he goes to prayer he goes to his rock and shield to God who was his all in all He knew all this was done to drive him to trust in God Why art thou disquieted O my soule why art thou vexed in me trust in God all this is to make thee trust in God he checks and chides his own soul. A Child of God doth check himselfe when his base heart would have him sink and fall down and go to false means then he raiseth himself up trust in God O my soule But such as Saul proud confident hypocrites when all outward things are taken away they go to the Witch to the Devill to one unlawfull meanes or other and at the last to desperate conclusions to the sword it self As we desire to have evidence of a good estate in grace that we belong to God so let us desire God that we may find him drawing us so neare to him by all crosses whatsoever that we may see in him a supply of whatsoever is taken from us If we lose our friends that we may trust God the more As St. Paul speaks of the widow 1 Tim. 5. when her Husband was alive she trusted to him but now she wants her former help to goe to she gives her self to prayer she goes to God she trusts in God So it should be with all when friends are taken away we should go to God he will supply that which is wanting Those that are berest of any comfort now they should go to God What do we lose by that we had the stream before now we have the fountain we shall have it in a more excellent manner in God then we had before And that makes a Christian at a point in this world he is not much discouraged whatsoever he lose if he lose all to his life he knowes he shall have a better supply from God then he can lose in the world therefore he is never much cast down he knowes that all shall drive him nearer to God to trust in God As St. Paul saith here We received the sentence of Death that we might not trust in our selves but in God that raiseth the dead One meanes to settle our trust the better in God reconciled to us in the Covenant of grace through Christ his beloved and our beloved is the blessed Sacrament and therefore come to it as to a seal sanctified by God for that very purpose to strengthen our trust in God How many wayes doth God condescend to strengthen our trust because it is such an honour to him for by trusting in him we give him the honour of all his attributes we make him a God we set him in his throne which we doe not when we trust not in him how many waies doth he condescend to strengthen our trust We have his promise If we believe in him we shall not perish but have everlasting life We have a seale of that promise the Sacrament and is not a broad seale a great confirmation If a man have a grant from the King if he have his broad seal it is a great confirmation though the other were good yet the seale is stronger So we have Gods promise and in regard of our weakness there is a seale added to it If that be not enough we have more we have his oath he hath pawned his life As I live saith the Lord c. he hath pawned his being as he is God he will forgive us if we repent We have his promise seale and oath whatsoever among men may strengthen trust and faith God condescends unto to strengthen our faith because he would not have us perish in unbeliefe Besides that he hath given us earnest a mans trust is strengthened when he hath earnest Every true Christian hath a blessed earnest that is the Comforter he hath the Spirit in him the first fruits where God gives and an earnest he will make good the bargain at the last where he gives the first fruits he will add the harvest God never repents of his earnest where he hath begun a good work he will finish it to the day of the Lord. An earnest is not taken away but the rest is added And the same Spirit that is an earnest is also a pawn and pledge we will trust any runnagate if we have a pawn sufficient now God hath given us this pawn of his Spirit Christ hath given us his Spirit and hath taken our flesh to heaven our flesh is there and his Spirit is in our hearts besides many evidences that we have in this life as pawns Indeed in extremity sometimes we must trust God without a pawne upon his bare word Though he kill me yet will I trust in him saith Job but God ordinarily gives us many pawns of his love The Sacrament is not onely a Seal of the promise but likewise it hath another relation to strengthen our faith it is a seizon as a piece of earth that is given to assure possession of the whole as a man saith Take here is a piece of earth here is my land here are the keyes of my house so in the promises sealed by the Sacrament here is life here is favour here is forgiveness of sins here is life everlasting what can we have more to strengthen our faith God hath condescended every way to strengthen us if we will come in and honour him so much as to trust him with our souls and our salvation Therefor let us come to the Sacrament with undoubted confidence God will keep his credit he will not deceive his credit he will never forsake those that trust in him Psal. 9. But to answer an Objection Oh! all these are confirmations indeed if I did believe and trust in God but my heart is full of unbelief Indeed all these are made to some that believe already in some measure they have this seale and oath and earnest and pawnes and first fruits and all if they believe but I cannot bring my heart to trust in God What hinders thee I am a wretched creature a sinfull creature Doest thou mean to be so still It is no matter what thou hast been but what thou wilt be The greater the sickness the more is the honour of the Physitian in curing it the greater thy sins the more honour to God in forgiving such sins Retort the temptation thus upon Satan God works by contraries and whom he will make righteous he will make them to see their sins and before he will raise us up he will make us rotten in our graves before he will make us glorious he will make us miserable I know that God by this intends that I should despaire in my self God intends that I should despaire indeed but it is that I should despair in my self as the text saith here that we should not trust in our selves when we have a sight of the vilenesse of our sins but in God that raiseth the dead that raiseth
hearts and wayes and presently to apply the balme of comfort the promise of pardon take the present when we have searched the wound to get pardon and forgivenesse daily as we sin daily Christ bids us ask it daily This will make us fit for comfort by discerning the estate of our souls and the remainders of corruption That which sharpens appetite and makes the balme of God to be sweet indeed is the sence of and the keeping open of our wound a daily search into our wants and weaknesses a daily fresh sight of the body of sin in us and experience how it is fruitful in ill thoughts and desires and actions this will drive us to a necessity of daily comfort And certainly a fresh sight of our corruptions it is never without some fresh comfort We see St. Paul Rom. 7. he sets himself to this work to complain of his indisposition by reason of sin in him and how doth he end that sight and search into his own estate he ends in a triumphing manner Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus After he had complained Oh miserable man that I am who shall deliver me from this bodie of death There can be no danger in a deep search into our waies and hearts if this be laid as a ground before that there is more supplie and heavenly comfort in God and the promises of God then there can be ill in our souls then the more ill we find in our selves the more we are disposed to fetch grounds of comfort from God And together with this searching of our souls and asking daily pardon let us for the time to come renew our covenant with God that we may have the comfort of a good conscience to get pardon for our sins past and renew our resolutions for the time to come And withall that we may use an orderly course of comfort let us every day feed on Christ the food of life let us every day feed upon something in Christ consider the death of Christ the satisfaction he hath made by his death his intercession in Heaven his blood runs afresh that we may every day feed on it We may run every day into new offences against the law to new neglect of duty into new crosses let us feed upon Christ he came into the World to save sinners to make us happie with peace of conscience here and with Glorie afterward Let us feed on Christ daily as the bodie is fed with cordialls so this feeds and comforts and strengthens the soul. This is to live by faith to lead our lives by faith to feed on Christ every day And likewise if we will keep our souls in a perpetual temper of comfort let us every day meditate of some prerogatives of Christians that may raise our souls Let us single out some or other As for example that excellent prerogative to be the Sons of God What love saith the Apostle that we of Rebels and Traitors in Christ should be made the sons of God That of slaves we should be made Servants of servants sons of sons heires and of heires fellow-heires with Christ what prerogative is this that God should give his Son to mak us that were Rebels sons heires and fellow heires with Christ And to consider what follows upon this liberty that we have from the curse of the Law to goe to God boldly to go to the throne of Grace through Christ our elder brother by prayer to think of eternall life as our inheritance to think of God above as our Father Let us think of our prerogatives of Religion adoption and justification c. Upon necessity we are driven to it if we consider the grievances of this world together with our corruptions our corruptions and afflictions and temptations and desertions one thing or other will drive us to go out of our selves for comfort to feed on the benefits by Christ. And consider what he hath done it is for us the execution of his office and all for us what he is what he did what he suffered what procured all is for us The soul delighting it self in these prerogatives it will keep the soul in a perpetuall estate of comfort Therefore the Scripture sets forth Christ by all terms that may be comfortable he is the door to let us in He is the way the truth and the life the water and the bread c. In sinne he is our righteousness in death he is our life in our ignorance he is our way in spirituall hunger and thirst he is the bread and water of life he is all in all And if we cannot think of some prerogative of Christianity then think of some promise as I said before think of the Covenant of Grace there is a spring of comfort in that that God in Christ is our God to death and for ever and that promise I speak of that All things shall work for the best Let us every day think of these things and suggest them to our owne souls that our souls may be affected with them and digest them that our souls and they may be one as it were And every day stirre up our hearts to be thankfull a thankfull heart can never want comfort for it cannot be done without some comfort and chearefulness and when God receives any praise and glory he answers it with comfort a thankfull heart is alway comfortable And let us stirre up our hearts to be fruitfull in the holy actions the reward of a fruitfull life is a comfortable life besides Heaven God alway in this life gives a present reward to any good action it is rewarded with peace of conscience Besides it is a good foundation against the evil day every good action as the Apostle sayth to Timothie it layes up a good foundation The more good we do the more we are assured that our faith is not hypocritical but sound and good and will hold out in the time of tryall It will be a good foundation that we have had evidence before that we have a sound and fruitful faith What do wicked men carelesse sinful creatures that go on in a course of prophanenesse and blasphemie c they lay a ground of despaire a ground of discomfort to be swallowed up in the evil day then conscience will be awaked at the last and Satan will be ready to joyn with conscience and conscience will seal all the accusations that Satan layes against them and where is the poor soul then As it is with them so on the contrary the Christian soul that doth good besides the present comfort of a good conscience it layes a good foundation against the time to come for in the worst times it can reason with it self my faith is not fruitlesse I am not an hypocrite though the fruits of it be weak and mixed with corruptions yet there is truth in them this will comfort us when nothing
I not trust in so good a God for the time to come I hope he will deliver me And surely so may we do A Christian may rely on God for the time to come Upon what ground upon what Pillars is this confidence built of the holy Apostle Upon the Name of God the Name of his nature Jehovah I am which signifies a constant being I was I am and am to come There was danger there is danger and there will come danger there was a God there is a God and there will be a God Jehovah I am If there be a flux a perpetual succession of ill there is a perpetual being and living of the living Jehovah So Christ is proved to be Jehovah because he calls himself Revelations 1. he that was and is and is to come Jehovah alway like himself Now if God be Jehovah alway like himself then if he have delivered if he doth deliver he will deliver he is I am in himself Now as his Name is so is his nature and properties he is I am in his love to his Church he is alway in the present tense Whom he loves he loves to the end he is unchangeable I the Lord your God change not therefore you are not consumed Mal. 3. The reason why notwithstanding our many provocations of him that we are not consumed it is because his love to us is unchangeable though we are up and down He cannot deny himself and there is the foundation of our comfort that though we change oft yet he never changeth There is no outward thing can change him for then that were God and not he there is no inward thing can change him for then he were not perfectly wise so there is nothing either in himself or in the creatures that can change God he is alway like himself therefore this is a ground of confidence for the time to come Likewise his Covenant and promise the Covenant that he hath made with his Children is an everlasting Covenant that he will be their God to death and for ever and the gifts and graces of God his inward love they are without repentance and their union with Christ is an everlasting union And also experience built upon these grounds that God is Jehovah what he hath done he will do and his properties are answerable to his Name he is unchangeable and his promise and Covenant are unchangeable therefore experience from the time past comes to be a good argument from these 3. grounds because he is Jehovah I am and because he is unchangeable being Jehovah and because his Covenant is everlasting because he is unchangeable For the foundation of all comfort is the Name and being of God Jehovah from his being issue and flow his properties and they are like him unchangeable and eternall and from his properties comes that to be unchangeable that comes from him his Word and promise and Covenant considering then that his Name being is such that his properties are such that his Covenant is such issuing from his nature and properties experience then of trust in the love and mercy of God is an unanswerable argument against all temptations he hath loved he doth love and he will love he hath delivered he doth deliver and he will deliver and will preserve us to his heavenly Kingdom It is a good argument that God that is Jehovah that God that is unchangeable that God that is in Covenant with me that is my God and I his that God of whom I have had experience for the time past that he hath been my God why should I doubt for the time to come Unlesse I will call in question the very being of God the very properties of God and the truth of God in his Covenant and overturn all I may as well trust him for the time to come as for the time present He hath delivered me he doth deliver me and he will deliver me But it may be objected God doth not deliver alway and therefore it seemes not to be a current truth how doth God deliver his Children when we see how they miscarrie in troubles and persecutions both the Church in generall and particular Christians as there be many instances it seemes God doth not deliver his they die Martyrs St. Paul himself died a bloody death therefore how is this true that we may build a certain confidence upon it he hath delivered he doth deliver and he will deliver I answer we must take it in the latitude this deliverance God delivers them so as stands with their desires to be delivered for there may cases come wherein Gods Children will not be delivered as we see the three young men when they were cast into the fire they would not be delivered out of the fire but they were delivered in it And so in Heb. 11. 35. there is a notable example Tender women received their dead again raised to life and others likewise were tortured and would not except of deliverance they would have none upon ill tearms So sometimes God doth not deliver his Children no nor they will not be delivered because perhaps their deliverance is promised upon ill tearms that they may redeeme their lives if they will by denying God and Religion an ill bargin Again I answer that howsoever God doth not deliver his from trouble yet he delivers them in trouble as in Isay 43. he promiseth to be with them and to deliver them in the fire and in the water God did not keep the Martyrs out of the fire but God was with them in the fire and in the water to support them by the inward fire of his Spirit that they might not be overcome of the outward fire and flame so God delivers them in trouble though not out of trouble There is an open deliverance visible to the world and a secret inward invisible inward deliverance There is an open glorious deliverance as we see in the deliverance of the three young men and many other examples And there is an invisible which is only felt of them and of God who delivers them he delivers them in the inward man he delivers them from the ill of troubles from sin and despair that they put not their hands to sinful courses he supports them inwardly with comfort and supports them inwardly in a course of obedience and that spirituall inward deliverance is the best and that which Gods people more value then deliverance out of trouble he doth not deliver them from fuffering ill he delivers them from doing ill as in that notable place 2 Tim. 4. 18. I was delivered out of the mouth of the Lyon and the Lord shall deliver me from every evill work He doth not say God shall deliver me from death and from suffering evill works of Tyrants no but he shall deliver me from carrying my self unseemly and unbefitting such a man as I am that I may not disgrace my profession He shall
stones and pearles Solomon presseth it have a high estimation of wisdome of the government of Gods Spirit as the best government And be out of love with carnal reason with carnal affections and their guidance account them as base things not worthy to come into the esteem of a Christian heart Those that highly prize wisdome God will lead them by it those that sell all for the pearl shall have it There must be a high price set on the guidance of Gods Spirit and on grace as indeed it is worthy of it and then we shall have it Again if we would lead our lives according to spiritual and heavenly wisdome according to grace and gracious wisdome let us learn as it is Job 22. to be more and more acquainted with God by prayer for grace comes not from within us Grace is in Christ as in the root as in the spring as in the Sun we have it but as the beam as the stream therefore let us learn to be acquainted with God and with Christ by prayer and meditation and search into his Word by reading and by hearing him speak to us and let us often speak to him Let us acquaint our selves with him by prayer and by hearing his Word and then we shall have his grace to guide us For grace is a fruit of his peculiar love he gives grace to his own peculiar people How do you think shall he have a peculiar delight in us if we labour not to be more and more acquainted with him by often speaking to him by often hearing of him by coming into his presence and attending as much as we can upon his holy Ordinances by conversing as much as we can in the holy things of God Those that will be warm they come under the beams of the Sun those that would have the Spirit work effectually they must come where the Spirit is effectual where the Spirit works Now the Spirit is effectual in the Word preached the Spirit fell upon Cornelius and the rest when they were hearing of S. Peter And the Spirit is where there is conversing in good company Where two or three are met together I will be in the middest of them saith Christ. If we walk with the wise we shall be wiser It must be the heavenly wisdome of a Christian if he would lead his life by grace to attend upon all the meanes of grace because the Spirit of God is effectual by his own means he works by his own means therefore use the meanes that the Spirit hath sanctified for the working of grace I do wonder at a company of vain sottish creatures that carry themselves according to their vain conceits according to the whirling of their own brain in toyes and baubles that come into their heads they care not for the hearing of Gods blessed truth either they abstain altogether or else they hear it carelesly as if it were a thing that concerned them not Oh but those that will lead their lives by grace they come to it by the Spirit and the Spirit is onely effectual in holy Ordinances It must be our wisdome therefore to bring our selves under some meanes or other that the Spirit may be effectual The wisest and the best men in the world are no longer gracious then they are wise this way if they neglect good company good acquaintance if they neglect the hearing of the Word if they neglect prayer they will grow dead and dull and carnal-minded they will be possessed with base thoughts How do men differ one from another not so much by any habitual grace that is in them as by avoiding all that might prejudice them in a Christian course and by using all means whereby the Spirit of God may be effectual Again the way ro be under the grace of Gods Spirit is often to meditate of the grace of God the free love of God in Jesus Christ for so it comes first The first grace of all is Gods free love in the forgiving of our sins and accepting us to life everlasting and then he doth alter and change our natures more and more he transforms us more and more when we find therefore any defect of grace in our hearts when we find coldnesse and deadnesse and dulnesse go to the first fire to the first Sun to the free grace of God in Christ pardoning all our sins and accepting us to life everlasting and promising us grace to lead our lives in the mean time If you have fallen into any sin by the temptation of Satan or your own weaknesse beg not first grace to alter your course to sanctifie your life but renew every day your interest in the first grace in the forgivenesse of sins and your acceptation to everlasting life For till God have pardoned your sinnes and have witnessed to your soules that you stand reconciled he will not give the best fruit of reconciliation which is grace Therefore every day examine your lives if you have offended God in what termes you stand with God and if you stand in ill termes that there is any sin against conscience the best way is not presently to amend that for that will not be except the heart be warmed with Gods love and favour in the pardon of your sins first and in the acceptation of you in Christ notwithstanding your sins as he justifieth us every day not onely in the first act of conversion but daily he acquits our consciences daily from our sins and therefore in the Lords Prayer Christ teacheth us every day to say Forgive us our sins And then after forgivenesse of sins to beg the particular graces for our lives that we want I would this were better thought on Challenge likewise the Covenant of grace we have a promise of all grace and the spring of all grace We have a Promise of Love God will teach us to Love one another We have a promise of Fear he hath promised that He will put his fear into our hearts that we shall never depart from him We have a promise of the holy Spirit Let us challenge these Promises every day So much for the Directions how to lead our lives by Grace But by the Grace of God Saint Paul here makes it the ground of his rejoycing that he led not his life by fleshly wisdome but in simplicity and sincerity and by the Grace of God and all that are led by S. Paul's spirit live thus There is a Religion in the world that bears it self very big on high terms of Universality Succession Antiquity c. and they will have it thought to be a spiritual and holy Religion Well if a man be a carnal man that is led with fleshly wisdome and not by the grace of God that Religion must needs be a naughty Religion that hath onely the support and the foundation of it in fleshly wisdome which is an enemy and opposite to the grace of God and to simplicity and sincerity But Popery is this
me so you will judge of me to the end Why hath S. Paul such a trust of them as of himself Among many reasons this is one He knew that where God had begun a good work he would finish it he saw that he had begun a good work in them and therefore he knew that he would go on with it And then again God planted in him a good hope and trust of them because hope and trust stirre up indeavour to the thing hoped for Desperation doth quell all courage and cool all endeavour Now God because he would have us constant in our carriage and in the expressions of our love to other men he stirres up in us a trust that all shall be well with them Likewise S. Paul sets down his hope that God had put into his heart of them for his own comfort for it is a great comfort to a Minister or to a Christian when he is to deal with such as he trusts are good and will be good it is a heaven upon earth and therefore God doth plant good conceits of other men in us for this end partly to stirre up our endeavour to do all good to them and partly to comfort us For if the finall estate of any man were discovered to us that God had no delight in them concerning their salvation who would do any service of love for them or who would have comfort in conversing with them But when God stirs up in our hearts a good opinion of them partly it is good for them to stirre up our endeavour to do all good for them and it is good for us it is a great comfort And again it was an encouragement to them when they heard of Saint Paul's trust of them to the end that they should continue as they were For to have a good conceit and opinion of another man especially the good conceit of a Pastor it is a great encouragement And the best Christians in the world have need of it oft-times Besides the judgement of themselves which is sometimes shaken by Satan that they give a false witnesse of their own estate Oh it is comfortable that a man have the judgment of a man that looks without passion and temptation on him you have been thus and my trust and confidence is in God and the promise of God looking to your former course that you will be so to the end he gives not a false witnesse Saint Paul speaks thus to stirre up his own endeavour to do good to them and to comfort them that so great an Apostle should have so good an opinion of them Therefore let us labour I say to entertain as good a conceit of them among whom we live as their carriage will bear Two things usually are the object of our hope and trust while men are here before their estate be determined of in hell God may have mercy on them and deliver them out of the snares of Satan that hope should stirre up some endeavour to pray for them seeing their estates are not desperate they are not yet sunk into Hell Or else if we see them in the state of grace we should expresse our love in the services and offices of love because God hath already set his stamp on them There is no man living but we may trust and hope of him one way or other Those that we see no grace in as the Apostle saith 2 Tim. 2. we may have patience towards them seeing if at any time God will have mercy on them to deliver them out of the snare of the Devil It is not good to cast off all conceit and all hope of any man living the worst sign is when we see men malicious and oppose known truths because it comes near the sin against the Holy Ghost but because we may erre in that it is good to take the safest way But where we see evidences of grace though in never so little a measure let us entertain and cherish a good hope because it will cherish that which we are all bound to to love one another We are bound to love one another and to shew all the offices of love now that which stirres up love and all the offices of love is Hope Faith works by Hope as well as by Love Faith works by Love in all duties and it works by Hope in this duty if we hope that God will have mercy on them that will stirre up our endeavour but we are not much in this errour we are rather ready to conceit over-well then too ill of men I trust you shall acknowledge to the end Saint Paul here besides his good conceit of them to the end doth imply his own resolution and purpose to hold on in good courses to the end My trust in Gods grace is that you shall acknowledge to the end what I have written to you of mine own courses As if he had said I am Paul now and you shall find me Paul hereafter you shall find me alwaies an honest man like my self for as he whom I have trusted is yesterday to day to morrow and the same for ever so likewise by Gods grace I hope to be the same that I have been I hope I shall be like my self The grounds of S. Paul's trust that he should be so is partly the act it self together with the endeavour I trust I shall be so to the end because I trust in God to the end and God is good to them that trust in him how often is it repeated in the Psalmes He is the God of them that trust in him he is a Sun and a shield he is all that is good and he keeps away all evil All the promises are entailed to trusting in God Now because I have confidence in it that God will do so I stirre up my endeavour to shew that it is not a presumptuous trust I trust in him that will perform the conditions of the Covenant which is made to them that honour him by trusting in him Saint Paul knew what God had done he knew that he that had bestowed the first fruits he would make up the harvest he knew that he that had laid the first stone he would set up the roof he knew that God had begun a good work in him by experience and that he would finish his own work that he knew by former experience And then he knew the promises of God the promises of the Covenant Many such grounds Saint Paul had to bear him up that he should continue to the end in a course of simplicity and sincerity and in the grace of God But withall Saint Paul did adde a holy and heavenly course to come to this end together with his trust What course did Saint Paul take Saint Paul that he might hold out constantly in holy resolutions to the end First he did judiciously consider what might hinder him between that and the end of his race and course he balanced all things
certain they are made in him and in him they are Amen that is they are accomplished in him in him they are made and in him they are accomplished I might spend a great deal of time to shew the acception of the word Amen but it is not pertinent to my purpose Amen is here certain undoubtedly certain as it is here to make way to that which is to be understood There are three main senses of Amen It signifies that a thing is positively so and not no it is so Yea and Amen signifie that such a thing is as Let your yea be yea such a thing is But now Amen is more not onely that a thing is but it is so truly and so unchangeably it is Yea and Amen The Promises are yea they are made in Christ and then they are true in him undoubtedly eternally unchangeably true So take it in the strictest in the strongest sense you can all the Promises of God in Christ they are so true that they are invariably constantly eternally true in him they are made in him and performed in him they are Yea in him and Amen in him So the whole carriage of the Promises is onely in Christ. The truths we are to deliver out of the words are these First of all we must know That since the fall of man it hath pleased the Divine Nature the three Persons in Trinitie to stablish a Covenant of grace and so of salvation in Jesus Christ and to make him a second principle a second Adam by whom mankind is restored to a better estate then ever we had in the first Adam God now since the fall takes another course to bring us back again to him He doth not leave us as he left the Angels that fell in a state of perdition for ever but as we fell by infidelity and distrust of him so now we are recovered again by Promises and by faith in them There can be no intercourse between God and man but by some promise on his part God deales with man by Promises The reason is this How can man dare to challenge any thing of the great Majestie of God without a warrant from himself How can the conscience be satisfied The conscience looks to God it is a knowledge together with God how can conscience rest but in that it knowes comes from God Therefore for any good that I hope for from God I must have a promise For this is Gods constant dispensation while we live in this world we are alway under hope we are children of hope We are saved by hope we rejoyce in the hope of glory and hope looks to the promises whereof some part is unperformed How doth heaven and earth differ heaven is all performance here is some performance to encourage us and there is alway some promise still unperformed We are alway under some Promise and therefore the manner of our apprehending God in this world differs from heaven here it is by faith and hope there by vision vision is fit for performance faith and hope looks to the Promise alway here Therefore God rules his Church by Promises partly I say to secure the soul of man we cannot have any thing from God but by the manifestation of his own good will How can we look for any thing from God but by promise can we look for any thing from God by our own conceits that is a fooles Paradise Further God will have his Church ruled by Promises in all ages to exercise faith and hope and prayer and dependance upon God God will try of what credit he is among men whether they will depend upon his promise or no so that knowing he is true by promise it may be certain to them they shall have performance in time he gives men Promises to see if they will trust him God will have this manner of dispensation to rule his Church by Promises to arm us in this world against feares and discouragements therefore we have alway some Promise He might have done us good and have given us no promise but now having given us Promises he will try the graces that are in us and arm us against all discouragements and difficulties till the thing promised be performed For we must know that a Promise is a Divine thing better then any earthly performance Let God give a man never so much in the world if he have not a promise of better things all will come to nothing at the last Therefore God supports the soules and spirits of his Children with Promises to arm them against all temptations on the right hand and on the left that would draw them from trusting in his Promise he will have them live by faith and that hath alway relation to the Promise This is a general ground then That God now in Christ Jesus hath appointed this way to govern the Church with Promises Now what is a Promise A Promise is nothing but a manifestation of love an intendment of bestowing some good and removing some ill a manifestation of our mind in that kind is a promise of conferring of a future good or removing of a future ill therefore it comes from love in the party promising There are three degrees of loving steps whereof a promise is the last The first is inward love The second is real performance And the third is a manifestation of performance intended before it be and this I say is a degree of love For love concealed it doth not comfort in the interim in the time that is betwixt Now God who is love doth not onely love us and will not only shew his love in time but because he will have us rest sweetly in his bosome and settle our selves on his gracious Promises in the mean time he gives us rich and precious Promises He is not onely love and shewes it in deed but he expresseth it in word And we may well build on his Word as verily as if he had performed it in deed for whatsoever he saith is Yea and Amen This is the nature of a promise It is not only love and the expression of love in deed but the expression of it in word when he intends to solace and comfort and stablish and stay the mind of man till the good promised be performed Therefore even from this we see how God loves us that not onely he hath an inward love in his breast and doth good to us but he manifests it by word he would have us as I said live by faith and stablish our selves in hope Faith and hope are two graces altogether from Promises if there were no promise there could be no faith nor hope what is hope nothing but the expectation of the things that the Word saith And what is faith but a building on the Word of God Faith looks on the Word that God will give such a thing and hope looks upon the thing that the Word promiseth as the
