regard them Neither can it be collected beforehand from any fixt rule or reason seeing it observes none And what neither our greatest wisdom can foretel nor our exactest care prevent it is wholly to no purpose to make a matter of our study and enquiry But as for the Everlasting happiness or misery of our Souls and Bodies in the other Life and at the Resurrection they are not left at random nor fall out by accident but are dispensed by a wise hand and according to a fixt and established rule For it is God who distributes them and this distribution is in Judgment and the procedure in that is by Laws and those laws are unalterably fixt for us and most plainly declared and published to us in the Gospel So that now it is no impossible no nor extream difficult thing for us to understand which shall be our own state in the next world For the laws are well known proclaimed daily to every ear by a whole order of men set apart for that purpose their sence and meaning is obvious to any common understanding and the Judgment according to them at that day will be true and faithful God will Absolve all those whom his Gospel acquits but Condemn every man whom it accuses There will be no perverting of Justice through fear or favour no Sentence passed through partiality or ill will but a Tryal every way unbyassed and uncorrupt where Every one shall receive according to the things done in the body 2 Cor. 5.10 And Judgment shall pass upon all men according to their works Rom. 2.6 And thus as the belief of the two former Articles the immortal state either of Bliss or Misery for our Souls and the Resurrection of our Bodies will inflame us with restless desires so if we seriously believe it will this third Article of the great and general Judgment possess us with sure hopes of being satisfyed in this great enquiry which of the two States will fall to our own share And as this belief of the last Judgment will be the most effectual means to encourage so will it be withal the surest to guide our Enquiries after it It chalks us out a method for our search and directs us to the readiest course for satisfaction For if the happiness and misery of the next world is to be dispensed to every man for a reward or punishment according to the direction of those Laws which promise or threaten them then have we nothing more to do in this enquiry but to examine well what those laws are what obedience they require what allowances and mitigations they will bear and what lot and condition they assign us For in that day we shall be look'd upon to be what they declare us and be doom'd to that state which they pronounce for us What they speak to us all now that the Judge of all the world will pronounce upon us all then their sentence shall be his and what they denounce he will execute He will judge us by no other measure but his own Laws those very Laws which he has taken so much care to proclaim to us and continually to press upon us which he has put into every one of our hands and made to be sounding daily in our ears the laws and sanctions of the Gospel Our blessed Saviour Christ the Judge himself has told us this long ago The word that I have spoken the same shall judge men at the last day Joh. 12.48 And his great Apostle Paul has again confirmed it Rom. 2. God shall judge the world at that day according to my Gospel vers 16. If we perform what those Laws peremptorily require they now already declare us blessed and such at the last day will Christ pronounce us But if by sinning against them we fall short of it they denounce nothing but everlasting woes and miseries and those he will execute For he tells us plainly that when he shall come to judgment in the Glory of his Father with his holy Angels he will reward every man according to his works Mat. 16.27 To them who by patient continuance in well-doing seek for glory and immortality he will give eternal life Rom. 2.7 But to them who obey not the Truth but obey unrighteousness indignation and wrath tribulation and anguish and that upon every man whether he be Jew or Gentile vers 8 9. For all this shall be acted in the greatest integrity without preferring one before an other It is only the difference in mens works which shall difference their conditions but they who have been equal in their sins shall be equal also in their sufferings For at the appearance of Jesus Christ God as S t Peter tells us without any respect of persons judges according to every mans work 1 Pet. 1.7.17 The way then whereby to satisfie our selves in this great matter is this To look well into the Gospel there to learn what we should be and into our own hearts and lives there to see what indeed we are and thence to conclude what in the next world whether in a state of Life or Death we shall be And to shew this to every man and to let him see now beforehand how he stands prepared for the next world and whether if he should be called away presently to the Bar of that Judgment he would be everlastingly acquitted or condemned in it is my present business and design It is to let us see our Eternal Condition before we enter on it and to make it evident to every man who is both capable and willing to be instructed what shall be his endless doom of Life or Death before the Judge pronounce it And since the Rule of that Court whereby we must all be tryed and which must measure out to us either Life or Death is as we have seen none other than the Gospel of our Judge and Saviour Jesus Christ that I may manage this enquiry with the greater light and clearness I will proceed in this method First I will enquire What is that condition of our happiness or misery which the Gospel indispensably exacts Secondly What are its mitigations and allowances those defects which it pardons and bears with And when at any time we fall short of this condition and thereby forfeit all right and title to that happiness and pardon which is promised to us upon it Then Thirdly What are those remedies and means of recovery which it points us out for restoring our selves again unto a state of Grace and Favour and whereupon we shall be reconciled And having by this means discovered what in the great and general judgment shall really and truly determine our last estate what shall be connived at in it and when once 't is lost what shall restore to it I shall in the Fourth and last place Remove those groundless doubts and scruples which perplex the minds of good and safe but yet erring and misguided people concerniâ—â— it And having in this manner cleared up all thâ—se
For every Man at the last day will be declared a Child of wrath who is a son of disobedience and he shall most certainly be Damned who dyes without amendment and Repentance in works which are wilfully and deliberately sinful Christs Gospel has already judged this long before-hand and at that day he will confirm it When the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from Heaven with his mighty Angels i. e. when he shall come with his Royal attendance to judge the world He will take vengeance says S t Paul on all them that OBEY not his Gospel who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord 2 Thess. 1.7 8 9. When he comes in state with the ten thousands of his Saints it will be to execute Judgment upon all that are ungodly for all the ungodly DEEDS which they have committed Jude 14 15. And when our Lord himself gives a relation of his proceedings at that day he tells us that whosoever they be or whatsoever they may pretend if their works have been disobedient they shall hear no sentence from him but what consigns them to Eternal Punishment I will profess thus unto them says he I never knew you Depart from me ye that WORK iniquity Matt. 7.23 This will be the method of Christs Judgment and these the measures of his Sentence he will pronounce Mercy and Life upon all that are obedient but Death and Hell to all that disobey And indeed it were hight of folly and madness to expect he should do otherwise and to fancy that when he comes to judge us as S t Paul says according to the Laws of his Gospel he should absolve and reward us when in our works and actions we have transgressed them For this were to thwart his own rule and to go cross to his own measures it were to encourage those whom his laws threaten to acquit such as they condemn and in one word not to judge according to them as he has expresly declared he will but against them If we would know then what condition we shall be adjudged to in the next world we must examine what our obedience has been in this We can have no assurance of a favourable Sentence in that Court but only the doing of our duty Our last doom shall turn not upon our knowing or not knowing our willing or not willing but upon our obeying or disobeying It is in vain to cast about for other marks and to seek after other evidences nothing less than this performance of our duty can avail us unto life and by the merits of Christ and the grace of his Gospel it shall And thus we see in the general what those terms and that condition are which to mete out our last doom of Bliss or Misery the Gospel indispensably exacts of us It is nothing less than a working service and obedience the enquiry to be made at that day being only this whether we have done what was commanded us If we have performed what was required of us we shall be pronounced Righteous and sentenced to Eternal Life but if we have wilfully transgressed and wrought wickedness without amendment and repentance we shall then be declared incorrigible Sinners and adjudged to Everlasting Death This indeed is a very great truth but yet such as very few are willing to see and to consider of For obedience is a very laborious service and a painful task and they are not many in number who will be content to undergo it And if a man may have no just hopes upon any thing less than it the case of most dying men is desperate But as men will live and dye in sin so will they live and dye in hopes too And therefore they catch at softer terms and build upon an easier condition And because the Gospel promises Salvation and a happy sentence to faith love repentance our being in Christ our knowing Christ and other things besides obedience they conclude that they shall be acquitted at that Bar upon the account of any or all of these though they do not obey with them They make Faith Love Repentance and the rest to be something separate from obedience something which will save them when that is wanting So that if they be in Christ if they know and believe with the mind and love and repent in their hearts their hope is to be absolved at the last day be their lives and