in his waies shall live and to make it sure our Saviour saies expresly because I live ye shall live also Joh. 14.19 His life is hid with Christ As long as Christ the Head is alive above the Members below shall never fail of quickening grace in their addresses to God Again he hath access unto God in them A man under guilt cannot approach unto God no more than fallen Origen casting his eye upon that of the Psalmist What but thou to do to declare my Word could tell how to Preach but the Justified man may draw near unto him because his heart is sprinckled from an evil Conscience The guilt which would have made him shie of God is done away in Christs blood Whilst others are but in the outward Court in the opus operatum the work done he may enter into the Holy of Holies into communion with God the Holy Spirit conducts him thither through the vail of Christs flesh Moreover which is the crown of all he hath acceptance with God God had respect to Abel and to his offering Gen. 4.4 such a respect as to bear witness to his righteousness by some visible sign as fire from heaven consuming the Sacrifice The justified man is in his measure as Daniel a man of Desires and as the Blessed Virgin graced or highly favoured His Prayers make melody in heaven his Alms are the savour of a sweet-smell he doth not lose so much as a cup of cold water nor shut a door of sense against an approaching Temptation in vain There is a well-pleasingness in all his Services as being ushered forth from the heart into the hand of the Mediatour and there richly perfuned for the Father though as they lie in our hearts there be much smoak and mixture of weakness in them yet as they are in the hand of Christ they are glorified duties acceptable to God through Jesus Christ Fourthly The Justified man hath more of the sweetness of life and its outward Comforts than others He hath more of the sweetness of life than others The Jewish Doctours treating about the estimation of Persons mentioned Levit. 27. say That if a man be adjudged to death for his transgression he is not to be valued
Here am I Isa 58.9 as if he were always at hand to answer the request Thirdly Adoption ushers in an Heavenly freedom whilest the Law is only without in the letter and the terrors of Sinai flash in the Conscience the man with his old heart of enmity drudges in the ways of God and brings forth all his Duties as the Bond-woman did her Son in the power of nature in a dead carnal servile manner Moses with the cords of Hell and Death drags the outward man to this and that Duty but old Adam with his lusts reigning within holds back the love and the joy and the delight from the work all renders to bondage till Adoption come and spirit him for holy things Because ye are Sons God hath sent forth the spirit of his Son into your hearts Gal. 4.6 The same Spirit which led the Humane Nature of Christ into all Sinless Obedience leads the Adopted into a true willingness to all the Ways of God that Spirit engraves a Law within answering the outward one and inspires such a Divine Love as casts out the Bond woman and her Son I mean the servile fears and services the Will is set upon the wheels of Faith and Love and the Duties are brought forth in the power of Grace and of the Promise that Promise I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes Ezek. 36.27 is sweetly experimented in every act of Obedience this glorious and almost Angelical freedom grows upon Adoption and no where else no will of man ever seemed out such a thing should any man go about to strike it out of his own power it would fare with him as it did with the person reported of by one of the Jewish Rabbies who in the night lighted his Candle and it went out lighted it again and again and still it went out at last weary of such vain labours he resolved with himself to wait for the Sun Such an one may strike and strike again to fetch such a liberty out of his own will but at last the Conclusion must be If the Son make us free we shall be free indeed Joh. 8.36 and Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty 2 Cor. 3.17 Fourthly Adoption brings us into sweet Communion with God thus the Apostle I will dwell in them and walk in them and I will be their God and they shall be my people 2 Cor. 6.16 I will dwell in them and walk in them who can express it In the Sons of God there is an Ark with the Tables of the Law in it and a Sanctuary with the Shechinah or Divine Majestly in it Gods gracious presence is Spiritual shew-bread and his Love burns upon the heart as the fire that came down from Heaven upon the Altar when they are sacrificing in holy Duties God doth wonderfully by his quickening and elevating influences and when they are suffering in the briers and flames of affliction God is in the Bush supporting and preserving them if Conscience breaths sweetness and peace God is in the still voice if their Graces be set forth God is a supping with them nay if there be but a poor spirit and weak