that he loves Christ with he loves us in his beloved He hath blessed us with all spirituall blessings in him he hath made us sons in him that is the naturall Son and as his love is unchangeable to his Son so it is to us in Christ. If a Princes love to any man be founded and grounded upon the love he bears to his son if he loves his son he loves such a man because his son loves him surely he may have great comfort that it it will hold because his affection is naturall and unalterable he will alway love his son therefore he will love him whom his son loves alway Now Christ is the Son of God he loves us in his Son he hath given us rich promises in his Son He hath given him the first promise and all other promises of forgivenesse of sins and life everlasting in and through him As long as he loves Chrst he will love us and as sure as he loves Christ he will love us Nothing in the world can separate his love from his own Son and nothing in the world can separate Gods love from us because it is in his Son Christ loves his mysticall bodie as well as his natural bodie and God loves the mysticall bodie of Christ as he loves his naturall bodie he hath advanced that to glorie at his right hand and will he leave his mysticall bodie the Church will he not advance that Doth he not love whole Christ Yes God loves whole Christ. Our nature that he hath taken to him it is the chief thing the most lovely thing in heaven or earth next to God And he loves all that are in him his mysticall body For indeed he gave us to Christ he hath sealed and anointed him he is anointed by God the Father for us Upon what an unchangeable eternall ground is the love of God built and the faith of a Christian How can the gates of hell prevail against the Faith of a Christian when it carries him to the promises and from the promises to the love of God and from thence to Christ upon whom the love of God is founded Before the faith of a Christian can be shaken the promises must be of no effect they must be yea and nay and not yea and if the promises be shaken the Love of God must be uncertain and Christ uncertain heaven and earth must be overturned to overturne the faith of a Christian. There is nothing in the world that is so firme as a believing Christian that casts himself on the promises that are alway yea and to make them yea they are founded on Christ the Son of Gods love Well these promises comming from such love may be ranked into diverse ranks I will touch some of them to shew how we are to carrie our selves to make comfortable use of this that All the premises are yea and amen in Christ. There are some universall promises for the good of all mankind as that God would never destroy the world again Or promises that concern more particularly his Church And those are promises either of outward things or of spirituall and eternall things of Grace and glory Now for the manner of promising they admit of this distinction All the promises that God hath made to us either they are absolute without any condition so was Christ. God promised Christ let the world be as it will Christ did and would have come And so the promise of his glorious comming he will come let men be as they will there will be a resurrection Some promises be conditional in the manner of propounding but yet absolute in the real performance of them As for example the promises of Grace and Glory to Gods children the promise of forgivnesse of sins God will forgive their sins if they believe if they repent they are propounded conditionally but in the performance they are absolute because God performes the Covenant himself he performes our part and his own too For since Christ though he propounded the promises of the Gospel with conditions yet he performes the condition he stirs us up to attend upon the meanes and by his Spirit in the Word he works faith and repentance which is the condition faith and repentance is his gift He writes his law in our hearts and teacheth us how to love So though they be conditionally propounded for God deales with men as men by way of commerce he propounds it by way of Covenant and condition yet in the Covenant of Grace which is truly a gracious Covenant he not onely gives the good things but he performs the condition by the Spirit working our hearts to believe and to repent Again there are promises not only propounded conditionally of Grace and comfort but of outward things All outward things are promised conditionally as thus God hath promised protection from contagious sicknesses from war and troubles Generall promises there are of protection every where Psal 91. God will be a hiding place and he will deliver his Children there are privative promises and then positive promises that he will do this and that good for them but these are conditional so far forth as in his wise providence he sees it may serve spirituall good things Grace and the inward man for God takes liberty in our outward estate and in our bodies to afflict them or to do them good as may serve the main For do what we will these bodies will turn to dust and vanity and we must leave the world behind us but God looks to the main state in Christ to the new Creature Therefore as far as outward blessings may incourage us and as far as deliverances may help the maine so far he will grant them or else he denies them he takes libertie in outward things Therefore that sort of promises they are conditionall with exception of necessary affliction For we cannot have the blessings of this life positive or privative we cannot be delivered alwaies and have blessings but our corrupt nature is such that except we have some what to season them we shall surfet of them we cannot digest them and therefore they are all with the exception of the crosse As Christ saith he that doth any thing for him he shall have an hundred-fold here but with affliction and persecution he shall be sure of that whatsoever else he hath let him look for that All the crosses we have in the world are to season the good things of this life Many other distinctions and differences we might have to lay open the kinds of promises in Scripture but this shall suffice to give you a taste Now all these are made in Christ and performed in Christ so far forth as is for our good Are all the promises of what kind soever spirituall or outward temporall and eternall are they all made to us in Jesus Christ and are they certain Yea and Amen in him Then make this use of it let us renew
bonds and when he pleaseth he can sue his bonds and God is well pleased with it Therefore indeed there is little difference between a Christian in poverty and a rich Christian onely the one hath more for the present but God is the riches of the other As for a worldling he hath but a Cistern when he hath most the other hath the spring he hath God in Covenant and Gods promises Let us therefore consider every day the exigents we are in whether in want of grace or want of assistance and necessaries or want of comfort and according to that let us consider what we are to do are we at our wits end now is there no hope for this in Israel Yes God hath left us rich and precious promises let us look to them In the next place then from our wants look to the Promises and proportion the promises to our wants ranck the promises it were a good work Oh that we should have so many promises and yet have them to seek when the Devil besiegeth us he layeth siege to shake our consciences and we are to seek in the time of temptation Let us remember the promises answerable to our necessities If we be troubled with sin call to mind the promise of forgivenesse If we be troubled with want call to mind the promise of supply If we be troubled with fear for the time to come call to mind the Covenant of grace the marriage for everlasting God whom he loves he loves to the end God loves us in Christ he loves Christ for ever therefore he will love us for ever So as I said before suit the promises to our present estate And from the promises have a higher rise yet go to him in whom they are made they are rich promises indeed good promises but how shall I know they shall be performed in whom are they made In whom God loves thee in Christ. What is he God and man he is God and therefore able to perform them he is man and therefore he loves thee as his own flesh and therefore he will perform them He is the Son of Gods love God for his sake as Mediatour will perform them heaven and earth shall conspire for thy good rather then thou shalt misse of the performance of the least promise Therefore from thy wants go to the promises and from the promises go to Christ and consider him he is anointed of God for thee he is anointed that he might be thy Christ and thy Jesus that he might be thy Saviour Immanuel God with us that he might reconcile God and us that in office he might be so that he might bring God and us together Consider him And then go to God and consider what relation in Jesus Christ God hath put upon him In Christ God is a Father and what can a Father deny to his adopted son in Christ whom he looks on in his natural Son Christ Yea and to settle our minds the more let us consider the relations that God and Christ have put upon them and the relations we stand in and the many promises we have in Christ who is anointed and sealed by God the Father to be our Saviour and to bestow good upon us God is become our Father what a world of promises is in that word Father what will a father deny to his son What if God had not left particular promises in Scripture if he had left but the relation of a Father it had been promise enough what can a father deny his child And then Christ what relation hath he taken on him he is our Husband what a world of promises is there in that what can a loving husband deny his spouse that he hath given himself for He hath taken upon him to be our head what want of influence can there be from such a head that hath taken all upon him for the body the head sees and hears and doth all for the body so Christ heares and sees and doth all for us What a world of promises is in this relation of a head if there were no particular promise Again Christ stiles himself sweetly our brother what a world of promises are in these relations God the Father is ours Christ is ours here is the grand Promise I will be your God and will give you my Son And then in the third place he hath promised his Spirit he will give his Spirit to them that beg him what a world of Promises is in that promise of the Spirit It is a comforting Spirit a sanctifying Spirit a quickening Spirit a strengthening Spirit all is in the Spirit As our soul doth all that the body doth so it is by vertue of the Spirit all the grace and all the comfort we have God hath promised himself and Christ and the Spirit the whole Trinity There is the grand Promise I will be your God Christ shall be your Christ and I will give you my Spirit If we had not other promises what a world of comfort have we in these Now in what relation stand we to these We are children we are heires we are Temples of the Holy Ghost c. put case our memories do not serve to call to mind particular promises in the time of trouble Consider in Christ how God loves thee he is thy God in Christ how Christ loves thee he hath taken thy nature on him to be thy husband he makes love to thee and desires thee to be reconciled And the Spirit is given thee by Christ he hath promised to give him if thou ask him the holy Spirit is the Spirit of Promise Think therefore of the general of the Covenant of grace and these relations that have the force of promises for sometimes particular promises may not come to our mind perhaps and these will stablish a man against the gates of hell and against all particular temptations This course we ought to take then to feed our thoughts with the promises the promises are the food of faith let not our faith languish and famish for want for want of meditations of God and Christ what relations they have put upon them and for want of meditating on particular promises in all kinds How well thriving might our faith be if we would oft think of these things And to make us the more to think of these things consider that all other things alas what are they when we have not a promise of them in Christ They are all vain fading things they will all come to nothing That which we have by promise grace and comfort and glory they are ours for ever God is ours for ever Christ is ours for ever the Spirit is ours for ever the relations we are in are for ever all other things are nothing they will come to nothing ere long This course we ought to take then that we may have comfort by the Promises Again in the next place if we look to the
certainly these promises being apprehended by faith as they have a quickning power to comfort so they purge with holinesse We may not think to carry our filthinesse to heaven Doth the swearer think to carry his blasphemies thither filthy persons and liars are banished thence there is no unclean thing He that hath these promises purgeth himself and perfecteth holinesse in the fear of God He that hath this hope purifieth himself as he is pure 1 Joh. 3. So these promises affect and quicken and purge And then the promises they do settle the soul because they be Yea and Amen they make the soul quiet If a man believe an honest man on his word he will be quiet if he be not quiet he doth not believe so much faith so much quiet Being iustified by faith we have peace with God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So much faith so much peace Philip. 4. In nothing be carefull but let your desires be known to God in prayer supplication and thanksgiving and when you have done this The peace of God which passeth all understanding shall preserve your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus So where there is prayer and thanksgiving and doing of duty The peace of God which passeth all understanding will keep the mind in Christ and where there is not quiet and peace to preserve the heart mind there is neglect of duty before not committing our selves to Gods promises to build on them Again where there is a believing the promises there is not only a staying of the soul in generall but when all things are gone when all things are contrary that is the nature of faith in the promises Put the case that a Christian that is of the right stamp have nothing in the world to take to only Gods Word and Promises surely he knowes they are Yea and Amen It is the Word of God al-sufficient he is Jehovah he gives a being to his Word and to all things else therefore he hath the Name Jehovah therefore thinks the soul Though I have nothing yet I have him that is the substance of all things all other things are but shadowes God the Father Son and Holy Ghost are the substance that give all things a being and therefore I will cast my selfe on God here now is the Tryumph of faith when there is nothing else to trust to nay when all things else are contrary when it is faith against faith and hope against hope when there is such a conflict in a man that he sees nothing but the contrary here faith will shut the eye of sense and not look to present things too much though I see all things contrary though I see rather signes of anger then otherwise yet I will hope and believe in God for this or that Here is the wisdom of a believing Christian that believes the promises he will shut his eyes and not look on the waves on the troubles they will carry him away and dazle him but he looks to the constant love of God in Christ and to the constant promises of God his nature is constant and his truth is as his nature he cannot deny himself and his own Word when he hath made himself a debtor by his promise and bound himself by his Word Therefore in contraries say as Job Though he kill me yet will I trust in him True faith when it is in strength will uphold a man when all failes nay it will hold a man when all is contrary This our Saviour Christ in whom all the promises are Yea and Amen did excellently teach us by his own example For when all was contrary and our blessed Saviour felt the wrath of God which made him sweat drops of blood and made him cry out My God My God why hast thou for saken me yet here faith wrastled with My God my God still even under the wrath of God He brake through the seeming wrath of God into the heart of God Faith hath a piercing eye it will strive through the clouds though they be never so thick through all the clouds of temptation Christ had so piercing a faith it brake through all he saw a Fathers heart under an angry semblance So a Chistian triumphs by faith in oppositions to faith when all is contrary to faith yet notwithstanding he can say My God still This is an evidence of a strong faith in the promises Again an evidence of faith in the promises is faithfulnesse in our selves in our promises to God for surely the soul that expects any thing of God that he should be faithfull it studies to be faithful in the Covenant Psal. 25. All the wayes of God are mercy and truth All his dealings to his Children are mercy and truth to them that keep his Covenant For you know the promises have conditions annexed and where God fulfils his promise he gives grace to perform the condition to walk before him to allow our selves in no sin for if we allow our selves in any sin we perform not the Covenant on our part Now God will give grace to perform the Covenant where he will perform his own Therefore those that are unfaithful in their Covenant and yet think God will be faithfull to them it is presumption When we come to the Communion we think we do God a great deal of service but we must consider we enter into Covenant with God as well as he binds himself to us He gives us Christ all his blessings he reacheth forth Christ with all in him if we will receive him I but we bind our selves to God to lead a new life and to be thankful and to shew it in obedience And so in Baptisme we do not only receive in the Sacraments but we yield we bind our selves to God And we must be careful of what we promise to God as well as expect that which he promiseth to us if we expect his truth we must be faithful and careful of performing our Covenants to him Oh but how shall I do that saith the distressed soul I have no grace God knowes that well enough therefore he that promiseth he promiseth grace to perform the condition that is one part of the Covenant to give grace to fulfil the Covenant For he that saith If we believe and repent c. he will give us hearts to repent if we ask them he hath promised to circumcise our hearts to give us new hearts and to give us his holy Spirit if we ask him Why Lord thou knowest I have no grace in my self to fulfil the Covenant no but thou must perform both parts thou givest the grace and good thing promised and grace to keep the Covenant too therefore let none be discouraged Many things are required it is true but the things are promised that are required if in the use of means we depend on him by prayer For the promises are Legacies as well as promises what is the difference between a legacy and a
conquered over all enemies whatsoever and his conquest is ours Well then we see the foundation of the Church and of every particular Christian Christ Jesus whence comes the stability and firmnesse of the Church that the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it It is built upon the rock upon Christ. So all the stablishing that a Christian hath it is from this rock his being built upon Jesus Christ If we were built upon man we could not stand if we were built upon Angels we could not stand if we were built upon any thing in the world we could not stand but being built upon Jesus Christ who is all in all to a soul that is stablished in him there must needs be an everlasting stablishing It is a fond Objection of some and unlearned against the principles of Divine truth that we may fall as well as Adam in Paradise as well as the Angels in heaven As if there were not a wide and broad difference between the state of grace and the state of nature A Christian hath more strength then the Angels in heaven or then Adam in Paradise ever had he hath a more firm consistence because he stands by grace By grace we stand as the Apostle saith A Christian hath promises of perseverance Adam and the Angels had none and therefore to fetch a reason of falling away from grace from the proportion we have to that condition is a meer Sophisme not rightly discerning the disparity It is not alike with the Angels and Adam and us for we stand by grace out of our selves being stablished in another We have not onely a promise of happinesse as the Angels and Adam had happinesse and a blessed estate but they had no promise to stand and be confirmed A poor weak Christian hath a promise to be stablished and confirmed Therefore those proud Sectaries that are between us and the Papists and joyn rather with them then us that trouble the Church so much they make an idle objection concerning falling away from grace to say Did not Adam fall away What is that to the purpose was Adam under the same Covenant as we are now in Christ Is there not a new promise made to us in Christ better then ever Adam could attain to Besides we are founded upon a better Adam upon the second Adam God-man we have not onely a better foundation but better promises that Adam and the Angels themselves wanted And therefore the Covenant of grace is said to be an everlasting Covenant I will marry thee to my self for ever Hos. 2. A Christian is not to be considered abstractively or alone for then indeed he is a weak creature as weak as other men are but consider him in his Rock on whom he is built consider him in his Husband to whom he is united and knit consider him in his head Christ look upon him as he is thus founded and stablished oh he is an excellent person See him in the difference betwixt him and others Those that are not stablished by a firm judgment and will and affection and so by faith in Jesus Christ what consistence what stability have they Those who have the firmnesse they have in the favour of men it is but vanity those that have the firmnesse they have in riches what are they how soon do they leave it all those that have the firmnesse they have in dependance upon any creature be it never so great alas they are nothing they are all vanity Both we our selves in depending and the things we depend upon are vanity therefore we are vanity because we fasten upon that which is vanity things have no more firmnesse then that hath upon which they lean those that have but a weak prop to support them when that falls they fall together with it Now those that are not founded upon Christ by knowledge and love and united to him by faith alas what standing have they when all things else besides God are vain For nothing hath a being but God and a Christian so far as he leans upon God Were not all things taken out of nothing and shall not they all turn to nothing must not this whole world be consumed with fire There must be a new world a new heaven and a new earth but this and all the excellencies in it as they were raised out of nothing so they shall come to nothing God he is I am that I am saith he and Christ he is yesterday to day to morrow and the same for ever A man cannot say of any creature in the world that it was yesterday and shall be to morrow and for ever We may say it of Christ he is Alpha and Omega the first and the last he was and is and is to come and therefore those that are founded upon him that have their happinesse in him they are firm as he is firm and those that build upon any other thing they vanish as the thing vanisheth There is nothing in the world hath such a Being but it is subject in time not to be it is onely a Christian that is in Christ who is as firm as Christ is and Christ can never be but that which he is for of necessity God must be alwayes like himself he is Jehovah I am I am at all times and Christ he is Jehovah A Christian therefore and none but a Christian hath a firm stablishing in Christ. Without this stablishing in Christ what are we what are wicked men Chaffe that the wind blowes away they are grasse c. things of nothing carried away with every blast but a Christian is a stone a rock built upon Christ Jesus But to come to the Person who it is that stablisheth He that stablisheth us in Christ is God Wherein we may consider these two Branches God must stablish God will stablish Can none stablish the soul upon Christ but God No For God is the onely maker of the Marriage between Christ and the Church The same God that brought Adam and Eve together in Paradise brings the Church and Christ together And as he gives Christ to the Church and hath sealed and appointed him to be wisdome righteousnesse sanctification and redemption being made of God unto us for that purpose as the Apostle saith so he works the consent of the Church a consent in heart and spirit to take and embrace Christ. Now it is God onely that can work the heart to Christ None can come unto me except God the Father draw him It is God that gives Christ to be the husband of the Church and that brings the Spouse the Church to Christ. For first it is God by his Spirit that discovers to the soul its hideous desperate and woful estate without Christ and by the Spirit in the Ministery of the Word layes open the riches and excellency that is in Christ and the firmnesse and stability that is to be had in him and so drawes us with the Cords of a man
a Christian to be cowardly because he hath death and hell conquered and every thing is made serviceable to help him to heaven But for another man to set light by these things it is more madnesse No man but a Christian can be stout and couragious except it be from a false spirit especially in things that are above mans natural power as death it is eternal and what man can stand out against the eternal wrath of God And therefore those that put on a Roman stoutnesse and courage though they seem to have strong spirits it is but false either they are besotted with sensuality or else with a spirit of pride When they look before them and see eternity and see their sins and that they must all appear at the day of Judgment they cannot be strong Let us labour therefore to have our hearts stablished by the Spirit of God and try our selves often by propounding Queries how we do things with what minds and upon what grounds Again another Evidence whereby we may know that we have spiritual strength and stability in Christ wrought in us by the Spirit of God is this when it makes us desire the coming of Christ when it makes us think of death and of the time to come with joy and comfort and that for the present it gives us boldnesse to the Throne of Grace in extremities He that in extremity can go to God in Christ it is a sign his heart is established Hypocrites in extremity flye to desperate courses as Saul and Achitophel did but in extremity the soul that is stablished goes to God My God my God saith Christ so Job Though he kill me yet will I trust in him I say it is an evidence of a soul stablished upon Christ by the Spirit of God to have boldnesse to the Throne of Grace in extremity nay when God seems to hide himself which is the principal extremity of all as in Divine temptations when God seems to be an enemy then for a man to fight and wrastle with God and tug with the temptation and not to let God go though he kill him this is a true Israel a conquerour of God this is a heart fortified by the Spirit It is an argument of a heart established when besides for the present for the time to come he can chearfully and boldly think how it will be with him when death shall come that he shall go to Christ that the Match shall be fully made up that is begun by God between Christ and him for the contract is in this world but the nuptials are celebrated in heaven and in confidence hereof can say Come Lord Jesus come quickly A heart that is not stablished saith Oh come not Wherefore art thou come to torment us before our time say the Devils to Christ so an unstablished heart at the hour of death is afraid it shall be tormented before the time and therefore come not come not saith such a soul. But the soul that is stablished upon Christ and upon the promises in Christ of forgivenesse of sins and life everlasting by the Spirit of Christ that saith Come Lord Jesus come quickly I have been larger upon this Point then I intended these unsettled times moved me to speak a little more then ordinary that we might labour to have our hearts stablished that whatsoever comes we may have somewhat that is certain to stick to that our estate in Christ may be sure whatsoever becomes of our state in the world otherwise VERSE XXII Who hath anointed us and also sealed us and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts THe Apostle having formerly laid open the riches of a Christian In this Verse he cometh to shew his strength His riches consisteth in the promises of God in Christ His strength in being stablished upon those promises Now that which he had spoken of more generally in the word stablishing he unfolds in three borrowed Terms Anointing Sealing Earnest Implying therein the manner of the Spirits establishing a Christian. He who stablisheth us how is that wrought By the Spirit anointing by the Spirit sealing and by the earnest of the Spirit which three terms do all argue assurance For you know that in the old Law Kings Priests and Prophets were anointed that is they were authorized and confirmed in their places And for sealing Writings among our selves are sealed for security And an Earnest secures Contracts and Bargains So that whatsoever may serve to strengthen a Christians faith and assurance is here laid down God to help our soules by our senses fetcheth it from humane affaires applying words borrowed from earthly commerce by a heavenly anagogical sense to spiritual things First the sure estate of a Christian is set down in the general by stablishing and then in particular we are anointed and sealed and have the Earnest of the Spirit God in the Covenant of grace doth our part and his own too he gives faith and strengthens faith and seales us he gives us promises he doth stablish us upon those promises and works our hearts to an embracing of them he anoints us and seales us and gives us the Earnest of the Spirit All in the Covenant of Grace depends upon the faithfulnesse of God and not upon ours but upon ours dependantly as he is faithful in stablishing us Now because the holy Apostle would have us settled in the excellency of the state of a Christian in the Covenant of grace you see how large-hearted he is he useth four words implying one and the same thing Stablishing Anointing Sealing and giving Earnest all of them words used in ratification amongst men God is pleased to stoop to speak to us in our own language to speak of heavenly things after an earthly manner and therefore he sets down the certain estate of a Christian by borrowed speeches This is a gracious condescending of God stooping as it were lower then himself and indeed so he alwayes abaseth himself when he deales with man coming down far below himself To come to the words in particular And hath anointed us This word hath a double reference The holy Ghost carries our minds first to the relation and proportion that is between the graces of the Spirit of God and the oyntment with which in former times they were anointed in the Jewish Politie And it hath reference likewise and relation to the persons that were anointed The persons were Kings Priests and Prophets Now God hath anointed us in Christ. The order is this First Christ himself as Mediatour is anointed with the oyl of gladnesse above his fellowes but for his fellowes The oyntment is first poured on the head of spiritual Aaron and then it runs down to all the skirts of his garment that is to the meanest Christian. Even as the least finger and toe is actuated and enlivened and moved by the soul and spirits that the head and the chief vital parts are so every Christian though he be but as the toe or
insinuates as if he should say What can I give you better then the Holy Ghost and yet this will I give you if you ask him that is the good thing that God gives for indeed that is the seed of all graces and of all comfort and therefore a world of promises are included in that promise that he will give the Spirit to them that ask him Labour by these and such like means for the Spirit and then if you have the Spirit the Earnest of the Spirit and the seal of the Spirit then mark what will come of such a temper of soul that will go through all conditions whatsoever come what will for the Spirit is above all and the comforts of the Spirit are above all earthly comforts and the graces of the Spirit are able to encounter with all temptations So that a man that hath the Spirit stands impregnable the work of grace cannot be quenched because it is the effect and the work of the Spirit all the powers of all the Devils in hell cannot stirre it God may hide his comfort for a time to humble us but to quench the work of the Spirit once wrought in the heart all the power of all the Devils in hell cannot quench the least spark of saving grace it will carry us through all opposition whatsoever Let a man never baulk or decline in a good cause for any thing that he shall suffer for the seal and the Earnest of the Spirit is never more strong then when we have no other comfort by us but that when we can draw comfort from the Well-head from the Spring therefore we should labour for the Earnest of the Spirit for it will fit us for all conditions whatsoever What makes a man differ from himself what makes a man differ from another Take a man that hath the Earnest of the Spirit you shall have him defie death the world Satan and all temptations Take a man that is negligent in labouring to encrease his Earnest you shall have him weak and not like himself The Apostle Peter before the Holy Ghost came upon him the voice of a weak damsel astonished him but after how willing was he to suffer any thing Therefore let us not labour much to strengthen our selves with the things of this life or to value our selves by our dependance upon others if thou hast grace thou hast that that will stand by thee when all other things will fail for all other things will be taken away but the Comforter shall never be taken away it goes along with us continually First it works Earnest in us and then it stamps upon us his own mark and then it leads us from grace to grace and in the hour of death then especially it hath the work of a Comforter to present to us the fruits of a good and holy life and likewise the joyes of heaven when we are dead the Spirit watcheth over our bodies because they were the Temples of the Holy Ghost and at the day of judgement the same Spirit shall knit both body and soul together and after the same Spirit that hath done all this shall be all in all to us in heaven for ever and then our very bodies shall be spiritual where as now our souls even the better part of them is carnal Even as the fire when it possesseth a piece of Iron it is all fire So our bodies shall be all spiritual What a blessed thing is this to have the Spirit what are all friends to the Holy Ghost which will speak to God for us The Spirit will make request with sighes and groans and God will hear the voice of his own Spirit What prison can shut up the Spirit of God Above all labour to have more of the Spirit of God this will make us more or lesse fruitfull more or lesse glorious in our profession more or lesse willing to dye Labour to encrease this Earnest that the nearer we come to heaven the more we may be fitted for it Consider but this Reason if you want this alas we can never be thankful to God for any thing if by the Spirit we have not assurance that our state is the state of grace for otherwise we might think that God gives us all in anger as a etrnal man he alwaies fears that God fatts him as an oxe to the slaughter what a fearfull case is this that a man cannot be thankful for that he hath Labour for the Spirit that we may be thankfull to God for every thing that we may see the love of God in every thing in every refreshing we take that that love of God that fits us for heaven and that fits heaven for us it gives us daily bread the Earnest of the Spirit will make us thankfull for every thing Again labour for the Earnest of the Spirit that we may be joyfull in all conditions how can a man suffer willingly that knowes not that he is sealed with the Spirit that knowes not that God hath begun a good work in him Alas he is lumpish and heavy under the Crosse. What makes a man bear the Crosse willingly but this assurance what makes him deny himself in temptations and corruptions Oh saith the child of God the work of the Spirit is begun in me sealing me up to life everlasting shall I grieve and quench this Spirit for this base lust But a man that hath not the Spirit saith I had as good take this pleasure as have none at all for ought I know I shall have none he sees no greater pleasure then the following of his lust So that none can resist temptations but he that hath the Spirit giving him Earnest in a comfortable measure and it is a good sign when we resist temptations for spiritual reasons that the Spirit works it Again unlesse we have this Earnest of the Spirit in our hearts we can never be content to end our dayes with comfort he that hath the Earnest of the Spirit is glad of death when it comes there shall be then an accomplishment of all the bargain then the Marriage shall be consummate then shall be the year of Jubile the Sabbath of rest for ever then is the triumph and then all teares shall be wiped from our eyes But now let a man stagger and doubt whether he be the child of God or no that he cannor find any mark of the child of God in him that he cannot read the evidences of a Christian state in his soul they are so dim he sees nothing but corruption in him he sees no change no resistence of corruption he hath no Earnest Alas what a miserable case is such a man in when he comes to dye death with the eternity of misery after it who can look it in the face without hope of life everlasting without assurance of a happy change after death Therefore we should labour for the Spirit that howsoever we grow or decay in wealth and reputation let
more perform the conditions of the Covenant of grace of our selves then the Covenant of the Law Nature cannot do it because it must be done by the Spirit altogether Now here is a foundation for faith to stand on God so farre condescends as he gives his Word and his Seal and his Oath with his Word to convey that Word by way of a Covenant and to make that Covenant a Testament and Will to us that he will do this and to seal that Will with his own blood for a Testament is of no force till the Testatour be dead his own blood hath sealed the Testament you see here what ground there is for faith to stand upon Then again the sweet relation that God hath taken upon him in Christ he is our Father faith builds not on naked God divested of his sweet relations for then he is a consuming fire but upon God a Father in Christ what a sweet thing is it to consider God a Father In Christ the nature of God is Fatherly to us and our nature is sweet to him We are sonnes in Christ his nature is sweet to us and ours to him he will surely perform his relations For in Christ he is a Father not in creation onely but in the Covenant of grace Faith relies upon the Word of God upon the Covenant and Testament and upon God himself altered and changed in the Covenant of Grace to be a sweet Father But what is a further ground of this The nature of God himself who is a Father for if God himself were not cloathed with properties that might satisfie faith and satisfie the soul fully though he were a Father it were not a sufficient ground for faith But now who hath taken the relation of a father upon him God who is infinitely good infinitely merciful above all our sins it must be infinite mercy faith would not have footing else For the soul will so upbraid in the sense of sin that if God were not a Father and a Father infinite in mercy nothing but infinite mercy will satisfie the soul when conscience is awaked and infinite power to subdue all enemies and infinite wisdome to go beyond the reach and subtilty of all the Devils in hell God is such a Father as in his Nature is of infinite mercy and wisdome and power here is a foundation for faith to lay hold upon indeed to have a Father and such a Father that is Jehovah there we must rest in his essence he is Jehovah I am he is eternal and immutable an eternal being of himself and he gives being to all and all things have their dependance upon him The Devils in hell and wicked men he can quell them all and substract their being and turn them to their first nothing from whence they came You see if we resolve all to Jehovah I am to the eternity of God and then to his nature cloathed with power and wisdome and mercy and then to his relation of a Father and then how he condescends to convey himself sweetly by way of Covenant and Testament I beseech you is not here a foundation for faith to build upon in the Word of God when God hath thus opened himself to us You see what this standing is And how by faith we stand and what faith stands on and may well stand on To come to some Observations then First of all Observe hence That The foundation of faith must be out of a mans self That bottom that a man must lay his soul upon must be out of himself it must be Divine it must be God For the soul rests not till it come to God and if the Word were not Gods Word it would not rest on that God must open himself by his Word It must be Divine revelation that the soul must stand upon and at last resolve to pitch and build and rest there It must not be humane authority therefore not the authority of any creature that the soul must stand on because that that the soul stands on must stand it self Now nothing hath a firm consistence but that which is Divine Which I prove thus There is no creature but though it be true and good yet it is changeably true and may be otherwise then it is and yet be a creature still and a good creature There is no man but he is changeable and is changeable as a creature and as a creature severed from the consideration of sin he is changeable The very Angels are changeable as they are creatures all things created are mutable it is the Observation of Damascene Now that that is the foundation of faith must not onely be true but infallibly and unchangeably true there must be no danger of errour in that that faith layes it self upon It is an old rule Falshood cannot be under faith because faith must lye upon truth infallible and immutable truth and who is so but God and what revealed truth is so but Divine truth Therefore faith onely relyeth upon the first good and the first truth upon God and his truth Therefore we may see what to judge of that controversie between us and our adversaries that would have our faith to be resolved into the authority of the Church and not of the Scriptures and by consequent not to the authority of God himself The question is Who hath the best standing the Papists or we We say we stand by faith therefore we stand better then they They say they stand by faith too but how Their faith is resolved into the authority of the Church at length and there they rest But I say even by the confession of themselves or of any reasonable man the Word of God is more Divine then the authority of the Church can be For the authority of the Church is therefore infallible and true because the Word of God saith so That he will be with the Church c. and save his Church The ground is determined upon the Word Now the Word to which they have recourse to prove that they cannot erre that must be trusted before them if they have credit from the Word the Word must be believed before them before men for there is no man if God speak by him but he speaks by him so far as he understands the Scripture and builds upon the Scriptures first Therefore we must first found our selves upon the Scriptures and upon men as far as they agree to the Scriptures If the Scriptures were not the Word of God indeed they could not be the foundation of faith we could not stand upon them but they are the Word of God indeed for men wrote as they were inspired by the Holy Ghost Now that that comes from men it is not infallibly the Word of God but if they speak any thing that is good it is so far as it is agreeable to the first truth the Word of God Indeed the resolution of their faith is very rotten and unsound and bewrayes what their
