degree as shall be raised by the beatifical vision in the glorified and as present intuition now would raise if we could attain it yet seeing Faith hath as sure an Object and Revelation as sight it self though the manner of apprehension be less affecting it should do much more with us than it doth and bring us nearer to such affections and resolutions as sight would cause Vse 2. If Faith be given us to make things to come as if they were at hand and things unseen as if we saw them you may see from hence 1. The reason of that holy seriousness of Believers which the ungodly want 2. And the reason why the ungodly want it 3. And why they wonder at and distaste and deride this serious diligence of the Saints 1. Would you make it any matter of wonder for men to be more careful of their souls more fervent in their requests to God more fearful of offending him and more laborious in all holy preparation for eternal life than the holiest and precisest person that you know in all the world if so be that Heaven and Hell were seen to them Would you not rather wonder at the dulness and coldness and negligence of the best and that they are not far more holy and diligent than they are if you and they did see these things Why then do you not cease your wondering at their diligence Do you not know that they are men that have seen the Lord whom they daily serve and seen the glory which they daily seek and seen the place of torments which they fly from By Faith in the glass of Divine Revelations they have seen them 2. And the reason why the careless world are not as diligent and holy as Believers is because they have not this eye of Faith and never saw those powerful objects that Believers see Had you their eyes you would have their hearts and lives O that the Lord would but illuminate you and give you such a sight of the things unseen as every true Believer hath What a happy change would it make upon you Then instead of your deriding or opposing it we should have your company in the holy path You would then be such your selves as you now deride If you saw what they see you would do as they do When the heavenly light had appeared unto Saul he ceaseth persecuting and enquires what Christ would have him to do that he might be such a one as he had persecuted And when the scales fell from his eyes he falls to prayer and gets among the Believers whom he had persecuted and laboureth and suffereth more than they 3. But till this light appear to your darkned souls you cannot see the reasons of a holy heavenly life and therefore you will think it hypocrisie or pride or fancy and imagination or the foolishness of cracktâbrain'd self-conceited men If you see a man do reverence to a Prince and the Prince himself were invisible to you would you not take him for a mad man and say that he cringed to the stools or chairs or bowed to a post or complemented with his shadow If you saw a mans action in eating and drinking and see not the meat and drink it self would you not think him mad If you heard men laugh and hear not so much as the voice of him that gives the jeast would you not imagine them to be brain-sick If you see men dance and hear not the musick if you see a Labourer threshing or reaping or mowing and see no corn or grass before him if you see a Souldier fighting for his life and see no enemy that he spends his stroaks upon will you not take all these for men distracted Why this is the case between you and the true Believers You see them reverently worship God but you see not the Majesty which they worship as they do You see them as busie for the saving of their souls as if an hundred lives lay on it but you see not the Hell from which they fly nor the Heaven they seek and therefore you marvel why they make so much ado about the matters of their salvation and why they cannot do as others and make as light of Christ and Heaven as they that desire to be excused and think they have more needful things to mind But did you see with the eyes of a true Believer and were the amazing things that God hath revealed to us but open to your sight how quickly would you be satisfied and sooner mock at the diligence of a drowning man that is striving for his life or at the labour of the City when they are busily quenching the flames in their habitations than mock at them that are striving for the everlasting life and praying and labouring against the ever-burning flames How soon would you turn your admiration against the stupidity of the careless world and wonder more that ever men that hear the Scriptures and see with their eyes the works of God can make so light of matters of such unspeakable eternal consequence Did you but see Heaven and Hell it would amaze you to think that ever many yea so many and so seeming wise should wilfully run into everlasting fire and sell their souls at so low a rate as if it were as easie to be in Hell as in an Ale-house and Heaven were no better than a beastly lust O then with what astonishment would you think Is this the fire that sinners do so little fear Is this the glory that is so neglected You would then see that the madness of the ungodly is the wonder Vse 3. By this time I should think that some of your own Consciences have prevented me in the Vse of Examination which I am next to call you to I hope while I have been holding you the glass you have not turned away your faces nor shut your eyes But that you have been judging your selves by the light which hath been set up before you Have not some of your consciences said by this time If this be the nature and use of Faith to make things unseen as if we saw them what a desolate case then is my soul in how void of Faith how full of Infidelity how far from the truth and power of Christianity How dangerously have I long deceived my self in calling my self a true Christian and pretending to be a true Believer When I never knew the life of Faith but took a dead opinion bred only by education and the custom of the Countrey instead of it little did I think that I had been an Infidel at the heart while I so confidently laid claim to the name of a Believer Alas how far have I been from living as one that seeth the things that he professeth to Believe If some of your consciences be not thus convinced and perceive not yet your want of faith I fear it is because they are seared or asleep But if yet conscience have not begun to plead this cause against you
that they used the method which I now direct you to And if you consider it well you will find that the miracles of Christ himself and all those of his Apostles after him were wrought for the confirmation of Christianity it self immediately and mostly before the particular Epistles or Books were written and therefore were only remotely and consequentially for the confirmation of those Books as such as they proved that the Writers of them were guided by the infallible Spirit in all the proper work of their office of which the writing of the Scriptures was a part 1. Therefore settle your belief of Christianity it self that is of so much as Baptism containeth or importeth This is more easily proved than the truth of every word in the Scriptures because there are controversies about the Canon and the various readings and such like And this is the natural method which Christ and his Spirit have directed us to and the Apostles and the ancient Churches used And when this is first soundly proved to you then you cannot justly take any textual difficulties to be sufficient cause of raising difficulties to your faith in the essentials But you may quietly go on in the strength of faith to clear up all those difficulties by degrees I know you will meet with some who think very highly of their own mistakes and whose unskilfulness in these things is joyned with an equal measure of self conceitedness who will tell you that this method smells of an undervaluing of the Scripture But I would advise you not to depart from the way of Christ and his Apostles and Churches nor to cast your selves upon causeless hinderances in so high a matter as Saving Faith is upon the reverence of the words of any perverted factious wrangler nor to escape the fangs of censorious ignorance We cannot better justifie the holy Scriptures in the true Method than they can in their false one And can better build up when we have laid the right foundation than they can who begin in the middle and omit the foundation and call the superstructure by that name 2. Suspect not all Church-history or Tradition in an extreme opposition to the Papists who cry up a private unproved Tradition of their own They tell us of Apostolical Traditions which their own faction only are the keepârs of and of which no true historical evidence is produced And this they call the Tradition of the Church But we have another sort of Tradition which must not be neglected or rejected unless we will deny humanity and reject Christianity Our Traditio tradens or active Tradition is primarily nothing but the certain history or usage of the universal Christian Church as Baptism the Lords day the Ministry the Church Assemblies and the daily Church exercises which are certain proofs what Religion was then received by them And 2. The Scriptures themselves Our Traditio tradita is nothing else but these two conjunctly 1. The Christian Religion even the Faith then professed and the Worship and Obedience then exercised 2. The Books themselves of the holy Scriptures which contain all this with much more But we are so far from thinking that Apostolical Oral Tradition is a supplement to the Scriptures as being larger than them that we believe the Scriptures to be much larger than such Tradition and that we have no certainty by any other than Scriptural Tradition of any more than the common matters of Christianity which all the Churches are agreed in But he that will not believe the most universal practice and history of the Church or world in a matter of fact must in reason much less believe his eye-sight 13. When you have soundly proved your foundation take not every difficult objection which you cannot answer to be a sufficient cause of doubting For if the fundamentals be proved truths you may trust to that proof and be sure that there are waies of solving the seeming inconsistent points though you are not yet acquainted with them There are few Truths so clear which a sophister may not clog with difficulties And there is scarce any man that hath so comprehensive a knowledge of the most certain Truths as to be able to answer all that can be said against it 14. Come not to this study in a melancholy or distracted frame of mind For in such a case you are ordinarily incapable of so great a work as the tryal of the grounds of Faith And therefore must live upon the ground-work before laid and wait for a fitter time to clear it 15. When new doubts arise mark whether they proceed not from the advantage which the tempter findeth in your minds rather than from the difficulty of the thing it self And whether you have not formerly had good satisfaction against the same doubts which now perplex you If so suffer not every discomposure of your minds to become a means of unbelief And suffer not Satan to command you to dispute your faith at his pleasure For if he may chuse the time he may chuse the success Many a man hath cast up a large account well or written a learned Treatise or Position well who cannot clear up all objected difficulties on a sudden nor without Books tell you all that he before wrote especially if he be half drunk or sleepy or in the midst of other thoughts oâ business 15. When you are once perswaded of the truth of Christianity and the holy Scriptures think not that you need not study it any more because you do already confidently believe it For if your faith be not built on such cogent evidence as will warrant the conclusion whether it be at the present sound or not you know not what change assaults may make upon you as we have known them do on some ancient eminent Professors of the strictest Godliness who have turned from Christ and the belief of immortality Take heed how you understand the common saying of the Schools that Faith differeth from Knowledge in that it hath not Evidence It hath not evidence of sense indeed nor the immediate evidence of things invisible as in themselves but as they are the conclusions which follow the principles which are in themselves more evident It is evident that God is true and we can prove by good evidence that the Christian Verity is his Revelation And therefore it is evident though not immediately in it self that the matter of that word or revelation is true And as Mr. Rich. Hooker truly saith No man indeed believeth beyond the degree of evidence of truth which appeareth to him how confidently soever they may talk I remember that our excellent Vsher answered me to this case as out of Ariminensis that faith hath evidence of Credibility and science hath evidence of Certainty But undoubtedly an evidence of Divine Revelation is evidence of Certainty And all evidence of Divine Credibility is evidence of Certainty though of humane faith and credibility the case be otherwise 16. Yea think not that you have
from sinning and not hell and damnation Tell him that it is Christ the Mediatour of Free Grace which hath set Hell before you in the Scripture and not you And that you do but consider of that which Christ hath set there before you to be considered of Ask them whether it be not God that prepared hell for the Devil and his Angels and Christ himself that will adjudge all impenitent sinners to it Matth. 25. And ask them why Christ doth so often talk of it in the Gospel Matth. 13. of the worm that never dyeth and the fire that never shall be quenched Luke 19.27 Mark 16.16 John 3.36 2 Thes 1.8 9. c. And whether they know why Fear was given to man and whether Christ mistook in all such commands Luke 12.4 Heb. 11.7 Heb. 4.1 And whether God hath made any part of his Laws in vain If they say that the Law was not made for a righteous man 1 Tim. 1.9 Tell them that the words are expounded Gal. 5.23 Against such there is no Law The Law was not made to condemn and punish a righteous man because he feared the threatning of it and so fell not under the condemnation If you speak of the Law of Christ or any Law which supposeth the subject righteous There is no Law can be pleaded against such to their damnation That there is no Law against them is but as Rom. 8.1 There is no condemnation to them And we grant also that in that measure as mens souls are habituated with love to God and duty and hatred of sin they need no Law to urge and threaten them no more than a loving wife need to have a Law to forbid her murdernig her husband or abusing him But withall we know that no man on earth is perfect in the degrees of Love and therefore all need Laws and fear Use all Gods penal Laws to the ends that he appointed them to quicken you in your obedience and restrain you from yielding to temptations and from sinning and then your own benefit will reconcile you to the Wisdom Holiness and Justice of the Laws Direct 6. Remember that all Christians have solemnly professed their own consent to the threats and punishments of the Gospel Though God will punish sinners whether they consent or not and though none consent to the execution upon themselves when it comes to it yet all that profess Christianity do profess their consent to the condemning as well as to the justifying part of Gods Word For every Christian professeth his consent to be governed by Christ and therefore he professeth his consent to be governed by Christs Laws For if Christ be a King he must have Laws and if he govern us at all he governeth us by Laws And this is Christs Law He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved and he that believeth not shall be damned Mark 16.16 He that professeth to be governed by Christ professeth his consent to be governed by this very Law and therefore he professeth his consent to be damned if he believe not Christ told you that you must consent to both parts or to neither and will you grudge at the severity of that Law which you have professed your consent to The curses of the Covenant Deut. 29.21 were to be repeated to the people of Israel and they were expresly to say Amen to each of them For life and death were set before them blessings and cursings Deut. 30.1 19. and not life and blessings alone And so the Gospel which we are to believe containeth though principally and eminently the Promises yet secondarily also the threatnings of Hell to impenitent unbelievers And our consent doth speak our approbation Direct 7. Observe that the belief of Christs threatnings of damnation to impenitent unbelievers is a real part of the Christian saving Faith and that when ever it is joyned with a true love and desire after holiness it certainly proveth that the Promises also are believed though the party think that he doth not believe them Note here 1. That I do not say that all belief or fear of Gods threatnings is saving Faith But 2. That all saving Faith containeth such a belief of the threatnings 3. And that many times poor Christians who believe and tremble at the threatnings do truly believe the Promises and yet mistake and verily think that they do not believe them 4. But their mistake may certainly be manifested if their Faith do but work by a love and desire after holiness and the fruition of God For 1. It is evident that the same Gospel which saith He that believeth shall be saved doth say He that believeth not shall be damned Therefore the same faith believeth both 2. It is plain that the same formal object of faith which is Gods Veracity will bring a man to believe one as well as the other if he equally know it to be a divine revelation He that believeth that All that God saith is true and then believeth that God saith that All true Believers shall be saved must needs believe that this Promise is true And he that understandeth that Christ saith Vnbelievers shall be damned cannot but find also that he saith True Believers shall be saved And if he believe the one because it is the word of Christ he doth sure believe the other because it is the word of Christ 3. Yea it is in many respects harder to believe Gods threatnings than his promises partly because sinners are more unwilling that they should be true and they have more enmity to the threatning than to the promise and partly because they commonly feign God to be such as they would have him be Psal 50. Thou thoughtest I was such a one as thy self c. And partly because Gods Goodness being known to be his very essence and all men being apt to judge of Goodness by the measure of their own interest it is far more obvious and facil to mans understanding to conclude that some are saved than that some are damned and that the penitent believers are saved than that the impenitent unbelievers are damned We hear daily how easily almost all men are brought to believe that God is merciful and how hard it is to perswade them of his damning Justice and severity Therefore he that can do the harder is not unlike to do the easier And indeed it is meer ignorance of the true nature of faith which maketh those whom I am now describing to think that they do not believe Gods Promises when they believe his Threatnings They think that because they believe not that they themselves are pardoned justified and shall be saved that therefore they believe not the promise of God But this is not the reason but it is because you find not the condition of the promise yet in your selves and therefore think that you have no part in the benefits But its one thing to doubt of your own sincerity and another thing to doubt whether the promise of God be
be doth the Scripture say that all men believe or only some If some doth it name them or notifie them by any thing but the marks by which they must find it in themselves Object But he that believeth may be as sure that he believeth as that the Scripture is true Answ But not that he is sincere and exceedeth all hypocrites and common believers At least there are but few that get so full an assurance hereof Object The Spirit witnesseth that we are Gods children And to believe the Spirit is to believe God Answ The Spirit is oft called in Scripture the witness and pledge and earnest in the same sense that is it is the evidânce of our right to Christ and life If any man have not his Spirit he is none of his Rom. 8.9 And hereby we know that he dweleth in us by the Spirit which he hath given us As the Spirits Miracles were the witness of Christ Heb. 2.3 c. objectively as evidence is called witness 2. And withall the Spirit by illumination and excitation helpeth us to see it self as our evidence 3. And to rejoyce in this discovery And thus the Spirit witnesseth our adoption But none of these are the proper objects of a Divine Belief 1. The objective evidence of holiness in us is the object of our rational self-acquaintance or conscience only 2. The illuminating grace by which we see this is not a new Divine Testimony or proper Revelation or Word of God but the same help of grace by which all other divine things are known And all the Spirits grace for our understanding of divine Revelations are not new objective Revelations themselves requiring a new act of Faith for them A word or proper Revelation from God is the object of divine belief otherwise every illuminating act of the Spirit for our understanding Gods Word would be it self a new word to be believed and so in infinitum Errour 33. Doubting of the life to come or of the truth of the Gospel will not stand with saving Faith Contr. It will not stand with a confirmed Faith but it will with a sincere Faith He that doubteth of the truth of the promise so far as that he will not venture life and soul and all his hopes and happiness temporal and eternal upon it hath no true Faith But he that doubteth but yet so far belâeveth the Gospel as to take God for his only God and portion and Christ for his only Saviour and the Spirit for his Sanctifier and will cast away life or all that stand in competition hath a true and saving Faith as is before proved Errour 34. That Repentance is no condition of Pardon or Justification for then it would be equal therein with Faith Contr. I have elsewhere at large proved the contrary from Scripture Repentance hath many acts as Faith hath To repent as it is the change of the mind of our Atheism Idolatry and not loving God and obeying him is the same motion of the soul denominated from the terminus à quo as Faith in God and Love to God is denominated from the terminus ad quem This is Repentance towards God Repenting of our Infidelity against Christ is the same motion of the soul as believing in Christ only one is denominated from the object-turned from and the other from the object-turned to By which you may see that some Repentance is the same with Faith in Christ and some is the same with Faith in God and some is the same with Love to God and some is but the same with the leaving of some particular sin or turning to some particular fore-neglected duty And so you may easily resolve the case how far it is the condition of Pardon Repentance aâ it is a return to the Love of God as he is our God and End and All is made the final condition of further blessings as necessary in and of it self as the end of Faith in Christ And Repentance of Infidelity and Faith in Christ is made the Mediate or Medicinal Condition As consenting to be friends with your Father or King after a rebellion and consenting to the Mediation of a friend to reconcile you are both conditions one the more noble de fine and the other de mediis or as consenting to be cured and consenting to take Physick They that will or must live in the darkness of confusion were best at least hold their tongues there till they come into distinguishing light Errour 35. That all other acts of Faith in Christ as our Lord or Teacher or Judge or of Faith in God or the Holy Ghost all confessing sin and praying for pardon and repenting and forgiving others and receiving Baptism c. are the works which Paul excludeth from Justification And one act of faith only being the Justifying Instrument he that looketh to be justified by any of all these besides that one act doth look for Justification by Works and consequently is fallen from grace Contr. This is not only an addition to Gods Word and Covenant not to be used by them that judge it unlawful to add a form or ceremony in his worship but it is a most dangerous invention to wrack mens consciences and keep all men under certain desperation For whilest the world standeth the subtilest of these Inventers of new doctrines will never be able to tell the world which is that one sole act of Faith by which they are justified that they may escape looking for a legal Justification by the rest whether it be believing in Christs Divinity or Humanity or both or in his Divine or Humane or Habitual Righteousness or his Obedience as a subjâct or his Sacrifice or his Priest-hood offering that Sacrifice or his Covenant and Promise of Pardon and Justification or in God that giveth him and them or in his Resurrections or in Gods present sentential or executive Justification or in his final sentential Justification c. No man to the end of the world shall know which of these or any other is the sole justifying act and so no man can scape being a legal adversary to grace Unhappy Papists who by the contrary extream have frightened or disputed us into such wild and scandalous inventions Of this see fully my Disput of Justification against the worthy and excellent Mr. Anthony Burgess Errour 36. That our own Faith is not at all imputed to us for Righteousness but only Christs Righteousness received by it Contr. The Scripture no where saith that Christ or his Righteousness or his Obedience or his Satisfaction is imputed to us And yet we justly defend it as is before explained and as Mr. Bradshaw and Grotius de satisfact have explained it And on the other side the Scripture often saith that Faith is imputed for Righteousness and shall be so to all that believe in God that raised Christ Rom. 4. And this these objectors peremptorily deny But expounding Scripture amiss is a much cleanlier pretence for errour than a flat
desire p. 66. l. 31. for against r. at p. 67. l. 32. for tam r. qâam p. 68. l. 8. for murmurr r. moârn l. 27. after better put countrey p. 69. l. 17. r. nemo p. 70 l. 16. r. ventosam p. 75. l. 24. r. made them p. 77. l. 12. r. literate p. 87. l. 3. for offered read observed p. 93. l 25. for cannot r. can p. 96. l. 12. for Nations r. âotions l. 21. r. conduceth p. 99. l. 9. r. which ât p. 101. l. 38. for Goodness r. Good will p. 130. l. 13. r. inconsiderateness p. 134. l. 10. r. Victor âtâcensis p. 155. l. 37. for never r. neerer p. 163. l. 6. put out are p. 166. l. 2. for worketh r. marketh l. 24. r. aime at l. 29. r. taketh p. 196. r. 7. for meditate r. medâatâ p. 206. l. 1. r. causally l. 4. for his r. this p 217. false Printed for 209 l. 38. blot out or p. 224. l. 6. for was r. were p. 232. l. 19. â Antoninus p. 241. l. 31. r. commutative p. 244. l. 38. put out of p. 249. l. 5. for rather r. alwaâes p. 250. l. 9. blot out O and r. of objective graâe l. 30. for promiseth r. promiseth âot p. 253. l. 12. for confirmeth r. confineth l. 20. for ofâ loss of p. 254. l. 29. r. non-amission p. â32 l. 33. r. which most p. 346. l. 14. â faults p. 359. l. 18. for him r. himself p. 366. l. 29. for that r. the p. â71 l. 12. for there r. then p. 382. l. 28. for as r. or p. 384. l. 3. put a comma after efficient and Dirigent p. 405. l. 36. r. Christians p. 406. l. 37. for end r. and p. 411. l. 16. r. thânes p. 413. l. 20. for it r. is p. 414. l. 2. put out or and l. 34. for in it r. in us else it is blasphemy against the Scripture p. 430. l. 23. put out may p. 435. l. 25. r. Cynâcal p. 441. l. 5. put out not p. 485. l. â5 for themselves r. himself p. 505. l. 27. r. Assent p. 540. l. 21. put out and p. 582. l. 11. r. friends THE Life of Faith HEBREWS 11.1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen THough the wicked are distinguished into Hypocrites and Vnbelievers yet Hypocrites themselves are Vnbelievers too They have no faith which they can justifie by its prevailing efficacy and works and therefore have no faith by which they can be justified Because their discovery is needful to their recovery and all our salvation depends on the sincerity of our faith I have chosen this text which is a description of faith that the opening of it may help us for the opening of our hearts and resolving the great question on which our endless life depends To be a Christian and to be a Believer in Christ are words in Scripture of the same signification If you have not faith you are not Christians This faith hath various offices and objects By it we are justified sanctified and saved We are justified not by believing that we are justified but by believing that we may be justified Not by receiving justification immediately but by receiving Christ for our justification not by meer accepting the pardon in it self but by first receiving him that procureth and bestoweth it on his terms Not by meer accepting health but by receiving the Physician and his remedies for health Faith is the practical Believing in God as promising and Christ as procuring justification and salvation Or the practical belief and acceptance of life as procured by Christ and promised by God in the Gospel The everlasting fruition of God in Heaven is the ultimate object No man believeth in Christ as Christ that believeth not in him for eternal life As faith looks at Christ as the necessary means and at the divine benignity as the fountain and at his veracity as the foundation or formal object and at the promise as the true signification of his will so doth it ultimately look at our salvation begun on earth and perfected in Heaven as the end for which it looketh at the rest No wonder therefore if the holy Ghost here speaking of the Dignity and Power of faith do principally insist on that part of its description which is taken from this final object As Christ himself in his Humiliation was rejected by the Gentiles and a stumbling stone to the Jews despised and not esteemed Isa 53.2 3. having made himself of no reputation Phil. 2 7. So faith in Christ as incarnate and crucified is despised and counted foolishness by the world But as Christ in his glory and the glory of believers shall force them to an aweful admiration so faith it self as exercised on that glory is more glorious in the eyes of all Believers are never so reverenced by the world as when they converse in Heaven and the Spirit of Glory resteth on them 1 Pet. 4.14 How faith by beholding this glorious end doth move all the faculties of the soul and subdue the inclinations and interests of the flesh and make the greatest sufferings tollerable is the work of the holy Ghost in this Chapter to demonstrate which beginning with the description proceeds to the proof by a cloud of witnesses There are two sorts of persons and imployments in the world for whom there are two contrary ends hereafter One sort subject their reason to their sensual or carnal interest The other subject their senses to their reason cleared conducted and elevated by faith Things present or possessed are the riches of the sensual and the byas of their hearts and lives Things absent but hoped for are the riches of Believers which actuate their chief endeavours This is the sense of the text which I have read to you which setting things hoped for in opposition to things present and things unseen to those that sense doth apprehend assureth us that faith which fixeth on the first doth give to its object a subsistence presence and evidence that is it seeth that which supplieth the want of presence and visibility The ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã is that which quoad effectum is equal to a present subsistence And the ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã the evidence is somewhat which quoad effectum is equal to visibility As if he had said Though the glory promised to Believers and expected by them be yet to come and only hoped for and be yet unseen and only believed yet is the sound believer as truly affected with it and acted by its attractive force as if it were present and before his eyes as a man is by an inheritance or estate in reversion or out of sight if well secured and not only by that which is present to his view The Syriack Interpreter instead of a Translation gives us a true exposition of the words viz. Faith is a certainty of those things that are in hope as if they did already actually exist and the revelation of
by any further suit on their behalf But for your selves O use your seeing and fore-seeing faculties Be often looking through the prospective of the promise and live not by sense on present things but live as if you saw the glorious things which you say you do believe That when worldly titles are insignificant words and fleshly pleasures have an end and Faith and Holiness will be the marks of honour and unbelief and ungodliness the badgeâ of perpetual shame and when you must give account of your Stewardship and shall be no longer Stewards you may then by brought by Faith unto Fruition and see with joy the glorious things that you now believe Write upon your Palaces and goods that sentence 2 Pet. 3.11 Seeing all these things shall be dissolved What manner of persons ought ye âo be in all holy conversation and godliness looking for and hasting to the coming of the day of God! HEBREWS 11.1 Now Faith is the substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen CHAP. I. For Conviction IN the opening of this Text I have already shewed that it is the nature and use of Faith to be instead of presence and sight or to make things absent future and unseen to be to us as to our Estimation Resolution and Conversation as if they were present and before our eyes Though not as to the degree yet as to the sincerity of our acts In the handling of this Doctrine I have already shewed that this Faith is a grounded justifiable knowledge and not a fancy or uneffectual opinion having for its object the infallible Revelation and certain Truth of God and not a falshood nor a meer probability or verisimile I have shewed how such a Faith will work how far it should carry us if its evidence were fully entertained and improved and how far it doth carry all that have it sincerely in the least degree and I have shewed some of the moving considerations that should prevail with us to live upon the things unseen as if they were open to our sight I think I may suddenly proceed here to the remaining part of the Application without any recital of the explication or confirmation the truth lying so naked in the Text it self The Life of Faith and the Life of Sense are the two waies that all the world do walk in to the two extreamly different ends which appear when death withdraws the veil It is the ordination of God that mens own estimation choice and endeavours shall be the necessary preparative to their Fruition Nemo nolens bonus aut beatus est Men shall have no better than they value and chuse and seek Where earthly things are highest in the esteem and dearest to the mind of man such persons have no higher nor more durable a portion Where the heavenly things are highest and dearest to the soul and are practically preferred they are the portion of that soul Where the Treasure is the heart will be Matth. 6.21 The sanctifying spirit doth lead the spiritual man by a spiritual Rule in a spiritual way to a spiritual glorious durable felicity The sensual part with the sensual inclination communicated to the corrupted mind and will doth by carnal reasonings and by carnal means pursue and embâace a present fading carnal interest and therefore it findeth and attaineth no more The flâsh lusteth against the Spirit and the spirit against the flesh and these are contrary the one to the other Gal. 5.17 They that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh but they that are after the spirit the things of the spirit To be carnally minded is death but to be spiritually minded is life and peace Because the carnal mind is enmity against God for it is not subject to the Law of God neither indeed can be So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God If any man have not the Spirit of Christ the same is none of his If we live after the flesh we shall die but if by the spirit we mortifie the deeds of the body we shall live Rom. 8. to v. 14. Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap He that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption but he that soweth to the spirit shall of the spirit reap everlasting life Gal. 6.7 8. As a man is so he loveth and desireth as he desireth he seeketh and as he seeketh he findeth and possesseth If you know which world what riches a man prefers intends and liveth for you may know which world is his inheritance and whither he is going as to his perpetual abode Reason enableth a man to know and seek more than he seeth And Faith informeth and advanceth Reason to know that by the means of supernatural Revelation that by no other means is fully known To seek and hope for no better than we know and to know no more than is objectively revealed while we hinder not the revelation is the blameless imperfection of a creature that hath limited faculties and capacities To know what 's Best and yet to chuse and seek an inferiour inconsistent Good and to refuse and neglect the Best when it is discerned is the course of such as have but a superficial opinion of the good refused or a knowledge not wakened to speak so loudly as may be effectual for choice and whose sensuality mastereth their wills and reason and leads them backward And those that know not because they would not know or hear not because they would not hear are under that same dominion of the flâsh which is an enemy to all knowledge that is an enemy to its delights and interest To profess to know good and yet refuse it and to profess to know evil and yet to chuse it and this predominantly and in the main is the description of a self-condemning Hypocrite And if malignity and opposition of the Truth professed be added to the Hypocrisie it comes up to that Pharisaical blindness and obdurateness which prepareth men for the remediless sin Consider then but of the profession of many of the people of this Land and compare their practice with it and judge what compassion the condition of many doth bespeak If you will believe them they profess that they verily believe in the invisible God in a Christ unseen to them in the Holy Spirit gathering a holy Church to Christ and imploying them in a communion of Saints that they believe a judgement to come upon the glorious coming of the Lord and an everlasting life of joy or torment thereupon All this is in their Creed they would take him for a damnable Heretick that denyeth it and perhaps would consent that he be burnt at a stake So that you would think these men should live as if Heaven and Hell were open to their sight But O what an Hypocritical Generation are the ungodly how their lives do give their tongues the lye Remember that I apply this to no better men It is a
sinful world and flesh linger not now as unwilling to depart repent not of thy choice when all that the world can do for thee is past repent not of thy warfare when thou hast got the victory nor of thy voyage when thou art past the storms and waves and ready to land at the haven of felicity Thus Faith may sing our Nunc dimittis when the flesh is lothest to be dissolved But we must live by faith if we would thus die by faith Such a death doth not use to be the period of a fleshly worldly life nor of a careless dull and negligent life Nature which brought us into the world without our forecast or care will turn us out of the world without it But it will not give us a joyful passage nor bring us to a better world without it It costeth worldlings no small care to die in an honourable or plentiful estate that they may fall from an higher place than others and may have something to make death more grievous and unwelcome to them and may have a greater account to make at Judgement and that their passage to Heaven may be as a Camels through a Needle And may a believing joyful death be expected without the preparations of exercise and experience in a believing life Nature is so much afraid of dying and an incorporated soul is so incarcerated in sense and so hardly riseth to serious and satisfying apprehensions of the unseen world that even true Believers do find it a work of no small difficulty to desire to depart and be with Christ and to die in the joyful hopes of faith A little abatement of the terrours of death a little supporting hope and peace is all that the greater part of them attain instead of the fervent desires and triumphant joyes which the lively belief of endless glory should produce O therefore make it the work of your lives of all your lives your greatest work your constant work to live by faith that the faith which hath first conquered all the rest of your enemies may be able also to overcome the last and may do your last work well when it hath done the rest CHAP. I. Directions how to live by Faith And first how to strengthen Faith And secondly the natural Truths presupposed to be considered THe Directions which I shall give you as helps to live by Faith are of two ranks 1. Such as tend to the strengthening of your Faith 2. Such as tell you how to use it The first is the greatest part of our task for no man can use that faith which he hath not nor can use more of it than he hath And the commonest reason why we use but little is because we have but little to use But on this subject supposing it most weighty I have written many Treatises already The second part of the Saints Rest The Unreasonableness of Infidelity And last of all The Reasons of the Christian Religion Besides others which handle it on the by And somewhat is said in the beginning of this discourse But yet because in so great a matter I am more afraid of doing too little than too much I will here give you an Index of some of the chief Helps to be close together before you for your memories to be the constant fuel of your Faith In the work of Faith it is first needful that you get all the prerequisite Helps of Natural Light and be well acquainted with their Order and Evidence and their Vsefulness to befriend the supernatural revelations For it is supposed that we are men before we are Christians We were created before we were redeemed And we must know that there is a God before we can know that we have offended him or that we need a Saviour to reconcile us to him And we must know that we have reasonable souls before we can know that sin hath corrupted them or that grace must sanctifie them And we must know that whatsoâver God saith is true before we can believe that the Scripture is true as being his revelation Faith is an act of Reason and Believing is a kind of knowing even a knowing by the testimâny of him whom we believe because we have sufficient reason to believe him 2. And next we must be well acquainted with the evidence of supernatural Truth which presupposeth the foresaid Natural Verities I shall set both bâfore you briefly in their order 1. Think well âf the nature of your souls of their faculties or pâwers their excellency and their proper use And then you will find that you are not meer brutes who know not their Creatâur nor live noâ by a Law nor think not of another world nor ââar any ââfferings after death But that you have reasân free-will and executive power to knâw your Maker and to live by âule aâd to hope for a Reward in another life and to fear a pânâshmeât hereafter And that as no wise Artificer maketh any thing in vain so God is mâch less to be thought to havâ given you such souls and faculties in vain 2. Coâsidâr next how all the world declareth to you that there is a Gâd whâ is infiniteây pâwerful wise and good And thaâ it is not possible that all things which we see should have no cause or that the derived Power and Wisdom and Goodnesâ of the creature should not proceed from that which is more excellent in the first and total cause Or that God should give more than he had to give 3. Consider nexâ in whât Relation such a creature must needs stand to such a Creatour If he made us of Nââhing ãâã is not pâssible but that he must be ãâã Owner and wâ aâd all things absolutely his Own And if he be our Maker and Owner and be infinitely powerful wise and good and we be Reasonable-free-agents made to be guided by Laws or Moral Means unto our end it is not possible but that we should stand related to him as subjects to their rightful Governour And if he be our Creatour Owner and Ruler and also infinitely Good and the grand Benefactor of the world and if the nature of our souls be to Love Good as Good it cannot be possible that he should not be our End who is our Creatour and that we should not be related to him as to the Chiefest Good both originally as our Benefactor and finally as our End 4. And then it is easie for you next to see what duty you owe to that God to whom you are thus related That if you are absolutely his Own you should willingly be at his absolute dispose And iâ he bâ your Soveraign Ruler you should labour most diligently to know his Laws and absolutely to obey them And if he be infinitely Good and your Benefactor and your End you are absolutely bound to Love him most devotedly and to place your own felicity in his Love All this is so evidently the duty of man to God by nature that nothing but madness can deny
reward of obedience and the beauties of holiness and the merciful conditions of filial obedience when we have a pardon of our infirmities and are accepted in Christ that so we may feel that Christs yoak is easie and his burden light and his Commandments are not grievous Mat. 11.28 29. 1 John 5.3 And when Faith hath taught you to hunger and thirst after righteousness and to delight to do the will of God Love which is the end of Faith will satisfie you Mat. 5.6 Psal 40.8 Direct 5. Take special notice how suitable a holy Law is to the nature of a most holy God and how much he is honoured in that demonstration of his holiness and how odious a thing it would be to wish that the most holy one would have made for us an unholy Law Would you draw the picture of your friend like an Ape or a Monkey or a Monster Or would you have the King pictured like a fool Or would you have his Laws written like the words of a Bedlam or the Laws of Barbarians or Cannibals How much more intollerable were it to wish that an unholy or unrighteous Law should be the product and impress of the most great most wise and holy God This thought should make every Believer exceedingly in love with the Holiness of Gods Commands because they are the Appearance or Image of his Holiness and necessary to his honour as he is the Governour of the world Rom. 7.6 7 12. When Paul confesseth that he could no more perfectly keep the Law without sin than a fettered prisoner can walk at liberty for that is the sense of the text yet doth he give the Law this honour that it is holy just and good and therefore he loveth it and fain would perfectly obey it if he could See Psal 19.7 12. c. 119.72 37.31 1.2 Isa 5.24 c. Direct 6. Remember that both Promises and Threatnings and Gods Mercies and his Judgements are appointed means to bring us to obey the Precepts and therefore obedience which is their end is highly to be esteemed It seemeth a great difficulty whether the Precept be for ãâã Promise or the Promise for the Precept which is the End and which is the Means whether obedience be a means to attain the reward or the reward be a means to procure obedience And the answer is as pleasant to our consideration viz. that as the works of the Trinity of persons and of Gods Power and Wisdom and Goodness ad extra are undivided so are the effects of the one in Gods Laws the effects also of the other and they are harmoniously and inseparably conjunct so that we must obey the Command that we may attain the blessing of the Promise and be assured of it And we must believe the Promise and the Reward that we may be moved to obey the Precept And when all is done we find that all comes to one and in the end the duty and the reward will be the same when duty cometh to perfection And that the reward which is promised is our perfection in that Holiness and Love and Conformity to the Will of God in which God doth take that complacency which is our ultimate end But if you look at the matter of obedience rather than the form it sometime consisteth in troublesome things as suffering persecution c. which is less desirable than the promised reward which is but pleasing God and obeying him in a more desirable and grateful matter even in perfect Love for ever And therefore the more desirable must be considered to draw us to the less desirable and that consideration of the reward and not the possessing of it is the means to our obedience not for the sake of the ungrateful matter but of the form and end Mat. 5.10 11 12 6.1 4. 10.41 42. 1 Cor. 9.17 18. 1 Tim. 5.18 Heb. 11.6 10.35 11.26 Col. 3.24 Direct 7. Remember how much Christ himself hath condescended to be made a Means or Mediatour to procure our obedience to God And surely that must be an excellent end which Christ himself became a means to He came to save his people from their sins Mat. 1.21 And to call sinners to repentance Luke 5.32 Mat. 9.13 Is Christ the Minister of sin God forbid Gal. 2.17 For this end was he revealed that he might destroy the works of the Devil 1 John 3.8 And he died to redeem and purifie to himself a peculiar people zealous of good works Titus 2.14 Christ came as much to kill sin as to pardon it Judge therefore of the worth of obedience by the nobleness and dignity of the means Direct 8. Remember still that the same Law which governeth us must judge us Let Faith see the sure and close connexion between obedience and judgement If Faith do but speak aloud to a sluggish soul Thou must be judged by the same word which commandeth thee to watch and pray and to walk in holiness with God it will much awaken the soul to duty And if Faith do but say aloud to a tempted sinner The Judge is at the door and thou must hear of this again and review sin when it will have another countenance it will do much to kill the force of the temptation Rom. 14.12 Phil. 4.17 Heb. 13.17 Mat. 12.36 2 Pet. 3.11 12. Direct 9. Be sure that your heart-subjection to God be fixed that you may live under the sense of his Authority For as Gods Veracity is the formal object of all Faith so Gods Authority is the formal object of all obedience And therefore the deep âenewed apprehensions of his Majesty his Wisdom and absolute Authority will make us perceive that all things and persons must give place to him and he to none and will be a constant spring within us to move the will to a ready obedience in particular cases Mal. 1.6 Matth. 23.8 10. Jer. 5.22 Direct 10. Keep in memory some plain texts of Scripture for every particular duty and against every particular sin which I would willingly here write down but that the book swelleth too big and it is so plentifully done already in most Catechisms where they confirm all such commands with the texts of Scripture cited to that use As you may see in the Assemblies Catechism with the proofs and more briefly in Mr. Tobias Ellis his English School where a text or more for every Article of Faith and every duty is recited for the use of children Gods Word which is the object and Rule of Faith should be before ãâã eye of Faith in this great work of causing our obedience Direct 11. Vnderstand well the different nature and use of Scripture examples how some of them have the nature of a divine Revelation and a Law and others are only motives to obedience and others of them are evils to be avoided by us 1. To Moses and the Apostles of Christ a special Commission was granted to one to settle the Tabernacle and its worship