actions never so disobedient But this is a most dangerous and damning errour For it makes men secure from danger till they are past all possibility of recovering out of it and causes them to trust to a false support so long till it lets them drop into Hell and sink down in damnation And although it be sufficiently evident from what has been already said that our obedience is that only thing which will be admitted as a just plea and as a qualification able to save us in that Court yet because I would fully subvert all these false grounds whereupon men support their pernicious hopes and sinful lives together I will go on to prove it still further And this will be most plainly effected by shewing that all those other terms and conditions whereto the Gospel sometimes promises pardon and happiness concenter all in this and save us no otherwise than by being springs and principles of our obedience They are not opposed to our doing of our duty and keeping the Commandments but imply it For when pardon is promised to Faith to Love to Repentance or any thing else it is never promised to them as separate from obedience but as containing it Obedience is that still for which a man is saved and pardoned it is not excluded from them but expressed by them In order to a clearer apprehension of the truth of this I think fit to observe that there is an ordinary figure and form of speech very usual both with God and men which the Rhetoricians call a Metonymie or Transnomination and that is a transferring of a word which is the particular Name of one thing to express an other The use of it is this that in things which have a near relation and dependance upon each other as particularly the cause and its effect have the particular name of either may many times signifie both so that when the name only of one is expressed yet really both are meant and intended And then by that word which in its proper sence stands only for the effect we are to understand not it alone but together with it the cause also that produced it and by that which properly signifies the cause we are to mean not the bare cause alone but besides it the effect which flows from it likewise As for the latter of these the bare naming of the cause when we intend together with it to express its natural consequent and effect too because it is that which chiefly concerns our present business I will set down some instances of it which daily
that the motions of sin which were occasioned and strengthened by the weakness and inability of the Law which could not restrain them did work such service and obedience to them in our members or bodily powers as to bring forth fruit unto death But now upon our becoming subject unto Christ we are delivered from the subjection of the Law whose weakness gave sin so great advantage over us that Law I say being now dead and abolished wherein whilst we so served sin we were held in subjection which deliverance is vouchsafed us as I said for this end that being made not the Laws but Christs Subjects now we should answerably to that serve in newness of Spirit or in such sort as the new Spirit and Grace of his Religion enables us and not as we served formerly under our subjection to the Law in the oldness of the letter or in those weak and ineffective degrees whereto the helpless letter of the old Law could assist us But upon what I say of this change of service from sin to God which we have all felt upon our becoming Christians being an effect of this change of subjection from the Law to Christ some of you 't is like may think that the Law which I affirm we sinned under is aspersed and reproached by me and thus object What say we then Is the Law under which you say we sinned so much and from which being now delivered we have ceased to serve sin the cause of sin to them who live under it Now to this I must answer God forbid that any man should either say or think so No we served sin under the Law but yet the Law was no cause of sin And both these all they who live under it feel in themselves and must acknowledge To avoid offence suppose that I my self were this Subject of the Law now as I was formerly 't is very true as I have said that I do serve sin under it but is the Law the cause of it By no means Nay so far is the Law from causing or encouraging sin in me that on the contrary it points it out to me and forbids it I had not known what things are sin but by the help of the Law which shews it for I had not known lust or concupiscence for instance which is only in the heart and not in the outward action to be a sin except the Law of the tenth Commandment had said expresly thou shalt not covet But for all the Law both shews and prohibits sin and so can contribute nothing to produce but rather to destroy it yet I must truly tell you still that whereas Sin has other causes more than enow that are sufficient to produce it the Law is so weak and imperfect as not to be able to hinder it For in this instance of Concupiscence especially whereto in the Law there is no express punishment threatned the sinfull inclinations of our flesh which are cause enough of all sin grow bold and hearing of no express threatning from it will not be restrained by it And by this means the Sin of Concupiscence taking occasion from the impunity of the Commandment instead of being restrained by it took liberty and presumed upon it and so without all fear wrought and accomplished or brought on to compleat action and practice in me all manner of concupiscence And seeing the Law only forbid but could not restrain it it helped on in the end rather to make and let me see my self to be a sinner than to deliver me from sin for without the promulgated Law Sin was almost dead being both little in it self and less upon the Conscience For the less knowledge there is of the Law the less is there of sin in transgressing it and also the less sense of it And therefore as I say as for this instance of Concupiscence which I had not known to be a Sin unless the Law had told me so without the Law I had neither offended so highly in it nor had so great a sense of my offence And this was found by experience in the men of our Nation For any one of them who was alive at the promulgation of the Law upon Mount Sinai might say I was alive to my thinking and as to great degrees of that guilt which I contracted afterwards without the Law once or before such time as it was there proclaimed to us for till then I knew not lust to be a sin and so by reason of my ignorance neither sinn'd so much in it nor was so sensible of it as now I am but when the Commandment came and was plainly made known to me by Moses then Sin I say which was only shewn and forbid but could not be restrained by it revived and begun to have the fulness of guilt and terrour in it and I thenceforward being warn'd against it and not being able to keep back from it became liable to that death which is the wages of it and died by it And thus the Law or Commandment which was not only holy and innocent in it self but moreover intended by God for my good and ordained to life which it promised could I have obeyed it I notwithstanding found to be unto death to me because that became my due when I sinn'd against it Not as if the Law can be said to be the Author of death to me more than it is of sin in me For it was aim'd to destroy sin which it shews and forbids and to procure life which it offers and promises But the true cause of this effect so contrary to its intention viz. its producing Sin and Death whenas it was ordained to Holiness and Life is its being as I said before weak and unable by all its aids to conquer fully and restrain that Sin which brings Death upon us for it cannot subdue but only shew and forbid it And therefore our habitual Lusts finding themselves too strong for it burst through it and in spite of all its restraint make us commit the one and so become liable to the other For in very deed it is not the Law which is the cause of Death to me but Sin it self which taking occasion or advantage by the literal and fancied impunity of the tenth Commandment deceived me through a false hope into the commission of it and by it made me in reality liable to that Death which is truly the wages of it or in a word slew me Wherefore notwithstanding we sinn'd yea and died also during our subjection under the Law yet for all that neither can our Sin nor our Death be charged upon the Law it self because instead of contributing to them it tends to destroy them by expresly forbidding the one and offering to deliver us from the other And therefore as for this difficulty that was made at the seventh verse against my saying that we served Sin under the Law viz. its following thence that the
my mind which strives against it and prevails over it and makes me practise contrary to what my mind approves So that when being enclined by Gods Law I would do good then being over-ruled by the law of sin I cannot but evil is laid before me and present with me Gods Law I say I serve with the mind For I delight in the Law of God after the inner man of my mind and conscience But all this while I only approve of it but no more For all the effect which it has upon me is only to create a liking of it in my mind But as for my practice and Outward performance it is under anothers power For I see another opposite Law viz. that of Lust and Sin which is seated in my bodily members not only warring against the Law of God in my mind but conquering also and prevailing over it bringing me into captivity that absolute sort of subjection and slavery to practise the Law of Sin which is seated in my members And since I am so far enslaved to the Law of Lust and Sin when the Law of God undertakes me that even that Law it self which God has appointed for my remedy is not able to rescue and deliver me I have too great reason to cry out O! wretched man that I am who shall deliver me since this Law given me by Moses is not able to do it from the slavery and misery of this body of death This indeed was our condition under the Law which shews at once the Laws holiness and goodness and withall its inability and weakness because notwithstanding it offer'd some Grace yet was not that enough but that during our subjection under it we commonly served sin still But now as for that slavish service of sin which a bare Jew who has no other help against it but Moses's Law complains of and longs to be delivered from that as I told you at first we Christians through the surpassing Grace of Christs Gospel are delivered from already So that to such a complaining Jew as I have here personated I Paul an Apostle of Jesus Christ can readily make answer Alter your subjection and you shall alter your service too for in becoming subject unto Christ instead of the Law you shall become servants of God instead of serving sin I thank God there is a way now in Christ for such deliverance or as it is read by some copies the Grace of God which comes through Jesus Christ our Lord shall deliver you although the Law could not which came by Moses But without this Grace I must still tell you that the Law it self will not generally have any such effect upon you seeing as I said it will only awaken your conscience but not reform your practice So then to shut up this discourse this you must still conclude upon that whilst you continue subject to the Law you will serve sin in your practice however you may disapprove it in your minds For I my self or the same I under the Law who with the mind as has been often observed serve in approving the Law of God do yet with the flesh so long as it has nothing else but the Law to restrain it serve in practising the Law of Sin But to return to what I said vers 5 6. of the last Chapter from whence we have hitherto diverted to answer this objection I say having by this passage from subjection to the Law to subjection unto Christ upon the Laws being abolished changed our service together with our subjection and become servants now not unto Sin but unto Christ All we Christians are safe from that Death which the Law of the members brought forth fruit to Chap. 7. vers 5. and have right to that Eternal Life which as I said is the gift of God to all his servants Chap. 6. vers 22 23. So that what reason soever a poor Jew under the Law who serves and obeys Sin may have to cry out of the body of Death yet we Christians who began to serve God upon our becoming subject unto Christ may comfort our selves to see that we are delivered from it And therefore whatever there be to a striving but yet unconquering Jew there is now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus's Religion because they are such who have changed their service together with their subjection and walk not now after the Flesh as they did formerly whilst the Law held them in subjection but after the Spirit This change of service I say is wrought in all true Christians by the Law of Christ although it could not generally be wrought in the Jews by the bare Law of Moses For the Law and power of the Spirit of life which is given to us in Christ Jesus and is expresly promised in his Religion though it were not in the Law of Moses that enabling Spirit I say hath made me Christian free from the so often mentioned Law of sin and from the punishment of it Death For what the Law of Moses could not do towards our deliverance from the service of sin in that it was too weak through the overpowering wickedness of the Law of lust in the Flesh even that hath God done in sending his own Son Jesus Christ in the likeness of sinful Flesh and in making him a Sacrifice for sin that in his death he might found his own Religion whereby he hath condemned and destroyed what the Law of Moses was overcome by viz. the Law of sin seated in the Flesh. So that by the help of Christs Law perfecting what the Law of Moses wanted the righteousness which was shown to us and required of us in the Book of the Law of Moses might be performed and fulfilled in us Christians although it was not ordinarily in the bare Jews because we are such who being Christs Subjects must be his Servants likewise and in our works and practice walk not after the lusts of the Flesh but after the motions of the Spirit Thus have I given a Paraphrase upon this involved and so much mistaken Chapter Wherein I have largely and as I hope truly represented the Apostles meaning his design and manner of arguing in this place In all which we see he intends not at all to give a Character of himself or of any other regenerate man but only of a midling Sinner who sins against his Conscience and transgresses with reluctance Which Transgressor of a middle rank he particularly represents under the person of an awaked but as yet unregenerate Jew who was one on whom the Law of Moses had wrought some change but could not work enough being able only to awaken his Conscience but not to reform his practice So that all that is there said in that seventh Chapter of willing but not performing c. only sets off the weakness and imperfection of the Law of Moses as to the making men compleatly obedient
sit as their Judge Depart from me all ye that work iniquity Mat. 7.23 As for this fourth faculty therefore our strength or bodily powers in outward works and operations it is one necessary ingredient of an entire obedience The service of our works is indispensably required to our pardon and happiness as well as the service of our minds our wills and our affections so that as ever we hope to live our obedient thoughts and desires must end in an obedient practice And thus at last we see what those powers or faculties are whose concurrence in Gods Service is necessary to make up an entire obedience We must obey all the particular Laws that are recounted in the former Book with our whole man both with our minds and souls and hearts and strength all these several powers must unite in Gods Service before it will be upright and compleat such as at present his Law requires and such as at the last day he will accept of CHAP. V. Of the second sort of integrity an integrity of times and seasons The CONTENTS Of the second sort of Integrity viz. that of Times and Seasons Of the unconstancy of many mens obedience Perseverance necessary unto bliss The desperate case of Apostates both as to the difficulty of their recovery from sin and the greatness of their punishment BUt besides the Integrity of our powers and faculties or the Integrity of the Subject whereof I have discoursed hitherto there is a second sort of Integrity which is plainly necessary to make our obedience available to our salvation at the last day and that is an Integrity of seasons and opportunities or our obeying the forementioned Laws not now and then but at all times We must not think to please God by an obedience that comes and goes by fits or by serving him only at such times as we are in humour or have no temptation to the contrary But our service of him must be constant and uniform we must obey him at all times and wilfully transgress in none For although all other things have their proper season yet sin has not it is alwayes forbidden and alwayes threatned so that whensoever we commit it it puts us under the curse and makes us liable to death and hell Some indeed there are who parcel out their time and divide it betwixt God and their sins They observe a constant course of transgressing and repenting of sin and sorrow For they are alwayes won when they are tempted and they are alwayes sorrowfull when they have done They are all holy purpose and good resolution before they are tryed but when the temptation comes they can make but a poor resistance for all their good thoughts quickly vanish and they are taken They are never constant either in pious purposing or in well-doing Their actions are not all of a piece but a medly of good and bad for they still keep on in an uninterrupted vicissitude and succession of works of obedience and sin Others again there are who act more agreeably to themselves and whilst they are for God are more constant in their obedience who yet fall off at last and sin against him for altogether For either they grow faint and weary by the tediousness and length of their journey or they are turned out of the way by some great difficulties or drawn aside by the importunate allurements of some temptation and when once by any of these wayes they are put beside their duty they turn their backs thenceforward upon God and never more obey him They are seduced by ill company or drawn away by interest or frighted by persecution and from that time their care slackens and their lusts encrease and grow too hard for Grace and the Gospel And thus what from inducements from within and what from occasions from without they are quite cut off from the service of God and Religion and give themselves up to serve their lusts for altogether and to an uninterrupted obedience of sin But now as for such a broken service and obedience as this God will by no means accept of it nor shall any man be ever the better by it For when Christ comes to Judgment he will pass Sentence upon men according to what they are then and not according to what they have been formerly If the righteous man turn away from his righteousness saith Ezekiel and commit iniquity and do according to all that the wicked man doth shall he live No by no means For all his righteousness that he hath done formerly shall not be mentioned but in his trespass that he hath since trespassed and in his sin that he hath sinned in them shall he dye Ezek. 18.24 It is only if you continue in my Word saith our Saviour that you are my Disciples indeed John 8.31 You must persevere in obedience if you expect to have the reward of it For he only who endures to the end shall be saved Matth. 10.22 and none but they who by PATIENT CONTINVANCE in well doing seek for Glory and Immortality shall inherit eternal life Rom. 2.6 7. Perseverance is the indispensable condition of bliss we cannot have it cheaper Be thou faithful unto death and then saith Christ I will give thee a Crown of life Rev. 2.10 But as for all those who fall off from a good course and turn Apostates from obedience their case is desperate and their condition extreamly damnable For they grow wicked to the highest degree and their state is almost irrecoverable They have by their continued rebellion and provocations in spite of all the suggestions of Gods Grace and the checks of their own Conscience not only grieved but even quenched the Spirit of God So that God for the most part leaves them to themselves and seeks no further to reduce them For if men are idle and will not use it and much more if they scornfully cast it from them and reject it Christ hath told us plainly that the Grace which any man hath shall be taken from him Matth. 25. 29. And when once God and his good Spirit have deserted them they are under nothing but an unbridled lust and run on without all restraint into an exorbitant pitch of wickedness And this any man may easily observe in the world For who is usually so evil as the backsliding Sinner Who is ordinarily so irrecoverable as the Apostate Saint They are quite lost to all goodness and sin beyond all bounds and past all retrieve No Creatures in the World were ever so much out of all capacity to be restored to Heaven as those Angels that fell from it and no men on Earth are so hardly reclaimed from a wicked to a holy life as they who once knew what it was and yet utterly renounced it For God for the most part lets them alone to enjoy their own choice and to go on in their own way and the good Spirit which has been almost quenched by them contends no more with them nor acts any more