strength of love of ours it is his own free grace and love which is shed by the holy Ghost and springs only from his own goodnesse and loving nature and not from us at all this is Grace It must be distinguished from the fruits of it as the Apostle doth distinguish them Rom. 5. 15. Grace and the gifts of grace There is favour and the gifts of favour which is grace inherent in us Here especially is meant the fountaine and spring of all the favour of God with the manifestation of it with the increase of it with the continuance of it He wisheth these things the favour of God with the manifestation of it to their souls that as God would be gracious to them so that he would shew his Grace that he would discover it and shine upon them and to that end that he would give them his holy Spirit to shed his love into their hearts This shining of God into the heart this shedding of the love of God into the heart is the Grace here meant Gods favour with the manifestation of it to the soul and with the continuance of it and the increase of it still Grace unto you As if he should have said I wish you the favour of God and the report of it to your souls that as he loves you through his Christ so he would witnesse as much by his holy Spirit to your souls And I wish you likewise the continuance of it and the increase of it and the fruits of it likewise for that must not be excluded all particular graces which are likewise called Graces They have the name of favours because they come from favour and favour is the chief thing in them What is the chief thing in joy in faith in love they are graces they cannot be considered as qualifications as earthly things in us they proceed from the grace and love of God and have their especial value from thence So I wish you the manifestation the continuance and increase of favour with all the fruits of Gods favour especially such as concern a better life The word is easily understood after the common sence Grace is the loving and free respect of a superiour to an inferiour the respect of a Magistrate to such as are under him such a one is in grace with the Prince we say we mean not any inherent thing but free grace So in Religion it is not any inherent habitual thing Grace but it is free favour and whatsoever issues from free favour This must be the rather observed this phrase against the Papists we say we are Justified by Grace and so do they what do they mean by being justified by Grace that is by inherent Grace we say No we are justified by Grace that is by the free favour of God in Jesus Christ so is the acception of the word But to come to the point that which I will now note is this that A Christian though he be in the state of Grace and favour with God yet still he needs the continuance of it He stands in need of the continuance of God St. Paul here prayes for Grace and peace to those that were in the state of Grace already Why The reason of it is that we run into new breaches every day of our selves as long as there is a spring of corruption in us a cursed issue of corruption so long there will be some actions and speeches and thoughts that will issue that would of themselves break our peace with God or at least hinder the sweet sence of it therefore we have continual occasion to renew our desires of the sence and feeling of the favour of God and to renew our pardon every day to take out a pardon of course as we have now the liberty to do so oft as we confesse our sins he is mercifull to forgive us and to win his favour we have need every day still still of Grace I list not to joyn in conflict here with the Papists concerning their opinion I will but touch it by the way to shew the danger of it They will not have all of meer Grace but Christians are under Grace while they are in this World as St. Paul saith all is Grace Grace still nay at the day of judgement The Lord shew mercy to the house of One siphorus at that day at the day of judgement Grace and mercy must be our plea till we come to heaven They stand upon Grace to enable us to the work and then by the work we may merit our own salvation and so they will not have it of Grace of gift but as a stipend a thing of merite Directly contrary to St. Paul Rom. 6. ult Eternal life is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the word comes of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of gift The gift of God a free gift through Jesus Christ our Lord. So from the first Grace to Eternall life which is the complement of all all is Grace As for the New Testament it is the Covenant of Grace the whole carriage of our salvation is called the Covenant of Grace because God of Grace doth enter into Covenant with us He sent Christ of Grace who is the foundation of the Covenant The fulfilling of it on our part is of Grace he gives us faith Faith is the gift of God he puts his fear in our hearts that we should not depart from him And when he enters into Covenant with us it is of Grace and love It was of Grace that he sent Christ to be the foundation of the Covenant that in the satisfying of his justice he might be gracious to us without disparagement to his justice Of Grace he fulfils the condition on our part we are no more able to believe then we are to fulfil the law but he inables us by his word and spirit attending upon the meanes of Salvation to fulfil the Covenant And when we have done all he gives us of Grace Eternal life all is of Grace There is nothing in the Gospel but Grace therefore in the Ephes. 1. it is stood upon by the Apostle To the praise of the Glorie of his rich Grace From Election to Glorification all is to the Glorie of his Grace We ought to conceive of God as a Gracious Father withholding his anger which we deserve to be poured upon us by the intercession of Christ withholding that anger and the fruits of it And notwithstanding we are in Grace if we neglect to seek to God the Father if we neglect to seek to Christ who makes intercession for us then though we be in the first Grace still we are not east away yet we are filii sub ira sons under wrath we are under Anger though not under hatred Therefore every day we should labour to maintain the Grace of God with the assurance of it It is a great matter to carrie our selvs so as we may be under the sence and feeling of the Grace of God It
is not sufficient to be in the Grace of God but to have the report of it to our own hearts to have it shine upon us How should we carry our selves so that we may be in state of Grace that is in such a state as we may find the sweet evidence and comfortable feeling continually that we are Gods Children First of all there must be a perpetual daily practise of abasing our selves of making our selves poore that is every day to see the vanity of all things in the world out of us to see the weaknesse of Grace in us to see the return of our corruptions that foile us every day that so we may see in what need we stand of the favour of God Considering that all comforts without are vanity and that all the Graces in us are stained with corruption considering besides the staines of our Graces that there is a continuall issue of corruption these things will make our spirits poor and make us hunger and thirst after the sence and feeling of free pardon every day This will enforce us to renew our patent to renew our portion in the Covenant of Grace to have daily pardon This should be our daily practise to enter deeper and deeper into our selves This is to live by faith As God is continually ready to shew us favour in Christ not onely at the first in acquitting us from our sins but continually doth shew us favour upon all occasions and is justifyng and pardoning and speaking peace continually to us so there must be an action answerable in us that is depending upon God by faith living by faith This we do by seeing in what need we stand of Grace God resists the proud but gives Grace to the humble Then again that we may walk in the grace of God and in the sence of it let us every day labour to have our souls more and more enriched with the endowments and graces of Gods Spirit that we may be objects of Gods delight Let us labour to be affected to things as he is affected two cannot walk together except they be agreed Let us hate that which God hates and delight in that which God delights in that we may have a kind of complacency and be in love with the blessed work of the Spirit of God more and more Let us labour to delight in them that grow in grace as the nearer any one comes to our likenesse the more we grow in familiarity with them Labour also to preserve a clear soul that God may shine upon us God delights not in strangenesse to us his desire is that we may walk in the sence and assurance of his grace and favour How shall we know that we are in state of Grace with God I Answer that we do not deceive our selves we must look to the work of Gods grace Gods grace is a fruitful grace his favour is fruitful it is not a barren favour it is not a Winter Sun The Sun in the Winter it carries a goodly countenance but it heats not to any purpose it doth not quicken but Gods grace it carries life and heat where it comes therefore if we be in state of grace and favour with God we may discern it But in times of desertion though a person be in grace and favour with God yet many times he thinks he is not so It is true then we must not alway go to our feeling at such times and the enlargement of our hearts by the Spirit of comfort but go to the work of grace for where grace and favour is there are the graces of the Spirit As it is nor a bare favour in regard of comfort so it is not a barren favour in regard of graces for every heart that is in favour with God hath some graces of the Spirit God enriches the soul where he shewes favour his love-tokens are some graces therefore if the witnesse and comfort of the Spirit cease in case of desertion let us go to the work of the Spirit and by that we may know if we be in grace with God For Gods people are a peculiar people and Gods children have alwayes some peculiar grace some Ornaments some Jewels the spouse of Christ hath which others have not Therefore examine thy heart what work of God there is and what desire thou hast after better things what inward hatred against that which is ill what strength thou hast against it go to some mark of Regeneration of the new Creature and these will evidence that we are in a state of grace with God because these are peculiar favours And though we feel not the comfort yet there is a work and that work will comfort us more then the comfort it self will do And this is one thing whereby we may know we are in favour with God when we can comfort our selves and can go to the throne of grace through Christ when we can go boldly to God it is a sign of favour when we can call upon him when we can go in any desertion to prayer when in any affliction we can have inlarged hearts it is a sign of favour with God A meer hypocrite or a man that hath not this peculiar grace he trusts to outward things and when they are gone when he is in trouble he hath not the heart to go to God his heart is shut up he sinks down because he relyed upon common matters he did not relie upon the favour of God and the best fruit of it which are graces but upon common favours therefore he sinks in despair But a sound Christian take him at the worst he can sigh to God he can go to him and open his soul to him by Christ we have an entrance to the Father Ephes 3. 12. We have boldnesse through faith Every Christian hath this in the worst extremity he hath a Spirit of prayer though he cannot enlarge himself yet he can sigh and groan to God and God will hear the sighes of his own Spirit they are loud in his ears David at the worst he prayes to God Saul at the worst he goes to the Witch and from thence to his swords point But usually the usual temper and disposition of a man in the state of grace is joy for as one saith Grace is the begetter of joy for they both have one root in the Greek Language there is the same root for favour and for joy so favour is usually and ordinarily with a sweet enlargement of heart we may thank our selves else that do not walk so warily and so jealously as we should The reward that God gives his Children that are careful is a Spirit of joy Rom. 5. 1. Being Justified by faith we have peace of God and joy in tribulation For even as it is in humane matters the favour and countenance of the King it is as a shower of rain after a drought it comforts his subjects there is a wonderous joy in the
favour and grace of great persons alway And as the favourable aspect of the heavens upon inferiour bodies promiseth good things and men promise themselves from that favour and good so the favour and grace of God enlarge the soul with joy and comfort And there is that measure of joy in those that are in the free favour of God that they will honour God freely to cast themselves upon his mercy And it is with a disesteem of all things in the World besides it is such a joy as works in the soul a base esteem of all things else St. Paul esteemed all drosse in comparison of the knowledge of Christ and the favour of God in Christ. So in Psal. 4. David saith of some There be many that will say who will shew us any good any good it is no matter but saith the Holy Spirit in David Lord lift up the light of thy countenance upon me He goes to prayer he saith not who will shew us any good it is no matter what or how we come by it any earthly good worldly men desire No saith he Lord shew us the light of thy countenance he desires that above all things So he saith Psal. 3. The loving kindnesse of the Lord is better then life it self Life is a sweet thing the sweetest thing in the World but the grace and favour of God is better then that For in this when all comforts fail the Children of God have assurance that neither life nor death nor things present nor things to come nor any thing can separate us from the love of God in Christ which shews it self better then life it self When life fails this favour shall never fail Nothing shall be able to separate us from the favour of God in Christ it is an everlasting favour and therefore everlasting because it is free if it were Originally in us it would fail when we fail but it is an everlasting favour because it is free God hath founded the cause of love to us in himself so much for that Grace be unto you And peace All that I will say of peace in this place is this to shew That True peace issues from Grace It is to be had thence Peace we take here for that sweet peace with God and peace of conscience and likewise peace with all things when all things are peaceable to us when there is a sweet successe in all businesse with a security in a good estate It is a blessed thing when we know that all will be well with us This quiet and peaceable estate issues from grace peace of conscience especially I observe it the rather It hath been the errour of the world to seek peace where it is not to seek peace in Sanctification to seek it in the work of Grace within a man Not to speak of worldly men that seek peace in outward contentments in recreations in friends and the like alas it is a poore peace But I speak of Religious persons that are of a higher straine they have sought peace but not high enough True peace must be selected from Grace the free favour in Christ. This will quiet and still the clamours of an accusing conscience God reconciled in Christ will pacifie the conscience nothing else will do it For if our chief peace were fetched from sanctification as many fetch it thence in error of judgment alas the conscience would be dismaid and alwaies doubt whether it had sanctification enough or no. Indeed sanctication and grace within is required as a qualification to shew that we are not Hypocrites but are in the state and covenant of Grace it is not required as a foundation of comfort but as a qualification of the persons to whom comfort belongs Therefore David and St. Paul and the rest that knew the true power and efficacy of the Gospel they sought for peace in the grace and free favour of God Let us lay it up to put it in practise in the time of dissolution in the time of spiritual conflict in the time when our consciences shall be awakened and perhaps upon the rack and Satan will be busie to trouble our peace that we may shut our eyes to all things below and see God shining on in Christ that we may see the favour of God in Christ by whose death and passion he is reconciled to us and in the Grace and free favour of God in Ghrist we shall see peace enough It is true likewise besides peace of conscience of all other peace peace of successe and peace of state that all creatures and all conditions are peacable to us whence is it It is from Grace for God being reconciled he reconciles all when God himself is ours all is ours when he is turned all is turned with him when he becomes our father in Christ and is at peace with us all are at peace besides so that all conditions all estates all creatures they work for our good It is from hence when God is turned all are turned with him He being the God of the creature that sustaines and upholds the creature in whom the creature hath his being and working he must needs therefore turn it for the good of them that are in covenant with him All that are joyned in covenant with him he fills them with peace because they are in Grace with him This should stir up our hearts above all things in the world to pray for Grace to get Grace to empty our selves of self-confidence that we may be vessels for Grace to make Grace our plea to magnifie the Grace of God We must never look in this world for a peace altogether absolute that is reserved for heaven our peace here is a troubled peace God will have a distinction between heaven and earth But when our peace is interrupted when the waters are come into our souls what must be our course when we would have peace go to Grace go to the free promise of Grace in Christ. Grace and Peace From God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. The spring of Grace and peace are here mentioned After the Preface he comes to the Argument which he intends and begins with blessing One part of the scope of this blessed Apostle is to avoid the scandall of his sufferings for he was a man of sorrows if ever man was next Christ who was a true man of sorrow the blessed Apostle was a man of miseries and sorrow Now weake shallow Christians thought him to be a man diserted of God they thought it was impossible for God to regard a man so forlorn so despicable as this man was What doth he before he comes to other matters he wipes away this imputation and cleers this scandal You lay my crosses and sufferings and disgraces in the world to my shame it is your weakness that which you account my shame is a matter of praise I am so farre from being disheartned or discouraged from what I suffer that Blessed be God the Father of
This being a truth that Gods Children when they have tasted of his mercie break forth into his praise it being the end of his favours and nature being inclined thereto this should stirre us up to this duty and that we may the better perform this holy duty let us take notice of all Gods favours and blessings Knowledge stirs up the affections blessing of God springs immediately from an inlarged heart but enlargement of heart is stirred up from apprehension for as things are reported to the knowledge so the understanding reports them to the heart and affections Therefore it is a duty that we ought to take notice of Gods favours and with taking notice of them To mind them to remember them forget not all his benefits Psal. 103. Praise the Lord O my soule and forget not all his benefits insinuating that the cause why we praise not God is the forgetting of his benefits Let us take notice of them let us register them let us mind them let us keep diaries of his mercies and favours every day he renews his mercies and favours every day and we ought to renew our blessing of him every day we should labour to do here as we shall do when we are in heaven where we shall do nothing else but praise and bless him we ought to be in Heaven while we are on the earth as much as we may let us register his favours and mercies But what favours Especially spirituall nay first spirituall favours without which we cannot heartily give thanks for any outward thing for the soule will cast with it self till it feele it selfe in Covenant with God in Christ that a man is the Child of God Indeed I have many mercies and favours God is good to me but perhaps all these are but favours of the Traytor in the prison that hath the libertie of the Tower and all things that his heart can desire but then he looks for an execution he looks for a writt to draw him forth to make him a spectacle to all and so this trembling for fear of a future ill which the soul lookes for it keepes the soul from thankfulnesse It cannot be heartily thankful for any mercy till it can be thankful for spiritual fauors Therefore first let us see that our state be good that we are in Christ that we are in the covenant of Grace that though we are weak Christians yet we are true there is truth in Grace wrought in us And then when we have tasted the best mercies spirituall mercies when we see we are taken out of the state of nature for then all is in love to us when we have the first mercy pardoning mercy that our sins are forgiven in Christ then the other are mercies indeed to us not as favours to a condemned man And that is the reason that a carnall man he hath his heart shut he cannot praise God he cannot trust in God because he staggers in his estate because he is not assured he thinks it may be God fattens me against the day of slaughter Therefore I know not whether I should praise him for this or no. But he is deceived in that for if he had his heart enlarged to blesse God for that God would shew further favour still but the heart will not yield hearty praise to God till it be perswaded of Gods love For all our love is by reflection We love him because he loved us first and we praise and blesse him because he hath blest us first in heavenly blessings in Christ. Let us take notice of his favours let us mind them let us register them especially favours and mercies in Christ. Let us after think how we were pulled out of the cursed estate of nature by what ministery by what acquaintance by what speech and how God hath followed that mercie with new acquaintance with new comfort to our souls with new refreshings that by his spirit he hath repressed our corruptions that he hath sanctified us made us more humble more careful that he hath made us more jealous more watchful these mercies and favours will make others sweet unto us And then learn to prize and value the mercies of God which will not be unlesse we compare them with our own unworthinesse lay his mercies together with our own unworthinesse and it will make us break forth into blessing of God When we consider what we are our selves as Jacob said lesse than the least of Gods mercies We forget Gods mercies every day he strives with our unthankfulnesse the comparing of his mercies with our unworthiness and our desert on the contrary will make us to blesse God for his goodnesse and patience that he will not onely be good to us in not inflicting that which our sins have deserved Blessed be God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And to name no more bút this one above all beg of God his holy spirit for this Blessing of God is nothing else but a vent from the spirit For as Organs and wind Instruments do never sound except they be blown they are dead and make no musick till there be breath put into them so we are dead and dull instruments therefore it is said we are filled with the Holy Ghost All Gods children they are filled with the spirit before they can praise God the spirit stirres them up to praise him and as it gives them matter to praise him for so it gives the Sacrifice of praise it self God gives to his children both the benefits to blesse him for and he gives the blessing of a heart to blesse him And we must beg both of God beg a heart able to discern spiritual favours to tast and relish them and to see our own unworthinesse of them and beg of God his holy spirit to awaken and quicken and enlarge our dead and dull hearts to praise his name Let us stir up our hearts to it stirr up the spirit of God in us every one that hath the spirit of God should labour to stir up the spirit as St. Paul writes to Timothy and as David stirs up himself Praise the Lord O my soul and all that is within me praise his holy name so we should raise up our selves and stir up our selves to this duty And shame our selves what hath God freed me from so great misery and hath he advanced me to so happie an estate in this world doth he put me in so certain a hope of glorie in the world to come have I a certain promise to be carried to salvation that neither things present nor things to come shall be able to separate me from the love of God in Christ Jesus doth he renew his mercies every day upon me and can I be thus dead can I be thus dull-hearted Let us shame our selves And certainly if a man were to teach a Child of God a ground of humiliation if a Child of God that is in the state of grace should ask how
would never have us in a state of despair For other grievances besides sin the comforts that we are to apply are more easie and they are infinite if we could reckon the particular comforts that God comforts his Children withall It is good to have generall comforts readie for all kind of maladies and grievances and this poor wretched life of ours in our absence from God is subject to As for instance that general comfort the Covenant of grace that is a spring of comfort that God is our God and Father in Christ what can come from a gracious and good God in covenant with us but that which is good nothing but what is favourably good I mean For the covenant is everlasting when God takes once upon him to be our Father in Covenant he is so for ever Dum castigas pater c. While he corrects he is a father and when he smiles upon us he is a father God in the covenant of Grace takes upon him a relation that ever holds as he is for ever the Father of Christ so he is for ever the Father of those that are members of Christ and whatsover comes from the Father of mercy whether he correct or smile whatsoever he doth is in mercy Again in the middest of any grievance remember the gracious promise of mitigation 1 Cor. 10. 13. God will not suffer us to be tempted above our strength but he will give an issue to the temptation he will give a mitigation and either he will raise our strength to the temptation or he will bring the temptation and trial to our strength he will fit them and this is a comfort There is comfort likewise in all troubles whatsoever of the presence of God God will be present with us if once we be in Covenant with him he will be present in all trials to assist us to strengthen us to comfort us to raise our spirits And if God be present he will banish all discomforts for God is light and where light is darknesse vanisheth Now God being the Father of light that is of all comfort where he is present he banisheth discomfort in what measure he is pleased to banish it Therefore David often reasoneth from the presence of God to the defiance of all troubles Psal. 3. If God be with me I will not fear ten Thousand that are against me And in Psal. 23. Though I walk in the valley of the shaddow of death I will not fear for thou art with me And if God be with us who can be against us Rom. 8. And when thou passest through the fire I will be with thee c. I will be with thee not to keep thee out but to uphold thee As he did the Mariyrs there was a fire of comfort in them above that fire that consumed their bodies and as we see he was with the Three Children there was a fourth like the Son of God So in all tribulations there is another with us that is the Spirit of God that comforts us in all and is present with us in all The Goldsmith when he puts the wedge into the fire he stands by till the drosse be consumed so God is with his Children in the furnace of affliction he brings them into affliction he continues with them in affliction and he brings them at last out of affliction The presence of God is a main and a Grand comfort in all tribulation Besides in all that befalls us whatsoever consider the end all is for a good end All things work together for the best to them that love God saith St. Paul Why do we endure Physick because we know the Physitian is wise and he is our friend and he doth it to carry away burdensome hurtful humours we shall be better and lighter afterwards do we do this in our common course in the things of this life Grace will much more certainly teach us to do it to reason it is from a father and it is for my good Let us look whence it comes and what it tends to with the promise of mitigation and of Gods presence in our troubles these are main comforts if we could think of them if the Divel did not take them out of our memorie And for the first ground of comfort that God doth comfort us withall in all tribulations it is the promise of finall deliverance and finall comfort for ever if none will raise our souls that will when we shall consider that it will not be long The short afflctions in this world bring an eternal weight of glory there will be a finall deliverance Life it self that is the subject that receives affliction that is short our life is but a moment therefore our afflictions must be short Life is longer then discomforts there is but a peece of our life subject to miseries and if that be but a vapour but a moment and as a point between eternity before and eternity after what are the miseries of this life certainly they are but for a moment Therefore the promise of final deliverance when all teares shall be wiped from our eyes this should comfort us if nothing else would This is the way therefore whereby God usually comforts by suggesting the heads and springs of comfort And indeed there is a daily method of comforting whereby we may comfort our selves in all crosses if we would use that daily method and order of comfort As there is a kind of diet to keep the bodie in temper so there is a kind of spirituall diet to keep the soul in temper in a course of comfort unlesse it be when God takes liberty to cast down for some special end as we see in Job Therefore let us take this course for God as he comforteth us so he comforts us as understanding creatures he useth our understanding to consider how we should comfort our selves and after we are once in a state of comfort if we be not wanting to our selves there is no great difficultie to keep our comfort there are meanes to keep daily comfort God hath provided them and he will be present to make good all his comforts Grant it therefore that we are in the covenant of Grace that God is our Father in Christ and we take him to be our God to be all sufficient then to keep our selves in a daily temper for comfort every day keep our souls tender that we may be capable of comfort keep the wound open that we may receive balme that there grow not a deadnesse upon the heart considering that while we live here there is alway some sin in us that must be wrought out by some course or other let us trie and search our souls what ill is in the wound let us keep it open and tender that there may be a fitnesse for mercy to receive the balme of comfort which will not be if we slubber over Certainly it is an excellent course every day to search our
else will Therefore let us every day be setting our selves in some good way for comfort is in comfortable courses and not in ill courses in Gods waies we shall have Gods comforts In those waies let us exercise the spiritual strength we have let us pray to God and performe the exercise of Religion with strength shew some zeal in it let us shew some zeal against sin if occasion be if it be in Gods work in Gods way Let a man set himself upon a good worke especially when it is in opposition for the honour of God and the peace of his conscience presently there is comfort upon it And that we may not be discouraged with the imperfection of our performances one way of daily comfort is to consider the condition of the covenant of Grace between God and us In the covenant of Grace our performances if they be sincere they are accepted and it is the perfection of the Gospel sincerity Sincerity will look God in the face with comfort because he is with the upright so much truth in all our dealings so much comfort And with sincerity labour for growth to grow better and better God in the Gospel meanes to bring us to perfection in heaven by little and little In the law there was present perfection required but in the Gospel God requires that we should come to perfection by little and little as Christ by little and little satisfyed for our sins and not all at once In the condition of the covenant of Grace we must live and grow by grace by little and little and not all at once The condition of the covenant of grace is not to him that hath strength of grace in perfection but if we believe and labour to walke with God if there be truth of Grace truth goes for perfection in the covenant of Grace We should labour for sound knowledge of the covenant of Grace that now we are freed from the rigor as well as from the curse of the law that though we have imperfections yet God will be our father and in this condition of imperfection he will be a pardoning father and lookes on our obedience though it be feeble and weak and imperfect yet being the obedience of children in the covenant of grace and he accepts of what is his owne and pardons what is ours And every day labour to preserve the comforts of the spirit that we have not to grieve the spirit for comfort comes with the spirit of God as heat accompanies the fire As wheresoever fire is there is heat so wheresoever the spirit of God is there is comfort because the spirit of God is God and God is with comfort wheresoever comfort is God is and wheresoever God is there is comfort If we would have comfort continually every day let us carefully watch that we give way to the spirit of God by good actions and meditations and exercises And by no meanes grieve the spirit or resist the spirit for then we resist comfort If we speake any thing that is ill we lose our comfort for that time conscience will check us we have grieved the spirit If we heare any thing with applause and are not touched with it we lose our comfort conscience will tell us we are dead-hearted and not affected as we should be there is a great deal of flesh and corruption that is affected with such rotten discourse And so if we venture upon occasions we shall grieve the spirit either if we speak somewhat to satisfie others that are nought or if we hear somewhat that is ill from others Want of wisdome in this kind doth make us go without comfort many times want of wisdom to single out our companie or else if we be with such to do that that may please them and grieve the spirit and hinder our own comfort These and such like directions if we would observe we might walk in a course of comfort the God of comfort hath prescribed this in the book of comfort These are the courses for Gods children to walk in a comfortable way till they come to heaven More especially if we would at any time take a more full measure of comfort then take the book of God into your hand those are comforts that refresh the soul single out some speciall portion of scripture and there you shall have a world of comfort As for example let a man single out the epistle to the Romans if a man be in any grievance whatsoever what a world of comfort is there fitting for every maladie there is a method how to come to comfort There St. Paul in the beginning first strips all men of confidence of any thing in themselves and tells them that no man can be saved by works Jewes nor Gentiles but all by the righteousnesse of God in Christ All are deprived of the Glorie of God Jewes and Gentiles every bodie And when we are brought to Christ he tells us in the later end of the third Chapter that by Christ we have the forgivenesse of all our former sins whatsoever he is the propitiation for our sins In the 4. Chapter he comforts us by the example of Abraham and David that they were justified without works by faith not by works of their own but by laying hold of the promises of comfort and salvation meerly by Christ and all that saith St. Paul is written for us But in the first Chapter especially because all the miseries of this life come from the first Adam because we are Children of the first Adam death and miserie comes from that he opposeth the comfort in the second Adam and he shewes that there is more comfort by the second Adam then there is discomfort by the first Righteousnesse in the second Adam reigns to life everlasting and Glorie Sin and miserie came by the first but there is the pardon of all sin by the second Adam he doth excellently oppose them in the latter end of that Chapter In the begining of the fifth Chapter he shewes there the method and descent of joy Being justified by faith in Christ we have peace with God Considering that by the righteousnesse of Christ we are freed from sin We have peace with God through Jesus Christ our Lord. And we have boldnesse to the Throne of Grace and we rejoyce in tribulation knowing that tribulation brings forth patience and patience experience and experience hope He sets himself there of purpose to comfort in all tribulation and he saith in these things we rejoyce We rejoyce in tribulation I but for our sins after our conversion after we are in the state of Grace what comfort is there for them there is excellent comfort in the fifth of the Romans If when we were enemies he gave his son for us if he saved us by the death of Christ when we were enemies much more Christ being alive and in heaven he will keep it for us and keep us to salvation now when we are
