It is my Iudgement That had this learned Author left none other These Thirteen Treatises put together would make a very Excellent Compend of Christian Instruction CHAP. XVII ROMANS 6. Ver. 21 22 23. 21. What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed for the end of those things is Death 22. But now being made free from sin and become servants to God ye have your fruit unto holiness and the end everlasting life 23. For the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life Through Jesus Christ our Lord. The Connexion of the fifth and sixth Chapters A Paraphrase upon this Sixth The Importance of the Phrase Dead to Sin No Christians in this life so dead to sin as to come up to the Resemblance of Death Natural True Christians Dead to Sin in a proportion to Civil Death All Christians at least all the Romans to whom St. Paul writes did so in Baptism profess themselves Dead to Sin and vow Death to Sin by a true Mortification thereof All have in Baptism or may have a Talent of Grace as an Antidote and Medicine against the deadly infection of Sin as a strengthening to make us victorious over sin Three Motives to deter us from the Service of Sin 1. It is fruitless 2. It is Shameful 3. It is Mortiferous Two Motives to engage us in Gods Service 1. Present and sweet Fruit unto Holiness 2. Future Happiness THese three verses being the Close or binding of all the rest in this Chapter or as the Solid Angle in which there is a punctual and full Coincidence of all the former Lines I must be inforced to exhibit unto the Reader A Model or Abstract of the Whole before I can shew him the true Connexion or References between these later and the foregoing verses And the Model or Abstract of the whole Chapter is This. Our Apostle had given up this Conclusion as the main Aphorism or Resultance of the fifth Chapter verse 20 21. Where sin abounded Grace did much more abound That as sin had raigned unto death even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. Now whether it were to check that preposterous Inference which some had alreadie made of this Doctrine when first it was delivered unto them for it was delivered before he wrote this Epistle or whether it were to prevent the making of it upon the reading of the former Chapter our Apostle propounds that Objection which either had been or might be made against the former Doctrine in the begining of this Sixth Chapter and he propounds it by way of Interrogation What shall we say then Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound And he gives the Answer unto it in the second verse by an Absit God forbid That is far be it from us far be it from every Christian thus to resolve thus to infer say or think And to shew the absurditie of that inference he adds this Reason How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein But this Refutation may seem to participate more of Rhetorical Passion or indignation then of sound and Logical Reason an artificial Evasion rather then a concludent Proof For these Romans might have demanded of him what just fear is there that we shall what possibilitie that we can live any longer in sin if as you suppose we be already dead unto it Only prove what you suppose or take as granted that we are already dead to sin or that sin is dead in us and we shall make just proof that we neither do nor can live any longer in it that it doth not neither shall it live in us 2. All the Question then is and a Great Question it is upon whose true resolution the resolution of all the questions or difficulties which are emergent out of this and other Chapters depends In what sense every true Christian is said to be dead to sin as St. Paul supposeth all these Romans were which were true members of the true visible Church Of death there be but two sorts or kinds usually known or acknowledged The one a Natural the other a Civil Death He that is dead according to a Natural Death is utterly deprived of all sense or motion he cannot feel he cannot taste he cannot smell see or hear his heart pants not his lungs cease to send forth any breath And according to this kind of death Saint Paul himself could not be accompted dead to sin Sin was not so fully mortified or put to death in him but that it had its Motions in his inward parts and these Motions he by experience felt But there is a civil as well as a natural death and many are said to be civilly dead whose natural life is yet sound and entire Thus men which are condemned or sentenced to die are said to be dead in Law albeit the execution or taking away of their natural life be a long time deferred The like we say of men which have been free born but afterwards fall into slaverie or bondage Both these sorts of men are said to be dead in Law or to be subject to civil death because they cannot do or make any legal act either to the benefit of their friends or posteritie or to the prejudice of their enemies Of any civil contract or legal deed they are as uncapable as he that is naturally dead is of breathing sense or motion And according to this acception or importance of death Every one in whom the reign or dominion of sin is broken in whom the flesh is made subject to the spirit is truely said to be dead to sin that is in every man thus qualified sin is put unto a civil though not unto a natural death But neither is this civil death the death here punctually meant by Saint Paul when he saith How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein For he speaks not of such a death to sin as was peculiar to himself or to some few but of such a death as was common to all these Romans and to every true member of the visible Church He doth not suppose nor was it imaginable that all of them to whom he wrote were thus actually dead to sin or that sin did not or could not raign in some of them at least it may and doth to this day raign in many which have by baptisme been admitted into the visible Church whereas Our Apostles Reason equally concerns all that are baptized All and every one of them are in his sense and meaning in this place dead to sin and yet are not all of them dead to sin or sin dead to them or in them either by a natural or civil death In all of them sin retains some life or being in many of them it still retains its Soveraigntie or Dominion how then are all of them how are all of us that have been baptized dead to sin Thus
Kingdom to give it countenance And whilst either the Church or Lawes of the Kingdom do enjoyn you to do these things which in themselves are not unlawful in obeying them you obey Gods Law which commands obedience in disobeying them you disobey the Lawes of God which forbid disobedience to the higher powers If then you will obey the Lawes specially where they command fasting or abstinence or devotion in publick God will blesse your private devotions and your use of meat and drink the better CHAP. XXVII ROMANS 6. 23. For the wages of sin is Death but the Gift of God is Everlasting Life through Jesus Christ our Lord. About the Merit of Good Works The Romanists Allegations from the force of The word Mereri amongst the Ancients and for the Thing it self out of Holy Scriptures The Answers to them all respectively Some prove Aut nihil aut nimium The different value and importance of Causal particles For Because c. A difference between Not worthie and Unworthie Christs sufferings though in Time finite of value infinite Pleasure of sin short yet deserves infinite punishment Bad works have the Title of Wages and Desert to Death But so have not good works to Life Eternal 1. DEath as was expressed in the 21. verse is the End of sin and Life Eternal as you have it verse the 22. is the End of Holinesse or of the service of God The Proof of both Assertions you have in this 23. verse because Death is the wages of sin and Life Eternal the Gift of God the last and best Gift wherewith he crowneth such as serve him in holinesse and righteousnesse Now the final recompence or reward whether that be good or bad is the End or Period of all our wayes or works Herein then doth Life and death everlasting only agree that as well the One as the Other is the End or issue of mens several wayes or courses here on earth Yet these Ends are Contrary the one to the other and so are the wayes which lead unto them The only way to the One is Righteousness and holiness the ready way unto the other is sin and wickedness But however sin be injustice and the author of sin be most unjust yet herein they both observe the Rule of Justice that they pay their servants their wages to a mite and unlesse the righteous Judge did moderate their cruelty they would pay their servants more then is their due But doth not the Just Judge deal so with his servants Yes he payes them more then is their due yet this he doth without injustice for he rewardeth them not according to the Rule of Justice but according to his Mercy and Bountie To punish men beyond their desert is injustice But to Reward men above their deserts is no way contrary to Justice but an Act of mercy triumphing over Justice But hath Justice no hand no finger in distribution of the Final Reward of Holinesse This is or should be the brief issue of that great Controversie between the Romanists and Reformed Churches An bona opera renatorum mereantur vitam aeternam Whether the Good Works of men regenerate do deserve or merit eternal life And it is a very Good Rule which a Great Champion of Reformed Churches hath given us To reduce all Controversies to those places of Scripture wherein they are properly seated and out of whose sense or meaning they are emergent To handle them especially in Pulpit upon other occasions or to go out of our way to meet with them is but to nurse Contention And of all the places in Scripture which are brought either Pro or Con for the Merit of Works none is more pertinent none more fit to be discussed then this 23. verse of Rom. 6. Those Answers which are often given by Romanists unto other places of Scripture alleadged by our Writers will appear impertinent if they be rightly examined by our Apostles Conclusion in this Chapter Our Method in handling this Controversie shall be this First To set down the Arguments brought by the Romanist for establishing the Merit of Works Secondly To press the sense and meaning of our Apostle in this 23. ver of Rom. 6. against them Thirdly To joyn issue with them or to set down The true State of the Question not only betwixt us and them but between the just Judge and our own souls and Consciences 2. First They alledge That the word Merit is frequent in the Antient Fathers of the Church and that albeit the same Word be not so frequent in the Scripture yet the matter it self which the Fathers expresse by the word mereri is often intimated or necessarily implyed in Terms Equivalent And if we agree upon the Matter it is but a vanity to wrangle about Words Both points of their Allegation deserve the scanning To the First Concerning the word mereri or to merit in the Latine Fathers we reply that as Coyns or metals instamped so Words do change their value or importance in different Ages and in several Nations Custom hath as great authority in the one Case as Soveraign power hath in the other Mereri to merit imports as much in the antient secular Roman or Latine Writers as to deserve that which we sue for or attain unto or to have a just Title unto it So a Souldier is said to merit his pay a servant his wages and good States-men or Commanders in warre their honours But unto this pitch or scantling the Ecclesiastick Writers as St. Austine St. Jerome or later as St. Bernard do not extend the word Merit Mereri according to their meanings is no more then Assequi that is to attain or get that which men desire So Turonensis brings in a blind man supplicating to an Holy Man of his time in this form Ut possim per preces tuas mereri visum that I may merit my sight through your prayers In which words the word Mereri to merit can imply no more either in the poor mans meaning or in this Historians then Assequi to get or obtain For no man can merit any thing by anothers prayers If these could properly merit or deserve any thing at Gods hand the merit should be his whose prayers God vouchsafed to hear not his for whom he prayed The same word Mereri with some Writers doth not import so much as to obtain or get any thing at Gods hands by vertue of our own or others prayers but only to be an Occasion or Condition without which that which befals us though not desired by us should not have befallen us So as we said before one speaks of Adams sin Felix peccatum quod talem meruit redemptorem O happy sin which merited such a Redeemer Now there is nothing in the world which could less deserve any benefit at Gods hand then sin which yet was the Occasion or Condition without which the Son of God had not been incarnate at least had not been Consecrated through Affliction
is shameful 3. It is mortiferous Two Motives to engage us in Gods service 1. Present and sweet fruit unto holiness 2. Future happiness p 3469 18. Of the fruitlesnesse of sin Of the shame that followes and dogs sin as the shadow doth the body what shame is whence it ariseth and what use may be made thereof Of fame praise and honor Satans stales false shame and false honor The character of both in Greek and Latin Of Pudor which is alwayes Male Facti of Verecundia which may sometimes be de modo recte Facti Periit vir cui pudor periit Erubuit salva res est p. 3477 19. We are many wayes engaged to serve God rather then to serve sin though sin could afford us as much fruit reward as God doth But there is no proportion no ground of comparison between the fruits of sin the Gift of God The case stated betwixt the voluptuous sensual life and the life truly christian Satans Method and Gods Method A complaint of the neglect of grace p. 3484 20. The first and second Death both literally meant The wages of sin Both described both compared and shewed how and wherein the second Death exceeds the first The greater deprivation of good the worse and more unwelcom death is Every member of the bodie every faculty of the soul the seat and subject of the second death A Map and scale the surface and solidity of the second Death Pain improved by enlarging the capacity of the patient and by intending or advancing the Activitie of the Agent Three dimensions of the second death 1. Intensiveness 2. Duration 3. Unintermitting continuation of Torment Poena damni sensus terms co-incident Pains of the Damned Essential and Accidental Just to punish momentany sin with pain eternal The reflection and Revolution of thoughts upon the sinners folly the Worm of conscience p. 3490 21. Eternal life compared with this present life the several tenures of both The method proposed The instability of this present life The contentments of it short and the capacities of men to enjoy such contentments as this life affords narrower In the life to come the capacitie of every faculty shall be enlarged Some senses shal receive their former contentments only eminentèr as if one should receive the weight in Gold for dross Some formalitèr Of Joy Essential and Joy Accidental p. 3500 22. Of the Accidental Joys of the life to come A particular Terrar or Map of the Kingdom prepared for the blessed Ones in a Paraphrase upon the 8 Beatitudes or the Blessedness promised to the 8 qualifications set down in the 5. Matth. Eternal life the strongest obligation to all duties Satans two usual wayes of tempting us either per Blanda or per Aspera p. 3510 23. The Philosophers Precept Sustine Abstine though good in its kind and in some degree useful yet insufficient True belief of the Article of everlasting life and death is able to effect both Abstinence from doing evil and sufferance of evil for well-doing The sad Effects of the misbelief or unbelief of this Article of Life and Death Eternal The true belief of it includes a taste of both Direction how to take a taste of death eternal without danger Turkish Principles produce Effects to the shame of Christians Though hell fire be material it may pain the soul The Story of Biblis The Bodie of the second death fully adequate to the Body of sin Parisiensis his Story A General and useful Rule p. 3519. 24. The Bodie of Death being proportioned to the bodie of sin Christian Meditation must apply part to part but by Rule and in Season The dregs and relicks of sin be the sting of Conscience and this is a prognostick of the worm of Conscience which is a chief part of the second death Directions how to make right use of the fear of the second death without falling into despere and of the hope of life eternal without mounting into presumption viz. 1. Beware of immature perswasions of certainty of salvation 2. Of this Opinion That all men be at all times either in the estate of the Elect or Reprobates 3. Of the irrespective Decree of Absolute Reprobation The use of the taste of death and pleasures The Turkish use of both How Christians may get a relish of Joy eternal by peace of Conscience joy in the Holy Ghost and works of Righteousnesse Affliction useful to that purpose p. 3529 25. The coldness of our hope of Eternal Life causeth Deviation from the wayes of righteousness and is caused by our no-taste or spiritual disrelish of that life The work of the Ministry is to plant this taste and to preserve it in Gods people Two objects of this Taste 1. Peace of Conscience 2. Joy in the Holy Ghost That Peace may best be shadowed out unto us in the known sweetness of temporal peace The passions of the natural man are in a continual mutiny To men that as yet have no experience of it the nature of joy in the Holy Ghost may best be exemplified by that chearful gladness of heart which is the fruit of Civil Peace It is the prerogative of man to enjoy himself and to possess his own soul In the knowledg of any truth there is joy but true joy is only in the knowledg of Jesus Christ and of saving truths The difference between Joy and Gladnesse in English Greek and Latin p. 3538. 26. Whether the taste of Eternal Life once had may be lost Concerning sin against the Holy Ghost How temporal contentments and the pleasures of sin coming in competition prevail so as to extinguish and utterly dead the heavenly taste either by way of Efficiencie or Demerit The Advantages discovered by which a lesser good gets the better of a greater p. 3547. 27. About the merit of good Works The Romanists Allegations from the force of the word Mereri among the Antients and for the thing it self out of the holy Scriptures the Answers to them all respectively Some prove Aut nihil aut nimium The different value and importance of Causal Particles For Because c. A Difference between Not worthy and unworthy Christs sufferings though in time finite yet of value infinite Pleasure of sin short yet deserves infinite punishment Bad Works have the title of Wages and Desert to Death but so have not Good Works to Life Eternal p. 3558. 28. Whether Charismata Divina that is The Impressions of Gods Eternal Favour may be merited by us Or whether the second third and fourth Grace and Life Eternal it self may be so About Revival of Merits The Text Hebr. 6. 10. God is not unjust c. expounded The Questions about Merits and Justification have the same Issue The Romish Doctrin of Merits derogates from Christs merits The Question in order to Practise or Application stated betwixt God and our own souls Confidence in Merits and too hasty perswasions that we be the Favourites of God two Rocks God in punishing
Cause And we may safely Infer First That unless the Son of God had been incarnate Gods Goodness to us had not been so admirably manifested Secondly Unless the Son of God had become man man could not have been delivered from the fetters and chains of sin much less restored to his first dignitie And yet more in that the Son of God became man this is an Argument evident to us from the Effect that man by sin had become the Son of Satan Sin then was the cause of Christs Incarnation and Christs Incarnation is the cause or means of our deliverance or Redemption from sin Again Unless man by Sin had become the servant of sin and bond-man of Satan the Son of God had not taken upon him the Form of a Servant But in as much as the Son of God was found in the true Form of a Servant this is an Argument from the Effect evident to convince our consciences that we Sons of men were by nature the servants or bond-men of Satan Lastly Unless the wages of sin and of our service done to Satan by working the works of sin had been death the true and natural Son of God had not been put to death Our sins then and the wages due to our sins that was death were the Causes of his death And in that he truly dyed for us This is an Argument evident from the Effect Therefore we were dead in our sins Be it so Yet seeing the Son of God died for our sins before he was raised from the dead how saith our Apostle in the 17. verse If Christ be not raised ye are yet in your sins Could these Corinthians or any others be still in their sins after their sins were taken away Or will any man deny that their sins were taken away by Christ's death at the very instant of his souls departure from the bodie or when he said Consummatum est it is finished What was finished The work which he undertook and that was the Taking away of our sins or the work of our Redemption Now if this work were finished when our Saviour Christ said It is finished these Corinthians sins were taken away before Christs Resurrection And if sin by Christs death had been actually and utterly taken away our Apostles Inference in this place had been unsound none had remained in their sins albeit Christ had not risen again Sin then even the sins of the world were taken away by Christs death but not actually and utterly taken away If sin had been so taken away by Christs death there had been no such necessity of Christs Resurrection from the dead as our Apostle here presseth upon the Corinthians not as matter of Opinion but as a Fundamental Principle of Faith It remains then to be declared In what sense or how far sin was taken away by Christs death In what sense it hath been or how far it shall be taken away by his Resurrection 7. First then Christs death was a Ransome all-sufficient for the sins of the world the full price of redemption for all mankind throughout the world from the beginning to the end of it But did not many who died before Christ die in their sins They did yet He was promised to our first Parents To the end that even these might not die in their sins How these come to forfeit their Interest in the Promise made to Adam and to all that came after him That we leave to the Wisdom of God Of this we are sure That the Wisdom and Son of God did die for all men then living and for all that were to live after unto the worlds end And in as much as he dyed for all he is said to take away the sins of all that is he payed the full Ransome for the sins of all and purchased A General Pardon at his Fathers hands and he himself by dying became an universal inexhaustible soveraign Medicine for all sins that were then extant in the world or should be extant in man untill the worlds end So then by his death he took away the sins of the world in a Twofold Sense First In that he payed the full Ransome for the sins of all men Whatsoever sins were past could be no prejudice to any so they would imbrace Gods Pardon sealed by Christs death and proclaimed by his Apostles and Disciples after his death In this sense we may say The Kings General Pardon takes away all offences and misdemeanors against his Crown and Dignitie albeit many afterwards suffer for such Misdemeanors only because they do not sue out their Pardons or crave allowance of them Christ is said again to take away the sins of the world by his death in as much as by his death he became the universal and soveraign medicine for all mens sins But many dyed in Israel not because there was no Balm in Gilead as many do amongst us not so much for want of good Physick or soveraign Medicines as for want of will to seek for them in due time or for wilfulness in not using Medicines profered unto them So then it will not follow That no man dies in his sin since Christs Death Albeit we grant that the sins of all were taken away by his death For They were not so taken away as that men might not resume or take them again And the greatest condemnation which shall befal the world will be That when God had taken away their sins they would not part with their sins That when God would have healed them they would not be healed But had these Corinthians been any further from having their sins taken away by Christs death if Christ had truly died for them and yet but only died for them and not risen again Yes Though Christ had dyed for All yet all had died in their sins if He had only died and had not been raised again This Inference is expresly avouched by our Apostle in the 17 and 18 verses If Christ be not raised then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished and yet he supposeth that they believed in Christs Death But though the Inference be most true because avouched by our Apostle yet is it not Universally but Indefinitely true How far and in respect of what sins or in what degree of perishing it is true That is the Question 8. Christ was delivered saith the Apostle his meaning is He was delivered unto death for our sins and he was raised again for our Justification Rom. 4. 25. Are we then Otherwise Justified by His Resurrection then we are by His Death So our Apostles words import And if otherwise Justified by His Resurrection then by His Death Then are our sins Otherwise taken away by vertue of His Resurrection then by vertue of His Death they were taken away What shall we say then That Christs Death did not Merit all the benefits which God had to bestow upon us God forbid all this notwithstanding We do not receive
all the Benefits which God for his Deaths sake bestows upon us by believing only in his death But even This benefit of our Iustification we receive more immediately by our Belief of his Resurrection from the dead This is the doctrine of our Apostle even in that place wherein he handles the doctrine of Justification by Faith alone or by the Imputation of Christs Righteousness Ex Professe as Rom. 4. 23 24. Now it was not written for his sake to wit Abrahams alone that it was imputed to him but for us also to whom it shall be imputed if we beleive on him that raised up Iesus from the dead And he gives the Reason why our Belief of this Article should be imputed unto us in the next words Seeing he was delivered to death for our offences and raised again for our Justification Howbeit even This Belief of His Resurrection is a Grace or Blessing of God which Christ did merit by His Death yet a Grace conveihed unto us by the vertue of His Resurrection or by Christ himself by his Resurrection exalted unto glory in his human nature We were Justified by his Death in as much as The Pardon for our sins was by it purchased and the hand writing or obligation against us cancelled If Christ then had only dyed for us and not risen again we might by Belief in his Death have escaped the Second Death or everlasting pains of hell We should notwithstanding as our Apostle here supposeth have been detained perpetual prisoners in the grave Our bodily or corporal being should have been utterly consumed by the first Death without hope of recovery or restitution And so far as the first Death had dominion over men so far had these Corinthians remained in their sins So long as the first Death remains unconquered sin remains Now if Christ had not been raised from the dead the first Death or death of the body had remained unconquered Belief in Christs death could not utterly have freed them from all the wages of sin For death of the body is in us part of the wages of sin and it was to Christ part of the burden of our sin But in as much as Christ is risen from the dead and raised to an immortal life over which bodily death hath no Rule or dominion but must be put in absolute subjection to Him all that truly believe such a Resurrection are justified not only from the eternal guilt of sin nor only freed from everlasting death but are made heirs by adoption unto a life over which death shall have no power So then by Christs Death we are freed from the everlasting Curse by his Resurrection we are made free Denisons of the heavenly Jerusalem heirs by promise of an everlasting and most blessed life And thus far all that are partakers of the Word and Sacraments are said to be justified by his Resurrection that is they are bound to believe that as He died for their Sins to redeem them from the second death so he rose again for their further Justification to free them from the death of the bodie He therefore rose from the dead that we by believing this Article might receive the Adoption of the Sons of God But yet there is a further degree of Justification that is an Actual Absolution from the Reign or Dominion of sin in our Bodies which is never obtained without some measure of Faith or Sanctifying Grace inherent albeit the true use and end of such Grace and Faith inherent be to sue out the Pardon for our sins in particular not by our works or merits which are none but meerly and solely by the Free-Grace and Favour of God in Christ True it is that even This Gift of Faith by which we must sue out our Pardon in particular and supplicate for the Adoption of the Sons of God was purchased by Christs death nor may we sue for it under any other Stile or Form then propter merita Christi for the merits of Christ Yet after this plea made we may not expect to receive this blessing otherwise then per Jesum Christum through or by Jesus Christ who was raised from the dead This Grace this Faith and whatsoever other blessing of God which Christ by his death hath merited for us whatsoever is any way conducent to our full and final Redemption descends immediately from the Son of God exalted in his human nature as from its proper Fountain He was consecrated by his death and his Consecration was accomplished by his Resurrection to be an inexhaustible fountain of life and salvation to all that truly believe in his death and Resurrection from the dead Thus we are fallen into the Affirmative Inference If Christ be risen from the dead then such as die in Christ shall be raised from death to immortal Glory The same Almighty Power by which Christ was raised unto glorie shall be manifested even in these our mortal bodies But now is Christ risen from the dead and is become the first fruits of them that slept 9. The Inference or implication is That seeing Christ whose mortalitie was clearly testified by his death was raised up to an endless and immortal life Therefore such as die in Christ whatsoever in the mean time become of their bodies shall be raised up to the like life against which death shall never be able to make any attempt or approach For as the Apostle saith Rom. 11. 16. If the first fruit be holy the lump is also holy and if the root be holy so are the branches But we are to remember that there were Two sorts of First fruits appointed by the Law the One of the first corn that was reaped being ground and made up into loaves which were offered at the feast of Pentecost And unto this sort of First fruits the Apostle Rom. 11. 16. hath Reference The other was the offering of green corn when it first begun to bud or ear And unto this sort of First fruits our Apostle here in the twentieth verse hath Reference Christ then is the root and we are the branches he is the First fruits and we are the after-crop and harvest Now as the offering of the First fruits that is of the green corn was the hallowing of the whole crop So the Resurrection of Christ from the grave was the hallowing or consecration of these our mortal bodies unto that glory and immortalitie which shall be at the finall Resurrection If God did accept the offering of the First fruits it was a pledge unto his people that he would extraordinarily bless the after-crop with large increase his people might with confidence expect a joyfull harvest To manifest the meaning or fulfilling of this Type or legal Ceremonie in our Saviour He was raised up from the dead upon that very day in the morning wherein the first fruits of green corn were by the priests of the Law offered unto God His resurrection as was said before was the accomplishment of his
to sin and being so planted in his death to be partakers of his Resurrection unto life As the implanted graft which loseth leaf and sap and to outward view life also in winter with the Branch or stock into which it was planted doth recover all again when the root sends back the sap at the Spring or the Resurrection of the year 8. This is that which our Saviour himself had said John 15. 4 5. As the branch cannot bear fruit in it self except it abide in the vine no more can ye except ye abide in me I am the Vine ye are the branches he that abideth in me and I in him the same bringeth forth much fruit for without me ye can do nothing That is ye have no root in your selves and therefore no life but as you are planted in me the Vine Now this Vine was opened in his death upon the Crosse and planted in his burial and from him so planted That of the Psalmist Ps 85. 11. was fulfilled Righteousness did grow out of the earth and we being ingrafted or inoculated into him thus planted become true branches of the same Vine Branches we are but without root in our selves all the life we can hope for must be derived from His root And the very sum and proper effect of our beleif in his death and Resurrection is set down by our Apostle ver 8. 9 10 11. Now if we be dead with Christ we beleive that we shall also live with him Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more death hath no more dominion over him For in that he died he died unto sin once but in that he liveth he liveth unto God Likewise reckon your selves also to be dead indeed unto sin but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then if all which are baptized are dead to sin by solemn vow every one must know it to be his duty to mortifie his earthly members but none are bound to beleive that they are already actually dead to sin because they are baptized The sum of our Apostles exhortation in the twelfth verse is Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal bodie that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof neither yeild ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin but yeild your selves unto God as those that are alive from the dead and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God The height of our hopes in this life is to put sin unto a civil death that is to bring the flesh in subjection to the spirit And this we may and ought to hope for So saith the Apostle v. 14. Sin shall not have dominion over you for ye are not under the Law but under grace And Grace is able to give us that victory over sin which the Law could not if we will submit our selves unto the regiment of Grace and not presume of Gods favour in consciousness of sin This is that which the Apostle rejects with the like indignation v. 15. as he had done the former imagination of continuing in sin that grace might abound What then shall we sin because we are not under the Law but under grace God forbid Know ye not that unto whom ye yeild your selves servants to obey his servants ye are to whom ye obey whether of sin unto death or of obedience unto righteousness His meaning is that albeit they were by baptism translated from the regiment of the Law unto the regiment of grace yet if by presuming upon Gods Grace or favour they continue in sin they shall cease to be Gods servants and become again the servants of sin 9. It is the Observation of Prosper an Ancient writer upon this place That as no man can serve two masters So every man must serve one of these two either sin or righteousness God or Satan and he that is a servant to the one is exempted from the service of the other He that is a servant of righteousness is freed from sin and he that is a servant unto sin is rather exempted then freed from the service of righteousness Both are avouched by our Apostle but with this difference that being made free from sin they were made the servants of righteousness but when they were the servants of sin they were free not from righteousness but to righteousness that is they did righteousness no service de facto but used their freedom rather to wrong it But God be thanked saith our Apostle ver 17. that ye were the servants of sin A strange kinde of speech The Pharisee indeed did thank God that he was no extortioner no covetous person nor tainted with such sins as he thought the Publican was but we never read that any Pharisee Publican or other did thank God that he was an extortioner or that he was a grievous sinner nor would God questionless accept of such thanks For he expects no thanks but for the good which he doth unto the Children of men Now to be a covetous person to be an extortioner to be a servant to sin are things which have no goodness in them therefore no works of God no part of his doings How then doth the Apostle so solemnly thank God on these Romanes behalf that they were the servants of sin or is this his thanksgiving to be referred onely to the later part of that 17. verse But ye have obeyed from the heart that Form of doctrine which was delivered you This indeed was worthy of thanks yet not this alone The form of thanksgiving refers as properly and punctually to the first part of the verse God be thanked that you were the servants of sin as it doth to the later part But you have obeyed the form of doctrine which was delivered unto you And in the first place it refers to their former servitude unto sin For though God were not the Author of their servitude to sin as he was of their obedience to the Doctrine of life Yet his goodness did turn their former servitude to sin the very worst deed which they had done unto their good For take them as now they were it was better for them that they had been the servants of sin than not to have been so God you must consider at this time required the service of righteousness at their hands And he that hath been a diligent servant to an hard and cruel master from whom he could not in reason expect any recompence worth his toil is thereby well enapted and trained to be diligent and faithful in the service of a gentle loving and bountiful Master Such was the case and state of these Romans They had don extraordinary kindness for a long time unto sin and this their service was not only lost in respect of times past but very dangerous in the future Upon this known case or experiment among men doth our Apostle ground those forcible exhortations in the verses precedent which he most strongly concludes with the words of the
