they are still truly distinguishable in themselves as to their formal notions vocation being one thing and justification another and also in the order in which they are given out to sinners For first they are effectually called then justified then adopted and last of all glorified Betwixt the three former there is at least a priority of nature as the Sun we say is before its light and the fire before its heat But betwixt them and glorification there is a priority of time Thus Enoch we know walked some years with God in a justified state before he was translated And Paul fought long after he was called before he received his Crown This is the unvariable order that God hath fixed wherein to dispense the great blessings of the Covenant to such who are the objects of his elective love He justifies none but the called and adopts none but the justified and glorifies none but the adopted Rom. 8. In the next place the order in which the priviledges of the Covenant are dispensed being stated we must consider in what order the several conditions of the Covenant since â—ot to all alike nor at the same time to all are to be applied for our being actually inâ—eressed in them And first in order to our â—ffectual calling no more is required of us â—han an humble and diligent attendance upon all such means as God hath appointed for that end Our waiting by the pool for the Angels moving upon the waters Isa 55.6 Prov. 2.4 5. Heb. 2.1 Luke 11.9 10 11 12 13. Joh. 5.25 Act. 10.33 Acts 13.44 48. Our actual faith and repentance and holiness cannot here be supposed as a prerequisite to our effectual calling only our attendance upon the means since these are the very things to which we are called Act. 26.18 Rom 10.14 Rom. 1.7 Gal. 1.6 And he that is called to believe and be holy is upon that very account supposed before to be both unbelieving and unholy But then in order to our being justified and adopted there both faith and repentance as hath already been proved are antecedently necessary Or which is all one our humble and penitential acceptance or receiving of Jesus Christ in all his offices as Prophet Priest and King and consequent upon this our reliance upon him for pardon and Salvation Gal. 2.16 Joh. 1.12 and lastly in order to our being actually glorified and made eternally happy in the immediate fruition of God 't is further requisite that we be not only penitent and believing but also actually holy and obedient as hath been said Math. 5.20 Rev. 22.14 First God in the use of means calls sinners to repent and believe and then upon their repenting and believing in answer to his call he justifies and adopts them And then upon their being further purified in obeying the truth as 't is exprest 1 Pet. 1.22 and so made meet to be partakers with the Saints in the inheritance of light they are as the consummation of all their happiness eternally glorified So that you see our repenting and believing necessarily presupposeth our effectual calling and our justification and adoption our repenting and believing and our glorification not only our being justified and adopted but also our being personally holy and conformable to Jesus Christ When therefore 't is said that obedience as well as faith and repentance is a necessary condition in the Covenant of Grace if we understand it as we ought according to the order before explained the great doctrine of justification by faith in Christ which the Apostle so much contends for with the Jews especially in his Epistle to the Romans and Galatians this doctrine I say is hereby secured and preserved inviolable since our obedience is made a condition only with reference to eternal life and not to our justification being in order not â—ntecedent to but consequent upon that We are still justified by faith in Christ without works as the Apostle speaks but yet not saâ—ed by faith alone without works There is more required to make a Soul fit for Heaven than meerly the pardoning of his sins and justifying of his person But is it not often affirmed in Scripture that we are saved as well as justified by faith Joh. 3.16 Eph. 2.8 Mar. 16.16 It 's true and so also we are said to be saved by hope Rom. 8.24 And by calling upon the name of the Lord Rom. 10.13 And to be blessed and have a right to the tree of life by keeping of the commands of Christ Rev. 22.14 If then the argument will hold good that we are saved by faith alone without holiness and obedience because 't is said he that believeth shall be saved we might also by the same rule argue that we are saved by hope without faith or by calling upon God without hope or by our obedience without all the rest since Salvation and blessedness is ascribed to each of these to hoping and calling upon the Lord and obeying as well as believing All therefore that can justly be inferred from hence is only this that faith as well as hope and obedience is necessary to our Salvation And because there is an inseperable connexion betwixt them and a joint subserviency of both to the same end therefore it is that eternal life is sometimes ascribed to one sometimes to the other Sometimes 't is said blessed are they that believe Joh. 20.29 Sometimes blessed are the pure in heart Matth. 