can be the same numerical body with that which did walk upon the earth It is enough for me to know that it is sown in dishonour 1 Cor. 15.43 and shall be raised in glory and my business is to rise with Christ here and make good my part in this first Resurrection for then I am secure and need not to extend my thoughts to the end of the world to survey and comprehend the second To add one instance more in the point of Justification of a sinner in which after sixteen hundred years preaching of the Gospel and more we do not well agree and yet might well agree if we would take it as the Scripture hath reacht it forth and not burthen it with our own phansies and speculations with new conclusions forced out of the light to obscure and darken it For when this burden is upon it it must needs weigh according as the hand is that poiseth it And what necessity is there to ask Whether it consist in one or more acts so I do assure my self that it is the greatest blessing that God ever let fall upon the children of men or Whether it be perfected in the pardoning of our sins or the imputation of universal obedience or by the active and passive obedience of Christ when it is plain that the act of Justification is the act of the Judge and this cannot so much concern us as the benefit it self which is the greatest that can be given I am sure not so much as the duty which must fit us for the act It were to be wisht that men would speak of the acts of God in his own language and not seek out divers inventions which do not edifie but many times shake and rend the Church in pieces and lay the Truth it self open to reproch which had triumphed gloriously over Errour had men contended not for their own inferences and deductions Jude 3. but for that common faith which was once delivered to the Saints And as in Justification so in the point of Faith by which we are justified what Profit is it busily to enquire Whether the nature of Faith consisteth in an obsequious assent or in appropriating to our selves the grace and mercy of God or in the mere fiducial apprehension and application of the merits of Christ Whether it be an instrument or a condition Whether a living Faith justifieth or whether it justifieth as a living Faith What will this add to me what hair to my stature when I may settle and rest upon this which every eye must needs see That the Faith by which I am justified must not be a dead faith but a Faith working by Charity which is the language of Faith and demonstrateth her to be alive My sheep hear my voice saith Christ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gal. 5.6 saith Basil They hear and obey and never dispute or ask questions Joh. 10.27 they taste and not trouble and mud that clear water of life It is enough for us to be justified it is enough for us to be saved which we may be by pressing forward in the way which is smooth and plain and not running out into the mazes and labyrinths of disputes where we too oft lose our selves in our search and dispute away our Faith talk of Faith and the power of it and be worse then infidels of Justification and please our selves in unrighteousness of Christs active Obedience and be to every good Work reprobate Tit. 1.16 of his passive Obedience and deny him when we should suffer for him of the inconsistency of Faith and Good works in our Justification and set them at as great a distance in our lives and conversations and because they do not help to justifie us think they have no concurrence at all in the work of our salvation For we are well assured of the one and contend for it and too many are too confident of the other There is indeed a kind of intemperance in most of us a wild and irregular desire to make things more or less then they are and remove them well near out of sight by our additions and defalcations and few there are who can be content with the Truth and settle and rest in it as it appeareth in that nakedness and simplicity in which it was first brought forth but men are ever drawing out conclusions of their own spinning out and weaving speculations thin unsuitable unfit to be worn which yet they glory in and defend with more heat and animosity then they do that Truth which is necessary and by it self sufficient without this additional art For these are creatures of our own shaped out in our phansie and so drest up by us with all accurateness and curiosity of diligence that we fall at last in love with them and apply our selves to them with that closeness and adherency which dulleth and taketh off the edge of our affection to that which is most necessary and so leaveth that neglected and last in our thoughts which is the main Val. Max. 8. 11. As we read of Euphranor the painter who having stretcht his phansie and spent the force of his imagination in drawing Neptune to the life could not raise his after and wearied thoughts to the setting forth the majesty of Jupiter So when we are so lively and overactive in that which is either impertinent or not so considerable not much material to that which is indeed most material we commonly dream or are rather dead to those performances which the wisdome of God hath bound us to as the fittest and most proportioned to that end for which we were made And these I conceive are most necessary which are necessary to the work we have to do and will infallibly bring us to the end of our faith and hopes Others which our wits have hammered and wrought out of them may be peradventure of some use to those who are watchful over them to keep them in a pliableness and subserviency to that which is plain and received of all but may prove dangerous and