Offices and Affairs against the plain Precept of studying to be quiet and to do our own business 1 Thess. 4.11 But the endeavours which we are to use and the means whereby we must try to secure to our selves an unpersecuted freedom in religious Ordinances and Professions must be such as are within the sphere of private men We must be upright and exemplary in the practice of it our selves and press a like exemplariness in the practice of it upon others By our humble modest quiet peaceable and submissive carriage we must convince such as are in Power that it deserves protection and by our affectionate fervent and importunate prayers to Gods we must endeavour to have it put into their hearts to protect and preserve it We must plead its Cause and represent that truth and goodness which may recommend it and try to wipe off the aspersions and rectifie the mistakes of such as plead against it or think hardly of it These and such like means are the laudable service in this Case and the proper business of private Christians And whilst their care is contained within this compass and they act thus within their own sphere it is excellent and praise-worthy they seek to preserve Religion and their seeking to do it in this way is it self very pious and religious 2. In shewing their care to preserve the free and unpersecuted profession of Religion they must exercise such only of those actions within their own sphere as are lawful and innocent but by no means endeavour to maintain it by such as are sinful and disobedient They must not defend it by lyes and forgeries by wrath and bitterness by fierceness and revenge by slandering and reviling of their Opposers They must so defend Religion as not to disobey it because that is not defending but betraying it A free profession is no further desirable than it tends to an upright practice So that to disobey for it is to lose all that wherefore we endeavour after it Truth must never be bought with the loss of innocence nor must we ever commit any one sinful action to promote a freedom of orthodox and true professions 3. In evidencing their care in preserving the free and unpersecuted profession of Religion they must be zealous in the first place for the practice and preservation of religious Laws and next to that for religious Ordinances and Opinions S t Paul directs us to the great Object of all religious zeal when he tells us that Christ came into the world to purchase to himself a peculiar people zealous of good WORKS Tit. 2.14 Nothing in the world is so warrantable a matter of a mans zeal as Gods Laws and mens obedience For the Laws of Christ's Gospel are that part which he esteems most he has made them the measure of life or death the Rule of our eternal absolution or condemnation And as he accounts of them so should we too Our zeal for them must be more warm and our care more watchful than for any other thing because God himself is most especially concerned for them and all men are most highly concerned in them they being that whereby all men must live or dye eternally This I will says S t Paul to Titus that thou affirm constantly That they which have believed in God may be CAREFVL to maintain GOOD WORKS these things are good and profitable unto men Tit. 3.8 So that the practice of religious Laws must be the great point wherein we are to be zealous and careful in the first place Next to which we must take care of those opinions which have a great influence upon and are the great productive instruments of all obedient practice such as are all opinions which are either motives or inducements helps or encouragements to obedience In which sort of opinions our Religion abounds there being as I said no idle Article in the Christian Creed but such Doctrins and Declarations concerning God and Christ and our selves and the other world as are either absolutely necessary or very helpful to a holy life All which according to their several proportions in promoting piety and obedience to Gods Laws we are to be zealously concerned for in the next place as we are for that pious obedience which is wrought by them in the first But when we have shown our good affection to substantial piety and Religion by a just zeal for obedience and plainly practical opinions then may it be very fit for us to shew our zeal for other true Doctrines and Professions likewise For it is a great honour to God and an ornament to Religion that we have it pure and sincere free from all things that are liable to just exception and from all mixture of errour and falshood And it is also a great happiness to men to have orthodox apprehensions in Religion and to embrace nothing for Gospel truths but what God has thereby declared to them But it is a further happiness still and such whereof men are the most sensible to be free from the imperious imposition and tyranny of errour so as neither to be forced upon the impossible belief of that which in our own minds we see is false and therefore cannot believe nor upon the feigned and hypocritical profession of believing a thing when really we do not believe it one of which two is mens unhappiness when their professed Religion falls under persecution Now both these are severe and rigorous impositions For the first is utterly impossible to any so long as it continues a free and impartial head as the latter is to any whilst it remains an honest and obedient heart So that all men have very great reason so far as they can by all innocent and honest ways to be zealous against them and to use all the lawful care and caution that possibly they can to avoid so powerful a motive as a sharp persecution is to tempt them to a thing so unreasonable as is the first and so wicked and sinful as is the latter So long then as men will moderate their zeal for the unpersecuted use of religious Ordinances and profession of religious Opinions with this discretion let them be zealous and concerned for it in God's Name For it is their Duty so to be and God will reward and all good men commend them for it If they take care that their zeal transport them not beyond their own sphere that it carry them not against their Duty and that it be concerned in the first place for Laws and practical opinions they may allow it after that to spend it self upon other Points which have more of speculative truth but less of practice This zeal now is excellent 't is truly pious 't is religious But if they have a zeal without obedience if for preventing of persecution in the profession of true opinions they run upon sinful means and undutiful transgressions their zeal is ungodly and all their pretended care of Religion is plainly irreligious For
deep sense of that ingratitude towards God which is in Sin and of its mischievousness to their own selves how it robs them of all that Eternal Good which their hearts desire and brings them under all those insupportable and endless evils which they fear all which it doth for the purchase of some light empty and transient Pleasures which are vastly below the joys of Heaven and for the avoidance of some short pain and uneasiness which are infinitely nothing in comparison of the Pains of Hell And these thoughts give them a firm and lasting conviction of the utter necessity of renouncing all evil courses which are so destructive and of leading a holy and obedient life which are so infinitely becoming them and beneficial to them And this conviction now can beget and preserve a resolution that is sufficient and effectual victorious and prevailing It will be a reason to them to resolve and practise at all times in sickness and in health when they are not tempted and also when they are For Heaven and the Love of God is always a necessary end and Obedience is always a necessary means or instrument So that if Men resolve upon a conviction of this necessity they resolve upon a reason that may well hold always They will constantly have the highest reason to be so convinced and still to repeat and fortifie their resolution upon such conviction and to act and practise that which they have so wisely resolved And when a Sick-mans change is built upon this ground and proceeds upon this motive it may be permanent and fixt effectual and prevailing As it is in all those who are Converted by Sickness and Afflictions that great and usually last means which God makes use of for the reclaiming of sinful Men. But generally Mens sick-bed purposes go no further than the first ground They always begin upon the fears of present Death and the near approach of Judgment and though sometimes they go higher still yet ordinarily they rest there so that they have no change longer than their sickness lasts And this Repentance is certainly insufficient this will can never be accepted for the deed because if they were allow'd to recover again and to live on till an opportunity of Doing came the good will and purpose would be quite lost and able to effect nothing But although a Death-bed change should proceed upon both these grounds and the dying men should resolve to amend both upon the sense of sudden Death which will maintain their resolution so long as it is near and also upon a conviction of the absolute necessity of Heaven and a Holy Life which may make them resolve still when the present danger is over yet may their Repentance after all be insufficient and avail nothing For a Death-bed Repentance when it doth proceed upon a genuine and lasting motive is still oft times ineffectual because the change is 2. In too weak and incompetent a measure and degree It is not every degree even of true and undissembled resolution that will overcome a mans Lusts and strengthen him to such a pitch as to make him prevail over all Temptations A thousand good resolutions go to Hell because although they are sincere and true yet they are weak and ineffectual For how many men are there who resolve against their sins who do not yet get quit of them They purpose to leave them but for all that they live still in them their mind and will is against them but yet they continue to work and practise them When once men have got violent lusts and vicious habits and Sin by a long use is become almost a second nature to them it is not every measure no nor every moderate degree of resolution that can mortifie and overcome them For a weak resolution is quickly overthrown mens Lusts are too hard for it and quite overbear it it may make some resistance create some trouble and cause some delay but that is all that it can do it can only contend and struggle but it is not able to overcome This is plain from every Religious Mans experience and this S t Paul sets down expressly in his character of the unregenerate striver in the seventh Chapter of the Epistle to the Romans For there was a real change in his mind without a change in his practice a resolution without effect and a will without performance the violence of his Lusts was too hard for the convictions of his Conscience and led him Captive even against his will into a course of Sin and disobedience With the MIND says he I serve the Law of God but with the FLESH the Law of Sin v. 25. What I DO I ALLOW not for what I WOVLD that I DO not but what I HATE that I DO v. 15 19. To WILL is present with me but how to PERFORM that which is good I find not v. 18. For the Law of my MEMBERS wars against the Law of my MIND and brings me into CAPTIVITY to the Law of Sin v. 23. Thus weak and unable ineffective and idle are many true and real resolutions They have not strength enough to do their work the opposition is greater than they can overcome so that they are able to make no alteration but for all this change of mind men will continue wicked and disobedient in their practice still And of this sort generally even when they proceed upon a genuine and lasting motive are the Penitential purposes of Dying-men For alas when Men have lived all their Lives in a course of Sin and their minds have been always taken up with it and their hearts wholly inslaved to it it is no easie matter to bring them off and to fill them with such firmness of purpose and strength of pious resolution as would be able effectually to mortifie and subdue it This is a most laborious work and a difficult undertaking It requires much time and the freedom of all our faculties For how hard a thing is it even for men in health when their thoughts are free distracted by no business interrupted by no pain and disturbed by no disease or other hindrance to work themselves up to an effectual and prevailing resolution against any one Sin which they have been habitually inured and for a long time enslaved to And even of them who do at last effectually resolve against it how few are there who came to such a pitch of resolution at the first tryal No their proceeding is gradual they go on from step to step every following resolution is more firm and stronger than that which went before till after several repetitions and advances they arrive at last to a degree and pitch of holy purpose so compleat as can effect that vertuous change of life and action which they aim at So that their spiritual Life is not brought on to perfection in a moment more than their natural but requires much time and much exercise for as their sinful habits were not at first acquired