5.8 Sometimes blessed is he that feareth the Lord Psal 112.1 Sometimes again blessed are they that keep his testimonies and are undefiled in the way Psal 119.1 2. All which 't is evident must be taken inclusive of each other faith of fear and fear of purity and all as joined with actual obedience That is he that believes and acts sutably to his faith in purifying his heart and keeping the commands of Christ he shall be saved And so again on the other hand he that obeys supposing also that he repents and believes in Jesus Christ he shall be blessed But we cannot possibly without making Scripture to contradict it self appropriate happiness to any one of these conditions not to faith any more than to obedience either by way of opposition to or separation from the rest The plain English of that would be this that a disobedient faith or an unbelieving obedience might be sufficient to qualify us for eternal life Even in justification it self though our actual obedience be not there required yet 't is vertually included in the very nature of that faith by which we are justified But as to our being eternally glorified there our actual obedience together with faith and repentance are alike necessary to give us a perfect and compleat right to it faith and repentance alone as to this are not sufficient A compleat right I say for there is I grant a certain right to life that doth immediately result from faith it self But then we must here distinguish of a double right There is first a primary and
repent and believe and be holy And that in order to our being happy And hath he not finally excluded from life and happiness all such that are impenitent unbelieving and impure Can there be any doubt concerning this to him that reads the Gospel and believes it to be of Divine authority And is he not do you think serious in all this What shall the unchangeable God that cannot lie be deemed like degenerate Man to speak one thing and mean another Or is he serious only in his promises and not so also in his commands and threatnings Why Are not both equally founded upon the same immutable nature and veracity of God And if you can perswade your selves to hope that God will revoke his threatnings and commands Why should you not also doubt whether he will make good his promises We have no other foundation whereon to build our faith and hopes but the declared will of God and if that be changeable our faith 's no better than opinion and our hopes presumption We can then neither be sure that the wicked shall be turned into Hell nor yet that the righteous shall be saved If this then be the fixed and unchangeable order and method of Salvation by the Covenant of Grace that either we must repent or perish return or die believe or be damned be holy or not see God be obedient or suffer the vengeance of eternal fire as hath been shewn how can we hope to be saved otherways than in repenting and turning and believing and obeying of the Gospel Otherways than in the actual performance of these duties 2. Have we not more than once by our own voluntary act solemnly engaged our selves to the actual performance of all these conditions When we were baptized when we after this approached to the Lords Table when we have at any time professedly humbled our Souls before the Lord in any solemn ordinance yea when we first entertained the tenders of Grace and Salvation did we not then promise and engage to amend our evil wayes and doings and turn to God and believe in Jesus Christ and receive him in all his offices and keep his Commands and walk in all holiness and obedience well pleasing in his sight Now either we were serious and in good earnest or not when we thus engaged If serious 't is morally impossible that we should indulge our selves in the wilfull neglect of these duties since an intentional and approved violation of our promise is inconsistent with sincerity And therefore the conscience of our own obligation will necessarily put us upon all possible endeavours to act conformable to our own engagements And since the thing to which we obliged our selves was not meerly the profession and acknowledgment but actual performance of these duties we shall accordingly study to perform them But if we say we were not serious in these solemn engagements we then plainly confess that our design therein was only to play the Hypocrites with God and to impose upon his omnisciency But is it possible that any reasonable creature should ever become so prodigious a Monster Or that ever it should enter into the heart of Man to imagine that the all wise and holy God He that requires truth in the inward parts Psal 51.6 He that hath curst the deceiver Mal. 1.14 He that hath denounced so many woes against the Hypocrite Matth. 23. and hath sentenced them to the lowest place in Hell Matth. 