it as to be made simple and upright hearted unto him thereby obeying their Father and Mother God and his Grace or the Jerusalem above the Mother of us all Gal. 4.26 and so walk after the teachings of his grace which is the same with walking after the Spirit it being the holy Spirit that breaths therein and teaches us that denying all ungodliness and worldly lusts we should live soberly righteously and godlily in this present world not with the Edomites embracing this present world but with Jacob looking after the blessing the inheritance promised in Christ Jesus and so the blessed hope even the appearance of the glory of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ who gave himself for us c. Tit. 2.11 12 13 14. 〈◊〉 these are Israelites indeed the upright and the blessed Seed being righteous as by all hereabout said may be seen in a double respect 1. In regard of Christ as their righteousness put on by them and made of God righteousness to them In what respect the godly are said to be righteous Gal. 3.26 27. 2 Cor. 1.30 accepted in him the beloved Eph. 1.6 and abiding in him are presented without rebuke and blame as in him in the sight of God Col. 1.21 22 23. 2. In regard of their being in a measure by and through Christ conformed to him and made righteous in their way and demeanour doing those things that are right and good in the sight of God and our Saviour the imperfections and defects wherein are taken away and covered in and by him believed on and that that is of his Spirit and spiritual operation in them made acceptable through him 1 Job 2.29 and 3.21 22. 1 Pet. 2.5 And in this latter consideration they are right or upright as the word in the Text signifies in and through Christ 1. In that they disclaim and renounce themselves and all things of themselves their own works worthiness and righteousness and only believe in close with and have their life and rejoycing in Christ Jesus living not by or upon their own works but by faith even by the Faith or Doctrine of the Son of God believed and minded and the grace therein testified in that he loved them and gave himself for them Gal. 2.20 which who so slight and are lifted up above as thinking it too simple and mean a ground for their hope their hearts are not upright in him Heb. 2.4 they that are seeking something else besides and above the vision of him that shall come and will come and will not tarry that is of Christ Jesus and the grace in him their Souls are not upright in Christ For the upright love him Cant. 1.4 and so content themselves there and keep them only and singly for all things to him as believing that in him they are compleat and have all things freely given them in and with him both pertaining to life and godliness and so wisdom righteousness holiness and redemption as was said before yea eternal life yea the promises both of this life and of that to come so as that in the knowledge believing and understanding of him and the grace in him they shall have all things administred to them Col. 2.9 10. 1 Tim. 4.8 2 Pet. 1.3 4. Rom. 8.32 and so they abide in him in the belief of his grace and obedience to his Counsels and Instructions looking to and depending upon him and God in and through him for all things And herein 2. They deny all ungodliness all evil unbeseeming and hard thoughts of God Atheism Idolatry or Idolatrous conceptions directing them to seek for life righteousness safety and satisfaction in something out of him or of some other power than of God in him as judging some insufficiency or want of graciousness in him with all prophane neglects of him his way worship and service so as that though evil thoughts temptations and motions may be suggested to them by Satan or spring up in them through their corruption as if there were no God or as if he loved them not or cared not for them because he afflicts and tryes them Or as if he minded not mens wayes or walkings because he prospers the wicked and afflicts the righteous or as if his testimonies were not true or it were in vain to worship and call upon him c. yet through the grace of God and his testimony the faith of Jesus kept to they reject these and deny them and do not yield up themselves to them to be carried away by them Psal 73.1 2 3.13 14 15 16. 3. Knowing him to be Lord and to have the dispose of all things in heaven and earth and that the promises of this life that is and of that to come are in him all Yea and Amen affirmed and confirmed for and with those that cleave to him and that he is wise in heart and holy in way loving faithful and merciful to all as is evident to them in what they believe he hath already ready done in his Death and Sufferings for all especially to them that wait upon him being the Saviour of all men and especially of them that believe they in the light direction and strength of this grace do also deny worldly lusts lusts of covetousness after more and greater honours preferments riches pleasures and delights to the flesh or whatever else the world hath in it and proposes to us to allure and draw us from him Knowing also and believing that in fearing God and cleaving to Christ in the conduct of his Word and Spirit they shall want nothing that is good for them Psal 23. and 34.9 10. and 84.11 Mat. 6.33 but shall have all their needs supplyed and a better portion here though in less having his love and favour with it than those that have far more without them Psal 37.16 Prov. 15.16 and 16.8 So that though discontentedness with their lot and portion here sometimes arises in them and lustings and covetings after more assail them yet they war against them and in minding and taking heed to the vision or testimony of Christ deny them Psal 73.22 23 24. 