his bodily life were many For his body became mortal subject to weariness infirmities languishing hunger thirst diseases grievous pangs and torments and monstrous deformities and of it self by little and little mouldred into dust Besides He was exposed to nakednesse cold heat lightening thunderbolts stings of Serpents rage of wild beast unmercifull and cruel murderers treacheries assassinations exquisite tortures and many other accidents destructive of his life which was every moment and in every place in danger to be cut off from without Besides the principles of mortality were alwayes within his body And the danger was the greater because he had lost the Ministery Guardiance and direction of Angels and was deprived of the speciall care and providence of his Lord and maker the Heavens above him were made like iron or brasse and either denied their light and influence or powred down stormes and terrified him with fiery Meteors and strange prodigious Comets or apparitions The earth was cursed barâ—en or fruitfull in proâ—â—cing unprofitable Weeds ingendring Toads Serpents and Pestilent Vermine and other creatures to consume fruites And the best soyl refused to give him bread without sweat labour care and both Heaven and Earth did often threaten him with hunger thirst and so with famine If the Earth and Heaven too did favour him so that through Gods Blessing and his industry they both promised a plentiful harvest and return yet it was subject to many casualties before it could be reaped and inned as to blasting mildew peâ—iâ—ential ayr inundatious fire Locusts Caterpillars and several sorts of worms and devouring Creatures which threaten death to man and beast If the fruits of the earth were layd up in his barnes and store-houses yet they were in danger If his house was furnished and his treasuries stored with rich and precious goods yet he was in peril of thieves Oppressours plunderers by Land and his Merchandise by Sea of Pirats and merciles enemies Neither could the Liberty of his Person be secure because of imprisonment banishment captivity His credit and reputation could not be safe but he might suffer in this particular and be stayned by reproaches slanders his own imprudent or base carriage His publique peace and safety might be disturbed by seditions rebellions civil Wars and forreign invasions and his houses Lands goods possessed by Strangers or made desolate And he might suffer from enemies desertion of Friends treachery ill neighbours bad servants his parents bretheren sisters near kinred nay from his own children issuing out of his own Bowels He might be cursed in his Cattle in his Children in his Lands in all his designs By his sinâ—â—e provoked God armed Heaven Earth Ayr Sea and all Creatures againâ—â— him His spirituall Condition was much prejudiced by evil education bad example pernicious counsail ungodly company and many other wayes These penalties and many more are recorded in the Scriptures and in the great Volum of divine Providence and stored up in the treasures of Gods Almighty and severe Justice To make a more full enumeration of the miseries whereunto Man by his first sin and Gods just judgments is exposed and reduce them into a Method would take up a great Volum Of the Penalties to be endured after this life I will not now say any thing These Penalties 1. Are spiritual § V bodily temporal private publick personal social and all may be reduced to Privative which we call punishments of losse or Positive which we call punishments of Sense 2. There be many degrees of these punishments and the continuance of them might be for ever so far as man is capable for ever to suffer them 3. Though every son of Adam be subject to these yet God doth not inflict them all upon any son of Adam 4. These Punishments may be deserved by other sins Against the Law of nature which the Gentiles violated Against the Law of Moses which the Jews transgressed Against the Gospel which Christians violate And many of Gods own Children may justly suffer For all actuall sins are not merely from Originall Corruption though it be a cursed root of all kind of iniquity 5. These Penalties become unremoveable either by Negative or Positive Impenitency and Unbelief or by Apostacy 6. All these Punishments in Scripture are signified by one word DEATH For the Wages of Sin is DEATH CHAP. XV. Of Original Sin and the Derivation of it from Adam to his Posterity IT s to be known § I 1. What the Authors who write or speak of it mean by Original Sin 2. Whether it be properly a Sin 3. How it is derived from Adam to his Posterity 1. Some distinguish of Original Sin and inform us that its Originans aut Originatum By the first they understand the first sin of Adam and this onely Pighius defines to be Original Sin By the second they understand the want of Original Righteousness and the depravation of our Nature following thereupon And thus it is commonly taken So that in it we may consider two things 1. Not onely the want or absence but the privation of the Righteousness which God gave Adam in the day of his Creation So that it is a want of it in the subject where it should be and was at first Yet this privation may be understood actively or passively Actively and so it 's a taking away from one that had it or denying it to one who never actually received it In the first sense God took it from Adam In the latter sense he denies it to all his Posterity In what manner God is in this Act to be considered or what was the reason why he did thus I do not here inquire Passively considered it respects the Subject from whom it 's taken or to whom iâ—'â— denied Upon this deprivation follows a depravation in the Moral and Spiritual Qualities and of the Acts of the Party deprived And this Depravation is either Negative or Positive Negative as Ignorance Positive as Errour in the Understanding Negative as no affection to good Positive as inclination to evil in the Will This Depravation doth not destroy the Essence of man nor his qualities nor his Acts but the perfection and excellency of them all and doth necessarily presuppose the Being Qualities Acts as the Subject All this doth imply that this Rightâ—ousness being an excellent Quality doth much ennoble and perfect man and did depend both in fieri in facto as they speak upon a superiour and intelligent-supernatural-tree Agent who could give it continue it as also upon cause take it away And if once the Soul lost it upon demerit or any other ways it was made imperfect defective and base and the inclinations and motions were unworthy so noble a Creature and so much the more because a Superiour Spirit had power to delude and deceive the mind and incline the heart to evil This is the reason why so many are said to walk after the Prince of the power of Darkness that now worketh in the
who out of his unspeakable love gave him this command to be servant for a while and suffer death for sinful man's salvation This was an Act of transcendent power to give such a Law and Christ willingly out of pitty unto his Brethren submitted to this power and was willing to be bound by this Law and become a servant and was obedient unto this Death Therefore it is written Loe I come to do thy will that is this great Command of suffering death not for himself but for others being guilty and bound in their own persons to suffer which was an act of greatest love that possibly can be expressed In that it was an act of obedience it signifies his willingness and doth teach us that he suffered freely For all obedience is free and willing or else no obedience That it was willing and free is many ways evident For no man saith he taketh my life from me but I laid it down of my self Joh. 10. 18. No man took it from him because no one could do it if he had not bin willing to have parted with it His Prayer wherein he so earnestly three several times deprecated the Cup of his Passion makes it clear by that clause wherein he corrected his natural desire Thy will not mine be done It was often attempted both by fraud and force to take away his life but it could not be done before that hour-wherein he was willing to lay it down himself He offered himself unto the Band of Souldiers which came to apprehend him and said unto them Whom seek ye They said Jesus of Nazareth He answers I am he and resently at that word they went backward fell down to the ground Besides he could have called for 12 Legions of Angels to defend or rescue him and yet he would not do it To be a servant and suffer the death of the Cross was an act of greatest humility For the Son of God the Word made flesh Humane Nature united so nearly to the Deity to deny himself so far as to be below the Angels below so many men to be a Servant in the meanest rank of men subject to the Law to Civill and Ecclesiastical Power and though Lord of Angels yet to abase himself so low as to suffer such reproach and all kind of indignities from the basest sort of Abjects and Refuse of the people and as it were to be trampled upon as though he were a Worm and the baâ—eâ—â— and most guilty Wretch in the World though he was most innocent was humility indeed and a stupendious humiliation This Act of Obedience was performed with greatest patience and charity that ever any was For he opened not his mouth was dumb as the sheep befor the Shearer When he was reviled he reviled not again They curse him blaspheme him deride him and many ways abuse him yet he is quiet and his Soul so calm as though he suffered nothing though he suffered more than ever any did And this was his Charity that he humbled himself and suffered all this for unworthy ungodly sinners and enemies even for the Eternal Salvation of those who did afflict and crucifie him praying to his Father to forgive them for they knew not what they did In that § II as a Servant he was obedient unto Death the Death of the Cross and endured such cruel pains and so shameful a death though he was so excellent and innocent this doth give us occasion to think and consider of many things For 1. By this we may understand that his sufferings were very great not onely in respect of the multitude of them the quality of the persons from whom the parts wherein he suffered and the nature of his sufferings But from this that he died the death of the Cross. And this Death was 1. Violent not Natural 2. Cruel and full of Pain 3. Ignominious and most Reproachful 4. Most accursed 5. Joyned with far greater Torments and trouble of the Soul then we can conceive 2. Seeing Death is the wages of Sin it must be for Sin and seeing he had no sin of his own it must be for the sins of others And because where there is no Law there is no sin therefore must there be some Law transgressed whereby He became liable to this punishment of death The Law of it self made none liable to death but the parties violating it which Christ never did therefore there must be a Law-giver and a Judge above the Law who had power to transfer the punishment from the guilty upon One innocent who was willing to take it upon him The Law-giver was God and He was the Judge and gave a Command to Jesus Christ to suffer this death due to sinful man and he willingly submitted and became Surety or Hostage for man And by vertue of this Command and Christ's Voluntary Submission the Law transgressed had power over him and he became liable to this death And so he who knew no sin became sin for us that we might be the righteousness of God in Him 2 Cor. 5. ult So that in this suffering of death though the Devil and the Jews with Pontius Pilate were active in crucifying Christ We must consider God as Supream Judge did pass the Sentence and execute the same Christ is the Head of and Hostage for Mankind and a general person suffering for many that the benefit might redound to many In this respect that Christ suffered for the sin of others we may conclude that his suffering was a punishment in proper sense and that God in threatning death to Adam and Mankind sinning reserved a power and liberty to himself to punish the party sinning or some other for him Yet because the thing in the obligation was the punishment of the guilty offending and not the Innocent it must needs be an Act of Grace in God by his Command to substitute another and also to accept his Suffering as an Expiation of their sins It was Justice in Him that He would punish Sin but free Mercy to punish it in Christ and be satisfied with that death of another person But of these particulars more hereafter when I shall declare how and how far the benefit of this Redemption may be derived to others This Death was Death § III and Death of the Cross to signifie the justice and severity of God and the desert of sin which is shame pain a Curse For this death was shameful painful accursed Therefore it is said that Christ endured the Cross and despised the shame Heb. 12. 2. and that he became a Curse for us God 3. 13. Therefore the bitter passion of our Saviour may perswade us all for ever to â—ear and hate that sin which so much offended the just God that He punished it so severely in our Saviour For he never suffered death neither did he lay upon him the iniquities of us all to this end that we might have liberty to sin but that we should repent with godly sorrow and ever
difference and the abrogation of the Law of Works which to a guilty person denyes all possibility of salvation To come nearer to the intended Scope § III These punishments may be distinguished 1. In to those of losse and paine Because some deprive us of that good we have or may have Some vex us with some evil which either lyes upon us or threatens us Some do both But this is a generall distinction and agrees to punishments in generall 2. They may be distinguished in respect of the principall cause or instrumentall For some are from God immediately Some are inflicted from him by some of his Creatures as by fire destroying Sodome by the water drowning Pharoah by the earth swallowing up Dathan and Abiram by the Pestilentiall vapours of the aire infecting many thousands by Wild Beasts Locusts Cater-pillars Frogs and other animate or inanimate Creatures by Angels good or bad and God punisheth man by man and that many wayes For all the just judgments and penaltyes inflicted by humane jurisdiction are punishments of God who judgeth amongst the Gods and rulers of the earth Many times the unjust judgments of man are the just judgments of God For man may be adjudged unjustly to death in a cause wherein he is innocent and yet justly suffer that death from God for some other Crime whereof he is guilty 3. They may be distinguished in respect of the subject whether single persons or societyes lesse or greater A single person may be the subject of these punishments in respect of his goods his body his person his Soul A society may be considered as one body in respect of it self for the present or joyntly with posterity for time to come There are penaltyes proper to Familyes to Cityes to Viâ—inityes to States and whole nations wherein they are involved at one time There may be penaltyes transmitted from Parents to their Familyes as from Gehezi to his posterity and so likewise from Joab and from Judas and so from States and other Societyes But I spake before particularly though briefly of the punishments both of Civil and Ecclesiasticall Polityes 4. The punishments may be distinguished into ordinary and usual incident to the generality of Mankind or extraordinary For the punishment of Cain the old World Babel's builders Sodome Lots Wife and such like were extraordinary and rare and so will be the burning of the World in the end But 5. The principall distinction of punishments is that of Temporal and Spirituall and by temporall I mean all such as are different from spirituall The one deprives men of the comfort and happinesse which we may enjoy in this life and the other touch a man more nearly and tend more directly to his eternall misery hereafter The temporall punishments of single persons are easily known by the History of the Scriptures and others Writers and especially by Gods threatnings against the Jews for their disobedience Levit. 26. and Deut. 28. which though they had some speciall reference to the Law and the Jewes yet are incident to all even those that live under the Gospel The greatest punishments § IV and most to be feared which men do suffer in this life are spirituall When it 's said The Wages of sin is Death Rom. 6. 23 By death is meant not onely that death which is seperation of Soul and body for the time and all the fore-running miseryes of this life but all kind of punishments and especially spirituall because death in that place is opposed to eternall life which is an aggregation of all spirituall mercyes If we should follow the order of time then all the spirituall penaltyes inflicted by God and suffered by man since the first promise of Christ for the sins following are reducible to this head as the rejection of Cains offering his excommunication the Rejection of the greatest part of the World before the flood as being the Sons of men and seperated from the Sons of God After the flood seeing all first in Noah's person then in his family had the Word and other means of conversion yet the greatest part of them for Apostasie were punished with the losse of these meanes and were left without the Oracles of God the promise of Christ and the power of the restoring Spirit and this punishment lay many yeares upon their posterity continuing Apostates After God had singled out the Posterity of Abraham by Jacob and renewed the promise unto them and continued the meanes of conversion in that nation the rest of mankind being rejected were called Heathens Yet to these he left the light of nature and some remnants of the truth continued from their first Apostate-Parents and Ancestours by tradition and some if not very many had not onely a possibility but opportunityes to be Proselytes and so incorporated into the Church of the Jews Yet these did generally not onely neglect these opportunities but held the truth in unrighteousnesse lived contrary to the light of nature left unto them and worshipped the creature above the Creatour God blessed for ever And for this sin God gave them up to vile affections delivered them up unto a reprobate mind whereby they became full of all unrighteousnesse and this was that fearfull judgment and penalty whereby all hope of Salvation was taken from them Their sad condition is described unto us not onely at large Rom. 1. from verse 18. to the end but briefly yet fully Ephes. 2. 1 2 3. 11 12. The taking away the Word and the Spirit of grace and sending upon them the spirit of slamber was also the punishment of the Jew after they refused their Saviour and rejected the Gospel But to proceed to the particular degrees of these punishments § III according to the different nature and degrees of sin against the Law of grace and the Lord Redeemer we must distinguish of persons never sincerely converted and â—o regenerate and of such as have been truly regenerate and are entred the state of justification Amongst those who were never truly regenerate some reject some receive the meanes of conversion and their punishments are inflicted in this life or after death For here I speak not of Heathens which never enjoyed the meanes neither can say that they were tendred unto them For such as to whom God sends his Messengers and by them offers the meanes their sin if they reject them is Rebellion and they refuse to submit themselves to their Lord and Saviour These say We will not have this man reign over us Luk. 19. 14. Their punishment is this for the present that they shall be accounted enemyes be devoted and deâ—â—ined to final and utter destruction verse 27. Such must be sure and they must certainly know this that the Kingdome of God came nigh unto them and their Condition shall be very sad and wofull For Christ himself saith that it shall be more tolerable in the last day for Sodom then for them Luke 10 11 12. Others receive these meanes and proceed to profession
differs in many things from all other Books especially in respect of the Authority thereof which is primarily Divine in the Original Copies secundarily in the Transcripts and Translations These sacred Writings are learned and known several ways and by several means of men that are not infallibly directed further then they follow the Scriptures rightly understood And by these especially Ministers by whom God speaks to men another way they are taught several ways in a certain order How these must be heard understood applyed so as the Hearer may attain to a Divine Faith and a Saving Knowledge Where something of the Tradition of the Church CHAP. III. The Doctrine of this Kingdom is contracted by Christ and His Apostles as such is the ground of all the Apostolical Creeds and Confessions all agreeing in method and matter The manner of the handling of the subject in this Treatise is different from that of ordinary Systems Catechisms and common places where something is said of Faith in general and of Divine Faith A Confession taken out of Tertullian CHAP. IV. Of the Divine Essence and Attributes How God's Essence is intelligible and how represented to us by certain Attributes What Attributes are and certain Rules concerning them The imperfect definition of God including all the Attributes CHAP. V. The Attributes in particular The distribution of them into Greatness Goodness In the Greatness unity infiniteness Infiniteness in Immensity from which ariseth His Incomprehensibility Vbiquity and in Eternity CHAP. VI. God's goodness being one and infinite is known by his excellent and most eminent Acts and Vertues of his Vnderstanding Will Power as His most excellent Knowledge and Wisdom the integrity of his Will and the perfection of his power CHAP. VII The Father Son and Holy Ghost their unity order distinction They are not Three Persons in that sense as Men or Angels are called persons The vanity of the Socinian Argument against the Trinity grounded upon the word person strictly taken How the Soul may be said to be an Image and imperfect resemblance of the Father Son and Holy Ghost CHAP. VIII God considered in his Regal Capacity in respect of his power acquired by Creation and continued by preservation How God is a cause of all things by his Counsel contriving Will decreeing Power actually producing The knowledge of GOD in respect of things out of Himself His Decrees free wise unchangeable The cooperation of the Persons their distinct manner of working The Creation in general the special Creation of Man The Conclusions deducible from this Principle God created Heaven and Earth and all things therein By this Work God hath a propriety in all things and may dispose of them and order them to the ends whereunto He hath made them ordinable Hence his supream universal absolute power How all things created are preserved and ordered Ordination in general the first act of God's Power acquired and continued CHAP. IX The Exercise of God's Power in general CHAP. X. The special Ordination and Government of the Intellectual and Immortall Creatures Angels Men. The government of Angels constituted administred according to certain Laws Judgment whereby some being obedient were confirmed rewarded Others disobeying rebelling and forsaking their station were punished and cast out of God's presence reserved for greater punishments in the end of the World CHAP. XI The special Government of Man which is two-fold 1. Of Justice without Christ. 2. Of Mercy in Christ. The constitution of the first Model The administrations Laws Moral Positive considered as a rule of Man's obedience God's Judgment CHAP. XII The Judgment of God-Creatour passed upon Man according to the Laws of Creation and strict Justice The Object of this Judgment 1. Man obedient rewarded with the continuance of a comfortable condition in Paradise 2. Sinning Sin in general is a disobedience to God's Laws The degrees and the consequents thereof The first sin of our first Parents in particular The causes of it The effects thereof before Judgment CHAP. XIII God's judicial proceeding against Adam Eve the Serpent Satan Their Convention Conviction Sentence Execution More particularly God's Sentence passed upon the old Serpent the Devil In which God new models his Kingdom of mercy in Christ promised and gives Man hope of Pardon and everlasting comfort CHAP. XIV The Penalties more particular both Bodily and Spiritual publike private Temporal Eternal all signified by Death to which Sin made man liable yet all by Christ removable CHAP. XV. Original sin what it is Whether it be properly so Whether Concupiscence in persons baptized be such in proper sense The derivation of Original sin Whether it be derived by Propagation or the just Judgment of God or both CHAP. XVI The principal Attributes of God manifested in this Judgment as Holinesse Justice especially Mercy in the manifestation whereof he exercised his transcendent power above the former Constitution and Laws LIB II. CHAP. I. THe Coherence of this Book with the former The difference of the two Models both the former and latter The acquisition of a New Power by the Word made Flesh and annointed taking upon him the form of a servant and being obedient to the Death of the Cross. A Description of the Redeemer His Person Nature Offices The union and distinction of the two Natures His particular Offices CHAP. II. The Humiliation of the Son of God 1. In taking upon Him the Form of a servant 2. In suffering Death A brief Historical Narration of His Sufferings 1. Before Judgment 2. His Judgment The Preparations of His Tryal His Tryal 1. Before the Ecclesiastical 2. The Civil Judge His Condemnation Execution with the Prodigies which hapned about that time CHAP. III. A more large Discourse concerning the Suffering and Death of Christ. It was an Act of Obedience to His Heavenly Father commanding Him to suffer for the sins of Man whereby He was offended To this Death He became obnoxious not onely by His Fathers Command but His own voluntary submission to be an Hostage and Surety for Man as guilty It was a Sacrifice offered freely to God as Law-giver offended and as supream Judge The effects of this sacrifice accepted are immediate mediate Immediate Satisfaction of Divine Justice and Merit What He merited for Himself what for Man How the benefit of this Sacrifiâ—â— became communicate from Christ as a Representator General and the Will of God the great Soveraign Of the extent of this benefit Whether Propitiation is to be ascribed to His active or passive Obedience severally or to both joyntly Whether this Death prevents all punishments or onely the Eternal And if not what punishments it removes The Attributes manifested in this great Work of Humiliation of the Word made Flesh by which a new Power was acquired CHAP. IV. The exercise of the new Power of God-Redeemer in the Constitution of His New Monarchy The Soveraign and Monarch The Subjects the Officers the Administrator-General the Enemies The manner of reducing Man to subjection the nature