21. verse I speak saith he ver 19. after the manner of men because of the infirmitie of the flesh for as ye have yeilded your members servants unto uncleanness and to iniquitie unto iniquitie even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness For when ye were the servants of sin ye were free to righteousness that is you did acknowledge no service due unto it The implication which he expresseth not is this Being now become the servants of righteousness do as little service unto sin as when you were its servants ye did to righteousness acknowledge none to it for none is due to it especially from you 10. But in the 21. verse if you mark his placing of the words well he puts the case home What fruit had ye then of those things whereof ye are now ashamed What fruit had ye then at that time when ye did them with greediness If the service of sin at any time were fruitful it is questionless then whilst it is a doing For this Dalilah hath the trick to wipe off all shame from her Lovers faces whilst sin is in the action or motion But our Apostle proves this service of sin to be fruitless even then because now when these motions were past it makes them ashamed Nor is the service of sin fruitless only because it bringeth forth shame but therefore more then shamefull full of danger and dread because the shame which it bringeth forth is alwayes the Harbinger or fore-runner of death For so the Apostles adds For the end of those things is death These are the best fruits of their service to sin and sin it self is more then fruitles because the best fruits which it seems to bring are poisonous But now these Romans are called unto the service of a far better master one from whom they have somewhat in re but much more in spe a bountiful earnest for the present of an invaluable recompence and future reward ver 22. But now being free from sin and become servants to God ye have your fruit unto holines and the end everlasting life And finally he binds all his former Exhortations with this undoubted Assertion For the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Thus you have seen The dutie whereunto we stand bound by our Baptisme And it is twofold 1. To forsake the Divel the world and the flesh and secondly to betake our selves to the service of God The motives to withdraw us from this service of sin are three The service of it first is fruitless 2. it is shamefull 3. it causeth death to wit a most shamefull bitter and endless death The motives to draw us unto the service of God are Two 1. The present fruit which it yieldeth viz. the peace of conscience or that righteousness which is the flour and Blossom unto Holiness 2. The Final Reward which is a most blessed life without end The First three Motives to withdraw us from the service of sin are as it were linked or mortized one into another The very Fruitlesness of Sins service shuts up into shame and the shame arresting or seazing upon the sinner is no other then the very Harbinger Fore-runner or Serjeant of Death CHAP. XVIII Rom. 6. 21. What Fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed For the end of those things is death c. Of the fruitlesnes of Sin Of the shame That follows and dogs sin as the shadow doth the Body What shame is Whence it ariseth and what Use may be made thereof Of Fame praise and Honour Satans Stales False shame and False Honour The Character of both in Greek and Latine Of Pudor which is alwayes malè Facti of Verecundia which may somtimes be de modo rectè Facti Perijt vir cui Pudor Perijt Erubuit salva res est 1. WE are here to speak somwhat to The First Point which was the fruitlesness of Sin of which more afterwards It was an Ancient saying of a good Writer praestat otiosum esse quam nihil agere it were better to sit still and do nothing then to busie and wearie our selves to no purpose A shame it is in it self but commonly the beginning of a far greater shame to spend our time without any fruit And if we could perswade a man that for the present he labours in vain that for the future he can expect nothing but wearisom trouble for his long pains it would be enough to make him if he have any wit ashamed of what he hath done more then enough unlesse he be impudent to make him give over what he hath begun Yea he is not a wise man that doth not forecast some probable hopes or gainfull issues of his labours before he begin them So our Saviour tels us Luke 14. 28. For which of you intending to build a Tower sitteth not down first and counteth the cost whether he have sufficient to finish it Lest haply after he hath laid the foundation and is not able to finish it all that behold it begin to mock him saying This man began to build and was not able to finish If want of forecast to go through with a work which in the beginning promised fruit be a shame or expose men to scorn or mockerie what is it to begin and continue those works whose accomplishing or finishing is more fruitless then the first beginning So that the service of sin is in this respect shamefull because it is Fruitless But if you observe our Apostle well he doth not infer that the works of sin are shamefull because they are Fruitless but that they are Fruitless because they are shamefull Shame and that A positive shame is the natural fruit or issue of all service to sin and not every kinde of positive shame but a shame accompanied or seconded with death That the Apostles Argument may have its full weight or sway upon our souls we are in the First place to examine What shame properly is Secondly What manner of death it is which is the wages of sin 2. Shame is a fear of some evil to ensue Or an impression of some evil present the fear of whose continuance is more greivous than any present smart But though all Shame be a Fear or sense of evil yet every fear or sense of evil doth not cause shame Men naturally fear the loss of goods but as our Saviour intimates Mat. 6. 25. most naturally the loss of their lives Yet if our goods be taken from us by violence we are not ashamed of it the Expectation or sufferance of this evil causeth only sorrow or grief to us it causeth Shame to him that doth it There is no man almost but feareth a violent and undeserved death yet if such a death be set before him it causeth only Sorrow or heaviness of heart a dejection of spirit no Shame or confusion of face Such as die guiltlesse are rather comforted then
of infamy and hope of Honour were of themselves sufficient to keep most men within the compass of civilitie or moral goodness were it not generally true in all Common-wealths which Solomon had observed in his times Prov. 28. 4. That they which forsake the Law do praise the wicked and so St. Peter tells us 1 Pet. cap. 4. v. 4. That such as walked in the wayes of the Gentiles in lasciviousnesse lust excesse of wine ryotings banquettings and abominable idolatry did think it a strange thing that these late Converts to whom he wrote this Epistle did not run with them to the like excesse And for this cause as he adds they speak evil of them that is they put all the shame they could upon them As then so now Every societie of lewd or naughtie men have their usurped customs which are equivalent with them to Laws have their Parliaments whereby wo unto them Esay 5. 20. they attempt to alter or invert the Law of God and the Law of nature to establsh evil for good and to disgrace goodness as if it were evil What course of life what branch of lewdness more infamous by the Law of God then ryot or drunkenness a vice so shameful that the Fathers eye must not pity it in his Children that are tainted with it but even their natural Parents as well the Mother as the Father are bound by the Law of God Deut. 21. 20 21. to inform against them to accuse them before the Magistrate lest the shame and sin should reflect upon themselves by connivance And by the same Law the publick Magistrate is bound upon the accusation of their Parents to put them to an ignominious death And yet there is a generation of men outwardly professing the knowledge of God and of Christ which seek to put shame ignominie upon all such as will not run with them to the like excess which have their Laws and Rules for authorizing and cherishing this lawless and unruly custom God again by his written Law and by his Sentence against Cain awards death and shame to murtherers And yet the seeds of this accursed sin are more then legitimated ranked amongst the essential parts of honour made as the very touch and tryal of Gentry by men which esteem it a greater shame to indure the breath of a verbal Lie from anothers rash mouth then to tell or devise an hundred real Lies or to outface a truth by false oaths And by this corrupt custom which goes currant for a soveraign Law amongst braver Spirits as they account themselves the observance of Laws divine and humane which forbid all private Revenge all resolutions to kill or be killed is branded with the infamy of Cowardise A terrible bug-bear but to such only as are Men in maliciousness but Children in Knowledge For it is a sign of the greatest Cowardise that can be to be affrighted at the noise of vain words or to forsake the Fortress upon a false Alarm or representation of counterfeit Colors As these so every other vice hath its Baud or Advocate to give it countenance and to disgrace the contrary vertue 6. The old Serpent which beguiled the first Man by the first woman works still upon the weaker vessel and makes it his instrument to foyl the stronger He is not ignorant that this masculus pudor as the Philosopher cals it this virile or manly fear of shame whereby youth is naturally restrained from shameful courses cannot easily be vanquished but by suborning this effeminate or womanish fear of worldly or popular disgrace to betray it as Dalilah did her Husband Samson And the expelling of this masculine by this womanish fear of disgrace or reproach is as the putting out of the eyes of discretion whereby we discern good from evil So that Satan leads them up and down at his pleasure as the Philistines did Samson after he had lost his bodily eyes by the cutting off his hair We have a Saying or Proverb rather Past Shame past Grace The Heathens had the like Observation save only that they knew not what Grace meant They had no use of the word Grace in that sense which is most common and yet most proper with us A Child or man past Grace is with us as much as Filius perditus A Son of perdition Such an one as Judas was who yet was not past Grace that is not irrecoverably lost until he became impudent and obdurate in sin Now it was the observation of one and he was none of the precisest amongst the Heathen Illum ego periisse dico cui quidem periit pudor I give that man saith Plautus for lost which hath lost modestie or is past shame Our Common Proverb and the Saying of this Poet have this sure Ground in true Divinitie That want of modestie or a face uncapable of shame supposeth a great measure of iniquity in the brest That which we call a Brazen face hath alwayes for its Supporter an Iron sinew or a brawny heart Jer. 3. 3. and 5. 3. and 6. 15. and 8. 12. 7. As nothing passeth into the understanding but by the gates of sense So the true belief of that which God threatened unto sin and that was death is ushered into the heart of man by shame and confusion of face The first impression of Gods threatenings unto our first Parents was made upon this part And all the Sons of Adam even unto this day either have or might have a pledge of that which Moses relates concerning their and their eldest Sons hiding themselves and going out from the presence of the Lord. To this day it is true Qui male agit odit Lucem an evil conscience flies the light or presence of men And the face commonly bewrayes the heart as he said Heu quam difficile est crimen non prodere vultu It is an hard matter not to confess a crime or the truth although the mouth be silent Yet as some men by long custom in sin degenerate into Atheists and see no reliques of Gods image wherein they were created in themselves although the notion of a Godhead or Divine Power be naturally ingrafted in all So though shame and blushing be most natural to man when he doth evil yet some by long continuance in sin shake off this vail or covering of their nakedness Such they are of whom Jeremie spake in the Old and in the New Testament St. Jude speaks ver 10. Men that are prone to speak evil of those things which they know not but what they know naturally as bruit beasts in those things they corrupt themselves and become as impenetrable by shame as bruit beasts whom God hath deprived of reason He that is not subject to this passion participates more of the nature or disposition of collapsed Angels than of collapsed man The Divels we read do tremble at their belief or apprehension of Gods Judgments We do not read that they are ashamed of the evil which deserves it as our first
arraign accuse and judge our selves for our former frequent neglect of our Vow in Baptism Secondly To request Absolution and pardon of God which no man humbly and seriously doth but he solemnly promiseth amendment of what is past Thirdly To implore the special aid or assistance of Gods Spirit for better performance of our Vow and of what we now promise And all this only for the merits of Christ and through the efficacy of his Body and Blood I will conclude with that of the Psalmist Vovete vota reddite Jehovae CHAP. XX. ROMANS 6. 21. 21. For the end of those things is Death 23. For the wages of sin is Death The first and second Death Both literally meant The wages of Sin Both described Both compared and shewed How and wherein the Second Death exceeds the First The greater deprivation of Good the worse and more unwelcom death is Every member of the Bodie every facultie of the Soul the Seat and Subject of the Second Death A Map and Scale The Surface and Soliditie of the Second Death Pain improved by inlarging the capacitie of the Patient and by intending or advancing the activitie of the Agent Three Dimensions of the second Death 1. Intensiveness 2. Duration 3. Un-intermitting Continuation of Torment Poena Damni Sensus Terms Co-incident Pains of the Damned Essential and Accidental Just to punish momentanie sin with pain eternal The reflection and revolution of thoughts upon the sinners folly The Worm of Conscience 1. DEath and life have the same Seat and Subject Nothing dieth unless it first live and Death in the General is An Extinction of life Death in Scripture is two Wayes taken First For bodily Death which is the First Death Secondly For the Death of both Body and Soul which is called the Second Death Both are here literally meant both are the wages of sin The former Death is common to all excepting such of the Godly as shall be found alive at Christs coming to Judgment they shall not die but be changed First then of bodily death and secondly of supernatural or the second death and wherein it exceedeth the first death The Opposition between Bodily Death and Bodily Life is meerly Privative such as is between light and darkness or between sight and blindness And this death must be distinguished according to the degrees of life of which it is the Privation Of life the degrees be three The First of meer Vegetables as of trees of plants of herbs or whatsoever is capable of growth or nourishment The Second is of Creatures indued with sense The third is the life of man who besides sense is endued with reason The reasonable life includes the sensitive as the sensitive doth the life vegetable Whatsoever bodily creature is endowed with reason is likewise endowed with sense But many things which are endowed with sense are uncapable of reason And again what Creature soever it be which is partaker of the life sensitive is partaker likewise of Vegetation of growth or nourishment But many things which are nourished and grow as trees herbs plants grass and corn are uncapable of the life sensitive and yet even these are said to die as they properly do when their nutriment fails But albeit the first beginning of mans life in the womb be only vegetative not sensible or reasonable yet no man dieth according to this kind of death only For such as fall into an Atrophie which is a kind of death or privation of the nutritive facultie yet are they not to be accounted as dead so long as they have the use of any sense no nor after they be deprived of all outward senses so long as their hearts do move or their lungs send out breath So that the bodily death of man includes a privation of sense and motion This difference again may be observed in the degrees of bodily death 2. Trees and vegetables alwayes die without pain so do not man and beast For that both of them are endowed with sense and motion both of them are capable of pain And pain if it be continued and extream drawes sensitive death after it Nor can this death approach or finde entrance into the seat of life but by pain And in as much as this kind of life is sweet death which is the deprivation of it is alwayes unpleasant and terrible unto man not only in respect of the pain which ushers it in but in respect of the loss of vitall sweetness which it brings with it The pains of dying may be as great in beasts as in man so is not the loss of that goodness which is conteined in life for reasonless creatures perceive it not A memorie they have of pains past a sense or feeling of pains present and a fear of death when it approacheth But no fore-thought or reckoning of what followes after death This is proper to the reasonable creature Now this Fore-thought of what may follow after makes death more bitter to man then it can be to reasonless creatures And amongst men the more or greater the contentments of life have been and the better they are provided for the continual supply of such contentments the more grievous is the conceipt or fore-thought of death natural unto them The summons of death are usually more unwelcome to a man in perfect health then to a crased body So it is to a man of wealth and credit more then to one of a forlorn estate or broken fortunes So saith Ecclesiasticus Chap. 41. 1. O death how bitter is the remembrance of thee to a man that liveth at rest in his Possessions unto the man that hath nothing to vex him and that hath prosperitie in all things yea unto him that is yet able to receive meat Yet is not the loss of life of sense or the foregoing of worldly contentments the only cause why men naturally fear death For though it deprive them of all these yet doth not the death of man consist in this deprivation The body loseth all these by the divorce which death makes betwixt it and the soul But seeing the substance of the soul still remains the greatest fear which can possess a natural man is the future doubtful estate of the soul after this dissolution Many which never hoped or expected any Re-union or second marriage between the soul and body after death had once divorced them had yet a true Notion that the soul did not die with the body and out of this conceipt some were more afraid of death then any brutish or reasonless creature can be Some other few became as desirous of it as Prisoners which hope to scape are of a Gaol deliverie and thought it a great freedom especially in their discontented melancholy passion to have the keyes of this mortal prison in their own keeping to be able to let their souls and life out at their pleasure But though it be universally true that the corruptible body during the time of this
life is but a walking prison or moveable Cage unto the immortal soul yet the soul being long accustomed to this prison doth naturally chuse to continue in it still rather then to be uncertain whither to repair after it go hence That some Heathens have taken upon them to let their souls out of their bodies before the time appointed by course of nature or doom given upon them by their supream Judge This was but such a delusion of Sathan as one man somtimes in malice puts upon another For so oftimes a secret enemie or false friend hath perswaded others to break the prison whereto they were upon presumption rather then on evidence of any notorious fact committed to make them by this means unquestionably lyable unto the punishment of death which without such an escape they might have escaped For any man wittingly and willingly to separate the soul and body which God hath joyned is A damnable presumption an usurpation of Gods own office or Authoritie To sollicit or sue for a divorce betwixt them is not safe for any save only for such as have Good Assurance or probable hopes that when they are dissolved they shall be with Christ Now the souls of such as die in him have no desire to return unto the former prison of the body But such as have not in this life been espoused unto him would chuse rather to remain in or to return unto their former prison then to be held in custody by their spiritual enemies Their estate for the present is worse then the sufferance of bodily death being charged both with perpetual sufferance and expectation to suffer the second death 3. And this death differs more from the First death then inter numerandum that is more then in order of accompt or rank of place What then is not the second death a privation of life Yes it is all this and somewhat more besides Every vice includes a privation of the contrary vertue and is a great deal worse then want of vertue So every sickness includes a privation of some branch of health and is much worse then a Neutralitie or middle temper if any such there be between health and sickness So doth the Second death include an extream contrarietie to life and all the contentments of it Blindness is a meer privation of sight and the eye which cannot see is dead in respect of this branch of life and this death or deprivation of this sense is only matter of losse The eye or subject of sight oft-times after the loss of sight suffers no pain no more doth the ear after it becomes deaf nor the sense of feeling after it be numm'd A man stricken with the palsie feels no smart in that part which it possesseth Whilest any part of our body is sensible of pain it is an argument that it is yet alive not quite dead And yet is all pain rather a branch of death then of life For much better it were to die the first death then to live continually in deadly pain No man but would be willing to loose a tooth rather then to have it perpetually tormented with the tooth-ach Now the second death is no other then a perpetual living unto deadly pain or torture Bodily death or not being is not so much worse then life natural with all its