and proposed it to us because the necessity of our faith to our obedience shews plainly that it cannot be denied us and because the best men that ever were have not been able to obey without it and yet their obedience has been most graciously accepted First Some respect to our own good and intention to advantage our selves by our obedience is of that nature that it cannot be forbidden us It cannot fall under a Law or be a matter of a Commandment because it can never be performed As for any one particular advantage and self-interest indeed we may deny our selves in it and therefore any Law may very well require it For we have many particular self-interests to serve and they clash and interfere among themselves and so long as we are in pursuit of any one by virtue of it we are able to restrain and deny our selves in any other And thus all men daily deny their Ease for their Interests and their Gain for their Liberty and their Liberty for their Lives And all good men daily over-rule that Love which they have for their Bodies by that higher and stronger love which they have for their Souls and deny themselves in any Temporal Interests to secure their Eternal And because all men have this power of denying their own Self-love in small instances to serve it in greater and of parting with any goods and advantages of this world to purchase to themselves incomparably better in the next God has enacted the denial of our selves in all such particular Interests as hinder our Obedience into a Religious Duty and made it universally obliging to all the world But as for the casting off this love of our selves and respect to our own advantage not only as to some particular interests whilst our eye is upon others but as to all self-interests whatsoever this in the matter of Duty and Obedience no man can perform and therefore no Law can command it For in that Constitution of Nature which God has given us self-love is the first and over-ruling Principle It has a share almost in all our actions and influences all our faculties so that in all that variety of operations which flow from us there are very few wherein we have no eye at our own advantage In some actions 't is true we are influenced chiefly and almost wholly by our love of others which is a noble and a generous Principle For there are several good Offices which we daily do to others in doing whereof we no way prejudice our selves and these our love of others makes us perform and our own self-love doth not withstand it which is seen in all the Offices of humanity and common courtesie And other things again there are wherein we advantage them though it be considerably to our own trouble and our own hindrance and here although our own self-love oppose it self yet our love of them prevails and over-rules it as is daily shown in the Offices of Christian Charity and particular friendship In these Cases our love of others and of our selves are separate our kindness for them shews it self in such things wherein our own self-love is either not concerned at all or wherein it is opposed and over-powered so that here we are not influenced and governed by it And if this were the Case in all our obedient actions there might be more pretence for performing them purely out of love to God without mixing therewith any love of our own selves But in them quite contrary our love of God and of our selves are neither repugnant nor so much as separate but most closely conjoined For God hath made the same things the matter both of our Duty and of our interest so that in serving him we do in the highest measure serve our own selves too And in this Case where our own self-love is so much concerned and has not the love of God to oppose and over-rule it but to jump in and conspire with it it is not possible but that we shall be influenced and acted by it For it naturally issues out upon our own good and here it has an object in the highest advancement and there is nothing to hinder or restrain it So that whatsoever we may do through a bare abstracted love of others without any regard to our own selves in those Cases where our own self-love and it are separate or repugnant yet in the matter of obedience where they are so close conjoined and Gods service is so infinitely our own interest 't is plain that we cannot be wholly free from it For since in obeying we do that which we know is most highly advantageous to us we are not able perfectly to abstract our thoughts but we shall intend whether we will or no to be advantaged by it And since no man can wholly abstain from intending his own advantage in Gods service no Law can require it It is no fit matter of a prohibition nor capable of being retrenched by a Commandment being it is at no mans choice whether or no he shall observe it So that God must work a Change in his own Creation and form us into something different from what we are before he can in reason demand it of us 2. Some respect to our own advantage in performing what God commands is lawful and allowable in us because Gods Laws themselves do authorize and propose it to us God has not required us to serve him for nothing but has offered us an abundant recompence for all our labour and added such allurements to his Laws as infinitely surpass all the difficulties of our Duty He has proposed every thing to us that may any way work upon our self-love and care for our own advantage whether it be the promises of good to intice or the threats of evil to affright us into obedience For thus saith our Law Verily verily I double the Asseveration that you may give the greater credit to it I say unto you He that keepeth my Sayings or Commands shall never see death John 8.51 To my Sheep that follow me and hear or obey my voice I will give eternal life John 10.27 28. Blessed are they that do his Commandments for they shall have right to the Tree of Life and enter in through the Gate into the City Rev. 22.14 But on the other side The wrath of God cometh upon the Children of disobedience Col. 3.6 For at the Day of Judgment when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from Heaven with the Guards and Attendance of his mighty Angels then will he in flaming fire take vengeance on them that obey not the Gospel who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord 2 Thess. 1.7 8 9. Thus have we in Christs Laws to omit other things a promise made to us of Heaven and endless joys to induce us to obedience and a threatning of Hell and eternal miserie denounced to us to make us afraid to disobey And these make our obedience to
which we intend for our selves are only those spiritual and eternal advantages which his own Law has promised to the obedient or other temporal ones so far as they minister to obedience and are subordinate under it For the spiritual and eternal advantages which we are to reap by our obedience they are the forgiveness of our sins the peace of Conscience the assistance of the Spirit and the joys of Heaven together with deliverance from all the contrary evils of guilt and Hell And these God himself has expresly promised to us upon our obedience to perswade us into a performance of it He uses them as Arguments to us to gain our choice which they must do by actuating our intention He proposeth them to our aims that they may enliven our endeavours and annexes them to our obedience for this end that we may be won to perform it for their sakes when we should not barely for its own So that it must needs be lawful for every man to intend these in Gods service because God himself has proposed them expresly in his Laws to every mans intention And as for the temporal advantages which accrue to us from Gods service they are length of days and health of Body and riches and honour or good reputation with a freedom from all the opposite evils of sickness and death and shame and poverty And these also are promised to the obedient Let thine heart keep my Commandments saith Wisdom for length of days and long life and peace shall they add unto thee Prov. 3.1 2. And as length of days is in her right hand so in her left are riches and honour ver 16. The memory of the just shall be blessed when the name of the wicked shall rot Prov. 10.7 There neither is nor shall be any want to them that fear the Lord. For though the Lions that seem best able to get it and are most careless how they come by it do lack and suffer hunger yet they that seek the Lord shall not want any good thing Psal. 34.9 10. But if there were no express promises of these temporal advantages proposed to us upon our obedience in God's Word yet were it enough to warrant our intention of them that God has annexed them to it in the very order of things and course of Nature For according to the ordinary course and constitution of the World Sobriety Justice Peaceableness Diligence and other instances of Vertue and Obedience are naturally fitted to bring down all these temporal advantages upon us And this Course of Nature and Order of things is of Gods establishment It is as much his appointment as are the promises and revelations of his Gospel For he is the Authour of the World as well as of the Bible He made the Frame and Order of it to be what now it is and after he had formed it he saw that all was very good Gen. 1.31 His Word and Works are both his own and the advantages of Vertue and Obedience in the one are as much of his appointment as in the other So that as for our temporal advantages also which are much improved and ministred to by our obedience they are such as God has given us for motives and encouragements in his service He has set before us things present as well as future to quicken us in our performances of his Commandments and has appointed us to intend both because otherwise it is not possible that we should be quickâ—ned and excited by them But the only thing which we are to take care of in this matter is that as these temporal advantages are established by God whether in the course of Nature or in the express revelations of his Word as motives and inducements to Obedience So we use them accordingly as helps and instruments to enable us to obey We must make them assistant and subservient to those Laws which they are annexed to they are to minister to them but by no means to exalt themselves above them or to make against them For they are offered and authorized by God no further than they make for him Obedience to his Laws is the chief thing which he intends and these good fruits and advantageous effects of it are laid only as baits and allurements to excite us on to it But if once they lose this serviceableness and subordination to the doing of Gods will they lose all that can warrant them and all the place which he has assigned for them and make our performance of Gods Commands to be no Obedience to him nor to give right to any recompence or reward from him For as I said then Secondly our intention of our own advantage in Gods service is forbidden and renders our obedient performances corrupt and unsincere when together with our intention of serving God we joyn another intention of serving sin or when we design some temporal ends as much or more than we design Gods service which makes our self-interest instead of being subservient to obedience to become fit to oppose and undermine it Sometimes I say together with their intention of serving God men joyn another intention of serving sin And this is done in these and the like cases viz. If a man prosecutes a malefactor which is an action agreeable to the command of Justice out of the sinfull end of spite and revenge as well as out of a purpose of Obedience If a Priest shall take Confessions from women with a design of Lust as well as of Religion If a man shall be temperate and sober chaste and industrious out of a principle of covetousness as much as out of Duty If he do as our Saviour tells us the Pharisees did make long Prayers and other professions of Religion to enable him the better and without suspicion to devour widows houses as well as to serve God In these instances and in all others that are like unto them there is a mixture of light and darkness of good and evil design Men joyn God with Belial and Obedience with something of a quite contrary nature intending at once to serve both the Lord and their Sins too But as for their performances which flow from such a mixture of design as this they will in no wise be owned as an obedient but punished as a sinfull service For that evil motive which is mixed with the good is such as God has expresly threatned He has plainly declared that he will damn men eternally for Revenge for Lust for Covetousness and Rapine and for all those actions that proceed from them So that as for such performances as arise from such sinfull principles they are judged already and the dreadfull sentence is long agoe gone out against them And then as for their mixing this damnable design of sin with a design of obedience to God in the same action so far is that from lessening that it is rather an aggravation of their crime For it adds to all that evil which it contains within it self a