this Treatise are so unlike understand 1. That they are for various uses The first Part to make men willing by awakening perswasions and the rest to direct them in the exercises of Faith who are first made willing 2. That I write not to win thy praise of an artificial comely Structure but to help souls to Holiness and Heaven and to these ends I labour to suit the means 3. That the first Sermon was published long ago and the Bookseller desiring me to give him some additions to it I thought meet first to make up the exciting part in the same style and then to add a Directory for the practice of judicious Believers 2. And if it offend thee that the second Part containeth but such matter as I have already published in my Reasons of the Christian Religion understand 1. That I perceived that that Treatise was neglected by the more unlearned sort of Christians as not descending enough to their capacities and that it would be useful to the confirmation of their Faith to draw forth some of the most obvious Arguments in as plain a manner and as briefly as I could that length nor obscurity might not deprive them of the benefit who are too slothfull or too dull to make use of more copious and accurate discourse 2. And I knew not how to write a Treatise of the Uses of Faith which should wholly leave out the Confirmations of Faith without much reluctancy of my Reason 3. And again I say I can bear the dispraise of Repetition if I may but further mens Faith and Salvation 3. And if it offend thee that I am so dull in all the Directive part I cannot well do both works at once awaken the Affections and accurately direct the mind for practice Or at least if I had spoken all those Directions in a copious applicatory Sermon style it would have swelled the Book to a very tedious costly volume And Affection must not too much interpose when the Judgment is about its proper work And being done in the beginning it may be the better spared afterward 4. If it offend you that I open the Life of Faith in somewhat an unusual manner I answer for my self that if it be Methodical true and apt for use I do that which I intend And on a subject so frequently and fully handled it were but an injury to the Church to say but the same which is said already Mr. John Ball Mr. Ezekiel Culverwell and Mr. Samuel Ward in a narrower room have done exceeding well upon this subject If you have nothing more than they have said read their Books only and let this alone 5. If it offend you that the Directions are many of them difficult and the style requireth a slow considerate Reader I answer the nature of the subject requireth it and without voluminous tediousness it cannot be avoided Blame therefore your unprepared ignorant minds and while you are yet dull of hearing and so make things hard to be uttered to your understanding because you have still need of Milk and cannot digest strong meat but must again be taught the principles of the oracles of God Heb. 5.11 12 13 14. think not to gât knowledge without hard study and patient learning by hearing nothing but what you know already or can understand by one hasty reading over lest you discover a conjunction of slothfulness with an ignorant and unhumbled mind Or at least if you must learn at so cheap a rate or else stick still in your Milk and your Beginnings be not offended if others out-go you and think knowledge worthy of much greater diligence and if leaving the principles we go on towards perfection as long as we take them along with us and make them the life of all that followeth while we seem to leave them And this we will do if God permit Heb. 6.1 3. R. B. Feb. 3. 1669. The Contents of the first Part. The SERMON WHat Faith is page 2. The Text opened p. 4. The grounds of the certaânty of Faith briefly intimated p. 5 c. Why God will have us live by Faith and not by sight p. 1â c. Use 1. To inform us what a Christian or Believer is described p. 15 Use 2. The Reason why Believers are more serious in matters of Religion than unbelievers are Use 3. Of Examination p. 29 The misery of unbelievers p. 30 Marks of a true Faith p. 32 Use 4. Exhortation to the serious exercise of Faith p. 37 Some assisting suppositions p. 38 How those will live who thus believe opened in certain Questions p 4â Motives to live by a foreseeing Faith on things not seen p. 45 The Conclusion 1. Exhorting to live by Faith 2. And to promote this life in others p. 46. The Additions Cap. 1. The conviction and reproof of Hypocrites Who live contrary to the Faith which they profess 48 Cap. 2. A general Exhortation to live as Believers 56 Cap. 3. An exhortation to the particular duties of Believers 63 The Contents of the Second Part. Chap. 1. The Believers Directory must shew him I. How to strengthen Faith 2. How to use it And I. For the first the order of the presupposed Natural Verities is briefly mentioned 8â Chap. 2. The true Method of enquiry into the supernatural evidences of Faith and the Rules therein to be observed 87 Chap. 3. The proper Evidence of Faith The SPIRIT and the Image of God himself 97 Chap. 4. The Image of Gods Wisdom on the Christian Religion It 's wonderful Method opened in thirty instances Six more instances 99 Chap. 5. The Image of Gods Goodness and Holiness on the Christian Religion in thirty instances 108 Chap. 6. The Image of Gods Power upon the Christian Religion in twenty instances 115 Chap. 7. The means of making known all this to us infallibly How the first witnesses knew it How the next Age and Churches knew it How we know it Twenty special historical Traditions of Christianity and matters of fact What the Spirits Witness to Christianity is 125 Chap. 8. Twelve further Directions to confirm our Faith 136 Chap. 9. Twenty General Directions how to use Faith or to live by it when it iâ confirmed What Christian Faith is Errours about it 148 The Contents of the third Part. Chap. 1. How to live by Faith on God 168 Chap. 2. How to live by Faith on Jesus Christ 188 Abuses of the Doctrine of Redemption The extent of it Of Christs Office His Merits and Sacrifice Example c. Chap. 3. How to live by Faith on the Holy Ghost Of the Trinity Several doubts resolved about believing in the Holy Ghost Of giving the Spirit His operations Whether Love to God or Faith in Christ go first exactly answered And consequently whether Faith or Repentance be first Of the Spirit in Christ and the Apostles Of sufficient Grace How Faith procureth the Spirit Whether desires of grace be grace 20â Chap. 4. How to live by faith as to Gods Commandâ The admirable
those things that are not seen Or you may take the sense in this Proposition which I am next to open further and apply viz. That the nature and use of faith is to be as it were instead of presence possession and sight or to make the things that will be as if they were already in existence and the things unseen which God revealeth as if our bodily eyes beheld them 1. Not that faith doth really change its object 2. Nor doth it give the same degree of apprehensions and affections as the sight of present things would do But 1. Things invisible are the objects of our faith 2. And Faith is effectual instead of sight to all these uses 1. The apprehension is as infallible because of the objective certainty though not so satisfactory to our imperfect souls as if the things themselves were seen 2. The will is determined by it in its necessary consent and choice 3. The affections are moved in the necessary dâgree 4. It ruleth in our lives and bringeth us through duty and suffering for the sake of the happiness which we believe 3. This Faith is a grounded wise and justifiable act an infallible knowlâdge and often called so in Scripture John 6.69 1 Cor. 15.58 Rom. 8.28 c. And the constitutive and efficient causes will justifie the Name We know and are infallibly sure of the truth of God which we believe As it 's said John 6.69 We believe and are sure that thou art that Christ the Son of the living God 2 Cor. 5.1 We know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved we have a building of God an house not made with hands eternal in the Hâavens Rom. 8.28 We know that all things work together for good to them that love God 1 Cor. 15.58 You know that your labour is nât in vain in the Lord Joh. 9.29 We knâw God spake to Moses c. 31. We know God heareth not sinners John 3.2 We know thou art a Teacher come from God So 1 John 3.5 15. 1 Pet. 3.17 and many other Scriptures tell you that Believing God is a certain infallible sort of knowledge I shall in justification of the work of Faith acquaint you briefly with 1. That in the Nature of it 2. And that in the causing of it which advanceth it to be an infallible knowledge 1. The Believer knows as sure as he knows there is a God that God is true and his Word is true it being impossible for God to lie Hâb 6.18 God that cannot lie hath promised Titus 1.2 2. He knows that the holy Scripture is the Word of God by his Image which it beareth and the many evidences of Divinity which it containeth and the many Miracles certainly proved which Christ and his Spirit in his servants wrought to confirm the truth 3. And therefore he knoweth assuredly the conclusion that all this Word of God is true And for the surer effecting of this knowledge God doth not only set before us the ascertaining Evidence of his own veracity and the Scriptures Divinity but moreover 1. He giveth us to believe Phil. 1.29 2 Pet. 1.3 For it is not of our selves but is the gift of God Ephes 2.8 Faith is one of the fruits of the Spirit Gal. 5.22 By the drawing of the Father we come to the Son And he that hath knowledge given from Heaven will certainly know and he that hath Faith given him from Heaven will certainly believe The heavenly Light will dissipate our darkness and infallibly illuminate Whilest God sets before us the glass of the Gospel in which the things invisible are revealed and also gives us eye sight to behold them Believers must needs be a heavenly people as walking in that light which proceedeth from and leadeth to the celestial everlasting Light 2. And that Faith may be so powerful as to serve instead of sight and presence Believers have the Spirit of Christ within them to excite and actuate it and help them against all temptations to unbelief and to work in them all other graces that concur to promote the works of Faith and to mortifie those sins that hinder our believing and are contrary to a heavenly life So that as the exercise of our sight and taste and hearing and feeling is caused by our natural life so the exercise of Faith and Hope and Love upon things unseen is caused by the holy Spirit which is the principle of our new life 1 Cor. 2.12 We have received the Spirit that we might know the things that are given us of God This Spirit of God acquainteth us with God with his veracity and his Word Heb. 10.30 We know him that hath said I will never fail thee nor forsake thee This Spirit of Christ acquainteth us with Christ and with his grace and will 1 Cor. 2.10 11 12. This heavenly Spirit acquainteth us with Heaven so that We know that when Christ appeareth we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is 1 Joh. 3.2 And we know that he was manifested to take away sin 1 Joh. 3.5 And will perfect his work and present us spotless to his Father Eph. 5.26 27. This heavenly Spirit possesseth the Saints with such heavenly dispositions and desires as much facilitate the work of Faith It bringeth us to a heavenly conversation and maketh us live as fellow-citizens of the Saints and in the houshold of God Phil. 3.20 Eph. 2.19 It is within us a Spirit of supplication breathing heaven-ward with sighs and groans which cannot be expressed and as God knoweth the meaning of the Spirit so the Spirit knows the mind of God Rom. 8.37 1 Cor. 2.11 3. And the work of Faith is much promoted by the spiritual experiences of Believers When they find a considerable part of the holy Scriptures verified on themselves it much confirmeth their Faith as to the whole They are really possessed of that heavenly disposition called The Divine Nature and have felt the power of the Word upon their hearts renewing them to the Image of God mortifying their most dear and strong corruptions shewing them a greater beauty and desirableness in the Objects of Faith than is to be found in sensible things They have found many of the Promises made good upon themselves in the answers of prayers and in great deliverances which strongly perswadeth them to believe the rest that are yet to be accomplished And experience is a very powerful and satisfying way of conviction He that feeleth as it were the first fruits the earnest and the beginnings of Heaven already in his soul will more easily and assuredly believe that there is a Heaven hereafter We know that the Son of God iâ come and hath given us an understanding that we may know him that is true and we are in him that is true even in his Son Jesus Christ This is the true God and eternal life 1 Joh. 5.20 He that believeth on the Son hath the witness in himself Vers 10. There is so
great a likeness of the holy and heavenly nature in the Saints to the heavenly life that God hath promised that makes it the more easily believed 4. And it exceedingly helpeth our Belief of the life that 's yet unseen to find that Nature affordeth us undeniable Arguments to prove a future Happiness and Misery Reward and Punishment in the general yea and in special that the Love and Fruition of God is this Reward and that the effects of his displeasure are this Punishment Nothing more clear and certain than that there is a God He must be a fool indeed that dare deny it Psal 14.1 as also that this God is the Creatour of the rational nature and hath the absolute right of Soveraign Government and therefore that the rational Creature oweth him the most full and absolute obedience and deserveth punishment if he disobey And it 's most clear that infinite goodness should be loved above all finite imperfect created good And it 's clear that the rational nature is so formed that without the hopes and fears of another life the world neither is nor ever was nor by ordinary visible means can be well governed supposing God to work on man according to his nature And it is most certain that it consisteth not with infinite wisdom power and goodness to be put to rule the world in all ages by fraud and falshood And it is certain that Heathens do for the most part through the world by the light of nature acknowledge a life of joy or misery to come And the most hardened Atheists or Infidels must confess that for ought they know there may be such a life it being impossible they should know or prove the contrary And it is most certain that the meer probability or possibility of a Heaven and Hell being matters of such unspeakable concernment should in reason command our utmost diligence to the hazard or loss of the transitory vanities below and consequently that a holy diligent preparation for another life is naturally the duty of the reasonable creature And it 's a sure that God hath not made our nature in vain nor set us on a life of vain imployments nor made it our business in the world to seek after that which can never be attained These things and much more do shew that nature affordeth us so full a testimony of the life to come that 's yet invisible that it exceedingly helpeth us in believing the supernatural revelation of it which is more full 5. And though we have not seen the objects of our faith yet those that have given us their infallible testimony by infallible means have seen what they testified Though no man hath seen God at any time yet the only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father hath declared him Joh 1.18 Verily verily saith our Lord we speak that we know and testifie that we have seen Joh. 3.11 Vers 31 32. He that cometh from Heaven is above all and what he hath seen and heard that he testifieth Christ that hath told us saw the things that we have not seen and you will believe honest men that speak to you of what they were eye-witnesses of And the Disciples saw the person the transfiguration and the miracles of Christ Insomuch that John thus beginneth his Epistle 1 Cor. 1.1 2 3. That which was from the beginning which we have heard which we have seen with our eyes which we have looked upon and our hands have handled of the Word of life for the life was manifested and we have seen it and bear witness and shew it to you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested unto us That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you So Paul 1 Cor. 9.1 Am I not an Apostle have have I not seen Jesus Christ our Lord 1 Cor. 15.5.6 7. He was seen of Cephas then of the twelve after that he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once of whom the greater part remain unto this present Heb. 2.3 4. This great salvation at first began to be spoken by the Lord and was confirmed to us by them that heard him God also bearing them witness both with signs and wonders and with divers miracles and gifts of the holy Ghost according to his own will 2 Pet. 1.16 17. For we have not followed cunningly devised fables when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ but were eye-witnesses of his Majesty For he received from God the Father honour and glory when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased And this voice which came from Heaven we heard when we were with him in the holy Mount And therefore when the Apostles were commanded by their persecutors not to speak at all or teach in the name of Jesus they answered We cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard Acts 4.18 20. So that much of the objâcts of our faith to us invisible have yet been sâen by those that have instrumentally revealed them and the glory of Heaven it self is seen by many millions of souls that are now possessing it And the tradition of the Testimony of the Apostles unto us is more full and satisfactory than the tradition of any Laws of the Land or History of the most unquestionable affairs that have been done among the people of the earth as I have manifested elsewhere So that faith hath the infallible Testimony of God and of them that have seen and therefore is to us instead of sight 6. Lastly Even the enemy of faith himself doth against his will confirm our faith by the violence and rage of malice that he stirreth up in the ungodly against the life of faith and holiness and by the importunity of his oppositions and temptations discovering that it is not for nothing that he is so maliciously solicitous industrious and violent And thus you see how much faith hath that should fully satisfie a rational man instead of presence possession and âight If any shall here say But why would not God let us have a sight of Heaven or Hell when he could not but know that it would more generally and certainly have prevailed for the conversion and salvation of the world Doth he envy us the most âffâctuaâ means I answer 1. Who art thou O man that disputest against God shall the thing formed say to him that formed it Why hast thou made me thus Mâst God come down to the bar of man to render an account of the reason of his works Why do ye not also ask him a reason of the nature situation magnitude order influences c. of all the Stars and Superiour Orbs and call him to an account for all his works when yet there are so many things in your own bodies of which you little understand the reason Is it not intollerable impudency for such worms as we so
low so dark to question the eternal God concerning the reason of his Laws and dispensations Do we not shamefully forget our ignorance and our distance 2. But if you must have a reason let this suffice you It is fit that the Government of God be suited to the nature of the reasonable subject And Reason is made to apprehend more than we see and by reaching beyond sense to carry us to seek things higher and better than sense can reach If you would have a man understand no more than he sees you would almost equalize a wise man and a fool and make a man too like a beast Even in worldly matters you will venture upon the greatest cost and pains for the things that you see not nor ever saw He that hath a journey to go to a place that he never saw will not think that a sufficient reason to stay at home The Merchant will sail 1000 miles to a Land and for a Commodity that he never saw Must the Husbandman see the Harvest before he plow his Land and sow his seed Must the sick man feel that he hath health before he use the means to get it Must the Souldier see that he hath the victory before he fight You would take such conceits in worldly matters to be the symptoms of distraction And will you cherish them where they are most pernicious Hath God made man for any end or for none If none he is made in vain If for any no reason can expect that he should see his end before he use the means and see his home before he begin to travel towards it When children first go to School they do not see or enjoy the learning and wisdom which by time and labour they must attain You will provide for the children which you are like to have before you see them To look that sight which is our fruition it self should go before a holy life is to expect the end before we will use the necessary means You see here in the government of the world that it is things unseen that are the instruments of rule and motives of obedience Shall no man be restrained from felony or murders but he that seeth the Assizes or the Gallows It is enough that he foreseeth them as being made known by the Laws It would be no discrimination of the good and bad the wise and foolish if the reward and punishment must be seen what thief so mad as to steal at the Gallows or before the Judge The basest habits would be restrained from acting if the reward and punishment were in fight The most beastly drunkard would not be drunk the filthy fornicator would forbear his lust the malicious enemy of godliness would forbear their calumnies and persecutions if Heaven and Hell were open to their sight No man will play the adulterer in the face of the Assembly The chast and unchast seem there alike And so they would do if they saw the face of the most dreadful God No thanks to any of you all to be godly if Heaven were to be presently seen or to forbear your sin if you saw Hell fire God will have a meeter way of tryal You shall believe his promises if ever you will have the benefit and believe his threatnings if ever you will escape the threatned evil CHAP. 2. Some Uses Vse 1. THis being the nature and use of Faith to apprehend things absent as if they were present and things unseen as if they were visible before our eyes you may hence understand the nature of Christianity and what it is to be a true Believer Verily it is another matter than the dreaming self-deceiving world imagineth Hypocrites think that they are Christians indeed because they have entertained a superficial opinion that there is a Christ an immortality of souls a Resurrection a Heaven and a Hell though their lives bear witness that this is not a living and effectual faith but it is their sensitive faculties and interest that are predominant and are the byas of their hearts Alas a little observation may tell them that notwithstanding their most confident pretentions to Christianity they are utterly unacquainted with the Christian life Would they live as they do in worldly cares and pampering of the flesh and neglect of God and the life to come if they saw the things which they say they do believe Could they be sensual ungodly and secure if they had a faith that serv'd instead of sight Would you know who it is that is the Christian indeed 1. He is one that liveth in some measure as if he saw the Lord Believing in that God that dwelleth in the inaccessible light that cannot be seen by mortal eyes he liveth as before his face He speaks he prayes he thinks he deals with men as if he saw the Lord stand by No wonder therefore if he do it with reverence and holy fear No wonder if he make lighter of the smiles or frowns of mortal man than others do that see none higher and if he observe not the lustre of worldly dignity or flâshly beauty wisdom or vain-glory before the transcendent incomprehensible light to which the Sun it self is darkness When he awaketh he is still with God Psal 134.8 He sets the Lord alwaies before him because he is at his right hand he is not moved Psal 16.8 And therefore the life of Believers is oft called a walking with God and a walking befâre God as Gen. 5.22 24. 6.9 17.1 in the case of Henoch Noah and Abraham All the day doth he wait on God Psal 25 5. Imagine your selves what manner of person he must be that sees the Lord and conclude that such in his measure is the true believer For by faith he seeth him that is invisible to the eye of sense and therefore can forsake the glory and pleasures of the world and feareth not the wrath of Princes as it 's said of Moses Heb. 11.27 2. The Believer is one that liveth on a Christ whom he never saw and trusteth in him adhereth to him acknowledgeth his benefits loveth him and râjoyceth in him as if he had seen him with his eyes This is the faith which Peter calls more precious than perishing gold that maketh us love him whom we have not seen and in whom thâugh now we see him not yet believing we rejoyce with unspeakable and glorious joy 1 Pet. 1.8 Christ dwelleth in hâs heart by faith not only by his Spirit but objectively as our dearest absent friend doth dwell in our estimation and affection Ephes 3.17 O that the miserable Infidels of the world had the eyes the hearts the experiences of the true believer Then they that with Thomas tell those that have seen him Except I may see and feel I will not believe will be forced to cry out My Lord and my God Joh. 20.25 c. 3. A Believer is one that judgeth of the man by his invisible inside and not by outward appearances with a fleshly
worldly judgement He seeth by faith a greater ugliness in sin than in any the most deformed monster When the unbeliever saith what harm is it to please my flesh in ease or pride or meat and drink or lustful wantonness the believer takes it as the question of a fool that should ask what harm is it to take a dram of Mercury or Arsenick He seeth the vicious evil and foreseeth the consequent penal evil by the eye of faith And therefore it is that he pittieth the ungodly when they pitty not themselves and speaks to them oft with a tender heart in compassion of their misery and perhaps weeps over them as Paul Phil. 3.18 19. when he cannot prevail when they weep not for themselves but hate his love and scorn his pitty and bid him keep his lamentations for himself because they see not what he sees He seetâ also the inward beauty of the Saints as it shineth forth in the holiness of their lives and through all their sordid poverty and contempt beholdeth the image of God upon them For he judgeth not of sin or holiness as they now appear to the dâstracted world but as they will be judged of at the day which he foreseeth when sin will be the shame and holiness the honoured and dâsired state He can see Christ in his poor despised members and love God in those that are made as the scorn and off-scouâing of all things by the malignant unbelieving world He admireth the excellency and happiness of those that are made the laughing-stock of the ungodly and accounteth the Saints the most excellent on earth Psal 16.2 and had rather be one of their communion in raggs than sit with Princes that are naked within and void of the true and durable glory He judgeth of men as he perceiveth them to have more or less of Christ The worth of a man is not obvious to the sense You see his stature complexion and his cloths but as you see not his learning or skill in any Art whatsoever so you see not his grace and heavenly mind As the soul it self so the sinful deformity and the holy beauty of it are to us invisible and perceived only by their fruits and by the eye of faith which seeth things as God reveals them And therefore in the eyes of a true Believer a vile person is contemned but he honoureth those that fear the Lord Psal 15.4 4. A true Believer doth seek a happiness which he never saw and that with greater estimation and resolution than he seeks the most excellent things that he hath seen In all his prayers his labours and his sufferings it is an unseen Glory that he seeks he seeth not the Glory of God nor the glorified Redeemer nor the world of Angels and perfected spirits of the just but he knoweth by faith that such a God such a Glory such a world as this there is as certain as if his eyes had seen it And therefore he provides he lives he hopes he waits for this unseen state of spiritual bliss contemning all the wealth and glory that sight can reach in comparison thereof He believeth what he shall see and therefore strives that he may see it It 's something above the Sun and all that mortal eyes can see which is the end the hope the portion of a believer without which all is nothing to him and for which he trades and travels here as worldlings do for worldly things Matth. 6.20 21. Col. 3.1 Phil. 3.20 5. A true Believer doth all his life prepare for a day that is yet to come and for an account of all the passages of his life though he hath noâhing but the Word of God to assure him of it And therefore he lives as one that is hasting to the presence of his Judge and he contriveth his affairs and disposeth of his worldly riches as one that looks to hear of it again and as one that remembreth the Judge is at the door James 5.9 He rather asketh what life what words what actions what way of using my estate and interest will be sweetest to me in the review and will be best at last when I must accordingly receive my doom than what is most pleasant to my flesh and what will ingratiate me most with men and what will accommodate me best at present and set me highest in the world And therefore it is that he pittieth the ungodly even in the height of their prosperity and is so earnest though it offend them to procure their recovery as knowing that how secure soever they are now they must give an account to him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead 1 Pet. 4.5 and that then the case will be altered with the presumptuous world 6. Lastly A true believer is careful to prevent a threatned misery which he never felt and is awakened by holy fear to flye from the wrath to come and is industrious to escape that place of torment which he never saw as if he had seen it with his eyes When he heareth but the sound of the trumpet he takes warning that he may save his soul Ezek. 33.4 The evils that are here felt and seen are not so dreadful to him as those that he never saw or felt He is not so careful and resolute to avoid the ruine of his estate or name or to avoid the plague or sword or famine or the scorching flames or death or torments as he is to avoid the endless torments which are threatned by the righteous God It is a greater misery in his esteem to be really undone for ever than seemingly only for a time and to be cast off by God than by all the world and to lie in Hell than to suffer any temporal calamity And therefore he fears it more and doth more to avoid it and is more cast down by the fears of Gods displeasure than by the feelings of these present sufferings As Noah did for his preservation from the threatned deluge so doth the true Believer for his preservation from everlasting wrath Heb. 11.7 By faith Noah being warned of God of things not seen as yet moved with fear prepared an Ark to the saving of his house by the which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith God first giveth warning of the flood Noah believeth it not with a lifeless but a working faith that first moved in him a self-preserving fear This fear moveth Noah to obey the Lord in the use of means and to prepare the Ark and all this was to save himself and his house from a flood that was as yet unseen and of which in nature there was no appearance Thus doth God warn the sinful world of the day of judgement and the fire that is unquenchable and true believers take his warning and believing that which they cannot see by fear they are moved to flye to Christ and use his means to scape the threatned calamity By this
they become the heirs of that Righteousness which is by faith and condemn the unbelieving careless world that take not the warning and use not the remedy By this time you may see that the Life of Faith is quite another thing than the lifeless opinion of multitudes that call themselves believers To say I believe there is a God a Christ a Heaven a Hell is as easie as it is common But the faith of the ungodly is but an uneffectual dream To dream that you are fighting wins no victories To dream that you are eating gets no strength To dream that you are running ridâ no ground To dream that you are plowing or sowing or reaping procureth but a fruitless harvest And to dream that you are Princes may consist with beggery If you do any more than dream of Heaven and Hell how is it that you stir not and make it not appear by the diligence of your lives and the fervour of your duties and the seriousness of your endeavours that such wonderful unexpressible over-powering things are indeed the matters of your belief As you love your souls take heed lest you take an image of faith to be the thing it self Faith sets on work the powers of the soul for the obtaining of that joy and the escaping of that misery which you believe But the image of faith in self-deceivers neither warms nor works it conquereth no difficulties it stirs not up to faithful duty It 's blind and therefore seeth not God and how then should he be feared and loved Iâ seeth not Hell and therefore the senseless soul goes on as fearlesly and merrily to the unquenchable fire as if he were in the safest way This image of faith annihilateth the most potent objects as to any due impression on the soul God is as no God and Heaven as no Hâaven to these imaginary Christians If a Prince be in the room an image reverenceth him not If musick and feasting be there an image finds no pleasure in them If fire and sword be there an image fears them not You may perceive by the senseless neglectful carriage of ungodly men that they see not by faith the God that they should love and fear the Heaven that they should seek and wait for or the Hell that they should with all possible care avoid He is indeed the true Believer that allowing the difference of degrees doth pray as if he saw the Lord and speak and live as alwaies in his presence and redeem his time as if he were to die to morrow or as one that seeth death approach and ready to lay hands upon him that begs and cries to God in prayer as one that foreseeth the day of judgement and the endless joy or misery that followeth that bestirreth him for everlasting life as one that seeth Heaven and Hell by the eye of faith Faith is a serious apprehension and causeth a serious conversation for it is instead of sight and presence From all this you may easily and certainly infer 1. That true faith is a Jewel rare and precious and not so common as nominal careless Christians think What say they Are we not all believers will you make Infidels of all that are not Saints are none Christians but those that live so strictly Answer I know they are not Infidels by profession but what they are indeed and what God will take them for you may soon perceive by comparing the description of faith with the inscription legible on their lives It 's common to say I do believe but is it common to find men pray and live as those that do believe indeed It is both in works of charity and of piety that a living faith will shew it self I will not therefore contend about the name If you are ungodly unjust or uncharitable and yet will call your selves Believers you may keep the name and see whether it will save you Have you forgotten how this case is determined by the holy Ghost himself James 2.14 c. What doth it profit my Brethren if a man say he hath faith and hath not works Can faith save him Faith if it hath not works is dead being alone Thou believest that there is one God thou dost well the Devils also believe and tremble If such a belief be it that thou gloriest in it 's not denyed thee But wilt thou know oh vain man that faith without works is dead c. Is there life where there is no motion Had you that Faith that is instead of sight it would make you more solicitous for the things unseen than you are for the visible trifles of this world 2. And hence you may observe that most true Believers are weak in Faith Alas how far do we all fall short of the love and zeal and care and diligence which we should have if we had but once beheld the things which we do believe Alas how dead are our affections how flat are our duties how cold and how slow are our endeavours how unprofitable are our lives in comparison of what one hours sight of Heaven and Hell would make them be O what a comfortable converse would it be if I might but joyn in prayer praise and holy conference one day or hour with a person that had seen the Lord and been in Heaven and born a part in the Angelical Praises Were our Congregations composed of such persons what manner of worship would they perform to God How unlike would their heavenly ravishing expressions be to these our sleepy heartless duties Were Heaven open to the view of all this Congregation while I am speaking to you or when we are speaking in prayer and praise to God imagine your selves what a change it would make upon the best of us in our services What apprehensions what affections what resolutions it would raise and what a posture it would cast us all into And do we not all profess to believe these things as revealed from Heaven by the infallible God Do we not say that such a Divine Revelation is as sure as if the things were in themselves laid open to our sight Why then are we no more affected with them Why are we no more transported by them Why do they no more command our souls and stir up our faculties to the most vigorous and lively exercise and call them off from things that are not to us considerable nor fit to have one glance of the eye of our observation nor a regardful thought nor the least affection unless as they subserve these greater things When you observe how much in your selves and others the frame of your souls in holy duty and the tenour of your lives towards God and man do differ from what they would be if you had seen the things that you believe let it mind you of the great imperfection of faith and humble us all in the sense of our imbâcility For though I know that the most perfect Faith is not apt to raise such high affections in
let me begin to plead it with your consciences Are you Believers Do you live the life of Faith or not Do you live upon things that are unseen or upon the present visible baits of sensuality That you may not turn away your ears or hear me with a sluggish sensless mind let me tell you first how nearly it concerneth you to get this Question soundly answered and then that you may not be deceived let me help you toward the true resolution 1. And for the first you may perceive by what is said that saving Faith is not so common as those that know not the nature of it do imagine All men have not faith 2 Thes 3.2 O what abundance do deceive themselves with Names and shews and a dead Opinion and customary Religion and take these for the life of faith 2. Till you have this faith you have no special interest in Christ It is only Believers that are united to him and are his living Members and it is by faith that he dwelleth in our hearts and that we live in him Ephes 3.17 Gal. 2.20 In vain do you boast of Christ if you are not true Believers You have no part or portion in him None of his special Benefits are yours till you have this living working Faith 3. You are still in the state of enmity to God and unreconciled to him while you are unbelievers For you can have no peace with God nor aââess unto his favour but by Christ Rom. 5.1 2 3 4. Ephes 2.14 15 17. And therefore you must come by faith to Christ before you can come by Christ unto the Father as those that have a special interest in his love 4. Till you have this Faith you are under the guilt and load of all your sins and under the curse and condemnation of the Law For there is no Justification or forgiveness but by Faith Act. 26.18 Rom. 4 5 c. 5. Till you have this sound Belief of things unseen you will be carnal minded and have a carnal end to all your actions which will make those to be evil that materially are good and those to be fleshly that materially are holy Without Faith it is impossible to please God Rom. 8.5 8 9. Prov. 28.9 Heb. 11.6 6. Lastly Till you have this living Faith you have no right to Heaven nor could be saved if you die this hour Whoever believeth shall not perish but have everlasting life He that believeth on him is not condemned but he that believeth not iâ condemned already He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life and he that bâlieveth not the Son shall not see life but the wrath of God abidâth on him Joh. 3.16 18 36. You see if you love your selves it concerneth you to try whether you are true Believers Unless you take it for an indifferent thing whether you live for ever in Heaven or Hell it 's best for you to put the question close to your consciences betimes Have you that Faith that serves instead of sight Do you carry within you the evidence of things unseen and the substance of the things which you say you hope for Did you know in what manner this question must be put and determined at judgement and how all your comfort will then depend upon the answer and how near that day is when you must all be sentenced to Heaven or Hell as you are found to be Believers or Vnbelievers it would make you hearken to my counsel and presently try whether you have a saving Faith 2. But lest you be deceived in your trial and lest you mistake me as if I tryed the weak by the measure of the strong and laid all your comfort upon such strong affections and high degrees as fight it self would work within you I shall briefly tell you how you may know whether you have any faith that 's true and saving though in the least degree Though none of us are affected to that height as we should be if we had the sight of all that we do believe yet all that have any saving belief of invisible things will have these four signs of faith within them 1. A sound belief of things unseen will cause a practical estimation of them and that above all earthly things A glimpse of the heavenly glory as in a glass will cause the soul deliberately to say This is the chief desirable felicity this is the Crown the Pearl the Treasure nothing but this can serve my turn It will debase the greatest pleasures or riches or honours of the world in your esteem How contemptible will they seem while you see God stand by and Heaven as it were set open to your view you 'l see there 's little cause to envy the prosperous servants of the world you will pitty them as miserable in their mirth and bound in the fetters of their folly and concupiscence and as strangers to all solid joy and honour You will be moved with some compassion to them in their misery when they are braving it among men and domineering for a little while and you will think alas poor man Is this all thy glory Hast thou no better wealth no higher honour no sweeter pleasures than these husks With such a practical judgement as you value gold above dirt and jewels above common stones you will value Heaven above all the riches and pleasures of this world if you have indeed a living saving faith Phil. 3.7 8 9. 2. A sound belief of the things unseen will habitually incline your wills to embrace them with consent and complacence and resolution above and against those worldly things that would be set above them and preferred before them If you are true believers you have made your choice you have fixâ your hopes you have taken up your resolutions that God must be your portion or you can have none that 's worth the having that Christ must be your Saviour or you cannot be saved and therefore you are at a point with all things else they may be your Helps but not your Happiness you are resolved on what Rock to build and where to cast anchor and at what port and prize your life shall aim You are resolved what to seek and trust to God or none Heaven or nothing Christ or none is the voice of your rooted stable resolutions Though you are full of fears sometimes whether you shall be accepted and have a part in Christ or no and whether ever you shall attain the Glory which you aim at yet you are off all other hopes having seen an end of all perfections and read vanity and vexation written upon all creatures even on the most flattering state on earth and are unchangeably resolved not to change your Master and your hopes and your holy course for any other life or hopes Whatever come of it you are resolved that here you will venture all Knowing that you have no other game to play at which you are not sure to lose and that you
can lay out your love and care and labour on nothing else that will answer your expectations nor make any other bargain whatsoever but what you are sure to be utterly undone by Psal 73.25 4.6 7. Mat. 6.20 21. 13.45 46. Luke 18.33 3. A sound belief of things invisible will be so far an effectual spring of a holy life as that you will seek first the Kingdom of God and its Righteousness Mat. 6.33 and not in your Resolutions only but in your Practices the bent of your lives will be for God and your invisible felicity It is not possible that you should see by faith the wonders of the world to come and yet prefer this world before it A dead opinionative belief may stand with a worldly fleshly life but a working faith will make you stir and make the things of God your business and the labour and industry of your lives will shew whether you soundly believe the things unseen 4. If you savingly believe the invisible things you will purchase them at any rate and hold them faster than your worldly accommodations and will suffer the loss of all things visible rather than you will cast away your hopes of the glory which you never saw A humane faith and bare opinion will not hold fast when trial comes For such men take Heaven but for a reserve because they must leave earth against their wills and are loth to go to Hell but they are resolved to hold the world as long as they can because their faith apprehendeth no such satisfying certainty of the things unseen as will encourage them to let go all that they see and have in sensible possession But the weakest faith that 's true and saving doth habitually dispose the soul to let go all the hopes and happiness of this world when they are inconsistent with our spiritual hopes and happiness Luke 14.33 And now I have gone before you with the light and shewed you what a Believer is will you presently consider how ãâã your hearts and lives agree to this description To know Whether you live by faith or not is consequentially to know whether God or the world be your portion and felicity and so whether you are the heirs of Heaven or Hell And is not this a question that you are most nearly concerned in O therefore for your souls sakes and as ever you love your everlasting peace Examine your selves whether you are in the faith or not Know you not that Christ is in you by faith except you be reprobates 2 Cor. 13.5 will you hearken now as long to your consciences as you have done to me As you have heard me telling you what is the nature of a living saving faith will you hearken to your consciences while they impartially tell you whether you have this life of faith or not It may be known if you are willing and diligent and impartial Iâ you search on purpose as men that would know whether they are alive or dead and whether they shall live or die for ever and not as men that would be flattered and deceived and are resolved to think well of their state be it true or false Let conscience tell you What eyes do you see by for the conduct of the chief imployment of your lives Is it by the eye of sense or faith I take it for granted that it 's by the eye of Reason But is it by Reason corrupted and byâssed by sense or is it by Reason elevated by faith What Countrey is it that your hearts converse in Is it in Heaven or Earth What company is it that you solace your selves with Is it with Angels and Saints Do you walk with them in the Spirit and joyn your eccho's to their triumphant praises and say Amen when by faith you hear them ascribing honour and praise and glory to the ancient of daies the Omnipotent Jehovah that is and that was and is to come Do you fetch your Joyes from Heaven or Earth from things unseen or seen things future or present things hoped for or things possessed What Garden yieldeth you your sweetest flowers Whence is the food that your hopes and comforts live upon Whence are the spirits and cordials that revive you when a frowning world doth cast you into a fainting fit or swoun Where is it that you repose your souls for Rest when sin or sufferings have made you weary Deal truly Is it in Heaven or Earth Which world do you take for your pilgrimage and which for your home I do not ask you where you are but where you dwell not where are your persons but where are your hearts In a word Are you in good earnest when you say you believe a Heaven and Hell And do you think and speak and pray and live as those that do indeed believe it Do you spend your time and chuse your condition of life and dispose of your affairs and answer temptations to worldly things as those that are serious in their belief Speak out do you live the life of faith upon things unseen or the life of sense on things that you behold Deal truly for your endless âoy or sorrow doth much depend on it The life of faith is the certain passage to the life of glory The fleshly life on things here seen is the certain way to endless misery If you live after the flesh ye shall die but if ye by the spirit do mortifie the deeds of the body ye shall live Rom. 8.13 Be not dâceived God is not mocked â for whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption but he that soweth to the spirit shall of the spirit reap everlasting life Gal. 6.7 8. If you would know where you must live for ever know how and for what and upon what it is that you live here Vse 4. Having enquired whether you are Believers I am next to ask you what you will be for the time to come will you live upon things seen or unseen While you arrogate the name and honour of being Christians will you bethink you what Christianity is and will you be indeed what you say you are and would be thought to be Oh that you would give credit to the Word of God that the God of Heaven might be but heartily believed by you And that you would but take his Word to be as sure as sense and what he hath told you is or will be to be as certain as if you saw it with your eyes Oh what manner of persons would you then be how carefully and fruitfully would you speak and live How impossible were it then that you should be careless and prophane And here that I may by seriousness bring you to be serious in so serious a business I shall first put a few suppositions to you about the invisible objects of faith and then I shall put some applicatory questions to you concerning your own resolutions and
