is not such righteousnesse as may stand before God according to the Psal 143.2 Enter not into judgment with thy servant O Lord c. Secondly they who are converted can no further retaine good inclinations thoughts affections or purposes to persevere and goe forward therein then as the holy Spirit worketh and preserveth these in them for if he guide and rule them they judge and doe aright but if he withdraw they are blind and wander and slip and fall yet so as they parish not if so be they were ever truly converted according to these places 1 Cor. 4.7 What hast thou that thou hast not received c. 1 Philip. 4. and 2 Philip. 13. and John 15.5 and 1 Cor. 1.8 1 Cor. 10.13 and 1 Pet. 1.5 In the fourth estate after glorification after the end and consummation of this present life In this liberty the wil shal only be free to chuse good and not to chuse evil and this shal be the perfect liberty of our will by which we shall not only not sin but shall abhorre nothing more than sin and also shall not be able to sin any more No place shall be for ignorance or for error or any doubting of God or for the least stubbornnesse against God Because in the mind shall shine perfect knowledge of God and his will In the will and heart a most perfect and exceeding inclination to obey God an exceeding love of God a joy and resting in God and an agreeablenesse and conformity with God so much and in such manner as such Created vessells are capable of And this shall continue for all eternity they shall be continually ruled by the holy Ghost in all their actions So that it cannot possibly be that any of their actions there should once swerve from righteousnesse and therefore it is said they are as the Angels of God in heaven Mat. 22.30 The liberty of the will shall be truly conformed and perfected to chuse only good to obey and love God with unexpressible alacrity for ever And thus having laid down the four-fold state of man and the four-fold liberty of will answerable to his four-fold state it may serve for one ground to confirme the point in hand That sinne will have a being in the best of men so long as they are here Their renewed state upon earth being but begun not perfected their state being but a growing in grace and profitting more and more and prevailing in mortifying their corruptions but not attaining in this mortall life to have grace consummate nor corruption abolished but sin in part remaines and will remaine till they lay down the body and be compleatly sanctified in the state of glory And for farther confirmation I shall lay you downe the testimony of the Scripture the Confession of the Fathers and some Reasons grounded upon and backed with the Word of God First for Scriptures see Rom. 8.1 There is no condemnation c. In which words we may observe the Apostle doth not say that there is no sinne to them that are in Christ but he saith there is no condemnation to them In the fore-going Chapter he had confessed that he did the evill which he would not doe and that he saw a law in his members rebelling against the law of his mind But now he rejoyceth in Christ that sin in him is not able to condemn him But here I expect from my friend either Cajetan or Aquinas false exposition or that of Mr. Parker that the Apostle spake this when he was a Babe in grace But I desire withall that they will acquaint us what state it was when the Apostle acknowledgeth himselfe the chief of finners 1 Tim. 1.15 The glorious Gospel was then committed unto him enabled by Jesus Christ counted Faithfull and put into the Ministery as you may see in the fore-going verses And yet then saith he notwithstanding all this This is a true and faithfull saying JESUS CHRIST came into the World to save sinners Whereof I am chief Mark the present-tense not preterperfect-tense he doth not say whereof I have been but whereof I am Nay I pray see the second Epistle 1. from 6. to the 13. was all this when he was a babe in grace I would faine know how long it was between the time of writing these Epistles to Timothy and his Epistle to Philemon 1. for there verse 9. he was then Paul the aged But these Jesuiticall Cavillings and reasonings are too well known They never doe nor never shall prevaile against Gods truth Againe in the second verse for the law of the Spirit of life which is in Christ Jesus hath freed me from the Law of sinne and death Here we may observe that the Apostle saith not that we are fully freed from sinne in this life but from the law of sinne That is both from the commanding and condemning power of sinne Sinne doth not now reigns in our mortall bodies neither now hath it any more power to detaine us under death But as for temptations of sin Christian experience teacheth that there is no sort of men more troubled with them then they whom God hath begun to deliver from the law of sinne For Sathan being impatient of his losse seeks dayly to recover his former dominion By which it may appear That Our deliverance from sin is but begun now not perfected But we know our God is faithfull by whom we are called he shall also confirm us to the end Phil 1.6 even He who hath begun a good work in us Blessed be the Lord where before we were