his spirit cannot be lockt in God and his Angels cannot be lockt out Is he dying To him to live is Christ and to dye is gain Is he dead He rests from his labours and is crowned with glory Shortly he is perfect gold that comes more pure out of the fire then it went in neither had ever been so great a Saint in heaven if he had not passed through the flames of his tryall here upon earth SECT 11. His conflicts HE knows himself never out of danger and therefore stands ever upon his guard neither of his hands are empty the one holds out the shield of faith the other manageth the sword of the spirit both of them are employed in his perpetual conflict He cannot be weary of resisting but resolves to dye fighting He hath a ward for every blow and as his eye is quick to discern temptations so is his hand and foot nimble to avoid them He cannot be discouraged with either the number or power of his enemies knowing that his strength is out of himself in him in whom he can do all things and that there can be no match to the Almighty He is carefull not to give advantage to his vigilant adversary and therefore warily avoids the occasions of sinne and if at any time he be overtaken with the suddainnesse or subtilty of a temptation he speedily recovers himself by a serious repentance and fights so much the harder because of his foil He hates to take quarter of the spirituall powers nothing lesse then death can put an and to to this quarrell nor nothing below victory SECT 12. His death HE is not so careful to keep his soul within his teeth as to send it forth well addressed for happinesse as knowing therefore the last brunt to be most violent he rouzeth up his holy fortitude to encounter that King of fear his last enemy Death And now after a painfull sicknesse and a resolute expectation of the fiercest assault it fals out with him as in the meeting of the two hostile brothers Jacob and Esau in stead of grapling he finds a courteous salutation for stabs kisses for height of enmity offices of love Life could never befriend him so much as Death offers to do That tenders him perhaps a rough but a sure hand to lead him to glory and receives a welcome accordingly Neither is there any cause to marvell at the change The Lord of life hath wrought it he having by dying subdued death hath reconciled it to his own and hath as it were beaten it into these fair tearms with all the members of his mysticall body so as whiles unto the enemies of God Death is still no other then a terrible executioner of divine vengeance he is to all that are in Christ a plausible and sure convoy unto blessednesse The Christian therefore now laid upon his last bed when this grim messenger comes to fetch him to heaven looks not so much at his dreadfull visage as at his happy errand and is willing not to remember what death is in it self but what it is to us in Christ by whom it is made so usefull and beneficiall that we could not be happy without it Here then comes in the last act and employment of faith for after this brunt passed there is no more use of faith but of vision that heartens the soul in a lively apprehension of that blessed Saviour who both led him the way of suffering and is making way for him to everlasting glory That shews him Jesus the Authour and finisher of our faith who for the joy that was set before him endured the Crosse despising the shame and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God That clings close unto him and lays unremoveable hold upon his person his merits his blessednesse upon the wings of this faith is the soul ready to mount up toward that heaven which is open to receive it and in that act of evolation puts it self into the hands of those blessed Angels who are ready to carry it up to the throne of Glory Sic O sic juvat vivere sic perire FINIS Luther in Gal. Hier. Zanch. loc com 8. de Symbolo Apost
makes thee ours and us thine our materiall food in these corruptible bodies runs into corruption thy spirituall food nourisheth purely and strengthens us to a blessed immortality As for this materiall food many a one longs for it that cannot get it many a one hath it that cannot eat it many eat it that cannot digest it many digest it into noxious and corrupt humours all that receive it do but maintain a perishing life if not a languishing death but this flesh of thine as it was never withheld from any true apperite so it never yeelds but wholesome and comfortable sustenance to the soul never hath any other issue then an everlasting life and happinesse O Saviour whensoever I sit at mine own Table let me think of thine whensoever I feed on the bread and meat that is set before me and feel my self nourished by that repast let me minde that better sustenance which my soul receives from thee and finde thee more one with me then that bodily food SECT 7. This union resembled by the branch and the stock the foundation and the building LOok but into thy Garden or Orchard and see the Vine or any other fruit-bearing tree how it growes and fructifies The branches are loaden with increase whence is this but that they are one with the stock and the stock one with the root were either of these severed the plant were barren and dead The branch hath not sap enough to maintain life in it self unlesse it receive it from the body of the tree nor that unlesse it derived it from the root nor that unlesse it were cherished by the earth Lo Joh. 15. 