practice thereupon 1. Suppose you saw the Lord in glory continually before you When you are hearing praying talking jâsting eating drinking and when you are tempted to any wilful sin Suppose you saw the Lord stand over you as verily as you see a man As you might do if your eyes could see him for it 's most certain that he is still present with you suppose you saw but such a glimpse of his back parts as Moses did Exod. 34. when God put him into a cleft of the Rock and covered him while he passed by Chap. 33.23 when the face of Moses shined with the sight that he was fain to vail it from the people Exod. 34.33 34 35. Or if you had seen but what the Prophet saw Isa 6.1 2 3 4 5 6. when he beheld the Lord upon a Throne high and lifted up c. and heard the Seraphim cry Holy Holy Holy is the Lord of Hosts the whole earth is full of his glory When he said Woe is me for I am undone because I am a man of unclean lips and dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips for mine eyes haue seen the King the Lord of Hosts Or if you had seen but what Job saw Job 42.5 6. when he said I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear but now mine eye seeth thee wherefore I abhor my self and repent in dust and ashes What course would you take what manner of persons would you be after such a sight as this If you had seen but Christ appââring in his glory as the Disciples on the holy Mount Matth. 17. or as Paul saw him at his conversion when he was smitten to the earth Acts 9. or as John saw him Rev. 1.13 where he saith He was cloathed with a garment down to the fooâ and girt with a golden girdle his head and his hairs were white like Wooll or ãâã and his eyes were as a flame of fire and his feet like unto fine brass as if they burned in a furnace and his voice as the sound of many waters and he had in his right hand seven Stars and out of his mouth went a sharp two edged Sword and his countenance was as the Sun shineth in his strength and when I saw him I fell at his feet as dead and he laid his right hand upon me saying unto me fear not I am the first and the last I am âe that liveth and was dead and behold I am alive for evermore Amen and have the keyes of hell and death What do you think you should be and do if you had seen but such a sight as this Would you be godly or ungodly after it As sure as you live and see one another God alwaies seeth you He seeth your secret filthiness and deceit and malice which you think is hid he seeth you in the dark the locking of your doors the dâaâing of your curtains the setting of the Sun or the putting out of the Candle doth hide nothing from him that is Omniscient Psal 94.8 9. Vnderstand oh ye brutish among the people and ye fools when will ye be wise He that planted the ear shall be not hear he that formed the eye shall he not see The lust and filthiness and covetousness and envy and vanity of your very thoughts are as open to his view as the Sun at noon And therefore you may well suppose him present that cannot be absent and you may suppose you saw him that still seeth you and whom you must see Oh what a change a glympse of the glory of his Majesty would make in this Assembly Oh what amazements what passionate workings of soul would it excite Were it but an Angel that did thus appear to you what manner of hearers would you be how serious how affectionate how sensible And yet are you Believers and have none of this when faith makes unseen things to be as seen If thou have faith indeed thou seest him that is invisible thou speakest to him thou hearest him in his Word thou seest him in his Works thou walkest with him he is the life of thy comforts thy converse and thy life 2. Suppose you had seen the matters revealed in the Gospel to your faith as to what is past and done already If you had seen the deluge and the Ark and preservation of one righteous family the burning of Sodom and Gomorrah with fire from Heaven and the saving of Lot whose righteâââ soul was grieved at their sins and hunted after as a prey to their ungodly rage because he would have hindered them from transgressing Suppose you had seen the opening of the Red Sea the passage of the Israelites the drowning of Pharaoh and his Aegyptians the Manna and the Qâails that fell from Heaven the flaming Mount with the terrible Thunder when God delivered the Law to Moses what manner of people would you have been what lives would you have led after such sights as all or any one of these Suppose you had seen Christ in his state of Incarnation in his examples of lowliness meekness contempt of all the glory and vanities of this world and had heard him speak his heavenly Doctrine with power and authority as never man spake Suppose you had seen him heal the blind the lame the sick and raise the dead and seen him after all this made the scorn of sinners buffeted spit upon when they had crowned him with thorns and arrayed him gorgeously in scorn and then nailed between malefactors on a Cross and pierced and die a shameful death and this for such as you and I. Suppose you had seen the Sun darkned without any ecclipse the Vail of the Temple rent the Earth tremble the Angels terrifying the Keepers and Christ rise again Suppose you had been among the Disciples when he appeared in the midst of them and with Thomas had put your fingers into his wounded side and had seen him walking on the waters and at last seen him ascending up to Heaven Suppose you had seen when the Holy Ghost came down on the Disciples in the similitude of cloven tongues and had heard them speak in the various languages of the Nations and seen the variety of Miraclâs by which they convinced the unbelieving world What persons would you have been what lives would you have led if you had been eye-witnesses of all these things And do you not profess to believe all this and that these things are as certain truths as if you had seen them why then doth not your belief affect you or command you more why doth it not do what sight would do in some good measure if it were but a lively saving faith indeed that serveth instead of sense Yea I must tell you Faith must do more with you in this case than the sight of Christ alone could do or the sight of his Miracles did on most For many that saw him and saw his works heard his Word yet perished in their unbelief 3. Suppose
them for God but use them for themselves yet wonder not if he fear not much the face of man and be no admirer of worldly greatness when he seeth what they will be as well as what they are Would not usurpers have been less feared if all could have foreseen their fall Even common reason can foresee that shortly you will all be dust Methinks I foresee your ghastly paleness your loathsome blackness and your habitation in the dark And who can much envy or desire the advancements that have such an end One sight of God would blast all the glory of the world that 's now the bâât for mans perdition Quest 6. Would temptations be as powerful as now they are if you did but see the things you bear of Could all the beauty or pleasures in the world entice you to filthiness or sensuality if you saw God over you and judgement before you and saw what damned souls now suffer and what believers now enjoy Could you be perswaded by any company or recreation to waste your precious time in vain with such things in your eye I am confident you would abhor the motion and entertertain temptations to the most honoured gainful pleasant sin as now you would do a motion to cut your own throats or leap into a coal-pit or thrust your head into a burning-oven Why then doth not faith thus shame temptations if indeed you do believe these things Will you say It is your weakness you cannot âhusâ or that it is your nature to be lustful revengeful sensual and you cannot overcome it But if you had a sight of Heaven and Hell you could then resist you cannot now bâcause you will not But did you see that which would make you willing your power would appear The sight of a Judge or Gallows can restrain mân The sight of a person whom you reverence can restrain the exercise of your disgraceful sins much more would the sight of Heaven and Hell If you were but dying you would shake the head at him that would then tempt you to the committing of your former sins And is not a lively foreseeing faith as effectual Quest 7. Had you seen what you say you do believe you would not so much stick aâ sufferings nor make so great a matter of it to be reproached slandered imprisoned or condemned by man when God and your salvation command your patience A sight of Hell would make you think it worse than madness to run thither to escape the wrath of man or any sufferings on earth Rom. 8.18 Quest 8. And O how such a sight would advance the Redeemer and his Grace and Promises and Word and Ordinances in your esteem It would quicken your desires and make you fly to Christ for life as a drowning man to that which may support him How sweetly then would you relish the name the word the waies of Christ which now seem dry and common things Qâest 9. Could you live as merrily and sleep as quietly in a negligent uncertainty of your salvation if you had seen these things as now you do Could you live at hearts ease while you know not where you shall be to morrow or must live for ever Oh no Were Heaven and Hell but seen before you your Consciences would be more busie in putting such questions Am I regenerate sanctified reconciled justified or not Then any the most zealous Minister is now Quest 10. I will put to you but one Quâstion more If we saw God and Heaven and Hell before us do you think it would not effectually reconcile our differences and heal our unbrotherly exasperâtions and divisions would it not hold the hands that itch to be using violence against those that are not in all things of their minds what abundance of vain controversies would it reconcile As the coming in of the Master doth part the fray among the School-boyes so the sight of God would frâghten us from contentions or uncharitable violence This would teach us how to preach and pray better than a storm at Sea can do which yet doth it better than some in prosperity wâll learn Did we see what we preach of it would drive us out of our man pleasing self-seeking sleepy strain as the cudgel drives the beggar from his canting and the breaking loose of the Bear did teach the affected cripple to find his legs and câst away his câutchâs I would desire no better outward help to end our controversies about indifferent modes of worship than a sight of the things of which we speak This would excite such a serious ârame of soul as would not suffer Religion to evaporate into formality nor dwindle into affectation complement and ceremony nor should we dare to beat our fellow-servants and thrust them out of the vineyard and say you shall not preach or pray or live but upon these or those unnecessary terms But the sense of our own frailty and fear of a severe disquisition of our failings would make us compassionate to others and content that necessaries be the matter of our unity unnecessaries of our liberty and both of charity If sight in all these ten particulars would do so much should not faith do much if you verily believe the things you see not Alas corrupted reason is asleep with men that seem wise in other things till it be awakt by faith or sight And sleeping reason is as unserviceable as folly Iâ doth no work it avoids no danger A Doctor that 's asleep can defend the truth no better than a waking child But reason will be reason and conscience will be conscience when the dust is blown out of mens eyes and sight and feeling have awakened and so recovered their understandings or Faith more seasonably and happily awaked them AND O that now we might all consent to addict ourâselves to the Life of Faith And 1. That we live not too much on visibles 2. That we live on the things invisible 1. One would think that worldliness is a disease that carryeth with it a cure for it self and that the rational nature should be loth to love at so dear a rate and to labour for so poor a recompence It is pitty that Gehezi's leprosie and Judas's death should no more prevent a succession of Gehezi's and Judas's in all generations Our Lord went before us most eminently in a contempt of earth His Kingdom was not of this world No men are more unlike him than the worldlings I know necessity is the pretence But it is the dropsie of Covetousness that causeth the thirst which they call Nâcâssity And therefore the cure is non addere opiâus sed imminuere cupiditatem The disease must not be fed but healed Saâs est divitiarum non amplius velle It hath lately been a controversie whether this be not the golden age that it is aetas ferrea we have felt our demonstrations are undeniable that it is aetas aurata we have sufficient proof and while gold is the god that rules
done But that which unavoidably must be seen should be foreseen But the unseen world is not thus mutable Eternal life is begun in the Believer The Church is built on Christ the Reck and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it Fix here and you shall never be removed 4. Hence followeth another difference The mutable creature doth impart a disgraceful mutability to the soul that chuseth it It disappointeth and deceiveth And therefore the ungodly are of one mind to day and another to morrow In health they are all for pleasure and commodity and honour and at death they cry out on it as deceitful Vanity In health they cannot abide this strictness this meditating and seeking and preparing for the life to come but at death or judgement they will all be of another mind Then O that they had been so wise as to know their time and O that they hâd lived as holily as the best They are now the bold opposers and reproachers of an holy life But then they would be glad it had been their own They would eat their words and will be down in the mouth and stand to never a word they say when sight and sense and judgement shall convince them But things unchangeable do fix the soul Pâeây is no matter for Repentance Doth the Believer speak against sin and sinners and for an holy sober righteous life He will do so to the last Death and Judgement shall not change his mind in this but much confirm it And therefore he perseveres through sufferings to death Rom. 8.35 36 37. For this cause we faint not but though our outward man perish yet the inward man is renewed day by day For our light affliction which is but for a moment worketh for us a far more exceeding eternal weight of glory While we look not at the things that are seen but at the things which are not seen For the things which are seen are temporal but the things which are not seen are eternal 2 Cor. 4.16 17. 6. Lastly let this move you to live by a foreseeing Faith that it is of necessity to your salvation Believing Heaven must prepare you for it before you can enjoy it Believing Hell is necessâry to prevent it Mark 16.16 John 3.18 36. The just shall live by Faith but if any man draw back or be lifted up the Lord will have no pleasure in him Heb. 10.38 Hâb 2.4 Take heed that there be not in any of you an evil heart of unbelief to depart from the living God Heb. 3.12 And be not of them that draw back to perdition but of them that believe to the saving of the soul Heb. 10.39 It is God that saith They shall all be damned that believed not the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness 2 Thes 2.10 11 12. May I now in the conclusion more particularly exhort you 1. That you will live upon things foreseen 2. That you will promote this life of faith in others according to your several capacities Princes and Nobles live not alwaies You are not the Rulers of the unmoveable Kingdom but of a boat that is in an hasty stream or a ship under sail that will speed both Pilot and Passengers to the shore Dixi estis Dii at moriemini ut homines It was not the least or worst of Kings that said I am a stranger vpon earth Psal 119.19 Vermis sum non homo I am a worm and no man Psal 32.6 You are the greater worms and we the little ones but we must all say with Job ch 17.13 14. The grave is our house and we must make our beds in darkness Corruption is our Father and the Worm our Mother and our Sister The inexorable Leveller is ready at your backs to convince you by unresistible argument that dust you are and to dust you shall return Heaven should be as desirable and Hell as terrible to you as to others No man will fear you after death much less will Christ be afraid to judge you Luke 19.27 As the Kingdoms and glory of the world were contemned by him in the hour of his temptation so are they inconsiderable to procure his approbation Trust not therefore to uncertain riches Value them but as they will prove at last As you stand on higher ground than others it is meet that you should see further The greater are your advantages the wiser and better you should be and therefore should better perceive the difference between things temporal and eternal It is alwaies dark where these glow-worms shine and a rotten post doth seem a fire Your difficulties also should excite you You must go as through a Needles eye to Heaven To live as in Heaven in a crowd of business and stream of temptations from the confluence of all worldly things is so hard that few such come to Heaven Withdraw your selves therefore to the frequent serious fore-thoughts of eternity and live by faith Had time allowed it I should have come down to some particular instances As 1. Let the things unseen be still at hand to answer every temptation and shame and repel each motion to sin 2. Let them be still at hand to quicken us to duty when backwardness and coldness doth surprize us What shall we do any thing coldly for eternity 3. Let it resolve you what company to delight in and what society to be of even those with whom you must dwell for ever What side soever is uppermost on earth you may foresee which side shall reign for ever 4. Let the things invisible be your daily solace and the satisfaction of your souls Are you slandered by men Faith tells you it is enough that Christ will justifie you O happy day when he will bring forth our righteousness as the light and set all strait which all the false histories or slanderous tongues or pens in all the world made crooked Are you frowned on or contemned by men Is it not enough that you shall everlastingly be honoured by the Lord Are you wronged oppressed or trodden on by pride or malice Is not Heaven enough to make you reparation and eternity long enough for your joyes O pray for your malicious enemies lest they suffer more than you can wish them 2. Lastly I should have become on the behalf of Christ a petitioner to you for protection and encouragement to the heirs of the invisible world For them that preach and them that live this life of faith not for the honours and riches of the world but for leave and countenance to work in the Vineyard and peaceably travel through the world as strangers and live in the Communion of Saints as they believe But though it be for the beloved of the Lord the apple of his eye the people that are sure to prevail and raign with Christ for ever whose prayers can do more for the greatest Princes than you can do for them whose joy is hastened by that which is intended for their sorrow I shall now lay
wonder that such men can believe themselves when they say they do indeed believe the Gospel And shews what a monster the blind deceitful heart of an impenitent sinner is In good sadness can they think that they truly believe that God is God and yet so wilfully disobey him that Heaven is Heaven and yet prefer the world before it that Hell is Hell and yet will venture upon it for a lust or a thing of nought What! believe that there is at hand a life of endless joy and no more mind it but hate them that set their hearts upon it Do they believe that except a man be converted and new born he shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven as Christ hath told them Matth. 18.3 John 3.3 5. and yet never trouble their minds about it to try whether they are converted and new born or not Do they believe God that no man shall see him without holiness Heb. 12.14 and yet dare they be unholy and perhaps deride it Do they believe that Christ will come in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God and obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power 2 Thes 2.8 9. and yet dare they disobey the Gospel Do they take God for their absolute Lord and Governour while they will not so much as meditate on his Laws but care more what a mortal man saith or what their flesh and carnal reason saith than what he saith to them in his holy Word Do they take Christ for their Saviour and yet would not be saved by him from their sins but had rather keep them Do they take the Holy Ghost for their Sanctifier while they will not have a sanctified heart or life and love it not in those that have it Do they take Heaven for their endless home and happiness while they neither mind nor seek it in comparison of the world And do they take the world for vanity and vexation while they mind and seek it more than Heaven Do they believe the communion of Saints while they fly from it and perhaps detest and persecute it Is light and darkness more contrary than their words and deeds And is not HYPOCRISIE as visible in their practice as Christianity in their profession It is the complexion of their Religion HYPOCRITE is legibly written in the forehead of it They proclaim their shame to all that they converse with When they have said they believe the life to come they tell men by your ungodly worldly lives that they are dissemblers When their tongue hath loudly said that they are Christians their tongue and hand more loudly say that they are Hypocrites And when they profess their Faith but now and then in a lifeless outside piece of worship they profess their Hypocrisie all the day long in their impious neglect of God and their salvation in their carnal speeches in their worldly lives and in their enmity to the practice of the same Religion which they profess Their Hypocrisie is a web so thin and so transparent that it leaves their nakedness open to their shame They have not Profession enough to make a considerable cover for their unbelief They hide but their tongues the rest even heart and all is bare O the stupendious power of self love the wonderful blindness and stupidity of the ungodly the dreadfulness of the judgement of God in thus dâserting the wâlful resisters of his grace That ever men in other things of seeming wisdom should be such strangers to themselves and so deceived by themselves as to think they love the thing they hate and to think that their hearts are set upon Heaven when they neither love it nor the way that leadeth to it but are principally bent another way that when they arâ strangers or enemies to a holy life they can yet make themselves believe that they are holy and that they seek that first which they never seek and make that the drift and business of their lives which was never the serious business of an hour O Hypocrites ask any impartial man of reason that sees your lives and hears your prayers whether you pray and live like men that believe that Heaven or Hell must be their reward Ask your families whether they perceive by your constant prayer and diligent endeavours and holy conversations that your hearts are set on a life to come It was a cutting answer of a late Apostate to one that told him of the unreasonableness of Infidels that denyed the life to come saith he There 's none in the world so unreasonable as you Christians that believe that there is an endless life of joy or misery to come and do no more to obtain the one and escape the other Did I believe such a life as this I would think all too little that I could do or suffer to make it sure Who sees the certainty greatness and eternity of the Crown of Life in the resolvedness fervency and constancy of your holy labour You take up with the picture of Sermons and Prayers and with the name of Christianity and holy obedience A little more Religion you will admit than a Parrot may learn or a Poppet may exercise Compare your care and labour and cost for Heaven and for this world That you believe the flattering deceitful world we see by your daily solicitousness about it You seek it you strive for it you fall out with all that stand in your way you are at it daily and have never done But who can see that you seriously believe another world you talk idly and wantonly and proudly by the hours but you talk of Heaven and holiness but by the minutes You do not turn the glass when you go to your unnecessary recreations or your vain discourse or at least you can stay when the glass is run But in hearing the most necessary truths of God or in praying for everlasting life the hour seems long to you and the tedious Preacher is your weariness and molestation You do not feast and play by the glass but if we do not preach and pray by it exactly but exceed our hour though in speaking of and for eternity we are your burden and put your languid patience to it as if we were doing you some intollerable wrong In worldly matters you are weary of giving but seldom of receiving you grudge at the asker but seldom at the giver But if the gift be spiritual and heavenly you are a weary to hear talk of it and expostulate the case with him that offereth it and he must shew by what authority he would do you good If by serious holy conference he would further your preparations for the life to come or help you to make sure of life eternal he is examined what power he hath to meddle with you and promote your salvation And perhaps he is snappâshly told he is a
the nature and cause of light and heat the order course and harmony of the universal systeme of the world what joyful acclamations would this produce in the literal studious sort of men what joy then should it be to us to know by Faith the God that made us the Creation of the world the Laws and Promises of our Creatour the Mysteries of Redemption and Regeneration the frame of the new Creature the entertainment of the spirits of the just with Christ the Judgement which all the world must undergo the work and company which we shall have hereafter and the endless joyes which all the sanctified shall possess in the sight and Love of God for ever How blessed an invention would it be if all the world could be brought again to the use of one universal language Or if all the Churches could be perfectly reconciled how joyful would the Author of so great a work be should we not then rejoyce who foresee by Faith a far more perfect union and consent than ever must be expected here on earth Alas the ordinary lowness of our Comforts doth tell us that our Faith is very small I say not so much The sorrows of a doubting heart as the little joy which we have in the fore-thoughts of Heaven when our title seemeth not much doubtful to us For those sorrows shew that such esteem it a joyful place and would rejoyce if their title were but cleared But when we have neither the sorrow or solicitousness of the afflicted soul nor yet the joy which is any whit suitable to the belief of such everlasting joyes we may know what to judge of such an uneffectual belief at best it is very low and feeble It is a joy unspeakable and full of glory which unseen things should cause in a Believer 1 Pet. 1.6 7 8. Because it is an exceeding eternal weight of glory which he believeth 2 Cor. â 17 18. 8. Finally Learn to Die also as Believers The life of Faith must bring you to the very entrance into glory where one doth end the other begins As our dark life in the womb by nutriment from the Mother continueth till our passage into the open world You would die in the womb if Faith should cease before it bring you to full intuition and fruition Heb. 11.22 By faith Joseph when he died made mention of the departing of the children of Israel Josephs faith did not die before him Heb. 11.3 These all died in faith confessing that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth and declaring that they sought a better Country They that live by faith must die in faith yea and die by faith too Faith must fetch in their dying comforts And O how full and how near a treasure hath it to go to To die to this world is to be born into another Beggars are best when they are abroad The travail of the ungodly is better to them than their home But the Believers home is so much better than his travail that he hath little cause to be afraid of coming to his Journeys end but should rather every step cry out O when shall I be at home with Christ Is it Earth or Heaven that you have prayed for and laboured for and waited and suffered for till now And doth he indeed pray and labour and suffer for Heaven who would not come thither It is Faith which overcometh the world and the flesh which must also overcome the fears of death and can look with boldness into the loathsome grave and can triumph over both as victorious through Christ It is Faith which can say Go forth O my soul depart in peace Thy course is finished Thy warfare is accomplished The day of triumph is now at hand Thy patience hath no longer work Go forth with joy The morning of thy endless joyes is near and the night of fears and darkness at an end Thy terrible dreams are ending in eternal pleasures The glorious light will banish all thy dreadful specters and resolve all those doubts which were bred and cherished in the dark They whose employment is their weariness and toil do take the night of darkness and cessation for their rest But this is thy weariness Defect of action is thy toil and thy most grievous labour is to do too little work And thy uncessant Vision Love and Praise will be thy uncessant ease and pleasure and thy endless work will be thy endless rest Depart O my soul with peace and gladness Thou leavest not a world where Wisdom and Piety Justice and Sobriety Love and Peace and Order do prevail but a world of ignorance and folly of bruitish sensuality and rage of impiety and malignant enmity to good a world of injustice and oppression and of confusion and distracting strifes Thou goest not to a world of darkness and of wrath but of Light and Love From hellish malice to perfect amity from Bedlam rage to perfect wisdom from mad confusion to perfect order to sweetest unity and peace even to the spirits of the just made perfect and to the celestial glorious City of God! Thou goest not from Heaven to Earth from holiness to sin from the sight of God into an infernal dungeon but from Earth to Heaven from sin and imperfection unto perfect holiness and from palpable darkness into the vital splendour of the face of God! Thou goest not amongst enemies but to dearest friends nor amongst meer strangers but to many whom thou hast known by sight and to more whom thou hast known by faith and must know by the sweetest communion for ever Thou goest not to unsatisfied Justice nor to a condemning unreconciled God but to Love it self to infinite Goodness the fountain of all created and communicated good to the Maker Redeemer and Sanctifier of souls to him who prepared Heaven for thee and now hath prepared thee for Heaven Go forth then in triumph and not with terrour O my soul The prize is won Possess the things which thou hast so long prayed for and sought Make haste and enter into thy Masters joy Go view the glory which thou hast so long heard of and take thy place in the heavenly Chore and bear thy part in their celestial melody Sit down with Abraham Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of God! And receive that which Christ in his Covenant did promise to give thee at the last Go boldly to that blessed God with whom thou hast so powerful a Mediatour and to the Throne of whose grace thou hast had so oft and sweet access If Heaven be thy fear or sorrow what can be thy joy and where wilt thou have refuge if thou fly from God If perfect endless pleasures be thy terrour where then dost thou expect content If grace have taught thee long ago to prefer the heavenly and durable felicity refuse it not now when thou art so near the port if it have taught thee long ago to be as a stranger in this Sodom and to renounce this
done the settling of your faith when once you have found out the soundest evidences and are able to answer all Objections For you must grow still in the fuller discerning and digesting the same evidences which you have discerned For you may hold them so loosely that they may be easily wrested from you And you may see them with so clear and full a knowledge as shall stablish your mind against all ordinary causes of mutation It is one kind or degree rather of knowledge of the same things which the Pupil and another which the Doctor hath I am sure the knowledge which I have now of the evidences of the Christian Verity is much different from what I had thirty years ago when perhaps I could say neer as much as now and used the same Arguments 17. Consider well the great contentions of Philosophers and the great uncertainty of most of those Nations to which the Infidels would reduce our faith or which they would make the test by which to try it They judge Christianity uncertain because it agreeth not with their uncertainties or certain errours 18. Enslave not your Reason to the objects of sense While we are in the body our souls are so imprisoned in flesh and have so much to do with worldly things that most men by averseness and disuse can hardly at all employ their minds about any higher things than sensitive nor go any further than sense conduceth them He that will not use his soul to contemplate things invisible will be as unfit for believing as a Lady is to travel a thousand miles on foot who never went out of her doors but in a Sedan or Coach 19. Where your want of learning or exercise or light doth cause any difficulties which you cannot overcome go to the more wise and experienced Believers and Pastors of the Church to be your helpers For it is their office to be both the preservers and expounders of the sacred Doctrine and to be the helpers of the peoples faith The Priests lips should preserve knowledge and they should seek the Law at his mouth for he is the messenger of the Lord of Hosts Mal. 2.7 20. Lastly Faithfully practise with Love and alacrity what you do believe lest God in justice leave you to disbelieve that which you would not love and practise So much to direct you in the method of your endeavours for the getting and strengthening of faith CHAP. III. The Evidences of Faith THese things in the Order of your enquiry being presupposed proceed to the consideration of the Evidences themselves which fully prove the Christian Verity And here omitting the preparatory considerations recited at large in my Reasons of the Christian Religion I shall only set before you the grand Evidence it self with a brief recital of some of those means which bring it down to our notice in these times The great infallible witness of CHRIST is the SPIRIT of GOD or the Holy Ghost Or that divine operation of the Holy Spirit which infallibly proveth the attestation of God himself as interesting him in it as the principal cause As we know the Coin of a Prince by his image and superscription and know his acts by his publick proper Seal And as we know that God is the Creatour of the world by the Seal of his likeness which is upon it Or as we know the Father of a child when he is so like him as no other could beget So know we Christ and Christianity to be of God by his unimitable image or impression The Power Wisdom and Goodness of God are the essentialities which we call the Nature of God These in their proper form and transcendent perfection are incommunicable But when they produce an effect on the creature which for the resemblance may analogically be called by the same names the names are logically communicable though the thing it self which is the Divine Essence or Perfections be still incommunicable But when they only produce effects more heterogeneal or equivocal then we call those effects only the footsteps or demonstrations of their cause So GOD whose Power Wisdom and Goodness in it self is incommunicable hath produced intellectual natures which are so like him that their likeness is called his Image and analogically yet equivocally the created faculties of their Power Intellect and Will are called by such names as we are fain for want of other words to apply to God the things signified being transcendently and unexpressibly in God but the words first used of and applied to the creature But the same God hath so demonstrated his Power and Wisdom and Goodness in the Creation of the material or corporeal parts of the world that they are the âestigia and infallible proofs of his causation and perfections being such as no other cause without him can produce but yet not so properly called his Image as to his Wisdom and Goodness but only of his Power But no wise man who seeth this world can doubt whether a God of perfect Power Wisdom and Goodness was the maker of it Even so the person and doctrine of Christ or the Christian Religion objectively considered hath so much of the Image and so much of the demonstrative impressions of the Nature of God as may fully assure us that he himself is the approving cause And as the Sun hath a double Light Lux Lumen its essential Light in it self and it s emitted beams or communicated Light so the Spirit and Image of God by which Christ and Christianity are demonstrated are partly that which is essential constitutive and inherent and partly that which is sent and communicated from him to others In the person of Christ there is the most excellent Image of God 1. Wonderful Power by which he wrought miracles and commanded Sea and Land Men and Devils and raised the dead and raised himself and is now the glorious Lord of all things 2. Wonderful Wisdom by which he formed his Laws and Kingdom and by which he knew the hearts of men and prophecied of things to come 3. Most wonderful Love and Goodness by which he healed all diseases and by which he saved miserable souls and procured our happiness at so dear a rate But as the essential Light of the Sun is too glorious to be well observed by us but the emitted Light is it which doth affect our eyes and is the immediate object of our sight at least that we can best endure and use so the Essential Perfections of Jesus Christ are not so immediately and ordinarily fit for our observation and use as the lesser communicated beams which he sent forth And these are either such as were the immediate effects of the Spirit in Christ himself or his personal operations or else the effects of his Spirit in others And that is either such as went before him or such as were present with him or such as followed after him Even as the emitted Light of the Sun is either that which is next to its
3. And this guilt and fear and unwillingness together will all keep down your thoughts from Heaven so that seldom thinking of it will increase your unbelief and they will make you unfit to see the evidences of truth in the Gospel when you do think of them or hear them For he that would not kââw cannot learn Obây therefore according to the knowledge which you have if ever you would have more and would not be given up to the blindness of Infidelity Direct 11. Trust not only to your understandings and think not that study is all which is necessary to faith But remember that faith is the gift of God and therefore pray as well as study Prov. 3.5 Trust in the Lord with all thy heart and lean not to thy own understanding It is a precept as necessary in this point as in any In all things God abhorreth the proud and looketh at them afar off as with disowning and disdain But in no case more than when a blind ungodly sinner shall so overvalue his own understanding as to think that if there be evidence of truth in the mystery of faith he is able presently to discern it before or without any heavenly illumination to cure his dark distempered mind Remember that as the Sun is seen only by his own light so is God our Creatour and Redeemer Faith is the gift of God as well as Repentance Ephes 2.8 2 Tim. 2.25 26. Apply your selves therefore to God by earnest prayer for it As he Mark 9.24 Lord I believe help thou my unbelief And as the Disciples Luke 17.5 Increase our faith A humble soul that waiteth on God in fervent prayer and yet neglecteth not to study and search for truth is much liker to become a confirmed Believer than ungodly Students who trust and seek no further than to their Books and their perverted minds For as God will be sought to for his grace so those that draw near him do draw near unto the Light and therefore are like as children of Light to be delivered from the power of darkness For in his light we shall see the light that must acquaint us with him Direct 12. Lastly What measure of Light soever God vouchsafeth you labour to turn it all into Love and make it your serious care and business to know God that you may love him and to love God so far as you know him For he that desireth satisfaction in his doubts to no better end than to please his mind by knowing and to free it from the disquiet of uncertainty hath an end so low in all his studies that he cannot expect that God and his grace should be called down to serve such a low and base design That faith which is not employed in beholding the love of God in the face of Christ on purpose to increase and exercise our love is not indeed the true Christian Faith but a dead opinion And he that hath never so weak a faith and useth it to this end to know Gods amiableness and to love him doth take the most certain way for the confirmation of his faith For Love is the closest adherence of the soul to God and therefore will set it in the clearest light and will teach it by the sweet convincing way of experience and spiritual taste Believing alone is like the knowledge of our meat by seeing it And Love is as the knowledge of our meat by eating and digesting it And he that hath tasted that it is sweet hath a stronger kind of perswasion that it is sweet than he that only seeth it and will much more tenaciously hold his apprehension It is more possible to dispute him out of his belief who only seeth than him that also tasteth and concocteth A Parent and child will not so easily believe any false reports of one another as strangers or enemies will because Love is a powerful resister of such hard conceits And though this be delusory and blinding partiality where Love is guided by mistake yet when a sound understanding leadeth it and Love hath chosen the truest object it is the naturally perfective motion of the soul And Love keepeth us under the fullest influences of Gods Love and therefore in the reception of that grace which will increase our faith For Love is that act which the ancient Doctors were wont to call the principle of merit or first meritorious act of the soul and which we call the principle of rewardable acts God beginneth and loveth us first partly with a Love of complacency only as his creatures and also as in esse cognito he foreseeth how amiable his grace will make us and partly with a Love of benevolence intending to give us that grace which shall make us really the objects of his further Love And having received this grace it causeth us to love God And when we love God we are really the objects of his complacential Love and when we perceive this it still increaseth our Love And thus the mutual Love of God and Man is the true perpetual motion which hath an everlasting cause and therefore must have an everlasting duration And so the faith which hath once kindled Love even sincere Love to God in Christ hath taken rooting in the heart and lyeth deeper than the head and will hold fast and increase as Love increaseth And this is the true reason of the stedfastness and happiness of many weak unlearned Christians who have not the distinct conceptions and reasonings of learned men and yet because their Faith is turned into Love their Love doth help to confirm their Faith And as they love more heartily so they believe more stedfastly and perseveringly than many who can say more for their faith And so much for the strengthening of your faith CHAP. IX General Directions for exercising the Life of Faith HAving told you how Faith must be confirmed I am next to tell you how it must be used And in this I shall begin with some General Directions and then proceed to such particular cases in which we have the greatest use for Faith Direct 1. Remember the necessity of Faith in all the business of your hearts and lives that nothing can be done well without it There is no sin to be conquered no grace to be exercised no worship to be performed nor no acts of mercy or justice or worldly business to be well done without it in any manner acceptable to God Without Faith it is impossible to please God Heb. 11.6 You may as well go about your bodily work without your eye-sight as about your spiritual work without Faith Direct 2. Make it therefore your care and work to get Faith and to use it and think not that God must reveal his mind to you as in visions while you idly neglect your proper work Believing is the first part of your trade of life and the practice of it must be your constant business It is not living ordinarily by sense and looking when God will