Captives of sin now the case of the Battell is altered and changed Sin is become our Captive through Christ It remains in us not as a Commander but as a Captive of the Lord Jesus The bolts of sin are yet upon our hands and feet to admonish us of our former miserable condition We draw the chains of our sins after us which makes us indeed goe forward the more slowly But they are not able to detein us in that bondage wherein we lay before We are delivered from the law of sin whilest we live and the nature of death the wages of sin is so changed That it is not the death of the man but the death of sin in the man mors est Sepultura vitiorum saith Ambrose Death is the buriall of all vices and as Chrysostome saith As the Worm which is bred in tho Tree doth at last consume it So death which is brought out by sin doth at last consume and destroy sin in the Children of God sin will remain though not raign Again in the 13. verse If ye mortifie the deeds of the body whereby the Apostle sheweth That after regeneration by Grace and before glorification Grace is not consummated nor is corruption wholly abolished For although the Apostle affirmed before in the 9. verse that these godly Romans were not in the flesh yet now he exhorts to a further mortification of the lusts of the flesh which exhortation
perfect It must follow that by our strength the virtue of Christs Crosse must be abated 2 Cor. 12.9 And in 2 Cor. 5.20 the Apostle saith God hath made Christ to be sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousnesse of God as I said before he doth not say actively that we should make or work our own righteousnesse but passively That we should be made that is ex indebita misericordia of Gods free mercy the righteousness of God and that Not by our selves lest we should glory in our selves but by another Jesus Christ blessed for ever more And thus the Apostle 3 Phil. 9. relinquisheth his own righteousnesse That he might be found in Christ c. No man therefore by grace infused by the Holy Ghost can perform such perfect obedience unto the Law of God in this life as not to offend against the same or to be thereby justified c. I grant that unto the Regenerate the Law in some sort is possible As first concerning outward order and discipline Secondly as concerning the imputation of Christs righteousnesse that is by the benefit of justification and regeneration both which benefits we obtein by faith For such God looketh upon in the face of his Son in whom he is alone well pleased Mat. 3.17 And his fulfilling the Law is their fulfilling though not in the same manner yet in as good effect as if it had been by themselves done and that thus Hee for them they by him He actually performed they by imputation He by virtue and merit they by gift and grace And thirdly as touching the beginning of inward and outward obedience in this life This is the love of God that we keep his Commandements 1 John 5.3 But the Law is impossible to the Regenerate in respect of God that is as touching the perfect inward and outward obedience of the Law as Psalme 143.2 Enter not into judgement with thy Servant c. For first They fulfill not the Law perfectly because they doe many things contrary to the Law In many things we offend all James 3.2 And who knowes the errors of his life c. Psalme 19. And those things also which they doe according to the Law are imperfect For in the Regenerate as I shewed you in the former position there are many sins yet remaining as originall sin ignorances and impurities c. which they themselves acknowledge and bewail Isay 64.6 We have been as an vnclean thing and all our righteousnesse is as filthy rags Or thus the perfect obedience to the Commandements of Gods Law is fulfilled in us two manner of wayes First by application of Christs righteousnesse to us He is our Head and we his Members and are so united with him that now we are not to be taken as sundry but as one body with him By virtue of the which Communion it comes to passe that that which is ours is his and that which is his is ours So that in our Head we have fulfilled the Law and satisfied Gods justice for our sinnes as I shewed you before Secondly it will be fulfilled in us by our perfect sanctification though now we have but begun obedience and in part The Lord Jesus at the last day when the last enemie which is death shall be be subdued shall bring it in us to perfection This is the end which Christ hath proposed unto himself Eph. 5.26 and whereof he cannot be frustrate as he hath begun it so he shall finish it He shall conform us to the Law the righteousness thereof shall be fulfilled in us There shall not be left in our nature so much as a sinfull motion or desire but he shall at the last present us pure and without blame to his Father He shall make us perfectly answerable to that holinesse which the Law requireth and in his own good time shall bring it to passe But that the Law is fulfilled in men in this life is denyed by some of their own fraternity Sin is condemned saith Cajetan but not extinguished Again the Apostle affirmeth possitively That no man shall be justified by the works of the Law as in Gal. 2.16 remarkable Rom. 10.4 Christ is the end of the Law for righteousnesse to all that believe and in 2 Gal. 2. If righteousnesse come by the Law then Christ died in vain And in the 3. and the 11.1 it is evident that no man is justified by the Law for the just shall live by faith And in the 18. verse if the Inheritance be of the Law it is no more of Promise But God gave it to Abraham by promise and it is Faith that answers the promise obedience holds no proportion with it Again in Rom. 8.3 the Apostle saith For that that was impossible to the Law in as much as it was weak because of the flesh God sending his own sonne in the similitude of sinfull flesh and that for sin condemned sin in the flesh Where the Apostle having in the first verse set down a Proposition of comfort belonging to them who are in Christ and confirmed it in the second verse he here proceedeth to the explication of the confirmation and doth declare how it is that Christ hath freed us from the Law of sin And first he sheweth us in this place how Christ hath freed us from the condemning power of sinne Namely that he taking upon him our nature and therewithall the burthen of our sinnes hath condemned sinne in his blessed body and so disanulled it that it hath no power to condemn us And this benefit he amplifies showing that by no other means we could obtein it For where without Christ there is but one way for men to come to life namely the observance of the Law He lets us see it was impossible for the Law to save us And least it should seem that he blamed the Law he subjoyns that this impotencie of the Law proceeds from ourselves Because that we through fleshly corruption that is in us cannot fulfill that righteousnesse which the Law requires Now the impotencie of the Law appears in these two things First It craveth of us which we had not to give namely perfect obedience unto all the Lords Commandements and that under pain of death which albeit most justly it be required of us considering that by Creation we received from God a nature so holy that it was able to doe the Law yet now by reason of the depravation of our nature drawn on by our selves it is impossible that we can perform it Secondly The Law could not give that unto us whereof wee stood in need namely That the infinite debt of Transgression which we had contracted should be forgiven unto us This I say the Law could not doe for the Law commands obedience but promises not pardon of disobedience Yea rather It binds the curse of God upon us for it And again We stand in need of a suparnaturall grace to reform deformed nature and this also the Law could
not doe it being a doctrine that shews us the way of life but doth not minister grace unto us to walk therein But all these which the Law could not doe Jesus Christ by whom commeth grace and life hath done unto us Therefore there is no life to be found in the observance of the Law It being impossible for the Law to give They therefore that seeke life only in the observance thereof shall never find it Again the Apostle in another place calls the Law the Ministery of death and condemnation and that because it instantly bindes men under death for every transgression of her Commandements So that he that hath eyes to see what an universall rebellion of nature there is in man to Gods holy Law Yea what imperfections and discordance with the Law are remanent in them who are renewed by grace may easily espy the blinde presumption of those who seek life in the ministry of death Yet so universall is this error that it hath overgone the whole posterity of Adam Nature teaching all men who are not illuminated by Christ to seek salvation in their own deeds that is to stand to the covenant of works But the Supernaturall doctrine of the Evangelist teacheth us to transcend nature to goe out of our selves and to seek salvation in the Lord Jesus And so to use the Law not that we seek life by fulfilling it which here is impossible but as a School-master to lead us unto Christ in whom we have remission of our sin sanctification of our nature acceptance of our imperfect obedience benefits which the Law could never afford us Thus you see it is impossible for us in our own persons to fulfill the Law of God no such grace being given from above as I shewed you before or if we could yet it is not possible for the Law to save us not in respect of any desert or imperfection in the Law For the Law is just good and holy Rom. 7.12 But in regard of the corruption of our nature which is not able to yeeld such perfect obedience unto the Law as the Law requireth Nay I say further that although the Law be good yet it is not good to this end neither was it ordained of God for this purpose For the Law was given to a double end First common to all men Secondly proper to two sorts of men First to the Elect and Reprobates First in respect of all men the Law was given First to shew unto all men what was sin for by the Law commeth the knowledge of sin Rom. 3. and I had not known that lust had been sin had not the Law said thou shalt not lust Secondly to shew the wrath of God for sinne and by the transgression thereof to make all men see how justly they be worthy of eternal death And therefore