in worldly things which affects us is present with us and therefore our passions for or against them are raised in us by our sense and feeling But as for spiritual things and those bodily joys and sorrows that are annexed to them for the sake whereof we are sensibly affected with them they are not present with us but future and at a distance and therefore our passion for them cannot be raised by our sense whose object are only present things but meerly by our fancy and imagination But now as for the sensible warmth and violence of a passion it is nothing near so quick when it is excited by fancy as when it is produced by sense For no man is so feelingly affected with hearing a sad story as he would be by seeing of it A man will be moved abundantly less by imagining a battle a murder or any other dreadfull thing than by beholding it And the reason is because the impressions upon our sense are quick and violent and their warmth is communicated to our affections which are raised by them whereas our imaginations are calm and faint in comparison and the passions which flow from them partake of their temper and are more cold and less perceptible So that our passions for worldly things being passions upon sense and our passions for things spiritual with their bodily pain or pleasure annexed being only upon fancy and imagination we must needs be more warmly and sensibly although not more powerfully affected with the things of this world than of the other But that which is to distinguish our passion for God and Virtue above all things else from our passion for worldly things is not the warmth and sensibleness but the power and continuance of it For it must be a prevalent affection which doth more service although it make less noise It must be such a setled and overpowering Love answerable to the prevailing strength and surpassing greatness of its motive as gets the upper hand in competition and makes us when we must despise one to disregard all things else and to adhere to Gods service what other things soever be lost by it What it wants in warmth it has in permanency and power it sticks faster to us and can do more with us than our love of any thing besides For in our affections we must needs prefer God and his service before every other thing when they stand in competition or we have none of that Love with the whole soul which the Commandment requires of us as will be shewn more fully afterwards And because our thoughts and affections have in them a great latitude and in a matter of so high concern every good soul will be inquisitive after some determinate accounts of that compass and degree of them which is necessary to our acceptance before I conclude this Point I will set down what measures of obedience in these two faculties what thoughts and imaginations of our minds and what degrees of love and delight in our affections shall be judged sufficient at the last Day to save or to destroy us As for our thoughts there is one more elaborate and perfect sort of them viz. our counsels and contrivances And when they are employed about the compassing of forbidden things they are our sin and without repentance will certainly prove our condemnation For he that deviseth to do evil saith Solomon he shall be called and dealt with as a mischievous person Prov. 24.8 The machinations of murther are joined in guilt and punishment with murtherous actions themselves Matth. 15.19 And as for that particular sort of Contrivers the inventers of evil things they are pronounced by S t Paul to be worthy of death Rom. 1.30 32. And as for other of our thoughts which are not come up to the height of a contrivance or consultation but are only simple apprehensions some of them also are properly and directly good or evil and an Article of our life or death God has imposed several Laws which he has backed both with threats and promises upon our very thoughts themselves Of which sort there are some to be met with under all the three general Parts of Duty viz. to God our Neighbour and our selves For our thoughts of God are bound up by the Law of honour which forbids us to lessen or prophane him by dishonourable Notions and Opinions our thoughts of our Neighbour by the Laws of Charity and Candour which suffer us not either to reproach or injure him by under-valuing Ideas or groundless suspicions and our thoughts of our own selves by the Law of humility which prohibits us to be exalâ—ed in our own conceits through false and over-high apprehensions of our own excellence Pious and charitable opinions both of God and men and humble and lowly conceits of our own selves are Duties incumbent upon our very minds themselves And all the opposite vices of impious and reproachful Ideas of God of censorious suspicious and lessening thoughts of other men and of proud and arrogant conceits of our own worth are transgressions within the sphere and compass even of our understandings For the exercise of the first is not only a Cause and Principle but a part and instance also of obedience and an Article of life as the exercise of the other is an instance of disobedience and an Article also of damnation As for these Instances then of bare thought and naked apprehension they are essential parts and necessary instances of an acceptable obedience and the wilful transgression of any one of them without repentance is dangerous and damning So that as for all our perfected and studied thoughts of evil viz. our counsels and contrivances and as for all such simple thoughts and â—ore apprehensions as have particular Laws imposed upon them they are not only principles but parts and instances of disobedience and if we are guilty of them unless we retract them by repentance we shall be condemned for them But then there are several other bare imaginations and simple apprehensions which are not under any of these particular Laws that are imposed upon our thoughts themselves but are employed upon things commanded or forbidden by any of the other Laws forementioned And as for all these apprehensions in themselves they are neither sin nor Duty nor a matter either of reward or punishment but so far only as they are causes and principles either of a sinful or obedient choice and practice of those good or evil things which they are employed upon In themselves I say these mere apprehensions are neither sin nor Duty We may perceive sin in our minds and have it in a thought or notion without ever being guilty of it or liable to answer for it For the Sun shines upon a Dunghil without being defiled by it and God sees all the wickedness in Hell but is not tainted with it And so long as we sojourn in a World of iniquity every good man must needs know and behold all the vices
in reprehending and exposing the faults of others is most usual among our selves Nothing being more common in our ordinary Discourse than when we would be sharp in reproving and inveighing against any thing by a most courteous Fiction to put it in our own Case and to suppose that we our selves should do this or that Whenas in the mean time we are no further concerned in it than to be able under this disguise with more success and less offence to disparage and chastise it And this way of transferring odious things to our selves when we would describe and reprove them which is so usual with all the world and with S t Paul in other Cases is particularly used by him in his Character of the ineffective Striver in this seventh Chapter of the Epistle to the Romans He speaks not those things above recited of willing but not performing c. in his own person or in the person of any regenerated man as will plainly appear from this reason Because in that Chapter such things are said of the person there spoken of as can by no means agree to S t Paul or to any regenerate person so that the Apostle must be made to falsifie if he should be understood to speak so of them Such things I say are there spoken as can by no means agree to S t Paul himself For we read Of the person there spoken of That he lived and was alive without the Law of the ten Commandments once ver 7.9 That the Law of his members wars against the Law of his mind and brings him into captivity to the Law of sin which is seated and rules in his members ver 23. That how to do or perform what is good he finds not ver 18. That sin works in him all manner of lust or concupiscence ver 8. That he is captivated and conquered and as a vanquished Slave sold under sin ver 14.23 That he sinned against his Conscience For what I do says he in my practice that I allow not in my mind or Conscience but what I hate and disapprove that I do ver 15.19 That he is in a state of death For sin revived and he died vers 9. and by deceiving him it had slain him v. 11. The good law he had found to be unto him the occasion of death by his falling into that disobedience whereto it had threatned it vers 10. For the motions of sin which were not and could not be restrained by the law wrought in his members to bring forth damning sins or fruit unto death vers 5. Of Saint Paul himself elsewhere That he was both born and bred up under the Law being circumcised the eighth Day of the Stock of Israel an Hebrew of the Hebrews or an Hebrew both by his Fathers and his Mothers side Phil. 3.5 That he keeps under his Body and is not led captive by it but on the contrary brings it into subjection and captivity 1 Cor. 9.27 That he can do all things which are good through Christ that strengthens him Phil. 4.13 That it works none but that instead of lusting and coveting worldly things the world is crucified to him and he unto the world Gal. 6.14 That he has fought a good fight against it 2 Tim. 4.7 And that by the Grace of God through Christ he is delivered from it Rom. 7.25 That he knew or was conscious of nothing by himself 1 Cor. 4.4 but that he trusted he had a good Conscience and that in all things being willing to live honestly Heb. 13.18 Acts 23.1 For this had all along been his care he hahaving made it his business and exercised himself to have not now and then but alwayes a conscience void of offence or not wounded and smitten with the sense of any offences either towards God or men Acts 24.16 That the law of the spirit of life hath made him free from the law of sin and death Rom. 8.2 That he has finished his course to his advantage so as there is laid up for him not a painfull death as the punishment of his disobedience but a Crown of Glory as a reward of his righteousness which the righteous judge will give him at the last day 2 Tim. 4.8 If therefore we will believe S t Paul and let those accounts which he gives of himself explain his own meaning he cannot be that very person who is there spoken of For they are persons altogether of a different stamp and a contrary character they are as opposite as a servant of God and a slave of sin as a spiritual and a carnal man as one whose conscience approves and another whose conscience condemns him as a child of God and a child of darkness as an heir of Heaven and a subject of Hell So that he cannot speak of himself in that seventh Chapter and in the other places too because then he would appear inconsistent with himself and be found false in his own story And therefore as sure as S t Paul is true he sayes all that is spoken there in an inoffensive disguise not intending to give a character of his own person but to personate another man Nay I add further that the person whom he represents in that Chapter is not only another from himself but also one of a quite opposite and contrary character He is not only no Apostle but even no good Christian or regenerate man For such things are there said of him as if S t Paul and the other Apostles say true are inconsistent with a regenerate state and destructive of salvation As will plainly appear by considering those things which are said Of the person described there That with his flesh or fleshly members he obeys the law of sin vers 25. And this he is forced to do and cannot help it For the law of his members wars against the law of his mind and brings him into captivity to the law of sin and death ver 23. He is as absolutely enslaved to it as ever any servant was to his master who was sold in the market For says he I am carnal and sold under sin vers 14. That sin works or accomplishes and brings on to outward act and perfection in him all manner of concupiscence vers 8. For taking occasion by the nakedness of the tenth Commandment whereto no punishment was expresly threatned it deceived him into the customary commission of it by that wile and thereby slew him vers 11. That the law he found to be unto death in discerning himself to be fallen under the curse and condemnation of it vers 10. For the motions of sin which were incouraged and emboldened by means of the fancied impunity of the law wrought in his members which are the seat of their Empire so far as to bring forth damning sins or fruit unto death vers 5. That in his flesh dwells no good thing vers 18. For sin dwells and inhabits in him vers 17. and that so as to rule and govern
or have all the force of a law in his members vers 23. That he sins against his own conscience For what he doth that he allows not but what in his own mind he hates and disapproves that he doth vers 15.19 That to do good although he might wish or approve it he found not v. 18. That he stands in need to cry out O wretched man that I am who will deliver me from this body of death being as yet not rescued from it but labouring under it vers 25. Of the regenerate elsewhere That as for their members they yield them not to be instruments unto sin but unto righteousness because now since their regeneration into true Christians Sin is not to reign in their mortal bodies that they should obey it in the lusts thereof Rom. 6.12 13. In becoming Christians they are dead and crucified with Christ that the body of sin might not be maintained to live and rule in them but destroyed that thenceforward they should not serve sin For he that is dead is freed from sin vers 6 7. The Gospel of Christ or the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath not enslaved but freed them from the law of sin and death Rom. 8.2 So that sin now shall not have dominion over them because they are not under the law through the weakness whereof it tyrannized but under Grace Rom. 6.14 That their body is dead because of sin Rom. 8.10 And that they make no provision for the flesh to fulfill and accomplish the lusts or concupiscence thereof Rom. 13.14 Because if they should they would cease to be sons of God and heirs of happiness and be rendred obnoxious to misery and death For the plain declaration of Christs Gospel concerning the heirs of life and death is this If you live after the flesh in accomplishing its lusts you shall die and 't is only if you through the spirit instead of acting and compleating do kill and mortifie the deeds of the body that you shall live Rom. 8.13 That against them there is no condemning force of any law Galat. 