24.51 That he I say should bind himself by Covenant to such Miscreants to pardon them and bless them and admit them to the best and choisest priviledges of his Kingdom What such as design to mock God and play the Hypocrite with him and to be treacherous and unfaithful to him Be not deceived saith the Apostle God is not mocked Gal. 6.7 Besides if our stipulating with God in the Covenant or as the Prophet expresseth it our subscribing with the hand to the Lord be necessary as hath been demonstrated in order to our recâ—iving the blessings of it then our actual performance of what we stipulated and subscribed to must needs be much more necessary since our solemn engagement to the Covenant is râ—quired not meerly for it self but only as a means to this end that is to bind us to a more punctual performance of the conditions of it 3. How else shall we distinguish betwixt the righteous and the wicked the Heirs of Glory and the Sons of perdition They may all be baptized They may all subscribe with the hand to the Lord. They may all eat and drink at his table They may all be professors in Religion and make a fair shew in the flesh as the Apostle speaks Gal. 6.12 These things are common to both and therefore can be no mark of distinction betwixt them No but herein lies the difference The one break off their sins by repentance and turn to God the other not The one come to the foot of Christ take his yoak and bear his burden and sincerely believe in him the others not The one keep his Commandments and obey from the heart his Laws and Doctrine the others not The one love the Lord with all their Souls and thoughts and strength the others have not the same love of the Father in them but love the world and the things of the world as John speaks 1 John 2.15 In a word the one perform the Oath of the Lord and act conformably to their Covenant engagements but the other they draw back and are unfaithful Like the Pharisees they say and do not But the others they say and do And thus they are mutually described and distinguished by the Apostle 1 Joh. 3 7 10. Little children let no man deceive you he that doeth righteousness is righteous even as he is righteous ver 7. But whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God ver 10. And herein he tells us the Children of God are manifest and the Children of the Devil Herein they are differenced and hereby they manifestly may be distinguished And the same Character and mark of distinction we have from Jesus Christ himself Job 8.31 15.8 But if the actual performance of these conditions be not unchangeably necessary all distinction betwixt good and bad Holy and Prophane is taken away and we cannot say of any â—owever visibly different in their lives and conversations this Man is wicked or that Man is righteous since one is not this in observing nor the other that in neglecting the observance of them if not neceâ—sary to be observed and so we have no Standard left whereby to judge of either The obedient and disobedient are alike if obedience and disobedience be the same For whatever elective love God may have for any particular person more than for others amongst the degenerate Sons of Men yet since that is only an immanent act in God and that which had an existence from all eternity before we had any thing and wholly lies hid in the secret counsel of Gods
made the like plea Matth. 7.23 Depart from me ye workers of iniquity I know you not But lastly to sum up all One of these three things must here be affirmed Either that God will dispense with his Laws and stated order of saving sinners and save them in some other way than what he hath declared or else that these duties and conditions are discharged and performed by some other person as surety for us and in our behalf or else that they are actually to be performed by us in our own persons But first what reason have we to imagine that God will change his laws and alter â—he fixed methods of his Grace and rescind his Covenant which is the contrivance of his infinite wisdom and goodness founded in the blood of his own Son and confirmed by his death and that every way so well secures the honour of God and the allegeance and comfort of the creature What Do you think he will thus offer violence to himâ—elf his wisdom are holiness which he so much delights to honour Or that he will contradict the great design of his Sons undertaking which was to reduce the creature to his duty and obedience to God Or that he will affront his own truth and faithfulness and impeach himself guilty of a lie What The holy and wise God do thus and only for this end that he may gratifie sinners in their wilfull neglects of him and of the duties they indispensably owe to him And open a door to licentiousness and all sorts of abominations which his Soul hates And all this to save the impenitent and unbelieving and impure and disobedient for all Men are so that do not actually repent and believe and obey and make them Coheirs with Christ and set them upon his throne and put Crowns of Glory upon their heads What those that are his enemies whom he hates and hath sworn in his holiness that they shall never enter into his rest or see his face or taste of his joyes but be thrown into outer darkness and suffer the vengeance of eternal fire and be tormented day and night and everlastingly drink of the wine of his wrath poured out without mixture and lie for ever in an Hell of misery weeping and wailing and blaspheming because of their plagues and tormâ—nts where his eye shall not pity nor spare nor have mercy on them What Can any Man that hath not wholly lost his reason perswade himself to believe thus or to hope for Salvation in this way Or if you suppose it possible for any thus to believe will his fâ—ith this faith do you think save thâ—m For whom then is Tophet prepared Or for whâ—m is the blackness of darkness reserved if none be vessels of wrath and Sons of perditions And none are such if not the impenitent unbelieving disobedient and impure If these expect Salvation from God