cast in the light of Faith extraordinarily which is indeed the life of Faith Nor is it seeming to stir up Faith in a Prayer or Sermon and looking no more after it all the day This is but to give God a salutation and not to dwell and walk with him And to give Heaven a complemental visit sometimes but not to have your conversation there 2 Cor. 5.7 8. Direct 3. Be not too seldom in solitary meditation Though it be a duty which melancholy persons are disabled to perform in any set and long and orderly manner yet it is so needful to those who are able that the greatest works of Faith are to be managed by it How should things unseen be apprehended so as to affect our hearts without any serious exercise of our thoughts How should we search into mysteries of the Gospel or converse with God or walk in Heaven or fetch either joyes or motives thence without any retired studious contemplation If you cannot meditate or think you cannot believe Meditation abstracteth the mind from vanity and lifteth it up above the world and setteth it about the work of Faith which by a mindless thoughtless or worldly soul can never be performed 2 Cor. 4.16 17 18. Phil. 3.20 Mat. 6.21 Col. 3.1 3. Direct 4. Let the Image of the Life of Christ and his Martyrs and holiest servants be deeply printed on your minds That you may know what the way is which you have to go and what patterns they be which you have to imitate think how much they were above things sensitive and how light they set by all the pleasures wealth and glory of this world Therefore the Holy Ghost doth set before us that cloud of witnesses and catalogue of Martyrs in Heb. 11. that example may help us and we may see with how good company we go in the life of Faith Paul had well studied the example of Christ when he took pleasure in infirmities and gloryed only in the Cross to be base and afflicted in this world for the hopes of endless glory 2 Cor. 11.30 12.5 9 10. And when he could say I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and do count them but dung that I may win Christ that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings being made conformable to his death Phil. 3.8 9 10. No man will well militate in the life of Faith but he that followeth the Captain of his salvation Heb. 2.10 who for the bringing of many Sons to glory even those whom he is not ashamed to call his Brethren was made perfect as to perfection of action or performance by suffering thereby to shew us how little the best of these visible and sensible corporeal things are to be valued in comparison of the things invisible and therefore as the General and the souldiers make up one army and militate in one militia so he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one Heb. 2.10 11 12. Though that which is called the life of Faith in us deserved a higher title in Christ and his faith in his Father and ours do much differ and he had not many of the objects acts and uses of Faith as we have who are sinners yet in this we must follow him as our great example in valuing things invisible and vilifying things visible in comparison of them And therefore Paul saith I am crucified with Christ Nevertheless I live yet not I but Christ liveth in me and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the Faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me Gal. 2.20 Direct 5. Remember therefore that God and Heaven the unseen things are the final object of true Faith and that the final object is the noblest and that the principal use of Faith is to carry up the whole heart and life from things visible and temporal to things invisible and eternal and not only to comfort us in the assurance of our own forgiveness and salvation It is an exceeding common and dangerous deceit to overlook both this principal object and principal use of the Christian Faith 1. Many think of no other object of it but the death and righteousness of Christ and the pardon of sin and the promise of that pardon And God and Heaven they look at as the objects of some other common kind of Faith 2. And they think of little other use of it than to comfort them against the guilt of sin with the assurance of their Justification But the great and principal work of Faith is that which is about its final object to carry up the soul to God and Heaven where the world and things sensible are the terminus à quo and God and things invisible the terminus ad quem And thus it is put in contradistinction to living by fight in 2 Cor. 5.6 7. And thus mortification is made one part of this great effect in Rom. 6. throughout and many other places and thus it is that Heb. 11. doth set before us those numerous examples of a life of Faith as it was expressed in valuing things unseen upon the belief of the Word of God and the vilifying of things seen which stand against them And thus Christ tryed the Rich man Luke 18.22 whether he would be his Disciple by calling him to sell all and give to the poâr for the hopes of a treasure in Heaven And thus Christ maketh bearing the Cross and denying our selves and forsaking all for him to be necessary in all that are his Disciples And thus Paul describeth the life of Faith 2 Cor. 4.17 18. by the contempt of the world and suffering afflictions for the hopes of Heaven For our light affliction which is but for a moment worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory while we look not at the things which are seen but at the things which are not seen for the things which are seen are temporal but the things which are not seen are eternal Our Faith is our victory over the world even in the very nature of it and not only in the remote effect for its aspect and believing approaches to God and the things unseen and a proportionable recess from the things which are seen is one and the same motion of the soul denominated variously from its various respects to the terminus ad quem and à quo Direct 6. Remember that as God to be believed in is the principal and final object of Faith so the kindling of love to God in the soul is the principal use and effect of Faith And to live by Faith is but to love obey and suffer by Faith Faith working by Love is the description of our Christianity Gal. 5.6 As Christ is the Way to the Father Joh. 14.6 and came into the world to recover Apostate
man to God to love him and be beloved by him so the true use of Faith in Jesus Christ is to be as it were the bellows to kindle love or the burning-glass as it were of the soul to receive the beams of the Love of God as they shine upon us in Jesus Christ and thereby to enflame our hearts in love to God again Therefore if you would live by Faith indeed begin here and first receive the deepest apprehensions of that Love of the Father Who so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life And by these apprehensiâns stir up your hearts to the Love of God and make this very endeavour the work and business of your lives Oh that mistaken Christians would be rectified in this point how much would it tend to their holiness and their peace You think of almost nothing of the life of Faith but how to believe that you have a special interest in Christ and shall be saved by him But you have first another work to do You must first believe that common Love and Grace before mentioned John 3.16 2 Cor. 5.19 20.14 15. 1 Tim. 2.6 Heb. 2.9 And you must believe your own interest in this that is that God hath by Christ made to all and therefore unto you an act of oblivion and free deed of gift that you shall have Christ and pardon and eternal life if you will believingly accept the gift and will not finally reject it And the belief of this even of this common Love and Grace must first perswade your hearts accordingly to accept the offer and then you have a special interest and withall at the same time must kindle in your souls a thankful love to the Lord and fountain of this grace and if you were so ingenuous as to begin here and first use your Faith upon the foresaid common gift of Christ for the kindling of love to God within you and would account this the work which Faith hath every day to do you would then find that in the very exciting and exercise of this holy Love your assurance of your own special interest in Christ would be sooner and more comfortably brought about than by searching to find either evidence of pardon before you find your love to God or to find your love to God before you have laboured to get and exercise it I tell you they are dangerous deceivers of your souls that shall contradict this obvious truth that the true method and motive of mans first special love to God must not be by believing first God 's special love to us but by believing his more common love and mercy in the general act and offer of grace before mentioned For he that believeth Gods special love to him and his special interest in Christ before he hath any special love to God doth sinfully presume and not believe For if by Gods special love you mean his love of complacency to you as a living member of Christ to believe this before you love God truly is to believe a dangerous lie and if you mean only Gods love of benevolence by which he decreeth to make you the objects of his foresaid complacency and to sanctifie and save you to believe this before you truly love God is to believe that which is utterly unknown to you and may be false for ought you know but is not at all revealed by God and therefore is not the object of Faith Therefore if you cannot have true assurance or perswasion of your special interest in Christ and of your justification before you have a special love to God then this special love must be kindled I say not by a common Faith but by a true Faith in the General Love and Promise mentioned before Nay you must not only have first this special love but also must have so much knowledge that indeed you have it as you will have knowledge of your special interest in Christ and the love of God for no act of Faith will truly evidence special grace which is not immediately and intimately accompanied with true love to God our Father and Redeemer and the ultimate object of our Faith Nor can you any further perceive or prove the sincerity of your Faith it self than you discern in or with it the Love here mentioned For Faith is not only an act of the Intellect but of the Will also And there is no volition or consent to this or any offered good which hath not in it the true nature of Love and the intention of the end being in order of nature before our choice or use of means the intending of God as our end cannot come behind that act of Faith which is about Christ as the chosen means or way to God Therefore make this your great and principal use of your Faith to receive all the expressions of Gods Love in Christ and thereby to kindle in you a love to God that first the special true belief of Gods more common love and grace may kindle in you a special love and then the sense of this may assure you of your special interest in Christ and then the assurance of that special interest may increase your love to a much higher degree And thus live by Faith in the work of Love Direct 7. That you may understand what that Faith is which you must live by take in all the parts at least that are essential to it in your description and take not some parcels of it for the Christian Faith nor think noâ that it must needs be several sorts of Faith if it have several objects and hearken not to that dull Philosophical subtilty which would perswade you that Faith is but some single physical act of the soul 1. If you know not what Faith is it must needs be a great hinderance to you in the seeking of it the trying it and the using it For though one may use his natural faculties which work by natural inclination and necessity without knowing what they are yet it is not so where the choice of the rational appetite is necessary for it must be guided by the reasoning faculty And though unlearned persons may have and use Repentance Faith and other graces who cannot define them yet they do truly though not perfectly know the thing it self though they know not the terms of a just definition and all defect of knowing the true nature of Faith will be some hinderance to us in using it 2. It is a moral subject which we are speaking of and terms are to be understood according to the nature of the subject therefore Faith is to be taken for a moral act which comprehendeth many physical acts Such as is the act of believing in or taking such a man for my Physician or my Master or my Tutor or my King Even our Philosophers themselves know not what doth individuate a physical act of the soul Nay they are not
agreed whether its acts should be called physical properly or not Nay they cannot tell what doth individuate an act of sense whether when my eye doth at once see many words and letters of my Book every word or letter doth make as many individual acts by being so many objects And if so whether the parts of every letter also do not constitute an individual act and where we shall here stop And must all these trifles be considered in our Faith Assenting to the truths is not one Faith unless when separated from the rest and consenting to the good another act Nor is it one Faith to believe the promise and another to believe the pardon of sin and another to believe salvation and another to believe in God and another to believe in Jesus Christ nor one to believe in Christ as our Ransom and another as our Intercessor and another as our Teacher and another as our King and another to believe in the Holy Ghost c. I deny not but some one of these may be separated from the rest and being so separated may be called Faith but not the Christian Faith but only a material parcel of it which is like the limb of a man or of a tree which cut off from the rest is dead and ceaseth when separated to be a part any otherwise than Logical a part of the description The Faith which hath the promise of salvation and which you must live by hath 1. God for the Principal Revealer and his Veracity for its formal object 2. It hath Christ and Angels and Prophets and Apostles for the sub-revealers 3. It hath the Holy Ghost by the divine attesting operations before described to be the seal and the confirmer 4. It hath the same Holy Ghost for the internal exciter of it 5. It hath all truths of known divine revelation and all good of known divine donation by his Covenant to be the material general object 6. It hath the Covenant of Grace and the holy Scriptures and formerly the voice of Christ and his Apostles or any such sign of the mind of God for the instrumental efficient cause of the object in esse cognito And also the instrumental efficient of the act 7. It hath the pure Deity God himself as he is to be known and loved inceptively here and perfectly in Heaven for the final and most necessary material object 8. It hath the Lord Jesus Christ entirely in all essential to him as God and Man and as our Redeemer or Saviour as our Ransome Intercessor Teacher and Ruler for the most necessary mediate material object 9. It hath the gifts of Pardon Justification the Spirit of Sanctification or Love and all the necessary gifts of the Covenant for the material never-final objects And all this is essential to the Christian Faith even to that Fath which hath the promise of pardon and salvation And no one of these must be totally left out in the definition of it if you would not be deceived It is Heresie and not the Christian Faith if it exclude any one essential part And if it include it not it is Infidelity And indeed there is such a connexion of the objects that there is no part in truth where there is not the whole And it is impiety if any one part of the offered good that is necessary be refused It is no true Faith if it be not a true composition of all these Direct 8. There is no nearer way to know what true Faith is than truly to understand what your Baptismal Covenanting did contain In Scripture phrase to be a Disciple a Believer and a Christian is all one Acts 11.26 Acts 5.14 1 Tim. 4.12 Matth. 10.42 27.57 Luke 14.26 27 33. Acts 21.16 Joh. 9.28 And to be a Believer and to have Belief or Faith is all one and therefore to be a Christian and to have Faith is all one Christianity signifieth either our first entrance into the Christian State or our progress in it As Marriage signifieth either Matrimony or the Conjugal State continued in In the latter sense Christianity signifieth more than Faith for more than Faith is necessary to a Christian But in the former sense as Christianity signifieth but our becoming Christians by our covenanting with God so to have Faith or to be a Believer and internally to become a Christian in Scripture sense is all one and the outward covenanting is but the profession of Faith or Christianity Not that the word Faith is never taken in a narrower sense or that Christianity as it is our heart-covenant or consent containeth nothing but Faith as Faith is so taken in the narrowest sense But when Faith is taken as ordinarily in Scripture for that which is made the condition of Justification and Salvation and opposed to Heathenism Infidelity Judaism or the works of the Law it is commonly taken in this larger sense Faith is well enough described to them that understand what is implyed by the usual shorter description as that it is a believing acceptance of Christ and relying on him as our Saviour or for salvation Or a belief of pardon and the heavenly Glory as procured by the Redemption wrought by Christ and given by God in the Covenant of Grace But the reason is because all the rest is connoted and so to be understood by us as if it were exprest in words But the true and full definition of it is this The Christian Faith which is required at Baptism and then professed and hath the promise of Justification and Glorification is a true Belief of the Gospel and an acceptance of and consent unto the Covenant of Grace Particularly a believing that God is our Creatour our Owner our Ruler and our Chief Good and that Jesus Christ is God and man our Saviour our Ransoms our Teacher and our King and that the Holy Ghost is the Sanctifier of the Church of Christ And it is an understanding serious consent that this God the Father Son and Holy Ghost be my God and reconciled Father in Christ my Saviour and my Sanctifier to justifie me sanctifie me and glorifie me in the perfect knowledge of God and mutual complacence in Heaven which belief and consent wrought in me by the Word and Spirit of Christ is grounded upon the Veracity of God as the chief Revealer and upon his Love and Mercy as the Donor and upon Christ and his Apostles as the Messengers of God and upon the Gospel and specially the Covenant of Grace as the instrumental Revelation and Donation it self And upon the many signal operations of the Holy Ghost as the divine infallible attestation of their truth Learn this definition and understand it throughly and it may prove a more solid useful knowledge to have the true nature of Faith or Christianity thus methodically printed on your minds than to read over a thousand volumes in a rambling and confused way of knowledge If any quarrel at this definition because the foundation is not first
the term from which and the former from the respect to part of the term to which the soul is moving And Faith is oft taken as containing somewhat of Love and Desire in it and he that will without any prejudice and partiality study Paul where he opposeth Faith and Works as to our Justification shall find by his almost constant naming the Works of the Law or by the context and analysis that indeed his chief meaning is to prove that we are justified by the Christian Religion and must be sâved by it and not by the Jewish which the adversaries of Christianity then pleaded for and trusted to Direct 12. Set not the helps of Faith as if they were against Faith but understand their several places and offices and use them accordingly Do not like those ignorant self-conceited Hereticks who cry out It is by Believing and not by Repenting or Reading or Hearing Sermons or by Praying or by forbearing sin or by doing good that we are justified and therefore it is by Faith only that we are saved the same which is sufficient for our Justification being sufficient for our salvation seeing the Justified cannot be condemned and Justification and Salvation are both equally ascribed to Faith without the works of the Law by the Apostle For we are justified only by such a Faith as is caused by Gods Word and maintained and actuated by Hearing Reading Meditation Prayer and Sacraments and as is accompanied by Repentance and worketh by Love and is indeed the beholding of those invisible and glorious motives which may incite our Love and set us on good works and obedience to our Redeemer And he that by negligence omitteth or by errour excludeth any one of these in the Life of Faith will find that he hath erred against his own interest peace and comfort if not against his own salvation And that he might as wisely have disputed that it is his eyes only that must see his way and therefore he may travel without his legs Direct 13. Take heed left a misconceit of the certainty of some common Philosophical Opinions should make you stagger in those Articles of Faith which seem to contradict them Not that indeed any truths can be contrary one to another For that which is true in Philosophy is contrary to no one truth in Theology But Philosophers have deceived themselves and the world with a multitude of uncertainties and falsities and by straining them to subtil niceties and locking them up in uncouth terms have kept the common people from trying them and understanding them and thereby have made it their own prerogative explicitely to erre and the peoples duty not to contradict them but to admire that errour as profound parts of learning which they cannot understand And then their conclusions oft go for principles which must not be gainsayed when they are perhaps either false or non-sense And then when they meet with any thing in Scripture which crosseth their opinions the reputation of humane folly maketh them despise the wisdom of God I have given you elsewhere some instances about the immortality of the soul They know not what Generation is they do not know it nor what are the true principles and elements of mixt bodies nor what is the true dâfference between immaterial and material substances with an hundred such like And yet some expect that we should sacrifice the most certain useful truths to their false or uncertain useless suppositions which is the true reason why Paul saith Col. 2.8 9 10. Beware lest any man spoil you through Philosophy and vain deceit not true Philosophy which is the true knowledge of the works of God but the vain models which every Sect of them cryed up after the tradition of men that is the opinions of the Masters of their Sects after the rudiments of the world and not after Christ For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily and ye are compleat in him See Act. 17.18 It is Christ who is the kernel and summary of the Christian Philosophy who is therefore called The Wisdom of God 1 Cor. 1.24 30. both because he is the heavenly Teacher of true Wisdom and because that true Wisdom consisteth in knowing him And indeed even in those times the several Sects of Philosophers accounted much of each others principles to be erroneous and the Philosophers of these times begin to vilifie them all and withall to confess that they have yet little of certainty to substitute in the room of the demolished Idols but they are about their experiments to try if any thing in time may be found out Direct 14. Especially take heed lest you be cheated into Infidelity by the Dominicans Metaphysical Doctrine of the necessity of Gods Physical predetermining promotion as the first total cause to the being of every action natural and free not only in genere actionis but also as respectively and comparatively exercised on this object rather than on that I add this only for the learned who are as much in danger of Infidelity as others and will use it to the greater injury of the truth I will meddle now with no other reasons of my advice but what the subject in hand requireth If God can and do thus premove and predetermine the mind will and tongue of every lyar in the world to every lye or material falshood which ever they did conceive or speak there will be no certainty of the Gospel nor of any Divine Revelation at all Seeing all such certainty is resolved into Gods Veracity that God cannot lye And God speaketh not to us by any but a created voice and if he can thus predetermine others to those words which are a lye rather than to the contrary which are true there would be no certainty but he may do so by Prophets and Apostles and let them tell you what they will of the greater certainty of Inspirations and Miracles than of Predeterminations it will be found upon tryal that no man can prove or make it so much as probable that any inspiration hath more of a Divine Causation than such a premoving predetermination as aforesaid doth amount to much less so much more as will prove that one is more certain than the other This Doctrine therefore which undeniably whatever may be wrangled taketh down Christianity and all belief of God or man is not to be believed meerly upon such a Philosophical conceit that every Action is a Being and therefore must in all its circumstances be caused by God As if God were not able to make a faculty which can determine its own comparative act to this rather than to that by his sustentation and universal precausation and concourse without the said predetermining premotion When as an Action as such is but a modus entis and the comparative exercise of it on this rather than on that is but a modus vel circumstantia modi And they leave no work for gracious determination because that natural determination doth
all the same thing equally to duty and sin without it Direct 15. Consider well how much all humane converse is maintained by the necessary belief of one another and what the world would be without it and how much you expect your selves to be believed And then think how much more belief is due to God Though sin hath made the world so bad that we may say that all men are lyars that is deceitful vanity and little to be trusted yet the honesty of those that are more vertuous doth help so far to keep up the honour of veracity and the shamefulness of lying that throughout the world a lye is in disgrace and truth in speech and dealing is well spoken of And the remnants of natural honesty in the worst do so far second the true honesty of the best that no man is so well spoken of commonly in the world as a man of truth and trustiness whose Word is his Law and Master and never speaketh deceitfully to any Nor no man is so commonly ill spoken of as a knave as he that will lye and is not to be trusted In so much that even those debauched Ruffians who live as if they said in their hearts There is no God will yet venture their lives in revenge against him that shall give them the lye Perhaps you will say that this is not from any vertue or natural Law or honesty but from common interest there being nothing more the interest of mankind than that men be trusty to each other To which I answer that you oppose things which are conjunct It is both For all Gods natural Laws are for the interest of mankind and that which is truly most for our good is made most our duty and that which is most our duty is most for our good And that which is so much for the interest of mankind must needs be good If it were not for credibility and trustiness in men there were no living in families but Masters and Servants Parents and Children Husbands and Wives would live together as enemies And neigbours would be as so many thieves to one another There could be no Society or Common-wealth when Prince and people could put no trust in one another Nay thieves themselves that are not to be trusted by any others do yet strengthen themselves by confederacies and oaths of secrecy and gather into troops and armies and there put trust in one another And can we think that GOD is not much more to be trusted and is not a greater hater of a lye and is not the fountain of all fidelity and hath not a greater care of the interest of his creatures Surely he that thinketh that God is a lyar and not to be trusted will think no better of any mortal man or Angel and therefore trusteth no one and is very censorious and would be thought no better of himself and therefore would have none believe or trust him For who would be better than his God Direct 16. Consider also that Veracity in God is his nature or essence and cannot be denyed without denying him to be God For it is nothing but his three Essentialities or Principles Power Wisdom and Goodness as they are expressed in his Word or Revelations as congruous to his mind and to the matter expressed He that neither wanteth knowledge to know what to say and do nor Goodness to love truth and hate all evil nor Power to do what he please and to make good his word cannot possibly lye because every lye is for want of one or more of these Heb. 6.18 Titus 1.12 And there as it is said that he cannot lye and that it is impossible so it is called a denying of himself if he could be unfaithfull 2 Tim. 2.13 If we believe not yet be abideth faithful and cannot deny himself Direct 17. Exercise Faith much in those proper works in which self and sense are most denyed and overcome Bodily motions and labours which we are not used to are done both unskilfully and with pain If Faith be not much exercised in its warfare and victorious acts you will neither know its strength nor find it to be strong when you come to use it It is not the easie and common acts of Faith which will serve turn to try and strengthen it As the life of sense is the adversary which Faith must conquer so use it much in such conflicts and conquests if you would find it strong and usefull Use it in such acts of mortification and self-denyal as will plainly shew that it over ruleth sense Use it in patience and rejoycing in such sufferings and in contentment in so low and cross a state where you are sure that sight and sense do not contribute to your peace and joy Use it not only in giving some little of your superfluities but in giving your whole two mites even all your substance and selling all and giving to the poor when indeed God maketh it your duty At least in forsaking all for his sake in a day of tryal Faith never doth work so like it self so clearly so powerfully and so comfortably as in these self-denying and overcoming acts when it doth not work alone without the help of sense to comfort us but also against sense which would discourage us Luke 18.22 23. 14.26 33. 2 Cor. 5.7 Direct 18. Keep a constant observation of Gods converse with your hearts and workings on them For as I said before there are within us such demonstrations of a Kingdom of God in precepts mercies rewards and punishments that he which well worketh them will have much help in the maintaining and exercising his belief of the everlasting Kingdom Especially the godly who have that Spirit there working which is indeed the very seal and pledge and earnest of life eternal 2 Cor. 1.22 5.5 Ephes 1.13 14. Gal. 4.5 6. Rom. 8.16 17. There is so much of God and Heaven in a true Believers heart that as we see the Moon and Stars when we look down into the water so we may see much of God and Heaven within us if the heart it self be throughly studied And I must add that Experiences here must be carefully recorded and when God fulfilleth promises to us it must not be forgotten Direct 19. Converse much with them that live by Faith and fetch their motives and comforts from the things unseen Converse hath a transforming power To converse with them that live all by sense and shew no other desires or joyes or sorrows but what are fetched from fleshly sensible things is a great means to draw us downwards with them And to converse with them who converse in Heaven and speak of nothing else so comfortably or so seriously who shew us that Heaven is the place they travel to and the state that all their life doth aim and who make little of all the wants or plenty pains or pleasures of the flesh this much conduceth to make us heavenly As men are apt to learn
and use the language the motives and the employments of the Country and people where they live so he that is most familiar with such as live by Faith upon things unseen and take Gods promise for full security hath a very great help to learn and live that life himself Heb. 10.24 25. 1 Thes 4.17 18. Phil. 3.20 21. Direct 20. Forget not the nearness of the things unseen and think not of a long continuance in this world but live in continual expectation of your change Distant things be they never so great do hardly move us As in bodily motion the mover must be contiguous And as our senses are not fit to apprehend beyond a certain distance so our minds also are finite and have their bounds and measure And sin hath made them much narrower foolish and ãâã sighted than they would have been A certainty of dying ãâã last should do much with us But yet he that looketh to live long on earth will the more hardly live by Faith in Heaven when he that daily waiteth for his change will have easily the more serious and effectual thoughts of the world in which he must live next and of all the preparations necessary thereunto and will the more easily despise the things on earth which are the employment and felicity of the sensual Col. 3.1 2 3. Phil. 1.20 21 22 23. 1 Cor. 15.31 As we see it in constant experience in men when they see that they must presently die indeed how light then set they by the world how little are they moved with the talk of honour with the voice of mirth with the sight of meat or drink or beauty or any thing which before they had not power to deny and how seriously they will then talk of sin and grace of God and Heaven which before they could not be awakened to regard If therefore you would live by faith indeed set your selves as at the entrance of that world which faith foreseeth and live as men that know they may die to morrow and certainly must be gone ere long Dream not of I know not how many years more on earth which God never promised you unlâss you make it your business to vanquish faith by setting its objects at a greater distance than God hath set them Learn Christs warning to one and all To watch and to be alwaies ready Mark 13.33 35 37. 1 Pet. 4 7. Mat. 24.44 Luke 12.40 He that thinketh he hath yet time enough and day-light before him will be the apter to loiter in his work or Journey When every man will make haste when the Sun is setting if he have much to do or far to go Delaies which are the great preventers of Repentance and undoers of the world do take their greatest advantage from this ungrounded expectation of long life When they hear the Physician say He is a dead man and there is no hope then they would fain begin to live and then how religious and reformed would they be whereas if this foolish errour did not hinder them they might be of the same mind all their lives and might have then done their work and waited with desire for the Crown and said with Paul For I am now ready to be offered and the time of my departure is at hand I have fought a good fight I have finished my course I have kept the faith henceforth there is laid up for me a Crown of Righteousness which the Lord the Righteous Judge shall give me at that day and not to me only but to them also that love his appearing 2 Tim. 4.6 7 8. And so much for the General Directions to be observed by them that will live by Faith I only add that as the well doing of all our particular duties dependeth most on the common health and soundness of the soul in its state of grace so our living by Faith in all the particular cases after instanced doth depend more upon these General Directions than on the particular ones which are next to be adjoyned CHAP. I. An Enumeration of the Particular Cases in which especially Faith must be used 1. How to live by Faith on GOD. THE General Directions before given must be practised in all the Particular Cases following or in order to them But besides them it is needful to have some special Directions for each Case And the particular Cases which I shall instance in are these 1. How to exercise Faith on GOD himself 2. Upon Jesus Christ 3. Upon the Holy Ghost 4. About the Scripture Precepts and Examples 5. About the Scripture Promises 6. About the Threatnings 7. About Pardon of sin and Justification 8. About Sanctification and the exercises of other Graces 9. Against inward vices and temptations to actual sin 10. In case of Prosperity 11. In Adversity and particular Afflictions 12. In Gods Worship publick and private 13. For Spiritual Peace and Joy 14. For the World and the Church of God 15. For our Relations 16. In loving others as our selves 17. About Heaven and following the Saints 18. How to die in Faith 19. About the coming of Christ to Judgement GOD is both the object of our knowledge as he is revealed in Nature and of our Faith as he is revealed in the holy Scriptures He is the first and last object of our Faith It is life eternal to know him the only true God and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent Ye believe in God believe also in me was Christs order in commanding and causing Faith Joh. 14.1 Seeing therefore this is the principal part of Faith to know God and live upon him and to him I shall give you many though brief Directions in it Direct 1. Behold the glorious and full demonstrations of the Being of the Deity in the whole frame of nature and especially in your selves The great argument from the Effect to the Cause is unanswerable All the caused and derived Beings in the world must needs have a first Being for their cause All Action Intellection and Volition all Power Wisdom and Goodness which is caused by another doth prove that the cause can have no less than the total effect hath To see the world and to know what a man is and yet to deny that there is a God is to be mad He that will not know that which all the world doth more plainly preach than words can possibly express and will not know the sense of his own Being and faculties doth declare himself uncapable of teaching Psal 14.1 49.12 20. Isa 1.2 3. It is the greatest shame that mans understanding is capable of to be ignorant of God 1 Cor. 15.34 and the greatest shame to any Nation Hos 4.1 6.6 As it is the highest advancement of the mind to know him and therefore the summ of all our duty Prov. 2.5 Hos 6 6· 2 Chron. 30.21 22. Isa 11.9 2 Pet. 2.20 Rom. 1.20 28. Joh. 17.3 Direct 2. Therefore take not the Being and Perfections of God for superstructures and
and used and provided for as his own He will not neglect his own and those of his family who will take us to be worse than Infidels if we do so 1 Tim. 5.8 Direct 8. By Faith deliver up your selves to God as your Soveraign Ruler with an absolute Resolution to learn and love and obey his Laws Though I have often and more largely spoken of these duties in other Treatises I must not here totally omit them where I speak of that Faith in God which essentially consisteth in them It is a narrow and foolish and pernicious conceit of Faith which thinketh it hath no object but promises and pardon and that it hath nothing to do with God as our Soveraign Governour And it is too large a description of faith which maketh actual and formal obedience to be a part of it As Marriage is not conjugal fidelity and duty but it is a Covenant which obligeth to it and as the Oath of Allegiance is not a formal obedience to the Laws but it is a covenanting to obey them and as the hiring or covenant of a servant is not doing service but it is an entring into an obligation and state of service So Faith and our first Christianity is not strictly formal obedience to him that we believe in as such But it is an entring of our selves by covenant into an obligation and state of future obedience Faith hath Gods precepts for its objects as truly as his promises But his own Relation as our King or Ruler is its primary object before his precepts Hos 13.10 Psal 2.6 5.2 10.16 24.7 8 10. 47.6 7. 89.18 149.2 Rev. 15.3 1 Timoth. 1.17 Luke 19.27 Direct 9. By Faith acknowledge GOD as your total Benefactor from him you have and must have all that 's worth the having And accordingly live in a dependance on him Faith taketh every good thing as a stream from this inexhausted spring and as a token of love from this unmeasurable Love It knoweth a difference in the means and way of conveyance but no difference as to the fountain for all that we receive is equally from the same original though not sent to us by the same hand Faith should not take or look at any good abstractedly as separated from God but ever see the streams as continued up to the fountain and the fruit as proceeding from the tree and roots Remember still that he doth illuminate you by the Sun and he doth nourish you by your food for you live not by bread only but by his Word and blessing and it is he that doth teach you by his Ministers and protect you by his Magistrates and comfort you by your friends You have that from one which another cannot give you but you have nothing from any creature whatsoever which is not totally from God For though he honour creatures to be his Messengers or Instruments the benefit is equally from him when he useth an Instrument and when he useth none From him we have our Being and our Comforts and all the means and hopes of our well-being and therefore our dependance must be absolutely on him The blessings of this life and of that to come all things which appertain to life and godliness are the gifts of his incomprehensible benignity For it is natural to him who is infinitely good to do good when he doth work ad extra though when to communicate and in what various degrees is free to him 1 Tim. 4.8 Mât. 6.33 2 Pet. 1.3 Psal 145.14 15. 146.7 18.50 1 Tim. 6.17 James 1.5 4.6 Jer. 5.24 25. Direct 10. By Faith set your eye and heart most fixedly and devotedly on GOD as your ultimate end which is your felicity and much more He taketh not God for God indeed who taketh him not as his ultimate end Nay he debaseth God who placing his felicity in any thing else doth cleave to God but as the means to such a felicity But to make God our felicity is lawful and necessary but not to dream that this is the highest respect that we must have to God to be our felicity To love him and to be beloved by him to please him and to be pleased in him is our ultimate end which though it be complex and contain our own felicity yet doth it as infinitely supereminent contain the complacency of God and God as the object of our Love considered in his own infinite perfections For he is the Alpha and Omega the first and the last and of him and through him and to him are all things Rom. 11.36 It is the highest and noblest work of faith to make our own Original to be our End and to set our love entirely upon God and to see that we our selves are but worms and vanity capable of no higher honour than to be means to please and glorifie God and must not take down God so as to love him only for our selves And he only who thus denyeth himself for God doth rightly improve self-love and seek the only exaltation and felicity by carrying up himself to God and adhering to the eternal good 1 Cor. 10.31 Luke 14.33 Mat. 16.25 Mark 8.35 Direct 11. Distinguish these Relations of God but divide them not much less set them in any opposition to each other and remember that the effects of them all are marvelously and harmoniously mixt but undivided The effects of Gods Power are alwaies the effects also of his Wisdom and his Goodness And the effects of his Wisdom are alwaies the effects of his Goodness and his Power And the effects of his Goodness are alwaies the effects of his Power and his Wisdom The effects of his Dominion on his rational subjects are alwaies the effects also of his Government and Love And the effects of his Government are alwaies the effects also of his Dominion and Love And the effects of his Love as Benefactorâ are alwaies the effects of his Dominion and Government Though some one Principle and some one Relation may more eminently appear in one work as others do in the other works Disposal is the effect of Propriety but it is alwaies a Regular and Lâving disposal of the subjects of his Government Lâgislation and Judgement are the effects of his Kingdom Buâ Dominion and Love have a hand in both till Rebellion turn men from subjection Glorification is the highest effect of Love But it is given ââso by our Owner as by one that may do as he list with his own and by our Governour by the way of a Reward Mat. 20.15 2 Tim. 4.7 8. Mat. 25. throughout Direct 12. Especially let Faith unvail to you the face of the Goodness of God and see that your thoughts of it be neither false nor low but equal to your thoughts of his Power and Vnderstanding 1. As our loss by sin is more in the point of Goodness than of Power or Knowledge The Devils having much of the two last who have but little or nothing of
the first so it is the Goodness of God which must be more studied by a Believer than his Power or his Wisdom because the impress of it is more necessary to us in our lapsed state 2. They have false thoughts of Gods Goodness who make it to consist only or chiefly in a communicative inclination ad extra which we call Benignity For he was as Good from Eternity before he made any creature as he is since And his Goodness considered as essential in himself and as his own perfection is infinitely higher than the consideration of it as terminated on any Creature Man is denominated good from his adaptation to the will of God and not God chiefly from his adaptation to the commodity or will of man And they do therefore debase God and deifie his creature who make the creature the ultimate end of GOD and it self and not God the ultimate end of the creature And they might as well make the creature the Beginning also of it self and God And yet this sottish notion taketh much with many half-witted Novelists in this Age who account themselves the men of ingenuity And they have also false thoughts of the Goodness of God who think that there is nothing of communicative Benignity in it at all For all the good which God doth he doth it from the Goodness of his Nature Thou art good and doest good Psal 119.68 And his doing good is usually expressed by the phrase of being good to them The Lord is good to all Psal 145.9 Psal 25 8 86.5 Object But if communicative Benignity be natural to God as his Essential Goodness is then he must do good per modum naturae ad ultimum potentiae and then the world was from Eternity and as good as God could make it Answ 1. Those Christian Divines who do hold that the Vniverse was from Eternity and that it is as good as God can make it do not yet hold that it was its own original but an eternal emanation from God and therefore that God who is the beginning of it is the ultimate end and eternally and voluntarily though naturally and necessarily produced it for himself even for the pleasure of his will And therefore that Gods Essential Goodness as it is in it self is much higher than the same as terminated in or productive of the Universe And that no mixt bodies which do oriri interire are generated and corrupted were from eternity and consequently that this present systeme called the world which is within our sight was not from eternity But that as spring and fall doth revive the plants and end their transitory life so it hath been with these particular systemes the simpler and nobler parts of the Universe continuing the same And they held that the world is next to infinitely good and as good as it is possible to be without being God and that for God to produce another God or an infinite good is a contradiction And that all the baser and pained and miserable parts of the world are best respectively to the perfection of the whole though not best in and to themselves As every nuck and pin in a watch is necessary as well as the chief parts And that all things set together it is best that all things be as they are and will be But of this the infinite Wisdom who seeth not only some little parts but the whole Universe at one perfect view is the fittest Judge 2. But the generality of Divines do hold the contrary and say that it is natural to God to be the Alsufficient pregnant good not only able to communicate goodness but inclined to it as far as his perfection doth require but not inclined to communicate in a way of natural constant necessity as the Sun shineth but in a way of liberty when and in what degrees he pleaseth which pleasure is guided by his infinite Vnderstanding which no mortal man can comprehend and therefore must not ask any further reason of the first reason and will but stop here and be satisfied to find that it is indeed Gods Will and Reason which causeth all things when and what they are and not otherwise And that God hath not made the Universe as good in it self as by his absolute Power he could have made it But that it is best to be as it is and will be because it is most suitable to his perfect Will and Wisdom And this answer seemeth most agreeable to Gods Word And as you must see that your thoughts of Gods Goodness be not false so also that they be not diminutive and low As no knowledge is more useful and necessary to us so nothing is more wonderfully revealed by God than is his amiable Goodness For this end he sent his Son into flesh to declare his Love to the forelorn world and to call them to behold it and admire it John 1 8 9 10. 3.16 1 John 3.1 Rev. 21.3 And as Christ is the chief glass of the Fathers Love on this side Heaven so it is the chief part of the office of Faith to see Gods Love and Goodness in the face of Christ Let him not reveal his Love in vain at so dear a rate and in a way of such wonderful condescension Think of his Goodness as equal to his greatness And as you see his greatness in the frame of the world so his goodness in the wonderful work of mans Redemption and Salvation Let Faith beholding God in Christ and daily thus gazing on his goodness or rather tasting it and feasting on it be the very summ of all your Religion and your lives This is indeed to live by Faith when it worketh by that Love which is our holiness and life Direct 13. Let not Faith overlook the Books of the Creation and the wonderful demonstrations of Gods Attributes therein Even such revelations of Gods goodness and fidelity as are made in Nature or the works of Creation are sometimes in Scriptures made the objects of faith At least we who by the belief of the Scriptures do know how the worlds were made Heb. 11.2 3. must believingly study this glorious work of our great Creator All those admirations and praises of God as appearing in his works which David useth were not without the use of faith Thus faith can use the world as a sanctified thing and as a glass to see the glory of God in while sensual sinners use it against God to their own perdition and make it an enemy to God and them so contrary is the life of Faith and of Sense He hath not the heart of a man within him who is not stricken with admiration of the Power and Wisdom and Goodness of the incomprehensible Creator when he seriously looketh to the Sun and Stars to Sea and Land to the course of all things and to the wonderful variety and natures of the particular creatures And he hath not the heart of a Believer in him who doth not think O what