desires God will sup with these the holy light and integrity in their heart is a kind of Vrim and Thummim to direct them and the Heavenly motions and inspirations are as it were a Bath Kol a voice from Heaven for their instruction in a word all the appearances of God in the worldly Sanctuary and outward Symbols of Glory under the Old Testament are spiritually accomplished under the New in the Adopted who are an habitation of God through the Spirit Fifthly Adoption assures protection and provision Israel Gods own People had a Pillar of Cloud and a Pillar of Fire to defend them and these Pillars are still in the Church though not always visible God hath said it That he will create upon her a cloud and smoke by day and the shining of a flaming fire by night upon all the glory shall be a defence Isa 4.5 Rather than his Adopted ones who carry his Glory about them shall want a defence he will put forth an act of Creation Israel when in the Wilderness had Bread from Heaven and Water out of the Rock and to the upright God saith Their Bread shall be given them and their Waters shall be sure Isa 33.16 Rather than fail He will make rivers in the desert to give drink to his People Isa 43.20 When there 's a pinch in the Kingdom of Nature his own Family and Houshold shall be provided for The young Linons may lack and suffer hunger but they that seek the Lord shall not want any good thing Psal 34.10 That Distich Est Deus in coelo qui providus omnia curat Credentes nusquam deseruisse potest Was a Cordial to Musculus in his streights Faith fears no Famine neither shall the Adopted feel any Sixthly Adoption carries with it Perseverance Once a Son of God by Adoption and ever so One of the Jewish Doctors Commenting on that excellent passage With thee is the fountain of life in thy light shall we see light Psal 36. saith That the Israelites were made free by Moses and then brought into bondage again and made free by Barak and divers others and yet brought into bondage again at last they shall be saved by the Lord their God with an eternal Salvation that is by the Messiah If meer notions make us free we shall be in bondage again if Church-priviledges make us free we shall be in bondage again but if Adopting Grace make us free we shall ever be so God hath said nay sworn to Jesus Christ His seed and such are all the Adopted shall endure for ever and his throne part whereof is in their hearts as the Sun before me Psal 89.36 and to make them endure the holy Spirit is in them a well of water springing up to everlasting life Joh. 4.14 and to secure the abode of the Spirit with them Christ is a Priest after the power of an endless life Heb. 7.16 Nay though they break his statutes and thereby bring the rod upon their backs yet God hath promised Not to take away his loving kindness nor suffer his faithfulness to fail Psal 89.33 Upon such unshaken foundations do the Sons of God stand Seventhly Adoption makes them heirs of Heaven Though they may lye among the pots and in the eyes of the World be the refuse and off-scouring of all things yet are they heirs of Glory thus the Apostle If children then heirs heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ Rom. 8.17 That Glory which Christ hath purchased shall they be brought into that Heavenly Inheritance which is sealed without in the Promise is inwardly assured to them by the Seal of the Spirit which by holy impresses marks them out for Heaven and is a sure earnest in their hearts that the whole sum of glory shall be paid to them above each of them
Jews at the Passeover at the end of the Celebration whereof the Father of the Family was wont to take a Cake of Bread and after the blessing thereof to break and distribute it to the Communicants and also after that a Cup of Wine in like sort unto which some refer that Cup of Salvation Psal 116.13 The Bread and Wine among the Jews were but a Customary Rite but Christ consecrated them into a Sacrament saying of the Bread This is my Body and of the Wine This Cup is the New Testament in my Blood which could not before be said of them In the Paschal Rite it was only said of the Bread This is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the bread of affliction and of the Cup This is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Cup of the Hymn But now This is my Body and this is my Blood In this great Ordinance the Body and Blood of Christ are evidently figured out and set forth before our eyes as if he were Crucified among us The seventh General Council at Constantinople who knocked down all other Images saith of this Sacrament That it is Vera Christi Imago the only true Crucifix or Image of Christ And which is much more than an Image the very Body and Blood of Christ are here truly and really though Spiritually present to our Faith being exhibited ut epulum faederale as a Covenant-feast or Love-banquet chearing the heart of God and Man The same Body and Blood which in the Sacrifice on the Cross were a