contentments as the second death is worse then the First or the bodily pains which can accompany it The parts or branches of the first death are altogether as many as the parts of life natural The seat or subject of the second death is larger There is no member of the body or facultie of the soul whether sensitive or rational which becomes not the seat or subject of the second death As this death is the wages of sin so it is for Extention commensurable unto the body of sin Now there is no part or facultie in man which in this life hath been free from sin And whatsoever part or facultie hath in this life been polluted with sin becomes the seat dwelling place of the second death Wheresoever sin did enter it did enter but as an Harbinger to take up so many several Roomes for that death Who is he that can say that lust hath not sometimes entred in at the eye that the seeds of lust of Envy of murther and of other sins have not taken possession of the ear that his tongue or tast hath not given entertainment to ryot gluttony and excesse in meat and drink That his sense of smell hath not been sometimes a pander to these and the like Exorbitances And the other fifth or grosse sense of Touch is as the common bed of sin for it spreads it self throughout all the rest and is the foundation of every other external sense 4. To give you then a true map of the second death and more then a Map of it or of their estate that are subject unto it we cannot exhibit The Map with the true scale for measuring the Region of death with the miserable estate of its inhabitants is thus Nature and common Experience afford us These general un-erring Rules That all pain and grief are improved by one of these two means or by both As First by enlarging the capacitie of every sense or facultie which is capable of pain or discontent Secondly by the vehemency or violence of the object or agent which makes the impression upon the passive sense or capacitie One and the same Agent aswell for qualitie as for intention of its active force doth not make the same impression upon different subjects though both capable of impression As one and the same flame and steam of fire hath not one and the same effect on iron steel and wax though all of them be in the same distance from it Quicquid recipitur recipitur ad modum recipientis How powerful soever any Agent be the Patient can receive or retein no more of its power then it is capable of Again how capable soever the Patient be of any violent impression yet the capacitie of it is not filled unlesse the force of the Agent be proportionable unto it And though it be able to receive never so much yet it is true again Nihil dat quod non habet nec plus dat quam habet No creature no Agent whatsoever can bestow any greater measure whether of good or evil whether of pain or pleasure then is conteined within the sphere of its activitie From these unquestionable Principles this Universal Conclusion will undoubtedly follow That all excesse or full measure of pain of grief or woe of every branch of malum poenae must amount from the improved capacitie of the sense or facultie which receives impression and from the strength and potencie of the Object which makes the impression 5. There is no humane body which is not by nature capable of the Gout yet such as are accustomed to courser fare to moderate dyet and hard labour are lesse capable
shelter of his ey lids which his cruell enemies for increasing his pain and lingring torture had cut off Others again which wanted no contentment either of the outward or internal senses have died through meer grief and sorrow first conceived either from losse of goods or friends or for fear of disgrace and shame and some through excessive and suddain joy So that in this life it is universally true and undoubtedly experienced in all the bodily senses and most other faculties of the soul Nullum violentum est Perpetuum There is no grief no pain or sorrow whether inflicted by external Agents or whether it breeds within us or be hatched by the reflection of our own thoughts upon others wrongs or our own oversights or misdeeds but if it be violent or excessive it becomes like a raging flame which both devours the subject whereon it exerciseth its efficacie and puts an end to its own Being by destroying that fuel which fed it 7. This then is the propertie of the second death and the miserable condition of such as must receive the wages of sin That after the Resurrection of the body the capacitie aswell of the bodily senses as of other faculties are so far improved so far inlarged that no extremity of any external Agent no virulency of any disease which breeds within them no strength of imagination or Reflection upon what they have in time past foolishly done or what they suffer for the present or may justly fear hereafter can either dissolve or weaken their passive capacities or strength to indure the like Every facultie becomes more durable then an Anvil to receive all the blows that can be fastned upon them and all the impressions how violent soever which in this life would in an instant dissolve or dead them So that the second death as is said before is a life or vivacitie continually to sustain deadly pains The Dimensions of this death may be deduced to these three heads First to the intensiveness of the pain or grief which is more extream then any man in this life can suffer because the capacities of every sense or passive facultie are in a manner infinitely inlarged and so is the strength or violence of external Agents and the sting of conscience or perplexed thoughts wonderfully increased Secondly to the duration of all those punishments for it is a death everlasting Lastly to the uncessant perpetuitie of these everlasting pains for they are not inflicted by fits but without all intermission though but for a moment There is not an ill day and a good not an ill hour and a good not an ill minute and a good not an ill moment and a good in hell All times are extreamly evil varietie of torments breed no ease Thus much appeared by the Parable of the rich glutton who could not obtain so much of Abraham as a drop of water to cool his tongue which if it had been granted could not have effected any intermission or intercision of pain nor any abatement for the present which would not have inraged the flame as much in the next moment So that such as suffer the second death know not how to ask any thing for their good because indeed nothing can do them any good but all things even their own wishes conspire unto their harme and increase their wo and miserie 8. Some taking occasion from this Parable have moved a question not much necessarie whether the fire of hell be material fire or no that is such as may palpably or visibly scorch the body and torment the outward senses Sometimes this fire is described by a flame as in the Parable of the rich glutton sometimes by the blackness of darkness as in Saint Jude It is not the flame or visibilitie of this fire which argues it to be material the flame is least material in our fire And palpable it may be though not visible But with this question I will not meddle being impossible to be determined without sight or experience which God grant we never have It shall suffice therefore in brief to shew how this fire or rather the pains of the second death are decyphered or displayed in Scripture Now As the joyes of Heaven are set forth unto us under such Emblemes or representations as are visible or known unto us and yet we do not beleive that they are formally or properly such as these shadows or pictures represent but rather eminently contain the greatest joyes that by these representations we can conceive or imagine So we are bound to beleive That the pains of Hell are at least either properly and formally such as the Scripture describes them to be or more extream and violent then if they were such as the characters which the holy Ghost hath put upon them do without Metaphor import or signifie More extream they are then flesh and blood in this life could endure for a minute For as flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of Heaven so neither can they endure or inherit the kingdom of Satan there must be a change of this corruptible nature before it be capable of these everlasting pains So much the description of it in holy Scripture doth import The first and that a Terrible description of it is Esai 30. 33. Tophet is ordained of old yea for the King it is prepared the pile thereof is fire and much 〈◊〉 the breath of the Lord like a stream of brimstone doth kindle it The like but more terrible hath Saint John Rev. 20. 10. The Divel that deceived them was cast into the Lake of fire and brimstone where the Beast and the false Prophet are and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever and as he adds ver 14. This lake of fire is the second death And Saint Jude tels us that The destruction of Sodom and Gommorrah and the cities about them is set forth as an example or type of this eternal fire that is such fearful torments as that people suffered for a moment the damned shall suffer in hell eternally The ruines of Sodom and Gomorah and the dead sea or brimstone Lake wherein neither fish nor other creature liveth was left unto all future ages to serve as a map or picture of that lake of fire and brimstone which Saint Iohn mentions that is of Hell Now the very steam of such a Lake would stifle or torment flesh and blood to death in a moment the outward senses are not capable of its first impressions 9. Some School-men have moved A more pertinent Question whether this punishment of sense which or the instrumental mean of which is thus described unto us by a Lake of fire and brimstone be greater or lesse then the Poena damni that is Whether their imprisonment or confinement to Hell and their subjection to tormenting Fiends be worse then their Exclusion out of Heaven and the perpetual loss of Gods joyful presence The most Resolve That Poena damni the loss of Gods
presence is of the two the worse And certain it is that it cannot be less seeing that Everlasting Life which is The Gift of God and Crown of holiness is at the least so much better as the second death or pains of hell are worse then this mortal life But if I mistake not the Members of this Distinction concerning the punishment of losse and the punishment of sense by pain are not altogether Opposite but Co-incident The very conceit or remembrance of this infinite loss and of their folly in procuring it cannot but breed an insufferable measure of grief and sorrow unto the damned which will be fully equivalent to all their bodily pain And this fretting remembrance and perpetual reflection upon the folly of their former wayes is as I take it That Worm of Conscience that never dies But of this hereafter The miserable estate of the damned or such as shall suffer the second death may be reduced to these two Heads to Punishment Essential or to Punishment Accidental or concomitant The Essential Punishment comprehends both Poena damni and Poena sensus The positive pains of that brimstone Lake and the Worm of Conscience which gnaweth upon their souls The Punishment Accidental or concomitant is that Loathsomnesse of the Region or place wherein they are tormented and of their Companions in these torments In this life that Saying is generally true Solamen miseris Socios habuisse doloris it is alwayes some comfort to have Consorts in our pain or distress But this Saying is out of date in the Region of death the more there be that suffer these pains the less comfort there is to every one in particular For there is no concord or consort but perpetual discord which is alwayes so much greater by how much the parties discording are more in number And to live in continual discord though with but some few is a kind of Hell on earth And thus much in brief of the second death wherein it exceeds the First 10. If any one that shall read this should but suspect or fear that God had inevitably ordained him unto this death or created him to no better end then to the day of wrath This very cogitation could not but much abate his love towards God Whom no man can truly love unless he be first perswaded That God is good and loving not towards his Elect only but toward all men towards himself in particular But this opinion of Absolute Reprobation or ordination to the day of wrath I pray may never enter into any mans brains But flesh and blood though not polluted with this Opinion will if not repine and murmur yet perhaps demur a while upon another Point more questionable to wit How it may stand with the Justice of the most righteous Judge to recompence the pleasures of sin in this life which is but short with such exquisite and everlasting torments in the life to come Specially seeing the pleasures of sin are but transient neither enjoyed nor pursued but by interposed Fits whereas the torments of that Lake are uncessantly perpetual and admit no intermission The usual Answer to this Quaere is That every sin deserves a punishment infinite as being committed against an infinite Majestie But seeing this answer hath no Ground or warrant from the Rule of Faith in which neither the Maxim it self is expresly contained nor can it be deduced thence by any good Consequence we may examine it by the Rule of Reason Now by the Rule of Reason and proportion the punishment due to offences as committed against an infinite Majestie should not be punishment infinite for time and duration but infinite for qualitie or extremitie of pain whiles it continues If every minute of sinful pleasures in this world should be recompenced with a thousand years of Hell-pains this might seem rigorous and harsh to be conceived of him that is as infinite in Goodness as in Greatness as full of Mercie as of Majestie But whatsoever our thoughts or wayes be his wayes we know are equal and just most equal not in themselves only but even unto such as in sobrietie of spirit consider them But wherein doth the equalitie of his wayes or justice appear when he recompenceth the momentany pleasures of sin with such unspeakable everlasting torments It appears in this That he sentenceth no creatures unto such endlesse pains but only such as he had first ordained unto an endlesse life so much better at least then this bodily and mortal life as the second death is worse then it Adam had an immortal life as a pledge or earnest of an eternal life in possession and had not lost it either for himself or us if he had not wilfully declined unto the wayes of death of which the righteous Judge had fore-warned him Now when life and death are so set before us as that Hold is given us of life to recompence the wilful choice of death with death it self this is most equal and just And if the righteous Lord had sentenced our first Parents unto the second death immediately upon their first transgression his sentence had been but just and equal their destruction had been from themselves Yet as all this had been no more then just so it had been less then justice moderated or rather over-ruled by mercie Now instead of executing justice upon our first Parents the righteous Lord did immediately promise a gratious redemption and as one of the Antients said Foelix peccatum quod talem meruit Redemptorem it was a happy sin which gave occasion of the promise of such a Redeemer 11. But did this extraordinary mercy promised to Adam extend it self to all or to Adam only or to some few that should proceed from him Our publick Liturgie our Articles of Religion and other Acts of our Church extend it to Adam and to all that came after him But how the Nations whom God as yet hath not called unto the light of his Gospel or whose fore-elders he did not call unto the knowledge of his Laws given unto Israel how either Fathers or Children came to forsake the mercies wherein the whole humane nature in our first Parents was interested is A Secret known to God and not fit to be disputed in particular This we are sure of in the General That God did not forsake them till they had forsaken their own mercies But for our selves All of us have been by Baptism re-ordained unto a better estate then Adam lost Now if upon our first second third or fourth open breach or wilful contempt of our Vow in Baptism the Lord had sentenced us unto everlasting death or given Satan a Commission or warrant to pay us the wages of sin this had been but just and right his wayes in this had been equal because our wayes were so unequal But now he hath so long time spared us and given us so large a time of repentance seeking to win us unto his love by many blessings and
favours bestowed upon us This as the Apostle speakes is the riches of his bountie certainly exceeding great mercy much greater then justice even mercy triumphing against judgment Now if after all this we shall continue to provoke him and defer our repentance turning his Grace into wantonness making the plentifulness of his word the nurse and fuel of Schism and faction no judgement can be too great no pain too grievous either for Qualitie or for Continuance 12. The Doctrine of such Catechists as would perswade or occasion men to suspect that God hath not yet mercy in store or that there is no possibilitie for all that hear the word to repent to beleive and be saved whatsoever it do to the Authors and followers of it in this life it shall in the life to come appear even to such as perish to have been erroneons For one special branch of their punishment and that wherein the punishment of such as hear the word and repent not doth specially exceed the punishment of the Heathen or infidels shall be their continual cogitation how possible it was for them to have repented How possible for them how much more possible for them then for infidels to have been saved The bodily pains of Hell fire shall be as is probable equal to all but the worm of Conscience which is no other then the reflection of their thoughts upon their madness in following the pleasures of sin and neglecting the promises of Grace shall be more grievous to impenitent Christians A true Scale or scantling of these torments we may take from the consideration how apt we are to grieve at our extraordinarie folly or Retchlesness in this life whether that have turned to the prejudice of our temporal estate of our health or bodily life of our credit or good name There is not a man on earth but if he would enter into his own heart might find that he had many times committed greater folly then Esau did when he sold his Birth-right for a messe of pottage He set his Birth-right that is his Interest in the Land of Canaan on sale without the hazard of that inheritance which God had elswhere provided for him for he became Lord of Mount Seir. He did not contract for his own imprisonment or captivitie but we daily set Heaven to sale and hazard our everlasting exclusion from Gods presence for toyes less worth at least less necessarie for us then bodily meat was for Esau in his hunger And yet by such foolish bargains we enter a Covenant with death and contract though not expressly yet implicitely for an everlasting inheritance in Hell Now unto such as thus live and die without repentance the most cruell torments that can be imagined cannot be so grievous as the continual cogitation how they did bind themselves without any necessitie laid upon them to receive the wages of sin by receiving such base earnest as in this life was given them 13. A more exact Scale of the reward for this their folly we have in Two Fictions of the Heathen The one is That of Sisyphus his uncessant labour in rolling a huge stone which still turns upon him with greater force The other is of Prometheus whose Liver as they imagined was continually gnawen upon by a vultur or Cormorant without wasting the substance of it or deading its capacitie of pain The continuall reflection of such as perish upon their former folly is as the rolling of Sisyphus's stone a grievous labour a perpetual torment still resumed by them but still more and more in vain for no sorrow bringeth forth repentance there And every such Reflection or Revolution of their thoughts upon their former wayes is The gnawing of the worm of Conscience more grievous by much unto their souls then if a vultur should so continually gnaw their hearts CHAP. XXI ROMANS 6. 22. 23. But now ye have your fruit unto Holiness and the end everlasting life The Gift of God is Eternall Life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Eternal Life Compared with this present Life The several Tenures of Both. The method proposed The instabilitie of this present Life The contentments of it short and the capacities of man to injoy such contentments as this life affords narrower In the life to come the capacitie of every facultie shall be inlarged some senses shall receive their former contentments only Eminenter as if one should receive the weight in Gold for dross Some Formaliter Joy Essential and Joy Accidental 1. THe Point remaining is that This Eternal Life which is the Crown of Holiness is so much better then this present life and its best contentments as the second death is worse then this present life however taken at the best or worst Now both sorts of life and death may be compared either in respect of their proper qualitie or of their Duration That in respect of Duration or continuance this good and happy life which is the Crown of Holiness and that miserable death which is the wages of sin are equall no Christian may deny may suspect for both are endless That this life was endless that such as are once possessed of it shall never be dispossessed of it even Origen and his followers did never question who not withstanding did deny that this death which was opposed unto it was absolutely endless though in Scripture often said to be everlasting For That in their interpretation was no more then to be of exceeding long continuance But this Heresie hath been long buried in the Church and his sin be upon him that shall seek to revive it The Method then which we mean to observe is this First to set forth the excellencie of everlasting life in respect of this life present Secondly to unfold the Reasons why neither the hope of everlasting life nor the fear of an endless miserable death do sway so much with most Christians as in reason they ought either for deterring them from the fruitless service of sin or for incouraging them to proceed in holy and godly courses whose end is everlasting life In this later we shall take occasion to unfold the Fallacies or Sophisms which Satan in his temptations puts upon us with some brief rules or directions how to avoid them A work questionless of much use and fruit though handled by a few either so seriously or so largely as the matter requires In comparing this life with the life to come we are in the first place to set forth the different Tenures of them Secondly to compare the several joys or contentments 2. This present life even at the best is in comparison but a kind of death For as the Heathen Philosopher had observed it is alwayes in fluxu like a stream or current it runs as fast from us as it comes unto us That part of our life which is past saith Seneca is as it were resigned up to death That part which is yet to come is not yet ours nor can we make any sure
