and poor that we cannot give any thing else but honour to him As on the other side to do evil to him is only to dishonour him For he is out of our power as for any other injury and there is no way possible left for us to reach him but only by our contumelious usage and disrespect of him To do no evil I say but to be kind and serviceable to God is nothing more but to honour him It implies our having in our minds honourable opinions of him and expressing in our carriage and behaviour a respect and acknowledgment of those glorious Attributes and Perfections which are in him The former viz. the high opinion of his Excellencies those particularly which are instances of Power and Goodness in our minds is called Honour The latter viz. the expressions of this honourable opinion and acknowledgment in our thoughts words or actions is called worship And this worship is an acknowledgment either 1. Of his Truth and Knowledge in believing his Word and taking things upon his Authority seeing he neither can be deceived himself nor will deceive us which is Faith 2. Of his Power and Goodness 1. In our good-will or kind affection for him as a most beneficial and lovely Being which is called LOVE And this as it effects a warm concernedness for his honour chiefly when any thing opposes it is zeal 2. In relying on him for the supply of our wants as one that is most able and ready to relieve them which is trust and dependance A particular effecâ— whereof is a hopeful making known our desires to him in begging such good things at his hands as we stand in need of which is Prayer 3. Of his bounty and beneficence in a grateful sense and affectionate owning that all the good things which we receive proceed from him which is thankfulness 4. Of his Power and Justice in an awful backwardness to offend him in regard he will not excuse and can most severely punish all Offenders which is fear 5. Of his Wisdom and Rule or Authority 1. In acquiescing in his Disposals as being most wise and most authentick which is submission or resignedness 2. In performing his Commands as requiring things most fit for us and most due from us which is obedience These are those particular effects which flow from our love of God and which make up that part of Duty which he requires from us towards himself And opposite to this love of God and these effects and expressions of it which are made our Duty and particularly commanded under this Head are our hatred and ill-will at him with all the particular ways of expressing it which are the contrary instances of sin and those very Vices that are forbidden Now God as I said being out of our reach as to any possible way of being injured by us or suffering evil from us otherwise than by our vilifying him and lessening of his honour the prime effect of our hatred of him can be no other than our dishonouring him And this may be instanced 1. In denying either his Being or Existence that he is God which is Atheism or his Cognizance and Government of the World which is Epicurism or denying Providence 2. In thinking or speaking reproachfully of him which is blasphemy And this when it is such a disfiguration of his Being or Nature as makes him an arbitrary foolish and odious God is superstition 3. In having other Gods besides him or worshipping him alone by false and lying Similitudes and limiting Resemblances as are all material Images not in true and spiritual manner as he is a God which is Idolatry And for the former sort of Idolatry viz. worshipping other Gods besides him if it be a worshipping of wicked Spirits and that by contracting with them it is witchcraft or sorcery 4. In acting cross to all his honourable Attributes and Perfections and behaving our selves in such disrespectful sort as instead of honouring and acknowledging doth disown and reproach them And these Actings are either 1. Inwardly in our minds when by some work of theirs we deny or reproach either 1. His Truth and Knowledge by giving no heed nor taking any notice of what he says but continuing ignorant of his word and pleasure which the Apostle calls foolishness An effect whereof is acting against it rashly and inconsiderately which is headiness Or when we do know it by giving no credit or assent to it but doubting or distrusting it which is unbelief 2. His Power and Goodness 1. By our ill-will and wishes to him when we grieve at any thing that makes for him and take delight in such things as we our selves or others can devise either against himself or against Vertue and Goodness which as bearing his own Image he ownes above all things and is most tender of and this is called hating of God Which as 't is shown in an unconcernedness at such things as dishonour and affront him or his Religion is coldness or want of zeal 2. By our distrust of him and his Providence when we dare not rely upon him for a supply of those things which we stand in need of as if he were either careless and mattered not what becomes of us or envious and grudged to have any of those good things which we want to befal us which is distrust One effect whereof is our omitting to seek unto him as expecting nothing from him which is not praying to him 3. His bounty and beneficence by an utter disregard of what he doth for us when we either wholly overlook or after some small time forget it and are not touched with any grateful sense or affectionate resentments upon it which is unthankfulness 4. His Power and Justice by a bold venturing upon any thing that offends him as if we neither valued his favour nor displeasure which is fearlessness 2. Outwardly In our lives and practice when by something in them we reproach and vilifie either 1. His Wisdom and Authority 1. In disputing and striving against his Disposals when we quarrel at them as unwisely ordered and would correct and better them our selves which is contumacy or repining 2. In breaking his Commands when we reject his pleasure and prefer our own which is disobedience 2. His Name when we use it irreverently by invoking or calling upon him to judge us according to our faithfulness in what we speak either customarily and lightly upon trivial or no occasions which is common swearing Or falsly when we either at present mean or afterwards perform no such thing as we promised or affirmed before him which is perjury 3. His Word or Ministers or other things consecrated to him when we treat and use them as vile and common things in a careless unmannerly way or as it often happens in mirth and mockery which is prophaneness And these are such expressions and effects of our hatred of God as make up the Body of impiety or transgressions immediately against God himself all which
of both is Whoredome or bare Fornication and this when the Parties are too nearly allied is called Incest 2. By forcing of one and then 't is Rape or ravishing Which Vice S t Paul expresses by that word which we translate Extortioners 1 Cor. 5.11 and Chap. 6.10 Fourthly To contempt of the world and contentment with our present condition is opposed covetousness which is an immoderate love of the world or an unsatisfiedness with what we have and an insatiable desire of more and grudging or repining Fifthly To taking up the Cross is opposed our being scandalized or turn'd out of the way of Duty and Obedience by reason of it or a politick and selfish deserting of our Duty to avoid it Sixthly To diligence and watchfulness in doing of our Duty is opposed a heedlesness of it and remiss application to it which is carelesness and idleness Seventhly To patience in suffering for it is opposed an immoderate dread of pain and dishonest avoidance of it which is softness and fearfulness Eighthly To mortification and self-denial is opposed self-love and self-pleasing which as it is an industrious care to please and gratifie our bodily senses is called sensuality and as it is a ready and constant serving and obeying the lusts and desires of the Flesh especially when they carry us against the Commands of God is called carnality These are those Vices and breaches of Duty towards our selves which Gods Laws have prohibited under the pains of Death and Hell as the other were such Vertues as under the same penalty he exacts of us So that in the general Law of Sobriety we see are contain'd all these following whether commanding or forbidding Laws The commanding Law of humility of heavenly-mindedness of temperance of sobriety of charity 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 And opposite to these the forbidding Law against pride against arrogance or ostentation against vain-glory against ambition against haughtiness against insolence against imperiousness against dogmaticalness against envious back-biting against emulation against worldliness against intemperance against gluttony against voluptuousness against drunkenness against revelling against incontinence against lasciviousness or wantonness against filthiness against obscene Jestings against impurity or uncleanness against Sodomy against effeminateness against adultery against fornication against whoredom against incest against rape against covetousness against grudging and repining against refusing or being scandaled at the Cross against idleness and carelesness against fearfulness and softness against self-love against carnality against sensuality CHAP. II. Of LOVE the Epitome of Duty towards God and Men and of the particular Laws comprehended under Piety towards God The CONTENTS Of the Duties of Piety and Righteousness both comprehended in one general Duty LOVE It the Epitome of our Duty The great happiness of a good nature The kind temper of the Christian Religion Of the effects of LOVE The great Duty to God is Honour The outward expression whereof is worship The great offence is dishonour Of the several Duties and transgressions contained under both FOR the two remaining Members in S t Paul's Division viz. Godliness or Piety and Righteousness which require something from us to God or to our Neighbour they may yet be reduced into a narrower compass and are both comprized in that one word LOVE For all that ever God requires of us either to himself or towards other men is only heartily and effectually to LOVE them And this abridgment of our whole Duty in respect of these two remaining parts of it towards God and man into that one compendious Law of LOVE is no more than what our Saviour Christ and his Apostle Paul have already made to our hands For hear how they speak of it Jesus saith unto the Lawyer Thou shalt LOVE the Lord thy God with all thy heart and all thy soul and all thy mind This is the first and great Commandment and the second is like unto it Thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thy self On these two which in the thing commanded LOVE are but one hang all the Law of the ten Commandments viz. which meddle not with our Duty towards our selves but only towards God and our Neighbour and the Prophets Matth. 22.37 38 39 40. And S t Paul speaks home to the same purpose By love says he serve one another for all the LAW is fulfilled in one word even this Thou shalt LOVE thy Neighbour as thy self Gal. 5.13 14. And speaking again of the Laws concerning our Neighbour he tells us that LOVE worketh no ill to his Neighbour and therefore Love is the fulfilling of the Law Rom. 13.10 Thus rare and heavenly a Religion is that of our Saviour Christ a Religion that is not content to have only great and eminent measures of goodness in it but is perfectly made up of LOVE and good Nature All that it requires from us is only to be kind-hearted and full of good Offices both towards God and men Every man of a loving good nature is enclined by his temper to do all that is demanded by Gods Law so that he has nothing remaining to turn his temper into obedience but to direct his intention and to exert all the effects of love for the sake of Gods Command which he is otherwise strongly excited to by the natural propensions of his own mind His passion and his God require the same service and that which is only a natural fruit of the first may become if he so design it a piece of Religion and Obedience to the latter For the particular effects of Love are the particulars of our Duty Love is the great and general Law as ill-will and enmity are the prime transgression and the instances of Love are the instances of our obedience as all the particular effects of ill-will are those very instances wherein we disobey So that by running over all the special effects of love or ill-will we may quickly find what are the Particulars of Duty and Transgression Now the prime and most immediate Effects of Love are 1. To do no evil to the persons beloved nor to take away from them any thing which is theirs and which they have a right to And this founds all the Duties of Justice But 2. To do all good offices and show kindness to them which founds all the Duties of Charity And these two take in our whole Duty both in Piety towards God and also in Righteousness towards men 1. The proper and genuine effect of love to God is to do no evil but in great readiness to do all the good and service which we can for him in which two are implied all the branches of piety which is the great and general Duty towards him To be kind and serviceable to God is nothing more than to honour him For his Nature is so perfect and self-sufficient that it cannot receive and ours so impotent
although he do not define the particular proportion of the compensation doth yet establish this satisfaction and reconciliation of our selves to our injured Brother in the general as an indispensable Duty without which nothing not our very Prayers or Oblations shall be accepted If thou bring thy gift to the Altar and there remembrest that thy Brother hath ought against thee having been injured by thee leave there thy gift and go thy way first be reconciled to thy Brother by giving him satisfaction for thy offence and then come and offer thy gift Matth. 5.23 24. Which Command is moreover one of those whose sanctions is the loss of Heaven ver 19. Blessed are the Peace-makers for they shall be called the Children of God Matth. 5.9 And thus we see of all the Laws which make any thing due to God our selves or all mankind in general whether they are instances of sobriety piety justice charity or peace that our obedience unto them all is made necessary unto life and that they are bound upon us by all our hopes of happiness and Heaven And the sanction is the same for all those Laws which make some things due in particular relations likewise For as for the Laws that bind us in the particular relation of Subjects to our Kings their sanction appears plainly from these places Let every soul be subject to the higher Powers for there is no Power but of God whosoever therefore resisteth the Power resisteth the Ordinance of God and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation Wherefore you must needs be subject not only for wrath but also for Conscience sake Render therefore to all their Dues as these following are to Kings Tribute to whom Tribute is due Custom to whom Custom Fear or Reverence to whom Fear Honour to whom Honour Rom. 13.1 2 5 7. And all these are only part of that Catalogue of Laws which he begins to reckon up and declares to them by his Apostolical Authority chap. â—2 ver 3. These things speak and exhort rebuke with all Authority and let no man despise thee who shall surely be punished as a Contemner of Christ if he do Put them in mind to be subject to Principalities and Powers to obey Magistrates Tit. 2. ver ult chap. 3. ver 1. I exhort therefore first of all that prayers of all sorts supplications intercessions petitions and giving of thanks be made for all Kings and such as are in Authority for this is in it self and will render us good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour 1 Tim. 2.1 2 3 and a proof moreover of that good conscience which Timothy is charged to keep chap. 1. ver 19. And for Fidelity and Allegiance this may suffice to shew its necessity that among the men of corrupt minds who are reprobate concerning the Faith and who should render the last times perillous S t Paul reckons Traitorâ— 2 Tim. 3.1 4 8. So that as for all the forementioned Duties of this relation we see their indispensable necessity and that as ever we hope to be saved by them we must perform and obey them And so it is in the particular Laws of the next relation that of people towards their spiritual Governours viz. their Bishops and Ministers as is plain from these Texts following We beseech you Brethren to know them who labour among you and are set over you in the Lord and to esteem or honour them very highly or more than abundantly in love for their works sake 1 Thess. 5.12 13. And this is one of those Precepts which are pressed upon them as they would be Children of light and not of darkness ver 5 and as they are to avoid wrath and to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ ver 9. Let him who is taught or catechized in the Word communicate unto him that teacheth or catechizeth in all good things Be not deceived God is not mocked for whatsoever a man soweth in this and other things that shall he also reap Gal. 6.6 7. Obey them that have the rule over you and submit your selves for they watch for your souls Pray for us Heb. 13.17 18. Which are part of those Precepts that are enjoined as the way whereby to serve God acceptably who is a consuming fire to destroy and devour all that dare offend him chap. 12.2 last verses And for the necessity of the several Laws in the particular relation of Husband and Wife that will appear by what follows For as for that love which is strictly required betwixt them it ought says S t Paul agreeably to the words of God at the institution of Marriage They two shall be one Flesh to be such as people have for their own Bodies Ephes. 5.28 31. Which cannot imply less than an affectionate concern and communicating in each others joy or sorrow for if one member of a mans Body suffer all the rest as the Apostle observes suffer with it and if one be honoured all the rest rejoyce with it the Members all having the same care one for another 1 Cor. 12.25 26. And also a bearing with each others infirmities as every man will do with those of his own Body and praying for each other And for particular Duties we are told in the same fifth Chapter to the Ephesians that the Husband must condescend and comply with his Wife and part not only with his own self-will but even with his own life to serve her Husbands love your Wives saith he even as Christ loved the Church and gave himself for it So ought men to love their Wives as their own Bodies And how that is we all experience for no man ever yet hated his own Flesh but protecteth it and provideth well and duly for it or nourisheth and cherisheth it ver 25 28 29. In which love of his Wife as of his own Flesh is implied moreover that his Government of her be flexible and obliging nothing being more contrary to our self-love than to be commanded in peremptoriness and rigour And then as for the particular Duties of the Wife she is bid to be observant or to take care how to please her Husband 1 Cor. 7.34 To submit her will to his and to be ready to perform what he enjoins as she is to do what God commands her Wives submit your selves unto your own Husbands as unto the Lord for the Husband is the Head of the Wife as Christ is of the Church therefore as the Church is subject unto Christ so let the Wives be unto their own Husbands in every thing Ephes. 5.22 23 24. And this submission she must shew in respectful carriage and such behaviour as argues in her a fear to give offence Let the Wife see that she reverence her Husband ver 33. And all these Commands enjoining Duties both on one side and on the other