to despise the Idol of the ungodly and to lay that under our feet which is nearest to their heart and to be able without impatiency to be scorned spit upon buffeted and abused to be poor and of no reputation among men and though not to enslave our selves to any but if we can be free to use it rather 1 Cor. 7.21 yet to be the loving and voluntary servants of as many as we can to do them good and not to desire to have a great retinue and to be such voluntary burdens to the world as to be served by many while we serve none as if we who are taught by Christ and Nature that it is more honourable to give than to receive and to be helpful unto many than to need the help of many would declare our impotency to be so great that when every poor man can serve himself and others we are and had rather be so indigent as not to live and help our selves without the help of many servants yea scarce to undress and dress our selves or to do any thing which another can do for us Only such persons are willing to eat and drink and sleep for themselves and to play and laugh and to sin for themselves but as to any thing that 's good and usefull without their present sensitive delight they are not only unserviceable to the world but would live like the lame or dead that must be moved and carryed about by others Among Christs servants he that is the chief must be the chief in service even as a servant unto all Luke 22.26 Matth. 23.11 And all by love must serve one another Gal. 5.13 4. His submission unto death and conquest of the natural love of life for a greater good even the pleasing of God and the Crown of Glory and the good of many in their salvation To teach us that not only the pleasures of life but life it self must be willingly laid down when any of these three ends require it Matth. 20.28 John 10 11. 15.13 1 John 3.16 Joh. 10.17 Acts 20.24 Matth. 10.39 16.25 Mark 14.26 Phil. 2.30 1 John 3.16 Rev. 12.11 Direct 16. Let Faith behold Christ in his relation to his universal Church and not unto your selves alone 1. Because else you overlook his most honourable relation It is more his glory to be the Churches Head and Saviour than yours Ephes 5.23 1.21 22. And 2. You else overlook his chief design and work which is for the perfecting and saving of his body Ephes 1.23 Col. 1.24.18 And 3. Else you overlook the chief part of your own duty and of your conformity to Christ which is in loving and edifying the body Ephes 4.12 16 Whereas if you see Christ as the undivided and impartial Head of all Saints you will see also all Saints as dear to him and as united in him and you will have communion by faith with them in him and you will love them all and pray for all and desire a part in the prayers of all instead of carping at their different indifferent manner and forms and words of prayer and running away from them to shew that you disown them And you will have a tender care of the unity and honour and prosperity of the Church and regard the welfare of particular Brethren as your own 1 Cor. 12. throughout John 13.14 34. 15.12 17. Rom. 13.8 stooping to the lowest service to one another if it were the washing of the feet and in honour preferring one another Rom. 12.10 Not judging nor despising nor persecuting but receiving and forbearing one another Rom. 14. throughout 15.1 2 3 4 7 8. Gal. 5.13 6.1 2 3. Ephes 4.2 32. Col. 3.13 Edifying exhorting and seeking the saving of one other 1 Thes 5.11 4.9 18. Heb. 3.13 10.24 Not speaking evil one of another James 4.11 Much less biting and devouring one another Gal. 5.15 But having compassion one of another as those that are members one of another 1 Pet. 3.8 Rom. 12.5 Direct 17. Make all your opposition to the temptations of Satan the world and the flesh by the exercise of Faith in Christ From him you must have your weapons skill and strength It is the great work of Faith to militate under him as the Captain of our salvation and by vertue of his precepts example and Spirit to overcome as he hath overcome Of which more anon Direct 18. Death also must be entertained and conquered by Faith in Christ We must see it as already conquered by him and entertain it as the passage to him This also will be after spoken to Direct 19. Faith must believe in Christ as our Judge to give us our final Justification and sentence us to endless life Rom. 14.9 10. John 5.22 24 25. Direct 20. Lastly Faith must see Christ as preparing us a place in Heaven and possessing it for us and ready to receive us to himself But all this I only name because it will fall in in the last Chapters CHAP. III. Directions to live by Faith on the Holy Ghost THis is not the least part of the life of Faith If the Spirit give us Faith it self then Faith hath certainly its proper work to do towards that Spirit which giveth it And if the Spirit be the worker of all other grace and Faith be the means on our part then Faith hath somewhat to do with the Holy Ghost herein The best way that I can take in helping you to believe aright in the Holy Ghost will be by opening the true sense of this great Article of our Faith to you that by understanding the matter aright you may know what you are here both to do and to expect Direct 1. The name of the Holy Ghost or Spirit of God is used in Scripture for the third person in the Trinity as constitutive and as the third perfective principle of operation and most usually as operating ad extra by communication And therefore many Fathers and ancient Divines and Schoolmen say That the Holy Ghost the third person and principle is THE LOVE OF GOD which as it is Gods Love of himself is a constitutive person or principle in the Trinity but as it is pregnant and productive it is the third principle of operation ad extra and so that it is taken usually for the pregnant operative Love of God And thus they suppose that the Divine POWER INTELLECT and WILL or Wisdom and Love are the three constitutive persons in themselves and the three principles of operation ad extra To this purpose writeth Origen Ambrose and Richardus the Schoolman but plainlier and fullier Damascene and Bernard and Edmundus Cantuariensis and Potho Prumensis cited by me in my Reasons of the Christian Religion page 372 373 374. Augustine only putteth Memory for Power by which yet Campanella thinketh he meant Power Metaphys par 2. l. 6. c. 12. art 4. pag. 88. what Caesarius and many other say de triplici lumine I pass by The Lux
be plainlier expounded or that distribution is not sound If by Grace be meant all the extrinsick medicinal preparations made by Christ and if by Glory be meant only the Holiness of the soul the sense is good But in common use those words are otherwise understood Sanctification is usually ascribed to the Holy Ghost but Glorification in Heaven is the perfective effect of all the three persons in our state of perfect union with God Rom. 15.16 Titus 3.5 6. But yet in the work of Sanctification it self the Trinity undividedly concur And so in the sanctifying and raising the Church the Apostle distinctly calleth the act of the Father by the name of Operation and the work of the Son by the name of Administration and the part of the Holy Ghost by the name of Gifts 1 Cor. 12.4 5 6. And in respect to these sanctifying Operations of God ad extra the same Apostle distributeth them thus 2 Cor. 13.14 The Grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the Love of God and the Communion of the Holy Ghost be with you all Where by God seemeth to be meant all the persons in the Trinity in their perfection but especially the Father as the Fountain of Love and as expressing Love by the Son and the Spirit and by the Grace of Christ is meant all that gracious provision he hath made for mans salvation and the Relative application of it by his intercession together with his mission of the holy Spirit And by the Communion of the Spirit is meant that actual communication of Life Light and Love to the soul it self which is eminently ascribed to the Spirit Direct 9. The Spirit it self is given to true Believers and not only grace from the Spirit Not that the Essence of God or the person of the Holy Ghost is capable of being contained in any place or removing to or from a place by local motion But 1. The Holy Ghost is given to us Relatively as our Covenanting Sanctifier in the Baptismal Covenant We have a Covenant-right to him that is to his operations 2. And the Spirit it self is present as the immediate Operator not so immediate as to be without Means but so immediately as to be no distant Agent but by proximate attingency not only ratione virtutis but also ratione suppositi performeth his operations If you say so he is present every where I answer but he is not a present Operator every where alike We are called the Temples of the Holy Ghost both because he buildeth us up for so holy a use and because he also dwelleth in us 1 Cor. 6.19 Direct 10. By the sanctification commonly ascribed to the Holy Ghost is meant that recovery of the soul to God from whom it is fallen which consisteth in our primitive Holiness or devotedness to God but summarily in the Love of God as God Direct 11. And Faith in Christ is oft placed as before it not as if the Spirit were no cause of Faith nor as if Faith were no part of our saving special grace nor as if any had saving Faith before they had Love to God but because as Christ is the Mediatour and way to the Father so Faith in him is but a mediate grace to bring us up to the Love of God which is the final perfective grace And because though they are inseparably complicate yet some acts of Faith go before our special Love to God in order of nature though some others follow after it or go with it It is a question which seemeth very difficult to many whether Love to God or Faith in Christ must go first whether in time or order of nature For if we say that Faith in Christ must go first then it seemeth that we take not Faith or Christ as a Means to bring us to God as our End for our End is Deus amatus God as beloved and to make God our End and to love him are inseparable We first love the good which appeareth to us and then we chuse and use the Means to attain it and in so doing we make that our End which we did love so that it is the first loved for it self and then made our End Now if Christ be not used as a Means to God or as our Vltimate End then he is not believed in or used as Christ and therefore it is no true Faith And that which hath not the true End is not the true act or grace in question nor can that be any special grace at all which hath not God for his Vltimate End On both which accounts it can be no true Faith The intentio finis being before the choice or use of means though the assecution be after And yet on the other side if God be loved as our End before we believe in Christ as the means then we are sanctified before we believe And then faith in Christ is not the Means of our first special Love to God And the consequents on both parts are intollerable and how are they to be avoided Consider here 1. You must distinguish betwixt the assenting or knowing act of faith and the consenting or chusing act of it in the will 2. And between Christ as he is a Means of Gods chusing and using and as he is a means of our chusing and using And so I answer the case in these Propositions 1. The knowledge of a Deity is supposed before the knowledge of Christ as a Mediator For no man can believe that he is a Teacher sent of God nor a Mediator between us and God nor a Sacrifice to appease Gods wrath who doth not believe first that there is a God 2. In this belief or knowledge of God is contained the knowledge of his Essential Power Wisdom and Goodness and that he is our Creator and Governour and that we have broken his Laws and that we are obnoxious to his Justice and deserve punishment for our sins All this is to be known before we believe in Christ as the Mediatour 3. Yet where Christianity is the Religion of the Country it is Christ himself by his Word and Ministers who teacheth us these things concerning God But it is not Christ as a Means chosen or used by us to bring us to the Love of God for no man can chuse or use a Means for an End not yet known or intended but it is Christ as a Means chosen and used by God to bring home sinners to himself even as his dying for us on the Cross was 4. The soul that knoweth all this concerning God cannot yet love him savingly both because he wanteth the Spirit to effect it and because a holy sin-hating God engaged in Justice to damn the sinner is not such an object as a guilty soul can love but it must be a loving and reconciled God that is willing to forgive 5. When Christ by his Word and Ministers hath taught a sinner both what God is in himself and what he is to us and what we have deserved and
what our case is and then hath taught him what he himself is as to his person and his office and what he hath done to reconcile us to God and how far God is reconciled hereupon and what a common conditional pardoning Covenant he hath made and offereth to all and what he will be and do to those that do come in the belief of all this serioâsly by the assenting act of the understanding is the first part of saving Faith going in nature before both the Love of God and the consenting act of the Will to the Redeemer And yet perhaps the same acts of faith in an uneffectual superficial measure may go long before this in many 6. In this assent our belief in God and in the Mediatour are conjunct in time and nature they being Relatives here as the objects of our faith It is not possible to believe in Christ as the Mediatour who hath propitiated God to us before we believe that God is propitiated by the Mediatour nor vice versâ Indeed there is a difference in order of dignity and desirableness God as propitiated being represented to us as the End and the Propitiator but as the Means But as to the order of our apprehension or believing there can be no difference at all no more than in the order of knowing the Father and the Son the Husband and Wife the King and subjects These Relatives are simul naturá tempore 7. This assenting act of Faith by which at once we believe Christ to be the Propitiator and God to be propitiated by him is not the belief that my sins are actually pardoned and my soul actually reconciled and justified but it includeth the belief of the history of Christs satisfaction and of the common conditional Covenant of Promise and Offer from God viz. that God is so far reconciled by the Mediatour as that he will forgive and justifie and glorifie all that Repent and Believe that is that return to God by faith in Christ and offereth this mercy to all and intreateth them to accept it and will condemn none of them but those that finally reject iâ ãâã things are of God who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ and hath given to us the Ministry of reconciliation to wit that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himsâlf not imputing their trespasses to them and hath committed to us the word of reconciliation Now then we are Embassadors for Christ as though God did beseech you by us we pray you in Christs stead be ye reconciled unto God 2 Cor. 5.18 19 20. So that it is at once the belief of the Father as reconciled and the Son as the Reconcilâr and that according to the tenour of the common conditional Covenant which is the first assenting part of saving Faith 8. This same Covenant which revealeth God as thus far reconciled by Christ doth offer him to be further actualy and fully reconciled and to justifie and glorifie us that is to forgive accept and love us perfectly for ever And it offereth us Christ to be our actual Head and Mediatour to procure and give us all this mercy by communicating the benefits which he hath purchased according to his Covenant-terms so that as before the Father and the Son were revealed to our assent together so here they are offered to the Will together 9. In this offer God is offered as the End and Christ as Mediatour is offered as the Means therefore the act of the Will to God which is here required is simple Love of complacency with subjection which is a consent to obey but the act of the Will to Christ is called choice or consent though there be in it Amor Medii the Love of that Means for its aptitude as to the end 10. This Love of God as the End and Consent to Christ as the Means being not acts of the Intellect but of the Will cannot be the first acts of Faith but do presuppose the first assenting acts 11. But the assenting act of Faith doth cause these acts of the Will to God and the Mediatour Because we believe the Truth and Goodness we Consent and Love 12. Both these acts of the Will are caused by assent at one time without the least distance 13. But here is a difference in order of Nature because we will God as the End and for himself and therefore first in the natural order of intention and we will Christ as the Means for that End and therefore but secondarily Though in the Intellects apprehension and assent there be no such difference because in the Truth which is the Vnderstandings object there is no dâfference but only in the Goodness which is the Wills object And as Goodness it self is apprehended by the Vnderstanding ut verè bonum there is only an objective dâfference of dignity 14. Therefore as the Gospel revelation cometh to us in a way of offer promise and covenant so our Faith must act in a way of Acceptance Covenanting with God and the Redeemer and Sanctifier And the Sacrament of Baptism is the solemnizing of this Covenant on both parts And till our hearts do consent to the Baptismal Covenant of Grace we are not Believers in a saving sense 15. There is no distance of time between the Assent of Faith and the first true degree of Love and Consent Though an unsound Assent may go long before yet sound Assent doth immediately produce Love and Consent and though a clear and full resolved degree of consent may be some time afterward And therefore the soul may not at the first degree so well understand it self as to be ready for an open covenanting 16. This being the true order of the work of Faith and Love the case now lyeth plain before those that can observe things distinctly and take not up with confused knowledge And no other are fit to meddle with such cases viz that the knowing or assenting acts of faith in God as reconciled so far and in Christ as the reconciler so far as to give out the offer or Covenant of Grace are both at once and both go before the acts of the will as the cause before the immediate effect and that this assent first in order of nature but at once in time causeth the will to love God as our End and to consent to and chuse Christ in heart-covenant as the means and so in our covenant we give up our selves to both And that this Repentance and Love to God which are both one work called conversion of turning from the creature to God the one as denominated from the terminus à quo viz. Repentance the other from the terminus ad quem viz. Love are twisted at once with true saving Faith And that Christ as the means used by God is our first Teacher and bringeth us to assent And then that assent bringeth us to take God for our End and Christ for the Means of our actual Justification and Glory so that Christ is
in with the heavenly Spirit in his own way when we set our selves to be most heavenly Heavenly thoughts are the work which he would set you on and the Love of God is the thing which he works you to thereby And nothing will so powerfully inflame the soul with the Love of God as to think that we shall live in his Love and Glory for ever more Set your selves therefore to this work and it will be a sign that the Spirit sets you on it and you may be sure that he will not be behind with you in a work which both he and you must do To this sense the Apostle bids us pray in the Holy Ghost Jude 20. Because though prayer must be from the Spirit which is not in our power yet when we set our selves to pray it is both a sign that the Spirit exciteth and a certain proof that he will not be behind with us but will afford us his assistance Direct 29. Conveâse with those who have most of the Spirit as far as you can attain it And that is not those that are most for revelations or visions or that pretend to extraordinary illuminations or that set the Spirit against the Word or that boast most of the Spirit in contempt of others But those who are most humble most holy and most heavenly who love God most and hate sin most Converse with such as have most of the Spirit of love and heavenliness is the way to make you more spiritual as converse with learned men is the way to learning For the Spirit giveth his graces in the use of suitable means as well as he doth his common gifts Jude 20 21. Heb. 10.24 25. 3.13 Ephes 4.12 15 16. Direct 30. Lastly The right ordering of the body it self is a help to our spirituality A clean and a chearful body is a fitter instrument for the Spirit to make use of than one that is opprest with crudities or dejected with heavy melancholy Therefore especially avoid two extreams 1. The satisfying the lusts of the flesh and clogging the body with excess of meat or drink or corrupting the fantasie with foolish pleasures 2. And the addicting your selves to distracting melancholy or to any disconsolate or discontented thoughts And from hence you may both take notice of the sense of all that fasting and abstinence which God commandeth us and of the true measure of it viz. as it either fitteth or unfitteth the body for our duty and for our ready obedience to the Spirit of God 1 Cor. 9.27 I keep under my body and bring it into subjection lest by any means when I have preached to others I myself should be a cast away Rom. 13.12 13 14. Let us walk honestly as in the day not in rioting and drunkânness not in chambering and wantonness not in strife and envying but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh for lust Pampering the body and addicting our selves to the pleasing of it turneth a man from spirituality into bruitishness and savouring or minding the things of the flâsh destroyeth both the relish and minding of the things of the Spirit Rom. 8.5 6 7 8. And a sowre discontented melancholy temper is contrary to that alacrity requisite in Gods service and to those which the Comforter is to work in us So much for living by Faith on the Holy Ghost CHAP. IV. Directions how to exercise Faith upon Gods Commandments for Duty IT being presupposed that your Faith is settled about the truth of the Scriptures in general by the means here before and elsewhere more at large described you are next to learn how to exercise the Life of Faith about the Precepts of God in particular and herein take these helps Direct 1. Observe well how suitable Gods Commands are to reason and humanity and natural revelation it self and so how Nature and Scripture do fully agree in all the precepts for primitive holiness This is the cause why Divines have thought it so useful to read Heathen Moralists themselves that in a Cicero a Plutarch a Seneca an Antonius an Epictetus c. they might see what testimony nature it self yieldeth against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men See Rom. 19 20 c. But of this I have been larger in my Reasons of the Christian Religion Direct 2. Observe well how suitable all Gods Commandments are to your own good and how necessary to your own felicity All that God commandeth you is 1. To be active and use the faculties of your souls in opposition to Idleness 2. To use them rightly and on the highest objects and not to debase them by preferring vanity and sordid things nor to pervert them by ill doing And are not both these suitable to your natural perfection and necessary to your good 1. If there were one Law made that men should lie or stand still all the day with their eyes shut and their ears stopped and their mouths closed and that they should not stir nor see nor hear nor taste and another Law that man should use their eyes and ears and limbs c. which of these were more suitable to humanity and more easie for a âound man to obey though the first might best suit with the lame and blind and sick and why should not the goodness of Gods Law be discerned which requireth men to use the higher faculties the Reason and Elective and Executive Powers which God hath given them If men should make a Law that no one should use his Reason to get Learning or for his Trade or business in the world you would think that it were an institution of a Kingdom of Bedlams or a herd of beasts And should not you then be required to use your Reason faithfully and diligently in greater things 2. And if one Law were made that every man that traveleth shall stumble and wallow in the dirt and wander up and down out of his way and that every man that eateth and drinketh should feed on dirt and ditch-water or poyson c. And another Law that all men should keep their right way and live soberly and feed healthfully which of these would fit a wise man best and be easiest to obey or if one Law were made that all Scholars shall learn nothing but lies and errours and another that they shall learn nothing but truth and wisdom which of them would be more easie and suitable to humanity Though the first might be more pleasing to some fools Why then should not the goodness of Gods Laws be confessed who doth but forbid men learning the most pernicious errours and wandering in the maze of folly and wallowing in the dirt of sensuality and feeding on the dung and poyson of sin Is the love of a harlot or of gluttony drunkennenss rioting or gaming more suitable to humanity than the Love of God and Heaven and Holiness of Wisdom Temperance and doing good To a Swine or a Bedlam it may be more suitable but not
and grace for them which God doth seldom give them And all Parents who are bound to pray for grace for their children do not speed according to their prayers Object That is because that prayers for other men suppose others to concur in the qualifying conditions as well as our selves But the promise is meant only of whatsoever we ask for our selves as he commandeth or for others who are prepared as he requireth Answ 1. If so then the promise is not only made to our praying as commanded 2. It cannot be thought that our prayers for Infidels who must have preparing grace before they can be prepared should be thus suspended in their preparation of themselves 3. It maybe a duty to pray for many things for our selves too which yet we shall not particularly receive As a Minister may pray for greater abilities for his work c. Object We pray not as commanded for any such things if we pray not conditionally for them Answ But still the difficulty is What is the condition to be inserted whether it be If God will Or If it be for our good Or If it be for the universal good of the world If it were the last then we might be sure of the salvation of all men when we ask it and the second cannot be the condition when we pray for others and if it be the first then it telleth us that the commanding Will of God is not it which is principally meant in the promise In this difficulty we must conclude that the text respecteth Gods Will comprehensively in all these three forementioned respects but primarily his promising Will in matters which fall under promise and his decreeing Will in things which he hath thought meet to make no promise of and then secondarily his commanding Will to us but this extendeth not only to prayer it self but also to the manner of prayer and to our conjunct and subsequent endeavours And so this meeteth and closeth with the former Will of God because we do not pray according to his commanding Will unless we do it with due respect to his promising and decreeing Will. And so it is as iâ it were said Of all those things which God hath promised or decreed whatsoever you ask in my Name in a manner agreeable to his command and do sâcond your prayers with faithful endeavours you shall obtain it because neither his decrees or promises are nakedly or meerly to give such a thing but complicately to give it in this way of asking And as to the Objections in the beginning I answer 1. Where only Gods decreeing Will is the measure of the matter to be granted the text intendeth not to us a particular assurance of the thing but the comfort that we and our prayers are accepted and they shall be granted if it be not such a thing as God in his wisdom and eternal counsel hath secretly determined not to do As if you pray for the conversion of the Kingdom of China of Japon of Indostan of Tartary c. And 2. Where Gods Promise hath given us securiây of the thing in particular yet this general promise and our prayer are neither of them in vain For 1. The general promise doth both confirm our Faith in general which is a help to us in each particular case and also it directeth us to Christ as the means in whose name we are to ask all things of the Father and assureth us that it is for his sake that God doth fulfil those particular promises to us 2. And prayer in his Name is the condition way or means of the fulfilling them It is a very common errour among many praying persons to think that if they can but prove it their duty to ask such a thing this promise telleth them that they shall have it But you see there is more necessary to the understanding of it than so Direct 10. Think not that God promâseth you all that you do believe that you shall receive when you ask it though it be with never so confident an expectation This is a more common errour than the former Many think that if the thing be but lawful which they pray for much more if it be their duty to pray for it then a particular belief that they shall receive it is the condition of the promise and therefore that they shall certainly receive it As if they pray for the recovery of one that is sick or for the conversion of one that is unconverted and can but believe that it shall be done they think God is then obliged by promise to do it Mark 9.23 If thou canst believe all things are possible And 11.23 24. Whosoever shall say to this Mountain Be thou removed c. and shall not doubt in his heart but believe c. Therefore I say unto you what things soever ye desire when ye pray believe that ye receive them and ye shall have them Answ The reason of this was because they had a special promise of the gift of miracles as is exprest Mark 16.17 18. And even this text is such a particular promise For the spirit of miracles was then given to confirm the Gospel and gather the first Churches and Faith was the condition of them Or the Spirit when ever he would work a miracle would first work an extraordinary Faith to prepare for it And yet if you examine well the particular texts which speak of this subject you shall find that as it was the doubt of the divine Authority of Christs testimony and of his own real power which was the unbelief of those times so it was the belief of his Authority and Power which was the Faith required and this is oftener expressed than the belief of the event and when the belief of the event is extolled it is because the belief of Christs Power is contained in it If thou canst believe all things are possible Maâk 9.23 Not all things shall come to pass Mat. 9.28 The blind men came to him and Jesus said Believe ye that I am able to do this They said unto him yea Lord Then touched ãâã their eyes saying according to your faith be it unto you So the Centurions faith is described as a belief of Christs Power Mat. 8.7 8 9 10 So is it in many other instances So that this text is no exception from the general Rule but the meaning of it is Whatsoever promised thing you ask not doubting ye shall receive it Or doubt not of my enabling power and you shall receive whatever you ask which I have promised you and miracles themselves shall be done by you Object But what if they had only doubted of Christs Will Answ If they had doubted of his will in cases where he never exprest his will they could not indeed have been certain of the event for that is contrary to the doubt But they could not have charged Christ with any breach of promise and therefore could not themselves have been charged with any unbelief
means is a condition of our further reception of more grace And perseverance in true holiness with faith is the condition of our final Justification and Glorification of which more anon Direct 24. You can no further believe the fulfilling of any of these conditional Promises than you know that you perform the condition It is presumption and not faith for an impenitent person to expect the benefit of those Promises which belong to the penitent only And so it is for him that forgiveth not others to expect to be forgiven his particular sins And so in all the rest of the Promises Direct 25. But be sure that you ascribe no more to your selves for performing any condition of a Promise than God doth A condition as such is no cause at all of the performance of the Promise either natural or moral only the non-performance of the condition is a cause of the non-performance of the Promise For the true nature of a condition as such is only to suspend the benâfit Though naturally a condition may be meritorious among men and for their own commodity which God is not capable of they ordinarily make only meritorious acts to be conditions As God also doth only such acts as are pleasing to him and suited to their proper ends But this is nothing to a condition formally which is but to suspend the benefit till it be done Direct 26. When you find a Promise to be common or universal apply it as boldly as if your name were written in it and also when you find that any particular Promise to a Saint is but a branch of that universal Promise to all Saints or to all that are in the same case and find that the case and reason of the Promise proveth the sense of it to belong to you as well as them If it be said that whosoever believeth shall not perish but have everlasting life John 3.16 You may apply it as boldly as if it were said If thou John or Thomas be a Believer thou shalt not perish but have everlasting life As I may apply the absolute Promise of the Resurrection to my self as boldly as if my name were in it because it is all that shall be raised John 5.22 24 25. 1 Cor. 15. So may I all the conditional promises of pardon and glory conditionally if I repent and believe And you may absolutely thence conclude your certain interest in the benefit so far as you are certain that you repent and believe And when you read that Christ promiseth his twelve Apostles to be with them and to reward their labours and to see that they shall be no losers by him if they lose their lives c. You may believe that he will do so by you also For though your work be not altogether the same with theirs yet this is but a branch of the common Promise to all the faithful who must all follow him on the same terms of self-denial Luke 14.26 27 33. Mat. 10. Rom. 8.17 18. And on this ground the promise to Joshua is applied Heb. 15. I will never fail thee nor forsake thee because it is but a branch of the Câvenant common to all the faithful Direct 27. Be sure that you lay the stress of all your hopes on the Promises of God and venture all your happiness on them and when God calleth to it express this by forsaking all else for these hopes that it may appear you really trust Gods word without any secret hypocritical reserves This is the true life and work and tryal of faith whether we build so much on the Promise of God that we can take the thing promised for all our treasure and the Word of God for our whole security As Faith is called a Trusting in God so it is a practical kind of Trust and the principal tryal of it lyeth in forsaking all other happiness and hopes in confidence of Gods promise through Jesus Christ To open the matter by a similitude Suppose that Christ came again on earth as he did at his Incarnation and should confirm his truth by the same miracles and other means and suppose he should then tell all the Country I have a Kingdom at the Antipodes where men never die but live in perpetual prosperity and those of you shall freely possess it who will part with your own estates and Country and go in a ship of my providing and trust me for your Pilot to bring you thither and trust me to give it you when you come there My power to do all this I have proved by my miracles and my love and will my offer proveth How now will you know whether a man believe Christ and trust this promise or not why if he believe and trust him he will go with him and will leave all and venture over the Seas whithersoever he conducteth him and in that ship which he prepareth for him But if he dare not venture or will not leave his present Country and possessions it is a sign that he doth not trust him If you were going to Sea and had several Ships and Pilots offered you and you were afraid left one were unsafe and the Pilot unskilful and it were doubtful which were to be trufled when after all deliberation you chuse one and refuse the rest and resolve to venture your life and goods in it this is properly called trusting it So trusting in God and in Jesus Christ is not a bare opinion of his fidelity but a PRACTICAL TRVST and that you may be sure to understand it clearly I will once open the parts of it distinctly Divines commonly tell us that Faith is an Affiance or Trust in God and some of them say that this is an act of the understanding and some that it is an act of the will and others say that Faith consisteth in Assent alone and that Trust or Affiance is as Hope a fruit of Faith and not Faith it self And what Affiance it self is is no small controversie And so it is what Faith and Christianity is even among the Teachers of Christians The plain truth is this as to the name of Faith it sometime signifieth a meer Intellectual Assent when the object requireth no more And sometime it signifieth a practical Trust or Affiance in the Truth or Trustiness of the undertaker or promiser that is in his Power Wisdom and Goodness or honesty conjunct as expressed in his word and that is when the matter is practical requiring such a trust The former is oft called The Christian Faith because it is the belief of the truth of the Christian Principles and is the leading part of Faith in the full sense But it is the latter which is the Christian Faith as it is taken not secundum quid but simply not for a part but the whole not for the opinion of men about Christ but for Christianity it self or that Faith which must be profest in Baptism and which hath the promise of Justification and Salvation And
this Trust or Affiance is placed respectively on all the objects mentioned in the beginning on God as the first âfficient foundation and on God as the ultimate end as the certain full felicity and final object of the soul On Christ as the Mediatour and as the secondary foundation and the guide and the finisher of our faith and salvation the chief sub revealer and performer On the Holy Ghost as the third foundation both revealing and attesting the doctrine by his gââts And on the Apostles and Prophets as his Instruments and Christs chief entrusted Messengers And on the Promise or Covenant of Christ as his Instrumental Revelation it self And on the Scriptures as the authentick Record of this Revelation and Promise And the benefit for which all these are trusted is recovery to God or Redemption and Salvation viz. pardon of sin and Justification Adoption Sanctification and Glorification and all things necessary hereunto This Trust is an act of all the three faculties for three understanding are even of the whole man Of the vital power the understanding and the will and is most properly called A practical Trust such as trusting a Physician with your life and health or a Tutor to teach you or a Master to govern and reward you or a Ship and Pilot as aforesaid to carry you safe through the dangers of the Sea As in this similitude Affiance as in the understanding is its Assent to the sufficiency and fidelity of the Pilot and Ship or Physician that I trust Affiance in the will is the chusing of this Ship Pilot Physician to venture my life with and refusing all others which is called consent when it followeth the motion and offer of him whom we trust Affiance in the vital power of the soul is the fortitude and venturing all upon this chosen Trustee which is the quieting in some measure disturbing fears and the exitus or conatus or first egress of the soul towards execution And whereas the quarrelling pievish ignorance of this age hath caused a great deal of bitter reproachful uncharitable contention on both sides about the question How far obedience belongeth to faith whether as a part or end or fruit or consequent In all this it is easily discerned that as allâgiance or subjection differ from obedience and hiring my self to a Master differeth from obeying him and taking a man for my Tutor differeth from learning of him and Marriage differeth from conjugal duty and giving up my self to a Physician differeth from taking his counsel and medicines and taking a man for my Pilot differeth from being conducted by him so doth our first Faith or Christianity differ from actual obedience to the healing precepts of our Saviour It is the covenant of obedience and consent to it immediately entering us into the practice It is the seed of obedience or the soul or life of it which will immediately bring it forth and act it It is virtual but not actual obedience to Christ because it is but the first consent to his Kingly Relation to us unless you will call it that Inception from whence all obedience followeth But it may be actual common obedience to God where he is believed in and acknowledged before Christ And all following acts of Faith after the first are both the root of all other obedience and a part of it as our continued Allegiance to the King is And as the Heart when it is the first formed Organ in nature is no part of the man but the Organ to make all the parts because it is solitary and there is yet no man of whom it can be called a part but when the man is formed the heart is both his chief part and the Organ to actuate and maintain the rest Object But Faith as Faith is not obedience Answ Nor Learning as Learning is not obedience to your Tutor Nor plowing as plowing is not obedience to your Master Or to speak more aptly the continuance of your consent that this man be your Tutor as such is not obedience to him but it is materially part of your obedience to your Father who commandeth it and your continued Allegiance or subjection as such is not obedience to your King but as primarily it was the foundation or heart of future obedience so afterward it is also materially a part of your obedience being commanded by him to whom you are now subject And so it is in the case of Faith and therefore true Faith and Obedience are as nearly conjoyned as Life and Motion and the one is ever ãâã in the other Faith is for Obedience to Christs healing means as trusting and taking a Physician is for the using of his counsel and Faith is for love and holy obedience to God which is called our Sanctification as trusting a Physician is for health Faith is implicite virtual obedience to a Saviour and obedience to a Saviour is explicite operating Faith or trust I. In the understanding Faith in Gods Promises hath all these acts contained in it 1. A belief that God is and that he is perfectly powerful wise and good 2. A belief that he is our Maker and so our Owner our Ruler and our chief Good initially and finally delighting to do good and the perfect felicitating end and object of the soul 3. A belief that God hath expressed the benignity of his nature by a Covenant or Promise of life to man 4. To believe that Jesus Christ God and Man is the Mediator of this Covenant Heb. 8 6. 9.15 1â 24 procuring it and entrusted to administer or communicate the blessings of it Heb. 5.9 5. To believe that the Holy Ghost is the seal and witness of this Covenant 6 To believe that this Covenant giveth pardon of sin and Justification and Adoption and further grace to penitent Belâevers and Glorification to those that persevere in true Faith Love and Oâedience to the end 7. To believe that the Holy Scriptures or Word delivered by the Aâostles is the sure Record of this Covenant and of the history and doctrine on which it is grounded 8. To believe that God is most perfectly regardful and faithful to fulfil this Covenant and that he cannot lye or break it Titus 1.2 Heb. 6.17 18. 9. To believe that you in particular are included in this Covenant as well as others it being universal as conditional to all if they will repent and believe and no exception put in against you to exclude you John 3.16 Mark 16.15 16. 10. To believe or know that there is nothing else to be trusted to as our felicity and end instead of God nor as our way instead of the Mediator and the foresaid means appointed by him II. In the Will Faith or Trust hath 1. A simple complacency in God as believed to be most perfectly good as fore-described 2. It hath an actual intending and desiring of him as our end and whole felicity to be enjoyed in Heaven Gal. 5.6 7. Ephes 3.17 18 19. Col. 3.1
3 4. 1 Cor. 13. Heb. 11. Mat. 6.20 21. 3. It is the turning away from and refusing all other seeming felicity or ends and casting all our happiness and hopes upon God alone 4. It is the chusing Jesus Christ as the only way and Mediator to this end with the refusing of all other Job 14.6 and trusting all that we are or hope for upon his Mediation III. In the Vital Power it is the casting away all inconsistent fears and the inward resolved delivering up the soul to the Father Son and Holy Spirit in this Covenant entering our selves into a resolved war with the Devil the World and the Flesh which in the performance will resist us And thus Faith or Trust is constituted and completed in the true Baptismal Covenant Direct 28. In all this be sure that you observe the difference between the truth of Faith and the high degrees The truth of it is most certainly discerned by as consisting in THE ABSOLVTE CASTING or VENTVRING not part but ALL YOVR HAPPINESS and HOPES VPON GOD and the MEDIATOR ONLY and LETTING GO ALL WHICH IS INCONSISTENT WITH THIS CHOICE and TRVST This is true and saving Faith and Trust Pardon me that I sometime use the word VENTVRING ALL as if there were any uncertainty in the matter I intend not by it to express the least uncertainty or fallibility in Gods Promise For Heaven and Earth shall pass away but one jot or tittle of his Word shall not pass till all be fulfilled But I shall here add 1. True Faith or Trust may consist with uncertainty in the person who believeth if he believe and trust Christ but so far that he can cast away all his worldly treasures and hopes even life it self upon that trust Every one is not an Infidel nor an Hypocrite who must say if he speak his heart I am not certain past all doubts that the soul is immortal or the Gospel true but I am certain that immortal happiness is most desirable and endless misery most terrible and that this world is vanity and nothing in it worthy to be compared with the hopes which Christ hath given us of a better life And therefore upon just deliberation I am resolved to let go all my sinful pleasures profits and worldly reputation and life it self when it is inconsistent with those hopes And to take Gods Love for my felicity and end and to trust and venture absolutely all my happiness and hopes on the favour of God the mediation of Christ and the Promises which he hath given us in the Gospel I know I shall meet with abundance of Teachers and people that will shake the head at this doctrine as dangerous and cry out of it as favouring unbelief that any one should have true saving Faith who doubteth or is uncertain of the immortality of the soul or the trâth of the Gospel But I see so much in hot-brained proud persons to be pittied and so much of their work in the Church to be with tears lamented that I will not by speech or silence favour their brainsick bold assertions nor will I fear their phrenetick furious censures If it be not a mark of a wise and good Minister of Christ to be utterly ignorant of the state of souls both his own and all the peoples then I will not concur to the advancement of the reputation of such ignorance It is enough to pardon the great injury which such do to the Church of God without countenancing it Though this one instance only now mind me of it abundance more do second it and tell us that there are in the Churches through the world abundance of Divines who are first taught by a party which they most esteem what is to be held and said as orthodox and then make it their work to contend for that orthodoxness which they were taught so to honour even with the most unmanly and unchristian scorns and censures when as if they had not been dolefully ignorant both of the Scriptures and themselves and the souls of men they would have known that it is the fool that rageth and is confident and that it was not their knowing more than others but their knowing less which made them so presumptuous and that they are themselves as far from certainty as others when they condemn themselves to defend their opinions Even like our late Perfectionists who all lived more imperfectly than others but wrote and railed for sinless perfection as soon as they did but take up the opinion As if turning to that opinion had made them perfect So men may pass the censure of hypocrisie and damnation upon themselves when they please by damning all as hypocrites whose faith is thus far imperfect but they shall never make any wise man believe by it that their own faith is ever the more certain or perfect As far as I can judge by acquaintance with persons most religious though there be many who are afraid to speak it out yet the far greater number of the most faithful Christians have but such a faith which I described and their hearts say I am not certain or past all doubt of the truth of our immortality or of the Gospel but I will venture all my hopes and happiness though to the parting with life it self upân it And I will venture to say it as the truth of Christ that he that truly can do this hath a sincere and saving faith whatsoever Opinionists may say against it For Christ hath promised that he that loseth his life for his sake and the Gospels shall have life everlasting Mat. 10.37 38 39 42. 16.25 19.29 Luke 18.30 And he hath appointed no higher expressions of faith as necessary to salvation than denying our selves and taking up the Cross and forsaking all that we have or in one word than Martyrdom and this as proceeding from the Love of God Luke 14.26 27 29 33 Rom. 8.17 18 28 29 3O 35 36 37 38 39. And it is most evident that the sincere have been weak in faith Luke 17.5 And the Apostles said unto the Lord Increase our faith Mark 9.24 Lord I believe help thou my unbelief Luke 7.9 I have not found so great faith no not in Israel The weak faith was the more common 2. And as true Faith or Trust may consist with doubts and uncertainty in the subject so may it with much anxiety care disquietment and sinful fear which sheweth the imperfection of our Faith Shall âe not much more clothe you O ye of little faith Mat. 16.8 O ye of little faith why reason you among your selves c. Mat. 8. â6 Why are ye fearful O ye of little faith Mat. 14.31 Peter had a faith that could venture his life on the waters to come to Christ as confident of a miracle upon his command But yet it was not without fear v. 30. When he saw the wind boisterous he was afraid which caused Christ to say O thou of little faith wherefore didst
