suffer under it he cannot be my disciple Luk. 14.27 This God peremptorily and indispensably exacts of us and there is all the reason in the world why he should For he will infinitely recompence in the next world either the want or loss of all those things which for his sake we are content to be without in this Heaven and eternal life will be an abundant and incomparably surpassing compensation all the wants and sufferings of this present time being as S t Paul sayes utterly unworthy to be compared with that Glory which shall then be revealed in us Rom. 8.18 Let no man therefore disobey Gods Laws for the love of the world for the supplying of his wants and the satisfaction of his appetites and yet for all that perswade himself that God will own him and connive at his disobedience For in doing so he plainly renounces God and sets the World above him he makes his Duty truckle to his Interest he slights obedience and submits to a temptation He does the work of sin for the interest which tempts to it and that will certainly bring upon him that death which God has established for the wages of it Thirdly A third pretence whereby men justifie to their own souls the indulged transgression of several Laws whilst they obey in others is because those transgressions wherein they allow themselves are only such as are sins of temper and complexion age or way of life Sometimes mens place and way of life is a continual temptation to some particular sin and if they may but have leave to indulge that they will abandon every other The Courtier takes himself obliged by the fashion of his place to lies and dissimulation ostentation and vanity to sinfull compliances and faithless engagements to promise all but to perform nothing The Merchant in pursute of his gain serves the end of his trade by fraud and dishonesty He accounts it a piece of his Art to over-reach to defraud customes to vend false wares and set exacting prices The Lawyer thinks it a part of his profession to encourage strife and foment difference the malice and revenge the wrath and bitterness the slanders and evil-speakings the strife and contentions which are other mens sins are his livelihood These sins being ever before them are alwayes a snare to them for they are continually importuned by them and it must be a toilsome pains and an uninterrupted watchfulness which can preserve them from being either won or wearied into the commission of them And since obedience in these instances is a thing which they can so very hardly spare they hope that God in mercy will not exact it but will graciously accept them upon their service in other particulars although here they continue to disobey him Other sins men are invited and importunately tempted to by their age and condition their particular temper and complexion Lust and rashness are the vices of youth as craft and covetousness are of the gray hairs Some sins are rooted in mens very natures for some are naturally inclined to be passionate and hasty some to be peevish and others to be malicious and revengefull The temper of their bodies hurries on some to lust and intemperance some to turbulency and fierceness and others to slavish fears and sinfull compliances Nay a sharp and long affliction will sometimes embitter even a good nature and make it habitually sowr and fretfull peevish and morose So that mens very natural temper their age and condition prove many times an uninterrupted sollicitation to some sin or other and they alwayes fall by being alwayes under the power of their temptation Now when men find that some sins have got thus near to them and have taken such deep root in their way of life nay in their very natures since they will not be at the pains to reform and amend they expect that God should be so gracious as to dispense with them As for all the instances of this kind he must abate them seeing they will not perform them his pardoning goodness must supply all the defects of their sloth For God and they must still be agreed and therefore because they cannot well abandon some of their darling lusts and bosom sins for his sake the compliance must fall on his side and he must desert and cancel all those severe and grating Laws to serve and pleasure them They will obey him most willingly in all other things only in these they beg that he would excuse them they will do any thing else for his sake which doth not contradict their beloved sin and never displease him but when they cannot otherwise fulfill and pleasure it Thus for instance the Covetous man will obey in keeping back from drunkenness and whoredom from ambition and profuseness and all other sins which are expensive But as for those other duties of suffering loss our selves rather than defrauding and over-reaching others of a contented mind and contempt of the world of alms and beneficence and all the chargeable expressions of an active love and an operative charity here he stands upon his points and chooses to dispute rather than to perform to article rather than to obey The peevish and angry man will readily keep the commands of Justice and Temperance he will neither spoil his neighbours Goods nor wrong his Bed nor pamper and defile his own body he will do any thing which either ministers to his reigning lust or which doth not contradict and make against it But then as for the commands of meekness and patience of long-suffering and forgiveness of speaking well and doing good to enemies of passing over provocations and peaceableness and all other instances of pardoning and forgetting injuries in these God must excuse him for his dear lust opposes them and he can not he will not serve him in the practice of them Some who are of a tractable and submissive of a soft and governable temper will observe readily all those duties which their constitution has made easie and which their natural genius enclines them to They will be constant performers of all the cheap because agreeable duties of submission to Governours and obedience to publick Constitutions of uniformity in worship of honour and observance of the Laws and establishments and of all things belonging to the Churches Vnity and outward peace But as for the severities of an inward and hearty Religion in mortification and self-denial in paring off all sinfull lusts and exorbitant desires in patience and taking up the Cross and in all other hard instances of duty and a holy life here they withdraw their service because they must contradict their natures and go against their ease and set themselves not to obey these Laws but to evacuate or evade them Whereas others who are of a temper more severe but withall of a querulous and restless a busie and ungovernable spirit will keep off from atheism and prophaneness from idolatry and witchcraft and other heinous impieties from drunkenness and
the truest interpreters of our hearts and minds declare there is no such thing this is to add mockery to sin and a fresh affront to our former disobedience It is most grossly to play the hypocrite and in the most fulsome fashion to dissemble with him It is an endeavouring to put tricks upon the Almighty a tryal of his skill a seeking to delude and impose upon an infinitely wise and all-seeing God by such thin pretences as cannot but be seen through and discovered by any ordinary Man But let no Man vainly deceive himself for God is not mocked nor can all the arts of Earth and Hell out-wit and go beyond him No he sees clearly through all this hypocrisie and he will most severely punish it And when he comes to judge of mens Confessions at the last day he will then in the face of all the world distinguish reality from complement an acknowledgment of Repentance from one of form and custom and will for ever reward the first whilst he punishes Eternally the latter He will Pardon no Confession of our Sins at that day but only such as is sorrowful penitent and obedient we must amend those faults that we confess before we can with reason hope that he will accept us And for this the Scripture is clear It is only our returning upon Confession that shall be rewarded and forgiven If they Repent says Solomon and SAY we have done perversly we have committed wickedness and so RETVRN unto the Lord with all their heart and all their soul Then HEAR their Prayer and forgive thy people that have sinned against thee 1 King 8.47 48 49 50. And to name but one place more these words of Solomon are full and home to the purpose He who Confesses and FORSAKES his Sin shall find mercy Prov. 28.13 That Confession of our Sins then whereupon Christ our Judge will at the last day accept and Pardon us is such only as ends in Reformation and Obedience The service of our lives must go along with that of our lips we must do as we say and avoid what we condemn before we can safely trust that God will Sentence us to that Mercy and Life which are not the rewards of idle acknowledgments but only of a confessing obedience Fifthly This Gospel condition of Life and Pardon is sometimes call'd Conversion Without this we can have no hopes of happiness For except ye be CONVERTED says our Saviour and become as little Children as void as they are of all former impressions and courses and free to enter upon new ones ye shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven Matt. 18.3 But if our Conversion goes before Gods Pardon is sure to follow after that being the duty and this the reward Repent and be CONVERTED says the Apostle Peter that your Sins may be blotted out Act. 3.19 Conversion sets us without the reach of Death and beyond the precincts of Damnation for he who Converts a Sinner from the error of his way doth save a Soul from DEATH Jam. 5.20 Now our Conversion from Sin to God is nothing else but our Obedience in another word For it denotes a turn and a change not only of our wills and desires but withal and that principally of our works and actions For our course of actions is in the familiar and customary use of the Scriptures call'd our way our Conversation walking and our particular actions so many several steps and our turning out of a course of Sin and Transgression into a course of Righteousness and Obedience being like the turning out of a wrong way into a right is call'd our turning from Sin and our turning to God i. e. in one word our Conversion So that to be Converted is nothing else in the Scripture language but to have the course of our works or actions turned and from workers of sin to become workers of obedience When Mercy and Life then are promised to our Conversion they are not made over to any thing which is separate from Obedience but to that only which denotes it and is but another name for it We are not Converted until we obey so that Obedience still is that which must procure our peace and capacitate us for Pardon and happiness when Christ comes to judge us CHAP. V. Of Pardon promised to Prayer The CONTENTS Of Pardon promised to Prayer Of the influence which our Prayers have upon our Obedience Of the presumption or idleness of most mens Prayers Of the impudence hypocrisie and uselessness of such Petitions Then our Prayers are heard when they are according to Gods will when we pray for Pardon in Repentance and for strength and assistance in the use of our own endeavours Pardon promised to Prayer no further than it effects this Obedience and penitential endeavour SIxthly That condition whereto the Gospel promises a gracious sentence of Mercy and Life is sometimes call'd Prayer or calling upon God The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon him says David to all that call upon him in truth Psal. 145.18 Thou Lord art good and ready to forgive and plenteous in mercy to all that call upon thee Psal. 86.5 For so surpassing is his goodness and the riches of his grace that any thing may be had of him for asking to them who desire it he can deny nothing Ask and it shall be given you says our Saviour for EVERY one that asketh receiveth Matt. 7.7 8. And that in all things equally one as well as another if they do not distrust him and disbelieve his Love For ALL things WHATSOEVER you shall ask in Prayer BELIEVING you shall receive Matt. 21.22 So that if men want any thing which they desire that God would bestow upon them it is because they do not beg it of him Ye have not says S t James because ye ask not Jam. 4.2 For not only the overflowing goodness of Gods own nature but besides that the interest of his Son Jesus Christ our MEDIATOR at his right hand gives us a full security in all our requests that we shall obtain any thing which we ask in his name Ask any thing says he in my name and I will do it Joh. 14.14 Nay so dear is he to Almighty God that although he himself should not move in it yet through the strength of Gods inexpressible love to him they who beg in his name can miss of nothing In that day says he after I am taken from you you shall ask ME nothing Verily verily I say unto you whatsoever you shall ask the FATHER in MY NAME he will give it you And I say not that I will PRAY the Father for you for the Father himself loveth you BECAVSE ye have loved me Joh. 16.23 26 27. And seeing as the Apostle says that we have so great and powerful a High Priest at Gods right hand whether our suit be for pardon or strength or for whatsoever else Let us come boldly to the throne of grace that we may obtain Mercy for
that the motions of sin which were occasioned and strengthened by the weakness and inability of the Law which could not restrain them did work such service and obedience to them in our members or bodily powers as to bring forth fruit unto death But now upon our becoming subject unto Christ we are delivered from the subjection of the Law whose weakness gave sin so great advantage over us that Law I say being now dead and abolished wherein whilst we so served sin we were held in subjection which deliverance is vouchsafed us as I said for this end that being made not the Laws but Christs Subjects now we should answerably to that serve in newness of Spirit or in such sort as the new Spirit and Grace of his Religion enables us and not as we served formerly under our subjection to the Law in the oldness of the letter or in those weak and ineffective degrees whereto the helpless letter of the old Law could assist us But upon what I say of this change of service from sin to God which we have all felt upon our becoming Christians being an effect of this change of subjection from the Law to Christ some of you 't is like may think that the Law which I affirm we sinned under is aspersed and reproached by me and thus object What say we then Is the Law under which you say we sinned so much and from which being now delivered we have ceased to serve sin the cause of sin to them who live under it Now to this I must answer God forbid that any man should either say or think so No we served sin under the Law but yet the Law was no cause of sin And both these all they who live under it feel in themselves and must acknowledge To avoid offence suppose that I my self were this Subject of the Law now as I was formerly 't is very true as I have said that I do serve sin under it but is the Law the cause of it By no means Nay so far is the Law from causing or encouraging sin in me that on the contrary it points it out to me and forbids it I had not known what things are sin but by the help of the Law which shews it for I had not known lust or concupiscence for instance which is only in the heart and not in the outward action to be a sin except the Law of the tenth Commandment had said expresly thou shalt not covet But for all the Law both shews and prohibits sin and so can contribute nothing to produce but rather to destroy it yet I must truly tell you still that whereas Sin has other causes more than enow that are sufficient to produce it the Law is so weak and imperfect as not to be able to hinder it For in this instance of Concupiscence especially whereto in the Law there is no express punishment threatned the sinfull inclinations of our flesh which are cause enough of all sin grow bold and hearing of no express threatning from it will not be restrained by it And by this means the Sin of Concupiscence taking occasion from the impunity of the Commandment instead of being restrained by it took liberty and presumed upon it and so without all fear wrought and accomplished or brought on to compleat action and practice in me all manner of concupiscence And seeing the Law only forbid but could not restrain it it helped on in the end rather to make and let me see my self to be a sinner than to deliver me from sin for without the promulgated Law Sin was almost dead being both little in it self and less upon the Conscience For the less knowledge there is of the Law the less is there of sin in transgressing it and also the less sense of it And therefore as I say as for this instance of Concupiscence which I had not known to be a Sin unless the Law had told me so without the Law I had neither offended so highly in it nor had so great a sense of my offence And this was found by experience in the men of our Nation For any one of them who was alive at the promulgation of the Law upon Mount Sinai might say I was alive to my thinking and as to great degrees of that guilt which I contracted afterwards without the Law once or before such time as it was there proclaimed to us for till then I knew not lust to be a sin and so by reason of my ignorance neither sinn'd so much in it nor was so sensible of it as now I am but when the Commandment came and was plainly made known to me by Moses then Sin I say which was only shewn and forbid but could not be restrained by it revived and begun to have the fulness of guilt and terrour in it and I thenceforward being warn'd against it and not being able to keep back from it became liable to that death which is the wages of it and died by it And thus the Law or Commandment which was not only holy and innocent in it self but moreover intended by God for my good and ordained to life which it promised could I have obeyed it I notwithstanding found to be unto death to me because that became my due when I sinn'd against it Not as if the Law can be said to be the Author of death to me more than it is of sin in me For it was aim'd to destroy sin which it shews and forbids and to procure life which it offers and promises But the true cause of this effect so contrary to its intention viz. its producing Sin and Death whenas it was ordained to Holiness and Life is its being as I said before weak and unable by all its aids to conquer fully and restrain that Sin which brings Death upon us for it cannot subdue but only shew and forbid it And therefore our habitual Lusts finding themselves too strong for it burst through it and in spite of all its restraint make us commit the one and so become liable to the other For in very deed it is not the Law which is the cause of Death to me but Sin it self which taking occasion or advantage by the literal and fancied impunity of the tenth Commandment deceived me through a false hope into the commission of it and by it made me in reality liable to that Death which is truly the wages of it or in a word slew me Wherefore notwithstanding we sinn'd yea and died also during our subjection under the Law yet for all that neither can our Sin nor our Death be charged upon the Law it self because instead of contributing to them it tends to destroy them by expresly forbidding the one and offering to deliver us from the other And therefore as for this difficulty that was made at the seventh verse against my saying that we served Sin under the Law viz. its following thence that the
himself Hebr. 10.28 29. His punishment indeed shall be most dreadfull being nothing less than all those woes which are denounced in the Gospel For the Law with all its threats and penalties is particularly made and designed as S t Paul sayes for the lawless which is that very word whereby S t John describes sin and the wilfully disobedient who when they see the Law will not be subject to it 1 Tim. 1.9 As for our voluntary and chosen sins then whether they are chosen directly or only by interpretation we see plainly that they are not consistent with a state of Grace and Salvation For they subject us to all that death which the Law threatens and deprive us of all that life and happiness which it proposes to us which beside all the evidence which the Scripture gives us of it is plainly demonstrable from the very reason of the thing it self For certainly if Christs Laws will condemn us for any actions whatsoever it must be for those which being voluntary may justly be charged upon us and looked upon to be our own It must be our willing what sin enjoyns which can make us Servants of it and subject us to that death which God has appointed for its wages So that both from Reason and Scripture it evidently appears that every wilfull sin is certainly a deadly one and puts the sinner out of a state of Gods favour and salvation 'T is true indeed that every wilfull sin doth not rob us of Gods favour in such measure as to incapacitate us for regaining of it ever after But its effect is this before such time as we have repented of it and amended it we are under all the threatnings of the Law and subject if we die in that instant to that death which is ordained for the wages of it We are out of Gods favour for the present and the state of friendship betwixt him and us is interruped and till we repent we shall not be again restored to it As for the state of acceptance and salvation it is broken and destroyed for the present for we are put under the punishing part of Gods Government and are made subject to his vengeance by being sinners against his Law But as for the foundation of that acceptance viz. that habit of virtue and obedience which in the wilfull action we sinn'd against it is not quite destroyed but only wounded and impaired in us For habits are neither won nor lost by one action but by many It is frequency and repetition that must either produce or destroy them If therefore a good man is careless in some instance and loses his innocence and is vanquished into a wilfull sin yet is not the habitual inclination of his soul towards that instance of obedience against which he offended quite extinguished in him but only somewhat weakned and abated Thus for instance a sober man if he consent once to be drunk doth not thereby wholly lose his sober inclination But when the temptation is past his habitual temper which was foil'd and over-born revives again and he abhors his sin and confirms his resolution and so is ready at the next return of the temptation to wash off the stain of his former offence by an opposite instance of new obedience And the case is the same in the wilfull commissions of any other sin For although any one wilfull act be a damnable transgression and put the sinner into a damnable condition for the present yet doth it not destroy but only wound and weaken that habitual temper of virtue which if God spare him life may enable him with ease to act otherwise for the time to come Although indeed some wilfull sins have such a complication of evil in them and are carried on against so many suggestions of the spirit and checks of conscience and are brought to effect through so many thoughts and so long contrivance that they destroy not only that innocence which is the condition of our state of Grace but also that habitual temper and inclination which is the principle and foundation of it too They unravel all and set us to begin again the work of reformation anew Of which sort are Idolatry Witchcraft Perjury Sacriledge Murder Adultery Robbery Oppression entring into the fields of the fatherless and widow and such like For these sins do not only destroy a mans acceptance with God for the present but moreover they lay waste his conscience and spoil all his virtuous temper and inclination whereby he should recover himself afterwards whence they are call'd wounding and wasting sins And this effect they have because in the very acting of them there is usually so much time and deliberation and a succession of so many desires and aversations hopes and fears chusings and refusals that the sin has had a great many imperfect consents before it come to have that which is last and prevailing Our wills by a number of imperfect wouldings are in great part accustomed and have almost wholly learned to unwill all that good which they willed before so that there is an imperfect habit contained in the very action Besides what is most of all considerable these being such sins as are made up of several combined together before we can bring our selves to act them our conscience of their guiltiness must be in great part extinguished and the good spirit of God exceedingly grieved if not wholly quenched For Adultery implies fornication and injustice Sacriledge contains theft and impiety Perjury includes lying and prophaneness and so for all the rest Now these being complicated sins and crimes of an accumulated wickedness mens Consciences are more than ordinarily afraid of them and the good spirit of God extraordinarily concerned to keep them from them They suggest and represent the greatness of the sin and the greatness of the danger Which they do with such constancy and importunity that before men have silenced the one and extreamly grieved if not wholly quenched the other they cannot overcome their own fears and venture upon the commission of them And here now is the danger lest their own Conscience be laid asleep and Gods holy spirit leave them For he will not alwayes strive with man Gen. 6 3â— and from him that hath not that is hath not used that talent of Grace which was granted to him as the wicked Servant had not done who had hid it vers 25 shall be taken even that sayes our Saviour which he hath Mat. 25.29 And when men resist the motions of the Holy Ghost to such a degree as this and after all the repeated suggestions and obedient inclinations which he threw into their souls during all that time wherein the sin was under deliberation resolve still to venture on it no wonder if being thus grieved and rejected he withdraw himself for some time at least if not for altogether And of all this we have a clear instance in holy David upon that wasting sin of his in murdering
of the pleasure which accompanies it and from that apprehension of its pleasurableness he begins to love and from that loved he goes on straightway to desire it And now his will being sollicited by his lust or bodily desire consents to the fulfilling of it And this consent being once gained the next thing in order is to deliberate and contrive what company what time and what place are fittest for it And when by comparing all things together he comes to make a judgment of that he immediately chuses and resolves upon it and that being done there is nothing remaining further but to execute what he has resolved and go on to the performance of it This then is the method and progress from our lusting and desiring of any thing that is evil to our acting and committing it It begins in delight and love and desire and thence goes on to our consenting to it to our contrivance for it to our resolutions upon it and after all these to our practice and performance of it Now so long as the evil is entertained only in a short delightsom thought or love or desires and rests there but goes no further it is not so much our damning sin as our dangerous temptation it will be connived at and at the last Day we shall not be condemned for it For thus far the sin is only solliciting our choice but has not got it and as yet we have not committed a mortal crime but are only under a tryal whether we will be drawn to the commission of it or no. But if once our wills consent to it then begins the sting and there the danger enters for the lusting after evil so far as to consent to it and much more so as to contrive for it or to fulfil it makes us liable to death and eternal condemnation For our own choice as we heard above makes any sin damning so that if by means of the tempting lust any sin has prevailed so far it is become a deadly offence and subjects us to destruction Lust says S t James when it has conceived or is imperfectly consented to answering to conception which is an imperfect information bringeth forth sin and sin when by being perfectly consented to it is finished bringeth forth death which is the wages of it Jam. 1.15 And that our lusts after any sin are then damnably sinful when they are gone beyond desire and are come on either to our consent or contrivance or actual performance appears further from these instances in them all three If we lust so long after any evil thing as to consent to the sinful enjoyment of it we are guilty of all that punishment which is threatned to it He that looks upon a woman says our Saviour so long as to lust after her or to consent in his heart to the enjoyment of her he hath committed adultery already with her in his heart Mat. 5.28 If we lust so long as to contrive for it which is a degree further we are more guilty of the sin and more liable to the punishment of it still The inclinations and contrivances of murder as was observed above are reckoned among those things which pollute a man and thereby unfit him for entring into Heaven where nothing can ever have admittance that is unclean as well as murder it self is Mat. 15.19 But if our lust after any sinful enjoyment carry us on not only to consent to it or to contrive for it but what is the perfection of all to work and fulfil it then has it ensnared us into as much mischief as it can and is become dangerous and damning with a witness For then it has prevailed with us to compleat our sin and give the last hand to it it has brought us under that which is most of all threatned for now we fulfil the lusts of the flesh Gal. 5.16 19 we work iniquity Mat. 7.23 And if we continue to do this not only for once or twice but in constant returns and in a fixt course and tenure of action then as our sin is grown higher the acts thereof being more numerous and the guilt more crying so will our punishment also be more dreadfully severe And this is called walking after the flesh 2 Pet. 2.10 and living after the flesh Rom. 8.13 And this being a state of wasted virtue and habitual reigning sin it is not only through its obnoxiousness to punishment a state of death but also through its hardness of cure and difficult recovery a state of great doubt and danger likewise So that as for all these further degrees from the consent of our wills onward if our lusts after any sin have gone on to them they are deadly and damning For the same Law in the members which wars against the law of the mind so as thus to captivate and triumph over it is as the Law of sin so as the Apostle says the Law of death too Rom. 7.23.24 All our lustings after evil therefore when once they come to be consented to although before they were connived at are thenceforth deadly and damning So that whosoever hopes to be saved at the last Day from the punishment of them must thus far mortifie and kill them Mortifie says S t Paul those desires which are seated in your earthly members Col. 3.5 for it is only if you through the spirit do mortifie the deeds of the body that you shall live Rom. 8.13 As to these damnable degrees all fleshly lusts must of necessity be crucified in all good Christian men for no man will be reputed to belong to Christ till this change is wrought in him They that are Christs says the same Apostle have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts Gal. 5.24 Mortifie and crucifie them I say we must not so as to have no fleshly appetites and bodily desires of evil for then must we have no bodily desires at all Because our lusts themselves as was observed do not distinguish of lawful or unlawful but are naturally moved by an agreeable object whether it be with God or against him But we must mortifie them to that degree as that they never be able to win us over to consent to any forbidden thing for their gratification They must never have so much interest in our hearts as to make us prefer them before our duty and chuse to perform what they bid us rather than what God doth Some stirrings and ineffective motions of them which cannot prevail against God nor gain over the consent of our wills to any thing that he has forbidden are dispensed with they are the stage of temptation but not of death for God bears with them and the mortified men themselves do daily feel and labour under them But it is the prevailing strength of our lusts after evil things when they get our consent to them and carry us on to transgress Gods Laws to fulfil them this conquering power of fleshly lusts I say it is which is to