they must then shew us another Gospel another Covenant for by this I am sure 't is impossible that any should be saved that doth not personally perform the conditions of it Nor have we secondly any greater reason to believe or hope that these conditions should be discharged for us by any other person in our stead and behalf For are not the commands that require duty expresly spoke to us Ye shall repent and turn to God ye shall believe in Jeâ—us Christ ye shall be pure in heart and holy in all manner of conversation and ye shâ—ll love God and keep his Commandments c. And are not the promises of pardon and life c. particularly made to us and to our personal performance of the conditions upon which they are made as hath been shewn And are not the comminations of death and wrath and eternal torments denounced against us in case of personal disobedience He that believeth not shall be damned Mark 16.16 He that loveth not the Lord Jesus Christ let him be an anathema maran-atha 1 Cor. 16.22 And except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish Luke 13.3 Now what foundation is here to imagine that these can concern any one but our selves Or if any of them be acknowledged to be appropriate to our selves why not the rest If the promises why not the commands and threatnings since we are alike spoke to in all Why should we charge these upon another and take the promises only to our selves May we not with as good reason say that another may be saved for us or damned for us as that he shall repent and believe for us And so Heaven should be ours only by a proxie and Justification ours by a subtitute c. That is in plain English 't is not we that are justified nor we that are adopted nor we that are admitted into eternal Glory but some one else for us But who is this that we suppose should perform these Conditions for us Jesus Christ our Mediator 'T is true he hath fully satisfied the demands of the first Covenant and taken Believers off from all obligation of duty to it And he hath also by his Mediation obtained another and better Covenant founded in his own blood and attended with better promises wherein pardon and eternal life are again offered and assured to sinners upon the equitable and honourable terms of repentance and faith and sincere though not perfâ—ct obedience Yea but yet we must not say that Jesus Christ repents and Jesus Christ believes for us c. No this must still be our own Act and 't is impossible it should be the act of Christ For consider but what is the proper object of these duties The object of repentance is sin and the object of faith and obedience is Jesus Christ we are to believe in him and to be obedient to him Heb. 5.9 and be conformable to him Rom. 8.29 and to keep his commands Joh. 15.10 and to walk after his example 1 Pet. 2.21 But can these any way be applied to Jesus Christ What shall we say that Christ believes in Christ Or that Christ is obedient to Christ Or that Christ is conformable to Christ Or that Christ walks in the steps of Christ What sence shall we then make of Scripture Or if any shall be so forsaken of their reason as to cant thus yet will any one say that Jesus Christ repents of Sin Or breaks off his sins by repentance and amends his evil wayes and doings as we are commanded If then it be not possible that either God should violate his own Covenant and contradict himself or that Jesus Christ should perform the conditions of it for us it necessarily follows that we our selves are personally obliged to the actual performance of them in order to our obtaining eternal life That is as I have often said we our selves are the persons that stand bound â—â—ch Man for himself to repent and believe and obey and be holy or else Salvation it self cannot save us PROPOS XII Of the consistence of a conditional Covenant with the sufficiency of Christs righteousness
and the doctrine of free Grace THis method of Gods saving sinners by way of Covenant as is before explained is very well consistent with and no way derogatory to either the sufficiency of Christs satisfaction and righteousness or to the doctrine of free Grace in Christ I add this because 't is the common fortress to which Men of more loose and debauched lives and principles in Religion are wont to retire when by the evidence of Scripture and reason they are driven from all their other holds Tell them that they must repent and turn to God and amend their evil wayes and doings and bring forth fruits meet for repentance Tell them that they must come to Christ and believe in him and take his yoak and bear his burden and deny themselves and be obedient to his Laws and love him in sincerity Tell them that they must mortifie the deeds of the flesh and deny all ungodliness and worldly lusts and live godly and righteously and soberly in this present world and be pure in heart and holy in all manner of conversation as he that hath called them is holy Tell them that there is an indispensable necessity of all this or else their sins cannot be pardoned or their persons accepted or their Souls saved in the day of the Lord Jesus And give them undeniable reason and plain and express Scripture for the proof of all these commands and promises and threatnings all speaking the same language And what is their answer to all this Why The righteousness of Christ is sufficient and the Grace