4. And knowing and beleiving that all their approach to and acceptance with God is only in and upon the account of Christ Jesus and that they in themselves are every where imperfect yea of themselves as of themselves to have no sufficiency to any good thing nor any thing truly good pleasing and acceptable to God dwelling in them they are sober in the thoughts of themselves not thinking of themselves above what is meet as if for their own betterness or goodness they were more favoured of God or were able of themselves as of themselves to do or perform any thing pleasing to God or profitable to themselves or others or able to find out the things of God and Christ otherwise and further than by his holy Spirit in his testimony he gives them understanding and discerning of them or were worthy to have them revealed to
grass as well that of men as that of beasts or birds or fishes and all the goodliness of man is as the flower of the field The grass withereth the flower fadeth because the Spirit of the Lord bleweth upon it that is his anger whence the Sentence of Death proceeded surely the people is grass Isa 40.6 7. Now then in as much as the righteous as men are flesh as well as the wicked they are also both subject and lyable to death True it is that Christ hath died for all Reason 5 and given himself a ransom for all to ransom and redeem all from under that sentence of death and condemnation deserved by us and due to us but that was not to this end that the bodily death should not come upon us or any of us but to redeem us from under the state of obligation upon the account of that our sin and fall to eternal death or a perishing from Gods presence and also from being left under the power and tyranny of Satan and his absolute dispose of us and doing his will with us upon the account aforesaid that we might be under the hand power and dispose of a man even of the Lord Jesus Christ who died rose and revived that he might be Lord Ruler and Disposer of both quick and dead and that we might being under him be in a possibility and capacity of salvation and so in coming to him at his Heavenly Call and yielding up our selves to him to hope in his grace and to obey and follow him we might receive forgiveness of our sins and be justified and acquitted of all things from which we could not be acquitted by the Law of Moses and consequently no other way and so that we might by him be brought back again to God and be made partakers of eternal life And that he having power as Lord and Judge over all men even over those also that obey not his Calls or believe not in him might raise and judge them according to his good pleasure Of which further by and by Now these being the ends of Christs dying for men his death is no hinderance to dying men For God pronounced the sentence of Death upon men after the interposure of the Mediator as appears Gen. 3.15.18 He first provided and promised that the Seed of the Woman should bruise the head of the Serpent and then afterward notwithstanding that sentenced both the man and the woman and in them all of us to die and return to dust out of which we were taken Now that sentence that was pronounced after the promise of Christs coming and dying for us is not letted and prevented by his dying onely as the promise of Christ to die laid a foundation of our hoping in him to have this Death abolished so as that we might not be hurt of it or kept out from obtaining and receiving the blessing of God by it so accordingly his actual dying was the bringing forth that foundation and ground of hope in him into act that we might die in hope also of that better life that he hath promised us in Jesus Christ our Lord. Reason 6 Nor doth the justifying the Believer through the faith of Christ or the giving him divine life in his Spirit making him alive to God hinder the bodily death as experience shews The body is still dead or under Death because of sin though the Spirit be life for righteousness sake Rom. 8.10 The justification received in believing on Christ being but as to his state toward God to the freeing him from his wrath and from lyableness to the eternal Death in the second Judgement that shall be in the end of the world the wrath to come and to the admitting him into fellowship with him and with the Saints and Holy Ones in his Spirit and inward man as to his being accepted and accounted as righteous with God in Christ and an Heir of the Promises of God here and hereafter but it exempts not from the bearing the