if he had lived to it he shall be rewarded at the last day as if he had For this very day says he shalt thou be with me in Paradise Luk. 23.42 Thus available I say a new nature and an inward change is although it want an outward practice when it is sufficient and effectual to produce it and would certainly effect it if there were but time and opportunity allow'd for it But then here is the dangerous state and deplorable case of all such dying Penitents that 't is twenty to one if they defer repentance to their death-bed that all the change which then appears in them is not so sufficient nor would were there a due time allow'd for it prove so effectual And of this we have a clear argument in that among all the holy vows and pious purposes which are begun by men upon a sick-bed when they are in sight of death and expect a dissolution there are so few that continue with them and prove effectual to make their lives and actions answer them when they recover There is not I believe one unconverted Christian in five hundred but will show some signs of sorrow and put up devout Prayers and make holy vows and purposes when he apprehends himself about to dye and yet of all them who are raised up again 't is a very small and inconsiderable number that make good those vows and effect what they had resolved upon And now if these men had dyed when they thus repented in what a miserable state had they been For this change in their will and purpose is no further available to their Salvation than it would be effectual to a like change in their lives and practice God accepts the holiness of the mind only as it is a holy principle and imputes the reward of obedience to it no farther than he foresees that if he allow'd time obedience would ensue upon it The will is never taken for the deed but when it is able to effect it when the deed would be sure to follow so soon as an opportunity were offer'd for it And this God sees before hand although we do not he is able to judge of the sincerity of mens desires and of the sufficiency of their purposes before their following works declare them And according to what he foresees they would afterwards effect he either accepts or rejects them But when mens after-works come as a clear evidence of the unsincerity or insufficiency of their sick-bed resolutions they may see plainly themselves what God saw long before that all the change of mind which was then wrought was utterly insignificant and unavailing When they trusted to it they relyed upon a broken reed their confidence upon it was ill grounded and if they had dyed with it it would most certainly have deceived them Thus utterly uncertain and uncomfortable a thing is a mere unworking change and a late death-bed Repentance It may sometimes prove sufficient to beget an after-change of practice and when God sees it would he will undoubtedly accept it But it very seldom doth and no man who dyes in it can possibly tell whether it would or no. It is very great odds that it would prove too weak so that although there be some yet is there very small hope that any dying man can place in it And that which renders it ordinarily so insufficient and thereupon so uncertain and uncomfortable is either First Because it generally proceeds from an unconstant temporary principle Or Secondly Because when the principle is genuine and lasting it is still too weak and in an incompetent measure and degree 1. That penitential grief and change of mind which is wrought upon a Death-bed is ordinarily ineffective and insufficient to produce a constant change of life and practice because it generally proceeds from an inconstant and temporary principle It is commonly founded upon a reason that doth not hold in all times a reason that is good in sickness but not in health that concludes for a Pious change whilst we are under our sick-bed sorrows but not when being freed from them we come under the pleasure of temptations For the great and general motive which makes all those who never thought of reforming in all their lives before to resolve upon it when they are on their Death-bed is plainly the nearness of the next world and their apprehension of their sudden death and departure Could they hope to live longer they would sin still But they look upon themselves as going to Judgment and they have so much Conscience left in them as to believe that there is a Hell for the impenitent and their own self-love is extreamly startled at that and makes them run to any shelter So that they make many fearful confessions and fervent Prayers and Holy purposes and say and do any thing whereby they may quiet their present fears and catch at any comfortable hopes of avoiding it The ordinary cause then of all this work is not any love of God or hatred of Sin but only a fear of Punishment And that too not a fear of it at a distance and as at some removes from them but only as near at hand and just hanging over them But now as for this apparant nearness of Death and this confounding fear upon it it is plainly a short and transient an unconstant temporary Principle It is a reason to them no longer than they are sick for when they recover and are well again Death is as far off and they are become again as fearless as ever They are got out of its neighbourhood and it gives them no further trouble So that all their former fears abate and their vertuous resolutions fall as beginning now to want that which first gave life to them and should support them And now when opportunities of Sin are offered and the pleasurable baits of Temptations invite they have nothing left that is able to resist them Whilst they were sick they were not capable to be tempted and then Death being near it enabled them to purpose well and to make a pious resolution But now since they are well Temptations are become as strong as ever and the thoughts of Death being far removed they have no resolutions that can withstand them but are quickly changed again into the same men as sensual and sinful as they were before Indeed it sometimes happens that those souls which were at first awakened by such a transient temporary motive go on to others afterwards that are more fixt and lasting and then they are furnished with Armour in all times and have a motive that may bear them out when Death is far off as well as when 't is near at hand in time of health as well as in time of sickness For they who were at first affrighted into a change of mind and holy purposes by the near approach of Death and Judgment go on sometimes to confirm their resolutions upon more lasting principles They think themselves into a
so neither are they to be conquered by one action but by many And since the process in Repentance even from one single Sin is so long and tedious ere it has arrived to a saving pitch and so difficult to a healthy man who has nothing to trouble and distract him what must an universal reformation be to a dying person whose time is short and much disturbed who cannot repeat many resolutions nor make a tryal of the force and power of any one and who is most likely to be weak and languid in all those good purposes which he makes by reason that his thoughts are heavy and his attention broken and all his faculties are oppressed with pain and become weary and unactive through a wasting Disease Surely if the first resolutions of healthy Men are generally so ineffective and insufficient these purposes of dying Penitents which in all advantages for a strong and prevailing resolution fall much below them must needs be generally of this ineffective sort too And when they are so they stand us in no stead in Gods account but are utterly unavailable to any mans Salvation A man who only purposeth but doth not practise who barely wills but is not able to perform is in the way to life indeed but he is far from having yet attained to it He is still in a sad case and under a damning Sentence For he is as S t Paul says in that seventh Chapter to the Romans where he describes him slain by Sin vers 11. It works death in him vers 13. he is yet under as the Law of Sin so the body of Death too vers 24. But the change of mind which God requires of us is such as works a change of practice If he sees it sufficient to effect that he accepts it indeed before the effect follows he takes the will for the deed when he sees the will is so strong as that upon any fit occasion it would produce it and upon this account he accepted the dying Thief Luk. 23.42 But if it be only an impotent and ineffective will and he discerns plainly that no obedient works would follow it it is no such will as he rewards and for such Penitents he will by no means absolve but utterly condemn them And since the change of mind and penitential purposes of dying persons even when they are upon genuine and lasting grounds so as in the following parts of a mans life if God should please to spare him they would do something would yet be weak and insufficient and so unable to do enough here is still a further reason of the ordinary insufficiency of such Repentance and why those dying men will not ordinarily be saved by it but perish notwithstanding it To conclude this point then we see that 't is possible for such New-birth to save a Man as has not yet produced a New practice and for dying Penitents to be accepted upon a change of mind without a like change of life and actions This I say is possible it sometimes is and sometimes has been done but this indeed is very rare and very seldom so that no Man in his sober wits who has time before him will dare to trust to it And the sum of all is this That to men who are so unhappy as to be brought into it it has as is expressed in Salvians determination just so much hope as may excite a good endeavour but to men who are yet out of it it is altogether so desperate as utterly to discourage all delay CHAP. IV. Of Pardon promised to Confession of Sins and to Conversion The CONTENTS Of Pardon promised to Confession of Sins The nature and qualifications of a Saving Confession It s fitness to make us forsake Sin The ineffectiveness of most mens Confessions The folly and impiety of it Pardon promised to Confession no further than it produces Obedience Of Pardon promised to Conversion The nature of Conversion It includes Obedience and is but another name for it FOurthly That condition of Life and Pardon which the Gospel indispensably exacts of us and whereupon at the last day Christ will accept and reward us is sometimes called Confession of our Sins to God When we acknowledge them God will be sure to pardon them he has engaged his word and faithfulness for it and so cannot recede from it If we confess our Sins says S t John God is just and FAITHFVL to forgive us our Sins 1 Joh. 1.9 Now as for this Confession of our Sins whereupon God promises mercifully to forgive them it is not a bare naming of them or giving in an Historical Catalogue of them to Almighty God that he may know them and be informed of them No he sees all our thoughts afar off and our actions long before We cannot inform him when we lay open our transgressions before him for we could never find any place wherein to act them so retired but it was under his eye nor any time and circumstances so secret as to escape his knowledge So that our Confession cannot be to instruct him but only to shame and to humble and to work other effects in our own selves And therefore it must not be a bare recital of such offences as we have committed but an acknowledgment duly qualified and accompanied with such tempers of mind as will lead us on to forsake and amend them It is a Confessing of them with shame with an humble debasement and sense of our unworthiness who could ever be so vile as to be guilty of them And such was Ezra's Confession Ezra 9. O my God saith he I am ASHAMED and blush to lift up my face to thee my God for our iniquities are encreased over our head and our trespasses are grown up unto the Heavens vers 6. It is an acknowledgment of them with hatred and detestation as things that are utterly odious and loathsome to us which therefore we are prone to fly from as from what is most offensive And such is that Confession whereunto God directs the Jews by his Prophet Ezekiel Ye shall remember your ways saith he and all your doings wherein ye have been defiled and ye shall LOATH your selves in your own sight for all your evils that you have committed Ezekiel 20.43 It is a recital of them with sorrow of mind and a troubled heart with such pain as we use to feel in those things which most afflict us which therefore we are forward to avoid as what creates the greatest torment And such was that of S t Peter who when he remembred and made mention of his Sin to God wept saith the Text bitterly Matt. 26.75 And of David who tells us in the 38. Psalm that when he declares to God his iniquity he will be SORRY for his Sin vers 18. It is a Confession of them with a resolution upon all this shame and sorrow which we have undergone for them never more to be reconciled to them or to act them over again and
way to your bliss and happiness said Samuel to the Israelites only fear the Lord and in vertue of that fear serve him 1 Sam. 12.24 25. This fear has given right to pardon in all times and will eternally secure it For Gods mercy is on them that fear him from generation to generation Luke 1.50 From everlasting to everlasting Psal. 103.17 So that well might Solomon say The Fear of the Lord is a Fountain of life Prov. 14.27 and that he surely knew it will go well with them that fear the Lord Eccles. 8.12 And then as for our Hope or Trust in God great things are spoken of it Blessed is he saith the Psalmist who maketh the Lord his Trust Psal. 40.4 He is secure from all effects of his wrath and anger for the Lord taketh pleasure in them that hope in his mercy Psal. 147.11 In particular our relying on Christ and confiding in him for our pardon and eternal salvation is said to be that which will never fail or deceive us For he that hopeth or believeth on him says S t Paul shall never be ashamed by a misplaced confidence or expectation Rom. 10.11 Now our fear of God and our hope or trust in his mercy are of all our passions the most active Causes and powerful Springs of our good works and obedience As for our fears no passion puts us upon so much pains and industry as they do They make us act to the utmost of our power and do all that is to be done to get protection from that evil which excites them For fear has the deepest root in our natural self-love and desire of our own preservation being raised in us by the nearness of such things as either utterly destroy or in some degree impair it And therefore in them the activity of our self-love is shown to the utmost as vehemently as we desire and endeavour to preserve ourselves and our own ease so vehemently must we desire and endeavour likewise to remove the matter of our fears which hangs over us to destroy or to torment us The most natural effect of fear then is a most vigorous endeavour by all means to remove that evil which we are afraid of And according as this may be done several ways so doth our passion of fear exert it self after several manners If we think the evil may be conquered it pushes us on to fight and subdue it If it be above our strength but may yet for all that be avoided it puts us upon all means of concealment or escape and makes us seek either to lye hid or to fly from it But if there is neither any prospect of withstanding the power nor of escaping the eye of him who is ready to inflict it as there never can be when God who is both Almighty and Al-seeing is the Person feared then it hurries us on by all means to regain his favour and good will that thereby we may prevent it And in Times of Ignorance when men had great fears and little knowledg when they were grievously afraid of God but knew not what things he loved and delighted in nor wherewith they might please him this fear of God put them upon all the nonsensical services and foolish propitiations of Superstition But where God has plainly and clearly revealed his will and manifested to all that it is their obedience alone that can continue them in his favour or restore them to it after they have lost it here the only effect of fear must needs be that which is known to be the only means of favour viz. our keeping of his Commandments or obedience So that our fear of God is a most sure principle and effectual means of our serving and obeying him And then as for our hope or trust in Gods mercy it is a most natural cause of our doing our Duty likewise For all hope implies both desire and a likelihood of getting that which is desired which two are all that is at any time needful to make us vigorously endeavour after it For if men will be at no pains for a thing it is either because they have little or no desire of it or no probability of succeeding in it But when once they are push'd on by an eager desire it is only despair that can dull their endeavours in pursuit of it So that if we hope for mercy we shall be at some pains for it and by an active service and obedience seek to procure it Indeed when the good thing that is hoped for needs no labour of ours but our naked trust and reliance is all that on our sides is required to it our hope will effect no endeavour after it because none is necessary to obtain it But as for that eternal life and pardon which Christs Gospel proposeth to our hopes they are offered us only upon certain Terms and Conditions and will never be attained by us without our Service and Obedience And seeing obedience here is the necessary means to the acquisition of that which we desire the same desire and hope which carries us on towards mercy and life must spur us on withal to works of duty and obedience also They must be a Spring of industry and good endeavour because they make us resolve to procure that which is not to be got without them And in regard our fear of God and our hope or trust in his mercy are such powerful Principles of our obedience to his Laws therefore are Pardon and Life which are the rewards of Obedience so frequently promised to them God never intends to reward an idle fear or an unactive and careless trust but such only as are industrious and obedient 'T is true indeed the generality of men have taken up a dangerous errour especially in the latter of these and are bold and presumptuous in their hopes at the same time that they are most wicked and disobedient in their lives and practice They find no service of their own works wherein they may be confident and therefore they fly from them to Gods Goodness They know this full well by themselves that they are wicked but they know withal that God is gracious and their hope is that He will be merciful to them notwithstanding their sins They find themselves condemned indeed by his Gospel but their trust is to be relieved by his Nature they are punishable and wretched by his Laws but they expect to be saved by his pity and kindness The Revelations of his Word 't is true breathe out nothing to them but Death but their hope is that he will be better than his Word and that through the infiniteness of his mercy they shall at last be adjudged to pardon and eternal life But such bold hopes and presumptuous confidences as these are the ready way to provoke and offend God but by no means to attone and appease him For thus to hope in his Mercy against the plain Declarations of his Will is to chashier those measures of life
three more is comprized the Body of our whole Duty If we adde two or three more I say for besides the several Laws already mentioned there are three particular Duties yet remaining of a more positive and arbitrary nature which Christ has bound all Christians to observe and they are the Law of Baptism of the Lords Supper and of Repentance Baptism is our incorporation into the Church of Christ or our entrance into the Gospel Covenant or into all the duties and priviledges of Christians by means of the outward Ceremony of washing or sprinkling in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost The Eucharist or Lords Supper is our Federal Vow or repetition of that engagement which we made at Baptism of performing faith repentance and obedience unto God in expectation of remission of sins eternal happiness and those other promises which by Christ's death are procured for us upon these terms which engagement we solemnly make to God at our eating Bread and drinking Wine in remembrance and commemoration of Christs dying for us Repentance is a forsaking of sin or an amendment of any evil way upon a sorrowful sense and just apprehension of its making us offend God and subjecting us to the danger of death and damnation And if to all the forementioned instances of those three grand Vertues which by the Apostle Tit. 2.12 13 are made the summ of our Christian Duty we join these three positive and additional Laws we have all that whereby God will judge us at the last Day even all those particular Laws whereto our obedience is required as necessary to salvation And thus we have seen what those particulars Laws are which the Gospel indispensably requires us to obey They are no other than those very instances which I have been all this while recounting and describing But because the Catalogue of them hitherto has been broken and interrupted and therefore cannot be run over so easily as might be desired in a matter of that importance I will here repeat them all again for the greater ease of all such pious souls as desire to try themselves by them and place them all in one view and all together The commanding Laws then whereby at the last Day we must all be judged are these that follow The Law of sobriety towards our selves with all its Train which are the Law of humility of heavenly-mindedness of temperance of sobriety of chastity of continence of contempt of the world and contentment of courage and taking up the Cross of diligence and watchfulness of patience of mortification and self-denial The Law of piety towards God with all its Branches which are the Law of honour of worship of faith and knowledge of love of zeal of trust and dependance of prayer of thankfulness of fear of submission and resignedness of obedience The Law of Justice towards men in all its parts which will be seen by the contrary prohibitions of injustice The Law of Charity in all its instances which are the Law of goodness or kindness of honour for our Brethrens Vertues of pity and succour of restraining our Christian Liberty for our weak Brothers edification of friendly reproof of brotherly kindness of congratulation of compassion of almes and distribution of covering and concealing their defects of vindicating their reputation of affability or graciousness of courtesy and officiousness of condescension of hospitality of gentleness of candor of unity of thankfulness of meekness or lenity of placableness of forgiving injuries of doing good to enemies and when nothing more is in our power praying for them and blessing or speaking what is good of them when we take occasion to mention them of long-suffering of mercifulness The Law of Peace and Concord with all its Train as are the Law of peaceableness of condescension and compliance of doing our own business of satisfying for injuries of peace-making The Law of love to Kings and Princes in all its Particulars which are the Law of honour of reverence of paying Tribute and Customes of fidelity of praying for them of obedience of subjection The Law of love to our Bishops and Ministers with all its expressions which are the Law of honour or having them highly in esteem for their works sake of reverence of maintenance of praying for them of obedience The Law of Love in the particular relation of Husband and Wife with all its Branches which are on both sides the Law of mutual concern and communicating in each others bliss or misery of bearing each others infirmities of prayer of fidelity On the Husbands towards his Wife the Law of providing for her of protecting her of flexible and winning Government of compliance and condescension On the Wives towards her Husband the Law of honour of reverence of observance and obedience of subjection The Law of Love in the particular relation of Parents and Children with its several effects which are from the Parents towards their Children the Law of natural affection of maintenance and provision of honest education of loving Government of bringing them up in the institution and fear of God of prayer for them From the Children towards their Parents besides the Duty of natural affection common to both the Law of honour of reverence of obedience of subjection of requiting upon occasion their care and kindness of prayer for them The Law of Love in the particular relation of Brethren and Sisters with all its instances which are the Law of natural affection of providing for our Brethren of praying for them The Law of Love in the particular relation of Master and Servant with its several expressions which are on the Masters side the Law of maintenance of religious instruction of a just and equal Government of them of kindness and equity in commanding of forbearance and moderation in threatning of punctual payment of the wages of the Hireling of praying for them On the Servants the Law of honour of reverence of observance of concealing and excusing their Masters defects of vindicating their injured reputation of fidelity of obedience of diligence of willing and hearty service of patient submission and subjection of praying for them To all which we may add the two arbitrary institutions and positive Laws of the Gospel Baptism and the Eucharist or Lords Supper and when we transgress in any of the instances forementioned that great and only remedy of Christs Religion the Law of repentance This so far as I can call to mind at present is a just enumeration of those particular Injunctions and Commands of God whereto our obedience is indispensably required and whereby at the last Day we must all be judged either to live or dye eternally But supposing that some particular instances of Love and Duty are omitted in this Catalogue yet need this be prejudicial to no mans happiness since that defect will be otherwise supplied For as for such omitted instances where there is an occasion for them and an opportunity offered to exercise
allured by his Promises and affrighted with his threatnings would perswade us to keep within his bounds and to act obedience Now these two contrary and gainsaying Principles distract our choice and divide our wills so that when we close with one of them it is not without the grudging and reluctance of the other We would and we would not one inclines us for a thing and the other against it The flesh says S t Paul lusteth against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh and these are contrary one to the other so that you cannot fulfill both their desires and do each of the things that you would Gal. 5.17 If we obey it is through the repining of our appetites and if we transgress it is with the remorse and lashings of our Consciences On both sides there is something that is evil whereof we are afraid and which we would not our will is imperfect and with reluctance and we will and choose in some measure unwillingly whether it be to work obedience or sin As for the Saints in Heaven indeed after the Resurrection 't is true that they shall have no gainsaying appetites For their flesh will be in perfect subjection to the spirit their will shall have nothing to seduce it but shall stand alwayes firm and entire for God so that they shall obey without any thing of reluctance or regret And as for some of the profligate and prophane sinners here on earth they have now already so quite benum'd their Consciences that they neither allure nor threaten admonish nor accuse them And they sin without all contention they transgress and do not dispute their lusts hurry them without any opposition so that they disobey most willingly and free from all remorse But as for all the good and the generality of the wicked here on earth they are of a middle rate They both of them act through strife and conquest their consent is courted on both sides and when they comply with one they must refuse the other Both Flesh and Spirit struggle in them although at last but one prevails For in the Regenerate good man the flesh stirs but it cannot conquer they have bodies and bodily appetites but they subdue them and as S t Paul says keep them under 1 Cor. 9.27 So that all the while the Spirit rules in them when the flesh doth but in vain solicite this may tempt but it cannot govern for the spirit gives them Laws its pleasure they perform and what it commands that in their actions they obey But in the wicked and disobedient the case is quite opposite For in them although their Conscience smite them yet can it not prevail with them it suggests but they will not hearken it shews the way but they will not follow it in all things their Lusts are the governours of their lives and actions so that although the lashes of their consciences may sharpen and embitter yet are they not able to disappoint the service of their sin In all the obedience therefore and in the greatest part of the transgressions here on Earth there is still something of strugling and reluctance Men act not by a will that is void of all restraint or by a desire and choice that is free from all unwillingness but there is a mixture of love and hatred an unwilling will that carries them on either to act obedience or to disobey But notwithstanding their ineffective wishes and imperfect wouldings to the contrary it is their peremptory will and last choice which shall determine their condition For if they will and chuse to do what God commands in spight of all the gainsaying wishes raised by their fleshly Appetites they shall be pardoned and acquitted When the good man overcomes the temptation and prevails over his unwillingness and triumphing over it goes on to practise and obey he shall receive the reward of his obedience But if they will and chuse to do what God forbids in spight of all the contrary Admonitions and Threatnings of their Consciences they shall dye in their disobedience The Sinner who is carried on to do what he disallows to work what he fears and to commit what at first sight his will is averse to he shall undergo the smart and punishment of his transgression And the reason is plain for he serves his sin and fulfils his lust and his thraldome to it is so absolute that no aids of the Spirit nor any suggestions of his Conscience can deliver him from it He that committeth sin saith our Saviour is the servant of sin John 8.34 So long as it conquers it doth indeed inslave him For of whom a man is overcome of the same says S t Peter he is brought in bondage 2 Pet. 2.19 If we yield our selves up to serve it we do indeed obey it and must expect that death which is denounced upon such obedience Know you not saith another Apostle that to whom you yield your selves servants to obey his servants you are to whom you obey whether of sin unto death or of obedience unto righteousness Rom. 6.16 If we are at the beck of our Lusts and go where they send and do what they command us and acknowledge their pleasure in all things to be a Law to us we are perfect Slaves to them and liable to all that misery which is denounced upon them We serve and obey them and that shall surely bring us to suffer for them For it is the fulfilling of our lusts the doing or walking after them and the obeying of our sin which Christs Gospel threatens so severely whatever mind we do it with If you live after the Flesh saith the Apostle you shall dye and it is only if you through the Spirit do mortifie the deeds of the Body that you shall live Rom. 8.13 When Christ comes to Judgment the enquiry will not be Whether we sinned with a full delight or with fear and reluctance but whether in very deed without repenting of it afterwards we sinned wilfully or transgressed at all For we have what shall be his Sentence at that Day from his own mouth already Depart from me ye that work iniquity Matth. 7.23 So that it will be no sufficient Plea for any man at the last Day who has disobeyed in deed and wrought wickedness to say That he did it with backwardness and remorse For that which God indispensably requires is that hâ— should not do it at all and he will only deceive himself if he ever expect to be accepted otherwise For as the hopes of salvation upon mere orthodox opinions or ineffective desires of obedience or sinning through a strong temptation are utterly delusive and sure to fail them that trust to them so is this fourth ground likewise viz. our hopes of being accepted notwithstanding our sins because we transgressed with reluctance and unwillingness CHAP. IV. A further pursuit of this last ground of shifting off the Obedience of our actions in an Exposition of the seventh Chapter to the