5.23 For the law of the spirit of life hath not left them still enslaved but made them free from the law of sin and death too Rom. 8.2 And being become the servants of God they have their fruit not to sin and death but to holiness at present and the end thereof at length everlasting life Rom. 6.22 That their bodies or fleshly members are temples of the Holy Ghost and sacred places wherein it inhabits and that they glorifie God in their bodies as well as in their spirits seeing both are Gods 1 Cor. 6.19 20. That they hold faith and a good conscience without which of faith in dangerous times they would soon make shipwrack 1 Tim. 1.19 And that they are saved by the answer of a good conscience which comforts and applauds but cannot accuse them 1 Pet. 3.21 That he only who doth good is of God 3 Joh. 11. and that there is no condemnation to them who do and walk after the spirit Rom. 8.1 And that without these new fruits it is in vain to lay any claim to a new nature because as our Saviour sayes if men were the children of Abraham they would do the works of Abraham Joh. 8.39 That the body of sin is already destroyed in them that henceforth they should not serve sin which the other complains so much of Rom. 6.6 For they are delivered from the law upon occasion of the weakness whereof sin brought forth in them fruits unto death to serve now in newness of Spirit Rom. 7.5 So that what the weak ineffective law could not do for them that the Grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord hath done in an effectual deliverance of them v. 25. So that if we will take the word of S t Paul and of the rest of the Apostles in this matter we must needs believe that regenerate men and heirs of heaven are not in any wise such persons as are described in that seventh Chapter to the Romans there being no agreement or resemblance at all between them Their tempers and behaviour are utterly inconsistent and as far distant as Heaven and Hell For one serves and fulfills the lusts of his flesh the other crucifies and subdues them one yields his members servants unto sin the other unto righteousness one is made a perfect captive and sold under sin the other is made free from it one is forced to act against his conscience the other alwayes acts according to it one complains of being oppressed by the body of death the other rejoyceth in being deliver'd from it one can perform and do no good the other doth all good one brings forth fruit unto death the other to eternal life These with others that might be mention'd are the lines of difference and the contrary characters of the person represented in the seventh Chapter to the Romans and the regenerate man described by S t Paul himself in all his other Epistles and in the following and foregoing Chapters of this By all which it appears that they are descriptions contradictory and incompatible which cannot at the same time be affirmed of the same man And that to give such an account of a regenerate man as is there set down would not in all appearance be the way to describe but rather slanderously to libel and revile him If any therefore enquire now how I know that S t Paul doth not speak of himself in that Chapter nor of any other regenerate person but of an unregenerate man who is yet in the state of death and sin he has his Answer full and undeniable already I know he doth not mean so because he cannot mean so the things which he sayes not bearing to be so understood For that meaning would make his speech to be no Apostolical Truth but an open falsehood it would make S t Paul inconsistent with himself and to unsay at one time what he had said most peremptorily at another It would make him flatly to gainsay all that he has taught elsewhere yea even what he had affirm'd almost in the same breath in the foregoing and the following Chapters So that he cannot be understood of himself or of any other regenerate person but must be allow'd according to his usual custome in such odious topicks as this was to speak all in a borrowed disguise and in the person of a sinfull and a lost man For indeed to be yet more particular all that discourse in that seventh Chapter is not meant either of S t Paul or of any other regenerate Christian but of a struggling and contending although yet unconquering and unregenerate Jew For the Apostle is there describing the state not of a perfect debauch nor of a perfect Saint but of a middle man He is one whose Conscience is awaken'd for he delights in the Law of God after the inner man of his mind and reason vers 22. and when he
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
Law was the cause of our Sin and Death this we see is quite taken off and doth not follow at all For although we sinn'd yea and died too under the Law yet was not the Law the cause of these but the strength of our own Lusts. But the Law is holy still and so no cause of sin and the Commandment forbidding sin and promising Life to the obedient is not only holy and just but over and above that good too and so no cause of death and suffering But upon this you will say how was it then that that which is so good in it self as you say the Law is should be made the cause of the greatest evil even of Death unto me Could it prove so to me if it were not so in it self And to this I answer with abhorrence God forbid that I should say the Law is Death No this Death as I have told you is not the effect of the Law for it was ordained to procure Life for me But it was Sin I say again that was too strong for the Law which could only forbid but was not able by all its aids to restrain it this Sin it was that it might appear Sin indeed that went on working transgression unto Death in me by advantage taken over that Law which is good although not strong enough to overpower the setled habits of evil And by this conquest of Sin over the good Law which was set up as a bar against it and should have destroy'd it it appears to be most mischievous For this comes of it that Sin by proving too hard for the Commandment might by such prevailing over all that is set against it be extremely heightned and aggravated and become exceeding sinfull And that the Law should thus be worsted by Sin is no wonder For we know that although the Law which commands is spiritual to shew and suggest better things yet I who am to obey in that state of sensuality and sin wherein the Law finds me and out of which it is too weak to rescue me am carnal so as to serve sin notwithstanding it Which I am to such a degree as if I were sold under sin and my actions were as much at its command as the actions of a slave bought with money are at the command of his master So that although the Law shews me that which is good and commands me to perform it yet cannot I obey it in regard I am under anothers power under the beck of sin And in very deed to speak yet more particularly to this business the good Law can and doth produce good effects in the mind and conscience which is the throne wherein it is seated but still the law of sin which is seated in the members or executive powers prevails over it and engrosseth all our actions So that the utmost that it can ordinarily do with us is to make us in our mind to disapprove sin but when it hath done that it cannot hinder us in our lives from practising it And of this the complaints of those who are subject to it are a sufficient proof For who is there among them for the most part that is not ready to confess and cry out thus that which through the prevailing power of my lusts I do in my practice that through the power of the Law I allow not in my mind and conscience for what being excited by the Law I would do that being hindred by sin do I not but what from the Laws prohibiting in my mind I hate and disapprove that from my own lusts forcing and overpowering me in my actions still do I. And this by the way as it is an evident argument of the weakness and inability of the Law to restrain sin is also a clear testimony to the holiness and goodness of the Law it self which shews plainly that it is no favourer or author of Sin as was objected vers 7. Because if even then when I do sin I do not approve of it but in doing so I do what I would not I thereby consent in my own conscience unto the Law and acknowledge by my approving what it commands that it is good Yea I shew moreover that all that which it produces and effects in me is good also For even when I do sin sinning thus against my conscience the sin cannot in any wise be charged upon my conscience where the Law reigns so as that the Law in my mind may be stiled the cause of sin as it is vers 7. but only upon the power of my habitual sin and fleshly lusts that reign in my members which are so strong as that the law of my mind cannot restrain them And now then in this state of sinning thus with regret and against my conscience even when I do sin it is no more I or my mind and conscience that is governed by the Law and which may be called my self that do it seeing it disapproves it but it is sin that dwells in me and reigns in my members It must not be charged upon the Law in my mind I say but upon this inhabiting Sin which rules in my members For I know and confess freely that in that other part of me that is to say in my flesh and members which for all the Law rules in my mind doth yet keep possession of my practice dwells no good thing Nay on the contrary there dwells so much evil as proves too strong for the good Law restraining all its effect to the approbation of my mind but not suffering it to influence my practice Which we as I said who are subject to the Law find by sad experience For almost every one of us feels and must confess this that to will upon the account of the Law is present with me but then how to perform that which is good after I have will'd it that I find not For after the Law has done all that it can upon me this is still true that the good that being instructed by the Law I would do that being hindred by the prevalence of my lusts I do not but as for the evil which because of the prohibition of the Law I would not do that being over-master'd by my lusts I do But now all this while as I said if what my lusts make me practise through the Law in my mind I do not approve but in doing it I do that which I would not then 't is clear that my sinning cannot be charged upon the Law as it is vers 7. because it hinders it as far as it can It cannot I say be attributed to that for it is no longer I or my mind and conscience that do it but to the power of habitual Sin which the good Law cannot conquer to that sin which dwells and rules in me i. e. in my bodily members And therefore to summ up all I find another Law in my members opposite to the Law of God in
enable men to do what it commanded is true still For the Law did not promise it although several both before and under the Law enjoyed it but they who had the benefit of it received it not from the Covenant of the Law but from the Covenant of Grace and the Gospel which has been more or less on foot through all times ever since the World began And in this Covenant since Christ has given us the last Edition and perfection of it both these great defects of the Mosaick Law which rendered it so unable to work this intire reformation and obedience are fully supplied For in every Page of Christ's Gospel what is so legible as the promise of eternal life The joys of Heaven are as much insisted on by Christ as the delights of Canaan were by Moses And then as for the other promise viz. that of the Spirit it is now as plainly revealed as words can make it For we need not to guess at it by signs or to presume it from probabilities or to believe it upon Syllogism and consequence but Christ has spoke out so as to be understood by every capacity God will give the holy Spirit to them that ask him Luke 11.13 Now because the Law of Moses laboured under these two great defects which are happily supplied by the Gospel of Christ by reason whereof it was very unable to effect that reformation of the World which was necessary therefore doth the Apostle in several places speak very meanly of it as of a weak and ineffective Instrument He affirms plainly and proves also That it neither could nor did make men throughly good and that therefore God was forced in the fulness of time to make known and in Christ's death to establish a better If there had been a Law given by Moses which could have given life then saith he verily righteousness should not have needed to be sought by another Covenant but have been by the Law But this we see it could not for the Scripture hath concluded all those who lived under it to be still under the dominion of sin that so since the Law of Moses could not do it the promise of eternal life of the Spirit and of other things which we have by the faith of Jesus Christ might be given to work and effect it to those that believe Gal. 3.21 22. Something indeed the Law did towards it for it armed their consciences against sin so that they could not take their full swing and transgress without all fear and remorse And this was some restraint and kept them from being so ill by far as otherwise they would have been although it was not able to make them so good as they should And to lay this hank upon sin and to check it in some measure till such time as the Gospel should be more clearly revealed to subdue it perfectly was that very end for which the Law was at first given and whereto so long as it was in force it served Wherefore saith he serveth the Law of Moses It was added to the rude draught of the Gospel-Covenant made with Abraham because of the transgressions of men which grew very high that it might in some degree restrain them till Jesus Christ the seed of Abraham should come to whom as to the head and in behalf of his Church the promise of such Grace as would restrain it fully was made And to fit it the more for imprinting an awe upon peoples Consciences whereby it might lay this restraint upon sin it was ordained at the first giving of it by terrible fire and thundrings made by the Angels which were so dreadful that the people desired of God that those formidable Angels might be no more employed in delivering it to them but that it might be put into the hands of another Mediator viz. Moses who was a man like unto themselves Gal. 3.19 But although this restraint upon Sin were something yet was it far from sufficient so that still it is true of the Law of Moses that notwithstanding it could begin yet it could finish and make nothing perfect but that it was the bringing in of a better hope than was warranted by the Law which should do that Heb. 7.19 And as for this imperfection and faultiness which the Apostle imputes to the first Covenant or Law of Moses in these and other places it is nothing more as he observes than God himself has charged upon it when he speaks of establishing a better instead of it For if the first Covenant by Moses had been faultless and void of imperfection then should no place have been sought for the introduction of the second which it is plain there was For finding fault with them for their breach of the first Covenant he saith in Jer. 31.31 the dayes come when I will make a New Covenant with the house of Israel such as shall make me to be for ever unto them a God and enable them to be unto me an obedient People Heb. 8.7 8 9 10. Now this Inability of the Law of Moses to work a compleat conquest over sin and a thorow reformation which the Apostle affirms so clearly in these other places he sets out more largely and particularly in that seventh Chapter to the Romans For from the beginning of this Discourse which I have taken at the 14 th Verse of the 6 th Chapter to the end of it at the 5 th vers of the 8 th this weakness and inability of the Law is that still which is every where endeavour'd to be made out and which returns upon us as the conclusion and inference from every argument Sin must not have dominion over you saith he because you are not under the Law where is the place of its reigning but under the Grace of Christ at the 14. verse of the 6 th Chapter And in the 7 th it is taken notice of at every turn When you were in the flesh or under the Law which from its consisting so much of Carnal Ordinances and giving the flesh so much advantage is called flesh Galat. 