For Christ need never have come into the World for that end since the Law had rendred us accursed and miserable enough already But he came on a quite contrary Errand to be the Minister of Life and Pardon and not to seal us up to eternal Death upon the first wilful transgression but to procure for us remission of all our deadly and damning sins and to restore us out of a state of Enmity and Death to a state of Mercy and Reconciliation He came to find out a remedy for all our evils and to prescribe us a way of recovering our selves when we had fallen by any sin so that although none of us all have lived free from it yet in the event sin shall not be our ruine And that remedy which God has provided us for this purpose is Repentance He doth not abandon us upon the commission of every sin but he is heartily desirous that we should repent of it and when we do so he has obliged himself by his Truth and Faithfulness to forgive it He is heartily desirous I say that whensoever we commit any sin we should repent of it If we dare take his own word he tells us as he lives that he doth not delight in the death of any sinner but that the wicked turn from his way and live turn you turn you as he goes on from your evil ways for why will you dye O house of Israel Ezek. 33.11 And this all the World experience by him in his long-suffering and forbearance with them For he doth not exact the punishment so soon as we have incurred it but expects long to see if we will return and repent that then he may with honour pardon and remit it this being as S t Paul assures us the end of his forbearance and long-suffering to lead us to repentance Rom. 2.4 And what S t Paul says that we all experience For during all that time wherein he bears with us how restless and unwearied earnest and affectionate are his endeavours for this purpose He admonishes us of our faults by his Word and by his Ministers he invites us to return by his Love and by his Promises he moves us to bethink our selves by his Spirit and by his Providences and if we are stubborn and not to be thus gently won by these methods of mildness he seeks to reclaim us by a blessed and a most affectionate force and violence For he corrects us with his Rod and visits us in chastisement and never ceases to try all means of reducing us to a sense of our sin and repentance till we are become plainly incorrigible and utterly rebellious and so fit for nothing but to be swallowed up of ruine And yet even then his desire of reclaiming us is so strong and his love so affectionate that he scarce knows how to give us over How shall I give thee up saith he O Ephraim how shall I deliver thee O Israel Hos. 11.8 And when we do repent I say he has obliged himself by his Truth and Faithfulness most graciously to forgive us This was the Doctrine of the Prophets Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return unto the Lord says Isaiah for he will have mercy upon him and to our God for he will abundantly pardon Isa. 55.7 If the wicked man says God by Ezekiel will turn from all his sins that he hath committed and keep all my statutes and do that which is lawful and right he shall surely live he shall not dye All his transgressions which he hath formerly committed shall not be mentioned unto him but in his righteousness that he hath done since he shall live For have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should dye saith the Lord God and not that he should turn from his ways and live Ezek. 18 21 22 23. This iâ— the great Doctrine of the Gospel which is a Covenant of remission of sins upon Repentance Repentance is its great Article and fundamental Truth and is therefore called by S t Paul the Foundation of Repentance Heb. 6.1 For that which was taught to all the World in all the degrees of Publication of the Gospel was that now God called all men to repent and that he would forgive them all their sins upon their true repentance S t John the Baptist who was Christs Herald and Fore-runner at his entrance upon that work begins with it John says S t Luke in all the Country about Jordan came preaching the Baptism of repentance for the remission of sins Luk. 3.3 Our Lord and Saviour Christ himself when he comes after to proclaim his own Gospel goes on with it Jesus began to preach says S t Matthew and to say Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand Mat. 4.17 And when he left the World the Commission which he gives to his Apostles is to proceed on still in the Promulgation of it to all the World as he had done to the people of the Jews For at the last time of his being with them just before his Ascension into Heaven when as S t Matthew tells us he commissioned them to preach to all mankind those instructions which he gave to them S t Luke informs us were that repentance and remission of sins should be preached to all Nations in his Name beginning at Jerusalem Luk. 24.47 This was the chief thing which they had in Commission and the summ and substance of their Embassy For that Ministry which was committed to them was a Ministry of reconciling God and men by this means as St. Paul says or a Ministry of Reconciliation so that they were Ambassadours for Christ as though God did beseech men by them and they as Christs Deputies who is the prime Mediator did pray them in his stead to be reconciled to God 2 Cor. 5.19.20 And when the Apostles came to execute their Orders the publishing of this was all their care and practice For they all of them went about preaching in all places and to all persons repentance for the remission of sins St. Peter in his first Sermon thus exhorts the people Repent and be baptized every one of you for the remission of sins Act. 2.38 and so again Act. 3. Repent and be converted that your sins may be blotted out v. 19. And the same he proclaims more generally in his second Epistle assuring all Christians that the Lord is not willing that any man should perish but that all should come to repentance which is sure to prevent it 2 Pet. 3.9 St. Paul preaches to the Athenians that now God had commanded all men every where to repent Act. 17.30 And St. John assures us that by virtue of that Gospel-Covenant which was confirmed with us in Christs Blood if with repenting hearts we confess our sins he is faithful to his word and just to his promise to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from the guilt and stain of all unrighteousness of
noble and excellent reward we are in a safe state and have no need to disquiet our Souls with fears and jealousies lest they should eternally miscarry If any person then has used Gods Grace and improved his Talents to this measure he has not been unprofitable and useless but has profited so far as is necessary to his happiness He is bound indeed still to advance higher and in every instance of Vertue to improve further but this he is not under the loss of Heaven but only under the danger of falling back into such a state of sin as would destroy the hopes of it again and the forfeiture of greater glory and rewards there when an intire obedience in all chosen instances and a particular reformation and repentance of all wilful sins is once secured there is so much growth in grace as is absolotely necessary an exalted pitch and compleat measures of this obedience with more ease and pleasure constancy and evenness with less mixture of voluntary sins which need particular repentance and with a greater freedom from innocent and unwilled infirmities is necessary to more absolute degrees and greater hights of glory but till that can be had this is sufficient to a mans salvation Several other scruples there are which are wont to disquiet and perplex the minds of good and honest people who are safe in Gods account although their Case seems never so hazardous in their own And of this sort are their fears that their obedience is unsincere because they have an eye at their own good and a respect to their own safety since they serve God in hopes to be better by him and out of a fear should they disobey of suffering evil from him They are afraid also that it is defective in a main Point for they cannot love and serve him in that comprehensive latitude which the Commandment requires viz. With all their heart and with all their soul and with all their mind They doubt they are past Grace and Pardon because they have sinned after that they have been enlightned and that wilfully and the Apostles affirms that for such there remains no more Sacrifice for sins Heb. 10.26 These doubts are still apt to disturb their peace and make sad their hearts and some others of like nature But of these and several others I have given sufficient Accounts above such as I hope may satisfie any reasonable man who is capable to read and to consider of them and thither I refer the Reader not thinking fit here to repeat them And thus at last we have seen when an honest and entire obedience is taken care for in the first place how plainly groundless those fears are which are wont to perplex the thoughts of good and safe yet ignorant and misguided people about their state of happiness and salvation And now I have done with all those points which I thought necessary to be enquired into to the end that I might shew every man now before-hand how he stands prepared for the next world and which at the beginning of this whole Discourse I proposed to treat of I have shown what that condition is of bliss or misery which the Gospel indispensably exacts of us and that as I take it so particularly that no man who will be at the pains to read and consider of it can overlook or mistake it what those defects are which it bears and dispenseth with what those remedies and means of reconciliation are which it has provided for us and when all these are taken care for how groundless all those other scruples are which are wont to disquiet honest minds about the goodness of their present state and their title to eternal salvation And upon the whole matter the sum of all amounts to this that when Christ shall come to sit in judgment at the last day and to pass sentence of life or death upon every man according to the direction of his Gospel he will pronounce upon every man according to his works If he has honestly and