in worldly things which affects us is present with us and therefore our passions for or against them are raised in us by our sense and feeling But as for spiritual things and those bodily joys and sorrows that are annexed to them for the sake whereof we are sensibly affected with them they are not present with us but future and at a distance and therefore our passion for them cannot be raised by our sense whose object are only present things but meerly by our fancy and imagination But now as for the sensible warmth and violence of a passion it is nothing near so quick when it is excited by fancy as when it is produced by sense For no man is so feelingly affected with hearing a sad story as he would be by seeing of it A man will be moved abundantly less by imagining a battle a murder or any other dreadfull thing than by beholding it And the reason is because the impressions upon our sense are quick and violent and their warmth is communicated to our affections which are raised by them whereas our imaginations are calm and faint in comparison and the passions which flow from them partake of their temper and are more cold and less perceptible So that our passions for worldly things being passions upon sense and our passions for things spiritual with their bodily pain or pleasure annexed being only upon fancy and imagination we must needs be more warmly and sensibly although not more powerfully affected with the things of this world than of the other But that which is to distinguish our passion for God and Virtue above all things else from our passion for worldly things is not the warmth and sensibleness but the power and continuance of it For it must be a prevalent affection which doth more service although it make less noise It must be such a setled and overpowering Love answerable to the prevailing strength and surpassing greatness of its motive as gets the upper hand in competition and makes us when we must despise one to disregard all things else and to adhere to Gods service what other things soever be lost by it What it wants in warmth it has in permanency and power it sticks faster to us and can do more with us than our love of any thing besides For in our affections we must needs prefer God and his service before every other thing when they stand in competition or we have none of that Love with the whole soul which the Commandment requires of us as will be shewn more fully afterwards And because our thoughts and affections have in them a great latitude and in a matter of so high concern every good soul will be inquisitive after some determinate accounts of that compass and degree of them which is necessary to our acceptance before I conclude this Point I will set down what measures of obedience in these two faculties what thoughts and imaginations of our minds and what degrees of love and delight in our affections shall be judged sufficient at the last Day to save or to destroy us As for our thoughts there is one more elaborate and perfect sort of them viz. our counsels and contrivances And when they are employed about the compassing of forbidden things they are our sin and without repentance will certainly prove our condemnation For he that deviseth to do evil saith Solomon he shall be called and dealt with as a mischievous person Prov. 24.8 The machinations of murther are joined in guilt and punishment with murtherous actions themselves Matth. 15.19 And as for that particular sort of Contrivers the inventers of evil things they are pronounced by S t Paul to be worthy of death Rom. 1.30 32. And as for other of our thoughts which are not come up to the height of a contrivance or consultation but are only simple apprehensions some of them also are properly and directly good or evil and an Article of our life or death God has imposed several Laws which he has backed both with threats and promises upon our very thoughts themselves Of which sort there are some to be met with under all the three general Parts of Duty viz. to God our Neighbour and our selves For our thoughts of God are bound up by the Law of honour which forbids us to lessen or prophane him by dishonourable Notions and Opinions our thoughts of our Neighbour by the Laws of Charity and Candour which suffer us not either to reproach or injure him by under-valuing Ideas or groundless suspicions and our thoughts of our own selves by the Law of humility which prohibits us to be exalâ—ed in our own conceits through false and over-high apprehensions of our own excellence Pious and charitable opinions both of God and men and humble and lowly conceits of our own selves are Duties incumbent upon our very minds themselves And all the opposite vices of impious and reproachful Ideas of God of censorious suspicious and lessening thoughts of other men and of proud and arrogant conceits of our own worth are transgressions within the sphere and compass even of our understandings For the exercise of the first is not only a Cause and Principle but a part and instance also of obedience and an Article of life as the exercise of the other is an instance of disobedience and an Article also of damnation As for these Instances then of bare thought and naked apprehension they are essential parts and necessary instances of an acceptable obedience and the wilful transgression of any one of them without repentance is dangerous and damning So that as for all our perfected and studied thoughts of evil viz. our counsels and contrivances and as for all such simple thoughts and â—ore apprehensions as have particular Laws imposed upon them they are not only principles but parts and instances of disobedience and if we are guilty of them unless we retract them by repentance we shall be condemned for them But then there are several other bare imaginations and simple apprehensions which are not under any of these particular Laws that are imposed upon our thoughts themselves but are employed upon things commanded or forbidden by any of the other Laws forementioned And as for all these apprehensions in themselves they are neither sin nor Duty nor a matter either of reward or punishment but so far only as they are causes and principles either of a sinful or obedient choice and practice of those good or evil things which they are employed upon In themselves I say these mere apprehensions are neither sin nor Duty We may perceive sin in our minds and have it in a thought or notion without ever being guilty of it or liable to answer for it For the Sun shines upon a Dunghil without being defiled by it and God sees all the wickedness in Hell but is not tainted with it And so long as we sojourn in a World of iniquity every good man must needs know and behold all the vices
All those speeches metonymical where Obedience is not express'd and yet pardon is promised p. 8 CHAP. II. Of pardon promised to Faith Knowledge and being in Christ. The Contents Of pardon and happiness promised to Faith and Knowledg Of the nature of Faith in general Of natural Jewish and Christian Faith Of this last as â—ustifying and saving Of the fitness of Christian Faith and Knowledg to produce Obedience Pardon promised to them no further than they are productive of it Of pardon promised to being in Christ. Christ sometimes signifies the Christian Religion sometimes the Christian Church Being in Christ is being of Christ's Religion or a Member of Christ's Church The fitness of these to effect Obedience Pardon promised to them no further than they do 20 CHAP. III. Of pardon promised to Repentance The Contents Of pardon promised to Repentance Regeneration a New Nature a New Creature The nature of Repentance it includes amendment and obedience The nature of Regeneration and a New Creature It s fitness to produce Obedience Some mens repentance ineffectual The folly of it Pardon promised to Repentance and Regeneration no further than they effect Obedience In the case of dying Penitents a change of mind accepted without a change of practice That only where God sees a change of practice woulâ— ensue upon it This would seldome happen upon death bed resolutions and Repentance The general ineffectiveness of this shown by experienâ—s Two reasons of it 1. Because it proceeds ordinarily upon an inconstant temporary Principle viz. nearness of Death and present fears of it Though it always begins there yet sometimes it grows up upon a Principle that is more lasting viz. a conviction of the absolute necessity of Heaven and a Holy Life 2. Because it is ordinarily in a weak and incompetent degree All TRVE resolution is not able to reform men Sick bed resolutions generally unable Such ineffective resolutions unavailing to mens pardon 34 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 55 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 64 CHAP. VI. Of pardon promised to our fear of God and trust in him The Contents Of pardon promised to our fear of God and trust in him Of the influence which mens fears have upon their endeavours and how they carry on ignorant minds into superstition but well-informed judgments to obedience Of the influence of mens trust in God upon their obedience The ineffectiveness of most mens trust Of the presumption and infidelity of such confidence That pardon is promised to fear and trust so far only as we obey with them 76 CHAP. VII Of pardon promised to the love of God and of our Neighbour The Contents Of pardon promised to the love of God and of our Neighbour Of the fitness of an universal love to produce an universal obedience That pardon is promised to it for this reason The Conclusion 85 BOOK II. Of the Laws of the Gospel which are the Rule of this Obedience in particular CHAP. I. Of the particular Laws comprehended under the Duty of Sobriety The Contents A Division of our Duty into three general Vertues Piety Sobriety Righteousness Of the nature of Sobriety The particular Laws commanding and prohibiting under this first Member A larger explication of the nature of Mortification 94 CHAP. II. Of LOVE the Epitome of Duty towards God and men and of the particular Laws comprehended under Piety towards God The Contents Of the Duties of Piety and Righteousness both comprehended in one general Duty LOVE It the Epitome of our Duty The great happiness of a good nature The kind temper of the Christian Religion Of the effects of LOVE The great Duty to God is Honour The outward expression whereof is Worship The great offence is dishonour Of the several Duties and transgressions contained under both 106 CHAP. III. Of the particular Duties contained under Justice and Charity The Contents Of the particular Duties contained under Justice and Charity Both are only expressions of Love which is the fulfilling of the Law Of the particular sins against both Of scandal Of the combination of Justice and Charity in a state that results from both viz. peace Of the several Duties comprehended under it Of the particular sins reducible to unpeaceableness Of the latitude of the word Neighbour to whom all these dutiful expressions are due It s narrowness in the Jewish sense It s universality in the Christian. 114 CHAP. IV. Of our Duties to men in particular Relations The Contents Of our Duties to other men in particular Relations The Duties enjoined and the sins prohibited towards Kings and Princes Bishops and other Ministers The particular Duties and sins in the relation of Husband and Wife Parents and Children Brethren and Sisters Masters and Servants Of the two Sacraments and Repentance A recital of all particular Duties enjoined and sins prohibited to Christians Of the harmlesness of a defective enumeration the Duties of the Gospel being suggested not only outwardly in Books but inwardly by mens own passions and consciences 134 CHAP. V. Of the Sanction of the foregoing Laws The Contents Of the Sanction of all the forementioned particular Laws That they are bound upon us by our hopes of Heaven and our fears of Hell Of the Sanction of all the particular affirmative or commanding Laws 168 CHAP. VI. Of the Sanction of all the forbidding Laws The Contents Of the Sanction of all the negative or forbidding Laws particularly The perfection of the Christian Law How our Duty exceeds that of the Heathens under the revelations of Nature And that of the Jews under the additional light of Moses's Law 190 BOOK III. What degrees and manner of Obedience is required to all the Laws forementioned CHAP. I. Of Sincerity The Contents THE first qualification of an acceptable obedience that it be sincere Two things implied in sincerity truth or undissembledness and purity or unmixedness of our service Of the first Notion of sincerity as opposite to hyyocrisie or doing what God commands out of a real intention and design to serve him Of a two-fold intention actual and express or habitual and
continue to separate between him and his God whatever God CAN do yet certainly he WILL not save him The Lords hand saith the Prophet Isaiah to the afflicted Jews is not shortened that it cannot save nor his ear heavy that it cannot hear but your iniquities have separated between you and your God and your sins have hid his face from you that he will not hear For your hand 's are defiled with blood and your fingers with iniquity your lips have spoken lies your tongue hath muttered perverseness none calls for Justice nor any pleads for Truth and since your disobedience is so heinous your hopes must needs be false you TRVST in vanity Isai. 59.1 2 3 4. Christ himself never dyed to reconcile God to mens sins and to procure hopes of pardon for the finally impenitent and unperswadably disobedient So that no man may ever think himself delivered to act wickedness or wilfully transgress Gods Laws and still dare to trust in him But if any are so bold and frontless Christ will rebuke them at the last Day as God doth the presumptuous Jews by the Prophet Jeremiah Behold says he you trust in lying words which cannot profit you Will you steal murther and commit adultery and swear falsly and notwithstanding all that come and stand before me in this house which is called by my Name as Men that owne my service and dare trust in my love and say as in effect you do by such usage we are delivered to do all these abominations Dare you by thus presuming upon my favour in the midst of all your transgressions make me become a Patron and Protector of your villainies And is this house which is called by my Name become a Den or Receptacle and Sanctuary of Robbers in your eyes Behold I even I have seen it saith the Lord and that surely not to encourage and reward but most severely to punish it for I will utterly cast you out of my sight Jer. 7.8 9 10 11 15. God will by no means endure to have his own most holy Nature become a support to sin nor his Religion to be made a refuge for disobedience nor his Mercy and Goodness a Sanctuary to wicked and unholy men So that no man must dare to hope and trust in him but he only who honestly observes his Laws and uprightly obeys him That fear of God then and trust in his mercy which the Gospel encourages and Christ our Judge will at the last Day accept of is not a fear and trust without obedience but such only as implies it We must serve him in fear and obey him through hope as ever we expect he should acquit and pardon us For no fears or hopes will avail us unto bliss but those that amend our lives and effect in us an honest service and obedience CHAP. VII Of Pardon promised to the love of God and of our Neighbour The CONTENTS Of Pardon promised to the love of God and of our Neighbour Of the fitness of an universal love to produce an universal obedience That pardon is promised to it for this Reason The Conclusion EIghthly That condition which the Gospel indispensably requires of us to our pardon and happiness is sometimes called Love For of this S t Paul says plainly that it is the fulfilling of the Law Rom. 13.10 It is the great condition of Life the standing Terms of mercy and happiness We have the same Apostles word for it of our love of God Those things which neither eye hath seen nor ear heard neither have entred into the heart of man to conceive are prepared for them who LOVE God 1 Cor. 2.9 And again Chap. 8. If any man love God the same is known or accepted of him vers 3. And S t John says as much of the love of our Neighbour Beloved let us LOVE one another for LOVE is of God and every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God 1 John 4.7 And again God is Love and manifested his Love in giving Christ to dye for us And if we love one another God