sweet savour unto God and satisfied his Justice are set forth in the Sacrament as meat and drink for our Faith feeding us to Life Eternal Here is Epitome Evangelti a compend of the Gospel the whole Covenant and Contrivance of Salvation is sealed in a bit of Bread and drop of Wine Here the Believer meets with many rich Experiments he feeds and lives upon a Crucified Christ eating his Flesh and drinking his Blood and what a Feast is this 't is much that our Bodies may live upon the Body and Blood of Creatures but Oh incomparable Grace Our Souls may live on the Body and Blood of God One drop whereof saith Luther is more worth than Heaven and Earth Cruci haeremus sanguinem sugimus intra ipsa Redemptoris nostri vulnera figimus linguam saith St. Cyprian Haustu interiori in a Spiritual Mystical way we do in this Ordinance cleave to Christs Cross suck his precious Blood and as it were fasten our Tongues within his healing Wounds Whilest the Bread and Wine are Physically and Carnally united to us we are Mystically and Hyperphysically united to Christ becoming Members of his Body of his Flesh and of his Bones Spiritually dwelling in him and he in us The same holy Spirit which is upon him in Heaven falling down upon us on Earth and the Faith which is in us here below ascending up to clasp and embrace him In sinu Christi recumbimus in cor Christi introspicimus saith Luther We lie in his bosom and look into his heart In our Pardon sealed we taste the sweetness of his atoning Blood and in the effusion of the holy Spirit we drink at the sountainhead of Grace sprung up in his Humane Nature We have here the whole Covenant or Charter of Grace sealed to us and may believe not only ex promisso but ex pignore Over and above the Promise we have a pawn or pledg of the Truth thereof We saw not the inspired Prophets and Apostles penning down the Promises but Ecce Signum lo here is a visible sign and seal set thereunto and sense leads in Faith to claim and possess them for its own Hence our Saviour calls the Cup the New Testament in his Blood Luk. 22.20 The Cup saith Luther contains the Wine the Wine exhibits the Blood of Christ the Blood of Christ natifies the New Govenant and the New Covenant promises remission of Sins and with it a vast treasure of Blessings Again we have here the rich anointings of the holy Spirit Among the Oriental Nations and in particular among the Jews there was Vnctio convivalis a Feastival Vnction which they used as a token of welcome to pour on the head of their Guests Thus there came unto Christ a Woman having an Atabaster box of very precious Ointment and poured it on his head as he sate at meat Mat. 26.7 Whilest we are at the Lords-Table we are anointed with fresh Oyl the holy Spirit is poured out in richer measures of Grace and Comfort than it was at first As a Spirit of Grace and Supplication it melts the Heart into godly sorrows at the sight of a Crucisied Christ Sin being indeed the Jew and Judas the betrayer and murderer of the Son of God the Nails in his Cross and Spear in his Side the Gall and Wormwood in the Cup of Wrath which made him sweat drops of Blood and under an horrid Eclipse of Gods favour to cry out of forsaking To look upon a groaning World travelling under an universal vanity would stir up sorrow in any that had a sense of it much more to look upon a Christ a Creator bleeding and dying upon a Cross to the least drop of whose Passion the dashing down of a World is a poor inconsiderable nothing To look upon the broken Tables of a Law dearer to God than Heaven and Earth is very grievous but to stand and see God for our Sin bruising and breaking his own Son and Effential Image in our assumed Nature is matter of amazing sorrow Never was Sin set forth in such bloody Colours as in his Passion never do repentant tears flow more purely than at such a spectacle Here the Heart breaks in its closing with a broken Christ and bleeds afresh over his Wounds and turns the Sacrament of the Supper into a Baptism of Tears and out of an holy hatred and revenge would have the violence done to Christ be put upon Sin the great Crucifier of him in the true Mortification thereof As a Spirit of Faith it causes us to live upon Christ Having no Righteousness of our own to answer the Law with we feast and satisfie our selves in the Righteousness of Christ as in that which satisfied the heart of God and is here made over to satisfie ours We may surely say The Righteousness of God is upon us and as it hath no spot or wrinkle in it self so it leaves no ground of scruple or jealousie in our Hearts in the midst of our Sins which have Death and Hell virtually in them We yet live upon the atoning Sacrifice of Christ His Blood which was offered up to God through the Eternal Spirit and by him accepted as a plenary Satisfaction for Sin is now put into Promises and Sacraments as into so many Basins and from thence sprinkled on our Conscience to purge away all our guilt our Sins are pardoned and our Pardon passed under the Seal of Heaven In the midst of our Wants Faith can triumph in the