Petition if once received becomes the matter of Thanksgiving A brief Explication of every several Petition and also of the conclusion CHAP. XIX Of Promises and Threatnings The Laws of God both Moral and Positive considered as a Rule of Judgment in Promises and Comminations The nature of Promises in general and of Comminations Their Order as following Precepts and Prohibitions The nature of the Promises of God-Redeemer The nature of Comminations The difference between Promises and Threatnings both in respect of themselves and of the subject and also the matter which are rewards or punishments bodily spiritual of this life of that which is to come CHAP. XX. Of Punishments What the Iudgment of God-Redeemer is It 's Particular Universal Of Punishments which might be reduced to order according to Chronology or according to Laws general or particular for the violation whereof they are inflicted The difference between the punishments upon Mankind for Adam's sinne and those which we are liable to for our sins against the Laws of God-Redeemer Several distinctions of punishments Of Spiritual punishments suffered in this life both by Unbelievers and Believers considered either as single persons or associate in lesser or greater Communities both Ecclesiastical and Civil Punishments suffered after Death before the Resurrection CHAP. XXI Of Rewards What a Reward of God-Redeemer is The distinction of Rewards into those of this life and that which is to come before and after the Resurrection Rewards presuppose the performance of a Duty and the first special Duty pre requires preventing Grace The first special Reward is to take away the Stoney-heart and to give an heart of Flesh. The second is God's writing of His Laws in Mans heart The third God becomes our God Christ our Head and we are made His Subjects His Members CHAP. XXII Of Justification The fourth Spiritual Reward is Justification defined The Judge and how considered The Party judged Man sinful guilty penitent believing in Christ as Propitator and Intercessour What kind of Faith justifying Faith is The Acts of it and what the Objects of these Acts are and what not Where the Iudgment or Iudicial Act is passed and how manifested What it is The proper effect of it Certain observations The greatest punishment Justification frees us froÌ„ is the want loss of the Sanctifying Spirit and the dominion of sin How this Doctrine differs from that of Trent Councel Three Questions 1. Whether God doth always in every Sentence of Justification free the guilty totally or sometimes onely in part 2. Whether there be two parts of Justification as Remission and Imputation 3. Whether good Works be a condition of Justification continued or final so as to give a right upon the Promise CHAP. XXIII Of the Parts of Justification and the continuance of it The Branches or Parts of Justification which some call Effects as Regeneration Reconciliation Adoption from which arises the happy estate of the justified The continuance of these in this Life and after Death before the Resurrection which might be called the Fifth Reward Mortification Vivification The Spiritual War The different Issue of the several Battails The last Issue which is a final Victory Of Perseverance and falling away CHAP. XXIV The Final and Universal Judgment The time of this Judgment The Judge His manner of coming The General Summons Convention and Appearance of Men and Angels The Eternal Rewards of the Godly The Eternal Punishment of impenitent and unbelieving Sinners These several Books following are Printed and to be sold by Francis Tyton at the Three Daggers in Fleet-street MR. Baxter's Saints everlasting Rest Quarto His Apologie containing Exceptions against Mr. Blake The Digression of Mr. Kendal Animadversions on a late Dissertatition of Ludiomeus Colvinus alias Ludovinus Molineus An Admonition to Mr. Eyrs With Mr. Crandon's Anatomy quarto Confession of Faith quarto Christian Concord quarto Defence of the Worcester-shire Petition quarto Advice to the Parliament quarto Letter to Mr. Durry for Pacification quarto Concerning the Saints perseverance quarto The Quakers Catechism quarto Of Infant-Baptism against Mr. Tombs The Unreasonableness of Infidelity Octavo Thirty two Directions for getting and keeping Spiritual Peace Octavo Against Popery Octavo Mr. Lawson's Examination oâ— the Political Part of Hobb's his Leviathan Octavoâ— These several Books of Mr. Gilberts Minister of Limtick in Ireland THe Libertine school'd Or A Vindication of the Magistrates Power in Matters of Religion Quarto A Soveraign Antidote against those sinful Errours that are the Epidemical Disease of our Times quarto A pleasant Walk to Heaven on Ephes. 4. 1. quarto The Blessed Peace-maker Or A Christian Reconciler intended for the healing of our Divisions quarto Innocents no Saints Or A Pair of Spectacles for a dark sighted Quaker By E. Dod. quarto Man's Duty in magnifying God's Work A Sermon preached before the Parliament on the occasion of the Victory obtained against the Spanish Fleet By John How Preacher of the Word at the Abbey-Church Westminster quarto The Perusall of an old Statute of Death and Judgment A Funeral Sermon By Mr. Bedford in quartâ— These several Books following of Mr. Strong HEavenly Treasure Or Man's chiefest good Twelves Communion with God the Saints Priviledge and Duty Twelves Thirty one Sermons preached on select occasions quarto The Will of Man subjected to the Will of God Octavo A Commemoration Sermon preached at Pauls on the 5th of November 1646 quarto A Voice out of the Temple Being also a Sermon on the 5th of November quarto A Confession of Faith of the severaâ— Congregations or Churches oâ— Christ in London commonly called Anabaptists quarto A Discovery of some tâ—oublesome Thoughts By Daniel King quarto Gospel-Glory in the 〈…〉 invisible Worship of God By Edw. Drapes quarto Common-Good Or The Improvement of Commons Forrests 〈◊〉 Chaâ—es by Incloâ—ure By S. T. quarto An Assiâ—e Sermon Preâ—â—â—bed by Thâ— Gilbert quarto The Word of Faith Or The Coâ—lection of the Sermons of a Mâ—neth preached at Martins in the Fields methodically By Mr. Sanger Barton's Translation of the sinâ—ing Psalms Twelves Sydenham's for Infant-Baptism Octavo Renodeus Dispensatory in Folio Spencer's Similies in Folio Dr. Robinson's Endoxa in Octavo Dr. Harrison's Spiritual Logick in Octavo The History of Dreams By Mr. Philip Goodwin Minister at Watford Octavo The Three Theological Graces By Mr. Ward Octavo Biddle dispossest in answer to his Challenge Twelves Habbington's Edward the 4th in Folio His Observations on History in Octavo Allen 's Henry the 7th Octavo Buck on the Beatitudes in quarto Eurialus and Lucretia Octavo Herbert 's Henry the 8th Folio English Law By Charles George-Cock Folio Par on the Romans Folio Hackwel's Argument for the Liberty of the Subject quarto The false Brother quarto Mr. Sedgwick's Sermon at Mr. Strong 's Funeral quarto Hamilton's Case argued by Mr. Steel now Lord Chancellour in Ireland quarto Gospel-Ministery and Gospel-Light and Life By Dornford in octavo The Rise Fall and Ruine of Antichrist By
this Government of Angels which no doubt is wonderful we have 1. The Legislation 2. The Judgment of God For no doubt God gave them Laws and according to their obedience or disobedience judged them for both these are evident out of Scripture What Laws God gave them in particular we know not That they were bound to continue righteous and holy as God made them and to love God and one another there can be no question These were Principles written and concreated if I may so speak with them yet that upon the Performance Eternal Glory and Security of the same would follow or that upon the non-Performance eternal punishments would be inflicted could not be so clear by Creation unto them There was another Law whereby they were obliged to observe that order amongst themselves which he at first instituted For there is an Order and Polity amongst the Angels but whether Monarchical or some other we know not If the Devils those Apostate Angels do observe the order of their Creation it seems to be Monarchical For we read of the Prince of Devils the Prince of the World the Prince of the Power of the Air or Darkness as the Word doth sometimes signifie What their Duty was in respect of Man or of the other Creatures is not so evident It 's certain that the Holy Angels are Ministring Spirits for the good of Gods servants and Sons since the fall Though the Pure and Generall Morals of the Decalogue did bind them yet as that Law was given to Adam to Israel or to the Church-Christian it could not bind them For therein there be Duties proper to Man and such as no ways can agree to Angels And here I might take occasion to explain the Morall Law but this I reserve till I come to speak of the Laws of God as Redeemer by Jesus Christ exalted at his right hand and reigning in the Brightnesse of eternall Glory For there were Laws of Righteouâ—nesse and Holinesse and morall duties given to Angels to Adam to the Heathen to Israel to the Church-Christian as shall be made manifest hereafter After Laws Moral and Positive § IV follows Judgment and upon the observation and violation of the same God began to exercise his Jurisdiction and to judge the Angels And this was the first Court God kept and the generall Assises wherein all the Angels were convented and rewarded to punished according to Observation or Violation of the Laws given to them The rule of this judgment were those Laws The Object Angels obeying or disobeying The Retribution was of Rewards or Punishments That many of the Angels sinned and transgressed those Laws and many did obey them the Holy Scriptures make evident And here it 's to be noted that the Sin of Angels was personall For in one sinning all did not sin in one condemned all were not condemned though by one man sin entred upon all mankind and by sin death Some one oâ— few of the Angels might be leaders in this Apostacy and by their example and Perswasion pervert many That vision of the Dragon and his Angels Revel 12. 7. may seem to imply some such thing But whether it be so or otherwise it 's certain a multitude of Angels sinned and revolted under one Head and Prince under whom they continue Revolters unto this day And here I might take occasion to speak of sin in general but I defer it till I speak of the fall and sin of Man What the first sin of these immorall spirits was in particular is not so clear as it 's clear they did sin And therefore we must obâ—erve 1. That they sinned 2. Were judged and condemned 1. They sinned 2 Pet. 2. 4. They kept not their first estate or Principality but left their own habitation Jude v. 6. which seems to imply their Ambition through which they aspired higher as discontented with their Station wherein God placed them at first and so violated the order established by him were murtherers and lyars from the beginning and abode not in the truth Joh. 8. 44. And he sinned from the beginning 1 Joh. 3. 8. That they sinned signifies unto us their Disobedience in generall That they abode not in the truth kept not their first state or Principality seems to be their first sin That they were lyars and murtherers doth point at their Envy and Malice against man which moved them to seek and contrive his ruine And upon this many think their condition desperate and their eâ—ernal punishment unavoydable But this is certain it did aggravate their former sin and made their punishment more grievous which punishment is expresed in the said texts That God spared them not that he cast them down to Hell as some turn it But Jude explaines the meaning That they are reserved in everlasting or invisible Chaines under darknesse unto the Judgment of the great day And he accursed them The sentence passed upon them was a sentence of condâ—mnation and the execution was that curse of excommunication and their Banishment out of Heaven and the light of glory the confining of them in darknesse and the binding them over to the Punishment of the great day of Final Judgment and so that their eternal misery and torment is inevitable And these places with others inform us That their Punishment is not Consummate but shall be far greater then now it is When at the great and last day they shall be cast into the Lake of fire and Brimstone and tormented with eternall paines without any intermission Their Punishment for the Present is loss of Heaven and Light Darknesse imprisonment fear and torment in the remembrance of that dreadfull day And this judgment passed upon them is an example to us sinfull Wretches to take heed of their sins lest we be sent into that eternall fire prepared for the Prince of Devils and his Angels The judgment of the rest of the Angels was passed at the same time § V And therein we may Consider 1. Their obedience 2. Their reward Their obedience is implyed by the disobedience of the Apostate Angels For iâ— this was their sin that they abode not in the Truth then the obedience of the rest of the Angels was that they abode in the truth were contented with their Station and â—oved man upon whom Gods Image was stamped They were found humbly subject unto the Power and obedient to the Laws of their glorious and Eternall Lord and Soveraign and that in the day of their great triall when the rest of their fellow-Angels revolted rebelled and became murderers of mankind Their reward was agreeable to their loyalty and obedience And it may be considered as inchâ—ate and received in part or as Consummate As begun and received in part they continue in the happy condition wherein they were created and are confirmed and secured there in And their joy and happinesse must needs be great because they enjoy the Glorious habitation of Heaven though many times sent from thence They see the
Judgment Execution tends no further He is subject to God and accountable and his power is perpetuated by Succession and in the end shall totally determine and be dissolved In this government God is the Governour the souls and consciences of men the Subjects the wisdom justice and power thereof perfect the end is Spirituall Righteousnesse and eternal peace to which the Laws and judgments do effectually tend it continues for ever and the estate which it orders men unto is everlasting and it hath the Civill goverment subordinate unto it and in some respect a part of it That there is a first § IV and second government I take it for graunted and shall afterwards prove it The description of the first is this It 's Gods ordination of man whereby he bound all mankind in one man made holy and righteous and subjected to Him unto Perfect and perpetuall Obedience or death and according to his Obedience or Disobedience passed judgment upon him That there was such a government may be proved from many places in Gods book I will instance in that one As by one man sin entered into the World and by sin death As death passed over all men c. Rom. 5. 12 13 14. In which words we may observe 1. That there was sin entering into the world 2. That sin presupposeth a Law a Law the power of the Law-giver and the subjection of the party sinning 3. We have the sin of one man and the sin of all men 4. That this sin entered by one man and was from him derived unto all 5. There was death which is Punishment and the death of one man and the Death of all and that for sin and the sin of all 6. This death presupposeth Judgment and the execution of the same because death passed and reigned 7. This sin and judgment began with one man and that was Adam 8. As there can be no judgment or punishment but of sin so there could be no sin without a Law 9. This Law was given to Adam and it was the Law of the Tree of knowledge of good and evil annexed to the morall Lawes All this may be clearly understood by the History of Moses Gen. the 2d and the 3d. Chapters In this description We may observe § V 1. The constitution of the government in the Soveraignty of God and the Subjection of man 2. The administration in the Laws Judgment of God For the subjection of man unto God his Soveraign we must consider that it may be threefold according to a threefold ground For it may arise 1. From his totall and absolute dependence upon God both in his Creation and Preservation 2. From his Voluntary submission 3. From Gods Command The two latter add nothing to Gods Power which by his absolute Propriety is absolute and so great that it cannot be greater yet it may add unto the obligation and bind man more strongly both to subjection and obedience There is some resemblance of these degrees of subjection in the Israelites who though they were subject unto God by Creation and Preservation as all other men were yet as they were free men they received a new and better kind of Being by that great deliverance from Egypt and the Egyptian bondage and so 1. Became Subject to God in the first degree 2. They voluntarily submit and receive him for their Lord and God and engage themselves to serve him and obey him Exod. 19. 8. Deut. 5. 27. And they avouched the Lord their God Deut. 26. 17. This was their allegiance and fealty whereby they became his Servants and Vassals 3. God commanded and said They must have no other Gods This Voluntary submission and Promise of obedience on mans part and the Promise of Protection and reward on Gods side seemes to be a kind of contract and together with the condition a Covenant That there was any foederall contract between God stipulating and man restipulating at the first is not so expresse in Scripture But that in the constitution and fundamentall Law of Gods Soveraignty and mans subjection unto God at first there was something Positive wherein God limited his absolute Power is certain And this is evident from the tree of Life and the Law concerning the tree of knowledge of good and evil and the threatning of Death and that God made Adam the head of mankind and as such did stipulate with him and bound both him and his by the same Law And the Contract seems to have bin confirmed by solemnities For the two Trees in the midst of the Garden imply so much And whereas some make the Promise and the threat to be a Sanction to confirm the Law it 's certain that the Command of God did bind with full power without any such Sanction onely the Promise did bind God upon mans performance of his Duty and the threatning made man liable to Punishment upon Disobedience After the Constitution follows the administration of this first Government § VI For constitution must necessarily go before or else there can be no Regular administration and administration must follow or else the constitution will be in vain The body of man must first be made up of all his members united unto the Head and amongst themselves and then the head must give lie sense motion and direction So these bodies politick must first be moulded and made up of Soveraign and Subject and after that it 's once animated and hath received Being and life Political it begins to Act The Soveraign begins to Protect and Direct and order by Laws and judgments and the People continue their subjection loyalty and obedience and accoâ—ding to their regular or irregular motions they are judged And this I call Administration whereof There are two Parts Lawes Judgements The first Work of God after the constitution was Legislation or giving of Lawes For so God dealt with Israel 1. They avouch him to be their God and submitt unto him and promise obedience And after that 2 He gives them Lawes which are not onely rules to direct but have a binding force so as to give the obedient a right to rewards and make the disobedient liable to punishment So Jethro's advice to Moses as Governour of the People as subjects directs him 1. To teach them Lawes then 2. To appoint officers and judges and so to proced to judgment This Legislation was the first part of the administration whereby God bound man holy and righteous to perfect and perpetuall obedience with a promise of Life upon that condition or unto death if he once disobeyed The party to whom God gave these Lawes was Adam and in him all Mankind and he being made in the Image of God righteous and holy had power to understand and perfectly obey these Lawes and continue in subjection and obedience The obligation was strict and required perfect obedience without any promise of Pardon if he once offended and by constant obedience he might obtayne Life These Lawes are Morall § VII
in the end to encline so farr as to look upon the fruit to cover it to touch it and tast it too And so the Vâ—nome of the Serpent infected Soul and Body Neither staid it here but did diffuse and Communicate it self to man who hearkened to his Wiâ—e and did eate and so transgresse Upon which the victory became compleat And though the temptation and plot was deeply laid and managed with greatest subtlety yet they could not be excused For the law was plain the power to observe it sufficient and God did in no wayes desert them in any thing necessary They did both willingly consent and yield They were too precipitate and did too hastily determin and resolve before they had sufficiently considered the matter either severally or joyntly together And their sin was in the issue so much the more heynous because they believed the false suggestions of the Devill and harkened to his damned Counsel contrary to the clear Command and peremptory Commination of their Creator In all this they had not the least cause to complain of God Their Sin and misery was from themselves and there was much of will in the transgression The Woman was first in the sin and was deceived Yet the Man followed her example Otherwiâ—e it might have been better with all mankind And in this place something may be â—aid of the permission of sin and Gods providence in respect of the same No doubt God could have prevented both the sin and the temptation yet being no wayes bound to do either he suffered both And this is one of the deep Counâ—ells of God whereof man can give no reason Arminiuâ— doth discourse of this subject and observes the acts of Divine providence about sin to be reducible to three heads 1. In respect of the Beginning 2. Of the Progress 3. The Consummation of it In respect of the Beginning the Acts of Providence are either permission or hinderance In respect of the Progress Direction and Limitation In respect of Sin Consummate Punishment or Remission But he that will accurately discuss this Point of Doctrine must distinguish 1. Between the first sin of Angels and the first sin of Man and other sinnes following these For in respect of these later that which we call permission may be a Desertion and to a Punishment which in the first sinnes cannot be 2. He must put a difference between a Moral and a Physical permission and also between the sinful Disposition and immediate Act of the Will as sinful and such Acts as follow and are not formally and intrinsecally sinful but bâ— participation 3. He must discern which of these Acts belong to Judgment as the two last evidently do and which not 4. It should be distinctly known what this Permission is For it 's not any Licence or Liberty to sin given by God to the Creature nor any toleration connivence indulgence much less any approbation of sin The proper and immediate first subject and cause of sin is the Will as free Therefore when Scotus had defined sin to be Carentia justitiae actui inesse debitae Occam corrects him and defines it to be Carentia justitiae voluntati inesse debitae And whereas many out of Austin take it for granted that Peccatum non habet causam efficientem sed deâ—icientem He â—aith That 's true onely of sins of Omission not of Commission and doth positively â—ffirm that God is the Author of every sin of Commission because in Commission there is something positive which is forbidden by the Law directly as well as that which is privative yet gives the reason why man is guilty and God not because man is under a Law and bound God is not And whereas some in sins of Commission distinguish between the Act whereof they grant God to be the Author and the Sinfulness of the Act whereof he is not the Author He answers That in sins of Commission the very Act is forbidden and therefore the very Act is so sin that you cannot make it the subject of sin is any ways different from sin In this making of God the Author of all sins he seems to be very bold and heterodox though very acute But let his Judgment in this be true or false these things are certain 1. That all the difficulty in this point ariseth from our ignorance of the manner how God concurs with the Free will of man in sin 2. That God could prevent all sins and every sin though he doth not 3. That God doth not necessitate much less force the intelligent Creature to sin for then sin could be no sin 4. That let Permission be what it will yet he so permits sin that he can justly punish it in the Parties guilty who alone are chargeable with it 5. The reason why God doth not cannot sin is not onely because he is under no Law but because he is absolutely just and holy and hates sin as he doth forbid it threaten it give power against it and punisheth it 6. We must not think that God doth so permit sin as not to order the sinner and out of evil bring good as once out of Darkness he created Light To think that God who is the Universal Judge is a bare Spectator of sin must needs be an Errour The cause of this sin § XI which was blameless was the Law which did forbid sin command obedience promise life to the Obedient threaten death to the Disobedient This could not by any inward native power or quality be a cause of Sin or Death for it was spiritual holy just good and so contrary to sin For every thing acts according to the inward power and quality And how should that be for sin which was the Rule of Holiness and for Death which was given for Life Yet a cause of sin it might be though not per Se yet per Accidens as the Logicians speak Not by any thing in it self yet by something from without in Man or the Devil Some instance in the dashing of a Pitcher against a Wall so that it 's broken The breaking of the Pitcher is an Effect but the Cause thereof is rather the force of him who purposely casts it against the wall then the Wall it self yet this Comparison is not so fuâ—l and perfect If there had been no Law there had been no sin For where there is no Law there is no Transgression saith the Apostle Rom. 4. 15. An if no transgression then no guilt no punishment If there had been no Law man might have done â—omething worthy of punishment yet without a Law he could have contracted no guilt so as to be bound to suffer punishment And though God knew that if he did give a Law it would be disobeyed yet he might justly give it For as he knew man would transgress it yet he knew likewise that he might keep it No Governour will forbear to enact Laws to regulate his People because he knows many will disobey them That the Law