experience of did acknowledge as much as hath been formerly delivered out of Gods word to wit That men are usually misdrawn to do those things in particular which in general they desired not to do and to leave those things undone which in the calm of composed affections they desired to do either by the hope of some bodily pleasures or by fear of some bodily pain And unto this two-fold inconvenience he prescribed this brief Receipt 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That men in youth especially should accustome themselves to abstinence and sufferance to abstinence from evil and to sufferance of evil that is unto abstinence from unlawful pleasures which we call Malum culpae or Evil of Sin and to endure with patience malum poenae the evil of pain or of some loss rather then hazard The quiet of Conscience by doing that which is evil or unlawful or by not doing that which is good specially when we are thereto required But this brief receipt or diet of the Soul without some other addition will rather serve to condemn us Christians then enable us to live a true and Christian life The Receipt though is good in the General but defective in these Particulars First Unless he knew more of Gods Will or of the mysteries of Christian Religion then we know any means by which he could possibly know either being an Heathen he was ignorant of many evils from which he was bound to abstain and altogether as ignorant what those good things were for whose love he was to suffer malum poenae the evil of pain loss or grievance rather then disclaim them Secondly Albeit he had known what was to be done what to be left undone yet being ignorant of this main Article of Christianity to wit of A Life everlasting which is the reward of well-doing the Crown of Holiness and of an everlasting Death which is the wages of sin and issue of unlawful pleasures His Receipt of Sustine Abstine was altogether as fruitless and vain as if a Physician should prescribe a Dosis or Recipe to his Patient of such Simples or compounded Medicines as cannot be had in this part of the world but must be sought for at the East or West-Indies or at the Antipodes whence there is no hope they can be brought before the Patient be laid in his Grave The Medicine which he prescribes is no where to be found but in the Word of God The Simples whereof it is compounded can grow from no other root or branch then from The Articles of everlasting Life and everlasting death The Belief of the One is the root of Abstinence from sinful or unlawful Pleasures The Belief of the other is the root of Patience or sufferance of malum Poenae or of sufferance for well-doing Howbeit to speak exactly both parts of his Receipt may be had from the Belief either of Everlasting Life or Everlasting Death but most compleatly from the belief of both The manner how thence they may be gathered is expressed by our Apostle St. Paul Rom. 8. 16. c. The Spirit it self beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God And if children then heirs heirs of God and joynt heirs with Christ if we suffer with him that we may be also glorified together for I reckon that the suffrings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us c. 2. If all the sufferings of this life be not worthy of the glory which shall be revealed in us as the Rule of Faith teacheth us then conscience and reason it self bindes us to suffer all the Persecutions or Grievances which can be laid upon us rather then hazard our hopes or forfeit our Interests in the Glory that shall be revealed in all such as with patience suffer persecution or other temporal loss or detriment for the truths sake And this hope of Glory is as the Root whence Christian patience or sufferance must grow So is the fear of everlasting Death the root of our abstinence from evil or of repentance for former want of this abstinence This is the same Apostles Doctrine 2 Cor. 5. 10. For we must all appear before the Judgement seat of Christ that every one may receive the things done in his body according to that he hath done whether it be good or bad Knowing therefore the terrour of the Lord we perswade men To what doth he perswade men To do those things which are good and which being done shall be rewarded not in Judgement but in mercy and loving kindness Those things by which we shall be reconciled unto God But were not these Corinthians reconciled to God before our Apostle thus perswaded them Yes so saith the Apostle 2 Cor. 5. 18. God hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ And when our Apostle and those to whom he wrote were reconciled unto God through Jesus Christ we that are now living were by the same means reconciled unto God For God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself Now if the world that is not this or that man not this or that generation of men but all generations the world of mankind were reconciled unto God when our Apostle wrote this Epistle yea when Christ offered himself upon the Crosse what need is there of any further reconciliation For that which God doth he doth most perfectly most compleatly 3. It is true Our reconciliation was most perfectly most compleatly wrought on Gods part by Christs death upon the Crosse he payed the full price of our Redemption of our reconciliation nothing may or can be added thereto Yet A Reconciliation there is to be wrought on our parts though wrought it cannot be but by the spirit of God and wrought it is not ordinarily but by the ministry of men as Gods Deputies or Embassadors So the Apostle adds ver 19. God hath committed to us to wit his Ministers the word of reconciliation Now then we are Embassadors for Christ as though Christ did beseech you by us we pray you in Christs stead be ye reconciled to God So then God hath reconciled us all unto himself from the hour of Christs death and yet every one of us for his own particular must be reconciled to God by the Ministry of his Embassadors And the efficacy of their Ministry is demonstrated by working true repentance in us The means again by which they work this true repentance must be by representing the Terrour of the Lord or as our Apostle saith Act. 17. 30. by putting them in mind of the last and dreadful day The times of this ignorance to wit of the old world before Christs death God winked at but now commandeth all men every where to repent because he hath appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained whereof he hath given assurance unto all men in that he hath raised him from the dead Thus
which Bad works have to Death and the Want of Title which the Best works have to Life Everlasting is most significantly exprest by St. Paul Rom. 6. 23. The wages of sin is death saith He and wages are merited are never detained without some interruption of the course justice But Eternal Life is not the wages of holiness but the Gift of God And if in any sort it might be deserved or merited the Apostle questionless would have said it had been if not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the wages yet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Reward of Holinesse But in as much as this word Reward sometimes includes Rationem dati something given as well as taken not alwayes a Reward of meer bounty therefore the Apostle doth not say it is the Reward of Holinesse or the Reward of God Nor doth he say it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which properly signifies A Gift for Gifts though freely given in kindness and not by Covenant may be mutual and may include a kind of merit de congruo as we say One Kindnesse requires another like but our Apostle to prevent this conceit of Merit useth a word which in its true and proper signification is incompatible with the conceit of Merit he calleth life eternal 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is as the vulgar Latine renders it Gratia Del the Grace of God CHAP. XXVIII ROMANS 6. 23. But the Gift of God or The Grace of God is Everlasting Life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Whether Charismata Divina that is The Impressions of Gods Eternal Favor may he merited by us Or whether the Second Third Fourth Grace Life Eternal it self may be so About Revival of Merits The Text Heb. 6. 10. God is not unjust c. expounded The Questions about Merits about Justification have the same Issue The Romish Doctrine of Merit derogates from Christs Merits The Question in order to practise or Application stated betwixt God and our own souls Confidence in merit and too Hasty perswasion that we be The Favorites of God Two Rocks God in punishing Godly men respects their former Good Works 1. THe Gift or Grace of God This word Grace is sometimes taken for The Favour of God which in the Greek is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sometimes it implyes the Stamp or Impression of this Favour in us and this in the Greek is exprest by the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 used here by St. Paul That The Favour of God cannot be merite by any works of man is out of Question For it was the Favor or Free Grace of God which gave our First Parents Being which continues their posterity here on earth And neither our first Parents nor any of their posterity could deserve or merit their Being This Favour of God is as he is without Beginning without Change But so is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is the Impression or Effect of this Eternal Favour in us It hath no Being in us before we Be And after it be inherent in us it admits of Alteration or Change in us The Question then is Whether the Effects or Impressions of Gods eternal Favour to us may be deserved or merited by us Or seeing the Degrees or Parts of Grace inherent be many it is Controversed between the Romish Church and us Whether any parts of this Grace can be deserved or merited by us That the First Grace that is The first stamp or impression of Gods Favour towards us cannot be merited by us They grant For the First Grace as some of them say is Fundamentum meriti The Foundation or ground-work of all Merits Et fundamentum meriti non cadit sub merito Every Merit is precedent to the thing merited But there can be no Merit-precedent to the First Grace which is the Root the Ground or Original of all Merits But the Second Third or Fourth Grace or Degrees of Grace may in their divinity be merited through the Virtue or Excellencie of the First Grace or First Degree of Grace so we use that as we should Between the First Degree or Seed of Grace sowen in our hearts by the finger of God and the Full Growth or increase of it there is as Cardinal Bellarmine alleadgeth a True proportion though no Equalitie And therefore there may be some Ground of Merit for the increase of Grace though not for the first beginning of it Indeed if Grace did grow in us as trees or plants do from the first seed without any great care or operation of him that plants them and if it did thus grow without any interruption or default on our parts there might be some pretence for merit or some probabilitie at least that the fruits of Grace so growing should be Ours or so far Ours as we are our selves because we are the soil wherein the first seeds of Grace were sowen But if it be God not we our selves that gives the increase if it be God that sends Paul to plant and Apollos to water the seeds which he hath sowen in us if it be He that made us and not we our selves All the fruits of Grace are his by proprietie not Ours but only so far as he shall suffer us to enjoy them by continuance of the same Gracious Undeserved favour by which he hath made us and by which he sowes the first seeds of Grace in us 2. But Grace being sowen or planted in us by his immediate hand without any Co-operation on our parts non Crescit ecculto velut arbor aevo doth not grow up in us as wel-thriving plants out of their proper seed without ceasing or interruption though by degrees unsensible for sometimes it decreaseth oft-times it suffers many interruptions in its growth by our default or negligence And is it possible that we should deserve or merit the increase or fruits of that Grace whose growth in spring is oft-times blasted or hindred through our negligence or wilfull default This They do not say This in congruity of Reason They cannot say Who deny that Grace once implanted in us cannot be displanted can admit no intercision in its substance or Being however it may admit interruptions in its growth or some decay or waning But the Romish Church with her Advocates willingly grant That Grace truly inherent in men and inherent in such perfect measure as inables them to fulfill the moral Law of God may be utterly lost may be expelled by mortal or deadly sin and yet may be recovered again but lost or expelled it cannot be without the default or negligence without some mortal default or negligence of him who had it in his custody And yet being so lost they hold the like Grace may be gotten again and the Grace so gotten and recovered they call The second Grace and if it be twice lost and so recovered it is The third Grace The Question then is How the second third and fourth Grace is or may be recovered by us whether by way of Merit or
were much better then their present in mercie favour and loving kindnesse 5. But whilst they thus contend for the merit of works done by Grace do they not derogate from the merits of Christ who is the only fountain of all Grace We say They do But They Reply They do not but rather magnifie the merits of Christ more then we do who deny the merits of Saints For Christ as they alledge did not only merit Grace for us but this also that we by Grace might truly Merit Now grace itself and the merit of grace is a more Magnificent Effect of Christs Merits then grace alone Here is a Double Effect of Christs Merits by their Doctrine whereas we admit but a single One. Thus they reply But if the One of those two effects which they imagine or conceive doth derogate more in true construction from the merits of Christ then the supposal or admission of it can add unto them We attribute more unto his merits by the admission of One single Effect only to wit meer grace then they do by acknowledgment of Two to wit grace it self and the merit of grace in us But the more we are to merit by grace for our selves the less measure of merit we leave unto Christ For as that which he merited for us is not ours but his so that which we merit for ourselves is not His but Ours The merit of grace supposeth a Fulnesse or Fountain of grace and Fountain of grace there is no other but Christ himself nor is there any Fulness of grace but in him only For of his fulnesse as the Evangelist saith Iohn 1. 16. we all have received grace for grace that is grace upon Grace Every degree or greater measure of Grace which we receive doth flow alike immediatly from the fulness of this inexhaustible Fountain of Grace without any secondary Fountain or Feeders Grace doth not grow in us as Rivers do which although they have one main spring or fountain yet they grow not to any greatness without the help of secondary Fountains or concurrence of many springs or feeders Grace doth so immediatly come from Christ as the Rivers do from the sea Increase of Grace doth come as immediatly from Christ as the increase of Rivers from rain or as the increase of light in the waxing Moon comes from the Sun 6. The state of this Question concerning The merits of works comes to the same issue with that other Great question concering Justification As whether it be by faith alone or by faith and works The Romish Church grants that we are justified by faith in Christs blood or merits Tanquam per Causam efficientem as by a true efficient Cause seeing all the Grace which we first receive is bestowed upon us for Christs sake But they hold withall that it is the Grace which for Christs sake is bestowed upon us by which we are formally justified that is As water poured into a vessel doth immediatly expell the air which was in it before so the infusion of Grace for the merits of Christ doth expell sin whether Original or actuall out of our souls And this in their Language is The remission of sins for the attaining whereof There needs no imputation of Christs righteousness after Grace be once infused The formall Cause of every thing requires some efficient or Agent for the production or resultance of it but being once produced or existent it excludes the interposition or intervention of any other Cause whatsoever for the production or existence of its formall Effect To produce heat in the water it is impossible without the Agency or Efficiency of fire but the water being made scalding hot by the heat of fire will heat or scald the flesh of of man or other living creature although it be removed from the fire although it work only in its own strength or of the heat inherent in it Thus say the Romanists that grace cannot be produced in us but by the vertue and efficiency of Christs merits but being by them once produced it doth justifie us immediatly by the strength and vertue of it inherent in us and by the same strength and vertue working in us it doth produce its formall effect to wit the increase of grace and lastly eternal life But if this Doctrine of theirs so far as it concerns Justification or the Remission of sins were true then this inconvenience as I have elsewhere shewed would necessarily follow That no man already after this manner justified could say or repeat that Petition in our Lords Prayer Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespasse against us without a mockerie of God or Christ For if our sins be formally remitted by the infusion of grace and if by the infusion of the same grace we be formally justified the only true meaning of this Petition is in true Resolution This Lord makes us such or remit our sins after such a manner that we shall not stand in need of thy remission or forgivenss of them or that we shall not stand in need of the mediation of thine only Son For if they be remitted immediatly by grace so long as this grace endures all mediation is superfluous is impossible This Inconvenience is farther improved by the same Doctrine so far as it concerns the merits of works done in charitie And prophanes those Two other Petitions in the same our Lords Prayer Thy Kingdom come Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven no lesse then their Doctrine of Justification doth that Petition Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespasse against us For if works done by grace or charitie could truly merit eternal life the effect of all the three Petitions should be but this Lord let thy Kingdom of Grace so come unto us Lord let thy will be so done by us here on earth that as we have been long debters unto thee for giving thine only Son to die for our sins and for the purchasing of the First Grace unto us so let us by this grace be inabled to make both Thee and Him debters to us by the merit of this grace and debters in no meaner a sum then the retribution or payment of Eternal Life For if that life can be merited by our works then God doth owe it unto us for our works And if it be due unto us by merit or by debt then it is not as our Apostle hath it in this 23. verse the gift of God or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Original hath it the Grace of God The Apostle might as well have said that Eternal Life was as truly the wages of our righteousness as death is the wages of our sin And so the best Scholars in the Romish Church do grant he might have said What then is the Reason why he did not say so Of this they give us This Reason Inasmuch say they as the First grace by which we merit the Kingdom of heaven is