entirely obey'd the whole will of God in all the particular Laws before-mention'd never willfully and deliberately offending in any one instance nor indulging himself in the practice of any thing which he knows to be a sin he is safe in the Accounts of the last Judgment and shall never come into Condemnation Nay if he has been a damnable offender and has willfully transgressed either in one instance or in many in frequent repetitions of his sin or in few yet if he repent of it before death seize him and amend it ere he is haled away to Judgment he is safe still For he shall be judged according as his works then are when God comes to enquire of them so that if ever he be found in an honest obedience observing everything which he sees to be his duty and willfully venturing upon nothing which his Conscience tells him is sinful he is found in the state of Grace and Pardon and if he die in it he shall be saved All his unwill'd ignorances and innocent unadvisednesses upon his Prayers for pardon and his mercifulness and forgiveness of other men shall be abated all his other causes of fear and scruple shall be overlooked they shall not be brought against him to his Condemnation but in the honest and entire obedience which he hath performed in that shall he live If then we have an honest heart and walk so as our own Conscience has nothing whereof to accuse us we may meet Death with a good Courage and go out of the World with comfortable Expectations For if we have an honest and a tender heart whensoever we sin willfully and against our Consciences our own Souls will be our Remembrancers They will be a witness against us both whilst we are in this World and after we are taken out of it and brought to Judgment Mens Consciences says the Apostle shall accuse or excuse them in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men according to my Gospel Rom. 2.15 Indeed if men have harden'd their hearts in wickedness and sin'd themselves out of the belief of their duty having come to call evil good and good evil then their Consciences having no further sense of sin will have no accusations upon it But if they really believe the Gospel and study to know their duty and desire to observe it and are afraid to offend in any thing which they see is sinful whilst thus their heart is soft and their Conscience tender they cannot venture upon any sin with open Eyes but that their own hearts will both check them before and smite them afterwards They will have a witness against them in their own bosoms which will scourge and awake them so that they cannot approach death without a sense of their sin nor go out of the World without discerning themselves to be guilty If our own Conscience then cannot accuse us of the wilful and presumptuous breach of any of Gods Commandments and we know
and their Faith confirmed by it in giving up our selves to Martyrdome and laying down our own lives for their advantage Hereby says this same Apostle perceive we the love of God because he laid down his life for us And if we would be reputed to have that love which as we are told at the fourteenth Verse wafts us over from Death unto Life we ought upon a fit occasion not to flinch from the most costly service but even to lay down our very lives for the Brethren 1 John 3.16 It is only this obedient and operative love of men which will be owned by Christ our Judg and confer a just claim to Life and Pardon at the last Day Our Love will not be rewarded as a thing that is absolute in it self but only as an Instrument in as much as it makes us as S t Paul says to fulfil the whole Law which makes any thing an instance of Duty towards them Rom. 13.8 But if we only profess love to them in kind words and tender expressions but shew none in our works and actions this idle useless love will be of no account to us nor benefit us more than it profits them For if a Brother or a Sister says S t James be naked and destitute of daily food and one of you gives them only some good words and says unto them Depart in peace be ye warm'd with Cloths and filled with Food but notwithstanding all this affectionate language ye give them not in the mean while those things which are needful for the Body what doth it profit Nothing at all surely nor will it ever advantage your selves as an instance of that mercy which rejoyceth against judgment Verse 13. more than it profits them James 2.15 16. So that when Christ comes to Judgment at the last Day we see plainly that no love either of God or men will avail us but only that which has kept the Commandments we shall never be acquitted at that Bar upon a pretence of love without obedience for all that can possibly stand us in any stead there is a loving service a love which has made us careful and diligent to obey And thus at last we have fully seen that as for all those other things besides obedience whereunto the Gospel promises pardon and happiness they are by no means available to our bliss when they are separate from obedience but then only when they effect and imply it They all aim at it and end in it and are of no account in Gods Judgment further than they produce it It is not either our knowing Christ or our believing Christ or our being in Christ or our trusting in Christ or our loving Christ or our fears of God or our confessions of sins or our pouring out many prayers or any thing else that will save us whilst we disobey No at the last Day we shall certainly be damned notwithstanding them if the obedience of our works is wanting It is only a working service that will please our Judge and which can possibly secure us if we are able in that Court to produce that it will clear us but without it nothing else will Christs Gospel whereby all of us must stand or fall at that Day has fully declared this already and Christ himself will then confirm it So that 't is in vain to cast about for other marks and to seek after other Evidences for our title to bliss and happiness nothing less than our Repentance and Obedience will avail us unto life and through the merits of Christ and the Grace of his Gospel it shall And now at last we see clearly what that Condition is which the Gospel indispensably requires of us and which is to mete out to us our last doom of bliss or misery that in the general it is nothing else neither more nor less than our obedience BOOK II. Of the Laws of the Gospel which are the Rule of this Obedience in particular CHAP. I. Of the particular Laws comprehended under the Duty of Sobriety The CONTENTS A Division of our Duty into three general Vertues Piety Sobriety Righteousness Of the nature of Sobriety The particular Laws commanding and prohibiting under this first Member A larger explication of the nature of Mortification BUT in regard our working and obeying is that whereupon all our hopes and happiness our security and comfort hangs it is very necessary that after all which has been hitherto discoursed of it in the general we go on still further and enquire of it more particularly For if it be our Obedience or Disobedience that must dispense Life or Death to us and eternally save or destroy us at the last Day then whosoever would know before-hand what shall be his final Sentence must enquire what is his present state and what have been his past actions whether in them he have obeyed or no. And the way to understand that is first to know what those Laws are whereto his obedience is due and in what manner and degrees he is to obey them and when once he has informed himself in these he may quickly learn from the Testimony of his own heart and Conscience whether he has performed that Obedience which is indispensably required to his happiness or has fallen short of it And to give the best assistance that I can in so weighty a Case I will here proceed to enquire further in this Obedience and shew concerning it these two things I. What those Laws are which under the Sanctions of Life or Death the Gospel binds us to obey And II. What degrees and manner of obedience is indispensably required to them I. Then I will enquire what those Laws are whereby at the last Day we must all be judged and which under the Sanction of Life or Death the Gospel binds us to obey And that I may render this enquiry as useful as I can I will set down as I go along the meaning and explication of those several Vertues and Vices which are either required or forbidden in the particular Laws that so we may more truly and readily understand whether the Vertues have been performed or the Vices incurred and whether thereby the Laws have been broken or kept by us As for the Laws and Commands of God they are all reduced by S t Paul to three Heads For either they require something from us towards God himself and so are contained in works of piety or towards our Neighbours all which are comprehended in works of righteousness or towards our own selves as all those Precepts do which are taken up in works of sobriety In these three general Vertues is comprized the Sum of our Christian Duty even all that is required by the Gospel as the Condition of Salvation For the Gospel saith he or that Grace of God which brings us the welcome offers of Salvation hath appeared now to all men teaching us as ever we expect that salvation which it tenders to us that denying ungodliness and