of God in Christ is free and therefore they hope in his mercy and doubt not of their Salvation though they still indulge themselves in sin and continue in a manifest neglect of God and the great duties of Christianity And all that is said to the contrary that might take them off from sin and vanity and perswade them to any greater diligence and exactness in Religion that is immediately condemned and decried for legal doctrine that disthrones Christ and takes the Crown from his head and destroyes the free Grace of God and tends to bring us again in bondage to the Law And that which makes it the more difficult to take Men off from these mistaken notions they have entertained concerning the righteousness of Christ and free Grace is this that they are the only foundation and hold that these Men have for their hopes of pardon and Salvation So that if you beat them off from these you take away all their hopes and confidence yea their Heaven and happiness from them They have nothing then left whereby to stop the mouths of their own awakened consciences or warrant their expectations of Heaven or to keep their Souls from sinking immediately into despair Their hearts they condemn them for their daily neglect of duty and indulgencies to the flesh and disobedience to the Gospel and alas they have nothing within or from the word to witness for them No broken and contrite spirit no mournings in secret for their sins no acts of self-denyal no change of heart or life no spirit of faith or fear or love or adoption to intitle them to the promise and blessings of the Covenant No neither Sun nor Star appears that might encourage them in their way but as it was with Paul in his voyage to Rome all hopes that they should be saved is taken away and therefore 't is that they do with so much constancy and resolution adhere to and contend for these mistaken notions as their only refuge security And thus though they are not able to conquer or encounter those thundering Legions that are brought against them yet whilest they have this strong hold and fortress to retire to they are little moved by the terrors of the Lord but still apprehend themselves safe and well secured against all that thunder and lightning that is from Heaven poured out against them All is but like the shooting of pointed Arrows against the walls of a Castle which are presently beat back again without making any great impression upon the walls And therefore there is little hopes of ever prevaling with these Men to surrender themselves to the powers either of Scripture or reason though on every hand besieged by them unless this Fortress of theirs be demolished and its Towers broken down and consequently their refuge and defence taken away That is in more plain English unless it be discovered that their notions about the sufficiency of Christ's righteousness and the doctrine of Free Grace are false and vain and that neither the conditionality of the New Covenant nor the necessity of our personal performance of the conditions of it in order to eternal life are any way inconsistent with or prejudicial unto either Grace notwithstanding is still free And the satisfaction and righteousness of Jesus Christ is nevertheless sâ—fficient These are the two things that I am now particularly to speak to and to demonstrate The sufficiency of Christs satisfaction and â—ighteousness is no way either contradicted or prejudiced by asserting the Covenant of Grace to be made not with Jesus Christ but with â—elievers themselves upon certain terms and conditions to the actual performance of which they are personally obliged in order to their receiving and enjoying the benefits â—f it That Jesus Christ hath fully satisfied the demands of the first Covenant and fulâ—â—lled all righteousness and finished his work â—s Mediator and perfected our Redemption â—y his death and suffering And that his saâ—â—sfaction and merit is of infinite value and â—â—erefore abundantly sufficient for the ends â—r which it was intended hath been acâ—nowledged and proved in the foregoing â—â—opositions Propos. 2. and 4. And thereâ—ore I shall need to say nothing here for the â—â—claring my assent to or for the vindicatiâ—â— of these particulars That which I have â—ow to do is only to shew in what sense â—â—operly it may be said to be sufficient and 〈◊〉 remove those mistaken apprehensions that â—â—e concerning it For which purpose it is 〈◊〉 the first place to be observed that by sufâ—iciency here we are not to understand the â—â—â—rinsick worth and value of Christs saâ—â—â—faction and righteousness upon which account it may not untruly be said if rightly construed that 't is sufficient for the Salvatioâ— of many worlds And in this very particular mainly lies the mistake The satisfaction oâ— Christ say they is infinite and his righteousness infinite therefore sufficient for the redemption of this and many worlds if they had been made which as to its absolute valuâ— and dignity is acknowledged But whatâ— then Why Therefore they hope and believe that they shall be saved by it And 〈◊〉 they build their faith and hopes immediately upon the absolute worth and merit 〈◊〉 Christs satisfaction But will this foundatioâ— stand or this argument hold good wheâ— it comes to tryal In this sense 't is sufficienâ— to save the Infidels Jews and Turks Tâ— save the spirits now in