friends seeing he died for us when we were enemies I but the remainders of corruption in this world trouble us that troubles our comfort the combate between the flesh and the spirit would you see comfort for that you shall see it in Romans 7. Oh miserable man who shall deliver me from this body of death Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So he shewes there what way to have comfort in the combate between the flesh and the Spirit to search into our corruptions to lay them open to God by confession And then in the beginning of the eight Chapter saith he there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus though there be sin yet there is no condemnation though there be this conflict between the flesh and the spirit so he comforts them And for the afflictions that follow our corruptions in this life there is a treasure of comfort against them in that Chapter for doth he not say if we suffer with him we shall reign with him And the same spirit helps our infirmities and teacheth us how to pray We can never be uncomfortable if we can pray but there is a promise of the spirit that stirs up sighs and groanes that cannot be expressed and a Christian hath alway a spirit of prayer at the least of sighs and groanes and God hears the sighs of his own spirit And what a grand comfort is that that I named before vers 28. All things work for the best to them that love God And if God be with us who can be against us And he sends us to Christ if Christ be dead or rather risen again who shall lay any thing to our charge Christ is ascended to heaven and makes intercession at the right hand of God Though Satan lay our sins to our charge Christ makes intercession in heaven at the right hand of God he makes continuall intercession for our continuall breaches with God who shall lay any thing to our charge I but all that power of hell and sin and all labour to separate us from God to breed division between God and us In the later end of that Chapter he bids defiance to all what shall separate us from the love of God in Christ it shall separate his love from Christ first Gods love is found in Christ he shall cease to love Christ if he cease to love us I but we may afterward fall into an uncomfortable case For that he saith neither things present nor things to come shall be able to separate us What an excellent spring of comfort is there in that reasoning vers 32. If God spared not his own son but gave him to death for us all how shall he not with him give us all things eâ—…lse How many streames may be drawn from that spring if God spared not his own son but gave him to death for us all how shall he not with him give us all things else in this world necessar grace provision protection till he have brought us to heaven If he have given Christ he will give all whatsoever is written is written for our comfort I mean this epistle because I would name one instance for all All is written for our comfort as he saith after in the same Epistle The written word or the word unfolded the end of preaching is especially to comfort The Chirurgeon opens a wound and the Physitian gives a purge but all is to restore at the last all that the Chirurgeon aimes at is to close up the wound at the last so all our aime is to comfort We must cast you down and shew you your miserie that you are in and shew you that if you continue in that course hell and damnation belongs to you but this is to make you despaire in your selves and to flie to the God of comfort the law is for the Gospel all serve to bring the soul to comfort Therefore go to the word of God any portion the Psalmes or any special part of the scripture and that by the spirit of God will be a meanes to raise the soul the spirit in the word joyning with the spirit in us will make a sweet close together and comfort us in all tribulation And have recourse daily to common principles all the principles of religion serve for comfort especially the Articles of the Creed I believe in God the father Almightie What a spring of comfort is in that what can befall from a father but it shall turn to good and by a father Almightie though he be never so strongly opposed yet he will turn it to good he is a father Almightie and the Articles of Christ every article hath ground of daily comfort of his abasement in Christ I see my self he is my surety the second Adam I see my sins crucified with him This is the way to reape comfort when the conscience is disquieted when I look upon my sins not in my own conscience but take it out there and see it in Christ dying and crucified in the Articles of abasement to see our sin and miserie all in Christ. For he stood there as surety as a publick person for all What a comfort is this When I see how Christ was abased I see my own comfort for he was my surety if my sins being laid on him who was my surety could not condemne him or keep him in the grave but overcame sin that was laid to his charge surely I shall overcome my corruptions nothing that I have shall overcome mee because it could not overcome Christ my surety his victorie is mine And so if the soul be in any desolation and discomfort all the articles of his Glorification and exaltation his rising again acquits the soul therefore my sins are satisfied for because my surety is out of prison And his ascending into heaven shewes my triumph he lead captivity captive and the enemies that are left are for the tryal of my faith and not to conquer me for Christ hath Lead captivity captive and is ascended into heaven he led all in triumph and sits at the right hand of God to rule his Church to the end of the World he sits for me to overcome my enemies as St. Paul saith excellently Rom. 8. who shall lay any thing to the charge of Gods people it is Christ that died or rather that is risen again who fits at the right hand of God And if we be troubled for the loss of a particular friend there is comfort in that article of the communion of Saints There are those that have more grace and that is for me If my own prayers be weak I believe the communion of Saints and have the benefit of their prayers every one that saith Our Father brings me in if I be in the Covenant of grace and of the Communion of Saints If I have weaknesses in my self I believe in the holy Ghost the comforter of Gods elect and my comforter If I fear death I believe the
to do this daily so when we are to comfort others we ought not onely to comfort them but to search them as much as we can what sin is in them and what miserie is upon them and acquaint them with their own estate that they are in as far as we can discerne we may judge of them partly by our selves For we must not prostitute comforts to persons that are indisposed till we see them fitted God doth comfort but it is the abject Christ heales but is the wounded spirit he came to seek but it is to those that are lost he came to ease but it is those that are heavy laden Therefore that we may comfort them to purpose we ought to shew and discover to them what estate they are in that we may force them to comfort if they be not enemies to comfort and to their own souls He is an unwise Physitian that administers cordials before he gives preparatives to carry away the noysome humours they will do little good we ought therefore to prepare them this way if we intend to do them good And then when we see what need they stand in bring them to Christ and the Covenant of Grace that is the best way to comfort them to bring them to see that God is their father when we discern some signs of grace in them For this is the maine stop in all comfort that there is none but they shall find by experience they are ready to say you teach wondrous comforts that there is an inheritance in heaven that God hath provided and on earth there is an issue of all for good and there is a presence of God in troubles this is true but how shall I know this belongs to me This is the cavil of flesh and blood that turnes the back to the most heavenly comforts that are The main and principal thing therefore in dealing with others and with our own hearts is to let them see that there are some signs and evidencies that they are in the covenant of grace that they belong to God Unlesse we see that all the comfort we can give them is to tell them that they are not yet sunk into hell and that they have space to repent But as long as men live in sinful courses that they are not in the state of Grace we can tell them no comfort except they will devise a new Scripture a new Bible if they do so they may have comfort but this word of God and God herein speaks no comfort to persons that live in sin and will do so we should labour therefore to discern some evidence that they are in the state of Grace And ofttimes those are indeed most intitled to comfort that think it furthest from them therefore we should acquaint them with the conditions of the covenant of grace that God looks to truth therefore if we discern any true broken humble spirit a hungring and a thirsting after righteousnesse and a desire of comfort Blessed are those that hunger and thirst it belongs to them we may comfort them If we see spiritual poverty that they see their wants and would be supplied blessed are the poore in spirit be of good comfort Christ calls such If they see and feel the burden of their sins we may comfort them Christ calls them Come unto me yee that are weary and heavy laden If we descern spiritual and heavenly desires to grow in grace and overcome their corruptions if we discover and descern this in their practise and obedience God will fulfil the desires of them that fear him And he accepts the will for the deed There is a desire of happinesse in nature that comforts not a man it is no sign of grace to desire to be free from hell and to be in heaven it is a naturall desire every creature wishes well to heaven but if there be a desire of the meanes that tend to heaven a desire of Grace these are evidences of grace these are the pulses that we may find grace by when they see their infirmities and groane under them and would be better and complain that they are not better and are out of love with their own hearts there is a combat in their hearts they are not friends with themselves When we see this inward conflict and a desire to better and to get victories against their corruptions though there be many corruptions and weaknesses a man may safely say they are in the state of Grace they are on the mending hand For Christ will not break the brused reed nor quench the smoaking flax And where he hath begun a good work he will perfect it to the day of the Lord. He will cherish these weak beginnings therefore we may comfort them on good ground Then besides that in our dealing with them when we have discovered by some evidence that they belong to the covenant that we see by some love to good things and to Gods Image in his Children and by other evidences then we may comfort them boldly and then to fetch from our own experience what a comfort will it be to such When we can say my estate was as yours is I found those corruptions that you groane under I allowed not my self in them as you do not when a man can say from his own experience that notwithstanding these I have evident signs of Gods spirit that I am his then he can comfort others by his own experience And what a comfort is it to go to the experiments of scripture it is an excellent way As now let a man be deserted of God David will comfort him by his experience Psal. 77. Where he saith he found God as his enemie and as Job saith the terrors of God drank up his spirit be of good comfort David would come and comfort thee if he were alive If the terror of God be against thee for sin that thy conscience is awakned be of good comfort Christ if he were on earth would shew thee by his own example that he indured that desertion on the Cross. My God my God why hast thou forsaken me If thou be molested and vexed with Satan Job will comfort thee by his example his book is most of it combating and comfort and so for all other grievances go to the scriptures whatsoever is written is written for our learning Pray to God and he will heare thee as he did Elias Oh but Elias was an excellent man The scripture prevents the objection Jam. 5. he was a man subject to infirmities if God heard him he will hear thee Believe in Christ as Abraham did the Father of the faithful in the promised Messias and he will forgive thee all thy sins Oh but he had a strong faith What hath the scripture to take away this objection In Rom. 5. This was not written for Abraham onely but for those that believe with the faith of Abraham I but I am a wretched sinner there
that upstart Religion that hath been devised for their own ends for their own profit because it would bring us under a curse They would have us to trust to our own works in matter of salvation to trust to our own satisfaction to be freed from Purgatorie c. They would have us to trust to creatures to something besides God to trust in the mediation of Saints to be our intercessors c. And what doth this false trust it breeds despair at length What is the reason that a well advised Papist that knowes what he doth cannot but despair or else renounce Popery Because Popery carries the soul to false props in matter of Justification they renounce their own Religion at the hour of death as Bellarmine did they live by one Religion and die by another which would not be if their Religion were good For their hearts tell them that they have not done so many works that they may trust in them and they have not been so well done that they may trust in them It is a dangerous thing Cursed is he that trusts in man or in any thing in man Nay we must not trust our own graces as they are in our selves not by way of merit no not by way of strength we must not trust our present graces to carrie us out without new supply to further us It was Peters fault Though all men deny thee yet will not I he trusted to his present strength he forgot that if he had not a new supply from the spring of grace that he should miserably miscarry and so he died All our righteousnesse to trust to it it is a broken reed It is somewhat if we place it in the due place to give us evidence that we are true Christians but to trust in it by way of merit the Divell will pick so many holes in that kind of title and conscience will see so many flawes in it if we bring no better title then either the holinesse in us or the works from us the Divell and our own conscience will spie so many flawes and cracks in it at the time of Death that we shall not dare to trust in it but we must run out of our selves to Christ or else we die in desperation Let us know these things all things but God the more we know them the lesse we trust in them but it is clean contrary of God the more we know him the more we shall trust in hm the more we meditate and enlarge our hearts in the consideration of his divine essence every way the more we shall trust in him They that know thy Name will trust in thee Psal. 9. Let us trust in no outward thing No not in the humanity of Christ I add that further we are very prone to trust in things sensible and the Apostles because Christ was present with them and comfortable among them as indeed he was sweet and loving bearing with their infirmities and incouraging them upon all occasions O they were loath to part with him he tells them that he must leave them but they should not fare the worse he would send them the Comforter The flesh it self profits nothing without the Godhead saith he Trust not in the Sacraments above their place It is a dangerous thing to put too much in any creature God is extreamly offended at it as not onely our adversaries the Papists but proud persons among us that are weary of the doctrine of the Church and will not submit in their pride to riper judgments they attribute too much to the Sacraments as some others do too little they attribute a presence there they make it an Idol they give it such reverence as they will not do to God himself and from a false conceit Oh there is I know not what presence Therefore the Lutherans must needs in a great degree be Idolaters by their Consubstantiation and the Papists by their Transubstantiation by their reall presence Coster saith and saith truly If Christ be not there we are the greatest Idolaters in the world But there is a more subtile kind of attributing to the Sacraments that alway God gives grace with the Sacraments the Sacraments convey grace alway as a plaister it hath a kind of power to eat out the dead flesh and as Physick hath a power to carry away the ill humours so the conveying of Grace is included in the Sacraments so they tie Gods Grace to these things Indeed there is grace by them though not in them God gives grace to the humble receiver but otherwise to him that comes not with an humble believing heart they are seals to a blanck there is no validity in them All the good use they have is to strengthen faith and if there be not something before to be strengthened and confirmed and assured they are but seals to a blanck It is in these things according to our faith and according to our preparation and then God in the holy and humble and faithful use of them blesseth his own ordinance for the increase and confirming of our faith and for the increase and strengthening of all grace So that there is not any thing in the Church but the proud naughty heart of man will take hurt by it rather then submit to the pure and powerful truth of God it will have by-wayes to have Confidence in the flesh one way or other And many men rather then they will trust to sound repentance and humiliation for sin they will trust to the words of absolution without it and when are they said go to hell with a pardon about their necks The false heart will trust to outward things though it be damned for it In their place they are good if they be used onely as helps in their kind We lay more weight upon outward things upon the Sacraments and upon the words of the Minister then they will bear and never care for the inward powerful work of grace Everything of God is excellent in their order and kind but our corrupt hearts bring an ill report upon the things You see then it is a dangerous disposition to trust any too much it is to Idolize them and to wrong God to take the honour from God it is to hurt our selves and bring our selves under a curse and to wrong the things themselves to bring an evil report upon the things It is universally true you shall never see a false bitter heart that will not stoop to Gods plain truth they will have by-wayes of their own but in some measure or other they are barren of greater matters and given up to some sensible bitternesse to self-conceitednesse and self-confidence they are alway punished in that kind with a spiritual kind of punishment We must take heed therefore of trusting too much eo any thing but God himself God is jealous of our trust he will have us trust in nothing but himself in matters of salvation no not in matters of common life
he is eternal he is infinitely able and infinitely wise to know all our grievances We may trust him with our Souls with our Hearts he is faithfull and loving and eter nall as our souls are He gives eternity to the soul Therefore at all times we may trust in him in all places every where he knowes our hearts he knowes our grievance every where he hath all grounds of one that may be trusted to he hath power and goodness and mercy and wisdom he is the object of trust But how considered is he the object of trust God out of Christ Mediator Oh no God in covenant with us in Christ he is the object of trust or else there is such a distance and contrariety between mans nature God that he 'is a consuming fire Since the fall from the covenant of works we cannot be saved by that but he hath vouchsafed to be ours in a better covenant in Christ in whom all the promises are Yea and Amen This good comes from God to us by Christ Christ first receives it and he derives it to us as our elder brother and as our head All the promises are made in him and through him he receives it for us we receive it at the second hand God hath filled him first And of his fulnesse we receive Grace for Grace Without him we can do nothing with him we can do all things So we trust in God reconciled God made ours in the Covenant of Grace in Jesus Christ who hath made our peace Else God is a sealed fountain he is a fountain of good but a sealed fountaine Christ hath opened this fountain his love is open to Christ and derived to Christ in whom our flesh is he is bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh that we might be bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh by being united with him So now we trust in him as God the Father of Christ reconciled I believe in God the Father Almighty as it is in the Creed God thus considered is the object of trust There are two objects of trust God the Father Son and Holy Ghost and Christ Mediator If this be so that God reconciled now is the object of trust for all things that are good not only for salvation but for Grace and for all comforts to bring us to heaven then we see the vanity of all other confidence whatsoever as I touched before And is it not a blessed thing that God will be trusted that he hath made himself such a one as we may trust him Now blessed be God for Christ that he having received satisfaction to his justice by him he may be trusted and desires that we should trust him that now in Christ he hath made himself a Father that we shoud not fear him nor run away from him It is a great favour that God will be trusted of us that he will honour us so much He accounts it an honour when we trust him but indeed it is an honour to us that we have a throne of grace through Christ to go to that he hath devised a way that we might trust him and not run from him that we may go to him in Christ who sits at his right hand who is our intercessor who hath redeemed us with his precious Blood It is our happinesse that he hath made himself a gracious and loving Father that he calls us to him and thinks himself honoured by our trusting in him Again we see here that Trust in God is a main duty He is the object of trust and it is a main duty it is a spring of duty out of which all comes for we see here all doth aim at this afflictions they come to mortifie our self-confidence self-confidence is subdued that we may trust in God our trust must be carried to him he is the object of it and this trust in God is a main duty which in this world we ought to labour for It is that that God doth aim at and it is that that we should aim at God doth aim at it in exercising of us and we should aime at it on our part in our hearing in our receiving the Sacrament in every thing that our trust and affiance and confidence may be in God and that we may grow more and more in it Well since God is the object of trust and trust is such a necessary grace that God doth all to bring us to trust in him Let us come to search our selves how shall we know whether we trust in God or no. And then to direct us how to come to trust in him to give some meanes and helps He trusts in God reconciled in Jesus Christ that flies to him in extremity that a man trusts unto that when he is pinched he flies unto How shall a man know that he is a covetous worldling if he be in extremity he goes to his purse he makes a friend of that How shall a man know that he trusts to the arme of flesh that he trusts his friend too much in extremity he runs to him presently he goes to a friend he hath what we run to that our trust is in A Christian he runs to his God and happie is that Christian that is in Covenant that he hath a God to run to in all extremities in sicknesse in death at all times he is happie that he hath a God when all failes to trust in Wilt thou know therefore whether thou trustest in God or no whither goest thou A carnall man he goes to one earthly prop or other if God answer him not presently then he goes with Saul to the witch to the Divell himself perhaps if God do not send him present help he goes to one carnall help or other to fetches of his wit to policy to crack his Conscience to bear out things with Impudence he hath not learned to trust in God and he runs not to him but to some wicked course or other All that go not to God in the use of good meanes for we must put that in we must go to God in the use of his meanes in the use of good meanes only they trust not God for God will not be tempted but trusted we must go to him by prayer and in the use of lawful meanes and onely of lawful meanes or else if we trust him and do not use the meanes we tempt him we must serve Gods providence in using the meanes Therefore secondly he that trusts in God useth his meanes he that trusts God for a harvest must plow and sowe and do all that belongs to the providence of God So a Merchant that will increase hisestate he must get a ship and other provision to do it with for we must serve Gods providence as well as trust Gods providence When we neglect good and lawful meanes and run into ill courses and use ill meanes we serve not God nor trust him Those that grow rich by calling
estate is not good because it is not such an estate So foolish and as a beast was I before thee saith David because I regarded such things No marvell if men be uncomfortable that are led away by scandals Look to faith goe to the Word to the Sanctuarie I went to the Sanctuary saith he and there I saw the end of these men So conscience must be suffered to have its work to be led by a true rule Again conscience sometimes concludes not comfort when there is ground of comfort from the remainders of corruptions and infirmities whereas we should be driven by our infirmities to Christ. And conscisence sometimes in good men doth not exercise its work in good men it is drawn away with vain delights even in the best men And conscience of its owne unworthinesse and of the greatnesse of the things it lookes for being joyned together it makes a man that he joyes not when he hath cause As for instance when the soule sees that God in Christ hath pardoned all my sins and hath vouchsafed his Spirit to me and will give me heaven in the world to come to such a wretch as I am here being a conflict between the conscience and sense of its own unworthinesse and the greatnesse of 〈◊〉 good promised the heart begins to stagger and to doubt for want of sound faith Indeed if we look on our own unworthinesse and the greatnesse of the good things promised we may wonder but alas God is infinite in goodnesse he transcends our unworthinesse and in the Gospell the glorie of Gods mercy it triumphs over our unworthinesse and over our sins whatsoever our sin and unworthinesse is his goodnesse in the Gospel triumphs over all In Innocency God should have advanced an innocent man but the Gospel is more glorious for he comes to sinners to condemned persons by nature and yet God triumphs over their sins and unworthinesse he regards not what we deserve but what may stand with the glory of his mercy therefore we should banish those thoughts and enjoy our own priviledge the promises of heaven and happinesse and all comforts whatsoever so much for the answer of that objection Now if we would joy in the witnesse of a good conscience we must especially in the time of temptation live by faith and not by feeling not by what we feele for the present but as we see Christ in his greatest horrour My God my God why hast thou forsaken me he goes to my God still We must live by faith and not by sense And then if we would rejoyce in extremities remember that God works by contraries God will bring us to heaven but it must be by hell God will bring us to comfort but it must be by sense of our own unworthinesse He will forgive our sins but it must be by sight and sense of our sins he will bring us to life but it must be by death he will bring us to glorie but it must be by shame God works by contraries therefore in contraries believe contraries When we are in a state that hath no comfort yet we may joy in it if we believe in Christ he works by contraries As in the Creation he made all out of nothing order out of confusion So in the work of the new creation in the new creature he doth so likewise therefore be not dismayed Remember this rule likewise that in the covenant of Grace God requires truth and not measure thou art not under the law but under the covenant of Grace A little fire is true fire as well as the whole element of fire A drop of water is water as well as the whole Ocean so if it be true faith true grief for sins true hatred of them true desire of the favour of God and to grow better truth is respected in the covenant of Grace and not any set measure What saith the Covenant of Grace He that believes and repents shall be saved not he that hath a strong faith or he that hath perfect repentance So Saint Paul saith as we shall see after This is our rejoycing that in simplicity and sincerity we have had our conversation among you he doth not say that our conversation hath been perfect So if we would have joy in the testimony of conscience we must not abridge our selves of joy because we have not a perfect measure of Grace but rejoyce that God hath wrought any measure of Grace in such unclean and polluted hearts as ours are for he least measure of Grace is a pledge of perfection in the world to come This is our rejoycing the testimony of our conscience c. Hence we may gather clearly that A man may know his own estate in Grace I gather it from the place thus Our rejoycing is this the testimony of our conscience that in simplicity c. Where there is joy and the ground of joy there is a knowledge of the estate but a Christian hath glorying and a ground of glorying in himself and he knowes it he hath that in him that witnesseth that estate he hath the witnesse of conscience therefore he may know and be assured of it If this testimony were not a true testimony it were something but all men naturally have a conscience and a Christian hath a sanctified conscience and where that is there is a true testimony and true joy from that testimony therefore he may be assured of his salvation and have true joy and comfort a Heaven upon Earth before he come to Heaven it self If conscience testifie of it self and from witnessing give cause of joy much more the Spirit of God comming into the conscience The Spirit beares witnesse with our spirits If our spirit and conscience bear witnesse to us of our conversation in simplicity and sincerity and from thence of our estate in grace much more by the witnesse of two By the witnesse of two or three every thing shall be confirmed but our spirits and conscience and the Spirit of God which every Child of God hath witnesseth that we are the Children of God Rom. 8. The Spirit witnesseth with our spirits that we are the sons of God Therefore a Christian may know his estate in Grace The spirit of a man knowes himself and the Spirit of God knowes him likewise and it knowes what is in the heart of God and when these two meet the Spirit of God that knowes the secrets of God and that knowes our secrets and our spirit that knowes our heart likewise what should hinder but that we may know our own estate It is the nature of conscience as I told you to reflect upon it self and upon the person in whom it is to know what is known by it and to judge and condemne and execute it self by inward fear and terrour in ill and in good by comfort and joy in a mans self It is the property that the soul hath above all creatures to return and recoyle upon it self If this be
naturall to man much more to the spirit of a man For if a man know what is in himself naturally his own wit and understanding which is alway with him bred up with him much more he knowes by his spirit the things that are adventitious that come from without him that is the work of Grace If a man by a reflect knowledge know what naturally is in him in what part he hath it and how he exerciseth it if he know and remember what he hath done and the manner of it whether well or ill then he may know the work of the Spirit that comes from without him that works a change in him We say of light that it discovers it self and all other things so the soule it is lightsome and therefore knowes it self and knowes other things The Spirit of God is much more lightsome where it is it discovers it self and lighteneth the soule it discovereth the party in whom it is As the Apostle saith 1 Cor. 2. 12. We have the Spirit whereby we know the things that we receive of God It not onely worketh in us but it teacheth us what it hath wrought Therefore a Christian knowes that he is in the state of grace he knowes his virtues and his disposition except it be in the time of temptation and upon those grounds named before Therefore we should labour to know our estate to examine our selves whether we be in the faith or no except we be reprobates and cast awayes as the Apostle speakes A Christan should aime at this to understand his own estate in grace upon good grounds But it may be objected how can we know our estate in Grace our virtues are so imperfect our abilities are so weak and feeble I answer the ground of judging aright of our estate it is not worthiness or perfection but sincerity We must not look for perfection For that makes the Papists to teach that there may be doubting because they look to false grounds but we must look to the ground in the covenant of grace to grace it self and not to the measure Where there is truth and sincerity there is the condition of the covenant of grace and there is a ground for a man to build his estate in grace on The perfect righteousnesse of Christ is that that gives us title to heaven but to know that we have right in that title is the simplicity and sincerity in our walking in our conversation as the Apostle saith here This is our reoycing c. Therefore Christians when they are set upon by temptations of their own misdoubting hearts and by Satan they must not go to the great measure of grace that is in others that they have not so much as others and therefore they have none nor to the great measure of grace that they want themselves but to the truth of their grace the truth of their desires and endeavours the truth of their affections Hereby we know that we are translated from death to life because we love the brethren This should stir us up to have a good conscience that we may rejoyce Why should we labour that we may rejoyce Why what is our life without joy and what is joy without a good conscience What is our life with out joy without joy we can do nothing we are like an instrument out of tune an instrument out of tune it yiels but harsh musick Without joy we are as a member out of joynt we can do nothing well without joy and a good conscience which is the ground of joy A man without joy is a palsie-member that moves it self unfitly and uncomely he goes not about things as he should A good conscience breeds joy and comfort it inables a man to do all things comely in the sight of God and comfortably to himself it makes him go chearfully through his businesse A good Conscience is a continuall feast without joy we cannot suffer afflictions we cannot die well without it Simeon died comfortably because he died in peace when he had imbraced Christ in his heart and in his armes Without joy and the ground of joy we can neither do nor suffer any thing Therefore in Psalme 51. David when he had lost the peace and comfort of a good conscience he prayes for the free Spirit of God Alas till God had enlarged his heart with the sense of a good conscience in the pardon of his sins and given him the power of his Spirit to lead a better life for the time to come his spirit was not free before he could not praise God with a large spirit he wanted freedom of spirit his conscience was bound his lips were sealed up Open my lips and my mouth shall shew forth thy praise His heart was bound and therefore he prayes to have it inlarged Restore to me thy joy and salvation intimating that we cannot have a free spirit without joy and we cannot have joy without a good conscience sprinkled with the blood of Christ in the pardon of our sins If it be so that we cannot do any thing nor suffer any thing as we should that we cannot praise God that we cannot live nor die without joy and the ground of it the testimony of a good conscience let us labour then that conscience may witnesse well unto us Especially considering that an ill conscience it is the worst thing in the world there is no friend so good as a good conscience there is no foe so ill as a bad conscience it makes us either Kings or slaves A man that hath a good conscience that witnesseth well for him it raiseth his heart in a Princely manner above all things in the world a man that hath a bad conscience though he be a Monarch it makes him a slave a bad conscience imbitters all things in the world to him though they be never so comfortable in themselves What is so comfortable as the presence of God What is so comfortable as the light yet a bad conscience that will not be ruled it hates the light and hates the presence of God as we see Adam when he had sinned he fled from God A bad conscience cannot joy in the middest of joy it is like a goutie foot or a goutie toe covered with a velvet shoe alas what doth it ease it what doth glorious apparel ease the diseased body nothing at all the ill is within there the arrow sticks And so in the comforts of the Word if the conscience be bad we that are the messengers of comfort we may apply comfort to you but if there be one within that saith thus it is true but I regarded not the Word before I regarded not the checks of conscience conscience will speak more terrour then we can speak peace And after long and wilful rebellion conscience will admit of no comfort for the most part Regard it therefore in time labour in time that it may witnesse well An ill conscience when it should be most