in reprehending and exposing the faults of others is most usual among our selves Nothing being more common in our ordinary Discourse than when we would be sharp in reproving and inveighing against any thing by a most courteous Fiction to put it in our own Case and to suppose that we our selves should do this or that Whenas in the mean time we are no further concerned in it than to be able under this disguise with more success and less offence to disparage and chastise it And this way of transferring odious things to our selves when we would describe and reprove them which is so usual with all the world and with S t Paul in other Cases is particularly used by him in his Character of the ineffective Striver in this seventh Chapter of the Epistle to the Romans He speaks not those things above recited of willing but not performing c. in his own person or in the person of any regenerated man as will plainly appear from this reason Because in that Chapter such things are said of the person there spoken of as can by no means agree to S t Paul or to any regenerate person so that the Apostle must be made to falsifie if he should be understood to speak so of them Such things I say are there spoken as can by no means agree to S t Paul himself For we read Of the person there spoken of That he lived and was alive without the Law of the ten Commandments once ver 7.9 That the Law of his members wars against the Law of his mind and brings him into captivity to the Law of sin which is seated and rules in his members ver 23. That how to do or perform what is good he finds not ver 18. That sin works in him all manner of lust or concupiscence ver 8. That he is captivated and conquered and as a vanquished Slave sold under sin ver 14.23 That he sinned against his Conscience For what I do says he in my practice that I allow not in my mind or Conscience but what I hate and disapprove that I do ver 15.19 That he is in a state of death For sin revived and he died vers 9. and by deceiving him it had slain him v. 11. The good law he had found to be unto him the occasion of death by his falling into that disobedience whereto it had threatned it vers 10. For the motions of sin which were not and could not be restrained by the law wrought in his members to bring forth damning sins or fruit unto death vers 5. Of Saint Paul himself elsewhere That he was both born and bred up under the Law being circumcised the eighth Day of the Stock of Israel an Hebrew of the Hebrews or an Hebrew both by his Fathers and his Mothers side Phil. 3.5 That he keeps under his Body and is not led captive by it but on the contrary brings it into subjection and captivity 1 Cor. 9.27 That he can do all things which are good through Christ that strengthens him Phil. 4.13 That it works none but that instead of lusting and coveting worldly things the world is crucified to him and he unto the world Gal. 6.14 That he has fought a good fight against it 2 Tim. 4.7 And that by the Grace of God through Christ he is delivered from it Rom. 7.25 That he knew or was conscious of nothing by himself 1 Cor. 4.4 but that he trusted he had a good Conscience and that in all things being willing to live honestly Heb. 13.18 Acts 23.1 For this had all along been his care he hahaving made it his business and exercised himself to have not now and then but alwayes a conscience void of offence or not wounded and smitten with the sense of any offences either towards God or men Acts 24.16 That the law of the spirit of life hath made him free from the law of sin and death Rom. 8.2 That he has finished his course to his advantage so as there is laid up for him not a painfull death as the punishment of his disobedience but a Crown of Glory as a reward of his righteousness which the righteous judge will give him at the last day 2 Tim. 4.8 If therefore we will believe S t Paul and let those accounts which he gives of himself explain his own meaning he cannot be that very person who is there spoken of For they are persons altogether of a different stamp and a contrary character they are as opposite as a servant of God and a slave of sin as a spiritual and a carnal man as one whose conscience approves and another whose conscience condemns him as a child of God and a child of darkness as an heir of Heaven and a subject of Hell So that he cannot speak of himself in that seventh Chapter and in the other places too because then he would appear inconsistent with himself and be found false in his own story And therefore as sure as S t Paul is true he sayes all that is spoken there in an inoffensive disguise not intending to give a character of his own person but to personate another man Nay I add further that the person whom he represents in that Chapter is not only another from himself but also one of a quite opposite and contrary character He is not only no Apostle but even no good Christian or regenerate man For such things are there said of him as if S t Paul and the other Apostles say true are inconsistent with a regenerate state and destructive of salvation As will plainly appear by considering those things which are said Of the person described there That with his flesh or fleshly members he obeys the law of sin vers 25. And this he is forced to do and cannot help it For the law of his members wars against the law of his mind and brings him into captivity to the law of sin and death ver 23. He is as absolutely enslaved to it as ever any servant was to his master who was sold in the market For says he I am carnal and sold under sin vers 14. That sin works or accomplishes and brings on to outward act and perfection in him all manner of concupiscence vers 8. For taking occasion by the nakedness of the tenth Commandment whereto no punishment was expresly threatned it deceived him into the customary commission of it by that wile and thereby slew him vers 11. That the law he found to be unto death in discerning himself to be fallen under the curse and condemnation of it vers 10. For the motions of sin which were incouraged and emboldened by means of the fancied impunity of the law wrought in his members which are the seat of their Empire so far as to bring forth damning sins or fruit unto death vers 5. That in his flesh dwells no good thing vers 18. For sin dwells and inhabits in him vers 17. and that so as to rule and govern
or have all the force of a law in his members vers 23. That he sins against his own conscience For what he doth that he allows not but what in his own mind he hates and disapproves that he doth vers 15.19 That to do good although he might wish or approve it he found not v. 18. That he stands in need to cry out O wretched man that I am who will deliver me from this body of death being as yet not rescued from it but labouring under it vers 25. Of the regenerate elsewhere That as for their members they yield them not to be instruments unto sin but unto righteousness because now since their regeneration into true Christians Sin is not to reign in their mortal bodies that they should obey it in the lusts thereof Rom. 6.12 13. In becoming Christians they are dead and crucified with Christ that the body of sin might not be maintained to live and rule in them but destroyed that thenceforward they should not serve sin For he that is dead is freed from sin vers 6 7. The Gospel of Christ or the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath not enslaved but freed them from the law of sin and death Rom. 8.2 So that sin now shall not have dominion over them because they are not under the law through the weakness whereof it tyrannized but under Grace Rom. 6.14 That their body is dead because of sin Rom. 8.10 And that they make no provision for the flesh to fulfill and accomplish the lusts or concupiscence thereof Rom. 13.14 Because if they should they would cease to be sons of God and heirs of happiness and be rendred obnoxious to misery and death For the plain declaration of Christs Gospel concerning the heirs of life and death is this If you live after the flesh in accomplishing its lusts you shall die and 't is only if you through the spirit instead of acting and compleating do kill and mortifie the deeds of the body that you shall live Rom. 8.13 That against them there is no condemning force of any law Galat. 5.23 For the law of the spirit of life hath not left them still enslaved but made them free from the law of sin and death too Rom. 8.2 And being become the servants of God they have their fruit not to sin and death but to holiness at present and the end thereof at length everlasting life Rom. 6.22 That their bodies or fleshly members are temples of the Holy Ghost and sacred places wherein it inhabits and that they glorifie God in their bodies as well as in their spirits seeing both are Gods 1 Cor. 6.19 20. That they hold faith and a good conscience without which of faith in dangerous times they would soon make shipwrack 1 Tim. 1.19 And that they are saved by the answer of a good conscience which comforts and applauds but cannot accuse them 1 Pet. 3.21 That he only who doth good is of God 3 Joh. 11. and that there is no condemnation to them who do and walk after the spirit Rom. 8.1 And that without these new fruits it is in vain to lay any claim to a new nature because as our Saviour sayes if men were the children of Abraham they would do the works of Abraham Joh. 8.39 That the body of sin is already destroyed in them that henceforth they should not serve sin which the other complains so much of Rom. 6.6 For they are delivered from the law upon occasion of the weakness whereof sin brought forth in them fruits unto death to serve now in newness of Spirit Rom. 7.5 So that what the weak ineffective law could not do for them that the Grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord hath done in an effectual deliverance of them v. 25. So that if we will take the word of S t Paul and of the rest of the Apostles in this matter we must needs believe that regenerate men and heirs of heaven are not in any wise such persons as are described in that seventh Chapter to the Romans there being no agreement or resemblance at all between them Their tempers and behaviour are utterly inconsistent and as far distant as Heaven and Hell For one serves and fulfills the lusts of his flesh the other crucifies and subdues them one yields his members servants unto sin the other unto righteousness one is made a perfect captive and sold under sin the other is made free from it one is forced to act against his conscience the other alwayes acts according to it one complains of being oppressed by the body of death the other rejoyceth in being deliver'd from it one can perform and do no good the other doth all good one brings forth fruit unto death the other to eternal life These with others that might be mention'd are the lines of difference and the contrary characters of the person represented in the seventh Chapter to the Romans and the regenerate man described by S t Paul himself in all his other Epistles and in the following and foregoing Chapters of this By all which it appears that they are descriptions contradictory and incompatible which cannot at the same time be affirmed of the same man And that to give such an account of a regenerate man as is there set down would not in all appearance be the way to describe but rather slanderously to libel and revile him If any therefore enquire now how I know that S t Paul doth not speak of himself in that Chapter nor of any other regenerate person but of an unregenerate man who is yet in the state of death and sin he has his Answer full and undeniable already I know he doth not mean so because he cannot mean so the things which he sayes not bearing to be so understood For that meaning would make his speech to be no Apostolical Truth but an open falsehood it would make S t Paul inconsistent with himself and to unsay at one time what he had said most peremptorily at another It would make him flatly to gainsay all that he has taught elsewhere yea even what he had affirm'd almost in the same breath in the foregoing and the following Chapters So that he cannot be understood of himself or of any other regenerate person but must be allow'd according to his usual custome in such odious topicks as this was to speak all in a borrowed disguise and in the person of a sinfull and a lost man For indeed to be yet more particular all that discourse in that seventh Chapter is not meant either of S t Paul or of any other regenerate Christian but of a struggling and contending although yet unconquering and unregenerate Jew For the Apostle is there describing the state not of a perfect debauch nor of a perfect Saint but of a middle man He is one whose Conscience is awaken'd for he delights in the Law of God after the inner man of his mind and reason vers 22. and when he
that there you will be judged to pay your service where you pay your obedience whether that be in the performance of sin unto the purchase of death or of obedience unto the obtaining of righteousness But whatever some licentious Renegado Christians may think of obeying and so serving sin after they have put themselves under subjection to Christ who proffers to pardon it for the time past only that he may thereby encourage them to leave it for the future yet God be thanked that you for your parts have quite other apprehensions For although indeed you were formerly in your time of Judaism and subjection to the Law of Moses the servants of sin yet now since your coming into subjection under Christ ye have together with your subjection changed your service also and have obeyed from the heart that New Gospel Form of Doctrin whereunto or into the hands whereof ye were delivered when you were exempted from all subjection to the Law Being then by this change of subjection from the Law under which sin had power to Christ's Gospel which enables you to destroy it made free from the service of sin ye became as the Subjects of Christ so likewise the servants of righteousness And for this change of your service together with the change of your subjection there is all the reason in the World Whereof I will speak after the most moderate expectations and equitable manner of men because of the infirmities of your Flesh whereby I know you are disabled from making such high returns as the reason of the thing calls for For this is the least that the mildest man would require in this Case and yet it is all that God exacts of you as ye have formerly when you were subject to the Law under which sin took so great advantage yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto the bringing forth still of more iniquity even so in the same manner now since you are become subject unto Christ give the same fruits there of your subjection and yield your members servants to righteousness unto the encrease of greater holiness This as I say is no more than you did upon your subjection to the other For when ye were the servants of sin and under subjection to his Law ye were free from all that service of righteousness which God expects of you now upon your subjection to a better Law And as this change of your service together with the change of your subjection is most highly reasonable so let me tell you withal it is most beneficial For when ye were subject to the Law and thereby servants unto sin what fruit had you then either in enjoyment or expectation besides death and disgrace in those things and services whereof you are most justly now ashamed And not only so for besides that one effect of shame there is moreover another end of those things and that is death too But now on the other side being by means of your subjection unto Christ made free from the Law and Authority of sin and become as it is meet for Subjects servants unto God you have your fruit at present unto holiness and the end thereof at last everlasting life This difference there is I say again between the fruits of your former subjection and service and those at present For the wages of sin to its Subjects and Servants is death but the gift of God to his is eternal life And this service of God which gets you right to eternal life I must still tell you is owing to your being freed from subjection to the Law under which you served sin and to your becoming subject unto Christ. For in the first place as for your being freed from subjection to the Law and being now no longer under it that is very plain For know you not my Brethren for I speak to them that know the Law or the nature and quality of those Laws which give one person interest and power over another how that the Law when considered as a person that hath such power hath dominion over a man who is under it as long as he liveth indeed or as it liveth in force to bind him but no longer A mans subjection to a Law is just like that of a Woman to her Husband where as we all know the subjection ceaseth and all the Laws pertaining to it when her Husband dyes whom she was subject to For the woman which hath an Husband is bound indeed by the Law of that subjection to her Husband as long as he liveth but if the Husband be dead she is then no longer subject but loosed from the Law of wedlock made in favour of her Husband as she is from that subjection wherein it was founded So then if while her Husband liveth during whose life all the Laws of Wedlock belonging to that subjection are in force she be married to another man she shall be truly called an Adulteress but on the other side if her Husband be dead that subjection and all the Laws which could oblige her in it are dead with him and she is free from the obligation of that Law which forbid her to marry another upon pain of being accounted an Adulteress so that she is no Adulteress now that Law being dead which made her so though she be married to another man And this is just your Case the Law of Moses which held you in subjection formerly being dead and abolished now by the Death and Doctrine of Christ or you being dead to it which comes to the same thing Wherefore my Brethren ye also as the woman is to the dead man the Duties of this relation living or expiring at the same time on both sides equally are become dead to the Law which was your former Husband unto which therefore now you are no longer subject by the body and sufferings of Christ crucified who has abrogated and abolished Moses's Law under which sin reigned which abolition of the Law he wrought for this end that ye by this death of it being freed from all subjection to it might now be married and thereby become subject to another even to himself who is raised from the dead to a state of absolute Authority and Dominion over us to whom I must tell you we are espoused for this purpose â—â—at upon becoming his Subjects we should be freed â—â—om our former sinful service and agreeable to our pâ—â—sent subjection perform service or bring forth fruit unto God And this alteration of our subjection from the Law to himself was necessary as I said for this altering of our service from sin to righteousness Which is manifest from comparing what we were formerly with what we are at present For when formerly we were in subjection to the Flesh or Law of Moses under which the Flesh had so great advantage we generally felt as they do now who are still under it
Law was the cause of our Sin and Death this we see is quite taken off and doth not follow at all For although we sinn'd yea and died too under the Law yet was not the Law the cause of these but the strength of our own Lusts. But the Law is holy still and so no cause of sin and the Commandment forbidding sin and promising Life to the obedient is not only holy and just but over and above that good too and so no cause of death and suffering But upon this you will say how was it then that that which is so good in it self as you say the Law is should be made the cause of the greatest evil even of Death unto me Could it prove so to me if it were not so in it self And to this I answer with abhorrence God forbid that I should say the Law is Death No this Death as I have told you is not the effect of the Law for it was ordained to procure Life for me But it was Sin I say again that was too strong for the Law which could only forbid but was not able by all its aids to restrain it this Sin it was that it might appear Sin indeed that went on working transgression unto Death in me by advantage taken over that Law which is good although not strong enough to overpower the setled habits of evil And by this conquest of Sin over the good Law which was set up as a bar against it and should have destroy'd it it appears to be most mischievous For this comes of it that Sin by proving too hard for the Commandment might by such prevailing over all that is set against it be extremely heightned and aggravated and become exceeding sinfull And that the Law should thus be worsted by Sin is no wonder For we know that although the Law which commands is spiritual to shew and suggest better things yet I who am to obey in that state of sensuality and sin wherein the Law finds me and out of which it is too weak to rescue me am carnal so as to serve sin notwithstanding it Which I am to such a degree as if I were sold under sin and my actions were as much at its command as the actions of a slave bought with money are at the command of his master So that although the Law shews me that which is good and commands me to perform it yet cannot I obey it in regard I am under anothers power under the beck of sin And in very deed to speak yet more particularly to this business the good Law can and doth produce good effects in the mind and conscience which is the throne wherein it is seated but still the law of sin which is seated in the members or executive powers prevails over it and engrosseth all our actions So that the utmost that it can ordinarily do with us is to make us in our mind to disapprove sin but when it hath done that it cannot hinder us in our lives from practising it And of this the complaints of those who are subject to it are a sufficient proof For who is there among them for the most part that is not ready to confess and cry out thus that which through the prevailing power of my lusts I do in my practice that through the power of the Law I allow not in my mind and conscience for what being excited by the Law I would do that being hindred by sin do I not but what from the Laws prohibiting in my mind I hate and disapprove that from my own lusts forcing and overpowering me in my actions still do I. And this by the way as it is an evident argument of the weakness and inability of the Law to restrain sin is also a clear testimony to the holiness and goodness of the Law it self which shews plainly that it is no favourer or author of Sin as was objected vers 7. Because if even then when I do sin I do not approve of it but in doing so I do what I would not I thereby consent in my own conscience unto the Law and acknowledge by my approving what it commands that it is good Yea I shew moreover that all that which it produces and effects in me is good also For even when I do sin sinning thus against my conscience the sin cannot in any wise be charged upon my conscience where the Law reigns so as that the Law in my mind may be stiled the cause of sin as it is vers 7. but only upon the power of my habitual sin and fleshly lusts that reign in my members which are so strong as that the law of my mind cannot restrain them And now then in this state of sinning thus with regret and against my conscience even when I do sin it is no more I or my mind and conscience that is governed by the Law and which may be called my self that do it seeing it disapproves it but it is sin that dwells in me and reigns in my members It must not be charged upon the Law in my mind I say but upon this inhabiting Sin which rules in my members For I know and confess freely that in that other part of me that is to say in my flesh and members which for all the Law rules in my mind doth yet keep possession of my practice dwells no good thing Nay on the contrary there dwells so much evil as proves too strong for the good Law restraining all its effect to the approbation of my mind but not suffering it to influence my practice Which we as I said who are subject to the Law find by sad experience For almost every one of us feels and must confess this that to will upon the account of the Law is present with me but then how to perform that which is good after I have will'd it that I find not For after the Law has done all that it can upon me this is still true that the good that being instructed by the Law I would do that being hindred by the prevalence of my lusts I do not but as for the evil which because of the prohibition of the Law I would not do that being over-master'd by my lusts I do But now all this while as I said if what my lusts make me practise through the Law in my mind I do not approve but in doing it I do that which I would not then 't is clear that my sinning cannot be charged upon the Law as it is vers 7. because it hinders it as far as it can It cannot I say be attributed to that for it is no longer I or my mind and conscience that do it but to the power of habitual Sin which the good Law cannot conquer to that sin which dwells and rules in me i. e. in my bodily members And therefore to summ up all I find another Law in my members opposite to the Law of God in
my mind which strives against it and prevails over it and makes me practise contrary to what my mind approves So that when being enclined by Gods Law I would do good then being over-ruled by the law of sin I cannot but evil is laid before me and present with me Gods Law I say I serve with the mind For I delight in the Law of God after the inner man of my mind and conscience But all this while I only approve of it but no more For all the effect which it has upon me is only to create a liking of it in my mind But as for my practice and Outward performance it is under anothers power For I see another opposite Law viz. that of Lust and Sin which is seated in my bodily members not only warring against the Law of God in my mind but conquering also and prevailing over it bringing me into captivity that absolute sort of subjection and slavery to practise the Law of Sin which is seated in my members And since I am so far enslaved to the Law of Lust and Sin when the Law of God undertakes me that even that Law it self which God has appointed for my remedy is not able to rescue and deliver me I have too great reason to cry out O! wretched man that I am who shall deliver me since this Law given me by Moses is not able to do it from the slavery and misery of this body of death This indeed was our condition under the Law which shews at once the Laws holiness and goodness and withall its inability and weakness because notwithstanding it offer'd some Grace yet was not that enough but that during our subjection under it we commonly served sin still But now as for that slavish service of sin which a bare Jew who has no other help against it but Moses's Law complains of and longs to be delivered from that as I told you at first we Christians through the surpassing Grace of Christs Gospel are delivered from already So that to such a complaining Jew as I have here personated I Paul an Apostle of Jesus Christ can readily make answer Alter your subjection and you shall alter your service too for in becoming subject unto Christ instead of the Law you shall become servants of God instead of serving sin I thank God there is a way now in Christ for such deliverance or as it is read by some copies the Grace of God which comes through Jesus Christ our Lord shall deliver you although the Law could not which came by Moses But without this Grace I must still tell you that the Law it self will not generally have any such effect upon you seeing as I said it will only awaken your conscience but not reform your practice So then to shut up this discourse this you must still conclude upon that whilst you continue subject to the Law you will serve sin in your practice however you may disapprove it in your minds For I my self or the same I under the Law who with the mind as has been often observed serve in approving the Law of God do yet with the flesh so long as it has nothing else but the Law to restrain it serve in practising the Law of Sin But to return to what I said vers 5 6. of the last Chapter from whence we have hitherto diverted to answer this objection I say having by this passage from subjection to the Law to subjection unto Christ upon the Laws being abolished changed our service together with our subjection and become servants now not unto Sin but unto Christ All we Christians are safe from that Death which the Law of the members brought forth fruit to Chap. 7. vers 5. and have right to that Eternal Life which as I said is the gift of God to all his servants Chap. 6. vers 22 23. So that what reason soever a poor Jew under the Law who serves and obeys Sin may have to cry out of the body of Death yet we Christians who began to serve God upon our becoming subject unto Christ may comfort our selves to see that we are delivered from it And therefore whatever there be to a striving but yet unconquering Jew there is now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus's Religion because they are such who have changed their service together with their subjection and walk not now after the Flesh as they did formerly whilst the Law held them in subjection but after the Spirit This change of service I say is wrought in all true Christians by the Law of Christ although it could not generally be wrought in the Jews by the bare Law of Moses For the Law and power of the Spirit of life which is given to us in Christ Jesus and is expresly promised in his Religion though it were not in the Law of Moses that enabling Spirit I say hath made me Christian free from the so often mentioned Law of sin and from the punishment of it Death For what the Law of Moses could not do towards our deliverance from the service of sin in that it was too weak through the overpowering wickedness of the Law of lust in the Flesh even that hath God done in sending his own Son Jesus Christ in the likeness of sinful Flesh and in making him a Sacrifice for sin that in his death he might found his own Religion whereby he hath condemned and destroyed what the Law of Moses was overcome by viz. the Law of sin seated in the Flesh. So that by the help of Christs Law perfecting what the Law of Moses wanted the righteousness which was shown to us and required of us in the Book of the Law of Moses might be performed and fulfilled in us Christians although it was not ordinarily in the bare Jews because we are such who being Christs Subjects must be his Servants likewise and in our works and practice walk not after the lusts of the Flesh but after the motions of the Spirit Thus have I given a Paraphrase upon this involved and so much mistaken Chapter Wherein I have largely and as I hope truly represented the Apostles meaning his design and manner of arguing in this place In all which we see he intends not at all to give a Character of himself or of any other regenerate man but only of a midling Sinner who sins against his Conscience and transgresses with reluctance Which Transgressor of a middle rank he particularly represents under the person of an awaked but as yet unregenerate Jew who was one on whom the Law of Moses had wrought some change but could not work enough being able only to awaken his Conscience but not to reform his practice So that all that is there said in that seventh Chapter of willing but not performing c. only sets off the weakness and imperfection of the Law of Moses as to the making men compleatly obedient