and made a shew of them openâ—y triumphing over them Col. 2. 17. For by his Death and Resurrection he brake in pieces the Power of Sathan acquired a right to all flesh and received strength to rescue man out of his hands and to give eternall liâ—e to as many as his Father had given him By him the Prince of the World was cast out Joh. 12. 31. For this end he was partaker of flesh and blood with his Brethren that he might destroy him that had the Power of death that is the Devil Heb 2. 14. And for this end the Son of God was manifested that he might destroy the Works of the Devil 1 Joh. 3. 8. And so profound was the Wisdom of God that he turned the power and policy of Sathan to his own ruine For whilst he did bruise Christs heel and put him to death he overthrew his own Kingdome and gave Christ a glorious Victory And by him having foyled the Devil in his Power all the Saints overcome the Devil and obtayne a final Victory yea are more then Conquerours Other Places of Scripture give us so much light as to understand these Words in this manner which certainly Adam and Eve understood better then we can do Yet this enmity and glorious Conquest was expressed in few Words and some what darkely because the full Knowledge of this great Victory was reserved till the Son of God was glorified and the Gospel revealed This was that dreadfull sentence passed upon the Devil all his Angells and his wicked brood which began to be executed then and shall be Consummate when the Devil Death and Hell shall be cast into the Lake of fire where they shall be tormented for ever The Sentence § V passed upon Woman followes And her proper punishments besides those that are Common to Man and Woman are two 1. God determines to multiply her sorrow in conception In sorrow she must bring forth her Children 2. Her desire must be to her Husband and he must rule over her Both these are cruel punishments For many times the birth and life of the child is the death of the Mother after that she hath suffered many paines in conceiving and bearing and most cruel pangs in her Travaile Sometimes the safety of the Mother is the death of the Child The latter is the more grievous because of the Proud cruel and domineering Spirits of crooked and unfaithfull Husbands and by the wickednesse of both partyes that society which should have been most comfortable proves most miserable If woman had never sinned she must have brought forth Children yet without paine and bin subject to her Husband but without any discomfort Women should remember this sentence acknowledge Gods great displeasure against sin and humble themselves Yet they must not despair but hope for eternallâ—life by Jesus Christ their Saviour and be thankfull to God who mitigates the rigour of his justice and in these two things many times shewes great mercy The sentence passed upon Adam is the last And his Poenalties are many The ground was cursed for his sake in sorrow He must eat of it all the dayes of his life Thorns and Thistles it must bring forth unto him He must eat of the Herb of the field In the sweat of his face he must eat bread till he return to the ground For out of it he was taken and being Dust unto Dust he must return The sum of all is Misery and Mortality He must be in misery and suffer many afflictions in this Life and soul and body must part at death and death will turn his body in the end to dust These penalties are fearfully inflicted upon many yet with many God deales mercifully and removes or prevents many of them and in the end by the Resurrection gives a full and finall deliverance from all After Sentence follows Execution § VII at least in order though many times they go together so that the Sentence and execution are all one though the execution is not finished at the first but continues afterwards This execution began instantly with the Sentence Gods word was his deed For the Serpent instantly was accursed and began to suffer all the penalties denounced So likewise the Devils did The punishment of Woman began to be executed in her first conception bearing bringing forth of Children man became instantly miserable and mortal as the earth was presently accursed for his sake and he found a great alteration and a 〈◊〉 change in his Body his Soul the Earth and others Creatures which were subject unto him and made for his good The execution done upon the Serpent shall continue whilst there shall be any Serpents upon the earth The Punishment of the Devil continued until the Incarnation of Christ and upon his Death and resurrection his head was broken but it shall be Consummate at the Last Judgment The Punishment of the Woman shall not determine till the last child be born And The Punishment of Man and Woman shall not be totally removed till the Resurrection and finall Glorification of all the Children of God And Here severall Particulars are considerable 1. That this was A Generall Assizes wherein passed Judgment upon Beasts Millions of Angels and all mankind 2. In the Sentence passed upon the Devil CHRIST was promised and by that promise The Government of mankind was altered And God did new-model his Kingdom For thereupon followed A New Constitution New Laws and Judgment did proceed afterwards in a New Manner 3. By this promise the Covenant of Works was made voyd and the Law as promising life onely upon condition of Perfect Personall and Perpetuall obedience without any Promise of Pardon of any the least sin was repealed And the Positive Law of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil did cease 4. Though the Law of works was repealed yet the Sentence passed upon man for the sin he Committed against that Law of works as unrepealed stands in force and shall in part continue unto the Resurrection 6. Though the Law of Works as a Condition and only condition of life be repealed yet the pure Morals continue in force to bind man to obedience or punishment in generall but not to obedience perfect as the condition of life or to punishment as no wayes removeable To argue that because the matter of the morall Laws continues in Precepts and Prohibitions therefore the Law continues is vain For it may continue yet in another manner and to an other end and both the manner and the end far different To say that man is under the Law of works as Adam was at the first until he be in Christ is very false It 's true that he is under the execution of that sentence which passed upon man for his sin against that Law both morall and positive given to Adam and he cannot passe from death to life from the State of Damnation to the State of Salvation till he be in Christ by a true and lively faith And
as one And so far as God judged him one and made Adam the Head and Representative of all so far in Adam all men might be bound to obedience or penalty and so far judgments or rewards might be transmitted from him to all and no further And if God had not considered Adam and all his posterity as one person By one man sin could not have entred into the World and by sin Death so as to pass upon all men That this derivation was an act of judgment is evident from the Apostle because Sin and Death which is punishment presupposed a Law To impute sin and punish for sin and that with Death are Acts of Judgment and that according to a Law which was in force when Adam sinned and long before Moses Otherwise how could sin have reigned even over Adam and that from Adam to Moses and this by a Sentence of Judgment in force to this day according to a Law in force when Adam transgressed it For upon that transgression God condemned Adam and in him all Mankind In this respect the doubt how the Soul being made by God becomes corrupted is vain and that conceit that it is polluted by entrance into the body or from the body is false For 1. God in the Creation of the Soul of every individual person is to be considered as a Creatour and a Judge As a Creatour he makes a Soul and gives it Essence and all things necessary flowing from the Essence and appertaining to it As a Judge he denies that person as one with Adam sinning his sanctifying Spirit which Adam received for him and his and in him sinning was lost to him and his 2. It is evident that the Soul is not so much polluted by the body as the body by it and it from it self For there are many Spiritual sins as Pride Envie Malice and such like which are purely from the Soul and in the Soul as they are in Angels who have no bodies but are spirits And those sins which have their Rise from the sensitive appetite could not pollute the Soul except it were depraved in it self And the first sin began in the Soul as may easily be understood from Gen. 3. and was there compleatly moulded before Eve looked upon the forbidden fruit to covet it and desire it as a bodily food Yet whilest we discourse of the Derivation of Original Sin as it is a Deprivation and a depravation following thereupon because man falls under the power of Death yet we must consider that Adam's Posterity derive not onely that original corruption from him but many other evils together with their Being All the evils are reduced to Sin and Death We participate with him in some manner in the first sin and in him sinning we sin and in him being guilty we are guilty in him dying we die And by Death all Punishments God sentenced us to in him are understood not onely that which we call Original Sin but all Actual Sins virtually included in it and issuing purely from it by vertue of the first Desertion And here we may wonder at the severity of God's Judgment yet we must in no wise question the Justice and Equity thereof CHAP. XVI Of the Attributes of God manifested in this Judgment of Men and Angels THE last thing to be considered in this Judgment and Execution is the manifestation of the Attributes § I and perfections of God and of his Supream Power judicial as well as Legislative The Attributes manifested are these His Wisdom his Holiness his Power his Knowledge but principally his Justice and Mercy His Wisdom was wonderful in this particular in that he laid the Foundation of man's Eternal Life to be recovered again in sentencing the Devil to Eternal Death and in a wonderful way so that the Devil himself should be powerfully active to the ruine of his own Kingdom whilest he â—eeks to confirm and enlarge it His Holiness was evident in this that he spared not sin in his most noble Creatures punishing the Devils without mercy as first in the sin not sparing man made in his own Image though tempted to sin and in accursing the Serpent though an irrational Creature and but onely an Instrument abused All this signifies that he detests and abominates sin and being holy Himself requires holiness in Men and Angels made holy and if by sin they pollute themselves he casts them out of his presence His Power appeared in that he so presently and so fully executed his Sentence and makes it good to this day and none can hinder him His Knowledge is as exact for he evidently knew the sin of Men and Angels with the measure and circumstances thereof and proportions his Judgment accordingly But principally his Justice and Mercy shined forth in this judicial Proceeding § II First his Justice must be considered The Justice of God is Legislative or judicial Legislative Justice determines man's duty and binds him unto the performance thereof and also defines the rewards and punishments which shall be due upon the Creatures obedience or disobedience His judicial Justice which is called distributive is that whereby he renders unto the intellectual Creatures according to their Works This is remunerative or vindictive For taking cognizance of their cause he rewards the obedient and punisheth the disobedient The justice manifested in this judgment was punitive and vindictive and it did appear in that 1. He spared not sinners much less rewarded them 2. He punished none but sinners and such as did concur in this sin 3. He punished onely for sin and not out of any absolute and arbitrary power Therefore God said to the Serpent Because thou hast done this therefore thus and thus shalt thou be punished The Woman suffered and is condemned because she hearkened and gave consent to the Serpents temptation The man is judged to death because he had hearkened to the voyce of his wiâ—e 4. The punishments determined and executed did not exceed the measure of their sin 5. The Devil sinned most and therefore his punishment is the greatest and no ways mitigated or allayed by mercy The Woman and Man sinned being tempted and their sin was less and it was allayed by mercy yet the womans sin was greater then Adam's though less then the Devils For she was first in the transgression and brought man into the snare being instrumental to the Devil and therefore she was adjudged to two punishments to which man was not liable This Justice is not an Attribute but the exercise and manifestation of an Attribute as here it 's taken It 's called Anger Wrath Fury Rage Jealousie Indignation as the sin is more or less heinous and he more or less displeased It 's called Revenge in that it renders the evil of punishment for the evil of sin It 's Judgment because he proceeds according to Law upon the evident knowledge of the violation of the same It 's punishment as God inflicts it and the Creatures suffer it The principal
the Scriptures make evident by Doctrine Threatnings Examples Eating the Forbidden Fruit was not the Personal Sin of any of Adam's Posterity and yet they all are punished for it For by one Man sin entred into the World and by sin Death and Death passed over all men c. Josuah and the Princes of the Congregation of Israel swear unto the Gibeonites not to put them to death Saul 450 years and more afterwards slays them and so violates that Oath For this sin of that King Israelâ—â—â—ers â—â—â—ers three years Famine and this sin is not expiated nor the Judgment turn'd away 〈◊〉 7. of Saul's Son long after were given to the Gibeonites and hanged up unto the Lord. Saul sins Israel suffers Famine and 7 of Saul's Sons are slain and this by the direction of God declaring the Perjury of Saul to be the cause of Israelsâ—â—sfering â—â—sfering Achan commits Sacriledge not onely He but his Sons and Daughters are stoned to death for it But I shall have occasion hereafter to say something more of this Particular The Socinians in opposing this truth deny plain Scriptures and charge God with injustice by consequence and whilest they deny Christ's Sufferings to be Punishments lest they should make God unjust they charge Him with injustice For if it be unjust to punish Christ being innocent for the sinnes of others for whom He voluntarily suffered according to the Appointment and Command of His Heavenly Father much more unjust it must needs be to afflict him and that so grievously without any cause at all or demerit of others And whereas they say That though some may suffer for the sins of others when they are sinful themselves and not otherwise they do but trifle For if one may justly be punished for the sin of another whereof he is not guilty then an innocent person may justly suffer for another who is guilty This was the case of Israel when David sinned He out of Pride numbers the People God is offended herewith and punisheth for this sin and that with death 70000 of his Subjects The King sins the People suffer and they suffer death for the Kings sin whereof they were not guilty as appears by those words of David's Repentance But these sheep what have they done 2 Sam. 24. 17. That is I not they have sinned They are innocent in this particular By all this we may understand how and how far Christ's Sacrifice is communicable to us How we come to be actuall Partakers of these Benefits shall be shewed hereafter Before I proceed § VIII I will take occasion to examine the Extent of Christ's Death Whether He died for all men and so Redemption be universal as some use to speak or no. 1. That Christ dyed for all in some sense must needs be granted because the Scripture expresly affirms it For by the Righteousness of One the free gift came upon All Men to justification of life Rom. 5. 18. And if One died for all then were all dead 2. That onely Believers actually enjoy the Benefit of this Death unto Salvation is as clear also 3. Neither God's love in giving Christ nor Christ's love dying for Man do exclude any as love 4. The benefit of Salvation is communicable to all upon certain tearms expressed in the Covenant which yet limits the actual benefit of Remission and Eternal Liâ—e by prescribing a qualification in the Parties to be saved by Christ's death 5. The Qualification is such that it excludes no man as a man or a sinful man but as impenitent and not believing at least So that it may truly be said that by Christ's Sacrifice all men are save-able some way though all shall not be saved And if any become not save-able it 's upon some demerit and speciall cause antecedent The immediate Effects called Satisfaction and Merit both signified by the word Propitiation make God propitious and in that respect man in a capacity of Salvation or save-able and do not precisely exclude or include any But Justification Reconciliation Adoption Glorification are so simiâ—ed by God's Promise that they formally and immediately belong to none but Believers This Question is needless if men would content themselves with the plain and simple truth of the Scriptures and rather use all means to believe then dispùte For if I once sincâ—rely believe I may be sure I have a right unto those Benefits If I believe not I can have no comâ—ort in this blessed and most meritorious Sacrifice There is another question and the same unprofitably handled Whether the Propitiation which includes both satisfaction and merit be to be ascribed to the active or passive obedience of Christ as their distinction and expression proposeth it For solution whereof it s to be observed 1. That both his active personal perfect and perpetual obedience which by reason of his humane nature assumed and subjection unto God was due and also that obedience unto the great and transcendent command of suffering the death of the Crosse both concur as causes of Remission and justification 2. The Scriptures usually ascribe it to the Blood Death and Sacrifice of Christ and never to the personall active obedience of Christ to the Morall law 3. That yet this active obedience is necessary because without it he could not have offered that great sacrifice of himself without spot unto God and if it had not been without spot it could not have been Propitiatory and effectuall for expiation 4. That if Christ as our surety had performed for us perfect and perpetual obedience so that we might have been judged to have perfectly and fully kept the law by him then no sin could have been chargeable upon us and the death of Christ had been needlesse and superfluous 5. Christs propitiation frees the Believer not onely from the obligation unto punishment of sense but of losse and procured for him not onely deliverance from evil deserved but the enjoyment of all good necessary to our full happinesse Therefore there is no ground of Scripture for that opinion That the death of Christ and his sufferings free us from punishment and by his active obedience imputed to us we are made righteous and the heyres of life 6. If Christ was bound to perform perfect and perpetuall obedience for us and he also performed it for us then we are freed not onely from sin but obedience too and this obedience as distinct and seperate from obedience unto death may be pleaded for justification of life and will be suffiâ—ient to carry the cause For the tenour of the law was this Do this and Live And if man do this by himself or surety so as that the law-giver and supreme Judge accept it the Law can require no more It could not bind to perfect obedience and to punishment too There never was any such law made by God or just men Before I conclude this particular concerning the extent of Christs merit propitiation I thought good to inform the Reader that as the
for an Act of Divine Power as it is a cause of subjection which must â—o before admission To understand this we must consider the Subject of it and that is Man as sub alienâ potestate under the power of Sin and Sathan and so out of God's Kingâ—om and as an Alien to this Heavenly Common-wealth and such is every one by Nature as he is out of Jesus Christ. Yet there are degrees of this distance some are further off some nearer to this Kingdom This is evident from the condition of Jews and Gentiles in former times and always especially since the times of the Gospel Because all men are either in the visible Church or out of it And men may be out of the Church two ways 1. As never admitted into the same Or 2. Such as being in the Church prove Apostates The Gentiles once were not Gentiles For their first Apostate Fathers were in the Church and the Jews in former times were God's people but for their unbelief are cast out and continue LO-AMMI none of God's people and this shall be their condition till such time as the fulness of the Gentiles be come in And we must distinguish of such as are in the visible Church for some are sincerely subjected unto God-Redeemer according to their Allegiance Some are Subjects onely by Name and Profession and by their ignorance unbelief disobedience are little better then Heathens and Aliens Some are subject in some measure but come short of that degree which is required to admission All these excepting one sort are out of this Kingdome as it consists of reall Saints and living members of Christ. Apostates shall never be called much lesse admitted if they be personally and wilfully such For if we sin wilfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth there remaineth no more Sacrifice for sins Heb. 10. 26. and if no more Sacrifice then calling is in vain and to no purpose Yet the posterity of Apostates may be and have been called And if once God vouchsafe the meanes of conversion to Idolators who have forsaken not only God as their Redeemer but as Creatour and Preserver he requires of them to renounce the Devil and turn from their Idols to the living God first and then unto him as Redeemer by Jesus Christ. They which have forsaken Jesus Christ or deny him as their Saviour and yet acknowledge and worship God alone as the Creatour of Heaven and Earth the Preserver and Governour of the World as Turks all Mahumetans and the unbelieving Jews do at this day are bound to acknowledge Christ as their Saviour and Redeemer and sure his incarnation and glorification as already come into the World The case of the Jew in the times of Christ and the Apostles was singular For the sincere Proselyte and Jew had onely this to do to believe in Christ already come as before they believed in him to come and so they became compleat members of the Church Christian and perfectly subjects of the Kingdome of Christ glorified The Ignorant and Prophane as also the Hypocrits must forsake their wicked wayes and sincerely submit themselves Yet none of these things can be done without a power from Heaven and a Vocation which is a gracious work of God Redeemer wherein he by his Word and Spirit reduceth man to subjection so that he is fitted to be a subject of his Blessed Kingdome For by Calling we are delivered from the power of darknesse and translated into the Kingdome of His Dear Son Col. 1. 13. Therefore said to be called out of darknesse into his marveylous light 1 Pet. 2. 9. And upon this they who were not a people are made the people of God verse 10. For God will put his lawes into their mind and write them in their hearts and thereupon He will be their God and they shall be to him a People Heb. 8. 10. In all these Passages and many more it 's evident 1. That by nature and as born of sinfull Adam we are in darknesse out of Gods Kingdome none of Gods People 2. That we passe out of darknesse into light and into Christs Kingdom 3. This is not a work of our own merit or power For it 's God that delivers us translates us writes his lawes in our hearts and this of his free mercy and by his great and wonderfull power 4. By this we become Gods people and subjects of Christ's Kingdom And all this is said to be by calling For he called us out of darknesse into his marvaylous light All these particulars are expressed or implyed in those words of the Apostle who signifies that God would send him to the Gentiles to open their eves and to turn them from darknesse to light and from the power of Sathan unto God that they may receive remission of sins and as inheritance among them which are sanctifyed by saith in Christ Act. 26. 17 18. This Vocation § VII as it is an act of power and great mercy and free grace for by grace we are saved so it s a work which is effected by the Word and Spirit For as we are regenerate so we are called and we are regenerate 1. By the Word 2. By the Spirit By the Word For of his own will he begat us with the word of truth Jam. 1. 18. By the Spirit For except a man be born again of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdome of God Joh. 3. 5. In the Word God commands and promiseth The command binds man to submit The promise is a motive to enforce the performance of the precept This we maâ— understand and observe in the Call of Abraham For 1. He is commanded to get him out of his Countrey and from his kindred and from his Fathers house unto a land that God would shew him and to perswade him God promiseth to make him a great nation and to blesse him c. But the principall promise was that in him all the familyes of the earth should be blessed Gen. 12. 1. 2 3. This precept implyes that man is under the domiâ—ion of sin and Sathan and therefore commands him to forsake his sin and Sathan and turn from Satan unto God In this God makes use of the Doctrine of the fall of Adam and the Morall Law as given unto him and binding him to perfect and perpetual obedience and upon disobedience threatning Death And by the precept is discovered mans sin and by threatning his misery to humble him break his heart make him weary of sin and desirous of deliverance and willing upon any termes to accept a Saviour Yet this gives him no Comfort nor any Power to do that which is his duty though God make use of it to prepare mans heart The first dutyes commanded are 1. A sight of sin as sin in our selves whereby we are miserable The 2. Is saith whereby we believe that God being satisfyed and attoned by the blood of Christ will be mercifull and pardon sin This faith