good behaviour Now when a man shall consider I have a witnesse within me my conscience and a witnesse without which is God who is my Judge who can strike me dead in the committing of a sin if he please this would make men if they were not atheists to fear to sin Let us labour therefore to approve our hearts to God as well as our conversations to men set our selves in the presence of God who is a discerner of our thoughts as well as of our actions and that which we should be ashamed to do before men let us be afraid to think before God that is another means to come to sincerity Another Direction to help us to walk sincerely is especially to look to the heart look to the beginning to the spring of all our desires thoughts affections and actions that is the heart the qualification of that is the qualification of the man If the heart be naught the man is naught if that be sincere the man is sincere Therefore look to the heart see what springs out thence if there spring out naughty thoughts and desires suppresse them in the beginning Let us examine every thought if we find that we do but think an evil thought execute it presently crush it for all that is naught comes from a thought and desire at the first therefore let us look to our thoughts and desires see if we have not false desires and intents and thoughts answerable God is a Spirit and he looks to our very spirits and what we are in our spirits in our hearts and affections that we are to him Therefore as a branch of this what ill we shun let us do it from the heart by hating it first A man may avoid an evil action from fear or out of other respects but that is not sincerity Therefore look to thy heart see that thou hate evil and let it come from sincere looking to God Ye that love the Lord hate the thing that is evil saith David not only avoid it but hate it and not onely hate it but hate it out of love to God And that which is good not only to do it but to labour to delight and joy in it For the outward action is not the thing that is regarded but when there is a resolution a desire and delight in it then God accounts it as done And so it is in evil if we delight in evil it is as if it were done already Therefore in doing good look to the heart joy in the good you do and then do it and in evil look to the heart judge it to be evil and then abstain from it This is the reason of all the errours in our lives because we have bad hearts we look not to God in sincerity Judas had a naughty heart he loved not the Lord Jesus Christ and therefore he had a naughty conclusion What the heart doth not is not done in Religion Thus we see how we may come to have our conversation in sincerity that we may rejoyce in the testimony of our conscience Therefore now to make an Use of Exhortation we should labour for sincerity and esteem highly of it because God so esteems of it Truth is all that we can alledge to God we cannot alledge perfection St. Paul himself saith not I have walked exactly or perfectly no but he saith This is our rejoycing that we have walked in sincerity So if a mans conscience can excuse him of hypocrisie and doubling though it cannot free him from imperfections God in the Covenant of Grace looks not so much at perfection as at truth Here I might answer an Objection of some Christians Oh but I cannot pray without distraction I cannot delight so in good things c. Though a Christians heart cannot free him from this yet his heart desires to approve it self to God in all things and his heart is ready to say to the Lord as David said Lord try me if there be any way of wickednesse in me And therefore he will attend upon all means to get this sincerity He will be diligent in the Word of God for therein the mind of God is manifestly seen The Word of God it is a begetting Word it makes us immortal it makes us new creatures it is truth and the instrument of truth Truth will make truth The true sincere Word of God not mingled with devices it will make what it is The Word of God being his Word who is Almighty it hath an Almighty transforming power from him It is accompanied and cloathed with his Almighty Spirit Truth will cause truth such as it is in it self it will work in our hearts In that mungrel false Religion Popery they have traditions and false devices of men and so they make false Christians such as they are they make strain them to the quintessence and they cannot make a true Christian Truth makes true Christians therefore attend upon Gods Ordinance with all reverence and it will make thee a sound heart it is a transforming Word Those that desire to hear the Word of God and to have their consciences to be informed by the hearing of it they are sincere Christians and those that labour to shut up the Word of God that it may not work upon the conscience they are false-hearted A heart that is sincere it prizeth the Word of God that makes us sincere the Word of God hath this effect especially being unfolded in the Ministery of it that a man may say as Jacob did Doubtlesse God is in this place It is all that is ours nothing runs upon our reckoning but sincerity For what I have not done truly Conscience saith I have not done to God and therefore I can expect no comfort for it but what I have done to God I look to have with comfort for I know that God regards not perfection but sincerity he requires not so much a great faith as a true faith not so much perfect love as true love and that I have in truth as S. Peter said Lord thou knowest that I love thee This will make us look God who is the Judge in the face It gives us not title to heaven for that is onely by Christ but it is a qualification required of us in the Gospel nothing is ours but what we do in truth And again consider That it will comfort us against Satan at the hour of death when Satan shall tempt us to despair for our sins as that he will do we may comfort our selves with this that we have been sincere We may send him to Christ for that must be the way who hath fulfilled Gods will and satisfied his Fathers wrath Satan will say This is true it is the Gospel and therefore it cannot be denied but it is for them that have walked according to the Spirit and not according to the flesh for those that have obeyed God in all things Now when our Conscience shall joyn with Satan and
say we did nothing to God we have not obeyed him how can we answer him we must needs yield to the tempter But when we can say with Peter Lord thou knowest that I love thee thou knowest I have laboured to approve my heart to thee and that I have prosecuted this desire with endeavours this will comfort a man in the time of temptation therefore let us labour to have our conversation in sincerity It will afford us much comfort in this life as it did S. Paul S. Paul here was in some grievous sicknesse even to death and he was disgraced as a person that regarded not his promise of coming to them Now what doth he do in all this sicknesse and disgrace what doth he answer to them he comforts himself in this My rejoycing is that my conscience doth testifie my sincerity He runs to God and to his sincerity as his strong hold he approves himself to God Some thing we shall have in this life first or last afflictions or disgraces and troubles will come What is then the strong hold of a Christian Then he runs to his sincerity What would Hezekias have done when he received the sentence of death that he had walked before God in uprightnesse and sincerity Sincerity then is worth more then the world And he that will not labour for that which is worth more then all the world it is a sign he is ignorant of the worth of it A man at the hour of death he would lose all the world if he had it for sincerity Therefore let us not part with our sincerity Let us not offend against sincerity and truth by falshood in our carriage and in our tongues or conversations any manner of way since it will yield us so much comfort in temptations and afflictions and at the Tribunal and Judgment-seat of Christ. Let us not have false aimes and ends and do things in a false manner It is not action onely that God requires but the manner If we regard not the manner God will not regard the matter The matter of the Pharisees performances was very good for stuffe but their hearts being naught God regarded it not Let us look to the manner of doing all that we do that we do them to God that we do them in sincerity in a holy manner The Scripture requires this receive the Sacrament but thus Examine your selves Take heed how you hear Let your conversation be in the world but thus in simplicity and godly sincerity S. Paul doth not say that he rejoyced in miracles or in the great works that he had done in converting of Nations c. which yet were matters of joy but when he comes to joy indeed here is his joy that his Conversation had been in simplicity and godly sincerity And Christians must take heed that they reason not against sincerity another way that is to conclude they have no goodnesse because they see a great deal of corruption and imperfections for imperfections may stand with truth Asa as I said had many infirmities in his life yet notwithstanding it is said that he walked in sincerity So Hezekias it is said he walked before God uprightly yet he had many infirmities and imperfections Nay a man may well retort this upon such poor soules that are witnesses with Satan against themselves in the sight of their sins that their sins being known by them especially with hatred of them it is a sign of sincerity Again others are ready to say I am not sincere because God followes me with afflictions and distresses Reason not so for he therefore followes thee with afflictions because he would have nothing but sincerity in thee he would make thee wholly sincere and purge thee as metal is purged in the fire from the drosse Therefore take heed thus of sinning against sincerity Do nothing in hypocrisie and when we are once sincere let us not sin against it by yielding to the Devil This comforted Job when his friends alledged his corruptions Well saith he you shall not take away my sincerity from me He looked to the eye of God that saw him to whom he approved his heart and that consideration made him sincere and thence he comforted himself So let us comfort our selves in our sincerity against Satan's allegations as a condition of the Covenant of grace which respects not perfection but truth To adde one thing more As there is an order of other graces so there is an order in this sincerity which we should labour for There is this order to be kept We must digg deep we must lay a sincere foundation What is that A deep search into our own hearts and waies by sound humilition We say of digestions if the first be naught all are naught if the first concoction in the body be naught there can never be good assimulation there can never be good blood so if there be not a good a sincere foundation there can never be a sincere fabrick Therefore many mistake and build Castles in the Ayr comb Downes as we say they build a frame of profession that comes to nothing in the end because it is not sincere in this order they were never truly humbled they had a guilefull heart in the cnofession of their sins they never knew what sin was throughly and feelingly Blessed is the man in whose spirit there is no guile Psal. 32. The Psalmist especially means and intends there in regard of down-right dealing with God in the confession of sins For he himself when he did not deal roundly and uprightly with God in the confession of his sinnes with detestation and with resolution never to commit the same again he was in a pitiful plight both of soul and body his moisture was turned into the drought of Summer But when without guile he laid open his soul to God then he came from sincere humiliation and sincere confession to sincere faith Therefore for the order let us first labour to be sincere in the sight of that which is ill in us in the confession of our sins and then we shall be sincere the better to depend upon Gods mercy in Christ by faith And from thence we shall come to sincere Love when we believe that God is reconciled in Christ we shall love him Our love is but a reflexion of his love to us when once we know that he loves us we shall love him again The Spring of all duty is sincere love coming from sincere faith as sincere faith is forced out of the sincere sight of our sins of the ill and miserable estate we are in A man will not go out of himself so long as he sees any hope in himself and therefore sound knowledge of the evil condition we are in it forceth the grace of faith which forceth a man to go out of himself And then when he is perswaded of Gods love in Christ he loves him again Love is that which animates
not rob God of any honour It was a proud term the Philosophers had as I said sometimes they called their moral vertues habits and if we consider them meerly as they are in the person they are habits but indeed they are graces the Scripture gives them a more heavenly term Grace those things that we guide our lives by as Wisdome Love Temperance Sobriety Grace is a fitter word then habit because then we consider them as they come from God freely they are graces they come from grace and favour And when men differ one from another in wisdome they differ in grace and favour he gives more light he opens the understanding of one more then another Therefore S. Paul was wise and careful this way when he speaks of that he had done himself lest he should rob God Not I oh not I 1 Cor. 15. but the Grace of God that was in me that was all in all For indeed we are what we are and we do what we do by Grace Even as by our selves we are men we are what we are and we do what we do by our soules by our reason and understanding so it is with spiritual grace we are what we are out of our selves by spiritual grace and we do what we do by spiritual grace And when that ceaseth when God suspends the blessed motions of his Spirit to humble us alas we are dark a man is a confused creature he is at a losse he is in darknesse for the particular managing of his life he knowes not what to do he knowes not what to speak he is puzzled in every particular action And therefore when he hath spoken or done that which is fit he should consider it is a grace My Conversation hath been in the Grace of God saith the Apostle Therefore let us sanctifie God in our hearts this way And when we stand in need of any direction desire God of his grace to give us wisdome and to give us the grace that we stand in need of That is for the phrase The point as I told you was this That All wisdome comes from Grace And God is ready to give us his Grace For saith S. Paul My Conversation hath been in Grace which God did minister to me and hath ministred to me to lead my life by The Reason is this Christ hath undertaken to give us grace if we be his Men under grace shall never want grace to lead a Christian life For Christ hath undertaken to be our Head to be our Husband to be our guide in our way to heaven As our head he is to give us motion to move us as his members As he is our Shepherd as he saith I am the good Shepherd so he is to lead us in our wayes and passages in his paths to conduct us to happinesse And as he is our husband so he is to be the head of his wife to guide us it is his office And he works according to his own office He is a King to subdue in us whatsoever is contrary to his good Spirit to subdue our rebellions and to bring all our Imaginations under his Spirit as well as to be a Priest to make peace between God and us He is a King to rule us and to over-rule in us whatsoever is ill And he is a Prophet to teach us and to guide us He is the Angel of the Covenant the great Counsellour that hath the Spirit of Counsel in him Esay 9. 6. not for himself onely but for his Church Therefore as all the things that we need come from grace and from the favour of God so we need not doubt of the grace of God in Christ being reconciled he is willing to give us grace This I observe to cut off all cavils of flesh and blood and to arm us against all discouragements There are two things that greatly hinder us from a Christian course Presumption and Despair Presumption to set upon things without asking grace of God without depending upon his direction by the strength of naturall parts of naturall wit And then Despair when a man saith What should I go about these things I shall never bring them to passe No First consider thy standing thy place and calling and then consider the abilities that God hath given thee consider thy parts consider thy duty that thou art to do And beg of God assistance and strength and if it be a thing that belong to thee go on set on all the duties that belong to thy place in this confidence that thou shalt have grace Go to the Fountain to Christ for grace for the direction of thy life he is the light of life he is the Way he is all in all to bring us to heaven Wherefore serves all the Promises not onely of life everlasting but even of grace but to encourage us to set on holy duties in confidence that if we have a will to be out of Satan's Kingdome and if we have a will to be out of fleshly wisdome God will take us into his Kingdome and into his Government He will give the Spirit to them that ask him Now the Spirit is a Spirit of direction a Spirit of assistance a Spirit of strength and comfort it serves all turnes How many Promises are wrapped in that promise of the Spirit In want of direction he shall be our Counsellour in want of strength to assist us In perplexities when we know not which way to turn us to advise us In extremities when we are ready to sink to comfort us He will give us his holy Spirit to supply all our defects in a fit time if we ask him If we find our need and if we will renounce our carnal wisdome Therefore set on those duties that God calls you to And withall do as S. Paul doth here he sets the negative before the affirmative renounce carnal wisdome be not guided by that trust perfectly to the Word of Grace and to the Spirit of Grace for the Word of Grace and the Spirit of Grace go together and then you shall find that God will do abundantly above all that you are able to ask or think Luther when he set on the work of Reformation those that saw him at the first might have said Get thee into thy Cloyster and say Lord have mercy upon thee for thou settest on a work impossible But he saw the parts that God had given him that he had wit to understand the abuses of the times and he had given him courage he saw by his profession he was called to be a Divine his conscience was awaked to see the abominations of the times and he set on to discover these things Did Christ leave him No he did not but gave successe to him to be admired of all When all the world was set against one man yet he prevailed against them all even because he walked as S. Paul did here in sincerity and simplicity that is he looked
as S. Paul doth here My care in my course of life and conversation hath been in Simplicity I have cast my self upon God and his government and not looked to the world and in sincerity I have aimed at God in all things I have had no false and by aimes I have not spared even my life by any carnal end I have not served my self either in Religion or in my course of life but I have laboured to serve God in serving my brethren and have led my life by the grace of God and by the Word of grace which I laboured to know that I might follow Let us be able in some measure in truth to say thus And then we may say further with S. Paul That this is our rejoycing the testimony of our conscience We shall never want joy And then let the world judge of us as it will there is such a strength and power such a prerogative and majesty in Christian comfort when a man can as I said reflect thus on himself that though in a weak measure yet in truth his conversation and course of life hath been though his slidings have been something in simplicity and sincerity that nothing can daunt it in this world It is above all discouragement above all eclipse of good name the testimony of Conscience which hath Gods testimony with it The witnesse of two is a strong witnesse the witnesse of God and conscience it will so settle our soules that neither ill reports nor any usage in the world shall daunt us we shall have comfort in all the passages of our lives be they what they will Whereas other men that lead not their lives in a constant course of holy simplicity and sincerity they are as the Prophet saith like the leaves of the Forrest shaken with every alteration with every rumour of ill newes But a sound Christian in the worst alteration there may be combustions there may be alteration of State yet his heart is fixed he is not moved Likewise in the hour of death he can say with Hezekias Thou knowest Lord I have led my life in simplicity that I have served thee with a perfect heart that is in sincerity I have desired and endeavoured to grow better which is all the perfection we have in this world sincerity witnessed by growth and strength against the contrary this will comfort us in all the alterations and changes in this world which is as a Sea full of trouble and at the hour of death likewise and at the day of Judgment this is that onely that will make us able to look Christ in the face Truth hath a Divinity in it this simplicity and sincerity more then any earthly thing it hath that in it that is real and spiritual A man that hath the Grace of God in the truth of it there is a great deal of majestie in it There is the greatest majestie in heavenly things when they appear most simple because of their excellency There is some thing of Gods in sincerity so much as a man hath in truth so much of Gods He partakes of the Divine nature as S. Peter saith so much as he hath in truth though it be never so little and being a branch of God it will make him look upon God in the day of Judgment Why because he knowes he is in the Covenant of Grace that he hath title to heaven by Christ. When a mans conscience can tell him that he hath led his life not by carnal wisdome but in the truth of Grace it will make him out-look Satan and all the troubles of the world and look unto Christ with comfort Who would not be in such a state Thus we see a Christian leads his life Not in fleshly wisdome but by the Grace of God I will adde one thing more and so finish the verse We may see hence That the most Religious men are the best Statesmen I know proud carnall Machivillian dispositions make a scorn at these positions they think them to be austere and poor principles till they come to death As that Wretch said himself when he came to dye That he had provided for all things but for death but while they are in their ruffe they think they can manage States and do all When indeed they bring the vengeance of God upon their own persons and upon the State they live in For God is neither in them nor with them He is not in them for they want Grace they are led by carnall wisdome altogether And he is not with them God will not give them good successe unlesse it be to increase their Judgement He will not give good successe to those projects that they take up contrary to his rule Therefore those that will be guided by reasons of Religion and submit themselves to the guidance of Gods blessed Spirit they are best for the state of their own soules and best for the publick estate For doth not God know the mysteries of State better then any man Is not he a better Politician then any Achitophel in the world If they have any State-policy that is worth the naming is it not from him Is it not a beam from that Sunne Yes why then who is the better the difference of parts excepted but take them alike a gracious man and another that is not so let the one fetch his counsel from hell from darknesse and the other be ruled by reasons of conscience and Religion there is no comparison God will crosse and curse their projects that are for their own ends both in themselves and in the State too As for the other that are under Grace and the government of Grace God will be wise in them by his Spirit and he will be wise for them Psal. 1. Whatsoever a good man doth it shall prosper it is a large promise How wondrous happy and wise were the Children of Israel when they kept the Covenant of God This is your wisdome to keep the Commandements of God Deuteron 4. and their wisdome made them happy How happy were they in David's time who made the Statutes of God the Man of his Counsel How happy was the State in Solomons time till Solomon did warp and bend to Carnall counsell to strengthen himself How happy was his Government till that time but never after that they were environed with enemies round about but alas who could hurt the people of God so long as they submitted themselves to the government of grace they were alway happy Therefore it is an idle thing to suppose that there will be any good successe by carnal projects no the onely good States-man is the religious man And it was never better with the Church of God before or since the time of Christ then when those were in the stern Do but think of this oft as S. Jude saith God onely wise we must all of us light our candle at that fire All wisdome even this poor spark of reason that God enlightneth every
distinction is good faith looks to the Word of the thing and hope looks to the thing in the Word faith looks to the Word promising hope looks to the performance of the thing promised Faith is the evidence of things not seen because it sets the things that are absent as if they were present hope is for the accomplishment of that If there were no promise to hope what needed hope and where were a foundation for faith Now God being willing to exercise faith and hope feeds them both and satisfies both that we may be heavenly wise in trusting and believing and not foolish as men in the world Therefore God hath given us promises and sealed them with an oath as we shall see afterward Now all promises coming from love what love can there be in God to us since the fall but it must be grounded on a better foundation then our selves If God love us it must be in one that is first beloved hereupon comes the ground of the Promises to be Jesus Christ God-man For all intercourse between God and us it must be in him that is able to satisfie God God will so in the Covenant of Grace entertain covenant and league with us as that he will have his Justice have full content he will be satisfied and therefore he that will be the foundation of intercourse between God and us he must be God-man perfectly able to satisfie Divine Justice he must be a friend of Gods and a friend to us hereupon the Promises must come from Gods love in Jesus Christ and he must first receive all good for us and we must have it at the second hand from him Hereupon it is said here that All the Promises of God in him are Yea and Amen It is a rule The first in any kind is the cause of all the rest Now Christ is the first beloved thing therefore in Coloss. 1. 3. he is called the Sonne of Gods love Christ being the only begotten Son of God he looks on him first before he looks on any thing else and whatsoever is lovel y he looks on it as it is in him in whom his love is first because he being his onely begotten Son he is the first object of all the respect that God hath therefore whatsoever is beloved it is as it hath a consistence in Christ. Therefore Christ he must first be loved and then we in him Consider him as the Son of God Consider him as man he is the first beloved being a holy man above all other men for the nature of man hath a subsistence in the second person in Christ therefore Christ as man is beloved before all others having a subsistence in his Godhead which is first beloved he is the prime and most excellent creature as man God looks first upon Christ as his onely begotten Son and upon Christ as man secondarily Upon the Church in the third place as united to Christ and all other creatures in reference to the Church and therefore there was never any thing in the world nor shall be that ever was or shall be loved but in the first-beloved Christ Jesus Again Christ is first because Christ is the Mediatour between God and man by office Consider what relation he hath between God and man and we may easily see that God first respects him and us for him For Christ being God and man and Mediatour therefore between God and man he is loved of both he is a friend to both to bring both together he is first regarded as Mediatour and then we for whose cause he is Mediatour Then again Consider Christ not as he is between God and us but as he is to us so he is first beloved To God he is his first begotten to God and us a Mediatour To us a head to us a husband to us a brother a head from whence there is all influence of life and motion a husband from whence we have all riches he is all in all to us in the relations he stands in to us therefore he is first in all things as the Apostle saith In all things he must have the preheminence and it is fit it should be so Especially since the fall leave the consideration of Christ and this may be a reason consider us since the fall as we are in the masse of corruption are we fit objects for Gods love are we not fuel for consuming fire is not he a consuming fire and we stubble for his wrath is not our nature defiled and tainted and can it otherwise be amiable then considered as knit to him that is first amiable that is Christ it cannot be So look to Christ as the Son of Gods love whether as God or as man look to his Office as Mediatour look on him as in relation to us as our husband and head look on us without him you may see that Gods love is first founded in Christ and then in us I mean in regard of execution in the passages of our salvation For at first it was a free love that gave Christ to us and us to Christ So God loved the world that he gave his Son that was the first that set all the world in execution but in the execution from predestination to glorification before all worlds he loved us in Christ to everlasting from the everlasting in election to everlasting in glory all is in Christ in regard of execution We subsist in him we are sanctified in him we are justified in him his righteousnesse is ours we are glorified in him we are loved in him God blesseth us with all spiritual blessings in him Ephes. 1. 5 6. God hath made us accepted in his beloved In him who is his beloved Son in whom he is well pleased not onely with whom but in whom in him and all his in him as mystical Christ head and members God now looks upon our nature as it is united to the person of his onely begotten Son and thereupon our nature is lovely in the eyes of God and enriched and honoured and advanced in Christ. Even as a base woman by marriage with a great person is advanced so our nature being mean of it self taking our nature when it was defiled with sin though that particular masse was sanctified by the Holy Ghost it was much advanced and ennobled by having a subsistence in the second person so God looks on us in Jesus Christ and loves us in him and bestowes all spiritual blessings in Christ. Therefore whatsoever we have Christ must have it first for us whatsoever is done to us must be done first to Christ. Christ is first predestinate as it is 1 Pet. 1. he is the predestinate Lamb of God he was ordained before all worlds to be a sacrifice for us and to be the head of his Church he was ordained before we were ordained Christ is first beloved and then we are beloved in his beloved He is well pleased in him and
Covenant A Covenant is with condition with stipulation a Legacie is an absolute thing when a man gives a thing freely without any condition So though the promises be propounded by way of Covenant with stipulations to and fro in the passages of them as a Covenant yet in regard of Gods gracious performance to them that depend upon him all the promises are Legacies Therefore Gods promises and Gods Covenant they are called a Testament as well as Promises They are called a Will A Will shewing what God will give us freely in the use of means as well as what our duty is in the Covenant Therefore our estate is happy in Christ if we depend upon God in the use of means He will give us all things that are necessary that he hath promised nay he will give grace to fulfill the Covenant if we beg it If a man be carelesse and live in sinnes against the Covenant he cannot perform the Covenant and let him not alledge this that he cannot for God will give grace to them that are careful to fulfill it Let such a man as neglects the performance on his part expect no good from God while he is so let him expect vengeance for all the threatnings of God are Yea and Amen as well as his Promises to them that live in sins against conscience Those that will not expect grace to serve him for the time to come all the threatnings are Yea and Amen there is no comfort for such I beseech you therefore consider it is a terrible thing to live in a State without God and without Christ to have no care of the performance of that that we have bound our selves to God by the Sacrament and in our particular vowes for his threatnings are effectual as well as his promises In Zech. 1. 5. there he tells the Jewes of the Prophets that had threatened many things The Prophets are dead saith he that threatned your fathers but for all that the threatnings lighted on them The Prophets where are they They were but men but when they were gone the threatnings lighted on your fathers Jeremy dyed but the Captivity that he threatned it did not dye they were carried captive 70. years So we threaten the vengeance of God on obstinate sinners that will not come in to the Gospel we are not Yea and Amen in regard of our being we die but our threanings are Yea if they be not reversed by repentance the threatnings are Amen as well as the Promises It is an evidence therefore we do not believe if we have not care to make good the Covenant on our part Again another evidence of a Child of the promises of a man that believes the promises it is inward opposition of the flesh and hatred of fleshly men for as it is Gal. 4. The son of the bond-woman persecuted the son of the free-woman A true down-right Believer is a son of the free-woman a son of promise and the flesh in us opposeth it like Ishmael like Job's wife and like Sarah that laughed when the promise was made we have an Ishmael and a Sarah in us I can this Promise of life everlasting when I am rotten and this promise of forgivenesse of sins and that good will be good to me if I crack not my conscience if I take this and that course shall these promises be performed here is opposition We cannot believe the Promises without much opposition So carnal men they mock and deride the counsel of the poor as the Psalmist saith The children of the promise that depend upon Gods mercy in Christ they are persecuted by fleshly Justitiaries and they that look to be saved by themselves without a promise they will not be beholding to God so much their proud swelling hearts rise against Christians that honour God by trusting in his promises and will be saved by promises A proud Popish person his heart riseth against a holy Christian that is a son of the promise he scorns him You intend to be saved by the righteousnesse of another no we will not be so much beholding to God we will satisfie for our selves we will merit heaven our selves God shall not be beholding to us to trust in him we will bring somewhat our selves we will buy it out Can these men have humble hearts Nay can they have any other then malicious persecuting hearts against humble believing Christians that honour God by trusting in his promises You know Isaac was a son of the Promise how was he born not according to the course of nature Sarah's womb was dead Christ was the Son of the promise how was he born not according to the course of nature for his mother was a Virgin So a Christian is a son of the Promise he is begotten where there is nothing in the course of nature likely where there is breeding for sin no works no righteousnesse then he believes in Christ. Isaac was a notable type of Christ and a son of promise he was begotten besides the course of generation so a Christian is not begotten as a proud Justitiary by works but he shewes himself therein to be a true believer he is begotten against the course of nature when he sees a barren heart and sees as little disposition in his heart to be a Christian as was in the Virgins womb for Christ to be born How was the Promise made to the Virgin She could not conceive how this should be since she knew not man It was replied again The Holy Ghost shall overshadow thee her heart closed with that speech and Christ was conceived then So the barren heart of a Christian if it can believe his sins shall he forgiven and he shall have life everlasting if he can honour God in believing that he will keep him in life and death let the heart close with these Promises and a Christian is begotten he is a son of the promise As for the proud Justitiary that will have something in himself to vaunt of and will persecute others that are true Christians he relies on no promise A Christian when he sees nothing to rely on but the promise he closeth with the promise and Christ is begotten in him at that very instant To name no more evidences you see how we may examine our selves whether we trust in and cast our selves upon the Promises of God or no if we do we shall find them Yea and Amen Consider it therefore and be glad of these Promises and when you have them go to God in Christ for the performance of them Take the counsel of that blessed man that in these latter times brought the glorious light of Religion to light Luther I mean to whom we are beholding for the doctrine of free grace more then any other Divine of later times Go to God in Christ in the Promises Christ is wrapped up in the Promises the Promises are the swadling cloathes wherein Christ is wrapped as he saith We must not think of