dwells in us For hereby by this mark and evidence we know that we dwell in him and he in us because he hath given us of this loving temper and Spirit of his ver 8 9 12 13. And to the same purpose he speaks fully in the third Chapter of that first Epistle We know says he that we have passed from death unto life because we LOVE the BRETHREN ver 14. Now our hearty love both of God and men is a most natural and easie Principle of an intire service and obedience For the most genuine and proper effect of Love is to seek the satisfaction and delight of the persons beloved It is careful in nothing to behave it self unseemly but to keep back from every thing that may offend and forward in all such services as may any ways pleasure and content them If they rejoyce it congratulates if they mourn it grieves with them If they are in distress it affords succour if in want supply in doubts it ministers counsel in business dispatch It is always full and teeming with good offices and transforms it self into all shapes whereby it may procure their satisfaction and render their condition comfortable and easie to them So that it exerts it self in pity to the miserable in protection to the oppressed in relief to the indigent in counsel to the ignorant in encouragement to the good in kind reproof to the evil in thanks for kindnesses in patience and forbearance upon sufferings in forgiveness of wrong and injuries In one word it is an universal Source and Spring of all works of Justice Charity Humility and Peace Now the Body of our Religion is made up of these Duties For what doth the Lord thy God require of thee O man saith the Prophet Micah but to do justly to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God Mic. 6.8 Those things which God has adopted into his Service and made the matter of our duty towards one another are nothing else but these natural effects of love and kindness and expressions of good nature towards all men All the Precepts of Religion only forbid our doing evil and require our doing good to all the World And since as the Apostle argues love seeketh all things that are good and worketh no evil to our Neighbour therefore Love must needs be the fulfilling of those Laws which concern them This Commandment for instance as he illustrates it Thou shalt not commit Adultery thou shalt not kill thou shalt not steal thou shalt not bear false witness thou shalt not covet all these and if there be any other Commandment relating to our Brethren it is briefly comprehended in this Saying Thou shalt LOVE they Neighbour as thy self For LOVE worketh none of all these ills to our Neighbour therefore LOVE is the fulfilling of the Law Rom. 13.9 10. Thus doth our Love of our Neighbour fulfil all those particular Laws which contain our Duty
he has most strictly forbidden So that for our whole Duty towards God which is implied in the general Law of piety or godliness it contains in it all these effects of LOVE which are commanded Duties as ungodliness or impiety contains all these expressions of hatred which are so many particular forbidden sins The Laws commanding are the Law of honour of worship of faith of love of zeal of trust and dependance of prayer of thankfulness of fear of submission and resignedness of obedience And the Laws forbidding are the Law against dishonour against atheism against denying Providence against blasphemy against superstition against idolatry against witchcraft and sorcery against foolishness against headiness against unbelief against hating God against want of zeal against distrust of him against not praying to him against unthankfulness against fearlesness against contumacy or repining against disobedience against common swearing against perjury against prophaneness And then as for the 2. Sort of Love our love to men it implies in it all the Duties contained in the third Branch of S t Paul's Division viz. righteousness as shall be shewn in the next Chapter CHAP. III. Of the particular Duties contained under Justice and Charity The CONTENTS Of the particular Duties contained under Justice and Charity Both are only expressions of Love which is the fulfilling of the Law Of the particular sins against both Of scandal Of the combination of Justice and Charity in a state that results from both viz. Peace Of the several Duties comprehended under it Of the particular sins reducible to unpeaceableness Of the latitude of the word Neighbour to whom all these dutiful expressions are due It s narrowness in the Jewish sense It s universality in the Christian. FOR the third general Duty righteousness or our Duty towards our Neighbour our love of men will lead us into the several Laws which it containeth For the first effect of love our doing no hurt or injury to any man founds all the Laws of Justice and the latter our doing good and showing all kindness founds all the particular Laws of Charity in which two are comprehended all those several Duties which God has enjoyned towards other men The first I say founds all the particular Laws of Justice For in that we do no evil or injury to our Neighbour nor hurt him by prejudicing his just Rights or taking away from him any thing that is his is implied that we do not wrong or endammage him 1. In his Life by taking it away either 1. In private force and violent assassination which is murder 2. Under colour of Justice by a false charge of capital crimes which is false witness 2. In his reputation by sullying or impairing it through a lying and false imputation of disparaging things to him which is slander or calumny 3. In his belief and expectation by reproaching and abusing it either 1. By deceiving him against his Right to his hurt in a false speech of what is past or present which is lying 2. By frustrating his expectations which were raised by our promise of something that is to come which is unfaithfulness or perfidy 4. In his Bed by invading that which the Contract of Marriage has made inviolable which is adultery 5. In his Goods or Estate and all wrong herein proceeds from our unsatisfiedness with our own and our greedy longing and ungovernable desire of that which is his which is covetousness The effects and instances whereof are 1. In taking away from him that which is his either 1. Directly By secret or open force and without his knowledg and consent which is stealing or robbery 2. Indirectly or by forcing his allowance and extorting a necessitated consent from him Which is done by taking advantage 1. Of his impotence and inability to resist and contend with us which is oppression 2. Of his necessity when he cannot be without something which we have and so is forced to take it upon our own terms which is extortion and depressing in bargaining 3. Of his ignorance when we outwit him and trepan and over-reach him in Bargaining and Commerce which is circumvention fraud or deceit The wiliness and subtle Art wherein is called craftiness 2. In denying all kindnesses and good things to him in unmercifulness uncharitableness c. Of which I shall discourse under the next Head All these Particulars of Justice now mentioned are natural effects of love to our Neighbour in as much as it makes us keep off from offering any injury or doing any evil to him Upon which account S t Paul says of it that as for these particular Laws of Justice it fulfils them all Which he shows by an induction of such Particulars as I have named He that loveth another saith he hath fulfilled the Law viz. that part of it which requires Duties of Justice towards others For this Thou shalt not commit adultery thou shalt not kill thou shalt not steal thou shalt not bear false witness thou shalt not covet which are the five last Commandments of the Decalogue and if there be any other Commandment it is briefly comprehended in this Saying Thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thy self Now Love worketh no ill neither these nor any other to his Neighbour therefore Love is the fulfilling of the Law Rom. 13.8 â— 10. And as this first effect of Love to our Neighbour viz. it s keeping us back from offering any injury or doing any evil to him contain in it all the Laws of Justice so doth its other effect our doing all good offices and shewing kindness to them comprehend in it all the particular Laws of Charity wherewith we stand obliged towards other men Love is not only innocent and harmless and careful to create no trouble nor occasion any prejudice but moreover it is all kindness benevolence and good nature and diligent in creating all the pleasure and delight it can to it s beloved Now this goodness kind-heartedness or desire to please and delight others will be an universal cause of beneficence or doing good to them and make us cast to please them in so many ways and advantage them in so many relations as we can at any time be placed in In particular it will effect these Vertues in the Cases following 1. As to what we see them to be in themselves and in this respect it produces in us 1. If they are worthy and vertuous a great opinion and venerable esteem for them which is honour 2. If they have honest hearts but yet are weak in judgment and knowledg a compassionate sense of their weakness and an endeavour to relieve them which is pity and succour And if this weakness be instanced in judging those things to be a matter of sin and so unlawful for them to do which no Law of God has forbidden and which therefore we who better understand it see plainly that we lawfully may do and our practice of it before them who distrusting their own skill are swayed more by
uncourteousness against stiffness or uncondescension against unhospitableness against surliness against malignity against turbulence and unquietness against unthankfulness against anger and passionateness against debate and variance against bitterness against clamour and brawling against hatred and malice against implacableness against revenge against cursing or reproaching enemies and imprecation of them against hastiness to punish against rigour All which Instances and Opposites both of Justice and Charity are most natural effects of Love and Hatred towards other men and so many Particulars of Duty and of sin And from both these general Laws of Justice and Charity to our Neighbour or our keeping off from all things that may offend and injure and doing all that may please or any way delight him will result that state of good agreement and intercourse of friendliness which is called peace Which as it implies an union of minds oposite to Controversies and Disputes is called unanimity and as containing an agreeableness and mutual correspondence of hearts and affections concord In order to the procurement of this peace is required 1. In the temper such a mixture of Love and quietness as renders men tame and contented under the present state of things and averse from contention and controversie which is peaceableness 2. In the practice a doing such things as 1. Prevent strife whether that be done 1. Towards our Equals and Inferiors by complying and bearing with their weaknesses and going down from our own liberty where the exercise of it would give offence and cause difference which is condescension and compliance 2. Towards our Governours by keeping within our own sphere and medling only with those things which are parts of our own Duty not incroaching upon their Office or thrusting our selves into their Administration which is doing our own business 2. Compose and put an end to it and this is done by making amends and recompencing that contumely or wrong which occasion'd it which is satisfaction for injuries And a care not only thus to preserve peace our selves but also to maintain it amongst others by an industrious endeavour to keep up a right understanding and agreement amongst men and when they happen to differ to reconcile them and make them friends again is peace-making And then from the two general transgressions opposite to these viz. injustice and uncharitableness to our Neighbour or an industrious averseness from all things that may please and advantage and a forwardness in all things to hurt and vex him will arise that state of difference and intercourse of ill Offices that is called enmity which as it implies a separation and clashing of hearts and affections is called discord To the production of this evil state concur 1. In the temper such a mixture of heat and ill nature as renders men restless under their present state and pleased and delighted in scuffling and strife which is unpeaceableness 2. In the practice a doing such things as at first raise and engender and afterwards foment and maintain it and of this sort besides all the instances of wrong and injustice which we heard of before is 1. An envious strife of being better thought of and out-doing one another which is emulation or provoking one another 2. A going beyond our own place or business and either usurping upon other mens Offices or sawcily intermedling with their affairs which is pragmaticalness or being busie bodies And this when it is taken up in reporting between the Parties at odds such things as we have heard or seen which are fit still more to exasperate their minds and to widen the breach is tale-bearing Which when it is of things not only seen but even suspected and in a secret dissembled manner is whispering And if the difference was at first occasioned by injury and wrong that which goes most directly to continue it is avowing what was done and making no amendment which is not satisfying for injuries And for the outward effects and exdressions of this enmity and discord it shews it self 1. In a strugling for mastery and victory which is strife or contention 2. In separating themselves into Parties and Companies according to the difference of their love or hatred and their espoused interests which is Division or Faction And this in religious affairs when the obstinate espousal that leads on to it is of damnable opinions is heresie when of needlesly separated Parties it is schism 3. A rude concourse of Parties in scuffling and blows which is tumult So that besides all the Particulars above mentioned which are contained under the general Heads Justice and Charity there is included moreover in this third Head of Duty righteousness all these Laws of peace which results from the combination of them both And the effects of love or commanding Laws in this are 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 And opposite to them the effects of hatred or forbidding Laws are the Law against enmity and discord with all its Particulars as are the Law against unpeaceableness against emulation or provoking one another against pragmaticalness or being busie bodies against tale-bearing against whispering against not satisfying for injuries against strife or contention against division and faction in the State against heresie and against schism in the Church against tumult So that in this third Branch of Duty righteousness or our Duty towards our Neighbour are implied all these several whether commanding or forbidding Laws which are comprehended under these three general Vertues viz. Justice Charity and Peace And as for all the things which are commanded or forbidden by all these Laws they are due to our Neighbour in the greatest latitude and utmost generality of that Name as it signifies any whom we have to do with of all mankind The Jews indeed were of a narrower Spirit and of a more contracted kindness They thought themselves bound to exercise all that Justice and Charity which their Law required towards the men of their own Nation or such of the Gentiles who leaving their heathen Idolatries would become Proselytes and turn to their Religion But as for all the world besides they accounted themselves disobliged from all expressions of kindness and good affection towards them nay even from all intercourse of common civility and conversation with them They would not so much as come under their Roof or eat with them at the same Table or either give or receive any civilities or friendly expressions from them S t Peter when he entred into the house of Cornelius a Gentile Centurion told them that they all knew very well how it is not LAWFVL for any man that is a JEW to KEEP COMPANY or COME IN unto one of ANOTHER NATION for which cause he himself had not come to them had not God taught him to correct his Country-custom and to call no man of what Nation soever common or unclean