the Apostle saith in 1 Cor. 3. that the Law causeth wrath and is the ministry of condemnation because it sheweth unto us how justly we deserve wrath and condemnation Thirdly to be a rule of righteousnesse to restrain all men from sin and to retein them in a civill course of living for the common good of humane society Secondly the Law was given to these two proper ends First in respect of the Reprobate to make them without excuse because the Law teacheth them what should be done and what should be left undone And therefore it leaves them without excuse if they leave the one and commit the other Secondly In respect of the elect the Law was given to be a means by the sight of their sinnes to seek out a Saviour that should deliver them from their sinnes And in this respect As he that informeth us of some dangerous disease doth tacitly advise us to seek for some expert Physitian So is the Law said to be our Schoolmaster to teach us by the manifestation of our sinnes to seek unto Christ for our deliverance But the Law was never intended to that end that it should justifie us and of it self bring us to eternall life For first if eternall life had been promised only to them that keep the Law then the promise had been made vain because it was impossible for our corrupt nature to perform it Secondly if righteousnesse could have come by Law then Christ had died in vain because it was superfluous for him to dye for us when as we might procure life by the works of the Law And therefore it is apparent that by the works of the Law no flesh living can be justified Thirdly For hypocriticall Gospellers such as seem Saints in ostentation that they may play the Divels without supicion which say they have Faith but shew no works that are not vayled with hypocrisie and intended to wrong ends let Esayas tell you how acceptable these works are to God Esay 1. and whether they be like to justifie them before God or not For the Lord complayneth that he is weary of them that his Soul hateth them and biddeth them to bring no more such sacrifice unto him Fourthly For the true Christians that are born not of Blood nor of the Will of the Flesh but of God If any works could justifie it must needs be that their works wrought in them and thorow them by the Spirit of God should justifie them And yet we say that the best works of the best regenerate men cannot justifie them before God And thus we prove it First Because all the Graces that we receive in this life are but in part given unto us as I shewed in the proof of the other position and so imperfect Graces Not that the Spirit of God works imperfectly but that he means not here to inrich us with any Grace while we are conversant with sinfull men in this vale of misery but only so farre forth as he seeth fit to bring us to the Kingdome of perfection where that which is in part shall be done away 1 Cor. 13.10 and therefore our inherent justice being but as our knowledge in part and therefore imperfect it is impossible that it should perfectly justifie us before God Secondly Because that although our good works are perfect in respect of Gods Spirit which effecteth them Yet seeing as fair water is defiled by running through a dirty Channell so our best works are tainted when they passe through us that are so subject to sinne and so many times polluted with so many iniquities It is unpossible we should be justified before him in whosepresence nothing in the least manner polluted can stand uncondemned and therefore as the Prophet saith all our righteousnesse is as astained clothe Esay 64.6 And as Gregory saith Moral lib. 21. cap. 15. lib. 5. cap. 7. All mens righteousnesse should be found unrighteousnesse if God should strictly Judge it And Aug. Wo to the most laudable and best life of man If God laying aside his mercy should discusse the same in the strictnesse of his Justice for alas who knoweth not that God is a God of
condemned but not extinguished for in many things we offend all James 3.2 Again hereunto besides many these and many more testimonies of Scripture that might be alledged the suffrages of pure Antiquity in a sweet harmony doth agree I will quote some few of the Fathers it was the prerogative of Christ alone to know no sinne and to be found solus in hominibus qualis quaerebatur in peccoribus alone such amongst men as was sought amongst the beasts an immaculate Lambe without spot and all we like sheep have gone astray Esay 53.6 Gal. 3.22 optat l. 2. Aug. cont Relag l. 2. C. 32. so Gregory l. 3. in Reg. 6. saith There is no man which hath not in him some corruption which he may and should lament So Lactantius cont Gent. l. 6. cap. 13. No man can be without sinne so long as he is burthened with the garment of the flesh So Hierom. cont Jovin li. 2. No man is clean from sinne though he live but one day on earth So Bernard in Cant. Serm. 23 non peccare Dei justitia est not to sinne is the justice and property of God but the remission of sinnes is the justice of man And therefore as the Ivy will not dye untill the Oake be hewn down so our sinne will not dye as long as we live neither will it ever be abolished untill death ends the conflict betwixt the flesh and the