5 6. I am the Vine saith our Saviour Ye are the branches He that abideth in me and I in him the same bringeth forth much fruit If a man abide not in me he is cast forth as a branch and is withered were the branch and the body of the tree of different substances and only closed together in some artificiall contiguity no fruit could be expected from it it is only the abiding in the tree as a living lim of that plant which yeelds it the benefit and issue of vegetation No otherwise is it betwixt Christ and his Church the bow and the tree are not more of one piece then we are of one substance with our Saviour and branching out from him and receiving the sap of heavenly vertue from his precious root we cannot but be acceptably fruitfull But if the Analogie seem not to be so full for that the branch issues naturally from the tree and the fruit from the branch whereas we by nature have no part in the Son of God take that clearer resemblance which the Apostle fetches from the stock and the griffe or cion The branches of the wilde olive Rom. 11. are cut off and are graffed with choice cions of the good olive those imps grow and are now by this insition no lesse embodyed in that stock then if they had sprouted out by a naturall propagation neither can be any more separated from it then the strongest bough that nature puts forth In the mean time that cion alters the nature of that stock and whiles the root gives fatnesse to the stock and the stock yeelds juice to the cion the cion gives goodnesse to the plant and a specification to the fruit so as whiles the impe is now the same thing with the stock the tree is different from what it was so it is betwixt Christ and the beleeving soul Old Adam is our wilde stock what could that have yeelded but either none or sowre fruit we are imped with the new man Christ that is now incorporated into us we are become one with him our nature is not more ours then he is ours by grace now we bear his fruit and not our own our old stock is forgotten all things are become new our naturall life we receive from Adam our spirituall life and growth from Christ from whom after the improvement of this blessed incision we can be no more severed then he can be severed from himself Look but upon thy house that from vegetative creatures thou maist turn thine eyes to those things which have no life if that be uniform the foundation is not of a different matter from the wals both those are but one piece the superstructure is so raised upon the foundation as if all were but one stone Behold Christ is the chief corner stone 1 Pet. 2. 6. elect and precious neither can there be any other foundation laid then that which is laid on him 1 Cor. 3. 11. 2 Pet. 2. 5. we are lively stones built up to a spiritual house on that sure and firm foundation some loose stones perhaps that lye unmortered upon the battlements may be easily shaken down but whoever saw a squared marble laid by line and levell in a strong wall upon a well-grounded base flye out of his place by whatsoever violence since both the strength of the foundation below and the weight of the fabrick above have setled it in a posture utterly unmovable Such is our spirituall condition O Saviour thou art our foundation we are laid upon thee and are therein one with thee we can no more be disjoyned from thy foundation then the stones of thy foundation can be disunited from themselves So then to sum up all as the head and members are but one body as the husband and wife are but one flesh as our meat and drink becomes part of our selves as the tree and branches are but one plant as the foundation and wals are but one fabrick so Christ and the beleeving soul are indivisibly one with each other SECT 8. The certainty and indissolublenesse of this union WHere are those then that goe about to divide Christ from himself Christ reall from Christ mysticall yeelding Christ one with himself but not one with his Church making the true beleever no lesse separable from his Saviour then from the entirenesse of his own obedience dreaming of the uncomfortable and self-contradicting paradoxes of the totall and finall Apostasie of Saints Certainly these men have never thorowly digested the meditation of this blessed union whereof we treat Can they hold the beleeving soul a lim of that body whereof Christ is the head and yet imagine a possibility of dissolution Can they affain to the Son of God a body that is unperfect Can they think that body perfect that hath lost his lims Even in this mysticall body the best joynts may be subject to strains yea perhaps to some painfull and perillous luxation but as it was in the naturall body of Christ when it was in death most exposed to the cruelty of all enemies that upon an over-ruling providence not a bone of it could be broken so it is still and ever with the spirituall some scourgings and blowes it may suffer yea perhaps some bruises and gashes but no bone can be shattered in pieces much lesse dissevered from the rest of the body
is his righteousnesse made ours How fully doth the second Adam answer and transcend the first By the offence of the first judgement came upon all men to condemnation by the righteousnesse of the second the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life Rom. 5. 18. As by one mans disobedience many were made sinners so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous Rom. 5. 19. righteous not in themselves so death passed upon all for that all have sinned Rom. 5. 12. but in him that made them so by whom we have received the atonement Rom. 5. 11. How free then and how perfect is our justification What quarrell may the pure and holy God have against righteousnesse against his own righteousnesse and such are we made in and by him what can now stand between us and blessednesse Not our sins for this is the praise of his mercy that he justifies the ungodly Rom. 4. 5. Yea were we not sinfull how were we capable of his justification sinfull as in the term from whence this act of his mercy moveth not as in the term wherein it resteth his grace findes us sinfull it doth not leave us so Far be it from the righteous Judge of the world to absolve a wicked soul continuing such He that justifieth the wicked and he that condemneth the just even they both are an abomination to the Lord Prov. 17. 