3.3 the motions of sin which were encouraged by the weakness of the Law brought forth fruit unto death but now being delivered from the weak Law you serve in newness of spirit not as you did then in the oldness of the letter vers 5 6. Sin taking occasion or advantage over the weak Commandment wrought in me all manner of concupiscence vers 8. When the weak Commandment came sin revived and I died vers 9. Sin taking occasion or advantage by the Commandment slew me vers 11. by which prevailing over the Commandment it appears to be exceeding sinfull vers 13. And at the end of the discourse at the 8 th Chapter we are told again of the Law of Moses being weak through the conquering power of the flesh which made it necessary for God to send his own Son with a better Law which was strong enough to rescue us not of the dominion of
it vers 3 4. So that upon the whole matter it plainly appears that all that is said in that seventh Chapter of willing but not doing of sinning against conscience and transgressing with regret doth not at all set forth the savable state of a true Christian under the Gospel of Christ but only the state of a midling sinner of a lost Jew who only struggles but cannot conquer being yet under the weakness and imperfections of the Mosaick Law Nay I add further So far is any man who continues to work and act his sin from having any real grounds of hope and encouragement from this place in so doing that in very deed if he rightly consider it it will possess him with the quite contrary It holds out to him a sentence of death and shews him plainly the absolute necessity not only of a willing but also of a working obedience For the man who disobeys thus unwillingly and sins with regret is so far from being in a state of Life and Salvation notwithstanding his sins that he is here expresly said to be undone and slain by them The motions of sin under the law bring forth fruit unto death vers 5. when sin revived by the coming of the Commandment I died vers 9. The Commandment which was ordained unto life I on the contrary found to be unto death vers 10. Sin taking occasion and advantage by the Commandment slew me vers 11. Sin wrought death in me by that Law which is good vers 13. O! wretched man that I am by reason of this subjection unto sin who shall deliver me from this body of Sin and Death vers 24. But on the other side if we would belong to Christ and appear such Servants as he will own and reward at last we are taught in this very place that we must not be worsted by sin but overcome it that we must not work evil but righteousness that we must not walk after those sinfull lusts which are seated in the flesh but after the Law of God which is enthroned in the Spirit Sin shall not have dominion over you if you are under Grace Chapter 6.14 Now yield your members servants unto righteousness vers 19. you are become subject and as it were married to Christ that you should bring forth fruit to God Chap. 7. vers 4. Now being delivered from the Law we must serve not sin as we did under it but God in newness of spirit vers 6. The Grace of God through Jesus Christ hath delivered me from this body of death vers 24 25. The Law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus when I became truly and acceptably Christian hath made me free from the law of Sin and Death Chap. 8. vers 2. So that the righteousness of the Law which it was not able to work in me is now by means of the Gospel wrought and fulfilled in me for since I came under it I am one who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit vers 4. So that all the while we see this is a Truth most sure and stedfast which S t Paul is so far from opposing in this seventh Chapter to the Romans that in reality he avers and confirms it viz. that if we do commit sin and work iniquity it will not excuse us to say that we did it unwillingly The regret in sinning may be allowed as was shewn in the last Chapter to lessen our crime and thereby to abate our punishment but that is all which it can do for it cannot quite exempt us from it And thus at last we see that this fourth ground of shifting off the necessity of this service with our actions viz. our hope of being saved at the last day although we have not obeyed in our works but have wrought disobedience because when we did so it was with reluctance and unwillingness is no less delusive than are all the former It will certainly fail any man who trusts to it and if he will not see it before make him know the falseness of it when it is too late to rectifie and amend it As for all those foundations therefore whereupon men build their hopes of a happy sentence without ever obeying with their strength or bodily powers viz. the conceit of being saved for Orthodox Opinions for ineffective desires for never transgressing but through a strong temptation or with an unwilling mind they are all false grounds snares of death and inlets to damnation But as ever we expect that our obedience should avail us unto Pardon and Life we must obey with our strength or bodily powers as well as with our wills our passions and our understandings If we would have God at the last day to approve our service and to reward and justifie our obedience this and nothing less than this must be done towards it We must not only desire but do it is not enough to will and approve but we must work and practise what is commanded us We must not barely think right in our minds or desire with our affections or choose with our wills but as the Perfection and Crown of all we must put to our strength and executive powers and work the will of God in our lives and actions Without this if we have life and opportunity all other things will signifie nothing For it is he who doth good saith S t John who will be looked upon to be of God 3 Joh. 11. Little children saith the same Apostle let no man deceive you for it is only he who doth righteousness who in Gods judgement is righteous 1 Joh. 3.7 It is this service of our strength or bodily powers in our outward works and operations which makes up our duty and secures our reward Blessed are they that do his Commandments for they only have right to the great reward the Tree of Life Revel 22.14 But on the other side if we do evil and work iniquity no service of our other faculties can stand us in any stead but in Gods account we shall be esteemed wicked wretches children of wrath and heirs of destruction For the words of our Saviour Christ himself who is to judge of it are vehement and plain Verily verily I say unto you whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin Joh. 8.34 He who commits sin is of the devil for whosoever doth not righteousness is not of God but a child of the devil 1 Joh. 3.8 10. And as this working wickedness howsoever we are against it in our thoughts and desires makes us in Gods account sons of sin and disobedience so will it be sure to render us withall children of wrath and destruction If you live after the flesh saith S t Paul you shall die Rom. 8.13 And whatever men think in their minds or desire in their hearts or profess in their words to the contrary if for all that they have sinned impenitently in their actions Christ has told them plainly that he will pronounce when he comes to
to disobey in it our obedience in other things is all that we have to shew besides and therefore it must be our excuse for it And this being an errour of such eternal moment and a Rock whereupon all the souls which miscarry under any appearances of piety are split I will be particular in recounting and evacuating those colours and pretences wherewith men deceive their own souls and think that they justifie and defend it Now as for those false grounds and pretensions whereby men seek to shelter themselves under the practice of such bosome-sins as they overlook because they have no mind to leave them hoping to be secured whilst they continue in them because of their obedience in other parts of Duty which is a partial obedience Those pretensions I say which are most pleadable in this matter are these that follow viz. because their indulgence of themselves in those instances wherein they disobey is either upon one or more of these accounts 1. For the preservation of their Religion and of themselves in times of danger and persecution 2. For the supply of their necessities by sinful arts compliances and services in times of want and indigence 3. For the satisfaction of their Flesh in sins of temper and complexion age or way of life 1. The first pretence whereby men justifie to their own thoughts the indulged transgression of several Laws whilst they obey in others is because those transgressions wherein they allow themselves are necessary for the preservation of their Religion and of themselves in those times of danger and persecution wherein Gods Providence has placed them Religion is in danger and like to be undermined by the close and subtle arts or overborn by the more open and powerful violence of strong and witty Enemies And this is Gods Cause and Christ our Lord and Saviours interest so that whatever is done here we think is in service of our Maker If we fight it is his battles if we spitefully persecute and devour it is his enemies if we rob and spoil it is to weaken his adversaries if we lye and dissemble it is to defeat the designs of such as he will call Rebels if we transgress in all the instances and use all the lawless liberties of war it is because we are engaged in his quarrel The Cause which we contend for and have to manage is sacred and that we believe will justifie all means and hallow any services whatsoever So that our heat and fierceness wrath and bitterness envy and malice revenge and cruelty endless strife and ungovernable variance spoils and robberies seditions and murthers wars and tumults in a word all the transports of passion and peevishness anger and ill nature rigour and revenge are all sacred under this Cover and pass for holy zeal and pious vehemence and religious concern for God whenas in reality they are a most impious throwing off and bursting through all the Tyes of Religion and Bonds of Duty towards men All these enormous effects and horrible instances of an indulged disobedience are at this Day the consequents of this pretension For some on one hand who call us Hereticks and enemies to Christ and holy Church think no means sinful whereby they can weaken and divide seduce surprize or any way destroy us For they esteem it lawful to dissemble under all shapes to gain a Proselyte or to disaffect a Party to our Communion and Government They act a part and play the Hypocrite in all Disguises and under cover of all Trades the better to insinuate themselves among all sorts of men they will affirm falshood even of their own Church when it serves their turn and deny any Doctrines Precepts or Parts of it when they are a scandal to the persons whom they would practise upon and make against them They make no conscience of lyes and perjuries in conversation when thereby they can promote the Churches interest For they have found out ways to deceive without lying and to lye without sin and to forswear without perjury and to perjure themselves without danger by their pious frauds and religious arts of equivocations mental reservations dispensations pardons and indulgences They can be treacherous and faithless without breach of faith if it were made to Hereticks they assassinate and murther Magistrates embitter and embroil Subjects against their Governours and against one another they conspire the death of Kings the confusion and fall of Kingdoms the ruine of all that dare oppose them yea even of all that differ from them And all this they do for Christ's sake in a zealous concern for God and Religion and for the utter extirpation of all heresie and schism It is this pretence which bears them out through all and makes them believe that they are serving God whilst after this extravagant rate they are overturning his whole Gospel And others again