spirit Again Ambrose de poenitent li. 1. cap 6. It is not saith he the voyce of thy family I am whole and need not a Physitian but heal me O Lord and I shall be healed Also he spake thus to the Novatian Hereticks of his time and it may fitly be turned over to the Jesuits of our time Darest thou O Jesuit call thy self clean and holy albeit thou wert clean in regard of thy work this one word were enough to make thee unclean With him agrees Aug. Serm. 29. de verb. Apost Sunt quidam inflati viri spiritu electionis pleni non magnitudine ingentes sed superbiae morbo tumentes ut audeant dicere invenire homines absque peccato There are saith he some that be like unto Vessels blown up with wind filled with a haughty spirit not sollidly great but swelled with the sickness of pride Who dare be bold to say that men are found on earth without sinne Of such as these saith he I demand What saiest thou then that art just and holy this Prayer Forgive us our sinnes Whether is this a Prayer to be said by Chatechists only or to be said of such as are believers and converted Christians Surely it is the prayer of regenerate men yea it is the prayer of the Sons of God for they call God their Father in heaven Where then are your just and holy ones in whom are no sins If the Regenerate and Sons of God have need to crave remission of sinnes What are you who say you have no sinne Liars saith the Apostle 1 John 1.9 And our blessed Saviour Luke 10.17 When you have done all you can yet say c. But against this they have a silly subterfuge albeit say they we were never so righteous yet for humility sake we should say we are unprofitable I answer them as Aug. answered the same objection in his time Propter humilitatem ergo mentiris then saith he for humilities sake thou liest But it is certain Christ never taught man to lie for humility This is but one of their old forged falshoods Again Bernard in Annunciat Mariae who lived in a very corrupt time yet retains this truth Quis meliori Propheta saith he de quo dixit Deus inveni virum secundùm cor meum tamen ipse necesse habuit dicere Deo Ne intres in Judicum cum servo tuo Who better than the Prophet David of whom the Lord said I have found a man after mine own heart and yet he had need to say Enter not into judgement with thy servant Bernard in Cant. Ser. 23. saith It sufficeth me for all unrighteousness to have him reconciled unto me whom I have only offended To be without sinne is the righteousness of God Mans righteousness is Gods indulgence pardoning his sinne We conclude therefore with him In serm contr vitium ingrat Wo to the miserable Generation to whom their own insufficiency seems sufficient for who is it that hath so much as aspired to that perfection which the holy Scripture commands us I grant that in some sence godly men are called perfect in holy Scripture in the 3 to the Phillip about the 14. it is written Let as many as are perfect be thus minded He moves the question seeing he had said immediately before that he was not perfect How doth he now rank himself amongst those that are perfect How agrees these two that he was perfect and not perfect Aug. in Ser. 38. answers he was perfect secundùm intentionem non secundùm preventionem perfect in regard of his intention and purpose but not in regard of prevention and obteining his purpose And hereunto agrees that of Bernard in Cant. serm 49. That great chosen Vessel saith he grants perfection that is a going forward but denies perfection for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is not only he who hath come to the end but he also is walking to-towards it We are so perfect in this life that we are yet but walking to perfection Therefore St. Ambrose in Rom. 8.9 Apostolus aliquando quasi perfectis loquitur aliquando perfecturis aliquando laudat aliquando commonet The Apostle speaketh unto Christians sometimes as unto men that are perfect other times as unto men who are perfect in that which is required of them that is some-sometimes he praises them for the good they have done and otherwhiles he admonishes them of the good they have to doe And as for that place Luke 1.6 where it is said that Zacharias and Elizab. walked in the Commandements of God without blame The Jesuits of Rhemes wrest this to confirm their error this making not for them August hath two reasons whereby he proves out of the same Scripture That Zacharie was not without sinne First because he was a Priest and was bound to offer as well for his own sinnes as for the sinnes of the people Heb. 5.3 Secondly in that the Evangelist saith he walked in the commandements of God c. It is an argument he had not attained to the mark for they that are at their journeys end sit still To the which we may add a third out of that same place the dumbnesse inflicted upon him for his misbelieving evidently proves that he was not so perfect as to be without sin Besides this the Apostle constantly distinguishes betwixt peccatum crimen betwixt sinne and crime that is some grievous offence that gives slaunder and is worthy of crimination We affirm saith August That the life of holy men may be said to be without crime but not without sin And again he saith Men