that it were no sin spare it not but cause it to dye as a sure Pledg that all other sins shall do so Believe it This is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the path of life or of those two lines of Holiness and Comfort If ye mortifie the deeds of the body ye shall live saith the Apostle Rom. 8.13 an eternal life in Heaven and a comfortable one in the way thither Who knows but that whilst thou art mortifying thy sin God may come and speak to thee much as he did to Abraham when he was offering up his Isaac Now I know that thou repentest indeed and believest indeed seeing thou hast not withheld thy Sin thy Darling Sin from the work of Mortification Surely blessing I will bless thee and multiplying I will multiply thee Thy Comforts shall be as the Stars and as the Sand. When thou hast been a-slaying thy Lusts Jesus Christ will meet thee as Melchizedek did Abraham when he came from the slaughter of the Kings Bringing forth Bread and Wine Supportations and Divine Consolations to thy Soul Melchizedek's Bread and Wine were to Abraham Pawns of Canaan the Land of Promise and Christs Supports and Comforts shall be to thee Earnests of Heaven See what pure strains of Grace flow in the precious Promises made to the Overcomer To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden Manna and will give him a white stone and in the stone a new name written which no man knoweth saving he which receiveth it Rev. 2.17 O what things are here Comforts fall about the Overcomer and are preserved in his heart as the Manna fell about the Camp and was preserved in the Golden Pot. Pardon is the white stone and Adoption the new name and all these though secret to others are well known to himself But you 'l say These are promised to the Overcomer and who can say that he is such Is not the Canaanite still in the land Are there not reliques of Corruption in the best Doth not the flesh still lust against the spirit and the body of Death send out its stench and rottenness And who may call himself an Overcomer I answer The Canaanite is in the land but subdued Reliques of Sin are in thee but they do gravitare press and lye heavy as a thing out of its proper place and force thee to groan and cry out O wretched man The flesh lusts against the spirit but thou opposest might and main and if it be ready to prevail thou criest out as the forced Damosel under the Law for help against it as being too strong for thee If there be in thee a nolle peccatum a bent of heart against Sin and thou doest in purpose and endeavour fight against it and thou wouldst pursue it to death and if possible here to utter extirpation then assure thy self not withstanding the indwelling sin That thou art an Overcomer in Gods account who accepts the Will for the Deed and in the Gospels all whose Promises are made not to sinless perfection but sincerity To this purpose the Original in that famous place is remarkable It is not to him that overcometh but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to him that is overcoming to him that is praying striving wrestling fighting against Sin to him that is in an overcoming posture though the enemy be not quite out of the field to him shall those great Comforts in the Promise be given This made St. Paul maugre all the reliques of Corruption sound a Triumph to Free-Grace I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord Rom. 7.25 as being sure of compleat Victory at last Again If thou wouldst have Assurance Be much in the holy use of Ordinances These are vehicula Spiritus the Chariots in which the Holy Spirit rides Circuit to do good to Souls These are canales Gratie the Conduit-pipes whereby Graces and Comforts are derived to us There God records his Name and commands the Blessing even Life for ever-more There he meets those that work righteousness and remember him in his ways David was so sensible of this that it was his one only desire to dwell in Gods house and behold 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the beauties or sweet Amenities of the Lord Psal 27.4 If ever thou meetest with the Suavities and ravishing Beauties of Free-Grace it must be in the Sanctuary of Ordinances Christ when here on Earth was very ready to give a comfortable Testimony to those that came to him and brought their Graces with them Seeing upright Nathanael he said Behold an Israelite indeed Joh. 1.47 Seing their Faith he said to the poor Paralytick Son thy sins be forgiven thee Mat. 9.2 Neither now though in Heaven is he wanting therein he hath a secret way of testifying by his Spirit unto those who in an holy manner approach to him in Ordinances Seeing thy holy fear at an Ordinance he can tell thee That thy Soul thall dwell at ease in the bosom of Mercy Seeing thy Faith there he can tell thee That as a true Believer thou hast everlasting life Whatever Grace thou bringest into his presence he can