three more is comprized the Body of our whole Duty If we adde two or three more I say for besides the several Laws already mentioned there are three particular Duties yet remaining of a more positive and arbitrary nature which Christ has bound all Christians to observe and they are the Law of Baptism of the Lords Supper and of Repentance Baptism is our incorporation into the Church of Christ or our entrance into the Gospel Covenant or into all the duties and priviledges of Christians by means of the outward Ceremony of washing or sprinkling in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost The Eucharist or Lords Supper is our Federal Vow or repetition of that engagement which we made at Baptism of performing faith repentance and obedience unto God in expectation of remission of sins eternal happiness and those other promises which by Christ's death are procured for us upon these terms which engagement we solemnly make to God at our eating Bread and drinking Wine in remembrance and commemoration of Christs dying for us Repentance is a forsaking of sin or an amendment of any evil way upon a sorrowful sense and just apprehension of its making us offend God and subjecting us to the danger of death and damnation And if to all the forementioned instances of those three grand Vertues which by the Apostle Tit. 2.12 13 are made the summ of our Christian Duty we join these three positive and additional Laws we have all that whereby God will judge us at the last Day even all those particular Laws whereto our obedience is required as necessary to salvation And thus we have seen what those particulars Laws are which the Gospel indispensably requires us to obey They are no other than those very instances which I have been all this while recounting and describing But because the Catalogue of them hitherto has been broken and interrupted and therefore cannot be run over so easily as might be desired in a matter of that importance I will here repeat them all again for the greater ease of all such pious souls as desire to try themselves by them and place them all in one view and all together The commanding Laws then whereby at the last Day we must all be judged are these that follow The Law of sobriety towards our selves with all its Train which are the Law of humility of heavenly-mindedness of temperance of sobriety of chastity of continence of contempt of the world and contentment of courage and taking up the Cross of diligence and watchfulness of patience of mortification and self-denial The Law of piety towards God with all its Branches which are the Law of honour of worship of faith and knowledge of love of zeal of trust and dependance of prayer of thankfulness of fear of submission and resignedness of obedience The Law of Justice towards men in all its parts which will be seen by the contrary prohibitions of injustice The Law of Charity in all its instances which are the Law of goodness or kindness of honour for our Brethrens Vertues of pity and succour of restraining our Christian Liberty for our weak Brothers edification of friendly reproof of brotherly kindness of congratulation of compassion of almes and distribution of covering and concealing their defects of vindicating their reputation of affability or graciousness of courtesy and officiousness of condescension of hospitality of gentleness of candor of unity of thankfulness of meekness or lenity of placableness of forgiving injuries of doing good to enemies and when nothing more is in our power praying for them and blessing or speaking what is good of them when we take occasion to mention them of long-suffering of mercifulness The Law of Peace and Concord with all its Train as are the Law of peaceableness of condescension and compliance of doing our own business of satisfying for injuries of peace-making The Law of love to Kings and Princes in all its Particulars which are the Law of honour of reverence of paying Tribute and Customes of fidelity of praying for them of obedience of subjection The Law of love to our Bishops and Ministers with all its expressions which are the Law of honour or having them highly in esteem for their works sake of reverence of maintenance of praying for them of obedience The Law of Love in the particular relation of Husband and Wife with all its Branches which are on both sides the Law of mutual concern and communicating in each others bliss or misery of bearing each others infirmities of prayer of fidelity On the Husbands towards his Wife the Law of providing for her of protecting her of flexible and winning Government of compliance and condescension On the Wives towards her Husband the Law of honour of reverence of observance and obedience of subjection The Law of Love in the particular relation of Parents and Children with its several effects which are from the Parents towards their Children the Law of natural affection of maintenance and provision of honest education of loving Government of bringing them up in the institution and fear of God of prayer for them From the Children towards their Parents besides the Duty of natural affection common to both the Law of honour of reverence of obedience of subjection of requiting upon occasion their care and kindness of prayer for them The Law of Love in the particular relation of Brethren and Sisters with all its instances which are the Law of natural affection of providing for our Brethren of praying for them The Law of Love in the particular relation of Master and Servant with its several expressions which are on the Masters side the Law of maintenance of religious instruction of a just and equal Government of them of kindness and equity in commanding of forbearance and moderation in threatning of punctual payment of the wages of the Hireling of praying for them On the Servants the Law of honour of reverence of observance of concealing and excusing their Masters defects of vindicating their injured reputation of fidelity of obedience of diligence of willing and hearty service of patient submission and subjection of praying for them To all which we may add the two arbitrary institutions and positive Laws of the Gospel Baptism and the Eucharist or Lords Supper and when we transgress in any of the instances forementioned that great and only remedy of Christs Religion the Law of repentance This so far as I can call to mind at present is a just enumeration of those particular Injunctions and Commands of God whereto our obedience is indispensably required and whereby at the last Day we must all be judged either to live or dye eternally But supposing that some particular instances of Love and Duty are omitted in this Catalogue yet need this be prejudicial to no mans happiness since that defect will be otherwise supplied For as for such omitted instances where there is an occasion for them and an opportunity offered to exercise
suffer under it he cannot be my disciple Luk. 14.27 This God peremptorily and indispensably exacts of us and there is all the reason in the world why he should For he will infinitely recompence in the next world either the want or loss of all those things which for his sake we are content to be without in this Heaven and eternal life will be an abundant and incomparably surpassing compensation all the wants and sufferings of this present time being as S t Paul sayes utterly unworthy to be compared with that Glory which shall then be revealed in us Rom. 8.18 Let no man therefore disobey Gods Laws for the love of the world for the supplying of his wants and the satisfaction of his appetites and yet for all that perswade himself that God will own him and connive at his disobedience For in doing so he plainly renounces God and sets the World above him he makes his Duty truckle to his Interest he slights obedience and submits to a temptation He does the work of sin for the interest which tempts to it and that will certainly bring upon him that death which God has established for the wages of it Thirdly A third pretence whereby men justifie to their own souls the indulged transgression of several Laws whilst they obey in others is because those transgressions wherein they allow themselves are only such as are sins of temper and complexion age or way of life Sometimes mens place and way of life is a continual temptation to some particular sin and if they may but have leave to indulge that they will abandon every other The Courtier takes himself obliged by the fashion of his place to lies and dissimulation ostentation and vanity to sinfull compliances and faithless engagements to promise all but to perform nothing The Merchant in pursute of his gain serves the end of his trade by fraud and dishonesty He accounts it a piece of his Art to over-reach to defraud customes to vend false wares and set exacting prices The Lawyer thinks it a part of his profession to encourage strife and foment difference the malice and revenge the wrath and bitterness the slanders and evil-speakings the strife and contentions which are other mens sins are his livelihood These sins being ever before them are alwayes a snare to them for they are continually importuned by them and it must be a toilsome pains and an uninterrupted watchfulness which can preserve them from being either won or wearied into the commission of them And since obedience in these instances is a thing which they can so very hardly spare they hope that God in mercy will not exact it but will graciously accept them upon their service in other particulars although here they continue to disobey him Other sins men are invited and importunately tempted to by their age and condition their particular temper and complexion Lust and rashness are the vices of youth as craft and covetousness are of the gray hairs Some sins are rooted in mens very natures for some are naturally inclined to be passionate and hasty some to be peevish and others to be malicious and revengefull The temper of their bodies hurries on some to lust and intemperance some to turbulency and fierceness and others to slavish fears and sinfull compliances Nay a sharp and long affliction will sometimes embitter even a good nature and make it habitually sowr and fretfull peevish and morose So that mens very natural temper their age and condition prove many times an uninterrupted sollicitation to some sin or other and they alwayes fall by being alwayes under the power of their temptation Now when men find that some sins have got thus near to them and have taken such deep root in their way of life nay in their very natures since they will not be at the pains to reform and amend they expect that God should be so gracious as to dispense with them As for all the instances of this kind he must abate them seeing they will not perform them his pardoning goodness must supply all the defects of their sloth For God and they must still be agreed and therefore because they cannot well abandon some of their darling lusts and bosom sins for his sake the compliance must fall on his side and he must desert and cancel all those severe and grating Laws to serve and pleasure them They will obey him most willingly in all other things only in these they beg that he would excuse them they will do any thing else for his sake which doth not contradict their beloved sin and never displease him but when they cannot otherwise fulfill and pleasure it Thus for instance the Covetous man will obey in keeping back from drunkenness and whoredom from ambition and profuseness and all other sins which are expensive But as for those other duties of suffering loss our selves rather than defrauding and over-reaching others of a contented mind and contempt of the world of alms and beneficence and all the chargeable expressions of an active love and an operative charity here he stands upon his points and chooses to dispute rather than to perform to article rather than to obey The peevish and angry man will readily keep the commands of Justice and Temperance he