essential And that perfect and perpetual obedience should be that condition upon which perâ—ormed it was God's Will Eternal Life should follow and no ways else was accidental So likewise it was that the sin of one should be the sin of all and His Death their death For the Law might have been a Law without any such thing This Law may be considered § IV 1. As given to Adam and in him to all Mankind 2. As continued yet with several accidental and extrinsecal alterations in the Kingdom of God-Redeemer As it was given to Adam it 's of a two-fold consideration in respect 1. Of him as Innocent 2. Of him as Fallen Adam as Innocent received this Law and it was given unto him as righteous and holy by Creation and he was able to keep it And he was bound to perform it perfectly and perpetually together with other Positives And this perfect and perpetual obedience was the onely condition of life to him and his and one sin one committed made him and his liable to death After that Adam and in him all his had sinned it was a Law of Sin and Death unto them and if God had made it a standing Rule of Judgment in strict Justice man must needs have bâ—en condemned to Eternal Death and there was no hope or possibility of Eternal Life by this Law For suppose God had pardoned this first sin and yet continued this Law in force man could not have been saved by it For he lost the Spirit of Sanctification and if God had continued to say Do this and live because he could not do this he could not live Neither was there any Promise of a Saviour to expiate his sin nor of the Spirit to enable him to keep it nor of Pardon upon expiation made if he afterwards transgressed it After that God in passing Sentence upon the Devil had said § V that the Seed of the Woman should bruise the Serpents Head this Law continued but with a great alteration in respect of man A Redeemer who should satisfie God's Justice and merit God's favour unto man was promised his satisfaction accepted the Spirit restored pardon and eternal life promised Faith in the Redeemer made the condition of life the Law of the forbidden Fruit ceased the Law of Works as the condition of life and rule of judgment for punishments and rewards repealed And all this was done in great mercy by God as Supream and absolute Lord above his own Law which bound not Him the Soveraign but Man His Subject Thus much I observed when I spake of the Judgment which God passed upon the Authors of the first sin But how the Law-Moral continued you shall hear-anon The knowledge of this Law § VI as applyed to the Acts Dispositions Habits of men is commonâ—y called Conscience which is nothing else but the knowledge of a man's Acts Dispositions Habits as agreeable or disagreeable to this or other Laws of God This Knowledge in respect of acts future is the Law of God within him to bind him to obedience and restrain him from disobedience In respect of acts past it 's a Judge within himself or a Witness for or against him before the Tribunal of God This it is properly yet tropically in Scripture it 's several times taken in another sense according to the several adjuncts thereof For the practical judgment of man is sometimes more sometimes less perfect and great is his Ignorance and many his Errours both in matter of Law and of Fact and most of all in applying the Law unto the Fact or Fact unto the Law Sometimes it 's a false Witness and an unjust Judge and hence man's Security in greatest Guilt and Despair when there is hope of Mercy This Knowledge of this Law-Moral in Adam innocent was more perfect § VII in his Posterity more imperfect For the enlightening Spirit was taken from him it was not so purely diligently constantly taught neither was the outward Revelation thereof renewed to all Besides the erroneous Traditions without the Corruptions of man's Heart within with other vicious Habits together with God's just judgment had much impaired this Knowledge though not utterly razed it out For even the wicked Heathen who had not the Law written yet by Nature did something contained in the Law and were a Law unto themselves which did shew the Works of the Law of God written in their hearts Rom. 2. 13 14 15. Yet the knowledge of it was always preserved in the Church by constant Teaching and reiterated Revelations improving the Natural Light of Reason Yet some Positives and Ceremonials were always added and it was joyned to the Law of Faith God renewed the Doctrine of it more perfectly and in a more solemn manner unto Israel both by an audible Voice and by writing it in Tables of stone Moses and the Prophets Christ and His Apostles more fully and clearly explain it And by outward Teaching and inward Illumination God writes it by degrees in the hearts of His people The use of the Law may be considered § VIII 1. In respect of the Gentile 2. Of the Jew 3. Of the Church in general but especially Christian. In respect of the Gentiles who had other positive Laws and Customs either by Tradition or the invention of the Devil and wicked men this Moral-Law so far as it was left written in their hearts taught them their Duty to the onely true God and also unto Man For it was a Rule in matters of Religion and in matters of Justice unto them both as they were single persons and also associated in a Family or a Common-wealth It was the Rule of their Civil Government both in making Laws and in Judgment And according to the violation of this Law God judged single persons Families Nations and Kingdoms And the knowledge thereof which they had or might have had though imperfect did manifest in their own Conscience the justice of God's Judgments executed upon them And so much the more because by His patience long-suffering and bounty together with this law he sought to draw them to Repentance But they holding the truth of God in unrighteousness and continuing impenitent were inexcusable and justly delivered up unto a Reprobate mind as may appear Rom. 1. from ver 18. ad finem Chap. 2. from ver 1. to the 17th And they that disobeyed this clear light of Nature were justly punished by God with the ignorance of Jesus Christ and the want of the Laws and Promises of God-Redeemer It was of singular use to the Jew For § IX 1. It was added to the Promise made to Abraham four hundred and thirty years before 2. It was so revealed that it reduced all Moral Duties to a few Heads and digesteâ— those Heads into an exact and excellent Method and was given with a special application to that People 3. It was Supernaturally written in two Tables of Stone that it might be reserved in the Ark as a rare and lasting Monument from Heaven
4. It had annexed the whole Body of the Judicials and Ceremonials to continue in force whilest they should be a State Civil and Ecclesiastical even till the glorification of Christ and the Revelation of the Gospel 5. It had joyned with it many Temporal Promises and Curses Yet as before 1. It did minister no power of the Spirit to keep it 2. It promised no Pardon or Spiritual Blessing for those belonged unto the Law of grace in Christ who was promised to Abraham 3. It had no Priest that could expiate Sin or Sacrifice which could purge the Conscience from dead Works 4. It ran in strict tearms as Do this and live 5. It was given in such a manner as to strike a terrour into them as guilty Wretches who seemed to be summoned before God not so much to receive a Law as to hear the Sentence of Death passed upon them The special use therefore unto them was to give them a clearer and more perfect knowledge as of their duty so of their sin and misery Of their Sin by the Precepts of their misery by the threatnings And this to humble them cause them to desire a remedy and have recourse unto the Promise of Christ and that with a longing after his Exhibition And seeing there was no promise of power to keep it or of pardon and the Priesthood Sacrifices and other Services being in themselves an heavy burthen could no ways be able to free them from the guilt of sin they had the greater cause to rely upon him and expect his coming It was also a Rule of their lives both as single persons and as Members of a Body Politick that by obedience unto it they might live happily in that good Land of Canaan and not be obnoxious to those fearful judgments God had threatned and their Posterity for their sin did afterwards suffer Other uses of it as joyned with the Ceremonials I have formerly delivered That many of them sought Righteousness and Justification by this Law together with the Ceremonial was their great mistake For 1. There was no power in the Moral Law to justifie them except they could keep it but seeing they could not do it it was added for transgression Gal. 3. 19. 2. The Law Ceremonial had no power to sanctifie them and free them from sin For the Law was weak and unprofitable and made nothing perfect that is it justified and sanctified no man Heb. 7. 18 19. The Priests by their Offerings and Sacrifices could not take away sin Heb. 10. 11. The use of it to the Church § X especially Christian who have a clearer knowledge of Moral Duties by the example of our Blessed Saviour who was the perfect Mirrour of all Heavenly Virtues and by the Doctrine of the Gospel is 1. To discover Sin 2. To be a Rule of Obedience And of this use it was always both to Patriarchs to Israel and to all Christians The first end is to discover Sin For as where there is no Law there is no Sin so where there is no knowledge of the Law there is no knowledge of Sin Therefore it is said that by the Law is the knowledge of sin Rom. 3. 20. And the more clearly and distinctly God in his Law shall represent our Duty and that measure of Righteousness and Holiness which God requires at our hands and we by the Law of Creation were bound to perform or else suffer eternal death the more vile abominable and miserable we plainly see our selves to be We easily understand what need we have of Christ's death and intercession God's mercy and the Spirit of Regeneration lest we run on endlesly upon this heavy score The more we know our vile and sad condition the more we know the freeness of God's grace and the abundance of his mercy if He will be pleased to deliver us And lest the Law should work despair it was always in the Church joyned with Christ either to come or else exhibited Therefore it 's said That the Law entred that the offence might abound but where sin abounded grace did much more abound From which words we may understand 1. That the Law was not given to justifie us 2. It 's never to be separated from Christ and God's abundant grace in Jesus Christ our Lord. And this is one use to be made of the Law not onely before we are in Christ to prepare us for him but also after that we are in Him that we may renew our Faith and Repentance till we be fully sanctified Yet the Law without the power of the Divine Spirit can never so clearly and distinctly represent unto us our sins and make us sensible of them or keep us from despair In this respect the Law may be said to be Evangelical because subservient to the Gospel He that shall preach the Law without Christ is truly a legal Preacher And he that shall preach Christ without the Law to discover sin is an Antinomian This use cannot be made of the Law without Self-examination and a serious and distinct Review of our lives laid to the Line of this Law And though the Moral Law be the principal in this use yet all positive Laws in force serve to the same end This was not the proper and first intended end for as it found man holy and righteous at the first so it required he should continue Obedience and life were the end To discover disobedience and man's sad condition thereupon and to cause him to look and cast about for a Deliverance and desire Christ represented as a Saviour was not intended at the first but made an end by God-Redeemer in Christ to prepare him for Christ. This use was merely accidental to the Law and was super-added by the Divine Wisdom and Mercy and in this respect it can no ways belong to the first Covenant of Works To strike terrour into guilty man cause him to despair of life might be an effect of it according to that Covenant And now if it be represented as first given to Adam it can have no other effect But thus it was not to be understood after God had signified that He would provide a Redeemer Another use in the second place § XI is to be a Rule of Obedience But 1. It 's not a bare Rule to inform our Understanding of the Duty and so give direction but it 's a binding Rule as every Law is It 's not merely given us for Advice Exhortation Perswasion but with a strong Obligation 2. This Obedience is performed by sinful Man by way of Return For this Law finds man sinful guiltys and disobedient both by Nature and Practise Therefore the Scripture calls so often for turning to the Lord which implies two things 1. That turning from our sins we should for time to come subject our selves to God as our Redeemer and acknowledge Him 2. That being subjected we should be obedient unto His particular Commands And this Obedience by way of Return is called Repentance which cannot
1. That as purely Moral it is always in force and God did never at any time dispense with it but made it the Foundation of all other Laws and it shall continue in force in Heaven For in the very estate of perfect glory all the Subjects of that eternal glorious Kingdom shall be bound eternally to love their God themselves and one another 2. God bound Adam in the day of Creation to the perfect and perpetual personal obedience of this Law and of other Positives as the onely condition of life and so that upon one sin he and all his should be liable to death without any remedy as from that Law This was the highest obligation 3. After that Adam and in him all his had once sinned this Law with the Positives did render him liable and bound to death 4. After that Christ was once promised as a Surety and Hostage to satisfie God's Justice offended by the sin of man it made him liable to death and all such punishments as God should inflict upon him 5. After the Fall of Adam it was in force so fa◠as to bind all such as were out of the Church to Temporal and Eternal Punishments for their sins against it without any hope of Pardon and all such as were in the visible Church to Temporal and Eternal Punishments no ways removable but upon Faith in the Death of Christ. 6. It is in force always since sinful Man received the New Law and Covenant of Grace to bind him to repentance present repentance and return unto the sincere obedience of it to be performed by the power of the Spirit 7. It always is in force to bind the Regenerate Children of God here on Earth to endeavour and aym at an universal perpetual and perfect obedience and upon defect or default presently to return to God-Redeemer for mercy and pardon of what is past to be obtained by a Plea of Christ's Satisfaction and Merit and also further for the continuance and increase of His Sanctifying Grace Lastly after that Man is perfectly sanctified it 's so far in force as to bind him to perfect and eternal obedience unto it Such is the excellency of this Law as purely Moral that 1. If Man had kept it God would give life by it 2. That God never gave Man a liberty to be free from the Obligation of it 3. That God would never pardon any sinne against it without satisfaction made by the Blood of Christ believed and pleaded by sinful Man 4. That Christ merited and God restored the Spirit of Sanctification that Man might keep it 5. That He will not spare His own children when they transgress it by heynous and especially scandalous sins 6. That no Man can have union with Christ except he willingly separate from sin and return to the obedience of this Law 7. That no man can have full communion with God before he perfectly obey it 8. That there is one great change in respect of this Law First perfect Obedience unto it with other Positives was made the onely condition of life But afterwards that Promise of Life upon those strict tearms and that severe commination of Death upon Sin were abolished and Faith was made the onely condition of life So that it may be truly said that the Law of Works is abrogated but not the Moral Law considered in it Self Yet this change was but accidental as before These things premised § III concerning the Moral Law in general I proceed unto the Exposition of the DECALOGVE which though it was given to the Jewes contains the Heads and Method of the Morall Law And it may be considered either as a part of the Law of Works or merely as the Moral Law in general or as part of the Gospel in an Evangelical Notion As it was delivered in that terrible manner with these Clauses Do this and live and Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things written in this Book it had something of the Law of Works in it As it was annexed to the Promise made to Abraham and joyned with the Ceremonies typifying Christ it was Evangelical As considered in general abstracted from both these it was an Abridgement of the Moral Law respecting Man in this life not in the life to come It 's to be understood not strictly as given to Israel at that time but in a Latitude as it is explained in other parts of the Books of Moses especially in Deuteronomy in the Prophets and most of all as in the New Testament where it is explained by our Blessed Saviour and the Duties thereof pressed by Him and the Apostles upon all Christians And this is an Argument that some ways it continues in force in the Gospel As delivered in Exodus and repeated in Deuteronomy it rather contains the Heads to which other Duties not there expressed may be reduced rather then the Principles from whence they may be deduced It 's abridged in many places of Moses the Prophets and Apostles Yet that of our Saviour is most perfect wherein according to Moses he reduceth all to Love For Love is the whole Law This Loves either of God or of our Neighbour To love God above all is the first and great Commandement of the first Table To love our Neighbour as our Selves is the last Commandement of the second Table These two are purely Moral especially the former and the rest are such by participation as before Therefore the first is said to be the great Commandement The last to be like it CHAP. VII An Exposition of the Moral Law as methodically reduced to Ten Heads in the Decalogue by God himself And of the first Commandement With the Preface THE Decalogue so called by the Septuagint § I because consisting of ten words or Commands we find first delivered Exod. 20. and repeated Deut. 5. Wherein we have 1. The Preface 2. The Precepts or Commandements themselves The Preface is two-fold 1. Of Moses the Historian 2. Of God Himself The first Preface in these words God spake all these words The meaning is that 1. These Words or Commandements for so the Word in the Original sometimes signifies These I say and none else 2. These and all these 3. Were spoken published and promulgate 4. By God and God alone immediately in a wonderful and extraordinary manner in the hearing of all Israel prepared and assembled before Mount Sina in Arabia By this we understand that God Himself was the La-wgiver and the immediate Author of this Law And therefore it 's more excellent then any Law or Laws of any Nation in the World And seeing He spake these and these onely these and all these it 's not for Man to add and diminish And all and every one are authentick and of Divine Authority in an high degree The second Preface we have in these words I am the Lord thy God who brought thee out of the Land of Aegypt out of the House of Bondage This second Preface is of God
said to be the confirmation of Prayer CHAP. XIX Concerning the Laws of God as a Rule of Judgment in the Promises and Comminations HItherto of the Law of God Redeemer § I both Moral and Positive as it 's a Rule of Obedience in Precepts and Prohibitions It remains that we speak of it and consider it as a Rule of God's Judgment in Promises and Threatnings By Precepts God binds Man by Promises He binds Himself Before I proceed one thing formerly omitted is to be added That some Precepts of this Law are mixt and are partly Moral partly positive as Faith and Repentance considered in their general Nature as Duties to be performed to God are Moral For Faith whether it be assent unto the Truth of God's Word or a reliance upon Him promising any Reward or Benefit Repentance as it includes materially in it subjection to God as Supream Lord and Obedience unto His Commands are Duties of the Moral Law as Moral But as Faith assents unto the Truths of the Word concerning Jesus Christ and relies upon God's Promises in Christ and Repentance as it 's a Return unto God-Redeemer in Christ as atoned by his Bloud and so made propitious may be said to be positive as the Objects of both are positive and above the Law of Nature as those positives which are Ceremonial are below it But to return to the Law as a Rule of Judgment we must enquire into 1. The Nature of Promises and Threats in general 2. The Order of this part of Divine Laws 3. The particular Nature of these Promises and Threats in the Laws God-Redeemer 1. For the Nature of Promises and then of Threats The Object of the Promises is Bonum suturum For we cannot promise evil but good at least that which is conceived to be good neither can we properly be said to promise good past or present The act of a promise is a voluntary Obligation whereby the party promising doth bind himself unto another for to do or give some good unto the foresaid party All promises are voluntary otherwise they are not promises The effect of them in respect of the party promising is Obligation in respect of the party to whom the promise is made some kind of right unto the thing promised To threaten is to signifie to another that we intend to do him some hurt or evil The Object is 1. Evil For we cannot properly threaten good 2. It 's evil to come otherwise it 's actual hurt or punishment 3. It presupposeth some intention or resolution to do hurt or inflict evil 4. It signifies by words or other signs this intention as Promises 1. Presuppose some intention to do good 2. A signification of this intention or purpose I will not here spend time in the enumeration of the Accidents or Adjuncts of these Promises to shew how they are private or publike annexed to the Precepts of the Law or not absolute or conditional made by Superiours Inferiours Equals feigned or unfeigned the Promises of such as have power to make them and also strength to perform them or of such as have nor I also pass by the accidental distinctions of Threats which word some think comes of Terreo to terrifie There are Promises and Threats of Man and of God These are of God annexed to His Precepts and Prohibitions as a Rule of Man's Obedience And in this respect they differ from other Promises and Threats The Order of these § II in this Government of God-Redeemer is very evident For 1. They are referred to that part of Government which is concerning Laws 2. In Laws they follow that part which in Precepts and Prohibitions is a Rule of Obedience For as the Law considered as a Rule of Judgment presupposeth something before in it as a Rule of Obedience So these Promises relate unto the Precepts observed as the Threats consider them as violated This is the Order determined by God to manifest His Justice in His Retribution of Rewards and punishments and hereby He signifies that though He be much inclined to reward and do good yet He will judge onely the Obedient a fit Subject of His Bounty and Rewards They that are just and obey His Laws and they onely shall live and enjoy His Mercies And he never threatens as He never inflicts punishments but upon demerit of the Disobedient For He never punished any but such as violated just Laws neither did ever intend it or signifie His intention otherwise The particular and distinct Nature of these Promises § III and Threats is the third thing to be considered They agree with the Promises and Comminations of the Law of Works in Creation with the Law also given to Israel from God by Moses both in that they are Promises and Threats of God and also because they are annexed to the Precepts as a Rule of Obedience These likewise as well as those may be called Sanctions as added to the Precepts for to enforce the Obedience For the Promises are mighty Motives and powerfully perswade to the Observation as Threatnings restrain from the violation of the Precepts And both these were so much the more effectual because there is â—n inward principle in man whereby he naturally desires his own preservation â—nd happiness and abhors to think of his own destruction or misery But these are distinguished from other Promises and Threats even of God 1. Because the Author of them is God-Redeemer as Redeemer 2. The things promised are merited by Christ and so promised and given and to be expected of Free-grace 3. The tearms upon which the Promises are made is Faith in Christ and sincere obedience to God Redeemer 4. The parties who must receive the mercies promised are in themselves 1. Unjust and unworthy 2. Derive their power to perform the Conditions and Precepts of the Law from the Redeemer upon the merit of Christ having satisfied God's Justice whereas the Promises of the Law of Works presupposed man to have power to keep it given in Creation and required perfect and perpetual obedience by that power And if man once lost that power there was no promise in that Law of restoring it again or giving new power It 's said Do this and live Sin in the least and die And so it bound to perfect and perpetual performance or unto death as unavoidable by that Law for there was no promiâ—e of pardon The Law of Moses did strictly command universal and constant obedience for Cursed is he that continueth not saith the Law in all things written in that Book it promised no Spiritual Blessing no Spiritual power nor Spiritual pardon As for the Threats of this Law they make Offenders liable punishment yet they determine Eternal Death as unavoidable to none offending but to final Impenitents and Unbelievers And this was the Imperabundant goodness of 〈◊〉 â—hat whereas He had given Man his Being his Laws his power to keep the 〈…〉 and by his absolute power might have required man's Service without any reward