make one Promise or other drop sweetness upon it Wait on him in his own ways that he may speak Peace to thee more particularly Converse much with the sacred Word In the Gospel great things are set before us there 's a Glass of Gods Glory The more thou lookest into it the more thou wilt be transformed into the Divine Likeness there 's a Mass a Treasury of rich Grace the more thou searchest into it the more thou wilt taste how gracious the Lord is till thou come to the highest gust of it in Assurance there are the Breasts of Consolation suck on and thou shalt be satisfied as with marrow and fatness there thou hast the demonstration and ministration of the Spirit get as much as thou canst of it that thou mayst be sealed by it There the Righteousness of God is revealed from Faith to Faith from a Faith of Adherence to a Faith of Assurance There is the savour of Life unto Life of a gracious Life unto a comfortable and glorious One. Be much in reading and hearing the Word but do it in an holy manner do it attentively take heed to it till the day dawn and the day-star arise in thy heart do it desiring the Word as the Babe doth the Breast that thou mayst grow into all the measures and statures of Christ do it in faith that the Word may profit and effectually work unto all Graces and Comforts do it in love to Truth and Righteousness that the oyl of gladness which is upon Christ thy Head may run down upon thee do it obedientially hearken to the Commands that thy Peace may be as a River flowing in the joys of Faith If thus thou wilt hear and open to Christ who stands and knocks at the door of thy heart He will come in to thee and sup with thee and thou with him Revel 3.20 He will come in to
of Gods Countenance towards me and lye down in the dismal borders of Hell and Death How can I do it Such a restraint as this is a degree of Mortification Sin begins to die when such chains and manacles as these are cast upon it Secondly Faith doth not only restrain the outward acts of Sin but strikes at the life of it that is the love thereof and to this end Faith clearly demonstrates that Sin is not eligible or an object fit for an Humane Will Sin shews it self as eligible many ways but Faith destroys all those eligibilities Take Sin as meer Sin in the abstract and so it is evil and only evil and as the Schools generally determine Sub ratione mali it is not it cannot be eligible at all and yet even in the notion of meer Sin it becomes eligible Sub ratione convenientiae as it is congruous to the corrupt Heart of Man The Socinian and Pelagian Errors are welcome meerly as Parasites to the pride of Reason and Will In Sins of Omission the very neglect gratifies Mans aversness from good in Sins of Commission the very violation of the Law complies with his enmity thereunto Saint Austin in his Confessions Lib. 2 cap. 4. says That he stole Apples that he might Frui non re ipsa sed furto that he was Gratis malus amavit defectum suum casting away the Apples he feasted on the iniquity or if he took any of them into his mouth Condimentum facinus erat Sin was the only fawce thereof Man drinketh in iniquity like water the very sinfulness is connatural This eligibility before Faith must needs be very strong for to Man in the pride and self-flattery of Nature nothing is sweeter or dearer than to walk in the way of his Heart as absolute unaccountable Lord of all his Actions but when Faith comes then it clearly appears that the corrupt Heart into which Sin insinuates by congruity is too vile a thing to be gratified it steals away from holy Duties plays false after fair promises hatches treason and rebellion against God and like a common Strumpet prostitutes it self to every temptation that passes by to gratifie it is to feed a disease or vicious humour satisfie a grave or gulf of inordinate desires put the darling Soul into the mouth of Satan and desperately leap into the bottomless pit that corruption to which Sin is so grateful is an accursed thing destinated by the Gospel to be crucified and slain without mercy and those reliques of it which after the greatest mortifications remain are to be mourned and groaned under as the heaviest burden in the world What the Jewish fringes did typifie that the Christians Faith operates in keeping men from seeking after their own heart but to go on take sin not as meer sin but in the dress of some apparent good let it be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a well-circumstanced Sin as a learned man takes that place Heb. 12.1 flowing in riches or rowling in sensual pleasures or holding forth Crowns and Scepters and all Mundane glory nay if it were possible let it invest it self with a Creation all the lower World cannot make it eligible to Faith Set down a World if Faith substract but a God or a Soul what will remain but infinite damage those treasures which glitter so much to dark sense are to Faith but poor rusty moth-eaten things that which is substance to the World is