and the perfection as to this particular of the Law of Christ. The Law of Moses was unable to work a general reformation by reason of several defects two whereof I shall particularly mention which in the Religion of Christ are fully supplied and they are the great motive to all obedience eternal life and the great encouragement of all endeavour the promise of the Spirit Eternal life are words that are never heard of in all Moses's Law Indeed the good people under it had all some rude thoughts and confused expectations of it but the Law it self did no where clearly and expresly propose it Whereof this may serve for a probable proof because a whole Sect among them the Sadducees I mean did flatly deny it and this for an undeniable Argument because those very places of the Law which are brought to confirm it by those Jewish Doctors that are most for it are in all appearance so remote from it Nay even our Saviour himself when he goes to prove it against the Sadducees out of the Books of Moses can find no other Testimonies for it than such as are fetched about to speak it by art and brought to it by consequence Luke 20.37 38. So that well might S t Paul say in triumph over all other Religions in the World That life and immortality were brought to light by the Gospel 2 Tim. 1.10 And in the comparison of that Covenant which came by Moses with that other which came by Christ to affirm that the Covenant which came by Christ was the bringing in of a better hope Heb. 7.19 and a better Covenant for this reason because it was established upon better promises Heb. 8.6 And then as for the promise of the Spirit to enable men to do what was required of them of that Moses made no mention By this Law as S t Paul says was the knowledge of sin Rom. 3.20 It shewed men what they should do and denounced a Curse upon them if they failed to do it but it stopt there and went not on to promise any inward Grace and help that might enable them to be as good as it required them No the promise of that was reserved to another dispensation and to be the hope of a better Covenant it was not to come by Moses but by Christ nor to be an express Article of the Law but of the Gospel Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the Law saith the Apostle that now being under the Gospel we might receive the promise of the Spirit which comes not by the Law of Moses but through the Faith of Christ Gal. 3.13 14. The Law by its prohibition made several actions to be sinful it shewed us what was sin and it threatned the curse to it but that was all that it did towards the extirpation of it for as for any inward strength and ability to overcome it it offered none but left us there to our own selves And because sin was too strong for us and had got possession of our Bodies and executive Powers insomuch that we were quite enslaved to it and as it were sold under it therefore the Law by making more things sinful through its prohibition and not strengthening us against sin through spiritual assistance instead of lessening the Empire of sin proved in the end to encrease it For our lusts not being restrained by it and more of them becoming sinful by being prohibited when the Law entred as S t Paul says the offence did more abound Rom. 5.20 and the Law became not the bane and overthrow of sin but by making its services more numerous it was rather as the same Apostle says the strength of it 1 Cor. 15.56 And forasmuch as the Law did only thus outwardly shew and reveal sin to our eyes but brought along with it nothing of inward Grace and assistance to help us against it therefore is it called a Letter without us opposite to the Grace of the Gospel which is an enlivening Spirit within And since it did nothing more but outwardly shew and threaten sin but did not inwardly assist and rescue us from it it served only to condemn us for what we did from the doing whereof it brought no inward Grace to hinder us and so proved the ministration of death and condemnation not of life and pardon All which is plainly affirmed of it in the third Chapter of the second Epistle to the Corinthians God says S t Paul hath made us Apostles ministers of the New Testament or Covenant not of the external Letter only as Moses and the Ministers of the Law were but of the internal Spirit also For the Letter or old Law shews sin and curses men upon the breach of that which they cannot keep and thereby kills them but the Spirit or new Law enables them to do what it commands and thereby giveth right to life which is the mercy that it promises That was the ministration of condemnation for it shewed men the curse which it did not enable them to shun this is the ministration of justification and righteousness which it both promises and enables them to attain to ver 6 7 8 9. 'T is very true indeed that several of the Jews themselves under the Law of Moses had really such assistances of Gods Spirit as enabled them to do as well as to know what was required of them For David in all his life and behaviour was a man after Gods own heart 1 Sam. 13.14 Zacharias and Elizabeth as to their walking in all the Commandments of the Lord were blameless Luke 1.6 And the Case was the same with a number of other honest and godly Jews But then this assistance which they enjoyed was no Article of their Law although God afforded it yet had their Law no where promised it nor was he bound to it by the Mosaical Covenant For in very truth all this inward Spirit which was vouchsafed to them was reached out not by virtue of the Covenant of the Law but of the Covenant of Grace For the Covenant of Grace was not first made with the World when Christ came into it but was established long before with Adam Gen. 3.15 and after that confirmed again with Abraham and all his Seed after him Gen. 12.3 Gal. 3.8 17. So that under it as well as under Moses all the Jews lived and by the gracious terms and assisting Spirit of it all the righteous people that have been since the beginning of the World were justified It being as S t Paul says by faith which is the righteousness of the second Covenant that the Elders who lived before the Law obtained a good report Heb. 11.2 and that the Jews who lived under it were delivered and justified from all things from which they could not be justified by any virtue of the Law of Moses Acts 13.39 And therefore that which the Apostle affirms of the defectiveness of the Mosaick Law viz. it s having no promise of the Spirit to
enable men to do what it commanded is true still For the Law did not promise it although several both before and under the Law enjoyed it but they who had the benefit of it received it not from the Covenant of the Law but from the Covenant of Grace and the Gospel which has been more or less on foot through all times ever since the World began And in this Covenant since Christ has given us the last Edition and perfection of it both these great defects of the Mosaick Law which rendered it so unable to work this intire reformation and obedience are fully supplied For in every Page of Christ's Gospel what is so legible as the promise of eternal life The joys of Heaven are as much insisted on by Christ as the delights of Canaan were by Moses And then as for the other promise viz. that of the Spirit it is now as plainly revealed as words can make it For we need not to guess at it by signs or to presume it from probabilities or to believe it upon Syllogism and consequence but Christ has spoke out so as to be understood by every capacity God will give the holy Spirit to them that ask him Luke 11.13 Now because the Law of Moses laboured under these two great defects which are happily supplied by the Gospel of Christ by reason whereof it was very unable to effect that reformation of the World which was necessary therefore doth the Apostle in several places speak very meanly of it as of a weak and ineffective Instrument He affirms plainly and proves also That it neither could nor did make men throughly good and that therefore God was forced in the fulness of time to make known and in Christ's death to establish a better If there had been a Law given by Moses which could have given life then saith he verily righteousness should not have needed to be sought by another Covenant but have been by the Law But this we see it could not for the Scripture hath concluded all those who lived under it to be still under the dominion of sin that so since the Law of Moses could not do it the promise of eternal life of the Spirit and of other things which we have by the faith of Jesus Christ might be given to work and effect it to those that believe Gal. 3.21 22. Something indeed the Law did towards it for it armed their consciences against sin so that they could not take their full swing and transgress without all fear and remorse And this was some restraint and kept them from being so ill by far as otherwise they would have been although it was not able to make them so good as they should And to lay this hank upon sin and to check it in some measure till such time as the Gospel should be more clearly revealed to subdue it perfectly was that very end for which the Law was at first given and whereto so long as it was in force it served Wherefore saith he serveth the Law of Moses It was added to the rude draught of the Gospel-Covenant made with Abraham because of the transgressions of men which grew very high that it might in some degree restrain them till Jesus Christ the seed of Abraham should come to whom as to the head and in behalf of his Church the promise of such Grace as would restrain it fully was made And to fit it the more for imprinting an awe upon peoples Consciences whereby it might lay this restraint upon sin it was ordained at the first giving of it by terrible fire and thundrings made by the Angels which were so dreadful that the people desired of God that those formidable Angels might be no more employed in delivering it to them but that it might be put into the hands of another Mediator viz. Moses who was a man like unto themselves Gal. 3.19 But although this restraint upon Sin were something yet was it far from sufficient so that still it is true of the Law of Moses that notwithstanding it could begin yet it could finish and make nothing perfect but that it was the bringing in of a better hope than was warranted by the Law which should do that Heb. 7.19 And as for this imperfection and faultiness which the Apostle imputes to the first Covenant or Law of Moses in these and other places it is nothing more as he observes than God himself has charged upon it when he speaks of establishing a better instead of it For if the first Covenant by Moses had been faultless and void of imperfection then should no place have been sought for the introduction of the second which it is plain there was For finding fault with them for their breach of the first Covenant he saith in Jer. 31.31 the dayes come when I will make a New Covenant with the house of Israel such as shall make me to be for ever unto them a God and enable them to be unto me an obedient People Heb. 8.7 8 9 10. Now this Inability of the Law of Moses to work a compleat conquest over sin and a thorow reformation which the Apostle affirms so clearly in these other places he sets out more largely and particularly in that seventh Chapter to the Romans For from the beginning of this Discourse which I have taken at the 14 th Verse of the 6 th Chapter to the end of it at the 5 th vers of the 8 th this weakness and inability of the Law is that still which is every where endeavour'd to be made out and which returns upon us as the conclusion and inference from every argument Sin must not have dominion over you saith he because you are not under the Law where is the place of its reigning but under the Grace of Christ at the 14. verse of the 6 th Chapter And in the 7 th it is taken notice of at every turn When you were in the flesh or under the Law which from its consisting so much of Carnal Ordinances and giving the flesh so much advantage is called flesh Galat. 3.3 the motions of sin which were encouraged by the weakness of the Law brought forth fruit unto death but now being delivered from the weak Law you serve in newness of spirit not as you did then in the oldness of the letter vers 5 6. Sin taking occasion or advantage over the weak Commandment wrought in me all manner of concupiscence vers 8. When the weak Commandment came sin revived and I died vers 9. Sin taking occasion or advantage by the Commandment slew me vers 11. by which prevailing over the Commandment it appears to be exceeding sinfull vers 13. And at the end of the discourse at the 8 th Chapter we are told again of the Law of Moses being weak through the conquering power of the flesh which made it necessary for God to send his own Son with a better Law which was strong enough to rescue us not of the dominion of
it vers 3 4. So that upon the whole matter it plainly appears that all that is said in that seventh Chapter of willing but not doing of sinning against conscience and transgressing with regret doth not at all set forth the savable state of a true Christian under the Gospel of Christ but only the state of a midling sinner of a lost Jew who only struggles but cannot conquer being yet under the weakness and imperfections of the Mosaick Law Nay I add further So far is any man who continues to work and act his sin from having any real grounds of hope and encouragement from this place in so doing that in very deed if he rightly consider it it will possess him with the quite contrary It holds out to him a sentence of death and shews him plainly the absolute necessity not only of a willing but also of a working obedience For the man who disobeys thus unwillingly and sins with regret is so far from being in a state of Life and Salvation notwithstanding his sins that he is here expresly said to be undone and slain by them The motions of sin under the law bring forth fruit unto death vers 5. when sin revived by the coming of the Commandment I died vers 9. The Commandment which was ordained unto life I on the contrary found to be unto death vers 10. Sin taking occasion and advantage by the Commandment slew me vers 11. Sin wrought death in me by that Law which is good vers 13. O! wretched man that I am by reason of this subjection unto sin who shall deliver me from this body of Sin and Death vers 24. But on the other side if we would belong to Christ and appear such Servants as he will own and reward at last we are taught in this very place that we must not be worsted by sin but overcome it that we must not work evil but righteousness that we must not walk after those sinfull lusts which are seated in the flesh but after the Law of God which is enthroned in the Spirit Sin shall not have dominion over you if you are under Grace Chapter 6.14 Now yield your members servants unto righteousness vers 19. you are become subject and as it were married to Christ that you should bring forth fruit to God Chap. 7. vers 4. Now being delivered from the Law we must serve not sin as we did under it but God in newness of spirit vers 6. The Grace of God through Jesus Christ hath delivered me from this body of death vers 24 25. The Law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus when I became truly and acceptably Christian hath made me free from the law of Sin and Death Chap. 8. vers 2. So that the righteousness of the Law which it was not able to work in me is now by means of the Gospel wrought and fulfilled in me for since I came under it I am one who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit vers 4. So that all the while we see this is a Truth most sure and stedfast which S t Paul is so far from opposing in this seventh Chapter to the Romans that in reality he avers and confirms it viz. that if we do commit sin and work iniquity it will not excuse us to say that we did it unwillingly The regret in sinning may be allowed as was shewn in the last Chapter to lessen our crime and thereby to abate our punishment but that is all which it can do for it cannot quite exempt us from it And thus at last we see that this fourth ground of shifting off the necessity of this service with our actions viz. our hope of being saved at the last day although we have not obeyed in our works but have wrought disobedience because when we did so it was with reluctance and unwillingness is no less delusive than are all the former It will certainly fail any man who trusts to it and if he will not see it before make him know the falseness of it when it is too late to rectifie and amend it As for all those foundations therefore whereupon men build their hopes of a happy sentence without ever obeying with their strength or bodily powers viz. the conceit of being saved for Orthodox Opinions for ineffective desires for never transgressing but through a strong temptation or with an unwilling mind they are all false grounds snares of death and inlets to damnation But as ever we expect that our obedience should avail us unto Pardon and Life we must obey with our strength or bodily powers as well as with our wills our passions and our understandings If we would have God at the last day to approve our service and to reward and justifie our obedience this and nothing less than this must be done towards it We must not only desire but do it is not enough to will and approve but we must work and practise what is commanded us We must not barely think right in our minds or desire with our affections or choose with our wills but as the Perfection and Crown of all we must put to our strength and executive powers and work the will of God in our lives and actions Without this if we have life and opportunity all other things will signifie nothing For it is he who doth good saith S t John who will be looked upon to be of God 3 Joh. 11. Little children saith the same Apostle let no man deceive you for it is only he who doth righteousness who in Gods judgement is righteous 1 Joh. 3.7 It is this service of our strength or bodily powers in our outward works and operations which makes up our duty and secures our reward Blessed are they that do his Commandments for they only have right to the great reward the Tree of Life Revel 22.14 But on the other side if we do evil and work iniquity no service of our other faculties can stand us in any stead but in Gods account we shall be esteemed wicked wretches children of wrath and heirs of destruction For the words of our Saviour Christ himself who is to judge of it are vehement and plain Verily verily I say unto you whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin Joh. 8.34 He who commits sin is of the devil for whosoever doth not righteousness is not of God but a child of the devil 1 Joh. 3.8 10. And as this working wickedness howsoever we are against it in our thoughts and desires makes us in Gods account sons of sin and disobedience so will it be sure to render us withall children of wrath and destruction If you live after the flesh saith S t Paul you shall die Rom. 8.13 And whatever men think in their minds or desire in their hearts or profess in their words to the contrary if for all that they have sinned impenitently in their actions Christ has told them plainly that he will pronounce when he comes to
sit as their Judge Depart from me all ye that work iniquity Mat. 7.23 As for this fourth faculty therefore our strength or bodily powers in outward works and operations it is one necessary ingredient of an entire obedience The service of our works is indispensably required to our pardon and happiness as well as the service of our minds our wills and our affections so that as ever we hope to live our obedient thoughts and desires must end in an obedient practice And thus at last we see what those powers or faculties are whose concurrence in Gods Service is necessary to make up an entire obedience We must obey all the particular Laws that are recounted in the former Book with our whole man both with our minds and souls and hearts and strength all these several powers must unite in Gods Service before it will be upright and compleat such as at present his Law requires and such as at the last day he will accept of CHAP. V. Of the second sort of integrity an integrity of times and seasons The CONTENTS Of the second sort of Integrity viz. that of Times and Seasons Of the unconstancy of many mens obedience Perseverance necessary unto bliss The desperate case of Apostates both as to the difficulty of their recovery from sin and the greatness of their punishment BUt besides the Integrity of our powers and faculties or the Integrity of the Subject whereof I have discoursed hitherto there is a second sort of Integrity which is plainly necessary to make our obedience available to our salvation at the last day and that is an Integrity of seasons and opportunities or our obeying the forementioned Laws not now and then but at all times We must not think to please God by an obedience that comes and goes by fits or by serving him only at such times as we are in humour or have no temptation to the contrary But our service of him must be constant and uniform we must obey him at all times and wilfully transgress in none For although all other things have their proper season yet sin has not it is alwayes forbidden and alwayes threatned so that whensoever we commit it it puts us under the curse and makes us liable to death and hell Some indeed there are who parcel out their time and divide it betwixt God and their sins They observe a constant course of transgressing and repenting of sin and sorrow For they are alwayes won when they are tempted and they are alwayes sorrowfull when they have done They are all holy purpose and good resolution before they are tryed but when the temptation comes they can make but a poor resistance for all their good thoughts quickly vanish and they are taken They are never constant either in pious purposing or in well-doing Their actions are not all of a piece but a medly of good and bad for they still keep on in an uninterrupted vicissitude and succession of works of obedience and sin Others again there are who act more agreeably to themselves and whilst they are for God are more constant in their obedience who yet fall off at last and sin against him for altogether For either they grow faint and weary by the tediousness and length of their journey or they are turned out of the way by some great difficulties or drawn aside by the importunate allurements of some temptation and when once by any of these wayes they are put beside their duty they turn their backs thenceforward upon God and never more obey him They are seduced by ill company or drawn away by interest or frighted by persecution and from that time their care slackens and their lusts encrease and grow too hard for Grace and the Gospel And thus what from inducements from within and what from occasions from without they are quite cut off from the service of God and Religion and give themselves up to serve their lusts for altogether and to an uninterrupted obedience of sin But now as for such a broken service and obedience as this God will by no means accept of it nor shall any man be ever the better by it For when Christ comes to Judgment he will pass Sentence upon men according to what they are then and not according to what they have been formerly If the righteous man turn away from his righteousness saith Ezekiel and commit iniquity and do according to all that the wicked man doth shall he live No by no means For all his righteousness that he hath done formerly shall not be mentioned but in his trespass that he hath since trespassed and in his sin that he hath sinned in them shall he dye Ezek. 18.24 It is only if you continue in my Word saith our Saviour that you are my Disciples indeed John 8.31 You must persevere in obedience if you expect to have the reward of it For he only who endures to the end shall be saved Matth. 10.22 and none but they who by PATIENT CONTINVANCE in well doing seek for Glory and Immortality shall inherit eternal life Rom. 2.6 7. Perseverance is the indispensable condition of bliss we cannot have it cheaper Be thou faithful unto death and then saith Christ I will give thee a Crown of life Rev. 2.10 But as for all those who fall off from a good course and turn Apostates from obedience their case is desperate and their condition extreamly damnable For they grow wicked to the highest degree and their state is almost irrecoverable They have by their continued rebellion and provocations in spite of all the suggestions of Gods Grace and the checks of their own Conscience not only grieved but even quenched the Spirit of God So that God for the most part leaves them to themselves and seeks no further to reduce them For if men are idle and will not use it and much more if they scornfully cast it from them and reject it Christ hath told us plainly that the Grace which any man hath shall be taken from him Matth. 25. 29. And when once God and his good Spirit have deserted them they are under nothing but an unbridled lust and run on without all restraint into an exorbitant pitch of wickedness And this any man may easily observe in the world For who is usually so evil as the backsliding Sinner Who is ordinarily so irrecoverable as the Apostate Saint They are quite lost to all goodness and sin beyond all bounds and past all retrieve No Creatures in the World were ever so much out of all capacity to be restored to Heaven as those Angels that fell from it and no men on Earth are so hardly reclaimed from a wicked to a holy life as they who once knew what it was and yet utterly renounced it For God for the most part lets them alone to enjoy their own choice and to go on in their own way and the good Spirit which has been almost quenched by them contends no more with them nor acts any more
revellings from fornication and adultery from oppression and fraud and other alike gross and notorious instances of injustice and immorality For all these their strict temper can easily avoid they have no great temptation to them and are therefore able without much pains to abstain from them But then as for those other sins which agree with the bent and inclination of their busie and ungovernable humour they will still indulge themselves in the practice of them for all they are of an equal guilt although indeed of a more spiritual and refined nature For they will strive to weary laws to vilifie and contemn to undervalue and disparage Governours they will permit themselves to be overswayed by spite and malice by wrath and bitterness by envy and emulation by strife and sidings to be drawn aside into censoriousness and evil-speakings into the raising and spreading of uncharitable and envious yea false and slanderous reports they will be forward to magnifie themselves to publish their own praise and to boast of their own actions and attainments but withall to detract and lessen to shame and disparage others Thus will even these men who make the fairest appearance of abominating all impious and ungodly all immoral and debauched actions halt still in their obedience and think to please God not by a perfect and entire but a partial and a maimed service For their Conversion goes but half way not from sin to righteousness but from some sorts of sin to some others All the alteration that their Religion has wrought in them is not a forsaking of sin but an exchange of it a turn from what is more easily left to a more liberal practice of that which they find it hard to part with a remove from grosser and more scandalously fleshly sins to other more spiritual and refined but still as deadly and damnable transgressions And thus by all these instances it appears that when men have got some sins that are close and pleasing such as their temper and complexion their age or condition or way of life has endear'd to them so far as that even for Gods sake they will not part with them their recourse is presently to some more cheap and easie instances of obedience that they may attone for them And the same might be shewn in all other instances of a partial and a maimed service In all things they will obey God no further than their beloved sins will suffer them but as they yield to the Law in other things so must the Law yield to them in these for neither God nor their Sin shall rule alone but the service shall be shared between them and both shall enjoy a divided empire But this is a most damnably delusive and a desperately false pretence For whatsoever fond conceits men who Love and are resolved not to let go their sins may please themselves withall yet God when he comes to judge us will accept of nothing less than an entire obedience All his Laws are established under the pains of death and he will exact all that he has required whatever at that day be our concern in it For he comes not then as a corrupted party to judge for us to make his own Laws bend and bow to serve our Interests and to cancel and disanull all such among them as make against us No he comes as an upright and even Judge to execute all his Laws but not to destroy any he comes to inflict what his Gospel threatens and his sentence will then be what it sayes not what we can bear So that if we have wilfully disobeyed and have not repented whether in one instance or in many we must undergo the punishment of our disobedience For God is a friend to no Vice neither one nor other but he alwayes forbids and he will most severely punish every one And as for all these pretences whether that of our age or our way of life or of our very natural temper and inclination it self there will be no shelter or excuse in any of them to bear us out in any There is no protection to any sin from our Age for no young man may pursue lusts because they are youthful but is bound to fly and avoid them as those things which war against and would destroy his soul 2 Tim. 2.22 Gods Laws make no distinction of young or old but the same Duties are the Rule for both their practices and the same rewards or punishments will be returned indifferently to them both upon their obedience or transgressions There is no justifiable Plea for any sin from our way of life for a constant practice or trade of sin as S t John says can be no mans employment but his who is born of the Devil and must inherit under him 1 John 3.8 But the way of life whereunto God calls us is a way of piety and obedience He has given us his own Laws for the way which we are to walk in and in that alone it is that we can escape death and obtain salvation Nay so far is any thing in the world from sheltring us under the service of any one sin that even that which may have the highest pretence to it of all things else whatsoever viz. our very natural temper and inclination is no excuse to us if it makes us continue in any disobedience If any thing in the world could be a just defence for the practice of any sin surely this must For our Nature is not of our own chusing and therefore its effects ought least of all to be charged on us seeing they least of all proceed from us but are in great degrees determined to our hands before we have any power either to will or to refuse them But such is the purity and strictness of Christ's Gospel that it indispensably requires us to conquer sin not only where it makes no opposition but even where it has the greatest strength and the highest force of all For if our very Nature draw us on to disobey it enjoins us under all our hopes of Heaven not to submit to it but to strive against it so long till we vanquish and subdue it For if we would be judged to be Christ's Disciples at the last Day we must deny our selves Matth. 16.24 As we hope to live we must not perform and fulfil but kill and mortifie those deeds whereto we are hurried on by the temper of our Bodies Rom. 8.13 We must renounce and forsake all sin although never so dear and useful to us before Christ's Gospel will acquit or he will save us If a lust so dear to thee as thy right eye offend thee or cause thee to offend pluck it out says our Saviour and cast it from thee or if one so useful to thee as thy right hand cut it off likewise and cast it from thee and that for no less reason than this Because it is more profitable for thee that one of thy members should in this