〈◊〉 onely his Protection and Preservation as Humane Law-givers onely do yet He was willing by Promises to bind Himself to reward him gloriously and after he had lost his power to send Christ to redeem him and give him a new power and first to promise to give him excellent Rewards and in the end actually to reward him for Christs sake with full and everlasting glory and that upon easie and fairest terms For this cause is his Mercy so often magnified in the Scriptures and especially in the Gospel Therefore is it said That God who is rich in mercy for his great love wherewith He loved us even then when we were dead in sins He quickned us by Grace we are saved and raised us up together and made us â—it in Heavenly places in Christ Jesus that in the Ages to come He might shew the exceeding Riches of His Grace in His kindness towards us through Christ Jesus Ephes. 2. 4 5 6 7. And it was His great mercy that He doth threaten no sinners and offenders with punishments unavoidable or unremoveable but final Impenitents and Unbelievers as such From all this His Promises may be described to be A part of the Laws of God-Redeemer whereby He freely bound Himself and did signifie that for Christ's sake He would give all Mercies to Man believing that may make him for ever fully blessed And his Threats are A signification of His Will whereby the party offending should be liable to punishments removeable or unavoible upon certain conditions and onely unremoveable or unavoidable upon â—â—nal unbelief There was one great Promise made presently upon the Fall to give Christ. And this was fully performed in the fulness of time and so to us it 's no Promise and this was not made in consideration of the merit and satisfaction of Christ and did at first include a Promise to call and afford the means of Conversion The rest of the Promises were grounded upon the Satisfaction and Merit of Christ and were better Promises then those of the Law of Works And they are better not onely in respect of the things pâ—omised but of the tearms upon which the Promises were to be performed They are exceeding great and precious that by them we might be partakers of the Divine Nature having escaped the corruption that is in the World through Lust 2 Pet. 1. 4. Some tell us § IV that the Gospel threatens not any sin with Death but final Unbelief And hereupon ariseth a Question about the Threats of the Gospel Whether there be any such Threats of the Gospel which make the Offender liable to Death but onely the final Unbeliever For Solution whereof we must consider 1. That if the Gospel were so strictly taken as it is by many as to contain and consist onely in Promises then it would follow that no sin no not final unbelief could be threatned with Death by the Laws of God-Redeemer as Redeemer 2. We must know that in Scripture by Death is meant punishment in general Whether it be Temporal or Eternal Bodily or Spirituall 3. That every sin deserves Death that is Punishment whether they be sins against the Law of Works or of Grace 4. That the same sins against the morall Law which were threatned with Death by the Law of Works are threatned with Death by the Law of Grace For as that Law bound to obedience or upon Disobedience unto Death so doth this Yet observe 1. That the sins against the Law of grace are sins formally against God-Redeemer as such and giving Laws unto sinful man 2. That these sins have not only the nature of sins as transgressions of a Law of God but also the nature of impenitency and unbelief For whosoever continues in sin or delays if but an hour his return to God Redeemer is not only a sinner against God but an impenitent Sinner against God-Redeemer in Christ requiring repentance and faith instantly and not granting the liberty to continue in sin and to delay repentance for a moment 3. Though the Law threatned every sin against it with punishment and death unremoveable or unavoydable yet the Gospel though it threaten every sin against it with punishment yet it threatens none with punishment unremoveable or unavoyable but finall unbelief or such sins as upon which by his ordination finall unbelief is necessarily consequent 4. This Law of grace threatens not only sins against the morall Law but against the very Ceremonialls of the Gospel How else could the Corinthians have bin guilty of the body and blood of Christ and have suffered so grievous a punishment as many of them did for the unworthy receiving the Lords Supper The rule of this judgment was neither the Law of works as given to Adam nor as given to Israel either in the moralls or positives If any say that Christ died not to satisfie for such sins as finall unbeâ—ief and â—ins unto Death as Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost or some kind of Apostacy it may be said that one immediate effect of Christs death was to satisfie Gods justice and make sin remissible in generall not that it was God's intention that all sins or any sin should be remitted absolutely but upon certain termes defined by his wisdome and justice In this regard these sins as sins in generall were made remissible by Christs Sacrifice Yet in respect of Divine ordination and the termes defined for remission they are irremissible So that as sins by Christs death they are remissible yet made irremissible Per accidens in another respect Yet here we must observe that not only finall unbeliefe and impenitency are sins against the Laws of Redemption and the precepts of the Gospel but every degree of them from the first to the last from the least to the greatest are so too Neither is finall unbelief merely as finall unpardonable but per accidens Because after a certain time granted by God for belief is expired he will never vouchsafe time nor meanes or power for it afterwards and belief he hath made a necessary condition of pardon and hath decree'd never to pardon but upon this condition These promises § V or threats may be considered either formally or materially and in respect of their matter and accordingly may be discovered and summed up in Scripture All such places of Scripture as command and require Repentance and Faith have some promise annexed and the same either expressed or implyed And to such places these promises of God do properly belong For Promises and Duties go together and therefore in most of the promises the duty is expressed And they are made to persons so and so qualified Insomuch that till the person be rightly qualified he hath no immediate right unto the thing promised nor can have any hope of performance For God is only bound to performe his promise when man hath performed his duty This was the Wisdome of God so to make his promises that man might have no cause to presume or deceive himself The
Gen. 18. 25. Where he acknowledgeth 1. His Universall jurisdiction He is Judge of all the World 2. His absolute justice Shall He not do right That is certainly he Shall 6. His power is Almighty and as he can easily summon all before his judgment Seat even the greatest so he can execute his judgments to the full whether in punishments or rewards So that this Judgment is free from all the imperfections of humane Courts whether civil or Ecclesiasticall This judgment differs from that which he pass'd upon Men and Angels at the first For it hath another rule and conâ—iders the persons to be judged and their works under another notion and the Judge also is God as Redeemer The obedience or disobedience which are the proper formall object of this judgment are to be measured by the Laws of Redemption The one is faith the other unbelief And these things must seriously be considered lest we confound the several jurisdictions of this supreme Lord. â— This judgment is two-fold § II 1. Particular 2. Universal and final By Particular I meane the judgment of God passed and executed before the Resurrection By Universall that which follows when God shall keep his last and generall Assises And both these shall be considered 1. In the Punishments 2. In the Rewards To begin with the Punishments of the Particular judgment and they are either such as are determined and inflicted upon Collective bodyes or upon Single persons and they are either temporall or spirituall In the discovery of these punishments as likewise of the rewards I might take a Chronological method beginning with the first times of the World after the promise of Christ was made and â—o go through the Scriptures beginning with Gen. 4. and go on unto the end of the Revelation For even in the dayes of Adam God began to open his Court and set himself in the Throne of Justice and shall continue without any vacation or intermission unto the Resurrection Universal And here I might make use of humane Historyes which if true and wisely composed will manifest much of Gods just Judgments which take up a great part of those Voluâ—s But this to do would make these Divine Politicks and brief Treatise swell unto a Vast Volume Yet if any man of ability would single out this subject and enlarge upon it he might thereby much honour God and do great service unto Man There is another method might be taken and the same very usefuâ—l and that is to reduce the severall judgments to their proper places in the Laws of God Redeemer For as some sins are generall against all the Laws of God Some against the Morals Some against the Positives Some against some of the Moral precepts joyntly considered Some against the severall and particular precepts accordingly the punishments might be ranked and the same order might be observed in the rewards But lest we should confound the judgments of the two severall Governments amongst others two rules may be observed whereby we may difference them and this difference once known I may go on without interruption The 1. Rule is from the judgments themselves The 2. From the Laws and works disagreeable to these Laws 1. The judgments which fall and lye upon all mankind indefinitely as Mortality the curse of the earth ejection out of Paradise the perill and paine of Women in bearing and bringing forth Children and the paenal subjection of them unto their Husbands For these are common to all both believers and unbelievers and are inflicted upon all mankind without exception for the first sin Yet because some of these or some part of them may be in some measure removeable or abateable and yet continue they may become penaltyes inflicted by God Redeemer 2. The Lawes of God Creatour require perfect obedience not onely in all things and degrees but in all times and say thus Do this and live and if thou do not this thus thou must dye and there is no remedy but this Law if it be maâ—e the rule oâ—â—udgment as God might have made it The Law of God Redemeer saith Though thou hast sinned and dost sin yet if thou return by the power of my grace and believe thou shalt live and not dye Though thou art guilty and liable to punishment and the same lye upon thee in part yet upon these conditions the penalty may be removed or prevented Some of the sins forbidden in the Law of work are the same materially with those forbidden in the Gospel and so are some of the dutyes yet they differ formally if we speak after the manner of the Schools This you have heard before For any sâ—n after it once put on the notion of impenitency by delay and neglect to return it presently begins to be a sin against the Gospel And such are all sins committed after the first promise of Christ. Such was the Murder of Cain the corruption of the old world the filthinesse of Sodome and all the rest mentioned in the book of God from Gen. 4. to the end So that all the penaltyes as that of Cain the old World the Builders of Babel and the rest were penaltyes as threatned by so inflicted for the sins against God Redeemer All this is evident from the books of Moses and all the Prophets which speak to men as sinfull promise Christ forbid impenitency Preach and urge repentance and make all penaltyes removeable upon that condition which could not have been done if sin and penaltyes had been looked upon according to the Law of works Therefore it 's in vain to argue that because as the Law of Works commanded love to God love to Neighbour did forbid Idolatry Perjury Mâ—rder Theft c did threaten death and punishment for these sins so the Gospel commands the same dutyes forbids the very same things threatneth the same penaltyes and promiseth life that therefore the Law of works continueth especially the Morall Law For the precepts prohibitions promises threats of the Law of works and the Law of grace come under different notions For an instance we may amongst many places single out this one Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return unto the Lord and he will have mercy upon him and to our God and he will abundantly pardon Esa. 55. 7. The Law of works saith Be not Wicked Sin not at all The Law of Grace saith Though thou hast sinned and art wicked yet forsake thy wicked way and return unto the Lord against whom thou hast sinned The Law of Works saith Thou hast sinned and must dye I have no promise of life or Pardon for thee The Law of Grace saith though thou by thy sin hast deserved to dye yet upon condition of repentance and return thou shalt be Pardoned and live I touch more often upon this point and here stand more largely upon it because some will take no notice of it others who are sufficiently informed are hardly perswaded of this
Messengers continually time after time to teach us his Laws to call them to remembrance often and by them to reprove our sins exhort us to obedience and repentance and daily to set life and death before us So unwilling he is to punish so willing to reward And the use we are to make of all the punishments recorded in Scripture both as threatned and executed we may learn from the Apostle For what he saith of the judgments executed upon Israel is true not only of all the rest written in Scripture but of all those which we ourselves both hear of and see and of those we read of in other Histories They all happened unto them for ensamples and they are written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the World are come 1 Cor. 10. 11. God by them speaks unto us in this manner Avoyd such sins and you shall escape such punishments But if you will sin as they did ye shall suffer as they did And we upon whom the ends of the World are come should be more carefull to avoid sin because as we have more examples to warn us So if we sin our guilt will be the greater and our punishment the heavier And though these punishments be a reason yet they are not the principall why we should take heed of disobedience For a wicked man may fear to sin because he fears to suffer But such is the love of God of goodnesse justice virtue in the regenerate that they hate sin because it 's so base and unjust in it self and so offensive to their Heavenly Father CHAP. XXI Some Rewards tendred by God before the Vniversall Judgment as taking out Stony Hearts Writing his Laws in them c. THe Scriptures many times speak of rewards before Punishments § I especially in such places as describe the finall Doom yet here I have changed the order and that for severall reasons and have first declared the punishments and now proceed to the rewards And in this place I take Reward for any mercy and blessing of God which follows by Divine ordination according to promise upon the performance of any duty required by the Laws of God-Redeemer And as the proper and formall object of punishment is disobedience to the Law of Redemption So reward looks at obedience performed according to that Law and the subject immediately capable thereof is the penitent believer Yet no man by obedience faith repentance can merit any thing at God's hands For all rewards given to sinfull man are merited by Christ and onely upon his merit and Gods promise the obedient derive their right unto them God cannot be bound to reward either man or Angel though innocent and perfectly obedient except by promise he bind himself How then can he any other way be bound to sinfull man So that it 's hence Consequent that though man perform his duty yet the reward is free These rewards are either Temporall or Spirituall For as you heard before Godlinesse hath the promises that is the rewards promised of this life and that which is to come whether they be deliverances or blessings We may understand by the holy Scriptures that God did not onely promise but gave unto his obedient Children in all times even Temporall rewards and not onely blessed them with earthly blessings and upon their prayers delivered them out of afflictions and their enemyes hand but also upon their repentance either removed or diverted by way of prevention Temporal judgments And because these are many and may be easily understood by the promises I passe them by forbearing all further mention of them in this place either as they are proper to single persons or to Societies For so Cityes civil have their proper blessings if they be just and well ordered as safety peace plenty prosperity victory over their enemyes and help and comfort from their confederates and allyes Neither will I enlarge my discourse with a debate whether heathens and others out of the Church may not obtaine from God temporal rewards for their moral Virtues That God doth blesse them Temporally for their justice and other deeds virtuous in that low degree is evident Neither will I enquire how far Ahab and other unregenerate persons by their humiliations and repentance such as they are may prevail with God to avert or put off judgments It 's very certain he is mightily inclined to mercy and will encourage the lest degree of goodnesse in any Person He prevents us with many blessings and doth many things even to the great sinners which he was in no wise bound unto He is willing that sinfull man should love him and live for he takes no pâ—easurâ— in our ruine and misery for that 's his strange work and not so suitable to his gracious disposition Rewards spirituall are the principall § II and to these I proceed whether they be proper to single persons or societies and Churches There be some indeed which a society as such may enjoy for a society doth add unto our happinesse both on earth and in heaven If a Church as a Church shall be obedient her reward no doubt will be Gods speciall protection the continuance of the meanes of conversion and confirmation plenteous store of the gifts of the Spirit and other speciall favours To know these we must consider the promises God hath made to the Church as a Church and especially a Church obedient The principall whereof may be observed in his promises to the seven Churches of Asia For there is hardly any Church that is not fearfully degenerate but may be found in the same condition and case with some of them Yet because most of the rewards there promised are such as single persons regenerate may enjoy I therefore single out some of the principall of them Before I can enter upon particulars § III because it 's properly a reward that follows upon duty performed I must shew what is necessarily required and to be presupposed before the performance of any spirituall duty For there is some mercy wherein God must of necessity prevent us before we can serve and obey him so as to be capable of a spirituall reward God made men and so Angels at the first righteous and holy before they could do any acts of righteousnesse And when God at the first promised Christ and commanded men to repent and believe in him in that very promise was included a promise of the meanes of conversion without which man could never have believed so as to have benefit by Christ. It 's true that man by a demerit antecedent may lose these as the first Apostate Gentiles and afterwards the unbelieving Jew caused God to take these from them But no man by any duty prayer or such meanes can merit them no nor obtaine them For God in these mercyes must prevenâ— man because without them it 's not possible for any especially such as have wholly lost them to perform any spirituall duty in this case God must needs say I
which doth not cannot rellish affect heavenly and spirituall things so as to be moved by them effectually Because the word finds the heart of man under the guilt and dominion of sin § V and his corrupt lusts therefore one of the first things man is made sensible of is his sinfull and miserable condition Upon this the heart begins to bleed grieve smart as being deeply and mortally wounded And it may be God doth not at the first represent unto man all his sin but it may be one and the same principall or more predominant or some other nor discover all the punishments due but some few or one especially the eternall This may be called that part of judgment which we tearme to be Conviction upon Summons and a charge and the same confessed For when God hath thus made the heart of man sensible he is convinced confesseth accuseth and condemneth himself And though at the first the work begins with the apprehension and sense of one sin yet afterwards he begins to see his sins to be many and heinous and so his condition to be very miserable And in this case a man may continue a longer or a shorter time as it shall please God and this his sad condition is sometimes made more sad by outward afflictions or inward terrours or both and all this while the sinfull wretch is in danger of dispair if God prevent it not by restraining Satans rage who then will be very busie Yet God gives man no occasion to cast away all hope because he doth not at the first represent sin as unpardonable but pardonable nor the punishment as unavoydable but avoydable Some say this is done by the Law and they meane the morall Law discovering unto man his sin by the precept and his misery by the commination But 1. God doth not use onely the morall law but all other laws or any law in force and he maketh use of the History of the first sin and â—all of man nay of the sufferings and death of Christ of his judgments executed upon others 2. No man ought to preach the law of works unto sinfull man as in force for that makes sin unpardonable and is the high way to cause dispaire He indeed that will onely threaten death and punishments according to the Law of works and silence and conceale the promise of the Gospel is a Legal-Preacher indeed and can be no faithfull Servant unto Christ in this work 3. It 's not the Law nor any other Doctrin preached by man which can break his stony heart without the Spirit and power of the Gospel That Doctrin which used by God in this work is most effectuall is the Doctrin of Christ Jesus crucified for our sins and it must be the law of the Spirit of life that must free us from the Law of sin and death In this sad condition § VI whilst man continues guilty and convicted by his own conscience at the bar of divine Justice he will begin to cast about and look on every side to see whether there be any help deliverance and hope of escape and he finds nothing in himself nothing in any Creature no not in Angels to help him and so despairs of any comfort in any thing excepting Christ and so casts away all confidence in any other things and with the Jews pricked in their hearts cryes out Men and Brethren what shall we do Acts 2. 37. And with the Jaylour Sirs what shall I do to be saved Act. 16. 30. To this question made in the anguish and bitternesse of Spirit the answer is Repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the Remission of sins and ye shall receive the Holy-Ghost Act. 2. 38. And Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved Act. 16. 31 This implyes 1. That the Sinner is Savable and remission possible 2. That Remission and Salvation is onely by Jesus Christ. 3. That the meanes to obtaine both by Christ is repentance and faith Upon this follows an appeal from the Throne of Justice to the Throne of Grace and mercy Christ is pleaded the guilty person offers the sacrifice of a broken heart and bruised Spirit to the supreme Judge and earnest suit is made not onely for pardon of sin past but for power against sin for the time to come And though man desires and endeavours to repent and beleive and quiet his mind in Christ's merits and Gods promises yet he cannot do these things to purpose nor any man in the world can give him effectuall comfort by the application of the promises till God put his laws in his mind and write them in his heart by his Divine Spirit Thus to do is a work of the Divine Spirit who alone can write immedâ—ately and imprint the Divine precepts and promises of the Gospel upon the heart of man and so give him a divine power to repent to believe to understand to do the Laws of God and apply his promises The word now is no longer onely in books or in mens mouths or in their eares but also in the heart Yet it 's here to be noted 1. That this great promise of the Gospel is not absolute as though God pre-required no duty to be performed by man 2. That he doth not this work without the word both taught heard and learned 3. That this Law is not fully and perfectly written in any mans heart in this life 4. That therefore the most illuminated and sanctified man in this life hath need of the written Word This is not any precept or promise of the Law it 's a performance of a promise upon some precepts performed and so an act of judgment and the same not a bare sentence pronounced out of man but executed in the soul of man and not a punishment but a blessed reward Upon this follows another performance § VII and that is repentance and belief and the same of a far higher degree then can be performed by any strength natural and moral They are divine and supernaturall not performed by any acquired power but by a strength from Heaven For in writing these divine precepts in the heart of man God himself so immediately speaks to man that he receives the Word of God as the Word of God indeed is taught of God drawn to Christ and comes unto him never to depart from him again I will not deny but there may be some supernaturall illumination and alteration in the heart of man and some comforts thereupon in an heart not fully humbled But for God so to write his laws in our hearts as to cause us to walk in his statutes and keep his judgments to do them and that sincerely and constantly Ezek. 36. 27. is a far higher degree of grace in Christ and the duty performed thereupon is far more perfect and excellent In this repentance and faith there are severall branches The 1. Is a sincere and totall submission unto Christ alone as our onely Saviour and to