to Faith but a shadow an apparition a thing that is not a mark too low for an Immortal Soul to fly at These things at present and in the Now-World seem something but if Faith look through the World unto the universal conflagration and beyond it to the World to come what will they signifie Are they able to survive those last flames or purchase any thing in the World to come Surely just nothing except only so much thereof as is exchanged thither in Charity and good Works to Faith the whole inventory of them is but a great cheat the Riches are not the true ones the Gold is not that tried in the fire the Land doth not lie in the Country which Faith seeks after there is nothing in them to feed or cloth or enrich the inward man and to hazard a God or a Soul for them must needs be an infinite loss And what are the pleasures of this World to Faith In carnal Sins they are but the titillations of sense in which the Rational faculties were they not Spiritually incarnate and become flesh would have no touch of delight In Spiritual Sins they are but the false gusts of a vitiated Reason and Will which if made right by Faith find no congruity but in what is true and good neither of which can be in a Sin In both momentany as they are they perish in the using and die in the embraces like the dead Son of the Emperour Basilius Macedo who being Magically presented to his Father as alive after a few touches and doting glances disappeared so they go off only they leave a sting and a worm behind them in Conscience and the poor Voluptary without repentance must lie down in eternal sorrow a thought whereof is enough to imbitter all their sweetness And are Mundane glories any better in Faiths account Honour is but a blast a little popular air Monarchies have their periods History gives us a prospect of their vanity and much more Faith which translates the Soul into the everlasting Kingdom and from thence looks on the Empires of the World as the chaff of the Summer-floor rolling away with the wind of time To a man up among the Stars the whole Earth would be but as a small thing and such are Crowns and Scepters to one conversing in Heaven in the midst of them a man may want true greatness the World 's Epiphanes may be but a vile person a slave to his lusts which is the greatest servitude at death he may like Adrian moan over his little Soul and at Judgment cry out to the rocks and mountains to fall upon him and cover him from the presence of the Lord. But to proceed and take Sin in another dress let it come as a worldly Saviour entertain it and you shall be delivered from losses reproaches racks persecuting flames and cruel deaths it will not yet be eligible Faith in the love of its espousals and upon the first contract received a whole Christ Cross and all and so virtually and in purpose hath already swallowed down all persecutions which go along with the Gospel and when the actual trial comes Faith will not escape by iniquity which is an evil transcendently greater than all the rest and whilest it outwardly temporally saves inwardly eternally destroys To Faith there is no loss like that of a Soul no reproach like Sins turpitude no racks like those in Conscience no flames or deaths like those in Hell Which made those tormented Worthies not accept deliverance Heb. 11.35 Sin is meer Sin
totally perfectly evil but suffering for the Gospel is not meer suffering In temporal losses there may be eternal gain in reproaches a spirit of glory in outward racks inward joys In the Burning-bush God may dwell and death may open a door to life everlasting Hence come the famous Triumphs of Martyrs the Apostle rejoyced that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for Christ Act. 5.41 In the Original it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That they were honoured to be dishonoured for Christ Others have stiled their Prisons a Paradise and their Iron-Chains a goodly Neck-kercher and at last have kissed the Stake and thanked the Executioner accounting Suffering the only eligible thing in the World Thus Faith destroys all Sins eligibilities and in so doing as the Apostle speaks overcomes the World which is the purest of Victories The great ones who captivated the World outwardly and martially were themselves captivated by it in one lust or other Not unlike Amaziah who subdued the Edomites and was himself taken with their gods But Faith which overcomes inwardly and Spiritually subdues the lusts themselves Further yet Faith doth not only strike at the love of Sin by destroying its eligibilities but by surrendring the Heart to a better Object whilest the love and joy and delight is in Sin it lives as a body with a spirit in it but when these are surrendred up to God and Christ and Heavenly things it becomes inanimate as a dead Carcase This was notably deciphered in Christ crucified the grand pattern of our Mortification he was not only stript and nailed but commending his Spirit to God be gave up the Ghost