even of our own selves who justly abhor these damnable instances of disobedience upon the pretence of preserving or propagating Religion in some furious and fiery spirited sort of Papists for God forbid that we should think them all to be of this temper do yet run into the same extravagance which upon so great reason they condemn in them For if we look into our zeal for the common Religion of Protestants we shall find that we transgress many and those most material and weighty Laws of it whilst we express our affection and concern to defend and preserve it For doth not this pretence of preserving our Religion carry us beyond all the bounds of peaceableness and good subjection Our great fears about its defence make us daily to distrust our Governours to think and speak irreverently and reproachfully of their persons to undervalue all their counsels to misconstrue all their actions and proceedings and with much undutifull credulity and unchristian rashness to believe and spread abroad concerning them most odious suspicions and invidious reports they make us pragmatical and busie-bodies to go out of our own sphere and to usurp upon the Magistrates in projecting means and expediencies prejudging Criminals and irreverent censuring reproaching yea and oft-times slandering of our Governours if they either in Court or Council at the Board or on the Bench determine contrary to our anticipations They make us to disturb the quiet and to unsettle the peace of our fellow-subjects in filling their minds with endless jealousies about their Princes care and their own safety and in possessing them with discontents and undutifull suspicions words and actions to the great weakning of Government and disturbance of the publick peace Yea I add further these same fears for our endangered Religion transport us into the transgression of sundry weighty Laws which oblige us towards our very enemies who have contrived to destroy us For they have made us most partially backward to believe any thing that is good and forward to catch at every thing that is spoken ill against them They have made many of us fierce and implacable malicious
I forsook not thy Commandments vers 87. and many now still are my persecutors and enemies yet do I not decline from thy testimonies vers 157. The Holy Apostles of our Saviour conflicted with more difficulties and distress persecutions and sufferings for the Religion and Obedience of their Lord than any men I think ever did or it may be ever will do I think sayes S t Paul that God hath set forth us Apostles last as it were men appointed to the bloodiest which is usually the last scene of all even to death it self For we are exposed to slaughter as men were in the tragical sports of that time upon a publick theatre being made a spectacle unto the world and to angels and to men From the first entrance on our office even to this present hour we both hunger and thirst and are naked and are buffetted and have no certain dwelling place being made as the very filth of the world and the off-scouring of all things from the first to this day 1 Cor. 4.9 11 13. If any straits could authorize an evil action or if any pressures could justifie a disobedient escape sure these would But they knew too well the nature of their Religion ever to dream of a liberty to sin that they might avoid persecution and they were too resolutely addicted to it ever to attempt it For neither the extremity of their sufferings nor the desperateness of their danger could ever make them transgress their duty or go beyond the Laws of their Religion to lessen or prevent them But they obeyed bravely and entirely even in the highest strains even in the most ungratefull instances even in those matters wherein if any where the malice and violence of their enemies would provoke or rather force them to disobey For in the midst of all these pressures sayes S t Paul being reviled we bless being persecuted we suffer it being defamed we do nothing worse than entreat and pray for our defamers 1 Cor. 4.12 13. In patience in afflictions in necessities in distresses in stripes in imprisonments in popular tumults in manual labours in all these things and in the throng and distraction of all our sorrows we approve our selves as the true obedient Servants and faithfull Ministers of God shewing that not by any selfish disobedient politick shifts but by pureness of conversation by long-suffering by kindness even to our very enemies in a word by the most excellent of all gifts and the Epitome of all Duty Charity or love unfeigned 2 Cor. 6.3 4 5. Religion then can never give protection to any disobedience nor our concern and zeal for God be pleaded with any shew of modesty or reason in vindication of our transgressions of any of his Laws or Precepts For Religion needs no defence from times of suffering it can live in them it is improved by them nay some of its most glorious parts and eminent instances are never shown in any lustre but when we fall under them and where it ought to be defended the breach of Laws is in no wise a fit instrument for its advancement and protection For God cannot be honoured nor Religion advanced by disobedience Obedience is so essential and super-eminent a part of its Nature and so preferable to any idle profession or ineffective belief that to transgress Christian Laws for the maintenance of an undisturbed liberty in professing Christian opinions were not to strengthen and preserve but dangerously to wound if not wholly to destroy it This disobedience to Christian Laws that we may avoid suffering for the profession of Christian Doctrines is such as the very temper of the Gospel which is made up in great part of passive Precepts and a suffering Religion plainly contradicts such as its Laws and Precepts strictly forbid such as Christ our Lord and Judg will certainly and most severely punish and such as the most persecuted religious men could never be provoked or forced into either by the greatness of their fears or by the violence of their pains although the most exquisite that could be invented by the most searching wits and keenest malice in the world So that whensoever men sin to avoid suffering and disobey the Laws of Religion to preserve the profession of it from persecution it is not Religion but their Lusts not their love of God but their love of their own selves which makes them disobedient Religion will upon no accounts justifie their transgressions but utterly condemns them and unless their repentance prevents it God at the last Day will endlesly punish and avenge for them But as for Religion in that narrow sense wherein some understand it i. e. the use of religious Ordinances and the profession and belief of religious Opinions if men would shew their care and concern to preserve the free liberty and unpersecuted use of that so as both God and all good men should honour and commend them let them shew it in a pious and discreet management Which they will justly be thought to do if they keep within their own sphere and use even there no sinful and disobedient means and are zealous in the first place for the practice and preservation of religious Laws and next to that for religious Ordinances and Opinions 1. In shewing their care to preserve the free liberty and unpersecuted use of religious Ordinances and Professions they must act within their own sphere We private Christians must not prescribe methods of preserving it to publick Magistrates or censure their proceedings and speak irreverently of their persons and administrations when they determine otherwise than we had thought fitting We must not without consent and approbation of Authority combine in Bodies and associate in solemn Leagues Bonds and Covenants to be aiding and assisting to each other with our Persons Armes and Purses to protect it against all Opposers For these are such things as are no part of our business but God has hedged them in and entrusted them in other hands He has delegated that power to Kings and Governours to take care of the common good and to judge of publick expedience He has put the sword into the Magistrates hands and has authorized him and him only to have power of life and death and to decree and establish peace and war And if any man without his order shall take the Sword and use it against his Brother he may read his Sentence which is writ in plain words already They that take the sword as every man doth when Authority doth not allow or reach it out to him shall perish by the sword Matth. 26.52 These means then and any others which God has appropriated to the care and entrusted in the hands of other men can be no lawful expressions of our care but an unlawful intruding into anothers Office a sinful use of what is put out of ours and committed to an others management Our exercise and use of them is a proud usurpation an unpeaceable encroachment a busie medling in other mens
Christians For it is a known Story and usage which Tertullian complains of that the very Heathens themselves could not but cry out Such or such a one is a very good man bating only this That he is a Christian. And when the World of Christians were thus intirely obedient and compleatly vertuous it was no wonder that they could so bravely despise Death and not only suffer but even seek and provoke martyrdom They durst dye for the Gospel because they were sure to live by it For they performed all that it required and were thereby secure of all the happiness which it promised and when by this means Death was become to them only a passage to a most glorious and eternal life it had nothing in it that could fright them All Sorts Sexes and Ages had lived their Religion so well that they feared not to dye for it but with the most undaunted courage and assured hope they every where in great numbers sealed their profession with their blood and gave testimony to the truth of their Faith with their own lives And now if we fall short of that obedience that God requires and which was performed by former Ages whose fault is that or who must in reason suffer for it For Christ's Gospel is the very same that it was sixteen hundred years ago the Precepts are still unchanged and the penalty altogether unaltered It always was and always will be the same Rule of Faith and the same measure of mercy or damnation And therefore if we lose what it promises we may thank our selves for neglecting what it enjoyns For the same terms of life have stood fixt hitherto and shall stand through all Ages the primitive Christians kept and were saved by them and if we break them we shall certainly be condemned for them How small soever therefore that be which in these loose times men perform yet an intire obedience is that which God indispensably enjoins It is the peremptory Demand of his Gospel and will at the last Day be the inviolable Rule of his Judgment It saved the antient Christians and less than it nothing in the World will save us But this some will be ready to say instead of a gracious and merciful is a very rigorous and severe Condition It binds us to more than is in our power and threatens us for what we cannot help and is a task too heavy for any mere man and proportioned only to the strength of an Angel For to obey all God's Laws and that at all times who is sufficient God's Laws themselves are not Rules so general as to admit of no exception For we are commanded for instance to live in peace but yet sometimes we may and must be engaged in striving and contention And as it is in this so it is in other parts of Duty the Commandment holds not in every Case but some are excepted And who now is of an understanding so discerning and sagacious as to see in all things where he is fast and where he is loose and never to mistake that for his liberty which is indeed his Duty To be infallible in judgment and to think right in all things is the property of a God not of a man And if through this weakness of understanding whereto all mankind are subject we are ignorant at any time and do not see or erroneous and mistake our Duty how is it possible that we should in all instances and at all times perform and fulfil it But even where we do know God's Law yet neither there can we always observe it For since we have many other thing to do besides our Duty and opportunities for action call frequently upon the sudden we are oft-times drawn to act before we have time to think and so although we know what we should do in the general yet in this particular Case we have not leisure to attend to it We are surprized into action e're we are aware and perform before we can consider and therefore as the chance happens many times do ill because we have not time to look about us and to see what is well doing But if an opportunity for some sin happen when we are at leisure to consider of it and to avoid it yet many times although for the present it doth not afterwards it shall win upon us For all temptations do not come upon us suddenly and pass away as suddenly again but some stay long with us and persist to obtrude themselves upon us And although we can consider for a while and watch well and resist long yet such is the imperfection of our very faculties that they cannot be held long at stretch but they will at last grow weary They will be tired out by continuing so strict a Guard and begin at last to remit of their care and to slacken their diligence and when they unbend the temptation encreases and our lusts take advantage so that albeit we were not surprized at first yet we shall at last and be tired and wearied into a transgression And since all these with others are infirmities not only incident to but inseparable from our Natures and such as we cannot throw off till we shake off our Bodies and all converse with the tempting world how can it be thus exacted of us who cannot always stand upright that we should never fall but obey God intirely in all things and at all times But to give a clear Answer to these difficulties which are here with great truth objected having shown that Obedience is the Condition which is indispensably required of us and what those particular Laws are which we are to obey and what degrees and measures of obedience is required to them I shall now proceed to enquire into that which I promised in the next place viz. What are the mitigations and allowances of this Condition of happiness and what those defects are which it bears and dispenses with of which in the next Book BOOK IV. Shewing what defects are consistent with a regenerate state and dispensed with in the Gospel CHAP. I. Shewing in general that some sins are consistent with a state of Grace The CONTENTS Some failings consistent with a state of Grace This shewn in the general First From the necessity of humane Nature which cannot live without them Secondly From sundry examples of pious men who had right to life whilst they lived in them THAT measure of life or death which Christ has indispensably fixed for all his Servants is not a perfectly intire and absolutely unerring obedience No it makes allowances for the unconquerable frailties and unavoidable infirmities of our Natures It considers that we are but men and exacts no more of us than a humane service That integrity which as we have seen it requires of us is an intire obedience only of our free works and deliberate chosen actions For then we are perfect and intire in God's account when we have done all that was in our power