thou doubt And you cannot say that this is only a hinderance in the applying act and not in the direct and principal act of faith For Luke 24.21 we find some Disciples at this pass But we trusted that it had been he who should have redeemed Israel And v. 25 26. Christ saith to them O fools and slow of heart to believe all that the Prophets have spoken ought not Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into his Glory Luke 24.11 The words of them who told the Apostles that Christ was risen seemed but as tales to them and they believed them not And v. 41. While they believed not for joy and wondered c. 3. Nay a weak faith may have such a swouning fit as to fail extraordinarily in an hour of temptation so far as to deny Christ or shrink from him in this fear so did Peter and not only he but all the Disciples forsook him and fled Matth. 26 56. But yet he that according to the habituated state of his soul hath so much Faith and Love as will cause him to venture life and all upon the trust which he hath to the promises of the Gospel hath a true and saving faiâh And here I desire all doubting Christians to lay by the common mistake in the trying of their faith or trust in Christ and to go hereafter upon surer grounds Many say I cannot believe or trust Christ for salvation for I am full of doubts and fears and troubles and surely this is not trusting God Ans 1. The question is not whether you trust him perfectly so as to have no fears no troubles no doubts but whether you trust him sincerely so far as to venture all upon him in his way If you can venture all on him and let go all to follow him your faith is true and saving This would abundantly comfort many fearful troubled Christians if they did but understand it well For many of them that thus fear would as soon as any forsake all for Christ and let go all carnal pleasures and worldly things or any wilful sin whatsoever rather than forsake him and would not take to any other portion and felicity than God nor any other way than Christ and the Spirit of holiness for all the temptations in the world And yet they fear because they fear and doubt more because they doubt Doubting soul let this resolve thee suppose Christ and his way were like a Pilot with his Ship at Sea Many more promise to convey thee safely and many perswade thee not to venture but stay at Land But if thou hast so much trust as that thou wilt go and put thy self and all that thou hast into this Ship and forsake all other though thou go trembling all the way and be afraid of every storm and tempest and gulf yet thou hast true faith though it be weak If thy faith will but keep thee in the Ship with Christ that thou neither turn back again to the flesh and world nor yet take another Ship and Pilot as Mahometanes and those without the Church undoubtedly Christ will bring thee safe to Land though thy fear and distrust be still thy sin For the hypocrites case is alwaies some of these 1. Some of them will only trust God in some smaller matter wherein their happiness consisteth not As a man will trust one with some trifle which he doth not much regard whom yet he thinks so ill of that he cannot trust him in a matter of weight 2. Some of them will trust God for the saving of their souls and the life to come or rather presume on him while they call it trusting him but they will not trust him with their bodies their wealth and honours and fleshly pleasures or their lives These they are resolved to shift for and secure themselves as well as they can For they know that for the world to come they must be at Gods disposal and they have no way of their own to shift out of his hands whether there be such a life or no they know not but if there be they will cast their souls upon Gods mercy when they have kept the world as long as they can and have had all that it can do for them But they will not lose their present part for such uncertain hopes as they account them 3. Some of them will trust him only in pretence and name while it is the creature which they trust indeed Because they have learned to say that God is the disposer of all and only to be trusted and all creatures are but used by his will therefore they think that when they trust the creature it is but in subordination to God though indeed they trust not God at all 4. Some of them will trust God and the creature joyntly and as they serve God and Mammon and think to make sure of the prosperity of the body and the salvation of the soul without losing either of them so they trust in both conjunctly to make up their felicity Some think when they read Christs words Mark 10.24 How hard is it for them that trust in Riches to enter into the Kingdom of God that they are safe enough if that be all the danger for they do not trust in their riches though they love them He is a mad man they say that will put his trust in them And yet Christ intimateth it as the true reason why few that have riches can be saved because there is few that have riches who do not trust in them You know that riches will not save your souls you know that they will not save you from the grâve you know that they will not cure your diseases nor ease your pains And therefore you do not trust to riches either to keep you from sickness or from dying or from Hell But yet you think that riches may help you to live in pleasure and in reputation with the world and in plenty of all things and to have your will as long as health and life will last and this you take to be the chiefest happiness which a man can make sure of And for this you trust them The fool in Luke 12.19 who said Soul take thy ease eat drink and be merry thou hast enough laid up for many years did not trust his riches to make him immortal nor to save his soul But he trusted in them as a provision which might suffice for many years that he might eat drink and be merry and take his ease and this he loved better and preferred before any pleasures or happiness which he hoped for in another world And thus it is that all worldly hypocrites do trust in riches Yea the poorest do trust in their little poor provisions in this world as seeming to them surer and therefore better than any which they can expect hereafter This is the way of trusting in uncertain riches viz. to be their surest happiness instead of trusting in the living God 1
Tim. 6.17 4.10 Psal 49.6 52.7 But yet because the hypocrite knoweth that he cannot live here alwaies but must die and his riches must be parted with at last and heareth of a life of glory afterwards he would fain have his part in that too when he can keep the world no longer And so he taketh both together for his part and hope viz. as much bodily happiness as he can get in this world and Heaven at last when he must die not knowing that God will be all our portion and felicity or none and that the world must be valued and used but for his sake and in subordination to him and a better world 5. Yet some hypocrites seem to go further though they do not for they will seem even to themselves to resign goods and life and all things absolutely to the will of God But the reason is because they are secretly perswaded in their hearts that their resignation shall no whit deprive them of them and that God will never the more take it from them but that they may possess as much present corporal felicity in a life of Religion as if they lived in the dangerous case of the ungodly or at least that they may keep so much as not to be undone or left to any great sufferings in the world or at least their lives may not be called for For they live in a time when few suffer for Christ and therefore they see little cause to âeâr that they should be of that smaller number and it is but being a little the more wise and cautelous and they hope they may scape well enough And if they had not this hope they would never give up all to Christ But like persons that will be liberal to their Physician they will offer a great deal when they think he will not take it but if they thought he would take all that is offered they would offer less Or as if a sick person should hear that such a Physician will give him no very strong or loathsome Physick and therefore when the Physician telleth him I will be none of your Physician unless you will absolutely promise to take every thing which I shall give you He promiseth that he will do it but it is only because he supposeth that he will give him nothing which is troublesome And if he find his expectation crost he breaketh his promise and âaith If I had known that he would have used me thus I would never have promised it him So hypocrites by promise give up themselves absolutely to God and to bâ wholly at his will without excepting life it self But their hearts do secretly except it For all this is because they doubt not but they may save their earthly prosperity and lives and be Christians too And if once Christ call them to suffer death for him they shew then what was the meaning of their hearts To reassume the former similitude If Christ on earth should offer to convey you to a Kingdom at the Antipodes where men live for ever in glorious holiness if you will but trust him and go in his Ship and take him for your Pilot Here one saith I do not believe him that there is such a place and therefore I will not go that is the Infidel Another saith I like my merry life at home better than his glorious holiness that 's the open worldling and prophane Another saith I will live in my own Country and on my own estate as long as I can and when I find that I am dying and can stay here no longer that I may be sure to lose nothing by him I will take his offer Another saith I will go with him but I will turn back again if I find any dangerous storms and gulfs in the passage Another saith I will take another Ship and Pilot along with me lest he should fail me that I may not be deceived Another saith I am told that the Seas are calm and there is no danger in the passage and therefore I will absolutely trust him and venture all but when he meets with storms and hideous waves he saith This is not as I expected and so he turneth back again But another the true Christian saith I will venture all and wholly trust him And so though he is oft afraid in dangers when he seeth the devouring gulfs yet not so fearful as to turn back but on he goeth come on it what will because he knoweth that the place which he goeth to is most desirable and mortality will soon end his old prosperity and he hath great reason to believe his Pilot to be trusty By all this you may see how it cometh to pass that Christ who promiseth life to Believers doth yet make self-denyal and forsaking all that we have even life it self to be also necessary and what relation self-denyal hath to faith Luke 14.26 3â Nearer by far than most consider You may see here the reason why Christ tryed the rich man Luke 18.22 with selling all and following him in hope of a reward in Heaven And why he bid his Diciples Luke 12.33 Sell that ye have and give alms provide your selves bags which wax not old a treasure in the Heavens which faileth not And why the first Christians were made a pattern of entire Christianity by selling all and laying down at the Apostles feet And Ananias and Saphira were the instances of Hypocrisie who secretly and lyingly kept back part You see here how it comes to pass that all true Christians must be heart-martyrs or prepared to die for Christ and Heaven rather than forsake him You may plainly perceive that Faith it self is an Affiance or Trusting in God by Christ even a Trusting in God in Heaven as our felicity and in Christ as the Mediator and the Way and that this Trust is a venturing all upon him and a forsaking all for God and his promises in Christ And that it is one and the same Motion which from the terminus à quo is called Repentance and forsaking all and from the terminus ad quem is called Trust and Love They that are willing to see may profit much by this observation and they that are not may quarrel at it and talk against that which their prejudice will not allow them to understand And by all this you may see also wherein the strength of Faith consisteth And that is 1. In so clear a sight of the evidences of truth as shall leave no considerable doubtings Mat. 21.21 So Abraham staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief but was strong in faith giving glory to God Rom. 4. 2. In so confirmed a Resolution to cleave to God and Christ alone as leaveth no wavering or looking back that we may say groundedly with Peter Though I die I will not deny thee which doubtless signified then some strength of faith And as Paul I am ready not only to be bound but to die for the Name of the Lord
Jesus Acts 21.13 3. In so strong a fortitude of soul as to venture and give up our selves our lives and all our comforts and hopes into the hand of Christ without any trouble or sinful fears and to pass through all difficulties and tryals in the way without any distrust or anxiety of mind These be the characters of a strong and great degree of faith And you may note how Heb. 11. describeth Faith commonly by this venturing and forsaking all upon the belief of God As in Noah's case verse 7. And in Abraham's leaving his Countrey v. 8. And in his sacrificing Isaac v. 17. And in Moses forsaking Pharaoh's Court and chusing the reproach of Christ rather than the pleasures of sin for a season v. 24 25 26. And in the Israelites venturing into the Red Sea v. 29. And in Rebab's hiding the spies which must needs be her danger in her own Countrey And in all those who by faith subdued Kingdoms wrought Righteousness obtained Promises stopped the mouths of Lions quenched the violence of fire escaped the edge of the sword out of weakness were made strong O hers were tortured not accepting deliverance that they might obtain a better resurrection and others had tryal of cruel mockings and scourgings yea moreover of bonds and imprisonments they were stoned they were sawn asunder were tempted were slain with the sword they wandered about in Sheep skins and Goat skins being destitute afflicted tormented of whom the world was not worthy They wandered in Desarts and Mountains and in Deus and Caves of the earth And in Heb. 10.32 33 c. They endured a great fight of affliction partly whilst they were made a gazing flock both by reproaches and afflictions and partly whilst they became companions of them that were so used And took joyfully the spoiling of their goods knowing in themselves that they had in Heaven a better and an enduring substance And thus the just do live by faith but if any man draw back my soul shall have no pleasure in him saith the Lord. See also Rom. 8.33 36 37 c. These are the Spirits descriptions of faith but if you will rather take a whimsical ignorant mans description who can only toss in his mouth the name of FREE GRACE and knoweth not of what he speaketh or what he affirmeth or what that name signifieth which he cheateth his own soul with instead of true Free Grace it self you must suffer the bitter fruits of your own delusion For my part I shall say thus much more to tell you why I say so much to help you to a right understanding of the nature of true Christian Faith 1. If you understand not truly what Faith is you understand not what Religion it is that you profess And so you call your selves Christians and know not what it is It seems those that said Lord we have eaten and drunken in thy presence and prophesied in thy Name did think they had been true Believers Matth. 7.21 22. 2. To erre about the nature of true Faith will engage you in abundance of other errours which will necessarily arise from that as it did them against whom James disputeth James 2.14 15 c. about Justification by Faith and by Works 3. It will damnably delude your souls about your own state and draw you to think that you have saving Faith because you have that fancy which you thought was it One comes boldly to Christ Mat. 8.19 Master I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest But when he heard The Foxes have holes and the Birds have nests but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head we hear no more of him And another came with a Good Master what shall I do to inherit eternal life Luke 18.18 as if he would have been one of Christs Disciples and have done any thing for Heaven And it 's like that he would have been a Christian if Free Grace had been as large and as little grace as some now imagine But when he heard Yet lackest thou one thing sell all that thou hast and distribute to the poor and thou shalt have treasure in Heaven Come follow me he was then very sorrowful for he was very rich Luke 18.21 22 23. Thousands cheat their souls with a conceit that they are Believers because they believe that they shall be saved by Free Grace without the faith and grace which Christ hath made necessary to salvation 4. And this will take off all those needful thoughts and means which should help you to the faith which yet you have not 5. And it will engage you in perverse disputes against that true faith which you understand not And you will think that you are contending for Free Grace and for the Faith when you are proud knowing nothing but sick or doting about questions which engender no better birth than strifes railings evil surmisings perverse disputings c. 1 Tim. 6.4 5. 6. Lastly You can scarce more dishonour the Christian Religion nor injure God and our Mediatour or harden men in Infidelity than by fathering your ill-shapen fictions on Christ and calling them the Christian or Justifying Faith Direct 29. Take not all doubts and fears of your salvation to be the proper effects and signs of unbelief Seeing that in many they arise from the misunderstanding of the meaning of Gods Promise and in more from the doubtfulness of their own qualifications rather than from any unbelief of the Promise or distrust of Christ It is ordinary with ignorant Christians to say that they cannot believe because they doubt of their own sincerity and salvation as thinking that it is the nature of true faith to believe that they themselves are justified and shall be saved and that to doubt of this is to doubt of the Promises because they doubtingly apply it Such distresses have false principles bought many to But there are two other things besides the weakness of faith which are usually the causes of all this 1. Many mistake the meaning of Christs Covenant and think that it hath no universality in it and that he died only for the Elect and promiseth pardon to none but the Elect no not on the condition of believing And therefore thinking that they can have no assurance that they are Elect they doubt of the conclusion And many of them think that the Promise extendeth not to such as they because of some sin or great unworthiness which they are guilty of And others think that they have not that Faith and Repentance which are the condition of the promise of pardon and salvation And in some of these the thing it self may be so obscure as to be indeed the matter of rational doubtfulness And in others of them the cause may be either a mistake about the true nature and signs of Faith and Repentance or else a timerous melancholy causeless suspition of themselves But which of all these soever be the cause it is something different from proper unbelief or distrust of God
For he that mistaketh the extent of the Promise and thinketh that it belongeth not to such as he would believe and trust it if he understood it that it extends to him as well as others And he that doubteth of his own Repentance and Faith may yet be confident of the truth of Gods Promise to all true penitent Believers I mention this for the cure of two mischiefs The first is that of the presumptuous Opinionist who goeth to Hell presuming that he hath true saving faith because he confidently believeth that he himself is pardoned and shall be saved The second is that of the perplexed fearful Christian who thinks that all his uncertainty of his own sincerity and so of his salvation is properly unbelief and so concludeth that he cannot believe and shall not be saved Because he knoweth not that faith is such a belief and trust in Christ as will bring us absolutely and unreservedly to venture our all upon him alone And yet I must tell all these persons that all this while it is ten to one but there is really a great deal of unbelief in them which they know not and that their belief of the truth of the immortality of the soul and the life to come and of the Gospel it self is not so strong and firm as their never-doubting of it would intimate or as some of their definitions of Faith and their Book-opinions and Disputes import And it had been well for some of them that they had doubted more that they might have believed and been settled better Direct 30. Think often of the excellencies of the life of faith that the Motives may be still inducing you thereto As 1. It is but reasonable that God should be trusted or else indeed we deny him to be God Psal 20 7. 2. What else shall we trust to shall we deifie creatures and say to a stock Thou art my Father Jer. 2.27 Lam. 1.19 Shall we distrust God and trust a lyar and a worm 3. Trying times will shortly come and then woe to the soul that cannot trust in God! Then nothing else will serve our turns Then cursed be the man that trusteth in man and maketh flesh his arm and withdraweth his heart from the Lord he shall be like the barren wilderness c. Then none that trusted in him shall be ashamed Jer. 17.5 6. Psal 25.3 4. Psal 73.26 27 28. 4. Gods Alsufficiency leaveth no reason for the least distrust There is the most absolute certainty that God cannot fail us because his veracity is grounded on his essential perfections 5. No witness could ever stand up against the life of faith and say that he lost by trusting God or that ever God deceived any 6. The life of faith is a conquest of all that would distress the soul and it is a life of constant peace and quietness Yea it feasteth the soul upon the everlasting Joyes Though the mountains be removed though this world be turned upside down and be dissolved whether poverty or wealth sickness or health evil report or good persecution or prosperity befall us how little are we concerned in all this and how little should they do to disturb the peace and comfort of that soul who believeth that he shall live with God for ever Many such considerations should make us more willing to live by faith upon Gods Promises than to live by sense on transitory things Direct 31. Renew your Covenant with Christ in his holy Sacrament frequently understandingly and seriously For 1. when we renew our Covenant with Christ then Christ reneweth his Covenant with us and that with great advantage to our faith 1. In an appointed Ordinance which he will bless 2. By a special Minister appointed to seal and deliver it to us as in his Name 3. By a solemn Sacramental Investiture 2. And our own renewing our Covenant with him is the renewed exercise of faith which will tend to strengthen it and to shew us that we are indeed Believers And there is much in that Sacrament to help the strengthening of faith Therefore the frequent and right using of it is one of Gods appointed means to feed and maintain our spiritual life which if we neglect we wilfully starve our faith 1 Cor. 11.26 28 c. Direct 32. Keep all your own promises to God and man For 1. Lyars alwaies suspect others 2. Guilt breedeth suspiciousness 3. God in justice may leave you to your distrust of him when you will be perfidious your selves You can never be confident in God while you deal falsly with him or with others The end of the Commandment is Charity out of a pure heart a good conscience and faith unfeigned 1 Tim. 1.5 Direct 33. Labour to improve your belief of every promise for the increase of holiness and obedience And to get more upon your souls that true Image of God in his Power Wisdom and Goodness which will make it easie to you to believe him 1. The more the hypocrite seemeth to believe the promise the more he boldly ventureth upon sin and disobeyeth the precept because it was but fear that restrained him and his belief is but presumption abating fear But the more a true Christian believeth the more he flyeth from sin and useth Gods means and studieth more exact obedience and having these promises laboureth to cleanse himself from all filthiness of flesh and Spirit perfecting holiness in the fear of God 2 Cor. 7.1 And receiving a Kingdom whih cannot be moved me must serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear Heb. 12.28 29. 2. The liker the soul is to God the easier it will believe and trust him As faith causeth holiness so every part of holiness befriendeth faith Now the three great impressions of the Trinity upon us are expressed distinctly by the Apostle 2 Tim. 1.7 For God hath not given us the Spirit of fear but of Power of Love and of a sound mind ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã Power Love and a sound mind or understanding do answer Gods nature as the face in the glass doth answer our face and therefore cannot chuse but trust him Direct 34. Lay up in your memory particular pertinent and clear Promises for every particular use of faith The number is not so much but be sure that they be plain and well understood that you may have no cause to doubt whether they mean any such thing indeed or not Here some will expect that I should do this for them and gather them such promises Two things disswade me from doing it at large 1. So many Books have done it already 2. It will swell this Book too big But take these few 1. For forgiveness of all sins and Justification to penitent Believers Acts 5.31 Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins Acts 13.38 39. Be it known unto you that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins and by
28.19 20. Go and Disciple all Nations baptizing them c. Rom. 4.16 That the promise might be sure to all the seed And 9.8 The children of the Promise are counted for the seed Matth. 19.13 14. Jesus said suffer little children and forbid them not to come unto me for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven 27. Promises to the Church of its increase and preservation and perfection Rev. 11.15 The Kingdoms of the world are become the Kingdoms of the Lord and of his Christ Luke 1.33 He shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever and of his Kingdom there shall be no end Matth. 13.31 33. The Kingdom of Heaven is like to a grain of Mustard-seed which a man took and sowed in his field which is indeed the least of all seeds but when it is grown it is the greatest among herbs and becometh a tree so that the birds of the air lodge in the branches of it The Kingdom of Heaven is like unto leven which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal till the whole was levened John 12.32 And I if I be lifted up will draw all men unto me Dan. 2.44 In the daies of these Kings shall the God of Heaven set up a Kingdom which shall never be destroyed and the Kingdom shall not be left to other people but it shall break in pieces and consume all these Kingdoms and it shall stand for ever Matth. 16.18 Upon this Rock will I build my Church and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it Ephes 4.12 16. For the perfecting of the Saints for the work of the Ministry for the edifying of the body of Christ till we all come in the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ that henceforth we may be no more children tossed to and fro and carryed about with every wind of Doctrine by the sleight of men and cunning craftiness whereby they lye in wait to deceive but speaking the truth in love may grow up into him in all things who is the head Christ from whom the whole body fitly joyned together and compacted by that which every joynt supplieth according to the effectual working in the measure of every part maketh increase of the body to the edifying of it self in Love Ephes 5.25 26 27. Christ loved the Church and gave himself for it that he might sanctifie and cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word that he might present it to himself a glorious Church not having spot or wrinckle or any such thing but that it should be holy and without blemish Read Rev. 21 22. Matth. 28.20 Lo I am with you to the end of the world Matth. 24.14 And this Gospel of the Kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness to all Nations and then shall the end come Matth. 21.44 Whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken but on whomsoever it shall fall it will grind him to powder The obscure Prophetick passages I pass by So much for living by Faith on the Promises of God CHAP. VI. How Faith must be exercised on Gods Threatnings and Judgments THE exercise of Faith upon Gods Threatnings and Judgments must be guided by such rules and helps as these Direct 1. Think not either that Christ hath no Threatning penal Laws or that there are none which are made for the use of Believers If there were no penalties or penal Laws there were no distinguishing Government of the world This Antinomian fancy destroyeth Religion And if there be threats or penal Laws none can be expected to make so much use of them as true Believers 1. Because he that most believeth them must needs be most affected with them 2. Because all things are for them and for their benefit and it is they that must be moved by them to the fear of God and an escaping of the punishment And therefore they that object that Believers are passed already from death to life and there is no condemnation to them and they are already justified and therefore have no use of threats or fears do contradâct themselves For it wâll rather follow Therefore they and they only do and will faithfully use the threatnings in godly fears For 1. Though they are justified and passed from death to life they have ever faith in order of nature before their Justification and he that believeth not Gods threatnings with fear hath no true Faith And 2. They have ever inherent Righteousness or Sanctification with their Justification And this Faith is part of that holiness and of the life of grace which they are passed into For this is life eternal to know the only true God and Jesus Christ John 17.3 And he knoweth not God who knoweth him not to be true And this is part of our knowledge of Christ also to know him as the infallible Author of our Faith that is of the Gospel which saith not only He that believeth and is baptiz'd shall be saved but also He that believeth not shall be damned Mark 16.16 And this is the record which God gave of his Son which he that believeth not maketh him a lyar that God hath given us eternal life and this life is in his Son He that hath the Son hath life and he that hath not the Son hath not life 1 John 5.12 Yea as he that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life so he that believeth not the Son shall not see life but the wrath of God abideth on him John 3.36 And therefore 3. The reason why there is no condemnation to us is because believing not part only but all this Word of Christ we fly from sin and wrath and are in Christ Jesus as giving up our selves to him and walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit being moved so to do both by the promises and threats of God This is plain English and plain and necessary truth the greater is the pitty that many honest well-meaning Antinomians should fight against it on an ignorant conceit of vindicating Free Grace If the plain Word of God were not through partiality over-lookt by them they might see enough to end the controversie in many and full expressions of Scripture I will cite but three more Matth. 10.28 and Luke 12.5 But fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in Hell or when he hath killed hath power to cast into Hell yea I say unto you fear him Doth Christ thus iterate that it is he that saith it and saith it to his Disciples and yet shall a Christian say it must not be preached to Disciples as the Word of Christ to them Hâb 4.1 Let us therefore fear lest a promise being left us of entering into his rest any of you should seem to come short of it Heb. 11.7 By Faith Noah being warned of God of things not seen as yet that is of the deluge
true Suppose that the Law do pardon a fellon if he can read as a Clerk and one that is a fellon be in doubt whether his reading will serve or not this is not to deny belief to the pardoning act of the Law Suppose one promise a yearly stipend to all that are of full one and twenty years of age in the Town or Country To doubt of my age is not to doubt of the truth of the promise Object But do not Protestant Divines conclude against the Papists that saving Faith must be a particular application of Christ and the Promise to ourselves and not only a general assent Answ It is very true and the closer that application is the better But the application which all sound Divines in this point require as necessary in saving Faith is neither an assurance nor perswasion that your own sins are already pardoned or that they ever will be But it is 1. A belief that the Promise of pardon to all believers is so universal as that it includeth you as well as others and promiseth and offereth you pardon and life if you will believe in Christ 2. And it is a consent or willingness of heart that Christ be yours and you be his to the ends proposed in the Gospel 3. And it is a practical Trust in his sufficiency as chusing him for the only Mediatour resolving to venture your souls and all your hopes upon him Though yet through your ignorance of your selves you may think that you do not this thing in sincerity which indeed you do yea and much fear through melancholy or temptation that you never shall do it and consequently never shall be saved He that doubteth of his own salvation not because he doubteth of the truth of the Gospel but because he doubteth of the sincerity of his own heart may be mistaken in himself but is not therefore an unbeliever as is said before If you would know whether you believe the Promises truly answer me these particular questions 1. Do you believe that God hath promised that all true Believers shall be saved 2. Do you believe that if you are or shall be a true Believer you shall be saved 3. Do you chuse or desire God as your only happiness and end to be enjoyed in Heaven and Christ as the only Mediatour to procure it and his holy Spirit as his Agent in your souls to sanctifie you fully to the Image of God Are you truly willing that thus it should be And if God be willing will not you refuse it 4. Do you turn away from all other waies of felicity and chuse this alone to venture all your hopes upon and resolve to seek for none but this and to venture all on God and Christ though yet you are uncertain of your sincerity and salvation why this makes up true saving faith 5. And I would further ask you Do you fear damnation and Gods wrath or not If not what troubleth you and why complain you If you do tell me then whether you do believe Gods threatning that he that believeth not shall be damned or not If you do not what maketh you fear damnation Do you fear it and not believe that there is any such thing If you do believe it how can you chuse but believe also that every true Believer shall be saved Is God true in his Threatnings and not in his Promises This must force you plainly to confess that you do believe Gods Promises but only doubt of your own sincerity and consequently of your salvation which is more a weakness in your hope than in your faith or rather chiefly in your acquaintance with your self Direct 8. Yet still dwell most upon Gods Promises in the exercise of love desire and thankfulness and use all your fear about the threatnings but in a second place to further and not to hinder the work of love Direct 9. Let faith interpret all Gods Judgements meerly by the light of the threatnings of his Word and do not gather any conclusions from them which the Word affordeth not or alloweth not Gods Judgements may be dangerously misunderstood CHAP. VII How to exercise Faith about Pardon of sin and Justification THE practice of Faith about our Justification is hindered by so many unhappy controversies and heresies that what to do with them here in our way is not very easie to determine Should I omit the mention of them I leave most that I write for either under that disease it self or the danger of it which may frustrate all the rest which I must say For the errours hereabout are swarming in most quarters of the Land and are like to come to the caâs of most that are studious of these matters so that an antidote to most and a vomit to the rest is become a matter of necessity to the success of all our practical Directions And yet many cannot endure to be troubled with difficulties who are slothful and must have nothing set before them that will cost them much study and many peaceable Christians love not any thing that soundeth like controversie or strife As others that are Sons of contention relish nothing else But averseness must give place to necessity If the Leprosie arise the Priest must search it and the Physician must do his best to cure it notwithstanding their natural averseness to it Though I may be as averse to write against errours as the Reader is to read what I write we must both blame that which causeth the necessity but not therefore deny our necessary duty But yet I will so far gratifie them that need no more as to put the more practical Directions first that they may pass by the heap of errours ââter if their own judgements prevail not against their unwillingness Direct 1. Vnderstand well what need you have of pardon of sin and Justification by reason of your guilt and of Gods Law and Justice and the everlasting punishment which is legally your due 1. It must be a sensible awakening practical knowledge of our own great necessity which must teach us to value Christ as a Saviour and to come to him in that empty sick and weary plight as is necessary in those who will make use of him for their supply and cure Matth. 9.12 11.28 29. A superficial speculative knowledge of our sin and misery will prepare us but for a superficial opinionative faith in Christ as the remedy But a true sense of both will teach us to think of him as a Saviour indeed 2. Original sin and actual the wickedness both of the heart and life even all our particular sins of omission and commission and all their circumstances and aggravations are the first reason of our great necessity of pardon And therefore it cannot but be a duty to lay them to heart as particularly as we can to make that necessity and Christs redemption the better understood Acts 2.37 Acts 2â 8 9 c. 3. The wrath of God and the miseries of this life
and the everlasting miseries of the damned in Hell being the due effects or punishment of sin are the second cause of our necessity of pardon And therefore these also must be thought on seriously by him that will seriously believe in Christ 4. The Law of God which we have broken maketh this punishment our due Rom. 3. 5. 7. And the Justice of God is engaged to secure his own honour in the honour of his Law and Government Direct 2. Vnderstand well what Christ is and doth for the Justification of a sinner and how not one only but all the parts of his office are exercised hereunto In the dignity of his person and perfect original holiness of his natures divine and humane he is fitly qualified for his work of our Justification and Salvation His undertaking which is but the Divine Decree did from eternity lay the foundation of all but did not actually justifie any His Promise Gen. 3.15 and his new Relation to mââ thereupon did that to the Fathers in some degree which his after-incarnation and performance and his Relation thereupon doth now to us His perfect Obedience to the Law yea to that Law of Mediation also peculiar to himself which he performed neither as Priest or Prophet or King but as a subject was the meritorious cause of that Covenant and Grace which justifieth us and so of our Justification And that which is the meritorious cause here is also usually called the material as it is that matter or thing which meriteth our Justification and so is called Our Righteousness it self As he was a sacrifice for sin he answered the ends of the Law which we violated and which condemned us as well as if we had been all punished according to the sense of the Law And therefore did thereby satisfie the Law-giver and thereby also merited our pardon and Justification so that his Obedience as such and his Sacrifice or whole humiliation as satisfactory by answering the ends of the Law are conjunctly the meritorious cause of our Justification His New Covenant which in Baptism is made mutual by our expressed consent is a general gift or act of oblivion or pardon given freely to all mankind on condition they will believe and consent to it or accept it so that it is Gods pardoning and adopting instrument And all are pardoned by it conditionally and every penitent Believer actually and really And this Covenant or Gift is the effect of the foresaid merit of Christ both founded and sealed by his blood As he merited this as a mediating subject and sacrifice so as our High Priest he offered this sacrifice of himself to God And as our King he being the Law-giver to the Church did make this Covenant as his Law of grace describing the terms of life and death And being the Judge of the world doth by his sentence justifie and condemn men as believers or unbelievers according to this Covenant And also executeth his sentence accordingly partly in this life but fully in the life to come As our Teacher and the Prophet or Angel of the Covenant he doth declare it as the Fathers will and promulgate and proclaim this Covenant and conditional Pardon and Justification to the world and send out his Embassadours with it to beseech men in his Name to be reconciled to God and to declare yea and by sacramental investiture to seal and deliver a Pardon and actual Justification to Believers when they consent And as our Mediating High Priest now in the Heavens he presenteth our necessity and his own righteousnesses and sacrifice as his meritâ for the continual communication of all this grace by himself as the Head of the Church and Administrator of the Covenant So that Christ doth justifie us both as a subject meriting as a sacrifice meriting as a Priest offering that sacrifice as a King actually making the Justifying Law or enacting a general Pardon as a King sententially and executively justifying as a Prophet or Angel of the Covenant promulgating it as King and Prophet and Priest delivering a sealed Pardon by his Messengers And as the Priest Head and Administrator communicating this with the rest of his benefits By which you may see in what respects Christ must be believed in to Justification if Justifying Faith were as it is not only the receiving him as our Justifier It would not be the receiving him as in one part of his office only Direct 3. Vnderstand rightly how far it is that the righteousness of Christ himself is made ours or imputed to us and how far not There are most vehement controversies to this day about the Imputation of Christs Righteousness in which I know not well which of the extreams are in the greater errour those that plead for it in the mistaken sense or those that plead against it in the sober and right sense But I make no doubt but they are both of them damnable as plainly subverting the foundation of our faith And yet I do not think that they will prove actually damning to the Authors because I believe that they misunderstand their adversaries and do not well understand themselves and that they digest not and practise not what they plead for but digest and practise that truth which they doctrinally subvert not knowing the contrariety which if they knew they would renounce the errour and not the truth And I think that many a one that thus contradicteth fundamentals may be saved Some there be besides the Antinomians that hold that Christ did perfectly obey and satisfie not in the natural but in the civil or legal person of each sinner that is elect representing and bearing as many distinct persons as are elect so fully as that God doth repute every Elect person or say others every Believer to be one that in Law sense did perfectly obey and satisfie Justice himself and so imputeth Christs Righteousness and satisfaction to us as that which was reputatively or legally of our own performance and so is ours not only in its effects but in it self Others seeing the pernicious consequences of this opinion deny all imputed Righteousness of Christ to us and write many reproachful volumes against it as you may see in Thorndikes last works and Dr. Gell and Parker against the Assembly and abundance more The truth is Christ merited and satisfied for us in the person of a Mediator But this Mediator was the Head and Root of all Believers and the second Adam the fountain of spiritual life and the Surety of the New Covenant Heb. 7.22 1 Cor. 15.22 45. and did all this in the nature of man and for the sake and benefit of man suffering that we might not suffer damnation but not obeying that we might not obey but suffering and obeying that our sinful imperfection of obedience might not be our ruine and our perfect obedience might not be necessary to our own Justification or Salvation but that God might for the sake and merit of this his perfect obedience and
true Believer should come very near such a state of death common reason and the due care of his own soul obligeth him to be suspicious of himself and to fear the worst till he have made sure of better Heb. 6. 3.10 Heb. 4.1 12 13 14. 1 Cor. 10. John 15.2 7 8 c. Direct 14. Let not the perswasion that you are justified make you more secure and bold infinning but more to hate it as contrary to the ends of Justification and to the love which freely justified you It is a great mark of difference between true assurance and blind presumption that the one maketh men hate sin more and more carefully to avoid it and the other causeth men to sin with less reluctancy and remorse because with less feat Direct 15. When the abuse of the Doctrine of Justification by Faith alone and not by Works doth pervert your minds and lives remember that all confess that we shall be judged according to our works as the Covenant of Grace is the Law by which we shall be judged And to be judged is to be justified or condemned I need not recite all those Scriptures to you that say that we shall be judged and shall receive according to what we have done in the body whether it be good or evil And this is all that we desire you to believe and live accordingly Direct 16. Remember still that Faith in Christ is but a means to raise us to the Love of God and that perfect Holiness is higher and more excellent than the pardon of sin And therefore desire faith and use it for the kindling of love and pardon of sin to endear you to God and that you may do so no more And do not sin that you may have the more to be pardoned The end of the Commandment is Charity out of a pure heart and a good conscience and faith unfeigned Rom. 6.1 2. Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound God forbid How shall they that are dead to sin live any longer therein See Titus 3.5 6 7. Rom. 5.1 4 5 6. Rom. 8.1 4 9 Gal. 4.6 5.24 26. So much for those practical Directions which are needfull for them that love not Controversie CHAP. VIII The pernicious or dangerous Errours detected which hinder the work of Faith about our Justification and the contrary Truths asserted THere is so much dust and controversie raised here to blind the eyes of the weak and to hinder the life of Faith and so much poison served up under the name of Justification and Free Grace that I should be unfaithful if I should not discover it either through fear of offending the guilty or of wearying them that had rather venture upon deceit than upon controversie And we are now so fortified against the Popish and Secinian extreams and those whom I am now directing to live by Faith are so settled against them that I think it more necessary having not leisure for both and having done it heretofore in my Confession to open at this time the method of false doctrine on the other extream which for the most part is it which constituteth Antinomianism though some of them are maintained by others And I will first name each errour and then with it the contrary truth Errour 1. Christs suffering was caused by the sins of none as the assumed meritorious cause or as they usually say as imputed to him or lying on him save only of the Elect that shall be saved Contr. The sins of fallen mankind in general except those rejections of Grace whose pardon is not offered in the conditional Covenant did lye on Christ as the assumed cause of his sufferings See John 1.29 2 Cor. 5.18 19 20. John 3.16 17 18 19. Heb. 2.9 1 Tim. 2.4 5 6. 1 John 2.2 1 Tim. 4.10 2 Pet. 2.2 See Paraeus in his Irenicon Twisse vind alibi passim saying as much and Amyrald Davenant Dallaeus TestarduâVsher c. proving it Errour 2. Christ did both perfectly obey and also make satisfaction for sin by suffering in the person of all the Elect in the sense of the Law or Gods account so that his Righteousness of obedience and perfect holiness and his satisfaction is so imputed to us as the proprietaries as if we our selves had done it and suffered it not by an after donation in the effects but by this strict imputation in it self Contr. The contrary Truth is at large opened before and in my confession Christs satisfaction and the merit of his whole obedience is as effectual for our pardon justification and salvation as if Believers thâmselves had performed it and it is imputed to them in that it was done for their sakes and suffered in their stead and the fruits of it by a free Covenant or donation given them But 1. God is not mistaken to judge that we obeyed or suffered when we did not 2. God is no lyar to say we did it when he knoweth that we did it not 3. If we were not the actors and sufferers it is not possible that we should be made the natural subjects of the Accidents of anothers body by any putation estimation or mis-judging whatsoever no nor by any donation neither It is a contradiction and therefore an impossibility that the same individual Actions and Passions of which Christs humane nature was the agent and subject so many hundred years ago and have themselves now no existence should in themselves I say in themselves be made yours now and you be the subject of the same accidents 4. Therefore they can no otherwise be given to us but 1. By a true estimation of the reasons why Christ underwent them viz. for our sakes as aforesaid 2. And by a donation of the effects or fruits of them viz. pardoning and justifying and saving us by them on the terms chosen by the Donor himself and put into his Testament or Covenant as certainly but not in the same manner as if we had done and suffered them our selves 5. If Christ had suffered in our person reputatively in all respects his sufferings would not have redeemed us Because we are finite worms and our suffering for so short a time would not have been accepted instead of Hell sufferings But the person of the Mediator made them valuable 6. God never made any such Covenant with us that he will justifie us and use us just as he would have done if we had our selves perfectly obeyed and satisfied They that take on them to shew such a Promise must see that no wise man examine it 7. God hath both by his Covenant and his Works ever since confuted that opinion and hath not dealt with us as he would have done if we had been the reputed doers and sufferers of it all our selves For he hath made conveyance of the Benefits by a pardoning and justifying Law or Promise and he giveth us additional pardon of renewed sins as we act them and he addeth threatnings in his Law or