the Israelites fell to Idolatry Paul did but leave the Galatians a little and they were removed presently from Christ to false Teachers The nature of man is wonderful unstable very loose and unsettled Divine truths are supernatural we have need of stablishing therefore Again stablishing grace is necessary in regard of those oppositions that are made against us after once we be in Christ For with what malice doth Satan pursue a Christian when he is once taken out of his Kingdom And the world runs a clean contrary Byas in the several examples thereof How many scandals do there arise daily even in the very Church it self How many things are in our natural disposition joyning with them all which will make a man fly off and unsettle him if he be not stablished in grace And indeed what is the difference between one Christian and another that lives in the bosome of the Church between a temporizer and another The difference is but in their radication in their stablishing for all have the general knowledge of the truth but here is the difference the true Christian is radicated and rooted in the truth a false Christian is not and thereupon when temptations come either from within from conscience or from without from Satan and the world he falls away because he is not rooted but the other holds on because he is established And the best of us all have need of stablishing for there be degrees of truths degrees of faith in all the parts of faith there is conjecture a certain suspicious knowledge and there is opinion which is with fear of the contrary and there is knowledge and there is faith which is founded upon the Authority of the speaker And yet this faith though it be founded upon the Word of God it may receive further and further strength in all the parts of it In assent there may be a higher degree in affiance there may be a higher degree c. And therefore the best of us all have need of strengthening But where shall we have it Christ is the Basis the foundation of all our stability Now in the Covenant of grace we are stablished in him not in our selves The Point is this That Christ is the ground of our firmnesse As all the Promises are made to us in Christ in regard of the execution so God he brings us to Christ all is conferred to us in Christ as the Promises are made so they are executed God stablisheth us in Christ he drawes us to Christ. None come to me but God the Father drawes Therefore God doth reveal Christ to us in our conversion and our stablishing is in him Therefore our salvation is so certain because it is laid upon one that is so certain in himself Christ Jesus And happy it is that we are stablished in him that loves us so well that is both a low high Priest that will pity us and a great high Priest equall with God able to do all things to God for us and between God and us Adam we know had his strength in his own keeping and being left to himself we see what became of him The Angels had their strength in their own keeping and we know how soon they fell But since the fall we are founded and bottomed upon a surer foundation now we stand not by our own strength but we are established in Jesus Christ we are surer then the Angels were before they fell surer then Adam was in Paradise for now we arestablished in Christ the Mediatour God and man and because we could not keep our stability in our selves we are stablished in him that wrought it for us and that possesseth it for us in heaven and that keeps it for us and as it is laid up and kept for us so we are kept for it You are kept by the power of God to salvation 1 Pet. 1. And therefore as there be many differences which advance the state of grace above the state of nature so this is one that our state in grace is more stable and firm as being stablished upon a better ground even upon Jesus Christ the second Adam God never mends but he mends for the better and he never restores but he restores for the better the new heaven and the new earth shall be better then the first so the new creature the new Adam is more glorious then the first and as that which we recover in Christ is more and better then that we lost in Adam so the certainty and security of our estate in grace is far beyond the other this being stablished in Christ. But what in us is stablished in Christ and in Christ how considered First of all our Judgment that is stablished in Evangelical truths concerning the Natures and the Offices of Christ concerning the priviledges that we have by him and this is the ground of all other stablishment we cannot firmly cleave to that with our Will and affections which we do not clearly apprehend with our understandings When we have a clear and judicious apprehension of things then followes a firm affection to them the adhering and cleaving of the will and affections it comes from the discerning of the understanding and therefore as we say of the first concoction if that be naught all is naught and if that be good and sound it makes way for all concoctions after so if things be well digested in the Judgment if there be a sound illumination and apprehension of Divine truths it makes way for a constant and firm adhesion therefore the first stablishing is of our Judgments Secondly as our Judgments so our Wills are stablished in cleaving unto Christ making choyce of him above all things in the world that as he became man to sue unto us for our love and to become our Husband so we then marry him when upon judging what an excellent person he is and how fit for us we choose him and cleave unto him constantly without all separation for better for worse in our joy in our love and delight for indeed he is the only excellent object and most fittest for our affections to be placed on whatsoever other things besides we place our affections on too much they make us worse then our selves onely he can advance us to a better estate then we are in that can raise us higher In a word the whole soul judgment will and affections and all the inward man for so the Apostle takes it in that latitude Ephes. 3. 16. is stablished in Christ and this carries the outward man with it We are stablished in Jesus Christ not in our selves Now when we are stablished in Christ whatsoever Christ hath or is is ours It is a most excellent condition to be in Christ and to be stablished in him for to be established in Christ is to be in a firm estate in an everlasting estate once Christs and for ever his it is a glorious state for he hath
necessity of Gods writing his truth in our bowels he saith in the Covenant of grace I will write my Law in their inward parts thaat is I will teach their very hearts that knowledge that they have shall be spiritual For beloved the knowledge that must save us must not onely be of Divine things but it must be Divine it must not onely be of spirituall things but it must be spiritual the light that we have of spirituall things must be answerable to the things we must see them by their own light we cannot know spiritual and heavenly things by a humane light but as the things themselves are spiritual so we must have the Spirit of God that by it we may come to know spiritual things spiritually Desire God therefore to vouchsafe us his Spirit that it may teach us and convince us of the truth of those things which we read and hear God must do it he must perswade and bow the heart and will and affections and so he will do it and doth it to those that rely upon him And this is the second Branch As God must do it so God will do it What is the Reason of that It is this he will do it because he is constant where he begins a good work he will finish it to the day of the Lord. He will do it because in the Covenant of Grace he hath undertaken both parts both his own and ours He undertakes his own part which is to give us eternal life and to give us Christ and he undertakes our part too which is to believe and to cleave unto Christ c. he makes this good himself he works this in the heart by the Spirit for therefore it is called the Covenant of Grace because God himself is graciously pleased to do both parts Which must be comfortably remembred against an Objection that flesh and blood will make I might indeed come to God and Christ but I am an unworthy empty creature I have no faith Come and atrend upon the means the gift of application and confirming and stablishing is part of the Covenant The Covenant that God makes with thee is not onely to give thee life everlasting and glory but to give thee grace likewise Faith is the gift of God He that stablisheth us and confirms us upon that which is certain in it self is God Lay it up against a time of temptation for a pillar and ground of your faith that here God doth both he gives us Promises and gives us Christ whereon the Promises are founded and likewise establisheth us and seals us c. he doth all So that as none can stablish the soul but God by his Spirit so he will do it It is an excellent reason of the Apostle in Rom. 5. If when we were enemies God gave us his Son to reconcile us how much more now shall we be saved If we were saved by the Death of Christ when we were enemies much more shall we be preserved by his life he now living in heaven So I say If God when there was nothing in us but we were in a clean opposite estate did begin spiritual life in us much more will he stablish that which he hath begun in us And this stablishing as well as the beginning of grace comes likewise from God for take Grace in the whole latitude and extent of it take all that can be in grace all comes graciously from God the offer of it the beginning of it this manner of it that it should be strong the strengthning of grace it comes from God he strengtheneth us in grace as well as begins it so that Grace it self and this Modus this manner that it is strong and firm that it should hold out all comes from God A Christian needs not onely converting grace but stablishing grace God that converted him must stablish him and build him up and confirm him Peter was in the state of grace and yet when God did not stablish him you see how he fell so David was an excellent man but when God did not stablish him you see how he fell The weakest with the stablishing grace of God will stand and the strongest without the stablishing grace of God will sink and fall The Apostle doth not say he hath done but he doth stablish us This must be considered that the life of a Christian is a perpetual dependant life not onely in his conversion he lives by faith he hath his first life but ever after he lives by faith that is dependance on God for assistance and protection and strength in the whole course of his life The ignorance of this makes us subject to fail for when we trust to grace received and do not seek for a new supply we fall into Peters case Though all men for sake thee yet will not I hereupon Peter fell fouly he had too much confidence in grace received Therefore God is fain to humble his children to teach them dependance and usually therefore in Scripture where some special grace is given he hath somewhat joyned with it to put them in mind that they do not stand by their own strength In the same Chapter where Peter makes a glorious confession Thou art the Son of the living God and he was honoured of Christ by that confession yet Christ calls him Satan in the same Chapter and he forsakes his Master A strange thing To teach us that we stand not of our selves When we are strong it is by God when we are weak it is by our selves Jacob wrastled and was a prevailer with God but he was fain to halt for it he was struck with halting all the dayes of his life though he had the victory and overcame God taking upon him as I said before the person of an enemy to strive with him yet God to put him in mind that he had the strength whereby he prevailed from him and not of himself he made him limp all his dayes We need perpetual dependance upon God Therefore let us set upon nothing in our own strength as Hannah saith comfortably 1 Sam. 2. No man is strong by his own strength God is all our sufficiency Mans nature doth affect a kind of Divinity he would be a God to himself but God will teach him that he is not a God but a dependant creature He affects a Divinity thus he will set upon things in confidence of his own wisdome without prayer and thinks to work things with the strength of his own parts to compasse things with his own wit to bring things to a good issue O no it will not be so In Prov. 3. Acknowledge God in all thy wayes That is acknowledge him in thy enterprizes in any thing acknowledge him in the progresse that thou needest stabilishing grace acknowledge him in the issue that thou needest his blessing upon all thy endeavours acknowledge God in all our wayes Therefore whas do we but make our selves Gods when we set upon businesse
especially weighty without invocation and dependance A Christian is wondrous weak a man is vanity in himself but take him as he is built upon the promises and as he is in the love of God and Christ he is a kind of almighty man then I can do all things in Christ that strengtheneth me A Christian is omnipotent if he depend upon the Promise and commit his wayes to God but he is impotent and weak in himself It is God that must stablish us A man that is vanity he makes him firm a man that is weak he makes him strong a man that is unsettled he settles him The Word is a firm thing and God that builds us on the Word is as firm and Christ in whom we are built is as firm Peter when he built on the Word he was wondrous firm he was a rock too A man that stands on a rock is firm Now in believing the Gospel and in being built on the Gospel upon the Prophets and Apostles upon Apostolical truth now we that are weak in our selves are firm The weakest creatures have the strongest shelters and weaknesse is turned by God to be a help for conscience of weaknesse makes us seek for strength out of our selves You know the Conies as Solomon saith they hide themselves in the rock they flee to their burroughs The birds because snares are laid for them below they build their nests on high to secure themselves that way We see the Vine a weak plant it hath the Elm to prop it weak things must have a strong support So man being weak in himself weak in judgment weak in affections he is stablished by God God herein triumphing in our weaknesse over strength For when we have strong Adversaries and we are weak Satan is a strong enemy God himself puts upon him the vizor of an enemy sometimes as in Job's case and Christs on the Crosse when God personates an enemy and the devil is a real enemy And the devils instruments Hereticks and Seducers are strong strong in wit and parts every way and we are weak to encounter with God to wrastle with him and we are weak to encounter with Principalities and powers and with men of stronger parts that are besotted and intoxicated with Satanical temptations and labour to draw all into the snare of the devil with themselves Now when God in weaknesse shall triumph over strength here is glory to God in stablishing us It is God that must stablish us And as God must onely do it so he is ready to do it for in the Covenant of grace it lies upon him God hath promised there to confirm it and therefore the Apostle 1 Cor. 7. 8 9. binds it with the faithfulnesse of God Faithful is he that hath promised who also will do it God is content that our confirmation should lye upon his faithfulnesse and therefore when he accepts us into the Covenant of grace he performs our part as well as his own God is faithful saith the Apostle 2 Cor. 9. who hath called us to the fellowship of Christ who will confirm us to the end he is content to hazard his reputation as it were and to be counted unfaithfull else so that strengthening grace is of God he hath bound himself by his faithfulnesse to confirm and to stablish those that are his Mark here by the way before I come to handle the Doctrine of perseverance what an invincibld Argument you have to prove that a man that is once in Christ can never fall away Say they Indeed God for his part is ready to maintain us to do this but we for our part are subject to fall away as if the carrying of us along in the course of grace to salvation did not lye upon God and Christ. God is faithful to confirm us to the end we being once in the Covenant of grace he doth our part and his own too how can those then that are in the state of grace ever finally fall away Now God doth confirm us by working such graces in us by his Spirit by which we are stablished As for instance I will put my fear into their hearts that they shall never depart from me he stablisheth us by fear Make an end of your salvation with fear and trembling for it is God that works in you both the will and the deed he puts a spirit of jealousie into a man over his corruptions and a reverential filial fear which keepeth him from presuming And likewise he preserveth us by Wisdome as it is Prov. 2. 10 11. When wisdome entreth into thy heart discretion shall preserve thee and understanding shall keep thee And by Faith You are kept saith the Apostle by the mighty power of God through faith to salvation And by Peace of Conscience which is wrought in the heart by the Spirit The Peace of God which passeth all understanding shall guard for so the word signifieth your hearts and minds that is a true Believer that is once in Christ he finds such joy in the Holy Ghost such inward peace of conscience as preserves and guards him from despair from the temptations of Satan from the seeming wrath of God So that God as he stablisheth us so he stablisheth us as it becometh Christians as it becomes men by sanctifying our understandings by working grace in our hearts the grace of fear of wisdome of faith of peace c. so that a Christian now cannot presume save in a holy kind of presumption that God will finish his own good work But of this I say I shall have fitter occasion to speak hereafter To conclude therefore God you see must stablish and God will stablish It is a Point of great comfort every way Comfort from the foundation and root in whom we are stablished and from him that hath taken upon him to stablish us God by his holy Spirit If a Christian should fall God must be unstable or Christ the foundation must be unstable or the holy Spirit by which we are stablished must be unstable but it were blasphemy to think thus I come now to the last thing The subject or the persons that are stablished us with you He that stablisheth us with you We should have honourable conceits of all Christians there is an oyntment runs down upon the very skirts of Aaron's garment there is not the lowest Christian but he receiveth something from Christ the head Perhaps thou hast one grace in an eminent manner it may be he hath another more eminent then thou hast thou may est have more knowledge he may have more humility thou mayest have more strength of judgment he may have more sense of his own wants There is somewhat in every Christian that is valuable that is estimable and precious not only in the eye of God who valued him so as to give his Son for him but should be so also in the eye of stronger Christians therefore S. Paul here a strong Christian out of
onely so but he sealed him by many miracles by the resurrection from the dead by which he was declared to be the Son of God by the calling of the Gentiles and by many other things Christ being sealed he sealed all that he did for our redemption with his blood and for the strengthening of our faith he hath added outward seales the two Sacraments to seal our faith in this blood and in him who is sealed of the Father But here in this place is meant another manner of sealing for here is not meant the sealing of Christ but the sealing of us that have communion with Christ. The same Spirit that sealed the Redeemer seales the redeemed What is our Sealing Sealing we know hath this use First of all it doth imprint a likenesse of him that doth seal upon the wax that is sealed as when the Kings Picture or Image is stamped or sealed upon the wax every thing in the wax answers to that in the seal face to face eye to eye hand to hand foot to foot body to body So we are said to be sealed when we carry in our soules the Image of Jesus Christ for the Spirit sets the stamp of Jesus Christ upon every Christian so that there is the likenesse of Christ in all things understanding answers understanding in proportion as a child you know answers the father it hath limb for limb foot for foot finger for finger but it is not in quantity but in proportion and likenesse so it is in the soul that is sealed by the Spirit there is a likenesse to Christ something of every grace of Christ there is understanding of the same heavenly supernatural truths there is a judging of things as Christ judgeth and the affections go as Christs do he loves that which Christ loves and he hates that which he hates he joyes in that which Christ delights in Every affection of the soul is carried that way that the affections of our blessed Saviour are carried in proportion Every thing in the soul is answerable to Jesus Christ and there is no grace in Christ but there is the like in every Christian in some small measure the Obedience of Christ to his Father even to the death it is in every Christian the Humility whereby Christ abased himself it is in every Christian. Christ works in the soul that receiveth him a likenesse to himself And this is an undoubted Character of a Christian The soul that believes in Christ doth not onely believe in him for his own sake to be forgiven of his sins but together with believing feeling the forgivenesse of his sins and that Christ hath so loved him and done such things for him he is ambitious to expresse Christ in all things and it stirres him up with desire to be like him for thinks he is there such love in Christ to me and is there such grace and mercy in God to me and was Christ so good as to do and to suffer such things for me Oh how shall I improve things for him Oh that I might be like him lovely in his eyes This I say must needs be so these desires are undoubtedly universally in the soules of all those that partake of Christ it is the nature of the thing to be so we shall desire to be transformed more and more to Christ Every way to bear the Image of the second Adam who is as the Apostle saith from heaven heavenly and so shall we be heavenly-minded as he was heavenly-minded on earth talking and discoursing of the Kingdome of Heaven and sitting people for the Kingdome of heaven and drawing others from this world to meditate of a better estate there is a likenesse to these in the soul of every believer and that 's the reason that Christs Offices are put together in all those that he saves that look whosoever he is a Priest to to dye for their sins to them he is a Prophet to teach them and a King to subdue their corruptions and to change them and alter them and to rule them by his Spirit You have carnal men in presumption which leads them to destruction they sever things in Christ they will take benefit by Christ but they care not for his likenesse they will have him as a Priest but they respect him not as a King Now all that are Christs have the stamp of the Spirit upon them there are desires wrought in them by the Spirit of God to that purpose and a Spirit of Sanctification that makes them every way like Christ in their proportion And that is an evidence of the sealing of such a soul because the soul of it self hath no such impression for the soul of it self is a barren Wildernesse a stone that is cold and uncapable of impression when therefore the soul can command nature being stiffe and hard and dead we see an impression of a higher nature a man may know that undoubtedly the Spirit of God hath been in this soul for we see a loving spirit an humble spirit a gracious a believing a broken spirit an obedient spirit to every commandment of God the soul can yield it self wholly to the will of God in all things certainly I say the Spirit of God hath been here for these things grow not in a natural soul. A stone you know is cold by nature and if a man feel a stone to be hot a man may undeniably gather Certainly the Sun hath shined upon this stone Our hearts are very cold by nature undoubtedly when they are warmed with the love of God that they are made plyable to duties the Sun of righteousnesse Christ hath shined on this cold heart Gods Spirit can work on Marble can work on Brasse as Jeremy saith It was the commendations of one of the Fathers that he could work on Brasse God can work on our soules which are as brasse and make an impression of grace there and therefore when a man sees an impression upon such hard mettal certainly he may know that the finger of Gods Spirit hath been there So that the work of Sanctification is an undoubted feal of the Spirit of God A second use of a Seal is Distinction Seales are given for distinguishing for you know sealing is a stamp set upon some few out of many so this sealing of the Spirit it distinguisheth Christians from others as we shall see more at large afterwards Then again a Seal it serves for Appropriation for men seal those things that are their own Merchants seal those Wares that they either have or mean to have a right unto Men seal their own sheep and not others and stamp their own Wares and not others God here stoops so low as to make use of terms that are used in humane matters and contracts and by sealing he shewes that he hath appropriated his own to himself chosen and singled them out for himself to delight in Again sealing further serves to make things authentical to give authority and excellency to
things Magistrates and Officers go with their broad Seal and deliver things that they would have carried with authority sealed and the Seal of the Prince is the authority of the Prince so that a Seal is to make things authentical to give validity to things answerable to the value and esteem of him that seales These four principal uses there is of sealing Now God by his Spirit doth all these for God by his Spirit sets the stamp and likenesse of Christ upon us he distinguisheth us from others from the great refuse of the world he appropriates us to himself and like wise he authorizeth us and puts an excellency upon us to secure us against all when we have Gods Seal upon us we stand against all accusations Who shall separate us from the love of God we dare defâ—… all objections and all accusations of conscience whatsoever a man that hath Gods Seal he stands impregnable it so authorizeth him in his conscience for it is given us for our assurance and not for Gods God seales not because he is ignorant He knowes who are his But what is the Spirit it self this seal or the graces of the Spirit or the comforts of the Spirit what is this seal for that is the question now whether the Spirit it self or the work of the Spirit or the comfort and joy of the Spirit I answer indeed the Spirit of God where it is is a sufficient seal to us that God hath set us out for his for whosoever hath the Spirit of Christ is his and whosoever hath not the Spirit of Christ is none of his but the Spirit is the Authour of this sealing and the sealing that is in us is wrought by the Spirit so that except you take the Spirit for that which is wrought by the Spirit you have not the right comprehension of sealing and so the Spirit with that which the Spirit works is the seal for the Spirit is alway with his own seal with his own stamp Other seales are removed from the stamp and the stamp remains though the seal be gone but the Spirit of God dwells and keeps a perpetual residence in the heart of a Christian guiding him moving him enlightning of him governing him comforting him doing all offices of a seal in his heart till he have brought him to heaven for the Holy Ghost never leaves us it is the sweetest inhabitant that ever lodging was given to he doth all that is done in the soul and he is perpetually with his own work in joy and comfort though he seems sometimes to be in a corner of the heart and is not discernable yet he alway dwells in us the Spirit is alwayes with the stamp it sets upon the soul. What is that stamp then to come to the matter more particularly what is that that the Spirit seales us with especially what is that work I answer the Spirit works in this order for the most part and in some of these universally First the Spirit doth together with the Word which is the instrument of the Spirit the Chariot in which it is carried convince us of the evil that is in us and of the ill estate we are in by reason thereof it convinceth us that we are sinners and of the fearful estate that we are in by sin this is the first work of the Spirit on a man in the state of nature it convinceth us of the ill that is in us and of the ill due unto us and thereupon it abaseth us therefore it is called the Spirit of bondage because it makes a man tremble and quake till he see his peace in Christ. When the Spirit hath done that then it convinceth a man by a better by a sweeter light discovering a remedy in Christ who is sealed of God to reconcile God and us And as he enlightneth the soul convinceth it of the all-sufficiency that is in Christ and the authority that he hath being sent and sealed of God for that purpose so he works on the affections he inclines the heart to go to God in Christ and to cast himself on him by faith Now when the soul is thus convinced of the evil that is in us and of the good that is in Christ and with this convincing is enclined and moved by the holy Spirit as indeed the holy Spirit doth all then upon this the Spirit vouchsafeth a superadded work as the Spirit doth still adde to his own work he addes a confirming work which is here called Sealing that seal is not faith for the Apostle saith After you believed ye were sealed so that this sealing is not the work of faith but it is a work of the Spirit upon faith assuring the soul of its estate in grace But what need confirmation when we believe Is not faith confirmation enough when a man may by a reflect act of the soul know that he is in the state of grace by believing It is true as the natural conscience knows what is in a man as the natural judgment can reflect so the spiritual understanding can reflect and when he believes he knowes that he believes without the Spirit by the reflect act of the understanding except he be in case of temptaton what needs sealing then This act of ours in believing and the knowledge of our believing it is oft terribly shaken and God is wondrous desirous as we see by the whole passage of the Scripture that we should be secure of his love he knowes that he can have no glory and we can have no comfort else and rherefore when we by faith have sealed to his truth he knowes that we need still further sealing that our faith be current and good and to strengthen our faith for all is little enough in the time of temptation and therefore the single witnesse of our soul by the reflect act knowing that we do believe when we do believe it is not strong enough in great temptations for in some tryals the soul is so carried and hurried that it cannot reflect upon it self nor know what is in it self without much ado therefore first the Spirit works faith whereby we seal Gods truth Joh. 3. He that believes hath put to his seal that God is true when God by his Spirit moves me to honour him by sealing his truth that Whosoever believes in Christ shall be saved then God seales this my belief with an addition of his holy Spirit so that this sealing is a work upon believing and as faith honours God so God honours faith with a superadded seal and confirmation But yet we not come particularly enough to know what this Seal is When we honour God by sealing his truth then the Spirit seales us certainly then the Spirit doth it by presence by being with us in our soules What then doth the Spirit work when we believe How shall we know that there is such a spiritual sealing I answer the Spirit in this seaâ—…g works these four things First a secret voyce or
witnesse to the soul that we are the sonnes of God Secondly a voyce or speech in us again to God causing us to have accesse to the Throne of grace with boldnesse Thirdly a work of Sanctification Fourthly Peace of Conscience and joy in the Holy Ghost By these four wayes we may know the sealing of the Spirit after we believe and that our faith is a sound belief and that we are in the state of grace indeed First I say the Spirit speaks to us by a secret kind of whispering and intimation that the soul feeles better then I can expresse Be of good comfort thy sins are forgiven thee saith he to the soul I am thy salvation there is I say a sweet joyning a sweet kisse given to the soul I am thine and thou art mine God by his Spirit speaks so much there is a voyce of Gods Spirit speaking peace to his people upon their believing And then secondly the Spirit of adoption stirres up the speech of the soul to God that as he sayes to the soul Because thou believest now thou art honoured to be my child so the Spirit stirres up in the soul a Spirit of prayer to cry Abba Father it can go boldly to God as to a Father for that Abba Father it is a bold and familiar speech There are two things in a prayer of a Christian that are incompatible to any carnal man there is an inward kind of familiar boldnesse in the soul whereby a Christian goes to God as a child when he wants any thing goes to his father a child considers not his own worthinesse or meannesse but goeth to his father familiarly and boldly so I say when the Spirit of God speaks to us from God and tells the soul I am thine I am thy salvation thy sins are forgiven thee be of good comfort and when the soul again speaks to God when it can pour forth it self with a kind of familiar boldnesse and earnestnesse especially in extremity and in time of trouble and can wait in prayer and depend upon God this spiritual speech of God to the soul and of the soul to God it is a seal of the Spirit that indeed we are true believers because we can doe that that none can do but Christians God speaks to our souls he raiseth our souls and by his Spirit he puts a spirit of supplication into us and helps our infirmities for we know not what to ask but he helps our weaknesse and enables us to lay out the wants of our soules to God these are evidences of the presence and of the seal of the Spirit In the third place this sealing of the Spirit after we beleeve is known by the sanctifying work of the Spirit for as I told you before in the unfolding of the Point the Spirit seals our spirits by stamping the likenesse of the Spirit of Christ on us so that when a man finds in his soul some lineaments of that heavenly Image of Christ Jesus when he finds some love he may know by that love that he is translated from death to life when he finds his spirit subdued to be humble to be obedient when he finds his spirit to be heavenly and holy as Christ was when he finds this stamp upon the soul surely he may reason I have not this by nature naturally I am proud now I can abase my self natureally I am full of malice now I can love I can pray heartily for mine enemies as Christ did naturally I am lumpish and heavy now in afflictions I can joy in the Holy Ghost I have somewhat in me contrary to nature surely God hath vouchsafed his Spirit upon my believing in Christ to mark me to seal 〈◊〉 to stamp me for his I carry now the Image of the second Adam I know the Holy Ghost hath been in my heart I see the stamp of Christ there Know you not that Christ is in you except you be cast awayes saith the Apostle so upon search the Christian soul finds somewhat of Christ alwayes in the soul to give a sweet evidence that he is sealed to the day of redemtpion The fourth evidence that the Spirit of God hath been in a mans heart is the joy of the Holy Ghost and peace of conscience sanctification is the ordinary seal that is alwaies in the soul this is an extraordinary seal peace and joy when the soul needs incouragement then God is graciously pleased to superadd this to give such spiritual ravishings which are as the very beginnings of heaven so that a man may say of a Christian at such times that he is in heaven before his time he is in heaven upon earth but especially God doth this when he will have his children to suffer or after suffering after some special conflict after we have combated with some special corruption with some sinfull disposition with some strong temptation and have got the victory To him that overcometh will I give of the hidden Manna and a white stone and a new name that none can read it but he that hath it that is he shall have assurance that he is in the state of grace and the sweet sense of the love of God and that sweet heavenly Manna that none else can have thus God dealt with Job after he had exercised that Champion a long time at the last he discovered himself in a glorious manner to him so it is usually after some great crosse or in the middest of some great crosse when God sees that we must be supported with some spiritual comfort we sink else then there is place and time for spiritual comfort when earth cannot comfort thus St. Paul in the middest of the dungeon when he was in the stocks being sealed with the Spirit he sang at midnight Alas what would have become of blessed Paul his spirit would have sunk if God had not stamped it with Joy in the Holy Ghost and so David and the three young men in the fiery furnace and Daniel in the den God doth then even as parents smile upon their children when they are sick and need comfort so above all other times God reserves this hidden sealing of his children with a spirit of joy when they need it most sometimes in the middest of afflictions sometimes as a reward when they come out of their afflictions sometimes before so our Saviour Christ had James and John with him upon the mountain to strengthen them against the scandal of suffering after so God when he hath a great work for his children to do some suffering for them to go through as an encouragement before-hand he enlargeth their spirits with the joy of the Holy Ghost and some times also after a holy and gracious disposition in the Ordinances of God God doth adde an excellent portion of his Spirit a seal extraordinary for indeed God thinks nothing enough for his children till he have brought them to heaven seal upon seal and comfort upon comfort and the more we depend upon him
in the meanes of salvation and the more we conflict with our corruptions the more he increaseth the sweet comforts and the hidden Manna of the Spirit Thus we see how the Spirit seals I beseech you therefore let us examine our selves by that which hath been spoken after we believe God seales those that do believe we honour him by believeing he honours us by sealing us with his Spirit Hath God spoken to thy soul by the witnesse of the Spirit and said I am thy salvation thy sins are forgiven thee doth God stirre up thy spirit to call upon him especially in extremity and to go with boldnesse and earnestnesse to him surely this boldnesse and earnestnesse is an evidence of the seal of the Spirit for a man that hath no seal of the Spirit he cannot go to God in extremity Saul in extremity he goes to the Witch and Achitophel and Judas in extremity go to desperate conclusions a man that hath not the Spirit of God speaking peace to his conscience to whom God hath not given the Spirit of Adoption to cry Abba Father in all manner of exigents he sinâ—…ks as lead to the bottom of the sea so heavy is the soul that is not raised by the Spirit of God he hath no consistence till he come to the Centre to hell Did you ever feel the sweet joy of the Spirit after conflict with corruptions and getting ground of them and in holy duties c. it is a sign that God hath sealed you But you will say How can that be a seal that is not alwaies a seal cotinues with the thing Gods children find not peace alwaies the joy of the Spirit comes after the work of the Spirit how then can this be a seal I Answer Yes for howsoever it be or not alway sensible yet it is alway a seal though we have not alwaies the joy of the Spirit yet we have the Spirit of joy a Christian hath not the joy of the Spirit at all times for that is moveable but he hath alwaies the Spirit of joy which Spirit though it be not known by joy yet it is known by operation and working there is the work of the Spirit where there is not alwayes the joy of the Spirit and therefore when that fails go to the work of sanctification and see what stamp and resemblance of Christ there is see if thy heart be humble and broken if thou have a loving disposition in thee like to Christ that thou hatest that which Christ hateth that thou seest a division in thy self I say when the joy of the Spirit ceaseth go to the work of the Spirit and to this work of the Spirit viz. the voice of the Spirit canst thou cry to God with prayer and supplication and if thou canst not pray with distinct words canst thou mourne and groan to God this sighing and groaning is the voice of Gods Spirit and God knowes the voice of his own Spirit But for the question propounded the soul of a Christian knowes that when it findes not extraordinary comfort from Gods Spirit that Gods love is constant It can reason thus Though I find not the comfort of the Spirit yet I have the Spirit of Comfort because I had the Spirit in former times and Gods Spirit is unchangeable and therefore though it be not with me now as in those ravishings of the Spirit yet the love of God is the same though my feeling be not the same because though I be off and on and my feeling ebb and flow yet his love is not so and here upon the extraordinary feeling of the Spirit which is superadded as an extraordinary seal it may be a sound seal of Comfort from the constancy of God who gave it and he gave it for this end that we might have recourse and retire back in our thoughts and argue it was thus and thus with me then we remember the times of old as David saith Psal. 77. and help our selves with our former feelings he that alway hath life is not alwaies alike stirred Christ may be begotten and live in us but he stirs not alwaies alike so though the Spirit of sanctification be in us and stir in us yet his stirring is not alike so sweet and the stirring of the Spirit though it be not alway yet the Spirit is alway there so the soul may have recourse to that which is unchangeable and constant even God himself and his love is as himself But to take a Christian in his worst time in the worst and greatest afflictions how shall he know then that he is sealed of the Spirit when corruption temptation and affliction meet together in the soul when temptation is joyned with our corruption and afflictions yield ground to temptations for Satan useth the afflictions we are in as temptations to shake our faith Canst thou be a child of God and be so exercised is this grace so affliction is a weapon to temptation for Satan to help his fiery darts with Now how shall a man know that God hath any part here He may know that he is sealed by the Spirit of God if he have a spirit to thwart these if he row against the stream if he go contrary to all these if he find a spirit resisting Satans temptations and raising himself above afflictions and standing against and combating with his corruptions and checking his carnal soul when it is drawing him down Why art thou discomforted O my soul saith David Psal. 42. 43. He found corruptions and afflictions and Satans temptations working with them depressing his soul downwards hereupon having the Spirit in him saith he Why art thou disquieted within me trust in God He first chides his soul Why art thou so and then he layes a charge upon it trust in God So I say when this is in the soul in the greatest extremity when I can check my soul Why art thou thus yet trust in God whatsoever is in the world yet there is hope in heaven though there be little comfort upon earth this is a sign that I am sealed with the Spirit of God and thus in the worst temptations that can come and so in the worst times a man may know that he is in the state of grace One use of a seal I told you before was to distinguish if a man therefore find in himself a distinguishing from the errours of the times Many walk saith the Apostle of whom I have told you oft their end is damnation their belly is their god they mind earthly things but what did S. Paul in the mean time what did the Spirit work in him But our conversation is in heaven saith he The whole world was overspread with a deluge of sin but what was Noah and his family God by his Spirit distinguished them they went a contrary course to the world and Lot in Sodom so a man may know that he is sealed when the Spirit leads him another way that he is not led with the