will neither spoil his neighbours Goods nor wrong his Bed nor pamper and defile his own body he will do any thing which either ministers to his reigning lust or which doth not contradict and make against it But then as for the commands of meekness and patience of long-suffering and forgiveness of speaking well and doing good to enemies of passing over provocations and peaceableness and all other instances of pardoning and forgetting injuries in these God must excuse him for his dear lust opposes them and he can not he will not serve him in the practice of them Some who are of a tractable and submissive of a soft and governable temper will observe readily all those duties which their constitution has made easie and which their natural genius enclines them to They will be constant performers of all the cheap because agreeable duties of submission to Governours and obedience to publick Constitutions of uniformity in worship of honour and observance of the Laws and establishments and of all things belonging to the Churches Vnity and outward peace But as for the severities of an inward and hearty Religion in mortification and self-denial in paring off all sinfull lusts and exorbitant desires in patience and taking up the Cross and in all other hard instances of duty and a holy life here they withdraw their service because they must contradict their natures and go against their ease and set themselves not to obey these Laws but to evacuate or evade them Whereas others who are of a temper more severe but withall of a querulous and restless a busie and ungovernable spirit will keep off from atheism and prophaneness from idolatry and witchcraft and other heinous impieties from drunkenness and
himself Hebr. 10.28 29. His punishment indeed shall be most dreadfull being nothing less than all those woes which are denounced in the Gospel For the Law with all its threats and penalties is particularly made and designed as S t Paul sayes for the lawless which is that very word whereby S t John describes sin and the wilfully disobedient who when they see the Law will not be subject to it 1 Tim. 1.9 As for our voluntary and chosen sins then whether they are chosen directly or only by interpretation we see plainly that they are not consistent with a state of Grace and Salvation For they subject us to all that death which the Law threatens and deprive us of all that life and happiness which it proposes to us which beside all the evidence which the Scripture gives us of it is plainly demonstrable from the very reason of the thing it self For certainly if Christs Laws will condemn us for any actions whatsoever it must be for those which being voluntary may justly be charged upon us and looked upon to be our own It must be our willing what sin enjoyns which can make us Servants of it and subject us to that death which God has appointed for its wages So that both from Reason and Scripture it evidently appears that every wilfull sin is certainly a deadly one and puts the sinner out of a state of Gods favour and salvation 'T is true indeed that every wilfull sin doth not rob us of Gods favour in such measure as to incapacitate us for regaining of it ever after But its effect is this before such time as we have repented of it and amended it we are under all the threatnings of the Law and subject if we die in that instant to that death which is ordained for the wages of it We are out of Gods favour for the present and the state of friendship betwixt him and us is interruped and till we repent we shall not be again restored to it As for the state of acceptance and salvation it is broken and destroyed for the present for we are put under the punishing part of Gods Government and are made subject to his vengeance by being sinners against his Law But as for the foundation of that acceptance viz. that habit of virtue and obedience which in the wilfull action we sinn'd against it is not quite destroyed but only wounded and impaired in us For habits are neither won nor lost by one action but by many It is frequency and repetition that must either produce or destroy them If therefore a good man is careless in some instance and loses his innocence and is vanquished into a wilfull sin yet is not the habitual inclination of his soul towards that instance of obedience against which he offended quite extinguished in him but only somewhat weakned and abated Thus for instance a sober man if he consent once to be drunk doth not thereby wholly lose his sober inclination But when the temptation is past his habitual temper which was foil'd and over-born revives again and he abhors his sin and confirms his resolution and so is ready at the next return of the temptation to wash off the stain of his former offence by an opposite instance of new obedience And the case is the same in the wilfull commissions of any other sin For although any one wilfull act be a damnable transgression and put the sinner into a damnable condition for the present yet doth it not destroy but only wound and weaken that habitual temper of virtue which if God spare him life may enable him with ease to act otherwise for the time to come Although indeed some wilfull sins have such a complication of evil in them and are carried on against so many suggestions of the spirit and checks of conscience and are brought to effect through so many thoughts and so long contrivance that they destroy not only that innocence which is the condition of our state of Grace but also that habitual temper and inclination which is the principle and foundation of it too They unravel all and set us to begin again the work of reformation anew Of which sort are Idolatry Witchcraft Perjury Sacriledge Murder Adultery Robbery Oppression entring into the fields of the fatherless and widow and such like For these sins do not only destroy a mans acceptance with God for the present but moreover they lay waste his conscience and spoil all his virtuous temper and inclination whereby he should recover himself afterwards whence they are call'd wounding and wasting sins And this effect they have because in the very acting of them there is usually so much time and deliberation and a succession of so many desires and aversations hopes and fears chusings and refusals that the sin has had a great many imperfect consents before it come to have that which is last and prevailing Our wills by a number of imperfect wouldings are in great part accustomed and have almost wholly learned to unwill all that good which they willed before so that there is an imperfect habit contained in the very action Besides what is most of all considerable these being such sins as are made up of several combined together before we can bring our selves to act them our conscience of their guiltiness must be in great part extinguished and the good spirit of God exceedingly grieved if not wholly quenched For Adultery implies fornication and injustice Sacriledge contains theft and impiety Perjury includes lying and prophaneness and so for all the rest Now these being complicated sins and crimes of an accumulated wickedness mens Consciences are more than ordinarily afraid of them and the good spirit of God extraordinarily concerned to keep them from them They suggest and represent the greatness of the sin and the greatness of the danger Which they do with such constancy and importunity that before men have silenced the one and extreamly grieved if not wholly quenched the other they cannot overcome their own fears and venture upon the commission of them And here now is the danger lest their own Conscience be laid asleep and Gods holy spirit leave them For he will not alwayes strive with man Gen. 6 3â— and from him that hath not that is hath not used that talent of Grace which was granted to him as the wicked Servant had not done who had hid it vers 25 shall be taken even that sayes our Saviour which he hath Mat. 25.29 And when men resist the motions of the Holy Ghost to such a degree as this and after all the repeated suggestions and obedient inclinations which he threw into their souls during all that time wherein the sin was under deliberation resolve still to venture on it no wonder if being thus grieved and rejected he withdraw himself for some time at least if not for altogether And of all this we have a clear instance in holy David upon that wasting sin of his in murdering
of the pleasure which accompanies it and from that apprehension of its pleasurableness he begins to love and from that loved he goes on straightway to desire it And now his will being sollicited by his lust or bodily desire consents to the fulfilling of it And this consent being once gained the next thing in order is to deliberate and contrive what company what time and what place are fittest for it And when by comparing all things together he comes to make a judgment of that he immediately chuses and resolves upon it and that being done there is nothing remaining further but to execute what he has resolved and go on to the performance of it This then is the method and progress from our lusting and desiring of any thing that is evil to our acting and committing it It begins in delight and love and desire and thence goes on to our consenting to it to our contrivance for it to our resolutions upon it and after all these to our practice and performance of it Now so long as the evil is entertained only in a short delightsom thought or love or desires and rests there but goes no further it is not so much our damning sin as our dangerous temptation it will be connived at and at the last Day we shall not be condemned for it For thus far the sin is only solliciting our choice but has not got it and as yet we have not committed a mortal crime but are only under a tryal whether we will be drawn to the commission of it or no. But if once our wills consent to it then begins the sting and there the danger enters for the lusting after evil so far as to consent to it and much more so as to contrive for it or to fulfil it makes us liable to death and eternal condemnation For our own choice as we heard above makes any sin damning so that if by means of the tempting lust any sin has prevailed so far it is become a deadly offence and subjects us to destruction Lust says S t James when it has conceived or is imperfectly consented to answering to conception which is an imperfect information bringeth forth sin and sin when by being perfectly consented to it is finished bringeth forth death which is the wages of it Jam. 1.15 And that our lusts after any sin are then damnably sinful when they are gone beyond desire and are come on either