the Art of Alexander of Macedon to make themselves great I must appeal to God and their own Consciences whether the Demolition of Bishopricks Cathedrals c. was not intended for augmenting Benefices wherewith men in times accounted corrupt lived well contented that they might satisfie the seekings of this present generation But alas What Comfort can it be to this present that the Former Generation was so Bad or to the old ones that the present is so evil Hoc Ithacus There is none that fears God sure not one of those that have erred in their simplicitie but will hast to his prayers That God would graciously please to reconcile amend and forgive both and unite serious and Religious endeavors for the good of our afflicted Church whose very stones are so precious and Dust so beautiful that they deserve our Pitie yea so that if they be not set up again by us they will either be transported to Rome or consummate by Doomsday CHAP. XXXVII The first Sermon upon this Text. ROMANS 2. 1. Therefore Thou art inexcusable O Man whosoever thou art that judgest for wherein thou judgest another thou condemnest thy self for thou that judgest doest the same things From what Premisses The Apostles Conclusion is inferred The Limitation of The Conclusion to the securing of the lawful Magistrate exercising judicature according to his Commission and in matters belonging to his Cognizance David and Ahab judging persons by the Prophets Art feigned did really condemne them-selves The sense of The Major Proposition improved by virtue of the Grammar-Rule concerning Hebrew Participles and by exposition of The phrase How the later Jewes judging the deeds of their Fore fathers did condemn themselves 1. It is not my purpose now to enter a long Dispute with the Anabaptist or other Sectaries which may seem to have help from this Text to oppose Judges and Magistrates Being assured that the Apostle who so warrants and establishes Power exercised by heathens over Christians in the thirteenth Chapter doth not intend the least to disparage it here It will be Task sufficient for me to give the True Extent and Limitation of the Text which says That every one that judgeth another is without Excuse The very First Word of the Text you see doth bear the Stamp or Character of A Conclusion Therefore art thou inexcusable O man Now every Conclusion is a Proposition though every Proposition be not a Conclusion For Every Conclusion is a Proposition inferred from some one or more Propositions more clear Or From which being granted It will necessarily follow The first Question is from what Premisses this Conclusion in my Text is inferred If you peruse the whole Former Chapter it will be hard to find any Proposition with which it hath any necessary Coherence or Dependence we are therefore to look into this second Chapter for the Premisses and to consider that however in Logical or punctual School Disputes the Premisses have alwayes precedence of the Conclusion yet in Rhetorical Civil Moral or Theological discourses The Conclusion is oft-times prefixed to the Premisses or Propositions whence it is inferred And thus it is in this Text. To draw our Apostles meaning into Logical or School-Form We must place his Propositions Thus. Whosoever doth the same things for which he judgeth another is without excuse and doth condemn himself by judging them But Every one that judgeth others doth the same things for which he judgeth them Therefore Every one that judgeth is without excuse and doth condemn himself by Judging them It were a Method breif and plain First to shew the Truth of the Major Secondly the Validity of the Minor But I must according to my intimation given first speak Of The True Extent and right Limitation of the Conclusion 2. The Conclusion you see is Universal Every one whosoever he be that Iudgeth is without Excuse Plea or Apologie But may we hence inferre that all such as exercise Judicature whether Ecclesiastick or Civil are inexcusable Or that the Magistracie established in most Christian Kingdoms is unlawful as questionless it is if all such as exercise Judicature be inexcusable No To teach this were a kind of Heresie The Apostles Conclusion then must be thus farre Limited in Reference to the Parties judging It doth not involve or include All that Iudge others but such as take upon them to judge others being not lawfully thereunto called The Judgment which men lawfully called do Administer is not theirs but the Lords and so far as they exercise his Judgment either in matters Civil or Ecclesiastick they are worthy of Honour no way liable to this Censure of such as iudge others Nor must this Conclusion be extended to Facts or Actions subject to the External Judicature of Courts In respect of such an unrighteous man so he be a Judge lawfully called and constituted may give righteous judgment and whilst he does so he shall not be condemned for judging another who deserves judgment In Foro Exteriore yet will God judge him for not judging himself In Foro Interiore in case he be guilty of such sins as he judges others for and judgeth not himself whilst he judges other mens misdemeanors For a man may be free from Human or Positive Lawes and yet be a more grievous Transgressor of the Law Moral or of the Law of Nature then they are whom he condemns to Death and that deservedly for transgressing Humane positive Laws And such an One is highly obliged to judge himself That so he may by Gods Mercie escape the judgment of God But though this Conclusion do not involve lawful Magistrates moving in their own sphere yet doth it lay hold upon and include them also if they shall be found to exercise judicature in those things which belong not or are not proper to their Cognizance albeit they be in other Cases lawful Judges for in passing beyond their line or exceeding their Commission they put themselves into the number and so into the Condition of those that take upon themselves to judge others having no Authority so to do 3. Again it is not simply Every one that judgeth But every one which does the same things which he condemns in another that is inexcusable or without Plea So the Apostle in the words following seemeth to limit his Conclusion For wherein thou judgest another thou condemnest thy self for thou that judgest doest the same things Now he that doth the same things which he condemneth in another is properly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is Without Apologie Excuse or Plea He that once grants the Premisses or two first Propositions in a Syllogism is by the Law of Disputation presumed to grant the Conclusion The Law of Reason will admit no Negative Plea Much more doth he which pronounceth Sentence against another conclude himself under the same Sentence by doing the same or like Fact which he condemneth in others The Sentence which he pronounceth upon any other in this Case
manner of Gods augmenting the punishments or plagues upon succeeding Generations which would not take warning by the punishments of their fore-fathers usually runs by the scale of seven Every man that seeth me saith Cain after the Lord had convented him for killing his brother will kill me whereas there was not a man in the world besides his father and himself But a mans Conscience as we say is a thousand witnesses And his Conscience did sufficiently convict him to have deserved Execution whereas there was neither Witness nor Executioner According to this Sentence engraven in this murtherous heart did God afterwards enjoyn Noah and gave it in express Commandement under his hand to Moses Whosoever doth shed mans blood by man shall his blood be shed If this Law were Just amongst the Israelites why was it not executed upon Cain the first Malefactor in this kind Nay why doth God expresly exempt him from it and punish him with exile only Doubtless this was from His Gracious Universal Goodness which alwayes threats before it strike offereth favour before he proceed to Judgment and mingleth Judgment with Mercie before he proceed in rigor of Justice Now Cain had no former warning how displeasant murther was to God and therefore is not so severely punished as every murtherer after him must be For so it is said Gen. 4. 15. Whosoever slayeth Cain vengeance shall be taken on him seven-fold Yet for any of Seths Posteritie to have killed murtherous Cain had been a sin in its nature farre less then for Cain to murther his righteous brother yet by Rule of divine Justice to be more greivously punished then Cains murther was because in him they had their Warnings 6. The same Proportion God observes in visiting the sins of Fathers upon their Children So in that Great Covenant of Life and Death made with the Israelites Levit. 26. 14 15 16. After promise of extraordinary blessings to the Observers of his Law the Lord thus threatneth the transgressors But if ye will not hearken unto me and will not do all these Commandements And if ye despise my Statutes or if your soul abhor my Judgments so that ye will not do all my Commandements but that ye break my Covenant I also will do this unto you I will even appoint over you terror consumption c. But if for all this they will not yet turn unto him he will plague them still with the pursuit of their enemies Nay it followeth verse 18 And if ye will not hearken unto me then will I punish you seven times more for your sins and if all this will not reclaim them these later plagues shall be seven times multiplied and this third plague three hundred forty three times greater then the first and the fourth Transgression shall likewise be multiplied by seven So that the same Apostasie or rebellion not amended after so many warnings if we may call the literal meaning to strict Arithmetical Account shall in the end be One thousand one hundred ninety seven times more severely punished then the first But it is likely that a Certain Number was put for an uncertain That the visitation of sins of Fathers upon their Children may be continued seventy Generations even from the first giving of the Law by Moses unto the worlds End is apparent from the verses following Levit. 26. 37. unto This Yet will the Lord still remember the Covenant made with Abraham c. For not putting this Rule or Law of confessing their fathers sins in practise the Children of that Generation which put our Lord and Saviour to death are punished this day with greater hardness of heart then the Scribes and Pharisees were For however They were the very Paterns of Hypocrisie yet had they so much sense or feeling of conscience that they did utterly dislike their Fore-fathers Actions and thought to super-erogate for their Fathers transgressions by erecting the Tombs or garnishing the Sepulchres of the Prophets whom their Fathers had murthered or stoned to death But these modern scattered Jews will not to this day confess their fore-fathers sins nor acknowledge that they did ought amiss in putting to death the Prince of Prophets and Lord of Life And their Fathers sins until they confess them are become their sins and shall be visited upon them To confess the sins of their Fathers according to the intendment or purpose of Gods Law implies an hearty Repentance for them and repentance truly hearty implies not only an Abstinence from the same or like transgressions wherewith their Fathers had provoked Gods wrath but a zealous Desire or Endeavour to glorifie God by constant Practise of the Contrary vertues or works of Piety This Doctrinal Conclusion may easily be inferred from the afore-cited 18. of Ezekiel 7. Sin is more catching then the Pestilence and no marvel if the plagues due for it to the Father in the course or doom of Justice seize on the Son seeing the contagion of sin spreads from the unknown Malefactor to his neighbors from the Fields wherein it is by Passengers committed into the bordering Cities or Villages unless the Attonement be made by Sacrifice and such solemn deprecation of guilt as the Law in this Case appoints Deut. 21. 1 2 c. If one be found slain in the Land which the Lord thy God giveth thee to possesse it lying in the field and it be not known who hath slain him Then thy Elders and Judges shall come forth and shall measure to the Cities which are round about him that is slain And it shall be that the City which is next unto the slain man even the Elders of that City shall take a Heifer which hath not been wrought with and which hath not drawn the yoak And that City shall bring down the Heifer into a rough valley which is neither cared nor sown and shall strike off the Heifers neck there in the valley And the Priests the sons of Levi shall come neer for them the Lord thy God hath chosen to minister unto him and to bless in the name of the Lord and by their word shall every controversie and stroke be tryed And all the Elders of that City that are next to the slain man shall wash their hands over the Heiser that is to be beheaded in the valley And they shall answer and say Our hands have not shed this blood neither have our eyes seen it Be merciful O Lord unto thy people Israel whom thou hast redeemed and lay not innocent blood unto thy People of Israels charge and the blood shall be forgiven them So shalt thou put away the guilt of innocent blood from among you when thou shalt do that which is right in the sight of the Lord. The nearer unto us Actual Transgressors be the more they should provoke our zealous endeavors for performance of contrary duties otherwise Gods Justice will in time over-sway his mercie and plagues first procured by some one or few mens sins will diffuse themselves from the
Questions St. Pauls first Answer to both Questions An Objection against the Answer in point of Charitie The Answer to that Objection A second objection in point of sufficiencie The Answer to this objection Exceptions against the Proof The Exceptions answered Works truly miraculous may have a less share of Gods Power then usual works of nature See this Authors Sermons printed at Oxon. Anno 1637. pag. 39 40. The 2 d Difficultie urged Aquinas his Solution true but impertinent The Authors Solution of the former Difficultie The Corinthian Naturalists second Question The answer to this Question See Book 10. Fol. 3113. The general use of this Doctrine ☜ ☜ Christians should chuse such friends as have share in the First and hopes of the second Resurrection The Atheist's Exception The Naturalist his Demand See Book 10. Fol. 3113. The Naturalist's Objections framed into a Bodie See Chap. 13. §. 11. It is the very nature of the Matter not to be unum idem The Answer to the Naturalist his Objections * See the Epistle of the Churches of Vienna and Lyons to the Brethren of Asia and Phrygia in Euseb Hist 5. book 1. chap. ad finem There is much good moralitie to be learned from the contemplating the mixtures and separation of metals The Atheists wilie but not wise Objection against the possibilitie of a Resurrection by Recollection of Reliques The same Objection re-inforced The Atheists Objection answered It hath Two Loops First Loop The Second Loop of the Atheists Objection An Ocular Demonstration that the Atheists principles or supposals be False ☜ The scruple incident into an ingenuous minde Vide Glossam Hugonem in hunc Locum How S. Pauls inferences may be collected A Philosophical Maxim advanced and much improved ☞ ☜ See Chap. 4. §. 12. Christs death said to take away sin in a Twofold Sense The First The second Sense The Benefits punctually arising from Christs Death and from His Resurrection Had Christ only died and not risen again Though we had not come in Hell yet we had never come out of the Grave Two sorts of First fruits appointed by the Law ☞ See Paragraph the 7th How we may try our selves See Book 10. Chapt. 28. 30. The Model or Scope of the whole Chapter Of death to sin A natural and a civil death Death to sin is vowed by us in Baptism Meanes also of dying to sin received in baptisme Of baptismall Grace Difference betwixt the Elect and the Elect people of God ☞ In Baptism there is a mutual Astipulation or promise between God and man Ceremonies used at Baptism and the meaning thereof The Regiment of the Law of Grace Prospers Observation ☜ Of shame what it is and whence arising See Aristotle Rhet. l. 2. cap. 6 Ethic. Nic. lib. 4. cap. 15. Satan's Stales false honor and false shame Shame and Modesty ☞ ☜ Our service is due to God upon several Titles ☞ The service of sin and Righteousness compared in regard of this present Life See Chapter the tenth The emptiness and vanitie of sinful pleasures ☞ Gods Method and Satans practise ☞ Holiness bitter in the root or beginning but sweet in the Fruit. See A. Gellius lib. 16. cap. 1. ☞ Our fruitlesness in Holiness to be imputed only to our own ill use of the Talent of Grace given us Plin Epist lib. 10. Ep. 97. Three Heads of preparation to the holy Sacrament Of Bodily Death or the First Death ☜ Desire of death or self Homicide ☜ Of the second Death wherein it exceeds the First ☞ A double Reason of the vehemency of pain or torment in the second death ☞ The duration or Eternity of the second death and pains of it See M Mede on Pro. 21. 16 of the valley of Rephaim Poena damni Sensus Terms subordinate ☜ See Chap. 4 § 15 And Attrib 1 part p 219. 2 part p 27. See Chapt 4 § 12. Possibilitie repentance Worm of conscience Coel Rodigin lib. 8. cap. 2. lib. 25. cap. 1 The unsatisfaction of our desires in the Contentments of this present life See Book 10. Chap. 17. The hearts desire is True Happiness The Full satisfaction of all senses and Faculties in the Life to come Hippocrates See Book 10. Chap. 9 Accidental joyes The Beauteous Place The Holy Companie First in regard of the Place or Seat of the blessed ☜ In regard of the Company there The Eight Beatitudes Matth. 5. The first Beatitude Poor in Spirit ☜ Second Beatitude for Mourners The third Beatitude to the meek spirited ones See chapt 11. §. 7. The fourth Beatitude to Those that hunger and thirst after righteousness 5. Beatitude to the merciful See Master Medes notion of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 upon Psal 112. 6. 6. Beatitude to the Pure in heart 7. Beatitude to the Peace-makers Patience and resolution in suffering for righteousness Eternal life the strongest motive and obligation to all duty ☜ See Chapt. 10. Section 7. 1 Cor. 10. See Book 10. Chap. 21. The motives Satan uses to to withdraw us ☞ ☜ The Philosophical Precept Sustine et abstine imperfectly good Belief of this Article will work obedience Of reconciliation Active or Grammatically passive only reconciliation really passive See Book 10. Fol. 3267 and 3278. ☞ Infidels of two sorts Cardanus◠Two Roots of Errors ☞ Unbelief of this Article cause of unchristian careless life ☜ The Story of Biblis ☞ See the Chapt. 20. Motives from meditation of eternal death according to general or more particular tasts of it Parisiensis his storie ☜ ☞ A seasonable lesson collected out of Job 21. Isai 14. Ecclus. 19. Rev. 18. 5 6 7. Meditations of the second death to be fitted to several parts of the body of sin for the mortifying of it ☞ Aristotle ☞ See Chap. 10. § 9 10. ☜ Avoid here the presumptuous perswasion of certain salvation and the conceit of Absolute reprobation See Book 10. Chap. 37. 51. ☞ Purge our Braines of The Erroneous Opinion of the Irrespective Decree Meditations or a Tast of Eternal death here fits us better for a tast of eternal life hereafter The force which the Tast of experienced pleasures hath upon mens souls See Book 10. fol. 3181. The Tast or true rellish of eternal joys how gained The use of affliction to that purpose That Tast is the peace of conscience and joy in the holy Ghost to which the working of righteousness is necessary The work of righteousness universal obedience The use of affliction or chastisement to that purpose ☞ ☜ How the Peace of God passeth all understanding This was written thirtie years ago or more The Tumult and discord of Passions in a natural man See Book 10. Fol. 3056. See Hor. Serm. Lib. 2. Sat. 7. See Pers Sat. 5. Of joy in the Holy Ghost No man can truly enjoy himself until he be reconciled to God The Difference betwixt Joy and gladness True knowledge of God in Christ necessary to this joy A joy in the knowledge of any sort