Haughton octavo Orders of Chancery octavo Illustrious Bashaw in folio The Bloody Inquisition of Spain Twelves Hughs Abridgment of the Common Law Large quarto â—is Abridgment of all the Acts and Ordâ—nances quarto Several Works of Mr. Murret Minister at Dublin in Ireland with his Life quarto A Catalogue of the Chancellours of England quarto A Scripture Chronology By Mr. Al lâ—n Minister in quarto A Catalogue of most Books vendible in England of Divinity History Law c. quarto Annotations upon Job Psalms Proverbs Ecclesiastes Song of Solomon By Arthur Jackson Preacher of God's Word at Faiths under Pauls quarto ERRATA PAg. 6. l. 36. artificiale read inartificiale p. 9. l. 30. yet men r. yet if men p. 17. l. 35. unbelief r. belief p. 17. l. 47. which r. what for it r. is in the Margent by is omitted p. 18. l. 18. Legal r. Regal p 32. l. 36. wrap r. rap p. 23. l. 43. delâ— not p. 36. pro. 34. l. 32. knew r know p. 35. l. 31. if r of p. 39. l. 47. in it is written r it is written p. 40. l. 38. elements r element p. 48. l. 17. they have r God hath l. 35. propriety r variety p. 50. l. 17. resign r reign p. 54. l. 15. r. and attain p. 66. l. 19. convinced r charged p. 70. l. 30. wherein passed r wherein God passed p. 70. l. 21. heart r heel p. 91. l. 26 case r cause p. 94. l. 18. r with godly sorrow l. 40. resently r presently p. 96. l. 8. he r God l. 21. in r to p. 103. l. 50. pardoned r pardonable p. 107. l. 10. charge r care p. 106. l. 7. it is omitted p. 111. l. 16. sure r since p. 147. l. 12. twofoldness r twofold use p. 153. l. 3. ought r would accused r accursed p. 156. l. 39. as he omit as p. 160. l. 47. meer r meerly p. 172. l. 36. because he r man may p. 176. l. 32. to r they who p. 177. l. 35. it is omitted l. 37. omit the word not p. 183. l. 43. rise r risen p. 184. l. 32. the word King is omitted p. 189. l. 27. r in some p. 200. l. 9. is the r its the. l. 16. omit they p. 208. l. 40. all r also p. 233. l. 38. new r mens l. 40. r arbitrary power p. 227. l. 3. unprofitable r profitable p. 242. l. 26. Grenaeus r Iraeneus p. 246. l. 30. Cross r Mass. l. 38. r Heb. 9. 26. p. 264. l. 36. if r that p. 276. l. 49. for nothing r something p. 278. l. 45. but r by p. 285. l. 46. conform r confirm p. 297. Pro. 327. l. 38. was made r was not made p. 328. l. 15. omit the word to p. 330. l. ult r c. p. 394. l. 6. external r eternal The First Scheme Howâ—â—â— the 〈◊〉 the Holy Sâ—riptuâ—â— which being the Word of God written signifie the Mind of God concerning His special Government first known unto Himself alone as contrived by His Wisdom decreed by His Will afterwards revealed from God to Man immediately by inspiration mediately by Man infallibly directed in Words Writings of the Old instrument begun by the Prophets finished by the Apostles New instrument begun by the Prophets finished by the Apostles which are of Divine Authority primarily in the first Origina Languages Copies secondarily in the Transcripts Translations as they agree with the Originals no further fallibly in their Words Writings yet infallibly so far as they follow the infallible Scriptures and attain the knowledg thereof by certain ordinary means appointed by 〈◊〉 communicate the knowledge several ways to others whâ— by Reading Hearing Meditation Prayer Power of the Spiâ—â—â— attain a Divine Faith more Largely in the whole Body of the Canon which upon the Testimony of the Church Reasons added is believed to be Divine Briefly as being contracted in many places of the Holy Scriptures particularly in the words of our Saviours doctrine concerning the Father Son Holy Ghost Math. 28. 19. which is the ground for Matter Method of all Orthodox Creeds Confessions Catechisms Theological Systems declareth the Government of God considered in Himself as onely fit to be the Universal Soveraign Absolutely a most perfect Being great one and onely one alone infinite immense incomprehensible omnipresent eternal existing alwayes necessarily the same in his most eminent Acts perfection of acting by His Understanding knowing himself all things at once fully clearly Will willing indeclinably that which is just readily that which is good Power doing all things exactly according to His Understanding Will. Relatively Father Son Holy Ghost Regal Capacity according to an Actual Power being acquired by Creation continued by Preservation of all things was exercised in the ordering of all things for their ends special Government of Angels who 1. Being created holy became subjects of this Kingdom by their dependence upon God voluntary submission 2. Received Laws Were judged and some of them according to their Disobedience and Apostasie condemned to Eternal Death Loyalty and Obedience justified confirmed rewarded Men according to the Order of Creation in the Constitution of God's Soveraignty Mans Subjection Natural from Creation Moral God's Will Man's voluntary Submission Administration giving Laws Moral Positive concerning the Tree of Life Knowledge of Good Evil. judging Adam and in him all his Posterity according to His Obedience whilest he continued innocent and righteous rewarding him with present comfort hope of future glory Sin which was considered In general as disobedience to the Law of God hath many evil consequents In particular a breach of a positive Law and Committed upon a temptation made yieldedâ— Sentenced to a punishment to be inflicted upon the Tempter 〈◊〉 movable Persons 〈◊〉 as 〈◊〉 by Chrâ—â—â— Transmitted to Posterity by Propâ—â— just 〈◊〉 Redemption and Free-Grace THE DOCTRINE OF The Kingdome of God The First BOOK Chap. I. Shewing the Subject Matter and Method of the ensuing Discourse THE Divine Politicks inform us of the Kingdom of God and of His Power and how it is acquired how exercised both in the Constitution and the Administration of his Government by Laws and Judgments determining both the Temporal and Eternal Rewards and Punishments of Angels and Men according to their Obedience or Disobedience They say little of Angels but much of Men who were first under the Government of Justice and after of Mercy For when Man transgressed the Law given in Creation and made himself liable to the Eternal Displeasure of his Lord and Sovereign the first Government was alter'd and modeâ— anew And thereupon the Laws the Judgments the manner of administration were new and different from the former God acquires a new Power requires a new Obedience and orders Man to Eternal Rewards another way And because these are high Matters great Mysteries glorious Designs and many of them far above the reach of Mans Reason therefore it 's necessary that we have some certain Rules to direct us yet no Direction except from
the form of an Art or Science as some use to speak They determine the Subject of it to be Man Quatenus Beatificabilis as capable of Spiritual and Eternal Happiness The Object of it must be Deus quatenus Beatificans God as the Fountain and Cause of Eternal Bliss And the end is to direct the Spiritual Acts and Operations of the Immortal Soul so that by them well regulated and fixed upon their due Object man may tend unto and in the end attain the full fruition of that Eternal Being in whom he shall be for ever blessed According to this determination some reduce the Doctrine of the Scriptures to Truths Promises Duties yet this is imperfect Others make three Heads of this Doctrine 1. The first is the Being and Perfection of God in himself 2. The second the Works of God 3. The third His Commands Yet this as the former proves defective and no ways exact Others tell us that the Scriptures represent God to us 1. As to be known And 2. As to be worshipped And so make the Parts of this Divine Doctrine to be 1. Knowledge 2. The Worship of God And this hath much affinity with that Distribution of Theologie into Faith and Obedience that is the Rule of Faith and Obedience These conceive all things in the Scripture especially conducing to Salvation to be credenda or agenda The things to be believed the Object of Faith the things to be done and performed the Object of Obedience For this they think that they have a sufficient ground in the Mandate and Commission of our Blessed Saviour Go and teach all Nations baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you Math. 28. 19 20. And that of the Apostle seems to confirm this Hold fast the form of sound words which thou hast heard of me in faith and love 2 Tim. 1. 13. I will not examine these distinctions now but onely say this much That Faith and Obedience or Observancy as some call it according to the intended sense of these two places are onely Duties to be performed by sinful man Redeemed and Called according to the Commands of their God-Redeemer and so do not reach the utmost bounds of this Heavenly Doctrine And even in this respect they refer to Government and belong onely to that One Head and part thereof The Commands and Laws of God Redeemer requiring obedience And Faith it self is but one part of this obedience as it is a Duty So that these things may be some ways true but no ways accurate and perfect And if they may be allowed mine intended method I hope may pass without any harsh censure For I know no reason to the contrary seeing it's evident that the Principal if not the adaequat subject of the Holy Scriptures is the Kingdom and Government of God The Doctrine whereof is methodically contracted in ancient Creeds and Confessions which take in the Agenda or things to be practised as well as the Credenda things to be believed Of these ancient Confessions it may be observed that 1. Though they differ in words and expressions § II as may appear by the several forms thereof some more brief some more large especially in Irenaeus and Tertullian yet they agree in the matter and the principal method 2. That divers of the Ancients inform us that the first Planted Churches received the Forms of Confession though different in some words and expressions yet the same for matter and the general and principal method from the Apostles the Apostles from Christ Christ from God Thus amongst others Tertullian 3. They were received from Christ 1. In that Mandate and Commission to the Apostles Go and teach all Nations baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost 2. By Inspiration of the Holy Ghost 4. In those Words we have 1. God the Father Almighty making Heaven and Earth by his Word 2. This Word and Son made flesh redeeming sinful man 3. The Holy Ghost by whom Christ was conceived and anointed the Prophets inspired the Church sanctified unto Eternal Glory For so the Ancients understood it being directed by the Apostles 5. This Form thus understood was 1. A Tradition unwritten and of Divine Authority as taught by Christ and his Apostles before it was written But 2. Being written and more fully explained in the Canon of the New Testament it can be no longer an unwritten Tradition And whosoever reading the New Testament doth not find and that in several places both the matter and method of the ancient Confessions understands little 6. No particular form of Confession considered as a Tradition of the Church since the time of the Apostles can be of equal authority with the Scriptures 7. That which we call the Apostles Creed which we find in the Works of Cyprian and Russinus with an Exposition is no more nor so much the Apostles Creed as some ancient Creeds in form differing from it 8. Those words of our Saviour and his Rule of Doctrine concerning the Father Son and Holy Ghost with the three glorious Works of Creation Redemption Sanctification is a divine and wonderful Abridgment of all the Doctrine of the Scripture especially of that which is necessary to Salvation The Confession and Creed of the Patriarchs § III in particular of Enoch was thus God is and he is a Rewarder of them who diligently seek him Heb. 11. 6. For they believed That there was one God most glorious and blessed in Himself who by his Wisdome and Power made preserved and governed the World and especially Mankind For to Reward is an act of judgment Judgment presupposeth Laws Laws a Governour a Governour Subjects made and to be governed So that in their ancient Creed we have God considered 1. In Himself 2. As a Governour of the World made by him and especially of Men and Angels and that by Laws and Judgments The obedience to these Laws is to seek God diligently according to the direction of those Laws and the reward of this Obeâ—ience is Eternal Life as the punishment of Disobedience is Eternal Death And after the Fall of Man no man in himself was capable of this Eternal Liâ—â— because all were guilty Therefore they sought this glorious Reward by Châ—iâ—â— to come whom all their Ilastical Sacrifices did typifie as they sought their God by Him The ordinary Analysis of that which we call § IV The Apostles Creed as delivered by more understanding Catechists and Authors of Theological Systems is this God being the Subject of that Confession is considered 1. In himself as God the Father Son and Holy Ghost 2. As in his Works 1. Of Creation 2. Of Providence Providence preserves and governs all things created especially Man Man made righteous holy happy 1. Falls 2. Is restored He is restored by Redemption and the Application of it The Redeemer for Person is the
too For he doth not say to our first Parents Go ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels But you shall suffer Temporal punishments yet so that through my Grace and sanctifying Spirit they shall be Corrections and Chassisements for Humiliation Mortification and Reformation and you shall be banished out of Earthly Paradise and from this Tree of Life that you may more earnestly long after and seek the Paradise and Tree of Life in Heaven For you shall know that it 's a bitter thing to forsake your God and disobey his Command Yet this was the great punishment that the Spirit of Sanctification and Comfort was departed and no ways to be recovered but by Jesus Christ the great Redeemer as a gift of Free-grace And now consider all Mankind in Adam as innocent and obedient they are innocent and obedient Consider them in him as sinful guilty convicted they are sinful miserable convicted and in a lost condition Consider them in him as receiving the Promise of Christ they are in a possibility of Salvation and Deliverance And all such as are born in the Bosome of the Church and under the means of Conversion are in a better condition then such as are strangers from the Covenants of Promise as all Children or Apostlates are Yet we must understand and take special notice of it that after the Fall there is not any thing in man tending either to holiness or happiness or the abatement of sin or misery but from the mere mercy of God which doth shine forth most clearly in two things The first is the giving of Christ or the Promise to give him and this was not upon any merit no nor of Christ himself And howsoever all other Spiritual Mercies may be promised and given for and in respect of the satisfaction and merit of Christ yet the gift of Christ was from purest love without any respect to any merit at all The second is in calling wherein he prevents both by giving the means of Conversion and the grace of his Spirit to make them effectual Therefore the Scripture so much magnifies God's abundant love and free grace manifested in both 1. For the first it 's said God so loved the World that he gave his onely begotten Son Joh. 3. 16. And God commendeth his love towards us in that Christ died for us while we were yet sinners Rom. 5. 8. And in this was manifested the love of God towards us because that God sent his onely Begotten Son into the World that we should live by him Herein is love not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the Propitiation for our sins 1 Joh. 4. 9 10. For some mercies we receive from God loving us before we love him as these two Some after we begin to love him 2. For the second we read that God who is rich in mercy for his great love wherewith he loved us even when we were dead in sins hath quickned us together with Christ by grace we are saved and hath raised us up together and made us sit together with Christ Jesus in Heavenly places Eph. 2. 4 5 6. Yet this latter is merited by Christ. Besides the manifestation of these Attributes it 's remarkable that God exercised his transcendent and absolute power above his Law For to reverse the Law of Works to require and accept satisfaction and the same made by another even Christ and not the Delinquents and thereupon to promise Pardon and Eternal Life upon condition of Faith were acts of Him as above his Law and dispensing with it in his judicial proceedings For if he had according to his ordinary power made the Law of Works requiring perfect and perpetuall obedience as the onely condition of life the rule of judgment he could have done none of the fore-mentioned Acts but must have condemned man unto Death and punished him according to the demerit of his sin which if he had done neither Adam nor any Son of Adam could have had the least possibility of Salvation So that in this Judgment the Foundation of the second Government of greatest mercy was laid and then even then God began to constitute another Form of Government over Man and to administer the same And the former continued but a little while and the latter hath continued long and shall be An everlasting Kingdom The Second Scheme Acquired by the Word made Flesh by His Conception Birth Anointed King Priest Prophet in His Humiliation taking upon Him the form of a servant being obedient unto Death which presupposing His former Holiness and Obedience was an act of Obedience unto the great Command of His Father accepting Him as the Surety and Hostage of Mankind laying on Him the iniquities of us all a Sacrifice offered to God as Supream Judge to expiate the sin of Man and being accepted did satisfie Divine Iustice offended merit for Himself Eternal Glory and Power sinful Man immediately the Abrogation of the Law of Works Covenant of Grace Power of the Spirit to enable Him to keep it These Effects formally include exclude no person mediately upon the Covenant observed Iustification Glorification Exercised in the Constitution which determines the Sovereign God-Redeemer Administrator-General Christ at the right hand of God Enemies Devils Men Rebels Apostates Subjects men who being reduced by Vocation according to Predestination do voluntarily submit and that sincerely to God-Redeemer their Soveraign Administration considered in general according to the degrees alterations from the time of Adam till the Commencement of that glorious Reign wherein God shall be all in all special in giving Laws which being Moral considered as given to Adam Innocent continued to Gentiles Iews Christians with the different Obligations thereof determines man's duty to God Creator Redeemer Man Positive in Ceremonies especially Sacrifices Ilastical Eucharistical Sacraments of the Law extraordinary ordinary Gospel Baptism Eucharist an Examination by whom to whom How these may be admiâ—â— are a rule of Man's duty in Precepts Prohibitions God's judgment in Promises Threatnings Iudgment particular in Punishments Temporal Spiritual in this life upon single persons Societies Ecclesiastical Civil after Death before the Resurrection Rewards Temporal Spiritual in this life Conversion Iustification begun continued in the state thereof after Death before the Resurrection Universal determining and rendring the Eternal Punishments Rewards of Men Angels THE DOCTRINE OF The Kingdom of God OR The Government of God-Redeemer The Second BOOK CHAP. I. Concerning the Power of God-Redeemer and by whom it was acquired WHen the first Government did determine § I the second did begin For after the Fall of two of God's most noble Creatures there followed a great alteration in the World and such that if God had followed strictly the Rules of his former Government all Mankind must needs have perished But this his Mercy could not suffer therefore his Divine Wisdom contriveth a way how to recover Man fâ—llen and began to govern him according
and of great power and policy therefore he must be a King invested with Universal and Eternal Power to make Laws and Officers to judge and to execute Judgment in rendring eternal rewards and punishments according to the Works of such as shall be judged that so he may subdue all Enemies even Death it self protect his people and give Eternal Peace and Felicity to such as shall unfeignedly submit unto his Power and continue loyal and obedient Subjects to the end As God hath decreed before the World upon the fore-sight of man's sin that the World should be made flesh so he likewise decreed that he should be invested with this three-fold power and to confer it upon him as Flesh united to the Word Upon the Fall of Adam this Office was promised in his Conception and Birth he was designed unto it in his Baptism he was declared to be the Son of God Upon his manifestation after his Baptism he began to act in this Three-fold Office Upon his Resurrection he was constituted a compleat Priest Prophet King and all power in Heaven and Earth given Him Upon his Ascension he was solemnly invested and confirmed in the place and began at the right hand of God to exercise his Power more gloriously CHAP. II. Concerning the Humiliation of Jesus Christ whereby this New Power was acquired And a brief Historical Narration of His Sufferings THis New Power as you heard before was acquired by the Word made flesh § I and now we know by whom In the next place we must enquire by what it was acquired It was acquired by the Humiliation of the Son of God This Humiliation of Jesus Christ is that whereby He in the form of a Servant was obedient unto Death the Death of the Cross. In this Humiliation we have two degrees 1. He took upon him the form of a Servant 2. In that form he suffered the Death of the Cross. 1. He was a Servant For being in the form of God he thought it not Robbery or Sacriledge to be equal with God yet he made himself of no reputation and took upon him the form of a Servant and was made in the likeness of men Phil. 2. 6 7. This state and condition of a Servant taken upon Him was the first part of his Humiliation But here it 's to be noted 1. That He was not a Slave taken in War nor sold nor born of Servile Parents or Parent 2. As He was the Word and equal with God He could not be a Servant but as He was flesh and made Man For as Man He was a reasonable Creature and so subject to God and bound to Obedience 3. Yet to be Man was not all For He was a Servant in respect of the mean condition of His Humane Nature For He was born of a Mother though of Royal Extraction from the house of King David at a great distance yet poor and mean as appears in that she was espoused and married to Joseph a Carpenter and so a Mechanick and of the lowest Rank of Subjects and also by his poor Birth in a Stable 4. He as Man for the time laid aside or did not assume the Robes of Glory the State and Dignity which did agree unto Him as He was the Son of God neither did He take upon Him any Civil Command or Jurisdiction much less that Universal and Supream Power wherewith He was invested afterward 5. He was born not onely a Man but a Jew under the Bondage and Servitude of the Law as was manifest by His Circumcision and Presentation in the Temple 6. He subjected himself unto the Ecclesiastical Power of His own Nation and the Civil Power of the Romanes so far as to be tried and condemned by both though He was innocent and was willing to be obedient not onely in doing the good commanded but to suffer the evil even Death the death of Servants nay of Slaves nay of Dogs which He no way deserved So that He wholly denied Himself renounced his own Will even in things lawful and was a Servant to his Father in one of the hardest and lowest services that ever was the service of Sin excepted This was a way which the unsearchable depth of Eternal Wisdom contrived to acquire a new transcendent Power It 's true that alter He appeared in publique He took upon him some power and acted accordingly He began to preach the Gospel with power and majesty not onely in private but publick He gathered Disciples and made Apostles and other Officers instituted Sacraments and gave Laws and Commissions and signified that He was the Son of God and should one day come in the Clouds of Heaven yet still He was a Servant The second degree of his Humiliation was § II that as a Servant he was obedient unto Death the Death of the Cross. He was always obedient both to God and Man in all things so far as He was bound He observed not onely the Moral but the Ceremonial Laws of the Jews and the Civil Laws of the Romans so far as they were just He many ways manifested himself to be the Word made flesh and the onely Begotten Son of God and that not onely by his eminent Vertues but by his Heavenly Doctrine and glorious Works So that never any gave better Example taught better Doctrine or did greater Works so beneficiall to Mankind and to destructive to Sathan's power Yet he manifested himself in this manner onely amongst his own people seeking earnestly not onely their Temporal Peace but their Eternal Salvation And all this may be called his Active Obedience which though so excellent and perfect yet could not free him from obedience in sufferings which were many and ended in the death of the Cross. The History hereof I will 1. Deliver briefly out of the Evangelists And 2. Discourse of the same more at large out of these and other places of Scripture Though he suffered by the Determinate Counsel and sore-knowledge of God and God had shewed before by the mouth of all his Prophets that he should suffer yet the Counsel of God and Predictions of the Prophets were fulfilled in the manner following 1. By his Sufferings before Judgment 2. By his Sufferings in Judgment 1. Before Judgment He by his Example Doctrine Works gathered many Disciples and the people followed him in great multitudes This was a provocation to the ambitious Rulers of the Jews many of whom were Pharisees a Sect in those times in great account and admiration with the people for eminent Piety and Learning wherein they seemed to excel And this did grieve them much that He did neither comply with them nor their Designs nor receive any Commission from them but did reprove their Hypocrisie and took off their Vizard of Sanctity and open before the people their Ambition Covetousness Cruelty Oppression and other enormous Sins confuted their false Doctrine and denounced most fearful Woes against them His eminency and respect with the People with the multitude of Disciples