any thing as we may be of Gods love for the time to come We have a common speech amongst us I know what I have but what I shall have I know not It is an ill speech thou knowest not what thou hast for these worldly things a man hath them so to day as they may take to themselves wings and be gone to morrow for they are but vanity A may be as rich as Job in the morning and as poor as Job at night so that a man knowes not what he hath but for the time to come for grace and glory he may say Though I know not what I have or how long I shall have it I know what I shall have I know that neither things present nor things to come shal be able to separate me from the love of God in Jesus Christ. So that you see here a foundation of the sweet and comfortable Doctrine of perseverance Grace is the Earnest of glory and it doth but differ in degrees the beginning of glory is here in grace the consummation of it hereafter We are anointed Kings here we shall be Kings in heaven we are sons here in this world we shall be heires in heaven we shall be adopted there in soul and body here we are adopted in soul for in this life Christs first coming was for the soul his second coming is for body and soul therefore the resurrection is called the day of regeneration because then it shall be perfected here regeneration is onely begun So that in respect that the work of the Spirit the graces of the Spirit are called an Earnest we may know and be assured of perseverance in grace and that that which we have now in the beginning shall be accomplished Oh how should this set us upon desires to have the blessed work of the Spirit upon us to have the Spirit to set his seal upon us to be Christs to have this Earnest and to get more and more Earnest till we have the full bargain accomplished in heaven Thirdly I told you that an Earnest is part of the whole they therefore that have not the Earnest cannot look for the bargain The Observation hence is That Those that look to be happy must first look to be holy This Point I mean to touch very briefly I am loath to passe it by though it be not the principal thing I aim at because it may serve for a kind of tryal whether a man have any right to heaven or no. It is the ordinary presumptuous errour of common Christians to think to go to heaven out of unclean courses with Lord have mercy upon us but miserable wretches are they that have not this Earnest of the Spirit in them an Earnest of heaven beforehand in grace and peace and joy We must all read our happinesse in our holinesse and therefore it is that happinesse in heaven and holinesse here which is happinesse inchoate have both one title to shew that we cannot have the one without the other we must enter into heaven here in this life The stones you know they were hewed before they were brought to the building of the Temple they were all made and fitted before-hand and so all that shall be stones in heaven they must be hewed and prepared and fitted here there must be no knocking and fitting of them there So then you see these three things touched that the holy Spirit together with the graces and comforts of it are called an Earnest and therefore that it is a part of the whole an assurance of the whole and that it shall never be taken away Now for the fourth that an Earnest is little in regard of the whole and indeed the holy Apostle aimes at this partly as well as at any other thing else an Earnest is little perhaps we have but a shilling to secure us of many pounds So then the point is this That Howsoever we may be assured of our estate in grace and likewise that we shall hold out yet the ground of this assurance is not from any great measure of grace but though it be little in quantity it may be great in assurance and security As we value an Earnest not for the worth that is in it self but because it assures us of a great bargain we have an Eye more to the consummation of the bargain then to the quantity of the Earnest so it is here Grace is but an Earnest yet notwithstanding though it be little as an Earnest is yet it is great in assurance and validity answerable to the relation of that it hath to assure us There is nothing lesse then a grain of mustard-seed but there is nothing in the world so little in proportion in a manner that comes at length to be so great as the graces of God and the work of the Spirit is The Crocodile a huge creature comes of an egg and the Oak it riseth to that greatnesse from an Acorn but what are these to the wondrous work of the new creature to be the heir of heaven rising from so little despised beginings from a little light in the understanding from a little heat in the affections from a little strength in the will compared for the littlenesse thereof to a grain of mustard-seed Indeed grace growes a man knowes not how As Christ saith of the seed sowen in the earth it growes up first to a blade and then to a stalk and then to an ear and then to be corn but a man cannot tell how so it is with the work of grace and the comforts of the Spirit when the Spirit together with the Word works upon the soul there is a blade a little and then a stalk and then Corn. First a babe in Christ little at the first and as it is little so it is much opposed As we see the Sun when it is weak in the rising in the morning there gather a great many vapours to besiege the Sun as it were as if they would put out the light of it till it comes to fuller strength and then it spends them all and gloriously shines in heaven so it is with the work of the Spirit of grace when it first ariseth in the soul there gather about it a great many doubts and discomforts the flesh riseth and casteth up all the dirt and mud it can to trouble the blessed waters of grace till it have gotten fuller and fuller strength to spend them all as it is when a man comes to be a strong Christian. But yet as little as it is seeing it is an Earnest and the first-fruits as the Apostle saith which were but little in regard of the whole harvest yet it is of the nature of the whole and thereupon it comes to secure A spark of fire is but little yet it is fire as well as the whole element of fire And a drop of water it is water as well as the whole Ocean When a man is in a dark place put the
this hope saith the Apostle purgeth himself he that finds some little beginnings of grace and comfort the beginings of heaven upon Earth he frames himself to the perfect state in heaven for it is the nature of faith and hope wheresoever they are to frame the disposition of the person in whom those graces are planted by the Spirit to the condition of that that soul believes and hopes for it is in the nature of the thing it should be so For doth not hope in any man that hopes to appear before some great person make him alter his attire and fashion his carriage and deportment as may be plausible before the person whom he goes to and doth not faith and hope of better things where they are in truth fashion and dispose every man to be such as may be fit for heaven The title to heaven we have indeed by Christ but the soul knowes there must be a qualification No unclean thing shall enter into heaven and therefore where the Earnest is there is a continual desire to be better a continual relinquishing of corruptions more and more a perfecting of the work of mortification and the work of grace more and more for the same Spirit that is an Earnest and gives us any beginning of a better life it likewise stirres us up it fits and prepares us for that state that is kept for us it is impossible it should be otherwise In what strength the Earnest is in that strength sanctification and mortification are and therefore persons that live in sins against Conscience that defile their tongues and defile their bodies let them talk what they will it is but a presumptuous conceit it is not the voyce of Gods Spirit but of carnal presumption for wheresoever the Spirit is an Earnest of heaven it is alwayes preparing and fitting the soul for that glorious happy estate And wheresoever likewise this Earnest of the Spirit is wheresoever this grace is begun in truth there is a desire of accomplishment an earnest desire of the coming of Christ to finish all to finish the bargain Rev. 22. The Spirit and the Spouse say Come that is the Spouse by direction of the Spirit where the Spouse is guided by the Spirit and so far as the Spouse is guided by the Spirit she saith Come Come Lord Jesus come quickly Except in two Cases Except the Christian hath grieved and wounded his conscience grieved the Spirit and then it is loath to go hence Unlesse likewise the spirit of a Christian be careless and would settle things in better order before he go to Christ for this is the fruit of presumption and carelesnesse that it grieves the Spirit of God and the Spirit being grieved grieves them he makes that which should be their comfort their going to Christ by death he makes it terrible for as we see a weak eye cannot endure the light so a gauled guilty conscience trembles to think of Christs coming though the Earnest be there yet if the soul tremble that the soul be wounded stay a while Oh stay saith the Psalmist before I go hence and be no more seen When the wife hath been negligent she would have her husband stay but when she hath been diligent then the wife is willing her husband should come but perhaps things are not settled as they should and therefore she doth not desire his coming as at other times But take a Christian in his right temper he is willing to dye nay he is willing and glad and joyful to go to Christ then he knowes the Earnest shall be accomplished with the bargain then he knowes what God hath begun he will perfect then he knowes all the Promises shall be performed when all imperfection shall be removed and all enemies shall be conquered c. A carnal man doth not say as the Spirit in the Spouse speaks Come Lord come but stay Lord stay and as the Devil that possessed that person What have we to do with thee Art thou come to torment us before our time they think of it with quaking For otherwise they that have the Earnest of the Spirit have joyful thoughts of it and wishes answerable to those thoughts Again wheresoever this Earnest is in truth the Earnest of the Spirit there is growth for it is the nature of things imperfect to come to their perfection that they may encounter with whatsoever is contrary to them and that they may do their functions that they are fitted by for God Now God having fitted the new creature to serve him and to go through all the impediments in this world and all the crosses where he hath begun this work it will labour to come to perfection As in the natural body we are not content to live but when we have life we desire health and when we have health we are not content with that but we desire strength not onely health but strength to perform that we should do So where the spiritual life is begun the living soul is not content to live to find an Earnest a little beginnings but if he have that he would have health he would not have any spiritual disease to lye on the soul that might hinder it in the functions of it and together with health it desires fuller and fully strength because it hath many temptations to encounter with many corruptions to resist many actions to do many afflictions perhaps to bear all which require a great deal of strength wheresoever grace is in truth it is alwayes with a desire of growth and answerable to that desire will be the use of all the means of growth Again to name one or two more and so end Wheresoever the Spirit is as an Earnest it doth as the seal doth spoken of before that as it hath a quieting power an assuring power it quiets the soul wheresoever it si it is given to stay the soul to comfort it that the whole shall be performed in time and therefore the soul that hath the Earnest of the Spirit so far forth as he hath this Earnest it quiets and stayes the soul. A man may know true faith from false and true Earnest from presumption by this as we know other things I say it stills and quiets the soul and it will endure the tryal We say of Alcumy gold it is counterfeit it will not strengthen the heart true gold hath a corroborating power to strengthen the heart whether it be so or no let the Alcumists look to it but it is true that true Eanest the beginnings of faith though it be but in a little measure it hath a quieting a stilling a strengthening power to strengthen and corroborate the soul for it is given for that purpose And a man that hath the least grace will endure the search as true gold will endure the touchstone the false will not and it is a sign that a man hath true grace in him although it be with much
imperfection that desires to be searched in preaching hearing searching Sermons and desiring to be searched in Conference and that doubts not his conscience but would be searched throughly When men fret at the searching of their sins they will not be searched and are content to go on in presumptuous courses and think all is well it is a sign there is not so much as an Earnest But not to go farther that in the Revelation shews the truth of a little grace what saith he Thou hast a little strength what doth that little strength move the Church of Philadelphia to do Thou hast kept my Word and hast not denyed my Name Where there is a little strength there will be a keeping of the Word in obedience a keeping of it in conversation where is not a regard to Gods Word a moulding of the soul into it in obedience of it there is not so much as a little strength of grace and therefore those that live in rebellious courses have not so much as an Earnest to them yet Thou hast kept my Word and withal thou hast not denyed my Name Where a little strength is there they will not deny Christs Name they will hold out in the profession of the truth and confesse it if occasion serve and therefore where any are slight in their profession that give in if they be ready to dash upon any displeasure of any one if they be to venture their estates or so then they are ashamed of Christ and that profession which they took upon them they deny his Name at least they do not own it they have not so much as a little strength if they do not recover Peter was in such a temptation but he recovered his strength and got more strength and a firm standing upon it the shaking of Peter was for the rooting of him So God to shame his children suffers them sometimes to have dastardly spirits but they recover themselves they are ashamed of it but those that are common Politicians in this kind that will not stand out in a good cause to maintain their truth and profession when God thrusts his cause into their hands specially at such times when God saith to them Who is on my side who now is the time to appear then if they have not a word for God they will not own the quarrel and cause of God and Religion they have not a little strength for they that have a little strength here keep the Word and have not denyed the Name Those therefore that can fashion themselves to all Religions to all companies they will have a Religion mutable and flexible to their occasions where is the Earnest of the Spirit the Spirit as much as he is is strong and vigorous and powerful these men have not so much as a little strength that are as water which is fashioned to the vessel it is in like to the Samaritans as Joseph the Historian of the Jews writes of them When the Jewes prospered oh then they would be Jewes when the Jewes had ill successe then they were great enemies to the Jewes so you have many that are no friends to the afflicted to the disgraced truth but as long as the Cause of Religion is carried out with the Countenance of the State with the favour of great ones so far they will own it but if Christ once comes to be abased they will not know Christ nor his Cause I beseech you let us take notice of it it is a sign there is no grace at all where there is such an habitual disposition without shame or grief or repentance for Gods children sometimes may be overtaken with a spirit of dastardlinesse which afflicts them sore afterwards that they gather more strength A man may know if he be Gods child in such a state for it is universally true Gods children are never overtaken with a spirit of cowardlinesse and fear but they regain it and grow more strong upon it as we see in Cranmer and others God purposeth sometimes to let them see what they are in themselves without his support and strength but afterwards they gather new resolutions new purposes to stick firmer to the truth then ere before I might adde many other things but I go on to that which followes You see here now how we may try if we have any true Earnest in us at all or no. Now I beseech you let us labour to have this Earnest if we have it not to have this assurance especially let me desire those of the younger sort to labour to have the seal of this Spirit and the Earnest before they be further and further engaged into the world and before they be so hardened that they will not receive a contrary stamp to their corruptions It is a wondrous advantage that Gentlemen and others that are young before the world hath soiled them and before their understandings be darkened and their affections are crooked and carried away much with the stream and errours of the time they have much advantage above others for they have spirits fitter for grace fitter to receive the impression of this seal of the Spirit fitter for the Earnest Let us labour for this Earnest betimes what a comfortable thing will it be to carry along with the Earnest an assurance of a better estate from our youth to our age and from our age to our old age and so to heaven with us what a deal of comfort do young ones deprive and rob themselves of that will not be gracious betimes Let us labour to have the stamp of the Spirit set on us in our prime time in the strength of our years But I will presse the Point if the time will give leave afterwards Now we must know that God gives this Earnest not for himself but for us to secure us and that is one reason why it is called an Earnest There is besides bargaining another state and condition that Earnest is applyed unto which perhaps the Apostle aimes at as marriage whatsoever was before the Consummation of the marriage was a kind of Arrah a kind of Earnest to assure the affection of the contracted person and persons that loved one another till the Consummation of the marriage So Christ now contracts us on the earth and having love to us and taking our Nature on him that he might woo us in our own flesh and in our own nature taking upon him the Earnest of our flesh he gives us the Earnest of his Spirit and to assure us thaâ—… he loves us and that he means to make up the bargain afterwards he sends us love-tokens graces and comfort and joy Even as Isaac when he was to marry Rebecca he sent by his servants Bracelets and Jewels and such things to secure her of his love So Christ in heaven intending the consummation of the Match he sends us here graces and comforts of the Spirit and all to secure us all is for us I say
which I observe the rather because I would raise your hearts to hate unbelief and distrust exceedingly because God labours to undermine it by all means possible Wherefore doth he use so many terms here of Sealing Anointing and Earnest with words and Sacraments and all whatsoever may confirm you The Holy Ghost applyes it to us all this is that we may not doubt of the favour of God and therefore when we find any goodnesse in us let us accompt that to give false witnesse against our selves is a horrible sin it is to make God a liar God stands upon his credit and therefore take heed what we say specially if we have found the work of grace in former time any Earnest that we have no grace God doth this for our assurance all his dealing of Word and Sacraments of Earnest and Oath and all that may be to assure us and therefore we should not crosse the goodnesse of God so as to cherish such a disposition as is most contrary to him that he labours to undermine by all means And therefore here is the poyson of Popish Religion that it maintaines doubting and leaves men doubting indeed they do well to maintain it in their Doctrine for indeed they false found a man upon satisfaction they false found him upon Purgatory and merits and the foundation they have of a Christian soul is uncertain and therefore they may well teach doubting it suits with the course that they take but I say it is very corrupt for God useth all means that we should not doubt and therefore it is idly objected God for his part will but for our part we have reason to doubt why he in all things stoops to us he labours to secure us and therefore in the Covenant of grace he doth his part and ours too But I hasten to that which followes because I would end with the time To touch that a little distinctly by it self that the Spirit doth all the Earnest of the Spirit for indeed though Spirit be not added to stablishing yet the Spirit stablisheth by Christ and the Spirit it anoints and the Spirit seales to the day of redemption and the Earnest of the Spirit So it is the Holy Ghost doth all here you have the three Persons in the Trinity we have three grand Enemies the world the flesh and Satan Now here are the three persons in the Trinity stronger then all our enemies He which stablisheth us is God the Father by his Spirit upon whom upon Christ â—…n Christ and gives us the Earnest of his Spirit you have I say the three Persons of the Trinity here but why doth the Spirit give us the Earnest why doth the Spirit give us grace and comfort seal us and doth all and stablisheth us I answer First of all because now since the fall we have no principles of supernatural good and therefore it must be a principle above our nature to work both grace and comforts in our barren hearts Again as there is no principle to that which is supernaturally good so there is opposition to that which is supernaturally good and therefore there must be somewhat to overpower the corruption of our nature But why the Spirit rather then the Father and the Son He comes from both and proceeding from both he is fit to witnesse the love of both for the Holy Ghost is in the breast of the Father and the Son and proceeds from both and he knowes the secret love of the Father to us and the love of Christ Jesus Mediatour to us Now the Spirit knowing the secrets of God as a mans spirit saith the Apostle knowes his own secrets he knowes his love and he knowes whom he loves So the Spirit of God knowing the affection of the Father and the affection of Jesus Christ to us is fit to be an Earnest fit to be a Seal Indeed all things are wrought by the Spirit in grace for application the desert is from the Son originally from the Father but in regard of application of what is wrought by the Son all is by the Holy Ghost both graces and comforts the Holy Ghost takes from Christ for if grace be wrought it is with divine reasons from the love of God in Christ if grace he wrought it is from the wondrous love of God reconciled in Christ wherein heaven is opened hell is vanquished it is by reasons fetched from Christ and so he takes of mine as Christ saith He shall take of mine and give to you he takes reasons from Christ the holy Ghost whereby he makes all the application is altogether by the Spirit And it must be by the Spirit again because the Spirit of God and no lesse then the Spirit can quiet our spirits for when the soul is distempered it is like a distempered lock that no key can open So when the Conscience is troubled what creature can settle the troubled Conscience can open the ambages of a troubled Conscience in such perplexity and confusion and therefore to settle the troubled Conscience aright it must be somewhat above Conscience and that which must quiet the Spirit must be such a Spirit as is above our spirits This is excellently set down in this Epistle in the 3. Chap. the work of the holy Ghost in this kind But I cannot stand upon it now at this time I go on Likewise in the first Epistle to the Corinthians the second Chapter and 11. ver that one place shall stand in stead of all What man knowes the things of a man but the spirit of a man that is in him So the things of God no man knowes but the Spirit Now We have received the spirit not of the world but the Spirit of God to know the things that are freely given us of God if our spirits were in the heart and soul of another man in the breast of another man we should know what another man thinks if a man had a spirit in another mans spirit surely he would know all his thoughts and all his affections Now the holy Spirit of God is in the breast of the Father and the Son and he knowes our spirits better then we know our own spirits he searcheth he is a searcher as the word is in the original the Spirit is a searcher he searcheth our own hearts and he searcheth the secret love of God to us that is the Spirit must stablish us Well then if the Spirit doth all how shall we know then that we have this Spirit A note or two and so go on If we have this Spirit of God to seal us and to be an Earnest I will not speak all that may be but a little for indeed all comes from the Spirit Even as in our souls how may a man know that he hath a soul by living and moving by actions vital c. So we may know a man hath the Spirit of God by those actions that come onely from the Spirit which is to
have the Spirit And likewise the Spirit makes us mourn and wait for the adoption of the sons of God those that mourn and wait have the Evidence of the Spirit for a worldling doth not mourn for his imperfections for his corruptions he doth not mourn that he is absent from his Saviour neither doth he wait for the accomplishment of that that shall be bestowed on Saints because he hath his portion here therefore those that can mourn for their corruptions for those things which the world is not able to tax them for because they cannot serve God with enlargement of the Spirit as they would and they wait also without despair or without discouragement till God have finished their course they are led with a better Spirit then the world Though I should name no more what a many sweet evidences are here to manifest a soul truly acted and guided and led by the Spirit but these shall be sufficient for this time Well then if the Spirit doth all if the Spirit anoint and seal and give Earnest of grace and comfort and all till he bring us to heaven being Christs Vicar for Christ hath no other Vicar on earth but his Spirit if the Spirit doth all as indeed he doth all for God to us and from us to God whatsoever God doth to us it is by the Spirit he anoints and seals and sanctifieth by the Spirit and whatsoever we do to God it is by the Spirit or else it is not acceptable we sigh and groan in the Spirit we pray in the holy Ghost saith Jude and that God doth to us immediately from the Spirit and all that we do to God is in the Spirit Is this so then as it an undoubted truth oh then we should labour by all meanes for this Spirit of God To give some directions in a word and so to end Labour I say to have the Spirit and to groan in the Spirit and to this end because the Word is the Chariot of the Spirit in which the Spirit is carried attend upon the Ordinances of God and use all kind of spiritual meanes wherein the Spirit is usually effectual for the Spirit will onely work with his own means all those bastard inventions and devices fetched from the Church of Rome humane devices in Gods service they are naught Gods Spirit will not be effectual with Popish devices and therefore Rome is the habitation of Devils Gods Spirit hath nothing to do there because they have set up a worship contrary to Gods worship they have set up a Covenant contrary to Christs Covenant they have set up the Covenant of Works and deny in a manner a Covenant of Grace Christ is not taught as he should be there Now wheresoever the Spirit is it is with the clear teaching of the Gospel Received you the Spirit by hearing of the Law or of faith preached Therefore let us attend upon the unfolding of Christ Jesus in the Gospel for the Spirit is given with a clear and true unfolding of Christ and omit no spiritual means wherein the Spirit is effectual as meditation reading c. For as a man working in a garden though he think not of it perhaps he drawes a sweet sent of the flowers there is a tincture from the ayr that is round about him So the Word of God being indited by the Spirit of God we being in holy company being led by the same Spirit a man shall either by reading of the Word or in holy company or conversing in good books he shall draw a spiritual sweetnesse from the Word or from those that he hath to deal with The spirit of a man is like water that runs from Minerals as we see bathes have their warmth from Minerals that they run through they have a tincture from them to be hot in this or that degree in this or that quality So it is with the soul when it runs through holy things when it hath to deal with good books and good company c. it draweth a spirituall tincture and therefore if we would have the Spirit of God to guide us let us be much in those things that the Holy Ghost hath sanctified us for that end at all times when we have liberty from our callings And withall take heed that we greive not the Holy Ghost any way if we will have the Spirit to seal us to increase our Earnest How do we grieve the Holy Ghost By cherishing contrary affections and lusts and desires And resist not the holy Ghost as now when you hear the Word of God if you shut your resolutions if you shut your hearts and resolve not to give way to any instruction that shall be delivered This is a resisting of the Holy Ghost God now knocks at the hearts of those that are here by his Word and Spirit and therefore we should open the everlasting doors and let the King of glory come in We should lay open all to the Spirit Oh when the Spirit when Christ is so willing to give the Spirit it cannot be any but our fault if we be no more spiritual then we are for indeed there is nothing in a manner required to be spiritual but not to resist the Spirit The Holy Ghost presseth upon us in the Word such reasons of heavenly-mindednesse of despising of earthly things of purging our selves from the corruptions in the world such reasons to be good that indeed none are damned in the bosome of the Church but such as set a bar against the Spirit of God in their hearts with a cursed resolution that they will not be better that they will not part with their cursed lusts therefore they are damned because they will be damned that say the Preachers by the Word and Spirit what they will they think it better to be as they are then to entertain such a guest as will marre and alter all that was there before take heed therefore of resisting of the Spirit and of grieving of the Spirit by any thing in our selves or by conversing with company that will grieve him He that hath the Spirit of God in him cannot endure carnal company for what shall he hear what shall he draw in at his senses but that which will be vexation of spirit to him therefore it is said of Lot His righteous soul was vexed with the unclean conversation of the Sodomites it is an undoubted sign of a man that hath no grace not to care for his company that hath grace Likewise yield all obedience and subjection to the Spirit and to all the motions of the Word and Spirit bring our hearts into subjection lay our selves as it were before the Spirit suffer our selves to be moved and fashioned and framed by it for God gives his holy Spirit to them that obey him And beg the Spirit also as the principal thing God gives the Spirit saith Christ to them that ask him and by Christs manner of speaking there he
part of happinesse in this world and in the world to come Now the end of the Ministery is to set the peoples hearts into a gracious and blessed liberty to bring them into the Kingdome of grace here and to fit them for the Kingdome of glory to help forward their joy This is the end both of the Word and of the dispensation of the Word in the Ordinances of salvation in the Sacraments and all that our joy may be full as our blessed Saviour saith These things have I spoken that your joy may be full It is the end of all our communion with the Father Son and Holy Ghost and with the Ministery and one with another as it is 1 Joh. 1. These things have I written that your joy may be full you have communion with the Father Son and Holy Ghost and with us that your joy may be full all is for spiritual joy We are helpers of your joy The meaning is we are helpers of your faith from whence joy comes more especially for he doth not repeat the word again We have not dominion over your faith but are helpers of your faith but instead of that he names joy as that that doth accompany true faith The Points considerable in this clause are these That joy is the state of Christians that either they are in or should labour to be in because the Apostle names it for all happinesse here All that have given their names to Christ should labour to rejoyce either they do rejoyce or they should labour to come to it that is supposed as a ground I will be the shorter in it The second is That the Ministers are helpers of this blessed condition The third is They are but helpers they are helpers and but helpers they are not authours of joy but helpers We are but helpers of your joy saith the Apostle These three things I will speak of briefly out of these words First Joy is that frame and state of soul that all that have given their names to Christ either are in or should labour to be in For this Doctrine is fetched from the principle of nature We do all with joy all in our callings is done with joy What do men in their Trades but that they may have that that they may joy in when they have it It is an old Observation of S. Chrysostome We do all that we may joy Ask any man why he doth take so much pains and be a drudge in his place it is that he may get somewhat to rejoyce in in his old dayes So out of the principle of nature this ought to be the scope of all to joy Now those that are Christians God requires it at their hand as a duty Rejoyce alway again I say rejoyce And he doth prepare and give them matter enough of joy to those that are Christians For whether we consider the ills they are freed from the greatest ills of all they are freed from sin and the wrath of God they are freed from eternal damnation they are freed from the sting of death from the greatest and most terrible ills Or whether we regard the state that God brings them in by believing being in the favour of God they enjoy the fruits of that favour peace and joy in the Holy Ghost And then for the life to come they are under the hope of glory The state of a Christian is a state of joy every way whether I say we regard the ill he is freed from or the good he is in for the present or the hope of eternal good for the time to come A Christian which way soever he look hath matter of joy God the Father is his Christ is his the Holy Ghost is his Comforter the Angels are his all are his life or death things present or things to come all are his Therefore there is no question of this that every one that hath given his name to Christ is in a state of joy if he answer his calling or he should labour to be in it he wrongs his codition else Why should they labour to be in that state Among many Reasons one is That God that gives them such matter of joy may have glory from them For what should the life of a Christian be that is freed from the greatest ill and advanced to the greatest good his life should be a perpetual thanksgiving to God and how can a man be thankfull that is not joyful Joy is as it were the oyl the anointing it makes a man chearful it makes the countenance of his soul to be chearful it makes him active in good when he is anointed with the oyl of gladnesse Now every man should have a desire to be good to be diligent and expedite in all that is good Therefore we should labour for this spiritual anointing that we may be ready for every good work Vessels of mercy prepared for every good work And then for suffering we have many things to go through in this world how shall a man suffer those things that are between him and Heaven with joy unlesse he labour to bring himself to this temper of joy And then for others every man should labour to encourage others We are all fellow-passengers in the way to Heaven therefore even to bring on others more chearfully we ought to labour to be in a state of joy Those that do not rejoyce they bring an ill report upon the way of God as if it were a desolate disconsolate way As the Spies brought an ill report upon the Land of Canaan whereupon the people were disheartned from entring into it So those that labour not to bring their hearts to spiritual joy they bring an ill report on the wayes of God and dishearten others from entring into those wayes which way soever we look we have reasons to encourage us to joy That God may have more glory and that we may do him more service that we may endure afflictions better and encourage others and take away the reproach of Religion from those that think it a melancholy course of life which indeed do not understand what belongs to the state of a Christian for the state of a Christian is a state of joy And if a Christian do not joy it is not because he is a Christian but because he is not a Christian enough because he favours the worse principle in him he favours himself in some work of the flesh God in the Covenant of grace is all love and mercy he would have us in our pilgrimage to heaven to finish our course with joy and he knowes we can do nothing except we have some joy It is the oyl of the soul as I said to make it nimble and fit for all actions and for all sufferings It gives a lustre and grace to whatsoever we do Not onely God loves a chearfull performer of duties but it wins acceptance of all others and makes the worker himself wondrous