to our consent or contrivance or actual performance appears further from these instances in them all three If we lust so long after any evil thing as to consent to the sinful enjoyment of it we are guilty of all that punishment which is threatned to it He that looks upon a woman says our Saviour so long as to lust after her or to consent in his heart to the enjoyment of her he hath committed adultery already with her in his heart Mat. 5.28 If we lust so long as to contrive for it which is a degree further we are more guilty of the sin and more liable to the punishment of it still The inclinations and contrivances of murder as was observed above are reckoned among those things which pollute a man and thereby unfit him for entring into Heaven where nothing can ever have admittance that is unclean as well as murder it self is Mat. 15.19 But if our lust after any sinful enjoyment carry us on not only to consent to it or to contrive for it but what is the perfection of all to work and fulfil it then has it ensnared us into as much mischief as it can and is become dangerous and damning with a witness For then it has prevailed with us to compleat our sin and give the last hand to it it has brought us under that which is most of all threatned for now we fulfil the lusts of the flesh Gal. 5.16 19 we work iniquity Mat. 7.23 And if we continue to do this not only for once or twice but in constant returns and in a fixt course and tenure of action then as our sin is grown higher the acts thereof being more numerous and the guilt more crying so will our punishment also be more dreadfully severe And this is called walking after the flesh 2 Pet. 2.10 and living after the flesh Rom. 8.13 And this being a state of wasted virtue and habitual reigning sin it is not only through its obnoxiousness to punishment a state of death but also through its hardness of cure and difficult recovery a state of great doubt and danger likewise So that as for all these further degrees from the consent of our wills onward if our lusts after any sin have gone on to them they are deadly and damning For the same Law in the members which wars against the law of the mind so as thus to captivate and triumph over it is as the Law of sin so as the Apostle says the Law of death too Rom. 7.23.24 All our lustings after evil therefore when once they come to be consented to although before they were connived at are thenceforth deadly and damning So that whosoever hopes to be saved at the last Day from the punishment of them must thus far mortifie and kill them Mortifie says S t Paul those desires which are seated in your earthly members Col. 3.5 for it is only if you through the spirit do mortifie the deeds of the body that you shall live Rom. 8.13 As to these damnable degrees all fleshly lusts must of necessity be crucified in all good Christian men for no man will be reputed to belong to Christ till this change is wrought in him They that are Christs says the same Apostle have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts Gal. 5.24 Mortifie and crucifie them I say we must not so as to have no fleshly appetites and bodily desires of evil for then must we have no bodily desires at all Because our lusts themselves as was observed do not distinguish of lawful or unlawful but are naturally moved by an agreeable object whether it be with God or against him But we must mortifie them to that degree as that they never be able to win us over to consent to any forbidden thing for their gratification They must never have so much interest in our hearts as to make us prefer them before our duty and chuse to perform what they bid us rather than what God doth Some stirrings and ineffective motions of them which cannot prevail against God nor gain over the consent of our wills to any thing that he has forbidden are dispensed with they are the stage of temptation but not of death for God bears with them and the mortified men themselves do daily feel and labour under them But it is the prevailing strength of our lusts after evil things when they get our consent to them and carry us on to transgress Gods Laws to fulfil them this conquering power of fleshly lusts I say it is which is to
towards them and in like manner our Love of God fulfils all those other Precepts which comprehend our Duty towards him For all that he requires of us towards himself is neither more nor less than to honour and worship him to do nothing in all our behaviour that savours of disrespect towards him nor by any thought word or action to disgrace or contemn him But now nothing renders any person so secure from contempt as our love and affection for him Affront and reproach are a great part of enmity and despite and so can never proceed from us towards those whom we love and value But this is always certain that if we are kindly affected towards any person we shall not fail to express a due honour of him and bear him a just respect and veneration So that if we do indeed love God he is secure from all affront and disobedience being a most consummate reproach since our Love will not permit us to dishonour it can never suffer us to disobey him Thus mighty and powerful easie and natural a Principle of an universal obedience both towards God and men is an universal Love it doth the work without difficulty and carries us on to obey with ease in as much as all the particular Precepts and Instances of obedience are but so many genuine effects and proper expressions of it The effects of our love are the parts of our obedience the products of our Duty and Religion as well as of our passion So that it is a most natural Spring of our obedient service because it prompts us to the very same things to which God has bound and obliged us by his Precepts But besides this way of an universal love's influencing an universal obedience through this coincidence of the effects of Love and the instances of Duty our Love of God who is our King and Governour were a sure principle of our obedience to him were his Precepts instanced not in the same things which are the effects of a general Love which is the true Case but in things different from them For although our love would not prompt us to perform them by its natural tendency towards them and for their own sakes yet it would through submission and duty and for his sake who enjoyn'd them It would make us deny our selves to pleasure him and produce other effects than our own temper enclines us to to do him service For as Love is for doing hurt to none so least of all to Governours it will give to every one their own but to them most especially Now Duty and Service is that which we owe to our Rulers and the proper way of Love's exerting it self in that is by obedience If we love we shall be industrious to please and the only way of pleasing them is by doing what they command us For there is no such offence to a Governour as the transgression of his Laws no injury like that of opposing his Will and despising his Authority To do this is to renounce all subjection and to cast off his Yoke and so is not to express love but to declare enmity not affectionately to owne but in open malice to defie him But if any man would contribute to his delight there is no way for that but by a performance of his pleasure it is nothing but our obedience that can add to his contentment or evidence our Love For disobedience to our Governours is clearly the most profest hatred as the observance of our Duty is the most allowed instance of friendship and good will So that Love is a Spring and Principle of our Obedience not only because the Commandment and it run parallel and the instances of Gods Laws are the same with the effects of a general Love but also because our love of God would make us obey him even in such instances of Duty as differ from them For all that aversion which we have to the thing commanded would be outweighed by our desire to please him who commands it and although we should neglect it upon its own yet for his sake we should certainly fulfil and perform it And because our Love of God and men is so natural a Spring and so sweet and easie a Principle to produce in us a perfect and intire obedience to all those Laws which concern either or to any other therefore has God promised so nobly to reward it He never intends to crown an idle and unworking love but such only as is active and industrious For when he says that he who loves God and men is known of God and accepted by him and born of him and that God dwells in him and has prepared Heaven for him he speaks metonymically and means all the while a love with these religious effects a love that is productive of an entire service and obedience And to this Point the Scriptures speak fully For as for our love of God himself and of our Saviour Christ that is plainly of no account in his judgment but when it makes us keep his Commands and become industriously obedient If ye LOVE me saith Christ keep my Commandments for he that hath my Commandments and KEEPETH them he it is that loveth me and he only who so loveth me in obeying me shall be beloved of my Father and I will love him John 14.15 21. Whoso keepeth Gods Word saith S t John in him verily is the love of God made perfect and hereby it is by this perfection of Love in Obedience that we know we are in him 1 John 2.5 But if we have only a pretended verbal love or an inward passion for God and shew no Signs or Effects of it in our obedient works and actions we shall be as far from being accepted by him as we are from any true and real service of him He will look upon all our Professions only as vain speech and down-right flattery but will not esteem it as having any thing of sober truth and reality For whosoever hath this Worlds goods and seeth his Brother hath need and obeys not Gods Command of shewing mercy and the Case is the same in other Instances but shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him how dwells the love of God in him 1 John 3.17 And then as for our love of our Brethren it doth not at all avail us unto Mercy and Life unless it make us perform all those things which are required of us by the Laws of Justice Charity and Beneficence towards them My little Children saith S t John let us not love only in word and in tongue but in deed also and in truth For it is hereby by this operative love that we know we are of the truth and shall assure our hearts in full confidence of his mercy before him 1 John 3.18 19. Our love to them is to be manifested as Christs was to us viz. in good effects and a real service yea when occasion requires it and their eternal weal may be very much promoted