Whence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 used in the New-Testament and translated Redemption Ransome c. And it signifies a gift or price or something offered to him that hath power of life and death and accepted as a sufficient satisfaction it frees the party liable to death because an Enemy or guilty of some capital Crime from Death and that Obligation unto Death The word Lutron comes from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because it doth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 free from death That which made sinful man liable to death was the Will of the Law-giver expressed in the Law and binding man to Obedience or Death Man disobeying justly deserves Death and God the Supream Judge might justly condemn him and nothing could free man from the Obligation but Pardon Pardon might be granted two ways either ex nudâ voluntate absolutely and freely out of meet mercy without any consideration of or respect unto His Law and Justice or à Satisfactione upon consideration of something done suffered offered for satisfaction unto Divine Justice violated And this satisfaction might be made either by the Party offending or some other taken as a Surety or Hostage whose life is engaged for the life of another In this particular case pardon is granted not without consideration For that could not stand with the honour of the Law and Divine Justice but upon satisfaction to be made This satisfaction could not be made by the Parties offending who were guilty and unworthy Therefore it was made by another Christ Jesus the Word made flesh who became an Hostage for sinful Man and engaged His life And as He had engaged His Life so He gave Himself a Ransome for ALL 1 Tim. 2. 6. And here many things are observable 1. That Christ being the Word made Flesh and Innocent was fit and onely He was fit to be a Hostage 1. As Flesh. 2. As Flesh united to the Word 3. As Innocent 4. As freely upon God's Command and Commission offering Himself 2. That God in strict Justice might have refused the Hostage and the Ransome and Satisfaction offered and made because neither the one nor the other were in the Obligation of the Law 3. Yet He in free mercy accepted both in behalf of and for sinful Man 4. The proper effect in respect of God which followed upon the Ransome or Lutron given and accepted was that God was propitious and willing to pardon and save 5. Yet Divine Wisdome in respect unto His Justice and Holiness determined the tearms upon which Pardon should be actually given and expressed the tearms in the Promise which was grounded upon the Death of Christ accepted 6. For God to be propitious was to be willing to turn away His Wrath and forbear to punish and also to be favourable unto Man In respect of the former Christ's Death is called Satisfaction of the latter Merit yet both are really the same and was a changing of Justice into Mercy which took away or rather immediately made the Punishment of Pain and Loss removable And Christ's Death accepted may be said onely to merit Yet because this Merit was upon a Wrong done and presupposed it 's called Satisfaction Seeing the immediate Effect of this Sacrifice is Merit § V in respect of Christ and Propitiation in respect of God and this Merit in respect of sinful Man is a Propitiation active or a Propitiating God offended and in respect of Christ merit of Reward Therefore let 's consider 1. What Christ merited for Man 2. What He merited for Himself Christ merited for Man 1. The Abrogation of the Law of Works and requiring perfect and perpetuall Obedience as the onely condition of Life 2. The Promises of the NewCovenant making Faith the onely condition of Life 3. Upon these that God should be placable Sin pardonable and Eternal Liâ—e possible 4. The power of the sanctifying Spirit to enable man to keep the Conditions annexed to the Promises without which all the rest had been vain The mediate Effects are such as Christ merited to follow upon the performance of the Condition which are Conversion and Faith And these principally are Justification Reconciliation Adoption Eternal Glory upon the Resurrection The Apostle Heb. 9. beginning at the 11th vers reckons up five Effects of the Sacrifice and Death of Christ. 1. By it He obtained Eternal Redemption The word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies Expiation and Remission For God upon this Sacrifice offered presented and accepted was willing to grant Eternal Pardon without expectation of any other Sacrifice to be offered or other satisfaction to be made The 2d Is the purging of the Conscience from Dead Works to serve the Living God ver 14. The Conscience is the Immortal Soul Dead Works are sins compared to dead Bodies or unclean things which did legally pollute so that the persons could not be admitted with the rest of God's People to worship God in the Tabernacle or Temple till they were purified To purge is to justifie and sanctifie and free from sinne that so we may be fit to serve our God and when our Purification and Consecration is finished that we may serve the Living God in the Temple of Heaven The 3d Effect is the Confirmation of the New Covenant or Testament as Mediatour and Priest thereof For as the Promises of Remission and the Eternal Inheritance formerly made to the Called for and in the consideration of the Death and Sacrifice of Christ had been void and of none effect if Christ had never dyed So upon this Death and Sacrifice they were firmly established and of full force to convey the Inheritance upon the Called so that if they obey the Heavenly Call they may certainly expect as they shall certainly receive Remission and the Eternal Inheritance ver 15 16 17. The Fourth Effect is His entrance into Heaven to appear in the Presence of God for Us ver 24. For upon our Repentance Faith Prayers upon Earth He as our Advocate and Intercessour pleads before the Throne of God with His own Blood to obtain Remission and Acceptance for Us. This Intercession made by Him as an ever-living Priest is made effectual for us by vertue of this Sacrifice and the efficacy and success depends upon this Vnspotted Blood Therefore is it written for our comfort That if any man sinne we have an Advocate with the Father Jesus Christ the Righteous who is the Propitiation for our sins 1 Joh. 2. 1 2. And His Plea is this That though His Client hath sinned and deserved death yet he ought not to suffer and dye because He Himself hath suffered God accepteth His Death the sinner confesseth repenteth and believeth and God his Father and supream Judge at whose Bar He pleadeth hath promised Pardon and Salvation upon those tearms The Fifth and last Effect is the Actual Collation and enjoyment of Eternal Glory For unto them who look for Him He will appear the second time without sin that is suffering for sin unto Salvation For the
Actual Enjoyment of Salvation and Eternal Glory is granted as merited by this Death ver 28. All these are summed up in that one of the Eternal Consecration of the Sanctified Chap. 10. 14. Seeing Christ merited many and glorious things for sinful man § VI he must needs merit some greater thing for himself and so he did For because he humbled himself so low and took upon him the form of a Servant and was obedient unto death the death of the Cross Therefore God highly exalted Him and gave Him a Name which is above every Name Phil. 2. 9. And God advanced Him far above all Principality and Power and Might and Dominion and every Name that is named not onely in this World but in that which is to come and hath put all things under his feet and gave Him to be Head over all things to the Church Ephes. 1. 21 22. By which we may understand that He merited to Himself a Supream and Universal Power in Heaven and Earth and not onely power over all flesh but over all Creatures even over all Angels And He was invested with this power immediately upon the Resurrection for then He was made universal Prophet Priest and King and upon His Ascension followed His Solemn Inauguration and Coronation as we may so speak when He was set at the right hand of God and then His Eternal and unchangeable Priest-hood was confirmed unto Him by an Oath 2. He merited Immortality the Place and Throne of Glory fulness of joy in His Fathers presence and pleasures at His right hand for evermore He attained Immortality upon His Resurrection the Place and Throne of Glory fulness of joy and Eternal Pleasures upon His Aâ—cension 3. He merited a Judgment to be passed upon the Devil to lose his power over Mankind and the same to be transferred upon Himself and a strength to rescue him out of Sathan's possession aâ— will and pleasure 4. He merited a power to send down the Holy Ghost to reveal the Gospel and in a special manner to head His Church protect it guide it give it everlasting peace and in respect of His highest Dignity that not onely Men but Angels shall worship and honour Him and all such as refuse so to do must be dashed in pieces with His Iron-Scepter and cast into Hell Christ's Sufferings being 1. An Obedience unto the Death of the Cross § VII and a Sacrifice And 2. Having many and glorious Effects one and the same principal being the Acquisition of a new Power over Mankind The 3. Thing in order is the manner and measure of the communication of the benefit thereof unto others That the benefit of this Death and Sacrifice is communicable to sinful Man is express Scripture For as by the offence of One Judgment came upon all men unto condemnation even so by the Righteousness of One the free gift came unto all men unto justification of life And again As by one man's disobedience many were made sinners so by the obedience of One shall many be made righteous Rom. 5. 18 19. And since by man came death by Man came also the Resurrection of the Dead for as in Adam all dye so in Christ shall all be made alive 1 Cor. 15. 21 22. From which places it 's clear that as from Adam Sin and Death were derived upon all men so Righteousness and Life are derived upon Mankind by Christ. But the Question will be 1. How 2. How far this Benefit is derived 1. If we enquire of the manner how Righteousness and Life is derived from Christ being One unto so many we shall find that this cannot be except Christ be a general Head of Mankind and one person with them as Adam was And this He could not be as He was the Word properly but as the Word made Flesh for if He will sanctifie them he must take Flesh and Bloud with the Sanctified and so be Man Yet He may be Man and not a general Person so as to be one with them and we do not read of any but onely two who were general Heads and in some respect virtually all Mankind the first and second Adam Such Christ was not but by the Will of God and His own voluntary Consent The Will of God appoints Him to be the Head of Mankind and their Surety and Hostage and so accounted Him and He did willingly submit and took upon Him the Person of others And the principal cause of this Representation whereby He is one Person with us is the Will of God who as Lord made Him such and as Law-giver and Judge did so account Him But 2. How far is He One Person with us The Answer is 1. In general so far as it pleased God to make Him so and no farther 2. In particular He and We are One so far 1. As to make Him liable to the Penalty of the Law which He suffered not for Himself but for us 2. So far as to free us from that Obligation and derive the benefit of His Death to Us. I may instance in a Debtour and his Surety who are one person and the Law so accounts them so far as 1. The Surety becomes liable to the Debt And 2. If he pay it the Principal is freed from the Obligation Yet the Surety is not the Principal nor if he pay the Debt with his own money doth the Principal pay it with his So though Christ be so far one with us as to be liable to the Penalty of the Law and to suffer it and upon this Suffering we are freed yet Christ is not the sinner nor the sinner Christ. Christ is the Word made Flesh innocent and without sin an universal Priest and King but we are none of these Though we be accounted as one person in Law with him by a Trope yet in proper sense it cannot be said that in Christ satisfying we satisfied for our own sins For then we should have been the Word made Flesh able to plead innocency with perfect and perpetual obedience have dyed upon the Cross when He was crucified and by our own blood entring into the Holy Place to have obtained Eternal Redemption But all these things are false impossible blasphemous if affirmed by any It 's true that we were so one with Him that He satisfied for us and the benefits of this Satisfaction redounds to us and is communicable to all upon certain tearms though not actually communicated to all From this Vnity and Identity of Person in Law if I may so speak it follows clearly that Christ's Sufferings were not onely Afflictions but Punishments in proper sense For it is not material whether He suffer for His own sins which He could not because He was innocent or for the sins of others For if He suffered for sins then His Sufferings were Punishments For Poena is Vindâ—cta noxae sive propriae sive alienae That one may suffer for the sins of others and that justly except we will accuse God of injustice
to give grace sufficient and necessary and effectual to work repentance and faith in Christ. 4. Upon his fore-knowledge of the event of these means administred to choose single persons fore-seen finally to believe Yet if we will understand consider and speak accurately The 1. Is the Decree of Redemption The 2. Of the Covenant The 3. Of giving the means of Conversion But none of these are the Decree of Election Nor is the 4th as delivered by them Others imagine Election to be a Decree to save certain single persons without respect to sin Christ the Covenant-grace for keeping the Covenant And these for the most part make this Decree antecedent to the Decree of Redemption and the Covenant All these forsake the simplicity of the Scriptures which teach us that this Decree essentially includes single persons the means the end and pre-supposeth the Providence and Government of Man first innocent in Adam then fallen afterwards continuing in sin till God call him according to purpose And also the Decâ—ee of sending Christ of the Redemption by Christ and of the New Covenant 5. This Decree hath something of absolute and arbitrary power according to that Similitude Hath not the Potter power c. Rom. 9. 21. For as He could have called and converted all so He could have decreed to have saved all yet He hath done neither He hath passed by many And this Preteâ—ition which is rather Non-Decretum than Decretum is made by some to be Reprobation Yet Reprobation according to Scripture is a Positive Decree according to which God not onely in His absolute power passeth by certain single persons but also decrees to order them according to His Laws and Judgment unto Eternal Misery That there is such a Preterition is certain but that this Preterition is the whose Decree of Reprobation upon which follows necessarily and unavoidably Eternal Death who can evidently prove out of God's Word 7. As this Decree of Election doth con-note an absolute and arbitrary power of God's Will so no reason thereof can be given but from his good pleasure and we must say with the Scripture he will have mercy upon whom He will have mercy and whom He will He hardeneth Yet in God's Eternal Wisdom there may be many Reasons of both and the same weighty and preponderant perhaps though they are concealed and not made known to us For there is no act of Ordination of intellectual and immortal Creatures unto their final estate of felicity and misery that is an act of mere absolute Power as abstracted from all Mercy Wisdom sustice In the execution of the Decree there is given a plain reason of the Rejection of the Jew and that is Vnbelief Rom. 9. 31 32. Chap. 11. 20. Yet no reason or cause in the Gentiles why God called them but His absolute power free-will mere grace yet of their first Rejection the moral cause in themselves was their Idolatry and Apostacy Yet 1. Why did not God prevent the Apostasie of the Gentiles but reject the generality of them for two thousand years and chuse the Jew and the Posterity of Abraham by Jacob and continue them His people for so many hundred years And 2. Why He should reject the Jew and take away from the generality of them both the Word of the Gospel and the Spirit for these sixteen hundred years and upward and chuse the Gentiles And 3. Why in the end He should choose both in one main Body no Wit of man can give a reason Therefore the Apostle cryes out O the depth of the riches both of the Wisdom and Knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his Judgments and his ways past finding out Rom. 11. 33. Which place implyes 1. That there were weighty Reason why God did thus for they were Acts of His profoundest Wisdom 2. That these Reasons to Man and perhaps to Angels are unsearchable 7. These Decrees are no ways contrary unto but exactly agreeing with the Redemption by Christ the tenour of the New-Covenant the Execution and the final Judgment if we truly understand them as they are revealed in Scripture And He muâ—â— needs be a false Prophet who shall tech them otherwise and he that shall so teach them as to derogate the least from Free-grace in Christ is inexcusable There be two Propositions unworthy to be made Principles in this Doctrine § XI The first is Quod Primum in intentione id ultimum in executione That which is first in intention is last in execution The second is Ordinatè volens prius vult finem deinde media ad finem He that acts rationally and orderly first wills the end then the means to the end and yet these are made Principles in Divinity and must be the measure and rule according to which we must understand the Word of God speaking of these high and mysterious Decrees Yet 1. These do not agree unto God but applyed unto him derogate from His glorious Perfections 2. They are neither truly understood nor rightly applyed to the Decrees of God 3. The first taken out of the Blasphemous Commentator whom some think to be Averâ—oes or some other is falsly understood and otherwise interpreted than the Author first meant it as Occam tells us For thus some expound it That which is the chiefest thing in intention is that to which all things in the Execution are ultimately referred And what 's this to their purpose who use or rather abuse it 4. The second is by the School-men and such as follow them applyed to the Decree of Election in this manner That seeing God is the most orderly Agent He must needs first intend glory unto sinful man as the end Secondly grace as the means for glory Yet as that excellent School-man saith well That glory is not the end of God predestinating but of man predestinated and it was indifferent to him whether to will Glory the end or Grace the means first in order and as He gives Grace first and then Glory so no doubt He decreed to do so To say and affirm that first God absolutely chose such persons then decreed to give them glory thirdly that they might attain glory He intends and decrees to give them Christ and grace are groundless speculations and the imaginations of mens hearts who conceive of God as they do of themselves But here we may truly say How far are God's thoughts above the thoughts of silly sinful ignorant men That there are Decrees of Election and Reprobation Free-will natural and Grace is evident out of Scripture and most men even such as differ amongst themselves do grant but how to reconcile these hath been the business of the subtillest Wits and is not yet so clearly done as to satisfie others The manner of Conversion the manner how God fore-knows and decrees all things especially the contingent and free acts of Angels and Men cannot be evidentâ—y known by us neither is it needful Scientia media decreta ex hypothesi vocatio congrua are much
opposition of these Enemies their cruelty the sufferings of God's People God frustrating of their Designs and confounding of their Counsels His Defence His mâ—ny and strange Deliverances the Valour of God's Saints and their glorious Victories mentioned in the Scripture would require a whole Volume and be an excellent Subject of some Sacred Pen. As this Administration refers to the Church the Subjects of God-Redeemer by Christ the Parts thereof are LAWES And JVDGMENT For as there be two Branches of this Supream Power § II the one of Legislation and the other of Jurisdiction so the Parts of this Administration which is the Exercise of this two-fold Power are Laws or rather giving of Laws or judging according to these Laws For these Laws are the Rules of this Administration of the Subjects Duty and of God's Judgment as the Judgment puts the Laws in execution according to the obedience or disobedience of the Subjects Concerning these Laws we may observe 1. That they bind the Conscience and the Immortal Souls to obedience and make men upon their disobedience liable not onely to Temporal but Spiritual and Eternal Punishments And in Judgment God takes cognizance of all causes even the most secret and spiritual and rewards and punisheth accordingly 2. The Church was never without these Laws since God made the first Promise of Christ. 3. They were made known and promulgate before the Exhibition of Christ by Angels and Men and by men either immediatly inspired as by extraordinary Prophets or by ordinary Prophets Priests and other Teachers The Decalogue which we call the Moral Law was once delivered by God in wonderful manner upon Mount Sinai And after Christ was exhibited they were promulgated by Christ His Apostles Prophets Evangelists and after that by ordinary Pastours and Teachers The Gospel began to be made known by our Lord Jesus Christ Heb. 2. 3. 4. They are delivered to us and reserved in the Church by Word and Writing 5. They are not bare Precepts Prohibitions Threatnings and Promises but have annexed many Admonitions Reproofs Exhortations Dehortations absolute Denunciations of Judgments and Examples The Examples are delivered in the Historical Part and they set before us the Obedience and Vertues of some and their Rewards with the Disobedience Apostacy Rebellions of others and their Punishments And all these are further illustrated by Parables and Similitudes and the same Commands and Prohibitions repeated often in several parts of the Scriptures The final and universal Judgment with many other particulars of this Administration we may read in the Prophetical Part. 6. All these are Laws of God-Redeemer who doth not expect from sinfull man perfect and perpetual Obedience nor promise Eternal Life upon that condition but upon the Faith of Christ's Satisfaction and Merit 7. They presuppose man sinful and destitute of all power to observe them Therefore they require obedience by way of Return to be performed by the power of the Spirit merited by Christ and restored in great mercy unto us And which is strange Obedience as Obedience and performed by us gives us no Title unto everlasting life For it 's derived by the Promise of God from the merit of Jesus Christ from and for which we receive our Faith and Obedience 8. Some of these Laws were Temporary and to stand in force onely for a time Some perpetual and after they were once given to continue unto the Worlds end These Laws must be considered 1. As a Rule of Man's Duty § III 2. Of God's Judgment In respect of the Commands they bind man to duty and are the Rule thereof In respect of the Promises and Threatnings they are the Rule of God's Judgment As they are the Rule of Man's Duty they are either Moral or Positive The Moral require or presuppose Subjection unto God not onely as Creatour but Redeemer in the first place The Moral Law as such is of perpetual obligation and was given to Adam innocent and continues in force for ever yet as it is purely Moral Yet the obligation thereof which followed the Promise of the Redeemer differed much from the former as it bound Adam innocent as shall appear hereafter at large This Law is called Moral not merely because it 's Regula morum a Rule of Humane Actions for so other Laws may be but to distinguish it from Laws Positive as Judicial and Ceremonial be and because the Acts commanded by it are intrinsecally just For we must not so much attend to the proper signification as the use of words And it 's so called not by the Prophets or Apostles but by Latine Christian Writers especially of later times The reason why it is of perpetual obligation is because God having made man righteous and holy never gave him liberty to be unrighteous and unholy and He always bound him to love his God himself his neighbour The Duties thereof arise from the Natural Relation of Man unto God and unto his Neighbour therefore called the Law of Nature The very frame and constitution of his reasonable and immortal Soul and of his Body did dictate the Equity and Justice of this Law Some therefore say that this Law did result from the Image of God wherein Man was created Yet there are degrees of Morality For some acts are more immediately Moral Others derive their Morality from some other and are such at second hand In the Decalogue all the Commandements derive their Morality from the first And all the Precepts of the second Table receive their Morality from the last as that receives Morality from the first of the first Table Some are Moral in this life which shall cease to be so in the life to come And we must diligently consider what Duties are purely Moral and of perpetual continuance Consider the matter of this Law as consisting in so many Rules or Propositions of Divine Wisdom and Justice as abstracted from the Nature of a Law and the commands of God's Legislative Will and the same known unto man if he act according to these Rules he may be capable of reward yet can have no title to it if he act contrary he may be worthy of punishment yet not bound to suffer it But consider the Parts and Branches of it not onely as Rules and Acts of the Understanding but of Gods Legislative Will so they have the form of Laws and such God's Will hath determined them to be unto Man The nature of them as Laws is to bind unto obeâ—ience or upon disobedience unto punishment This is that which they call active obligation which is the essential act of a Law Passive obligation whereby Man is bound flows necessarily from the essence of it That this Law should have a Promise of Eternal Life annexed unto it upon condition of obedience and a threatning of Eternal Death upon Disobedience was accidental unto it That if Man sinned he should actually suffer the punishment threatned was so too That the particular Precepts thereof should be Articles of a Covenant was not