for us Errour 6. That the Elect are justified from eternity say some or from Christs death before they were born say others or before they believed say others Against this I have said enough in many Volumes heretofore Errour 7. That Faith justifieth only in the Court of our own Consciences by making us to know that we were justified before Against this also I have said enough elsewhere Errour 8. That sins to come not yet committed are pardoned in our first Justification Contr. Sins to come are no sins and no sins have no actual pardon but only the certain remedy is provided which will pardon their sins as soon as they are capable Errour 9. Justification is not a making us just but a sentence pronouncing us just Contr. Justification is a word of so many significations that he that doth not first tell what he meaneth by it will not be capable of giving or receiving satisfaction And here once for all I must intreat the Reader that loveth not confusion and errour to distinguish of these several sorts of Justification as the chief which we are to note Justification is either publick by a Governour or private by an equal or meer Discerner Justification is by God or by Man Justification by God is either as he is Law-giver and above Laws or as he is Judge according to his Laws In the first way God maketh us just by his Act of Oblivion or pardoning Law or Covenant of Grace In the second respect God doth two waies justifie and forgive 1. As a determining Judge 2. As the Executioner of his Judgement In the former respect God doth two waies justifie us 1. By esteeming us just 2. By publick sentencing us just As Executioner he useth us as just and as so judged I pass by here purposely all Christs Justification of us by way of apology or plea and all Justification by witnesses and evidences c. and all the constitutive causes of our Righteousness lest I hinder them whom I would help by using more distinctions than they are willing to learn But these few are necessary 1. It is one thing for God to make us Righteous by forgiving all our sins of commission and omission for the sake of Christs satisfaction and obedience 2. It is another thing for God to esteem us to be so Righteous when he hath first made us so 3. It is another for God to sentence us Righteous as the Publick Judge by Jesus Christ 4. And it is another thing for God to take off all penalties and evils and to give us all the good which belong to the Righteous and so to execute his own Laws and Sentence And he that will not distinguish of these senses or sorts of Justification shall not dispute with me And while I am upon this I will give the Reader these two remarks and counsels 1. That he will not in disputing about Justification with any sect begin the dispute of the Thing till he hath first determined and agreed of their sense of the Word And that he will not confound the Controversies de nomine about the word with those de re about the matter And that he will remember in citing texts of Scripture that Beza and many of our best Expositors do grant to the Papists as I heard Bishop Vsher also do that some texts of Scripture do take the word Justifie as they do for Pardon and Sanctification conjunctly As Titus 3.7 1 Cor. 6.11 Rom. 8.30 three famous texts of which see Le Blank at large in his Thes de nom Justific If the controversie be only of the sense of a Text handle it accordingly If of the matter turn it not to words 2. Note this Observation that Sanctification it self or the giving us the Spirit is a great act though I say not the only of executive Justification The with-holding of the Spirit is the greatest punishment inflicted in this life and therefore the giving of the Spirit is the removal or executive remiting of the greatest penalty So that if pardon were only as Dr. Twisse thought a non-punire a not punishing then this were the most proper as well as plenary pardon in this life But the truth is that our Pardon and Justification in Right goeth first which God effecteth by his Covenant-gift And then God esteemeth us just or pardoned when by pardon he hath made us just and if there be any sentence or any thing equivalent before the day of Judgement or death he next sentenceth us Just and lastly he useth us as just that is as pardoned all sins of omission and commission which is by taking off all punishment both of pain or sense and loss of which part the giving of his Spirit is the chief act on this side our Glorification Note therefore that thus far no Protestant can deny to the Papists nor will do that Sanctification and Justification are all one that is that God having pardoned us de jure doth pardon us executively by giving us his forfeited Spirit and Grace and by all the communion which we have after with him and the comfort which we have from him And further let it be well noted that the nature of this executive Pardon or Justification of which read Mr. Hotchkis at large is far better known to us than the nature of Gods sentential Pardon and Justification and therefore there is less controversie about it For what it is to forbear or take off a punishment is easily understood But though most Protestants say that Justification is a sentence of God they are not agreed what that sentence is Some think truly that our first Justification by Faith is but a virtual sentence of the Law of Grace by which we must be judged Others say that by a sentence is meant Gods secret mental estimation Others say that as Angels are his executioners so it is before them where joy is said to be for a sinners conversion Luke 15. that doth declare and sentence us pardoned and just Others think that there is no sentence but Gods notification of pardon to our consciences or giving us the sense or knowledge of it Others think that there is no sentence till death or publick Judgment Others say that God doth sentence us just though we know not where nor how And Mr. Lawson noteth that as all confess that God hath no voice but a created voice and therefore useth not words as we unless what Christ as man may do in that we know not so his sentence is nothing but his declaration that he esteemeth us pardoned and just in title which is principally if not only by his execution and taking off all penalties of sense and loss and using us as pardoned in title and so that the giving of his Spirit is his very sentence of Justification in this life as it is his declaration as aforesaid And doubtless executive pardon is the most perfect and compleat as being the end and perfection of all the rest Therefore God maketh
that ever will be committed is forgiven absolutely 6. The kind of our presenâ Justification is imperfect it being but in Covenant-title and some part of execution the full and peâfâct sentence and execution being at the day of Judgment I leave them therefore to say Christs Righteousness imputed to us is perfect therefore we are as perfectly just and justified as Christ who know not what Imputation here is nor that Christs personal Righteousness is not given to us as proprietors in it self but in the effects and who know not the difference between believing and blaspheming and making our selves as so many Christs to our selves and that know not what need they have of Christ or of Faith or Prayer or of any holy endeavour for any more Pardon and Righteousness or Justification than they have already Or who thinke that David in his Adultery and Murder was as perfectly pardoned and justified as he will be in Heaven at last And in a word who know not the difference between Earth and Heaven Errour 12. That Christ justifieth us only as a Priest Or say others only as obeying and satisfying Contr. Christ merited our Justification in his state of humiliation as the Mediator subjected to the Law and perfectly obeying it and as a sacrifice for sin But this is not justifying us Christ offered that sacrifice as the High Priest of the Church or world But this was not justifying us Christ made us the New Covenant as our King and as the great Prophet of the Father or Angel of the Covenant Mal. 3.1 And this Covenant giveth us our pardon and title to impunity and to life eternal And Christ as our King and Judge doth justifie us by a Judiciary Sentence and also by the execution of that sentence so that the relations most eminently appear in our Justification are all excluded by the foresaid errour Errour 13. That we are justified only by the first act of Faith and all our believing afterwards to the end of our lives are no justifying acts at all Contr. Indeed if the question be only about the Name of Justifying if you will take it only for our first change into a state of righteousness by pardon it is true But the following actâ of Faith are of the same use and need to the continuing of our Justification or state of Righteousness as the first act was for the beginning of it Errour 14. That the continuance of our Justification needeth no other conditions to be by us performed than the continuance of that Faith on which it was begun Contr. Where that first Faith continueth there our Justification doth continue But that Faith never continueth without sincere obedience to Christ and that obedience is part of the condition of the continuance or not losing our Justification as is proved before and at large elsewhere The Faith which in Baptism we profess and by which we have our first Justification or Covenant-right is an accepting of Christ as our Saviour and Lord to be obeyed by us in the use of his saving remedies and we there vow and covenant future obedience And as our marriage to Christ or Covenant-making is all the condition of our first right to him and his benefits without any other good works or obedience so our Marriage-fidelity or Covenant keeping is part of the condition of our continuance herein or not losing it by a divorce John 15. Col. 1.23 c. Errour 15. That Faith is no condition of our part in Christ and our Justification but only one of Gods gifts of the Covenant given with Christ and Justification Errour 16. That the Covenant of Grace hath no conditions on our part but only donatives on Gods part Errour 17 That if the Covenant had any conditions it were not free And that every condition is a meritorious cause or at least some cause Contr. All these I have confuted at large elsewhere and proved 1. That Faith is a proper condition of those benefits which God giveth us by the conditional Covenant of Grace but not of all the benefits which he any other way giveth us It was not the condition of his giving Christ to live and die for us nor of his giving us the Gospel or this Covenant it self nor of his giving us Preachers or of the first motions of his Spirit nor was Faith the condition of the Faithâââelf âââelf because all these are not given us in that way by that Covenant but absolutely as God shall please 2. That some Promises of God of the last mentioned gifts have no condition The promises of giving a Saviour to the world and the promise of giving and continuing the Gospel in the world and of converting many by it in the world and of making them Believers and giving them new hearts and bringing them to salvation c. have no conditions But these are promises made some of them to Christ only and some of them to fallen mankind or the world in general or predictions what God will do by certain men unborn unnamed and not described called the Elect. But all this giveth no title to Pardon or Justification or Salvation to any one person at all Remember therefore once for all that the Covenant which I still mean by the Covenant of Grace is that which God offereth men in Baptism by the acceptance whereof we become Christians 3. That Gods gift of a Saviour and New Covenant to the world are so free as to be without any condition But Gods gift of Christ with all his benefits of Justification Adoption c. to individual persons is so free as to be without and contrary to our desert but not so free as to be without any condition And that he that will say to God Thy grace of pardon is not free if thou wilt not give it me but on condition that I accept it yea or desire it or ask it shall prove a contemner of grace and a reproacher of his Saviour and not an exalter of free grace There is no inconsistency for God to be the giver of grace to cause us to believe and accept of Christ and yet to make a deed of gift of him to all on condition of that Faith and acceptance no more than it is inconsistent to give Faith and Repentance and to command them of both which the objecters themselves do not seem to doubt For he maketh both his command and his conditional form of Promise to be his chosen means and most wisely chosen of working in us the thing commanded 4. That a condition as a condition is no cause at all much less a meritorious cause But only the non-performance of it suspendeth the donation of the Covenant by the will of the Donor Or rââher it is the Donors will that suspendeth it till the condition be done And some conditions signifie no more than a term of time and some in the matter of them and not in the form are a not-demeriting or not-abusing the Giver or not-despising the gift
such Adam had such Power and such necessary grace or help to have forborn his first sin which he did not forbear And no man can prove that no final unbelievers have had such power and help to have belâeved aâ Adam had to have stood But it is certain that we ãâ¦ã such powers and necessary grace to have perfectly ãâã all the Law Errour 20. That Faith justifieth as an instrument and only so Of this I have written at large heretofore An instrument properly so called is an efficient cause Faith is no efficient cause of our Justification neither Gods instrument nor ours for we justifie not our selves instrumentally The known undoubted instrument of our Justification is Gods Covenant or deed of gift which is his pardoning act They that say it is not a Physical but a Moral instrument either mean that its morally called an instrument that is reputatively and not really or that it is indeed a moral instrument that is effecteth our Justification morally But the latter is false for it effecteth it not at all and the former is false for as there is no reason so there is no Scripture to prove that God reputeth it to be what it is not All that remaineth to be said is that indeed Faith in Christ is an act whose nature partly that is one act of it consisteth in the Acceptance of Christ himself who is given to us for our Justification and Salvation by a Covenant which maketh this believing-acceptance its condition And so this accepting-act in the very essence of it is such as some call a receiving instrument or a passive which is indeed no instrument but an act metaphorically called an instrument And in disputes metaphors must not be used without necessity and to understand them properly is to erre So that such an improper instrument of Justification Faith is as my trusting my Physician and taking him for my Physician is the instrument of my cure And as my trusting my self to the conduct of such a Pilot is the instrument of my safe voyage or as my trusting my Tutor is the instrument of my learning or rather as a womans marriage-consent is the instrument of all the wealth and honour which she hath by her husband Indeed marriage may be better called the instrument of it that is not her own consent which is properly the receiving condition but the consent and actual marriage by her husband For he is the giver And so the Covenant is Gods justifying instrument as signifying his donative consent and Baptism is the instrument of it by solemn investiture or tradition as the delivering of a Key is the instrumental delivery of the house The case then is very plain to him that is but willing to understand viz. that Faith in its essence is bâsides the assenting acts an accepting of an offered Saviour for our Justification Sanctification and Salvation and a trusting in him That this act of Faith being its essence is the most apt for the use that God in his Covenant hath appointed it unto because he will give us a Saviour freely but yet not to be refused and neglected but to be thankfully and honourably received and used That this special aptitude of Faith or its very essence is the reason why it is chosen to be the condition of the Testament or Gift That this same essence and aptitude is that which some call its Receptive or Passive Instrumentality That this essence and aptitude is not the neerest reason why we are justified by it for then Faith as Faith and as such an act or wârk of ours should justifie and that ex opere operato and that without or against Gods will For if Gods will have interposed the signifier of that will must needs be the chief and nearest reason Therefore this act so apt bâing by God made the condition of the Gift or Covenant iâs nearest and chief interest I will not call it causaliây in our Justification iâ this office of a condition Therefore in a word we are justified by Faith directly as or because it is the conditio praestita the performance of the condition of the Justifying act and it was by God made the condition bâcause it was in its nature mâst apt thereto which aptitude may be metaphorically called its Receptive Instrumentality And that thus as it accepteth Christ for Justification Adoption Sanctification and Glorification so it is first the metaphorical instrument of our part in Christ and but consequently the metaphorical instrument of our title to pardon the Spirit and Heaven and in no tollerable sense at all how figurative soever is it any instrument of Gods sentence of Justification which yet is all the Justification acknowledged by the usual defenders of Instrumentality saving as it may be said to give us a right to it by giving us constitutive Justification in the pardon of our sins And the Scripture never saith that Faith justifieth us nor calleth it Justifying Faith but that we are justified by Faith and most commonly of Faith for the usuallest phrase is ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ãâã ex fide as it is ex operibus when Justification by works is denyed which is not the meer Instrumentality of works So that here is a double errour 1. That Faith justifieth as a true and proper instrument 2. And no oâher way Errour 21. That Faith causeth Justification as it causeth Sanctification as much and as properly Contr. Faith causeth not Justification at all but only is the condition of it But Faith causeth the acts of other graces by a proper efficiency believing is a proper efficient cause of the wills volition complacency consent though but a moral efficient because the liberty of the will forbiddeth the Intellect to move it per modum naturae And the wills consent produceth other acts and physically exciteth other graces Because to love and desire and fear and seek and obey are acts of our own souls where one may properly cause another But to justifie or pardon is an act of God and therefore Faith equally procureth our right or title to Justification and to Sanctification and Glorification but it doth not equally effect them 2 Cor. 7.1 Let us cleanse our selves from all filthiness of flesh and Spirit perfecting holiness c. Not let us pardon and justifie our selves James 4.8 Cleanse your hearts you sinners c. Isa 1. Wash you make you clean put away the evil of your doings not your guilt and punishment So only Christ cleanseth us from all sin and unrighteousness 1 John 1.7 9. Jude 21. Keep your selves in the Love of God John 15. Abide in me c. 1 John 5.18 He that is begotten of God keepeth himself c. Errour 22. That the Faith by which we are justified is not many physical acts of the soul only but one Errour 23. That it is only an act of one faculty of the soul Contr. The contrary is fully opened before and proved at large elsewhere and through the Scripture Faith
is as Davenant well noteth the act of the whole man I was wont to say of both faculties I now say of the three faculties which constitute the soul of man the Potestative the Intellective and the Volitive And the Assent it self is many acts as acts are physically specified by their objects as is shewed It is one moral act or work of the soul Like trusting a man as my Physician which is a fiducial consent that he be my Physician in order to the use of his remedies Oâ as taking a man to be your Prince Husband Tutor Master c. where he that will tell people that taking signifieth but one physical act would be ridiculous And he that will tell people that only one physical act of one faculty is it that they must look to be justified by will be much worse than ridiculous Errour 24. That we are justified by Faith not as it receiveth Christs person but his benefits or righteousness Contr. The contrary is before and after proved and insisted on by Dr. Preston at large Indeed we receive not Christs person it self physically but his person in the office and relation of our Saviour as we must chuse what person shall be our Physician before we take his medicines or receive our health but it is only a consent that he and no other be our Physician which we call the taking of his person And so it is here Errour 25. That it is one act of Faith which giveth us right to Christ and another to his righteousness and another to his teaching and another to his Spirit and another to Adoption and to Heaven c. and not the same Contr. This is 1. Adding to the Word of God and that in a matter near our chiefest comfort and safety Prove it or affirm it not 2. It is corrupting and perverting and contradicting the Word and Covenant of God which unitedly makeeth the same Faith without any such distinction the condition of all the Covenant-gifts Mark 16.16 John 3.16 c. Errour 26. That though the same Faith which justifieth doth believe in him as a Teacher as a King and Judge c. yet it justifieth us only quatenus receptio justitiae as it is the receiving of Christs Righteousness Contr. See in my Dispute of Justification my Confutation of this Assertion in Mr. Warner Properly Faith justifieth not at all but we are justified of or by it as a condition by the tenour of Gods deed of gift And so far as it is the condition in that gift so far we are justified by it But it is one entire Faith in Christ which is the condition without such distinction therefore we are so justified by it 2. According to that Rule there must be as many acts of Faith as there are benefits to be received and the title to be ascribed to each one accordingly 3. The natural relation of the act to the object sheweth no more but what the nature or essence of that Faith is and not how we come to be justified by it 4. The sense containeth this false Proposition Haec fides qua talis or quae fides justificat Faith as Faith or as this Faith in specie justifieth which some call the To credere For it is the essence of Faith which they call its Reception of Christs Righteousness 5. The true passive Reception of Righteousness and Pardon is that of the person as he is the terminus of the donative or justifying act of the Covenant To receive Pardon properly is to be pardoned But our Active Receiving or Consent is but the condition of it and there is no proof or reason that the condition should be so parcelled 6. Yet if by your quatenus you intend no more than the description of the act of Faith as essentially related to its subsequent benefit and not at all to speak of its conditional nearest interest in our Justification the matter were less 7. But the truth is that if we might distinguish where God doth not distinguish it were much more rational to say that taking Christ for a true Messenger of God and a Teacher and Sanctifier and King hath a greater hand in our Justification than taking him to justifie us supposing that all be present Because the common way and reason of conditions in Covenants is that somewhat which the party is willing of is promised upon condition of something which he is unwilling of that for the one he may be drawn to consent unto the other As if the Physician should say If you will take me for your Physician and refuse none of my medicines I will undertake to cure you Here it is supposed that the Patient is willing of health and not willing of the Medicines but for healths sake and therefore consenting to the Medicines or receiving this man to be his Physician as a pâescriber of the Medicines is more the condition of his cure than his consenting to the cure it self or receiving the Physician as the cause of his health So here it is supposed that condemned sinners are already willing to be justified pardoned and saved from punishment but not willing to repent and follow the teaching and counsel of a Saviour and therefore that Pardon and Justification is given and offered them on condition that they accept of and submit to the teaching and government of Christ and of salvation from their sins But the truth is we must not presume beyond his revelation to give the reasons of Gods institutions We are sure that the entire Belief in Christ and accepting of himself as our perfect Saviour in order to all the ends of his Relation is made by God in his Covenant the condition of our title to the benefits of his Covenant conjunctly And it is not only the believing in Christ for pardon that as such is the condition of pardon nor is any one act the condition of any benefit but as it is a part of that whole Faith which is indeed the condition The occasion of their errour is that they consider only what it is in Christ the object of Faith which justifieth sanctifieth c. and they think that the act only which is exercised on that object must do it which is a gross mistake Because Faith is not like taking of mony jewels books c. into ones hand which is a physical act which taketh possession of them But it is a Jus or Debitum a Right and Relation which we are morally and passively to receive as constituting our first Justification and Pardon and as the condition of this we are to take Christ for our Saviour which is but a physicial active metaphorical receiving in order to the attainment of the said passive proper receiving For recipere proprie est pati If an Act be passed that all Traitors and Rebels who will give up themselves to the Kings Son as one that hath ransomed them to be taught and ruled by him and reduced to their obedience to be their
general in the wars against his enemies shall have pardon and lands and honours and further rewards after this service here the Prince himself doth deliver them by his ransom and enrich them by his lands and honour them by his honour or power c. But their act of giving up themselves to him under the notion of a Ransomer doth no more to their deliverance than their giving up themselves to him under the notion of a General or Ruler c. Because it doth not free them as it is such an act but as it is an act made the condition of his gift And note that I have before proved that even as to the object Christ justifieth us in all the parts of his office Errour 27. That believing in God as God and our Father in Christ is not an act of Justifying Faith but only a consequent or concomitant of it Contr. 1. No doubt but God must some way be believed in in order of nature before Christ can be believed in as is proved who can believe that Christ is the Son and Messenger of God who believeth not that there is a God Or that Christ reconcileth us to God before he believe that he is our offended God and Governour 2. But to believe in God as the end of our Redemption to whose love and savour we must be restored by Faith in Christ and who pardoneth by the Son is as essential an act of Justifying Faith as our belief in Christ Object But not quatenus justificantis not of Faith as justifying Answ If by as justifying you mean not as effecting Justification it is a false supposition There is no such Faith If you mean not as the condition of Justification it is false It is as essential a part of it as the condition If you mean not as Faith is denominated Justifying from the consequent benefit it s true but impertinent For the same may be said of Faith in Christ it is not called Faith in Christ as it is called by you Justifying And yet I may add that in the very physical nature of it Belief in God as our God and End is essential to it As consenting to be healed is essential to consenting to the Physician and consenting to be reconciled is essential to our consenting to a Mediation for that end Because the respect to the end is essential to the Relation consented to All the Faith described Heb. 11. in all those instances hath special essential respect to God So hath Abrahams faith Rom. 4.3 Abraham believed God and it was imputed to him for righteousness v. 5. To him that worketh not but believeth on him on God that justifieth the ungodly his Faith is counted for righteousness v. 8. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin v. 17. Before him whom he believed even God who quickeneth the dead v. 20. He staggered not at the Promise of God Being fuly perswaded that what he had promised he was also able to perform v. 21 22. And therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness Now it was not written for his sake alone that it was imputed to him but for us also to whom it shall be imputed if we believe on him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead Abundance such testimonies are obvious in Scripture but this being as plain as can be spoken he maketh his own Faith who refuseth to believe it Our Faith in God as God hath as much hand in our Justification as our Faith in Christ as Mediatour But the form of the Baptismal Covenant which the Church ever used fully proveth it as is aforesaid though to answer all ignorant cavils against it as an unnecessary tediousness I pass by Errour 28. The belief of Heaven or the life to come is no essential part of Justifying Faith as such Contr. The last answer to this Errour is sufficient Heaven is the everlasting vision and love of God and therefore we are justified by believing it though not it alone It is essential to our Saviour to save and bring us to the fruition of God Errour 29. That Justifying Faith is a believing that I am justified or elect and shall be saved by Christ Errour 30. That this Faith is a full assurance or perswasion at least excluding doubting Contr. 1. We are justified by believing and accepting God for our God and Christ for our Saviour that we may be justified and not by believing that we are justified 2. It is false and ever will be that any of the praesciti as Austin and Prosper call them or the Non-Elect are elect or justified or will be saved But the Non-Elect are commanded and bound to believe with that same kind of Faith by which we are justified Therefore to believe that they themselves are elect justified and shall be saved is not that kind of Faith by which we are justified No men are bound by God on pain of damnation to believe a lye nor damned for not believing it 3. Assurance of personal pardon is the happiness but of few true Christians in this life And where it is it is only an effect or consequent participating of Faith See Mr. Hickman on this subject Errour 31. The meaning of that Article of our Creed I believe the remission of sins is I believe that my own sins are forgiven to me personally Contr. Though worthy Mr. Perkins and other ancient Divines have too much countenanced this exposition it is false The meaning of that Article is but this I believe that a sufficient provision for pardon is made by Christ both for sins before regeneration and after-fault which shall be repented of and that a pardoning Covenant is made to all if they will repent and believe and to me as well as others and I accept of that gracious offer and trust in that Covenant in Christ It s dangerous misexpounding Articles of the Creed Errour 32. At least it is an act of Divine Belief to believe that I am elect and justified and shall be saved Contr. Many have been a great scandal or snare to harden the Papists by asserting this But the truth is it is but a rational conclusion from two premises the one of which is of Divine Revelation and the other of inward experience and all that is capable of being a controversie to the judicious is only de nomine whether logically the conclusion be to be denominated from the more debile of the premises or from both by participation as being both an act of Faith and of Reason secundum quid and of neither simpliciter But it is commonly concluded that the more debile of the premises must denominate the conclusion And it is certain de re that the conclusion can be no more certain than it Object But when the Scripture saith He that believeth shall be saved it is equipollent to this I John believe and therefore I shall be saved Answ A gross deceit That I believe is no where in the Scripture If it
denyal of its truth And a true Exposition is better than either The same God who hath given us a Saviour to satisfie legal Justice and to merit our Justification against the charge that we are condemnable by the Law of Works hath thought meet to convey our title to this Christ and Justification by the Instrumentality of a new Covenant Testament or pardoning Act in which though he absolutely give many antecedent mercies yet he giveth these and other Rights by a conditional gift that as the Reward of Glory should have invited man to keep the Law of Nature and his Innocency so the Reward should be a moving means to draw men to believe So that there is a condition to be performed by our selves through grace before we can have the Covenant right to Justification Now when that is performed Christ then is our only Righteousness as aforesaid by which we must answer the charge of breaking the first Law and being condemnable by it But we can lay no claim to this Righteousness of Christ till we first prove that we are our selves inherently righteous against the charge of being impenitent Vnbelievers This false accusation we must be justâfied against by our own Faith and Repentance that we may be justified by Christ against the true accusation of sinning against the Law and thereby being condemnable by it Now as to our Legal Righteousness or Pro-legal rather by which this last must be avoided it is only the merits of Christ given to us in its fruits in the New Covenant even the merits of his obedience and sacrifice But our Faith it self is the other Righteousness which must be found in our persons to entitle us to this first And this being it and being all in the sense aforesaid that is made the condition of our pardon by the New Covenant therefore God is said to impute it it self to us for a Righteousness because that condition makeeth it so and to impute it to us for our Righteousness that is as all that now by this Covenant he requireth to be personally done by us who had formerly been under a harder condition even the fulfilling of the Law by innocency or suffering for sin because he that doth not fulfil nor satisfie as is said yet if he believe hath a right to the Justification merited by Christ who did fulfil and satisfie This is easie to be understood as undoubted truth by the willing and the rest will be most contentious where they are most erroneous Errour 37. That sincere obedience and all acts of Love Repentance and Faith save one do justifie us only before men and of that speaketh St. James ch 2. Contr. I must refer the Reader to other Books in which I have fuly confuted this How can men judge of the acts of Repentance Faith Love c. which are in the heart And James plainly speaketh of Gods imputing Righteousness to Abraham James 2.21 23. And how should men justifie Abraham for kâlling his only Son And how small a matter is Justification by man when we may be saved without it 2. Sincere Obedience to God in Christ is the condition of the continuance or not losing our Justification here and the secondary part of the condition of our final sentential and executive Justification Errour 38. That our inherent Righteousness before described hath no place of a condition in our Justification in the day of Judgement Contr. The Scriptures fully confuting this I have elsewhere cited All those that say we shall be judged according to our works c. speak against it For to be judged is only to be justified or condemned So Rev. 22.14 Matth. 25 c. Errour 39 That there is no Justification at Judgement to be expected but only a declaration of it Contr. The Decisive sentence and declaration of the Judge is the most proper sense or sort of Justification and the perfection of all that went before If we shall not be then justified then there is no such thing as Justification by Sentence Nay there is no such thing as a day of Judgement or else all men must be condemned For it is most certain that we must be justified or condemned or not-judged Errour 40. That no man ought to believe that the conditional Covenant Act or Gift of Justification belongeth to him as a member of the lost world or as a sinner in Adam because God hath made no such gift or promise to any but to the Elect. Contr. This is confuted on the by before Errour 41. That though it be false that the non-elect are elect and that Christ dyed for them yet they are bound to believe it every man of himself to prove that they are elect Contr. This is confuted on the by before God bindeth or biddeth no man to believe a lye Errour 42. That we must believe Gods Election and our Justification and the special Love of God to us before we can love him with a special Love Because it will not cause in us a special love to believe only a common love of God and such as he hath to the wicked and his enemies Contr. No man can groundedly believe the special Love of God to him nor his own Election or Justification before he hath yea before he find in himself a special love to God Because he that hath no special love to God must believe a lye if he believe that he is justified or that ever God revealed to him that he is elect or specially beloved of God and no man hath any evidence or proof at all of his election and Gods special love till he have this evidence of his special love to God Till he know this he cannot know that any other is sincere 2. They that deny or blâspheme Gods common love to fallen man and his universal pardoning Covenant do their worst to keep men from being moved to the special Love of God by his common Love But when they have done their worst it shall stand as a sure obligation Is there not reason enough to bind men to love God above all even as one that yet may be their happiness in his own infinite Goodness and all the revelations of it by Christ and in his so loving the world as to give his only Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life And in his giving a free pardon of all sin to mankind and offering life eternal to them so that none but the final refusers shall lose it and intreating them to accept it c Is not all this sufficient in reason to move men to that love of God if the Spirit help them to make use of Reason as he must do what Reasons soever are presented to them unless men think that God doth not oblige them by any kindness which they can possibly reject or by any thing which many others do partake of Yet here note that Gods common love to man I do not mean any which he hath to Reprobates under
Justification or Salvation but to renounce all such expectations Nor will the Law of Works it self ever justifie us as some affirm as having perfectly fulfilled it by another But we are justified against its charge and not by it by the Covenant of Grace and not of Works But perfect obedience to all the Law of Nature and all the Commands of Christ is still our duty and sincere obedience is necessary to our salvation All our duty is not supererrogation Errour 56. When a man doubteth whether he be a Believer or penitent he must believe that Christ repented and believed for him Contr. Christ never had sin to repent of and it is not proper to say one repenteth of anothers sin Christ believed his Father but had no use for that faith in a Mediatour which we must have He that repenteth not and believeth not himself shall be damned Therefore you may see how Christ repented and believed for us Errour 57. A man that trusteth to be justified at the day of Judgement against the charge of unbelief impenitency and hypocrisie by his own faith repentance and sincerity as his particular subordinate Righteousness and not by Christs Righteousness imputed only sinneth against free grace Contr. Christs Righteousness is imputed or given to none nor shall justifie any that are true Vnbelievers Impenitent or Hypocrites Therefore if any such person trust to be justified by Christ he deceiveth him If the ãâã be Thou art an Infidel or impenitent it is frivolous to say But Christ obeyed suffered or believed or repented for me But he that will then be justified against that charge must say and say truly I truly believed repented and obeyed Errour 58. There is no use for a Justification against any such false accusation before God who knoweth all mens hearts Contr. 1. You might as well say There is no use of judging men according to what they have done when God knoweth what they have done already 2. We are to be justified by God before men and Angels that Christ may be glorified in his Saints and admired in all them that believe because the Gospel was believed by them 2 Thes 1.10 11. And not only the mouth of iniquity may be stopped and open false accusations confuted but that the prejudices and heart-slanders of the wicked may be refelled and our righteousness be brought forth as the light and our judgement as the noon day That all the false judgements and reproaches of the wicked against the just may be confounded and they may answer for all their ungodly sayings and hard speeches as Henoch prophesied against the godly and that they that speak evil of us because we run not with them to all excess of riot may give an account to him who is ready to judge the quick and the dead 1 Pet. 4.4 5. And that all may be set straight which men made crooked and hidden things be all brought to light 3. And we must be better acquainted with the ingenuity of the great accuser of the Brethren before we can be sure that he who belyed God to man will not bely man to God seeing he is the Father of lyes and did so by Job c. 4. But we mâst not think of the day of Judgement as a day of talk between God and Satan and Man but as a day of DECISIVE LIGHT or manifestation And so the case is out of doubt The Faith Repentance and Sincerity of the just will be there manifest against all former or latter real or vertual calumnies of men or devils to the contrary 5. But above all let it be marked that nothing else can be matter of controversie to be decided That Christ hath obeyed and suffered and satisfied for Believers sins and made a testament or covenant to paââân all true Believers will be known to the accuser and past all doubt The day of Judgement is not to try Christs obedience and sufferings nor to decide the case whether he fulfilled the Law and satisfied for sin or made a pardoning Covenant to Believers But whether we have part in him or not and so are to be justified by the Gospel-Covenant through his merits against the Legal Covenant And whether we have fulfilled the conditions of the pardoning Covenant or not This is all that can be then made a Controversie this is the secrets of mens heart and case that must be opened before the world by God However we doubt not but the glory of all will redound to Christ whose merits are unquestioned 6. Note also that Christ will be the Judge on supposition of his merits and not the party to be tryed and judged 7. Note also that we are to be judged by the New Covenant or Law of Liberty and therefore it is the condition of that Covenant as made with us which is to be enquired after 8. Note also that Christ himself in Matth. 25. and every where when he describeth the day of Judgement doth not at all speak of any decision of such a controversie as whether he was the Lamb of God who took away the sins of the world or whether he did his part or not but only whether men did their parts or not and shewed the sincerity of their love to God and him by venturing all for him and owning him in his servants to their cost and hazard And the fruit of Christs part is only mentioned as a presupposed thing Come ye blessed of my Father inherit the Kingdom prepared for you For I was hungry c. The Preparation in Gods Decree and Christs merits is unquestioned and so is the donation to all true Believers therefore it is the case of their Title to this gift and of the condition or evidence of their title which is here tryed and decided Lastly Note that upon the decision in respect of both together Christs Merits and Covenant as supposed and their own true Faith and Love as manifested decisively they are called Righteous v. 46. The Righteous into life eternal So much to take the stumbling-blocks out of the way of Faith about Free-Grace and Justification which the weakness of many well meaning erroneous men hath laid there of late times to the great danger or impediment of weak Believers Isa 57.14 Take up the stumbling-block out of the way of my people Levit. 19.14 Thou shalt not put a stumbling-block before the blind but shalt fear thy God CHAP. IX How to live by Faith in order to the exercise of other graces and duties of Sanctification and Obedience to God And first of the Doctrinal Directions WE cannot by Faith promote Sanctification unless we understand the nature and reasons of Sanctification This therefore must be our first endeavour The word Sanctified doth signifie that which is separated to God from common uses And this separation is either by God himself as he hath sanctified the Lords day c. or by mans dedication either of persons to a holy office and so the Ministers of Christ are sanctified