meer instinct of nature or would be as far to seek if he were put to give the true reason of it as the poor Pilgrim in the Fable was who being kindly entertained by a Satyr which had found him blowing his fingers for extremity of cold in the woods was unkindly thrust out of his house only for seeking to cool his broth with the same breath wherewith he had warmed his fingers 4. But in what practises or resolutions in the heathen was this divine truth of a Judgment after this life necessarily included The particulars are many but most of them may be reduced unto this General As many of the heathens as either esteemed the love of virtue honestie or godliness more dear then this mortal life with its appurtenances temporal or as many of them as did abhorre the practise of any villani or impietie more than death whatsoever they themselves did expresly say or think concerning this Article of Final Judgment in particular did by these practises or resolutions give authentick testimony unto it Now that virtue or honesty were to be more esteemed then this mortal life with all the commodities of it the most part of heathen Philosophers besides the Sect of Epicures did grant and maintain The Stoicks went further in the esteem of moral virtue then any wise Christian will do in practise then any good Christian ought to do in opinion but of their errors or Hyperboles anon Aristotle the Prince of Philosophers grants that there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that some things be absolutely good so good that a man ought to love them more than life or rather to abandon life than their practise Some things again he grants absolutely evil So evil that a man ought rather to chuse death then adventure upon them such are Treason against our native Country Incest Perjury c. This great Philosopher in expresly granting thus much is necessarily concluded by his own Principles to grant a life after this life ended much better then this and a death or an estate of life much worse than death to such as have lived and died dishonestly Nor is he thus far concluded onely by his own Principles but by the very Principles of Nature whose chief Secretary he was For every thing that hath Being doth by an indispensable Law of nature desire the continuance of such Being as it hath but most of all of its Well-being or bettering of its present estate Now if mans hopes or fears were terminated in this life as needs they must with this life be terminated unless we grant a Judgment after death or an award of the evils which men fear or of the good things which they hope every man were bound in reason and by nature to seek the preservation or continuance of his own life before all things in the world besides Nothing were to be esteemed worse then a bodily death nothing so good as continuation of bodily life with health and competency Much better it were to be a part of this visible world then utterly not to Be. To avoid or put off this utter not-Being so long as were possible no devise could be dishonest no practise amiss We do not blame bruit beasts for making what shift they can for maintaining or saving their lives no means which they can use to this end onely are by us accounted foul for as we say they do but follow kind or do as nature directs them But what is the reason why in thus doing they do not amiss nor deserve blame Because nothing can be so ill to them as death nothing so good as life But for a Man to transform himself into a Beast or to continue beastly or filthy practices for continuance or preservation of his bodily life this the very Heathens did detest as unnatural base and odious What was the reason they saw by light of nature that man had better hopes then beasts are capable of as it were wrapped up for him in the constant practice of honesty and vertue and was capable withal of greater evil which might accrew from a dishonest and filthy life then any evil that is incident to the nature of beasts yet did not that Good which good men did aim at either in practice of virtue or by declining vice always betide them in this life in the Judgement of most Heathen 5. Two things there were which most later Heathens not the Stoicks onely did highly extol in Regulus the one That he did prefer the love of his Countrie before the contentments of this life which he might have enjoyed in plenteous manner The other That he did prefer a lingring and cruel death before the stain or guilt of perjury For being in hold or durance amongst the Carthaginians he was remitted to Rome upon oath That if he did not effect what they had given him in charge to treat for he should return again to Carthage and undergo such punishment as they should think fit to inflict It was in his power to have effected with the Romans that which the Carthaginians did desire but he would not use his power to perswade but rather to disswade the Romans from condescending to their enemies desire because he saw it would be prejudicial to their Commonweal and posterity though advantageous to him in particular But he accounted it rather loss then gain as well to himself as to the Roman State to save the life though of some worthy Peer as he was by breach of Oath or Perjury and in this resolution he returned unto the Carthaginians although he knew they resolved to put him to cruel and lingring torture The Observation upon this resolution of Regulus which will generally serve for all the like by what Heathen soever practised or commended is briefly This No humane practise or resolution can be truly commendable but onely so far as it helps to make the Practitioner a better man then he was before or could continue to be without such practise Was Regulus then a better man by this practise then without it he could have been Or did it truly propagate or continue that goodness which before he had If he by doing this did not continue his former goodness or become a better man his commendations are unjust the Fact it self was not truly commendable was no argument either of reason or wit in the Practiser or of honesty in the Resolution If by this Resolution he became a better man then before he was or without it could have been somewhat of Regulus did after the accomplishment of this fact remain to receive the due reward of this Resolution as either his soul his body or both For every real Accident or Attribute necessarily supposeth a real subject to support it and if no better doom had been reserved for Regulus then that which the Carthaginians his chief Judges on earth did award him he could not possibly either have continued or bettered his well-being by undertaking it it was altogether impossible for him to
indeed would directly follow He that is able to make men live again that have been dead for a thousand years is also able to quicken the corn in the next month which died the last month This kind of Argument would be as clear as if you should say That he that is able to make ready payment of a thousand pounds may soon and easily pay an hundred But you would take it as an impertinent or indiscreet allegation to say I know this man is able to pay you an hundred pounds therefore I would perswade you to take his bond for a thousand But our Apostles Argument in this place may seem less probable and it is at least to appearance but Thus God dayly raiseth up corn within a year after it is sowen Ergo he shall raise up Adams body which was consumed to dust five thousand years ago 6. To frame the Apostles Argument which is an Argument of Proportion aright you must take his Principles or grounds into your consideration Now he first supposeth and takes it as all good Christians ought to do for granted that God doth give that body unto every seed with which it ariseth or cometh out of the ground The increase of things sown or planted is not in his Language or Philosophie the meer Effect or gift of Nature For even Nature her self or whatsoever she hath to bestow is the gift of God That which Philosophers call Nature is in true Divinity nothing else but The Law which God hath set to things natural or subject to change or motion Now he which made this Law whether for guiding bodies sublunary or celestial can dispense with it at his pleasure He sometimes inhibits the ordinary course of the Law of Nature by substraction as it were of his Royal Assent or by suspending the concurrence of his Operative Power And sometimes again he advanceth the state of things natural by creating or making a New Law unto the manner of their Being or of their Operations that is he changeth their Qualities though not their Natures or Essences Thus much presupposed or premised our Apostles Inference is as firm and strong as it is Emphatical Stulte Tu quod Seminas O Fool that which THOU sowest is not quickened except it die c. The force or Emphasis may be gathered thus If God doth give a body unto that seed which thou sowest for thine own use and benefit much more will the same God give a body to The Seed which He Himself doth sow much more will he quicken it after it hath been dead seeing the End why he sowes it is not thy temporal benefit or commodity but His Own immortal glory When God did enact that severe Law from which death natural takes its original Dust thou art and to dust thou shalt return the Intent or purport of that Law was not that man by returning to dust should utterly or finally perish and be for ever as if he never had been What then was the intent or purport of this Law That mans body should be committed unto the earth as seed is committed to the ground that as the corn which springs out of the earth returns to earth again and is still raised up with advantage and increase unto the Sower So the bodies of men after that by the first mans folly they became corruptible and certain to suffer corruption whether in the earth in the air or in the Sea might be raised again but not to corruption that God may receive the seed which is sown with increase of Glory to himself this increase of Glorie being rooted in the increase of their happiness by whose immortalitie he is immediately glorified Thus much of the former difficulty to wit how our Apostles Instance or experiment in the work of nature doth infer his intended Conclusion to wit the future Resurrection from the dead And from the Solution of this Former the Second may easily be assoyled 7. The second Difficulty was How this Instance or Experiment of the Corn dying and being quickened again can fit or parallel the Resurrection of the body seeing the Corn which is quickened or springeth up is not The same body which was sown Whereas it is a Point of our Belief that the same numerical bodies which die and return to dust or are resolved into ashes or into the Elements of which they consist shall be raised up at the last day For if The Body raised up were not the self same that died the Body which died should not be parttaker either of pain or joy everlasting but another Bodie should be tormented or glorified instead of the Body which died Every man should not receive reward or punishment according to that which he had done in the body or at least this reward or punishment should not be received in the same Body in whhic he had done ill or well Aquinas a Great School-man in his time labours to assoyl the proposed Difficultie by framing the Apostles Argument Thus. If Nature can repair that which dies Idem Specie that is If Nature can make it to be of the same Kind it was though not the same numerical body it was as he that sows Wheat reaps Wheat not Rie or Barley though not the self same grains of Wheat which he sows Then The God of nature and Creator of all things shall raise up the bodies of men which are his seed and proper husbandry the very self same which they were not the self same for kind or specifical Unity but the same Individuals Of all the bodies which have died not one shall miscarry not so much as a hair of any mans head or any least part of his body shall finally perish But though all this be True yet is it Impertinent it fals not within the compass of our Apostles Inference in this place who neither affirms nor denies nor took it so much as into his consideration whether the Corn which springs up be the same Individual Nature or substance which did putrifie and die in the ground The utmost Circumference of his considerations or thoughts extends no further then thus That the Body which God doth give to every seed is not for qualitie the same which was sown for it was sown Bare Corn without blade husk or ear and loseth that corpulencie or quantitie which it had But it springs not up bare Corn. The new life which it gets in the womb of the earth is cloathed with a fresh body capable of nourishment and growth of both which it was uncapable whilst it was severed from the ear wherein it grew or after the stalk was cut down And This Change or alteration in the Corn sown and springing up doth well fit the Change or alteration which shall be wrought in our Bodies at the Resurrection or last day Our bodies by death become more uncapable of nourishment then the corn severed from the ear or cut down for they are utterly deprived of life of sense of
of them are but Unprofitable servants 2. It was free then for God to create or not to create man but as it was his pleasure to create him so it was necessary that man being created by him he should be created good and righteous Suppose then the First man had continued in his First Estate that is righteous and good his righteousness could have merited nothing of God much lesse Eternal Life It was as free to God to have annihilated him or to have resolved him into nothing as it was to make him of nothing Indeed to have punished him with everlasting death unlesse he had wilfully and through his own default lost his Orginal righteousness could not have stood with the righteousness or goodness of God There was a morall necessity that his Creator should not punish him with everlasting death unlesse he had transgressed his Law and made himself unworthy of everlasting life But the First Man did wilfully and freely that is without any necessity transgresse the Law of his God and make himself and his posteritie unworthy of eternal life That God upon this transgression did not instantly punish him with everlasting death this was An Act of the Free Grace and mercy of God thus he might have done without any impeachment to his Justice without any disparagement to his Goodnesse That unto man thus ill deserving he made A Promise of Redemption and of Restitution to a better Estate then he lost this was An Act of his Mercie and gracious goodness a more Free Act then his first Creation For that was not deserved and therefore Free But not so Free as the Promise of his Redemption after he had justly deserved the contrary to wit condemnation unto everlasting death But this Promise of Redemption through the Womans Seed being freely made is not the performance of it on Gods part necessary Is he not bound by promise to bestow his Grace on all them to whom he promised Redemption Though he be Debter unto no man yet he is Faithful in himself and cannot deny himself or not perform what he hath promised It is true if the parties to whom he promiseth do so demean themselves as they should or as by the Second Covenant they stand bound But who is he can make this Plea with God Who is he that can truly say there was any necessity at that time when the promise was made to our first Parents in the Womans Seed that he should be begotten or born or that he was such a child of promise from the time of Adams Fall as Isaac was And if there were no necessity then that he should be born what necessity is there that he should be partaker of Grace after he is born Or what necessity is there that after the Grace of Baptism received he should come to be of the number of the Elect No man can plead any worth or merit in himself for the receiving of Grace or any necessity whereby God is tyed by promise or otherwise to bestow Grace or perseverance in Grace upon him in particular These and the like Favours must still be sought for by the Prayer of Faith that is by unfeigned acknowledgement of our own unworthinesse and of Gods Free Mercie not only in making the First Decree concerning mans Redemption but in continual dispensing the Effects of the same Decree or the means of our Salvation This is the only way To lay hold upon the General Promise 3. It was no Contradiction in Cardinal Bellarmine as some conceive it after he had strongly disputed for Merit of Works thus to conclude Tutissimum est It is the safest way to place our Confidence in the Merits of Christ This Resolution of his will truly inferre that albeit the Question concerning Merits were doubtful yet we Protestants take the more useful and safer way and the way which Cardinal Bellarmine himself in his Devotions and as I hope on his death bed did take Yet admit his Doctrine concerning Merits had been true indefinitely taken There had been no Contradiction between his Premisses and Conclusion For many things which are unquestionable in Thesi or in the General are doubtful or vncertain in Hypothesi when we come to make particular Application This Doctrine is most true in Thesi That God is faithful in all his promises that he cannot deny himself or falsifie his promise Yet is it not safe for Thee or Me thus to infer that God cannot deny eternal life to us in particular because he hath promised it as sincerely to Thee or Me as to any others The absolute and unchangeable Fidelity of God will not inferre how strongly soever we believe it That either Thou or I are faithful for the present or shall continue faithfull unto the End or until our finall victory over the divel the world and the flesh which is the True Importance of this Phrase To the End in many places of Scripture Now Gods promise of eternal Life is not immediately terminated To any mans Person or Individual Entity but unto such as continue faithful unto the End or unto such as overcome as you may observe in many places of Scripture especially in the second and third Chapters of The Revelation of St. John Now it is a great deal more easie for a man to assure himself that he is faithful for the present or victorious in respect of instant temptations then to assure himself that he shall continue victorious in respect of temptations that may befal him And yet in respect of the deceitfulness of our own hearts it is not safe for most men to make it as an Article of their Faith or point of Absolute Belief that they are so faithful for the present as that God cannot deny Eternal Life unto them though not in respect of their Merits yet in respect of his Promise if they should instantly depart this life So that such as have as full and perfect Interest in the Promises of God as others have may forfeit their Interest as well by Immature Perswasions or Presumptions that they are of the number of the Elect as by conceit of Merit or Confidence in works Both perswasions are dangerous because both prejudice the Free Mercie and Grace of God in bestowing eternal Life or in dispensing the means required unto it The Romish Church saith it was Free for God to give us Grace or ability to do the works of Grace or not to give it but this Grace being Freely given and the works performed it is not Free but Necessary in respect of Gods Justice to give eternal Life as the Reward of Works Others opposite enough to the Papists say that it was Free for God to Elect or not to Elect us unto eternal Life but being Elected it is not Free for God to deny eternal Life unto us For this in their language were to deny himself or falsifie his promise Yet by their leave If we were thus Elected from Eternity it was never Free