fatal to others who have not that skill to manage them but favour them so much as to give them line and sufferance to carry them beyond their limit and then shut them up in themselves where they are lost to that truth which should save them which they leave behind them out of their eye and remembrance whilest they are busie in the pursuit of that which they overtake with danger and without which the Apostles of Christ and many thousands before them have attained their end and are now in bliss Certainly it would be more safe for us and more worthy our calling to be diligent and sincere in that which is plainly revealed to believe and in the strength and power of that Faith to crucifie our flesh with the affections and lusts Hoc opus Gal. 5.24 hic labor est then to be drawing out of Schemes and measuring out the actions and operations of God
give him so much power as to think there is nothing in our selves and because he can bear all the burthen not to touch it with one of our fingers For this is to defeat his Will of its end and his Power of its operation and as much as in us lieth to bury the Resurrection it self To conclude this Behold the Lord shall descend with a shout and with the voice of the Archangel and with the trump of God and the dead bodies shall arise And this is the Resurrection of the body And behold he descendeth with a shout with his own voice with the trump of God which is his Gospel he descendeth and knocketh and is willing to enter the heart of Man though it be but a sepulchre of rotten bones And they that hear his voice do come forth and walk in newness of life And this is the first Resurrection But it is too plain every man doth not hear Christ's voice and the power of his Resurrection is still the same For here something is required at our hands something we are to do our selves And though all supply be from him and we have nothing which we have not received yet he is pleased to take it as our contribution In this he doth not love to be alone For what is an Object without an Act What is the beauty of the firmament if there were no eye to discover it Therefore if we will have Christ anoint us or his Resurrection powerfully to raise us we must with S. Paul learn to forget all other things and stretch our selves towards him and earnestly study to know him and the power of his Resurrection Which is next to be considered That I may know him and the power of his resurrection We cannot take in all and therefore will conclude with this That I may know him Why who knoweth him not They that blaspheme him know him they that betray him know him they know him that persecute and crucifie him in his members every day they that make use of his name not to cast out Devils but to be so the accusers and destroyers of their brethren who make use of the name of a Saviour to pluck up and root out even those that know him and his resurrection And if to know him be all then with Hymenaeus and Philetus we may say the resurrection is past already all graves are open and not onely many Saints but even Devils themselves are risen But we must remember that in Scripture works of knowledge imply the Affections and Knowledge is commonly linked and joyned with its end If a man say he knoweth him 1 John 2.4 and keepeth not his commandments he is a liar He that shall say he knoweth Christ that he receiveth and embraceth his doctrine that he loveth him and is his disciple and yet keepeth not his commandments which is the onely argument of Love the best approbation of his Doctrine and the true badge and mark of a Disciple is a liar and he that saith he knoweth the power of his resurrection and is not risen from the dead is a liar and the truth is not in him For how can he at once embrace his doctrine and reject it love Christ and yet despise him be a disciple and betray him And what a soloecism is the power of the Resurrection in his mouth who loveth his grave and will not be raised up It is not speculative but practick knowledge that the Apostle here studieth For that knowledge which endeth in it self is worse then Ignorance because Ignorance may somewhat mitigate and lessen our neglect but Knowledge profest Knowledge doth enlarge the bill and hand writing which is against us and draweth it out in more bloudy and killing characters then before This Knowledge is not here meant For 1. This speculative Knowledge is a naked assent and no more and hath nothing in it of the Will For the Understanding is not an arbitrary but a necessary faculty and cannot but apprehend things in that shape and form they represent themselves in And therefore towards our Resurrection there is required something of the Seraphim and something of the Cherubim Heat as well as Light and Love as well as Knowledge For Love is active and will remove every stone and difficulty when speculative Knowledge and idle Faith may leave us in our graves onely looking upwards but bound hand and foot Love will make a battery and forcible entrance into heaven whilest Speculation standeth without and looketh upon it as in a map For Speculation is but a look a cast of the eye of the Understanding and no more and doth but place us as God did Moses on mount Nebo to see that spiritual Canaan which we shall never enjoy And then what comfort is it to know what Justification is and want the hand of a lively Faith to lay â—old on Christ what Sanctification is and yet to stand it out and resist the blessed Spirit to read and believe it too that a good conscience is a continual feast and not to taste of one of her dainties to dispute of Paradise and have no title to it to know Christ and not savour of his oyntment and the power of his resurrection and be more unremoveable then a rock more unrecoverable then they who have been dead long ago and are in a manner to be restored out of Nothing And what a fruitless Knowledge is that which can speak largely of God's Grace and resist it of Perseverance and fall more then seven times a day This is not true Knowledge but a bare assent and so far from being injoyned in Scripture that in respect of it Ignorance may seem the safer choice and rather then thus onely to know we may say with the Apostle Let them that be ignorant be ignorant still For 2. This bare naked Knowledge doth work in us at the most but a weak purpose of mind a faint velleity a forced and unvoluntary approbation For who can see such a sight and not in some degree be taken Who can see the glory of his Resurrection and not be moved Who can look upon the Temple and not ask What buildings are these Who can see the way to life and not approve it Christ is the way and Christ is risen that we might rise from sin We know it and confess it But if this would raise us up what a multitude of Sectaries what a herd of Epicures what an assembly of Pharisees what a congregation of fools I had almost said what a Legion of Devils were already risen with him We know Christ we talk of nothing more In our misery we implore his help In his name we lie down and in his name we rise up In his name we cast out Devils When affliction beateh upon us he charmeth the storm when our conscience chideth us he maketh our peace In adversity in distress in the tempest of a torn and distracted soul he is all in all We talk of him we feed on
in the Gospel as it were with the Sun-beams S. Paul giveth it this character that it is profitable that is 2 Tim. 3.16 17. sufficient for doctrine which is either of things to be believed or of things to be done for reproof of greater and more monstrous crimes for correction of those who fall by weakness or infirmity for instruction in righteousness that those who have begun well may grow up in grace and every vertuous work that the man of God may be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 perfect and consummate throughly furnished unto all good works Take him in what capacity you please there in the Scripture in the New Testament especially yea and in that alone he may find what will fill and qualifie him and fit him in every state and condition Take him in the worst condition as an unbeliever there is that will beget faith and form Christ in him as wavering in the faith there is that will confirm him as believing and fallen into errour or sin there is that will restore him as rooted and built up in Christ there is that will settle and establish him as under the cross there is that will strengthen him as crowned with peace there is that will crown that crown and settle it on his head as in health there is that will make him run the wayes of God's commandments as in sickness there is that will tune his grones and quicken him even when he is giving up the ghost as a King there is that which will manage his sceptre as a Subject there he may learn to bow Take him as a Master or a Servant as Rich or Poor as in prison or at liberty living or dying there he shall find what is necessary for him in that condition of life even to the last moment and period of it and not onely that which is necessary but under that formality as necessary so fitted and proportioned to the end that without it we can never attain it They that lay hold of it shall have peace with God and they who despise it shall have a worm ever gnawing them These shall go away saith our Saviour into everlasting punishment but the righteous who look into this perfect Law into life eternal Will you behold the Object of your Faith There you shall see not onely a picture of Christ but Christ even crucified as S. Paul speaketh to the Galatians before your eyes Will you behold that Faith which shall save you There you shall behold both what she is and what wonders she can work Have you so little Charity as not to know what she is There you may see her in every limb and lineament in every act and operation which is proper to her her Hand her Ear her Eye her Bowels There you may see what is worth your sight Et quod à Deo discitur totum est We can learn no more then God will teach us When we affect more and pour forth all the lust of our curiosity to find it out we at last shall be weary and sit down and complain that we have lost our labour For thus Curiosity which is a busie Idleness punisheth it self as a frantick person is punished with his madness Quicquid nos beatos facturum est aut in aperto est saith Seneca aut in proximo Whatsoever can make us happy is either open to the eye or near at hand We will instance but in one and that the main point Justification because the Church of Rome hath set it in the front of those points of doctrine which are imperfectly or obscurely delivered in the Gospel and therefore require a visible and supreme Judge of controversies to settle and determine them It is true indeed The Gospel hath been preached these sixteen hundred years and above and many questions have been started and many controversies raised about Justification For though men have been willing to go under the name of Justified persons yet have they been busie to enquire how Justification is wrought in them They are justified they know not how Many and divers opinions have been broached amongst the Canonists and Confessionists and others Osiander nameth twenty And there are many more at this day And yet all may consist well enough for ought I see and still that