which they do not perform and against many sins which they do not forbear as to forbear an oath or a lye or a cup of drink to go to Church when they go to an Ale-house c. Such a thing therefore there is and such a power mans will hath to do or not do when such a degree only of help is given Therefore we have reason enough to suppose 1. That such a degree of the Spirits help is given under the bare Teachings of the Creature or to them that have no outward light but natural revelation as is necessary to the foresaid ends and uses of that Light or Means that is to convince man that there is a God and what he is as aforesaid and that we are his subjects and benâficiaries and owe him our chiâfest love and service and to convince them of the need of some further supernatural revelation Not that every one hath this measure of spiritual help for some by abusing the help which they have to learn the Alphabet of Nature or to practise it do forfeit that help which should bring them into Natures higher forms But so much as I have mentioned of the help of the Spirit is given to those that do not grosly forfeit it by abuse among the Pagans of the world And so much multitudes have attained 2. And so much of the Spirit was given ordinarily to the Jews as was sufficient to have enabled them to believe in the Messiah to come as aforesaid if they did not wilfully reject this help 3. And so much seemeth to be given to many that hear the Gospel and never believe it or that believe it not with a justifying Faith is as sufficient to have made them true Believers as Adams was to have kept him from his fall For seeing it is certain that such a sufficient uneffectual grace there is we have no reason to conceit that God doth any more desert his own means now than he did then or that he maketh Believing a more impossible condition of Justification under the Gospel to them that are in the neerest capacity of it before effectual grace than he made perfect obedience to be to Adam The objections against this are to be answered in due place and are already answered by the Dominicans at large 4. The outward means of grace under Christ are all one frame and must be used in harmony as followeth 1. The Witness and Preaching of Christ and his Apostles was the first and chief part together with their settling the Churches and recording so much as is to be our standing Rule in the holy Scriptures which are now to us the chief part of this means 2. Next to the Scriptures the Pastoral Office and Gifts to preserve them and teach them to us is the next principal part of this frame of means In which I comprehend all their office Preaching for conversion baptizing preaching for confirmation and edification of the faithful praying and praising God before the Church administring the body and blood of Christ in the Sacrament of communion and watching over all the flock by personal instruction admonition reproofs censures and absolutions 3. The next part conjunct with this is the communion of the faithful in the Churches 4. The next is our holy society in Christian families and family-instructions worship and just discipline 5. The next is our secret duties between God and us alone As. 1. Reading 2. Meditation and self examination 3. Prayer and thanksgiving and praise to God 6. The next part is our improvement of godly mens intimate friendship who may instruct and warn and reprove and comfort us 7. The next is the daily course of prospering Providences and Mercies which express Gods Love and call up ours as provisions protections preservations deliverances c. 8. The next is Gods castigations by what hand or means soever which are to make us partakers of his holiness Heb. 12.9 10. 9. The next is the examples of others 1. Their graces and duties 2. Their faults and falls 3. Their mercies And 4. Their sufferings and corrections 1 Cor. 10.1 10 11. 10. And lastly Our own constant watchfulness against temptations and stirring up Gods graces in our selves These are the frame of the means of Grace and of our receiving duties 2. The next in order to be considered is the whole frame of our returning duties in which we lay out the talents which we receive which lye in the order following 1. That we do what good we can to our own souls that we first pluck the beam out of our own eyes and set that motion on work at home which must go further Therefore all the foregoing means were primarily for this effect though not chiefly and ultimately for this end 2. Next we must do good according to our power to our neer Relations 3. And next to our whole Families and more remote Relations 4. And next them to our Neighbours 5. And next to Strangers 6. And lastly To Enemies of our selves and Christ 7. But our greatest duties must be for publick Societies viz. 1. For the Common-wealth both Governours and People 2. And for the Church 8. And the next part in intention and dignity must be for the whole world whose good by prayer and all just means we must endeavour 9. And the next for the honour of Jesus Christ our Mediatour 10. And the highest ultimate temination of our returning duties is the pure Deity alone For the further opening to you the Order of Christian Practice take these following Notes or Rules 1. Though receiving duties such as hearing reading praying faith c. go first in order of nature and time before expending or returning duties so that the motion is truly circular yet we must not stay till we have received more before we make returns to God of that which we have already But every degree of received grace must presently work towards God our end and as there is no intermission between my moving of my hand and pen and its writing upon this paper so must there be no intermission between Gods beams of Love and Mercy to us and our reflexions of Love and Duty unto him Even as ths veins and arteries in the body lye much together and one doth often empty it self into the other for circulation and not stay till the whole mass hath run through all the vessels of one sort veins or arteries before any pass into the other 2. The internal returns of Love are much quicker than the return of outward fruits The Love of God shed or streamed forth upon the soul doth presently warm it to a return of Love But it may be some time before that Love appear in any notable useful benefits to the world or in any thing that much glorifieth God and our Profession Even as the heat of the Sun upon the earth or trees is suddenly reflected but doth not so suddenly bring forth herbs and buds and blossoms and ripe fruits 3. All truly good works
It foreseeth also the day of Judgment and teacheth us to use our prosperity and wealth as we desire to hear of it in the day of our accounts Faith is a provident and a vigilant grace and useth to ask when we have any thing in may possession which way I make the best advantage of it for my soul which way will be most comfortable to me in my last review how shall I wish that I had used my time my wealth my power when time is at an end and all these transitory things are vanished 6. And Faith doth so absolutely devote and subject the soul to God that it will suffer us to do nothing so far as it prevaileth but what is for him and by his consent It telleth us that we are not our own but his and that we have nothing but what we have received and that we must be just in giving God his own and therefore it first asketh which way may I best serve and honour God with all that he hath given me Not only with my substance and the first fruits of mine increase but with all 1 Cor. 10.31 When Love and devotion hath delivered up our selves entirely to God it keeps nothing back but delivereth him all things with our selves even as Christ with himself doth give us all things Rom. 8.32 And Faith doth so much subject the soul to God that it maketh us like servants and children that use not their Masters or Parents goods at their own pleasure but ask him first how he would have us use them Lord what wouldst thou have me to do is one of the first words of a converted soul Acts 9.6 In a word Faith writeth out that charge upon the heart 1 John 2.15 Love not the world nor the things that are in the world the lust of the flesh the lust of the eyes and pride of life For if any man love the world the love of the Father is not in him Ye cannot serve God and Mammon But on this subject Mr. Alleine hath said so much in his excellent Book of the Victory of Faith over the world that I shall at this time say no more The Directions which I would give you in general for preservation from the danger of prosperity by Faith are these that follow Direct 1. Remember still that the common cause of mens damnation is their Love of this world more than God and Heaven and that the world cannot undo you any other way but by tempting you to over-love it and to undervalue higher things And therefore that is the most dangerous condition which maketh the world seem most pleasing and most lovely to us And can you believe this and yet be so eager to be humoured and to have all things fitted to your pleasure and desires Mark here what a task Faith hath and mark what the work of self-denyal is The worldling must be pleased the Believer must be saved The worldling must have his flesh and fancy gratified the Believer must have Heaven secured and God obeyed Men sell not their souls for sorrow but for mirth They forsake not Heaven for poverty but for riches they turn not away from God for the love of sufferings and dishonour but for the love of pleasure preferments dignities and estimation in the world And is that state better and more desirable for which all that perish turn from God and fell their souls and are befooled and undone for ever Or that which no man ever sinned for nor forsook God for or was undone for Read over this question once and again and mark what answer your hearts give to it if you would know whether you live by sense or faith And mark what contrary answers the flesh and faith will give to it when it comes to practice I say though many sin in poverty and in sufferings and in disgrace yea and by occasion of them and by their temptations yet no man ever sinned for them They are none of the bait that straled away the heart from God Set deep upon your heart the sense of the danger of a prosperous state and sear and vigilancy will help to save you Direct 2. Imprint upon your memory the characters of this deadly sin of worldliness that so you may not perish by it whilst you dream that you are free from it but may alwâies see how far it doth prevail Here therefore to help you I will set before you the characters of this sin and I will but briefly name them lest I be tedious because they are many 1. The great mark of damning worldliness is when God and Heaven are not loved and preferred before the pleasures and profits and honours of the world 2. Another is when the world is esteemed and used more for the service and pleasure of the flesh than to honour God and to do good with and to further our salvation When men desire great places and riches more to please their appetites and carnal minds with than to benefit others or to serve the Lord with when they are not rich to God but to themselves Luke 12.20 21. 3. It is a mark of some degree of worldliness to desire a greater measure of riches or honour than our spiritual work and ends and benefit do require For when we are convinced that less is as good or better to our highest ends and yet we would have more it is a sign that the rest is desired for the flesh Rom. 13.14 8.8 9 10 13. 4. When our desires after worldly things are too eager and violent when we must needs have them and cannot be without them 1 Tim. 6.9 5. When our contrivances for the world are too solâicitous and our cares for it take up an undue proportion of our time Mat. 6.24 25. to the end 6. When we are impatient under want dishonour or disappointments and live in trouble and discontent if we want much or have not our wills 7. When the thoughts of the world are proportionably so many more than our thoughts of Heaven and our salvation that they keep us in the neglect of the duty of Meditation and keep empty our minds of holy things Mat. 6.21 8. When it turneth our talk all towards the world or taketh up our freest and our sweetest and most serious words and leaveth us to the use of seldom dull or formal or affected words about the things which should profit the soul and glorifie our great Creator 9. When the world incroacheth upon Gods part in our families and thrusts out prayer or the reading of the Scriptures or the due instruction of children or servants when it cometh in upon the Lords day when it is intruding in Gods Worship and at Sermon or Prayer our thoughts are more pleasingly running out after some worldly thing than kept in attendance upon God Ezek. 33 31. 10. When worldly prosperity is so sweet to you that it can keep you quiet under the guilt of wilful sin and in the midst of all the
are guilty of more disorders tautologies unmeet expressions and manifold defects than any that I ever yet heard from those Ministers that pray either by habit or book Direct 9. Take heed both of carelesness and curiosity in the worshipping of God Avoid carelesness because it is prophaneness and contempt Therefore watch against idleness of mind and wandering thoughts and remember how great a work it is to speak to God or to hear from him about your everlasting state And yet curiosity is a heinous sin When men are so nice that unless there be quaint phrases and fine cadencies and jingles or at least a very laudable style they nauseate all and are weary of hearing a homely style or common things when every unmeet expression or tautology of the speaker doth turn their stomachs against the wholesomest food This curiosity cometh from a weak and an unhealthful state of soul Direct 10. Lastly Let your eye of Faith be all the while upon the heavenly Host or Church triumphant I remember how they worship God with what wisdom and purity and fervour of Love and sacred pleasure and with what unity and peace and concord And let your Worship be as much composed to the imitation of them as is agreeable to the likeness of our condition unto theirs There is no hypocrisie dulness darkness errours self-conceitedness pride division section or uncharitable contention Oh how they burn in Love to God and how sweet that Love is to themselves and how those souls work up in heavenly Joyes to the face of God in all his praises Labour as it were to joyn your selves by faith with them and as far as standeth with your different case to imitate them They are more imitable and amiable than the purest Churches upon earth Their love and blessed concord is more lovely than our uncharitable animosities and odious factions and divisions are And remember also the time when you must meet all those upright souls in Heaven whose manner of Worship you vilified and spake reproachfully of on earth and from whose communion you turned away And only consider how far they should be disowned who must be dear to Christ and you for ever The open disowning and avoiding the ungodly and scandalous is a great duty in due season when it is regularly done and is necessary to cast shame on sin and sinners and to vindicate the honour of Christianity before the world But otherwise it is but made an instrument of pernicious pride and of divisions in the Church and of hindering the successes of the Gospel of Christ CHAP. XXII How to pray in Faith PAssing by all the other particular parts of Worship as handled elsewhere in my Christian Directory I shall only briefly touch the duty of prayer especially as in private Direct 1. Let your heart lead your tongue and be the fountain of your words and suffer not your tongues in a customary volubility to over-run your hearts Desire first and pray next and remember that desire is the soul of prayer and that the heart-searching God doth hate hypocrisie and will not be mocked Matth. 6.1 3 4. Direct 2. Yet do not forbear prayer because your desires are not so earnest as you would have them For 1. Even good desires are to be begged of God 2. And such desires as you have towards God must be exercised and expressed 3. And this is the way of their usual increase 4. And a prophane turning away from God will kill those weak desires which you have when drawing near him in prayer may revive and cherish them Direct 3. Remember still that you pray to a heavenly Father who is readier to give than you are to receive or ask If you knew his Fulness and Goodness how joyfully would you run to him and cry Abba Father John 20.17 Luke 12.30 32. Mark 11.25 Matth. 6.8 32. Direct 4. Go boldly to him in the Name of Christ alone Remember that he is the only Way and Mediatour When guilt and conscience would drive you back believe the sufficiency of his sacrifice and attonement When your weakness and unworthiness would discourage you remember that no one is so worthy as to be accepted by God on any other terms than Christs Mediation Come boldly then to the Throne of Grace by the new and living way and put your prayers into his hand and remember that he still liveth to make intercession for you and that he appeareth before God in the highest in your cause Heb. 10.19 Ephes 3.12 Rom. 5.2 Heb. 9.24 7.25 26. Direct 5. Desire nothing in your hearts which you dare not pray for or which is unmeet for prayer Let the Rule of Prayer be the Rule of your Desires And undertake no business in the world which you may not lawfully pray for a blessing on Direct 6. Desire and pray to God first for God himself and nothing lower and next for all those spiritual blessings in Christ which may fit you for communion with him And lastly for corporal mercies as the means to these Matth. 6.33 Psal 42.1 2 3 c. Psal 73.25 26. Direct 7. Pray only for what is promised you or you are commanded to pray for And make not promises to your selves and then look that God should fulfil them because you confidently believe that he will do it and do not so reproach God as to call such self-conceits and expectations by the name of a particular Faith For where there is no word there is no faith Direct 8. What God hath promised confidently expect though you feel no answer at the present For most of our prayers are to be granted or the things desired to be given at the harvest time when we shall have all at once Whether you find your selves the better at present for prayer or not believe that a word is not in vain but you shall reap the fruit of all in season Luke 18.1 7 8. James 5.7 8. Direct 9. Let the Lords Prayer be the Rule for the matter and method of your desires and prayers But with this difference It must alwaies be the Rule which your desires must be formed to both in matter and method You must alwaies first and most desire the hallowing of Gods Name the coming of his Kingdom and the doing of his will on Earth as it is in Heaven before your own being or well-being But this is only a Rule for your General Prayers which take in all the parts For when you either intend to pray only or chiefly for some one particular thing you may begin with that or be most upon it Therefore all Christians should specially labour to understand the true sense and method of the Lords Prayer which God willing I hope elsewhere to open Direct 10. Be more careful in secret of your affections than of the order of your words yet chusing such as are aptest to the matter and fittest to excite your hearts But in your families or with others be very careful to speak to God in
words which are apt and orderly and moving and to do all with such skill and reverence and seriousness as tendeth not to encrease but to cure the dulness hypocrisie and unreverence of others Eccles 5.1 2. Matth. 6.7 8 9 10 c. Direct 11. Pray as earnestly as if God himself were to be moved with your prayers Yet so as to remember that the change is not to be made upon him but upon you As when the Boat-man layeth hold upon the bank he draweth the Boat to it and not the bank unto the Boat Prayer fitteth you to receive the mercy both naturally as it exciteth your desires after it and morally as it is a condition on which God hath promised to give it when you pray you tell God nothing which before he knew not better than you But you tell him that in confession and petition which he will hear from your own mouths before he will judge you meet for the mercies which you are to pray for In summ pray because you believe that praying Believers shall have the promised blessing And believe particularly and absolutely that you shall have that promised blessing through Christ because you are praying Believers and therefore the persons to whom it is promised CHAP. XXIII How to live by Faith towards Children and other Relations Direct 1. BElieve Gods Promises made to Believers and their seed of which I have written at large in my treatise of Infant-baptism And labour to understand how far thoâe promises extend both as to the persons and the blessings There was never an age of the world in which God did not distinguish the holy seed even Believers and their Children from the rest of the world and take them as those that were specially in his Covenant Direct 2. Let not your conceits of the bare birth-priviledge make you omit your serious solemn and believing Dedication of them unto God and entering them into his Covenant For the reason why your seed is called Holy and in a better case than the seed of Infidels is not meerly because they are the off-spring of your bodies and have their natures from you much less as deriving any grace or vertue from you by generation But because you are persons your selves who have dedicated your selves with all that you have absolutely to God by Christ And they being your own and therefore at your disposal your wills are taken for their wills so far as you act in their names and on their behalf And therefore when you dedicate them to God you do but that which you have both power and command to do And therefore God accepteth what you so dedicate to him And Baptism is the regular way in which this dedication should be solemnly made But if through the want of a Minister or water or time this be not done your believing dedication of your child to God without Baptism shall be accepted For it is the substance and not the sign the will and not the water which God requireth in this case Quest But what then shall we think of the children of godly Anabaptists whose Judgement is against such dedication Answ Many whose Judgement is against baptizing them is not against an offering or dedicating them to God And those who think that they are not allowed solemnly to enter them into Covenant with God yet really do that which is the same thing For they cannot be imagined to be unwilling to dedicate them to God to the utmost of that interest and power which they understand that God hath given them and doubtless they most earnestly desire that according to their capacity they may be the children of God and God will be their God in Christ And this vertual dedication seemeth to be the principal requisite condition But yet as the unbaptized are ordinarily without the visible Church and its priviledges so if any be so blind as neither explicitely nor vertually to dedicate their seed to God I know no promise of their childrens salvation any more than of the seed of Infidels Direct 3. If the children of true Christians dedicated by the Parents will to God through Christ shall die before they come to the use of reason the Parents have no cause to doubt of their salvation It is the conclusion of the Synod of Dort in Artic. 1. And the reason is this If the Parent and child be in the same Covenant then if that Covenant pardon and adopt the Parent it doth pardon and adopt the child But the Parent and child are in the same Covenant Therefore c. God hath but one Covenant on his part which is sealed by baptism as I have proved at large to Mr. Blake Indeed some are only externally in Covenant with him on their part that is they did covenant only with the tongue and not the heart And consequently God is no further in covenant with them than to allow and command his Ministers to receive them into the Visible Church and give them its priviledges and is not as a Promiser in Covenant with them at all himself either for inward or for outward blessings He hath not one Covenant which giveth outward and another which giveth inward blessings And it is here supposed that the only condition prerequisite on the Infants part that he may have right to this Covenant and its blessings is that he be the seed of a true Believer and dedicated in Covenant to God by the Parents will or act Actual Faith is not prerequired Seminal grace may be inherent but 1. Not known to the Baptizer 2. Nor prerequired as a condition but liker to be given by vertue of the Covenant Nothing else therefore being prerequisite as a condition it followeth that as the Parents dedicating themselves to God if baptized at age is the condition of their certain title to the present blessings of the Covenant viz. that God be their Father Christ their Saviour and the Spirit in Covenant to operate in them to sanctification and their sins are all pardoned and they are heirs of Heaven even so upon the Parents dedication of their children to God they have right to the same blessings else why do we baptize them seeing Baptism in the true nature and use of it is a solemn dedicating them to God in that same Covenant and a solemn investing them in the relations and rights of that same pardoning Covenant and not in any other I do not say that all baptized Infants so dying are saved be they the children of Infidels or Heathens and remaining their true propriety nor those that are offered and baptized never so wrongfully or hypocritically nor will I stay to dispute for what I have asserted But 1. I exhort Christians believingly to dedicate their children in Covenant with God in Christ And 2. To believe that if they so dye that Covenant of Christ forbiddeth them to doubt of their salvation Direct 4. Let your Duty be answerable to your hope And do not only pray for your childrens
will understand Pauls charge Phil. 2.3 4. In lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than themselves Look not every man on his own but every man also on the things of others Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus You will learn of Christ to take your neerest friend for a Satan that would perswade you to save or spare your self yea your life when you ought to lay it down for the Glory of God and the good of many Matth. 16.22 23. SELF and OWN are words which would then be better understood and be more suspected And the reason of the great Gospel duty of SELF-DENYAL would be better discerned Therefore set your selves to the study of God especially in his Goodness study him in his Works and in his Word and in his Son and in the Glory where you hope everlastingly to see him And if you once love God as God indeed it will teach you to love your Brethren and in what sort and in what degree to do it For many waies are we taught of God to love one another Even 1. By the great and heavenly teacher of Love Jesus Christ 2. And by Gods own example Matth. 5.44 45 3. And by the shedding abroad of his love in our hearts by the Spirit of Love Rom. 5.5 4. And by this actual loving God and so loving all of God in the world Object But by this doctrine you will prepare for the Levellers and Fryers to cast down or cry down Propriety Answ 1. There is a propriety of food rayment c. which individuation hath made necessary 2. There is a propriety of Stewardship which God causeth by the various disposal of his talents and which is the just reward of humane industry and the necessary encouragement of wit and labour in the world None of these would we cast down or preach down 3. But there is a common abuse of propriety to the maintenance of mens own lusts and to the hurt of others and of all Societies This we would preach down if we could But it is Love only which must be the Leveller In the Primitive Church Love shewed its power by such a voluntary community Acts 4. And all Politicians who have drawn the Idea of a perfect Common-wealth have been fumbling at other waies of accomplishing it But it is Christian Love alone that must do it Unfeignedly love God as God and love your neighbours really as your selves and then keep your proprieties as far as this will give you leave I will conclude with this considerable observation that though it is false which some affirm that individuation is a punishment for some former sin for how could a soul not individuate sin And though sensitive self-love which is the principle of self-preservation be no sin it self nor doth grace destroy it yet the inordinacy of it is the summ and root of all positive sin and an increaser of privative sin And this inseparable sensitive self-love was made to be more under the power of reason and to be ruled by it than now we find it in any the most sanctified person even as Abrahams love of the life of his only Son was to be subject to his Faith And holiness lyeth more in this subjection than most men well understand And the inordinacy of this personal self-love hath so strangely perverted the mind it self that it is not only very hard to convince men of the evil of any selfish principles or sins but it greatly blindeth them as to all duties of publick interest and social nature Yea and maketh them afraid of Heaven it self where the union of souls will be as much neerer than now it is as their Love will be greater and more perfect And though it will not be by any cessation of personal individuation and by falling into one universal soul yet perfect Love will make the union neerer than we who have no experience of it can possibly now comprehend And when we feel the strongest Love to a friend desiring the neerest union we have the best help to understand it But men that feel not the divine and holy love are by inordinate self-love and abuse of individuation afraid of the life to come lest the union should be so great as to lose their individuation or prejudice their personal divided interests Yea true believers so far as their holy Love is weak and their inordinate sensitive self-love is yet too strong are from hence afraid of another world when they scarce know why but indeed it is much from this disease which maketh men still desire their personal felicity too partially and in a divided way and to be afraid of losing their personality or propriety by too neâr a union and communion of souls CHAP. XXVI How by Faith to be followers of the Saints and to look with profit to their examples and to their end THE great work of living in Heaven by Faith I have said so much of as to the principal part in my Saints Rest that no more of that must be expected here Only this subject which is not so usually and fully treated of to the people as it it ought being one part of our heavenly conversation I think meet to speak to more distinctly at this time As we are commanded first to look to Jesus the Author and perfecter of our faith Heb. 12.2 3. so are we commanded to remember our guides and to follow their faith and consider the end of their conversation Heb. 13.7 And not to be slothful but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises Heb. 6.12 To which end we have a cloud of witnesses set before us in Heb. 11. that next to Jesus whom they followed we should look to them and follow them Jam. 5.10 My Brethren take the Prophets for an example The Reasons of this duty are these 1. God hath made them our examples two waies 1. By his graces making them holy and fit for our imitation He gave them their gifts not only for themselves nor only for that present generation but for us also and all that must survive to the end of the world As it is said of Abrahams Justification Rom. 4.23 24. It was said that Faith was imputed to him for righteousness not for his sake alone but for us also to whom it shall be imputed if we believe So I may say in this case their faith their piety their patience was given them and is recorded not for their salvation or their honour only but also to further the salvation of their posterity by encouragement and imitation If all things are for our sakes 2 Cor. 4.15 then the graces of Gods Saints were for our sakes For the Churches edification it is that Christ giveth both offices gifts and graces to his Ministers Ephes 4.5 12 14 15 16. yea and sufferings too Phil. 1.12 20. 2 Cor. 1.4 6. 2 Tim. 2.10 I endure all things for the elects sake 2. By commanding us to follow
those in Heaven you will quite misunderstand the providences of God in the prosperity of the wicked and the sufferings of the Saints and the changes that are usually made on Earth You will begin to think that sin is safe and the wicked are not so miserable as they are nor godly diligence so profitable a thing you will not know the reasons of providence unless you can see unto the end And the ultimate end is not on Earth But go into the Sanctuary and take the prospective of the promise and look to the blessed souls with Christ and all the riddle will be expounded to you and you will be reconciled to all the providences of God You are strange to truth if you are strange to the triumphing Saints in Heaven 8. The progressive nature of your faith and godliness requireth it You are travelling to Heaven where the blessed are and are nearer to them than when you first believed And the nearer you are to them the more you should mind them and by Faith and Love be familiar with them And when you are almost at home you should be even ready to embrace your friends at the meeting 9. Your Relation to the blessed Spirits doth require it and your Christian and ingenuous disposition towards them 1. Are they not such as were latety near you in the flesh some of them your dearest companions and friends and should you causlesly forget them 2. Are they not not now your friends who love you better than they could do on earth Doubtless their knowledge and memory is not grown less to forget you if once they knew you but they are like to know much more And their Goodness being increased their Love is increased and not diminished 3. And you belong to the same Society with them even to the Body or Church of Christ whose nobler part above and inferiour part on Earth do make up the whole Is it not expresly said Heb. 12.22 23. that we are come unto Mount Zion and unto the City of the Living God the heavenly Jerusalem and to an innumerable company of Angels and to the general Assembly and Church of the first born which are written in Heaven that is to those which as the first born are most noble and possessed of the heavenly inheritance and are there entered inhabitants already And to God the Judge of all and to the spirits of just men made perfect and to Jesus the Mediatour of the New Covenant c. And what is it to come to them but to come or be joyned to that Society of which they are the nobler part Will you be Fellow-Citizens with them and have no communion with them nor seriously remember them How can you remember God himself and not remember those that are his Courtiers and nearer to him than you are And how can you think of Christ and not think of his Body Or how can you think of his Body and forget the most excellent and honourable parts Or how can you remember your selves and forget your chiefest Friends and Lovers 10. The very nature of the Life of Faith requireth us to look much to the departed Saints The Life of Faith consisteth in our conversing with the things unseen as the life of sight or sense is our conversing with things seen If you love and think on none of the Saints but those that are within your sight you live so far but as by sight Though Faith live not upon Saints properly but on God and our Redeemer yet it liveth and converseth with the Saints If it work aright it will as it were set you among them and make you live on Earth as if you heard their songs of praise and saw their Thrones of Glory 11. The present necessities of your condition in this world do require you to look much to the Saints above as is before shewed in the benefits recited We live here among such persons and things as are objects of continual sorrow to us And have we not need of some more comfortable company If you had nothing at home but chiding and discontent and poverty you will be willing of so much recreation as to be invited to feast sometimes where there is plenty pleasure and content If you lived among groaning sick or melancholy persons in an Hospital you would be glad sometimes of merryer company a little to refresh your minds Alas what a deal of sin do we daily see or hear of and what a deal of sorrow is round about us What are our News-books filled with or the daily reports which come to our ears but sin and sorrow vanity and vexation what is the employment of most of the world what is it that Court and Country City and all Societies ring of but vanity and vexation sin and sorrow And is not a walk in Heaven with better company a pleasure desirable in such a case What grief must needs dwell on the minds of sober Catholick Christians to see the Church on earth so torn so worryed so reproached as it is throughout the earth so torn in pieces by its zealous ignorant self-conceited Pastors and Members so worryed by its open and secret enemies even by the usurping tyrannizing Wolves in Sheeps cloathing who spare not the flock Matth. 7.15 10.16 Acts 20.29 so reproached by the world of Infidels and Heathens who fly from it as from an infected City and say Christians are drunkards and deceivers and lyars they are all in pieces among themselves they revile and persecute one another we will therefore be no Christians How sad is it to see the one part of the world professing Christianity to make it odious by their wickedness and their divisions and the rest of the world abhorring it because these have made it seem odious to them How sad is it to hear all Christians speak of love and Concord Unity and Peace while few of them know the way of Peace or how to hold their own hands from tearing the Church into more pieces while these peaceable words are in their mouths To see the Pastors and People as if it were for Unity and Peace contriving the ruine of all that are not of their Party and Way and studying how to extirpate one another and multiplyjng snares and stumbling blocks as necessary means to heal the Church How sad is it to see so great a faction as the Roman Kingdom for it is more properly a Kingdom than a Church to lay the necessary Vnity and Communion of all the Churches upon so many forgeries of their own upon the supposed certainty of the falseness of all mens senses in the point of Transubstantiation and upon the subjection of the Church to an universal usurpes and to keep up ignorance lest knowledge by reading the translated Scriptures and such Books as do detect their frauds should mart their markets and spoil their trade To see their Prelates take their own domination wealth and greatness to be really the prosperity of the Church and
of the soul in God and the highest praises and thanksgivings with the readiest and chearfullest obedience And what kind of Religious performances are most excellent which we must principally intend Groans and tears and penitent confessions and moans are very suitable to our present state while we have sin and suffering But surely they are duties of the lower rank For Heaven more aboundeth with praises and thanksgiving and therefore we must labour to be fitter for them and more abundant in them not casting off any needful humiliations and penitent complaints but growing as fast as we can above the necessity of them by conquering the sin which is the cause So ask what is it that would make the Church on Earth to be likest to that part which is in Heaven Is it striving what Pastors shall be greatest or have precedency or be called gracious Lords or Benefactors Luke 22.24 25 26. 1 Pet. 5.3 4 5. Or is it in making the flock of Christ to dread the secular power of the Shepherds and tremble before them as they do before the Wolf Or is it in a proud conceit of the peoples power to ordain their Pastors and to rule them and themselves by a major vote Or in a supercilious condemning the members of Christ and a proud contempt of others as too unholy for our communion when we never had authority to try or judge them Is it in the multitude of Sects and divisions every one saying Our party and our way is best Surely all this is unlike to Heaven It is rather in the Wisdom and Holiness and Vnity of all the members When they all know God especially in his Love and Goodness and when they fervently love him and chearfully and universally obey him and when they love each other fervently and with a pure heart and without divisions do hold the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace and with one heart and mind and mouth do glorifie God and our Redeemer Leaving that Church-Judgment to the Pastors which Christ hath put into their hands and leaving Gods part of Judgment unto himself This is to be like to our heavenly exemplar and to do Gods Will on Earth as it is done in Heaven Ephes 4.2 3 4 11 12 16. 9. And we must also look back to the examples of their lives while they were on earth and see wherein they are to be imitated as the imitators of Jesus Christ which way went they to Heaven before us 10. Lastly We must give God thanks on their behalf for making them so perfect and bringing them so near him and saving them from sin and Satan and the world and bringing them safe to Heaven through so many temptations difficulties and sufferings For making them such instruments of his glory in their times and shewing his glory upon them and to them in the Heavens For making them such blessings to the world in their generations and for giving us in them such patterns of faith obedience and patience and making them so great encouragements to us who may the more boldly follow them in faith duty and sufferings who have conquered all and sped so well For shewing us by faith their present state of glory with Christ for our confirmation and consolation Thus far in all these ten particulars we must have a heavenly conversation with the glorified by Faith Direct 8. Consider next wherein your imitation of the example of their lives on earth consisteth And it is 1. Not in committing any of their sins nor indulging any such weaknesses in our selves as any of them were guilty of 2. Nor in extenuating a sin or thinking ever the better of it because it was theirs 3. Nor in doing as they did in exempted cases wherein their Law and ours differed as in the marriage of Adams children in the Jews Polygamy c. 4. Nor in imitating them in things indifferent or accidental that were never intended for imitation nor done as morally good or evil 5. Nor in pretending to or expecting of their extraordinary Revelations Inspirations or Miracles 6. Nor in pretending the high attainments of the more excellent to be the necessary measure of all that shall be saved or the Rule of our Church-Communion Our imitation of them consisteth in no such things as these But it consisteth in these 1. That you fix upon the same ultimate Ends as they did That you aim at the same Glory of God and chuse the same everlasting felicity 2. That you chuse the same Guide and Captain of your salvation the same Mediator between God and man the same Teacher and Ruler of the Church and the same sacrifice for sin and Intercessor with the Father 3. That you believe the same Gospel and build upon the same Promises and live by the same Rule the Word of God 4. That you obey the same Spirit and trust to the same Sanctifier and Comforter and Illuminater to illuminate sanctifie and comfort your souls 5. That you exercise all the same graces of Faith Hope Love Repentance Obedience Patience as they did 6. That you live upon the same Truths and be moved by the same Motives as they lived upon and were moved by 7. That you avoid the same sins as they avoided and see what they feared and fled from and made conscience of that you may do the same 8. That you chuse and use the same kind of company helps and means of grace so far as yours and theirs are the same as they have done And think not to find a nearer or another way to that state of happiness which they are come âo Phil. 3.16 Walk by the same Rule and mind the same things and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded God shall reveal even this unto you If any preach another Gospel let him be accursed Gal. 1.7 8. Mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which you have learned and avoid them Rom. 16.17 Heb. 6.11 We desire that every one of you do shew the same diligence to the full assurance of hope to the end that you be not slothful but followers of them c. 9. That you avoid resist and overcome the same temptations as they did who now are crowned 10. That you bear the same cross and exercise the same faith and hope and patience unto the end 1 Pet. 4.1 Arm your selves with the same mind c. In brief this is the true imitation of the Saints Direct 9. Never suffer your life of sense to engage you so deeply in sensible converse with men on earth as to forget your heavenly relations and society but live as men that unfeignedly believe that you have a more high and noble converse every day to mind If you are Believers indeed let your faith go along with the souls of your departed friends into glory And if you have forgot them by an unfriendly negligence renew your acquaintance with them Think not that those only that live on earth are fit for our
converse and our comfort Will you converse with none but ignorant selfish worldly sinners Are you more contemptuous of the heavenly inhabitants than the Gentleman in hell torments was Luke 16.26 27. that thought one from the dead though it had been but a beggar would have been reverenced even by his sensual brethren on earth so far as to have perswaded them unto saving Repentance I tell you a dead mans skull is oft-times a more profitable companion than most that you shall converse with in the common world The dust of your departed friends and the clay that corps are turned into is a good medicine for those eyes that are blinded with the dust of worldly vanities Much more should you keep your acquaintance with the soul which may for all the distance be perhaps more useful to you than it was in the flesh Alas how carnally and coldly or seldom do most Professors look at their Brethren and at the Angelical hosts that are above They long for our conversion and mind our great concernments and rejoyce in our felicity and shall we be so swinishly ungrateful as seldom to look up and remember their high and blessed state Many think that they have no more business with their deceased friends than to see them decently interred and to mourn over them as if their removal were their loss or to grieve for our own loss when we perceive their places empty but we scarce look up after them with an eye of faith much less do we daily maintain our communion with them in Heaven When Christ was taken up his Disciples gazed after him Act. 1.10 Stephen looked up stedfastly into Heaven and saw Christ sitting at the right hand of God Acts 7.55 And how seldome how slightly do we look up either to Jesus his Angels or his Saints I tell you Sirs you have not done with your friends when you have buryed their flesh They have left you their holy examples They are entered before you into rest You are hastening after them and must be quickly with them if you are true Believers You must see them every day by faith When you look to Christ you must look to them as his beloved friends entertained by him in his family of glory When you look up to Heaven remember that they are there When you think of coming thither remember that you must there meet them You must honour their memories more than you did on earth because they are more honourable being more honoured of God You must love them better than you did when they were on earth because they are better and so more lovely You must rejoyce much more for their felicity than you did whilest they were on earth because they are incomparably more happy than they were Either you believe this or you do not If you do not believe that the dead are blessed that die in the Lord and rest from their labours and are with Christ in Paradise why do you seem Christians If you do believe it why do you not more rejoyce with your glorified friends than you would have done if they had been advanced to the greatest honours in the world It is the natural duty of friends to mourn with them that mourn and to rejoyce with them that rejoyce and if one member be honoured or dishonoured the rest of the body are accordingly affected Do not your sorrows then instead of joyes tell all men that you believe that your friends are gone to sorrow and not to joy If not you are very selfish or inconsiderate Direct 10. Lastly Let not your aversation to Popery turn to a factiâus partial forsaking of Gods Truth and your own duty and consolation in this point Abundance of Christians have taken up opinions in Religion upon the love and honour of the parties that they took them of and being possessed with a just dislike of Popery in the main they suspect and cast away not a few great truths and duties upon a false information that they are parts of Popery It hath grieved ãâ¦ã âhan once to hear religious persons come from heariâg ãâã Ministers with disdain and censure saying that they prayed for the dead and all their proof was that Thanksgiving is a part of prayer but they gave God thanks for the glorification of the spirits of the Just therefore they prayed for them And so have they argued because they have read the 1 Cor. 15. at the grave or because they have preached a Funeral Sermon while the Corpse was present or because they prayed then for themselves or for the Church Alas for the childish ignorance and pievishness and foolish wranglings of many Christians who think they are better than their neighbours How much is Christs family dishonoured by his silly froward children And they will not be instructed by their friends and therefore they are posted up and openly reproached by their enemies Have Angels or heavenly Saints deserved so ill of God or us that we should be so shy of their communion Are they nothing to us Have we nothing to do with them Have we cause to be ashamed of them Is their honour any dishonour to God or us if it be no more than what is their due Can we give so much love respect and honour to Magistrates Ministers and Friends on earth imperfect sinful troublesome mortals and shall we think that all is idolatrous or cast away which is given to them that so far excel us Is it your design to make Heaven either contemptible or strange to men on earth Or would you perswade the world that the souls of the Saints are not immortal but perish as the bruits Or that there is no Heaven Or that God is there alone without any company Are so many fond of the opinion of a Personal Reign on Earth for Christ with his holy ones and yet is it Popery so much as to speak honourably and joyfully of the Saints in Heaven My Brethren these things declare you yet to be too dark too factious and too carnal and to hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ with respect to parties sides and persons Christ taketh not his Saints as strangers to him He that judgeth men as they love and use him in the least of his Brethren upon Earth will not so soon censure and quarrel with us as the Sectary will do for loving and honouring him in his Saints in Heaven for it is his will and prayer that they be with him where he is to behold his glory John 12.26 17.24 And he will come with his holy Angels to be glorified in his Saints who shall judge the world and Angels and to be admired in all them that do now believe 2 Thes 1.10 11 12. CHAP. XXVII How to receive the Sentence of Death and how to die by Faith HAving said so much of this elsewhere in my Books called A Believers last work The last Enemy My Christian Directory Treatise of Self-denyal c. I shall be here but