15. No but he kils sin in us whiles he remits it and at once cleanseth and accepts our persons Repentance and remission do not lag one after another both of them meet at once in the penitent soul at once doth the hand of our faith lay hold on Christ and the hand of Christ lay hold on the soul to justification so as the sins that are done away can be no bar to our happinesse And what but sins can pretend to an hindrance All our other weaknesses are no eye-sore to God no rub in our way to heaven What matters it then how unworthy we are of our selves It is Christs obedience that is our righteousnesse and that obedience cannot but be exquisitely perfect cannot but be both justly accepted as his and mercifully accepted as for us There is a great deal of difference betwixt being righteous and being made righteousnesse every regenerate soul hath an inherent justice or righteousnesse in it self He that is righteous let him be righteous still saith the Angell Rev. 22. 11. But at the best this righteousnesse of ours is like our selves full of imperfection If thou Lord shouldst mark iniquities O Lord who shall stand Psal 130. 3. Behold we are before thee in our trespasses for we cannot stand before thee because of this Ezra 9. 15. How should a man be just with God If he will contend with him he cannot answer him one of a thousand Job 9. 2 3. So then he that doth righteousnesse is righteous 1 Joh. 3. 7. but by pardon and indulgence Because the righteousnesse he doth is weak and imperfect he that is made righteousnesse is perfectly righteous by a gracious acceptation by a free imputation of absolute obedience Wo were us if we were put over to our own accomplishments for Cursed is every one that continues not in all things which are written in the Book of the Law to do them Gal. 3. 10. Deut. 27. 16. and If we say that we have no sin we deceive our selves and the truth is not in us 1 Joh. 1. 8. Lo if there be truth in us we must confesse own have sin in us and if we have sin we violate the Law and if we violate the Law we lye open to a curse But here is our comfort that our surety hath paid our debt It is true we say forfeited to death Justice had said The soul that sinneth shall die Ezek. 18. 4. Mercy interposeth and satisfies The Son of God whose every drop of bloud was worth a world payes this death for us And now Who shall lay any thing to the charge of Gods elect It is God that justifieth who is he that condemneth It is Christ that dyed yea rather that is risen again who is even at the right hand of God who also maketh intercession for us Rom. 8. 33. 34. Our sin our death is laid upon him and undertaken by him He was wounded for our transgressions he was bruised for our iniquities the chastisements of our peace were upon him and with his stripes we are healed Esa 53. 5. His death his obedience is made over to us So then the sin that we have committed and the death that we have deserved is not ours but the death which he hath endured and the obedience that he hath performed is so ours as he is ours who is thereupon made of God our righteousnesse Where now are those enemies of grace that scoffe at imputation making it a ridiculous paradox that a man should become just by another mans righteousnesse How dare they stand out against the word of truth which tels us expresly that Christ is made our righteousnesse What strangers are they to that grace they oppugn How little do they consider that Christ is ours his righteousnesse therefore by which we are justified is in him our own He that hath borne the iniquity of us all Esa 53. 6. hath taught us to call our sins our debts Mat. 6. 12. those debts can be but once paid if the bounty of our Redeemer hath staked down the sums required and cancelled the bonds and this payment is through mercy fully accepted as from our own hands what danger what scruple can remain What doe we then weak souls tremble to think of appearing before the dreadfull tribunall of the Almighty we know him indeed to be infinitely and inflexibly just we know his most pure eyes cannot abide to behold sin we know we have nothing else bnt sinne for him to behold in us Certainly were we to appear before him in the meer shape of our own sinfull selves we had reason to shake and shiver at the apprehension of that terrible appearance but now that our faith assures us we shall no otherwise be presented to that awfull Judge then as cloathed with the robes of Christs righteousnesse how confident should we be thus decked with the garments of our elder brother to carry away a blessing whiles therefore we are dejected with the conscience of our own vilenesse we have reason to lift up our heads in the confidence of that perfect righteousnesse which Christ is made unto us and we are made in him SECT 15. Christ made our Sanctification AT the bar of men many a one is pronounced just who remains inwardly foul and guilty for the best of men can but judge of things as they appear not as they are but the righteous Arbiter of the world declares none just whom he makes not holy The same mercy therefore that makes Christ our righteousnesse makes him also our sanctification of our selves wretched men what are we other at