sense which is delivered in Scripture as necessary remain entire For 1. it is necessary to believe that no man can be justified by the works of the Law precisely taken And in this all agree 2. It is necessary to believe that we are not justified by the Law of Moses either by it self or joyned with Faith in Christ And in this all agree 3. It is necessary to believe that Justification is by Faith in Christ And in this all agree 4. That Justification is not without Remission of sins and Imputation of righteousness And in this all agree 5. That a Dead Faith doth not justifie And here is no difference 6. That that is a Dead faith which is not accompanied with Good works and a holy and serious purpose of good life And in this all agree 7. Lastly that faith in Christ Jesus implieth an advised and deliberate assent that Christ is our Prophet and Priest and King Our Prophet who hath fully delivered the will of his Father to us in his Gospel the knowledge of all his precepts and promises Our Priest to free us from the guilt of sin and condemnation of death by his bloud and intercession Our King and Law-giver governing us by his Word and Spirit by the vertue and power of which we shall be redeemed from death and translated into the Kingdom of heaven And in this all agree Da si quid ultrà est And is there yet any more All this which is necessary is plainly delivered in the Gospel And what is more is but a vapour from Curiosity which when there is a wide door and effectual is ever venturing at the needles eye This is so plain that no man stumbleth at it But those interpretations and comments and explications which have been made upon this nihil ampliùs quà m sonant make a noise but no Musick at all nec animum faciunt quia non habent nor can they add spirit to us in the way to bliss because they have none And as we find them not in the Scripture so have we no reason to list them amongst those doctrines which are necessary As to instance for the act of Justification what mattereth it whether I believe or not believe know or not know that our Justification doth consist in one or more acts so that I certainly know and believe that it is the greatest blessing that God can let fall upon his creature and believe that by it I am made acceptable in his sight and though I have broke the Law yet shall be dealt with as if I had been just and righteous indeed whether it be done by pardoning all my sins or imputing universal obedience to me or the active
and passive obedience of Christ The act of Justification is the act of a Judge and this cannot concern us so much as the benefit it self which is the greatest that can be given not so much as our duty to fit us for the act Oh that men would learn to speak of the acts of God in his own language and not seek out divers inventions which do not edifie but many times rend the Church in pieces and expose the truth it self to reproch which had triumphed gloriously over Errour had men contended only for that common faith which was once delivered to the Saints My sheep hear my voice saith Christ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Basil They hear and obey and do not dispute and ask questions They taste not trouble and mud that clear fountain of the water of life And as in Justification so in the point of Faith by which we are justified What profit is there so busily to enquire whether the nature of Faith consisteth in an obsequious assent or in the appropriation of the grace and mercy of God or in a meer fiducial apprehension and application of the merits of Christ What will this add to me what cubit what hair to my stature if so be I settle and rest upon this that the Faith by which I am justified must not be a dead faith but a faith working by charity Oh let me try and examine my Faith let me build my self up in it and upon it those actions of Obedience and Holiness which are the language of Faith and speak her to be alive and then I shall not trouble my self too much to determine utrùm fides quae viva or quà viva Whether a living Faith justifieth or whether it justifieth as a living Faith Whether Good works are necessary to Justification as Efficient or Concomitant For it is enough to know that a dead Faith is not sufficient for this work and that Faith void of good works is dead and therefore that must needs be a living Faith which worketh by charity Whether Charity concur with Faith to the act of Justification as some would have it Whether it have an equal efficacy or unequal or none at all Whether the power of justifying be attributed to Faith as the fountain and mother of all good works or as it bringeth these good works into act or it have this force by it self alone as it apprehendeth the merits of Christ although even in that act it is not alone In the midst of all this noise in the midst of all these doubts and disputations it is enongh for me to be justified And what is enough if it be not enough to be saved Which I may be by following in the way that is smooth and plain and not running out into the mazes and labyrinths of disputes It is the voice of the Gospel behind thee HAEC EST VIA This is the way FAITH WORKING BY CHARITY and thou mayest walk in it and never ask any more questions But if men will inquire let them inquire But let them take heed that they lose not themselves in their search and dispute away their Faith talk of Faith and be worse then Infidels of Justification and please themselves in unrighteousness of Christ's active obedience and be to every good work reprobate of his Passive obedience and deny him when they should suffer for him of the inconsistency of Faith and Good works