with but not of others for that which gets an allowance for the breach of one would procure a favourable sentence for the like violation of all the rest That then which makes the difference of punishable and unpunishable in mens failings is not to be sought for in Christs Laws seeing the punishment of every one of them is the same but in their own actions For some sins shall be born with not for that they are against a Law whereto no penalty is annexed there being none such in all Christs Gospel but for that they are such imperfect actions as the punishing Law which they are against will not take hold of Every Law of Christ threatens death but these allowed offences are not of the number of those actions which are threatned by it For we must take notice that those works of ours whereon Christ's Laws lay restraint and whereto they as all other just Laws in the World threaten punishment are our voluntary and chosen actions They bind us up in all those performances which are placed in our own free power and come from the choice of our own will and they denounce woes to us if in them we go beyond those bounds which they have set us So that in all our free and chosen actions we must take care to do what the Law requires and to keep back from what it forbids and we are sure to suffer if we neglect it For it is among these actions of choice where the Law reigns on which it lays Commands and whereto it threatens punishment If we chuse and do what is commanded then have we a right to the promised reward and if we chuse to do what is forbidden then are we guilty and obnoxious to the punishment denounced But as for other actions which flow not from our own choice of which sort are all our pardonable and allow'd infirmities they fall not under the strict force of the Law either in the guidance of its Command or in the sting of its punishment so that at the last Day it will not be judged to have been either broken or kept by them That I may fully clear up this whereupon so much of that which I shall say under this Head depends I will show concerning it these two things 1. That all things whatsoever which are either good or evil and a fit matter of reward or punishment are made such by a Law 2. That all our actions are not governed by God's Laws so as to be strictly and directly either enjoined or prohibited punished or rewarded by them but only those among them which are voluntary and chosen 1. I say All things whatsoever which are either good or evil rewardable or punishable are made so by some Law For good and evil vertue and vice obedience and sin which are only so many different Names for the same thing have all relation to a Commandment Vertue and obedience is the performance as vice and sin is the transgression of it Where there is no Law saith the Apostle there is no transgression Rom. 4.15 And no man sins as saith another Apostle but he that transgresseth the Law for sin is the transgression of the Law 1 John 3.4 And as Law is the measure of sin and Duty so is it likewise of reward and punishment For God never afflicts and torments the Children of men out of the inclination of his Nature but only out of the necessity of Government He is the Ruler of the World and the Lord of men and therefore he must maintain his own Laws and punish the evil Doers But no man is ever punished without an offence and he must do evil before he suffer it He undergoes nothing but that which is his own choice for he chose rather to incurr the penalty than to perform the Commandment He feels no more than the Law denounced for God the Judg executes nothing but what the Law threatens he punishes according to it but not without it The Law doth always make a penalty due to an Offender before he either can or doth exact it Thus are all things which are either good or evil rewardable or punishable made such by a Law But then 2. As for our actions all of them are not governed by God's Law so as to be strictly either enjoined or prohibited punished or rewarded by them but only those among them which are voluntary and chosen And this being a a Point whereof I shall make so much use in all that follows I will spend the more time in clearing of it up as I hope beyond all question by showing the truth of it 1. From the clear reason of the thing it self 2. From the plain declarations of the Scripture concerning it 1. I say That only our voluntary and chosen actions are under the restraint of Laws and either enjoined or prohibited punished or rewarded by them is plain from the great and convincing reason of the thing it self For let us consider First The very nature of a Law and we shall find that in all those actions whereon it is imposed it supposes them who exert them to have a power of choice and a free liberty of making them either a piece of service to it or a transgression of it For all Law is a Bond or a Tye which lays restraint upon us and induces Obligation So that in all those actions whereupon the restraint is laid we are necessarily supposed to be free before it comes For it is an utter absurdity to bind any thing by a Law which is before necessitated by its very Nature Who would ever be so vain and foolish as to give a Law to a Stone that it should not speak or to a Tree that it should not walk or to the Fire that it should not chill and freeze him There can be no place for nor need of an Obligation where there is no choice and liberty For it is only where things have a power to act on both sides that there is room for a Law to oblige and tye them up to one And for this reason it is that among all that variety of Creatures which inhabit in this lower World men alone are capable of Laws because no Creature besides is endowed with freedom of will and liberty of choice which is to be bound up and restrained by them Nay even in men themselves those actions and tempers which are not subject to their own choice nor under the power of their own wills are no fit matter of a Law nor fall under the force of a Commandment For who can ever be so unreasonable and void of all sence as to command a man that he should not be born rich or poor base or noble that he should not be sick and weak hungry and thirsty sleepy or weary No since none of these instances is in his own choice or under the free disposal of his own will in none of them is he capable of an Obligation Seeing then that it is of the nature
him for failing to do what he could not do Who would ever be so absurd as to reprove and punish a man for being low of Stature or weak of Body for being born of mean persons or to a small Fortune These and all other things of like nature which a man could never help may be his misfortune but not his fault and whatsoever he suffers upon the account of them may be and often is his calamity but by no means his punishment No man can justly be charged with that which was never subject to his own choice but if any imputation is laid upon him for its sake it rests not there but falls all upon that Cause whose free pleasure it was so to order him Agreeably whereunto the Wise man tells us That whosoever mocketh the poor reproacheth not him who cannot help his poverty but his Maker whose pleasure it was to dispose of him in that condition Prov. 17.5 And as a man can bear no just blame for that which it never was in his power to hinder so neither can he undergo any just punishment Barbarous cruelty indeed he may fall under which would have taken place without a Law as well as with it but legal and just penalties he never can And seeing no action is punishable but what is chosen it is plain that the Laws of God impose restraint and threaten punishment only to our voluntary actions Which will still further appear from another effect of every sinful and punishable action namely this Fourthly That it is such for which our own Consciences will blame and condemn us and which we shall lament in repentance and remorse One great part even of Hell torments is this remorse and worm of Conscience For there is no action for which we shall there be punished but when it is too late we shall endlesly repent of it Their worm there as our Saviour saith dyeth not Mark 9.44 But now it is an utter absurdity and downright madness for any man to be angry at himself for that which he could never help and to repent that ever he committed that which it was not in his power to hinder For doth it ever repent any man that he is not tall of Stature that he was not born as strong as Samson or made immortal as an Angel Was any man ever touched with remorse because he breathes and sleeps and thirsts and hungers No man ever is or ever can be angry at himself but when he sees that he has been wanting to himself when he has done that which it was in his own choice to have done otherwise For all remorse is for a willing offence a man chuses it when he commits it and therefore when afterwards he sees his errour he condemns himself for it And since a mans own Conscience condemns him for all those things for which God's Law will punish him and no man can condemn himself for doing any thing but what he chose to do neither his own Conscience can condemn nor the Law punish him for any but his voluntary and chosen actions And thus upon all these reasons we see That it is only our voluntary and chosen actions whereupon God's Laws lay restraint and wherefore at the last Day he will inflict punishment so that no sin is damning which is not chosen This is a very clear and well-grounded truth For the nature of Law which makes good and evil of obligation which enforceth it of rewards and punishments from God of acquiescence and remorse from our own Conscience which ensue upon it all these evidently evince and prove it For not any one of them is concerned about any actions but those which proceed from choice nor have to do with any works but what are wilful So that every action whereto there is Law and obligation exhortation and admonition reward or punishment commendation or reproof acquiescence or remorse as there are for all those which the Laws of God will sentence every such action I say is an effect of our own will or a voluntary chosen action Thus is it clear from the reason of the thing it self that all our actions are not governed by God's Laws so as to be strictly either enjoined or prohibited punished or rewarded by them but only those among them which are voluntary and chosen And this will appear yet further 2. From the plain declarations of the Scripture concerning it That whereby God looks upon his Laws to be either broken or kept is the choice and consent of the heart My Son give me thy heart saith Wisdom Prov. 23.26 So long as that is pure we can have no damning stain upon us for out of the heart as our Saviour assures us all those things must proceed which God will judge to defile a man Matth. 15.18 19 20. The lusts of our Flesh must gain the consent of our wills before they become deadly sins and consummate transgressions Lust says S t James when having won over the liking and approbation of our wills and a half consent to its impure embraces it has conceived bringeth forth the Embryo or rude Draught answerable to conception which is but a half production of sin and this Embryo of sin when by being brought on to a full choice and consent or what is more to action and practice it is finished bringeth forth its genuine Offspring Death Jam. 1.15 The consent of our hearts then must compleat our sin and our own wills must of necessity concurr to work our ruine For we must wilfully reject or cast off the Law which would keep us in and go beyond it when we behold it before our transgression will have got up to the pitch of a damnable pollution or a mortal crime Nay I add further till we are come thus far as wilfully to reject the Law and knowingly to transgress it we shall not be interpreted to commit that which the Gospel calls sin and which it strictly forbids and severely threatens under that name For if we will take S t John's word this is his explication of it Sin says he is the transgression as we render it but more fully and more agreeably to the Original it should be the renouncing or casting off the Law 1 John 3.4 And thus we see that from plain Scripture as well as from clear reason it manifestly appears that all our actions are not governed nor will hereafter be judged by Gods Laws but such only among them as are voluntary and chosen And therefore although there be no Law of Christ which gives men leave to sin without fear of punishment yet some actions there may be against many or most of Christ's Laws which shall not be judged to be punishable transgressions of them as are all our involuntary and unchosen actions And of this sort are all those consistent slips which as I shewed before not only are but needs must be born with and allowed by the Covenant of the Gospel For it is our involuntary
too strong for us and hurries us on whether we will or no. For in every step which the passion makes it doth still the more disturb our Spirits and thereby disable all the power of our reason and consideration So that proportionably as it encreases our consideration and together with that our choice and liberty is lessened and impaired But at the first whilst it is young and of small strength it is in the power of our own wills either to indulge it or to stop and repress it And therefore if it get ground upon us it is by our own liking because either we expresly chuse to stay upon it and thereby to feed and foment it or wilfully neglect to use that power which we have over it in curbing and straining it And when once we have of our own choice permitted it to go too far then is it got without our reach and goes on further without asking our leave whether we will or no. And herein lyes the great errour of men viz. in that they freely and deliberately consent to the first beginnings of sin and by their own voluntary yielding too far they make all that follows to be plainly necessary For the lustful man deliberately and wilfully permits his wanton fancy to sport it self with impure thoughts and lascivious imaginations till by degrees his passion gathers strength and his lusts grow so high that all his powers of reason and Religion are scattered and clouded and rendred wholly unable to subdue it The angry man freely and deliberately hearkens to exasperating suggestions and cherisheth discontents so long till at last his passion is got beyond his reach and flies out into all the unconsidered instances of rage and fury And the Case is the same in fear in envy in love and hatred and other passions Men first consent to the first steps and beginnings of a sinful lust and when they have deliberately yielded to it a little way they begin by degrees to be forced and driven by it For all progress in a vicious lust is like a motion down hill men may begin it where they please but if once they are entred they cannot stop where they please All vice stands upon a Precipice and therefore although we may stay our selves at the first setting out yet we cannot in the middle But although when once we have gone too far it be not at our own choice whether or no we shall go further yet was it in the free power of our own wills not to have gone so far as we did The entring so far into the passion was an effect of our own will and free deliberation and if this make that necessary which is done afterwards that is a necessity of our own chusing So that whatsoever our after actions are this cause of them is a matter of our own will and freely chosen And then as for the third cause of indeliberate sins viz. a custome and habit of sinning that is plainly a matter of our own free choosing For it is frequent acts that make a habit and they are all free and at our own disposal Because the necessity arises from the habit and doth not go before it so that all those actions which preceded and were the causes of it were free and undetermined Wherefore as for that indeliberateness in sinning which ariseth from an habit and custome of sin it doth not in any wise lessen or excuse a sinfull action Nay instead of that it aggravates and augments it For this is sin improved up to the height and become not so much a matter of choice as of nature And to sin thus is to sin as the Devils themselves do from a natural Spring and Principle without the help of thinking and disputing Upon which accounts as it is the most advanced state of sin so must it be of suffering likewise this state of reigning and prevailing habits of sin being as S t Paul calls it a body of death Rom. 7.23 24. All which aggravation both of sin and suffering it has because it is an aggregate and collected body of many wilfull and presumptuous sins For before men come so far they have deliberately chosen and willfully neglected to refrain from all those precedent actions which have advanced the strength of sin to that pitch and have made it to be not so much a temptation or a refusable motive as a binding Law and necessitating nature So that although those sinfull actions which flow from us after that we are come to a habit of sin are indeliberate and unchosen Yet as for our evil habit it self which is the cause of them it was produced by a combination of wilfull sins and was in all the antecedent degrees a matter of choice and deliberation And lastly as for the cause of our involuntary omissions viz. our neglect of those means which are necessary to our performance of those things which are commanded this is clearly our own fault and comes to pass only because we choose it and have a mind to it For the reason why we neglect the means is because we will not use them We have time enough wherein to deliberate and consider of them and thereby to choose and practise them but we will not use it to that purpose The means and helps to chastity to meekness to contentedness and other virtues are all before us and we have power to put them in practice if we think fitting For it is just the same for that matter with the endowments of our wills as with those of our minds and bodies We can see and consider of the means of begetting knowledge and learning in our minds and of those receits and rules which are to promote the health of our bodies and upon such consideration we not only can but ordinarily do make choice of them and put them in practice And although it happen much otherwise with those wise directions and helpfull rules that are given for the attainment of virtue which are read ordinarily only to be known but not to be practised yet is it in the choice of our own wills to make use of them if we please as well as of the other The neglect of them is a wilfull neglect for therefore we do not use them because we choose to omit them So that although when once we neglect the means it be not at our choice after that to attain the virtue yet that neglect it self was The omissions in themselves it may be are not chosen because they cannot be refused but that negligence which is the cause of their being so is plainly an effect of our own choice and deliberation Thus then it plainly appears that our sinfull commissions upon drunkenness passionateness and custome of sinning and our sinfull omissions upon our neglect of the means and instruments of virtue all which are indeliberate and unchosen in themselves were yet deliberately chosen in their causes So that all our necessity in them is a necessity of
our own making seeing it was at our own choice whether ever we should have come under it although when once we are subject to it it be no longer at our liberty whether or no we shall be acted by it And since all these sins which are thus indeliberate in themselves were yet so freely chosen and deliberated in their causes they are all imputable to us and fit to be charged upon us They were chosen indirectly and interpretatively in the choice of that cause which made them all afterwards to be almost if not wholly necessary For either we did deliberate or which is all one we had time enough to have deliberated as we ought before we chose our own necessity So that these sinfull actions which are unchosen and unconsidered in themselves are yet imputable to us and fit to be charged upon us as our own because we chose them by an indirect and interpretative volition As therefore there are some sins which are expresly will'd in the particulars by an express choice and deliberation so likewise are there several others which are expresly and deliberately willed only in their cause but in their own particulars are not chosen otherwise than indirectly and by interpretation And both these together take up the compass of our wilfull and chosen sins For either we expresly think and deliberately consider of the sinfull action when we commit it or we expresly and deliberately thought upon that cause when we chose it which makes us now to sin without thinking and deliberation And by all this it appears now at length how considerateness and deliberation is implyed in every wilfull sin For the sinfull action is seen and considered or it is our faults if it be not since we had both time and powers for such consideration either in it self or in its cause and being it is thus a matter of our consideration it is likewise a matter of our choice and a wilfull action And thus having shewn what sinfull actions are voluntary and chosen I proceed now to shew 2. That none of them is consistent with a state of grace but deadly and damning As for our wilfull sins they are all as we have seen of a most heinous nature being indeed nothing less than a contempt of Gods Authority a sinning presumptuously and with a high hand They are a plain disavowing of Gods will and renouncing of his Soveraignty they are acted in a way of defiance and are not the unavoidable slips of an honest and well-meaning servant but the high affronts of an open rebel So that no favourite or child of God can ever be guilty of them or he must cease to continue such if he be Because they interrupt all favour and friendship and put God and him into a state of hostility and defiance seeing they are nothing less than a renouncing of his Authority at least in that instance and a casting off his Law And this lawlesness or rejecting of the Law is that very word whereby S t John describes sin For sin sayes he is the transgression as we render it but more fully it should be the renouncing of the Law 1 Joh. 3.4 In which sense of sin for a wilfull and rebellious one he tells us that whosoever abides in God sins not vers 6 being indeed no longer a child of God if he do but of the Devil vers 8. They deprive us of all the benefits of Christs sacrifice so long as we continue in them and of all the blessings purchased for us by his death This was their effect under the Law of Moses and it is so much rather under the Gospel of Christ. For the sentence which that Law pronounced upon all presumptuous and wilfull offenders was death without mercy The soul that doth ought presumptuously the same by his contemptuous sin reproacheth the Lord and that soul shall be cut off from among his people Numb 15.30 If ever it could be proved against him by that dispensation there was no hope for him For he that despised or contemptuously transgressed Moses's Law died without mercy saith the Apostle being convicted under the testimony of two or three witnesses Hebr. 10.28 For even those very sins for which under the Law God had appointed an attonement were no longer to be attoned for than they were committed involuntarily and through ignorance In the fourth Chapter of Leviticus we are told that as for those sins which are committed against any of those Commandments which concerned things not to be done if they were acted involuntarily and unwillingly they should be allowed the benefit of an expiation and the sacrifices for that purpose are there prescribed But if they were acted wilfully and advisedly then had they no right to the expiation there promised nor would any sacrifices be accepted for them but that punishment must unavoidably be undergone which in the Law was threatned to them For to name no more this we are plainly told of two instances viz. the contemptuous making of perfume and eating of blood after both had been forbidden Whosoever shall contemptuously make any perfume like to that which was commanded to be made vers 35. to smell thereto that soul shall not be expiated by sacrifice but cut off from his people Exod. 30.38 And whatsoever man there be that eateth any manner of blood viz. willingly and wilfully the ignorant and involuntary transgressions of this and the like prohibitions being attoneable Lev. 4. I will even set my face against that soul and will cut him off from among his people Levit. 17.10 Thus severe was the sentence and thus unavoidable was the penalty of all wilfull sins under the Law of Moses And by how much the ministration of Christ is nobler than the ministration of Moses was by so much shall the punishment of all wilfull and contemptuous sins against the Law of Christ be more severe than it was for those against the Law of Moses And this is the Apostles own argument For if that word of the Law threatning death which was spoken unto Moses on Mount Sinai by the mediation only of Angels was stedfast and every transgression of it received the just recompence of that death which it threatned such persons dying without mercy How shall we Christians hope to escape it if we wilfully neglect and contemn those Laws which are published to us by so great a means of salvation as the Gospel is which was at first spoken to us not by Angels but by the Lord Jesus Christ himself who is far above all Angels being indeed the Son of God himself Hebr. 2.2 3. Surely as the Apostle argues in another place if he who despised even Moses's Law died without mercy for that contempt we ought to think with our selves not of how much less but of how much sorer punishment he shall be judged worthy who by wilfull sinning and despising of his Laws doth in a manner tread under foot not Moses but the Son of God