are so hasty and unadvised as through the sudden resentment of that contest to separate companies and part asunder Act. 15.37 38 39. And since these slips of inconsideration through a sudden Grief Fear or Anger were incident to the most perfect Saints and the most assured Favourites and Heirs of Heaven 't is plain that they are a fit matter of Gods mercy and will be graciously born with and forgiven but not severely punished by him As for our slips of inadvertence then and inconsiderate transgressions whether we are inconsiderate through surprize or weariness or discomposure of our thinking Faculties they are such innocently involuntary sins as shall not at the last Day be charged upon us they do not unsaint a man or destroy a state of Salvation but consist with it But to prevent mens false confidences of pardon and groundless hopes of being excused upon this head I think fit to subjoyn these Cautions about inconsiderate sins 1. No sin is innocently inconsiderate where we have time and our understandings being undisturbed are able to make use of it If we have Time to think but our minds are troubled and distempered which makes them unfit to think and consider in it as it happens in the cases of a great weariness and a violent sudden passion mentioned above there 't is true we have no choice because we have not all that is necessary to consideration But if we have ability and power as well as time and leisure our thoughts are at our own choice and if we transgress inconsiderately the fault is our own for we might have helped it if we would and if we will not we must answer for it 2. No sin is innocently inconsiderate which is of a mischievous nature and greatly criminal For if a man has not brought himself into a habit of sin and under a great hardness of heart which is always his own fault and subjects him to a most dreadful punishment his own Soul must needs give back and his Conscience boggle at every great offence and where he doubts and demurs he cannot say he is rash and inconsiderate No man therefore can be guilty of an act of Idolatry Blasphemy Perjury Sacriledge Adultery Murder Sedition Rebellion Theft Slander or any other of those sins which are so great a Terror even to Natural Conscience and yet say he wist it not and ventured on them when he did not think of it For if his Conscience had any thing of that tenderness which it should and would have unless he has sinned it into numbness and stupefaction he could not commit any of these without checks of mind nor ever come to be guilty of them without fears and doubtings disputes and conflicts in his own soul. He must consider them over and over and view them on one side and on the other before he can be able to master his own fears and work himself into courage sufficient to venture on them As for lesser sins indeed a mans Conscience has not so quick a sense nor so great a dread of them and therefore he may be surprized sometimes into the commission of them before he considers of them A good man may speak a rash word and be carelesly angry or triflingly peevish through surprize and suddenness but he cannot contrive the death of his neighbour or stab a man to the heart without fear and consideration He may be insnared unawares into a wanton eye or a lascivous thought but he cannot fall into an act of fornication and adultery till he might look about him and should bethink himself He may rashly and unadvisedly be guilty of an uncharitable censure of a surly behaviour of a discourteous uncondescensive uncandid action but he cannot slander his neighbour or entertain malice wrath and implacable enmity against him without deliberation unless it be his own fault that he will not deliberate and consider of them He may run before he bethinks himself into a covetous wish but not into fraud and circumvention into theft and robbery into perfidiousness and oppression and the like is observable in other instances These lesser sins which are acted in more haste and need less deliberation because mens consciences are less sensible and afraid of them men may and very often do commit inconsiderately and unadvisedly they are surprized into them before they bethinks themselves and consider of them But then as for greater sins which either imply thought and contrivance or require time and leisure or for the heinousness of their guilt are frightful unto conscience we can have no excuse of inconsideration when we fall under them Some I say imply thought and contrivance as fraud and circumvention others require time and a long stay upon the very commission of them as rapes and adulteries thefts and robberies drunkenness and revellings wrath anger and malice and all of them are frightful and terrifying to any honest and truly tender Conscience And when we think and contrive for them or dwell long upon them or are frighted with them and put into doubts and disputes fears and demurs about them it is gross non-sence and absurd contradiction to say that we did we wist not what and committed them when we could not consider of them So that as for any sin which is of a mischievous nature or greatly criminal unless it be our own fault and we have made our Consciences hard and callous we cannot venture on it without considering it because we cannot act it without checks and fears of Conscience about it 3. No sin is innocently and involuntarily inconsiderate which we do not endeavour and strive against To endeavour against all sin is in our own power and at our own choice although it be not perfectly to overcome it and get free from it For our endeavours are our own and are either put forth or omitted at our own pleasure so that it is only because we would have it so if they are wanting And therefore if we are inconsiderate because we refused and wilfully neglected to prevent it our inconsideration enters upon our own choice and is so far owing to our own will For we were willing to come under it and would not strive against it and so far as it was willed by us it may be charged upon us and imputed to condemn us Let no man therefore indulge himself in an inconsiderateness of sinning and take no pains against it but quietly submit to it out of a fond conceit of being excused upon his inconsideration For if he make no opposition to his inconsiderateness but carelesly lays himself open to it and idly waits for it he makes it cease to be wholly his infirmity and in some measure to become his fault Because it is so far an effect of his own will as it is of his wilful negligence and as he wills it he shall not be excused but put to answer and account for it But if any man expect to have his inconsiderate slips excused as involuntary and
before an unerring and uncorrupt Judge who can neither be bribed nor deceived and who cannot mistake them or wrongfully condemn them howsoever they may mistake or wrongfully condemn themselves And since it is so they are really safe in their own goodness when they most of all suspect their own danger and secure from evil even whilst they are afraid of falling under it But although every good man is in this safety let his understanding of himself be what it will yet if in any of those things which he takes to be a matter of life or death he judges wrong of himself and thinks erroneously he can enjoy no peace and comfort He will go to Heaven full of fears and forbodeing thoughts and never think himself in the way to Bliss till he is actually inthroned in it and possessed of it He will meet indeed with happiness in the end but he will have no sight or expectation of it in the way for all his life long he will be tormented with doubts and suspicions fears and jealousies and be still by turns concluding himself lost as to the next World though he be lost no where but in his own fancy And this imagined future misery will bring him under a real one for the present it will make him have sad thoughts and a sorrowful heart it will bereave him of all joy and peace and almost overwhelm him in groundless perplexity and vexation But that pious Souls may not fear where no fear is nor torment themselves with unreasonable expectations having before shewn what that condition really is which renders any mans a safe condition I will go on now to remove their groundless scruples and mistakes concerning it by shewing what and of what force those things are which are wont without any sufficient reason to disquiet the minds and to disturb the peace of good and safe but mistaken Christians about it And as for the causes of good mens fears so far as I have been able to learn them they are chiefly these that follow 1. Good men are wont to call in question the saveableness of their present and the happiness of their future state because after all their care against them they find that some motions of the flesh some stirrings of their lusts some thoughts of evil do still arise up in them They feel themselves subject to delightsom fancies and desires of forbidden things They are liable to a lustful thought a covetous wish an insurrection of anger of envy and of several other damning sins 'T is true indeed that these lusts do not reign in them because they do not consent to their instigations nor do what they would have them They can only inhabit and stir in them but have not strength enough to give Laws to them for they repress them before they get so far and prevail over them before they go on to fulfil what they inclined to Not any of these sinful lusts whereof they are afraid has got so much power over them as to carry them on either to consent to them or to fulfil them for though they may think on some forbidden things in their minds or desire them in their hearts yet do they not will and chuse any of them and least of all do they work and practise them They may perhaps have a thought and fancy a wish and inclination after unchast pleasures but they correct themselves there and go no further for they never in their hearts consent to an unlawful embrace nor ever proceed to an unclean action In a sudden motion of anger it may be they may have several expressions of wrath and instances of revenge occur to their thoughts and obtruding themselves upon their fancy but they stop there and go no higher for they do not consent to utter an injurious word or to commit a spiteful action and the same they experience by themselves in other instances In all which several forbidden things will get into their thoughts and desires and steal from them a wish or inclination but when once they have done that they can do no more being unable either to gain their consent or to command their practice so as that they should not only desire but also chuse and fulfil them But although they do not suffer sin to reign in them so as to consent to it or to fulfil it in the lusts thereof yet they fear lest their very thoughts and inclinations after it should prove damnable For God requires the obedience of our whole man of the mind and affections as well as of our wills and actions and he is disobeyed by any as well as by all our faculties And seeing every sin is forbidden under pain of death who knows but that this admission of sin into our thoughts and desires is a deadly transgression This is one great cause of fear and a rock of offence to truly honest and good men But to take off all doubt and scruple upon this account we must know that our impotent lusts and ineffective desires of evil things if they are able to get no further than a thought or a wish though at present they are a matter of our exercise and humiliation yet at the Day of Judgment they shall be no Article of death or condemnation For Christs Gospel doth not sentence us severely upon these first motions of a lust or beginnings of a sin no if they arrive no higher than fancy and inclination through the merits of Christs Sacrifice there is Grace enough in store for them and in the Gospel account they are not grown up to be a matter of Death nor come within the Confines of destruction That I may speak with the more distinctness to this Point I will here shew these two things 1. That for our feeble lusts and desires after evil which are unconsented to and unfulfilled we shall not at the last day be condemned 2. For what lusts and desires of them we shall 1. I say For our feeble lusts and desires of evil which are unconsented to and unfulfilled at the day of Judgment no man otherwise good shall ever be condemned God will never sentence us to Hell for every sudden desire an inclination after sinful things but if it rests there and goes no further than bare desire he will pardon and pass it by but not eternally avenge it To speak distinctly to this Point these lustings and desires are considerable either as to their first birth or as to their indulged and allowed continuance the first are never damning and the latter many times are no Article of condemnation As for our bodily lusts and desires of evil in their first birth I say they are never damning nor shall any man who is otherwise vertuous and obedient be ever judged to dye for them And if it were otherwise who could possibly be saved For as long as we live in this World we have all of us these first motions of appetites after evil things more or less and there