be without sorrow for sin past Humiliation hatred of sin a love of God and desire to please Him 3. This Obedience cannot be performed without the Spirit merited by Christ and restored unto us first to prepare us then to dwell in us by degrees renewing the Image of God and imprinting it upon us 4. We must be in Christ as the Branch in the Vine and be conformed unto His Death and Resurrection before we can perform any obedience acceptable to God so as to tend towards the attainment of Everlasting Life For without me saith Christ ye can do nothing Joh. 15. 5. And we are God's Workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works Ephes. 2. 10. It 's one thing to do that which is Morally good as the Heathen might do and be rewarded Temporally another to perform Christian obedience 5. It presupposeth Faith whereby we are united unto Christ and sincere Faith is virtually Repentance and all Obedience and a part and beginning thereof 6. This Obedience is imperfect and defective in the best man living upon Earth and therefore is not the condition of life For if the Moral Law should be in force so as it was to Adam at the first to require and bind man unto perfect and perpetual obedience or else upon one act of Disobedience unto Death no man could be saved Therefore that manner of strict Obligation ceaseth unto sinful man for ever To think that the Promises Threats and Obligation of the Law of Works continue under the Gospel or remain at any time in the Kingdom of God-Redeemer is an errour and a great mistake It 's one thing to bind unto perfect obedience another to bind unto perfect obedience as the condition of life This latter was essential even to the Moral-Law as given to Adam at the first and in that respect it 's truly and properly said that the Law of Works is abâ—ogated The Law binds according to the will and pleasure of the Law-giver and no otherwise If Man perform not perfect obedience and yet be bound unto it he is in the hands of his Judge above the Law to dispose of him as he pleaseth 7. This obedience is performed to God-Redeemer as satisfied atoned and propitiated by the bloud of Christ who hath merited that it should be accepted and rewarded In this respect it 's not proper nay it 's not true to say that God in the Moral Law binds man to perfect or perpetual obedience For so He doth not He binds to perfect and perpetual obedience which he neither doth nor can perform or to punishment suffered by his Saviour and upon Faith in him removable not to obedience and punishment too For time-past Man hath been already disobedient and for time to come he will not be perfectly obedient till the time of glory Yet the Suffering of Christ doth not free man sinning from all suffering For it 's the Will of God that even regenerate men should suffer much for their own sins Yet man's suffering cannot satisfie it may dispose him through the help of God's sanctifying Spirit to Repentance and make him capable of the benefit of that Suffering which hath satisfied the Justice of God who hath accepted it for sinful disobedient Man pleading his Saviours suffering This Obligation of the Law is purely Evangelical and in this respect the Precept and the Condition are of equal extent as well as they were in the time of the Law of Works 8. Faith and Repentance as they are Acts of Obedience in general are commanded in the Moral Law Yet as Faith is in God-Redeemer and Repentance a return to obedience to be performed to God in Christ by the Spirit of Christ they are not to be found in the Law at all as such they are purely Evangelical and conditions of life even to sinful guilty man Though Faith and Obedience as different from Faith be conditions of the New-Covenant yet there is both a difference and an inequality between them as a condition Faith unites us unto Christ from whom immediately by viture of the Promise we derive a right to Justification and so to Life In which respect it may be said to be a Title-Condition that is â—a condition upon which follows immediately a right to Righteousness and Life Faith considered as Faith in general in it self cannot be a Title without reference to Christ's merit and God's Promise For Faith this Faith is terminated upon both and as such and no ways else is Saving The Promise is a kind of Donation of Righteousness and Life as purchased by Christ and God's the Donour and the Believer by his Faith becomes the Doneè Good Works are a condition and all obedience which follows and flows from Faith as distinct from Faith yet virtually included in Faith is so too Obedience is two-fold 1. In Morals 2. In Positives Obedience in Morals and good Works as morally good are a condition not to give a right but to render a man capable of communion with God and make him fit for the possession of that life Christ hath purchased For without Holiliness we cannot see God and except we walk in the light as he is light we can have no communion with him and till our obedience in Morals be perfect we can have no full fruition of him Obedience in Positives is a condition yet neither as giving right nor making man capable but because God's institution makes them binding except in case of necessity wherein God dispenseth with Man This is so far a condition that life follows thereupon if it be joyned with Faith and Obedience in Morals and in case of Contempt life will not follow not be communicable From all this we may understand that there is a twofoâ—dness of the Moral Law Evangelically considered 1. To discover sin 2. To be a Rule of Obedience Thus the Composers of our Liturgie did understand it and that rightly according to the Scripture when they added this short Petition Lord have mercy upon us and incline our hearts to keep this Law after every Commandement This Petition is two-fold For 1. Pardon of sin that is past 2. For Grace to enable them to keep it for time to come The first includes a confession of sin a Belief in Christ and a Petition for pardon The second an acknowledgment of their inability to keep it a necessity of the sanctifying Spirit a Petition or the same and the end and effect thereof obtained which is to incline their hearts to keep it And after all the Commandements and every particular they desire God to give them a general pardon of all sins against this Law and such a measure of Grace as that they might perform an Universal Obedience For so the Petition runs Write all these thy Laws in our hearts we beseech thee In the next place § XII let us consider what hath been the binding force of it in all times since it was first given to Man To this purpose we must observe many things
must fly to the pit Let no man stay him Prov. 28. 17. He that endeavours to save a bloody person must needs be guilty of blood himself Some make bloody lawes to take away most unjustly the lives of their innocent Subjects Some wrest the lawes just in themselves and by unjust Judgement condemn the guiltlesse to death and this is done in time of peace All such as wage unjust wars or manage just wars cruelly and unjustly are great transgressours Such also are all seditious and tumultuous persons and also the Authours of civil Wars and enemies to the administration of justice Some are too remisse in just wars to revenge that blood which was cruelly and causelesly shed by the enemy This was the sin of King Saul in that he destroyed not the Amalekites from under Heaven Besides the former differences § VI and degrees of this sin there be others For even of Wilfull Murders those are most heynous 1. Which are committed out of pure malice or a contempt of the precious life of man Some are so bloody as they make no more account of the life of man then of a beast nor so much Others are so cruel as that they delight in the torment which others suffer and therefore take away the lives of others so as to put them to lingring and extreame paine 2. To Murder Father Mother Children as the Canaanites and after some cursed Israelites did sacrifice their Children to the Devil is most unnaturall grievous and abominable 3. To Murder Magistrates Judges publick Officers and especially Kings and Princes upon whom the publick peace and safety doth much depend is a far more heynous transgression then to slay a private person 4. To Murder innocent persons and such as have done no wrong nor given any cause is far more then to Murder injurious and abusive provoking persons 5. The blood of Abel and the Saints and faithfull Servants of God do cry most loud because the cursed Caines and Perfecutours slay them because their works were good and their own evill and out of an hatred of the power of Godlinesse in them For the more of God is in them the more they hate them The most heynous Murther in respect of the person the injustice the malice the reproach was the crucifying of Christ the Son of God 'T is difficult § VII if not impossible to reckon up all kinds and different ways of murther For the life of man is exposed to a thousand dangers and is easily taken away and the malice of the Devil that old murtherer and of bloudy men is very great So that it 's the great mercy of God that man lives half his days or that any dyeth a natural death And therefore our duty is to be thankful to our God as for other mercies so for the continuance and preservation of our life And every day should we commit our selves into his hands prepare for death set our soules in order desire his protection and the guardance of his Blessed Angels And in this place we might take occasion to speak of self-murther which is certainly unlawful For we have not the absolute propriety but the use of our lives given us of God to use and to make an account to him of the same A man may be unmerciful and unjust unto himself both in respect of life and other things Unto all the former sorts of murther may be added all unjust Punishments and especially such as grant life yet upon such tearms that it is worse then Death as when innocent persons are condemned to cruel Servitude or to the Gallies or to Banishment or the Mines By what hath been said we may in some measure understand what God hath forbidden The Preceptive § VIII and Affirmative part is implied and may be easily understood by the former which is Negative For as the Duty is so our care must be to preserve the life of our Neighbour as our own which is dear and pretious to us To this end 1. We must be humble meek patient peaceable placable and ready to forgive and be reconciled upon reasonable tearms unto our Enemies 2. We must be pittiful kind liberal and ready to give or do what shall be necessary for the preservation of the lives of others and not suffer them through out own default to perish 3. We must be bold resolute couragious and ready to hazard our goods credit liberty and sometimes our own lives to save innocent persons and especially the servants of God and rescue them out of the hands and jaws of wicked and cruel men Open thy mouth saith God by the Wise-woman for the Dumb in the cause of all such as are appointed to destruction Prov. 31. 8. 4. We must in a just War be willing to lay down our lives for our Countrey that by the Death of few many may be preserved 5. As our hearts must be well affected so our words must be words of meekness patience love humility peace kindness comfort And as we must avoid the causes and occasions of doing hurt so all our inward affections outward carriage words deeds must be so ordered as shall most tend to the safety of the life of others Neither must our Prayers and Endeavours be wanting to prevent the death of innocent persons Thus Reuben sought to save the life of his Brother Joseph Esther adventured her life to prevent the ruine of her people Esth. 4. 11 12 c. Thus Ebedmeleck delivered the Prophet out of the Dungeon Jer. 38. 7. 8. And God remembred the Work of Mercy to reward it Jerem. 39. 15 16. Besides all this we must not conceal but discover and that betimes all Plots Designs Intentions of Murther known unto us do what we can to prevent the effusion of innocent bloud severely and carefully prosecute all Bloudy Murtherers And herein all Judges Magistrates Higher-Powers who are trusted with the Sword must by the Sword cut off bloudy men and not suffer them to live The Reasons why we should abhor § IX and take heed of this sinne are many For 1. The life of man is precious and the greatest and chiefest Earthly Treasure man can have it 's the best thing under Heaven and in it self the greatest blessing of God in this World 2. It was given of God to serve him and seek a better and more glorious life in the World to come To take it away before the great work be done and Man hath made his peace with God and secured his Title to Heavens Kingdom is a most horrid crime and tends to the destruction of Soul and Body at once and may be a privation and prevention of Eternal Life to be enjoyed in Heaven Therefore it 's no wonder God doth so much detest it And many are so malicious and revengeful as that if it were in their power they would destroy and punish both Body and Soul in Hell fire 'T is reported of a bloudy man of Millain in Italy that when he had suddainly surprized one
is great we must often pray humbly depend upon our God and work out our salvation with fear and trembling because it 's God that worketh in us the Will and the Deed of his good pleasure Because of our many foils and falls one worke of our Sanctification is to renew our Repentance and our Faith in Christ and that daily that as we contract new guilt and are weakned so we may be cleansed and strengthned Therefore David after his grievous fall petitions to God to create in him a clean Heart and renew a right Spirit within him Psal. 51. 10. And Peter goes out and weeps bitterly and no doubt prayes fervently Divine Desertions are fearfull and we must take heed of offending the sanctifying Spirit of God By these frequent returnes unto God and our Saviour Jesus Christ our Sanctifycation is renewed and recovered What should be the reason whereupon the Eternal Wisdom of God should determine to put his Regenerate Ones upon this Bloody War sometimes continued long and not wholly destroy sin at once and so in an instant give us perfect and perpetual Security is hard to know Yet this is certain that he thought it best to teach us Humility so as that we might learn that Lesson perfectly and that we should fully know our total and perpetual dependance is upon his grace For Pride and Security was the ruine of Man at first and the â—inal Fall of the Apostate Angels Besides He knew how to turn all the Events of this War unto our good and greatest glory and He would let the Devil plainly see that he by frail man over whom he had so domineer'd and whom he had so insolently trampled under his feet could not onely Resist him but eternally subdue him This is the intermediate Event of this War § XII The final Event is a final and compleat Victory For we are enabled not onely to withstand in the evil day of Temptation but having done all and finished the War to stand victorious in the Field and see all our Enemies subdued Ephes. 6. 13. For this end the compleat Armour of God was given us And this is the Promise that God the God of Peace who will put an end unto this War will bruise Sathan under our feet shortly Rom. 16. 20. And the God of all grace who hath called us to his Eternal Glory by Christ Jesus after we have suffered a while will make us perfect stablish strengthen settle us 1 Pet. 5. 10. We shall overcome the Great Dragon and Old Serpent by the Blood of the Lamb and his Testimony not loving our lives to Death Revel 12. 2. The Reward upon this Victory is an Eternal Crown which will be certain For when Paul had fought this good Fight had finished his Course and kept the Faith from thenceforth there was laid up for him a Crown of Righteousness which the Lord the Righteous Judge would give him at that day and not to him onely but unto them also that love his appearing 2 Tim. 4. 8. This Victory is obtained by final Perseverance which is often in part interrupted by our many failings and falls yet continued by a continual Supply of inward strength and outward Assistance upon which it doth chiefly depend God requires on our part a constant Exercise of that Power He hath given us and humble dependance upon his strength a continual Watchfulness a dayly renewing of our Repentance and Faith For without Duty there is no expectation of solid comfort This Perseverance is never totally interrupted by Apostasie in the Saints of God once regenerate and sealed with the Holy Spirit of Promise who have received the first-fruits of glory as an earnest of the full possession of the great Inheritance That these ever did or may according to the Eternal Rules of this Government fall totally and so finally never any yet could clearly prove That others though baptized enlightened changed in their hearts reformed in their lives so as to forsake in some measure their former sins endued not onely with ordinary but extraordinary gifts of the Spirit and out of an imperfect hope of Salvation have tasted of the joys and comforts of the Gospel may fall will not be denied Yet all these things are not sufficient sufficiently to qualifie the subject of this Question concerning Perseverance For the Question Whether those who by a sincere Faith are living Members of Christ have received the Regenerating Spirit as a Seal and Earnest of Eternal Glory can according to the Laws of God-Redeemer fall away totally from the estate of Justification The Question may be § VII De esse aut Posse or both That any such did ever so fall no man yet did ever prove That they may fall according to the tenour of the Gospel hath not been yet nor I think can be made evident The Scripture doth sometimes take Righteousness Calling Regeneration Sanctification the purging away of sin in a large sense and attribute all these to such as have been baptized made profession of their Faith and have not by Scandal or Apostasie stained their Profession and as the Scripture so the ancient Writers also term these Saints Righteous and Regenerate But a thousand such places will not evince this Fall that 's here denied For they changed the subject of the Question and so the Question it self Many do instance in David who no doubt was regenerated and â—ealed with the Spirit of Promise and he fell grievously and contracted the guilt of Adultery and Murther But what though Was this a total Fall It was not For 1 Though the sins were heynous and did highly offend God and deserved Death yet this Death was removeable For they were not the sins of Apostasie or final Unbelief nor properly nor immediately Impenitency and Unbelief which are the sins directly and formally against the Covenant and Fundamental Law of Redemption Therefore they could not make him of a subject to be no subject neither did God wholly reject him and take his Spirit wholly from him A man may commit heynous offences against the Law and yet be a Subject but if he be guilty of Rebellion or High-Treason he loseth all right of a Subject Thus David was not guilty 2 This Death was more easily removable then that Penalty of that Party which never did believe never was regenerate 3 Though the Sins were actually yet they were not habitually contrary to the Law or to Repentance and Faith For to be an Adulterer and Murderer was not his constant temper 4 God made such promises to David and those personal as were not consistent either with total or final rejection This was one promise and that Personall My mercy will I keep for him for evermore and may Covenant shall stand fast with him And for his seed if they transgresse he would chastise them Neverthelesse his loving kindnesse He would not take utterly from them Psal. 89. 28 29 30. c. And this did include an obligation on Gods part to
infinite but know him infinitely we cannot so we may know that this Reward is great but how great we cannot know as yet We believe it because God hath revealed it we hope for it because Christ hath merited it and God hath promised it We seek it because we hope for it and we shall attain it because the Spirit doth sanctifie us and prepare us for it Our Conceits and Notions of it in this Life are poor and very imperfect for we see but darkly as through a glass And if God had manifested it fully as it is so narrow is our capacity we could not have understood it The more we know it in this life the more effectually we are moved stirred up unto obedience For it 's a mighty motive thereunto For what would not an understanding and considerate man do or suffer to gain so glorious an estatâ— It 's an unspeakable mercy of God that he will give us some glimpses now and then even in this life of this Eternal Light and some taste of these sweetest pleasures For these refresh and revive us much in this Wilderness of our weary Pilgrimage and stir up in us a longing and vehement desire of a full fruition and cause us with greater diligence to press towards the enjoyment of this excellent Reward And though we may think the time long yet certainly he that shall come will come and will not tarry Surely says Christ I come quickly Amen Even so come Lord Jesus For till thy coming our hearts will never be at rest The punishment of the Unrighteous shall be contrary to this Blessed Reward § IV The very sight and presence of this Judge will appale them much the Summons appearance more the Sentence and Execution most of all For the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from Heaven with his mighty Angels in flaming fire to take vengeance on all them that know not God and that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ 2 Thes. 1. 7 8. They shall not onely lose the comforts of this life but the Eternal joy and glory of Heaven which was promised in the Gospel and shall suffer the contrary evils and that for evermore Their bodies indeed shall be raised again and shall be immortal and they shall ever live that they may ever die and ever suffer Their Souls shall be stripped of all holiness and comfort and both Body and Soul shall be cast into utter Darkness and everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels where their Worm shall never die and their Torment shall be extream without any intermission without any abatement without any end The dismal place and cursed Company will add no little to their misery and there is nothing which man fears abhors and detests but they shall suffer there God § V by his Word and other ways hath made known these things to mortal men hath promised these glorious Rewards and threatned these horrid and external Punishments Yet though his Ministers and Messengers by Command from him â—et Eternal Life and Death before mens eyes yet these seem but Dreams Fancies unto Profane and Atheistical Wretches and are not seriously considered by many who profess the Truth Few do really believe these things fewer do effectually desire or seek the great Reward or fear the dreadful Punishment God's Blessed Word makes no lively Impression upon their Hearts Promise Heaven they are not much affected with it Threaten Hell they are not much afraid of it The Jews had Moses and the Prophets Christians have them with Christ and his Apostles yet men will hearken unto none of thâ—se and so sink into the place of Torment and are undone for ever God hath done much to save us but we do all to damn our selves and our destruction is of our selves God need not have promised Heaven but that He would stir us up to seek it neither need He have threatned Hell but with this intention that men might escape it Oh cursed Wretches who for a little Vanity lose the Eternity of Bliss Oh! that men would hearken unto God betimes and not delay their Repentance till it be too late when no Tears nor Prayers nor any other means that Men or Angels can use can do him any good And this will not be the least of the Torments of the Damned to remember that once they had an opportunity to have escaped these Eternal Punishments and yet they let it pass and must needs acknowledge they suffer justly who contemned the expence of Christ's most precious Blood the greatest love of God and would not obey the Precepts nor trust in the Promises of the Gospel Thus have I § VI according to my Talent declared out of the Scriptures that Special and Eternal Kingdom of God according to the Laws and Judgments whereof Man is ordered unto his final and Eternal estate The Rule of this Doctrine is the Word of God revealed from Heaven The King is God who is most perfect and glorious in Himself and by the Work of Creation acquired an absolute Dominion over all Creatures especially over Men and Angels and continued it by Preservation This Power acquired He did exercise in the Constitution of His Government over Men and Angels and in the Administration of the same by Laws and Judgments Many of the Angels obeyed and were confirmed Many of them disobeyed and were condemned to Eternal Punishments All men in the first man sinned and so became liable to Death Yet the Supream Judge in passing Judgment upon the Tempter promised Deliverance by a Redeemer This Redeemer is the Word made Flesh by whose Humiliation unto Death a new power over man is acquired and the same exercised first in the Constitution and New-Modelling of His Kingdom of Grace and Mercy and in the Administration by Laws and Judgments The Laws command Obedience forbid Impenitency and Unbelief promise Temporal and Eternal Rewards threaten Temporal and Eternal Punishments and as Men shall obey or disobey so they shall be rewarded or punished And these things are declared not onely that men may know them but do God's Commandements that so they may live for ever and not howl and curse and gnash their Teeth in Hell but serve their God in the Temple of Heaven and there sing an Eternal Hallelujah to Him who sits upon the Throne and to the Lamb To whom be Praise and Glory and Thanks for ever And let all Saints and Angels say AMEN 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 FINIS †As quoreâ— Camer acensis †But the devils can make no application to themselves because they were not made to them but to Men. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 â— VI. â— IX a lib. 4. c. 41. b Conceptui humano â— X. †So some call it though it was neither a general or a lawful Councel â— XV. §. 〈…〉 b This word is used by the Syriack Translator