Vriah and adulterating his wife For upon that he felt both these losses which I have mention'd viz. the laying waste of the virtuous temper of his own spirit and the deprivation of the good spirit of God For this sin being so long in acting as it must needs be since it required such a train of wicked plots and contrivances to the consummation of it he must needs feel all the opposition that could be made from the checks of his own Conscience and from the restraints of the Spirit of God And when he had born down both for the satisfaction of his lust and trampled them under foot for the consummation of his sin then doth he begin to feel the want and to be all in fear of losing the habitual rectitude of his own spirit which by so many contrary actions implyed in that one great one he had almost quite destroyed and of suffering the desertion of Gods spirit which by his continued provocations contained in it likewise he had well nigh abandon'd For to this purpose we find him complaining and crying out in his Psalm of repentance for that great transgression whereof at the 14 th verse he makes express mention Create or new make in me a clean heart O God sayes he and renew a right spirit within me And besides that cast me not away neither from thy presence nor take thy holy spirit from me Psal. 51.10 11. So that as for the effect of wilfull sins it is plainly this All wilfull sins whatsoever destroy our state of acceptance with God and put us into a state of enmity and death for the present But as for those among them which lay waste the Conscience they effect not that only but moreover they destroy that virtuous habit and grieve nay sometimes drive away that good spirit whereby we should restore our selves to it for the time to come And because this latter sort have the mischievous effect in making our return thus dubious and difficult they are particularly taken notice of in the accounts of God Thus for instance David had committed several deadly sins for some whereof he had undergone severe punishment as particularly for that proud presumptuous offence of his in numbring of the people 2 Sam. 24.1 10 13 c. But these made no notable decay or devastation in the virtuous temper of his soul for his own heart admonished him of the evil which he had done and he repented quickly and rose again without delay and so was presently restored to what he was before But as for his sin in the matter of Vriah it was a lasting work and took up a long deliberation and contrivance It made his Conscience hard and insensible for his own heart did not smite him into a change nor enable him to repent without a monitor So that his stay in this crying sin was long and his return both difficult and dangerous And therefore in that character which is given of him by the Holy Ghost when all the rest are buried in silence this sin particularly is expresly specified David did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord and turned not from any thing that he commanded him all the days of his life save only in the matter of Vriah the Hittite 1 Kings 15.5 Thus then as for this first part of our enquiry we see plainly of all our wilful sins that they are not consistent with a state of Grace and salvation but that they are all deadly and damning for the present if we dye under them without repenting of them and as for the future that they do all of them wound and weaken but some almost quite destroy that habitual inherent Grace whereby we should recover our selves to the state of pardon for the time to come CHAP. IV. Of the nature of involuntary sins and of their consistence with a state of salvation The CONTENTS Of involuntary actions Of what account the forced actions of the Body are in morals Two causes of involuntariness First The violence of mens passions It doth not excuse Secondly The ignorance of their understandings This is the cause of all our consistent failings and the sins that are involuntary upon this account are consistent with a state of salvation This proved 1. From their unavoidableness The Causes of it in what sense any particular sin among them is said to be avoidable 2. From the nature of God A representation of God's nature from his own Word and mens experience The Argument drawn from it for the consistence of such failings 3. From the nature and declarations of the Gospel It is fitted to beget a cheerful and filial confidence and therefore is called the Spirit of Adoption The Argument from this The Scripture-Declarations and Examples in this matter These Arguments summed up THE second sort of sins are such as are involuntary and unchosen and these are consistent with a state of salvation and such as Christ's Gospel doth not eternally threaten but graciously bears and in great mercy dispenseth with As for the involuntariness of mens actions that which produces and effects it is not any force from without upon our will it self All the things in the material world can never bind and compel the will of man seeing it is no physical bodily thing so as that any bodily force might act upon it Nothing in the world can make us will and like that which we do not like the will of man is liable to no compulsion it has this priviledge above all other things on the Earth that nothing about it can force or constrain it but that still it wills and chuses as it self pleaseth As for the actions of men indeed they are mixt things Because they flow from the whole man both Body and Soul and beginning in the mind or will within are consummate in our outward and bodily operation And as for the last of these viz. our bodily operation it may be forced forasmuch as one Body is liable to the force and compulsion of another Thus for instance a chast Matrons Body may be violently ravished A peaceable mans hand may by the overpowering strength of another man be made the forced instrument of anothers murther The bodily work and operation can be forced seeing other Bodies more powerful than it self can compel it And in this sence the Schools understand the word action viz. only for the action of the Body when they make one kind of involuntary actions to be involuntary by violence or compulsion that being a thing whereto not the will it self but the body only can be liable But now these forced actions of the Body although in Nature they be looked upon as actions yet in morality they are esteemed as none at all That is Laws which are the Rules of good and evil and the measure of mens manners take no notice of them nor look upon themselves to be either broken or kept by them because it is not the Body and Carkass
but the whole man consisting of Soul as well as Body which Laws are given as a Guide to So that a ravished Matron if only her Body suffered and there was no concurrence of her own consent to it is as chast and unpolluted in God's account and in the censure of the Law as is the purest Virgin And therefore it was a great truth whereby Collatinus and Brutus went about to comfort the poor destowred Lucretia in Livy It is the mind say they which sins and not the Body so that in those actions wherein there is nothing of will and deliberation there is likewise no fault or transgression And this Case is expresly thus determined Deut. 22. For in the Case of the ravished Damsel whose will was no way consenting to it but who did all that she could against it it is expresly ordered that to her there is nothing to be done by way of punishment because in her there is no sin worthy of death for like as when one man is slain by another even so is this case she is not acting but suffering in it ver 26. As for him indeed who chose thus to force us 't is true that the Law will interpret what is done by our Bodies as his action because he freely chose so to compel us Our bodily Members which were forced by him were his instruments and not our own for he it was and not we ourselves who ordered and directed them We were the same in his hands as a Sword is in the hand of a man viz. the Instrument only but not the Agent So that what was done by us is not our own but his who was pleased so to make use of us In him therefore the unlawful action being willed and chosen is really a sin and transgression But in us since it was not our own it is looked upon as none There is nothing charged upon our account for it more than if it had never been done because we did not act but suffer it had nothing of our own will and therefore it can be no Article of our condemnation So much of any action therefore as is forced viz. the outward bodily operation in the estimate of good and evil of vice and vertue is of no account to us whatever it be to others because it is not our own For to make any action ours it must proceed not from our Bodies but from our selves who have Souls as well as Bodies it must come from the will within as well as from the body without and as for our will it self 't is plain that it can never be made to chuse involuntarily by force since it is not subject to any forcible violence and compulsion But although those actions which we exert our selves and wherein we are not merely passive instruments in the hands of others cannot be made involuntary by any force from without upon the will it self yet may they become so from something else within us For our wills are not the only internal Principle of humane actions but several others concur with them whereby their choice it self is influenced Our wills indeed chuse and command our actions but then our passions move and our understandings direct and carry away our very wills themselves So that they are set in a middle Station being subject to be acted upon and hurried away by some as well as they are impowered to command and govern others 1. Mens wills are subject to be violently acted by their passions which hurry them on to consent to those things which are both without and against their habitual liking and inclination When any passion is grown too strong for them although they are afraid to act that sin which it hales them to yet can they not withstand it For the Law of sin in the Members is of more force with them and prevails more over them than the Law of God in the mind So that although they have several exceptions against it they are not for all that able to refuse it but they are overcome by it and yield at last to act it though unwillingly and to fulfil it though with trouble and regret Now here is an unwillingness 't is true and things are done which otherwise would not be done because the power of mens lusts and passions is so strong that their wills cannot restrain them For all the interest which the contrary motives of Reason and Religion can make against them is not able to contend with them They can and do effect something indeed so as that the will when it doth consent to them doth it not fully and freely with perfect ease and pleasure but unwillingly with fear and reluctance But yet that which they do is not enough for the other side prevails and the will is not able to hold out but yields at last to fulfil the lust and to act the sin still But now although this be some sort of involuntariness yet is it not that which will excuse our transgressions and make all those sins which we commit under it to be esteemed consistent slips and pardonable infirmities For this state of unwilling Sinners as we heard above is no state of mercy but a state of death It is the state which S t Paul describes in the seventh Chapter of his Epistle to the Romans viz. a state of captivity and slavery under sin ver 14 23 and thereupon a state of misery and death ver 24. All the Grace which Christs Gospel allows to it is a Grace of deliverance a Grace that shall help us out of it and rescue us from it In this state of weakness and infirmity Christ found us For whilst we were yet without strength to help our selves saith S t Paul Christ dyed for us Rom. 5.6 But now since he has dyed for us he will not leave us in it but rescue and deliver us out of it For now he having dyed for us we are likewise to reckon our selves to be dead indeed unto sin for him that it should no longer master and prevail over us to reign in our mortal bodies so far as that we should fulfil the lusts thereof Rom. 6.11 12. And as for our bodily members which are the Stage whereon our lusts and passions reign we are to yield them up now not any longer instruments of unrighteousness unto the service of sin but instruments of righteousness unto the service of God ver 13. If therefore we are truly Christians and such as Christ came to make us upon our becoming which he has procured Grace and pardon for us we are not enslaved and led Captives by our passions but have conquered and subdued them This S t Paul affirms expresly For they that are Christ's says he have crucified the flesh with the passions or affections and lusts Gal. 5.24 But then besides our lusts and passions which although they do make some cannot yet effect a pardonable unwillingness there still remains one cause more which may
are likewise unchosen and so unavoidable are not eternally punishable by the Gospel but consistent with a state of Grace and Salvation will further appear if we consider First The Nature of God Secondly The nature and plain declarations of the Gospel 1. I say their consistency with a state of Grace or Gods favour will plainly appear if we consider the Nature of God God is the most Gracious Loving and good natured Being in the whole world For all the love and kindness that appears among us men proceeds from him and makes us to resemble him and to be like unto him Nay he is not only Loving but even Love it self For God sayes S t John is Love and he who dwells in love dwells in God and God in him 1 Joh. 4.16 And if we will take that character which he gives of himself it is wholly made up of the various instances of Mercy and Goodness The Lord sayes he to Moses the Lord God mercifull and gracious long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth keeping mercy for thousands forgiving iniquity transgression and sin Exod. 34.6 7. All his delight is in exercising Love and showing kindness For he swears to us as he lives that he has no delight at all in the death of a sinner but had rather that every wicked man should turn from his wickedness and live Ezech. 33.11 He is by no means forward to espie faults or malicious to misconstrue actions or prone to admit of provocation or implacably angry when he is once provoked or cruelly vindictive when once he is angred The Lord saith the Psalmist is mercifull and gracious slow to anger and plenteous in mercy He will not alwayes chide when he has just reason for it nor keepeth he his anger for ever Psal. 103.8 9. He is not at all of the humour of severe masters who are prone to take offence but like a most tender father he is all benignity and goodness For if any thing be pitiable he pities it if any thing is done amiss he is slow to wrath and easie to forgive it Like as a father pitieth his own children even so the Lord pitieth them that fear him Psal. 103.13 Nay take this Love and Pity of a Parent where it is at the highest pitch of all viz. in mothers towards their most helpless and so most pitiable infants and yet this tenderness of God doth infinitely exceed it Can a woman forget her sucking child that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb Yea they may forget sayes God by his Prophet Isaiah but I will not forget thee Isa. 49.15 Thus Loving Pitiful and Benign a Nature do the Scriptures represent God to be And what they declare of him all the world have experienced and found by him For every impenitent sinner is a lasting monument of his long-suffering and forbearance and every prosperous event and deliverance in the world is an effect of his boundless love and kindness He is infinitely good beyond all desert nay in spite of all provocation For he is loving even unto the unthankfull and the evil making his sun to shine and his rain to fall and all the other mâ—râ—ies of life to descend upon the unjust as well as upon the just upon them who contemn as well as on them who obey him as our Saviour observed Mat. 5.45 Luk. 6.35 And this he is to such an astonishing degree as to bestow upon them not only the blessings of his substance of his protection and of his kind providence but also what is a wonder to conceive for their sakes to part with his own well-beloved and so much the more beloved because his only begotten Son For God as saith the Apostle hath recommended his love to us in that whil'st we were sinners and enemies Christ his Son came from him and died for us Rom. 5.8 Thus wondrously pitiful obliging and good natured then is God according to that account which both the Scripture and the Experience of the whole world give of him And now let any man think with himself how so surpassing kind and infinitely gracious a nature as this is like to be affected with the ignorant or inconsiderate slips and errours of his Servants Will he be utterly offended with them so as quite to cast them off and for ever to condemn them No certainly but in great mercy he will pity and bear with them For these slips where we do not consider or where we err and do not understand our duty are such instances of disobedience as imply nothing of contempt or of a rebellious heart nor have any thing of our will in them They are clearly involuntary so that whatsoever the action may appear to be the will it self is innocent For the disobedience cannot be chosen since it is not understood which indeed in the notion and interpretation of Gods Law makes it not to be that sin and disobedience which is threatned but something else for that sin as S t John tells us is a rejecting or a renouncing of the Law whereas in these slips where we do not see it 't is plain that we cannot renounce it And since they have nothing in them of a disobedient will or of a rebellous heart can any man think that so gracious and pitifull a nature should be so highly provoked with them as for ever to condemn his own honest servants and otherwise obedient children upon the account of them Whosoever thou art who art inclined to think thus let me advise thee to consider a little what Love is and whether it can possibly be guilty of such hard usage If thou hast any competent degrees of that Love and Pity in thine own heart which are so infinite in God bethink thy self whether thou could'st do it for that is the way and thence take thy measures in judging whether or no God can Doth any gracious master use that severity towards the oversights and indiscretions of his honest servant or to rise yet higher can any tender Parent show that rigour upon every errour and inconsideration of his heartily obedient child Is not every good man prone to pass by such offences as are committed unwillingly against him and the more he has of goodness is he not still more forward to pardon and bear with them There is no Nature upon Earth that is kind and pitifull but will make allowances for those things which proceed from want of understanding and will pass over those miscarriages which imply nothing of ill will or ill intention Every good man will overlook and connive at them when they are committed by a perfect stranger but then most of all when they are incurr'd by his own intimate and dear acquaintance or relations by his own servant or his own child This I say every good and loving man doth and the more he has of love and goodness the proner still he is to do it For it is a natural and inseparable effect of charity so
much of the sinfulness of that action which we commit as to scruple its lawfulness and to be enlightned so far as really to doubt of it then is the case quite alter'd and we cannot plead that we did it ignorantly because we knew so much by it at least as should have made us forbear it For if indeed we doubted of it we knew it was as likely to be a Sin as to be an innocent Action because that is properly Doubting when we suspend our Assent and cannot tell which way to determine when we judge one to be as likely as the other and do not positively and determinately believe the truth of either And when this is our case concerning any Action if we venture on it whilst the doubt remains we are guilty of sin and must expect to suffer punishment For by so doing we shew plainly that we will do more for sin than we will for God and that it has a greater interest with us than he because even whilst we apprehend it as likely to be our sin as our liberty yet for the sins sake we chuse to venture on it rather than for Gods sake to abstain from it This Contempt of God there is in it in the Nature of the very thing it self although God had no ways expressed himself concerning it But we must know further that whensoever we are in this estate of doubt and unresolvedness God has given us a peremptory Command that we should not act what we fear is sinful but omit it Abstain saith he from all appearance of evil 1 Thess. 5.22 So that if after all our Disputes and Demurs we venture at last to commit the Action which we doubted of we do not only slight God by running the hazard of Disobedience to one Law whereof we are uncertain but we wilfully disobey him in transgressing of this other Law whereof we all either are or may be certain if we will And if in this estate we presume thus to disobey we shall be sure to suffer for our Disobedience And in this case St. Paul is plain For if there be any thing whose lawfulness our Consciences are unresolved and unperswaded of whilst that unresolvedness remains he tells us plainly that our commission of it is utterly unlawful Whatsoever says he is not of Faith or proceeding from a belief and perswasion of its lawfulness is sin So that if it be about the eating of meats for Instance he that doubts is damn'd both of God and of himself if he eat because he eateth not of Faith Rom. 14.23 If our minds therefore are so far enlightned concerning any sinful Action as that we are come to doubt of it we are no longer innocently and excusably ignorant For we see enough by it to make us chuse to abstain from it and if for all this we presume still to venture on it sin lyes at the door and we must answer for it We are no longer within the excuse of Ignorance but we are guilty of a wilful sin and are got within the bounds of Death and Damnation But if in any Action we know nothing at all of the Law which forbids it or after we have known that if we are still ignorant of its being contain'd under it if we are not come to doubt but are either in Ignorance or Errour concerning it our Ignorance shall excuse our Fault and deliver us from Condemnation We do not chuse the sin which we do thus ignorantly commit and therefore we shall not suffer that Punishment which is threatned to it but our unknown offence is a pardonable slip such as according to the gracious Terms of Christs Gospel shall surely go uncondemned And this is true not only of simple Ignorance but likewise of the two particular Modes of Ignorance viz. First Forgetfulness Secondly Errour 1. Our sins of Ignorance will be born with if we venture upon the sinful Action through Ignorance of its sinfulness which we knew formerly but at the time of acting have forgotten For a slip of Forgetfulness is no more than befel an Apostle who was for all that a blessed Saint and an Heir of Life still St. Paul himself reviles the High-Priest forgetting both his Duty and that that man was he whom he spoke to I wist not Brethren says he that he was the High-Priest for had I bethought my self I should not have spoke so disrespectfully to him it being thus written Thou shalt not speak evil of the Ruler of thy People Act. 23.5 2. Our sins of Ignorance shall be dispensed with if we are led to commit them through a mistake of their innocence when indeed they are sinful which is an acting of them through errour For no less a man than Peter was drawn into a sinful dissimulation through an erroneous conceit that his giving no offence but keeping in with the Jews which was the thing that he aimed at by it would justifie and bear him out in it For which S t Paul tells us when he came to Antioch he withstood him to the face because he was to be blamed Gal. 2.11 12 13. But yet for all this S t Peter was at that time a true good Saint and if it had pleased God then to call for him he had been undoubtedly an Heir of salvation And to mention no more upon this Point as there were constant atonements for the errours of the people under the Law so is there provision made for them under the Gospel For Christ who is our High Priest as S t Paul assures us can have compassion on the ignorant and erroneous or them who are out of the way Heb. 5.2 So long therefore we see as our ignorance of any kind whether of the Law it self or of our present actions being comprehended by it is involuntary and innocent so long shall we be born with for all such slips as we incur under it For God will never be severe upon us for weakness of understanding or for want of parts whilst there is nothing in us of a wicked heart and therefore if our ignorance it self is innocent our offences under it shall go unpunished But here we must observe that all this allowance for our ignorance is so far only as it is involuntary and faultless but if we chuse to be ignorant our ignorance is in it self our sin and will make all our following offences damnable For we must answer for any thing of our own choice and therefore if we chuse the ignorance we shall be interpreted to chuse and so put to answer for all those ill effects which it produces Those sins which are voluntary in their cause are interpreted to us as we have seen and put upon our score so that if we chuse the ignorance which brings them we shall be adjudged to suffer for them Now as for the ignorance and errour of many men which is the cause of their sins and transgressions it is plainly of their own chusing They have a mind to
be ignorant of their Duty and that is the reason why they do not understand it For either they shut their eyes and will not see it or they are idle and careless and will not enquire after it or they bend their wits at the instigation of their lusts to dispute against it that after they have darkened and confounded it in their own thoughts they may mince or evacuate mistake or disbelieve it So that if at last they do not know it it is because they do not desire the knowledge of it or will be at no pains for it or take pains against it to supplant and disguise it And these are they who are not ignorant against their wills but as S t Peter says willingly ignorant 2 Pet. 3.5 And as for such ignorance as this it will by no means excuse us before God but if we will be ignorant God's will and pleasure is that we shall suffer for our sinful ignorance and for all those sins that we commit under it which we might and should have seen and avoided For all those Laws which are ignorantly transgressed by us threaten death and the ignorance being of our own chusing takes nothing off so that death and damnation rest upon us But that ignorance which can be pleaded to excuse us before God must be an ignorance that is involuntary an ignorance which in the constitution of our nature is imposed upon us and is not chosen by us And a right understanding of this difference in ignorance being of so great moment I shall before I dismiss this Point observe when our ignorance is voluntary and when it is involuntary First I will show when our ignorance is â—â—voluntary As for the knowledge of our Duty like as of all other things it doth not spring up in our souls as an Herb doth out of the ground nor drop into us as the rain doth from a Cloud but it must be sought for and endeavoured after and unless we use the means of acquiring it we must be content to live without it The means of obtaining the knowledge of God's Laws and of the innocence and sinfulness of our own actions are the reading of his Word the attendance upon his Ministers the thinking or considering upon what we read or hear in our own minds and praying to God to make all these means effectual for our information and if ever we expect to know God's will we must put these in practice But now whether we will make use of these or no is plainly in our own choice and at our own pleasure For if we will we may exercise and if we will we may as well neglect them And when both these are before us if we refuse to make use of the means of understanding and wilfully neglect the methods of attaining to the knowledg of sin and Duty good and evil if we sit down without the knowledg of Gods Law it is because we would our selves and our ignorance is a voluntary and a wilful ignorance And this is the first way of our ignorance's becoming voluntary viz. when it is so upon a voluntary neglect of those means which are necessary to attain knowledge And this in the Schools is called a supine slothful careless ignorance And if it be of such things as lay near in our way and might have been known without much pains or much seeking it is called gross or affected ignorance But besides this sort of wilful ignorance of our Duty through a wilful neglect of those means which are necessary to the knowledge of it there is another which is higher and more enormous and that is Secondly When we do not only sleight the means of knowing God's Law but moreover use those of confounding or mistaking it For our knowledge of things is then made perfect and useful when it is clear and distinct and our assent and belief of things is then gained when their evidence is represented and duly considered of But now as for the employing of mens thoughts in clearing or confounding believing or disbelieving of the Laws of God it is perfectly in their own power whether to use it on one side or on the other And commonly it is their pleasure to use it on the worse For they will consider only of the difficulties and intricacies of Gods Laws which may darken and disturb confound and perplex their thoughts about them and attend only to such exceptions as they can make against them which may unsettle their minds either about the meaning or the truth of them so that after all their reading and considering of them they shall not understand but err and mistake them As it happens to all those who had disputed themselves out of the knowledge of their Duty until as Isaiah says they call evil good and good evil put darkness for light and light for darkness Isai. 5.20 And when men are ignorant of their Duty because they chose thus to endeavour it and take pains for it this ignorance is voluntary and wilful with a witness These two reasons of mens being ignorant of their Duty viz. their neglect of such means as are necessary to the knowledge of it or their use of the contrary means of confounding or discrediting it are the causes of their wilful ignorance And that which makes them guilty of both these is either the gross idleness or the profligate wickedness of their hearts which are wholly inslaved to some beloved lust or sin They are wretchedly idle and therefore they will not learn their Duty because that is painful they are greatly wicked and so care not for the knowledge of the Law because that would disquiet them Men love darkness says our Saviour better than light because their works are evil they hate the light and will not come to it lest their deeds should be reproved by it John 3.19 20. Because they hate and fear the Law they neglect the means of knowing it nay they pick quarrels with it and endeavour all they can to perplex or darken to evacuate or disparage it So that our ignorance is then wilful when we are therefore ignorant because we neglect the means of knowledge or industriously endeavour to be mistaken And that because we are either too idle to learn or too wicked to care for the knowledge of our Duty The idleness and wickedness of our hearts is the first spring and the neglect of means and industrious perverting of the truth are the great productive instruments of our wilful ignorance Which is therefore called voluntary and wilful because the Principle and the Instruments the motive and the means to it are both under the power and choice of our own wills And these things making our ignorance wilful viz. a wilful neglect of the means of knowledge or a wilful perverting of those Laws which we are to know we shall easily discern Secondly What ignorance is unwilled and involuntary namely that which implies a freedome from and an absence