in our justification and set them at as great a distance in their lives and conversation and because they do not help to justifie us think they have no concurrence at all in the work of our salvation For we are well assured of the one and fight for it and most men are too bold and confident in the other But the doctrine of the Cospel is a perfect Law and bindeth us to both both to believe and to do for it requireth a working and an active Faith In the book of God all our members were written All our members yea and all the faculties of our soul And in his Gospel he hath framed laws and precepts to order and regulate them all in every act in every motion and inclination which if the Eye offend pluck it out if the Hand cut it off limit the Understanding to the knowledge of God bind the Will to obedience moderate and confine those two Turbulent Tribunes of the soul the Concupiscible and Irascible appetites direct our Fear level our Hope fix our Joy restrain our Sorrow condescend to order our Speech frame our Gesture fashion our Apparel set and compose our outward Behaviour Instances in Scripture in every particular are many and obvious And the time would fail me to mention them all In a word then This Law is fitted to the whole man to every faculty of the soul to every member of the body fitted to us in every condition in every relation in every motion It will reign with thee it will serve with thee It will manage thy riches comfort thy poverty ascend the throne with thee sit down with thee on the dunghil It will pray with thee fast with thee labour with thee rest and keep a Sabbath with thee It will govern a Church it will order thy family It will raise a kingdom within thee not to be divided in it self free from mutinies and seditions and those tumults and disturbances which thy flesh with its lusts and affections may raise there It will live with thee stand by thee at thy death and be that Angel which shall carry thee into Abraham's bosom It will rise again with thee and set the crown of glory upon thy head And is there yet any more Or what need there more then that which is necessary There can be but one God one Heaven one Religion one way to Blessedness and there is but one Law And this runneth the whole compass directeth us not only ad ultimum sed usque ad ultimum not only to that which is the end but to the means to every passage and approch to every help and advantage towards it leadeth us through the manifold changes and chances of this world through fire and water through honour and dishonour through peace and persecution and uniteth us to that one God giveth us right and title to that one heaven and bringeth us home to that one end for which we were made And is there yet any more Yes Particular cases may be so many and various that they cannot all come within the compass of this Law It is true But then they are cases of our own making cases which we need not make sometimes raised by weakness sometimes by wilfulness sometimes even by that sin it self which reigneth in our mortal bodies And to such this Law is as an ax to cut them off But be their original what it will if this Law reach them not or if they bear no analogy or affinity with those cases which are contained in the Gospel nor depend upon them by any
walk in Christ And if any of these be wanting what profers soever we make what phansies soever we entertein what empty conceptions soever we foster yet flesh and bloud cannot raise it self on these wings of wind nor can we be more faid to walk then they who have been dead long ago For so far is the bare Knowledge of the way from advancing us in our Walk that it is a thing supposed and no where under the command as it is meerly speculative and endeth in it self no more then to See or Feel or Hear And so essential is this motion of Walking to a Christian that in the language of the Spirit we are never truly said to know till we walk and that is made imperfect knowledge which receiveth those things which concern our peace no otherwise then the Eye doth colours or the Ear sounds it never being once named or mentioned in the Scripture but with disgrace He that saith I know him 1 John 2.4 and keepeth not his commandments is a lyar So that to define our Walking by Knowledge and Speculation is a kind of heresy which rather deserveth an Anathema and should be drove out of the Church with more zeal and earnestness then many though gross yet silly and impertinent errours which pass abroad about the world but under that name For first the speculative Knowledge is but a naked assent and no more and hath nothing of the Will The Understanding is not an arbitrary faculty but necessarily apprehendeth objects in that shape and form they represent themselves Nor is it deceived even when it is deceived I mean in things which concern our Walk For the bill and accusation against us is not That we do not but Thatwe will not understand Nolumus intelligere nè cogamur facere saith Augustine We will not know our way for no other reason but because we are most unwilling to take the pains to walk in it Therefore in every Christian Peripatetick there must be something of the Seraphin and something of the Cherubin heat as well as light love as well as knowledge For Love is active and will pace on where Knowledge doth but stand at gaze Amor intrat ubi cognitio forìs stat Hugo de S. Vict. Matth. 