Members of two great Societies one a Society in things outward and temporal for our happiness in this world which is called the State and the other in things sacred spiritual and eternal for our happiness in the next world which is the Church and God has his Representatives and Vicegerents in them both therefore under this Head are two sorts of effects of Love and instances of Duty 1. Towards Civil Governours viz. Kings and Princes 2. Towards Ecclesiastical viz. Bishops and Ministers 1. Then towards our Publick Civil Governours our Kings and Princes the fruits of Love both in abstaining from all evil and showing all kindness and good will to them will be as follows 1. Since they are both placed above us and set over us our Love to them will produce in us both an opinion of their preheminence and excellence as being Gods Deputies and Viceroys here on Earth which is honour and the bearing of an awful regard and behaviour towards them as to such who can of right command and punish us which is reverence 2. A readiness and resolved industry to maintain and support them in their persons and Government either 1. By doing such things towards it as are in our own power viz. 1. For the maintenance of their grandeur in a willing payment of such contributions as are appointed for it which is paying Tribute and Customs 2. For the preservation of their Lives or Reigns by revealing to them such Plots or Practices as make against them and by endeavouring all that in us lyes according to our promises and obligations of allegiance to maintain and preserve them which is fidelity or loyalty 2. For things that are above our power by recommending them earnestly to Almighty God that he would bestow them on them which is praying for them 3. A more direct owning of their Authority and Presidence over us by carrying suitably 1. To the things which they command in doing or performing them which is obedience 2. To the penalties which upon our omission or transgression they impose by a quiet suffering and resting under them which is subjection All these are effects of love to Kings and Princes and so many particular Commands of God and Instances of Duty in this relation And opposite to them are all the contrary effects and prohibitions of hatred and ill-will towards them For from our averseness to all good Offices and our readiness to create offence and evil to them which are the natural effects of our hatred of them will flow 1. Our having undervaluing and lessening thoughts of them in our minds by looking only or chiefly upon their failings and defects and esteeming them no better than common men which is dishonour And if this be expressed in a lightness and contemptuousness of behaviour towards them which argues us to have no fear or awe of them but to neglect and despise them 't is irreverence Which when it breaks out further into reproachful Speeches and a discovery or inveighing against their defects is as S t Jude calls it speaking evil of Dignities Jude 8. 2. A seeking through our envy and ill-will to them to lessen or destroy their Persons or Power or at least to withdraw all our own contributions towards the maintenance and support of them by denying 1. Such things as are in our own power 1. Towards the sustaining of their splendor and grandeur in refusing to bear our share of the charge towards it in paying Taxes and Tribute 2. Towards the preservation of their Lives and Government in not helping and defending them but either plotting and endeavouring our selves to give away their lives and Kingdomes unto others or consenting to and concealing them that do so contrary to our obligations and promises of allegiance which is traiterousness 2. Such things as being above our power might yet be obtained for them from God at our request which is neglecting to pray for them 3. A more direct disowning and casting off their Power and Authority over us by going cross 1. To their Commands in omitting what they enjoin or doing against it which is disobedience 2. To their inflictions and penalties by not submitting and subjecting our selves to them but violently resisting and opposing them which is called by S t Paul resisting of Power or standing up against it Rom. 13.2 And this when it is made by great Numbers and goes on to extremities when men are as the Apostle there says set in array and posture of defence against it and ready by force of Arms to contend and wage War with it is Rebellion And all these are effects of hatred to Princes and instances of disobedience in this relation So that as to this part of our Duty our relation of Subjects towards our Sovereign Kings and Princes the effects of Love or Laws commanding are the Law of honour to Kings of reverence of paying tribute and customes of fidelity of praying for them of obedience of subjection And opposite to them the effects of hatred or forbidding Laws are the Law against dishonour against irreverence against speaking evil of Dignities against refusing Tribute and Taxes against traiterousness against neglecting to pray for Kings against disobedience against resisting lawful Powers and Authority against rebellion And then 2. For the other sort of publick Governours viz. those of the Church as are Bishops and other Ministers the effects of Love in shewing all kindness and keeping back from all evil and offence towards them will be as follows 1. A good and awful opinion of them and of their Office in our minds looking on them as men that bear the great Character of Ambassadours from Christ as S t Paul calls them 2 Cor. 5.20 and are commissioned by God to treat with us in a matter of incomparably the highest concernment viz. our eternal salvation and this is honour or esteeming them highly in love though not for their personal worth yet for their works sake 1 Thess. 5.13 Which honour is expressed 1. By such an awfulness of behaviour and respectful loving carriage towards them as argues in us a just sense of the Greatness and Majesty of Christ whom they represent and of the goodness of that Concern which they come about which is reverence 2. By making such outward provisions for them as may at least set them above and secure them from contempt although it keep them below envy and that is the honour of maintenance whereof S t Paul speaks 1 Tim. 5.17 And as for those things which are not in our power to conferr upon them by recommending them to Gods bounty in praying for them 2. As to our Lives a careful heed and observance of those things which as the Ministers of Christ and in his Name they teach and enjoin us which is obedience So that in our love to our spiritual Rulers the Bishops and Ministers of Christs Church are implied all these particular effects which are so many commanding Laws viz. the Law of honour or having
tenderness of love and kindness which should result from the intimate nearness of their relation is estrangedness and as proceeding higher to ill-will and expressions of an imbittered mind as it causes for the present wrangling and debate it is strife or contention and as festring into an habitual displeasure and lasting regret it is hatred or enmity and as breaking out in a proclamation of each others weaknesses evil speaking or publishing each others infirmities 3. As doing no good to each other themselves so seeking none from God which is not praying for each other 4. An avoidance of each others Bed and being false to the Marriage Covenant about it which is adultery But if this unfaithfulness really be not but through the suspicious temper of one side is only groundlesly presumed it is jealousie 2. Such as are peculiar and concern one particularly towards the other either 1. The Husband towards the Wife and here the effects of hatred will be 1. A neglecting to use his power for her benefit through an insensibleness of her wants and regardlesness of what hardships she struggles with either as to necessaries or conveniencies which is not providing for her or not maintaining her or as to injuries and affronts which is not protecting her 2. Vsing all his authority over her by a harsh and magisterial peremptoriness of Command which is imperiousness or by an unyielding inflexibleness of will and pleasure which is uncompliance uncondescension 2. The Wife towards the Husband where it will produce a light and low opinion of him which is dishonour which being joined with a contemptuous and fearless behaviour towards him is irreverence And this will effect 1. A backwardness and utter averseness to do unbidden what will delight and please him which is non-observance or what is commanded by him which is disobedience 2. A refusal or open reluctance in undergoing that restraint which he imposes which is casting off his yoke or unsubjection So that in this relation of Husband and Wife the effects of hatred or Laws forbidding are to both Parties the Law against unconcernedness in each others condition against not bearing each others infirmities against provoking one another against estrangedness against strife and contention against hatred and enmity against publishing each others infirmities against not praying for each other against adultery against jealousie To the Husband towards the Wife the Law against not maintaining her against not protecting her against imperiousness against uncompliance or uncondescension To the Wife towards her Husband the Law against dishonour against irreverence against unobservance against disobedience against casting off his yoke or unsubjection 2. The second domestick relation is that of Parents and Children and in this the effects of Love and particulars of Duty are either 1. On the Parents side towards their Children as are 1. From the extraordinary nearness that their Children have to them being parts even of their own Bodies that most heightened tenderness and kindness which because it is found in all Animals in nature towards their own Offspring is called natural affection 2. From their Childrens helplesness and wants their care over them Which is taken up 1. With respect to this world and that in behalf 1. Of their Bodies by providing for them all due necessaries and conveniencies both whilst they are under them and against the time that they go out from them which is provision maintenance 2. Of their whole persons both Body and Soul by training them up in the best ways they can whereby to render them profitable in their station and useful Members of Society which is good and honest education In the management whereof the using of their power over them not in a rigorous and austere but a tender obliging way is loving Government 2. With respect to the next world and that is by causing them to be duely instructed in Religion and stamped with vertuous impressions which S t Paul calls bringing them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord Ephes. 6.4 And for those things which they cannot procure for them by themselves begging of them from Gods bounty by prayer for them 2. On the Childrens side towards their Parents where besides the Duty of natural affection common to them with the Parents Love effects 1. An opinion of their preheminence and authority over them which is honour and this when it is joined with an awful regard to them and a fear of offending them is reverence 2. Whilst they are under them a ready chearfulness in performing all that they command which is obedience and in bearing and undergoing all that they impose which is submission or subjection 3. When either they are under them or gone from them a readiness upon occasion to requite all their care and kindness in supporting and relieving them which the Apostle calls requiting their Parents 1 Tim. 5.4 4. And in such things wherewith they cannot supply them of themselves entreating God on their behalf which is praying for them So that the effects of Love and instances of Duty in this relation 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 the Law of honour of reverence of obedience of subjection of requiting upon occasion their care and kindness of prayer for them And opposite to these effects of Love which are so many commanded Duties the effects of hatred in this relation which are so many particular forbidden sins are these that follow 1. In Parents towards their Children it will produce a coldness of heart and unconcernedness for them which is being void of natural affection Which will effect 1. As to their care for them a neglecting to provide for their present maintenance or future support which is condemned by S t Paul under the name of not providing for those of our own house 1 Tim 5.8 2. As to their Government and Conduct of them an untoward exercise and employment of it where there is no just need or a neglect of it where there is For it will produce 1. As to things that are good and necessary for the Children an utter carelesness of them when the Parents neglect to teach and inure them to such things as may render them dutiful to God and useful in Society and contrariwise accustome and bring them up in idleness vanity or wickedness which is irreligious or evil education 2. As to things that are unnecessary and indifferent a great strictness and severity whether it be in commanding or imposing things without reason necessity or convenience or convenient things with imperious harshness or unreasonable rigour only out of wantonness of authority and plenitude of power which instead of exciting them to a cheerful obedience is apt to move in them an irksome regret which is provoking them to anger 3. And instead of praying for
willingness of their own minds which will make them do it whether he be with them or absent from them which in the same place is called obeying with good will and from the heart Ephes. 6.6 7. 3. In those things which he imposes and inflicts whether they be just or even injust if light and tolerable a quiet and uncontending submission which is patience and subjection 4. And in those things wherein they cannot advantage him themselves commending him to Almighty God by prayer for him So that the effects of Love or commanding Laws in this relation 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 And opposite to these are all the effects of hatred which will be instanced in these Particulars 1. From the Masters towards their Servants it will produce 1. A carelesness of what becomes of their Servants whether as to 1. Their Bodies in not duly maintaining or providing for them 2. Their Souls in not catechising or instructing of them 2. A Government of them which is cruel and rigorous and this being a dealing otherwise with them than we are willing to be dealt with our selves is unequal Government Which is expressed 1. In the injustice and severity of our Commands when we enjoin what God forbids which is unlawful or what tends not to benefit our selves but only to vex and trouble them which is unprofitable or what is either above their strength or exceeding hard for it which is unproportionable And this is unjustness and wantonness and rigour in commanding which if it be acted in a contemptuous haughtiness and peremptory way is imperiousness 2. In the injustice and hardship of our threatnings and punishments when we use them without occasion or more than needs when there is occasion for them which is immoderate threatning or punishing And this as it vents it self in bitter words and vehemence of vilifying expressions a fault that is incident to proud hasty Folk and lordly Masters is railing at them 3. In the dishonesty and dilatoriness of our Rewards when we either pay not at all that which was covenanted for their service or cut it short or delay it long when their necessity calls for it instantly which is defrauding or keeping back the wages of the Hireling 3. And besides all the kindness which we deny them our selves neglecting to seek for any thing for them at Gods hands by not praying for them or cursing and imprecating them which is praying against them 2. From the Servants towards their Masters where the effects of hatred are 1. A disesteem and contemptuous opinion of their Masters as persons of no worth or preheminence above themselves which is dishonour And this when it is evidenced in a careless and disrespectful behaviour towards them which argues them to stand in no fear or awe of them is irreverence 2. An industrious neglect of such things as they know are pleasing and acceptable to him and venturing upon others that will disgust and offend him which is non-observance two particular expressions whereof are 1. As to his or his families defects at home a publishing and aggravation of them 2. As to his reputation abroad a suffering it to lye under imputations that are undeserved which is not vindicating him 3. An endamagement of their Masters Goods Concerns and Authority by shewing 1. In what their Master intrusts them falseness or non-performance which is unfaithfulness And if it be instanced in making away such Goods or Mony as were committed to them 1. To their own luxury and pleasure by such ways as our Saviour sets down of eating drinking and keeping ill company Matth. 24.49 it is wastfulness of their Masters Goods 2. To their own private profit and secret enrichment it is purloining 2. In what their Masters command a careless omission of it or acting against it which is disobedience Whether this be expressed 1. In questioning and disputing the fitness and convenience of what they enjoin instead of doing and performing it which S t Paul calls answering again or speaking against and contradicting it Tit. 2.9 2. In a slow and lazy application of themselves to it when they do set about it which is slothfulness 3. In a laborious dispatch of what they are commanded only whilst their Masters eye is over them but slackning all again when he is gone from them doing all things out of dread but nothing out of choice and good will which is eye-service 3. In what their Master imposes or inflicts a not enduring or resting under it which is contumacy or resistance 4. And in such things as God is to bestow on them a not seeking to him by prayer on their behalf but praying against them So that the effects of ill will and hatred or Laws forbidding in this relation are on the Masters side the Law against not providing maintenance for his Servant against not catechizing or instructing him against unequal Government against unjustness wantonness and rigour in commanding against imperiousness against immoderate threatning against railing against defrauding or keeping back the wages of the Hireling against not praying for him and imprecation or praying against him and on the Servants side the Law against dishonour of his Master against irreverence against non-observance against publishing or aggravating his Masters faults against not vindicating his injured reputation against unfaithfulness against wasting his Goods against purloining against disobedience against answering again against slothfulness against eye-service against contumacy or resistance against not praying for them and imprecation or praying against them And thus we have seen what are the particular effects of love and hatred both towards all men in general and also towards all in those several relations wherein we stand concerned with one another in the World And in them are contained all the particular Commands and Prohibitions which make up this third Branch of Duty viz. righteousness or our Duty towards our Neighbour All that God requires of us towards other men is only to have a hearty kindness for them and in this manner to express it And all that he forbids is only our hatred of them with all the forementioned effects of it So that in the above-named instances and effects of Love in Justice Charity Peace with those others in the relations now recited is comprized the whole of this last Member of S t Paul's Division righteousness Thus at last we have seen what are all the particular instances of those three general Laws sobriety piety and righteousness wherein if we add two or