servant Mat. 18. 23. We are in many respects bound most strictly to render unto God himself according to his reward It was Hezekiahs sin that he did not so 2 Chro. 32. 24 First because he hath prevented us with his blessings he gave us Being before we could desire it and with it He gave us a desire of continuing it Secondly he gave it Us of his meer freewill and abundant kindness And therefore in all equitie we are bound First to render what possibly we can unto Him and that with greater alacritie and cheerfulness then unto man for his sake as Reason teacheth us to perform our personal duties and services to our Parents Patrons and Benefactors with greater care and forwardness then such offices as for their sakes we owe to their Followers or Favorites Hence may we descry the equitie of those two main Commandments on which the whole Law and Prophets depend Love God above all and thy neighbor as thy self All the services of worship of praise thankfulness or the like which we return immediately to God himself belong unto the First Table All the duties we perform to men either because we have received or could desire like kindness from them or because we expect some greater matters from God belong unto the second Table It remains we see how this Rule doth direct our thoughts for the true practice of every particular Commandment What I omitt your own meditation may easily supply 8. None of us as in charity I presume is so ignorant of God or his Goodness but often prayes that he would continue his blessings of life and health unto us desiring withall that he would do some other good unto us which yet we want Could we in the next place take a perfect measure of our own desires of what we want whilst they are fresh and at the height and withall duly weigh those Blessings of life and health considering the full and sole dependence they have on the good-wil and pleasure of our God the strength of the one and weight of the other could not but impell and sway our minds to performance of such duties towards God as his Law and this Rule of Reason require These are good Beginnings of such performances as this Rule requires But here we usually commit a double oversight First We do not weigh blessings received as duly and truly as we should For who is he that truly considers what life is till he come in danger of death Or how pleasant health is till he be pained with some grievous sickness wound or other maladie Or if we come by such occasions duly to esteem of life and health or other blessings already injoyed or to take a true measure of our desires of what we want whilst they are fresh and at the height yet either we apprehend not or we consider not what absolute and intire dependance the beginning or continuance of benefits received or the compleating of others desired have on the good-will and pleasure of our God We think we are in part beholden to our Parents for our Life to our Physician to our strength of nature or good diet for recovery of health to our own wit or friends for obtaining such things as we desire These or like conceits arising from ignorance of Gods providence or want of faith in his Goodness are as so many props or stayes that hinder the weight of his best Blessings or the strength of our desires of further good to have their full shock upon our souls and minds Otherwise the true consideration or feeling of their dependence on Gods will and pleasure would sway and impel us to do our duty to him with the same alacritie we desire good from him to love him with all our heart with all our souls with all our strength yea we would be as desirous to do his will and pleasure as we are to obtain the things that please us as unwilling any way to displease him as we are to forgo any thing we have from him As willing to consecrate our lives and actions to his service as we are to injoy life and use of limbs If a Land-lord should command his Tenant at will to do him such a business perhaps to go some errand of importance for him or else he should go without his Tenement but promise him a better if he did it faithfully The sweetness as well of what he injoyed as of the Reward he looked for would disperse it self throughout his thoughts and season his labour with chearfulness and make all his very pains sweet unto him But if he had lately received an Estate for Lives and could not hope for any further good shortly to come from him although perhaps he would do what his Lord bad him least he should be upbraided with unthankfulness Yet his service would but be faint and cold in respect of the former like his that wrought as we say for the dead Horse This may serve to set forth the difference betwixt the faithful or true believers and the unfaithful or unbelievers heart in the performance of this great Commandment The unbeliever although he acknowledge in some sort That he received all he hath and must expect all he hopes for from God and in this respect must do what God commands yet if at any time he do his Will it is without all Devotion or Chearfulness partly because he thinks the Blessings he looks for must be gotten by his own indeavor and such as he hath have been improved by his own good husbandrie nor doth he fear that the Lord should dispossess him of life or health but there will be time enough to gain or renue his Favour before his Lease as he takes it of life of health and prosperitie be run out The faithful man stedfastly believes and knows that God is the Lord and giver of life that he kils and makes alive that he wounds and alone makes whole that we have no hold of either but only during the Term of his Will and Pleasure he firmly believes all the threatnings of his Law as that either God will punish sinners with sudden and unexpected death saying unto them as he did unto the rich man in the Gospel Thou Fool this night shall thy soul be taken from thee or else suffers them to injoy life and health and other Blessings to their greater condemnation He believes likewise all his promises to the righteous to such as do his will Whence as well the Goodness of all the Blessings he injoyes life health wealth and estate as of those which he hopes for whether in this life or in the life to come do as it were provoke a desire in him of worshipping God and doing his will equal at least to his desire of either having present blessings continued or greater bestowed upon him His joy in praysing God and keeping his Laws is greater then in the injoying of life of his soul his strength or other endowments His life is
lives or consecrate our selves to his honor and service to offer our selves in sacrifice to him when he requires not only in remembrance of what he hath done for us which we would not for ten thousand lives but he had done but in respect of Future Hopes which it were better we had never been then they should not be accomplished We look he should in the last day acquit us from the accusations of Satan the great Accuser and in the mean time give Testimonie of us as his faithful servants to his Father The dutie which we owe to Him is in this life to be witnesses of the truth he taught to testifie unto the world that he hath appeared by our lives and conversations answerable to His by our readiness to suffer povertie exile disagrace or ignominious death for defence of His Lawes to fear him whether in life or death 12. To every thing we can desire of God there is A semblable Dutie to be performed by us without whose performance we cannot pray to Him in Faith To pray in Faith is to be so surely perswaded of Gods Benignitie as to be ready to render up all that he requires of us to abstain from those things which we know to be offensive to him especially from such as have any particular repugnance to that we seek If we expect God should provide for us as for his children we must honor and reverence Him as an Almighty and everlasting Father If we desire he should protect us we must fear him as our Greatest Lord. A son honoureth his Father and a servant his master If I then be a Father where is my Honor and if I be a master where is my fear saith the Lord of Hosts unto you Mal. 1. 6. If ye offer the blind for sacrifice is it not evil and if ye offer the lame and sick is it not evil offer it now unto thy Prince will he be content with thee or accept thy person saith the Lord of Hostes and now I pray you pray before God that he may have mercy upon us This hath been by your means will he regard your persons saith the Lord of Hosts No! they did not pray in Faith For so to pray presupposeth a fidelitie in the discharge of duties appointed for their calling God for his part never changeth I am the Lord I change not Mal. 3. 6. As if he had said This is my nature and essence to be immutable And therefore Ye Sons of Jacob are not consumed For so they had been unless his mercies had continued the same But to do them that good they desired or to deal as graciously with them as he had done with their fathers he could not if with Reverence I may so speak because of their infidelitie or unbelief for which cause the Evangelist saith Christ could not work many miracles amongst His Countrymen Matth. 13. 58. From the dayes of your Fathers you are gone away from mine Ordinances and have not kept them Now there must needs have been a Change in God if he had dealt as bountifully with this back-sliding Generation as with their Godly Predecessors that had been sted fast in his Covenant But let them be as their fathers were and He will be to them as he was to their Fathers For he is no accepter of persons but rewardeth every one according to his works Wherefore he saith Return unto me and I will return unto you ver 7. But they were so far from returning that they would scarce acknowledge their sin For they said wherein shall we return They should have done unto their God accordingly as they desired he should do to them They desired the Lord should blesse them as Moses had spoken In the City and in the field in the fruit of their bodies and in the fruit of their grounds in the fruit of their cattel and in the increase of their kine and in the flocks of their sheep Deut. 28. 4. But God at this time had done to them in some fort as they had done to him They had robbed him in tithes and offrings ver 8. Therefore were they oursed with a curse ver 9. Notwithstanding if they would deal better with him he assures them he will deal better with them Bring ye all the Tithes into the Storehouse that there may be meat in mine house and prove me herewith saith the Lord of Hostes if I will not open the windows of Heaven unto you and pour you out a Blessing without measure And I will rebuke the Devourer for your sakes and he shall not devour the fruit of your ground neither shall the Vine be barren in the field saith the Lord of Hosts And all Nations shall call you blessed saith the Lord of Hosts As he that had wrong'd his brother was the forwarder to repine against Moses so the words of such in this people as had most robbed and spoiled God were most stout against him They said It was in vain to serve God And what profit is it that we have kept his Commandments And that we have walked humbly before the Lord of Hosts Therefore they accounted the proud blessed even they that work wickednesse are set up and they that tempt God yea they are delivered It is not likely that they would thus speak with their mouthes for so they should have had no occasion to demand as they did V. 13. What have we spoken against thee But that they thought in their hearts That God did not respect them according to their deserts or that his Bounty had not been so great to them as to their Fathers If they said not they thought with Gideon Ah my Lord if the Lord be with us why then is all this come upon us and where be his miracles which our Fathers have told us and said did not the Lord bring us out of Egypt But now the Lord hath forsaken us and delivered us into the hand of the Medianites He thought this Change was in God not in himself or in his Countrymen As most men at this day think that God is not as ready to hear our prayers as he was to hear the Israelites or the Fathers in the primitive Church When as the reason why he hears them not is because we are not so ready to do His will If we perform any obedience to his Laws it is for the most part such as those murmurers did we offer unto him either the vile or the lame or else but half that which is due and yet perswade our selves we deal bountifully with him too In Fine we do so much as serves to ground a Pharisaical conceit of our selves not so much or not so sincerely as may induce Our God who knows our hearts to think well of us We do not so to him as we desire he should do to us for we desire that he should bless us above the ordinary means of humane forecast or procurement but we adventure not any practice injoyned by him
Rule of Gods Justice to make some feel his mercie and kindness before they seek it that others may not dispere of finding it he having assured all by an eternal Promise That seeking they shall find and that they which hunger and thirst after righteousnesse shall be satisfied 10. The second Suspition or Imputation is That this Doctrin may too much favour Free-will In Brief we answer There have been Two Extremities in Opinions continually followed by the two main Factions of the Christian world The One That God hath so decreed all things as that it is impossible ought should have been that hath not been or not to have been which hath been This was the Opinion of the Antient Stoicks which attributed all Events to Fate and it is no way mitigated but rather improved by referring this absolute Necessity not to second Causes or Nature but to the Omnipotent Power of the God of Nature This was refuted in our last Meditations because it makes God the sole Author of every sin The Second Extremity is That in man before his Conversion by Grace there is a freedome or abtliment to do that which is pleasant and acceptable unto God or an activity to work his own Conversion This was the Error of the Pelagians and is in part communicated to the modern Papists who hold a mean indeed but a false one betwixt the Pelagians and the Stoicks The true Mean from which these Extremities swerve may be comprized in these two Propositions The One Negative In Man after Adams Fall there is no Freedom of will or ability to do any thing not deserving Gods wrath or Just indignation The Other Affirmative There is in man after his Fall a possibility left of doing or not doing some things which being done or not done he becomes passively capable of Gods mercies doing or not doing the contrary he is excluded from mercie and remaines a vessel of wrath for his Justice to work upon For whether a man wil call this Contingencie in humane actions not a possibility of doing or not doing but rather a possibility of acknowledging our infirmities or absolute impotencie of doing any thing belonging or tending to our salvation I will not contend with him Only of this I rest perswaded That all the Exhortations of Prophets Apostles to work humilitie and true repentance in their Auditors suppose a possibility of Humiliation and Repentance a Possibility likewise of acknowledging and considering our own impotencie and misery a Possibility likewise of conceiving some desire not meerly brutish of our redemption or deliverance Our Saviour ye know required not only a desire of health of sight of speech in all those whom he healed restored to sight or made to speak but withal a kind of natural belief or conceit that he was able to effect what they desired Hence saith the Evangelist Mark 6. 5. Matth. 13. 58. He could not do many miracles among them because of their unbelief Yet Christ alone wrought the Miracles the parties cured were mere Patients no way Agents And such as solicited their cause in Case of absence at the best were but By-standers Now no man I think will deny that Christ by the Power of his Godhead could have given sight 〈◊〉 or health to the most obstinate and perverse yet by the Rule of his divine Goodnesse he could not cast his Pearles before swine Most true it is that we are altogether dead to life spiritual unable to speak or think much less to desire it as we should yet Belief and Reason moral and natural survive and may with Martha and Mary beseech Christ to raise their dead brother who cannot speak for himself 11. The third Objection will rather be preferred in Table-talk then seriously urged in solemne Dispute If God so earnestly desire or will the life and safetie of such as perish his will should not alwayes be done Why Dare any man living say or think that he alwayes doth whatsoever God would have him do So doubtlesse he should never sin or offend his God For never was there woman so wilful or man so mad as to be offended with ought that wen◠not against their present will nor was there ever or possible can be any breach of any Law unlesse the will of the Law-giver be broken thwarted or contradicted for he that leaves the Letter and followes the true meaning of the Law-givers will doth not transgresse the Law but observes it And unlesse Gods will had been set upon the salvation of such as perish they had not offended but rather pleased him by running headlong in the waies of death Yet in a good sense it is alwayes most true That Gods will is alwaies fulfilled We are therefore to consider That God may will some things Absolutely others Disjunctively or that some things should fall out necessarily others not at all or contingently The particulars which God absolutely wils or which he wills should fall out necessarily must of necessitie come to pass otherwise his Will could in no case be truly said to be fulfilled As unlesse the Leper to whom it was said by our Saviour I will be thou clean had been cleansed Gods Will manifested in these words had been utterly broken But if every particular which he wills disjunctively or which he wills should be contingent did of necessitie come to passe his whole Will should utterly be defeated For his Will as we suppose in this Case is that neither this nor that particular should be necessarie but that either they should not be or be contingent And if any particular comprized within the latitude of this Contingencie with its consequent come to passe his Will is truly and perfectly fulfilled As for Example God tells the Israelites that by observing of his Commandments they should live and die by transgressing them Whether therefore they live by the one meanes or dye by the other his Will is necessarily fulfilled because it was not that they should necessarily observe his Commandments or transgresse them But to their transgressions though Contingent death was the necessary Doome So was life the absolute necessarie Reward of their Contingent observing them 12. But the Lord hath sworn That he delights not in the death of him that dieth but in his repentance If then he never repent Gods delight or good pleasure is not alwayes fulfilled because he delights in the one of these not in the other How then shall it be true which is written God doth whatsoever pleaseth him in heaven and earth if he make not sinners repent in whose repentance he is better pleased then in their death But unto this Difficultie the former Answer may be rightly fitted Gods Delight or good Pleasure may be done Two Waies either by us or upon us In the former place it is set upon our repentance or obsequiousness to his Will For this is that service whereto by his Goodness he ordained us But if we cross his Good Will or pleasure