11.12 Love will make a battery and forcible entrance and take the kingdome of heaven by violence whilst Speculation standeth without and looketh upon it as in a map What talk we of Knowledge and Speculation It is but a look a cast of the minds eye and no more Deut. 32.49 34.1 4. and doth but place us as God did Moses once upon mount Nebo to see that spiritual Canaan which we shall never enjoy And then what comfort is it to know what Justification is and to want that hand of a quick and active Faith which alone can lay hold on Christ to talk of Election and never make it sure to dispute of Paradise and have no title to it to speak of nothing more then Heaven and be an heir of Damnation And then what a fruitless mock-Knowledge is that which setteth God a walking whilst we sleep and dream which maketh the Master of the vineyard work and sweat and standeth idle it self all the day long which hath a full view of what God hath done before all time and no power at all to move us to do any thing in this our day when we are well seen in the Decrees of God and little move in our own Duties when we can follow God in all his wayes and tell how he worketh in us Phil. 2.12 and are afraid of that fear and trembling with which we should work out our salvation can speak largely of the power of God's Grace and resist it of Perseverance and fall more then seven times a day This Knowledge I say is but a bare assent and so far from being enjoyned us that as the case now standeth Ignorance were the safer choice and rather then thus to know him 1 Cor. 14.38 we may say with the Apostle Let him that is ignorant be ignorant still For in the second place as we use it it worketh in us at the most but a weak purpose of mind a faint velleity a forced involuntary approbation which we should shake off if we could as we do a friend which speaketh what we would not hear and calleth that poyson which is as honey to our tast For who can see such sights and not in some degree be taken with them Who can look upon the Temple and not ask What buildings are these Mark 13.1 Who can see the way to life and not approve it But you know I may purpose to rise and yet fold my hands to sleep I may commend the way and not walk in it Nay how often do we pray John 6.34 27. Give us ever of this bread of life and yet labour most for this bread that perisheth which we at once revile and embrace and speak evil of it because we love it when Heaven is but as a picture which we look upon and wonder and refuse and hath no better place of reception then that common inne of all wild and loose imaginations the Phansie Christ is the way John 14.6 is in every mans Creed And if this would make us Walkers what a multitude of Sectaries what a herd of Epicures what an assembly of Atheists what a congregation of fools I had almost said what a Legion of Devils might go under that name For even the Devils themselves have acknowledged Christ and this way is not evil spoken of nay it is magnified of them who had rather wallow in the mire then walk in it How is Christ made not onely panis quotidianus our daily bread but sermo quotidianus the talk of every day and hour In our misery we implore his help In his Name we lie down and in his Name we rise up In his Name we prophesy If afflictions beat upon us he is called upon to calm the storm If our conscience chide us we have learnt an unhappy art and skill to force him in to make our peace We love to talk of him We many times leave our necessary callings and trades most unnecessarily but to hear of him But all these may be rather profers then motions rather pleasing and flattering thoughts then painful ambulations as S. Augustine speaketh of himself in his Confessions cogitationes similes conatibus expergisci volentium L. 8. c. 5. thoughts like to the endeavours of men half asleep who would be awaked and cannot who move and stir and lightly lift up the head and then fall down fast asleep I have been too liberal and given them more strength then they have I mean then these Gnosticks give them whom they neither move nor stir but leave them in their prospect fast asleep Or at the best in the third place this inclination this approbation is but a dream Virg. Aen. 2. Visus adesse mihi
for the breach of the Law For let it once be granted what cannot be denied that we are all 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 guilty and culpable before God that all have sinned Rom. 3.19 and are come short of the glory of God then all that noise the Church of Rome hath filled the world with concerning Merits and Satisfaction and inherent Righteousness will vanish as a mist before the Sun and Justification and Remission of sins will appear in its brightness in that form and shape in which Christ first left it to his Church Bring in Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the Patriarchs and Prophets and Apostles and deck them with all those vertues which made them glorious but yet they sinned Bring in the noble army of Martyrs who shed their bloud for Christ but yet they sinned They were stoned they were sawen asunder they were slain with the sword but yet they sinned and he that sinneth is presently the servant of sin obnoxious to it for ever and cannot be redeemed by his own bloud because he sinned but by the bloud of him in whom there was no sin to be found JUSTIFICATIO IMPII This one form of speech of justifying a sinner doth plainly exclude the Law and the works of it and may serve as an axe or hammer to beat down all their carved work and those Anticks which are fastned to the building which may perhaps take a wandering or gadding phansie but will never enter the heart of a man of understanding We do not find that beauty in their forced and artificial inventions that we do in the simple and native Truth neither are those effects which are as radiations and resultances from Forgiveness of sins so visible