Answerably in Mortification Sin is not only stript of its eligibilities and nailed by restraints but it dies away in the surrenders of Faith by which the Soul Enoch-like is translated into Heaven and its affections are not here below to animate Sin Were this surrender in perfection Sin could not so much as be as is evident in Christs Humane Nature upon which no spot could fall because it ever was in perfect surrender to his Father And proportionably where it is but in truth only Sin is a-dying because the love and joy whilest in the raptures and triumphs of Faith afford no quickning thereunto hence the Apostle exhorts Walk in the spirit in the elevations of Faith and other Graces and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh Gal. 5.16 Sin shall grow heartless and be able to do little or nothing Here we see how the dear intimate lusts come to die they cease to be dear as Faith turns the stream of the Heart and give up the Ghost as the love and the joy go out to God It was Luthers method in Reformation that first the Images were to be removed out of the minds of Men and then all would suceed and it is Faiths method in Mortification by holy surrenders to sever the Heart from its lusts and so do the work Moreover Faith casts out the love of Sin by conversing in the holy Word after which the Soul becomes pure and shining like Moses face after he had been with God conversing with the Law it sees a rectitude and pure splendor and then to love Sin is to embrace crookedness and hellish darkness and withal it sees wrath and vengeance threatned against transgressors and then to love Sin is to take death and hell into our bosom Conversing with the Gospel it hath such a fair prospect of Grace and Christ as renders Sin the most ungrateful and unnatural thing in the World Shall God give up his Son his eternal joy to die upon a cross and a man a worm spare a lust a brat of his corrupt Heart Shall Christ pour out his Blood and very Soul to expiate Sin and a Believer a redeemed one fall in love with the Crucifier Shall the holy Spirit come down and dwell in Man as his Temple and he who is so honoured embrace that which is the only offence and grievance to such a guest Or shall the Kingdom of Heaven come down and offer it self and that which is the only bar and obstacle be received Surely a Believer with his eyes open will not do so the more of converse he hath with the Word the less of the love of Sin As Sense when it lies brooding on the Creature inflames the love of Sin So Faith when it dwells on the Word abates it that Concupiscence which at first crept in upon Eve in a slumber of Faith while Sense was doting on the fruit must be driven out again by Faith fixing on the Word and soating above sensible things Thus far how Faith strikes at the love of Sin Thirdly Faith mortifies Sin by watching against all the occasions and inducements thereof The Jews were not to name the Idol-gods the Nazarite was to abstain from the very husk of the grape Valentinian could not bear a little drop of Julians holy-water accidentally sprinkled on his garment without detestation The Children of Samosatane would not play with their Ball after the Ass of the Heretical Bishop Lucius had trod on it but burnt it in the Market-place as unclean Faith is nice and curious it will not go in with such a dissembler nor come nigh the door of such an Harlot as Sin is knowing that the Soul may soon be cheated and adulterated thereby Apprehensions of danger make men watch and to Faith there is no danger like that of Sin If the good man of the house had known when the thief would come he would have watched saith our Saviour Mat. 24.43 Faith knows Sin to be a thief and a murderer to the Soul and therefore sets guards within and without that it may not creep in by the ports of Sense nor rise up out of the deep of the Heart Within there is a watch over the Thoughts and without over the sensible Objects And if a snare appear Faith cries out as the suffering Martyr did when a Box with a Pardon in it was set before him Away with it as you love my Soul During this watch Sin pines and famishes away as in a Spiritual siege the common commerce between the Thoughts and the Objects fails and with it those provisions which use to be made for the flesh Hence our Saviour would have his Disciples To watch and pray that they might not enter into temptation Temptations will offer themselves but the watching Believer will not enter into them by a consent Fourthly Faith mortifies Sin by those actings of Grace which it puts forth in the Believer As Sin the more it is acted makes the fuller blot on the Soul so Grace the more it is acted leaves the purer tincture there You have purified your Souls in obeying the truth saith St. Peter 1 Epist 1.22 Every act of Grace or Obedience doth in its measure purifie from Sin The righteous holds on his way and so grows stronger and stronger Job 17.9 The exercise of Grace renders the inner man more strong and