19. It put his soul out of taste with all other things This joy of the Spirit it puts such a relish in the soul that it makes it undervalue all other things whatsoever the price of other things falls down when a man joyes in the Holy Ghost because it ariseth from the grounds of faith from peace and righteousnesse And likewise if it look forward from the hope of life everlasting and the favour of God the ground of all It riseth from things that are above all other contentments The loving kindnesse of the Lord that faith apprehends that is the ground of joy it is above life it self Now life is the sweetest thing upon earth but the loving kindnesse of God is better then that Therefore those that lose their soules in base contentments and joy in the dirty things of this life that are not fit for the soul to fasten on to place contentment in but are only to be used as those that take a journey to refresh them but those that are swallowed up in these things they know not what spiritual joy is that ariseth from the Word of God from divine truth that ariseth from faith for if they did this joy would raise them higher above all earthly contentments whatsoever Then again where this joy is this spiritual enlargement of soul which is called joy it is from true grounds it is with humility For the same Word that discovers matter of joy discovers matter of humility and grief in our selves by reason of the remainders of sin and of our own deservings So true joy it is a tempered and qualified joy it is not joyned with pride and swelling because it riseth from those grounds that teach us what we are in our selves alas such that we need not be proud in our selves but if we will glory we must glory in God Well it is not that that I mean principally to stand on but only I speak of it because it is placed here for faith as it springs from faith we are helpers of your joy To hasten then to that that followes For by faith ye stand This principally depends upon the first words We have not dominion over your faith because faith is such a grace as you stand by in all conditions Now what you stand by must be firm it must be on a good bottome and what is firm must not be humane but divine therefore we have no dominion over your faith for by faith ye stand Standing is a military word by faith ye stand that is first of all faith gives a standing a certain standing before any conflict it gives a standing in Christianity it sets the soul in a frame in a standing Nay faith helps us we stand by faith not only in a frame of Christianity and furnished with spiritual strength but then we are fit to encounter opposition by faith we stand to it and stand against all opposition we stand and stand to it by faith And standing likewise implies continuance in managing Christianity and opposing all enemies whatsoever by faith we stand and continue standing we hold out in all opposition Standing likewise in the next place implies a kind of safety together with victory at length By faith ye stand you stand so as you are not wounded to death you stand so as you are kept safe especially from mortal wounds and altogether safe so far as you use faith as a shield till you have got perfect victory and faith end in triumph So faith is that grace whereby we stand whereby we are in a frame of Religion fit to stand and whereby we so standiug encouter oppositions and continue so encountering and preserve our selves safe till victory be obtained this is the full expression and comprehension of the word By faith ye stand Now why is it by faith that we have this standing Because faith it is that grace in the new Covenant that makes the soul go out of it self it empties the soul of all things in it self and goes out to somewhat else whereupon it stands For in the new Covenant since Adams fall all our strength is in the second Adam our head we fetch it there And faith is the hand of the soul. Now because faith in the new Covenant is an emptying grace and likewise because as it is a grace that empties the soul so it fastens upon another thing whereupon it relies for faith is an uniting grace as well as an emptying grace now faith emptying and uniting so it makes us stand And likewise faith as it drawes it hath a drawing vertue an attractive force it is a radical grace it is like a root when it knits to Christ it sucks out and drawes vertue from him every touch of faith drawes spiritual strength and vertue so it causeth us to stand by the attractive vertue it hath And then it is the force of faith likewise to make things present For therein it differs from hope hope looks upon things as absent now the things that hope looks on as things remote and distant in time and place faith makes them present therefore it is said to be the evidence of things not seen Now that that makes the soul to be strong and able to stand it must be somewhat present however the full possession of things be reserved not for faith but for vision for comprehenders in heaven where faith ends and determines yet notwithstanding faith drawes so much for the present it sets things to come so far present with such evidence and force as it upholds the soul and makes it stand It is the evidence of things not seen And thereupon it hath a kind of omnipotent power to make things that are not to be Heaven and glory and happinesse they are not for the pesent but faith looking on them in the authority of God and the divine promises faith makes them present by a kind of almighty power that it hath laying hold on an almighty power and hereupon it upholds the soul it is the prop and stay of the soul as in Heb. 11. it signifies to stay up to hold up as a pillar even from this vertue it hath to make things to come present You see then what it is to stand and how faith is fitted for this purpose because as I said it is the grace of the new Covenant emptying us and drawing us to Christ from whom we draw all vertue and because it makes things to come as present By faith wr are set in a right frame and condition again as by want of faith we fell The same grace must set us right for want of which we fell How came we to fall at the first You know Adam hearkened to his wife Eve and she hearkened to the Serpent they trusted not in God they began to stagger at the promises to stagger at the Word of God Satan robbed them of the Word He observes and continues the same Art still to take the Word from us and to
cause us to stagger and doubt whether it be true or no. He comes between us and our rock the Word of God So Adam fell Now we must be restored by the contrary to that we fell we fell by unbelief and distrust by calling Gods truth in question we must learn to stand again by the contrary grace by faith Thus you see the termes something unfolded By faith ye stand To clear it a little further There be four degrees of a slent that the soul hath to any thing The first is a slight assent that we call opinion that is with some fear that it may be otherwise that is a weak a pendulous assent It is a wavering assent it yields not a certain assent Opinion is a weak thing it may be so I but it may not be so it is with a fear of the contrary The second degree of assent is that that hath a better ground that is the assent to grounds of reason a man hath reason to yield and assent to and those reasons satisfy the soul and rest the soul something thereafter as the strength of them is And that assent we call knowledge science this is founded upon grounds of reason There is a third kind of assent and yielding that the soul hath that we call believing which is meerly upon the credit of him that speakes though we know no reason why the thing should be so but only the person it may be is a person of credit and wisdome and knowledge and thereafter as we conceive well of him thereafter we fasten our faith and assent to his authority so that assent to the authority of the speaker we call beliefe The fourth degree of assent is when we do not only assent to the thing because we have reason so to do and arguments or because we have some man to confirm it by authority but because we feel it to be so by experience and by taste As a man assents that fire is hot and that sweet things are so not from reason altogether or from the speech or rehearsing of another man but because he feeles it so indeed he assents to it from experience Now you will say How come we then to stand by faith As faith especially relies upon the authority of God upon Gods Word so we stand by faith because it assents to an authority But Gods Word gives reasons too therefore faith assents to the authority of Gods Word first and then we see divine reason enough too when we once believe God And then experience in Divine things too after we believe there is an incredible sweetnesse in divine things there is a knowledge with a particular taste There is never a Divine truth but it hath an evidence in it when a man believes it once that a man may say I know whom I have believed from experience let the speakers of the things be what they will let them apostatize from that that they have spoken after a man believes he will see the things themselves have Divine reason in them as well as Divine authority stablishing of them Some Divine truths are altogether upon Divine authority we see no other reason but that God hath said it but some truths are both credible and intelligible Credible because God hath said it and there is reason to prove it as a man may prove by Divine reason that all shall work for the best why The Apostle faith We love God and God hath called us according to his purpose therefore all things shall work for them that God hath called to them that answer his Divine call There is both reason and comfort so it is credible as it hath divine truth and intelligible as it hath comfort There are homogeneal reasons with divine authority God doth not only presse us with authority but he gives us reasons Besides this there is experience for the doctrine of divine providence and of the corruption of nature and the doctrine of comfort in the Mediatour Christ altogether The doctrine of faith the doctrine of the issue of all troubles for good we find these by experience however the teacher that teachâ—…h them perhaps may have no sense of them himself let him apostatize and do what he will our faith stands upon them partly because God saith so that is the chief and because there is reason for them and because we find it so by experience in many divine things these three both reason authority and experience concur in faith But to come a Lâ—…de further What doth faith it self stand most on by which we stand that which we stand oâ—… must stand it self Let us examine a little what faith it self stands on by which we stand I shewed you before partly by Divine authority and experience which gives some light to it but we will follow it a little further That faith by which we stand must stand it self therefore it cannot be opinion it must be faith It must not be bare science neither it must be science that hath faith faith must come in Now faith looks to Divine revelation especially it looks to truth revealed from God now faith looking to the Word of God it builds and pitcheth and bottoms it self upon Divine truth Divine authority Divine revelation which we call the first truth the first verity And not only so but faith that it may stand the better hath together with the Word of God the seales for God hath added Sacraments as Seales to the Word that helps the Word to us at least Gods Word is true enough of it self in regard of him but he condescends to us and therefore that faith may stand the better that we may build upon his Word there are his Sacraments there are seales together with his Word and his oath too Again that his Word may be the better foundation for faith it is conceived under the manner of a Covenant the Evangelical part of it the Covenant of Grace wherein God in Christ promiseth to forgive our sins to accept us to life everlasting if we believe in Christ It is a gracious Covenant God condescends to make a Covenant that faith may stand shall not I believe him that hath made a Covenant and bound himself by Covenant that he will do so Nay in the Covenant of grace faith layes hold upon this that he will fulfill and perform both conditions himself both his part and our part For the same truths that are a Covenant are a Testament too in the Gospel A Testament bequeathes things without a covenant and therein it differs from a covenant A Testament is I bequeath and give this Now whatsoever Christ in the Covenant requires because that in the Gospel he makes good the Covenant as a Testament If we believe and repent Now he hath promised to give repentance and belief in the Covenant of grace to all that attend upon the meanes and expect the performance of the Covenant from him For we can no
subordinate Religion to State-Policy p. 294 295 Religion tends to practice p. 295 Popish Religion is a carnal Religion p. 312 313 The most Religious men are the best States-men p. 315 Wherein our Religion and the Pâ—…pish agree and differ p. 395 398 Popish Religion unsound and rotten p. 546 Popish Religion is not founded upon the Scriptures but upon Tradition p. 545 546 Popish Religion crosseth the Word of God p. 385 386 Popish Religion is full of contradictions p. 386 Popish Religion is full of uncertainties p. 386 387 It's safer to be of the Protestant Religion then of the Popish p. 397 Whether one living and dying in the Romish Religion may be saved p. 397 398 Repentance Late Repentance such as is in time of sicknesse and death seldome true Repentance p. 33 Reproof It 's a sign of a gracious heart to endure reproof and to esteem and affect the reprover p. 330 513 A Minister must not spare to reprove people for sin committed p. 512 c. A three-fold Reproof or Correction p. 514 Resolution Of good Resolutions pag. 323 324 c. Resurrection The Resurrection is an argument to strengthen faith p. 167 There will or shall be a Resurrection p. 167 c. God raiseth the dead p. 167 to 171 Rock What is meant by Rock Matth. 16. 18. p. 394 S. Saint OUr love and respect should be carried to all Saints p. 5 God scatters his Saints why p. 6 All that make profession of Religion should indeed be Saints ibid. Professours called Saints why ibid. Four things required to make a Saint viz. 1. Separation 2. Dedication 3. Qualification 4. Conversation pag. 7 8 How to know a Saint from a meer civil man p. 8 True Saints wherein different from hypocrites and formal professours ibid. See Christian. Salvation Salvation wrought by affliction or suffering how and how by Christ p. 108 to 113 How Afflictions or Patience in suffering afflictions helps to salvation p. 110 111 112 Two wayes to obtain salvation p. 108 Salutation Use of holy Salutations three-fold p. 9 Salutations should be holy p. 10 Gods Name when taken in vain in salutations ibid. Salutations in what cases to be omitted ibid. Satisfaction Against Popish Merits and satisfactions for others p. 107 See Indulgences Scripture How to know the Scripture to be the Word of God and truly Divine p. 386 392 Whether the Scriptures receive any authority from the Church p. 3 4 545 The Scripture is to be believed for it self not because of the Church p. 392 393 See Word Seal Christ the head is first sealed and then the members viz. Christians pag. 473 Our sealing what p. 474 Four uses of a Seal p. 474 475 The Spirit compared to a Seal wherein pag. 474 475 476 478 481 How the Spirit differs from other seales p. 476 How the Spirit seales us p. 476 477 Four things the Spirit works in this sealing 477 c. How to know the sealing of the Spirit or that we are sealed by the Spirit p. 477 478 Objection against the Spirits sealing answered p. 479 c. Motives to labour to get the Spirits sealing or to have the image of Christ stamped upon our soules by the Spirit pag. 481 to 486 Simplicity Simplicity what and how taken p. 216 242 243 Why called godly simplicity or the simplicity of God p. 243 Difference between Simplicity and sincerity p. 241 S. Paul's conversation in Simplicity how p. 241 242 To what things Simplicity is opposed p. 244 245 246 Directions or Means to get Simplicity p. 251 Simulation Of Simulation p. 244 Aggravations of this sin p. 245 See Dissembling Sincerity Sincerity what p. 253 How Sincerity differs from Simplicity p. 241 Why called godly Sincerity or the Sincerity of God p. 253 A Christians conversation in the world should be in sincerity p. 253 271 Sincerity in good actions how discovered or tryed p. 254 255 Sincerity how tryed or discovered in ill actions p. 256 Sincerity how tryed or discovered in actions indifferent p. 257 Motives to labour for sincerity pag. 258 259 263 264 Means to get sincerity pag. 260 261 262 Corruptions and imperfections may stand with Sincerity p. 264 c. Order in sincerity how to be kept pag. 265 Sincerity extends it self to all the frame of a mans life p. 266 We must have our conversation in sincerity while we live in the world pag. 271 Singularity There is a spirit of singularity in many pag. 3 Slander How to arm and fence our selves against Slander pag. 357 Society The comfort and benefit of Society p. 71 267 Solitarinesse Solitarinesse very dangerous pag. 71 267 See Alone Society Son Christ the Son of God how differing from others sons p. 388 Soul Gods Spirit alone speaks comfort and peace to the soul p. 536 God in all things that are ill intends the good of the soul p. 151 The soul must have somewhat to trust to ibid. People should do well to open the case of their soules to their spirituall Physicians p. 535 Spirit The Spirit with its graces compared to Anointing or Oyntment See Anointing Ointment The Spirit compared to an Earnest See Earnest The Spirit compared to a Seal See Seal Why the work of Grace is attributed to the Spirit rather then to the Father or the Son p. 498 Why the Spirit is said to seal and to be an Earnest and not the Father or the Son ibid. Means to attain or come by the Spirit p. 501 502 503 How to know that we have the Spirit p. 499 500 Of our anointing by the Spirit p. 463 to 473 Of our sealing by the Spirit p. 473 to 485 Gods Spirit alone seales comfort to the soul p. 536 Stablish Stablishing grace necessary why pag. 442 Christ is the foundation of our stability p. 443 Our judgment will affections c. are stablished in Christ p. 444 It 's onely God that can stablish the soul he must do it none else can pag. 446 c. As God can so he will stablish us pag. 446 c. God stablisheth us by working in us stablishing graces viz. 1. Fear 2. Wisdome 3. Faith 4. Peace of Conscience c. 449 Means of stablishing or whereby we may come to be stablished pag. 455 456 457 Signes or Evidences of our stablishing p. 458 to 463 Strength How these two may stand together 2 Cor. 18. We were pressed out of measure above strength and 1 Cor. 10. 13. God is faithfull and will lay no more upon you then you shall be able to bâ—…r p. 124 125 Suffering The sufferings of Christ abound in us or Gods Saints are subject to many sufferings why p. 74 All Christians suffer how p. 112 A threefold suffering in the Church since Christs time p. 76 The sufferings of Christians are the sufferings of Christ and why so called p. 77 Christs sufferings two-fold ibid. Differences between the sufferings of Christ and ordinary crosses p. 78 Motives to suffer for Christ ibid. How the sufferings of Saints do good
part Prophane men Hypocrits Dan. 7. Quest. Ans. To make a St. there must be 1. a Separation 2. Dedication 3. Qualification 4. Conversation Quest. Answ. Civil man who True Saint wherein different from an hypocrite Simile Grace sweetens all a Christians conversation use of salutations Quest. Blessing what Answ. Salutations should be holy Gods name taken in vain in Salutations Salutations to be omitted 1. In serious businesse 2. To an Heretick Quest. Grace what Answ. Doctr. A Christian needs Grace when he is in state of Grace Reas. We run daily into new breaches Ephes. 1. How to conceive of God To maintain Gods Grace daily Quest. how to have continual assurance of Grace Ans. 1. abase our selves Labour to be rich in grace Quest. Answ. How to know we are in Gods favour 1. By joy of the Spirit 2. By the graces of the Spirit 3. By going to God in extremity Observ. Obser. The disposition of Gods Children to be thankfull Ephes. 〈◊〉 To blesse God what We add nothing to God when we blesse him 1. It is a duty to God 2. It stirs up others 3. It is good for our selves 2. To mind them Spirituall favours especially to give thanks for Why a carnal man is unthankful Beg the spirit To stir up our selves to praise God To shame our selves for unthankfulnesse Motions to thankfulnesse 1. it is the imployment of heaven 2. It mitigates crosses God how considered the object of praise Doct. God as the Faâ—â—â—â— of Christ to be praysed Use 1. To bless God for Christ. God the Father of mercies because the Father of Christ. God is stiled Father of mercies 1. Because Christ his justice is satisfied 2. Because he is naturally mercifull All Gods attributes without mercy terrible Mercie what Kinds of Gods mercie Simile Forgiving mercies the principal Men prone to presume of Gods mercies to whom Gods mercy is unlimitted Gods Wrath to presumtuous sinners Simile Simile Object Use 2. To those that are in the state of Grace An encouragement to come to God Simile Late Repentance seldom true Mercy the greatest terror to impenitent To imitate God in mercy Men unmerciful to their own souls Gods mercy should comfort us in all estates To be fit for mercy I. Get broken hearts Quest. Answ. How to improve mercy daily Thankfulnesse for mercy Comfort what 1 The thing it self 2. Comfortable reasons 3. By the Spirit Comfort stronger then the maladie Comfort not compleat in this life Philosophicall reasons will not comfort God of comfort 1. That he can create it out of nothing God only can make something of nothing Out of contraries In what order God is 〈◊〉 God of comfort Conclusion Whatsoever the means of comfort be God is the spring Ground of unthankfulnesse in wicked men Ground of thankfulnesse in Christians Ground of prayer To seek to God in the use of things comfortable Double application Quest. Answ. Christians ground of comfort in all estates Quest. Answ. Christians are uncomfortable 1 Ignorance 2. Passion 3. Aggravating the grievance 4 Forgetfulnesse of Gods comforts 5. Looking to the streame forgetting the spring Object Answ. God comforts his children in all tribulation Comfort answerable to all miseries in this life Inward comfort best To comfort What. Use. To go to God in the use of meanes We must not tempt God by neglecting meanes Ashame for Christians to be over much disconsolate Quest. Answ. How to derive comfort from the God of comfort 1. Look to the grievance especially sin Comforts against sin Luther No comfort for such as go on in sin Comforts for those that are relapsed Caution 2 Comfort against other grievances General comforts 1. The Covenant of Grace 2. The promise of mitigation 3. In the presence of God 4. Consider the end all work for good Simile 5. The promise of finall deliveanec To keep a daily course of comfort 1. Keep the soul in a good temper 2. Renew our resolutions Dayly feed on Christ. To be thankful 6. To be fruitful 7. Labour for sinâ—…erity And growth 8. Not to grieve the spirit 9. Be conversant in the scripture 10. To study Principles of Religion Observ. All are subject to discomforts In Comforting others there must he Ability Will. Example Sympathy Doctr. Gods children have all of them interest in divine comforts Reason The priviledges of religion are common to them 2. They are not impaired by being communicated Use Comfort to weak Christians Doctr Comforts derived to men by men Every Christian to Communicate his comfort Simile Reason 1. To trie our obedience God not tied to means Reason 2. To knit us in love to one another Use We are debtors of the comforts we have To be able to comfort others Take notice of their grievance 2. To labour for bowels of compassion Graces of communion what 3. Get experience our selves Simile Quest. Answ. Why experience is such a help to comfort others 1. It increaseth knowledge It gaines confidence in the speaker How to comfort others from our experience 1. Search out their sin and misery 2. Shew them their interest in the covenant of grace Comfort belongs to them that think themselves furthest from it 3. To comfort them from our owne experience 4. By experience of Saints in scripture Object Ans. Object Ans. Object Ans. Object Ans. Wisdom of the Apostle Use. To depend on Gods ordinance The ministers Simile 2. Common Christians Difference in gifts and Grace How to distinguish men of great parts Simile Use. 3. To see the goodnesse of God in this ordinance Ground of praising God Doctrines Doct. The sufferings of Christ abound in us â—ll suffer not alike Reas. 1. In respect of God Râ—as 2. In respect of Satan Reas. 3. In respect of the word Reas. 4. In respect of our selves 1. In respect of the good in us 2. The evill in us Afflictions necessary to purge corruptions contracted by the peace of the Church Object Ans. August Afflictions in the most peaceable times Three-fold suffering in the Church Use. How to judge of afflicted men Doctr The sufferings of Christians are the sufferings of Christ. Christ three waies taken in scripture Quest. Ans. They are the sufferings of Christ. 1 Because of Christ mystically 2. They are for Christs cause 3. By way of sympathy 4. He is present with us Differences between sufferings of Christ and ordinary crosses 1. Sufferings as creatures 2. As men 3. As holy men Use encouragement to suffer for Christ. Christ persecuted by wicked men Encouragement to do good to Christians Consolation what Doctr. Comfort proportionable to sufferings Reas. 1 Troubles enlarge the capacity of the soul. Because they humble it 2. They exercise grace Reas. 3. From Gods wisedom Reas. 4. We have a nearer presence of God Reas. 5. Then we pray most Disproportions of sufferings and comfort Use 2. To judge aright of those that are afflicted Simile Use 3. Thankfulness Object Answ. What hinders comfort in afflictions No comfort to wicked men Doct. 4. Consolation 〈◊〉 bounds by
sincerity by pleading corruptions By pleading afflictions Order in sincerity 1. A deep foundation 2. Faith 3. Love Simile Sincerity extends to all a mans life Wicked men have fits of goodnesse God judgeth by the tenour of our life Observ. Christianity may stand with converse in the world Observ. Religion makes a man converse in the world untainted Reason A Christian hath a spirit above the world Grace increased by opposition Not to tempt God by rushing into ill company Object Answ. Times appointed by God Halting in Religion brings danger Observ. We must have our conversation in sincerity while we live here Depravers of goodnesse blamed Observ. A true Christian best where he is best known Christians substantial not painted Use. To approve our selves most where we are best known Simile Ministers win by Life as well as Doctrine Wisdom either 1. Natural Simile Politick wisdome 3. Spiritual 4. Fleshly wisdom Wisdome what Carnal wisdome what Why fleshly wisdome Flesh what The Soul placed between good and evil Wisdome according as the man in whom it is All carnal men have not fleshly wisdome Observ. Fleshly wisdome where there is not sincerity Doctr. Gods Children noâ—… ruled by fleshly wisdome Reason 1. It is Gods enemy 2. It is our enemy Reason 2. It is base Reason 3. They must mortifie it Reas. 4. It doth all the mischief in the world It hinders from good It sets it self against good It hinders from reforming of ill It hinders from suffering It provokes to evil It keeps in ill Carnal wisdome mistaken Ground of Credulity Jealousie Use. To disclaim fleshly wisdome A great Judgement to begiven up to our selves August Use 2. To get our hearts changed Get assurance of salvation See the vanity of earthly thingse Not to walk by fleshly wisdome breeds joy To repent of carnal devices Gods Children not led onely by the rules of reason Christians renouncing fleshly wisdome have a better guide Quest. Why tâ—… Apostle names Grace not Wisdome Answ. Wisdome not from our selves but Gods Grace 2. We are guided not only by wisdome but other Graces 3. Our want of wisdome supplyed by grace Gods wisdome for us more then in us Why weaker christiani are sometimes safer Obser. A Christian needs wisdome 1. To avoid dangers 2. Because of the likenesse between good and evill 3. In regard of hindrances and helps to good 4. Good is not good without it 5. Good is hid under evil Wisdome may be bad Use. To go to God for wisdome God gives wisdome for the things of this life Men leaving Gods wisdome miscarry Use. Reprooâ—… of those that subordinate Religion to State-Policy Observ. True wisdome toucheth Conversation Use. Bad livers no bodies in Religion Grace two-fold 1. The favour of God 2. Something wrought in us 1. A Change 2. Particular graces 1. Heavenly light 2. Love 3. Hope Patience 4. Faith 3. Exciting applying strengthening Grace Doctr. All our wisdom from Grace Every thing necessary to heaven a grace Use. Not to ascribe any thing to our selves God ready to give Grace Reason Christ hath undertaken it Presumption Against Despair Consider our parts and duty Beg assistance of God Go to Christ. Go to the Promises Renounce Carnal Wisdome Incouragements to be guided by Grace Quest. Answ. Signes of being led by Grace 1. To renounce carnal wisdome Sign 2. Simplicity Sincerity Sign 3. The strength of Grace Sign 4. In men of great parts By abasing his gifts and parts In men of weaker parts Sign 5. From the ground of his actions Sign 6. Graces are together Every Grace of use to a Christian Sign 7. When a man provides for his best good Help 1. Submit all to the Spirit of Grace Self-denyal 〈◊〉 Humility 3. High esteem of wisdome 4. To acquaint our selves with God 5. To meditate on the free love and Grace of God 6. Challenge the Covenant of Grace Popery founded on carnal wisdome 1. In the Government 2. In their Worship 3. Opinions Best Statesmen who Observ. A Christian uniform Abuse of signes Observ. God is wise for those that walk by Grace Observ. Gods Children have place in the conscience of others Use. To approve our selves to mens consciences Trust what S. Paul's good conceit of the Corinthians Reason 1. Reason 2. Reas. 3. To entertain good conceits of others Saint Paul's resolution to hold to the end S. Paul's sourse to persevere How the Corinthians were S. Paul's rejoycing To imitate S. Paul in this Resolution The glory of a good life To take God in our resolutions Saint Paul's comfort Things of the world uncertain To examine what we acknowledge Men deceived in the death of others Danger of ill company Aggravation of Hell-torments Ground of ill mens cruelty To be constant in good courses Observ. A sign of a good estate to acknowledge him that hath told us of our sins Use. Tryal Acknowledgment what Christ acknowledged in the Minister Acknowledge Christ what Who acknowledgeth not Christ. To acknowledge the Word To acknowledge the Minister Ministers joyned with Christ in acceptance and neglect Doctr. A faithful Minister the joy of the people Reason He brings Christ the cause of joy Original of our joy Christ must be opened by the Ministery Use of the Ministery Ministers wooers for Christ. Ministers a gift of God The Ministery a great blessing Why God brings men to heaven by men Gods benefits come by the Ministery Use. To rejoyce in enjoying Gids Ordinance Doct. The peoples good is the Ministers joy 1. The matter of his joy 2. A meanes to increase his joy 3. The seal of his Ministery 4. To evidence that he was a good man Use. To be good under the Ministery Good communicative Wicked men draw others to sin Use. To labour to make others good The misery of opposers of goodnesse Not to leave Churches for some corruptions Observ. Christ hath a Day Simile Doctr. Christians rejoycing as it will be at the last day What will avail at the last day who take the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Application to the Sacrament How we are acquainted with Christ. To acknowledge Christ in the Sacrament what Thoughts of Judgment make us painful Observ. Good as far as may be to cherish a good opinion of others Reason 1. Reason 2. Not to cast off men for infirmities Use. Encouragement to inferiours to give occasion of good hope Observ. Personal presence hath a special power Use. To esteem Gods Ordinance Object Answ. Saint Paul's end in coming to Corinth Observ. Holy men work from holy ends Use. To look to our aimes in our actions Doctr. The preaching of the Gospel a special grace Reason It is the means to work all good in us Use. To esteem the Word as a Grace How to come to be thankful Doctr. Those that are in the state of Grace need a second grace Reason 1. From inward opposition Reas. 2. From without Reas. 3. From new temptations Reason 4. From the time to come Reason 5. From Satan Reason 6. From the capacity of the soul.
Use. Not to set a period to our growth in Grace Triall of our estate by desire to grow Simile Doctr. Every blessing a Grace Use. To look on every bâ—…nefit as a Grace Thankfulnesse Application 〈◊〉 the Sacrament Observ. A good man must take all occasions to do good Saint Paul's Circuit Observ. A commendable custome for Christians to bring one another on their way Religion teacheth not incivility Observ. Men prone to suspition Suspition what Whence it is 1. From guilt 2. Envy Quest. Answ. How to arm against suspition 1. By Innocency 2. Patience 3. Prayer 4. Apology Quest. Answ. Suspition when evill 1. 2. 3. Doctr. Publick men to avoid the imputation of lightnesse Reason To preserve Authority Obstinacy like Constancy Grounds of lightnesse and inconstancy 1. Temper of body 2. From the disposition of the mind 1. Inconsideration 2. Passion Inconstancy mistaken Simile 5. Want of dependance on God Christians modest for the future Remedies against lightnesse 1. Deliberation 2. Suppresse passion Inconveniency of passion Dependance on God Flesh what Why so called Wicked men called the world Use. Take heed by whom we are led Observ. A Christian to avoid the imputation of carnal policy Reason It is Gods and our enemy Use. To suppresse it Observ. To purpose according to the flesh a ground of lightnesse A wicked man no sound friend Nor a good Christian. How to know we consult with the flesh We consult not according to the flesh 1. In denial of parts 2. Of opportunities 3. When we are humble in our consultations Quest. Answ. How to avoid fleshly wisdom God judgeth us not by passion but by our tenour of life Worldly men make all serve the flâ—…sh Application to the Sacrament Observ. Carnal men inconstant Not over-much to trust carnal men Observ. Carnal men vehement Simile Ground of yea and nay Falshood and dissembling Equivocation 1. If it be allowed there can be no lie 2. It hinders suffering 3. Equivocation a lie A lie what Quest. Answ. S. Paul sustained three persons Holy men are but men Not knowing things to come no sin Difference in the things delivered by Apostles as Apostles and as men Our journey to heaven certain Men prone to censure mens callings for particular actions Saint Paul's care to fence his doctrine from suspition An Oath what Kinds of oathes Conditions of an oath An oath not good unlesse necessary Qualifications of an oath What meant by the prohibition not to swear at all Observ. A matter of consequence to believe Gods Word is certain Reason We cannot else resist temptations to sin Or to despair Ground of going on in sin Use. To be thankful for means of strengthening faith in this Doctr. God is true and faithful God true out of necessity of his nature Object Answ. Promises absolute or conditional That God is and is true the prime truth Evidences of faith in us ground of it out of us The relations of God to us comfortable from his truth Use 1. Gods threatenings true Use 2. Comfort Use 3. Gods Word Judge of all Controversies Properties of a Judge No other Judge alway yea Use 4. What agrees not with Gods Word is false Popery crosseth the Word of God Popery contradicts it self Popery full of uncertainties Quest. How to know the Word to be true Answ. 1. 2. Quest. Answ. To yield obedience to Gods Word Four Points Doctr. 1. Chrise the main object of preaching Prerogatives of Christs Generation Preaching an instrument to work faith Use. To desire most to hear of Christ. How to think of Christ. Doctr. 2. All good by Christ conveyed by the Ministery Doctr. 3. Consent of Ministers a help to faith Doctr. 4. Evangelical truth is most certain Quest. How to know the doctrine of the Gospel true Answ. Office of the Church concerning Gods Word Simile Object Answ. How God speaks in the Church Quest. How to know our faith is the true ancient faith Answ. August One Faith One Catholike Church Rock what Object Answ. Papists and we have the same affirmatives Popish negatives novelties Quest. Answ. Additions in Popery dangerous Quest. Answ. Safer to be a Protestant then a Papist Quest. Answ. Whether a Papist may be saved Papists give what sense they will of Scriptures No dispensing with Gods Lâ—… Use. To get certainty of faith answerable to the certain truth Three senses of Amen God since the Fall hath made a Covenant of Grace Observ. God deals with man by Promises Reason 1. Else man dares look for nothing from God Reason 2. To exercise faith and hope Reason 3. To arm us against discouragements Quest. Answ. Promise what Three degrees of love No promise no faith nor hope Observ. 2. All Promises in Christ. Christ first beloved 1. As God 2. As Man 3. As Mediatour 4. As our Head and Husband Our nature odious to God since thn fall Gods love first in Christ and then in us in regard of execution All in Christ first Use. Ground of boldnesse to God Observ. 3. All the promises yea in Christ. Christ the first promise All types fulfilled in Christ. 1 Personal types 3. Real types 2. All promises and prophecies All good things by Christ yea Benefit to former ages by Christ. Simile Inlargment of Grace by Christs coming Christ the word how Use. A comfortable way to study Christ in promises and acplishment All other promises Amen for Christ. Pròmises yet unfulfilled Use. Direction of judgment that every man cannot be saved by his own Religion Use. To magnifie God for promises Use Direct in to go to God in Christ. Severall kinds of promises 1. Universal to all mankind 2. Concerning the Church Manner of promising 1. Absolute 2. Conditionally propounded but absolutely performed Conditional of outward things Use. To get into Christ. Object Answ. The good things wicked men enjoy are not blessings How to know blessings are snares How to know we have them in love Attend on the meanes to get into Christ. Rest in Christ. Use. The stability of the estate of a Christian. Comfort in dangers * 1625. Quest. Answ. Till a man be in Christ he hath no good by the promises Quest. Answ. Hope of wicked men while they live Object Answ. Object Answ. How the promise is made to the poor in spirit Quest. What right a man out of Christ hath to claim the premises Answ. Wilful rebellion keeps men from Christ. Comfort from the promises to them that are in Christ. Of forgivenesse In want of Grace In imperfections Object Against falling away In Troubles of this world For issue of our labours In weak performances Promise to posteritys Comfort to Parents Comfort to Children Wicked Pare cruel to poste rity How to make use of the Promises To suit the promises to our wants Look to Christ in whom they are made Look to God in Christ. God our Father God our Husband Christ our Head Christ our brother The Spirit ours What to do when we remember not particular Promises Rules touching the Promises 1. Not to