in their Justification by Faith and Works as in that free Remission which is by Faith alone The urging of our Merits is of no force to make our peace with God They may indeed make us gracious in his eyes after Remission but have as much power to remove our sins as our breath hath to remove a mountain or put out the fire of hell For every sin is as Seneca speaketh of that of Alexander's in killing Callisthenes crimen aeternum an eternal crime which no vertue of our own can redeem As often as any man shall say He slew many thousands of Persians it will be replied He did so but he killed Callisthenes also He slew Darius but he slew Callisthenes too And as often as we shall swell our minds and fill them with the conceit of our good deeds our Conscience will reply But we have sinned Let me adde my Passions to my Actions my Imprisonment to my Alms let me suffer for Christ let me dye for Christ But yet I have sinned Let us outgo all the ancient examples of piety and sanctity But yet we have sinned And none of all our acts can make so much for our glory and comfort as our sin doth for our reproch Our sins may obscure and darken our vertues but our vertues cannot abolish our sins For what peace so long as the whoredoms of thy mother Jezebel as our sins be so many Ot what ease can a myriad of vertues do him who is under arrest under a curse who if Mercy come not in between is condemned already And therefore we may observe those Justitiaries who will not build upon Remission or Not-imputation of sins how their complexion altereth how their colour goeth and cometh how they are not the same men in their Controversies and Commentaries that they are in their Devotions and Meditations Nothing but Merit in their ruff and jollity and nothing but Mercy on their death-beds nothing but the bloud of Martyrs then and nothing but Christ's now nothing but their own Satisfaction all their lives and nothing but Christ's at their last gasp Before magìs honorificum it was more honourable to bring in something of our own towards the Forgiveness of our sins but now for the uncertainty of our own Righteousness which were no whit available to a guilty person if it were certain because there is no harbour here Christ's Righteousness is called in with a Tutissimum est as the best shelter And here they will abide till the storm be over-past To conclude then Remission of sins hath no relation or dependence on any thing which is in man is not drawn on or furthered by any merit of ours but is an act of the Mercy and Providence of God by which he is pleased to restore us to his favour who were under his wrath to count us righteous who were guilty of death and in Christ to reconcile us unto himself and though he have a record of our sin yet not to use it as an indictment against us but so to deal with us as if his book were rased and so to look upon us as if we had not sinned at all Et merebimur admitti jam exclusi And we who were formerly shut out for our sin shall be led into the land of the living by a merciful and perfect and all-sufficient Mediatour It is his Mercy alone that must save us This is as the Sanctuary to the Legal offendor This is as mount Ararat to Noah's tossed Ark as Noah's hand to his weary Dove as Ahasuerus his golden sceptre to the humble penitent Come then put on your royal apparel your wedding garment and touch the top of it But touch it with reverence Bring not a wavering and doubtful heart an unrepented sin a rebellious thought with thee For canst thou touch this Sceprre in thy lust or anger canst thou touch it with hands full of bloud Such a bold irreverent touch will turn this Sceptre into a Sword to pierce thee through For nothing woundeth deeper then abused Mercy Behold God holdeth it forth to thee in his Word Come unto him all ye that are heavy laden and touch it and you are eased He holdeth it forth in his Sacrament first in the flesh of his Son and then in the signs and representations of it and here to touch it unworthily is to touch nay to embrace Death it self The woman in the Gospel came behind Christ and did but touch the hem of his garment and was healed Most wretched we saith the Father who touch him nay feed on him so oft in his Sacrament and our issue of bloud runneth still we are still in our sins our Pride as swelling our Malice as deadly our Appetite as keen our Love of the world as great as before and all because we do not touch it with reverence nor discern the Lord's body which must not be touched by every rude and unclean hand Wash you then make you clean and then as your Sins are pardoned so here your Pardon is sealed with the bloud of the Lamb. Here thou dost see thy ransome Onely believe and come with a heart fit to receive him The best enterteinment and welcome thou canst give him is a broken contrite and reverent heart a a heart