in opposition to some who vented contrary Doctrines who upon the account of those Rules which they gave their Followers opposite to these are called abominable disobedient and to every good work reprobate Chap. 1.16 Let as many Servants as are under the Yoke count their own Masters worthy of all honour and not despise and dishonour them by their irreverent behaviour publishing their faults and wounding their reputation that the Name of God and the Christian Doctrine be not blasphemed or evil spoken of through the contrary usage If any man teach otherwise he is proud knowing nothing 1 Tim. 6.1 2 3 4. Servants obey your Masters not with eye-service but heartily and in singleness or simplicity of heart without acting double viz. something whilst their eye is over you but nothing when it is off you which you are bound to do not only out of a dread of your Masters anger but as fearing God who will be sure to punish you although your Master should not take notice of you Col. 3.22 Servants he not stubborn and contumacious but subject to your Masters with all fear and reverence and that not only to the good and gentle or equitable and moderate but also to the hasty and morose or froward For if when you do well and suffer for it you yet take it patiently this is truly thank-worthy and acceptable to God And indeed hereunto are you called in Christianity to suffer many times unjustly but still with patience as Christ did that hereafter you may reign with him also 1 Pet. 2.18 19 20 21. Thus is our observation of these particular prohibitions plainly necessary unto life and indispensably required to mercy and salvation And as for that small remainder of them which are not expresly insisted on in this proof their necessity is sufficiently evidenced by the indispensableness of the opposite Commands which in the proof of the affirmative Laws is shown expresly As to all the particular Laws then recited in the foregoing Catalogues whether they be affirmative or negative Commands or Prohibitions 't is plain that they are all bound upon us by the severest sanction no less than our fears of Hell and hopes of Heaven They are the adaequate and compleat matter of that obedience which is to secure for us a happy Sentence At the last Day we must all stand or fall by them where they promise God will bestow rewards but if they threaten he will eternally condemn us And thus at length it plainly appears what those particular Laws are which under the sanctions of Life or Death the Gospel indispensably binds us to obey And upon the whole we see That when we become Christians we are not turned loose and set at liberty to do what we list but are put under a most strict Rule and bound up by a most exalted purity and a most compleat and perfect love The height of our Duty is answerable to the greatness of our Priviledges and advantages For as never any people had so much Grace given to them as we Christians have by the Gospel so never was there of any so much Duty required The poor Heathens who knew nothing more either of Gods Laws or of his rewards and encouragements than they could argue themselves into a belief of by the strength of their own wit and reason knew nothing of nor shall at the last Day be condemned for the transgression of several of those Commands which we shall dye for So far were they from thinking that in the judgment of God lasciviousness uncleanness filthy talk and obscene jests deserved death that as wise men as any among them did not believe it of Fornication and Whoredome it self They were in no fear of being called to account then and being found liable to eternal punishment for being angry at an enemy for cursing or reproaching for praying to the Gods against him nay nor for other higher acts of malice and revenge They never dreamed of being condemned for censoriousness uncourteousness surliness malignity mockery upbraiding reproach and least of all for scandalizing an ignorant and weak Neighbour or not relieving an enemy for not taking up the Cross or not mortifying their own Bodies Vain-glory and emulation they looked upon as deserving commendation rather than reproof and boasting and ostentation when it had no mixture of ill design but was only for boastings sake even they who would find fault with it rebuked only as a vanity but not as a mortal crime The most that any of them could say of these or of several others which it would be too tedious to mention was that it would be a point of praise for men to observe them but not of duty they might be advised to it by a sage Philosopher but not imposed and commanded by a Judge and Lawgiver Thus dark and defective was that sense of Duty which governed the heathen World The priviledg of a clear and full revelation of it which God in great degrees afforded the Jews under the Law of Moses and us Christians in the compleatest measures under the Gospel of Christ was a Grace and Favour which he did not vouchsafe them He shewed as the Psalmist says his Word unto Jacob and his Statutes unto Israel but he hath not dealt so with any of the heathen Nations for as for his Judgments or those Laws which we are to be judged by they have not known several of them Psal. 147.19 20. And since not only the poor and ignorant but even the more wise and learned sort of Heathens were thus void of knowledge in the simplicity of their hearts and did not discern several of those to be Laws of God which every one of us may discern most clearly if we will although we must stand or fall by them yet they shall not but when they are brought to Judgment they shall go unpunished for their transgressions of them because they did not know them They shall not be condemned for acting against they knew not what nor suffer for the breach of such Laws as were not sufficiently published and proclaimed to them They that sinned without our Law shall also perish not by it but without our Law according to the Sentence of such other Laws as are not ours but their own and it is only as many as have sinned in or under our Law that shall be judged and condemned by the Law Rom. 2.12 Whatsoever they may suffer then for their transgressions of their own plain natural Laws which all of them might have known that had a mind to it they shall not be punished for their ignorant breach of such as are peculiarly ours but that part of their offences shall be overlooked and graciously connived at For those times of ignorance saith the Apostle God winked or connived at Acts 17.30 And as for the Jews although they had a stricter Rule and a more perfect Precept answerable to their clearer light and
have intended so that as soon as ever an opportunity for obedience is presented we have nothing left to deliberate and consider of but without all doubtings or delay go on to work and practise it And all this as I said is a genuine and direct effect of our Obedience having acquired great degrees of strength and becoming customary and habitual For Custome as it is truly said is a second Nature such things as have been long used by us stick as close to us and flow as easily as quickly as indeliberately and naturally from us as those things that are born with us They do not stay for our particular contrivance and designation of them but run before it A man by long custome shall have his fingers move so fast upon a Lute that thought it self shall not be able to keep time with them and answer every stop with a particular intention and command of it An habitual Swearer when occasion is offered or without any will rap out Oaths when he is not aware and so little many times was there of actual contrivance and express design in it that when he hath done he doth not know it And the case is the same in other habitual sinners whose transgressions proceeding not so much from a particular and express choice as from an habitual temper and even natural inclination are unconsidered and indeliberate And therefore when our Obedience it self is become customary and use has wrought it into our very Nature we have no need upon every return of opportunity to eye Gods command which is the end and to intend his service as a motive to our wills to engage them to choose the Action before us which tends to it We stay not to bethink our selves what it tends to and who is to be served by it and after that to intend expresly to serve him in it No all these were done to our hands before the time of obeying came so that now when we have the opportunity we do not busie our selves in exciting them but in this habitual state of things and perfection of obedience act ordinarily in the force of them which is obeying through an habitual and implicite intention And now from what has been said of this Perfection and customariness of our obedience being the cause of our obeying only through an habitual intention it plainly appears that not the actual but habitual intention of serving God is that which is alwayes and indispensably required to a sincere service of him Indeed when we pause and deliberate and take several things into our consideration a particular intention of his service is necessary to make what we do upon such deliberation an acceptable obedience For if in the deliberation our choice was doubtfull as to the event such particularity of intention was necessary to make us choose the Action of obedience and if it were doubtfull as to the motive when other things sufficient to make us act as we did as the service of our Lusts or Interests concurr'd to it as well as Gods Command then is it necessary to make us choose the acceptable service of obedience But for that intention I say which is not only here in this case or some others but universally and in all indispensably necessary to the sincerity of our obedience it is an habitual intention For the very reason why we do not intend his service particularly and expresly but only habitually and implicitely is because our obedience has arrived to good perfection and long use and custome has made it not so much at every turn our considerate choice and contrivance as our unstudied inclination and very nature Now this exaltation of Obedience into a natural temper is so far from rendring it unsincere and making God look upon it as none at all that in very deed it is the height and perfection of that which his Gospel commands us to aspire and aim at For there our Duty is expressed by our being born again by our becoming New Men and New Creatures and by our being made partakers of the Divine Nature and so like unto God himself who is carried on to all actions of Virtue and Holiness not by the motives of Reason and Argument but by the exact and infinite goodness of his own Nature it self So that in measuring the sincerity of our Obedience by the reality of our intention and design for Gods service we see that we are not alwayes to exact of our selves a particular and express intention because God requires it not but may and often must when our Obedience becomes natural and habitual take up with an intention that is so too But for the fuller understanding of this condition of our Obedience Sincerity we must consider not only the reality and undissembledness of our service and intention which have been discoursed of hitherto but their uncorruptness and unmixedness likewise And this as well as the former is sometimes signified by sincerity which is used to denote not Truth only and reality in opposition to Fiction and Hypocrisie but Purity also in opposition to mixture and alloy And thus we read of the sincere milk of the Word i. e. the pure and unmixed parts of it or the Christian Doctrine as freed from all adulterate mixtures of Gnostick Impurities and Jewish Observances which were those compositions wherewith in the Apostles times so many went about to corrupt the Word of God 1 Pet. 2.2 So that to serve God sincerely in this sence is to perform what he commands us for his sake and with a design to please him without mixing therewith any by-ends of our own or intending our own self interests together with him But this we are to understand with much restriction For it is not all intention of Pleasure Profit or other Interest to our selves in the performance of Gods commands which he has forbidden us We may design to advantage our selves by our Obedience and be sincere still provided that this design be only upon those spiritual and eternal advantages which God himself promises to the obedient or upon temporal ones so far as they minister to Obedience and are subordinate under it But that mixture of intention only is corrupt and unsincere when together with our intention of serving God we joyn another intention of serving sin or when we design some temporal ends as much or more than we do Gods service which makes our self interest instead of being subservient to Obedience to become fit to oppose and undermine it First I say God has not forbidden us all intention of our own advantage in the performance of his Commandments When he requires us to obey him he doth not prohibit all Love of our own selves and regard to our own self interests which will appear from all these Reasons both because some eye at our own good and respect to our own advantage is of that nature that it cannot be forbidden us because Gods Laws themselves have offered
become infinitely our greatest self-interest and render it impossible for us not to serve our own advantage in the highest measure if we do obey at all And since Gods Laws themselves propose such incomparable Arguments to perswade us to obedience they can never forbid us to have an eye to them or to be excited to obedience by them For the very end why God annexes such allurements to his Commands is that they may be a motive to win our choice and make us willing to obey them But now our wills are moved by nothing further than they desire it and intend to purchase it We cannot be drawn by it longer than we have an eye to it nor can we endeavour after it further than we design to obtain it For we must always design the end before we chuse the means since it is only for the sake and hopes of that that the trouble of these is undertaken So that if any thing must be the final cause and encouragement of our endeavour it must be the matter of our intention and design also And therefore seeing God himself has placed such infinite advantages and self-interests at the end of our Duty to perswade and excite us to a willing performance of it 't is evident he designs first of all that we should have an eye to them in obeying because otherwise it is not possible that we should be moved by them Nay so far is God from forbidding all respect to our own advantage in our obedient performances of his Laws that 3. In asserting so clearly as he has done the necessity of faith to our obedience he plainly tells us that If we must obey at all it cannot be denied us Faith is a most necessary Principle of all natural as well as Gospel service For without faith saith S t Paul it is impossible for any man whether he be Heathen or Christian to please God because he that cometh to God in whatsoever Religion must believe thus much of him at least that he is and also that he is a rewarder of all them that seek him without an eye whereat no man would ever be perswaded to seek after him Heb. 11.6 And as for the belief of the Gospel in particular which is the faith of us Christians so necessary is it to make us obey the Laws of Christ that our obedience as being effected by it is called the obedience of faith Rom. 16.26 and disobedient men in the Scripture language are ordinarily styled unbelievers and disobedience unbelief But now what is there in our faith so indispensably necessary to effect this obedience but our belief as S t Paul says of Gods readiness to reward us and of those advantageous promises which the Gospel proposes to us upon our performance of it And how is it possible for our belief of them to carry us on to obey further than we concern our selves for those things which are promised and intend by such obedience to procure them The Gospel indeed has furnished us with all manner of Motives if we will believe it without which it is not possible that we should be moved by it It tells us of a most surpassing love and infinite kindness which God and Christ have shown to us and if we believe this it is fit to raise in us a most exalted love which will make us perform any thing for their sakes out of very gratitude Now this is a most noble and ingenuous Principle of obedience which although it have something has yet the least of self-love in it But it is weak and insufficient unable of it self to carry us far and to bear us through our whole Duty And therefore besides it for a perfect supply of all our wants we have in it moreover the greatest good things and such as we are most in love with promised to our obedience and the greatest evils such as we most fear threatned if we disobey And if we believe these we must take obedience to be our highest not service only but self-interest and that no temptation can either promise or threaten so much to our own self-love as God doth And this indeed carries us through all and makes us obey intirely It overcomes every difficulty and overballances all contrary inticements But this it doth only so far as we intend to purchase all those surpassing advantages by our obedience which infinitely exceed all those other inticements that are attained by men who disobey And as this respect to our own advantage in our obedient performances is nothing more than the condition of our Nature absolutely requires than the necessity of Faith supposes and than Gods Law it self offers and proposes to us so neither is it any thing more 4. Than the best men have always used who yet were graciously accepted upon such obedience For just Noah obeyed Gods Law through the fear of that destruction which it threatned and with a design of escaping it himself when all the wicked of the World should be overwhelmed in it Noah saith the Text was moved with fear to the preparing of his Ark as God had commanded and to the saving of his house thereby And for that very reason because he believed Gods threatning and was effectually afraid of it he is in that very place called an Heir of the righteousness which is by Faith Heb. 11.7 The obedience of Moses is ascribed in plain words to his design upon those rewards which God had promised and which he hoped to compass by it For he had respect saith the Apostle to the recompence of reward Heb. 11.26 And to put it beyond all doubt that this respect to our own advantage in our performance of Gods Laws is not only the necessity of some men but as I said before the very frame and constitution of the humane nature we are told that it was found in it in the highest advancement which it either ever did or possibly can receive I mean in our Saviour Christ himself For even of his obedience and of the highest instance of it his death it self the Apostle assures us that it was performed through a design upon his own advantage as well as upon that Glory which would thereby redound to God It was says he for the sake of the joy that was set before him that he endured the Cross and despised the shame of it Heb. 12.2 Thus upon all these accounts it appears that the having respect to our own advantage in our obedience to Gods Laws is not only an innocent but an absolutely necessary thing God can never be offended with it because the necessity of our nature requires it because his own Laws propose it because our faith is made effectual by it and lastly because the best men that ever lived have stood in need of it and obeyed through it And since some respect to our own good and intention of our own advantage in Gods service is so plainly lawful that surely must be such where the good things