the least of them but a world of light and what are all of them but a confluence of so many thousand worlds of beauty and brightnesse met in one firmament And if this floor of thine heavenly Palace be thus richly set forth oh how infinite glory and magnificence must there needs be within Thy chosen Vessell that had the priviledge to be caught up thither and to see that divine state whether with bodily or mentall eyes can expresse it no otherwise then that it cannot possibly be expressed No Lord it were not infinite if it could be uttered Thoughts go beyond words yet even these come far short also He that saw it sayes Eye hath not seen nor ear heard neither have entred into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love him SECT 7. His love in our redemption from death and hell YEt is thy love O Saviour so much more to be magnified of me in this purchased glory when I cast down mine eyes and look into that horrible gulf of torment and eternall death whence thou hast rescued my poor soul Even out of the greatest contentment which this world is capable to afford unto mankinde to be preferred to the joyes of heaven is an unconceivable advantage but from the depth of misery to be raised up unto the highest pitch of felicity addes so much more to the blessing as the evill from which we are delivered is more intolerable Oh blessed Jesu what an hell is this out of which thou hast freed me what dreadfull horror is here what darknesse what confusion what anguish of souls that would and cannot die what howling and yelling and shrieking and gnashing what everlasting burnings what never slaking tortures what mercilesse fury of unweariable tormentors what utter despair of any possibility of release what exquisitenesse what infinitenesse of pains that cannot yet must be endured Oh God if the impotent displeasure of weak men have devised so subtle engins of revenge upon their fellow-mortals for but petty offences how can we but think thine infinite justice and wisdome must have ordained such forms and wayes of punishment for hainous sins done against thee as may be answerable to the violation of thy divine Majesty Oh therefore the most fearfull and deplored condition of damned spirits never to be ended never to be abated Oh those unquenchable flames Oh that burning Tophet deep and large and those streams of brimstone wherewith it is kindled Oh that worm ever gnawing and tearing the heart never dying never sated Oh ever-living death oh ever renuing torments oh never pitied never intermitted damnation From hence O Saviour from hence it is that thou hast fetcht up my condemned soul This is the place this is the state out of which thou hast snatcht me up into thy heaven Oh love and mercy more deep then those depths from which thou hast saved me more high then that heaven to which thou hast advanced me SECT 8. Christs love in giving us the guard of his Angels NOw whereas in my passage from this state of death towards the fruition of immortall glory I am way-laid by a world of dangers partly through my own sinfull aptnesse to miscarriages and partly through the assaults of my spirituall enemies how hath thy tender love and compassion O blessed Jesu undertaken to secure my soul from all these deadly perils both without out and within without by the guardance of thy blessed Angels within by the powerfull inoperation of thy good Spirit which thou hast given me Oh that mine eyes could be opened with Elishaes servant that I might see those troops of heavenly souldiers those horses and chariots of fire wherewith thou hast encompassed me every one of which is able to chase away a whole host of the powers of darknesse Who am I Lord who am I that upon thy gracious appointment these glorious spirits should still watch over me in mine uprising and down lying in my going out and coming in that they should bear me in their arms that they should shield me with their protection Behold such is their majesty and glory that some of thy holiest servants have hardly been restrained from worshipping them yet so great is thy love to man as that thou hast ordained them to be ministring spirits sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation Surely they are in nature far more excellent then man as being spirituall substances pure intelligences meet to stand before the throne of thee the King of glory What a mercy then is this that thou who wouldst humble thy self to be lower then they in the susception of our nature art pleased to humble them in their offices to the guardianship of man so far as to call them the Angels of thy little ones upon earth How hast thou blessed us and how should we blesse thee in so mighty and glorious attendants SECT 9. His love in giving us his holy Spirit NEither hast thou O God meerly turn'd us over to the protection of those tutelary spirits but hast held us still in thine own hand having not so strongly defenced us without as thou hast done within Since that is wrought by thine Angels this by thy Spirit Oh the Soveraign and powerfull influences of thy holy Ghost whereby we are furnished with all saving graces strengthned against all temptations heartned against all our doubts and fears enabled both to resist and overcome and upon our victories crowned Oh divine bounty far beyond the reach of wonder So God the Father loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever beleeveth in him should not perish but have everlasting life So God the Son loved the world of his elect that he gave unto them the holy Spirit of promise whereby they are sealed unto the day of redemption whereby according to the riches of his glory they are strengthened with might in the inner man by the vertue whereof shed abroad in their hearts they are enabled to cry Abba Father Oh gifts either of which are more worth then many worlds yet through thy goodnesse O Lord both of them mine how rich is my soul through thy divine munificence how over-laid with mercies How safe in thine Almighty tuition How happy in thy blessed possession Now therefore I dare in the might of my God bid defiance to all the gates of hell Do your worst O all ye principalities and powers and rulers of the darknesse of this world and spirituall wickednesses in high places doe your worst God is mine and I am his I am above your malice in the right of him whose I am It is true I am weak but he is omnipotent I am sinfull but he is infinite holinesse that power that holinesse in his gracious application is mine It is my Saviours love that â—ath made this happy exchange of his righteousnesse for my sin of his power for my infirmity Who then shall lay any thing to the charge of Gods elect