Israel and of England compared 422 423. J. JAmes St. James and St. Paul seem to contradict each other but do not 276. Jealousie vvhat in Man vvhat in God 381. 613. 643. Jer. xxv 18-29 299. JESUS how excellent a name 732 733. That JESUS is the Lord though Law and Custome and Education teach us yet vve cannot say it but by the holy Ghost 759 c. Many say so yet but few say it 763 764. He vvho saith it aright saith it vvith his Tongue 764. 770. with his Heart 765. 770. and vvith his Hand 766. 270 c. Oh vvhat pity and shame it is that Man should suffer the Flesh the World and the Devil to Lord it over him and not Jesus 768. Jews vvhy commanded to offer sacrifice 72. Why blamed sometimes for so doing 80. 82. They pleased themselves exceedingly in this and in other outward servics 108. v. Formality Their great privileges 418. Privileges of Christians greater then theirs 419. Many things vvere permitted to be done by the Jews vvhich are unlawful for a Christian 869. Their course of sinning 611. Jew a term of reproch 194. Job's case 292. 903. Joh. vi 63. 468. ¶ viii 36. 742. 1 Joh. ii 4. 723. ¶ 16. 280. ¶ iv 18. 398. ¶ v. 3. 112. St. John v. Charity St. John Baptist a burning and shining light 549 c. How the Jews at first admired him 553. but vvithin a vvhile disliked him 554. Joy good and bad 338. Sensitive and Rational 553. It is configured to the soul that receiveth it 860. God's Joy over us and our Joy in Him and in one another 861. Against them that rejoyce in the sins or calamities of others 862 863. Joy that ariseth from Contemplation of good is nothing to that which ariseth from Action 1125. True Joy floweth from Love 153. and from Obedience 113. 992. 1125 1126. Sorrow is vvont to go before Joy 560. Judas's repentance 336. his despair 343. Judge neither others sinners because afflicted nor thy self a Saint because prosperous 295 c. 616. We may disannul our former Judgment upon better evidence vvithout inconstancie 676 c. The Judgment of God and of the World how different 964. God's J. and Man's differ much 616. That of Men for the most part corrupt and partial 246 247. Judgment Few believe there shall be a day of Judgment 926. Though scoffers say Nay it will assuredly come 237 238. Why it is so long in coming 238. It cannot be the object of a wicked man's hope 242. 737. v. CHRIST Curious enquiry after the time of the last Judgment condemned 248 c. We ought to exspect and wait for it 250. Signes of the day of Judgment 1043 c. Judgments Of God's temporal Judgements 611. Judgments justly fall even on God's own people vvhen they sin 290. In general J. many times the good are involved vvith the evil vvithout any prejudice to God's Justice 291. Reasons to prove that point 292. A fearful thing to be under J. and not to be sensible of them 643. Judgments should fright us from sin and drive us to God 364. 800. If they vvork not that effect they are forerunners of hell-torments 365. 801. We should especially be afraid of those sins vvhich are vvont to bring general J. on a Nation 297. It is the greatest judgement not to fear J. till they come 502. 615. We must studie God's J. 615. v. Punishment Judge The Judge's calling necessary 821. His office 120. How his autority may be lawfully made use of 822. Julian the Apostate 957. His liberality 143. His malitious slander of the Christians 148. He wounded Religion more with his wit then with his sword 959. His death 959. Justice of how large extent 119. What it is 120. Private J. is far larger then publick 121. Our common Nature obligeth to live justly 123. and so doth the Law of Nature 124. 126. c. 134. and Fear of God's Vengeance 125. and the written Law of God 128. especially Christ's Gospel 129. How strict observers of Justice some Heathens have been 128. How small esteem Justice hath in the world 131. Motives to live justly 134 c. That which is not Just can neither be pleasant nor profitable 126. v. Mercy Justification what 811. The Church of Rome's doctrine confuted 812 813. Faith justifieth but none but penitents 872. The several opinions about Justification may all be true 1074 c. But many nice and needless disputes there be about it 1075. Wherein Justification consisteth 1075. K. KEyes Power of the Keyes neither to be neglected nor contemned 47. Kingdomes v. Fate Kings though mighty Lords on the earth are but strangers in the earth 532. 535. K. love not to be too much beholding to their subjects 232. It is not expedient for the world to have onely one King 233. Kneeling in the service of God proved by Calvine to be of Divine autority 756. Knowledge Want of Knowledge many alledge to excuse themselves but without cause 437. Pretended K. how mischievous 556 557. Three impediments of K. 96 c. Four wayes to get K. 66. Of which Practice is the chief 68 69. K. is the daughter of Time and Industrie 956. What kind of K. it is that we have in this life 678. God's wayes are not to be known by us his will and our duty easily may 93. We should not studie to know things not revealed 248. Though the K. of what is necessary be easy and obvious 93. 95. yet it is to be sought for with all diligence 96. K. even in the Apostles grew by degrees 61. K. of all future things if we had it would do us no good 789. K. of Sin v. Sin K. of Nature Medicine Laws Husbandry is very excellent 656 657. Saving K. is onely necessary 59 60. 248. K. of Christ surpasseth all other K. 715 c. but it must be not a bare speculative K. but practical 723 c. Many know the Truth but love it not 549. 690. Knowledge Will Affections all to be employed in the walk of a Christian 516 c. Speculative K. availeth nothing without Love 517. It is but a phantasm a dream 518 519. 724 725. It is worse then Ignorance 518. 520. 523. 690. 723. Adde therefore to K. Practice 519 725. As K. directeth Practice so Practice encreaseth K. 520. 693. Words of Knowledge in Scripture imply the Affections 463. Love excelleth Knowledge 977. How God is said not to know the wicked 173. L. LAbour is the price of God's gifts 219. It is not onely necessary but honourable 220. No grace gotten by us no good wrought in us without Labour and pains 667 c. v industrie Sin is a laborious thing 927. more laborious then Virtue 928. It is sad to consider that many will not labour so much to be saved as thousands do to be damned 928. Law Whether going to Law be lawfull 821. Good men have alwayes scrupled the point 822. Cautions and rules to be observed 822. 824. Lawfull