Christians For it is a known Story and usage which Tertullian complains of that the very Heathens themselves could not but cry out Such or such a one is a very good man bating only this That he is a Christian. And when the World of Christians were thus intirely obedient and compleatly vertuous it was no wonder that they could so bravely despise Death and not only suffer but even seek and provoke martyrdom They durst dye for the Gospel because they were sure to live by it For they performed all that it required and were thereby secure of all the happiness which it promised and when by this means Death was become to them only a passage to a most glorious and eternal life it had nothing in it that could fright them All Sorts Sexes and Ages had lived their Religion so well that they feared not to dye for it but with the most undaunted courage and assured hope they every where in great numbers sealed their profession with their blood and gave testimony to the truth of their Faith with their own lives And now if we fall short of that obedience that God requires and which was performed by former Ages whose fault is that or who must in reason suffer for it For Christ's Gospel is the very same that it was sixteen hundred years ago the Precepts are still unchanged and the penalty altogether unaltered It always was and always will be the same Rule of Faith and the same measure of mercy or damnation And therefore if we lose what it promises we may thank our selves for neglecting what it enjoyns For the same terms of life have stood fixt hitherto and shall stand through all Ages the primitive Christians kept and were saved by them and if we break them we shall certainly be condemned for them How small soever therefore that be which in these loose times men perform yet an intire obedience is that which God indispensably enjoins It is the peremptory Demand of his Gospel and will at the last Day be the inviolable Rule of his Judgment It saved the antient Christians and less than it nothing in the World will save us But this some will be ready to say instead of a gracious and merciful is a very rigorous and severe Condition It binds us to more than is in our power and threatens us for what we cannot help and is a task too heavy for any mere man and proportioned only to the strength of an Angel For to obey all God's Laws and that at all times who is sufficient God's Laws themselves are not Rules so general as to admit of no exception For we are commanded for instance to live in peace but yet sometimes we may and must be engaged in striving and contention And as it is in this so it is in other parts of Duty the Commandment holds not in every Case but some are excepted And who now is of an understanding so discerning and sagacious as to see in all things where he is fast and where he is loose and never to mistake that for his liberty which is indeed his Duty To be infallible in judgment and to think right in all things is the property of a God not of a man And if through this weakness of understanding whereto all mankind are subject we are ignorant at any time and do not see or erroneous and mistake our Duty how is it possible that we should in all instances and at all times perform and fulfil it But even where we do know God's Law yet neither there can we always observe it For since we have many other thing to do besides our Duty and opportunities for action call frequently upon the sudden we are oft-times drawn to act before we have time to think and so although we know what we should do in the general yet in this particular Case we have not leisure to attend to it We are surprized into action e're we are aware and perform before we can consider and therefore as the chance happens many times do ill because we have not time to look about us and to see what is well doing But if an opportunity for some sin happen when we are at leisure to consider of it and to avoid it yet many times although for the present it doth not afterwards it shall win upon us For all temptations do not come upon us suddenly and pass away as suddenly again but some stay long with us and persist to obtrude themselves upon us And although we can consider for a while and watch well and resist long yet such is the imperfection of our very faculties that they cannot be held long at stretch but they will at last grow weary They will be tired out by continuing so strict a Guard and begin at last to remit of their care and to slacken their diligence and when they unbend the temptation encreases and our lusts take advantage so that albeit we were not surprized at first yet we shall at last and be tired and wearied into a transgression And since all these with others are infirmities not only incident to but inseparable from our Natures and such as we cannot throw off till we shake off our Bodies and all converse with the tempting world how can it be thus exacted of us who cannot always stand upright that we should never fall but obey God intirely in all things and at all times But to give a clear Answer to these difficulties which are here with great truth objected having shown that Obedience is the Condition which is indispensably required of us and what those particular Laws are which we are to obey and what degrees and measures of obedience is required to them I shall now proceed to enquire into that which I promised in the next place viz. What are the mitigations and allowances of this Condition of happiness and what those defects are which it bears and dispenses with of which in the next Book BOOK IV. Shewing what defects are consistent with a regenerate state and dispensed with in the Gospel CHAP. I. Shewing in general that some sins are consistent with a state of Grace The CONTENTS Some failings consistent with a state of Grace This shewn in the general First From the necessity of humane Nature which cannot live without them Secondly From sundry examples of pious men who had right to life whilst they lived in them THAT measure of life or death which Christ has indispensably fixed for all his Servants is not a perfectly intire and absolutely unerring obedience No it makes allowances for the unconquerable frailties and unavoidable infirmities of our Natures It considers that we are but men and exacts no more of us than a humane service That integrity which as we have seen it requires of us is an intire obedience only of our free works and deliberate chosen actions For then we are perfect and intire in God's account when we have done all that was in our power
indulged passion we daily find that when it is permitted to grow high it has the same effect in making a man act inconsiderately as Wine it self has For a man may be drunk and infatuated with a violent anger an impetuous lust an overpowering fear as well as with wine It shall make him quite forget all Rules of decency and Vertue and attend no more to them at that time than if he had never known them Of anger it is affirmed to a Proverb that it is a short fit of madness And the Case is the same in other passions when they are suffered to go on to amazing and stupifying degrees How many things are acted in the heat of lust of fear of anger c. which the men in their sober wits condemn so perfectly that they would account themselves to be very much injured if any man should say that they might be insnared into them and fall under them Of so great power are mens passions in clouding nay for a time quite overwhelming their reason and understanding For such is the condition of the reasonable soul that during its being here united to the body it is subject to all its alterations and liable even in its most proper and spiritual operations of reason and knowledg to be either improved or hindred or quite taken away by those changes which befal it In a sound body it is free and active but if the bodily Spirits which are those great instruments that it makes use of are ruffled and disordered if they are either confused and overcharged by strong drink or a strong passion blended and displaced by a phrensie blasted by an apoplexy or otherwise mixed and disordered quenched or oppressed by any other violent Disease all use of reason and consideration is strangely hindred if not for a while perfectly eclipsed And this all men are so sensible of that every one is apt to plead this in his own behalf for those faults which he commits in the height of passion and others are as ready to admit of it For their great excuse is That their passion made them almost mad and spurr'd them on to act they knew not what without all sober thought and consideration Thirdly As for the habit or custom of chusing sinful actions it brings our wills to such an acquaintance with them and to such an unstudied forwardness in embracing of them that when an opportunity is offered for them we cannot refrain from them if we would or stand to deliberate whether we should chuse them or no. For custome as we daily see in all sorts of actions begets such a promptness and easiness in performing those things which we are accustomed to that we readily act them upon the next occasion without staying to think and consider of them Vse as was observed above is a second Nature and what we have been wont to do by long practice we do as easily as quickly and as indeliberately as we do those things which flow from the necessity of our very Nature it self And as it is in all our other actions so it is likewise in our works of sin and disobedience By a long acquaintance with them and practice of them we learn at last to chuse them whensoever we meet with them without all thought and examination For all the little doubts and exceptions of our minds against them all tormenting fears and checks of Conscience have been so often silenced that now they are heard no more to make any delay in our embracing of them And our wills have been so accustomed to strike in with them and to chuse the sinful action upon every return of the temptation that now they do not need to pause but act of hand and sin without enquiry And our bodily powers are so naturally disposed to spring out into the commission of them upon occasion that they hardly stay for a Command but are as quick and hasty in the dispatch as our wills were in their indeliberate chusing of them So that our willing of them after a long use is not a matter of arguing and discourse of weighing and considering but a sudden inconsiderate motion It is rather turned into an act of nature than of choice and has more in it of indeliberate necessity than of considerate liberty And as such the Scripture is wont to represent it For when sin is once grown into a confirmed habit we are told that it is not so truly an inviting temptation as a binding Law Rom. 7.25 It doth not then so truly perswade as rule and command us For we are led Captives by it ver 23 and sold under it ver 14. We submit to it out of necessity and not out of choice because we do not chuse where we cannot refuse and here we must be under it and cannot help it For it is now become our very nature and it is almost as much out of our power to alter it as it is for a thing to cast off what is most natural to it Can the Ethiopian Blackamore change his skin or the Leopard his spots When they can do that then saith Jeremy may you also do good who are accustomed to do evil Jer. 1â— 23 If men are so pleased they may chuse to sin themselves out of their liberty till they can no longer chuse whether they shall sin any more or no. A compleat habit and a perfect custome shall make them sin beyond all liberty because they will sin without all deliberation and then they are got up to that pitch whereof S t Peter speaks Of them who cannot cease from sin 2 Pet. 2 14. In sins of commission then or doing those things which are forbidden the causes of indeliberateness and inconsideration are most usually these three viz. A drunken fit a high passion or a confirmed habit And then 2. As for the other Branch of sins viz. those of omission or neglecting to do what we are commanded Besides these three already mentioned which have their evil influence upon sins of that kind also there is one great and particular Cause which takes away our liberty of choice in them and that is a neglect of those means which are necessary to the performance of the omitted Duty For as it is in all our other actions so is it also in those of obedience they hang in a chain of dependance and are helped on or hindred by several others which further than they influence them are not religious themselves nor make up any part of obedience There is a Religion of the means as well as of the end and some actions are helps and preparatives to a religious Duty but otherwise they are no Duty in themselves Thus the not staying to look upon a woman or to gaze upon her beauty is one means whereto our Saviour directs a man that he may be preserved from coveting and lusting after her Matth. 5.28 So fasting is a furtherance to prayer and repentance and several other instances of obedience
And the Case is the same in several other things For meekness and patience and contentedness and forgiveness and every other Vertue has some particular helps and furtherances some things that promote it and dispose us for it and others that obstruct and hinder it Now as there is this order in the things themselves so must there be likewise in our endeavours after them We must take them as they lye and use the means that we may attain the Vertue For meekness humility contentedness and the like are not so perfectly under the power of our wills as that they can be exerted through their bare Decree and peremptory Commandment But if we would attain them besides this imperiousness of Command we must further use all those means and helps which fit and prepare for them In habits of the mind men are sufficiently convinced of this For it is not every one that wills prudence who is a wise or that wills learning who is presently a learned man But he who would be so besides his willing and desiring it must read and study and observe and seek instruction he must use all those means which lye in the way to knowledge and those instruments which prepare for it and are necessary to introduce it before he can attain to it And the Case is the same in all vertuous and moral habits which are seated in the will likewise For we must use those instruments which facilitate and dispose us for the Vertue before the Vertue will become our own and we must put in practice all the means and preservatives against any Vice before we can in reason hope to conquer and avoid it If we would not be proud or peevish we must abstain from all the inlets to pride and peevishness And if we would be meek and humble we must not neglect the helps and instruments promoting meekness and humility For the helps and the vertue must both go together so that if we neglect the one we shall certainly miss of the other also When once we have neglected the means of any Vertue therefore we have parted with our power of obtaining it We have thrown away our liberty in losing of our opportunity so that now our missing of it is not so much a matter of choice as of necessity We omit it and cannot help it because we neglected to use those means whereby we should have attain'd it And in sins of omission this is the great and special Cause which puts them without our power for we neglect the means of doing what we should and after that it is not so truly our free choice as our necessity that we omit it These then are the causes of our want of choice in the particular instances of sins whether of commission or of omission We do not chuse that evil which we commit for want of considerateness and deliberation the freedom whereof is taken away from us by drunkenness passionateness and a habit or custome of committing it And we do not chuse the omission of some Duty which we neglect for want of power whereof we have deprived our selves through the neglect of those means which are necessary to the performance of it So that both in doing what is forbidden and in neglecting what is commanded upon these Causes we do what for that present we cannot help For we do not chuse because we cannot refuse it and therefore it is not so much through choice as through necessity that we are involved in the transgression But although these sins are thus undeliberated in themselves and thus unchosen in their own Particulars yet shall we be punish'd for