For Christ need never have come into the World for that end since the Law had rendred us accursed and miserable enough already But he came on a quite contrary Errand to be the Minister of Life and Pardon and not to seal us up to eternal Death upon the first wilful transgression but to procure for us remission of all our deadly and damning sins and to restore us out of a state of Enmity and Death to a state of Mercy and Reconciliation He came to find out a remedy for all our evils and to prescribe us a way of recovering our selves when we had fallen by any sin so that although none of us all have lived free from it yet in the event sin shall not be our ruine And that remedy which God has provided us for this purpose is Repentance He doth not abandon us upon the commission of every sin but he is heartily desirous that we should repent of it and when we do so he has obliged himself by his Truth and Faithfulness to forgive it He is heartily desirous I say that whensoever we commit any sin we should repent of it If we dare take his own word he tells us as he lives that he doth not delight in the death of any sinner but that the wicked turn from his way and live turn you turn you as he goes on from your evil ways for why will you dye O house of Israel Ezek. 33.11 And this all the World experience by him in his long-suffering and forbearance with them For he doth not exact the punishment so soon as we have incurred it but expects long to see if we will return and repent that then he may with honour pardon and remit it this being as S t Paul assures us the end of his forbearance and long-suffering to lead us to repentance Rom. 2.4 And what S t Paul says that we all experience For during all that time wherein he bears with us how restless and unwearied earnest and affectionate are his endeavours for this purpose He admonishes us of our faults by his Word and by his Ministers he invites us to return by his Love and by his Promises he moves us to bethink our selves by his Spirit and by his Providences and if we are stubborn and not to be thus gently won by these methods of mildness he seeks to reclaim us by a blessed and a most affectionate force and violence For he corrects us with his Rod and visits us in chastisement and never ceases to try all means of reducing us to a sense of our sin and repentance till we are become plainly incorrigible and utterly rebellious and so fit for nothing but to be swallowed up of ruine And yet even then his desire of reclaiming us is so strong and his love so affectionate that he scarce knows how to give us over How shall I give thee up saith he O Ephraim how shall I deliver thee O Israel Hos. 11.8 And when we do repent I say he has obliged himself by his Truth and Faithfulness most graciously to forgive us This was the Doctrine of the Prophets Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return unto the Lord says Isaiah for he will have mercy upon him and to our God for he will abundantly pardon Isa. 55.7 If the wicked man says God by Ezekiel will turn from all his sins that he hath committed and keep all my statutes and do that which is lawful and right he shall surely live he shall not dye All his transgressions which he hath formerly committed shall not be mentioned unto him but in his righteousness that he hath done since he shall live For have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should dye saith the Lord God and not that he should turn from his ways and live Ezek. 18 21 22 23. This iâ— the great Doctrine of the Gospel which is a Covenant of remission of sins upon Repentance Repentance is its great Article and fundamental Truth and is therefore called by S t Paul the Foundation of Repentance Heb. 6.1 For that which was taught to all the World in all the degrees of Publication of the Gospel was that now God called all men to repent and that he would forgive them all their sins upon their true repentance S t John the Baptist who was Christs Herald and Fore-runner at his entrance upon that work begins with it John says S t Luke in all the Country about Jordan came preaching the Baptism of repentance for the remission of sins Luk. 3.3 Our Lord and Saviour Christ himself when he comes after to proclaim his own Gospel goes on with it Jesus began to preach says S t Matthew and to say Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand Mat. 4.17 And when he left the World the Commission which he gives to his Apostles is to proceed on still in the Promulgation of it to all the World as he had done to the people of the Jews For at the last time of his being with them just before his Ascension into Heaven when as S t Matthew tells us he commissioned them to preach to all mankind those instructions which he gave to them S t Luke informs us were that repentance and remission of sins should be preached to all Nations in his Name beginning at Jerusalem Luk. 24.47 This was the chief thing which they had in Commission and the summ and substance of their Embassy For that Ministry which was committed to them was a Ministry of reconciling God and men by this means as St. Paul says or a Ministry of Reconciliation so that they were Ambassadours for Christ as though God did beseech men by them and they as Christs Deputies who is the prime Mediator did pray them in his stead to be reconciled to God 2 Cor. 5.19.20 And when the Apostles came to execute their Orders the publishing of this was all their care and practice For they all of them went about preaching in all places and to all persons repentance for the remission of sins St. Peter in his first Sermon thus exhorts the people Repent and be baptized every one of you for the remission of sins Act. 2.38 and so again Act. 3. Repent and be converted that your sins may be blotted out v. 19. And the same he proclaims more generally in his second Epistle assuring all Christians that the Lord is not willing that any man should perish but that all should come to repentance which is sure to prevent it 2 Pet. 3.9 St. Paul preaches to the Athenians that now God had commanded all men every where to repent Act. 17.30 And St. John assures us that by virtue of that Gospel-Covenant which was confirmed with us in Christs Blood if with repenting hearts we confess our sins he is faithful to his word and just to his promise to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from the guilt and stain of all unrighteousness of
himself so doth he instruct Timothy that he should do likewise For he tells him that the way whereby the man of God ought to deal with sinners even those of the worst sort who are not only subject but enslaved to it is not peremptorily to damn and seal them up fast unto destruction but in great meekness to endeavour to reclaim them that by recovering them to repentance he may restore them again to life and pardon The man of God says he must in meekness instruct even the refractory and contumacious or those that oppose themselves against him if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledgment of the truth and that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the Devil who are taken captive by him at his will 2 Tim. 2.25 26. And to name no more instances of this nature but to summ up all in one even those great and enormous wilful sinners whose offences are so hainous as to make them fit to be expelled the society of Christians are not yet in their very Excommunication shut up irrecoverably under the pains of Hell but quite contrary are endeavoured by this very means to be reduced to repentance and thereby to pardon and acceptance Excommunication it self being as St. Paul says for the destruction of the flesh that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus 1 Cor. 5.5 And the Power of the Keys in remitting or retaining sins that is in the excommunicating or absolving of offenders is intrusted with the Ministers of Christs Church for the edification of the excommunicated sinners themselves and not for their destruction 2 Cor. 10.8 and chap. 13.10 And by all this we see that the Grace of Christs Gospel is a grace of repentance and remission of sins all the way both before Baptism and also after it In all periods from the beginning to the end it is an instrument of pardon and a means of peace or a word and ministry as St. Paul says of reconciliation 2 Cor. 5.19 If we break our Baptismal vows which are the condition of the Covenant once and thereby forfeit all our Right to Happiness it gives us liberty to repeat them For we have the freedom both in our private and our publick prayers to renew all our good resolutions and to make God new promises and to undertake for the performance of that wherein we have wilfully failed by new engagements Nay it doth not only allow that we may thus renew the Covenant but it requires that we should it has appointed an Ordinance the Eucharist or Lords Supper I mean for this very purpose For the Bread and Wine which we eat and drink there our Saviour tells us is a Federal form the New Covenant or according to the manner of the Eastern Nations who ratified their Covenants by eating and drinking together the re-entring or confirming of that Covenant which was at first sealed and confirmed in his Blood This says he is the New Testament or Covenant in my blood drink ye all of it and so according to the known Rite confirm this Covenant with God by it Luk. 22.20 Mat. 22.27 And this he has not only allowed but injoyned to all his Disciples Do this says he in remembrance of me And that not only at one time as it is with Baptism but at all times during your whole lives for in this manner of a Federal eating and drinking of this Bread and Wine you must shew forth the Lords death always even till he come again the second time i. e. unto the worlds end 1 Cor. 11.24 25 26. Forgiveness of sins then upon repentance is a Grace which is begun in Baptism and ever after continued being repeated in every Prayer and sealed in every Sacrament to the end of our lives So that no wilful sin can damn us if we repent of it but the damned accursed sinner is only he who lives and dyes impenitent Insomuch as that very sin for which St. Paul says there is no benefit from Christs Death nor any help of Sacrifice under the Gospel is therefore excluded from all Grace of pardon because it is from all possibility of repentance For therein it is that the irrecoverableness of those lost sinners consists It is impossible says he to renew them to repentance Heb. 6.6 Thus then we see that Christs Gospel has afforded us a remedy even for our wilful sins whether they be committed before Baptism or after it at one time or at another at all without exception so that although sometimes we do fall under them yet we shall not be eternally condemned for them Let us but repent particularly therefore and amend it and whatever sin we have wilfully been guilty of our work is done For our repentance shall set us straight and our reformation will make us innocent and if we are careful to do so no more our offence will be looked upon as if it never had been done at all But against this pardonableness of our wilful sins after our belief of the Gospel and Baptism into the Christian Faith some perhaps may be ready to object two places from St. Pauls Epistle to the Hebrews wherein he may seem to teach us a more rigorous and severe Lesson In the 10 th Chapter he lays down this as a great Truth If we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge or open belief and acknowledgment of the truth of Christs Gospel there remains no more benefit to us from Christs sacrifice for sins but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation which shall consume the adversaries v. 26 27. And in the 6 th Chapter to the eternal Terror of all willing and wilful Back-sliders he speaks thus to the same purpose It is impossible for those who were once enlightned and have tasted of the heavenly gift and were made partakers of the holy Ghost and have tasted the good word of God if after all this they shall fall away to be again recovered or for any of us to renew them to repentance seeing they crucifie to themselves the Son of God afresh and put him to an open shame v. 4 5 6. But now if our wilful sins after Baptism and belief of the Gospel be thus desperate and utterly excluded from all hopes of cure and benefit of Expiation by Christs Sacrifice as the Apostle in these places seems to intimate how can the Gospel be truly called a Ministration of Reconciliation Grace and Pardon towards all sorts of wilful sins To take off all this difficulty I will answer to the places severally that all those good minds which are wont to be perplexed by them may be more perfectly relieved by a particular and distinct understanding of them First then to begin with that the words of St. Paul in the 10 th Chapter of his Epistle to the Hebrews are these Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering Not forsaking the assembling of
among your selves for Charity shall cover or procure pardon for the multitude of those many because unavoidable and involuntary sins 1 Pet. 4.8 And hereto Charity is then especially available when it is shewn in the highest instance of all viz. in procuring our Brethrens repentance and conversion For thus says S t James Brethren if any of you do err from the truth and one convert him for his encouragement let him know this from me That he who converts the Sinner from the errour of his way shall not only save the others soul from death but shall also hide a multitude of his own sins James 5.19 20. Thus is Charity in all acts of kindness and beneficence most available to procure the pardon of our many because unavoidable and involuntary sins But among all the instances of Charity one is particularly singled out by our Saviour as a necessary Condition to our forgiveness at Gods hands and that is our forgiving others that offend against us For the man who would have no pity upon his Fellow-servant as his Lord had shewed upon him was unpardoned all again and delivered over to the tormentors till he should pay the uttermost Farthing Matth. 18.32 33 34 and the same measure our heavenly Father will mete out to us if we forgive not every one his Brother their trespasses v. 35. And that a Condition so necessary to our forgiveness might never be forgotten our Lord has put it expresly into that Prayer which he has taught us to put up daily for the pardon of our own sins For he bids us pray that God would forgive us our trespasses against him even as we forgive those that trespass against us Matth. 6.12 And that we may take the more notice of a Point so indispensable he tells us as soon as ever the Prayer is done that if we forgive men their trespasses our heavenly Father will also forgive us but if we forgive not men their trespasses neither will our heavenly Father forgive us our trespasses vers 14 15. If we are rigorous and severe therefore with our Brethren God will be so with us also and when he comes to judge us we shall find as little allowance at his hands as they have done at ours For he shall have judgment from God without mercy who to men hath shewn no mercy but if any man has been merciful to his Brethren God will be much more so to him for mercy rejoyceth even against judgment James 2.13 This will be the greatest motive to procure Grace and the best Plea that can be urged to obtain mercy at Gods hands Blessed are the merciful says our Saviour for they shall obtain mercy Mat. 5.7 And thus as for our involuntary slips we see now what is their remedy they shall be forgiven us upon our prayers and upon the prayers of our friends and other good Christians for us and upon our Charity and forgiveness of other men With the same measure that we mete God will mete out to us again Mat. 7.2 So that if we shew mercy to the unwill'd sins yea and the voluntary offences of other men if in other things we are obedient we shall be sure to find it for our own And thus at last we see what remedy the Gospel has provided us for all sorts of offences whether they be our voluntary or involuntary sins And upon the whole matter we find that our case is not desperate under any sort of sins but that if we will use it we have a sufficient cure for them For if we are in a state of death by reason of any wilful sin let us but particularly repent of it and amend it and if it either injured or offended our Brethren seek to be reconciled and repair the wrong and we are restored to pardon And if in any thing we have fallen involuntarily let us but pray and be merciful and we are forgiven And either way when God comes to judge us whether we have in all points fulfilled his Laws or are pardoned our transgressions of them we shall be acquitted by him We shall be safe at that day if we have either kept the condition or used the remedy for a pardon will justifie us to as much purpoâ—â— as we should have been justified by an unerring obedience To apply this then to every mans particular case Has any man whether learned or unlearned committed wilfully and advisedly an act of any known and notorious sin whether of Blasphemy Perjury common Swearing Witchcraft Idolatry Drunkenness Fornication Adultery Lying Slander Fraud Oppression Theft Murder Rebellion Tumult or the like has he been guilty of these or of any other sins of like nature whereat all mens consciences are wont to boggle and their hearts to check them till they have sinned themselves into numbness and stupefaction let him particularly amend that evil way and retract that very sin and if his crime implied any as far as he can repair the wrong it did his brethren and then he is in a safe condition For his particular repentance and amendment shall make up the breach which such wilful offence had made betwixt God and him and shall most certainly procure his pardon Has any man of opportunities and understanding committed any action of Lasciviousness Vncleanness Passionateness Fierceness evil Speaking Backbiting Censoriousness Vncandidness Vnmercifulness Vnpeaceableness or the like has any such man or any other whatsoever been guilty of these or the like offences when his own Soul reproved him and either did or would have set the sinfulness of his present action before him unless he has sinned in it so long as to lose all sense of it and to stifle all suggestions against it let him also particularly amend and reform such voluntary sin and make his peace with his offended brethren that he may be saved His particular repentance shall likewise make his peace and procure for him Gods favour and acceptance Has any man lastly been surprized into rash words and censures into sudden anger and trifling discontents and peevish or uncourteous or uncandid or uncondescensive behaviour has he been wearied by long importunity into some loose thoughts and wanton fancies into some small fretfulness or impatience or the like has he spoke or acted unadvisedly through deep grief or violent fears or other astonishing unwill'd passion let him bewail his failings and strive against them although he be not able perfectly to overcome them let him seek peace and use charity and shew mercy upon the like errours and escapes and upon the more wilful offences of his brethren and then with comfort beg Gods pardon For his prayers thus attended shall set him straight and procure his reconciliation If a man is conscious to himself of any of these sorts of sins these remedies will certainly restore him And as for those unknown and secret sins whereof his conscience cannot inform him he has an obvious and an easie expedient for a general penitential prayer will undoubtedly be
accepted for his pardon Whatsoever therefore his sins be if he please to make use of it he is provided of his remedy Repentance shall surely save his Soul and make atonement for all his offences So that of whatsoever nature number or degree his faults have been after once he has thus repented of them they shall never be imputed to him but through the Merits of Christs Death and the Grace of his Gospel they shall be looked upon as if they had never been And thus at last we have seen what that condition is which the Gospel indispensably exacts of us towards our acceptance in the last Judgment what those defects are whereof it allows and what those Salvo's for all sorts of disobedience which it offers For it requires an entire obedience of all our voluntary actions it bears with all our innocently involuntary failings and it admits us to recover our former state when once we have lost it or to persevere in it when we enjoy it by a particular repentance and amendment of all our wilful sins and by our prayers and charity for our involuntary ones This then is the true Test whereby at the last Day we must all be tryed If we have obeyed entirely and have been guilty of no wilful sin or if when we have we did not rest in it but repented and amended it and where there was any repaired the wrong and sought to be reconciled and if we have beg'd pardon for all our involuntary slips and have been diligent in shewing charity and mercy and forgiveness to atone for them then are we innocent in the accounts of the Gospel and when Christ comes to judge us we shall hear the joyful Sentence of Come ye blessed of my Father inherit the kingdom prepared for you Mat. 25.34 This repentance and obedience will bear us out and secure our happiness but less than it nothing in the world will For God will take vengeance saith S t Paul on all that obey not the Gospel of Christ 2 Thess. 1.8 and Except you repent says our Saviour you shall all perish Luk. 13.5 And thus having shewn what condition that is which the Gospel indispensably exacts to our acceptance in the last Judgment what defects are consistent with it and what remedies when once 't is lost shall again restore to it I shall now proceed to that which I proposed in the fourth and last place namely to remove those groundless scruples which perplex the minds of good and safe but yet erring and misguided people concerning it whereof I shall discourse in the remaining Chapters CHAP. IV. Of such groundless Scruples as make safe but weak Minds doubt of their Title to Salvation The CONTENTS Pious minds scrupulous Their condition is safe even then but uncomfortable Several needless grounds of their fears 1. Ineffective desires of evil This represented No man otherwise good shall be condemned for ineffective lusts and thoughts of evil These are considerable either as to their first birth or indulged continuance The first stirrings of lusts after evil things are unavoidable The after-entertainment is by our own indulgence Even these are uncondemning so long as they neither are consented to nor fulfilled being in themselves not deadly under the Gospel but a temptation to deadly and damning sins The way whereby sin wins upon men and the nature and force of temptation To be tempted is no sin which is proved from the nature of temptation from Adams being tempted before he sinned and from Christs being tempted who knew no sin Degrees in temptation or in lusts of evil Some are checked quickly and are not permitted long to parly This happens only in grown men and perfect Christians and that too not in all instances These certainly are not damning Others stay longer and strive and contend with our mind or conscience although at last they are vanquished by it This happens ordinarily to younger Converts and in extraordinary temptations to grown Christians These still are uncondemning which is shewn from Gal. 5.16 17 and from the instance of our Saviour Christ. What lusts and desires of evil are damning They are condemning when they make us consent to a damning sin A distinct account of the several steps to a sinful action A proof of this that from their gaining of our consent in all the after-steps they are mortal Our lusts must be mortified to that degree as to be disabled from carrying us on thus far This is done when men become true Christians The better men are the less difficulty and self-denial do they find in mortification Watchfulness and strife still necessary The danger of indulging to temptations or to lusts and desires of evil This point summed up IN matters of Religion and another World nothing is more ordinarily observable than that those people are wont to have the greatest fears who have the least reason for them For good Christians although they think the best of others are generally very suspicious of themselves They have a deep sense of the danger of sin and a full conviction of the fatal end of disobedience and that makes them think that in a matter wherein it so highly concerns them not to be mistaken they can never be over-jealous of their own hearts or too cautious lest after all those insupportable punishments of sin should fall to be their own portion And this they do especially if in any material point whereupon as to the Sentence of Life or Death the Gospel lays a great stress they are ignorant and erroneous For there are no terrors in the world that are comparable to those of Religion nor have any men upon earth so much reason to be afraid as they who are in danger to fall under them And therefore if there is any thing which will be of great account in the last Judgment or what is all one which they think will be severely accounted for and they either find themselves to be guilty of it or which comes to the same thing fansie that they are they must needs be fearfully perplexed and deprived of all peace and comfort though really they are in the greatest safety 'T is true indeed that in the end they shall be no losers nor shall their mistaken fears ever be fulfilled upon them because at the last Day God will judge them according to his own Rule and not according to their errours and misapprehensions of it so that if they have really done all that which he requires to Heaven and Happiness he will think well of them notwithstanding they think never so hardly of themselves Their errors shall in no wise pervert his Truth for he sees what they are howsoever they may mistake it and if he sees them to be righteous his sentence will follow his own knowledge and he will declare to all the world that they are so This is the security of all good men as it is the eternal terror and astonishment of all hypocrites and sinners that they shall be brought
before an unerring and uncorrupt Judge who can neither be bribed nor deceived and who cannot mistake them or wrongfully condemn them howsoever they may mistake or wrongfully condemn themselves And since it is so they are really safe in their own goodness when they most of all suspect their own danger and secure from evil even whilst they are afraid of falling under it But although every good man is in this safety let his understanding of himself be what it will yet if in any of those things which he takes to be a matter of life or death he judges wrong of himself and thinks erroneously he can enjoy no peace and comfort He will go to Heaven full of fears and forbodeing thoughts and never think himself in the way to Bliss till he is actually inthroned in it and possessed of it He will meet indeed with happiness in the end but he will have no sight or expectation of it in the way for all his life long he will be tormented with doubts and suspicions fears and jealousies and be still by turns concluding himself lost as to the next World though he be lost no where but in his own fancy And this imagined future misery will bring him under a real one for the present it will make him have sad thoughts and a sorrowful heart it will bereave him of all joy and peace and almost overwhelm him in groundless perplexity and vexation But that pious Souls may not fear where no fear is nor torment themselves with unreasonable expectations having before shewn what that condition really is which renders any mans a safe condition I will go on now to remove their groundless scruples and mistakes concerning it by shewing what and of what force those things are which are wont without any sufficient reason to disquiet the minds and to disturb the peace of good and safe but mistaken Christians about it And as for the causes of good mens fears so far as I have been able to learn them they are chiefly these that follow 1. Good men are wont to call in question the saveableness of their present and the happiness of their future state because after all their care against them they find that some motions of the flesh some stirrings of their lusts some thoughts of evil do still arise up in them They feel themselves subject to delightsom fancies and desires of forbidden things They are liable to a lustful thought a covetous wish an insurrection of anger of envy and of several other damning sins 'T is true indeed that these lusts do not reign in them because they do not consent to their instigations nor do what they would have them They can only inhabit and stir in them but have not strength enough to give Laws to them for they repress them before they get so far and prevail over them before they go on to fulfil what they inclined to Not any of these sinful lusts whereof they are afraid has got so much power over them as to carry them on either to consent to them or to fulfil them for though they may think on some forbidden things in their minds or desire them in their hearts yet do they not will and chuse any of them and least of all do they work and practise them They may perhaps have a thought and fancy a wish and inclination after unchast pleasures but they correct themselves there and go no further for they never in their hearts consent to an unlawful embrace nor ever proceed to an unclean action In a sudden motion of anger it may be they may have several expressions of wrath and instances of revenge occur to their thoughts and obtruding themselves upon their fancy but they stop there and go no higher for they do not consent to utter an injurious word or to commit a spiteful action and the same they experience by themselves in other instances In all which several forbidden things will get into their thoughts and desires and steal from them a wish or inclination but when once they have done that they can do no more being unable either to gain their consent or to command their practice so as that they should not only desire but also chuse and fulfil them But although they do not suffer sin to reign in them so as to consent to it or to fulfil it in the lusts thereof yet they fear lest their very thoughts and inclinations after it should prove damnable For God requires the obedience of our whole man of the mind and affections as well as of our wills and actions and he is disobeyed by any as well as by all our faculties And seeing every sin is forbidden under pain of death who knows but that this admission of sin into our thoughts and desires is a deadly transgression This is one great cause of fear and a rock of offence to truly honest and good men But to take off all doubt and scruple upon this account we must know that our impotent lusts and ineffective desires of evil things if they are able to get no further than a thought or a wish though at present they are a matter of our exercise and humiliation yet at the Day of Judgment they shall be no Article of death or condemnation For Christs Gospel doth not sentence us severely upon these first motions of a lust or beginnings of a sin no if they arrive no higher than fancy and inclination through the merits of Christs Sacrifice there is Grace enough in store for them and in the Gospel account they are not grown up to be a matter of Death nor come within the Confines of destruction That I may speak with the more distinctness to this Point I will here shew these two things 1. That for our feeble lusts and desires after evil which are unconsented to and unfulfilled we shall not at the last day be condemned 2. For what lusts and desires of them we shall 1. I say For our feeble lusts and desires of evil which are unconsented to and unfulfilled at the day of Judgment no man otherwise good shall ever be condemned God will never sentence us to Hell for every sudden desire an inclination after sinful things but if it rests there and goes no further than bare desire he will pardon and pass it by but not eternally avenge it To speak distinctly to this Point these lustings and desires are considerable either as to their first birth or as to their indulged and allowed continuance the first are never damning and the latter many times are no Article of condemnation As for our bodily lusts and desires of evil in their first birth I say they are never damning nor shall any man who is otherwise vertuous and obedient be ever judged to dye for them And if it were otherwise who could possibly be saved For as long as we live in this World we have all of us these first motions of appetites after evil things more or less and there