or other sins whether against Justice or Charity As on the other side our fears and aversations from want or pain or other bodily evils must not induce us to neglect a Commandment that we may please our Flesh or to deny our Religion for the securing of a bodily enjoyment These restraints God has laid upon our bodily appetites having given us these Commands with several others mentioned above which we are oft-times tempted to transgress in order to the fulfilling of them For our bodily appetites themselves do not distinguish either of objects or of degrees A mans palate or his stomach in any delicious meat or drink which yields a pleasure to it doth not tell him when they have enough or cease desiring before they are gone on to be intemperate Our eyes lust after money but they consider not whose it is but so they may have it they matter not to whom it belongs or how they come by it and so it is in our fleshly appetites of other things For it is the natural pleasure of those things which we lust after that moves our bodies and therefore they lust after them so long as they are pleased with them They never stop at a fixt measure or turn away from a forbidden object so that if we will be ruled by them they will carry us on to any thing that agrees with them whether it be lawful or unlawful and so are sure to insnare us into sin And here indeed God has set a strict restraint upon them and will punish them severely if they go beyond it For Then as I said our lusts are deadly to us and articles of our condemnation when they have damning effects and ensnare us into deadly and damning sins To any good man the bare lusts and desires of evil are not so truly a damning sin as a dangerous temptation they are not in themselves an Article of Death to him but they are apt to carry him on to that which is For that which puts any sin into a capacity to tempt us is our lust or desire of something which is annexed to it and which we hope to obtain by it There is always something that goes along with it which is naturally fitted to please our flesh and to excite a carnal appetite and by this we are tempted and allured into the practice and commission of it For bare sin could never tempt any man nor could any one in his wits ever chuse to disobey for disobedience sake without any thing further because there is no good in transgression nakedly considered which should move any mans will to chuse and embrace it but on the contrary much evil that will disswade and affright him from it For it deprives us of Gods favour and subjects us to his vengeance and fills us with sad hearts and anxious thoughts and terrible expectations But that which wins us over to a liking and approbation of it is the appearance of some pleasure profit honour or other annexed allurement which we expect to reap by it It is one or other of these that overcomes all our fears and inveagles us into the commission of it for they strike in with our natural appetites and raise in us desires after it and those prove the bait which draws us in and the insnaring temptation For herein lies all the force of any temptation The satisfaction of a lust is joyned with the acting of a sin which is an invitation to us for the sake of the one to commit the other also The transgression has something annexed which is agreeable to our fleshly Natures and raises in us desires of it and cravings after it and when it has got this hold of us it draws us as much as we can be drawn by our love of our own lusts and the gratification of our bodily appetites which is indeed a great step to our choice and commission of it and a strong temptation For this is the natural order of our actions either our Consciences or our Passions move and excite us to them and then our Wills chuse and intend them and upon that choice and intention our Vnderstandings contrive and direct and last of all our bodily and executive Powers fulfil and perform them All our bodily actions are at the choice and under the command of our wills and all our choice is upon the appearance of some good or other which either our consciences or our fleshly lusts and appetites propose to us For our wills we must remember are placed in a middle state and are canvased and beset on both sides our lusts being urgent with us to consent to one thing and our consciences to another And this is that strife betwixt the flesh and spirit which is mentioned in the Scriptures and that contention which S t Paul describes in the 7 th Chapter to the Romans between the Law of lust in the members and the Law of God in the mind These two Principles our Body and Spirit or our Lusts and our Consciences are those great Interests that vie and struggle in us and emulously contend which shall obtain the consent and choice of the will of man And whensoever either of them has got that our actions follow in course For our bodily members move at our own choice and therefore if our lusts after the pleasures of sin have once prevailed upon our wills to consent to it they have gained their point and their work is done and we shall go on without more ado to act and commit it In this then lies all the force of a temptation that the sin which we are tempted to has something annexed to it wherein our flesh is delighted and which it lusts after and desires for the sake of that pleasure which it finds in it And when by this means any sin has got our fleshly love and desire it has got a powerful friend in our own bosoms For our lusts are strong and violent and where they set upon a thing they will not easily be denied but are urgent and importunate with our wills to consent to their gratification and yield to the fulfilling of them So that if once any sin has struck in with them it is able to try its strength and contend with the Law of God in the mind being furnished now with a powerful bait and a strong temptation Thus are our lusts and desires of forbidden things not the forbidden sin it self but the temptation to it so that in bare lusting or desiring of them we do not commit the damning sins themselves but are tempted only to their commission And in this S t James is most express for then says he every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lusts and enticed to evil by them Jam. 1.14 And as for meer temptation to a damning sin it is not deadly and damning For our being tempted to sin is not a renouncing of our Lord but an exercise of our service and obedience to him and a
of none but what we have repented of we have just reason to take a good heart to our selves and to wait for death in hopeful expectations If our own hearts condemn us not says Saint John then have we confidence towards God 1 John 3.21 There is no sin that will damn us but a wilful one and when we sin wilfully if our heart is soft and honest we sin willingly and against our Conscience our own heart sees and observes it before and will keep us in mind of it after we have committed it So that if any man has a vertuous and a tender heart a heart that is truly dâ—sirous to obey obey God and afraid in any thing to offend him when his Conscience is silent he may justly conclude that his Condition is safe for if it doth not condemn him God never will An honest mans heart I say must condemn him before he have sufficient reason to condemn himself And that too not for every idle word or every fruitless lust or every dulness of spirit and distraction in prayer and coldness in devotion or such other mistaken marks whereby too many are wont to judge of their title to salvation No Heaven and Hell are not made to depend upon these things but although a man be guilty of them he may be eternally happy notwithstanding them But that accusation of his Conscience which may give an honest man just reason to condemn himself must be an accusation for a wilful breach or deliberate transgression of some particular Law of Sobriety Piety Justice Charity Peaceableness it must accuse him of an unrepented breach of some of those Laws above mentioned which God has plainly made the terms of life and the condition of salvation And the accusation for the breach of these Laws must be particular and express not general and roving For some are of so suspicious and timorous a temper that they are still suspecting and condemning of themselves when they know not for what reason They will indict themselves as men that have sinned greatly but they cannot shew wherein they judge of themselves not from any reason or experience but at a venture and by chance they speak not so truly their opinions as their fears not what their understandings see and discern but what their melancholy suggests to them For ask them as to any one Particular of the Laws of God and run them all over and their Consciences cannot charge them with any wilful which is withal an unrepented transgression of it But let them overlook all Particulars and pass a judgment of themselves only in general when they do not judge from particular instances which are true evidence but only from groundless and small presumptions and then they pass a hard sentence upon themselves and conclude that their sins are very great and their condition dangerous But no man shall be sentenced at the last Day for Notions and Generalities but it is our particular sins which must then condemn us For God's Laws bind us all in single actions and if our own Consciences cannot condemn us for any one wilful which is withal an unrepented action God will not condemn us for them altogether If our own heart therefore doth not accuse us for the particular wilful and unrepented breaches of some or other of those Laws above mentioned which God has made the indispensable condition of our acceptance we are secure as to the next World and may comfortably hope to be acquitted in the last Judgment Being conscious of no wilful sin but what we have repented of and by mercy and forgiveness of other men and our prayers to God begging pardon for our involuntary sins we shall have nothing that will lye heavy upon us at the last Day but may go out of the World with ease and dye in comfort Our departure hence may be in peace because our appearance at Gods Tribunal shall surely be in safety For we shall have no worse charged upon us there than we are able here to charge upon our selves but leaving this World in a good Conscience we shall be sentenced in the next to a glorious reward and bid to enter into our Masters joy there to live with our Lord for ever and ever Amen Soli Deo Gloria FINIS * 1 Joh. 2 17-29 ‖ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Clâ—m Ro. 1. Epist. ad Cor. c. 30. a Gal. 3.19 b Matt 1.21 c Jam. 2.22 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 d 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Clem. Rom. Ep. 1. ad Cor. c. 31. e Quid est â—ide liter Christo credere â— est fideliter Dei mandata servare Salvian de Gub. l. 3. p. 67. Ed. Oxon. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Clem. Rom. 1. Ep. ad Cor. c. 10. f Matt. 25.34 35 3â— c. g Heb. 1.17 19. h 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 wrought to his works or to make him work i 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 k Neâ— Christianus esse videtur qui Christiani nominis opus non agit Salvian de Gub. l 4. p. Ed. Ox. 90. a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 b Noah's preaching Righteousness and Repentance before the flood 2 Pet. 2.5 and 1 Pet. 3.20 is thus expessed by St. Clement 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1. Epist. ad Cor. c. 9. c Prophetarum Filii And in the like sence among the Gentiles Poetarum Filii d Jer. 8.6 So St. Clement uses the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 promiscuously 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And what in the Septuagint whom he follows in Citations is expressed by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ezek. 33.11 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. he giving the sence though not the words according to the Apostolical usage expresses thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Clem. Rom. 1. Ep. ad Cor. c. 7.8 And agreeably to this the compilers of our Liturgy in the Sentences before Morning Service in our Old Common Prayer Books translate Matt. 3.2 Repent ye for the Kingdom of God is at hand thus Amend your lives for the Kingdom c. As on the other side they expound Ezek. 18.21 If the wicked turn from all his sins that he hath committed and keep all my statutes and do that which is lawful and right c. thus At what time soever a sinner repenteth c. Quid planius quà m quod voluntas pro facto reputâ—tur ubi factum exclâ—dic necessitas nisi forte putetur in malo quà m in bono efficacior inveniri voluntas apud Deum qui charitas est promptioresset ad ulciscendum quam ad remunerandum misericors miserator Dominus Bernard Ep. ad Hugonem de Sancto Victore quae est Ep. 77. p. op 1458. f Quid dicam nescio quid promittam penitus ignoro revocare ab inquisitione ultimi remedii periclitantes durum impium spondere autem aliquid in tam sera cautione temerarium Salv. de Avaritia l. 1. p. 363. Ed. Oxon. a Levit. 26.40.42 b Novum monstri genus â—adem