them as surely as if we had expresly chosen them because they were all chosen in their Causes For we freely and deliberately chose that which made them necessary and that is enough to make us answer for all those things which we acted under that necessity For as for drunkenness which is one of those Causes that deprives us of all liberty by taking away all considerateness and deliberation 't is plain that it either is or may be deliberately considered of and chosen For drunkenness is a sin which requires time in the very acting of it It is not entred on in a moment or dispatched before a man can have time to bethink himself for he may pause and deliberate at every Glass and is free all along to chuse the sin before the Wine inflames him It has nothing in it of suddenness or surprize and therefore nothing of indeliberation Because where a man has time he may deliberate if he will and if he will not that is his own fault and he must answer for it and is punishable in all reason as if he did 'T is true indeed to a man who has never tried and is ignorant of the force of Wine or of any other intoxicating Liquor and of its sudden way of discomposing his Spirits and dethroning his Reason Drunkenness at the first time may be a sin of surprize and an indeliberate action Because he suspects not that a free Draught which he takes down now should a while hence work so great an alteration he is unacquainted yet with the strength of it and knows not that it will have such effects upon him And so long as he doth not see that intoxication is at the end of his present draught he cannot be said to deliberate of or considerately to chuse it It happens to him besides his expectation and is not an effect of choice but of surprize And thus it was with righteous Noah Gen. 9.20 21. And this being unforeseen and indeliberate what a man commits under it is the more excusable as was the incest of Lot Gen. 19.33 But after a man has felt by himself or learned from others what the power of Wine or other intoxicating Drink is it is generally after his own fault and his own choice if he be overcome by it For either he doth or may see the ill effects of it and if for all that he chuse to go on in it it is at his own peril because if he chuses drunkenness he shall be interpreted to chuse all those sinful effects whereto he may see if he will that Drunkenness exposes men So that as for this Cause of indeliberate sins viz. drunkenness it we see is in it self deliberated of and freely chosen And as for the second cause of indeliberate sins viz. some indulged passions which grow to such a height as to drive us on furiously into the fulfilling of them without suffering us to deliberate about them they also are a Cause of our own free choice and deliberation For it is in our power at first either to give way to a beginning passion or to repress it We can check it as we please whilst it is low because then its strength is very weak and our own consideration and command is the greatest But if we slacken the Reins and give it liberty then it knows no bounds but proves
as in all sins of ignorance 2. From the want of particular animadvertence as in all sins of inconsideration 1. The first Cause of an innocent and pardonable involuntariness is ignorance of our Duty when we venture to do what God forbids because we do not know that he has forbidden it And this ignorance may enter upon two accounts either First From our ignorance or mistake of the Law it self when we know not that God has made any such Law as our present action is a transgression of Or Secondly From our ignorance or mistake of the thing it self which the Law enjoins or forbids when we know not that our present action comes under that which in the known Law is enjoined or forbidden Thus for instance a man may sin by backbiting censoriousness c. either because he knows not that backbiting and censoriousness are things prohibited or because he knows not that what he doth is censuring and backbiting And either way the errour may be confined to his understanding and the transgression be no where else but in his mind but may not reach his heart or will at all For he would neither utter the backbiting nor censorious word if he knew that it were against God's will but for this very reason he ventures on them because he knows not that actions of that kind are forbidden or that his is of that forbidden kind of actions First The first sort of ignorance which can effect an innocent involuntariness is our ignorance of the general Law which makes a Duty when we know not that God has given any such Commandment as our present action is a transgression of All the Laws of Christ are not known by every man but some are ignorant of one or other of them Nay there is no man how perfect soever his knowledg of them be at present but at some time he did not know them He had a time of learning before he attained to a compleat understanding of them For our knowledge of them as of all things else is gradual it goes on by steps and from the notice of one proceeds to the notice of another So that even the wise and learned themselves do not at all times see all those things which Christ has required of them but pass through a long time of ignorance before they arrive at that pitch of compleat knowledge But then there are others who have neither abilities nor opportunities to know every particular Law of Christ in a longer time nor some it may be in their whole lives For how many men are there in the world whose understanding is slow and who come to apprehend things with great difficulty And as their faculties are narrow so are their opportunies very small For although they are most heartily willing and desirous to see all that God has required of them that they may keep and practise it yet their education has been so poor that they cannot read it the place which Gods Providence has allotted for them is so destitute that they are far from them who should instruct them in it their condition in the world is so subject and dependant that they have little time and leisure of their own wherein to seek instruction and their apprehensions are so slow and their memories so frail that it is not much of it at a time which they can retain when they have got the freedome of it They are servants or poor men and must be working for their bodily maintenance when they should be in search of spiritual Doctrine Indeed through the infinite goodness and gracious Providence of God it seldome happens if at all that they who have honest hearts which stand ready and prepared to obey his Laws in Christian Countries live long without the means of understanding them For although they themselves cannot read yet if they desire it and seek after it they cannot miss of Christian people and of Christian Guides who will be most ready and willing to instruct them So that no man amongst them whose heart is first desirous of it can ever be supposed to want all opportunities of coming to the knowledg of his Duty But then we must consider that knowledge of our Duty is a word of a great latitude and has many parts and degrees in it For our Duty takes up a great compass no less than all the particular Laws which are contained under the general Precepts of Piety Sobriety Justice Charity Peaceableness And although every mans opportunities will serve him to know some and to understand the most general and comprehensive yet will they not enable him to understand all Our whole Duty 't is true both towards God and men is comprehended in that one Law of Love which as S t Paul says is the fulfilling of the Law Rom. 13.10 So that if every man had but the wit and parts the time and leisure to make deductions and to run this general Law into as many particular instances and expressions as it would reach to in the knowledge of that one Law which is soon learned he might have it within his own power when he would to understand all the rest which are contained within the compass of those two great Branches and general Heads of Duty But alas it is not every common head no nor very many even of the wise and learned who are so quick and ready so full and comprehensive in making inferences But they have need to be showed the particulars and are not able of themselves to collect them by a tedious and comprehensive train of consequences So that even when they have learned their obligation to the most material and general Precepts of the Gospel yet may there be several Particular ones still remaining which not only the poor and ignorant but they also who think themselves to be more wise and learned do not see and take themselves to be obliged by As for the crying sins of Perjury Adultery Murther Theft Oppression Lying Slander and the like which even natural Conscience without the assistance and instruction of Christ's Gospel would be afraid of these 't is true no man who is grown up to years of common reason and discretion can be ignorant of and yet be innocent But then besides these there are many other sins which are not of so black a Die or of so mischievous a Nature which many of them who profess the Gospel through the littleness of their abilities their leisure or opportunities do not understand to be sinful Their Consciences are not afraid of them nor check them either before or after they have committed them For how many are there of the Professors of Christ's Religion who never think of being called to an account for lasciviousness and uncleanness for passionateness and uncourteousness for backbiting and censoriousness for disturbing the publick peace and speaking evil of Dignities for not speaking well of an enemy or not praying for him or for the like Breaches of several other particular Laws
prohibited not being forbidden universally but some being excepted here again is room for ignorance and mistake about the particular action after we have known the general Duty For we may take that to be a case excepted which is indeed a case prohibited and venture upon an action as an exempted liberty which in truth and reality is a forbidden sin 3. In other actions although we know the general Law yet many times we are in ignorance about the particular action because there are several actions which are not directly forbidden by any Law but are alwayes innocent and indifferent unless when some Law takes hold of them indirectly The action is usually allowed except when it is committed in such a manner as that the transgression of some Law accompanies it There is no Law against it self but only against some thing that is annexed to it For God has not given a particular Law for every sort of actions but has left us in several to govern our selves by other motives and inducements of pleasure honour or interest and not by virtue of a Commandment But although these unrestrained actions are no matter of a particular Law which expresly names them and directly binds us up to one side either in chusing or refusing the whole kind of them yet in our use and exercise of them they may at one time or other fall under the power of several For to illustrate this by an instance there is no Law which directly and expresly either enjoyns or forbids us to play at cards or other pastime but yet several Laws commanding or forbidding other things may be transgressed in our use of them For even in a game at cards we may incur the sin of Covetousness by our desire of money the sin of Injustice by our endeavours to cheat and cozen and the sins of passionateness impatience and unpeaceableness by our repining at our ill luck our quarrelling and contending and the like might be shewn in other cases Now seeing several actions which in themselves are thus innocent and under no Law may yet at one time or other by reason of some thing concomitant and annexed to them be indirectly a transgression of a Law here is still a further reason why when we know the general Law we yet are ignorant of our present actions being forbid by it For the Law doth not look upon it directly but takes a compass before it comprehends it They lie not in the same line and so one may be particularly seen and considered of and much more known and understood in the general without seeing of the other 4. In other actions although we know the General Law which we sin against yet we do not believe that our present action is included in it or forbid by it because another Law happens to clash with it in some instance and seems to injoyn and justifie what we do although that be transgressed by it For it often happens in a Christians Life that two Laws interfere and command differently in the same instance Our Duty is at variance with it self so that when we pursue obedience in one particular another is disobeyed by us How obvious and usual is it for him who would avoid the passion and impatience of discourse to fall into a fault of the opposite extream by fullenness and unsociable moroseness What is more common than for men to be over censorious and troublesomly rigid in conversation who aim at nothing but to be severely virtuous and piously austere It is an obvious errour for any whilst they intend a charitable feasting to run into some small intemperance for inoffensiveness and kind compliance to justle out the due severities of reproof for severity to exceed into ungentleness for affection to degenerate into fondness and which is the great instance of errour upon this score for our zeal for God to disturb the peace and transgress the bounds of charity towards men I do not mean such zeal as transgresses notorious and weighty Laws for disputable nay even for clear and evident Doctrines and Opinions A zeal that will stick at nothing but bursts through all Gods Commands to propagate an Article and ventures upon murders tumults lying slander wars blood-shed and other instances of a most notorious and damning disobedience in practice to promote an Orthodox belief For these are such instances of offence as no honest heart can overlook but if a man has not debauched his Conscience they must needs appear to be of a frightful guilt and of a damning nature Any virtuous temper must abhor and every good conscience utterly condemn them So that no man of an honâ—st and obedient heart can ever hope to serve God by them or think any pretence whatsoever of force enough to justifie the practice of them But then there are other sins which are of a smaller guilt or of a more alterable nature such as either are not greatly or not alwayes evil but only when they happen to have ill effects or are in an exorbitant degree and these an eager zeal doth many times drive men to and they think all is obedience even when they proceed so far in them as to disobey Mens 〈◊〉 for those Opinions which they account Religious 〈…〉 them daily into estrangedness of mind and 〈◊〉 of behaviour into passione disputes and 〈◊〉 reflections into animosities and disquietness and a great breach of mutual charity and love And all these though really they are breaches of their Duty are looked upon as innocent nay praise-worthy they judge them to come from an honest Principle and therefore doubt not but that they will end in an happy reward The duty of pious zeal is the spring although it contract much of humane passion in the passage and that they hope will be acceptable to God which goes under cover of a Commandment and comes to serve him And this was the case in that hot and sinfull contest which happened betwixt those two great lights of Virtue and Learning Epiphanius and Chrysostome For it was a zeal for publick good and against such things as were likely in their opinion to corrupt the Faith or disturb the Peace or pervert the practice of the Church which transported them into that warm contention that ended in an uncharitable breach and passionate imprecation when Epiphanius wrote to Chrysostome That he hoped he would lose his See and never dye a Bishop and Chrysostome replyed to him that he hoped he would come to an untimely end and never return safe into his own city And a real transgression of one Law being thus through the clashing and enterfering of two Laws of Christ in fair appearance an act of laudable and necessary obedience to another Here again is a further reason why when we know the Law which we sin against we yet think that our action is not sinfull because we take it to be justified nay what is more commanded by another 5. In other actions although we know the General Law