or other sins whether against Justice or Charity As on the other side our fears and aversations from want or pain or other bodily evils must not induce us to neglect a Commandment that we may please our Flesh or to deny our Religion for the securing of a bodily enjoyment These restraints God has laid upon our bodily appetites having given us these Commands with several others mentioned above which we are oft-times tempted to transgress in order to the fulfilling of them For our bodily appetites themselves do not distinguish either of objects or of degrees A mans palate or his stomach in any delicious meat or drink which yields a pleasure to it doth not tell him when they have enough or cease desiring before they are gone on to be intemperate Our eyes lust after money but they consider not whose it is but so they may have it they matter not to whom it belongs or how they come by it and so it is in our fleshly appetites of other things For it is the natural pleasure of those things which we lust after that moves our bodies and therefore they lust after them so long as they are pleased with them They never stop at a fixt measure or turn away from a forbidden object so that if we will be ruled by them they will carry us on to any thing that agrees with them whether it be lawful or unlawful and so are sure to insnare us into sin And here indeed God has set a strict restraint upon them and will punish them severely if they go beyond it For Then as I said our lusts are deadly to us and articles of our condemnation when they have damning effects and ensnare us into deadly and damning sins To any good man the bare lusts and desires of evil are not so truly a damning sin as a dangerous temptation they are not in themselves an Article of Death to him but they are apt to carry him on to that which is For that which puts any sin into a capacity to tempt us is our lust or desire of something which is annexed to it and which we hope to obtain by it There is always something that goes along with it which is naturally fitted to please our flesh and to excite a carnal appetite and by this we are tempted and allured into the practice and commission of it For bare sin could never tempt any man nor could any one in his wits ever chuse to disobey for disobedience sake without any thing further because there is no good in transgression nakedly considered which should move any mans will to chuse and embrace it but on the contrary much evil that will disswade and affright him from it For it deprives us of Gods favour and subjects us to his vengeance and fills us with sad hearts and anxious thoughts and terrible expectations But that which wins us over to a liking and approbation of it is the appearance of some pleasure profit honour or other annexed allurement which we expect to reap by it It is one or other of these that overcomes all our fears and inveagles us into the commission of it for they strike in with our natural appetites and raise in us desires after it and those prove the bait which draws us in and the insnaring temptation For herein lies all the force of any temptation The satisfaction of a lust is joyned with the acting of a sin which is an invitation to us for the sake of the one to commit the other also The transgression has something annexed which is agreeable to our fleshly Natures and raises in us desires of it and cravings after it and when it has got this hold of us it draws us as much as we can be drawn by our love of our own lusts and the gratification of our bodily appetites which is indeed a great step to our choice and commission of it and a strong temptation For this is the natural order of our actions either our Consciences or our Passions move and excite us to them and then our Wills chuse and intend them and upon that choice and intention our Vnderstandings contrive and direct and last of all our bodily and executive Powers fulfil and perform them All our bodily actions are at the choice and under the command of our wills and all our choice is upon the appearance of some good or other which either our consciences or our fleshly lusts and appetites propose to us For our wills we must remember are placed in a middle state and are canvased and beset on both sides our lusts being urgent with us to consent to one thing and our consciences to another And this is that strife betwixt the flesh and spirit which is mentioned in the Scriptures and that contention which S t Paul describes in the 7 th Chapter to the Romans between the Law of lust in the members and the Law of God in the mind These two Principles our Body and Spirit or our Lusts and our Consciences are those great Interests that vie and struggle in us and emulously contend which shall obtain the consent and choice of the will of man And whensoever either of them has got that our actions follow in course For our bodily members move at our own choice and therefore if our lusts after the pleasures of sin have once prevailed upon our wills to consent to it they have gained their point and their work is done and we shall go on without more ado to act and commit it In this then lies all the force of a temptation that the sin which we are tempted to has something annexed to it wherein our flesh is delighted and which it lusts after and desires for the sake of that pleasure which it finds in it And when by this means any sin has got our fleshly love and desire it has got a powerful friend in our own bosoms For our lusts are strong and violent and where they set upon a thing they will not easily be denied but are urgent and importunate with our wills to consent to their gratification and yield to the fulfilling of them So that if once any sin has struck in with them it is able to try its strength and contend with the Law of God in the mind being furnished now with a powerful bait and a strong temptation Thus are our lusts and desires of forbidden things not the forbidden sin it self but the temptation to it so that in bare lusting or desiring of them we do not commit the damning sins themselves but are tempted only to their commission And in this S t James is most express for then says he every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lusts and enticed to evil by them Jam. 1.14 And as for meer temptation to a damning sin it is not deadly and damning For our being tempted to sin is not a renouncing of our Lord but an exercise of our service and obedience to him and a
matter of condemnation although before it were uncondemning For then when lust hath conceived by being in some imperfected measure willed and consented to it bringeth forth answerable to its conception which is but an imperfect sort of production an imperfect embryo of sin and this embryo of sin when by a full choice and perfect consent and much more when by action and practice it is finished bringeth forth its proper wages death Jam. 1.14 15. Although these lustings and desires therefore which good men complain of may justly be an imployment of their watchfulness and care yet ought they not to be a cause of their fear or scruple For it shall not bring upon them those evils which they are afraid of nor ever prove their ruine and destruction The evil thing is entertained only in a thought or a wish they lust after it and are tempted by it but that is all for they do not consent to the temptation And since their lusts go no further than thus they shall not harm them when Christ comes to Judgment nor ever bring them into condemnation CHAP. V. Of two other Causes of groundless Scruple to good Souls The CONTENTS A second cause of scruple is their unaffectedness or distraction sometimes in their prayers Attention disturbed often whether we will or no. A particular cause of it in fervent prayers Fervency and affection not depending so much upon the command of our wills as upon the temper of our bodies Fervency is unconstant in them whose temper is fit for it God measures us not by the fixedness of our thoughts or the warmth of our tempers but by the choice of our wills and the obedience of our lives Other qualifications in prayer are sufficient to have our prayers heard when these are wanting Yea those Vertues which make our prayers acceptable are more eminently shown in our obedience so that it would bring down to us the blessings of prayer should it prove in those respects defective A third cause of scruple is the danger of idle or impertinent words mentioned Matth. 12.36 The scruple upon this represented The practical errour of a morose behaviour incurred upon it This discountenanced by the light of Nature and by Christianity The benefits and place of serious Discourse Pleasureable conversation a great Field of Vertue The idle words Matth. 12 not every vain and useless but false slanderous and reproachful words this proved from the place ANother thing which disquiets the hearts of good and honest men and makes them needlesly to call in question the saveableness of their present state and their title to salvation is the coldness and unaffectedness the unsettledness and distractions which they find in themselves when they are at prayers Good people are wont to cry out of desertions to think that God has thrown them off and that his Spirit has forsaken them if at any time they find a great distraction and dulness of Spirit in their devotions and a great abatement of that zeal and fervency that fixedness and attention which they have happily enjoyed at other times But this is a great mistake from mens ignorance of Gods Laws and of their own selves For God has no where told them that he will judge them at the last day by the steadiness and fixedness the tide and fervency of their devotions but by the integrity of their hearts and the uprightness of their obedience The last Sentence shall not pass upon men according to the heat of their affections but according to the goodness of their lives So that if they have been careful to practise all God's Commandments according to their power and opportunities and this of prayer among the rest in such sort as their unavoidable infirmities would suffer them they shall be safe in that Judgment notwithstanding any inequality in their bodily tempers or unconstancy and abatement in their bodily affections To state this business so as that we may neither be unnecessarily scrupulous about these qualifications of our prayers when we cannot nor on the other side irreligiously careless of them when we might enjoy them I shall say something of their necessity when they can be had as well as of that allowance which God will make to them when through any bodily indispositions or unforeseen accidents they cannot If we would put up our prayers to God in such manner as it is fit for us to offer them in or for him to hear them we must make them with a due fixedness and attention of mind and fervency of affection We must offer them up with a due fixedness and attention of mind Our thoughts must go along with our lips and our souls must be intent upon the business which we are about when we are making our prayers to God We must not expect that he should mind those vain words and mere talk which we do not or that he should hear us when we do not hear our selves No it is the work of the Soul and not the bare labour of the lips which he attends to so that if only our Tongues pray but our minds are straying this is as good as no prayer at all We must offer them up also with much earnestness of desire and fervency of affection We must shew that we put a price upon a mercy before we are fit to receive it for otherwise there is no assurance that we shall be duely thankful for it We must not seem cold and indifferent after it for that is a sign that we can almost be as well content without it But we must be eager in our desire and express a fervency of affection after it such as we are wont to use in the pursuit of any thing which we greatly value and this is an inducement for God to give us that which he sees we so dearly love it sets a price upon his blessings and shews the measure of our own vertuous inclinations and therefore he will encourage and reward it The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man says S t James availeth much Jam. 5.16 Thus are a due attention of mind and a fervent heat of desire in devotion such qualifications as are necessary to render our prayers becoming either us to offer or God to hear so that we must always strive and according to our power and present circumstances endeavour after them We must take care as much as we can to compose our thoughts when we pray to draw them off from other things for some time before and still to bring them back again when at any time we find them wandring And we must endeavour also by a due sense of the necessity the greatness and undeservedness of Gods mercies to heighten our affections and make them bend vigorously and eagerly after those things which we pray for that so God seeing we are serious and in earnest with him he may be induced to grant those benefits which we desire of him But then on the other hand if after all our care
noble and excellent reward we are in a safe state and have no need to disquiet our Souls with fears and jealousies lest they should eternally miscarry If any person then has used Gods Grace and improved his Talents to this measure he has not been unprofitable and useless but has profited so far as is necessary to his happiness He is bound indeed still to advance higher and in every instance of Vertue to improve further but this he is not under the loss of Heaven but only under the danger of falling back into such a state of sin as would destroy the hopes of it again and the forfeiture of greater glory and rewards there when an intire obedience in all chosen instances and a particular reformation and repentance of all wilful sins is once secured there is so much growth in grace as is absolotely necessary an exalted pitch and compleat measures of this obedience with more ease and pleasure constancy and evenness with less mixture of voluntary sins which need particular repentance and with a greater freedom from innocent and unwilled infirmities is necessary to more absolute degrees and greater hights of glory but till that can be had this is sufficient to a mans salvation Several other scruples there are which are wont to disquiet and perplex the minds of good and honest people who are safe in Gods account although their Case seems never so hazardous in their own And of this sort are their fears that their obedience is unsincere because they have an eye at their own good and a respect to their own safety since they serve God in hopes to be better by him and out of a fear should they disobey of suffering evil from him They are afraid also that it is defective in a main Point for they cannot love and serve him in that comprehensive latitude which the Commandment requires viz. With all their heart and with all their soul and with all their mind They doubt they are past Grace and Pardon because they have sinned after that they have been enlightned and that wilfully and the Apostles affirms that for such there remains no more Sacrifice for sins Heb. 10.26 These doubts are still apt to disturb their peace and make sad their hearts and some others of like nature But of these and several others I have given sufficient Accounts above such as I hope may satisfie any reasonable man who is capable to read and to consider of them and thither I refer the Reader not thinking fit here to repeat them And thus at last we have seen when an honest and entire obedience is taken care for in the first place how plainly groundless those fears are which are wont to perplex the thoughts of good and safe yet ignorant and misguided people about their state of happiness and salvation And now I have done with all those points which I thought necessary to be enquired into to the end that I might shew every man now before-hand how he stands prepared for the next world and which at the beginning of this whole Discourse I proposed to treat of I have shown what that condition is of bliss or misery which the Gospel indispensably exacts of us and that as I take it so particularly that no man who will be at the pains to read and consider of it can overlook or mistake it what those defects are which it bears and dispenseth with what those remedies and means of reconciliation are which it has provided for us and when all these are taken care for how groundless all those other scruples are which are wont to disquiet honest minds about the goodness of their present state and their title to eternal salvation And upon the whole matter the sum of all amounts to this that when Christ shall come to sit in judgment at the last day and to pass sentence of life or death upon every man according to the direction of his Gospel he will pronounce upon every man according to his works If he has honestly and entirely obey'd the whole will of God in all the particular Laws before-mention'd never willfully and deliberately offending in any one instance nor indulging himself in the practice of any thing which he knows to be a sin he is safe in the Accounts of the last Judgment and shall never come into Condemnation Nay if he has been a damnable offender and has willfully transgressed either in one instance or in many in frequent repetitions of his sin or in few yet if he repent of it before death seize him and amend it ere he is haled away to Judgment he is safe still For he shall be judged according as his works then are when God comes to enquire of them so that if ever he be found in an honest obedience observing everything which he sees to be his duty and willfully venturing upon nothing which his Conscience tells him is sinful he is found in the state of Grace and Pardon and if he die in it he shall be saved All his unwill'd ignorances and innocent unadvisednesses upon his Prayers for pardon and his mercifulness and forgiveness of other men shall be abated all his other causes of fear and scruple shall be overlooked they shall not be brought against him to his Condemnation but in the honest and entire obedience which he hath performed in that shall he live If then we have an honest heart and walk so as our own Conscience has nothing whereof to accuse us we may meet Death with a good Courage and go out of the World with comfortable Expectations For if we have an honest and a tender heart whensoever we sin willfully and against our Consciences our own Souls will be our Remembrancers They will be a witness against us both whilst we are in this World and after we are taken out of it and brought to Judgment Mens Consciences says the Apostle shall accuse or excuse them in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men according to my Gospel Rom. 2.15 Indeed if men have harden'd their hearts in wickedness and sin'd themselves out of the belief of their duty having come to call evil good and good evil then their Consciences having no further sense of sin will have no accusations upon it But if they really believe the Gospel and study to know their duty and desire to observe it and are afraid to offend in any thing which they see is sinful whilst thus their heart is soft and their Conscience tender they cannot venture upon any sin with open Eyes but that their own hearts will both check them before and smite them afterwards They will have a witness against them in their own bosoms which will scourge and awake them so that they cannot approach death without a sense of their sin nor go out of the World without discerning themselves to be guilty If our own Conscience then cannot accuse us of the wilful and presumptuous breach of any of Gods Commandments and we know
tryal whether or no we will renounce him It is the great proof and argument how dearly we love him and how closely and faithfully our wills adhere to him It shews how obedience is uppermost in our hearts and that we will rather deny our dearest lusts and importunate desires than venture for their sakes to offend him So that to be tempted is no instance of damning disobedience but a plain proof how much we will lose and suffer rather than we will disobey It is a tryal of us how we prefer God and our Duty before other things even those that are most dear to us of all things in the world besides We do not sin damnably then in being tempted so long as we consent not to it but manfully resist and overcome the temptation And this is evident from hence because those very men who have lived most free from sin have not for all that lived free from temptation Even Adam himself before he knew what sin was and during his state of Innocence was liable to be tempted For the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil whereof God had forbidden him to eat was alluring to his eyes and an incentive to his lust as well as any other Tree of the Garden And because it was so the Woman was won to eat of it through the strength of such desire after it notwithstanding God had commanded her to abstain from it The woman saw that the Tree was good for food and pleasant to the eye and she took of the fruit thereof and did eat and by the same inducement she drew in her Husband and gave it unto him and he did eat also Gen. 3.6 And the second Adam who was most entirely innocent and guilty of no sort of sin was yet liable to temptation like as we are being in all points tempted like as we are yet without sin Heb. 4.15 Nay says the Apostle it was necessary that he should be so that by what he felt in himself he might the better know how to shew mercy and have compassion upon us In all things says he it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren that he might be a merciful as well as a faithful High Priest for in that he himself hath suffer'd being tempted he is able to succour them that are tempted Heb. 2.17 18. As for our being tempted then or invited to any sin by our bare lusts and inclinations after it in it self and before it has got any further it is no deadly sin or damnable transgression It is the scene of good endeavour the tryal of obedience a test of our great love and preference of God and his Law before all the world besides yea even before our own dearest lusts and our own selves It is nothing more than befel Adam before he had sinned or than befel Christ who never knew sin and therefore in it self bare lust and desire or being tempted and invited to sin cannot be damnably sinful As for our Lusts or Temptations 't is true they differ in degrees according as our desires of that evil which we are tempted to are indulged and have advanced more or less For sometimes a lust may stir but as soon as ever it is observed it is again extinguished The pleasure of the sin whether by being seen or fansied raises in us a sudden thought or desire after it but the lust is expelled as soon as it is discovered it is not suffered to remain and dwell in us but is presently thrown out with indignation For we turn away our fancy from the evil thing and will not endure to think upon it or to continue craving and lusting after it And this is a power over our own desires and a way of breaking the strength of temptation which is incident only to grown men and to perfect Christians and that not in all instances of temptation but only in such as are not extraordinary in themselves and which have been often vanquished and triumphed over It is in such cases where use has made the conquest easie and long custom of ceasing and turning away from the inveigling desire has taken off all the difficulty so that now we are able to silence and subdue the lust as soon as we discern it And as for these feeble desires and impotent temptations there is no question but that a good Christian may be under them and yet be in no danger of being condemned for them But then at other times our lusts live longer and advance higher they grow up to good degrees till they are able to contend and strive against our mind and conscience so that even when at last they are denied and our wills chuse to do what God commands in spite of them yet is it after much struggling and opposition The flesh lusteth against the spirit as well as the spirit lusteth against the flesh and although at last the fleshly lusts are overpower'd and cannot prevail with our wills to chuse on their side yet do they strive hard and contend for it And here a lust is not presently subdued as soon as it is discerned but it strives and struggles it can make head against the Law in the mind although it cannot overcome it it has some interest in the will although it have not an interest sufficient for the will hearkens to it for some time and considers of what it offers notwithstanding at last it reject its suit and through the sollicitations of a more powerful Favourite resolves against it And this power our lusts have in us whilst we are young Converts and of a more imperfect goodness nay in some very great temptations indeed such as are the fear of death and bodily torments especially they will struggle thus in those who are the most perfect Christians of all But now when our lusts are in this dâ—gree so as to stay upon our Souls for some time and to strive against our spirits for the consent of our wills before they are â—inally denied it yet if they go no further than bare lust and our wills do not after all their struggling consent to them or chuse the evil thing which is craved by them they are still uncondemning and incident to an Heir of Salvation And this as I take it is clear from what S t Paul himself says of the truly regenerate or of those who in his words walk in the spirit For in them he says plainly that the flesh lusteth against the spirit albeit it is not able to prevail over it so that even in doing what the spirit commands them they do against the contrary will and lusting of the flesh which gainsays it The flesh lusteth against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh so that even in fulfilling the will of the spirit you contradict another will of your lusts and cannot do or do not the things that you would Gal. 5.16 17. Nay even Christ himself who knew no sin nor ever committed any thing which
could in strict justice be worthy of death was yet subject to such a conflict of flesh and spirit as this now mentioned His very Death and Passion which was the very consummation and highest part of his obedience was not without great struggling of his flesh and a long and earnest conflict of his bodily desires against it For he was in a strange fear and discomposure about it he began says S t Mark to be sore amazed Mark 14.34 And when he had recovered himself a little from the maze of that sudden fright he prays against it O my Father if it he possible let this cup pass from me Mat. 26.39 And when his request was not granted at first he makes a fresh address wherein he is more importunate being in his Agony says S t Luke he prayed more earnestly Luk. 22.44 his supplications he offered up with strong crying and tears Hebr. 5.7 All this strife and opposition did the desire of life and the bodily appetite after ease and safety together with the sense of God's wrath and high displeasure raise in him against this obedience of his sufferings But because all this was only lust and desire which although it lasted some time and discomposed him much was not yet able to gain any thing of his will and consent to it therefore notwithstanding it was he perfectly innocent All that can be said is That he was tempted by the desires of his Flesh against this great and last instance of obedience but he did not yield or consent to the temptation Thus then as for the lusts and desires of our Flesh whether they be suddenly rejected and make no resistance or are longer liv'd and contend much if they have got no consent of our wills to the fulfilling of them nor any choice of the evil which is craved by them they are only a temptation to a damning sin but in themselves thus far they are not damning As for these motions and lustings after evil things then that are unconsented to and unfulfilled which are the complaint and fear of good men they shall not harm them or be charged upon them to their condemnation But when God comes to judgment he will pardon and pass them by and not eternally punish and avenge for them And having shewn thus for what lusts and desires of evil we shall at the last day be pardoned I come now 2. To shew for which of them we shall be condemned And as for this we have in great part our answer to it already For our lusts are then damnable and dangerously evil when they are effectual instruments and temptations to damning evils and carry us on either to chuse or practise them For they are the great Favourites and Seducers of our wills and thereby the Authors of our actions they first bring us to chuse and consent to the deadly sin whereby they are gratified and then to act it and when they are gone on to either of these they are an Article of our condemnation They are uncondemning till they come so far but if once they have got us to consent to the alluring sin from that consent begins their sting and both it and all that follows it make us liable to eternal destruction To make this Discourse more clear I will here set down those several steps whereby we ascend to the completion and are carried on to the working and commission of any sin 1. At the representation of the object which is to tempt us to it whether it be an unchast embrace an unlawful gain or the like either by what we feel of it now if it be before our senses or by what we fansie if it is in our imagination our flesh is pleased and delighted with it And from this pleasure it naturally goes on to love and from loving to desire it And desire or lust is the last step among the passions for delight begets love and love ends in desire but when once we are come to desire a thing our passions have done their part and all that in them lyes towards the action 2. When in the appetite or animal soul the sin has gone thus far the next step is that to gratifie this desire or lust of our Flesh our wills should consent to it For our wills are the Disposers of all that follows so that unless they consent to get that which the Flesh so much desires there can nothing more be done towards it But if they do consent to the desire and intend to fulfil it then 3. Our understanding and contrivance is employed in deliberating and consulting what time what place what means are fittest to accomplish it with the least difficulty and the most delight and to the greatest advantage And when our minds have seen which to prefer and fix upon then 4. Our wills resolve upon them and make choice of them And when this is done the last Decree is past and all the time of doubting and deliberation is over so that nothing more remains but 5. To apply our bodily powers to perform our resolutions in the execution and commission of that which was resolved upon This is the natural order of our faculties and the process that is observed by our principles of action in their completion and final commission of any sin The first beginning is in the lower soul for that is the inlet of all sin and the seat of temptation and there it is that sin hath all its strength and insnaring power upon which account it is called by S t Paul a Law in the Members Rom. 7.23 And when these lusts of our Flesh have won the consent of our wills they are secure of all our after-contrivances for it and of our actual performance and execution of it For both our thoughts and our bodily powers are at the Command of our own wills so that if at the instigation of our lusts our wills have once consented to the sin they will quickly set our heads awork to contrive for it and our hands and other bodily powers to execute and fulfil it And in this method our Principles of action move when we act with full deliberation and when they are all employed Sometimes indeed there is no contrivance at all because none is needful as it happens when the opportunity of the sin is present with us and just before us at such time as we consent to it so that nothing more is wanting but only to act and fulfil it But when the opportunity is absent and we are put to forecast and contrive for it then is the process of our faculties in that very order which I have here described For an instance and illustration of this we will take the sin of drunkenness and the process will appear to be in that order which I have mentioned For in a man whose inclination that way disposes him to be tempted by it the fancy of it in himself or the having it suggested by another gives him a thought