is against the Laws of all reasoning and the Rules of Argument and Discourse to reject the plain and necessary consequence of an allowed Principle So that till we renounce the prejudice which manifestly destroys a Law we must needs evacuate or in great part impair the Law which is opposed by it But to make the Law be understood in its plain meaning and believed in its full extent 't is necessary that the Principle be rejected which thwarts or excludes it All our Arguments for it must be answered or overborn and all our exceptions either against the truth or fulness of our plain Duty must be taken off and our belief must be won to it by new light and encrease of Argument And to conquer all our backwardness and silence all our doubts we must be showed that God doth indeed intend his Law in that plain and full sence which his own words obviously express but our prejudice opposes by the importunity and confirmed use of a repeated proof and revelation Our prejudices then or anticipated opinions which are looked upon as great Truths and Rules of Judgment will in all likelihood make us ignorant of several Duties or at least of several parts of Duty which are plainly enough revealed They will make us to overlook either some whole Laws or a great part of the compass and extent of them and to think several actions to be exempt from them which are really bound up by them Which I say we shall do because we shall not judge of our Duty from those plain words that express it which is certainly the safest course whereby to have a full sense of it but from our own foreconceived Notions and Opinions which oftentimes and in several instances and degrees if not altogether evacuate and impair it To help our apprehensions in this abstract Discourse we will look a little into the practice of men and that will shew us plainly how bad an influence prejudices have upon their minds in making them ignorant either of several Duties or of the sinfulness of several actions which are restrained by them For we shall find great numbers of men of all sorts to have taken up several false opinions which are inconsistent with some Vertues and which make those Laws that they are against to have no force at all or very little upon their Conscience nor any effect upon their practice So that they misinterpret that to be no Duty which God has made one and transgress boldly and securely without fear or remorse For some out of a certain timerousness of mind have entertained a wrong belief That nothing is lawful in God's Worship but what either some authentick Example recorded in Scripture has approved or some Command has made necessary So that when any Law of their Governours comes to enjoin any Circumstance or Ceremony in Gods service which God and the Scriptures had left indifferent although when once such Law has past the plain and known Precepts of obedience to Laws and submission to Governours of peace and unity among Fellow Christians enjoyn it they account the fulfilling of it to be no longer a matter of obedience and Duty but unlawful and a sin For their mistaken Notion of things being made lawful only by some Example or Law that warrants them and not on the contrary being lawful and at liberty antecedent to all Laws and Precedents because no Law forbids them is the Rule whereby they measure the obligation of all these Duties and it plainly overthrows them So that in a confident belief thereof they securely transgress these Laws and break the unity and disturb the peace of men thinking that they obey God in so doing Others have given way to a false opinion that Religion is so much every mans care as that not only Kings and Governours whose Office and Title it is to be Defenders of the Faith but also every private Christian should contrive and act for the publick maintenance and protection of it They are not content in securing it to keep within their own sphere and to do what they are bound in Duty towards it as private Christians That is to pray to God earnestly and importunately that he would preserve it and to endeavour industriously in their own place after it by their own lively and exemplary practice of it by a careful instruction of other men in the reasons of it by exhorting them to a close adherence to it and by pressing upon them all the motives of Heaven and another World to perswade them to a conscientious taking up the Cross when it shall please God to lay it in their way and a patient and couragious suffering for it When God by his Providence brings a National Religion into danger these are the Duties whereto he calls every private man and it is his present honour and shall be his immortal happiness conscientiously to discharge it And would they content themselves with this all were well and laudable But when once they have imbibed this opinion that they are not only private Promoters but also publick Contrivers and Protectors of the Faith they run beyond all these private means into a censuring of the administration of affairs and the prudence of Governours into endless fears and jealousies murmurings and complaints and other instances of pragmaticalness irreverence and contempt of higher Powers and disturbance of the publick Peace All these their Principle justifies and therefore in assurance of it they boldly venture on them So that although the Commands of studying to be quiet and to do their own business against a pragmatical medling in the affairs and disturbing the quiet of other men are expressed in words most plain and easily intelligible yet do they overlook them and in all those instances wherein their prejudice leads them to transgress quite evacuate all their plain force and obvious Obligation Some for a long time neglect the dutiful use of one Sacrament because they think that they have a pious reason against it and many other humble and well-meaning minds omit a dutiful participation of the other as scarce ever thinking themselves to be sufficiently prepared for it Their false opinion carries them into their sinful neglect and makes them disobey those Laws which require the use of them by making them first to think that they would offend God if they should observe them These breaches of Duty and indulged acts of sin well-meaning and honestly obedient minds are oft-times drawn into through erroneous conceits and prejudicate Opinions For some men of honest hearts and of humble modest tempers who are ready to comply in every thing wherein their consciences allow them are insnared into them and disobey only because they judge obedience to be unlawful And that which makes them judge so is not any lust or sin which is harboured and unmortified in their hearts which should be ministred to by such erroneous judgment But the Opinion took possession of their souls by the education of their
false it is the only rule that we can act by We cannot perform duty without we understand it nor obey Laws before we have some knowledge of them we must judge what is commanded before we can observe it and whether we judge right or wrong we have no way to obey but by acting according to such judgment Yea if our Conscience does err and innocently mistake our Duty yet whil'st we follow it in the simplicity of our hearts we perform the life and soul of Obedience even when we erroneously transgress it For we do the mistaken action out of an obedient intention we exert it for Gods sake in an acknowledgement of his Authority and a resignation to his pleasure and this is so truly the life and spirit of an acceptable obedience that in case of such erroneous belief we should sinfully and damnably disobey should we neglect it So that if the errour of our conscience it self be inoffensive God will not take offence at our well meant and obediently design'd performance of that which our conscience erroneously tells us we are bound in duty to perform Nor will God be offended at us for having such a scandal or rock of offence as this prejudice and errour of our conscience is if the errour it self is thus innocent He will not take it ill that we did not judge that to be our Duty which the Principle we had to judge by told us was no Duty or it may be a breach of Duty and a sin For this was truly to judge by Principles and to have recourse in judgement to the best and likeliest notions which we could find in our own minds which way of passing judgment is all that we have and the very method which he himself has prescribed us Neither will he be angry at us for admitting such false Opinions into our minds as should afterwards misguide us if it were not our sins and passions but the ordinary way and usual means of knowledge which got them entrance For when the very same means of information and discourse which carry us on to truth in other opinions mislead us into errour and mistake in these we erre in the honesty of our hearts and in the use of means and ordinary endeavours so that nothing remains for our errour to be charged upon but either a weakness of understanding or an ill fortune either that using fallible means we were not so wise as to avoid being deceived by them or that we had the ill hap to be guided by them in such an instance when errour lay at the end of them And since these Causes of errour are only our weakness and unhappiness but not our fault and disobedience God will graciously bear with us and will not be extream to punish us for them Or if we happen to erre in an instance wherein he will exact obedience he will at least bear with us so long till besides the plain declarations of our Duty and the common means of knowing it we have had moreover such accumulation of proof and clearing of the Case as will if we are not wanting to our selves answer all our exceptions and bear down all our prejudices against it And of this we have a clear instance in the errour of the Apostles about the discharge of that great Duty of preaching the Gospel to all Nations immediately after Christ's ascension He had enjoined this in a Command as plain one would think as words can make it All power is given unto me in Heaven and in Earth Go ye therefore and teach not the Jews only to whom I sent you at first but all Nations Matth. 28.18 19 preaching remission of sins upon repentance to all Nations beginning at Jerusalem Luke 24.47 But for all this Precept was so express and this Declaration of their Duty was so plain and evident yet was it not of it self sufficient to give them an understanding of it For those prepossessions which they lay under drew such a Veil before their eyes and linked their minds so fast to a contrary belief that they took no notice of it nor ever thought their contrary practice to be forbid by it They thought still that Israel was Gods peculiar people that the Jews were the only seed of Abraham and that the great Prophet Messiah whom Moses told them God would one Day raise up among them for eminence and extraordinariness of Divine Commission like unto him was to be theirs peculiarly to whom God had promised him These prejudices and anticipations of Judgment had been instilled into their young and tender minds by the early care of their Parents and fomented by the instruction of their Teachers and daily more and more confirmed in them by conversation and an uninterrupted custom of perswasion And being thus forcibly impressed upon them they had so blocked up their obedient and well-meaning minds that when a plain Command required them to practise contrary to this belief they did not understand but overlook it Insomuch that Peter himself was not convinced of it by the manifest injunction of a clear Law but stood in need to have his doubts solved and his exceptions answered and his former prejudices confuted and overborn by such accumulation of proof and evidence as God was pleased to give him in a most condescensive Dispute upon that Subject by an after and repeated Revelation Acts 10. and 11. Chapâ—ers But now this ignorance of their Duty which was so plainly delivered in the words of a clear Law did not put them out of Gods favour because it was occasioned only by such hindrances as were consistent with an honest heart or such whereto not their sins and passions but their natural weakness of understanding and their education and custom those fallible means of knowledge had betrayed them For God still lovingly embraced them he bore with their weaknesses and helped their infirmities he pitied their ignorance whilst they laboured under it and because he saw it was fit and necessary that they should get quit of it he graciously afforded them a further and more powerful evidence whereby to overcome it And all this pardon and forbearance I say they found because their prejudices were consistent with an honest heart since they were begot in them not by any lusts or vices but only by their weakness of understanding and the fallibility of the means of knowledge But as some prejudices which lead to sin and disobedience get into mens Consciences only through weakness of understanding and fallibility of means which are therefore consistent with a state of favour and salvation so are there 2. Several others which are got into their Conscences through the assistance of their lusts and vices and these are deadly and damning Mens lusts and vices have a great influence upon their minds and the chief hand many times in molding of their judgments and opinions And therefore we may know mens manners by their perswasions about their Duty before ever we see their practices
In which wicked action that which moved them was envy and malice but that which prevailed with him was his fear of their calumnies and of the anger of the Roman Emperour For in his own heart he was minded to release him being convinced of his innocence and afraid to have any hand in the Blood of one who called himself the Son of God But because he called himself a King which his own mind could not but suggest to him as the Rabble did afterwards was a Title whereof the Emperour would be extremely jealous therefore he gives him up to their will fearing lest if he did not he should be traduced as no Friend to that most jealous Prince Tiberius Caesar. And when Christ himself comes to pass Judgment in comparison of his offence and theirs He who delivered me unto thee saith he hath the greater sin Joh. 19.11 Those discomposures then of our knowing Faculties which are innocent and fit to excuse our inconsiderate slips which proceed from them are such as spring from an unwill'd sudden grief or anger but especially from an unwill'd sudden fear To make it unwill'd I say it must be sudden for if our fear it self which is a passion that amazes more than all the rest doth not presently effect any thing but stays some considerable time and reigns long before it produces any sinful action then it is a matter of our own choice being it is a fear of our own indulging We give it room and entertainment we feed it or give way to it and that makes our fear to become our sin which can never serve for our vindication For a true Christian must be as bold as a Lyon and fear nothing so much as the disobedience of his God and the breach of his Duty But as for other things which men use to be afraid of whether they be loss of Fame of Estate of Friends of Liberty or even of Life it self though he may justly fear and avoid them when he can innocently yet if they are the burden of the Cross imposed upon the doing of his Duty he must chearfully take it up and not fear and fly from but overlook and contemn them For God will make us an abundant Recompence in the next World for any thing which we part with for his sake in this And therefore he indispensably requires us as in all reason he very well may not to fear and shrink from the loss of any thing even of life it self when he calls for it but in Faith of his Promises and in hope of his Rewards most couragiously to undergo it Persecutions and Dangers which are the great objects of our fears are the chiefest tryals of our obedience for which reason they are so often in Scripture called Temptations and therefore their business is to evidence how much we will part with for obedience but by no means to excuse us when we disobey But in relation to them Christs command is this Fear not them which kill the body but are not able to kill the soul but fear him who can cast both body and soul into Hell Mat. 10.28 And if we suffer our fears of them to chase us away from the owning of his Religion or to drive us from the performance of his Will his Sentence against us is plain and peremptory Whosoever is ashamed of me and my words and dare not owne them although it be in a Generation that is sinful and adulterous wherein he will be sure to suffer for the profession of them of him shall the Son of man be ashamed when he cometh in the Glory of his Father with his holy Angels Mark 8.38 As for all Fear then which drives us from our Duty it is our fault and if we stand and pause upon it and have time to deliberate and arm our selves against it if we fear still our fear is our wilful and deadly sin and doth not excuse but deserve our condemnation And such was the fear of Peter that made him deny his Lord which cost him so many penitential tears to wash off the stain of it Mat. 26.75 And in an instance of a smaller crime such was the indulged fear of Abraham when to save his own life he exposed his wife Sarah and Pharaoh King of Egypt to the danger of an adulterous mixture Gen. 12.11 12 13 15 c. Concerning which action S t Chrysostome thus discourses He participates in the Adultery of his wife and doth in a manner minister to the Adulterer unto his wife's reproach only that he himself may avoid a present death And this he did because his mind was still subject to the Tyranny of death the sting of it was not yet taken out nor his fears of it subdued but the face of it was ghastly and terrible above his courage And a like sinful practice upon a deliberate fear we meet with in Isaac in the same case who was a true Child of Abraham in his infirmities as well as in his piety Gen. 26.7 But that Fear or Grief or Anger which makes excusable and innocent discomposure must be sudden and surprizing It must seize on us suddenly and disturb our thinking powers unawares and carry us on to transgress before we can recover our selves from the discomposure And when it doth so it is forced upon us and is not chosen by us we are hurried into it without our own consent and cast upon it whether we will or no and since the inconsideration it self is thus involuntary the slips upon it are excusable and such as God will not severely punish but has been always prone to pardon and dispense with David the man after Gods own heart when he received the sad 〈◊〉 of Absoloms being slain was suddenly transported into a most impatient and indecent height of sorrow 2 Sam. 18.33 and Chap. 19. v. 2 4. Samuel who was a person so dear to God that if he could be intreated by any man he tells us it would be by him or Moses standing to intercede before him did yet in an instance that would have drawn him into the hazard of his life dispute Gods command when he should have performed it and question where in duty it became him to obey For when God bid him go and anoint David King which service was sure to draw upon him the cruel and implacable hatred of Saul through the sudden force of that frightful thought instead of obeying he answers again saying How can I go for if Saul hear of it he will kill me 1 Sam. 16.1 2. And a like instance we have of Moses's infirmity when God was for sending him upon an Errand as hazardous and much more difficult viz. his deliverance of the poor oppressed Israelites from the cruel Bondage of the powerful Egyptians Exod. Chap. 3 and 4. And Paul and Barnabas two great Apostles and most eminently pious Servants of Jesus Christ in the bitterness of dispute and heat of quarrel
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