sentence of the bodily Death through which he also must pass as well as Christ Reasons of Gods ordering Death to the Righteous that he may enter into glory with and through him Yea there be divers reasons why God orders that his people shall lye under the Sentence of Death though righteous and pass in their due times through it As to say 1. To shew that he is the Lord and disposes of his creature as he pleases And seeing he hath in his great and infinite wisdom and by his righteous will pleased so to order it that both the righteous and sinners shall submit to that Sentence we being the clay and he as the Potter over us it s meet that we be all silent before him and subject to him practising obedience even in so suffering 2. That we might have the thought and remembrance of it as a spur to stir us up and provoke us to many excellent and profitable duties and exercises As for instance 1. To seek him more earnestly and apply our hearts to wisdom in the knowledge of him in Christ Jesus seeing our times for that are not always Whence that Prayer Psalm 90.11 Teach us so to number our days that we may apply our hearts to wisdom 2. To quicken us to serve him in our generations in doing good knowing that our time is but short to be plying our business for glorifying him here and laying up for our selves a good foundation against the time to come That we might do what our hand findes to do with all diligence because in the Grave whither we go there is no work no praising God c. Eccles 9.10 Psalm 115.17 3. To make us alwayes more watchful and fearful to offend God seeing our time is limited here and is in his hand and if we take liberty to wander from him we may in the mean while be taked hence and so it may go ill with us To this purpose are those sayings of our Savior Watch for you know not what hour your Lord comes Math. 24.42 44. Luke 21.34.36 4. To exercise Faith in the truth power and faithfulness of God in Christ for the bringing us to glory notwithstanding Death and Grave John 11.25 26 40. 2 Cor. 4.13 14 15 16. 1 Thes 4.14 15. 1 Cor. 15.2 3 4 12.58 5. To comfort us and perswade us to patience under our sufferings here and make us the willinger to chuse to under go them rather than to sin agaiast him and turn from him Seeing Death will come and put an end to them and give us as it were a discharge from them all we may the better hold out to the end because it will not be long to it this life being but a vapor that appears a little while and then vanishes Jam. 4 13 14. The Apostlâ—s thus comforted themselves in their sufferings partly in the consideration of the momentaniness of them they being but the sufferings of this present time which Death will finish
by Christ So as with respect to him namely Eph 2.4 5. And so 3. It springs from the infinite excellency of the person and the precious vertuousness of the abasement and obedience of the Lord Jesus to the death the death of the Cross and the force and prevalency of his mediation of the new Testament with God his Father in the vertues thereof that the called might receive the promise of the eternel inheritance Heb. 9.15 2 Thes 4.14 1 Pet. 5. 10. For though if man had abode in his innocency he I believe should have been very happy out of the love that God beares to righteousness and to man as his creature abiding righteous yet as it is no where said so neither find I sufficient ground to believe that he should have had the same happiness that now he shall have in and upon the account of Christ Jesus he not only delivering him from his sin but being made also such a righteousness to man as made in him as becomes a new and more glorious foundation of his future happiness then his owne personal righteousness as a pure creature could have been Therefore also it is said that Gods eternal purpose about the Gospel-contents were purposed in Christ Jesus Eph. 1.11 and that Christ at his coming shall be admired in all his Saints it being the glory of Christ that shall then be manifested in and upon them even that that he hath by the vertues of his abasement sufferings and death acquired into the nature of man for us and to be communicated by and with him to us 2 Thes 1.10 and 2.14 It s the great commendation and Manifestation of the strength and excellency of this foundation that it is counted worthy of and meet for such a glorious superstructure to be built upon it and that its able to support and uphold such a weight an exceeding and eternal weight of glory 2 Cor. 4.17 Sure if our sufferings in and for him work for us such a weight of glory as some particular rewards of them in that Kingdom what did his sufferings for us work whence all our sufferings for him have their foundation motive and value but even the whole Kingdom it self and all its glory Such was his unspeakable love and grace in abasing himself so low at the will and appointment of his Father and suffering so great things for man that as he is accounted worthy to receive of God his Father highest dignity honor and glory in the manhood and for men even power and riches wisdom and strength honor and glory and blessing Rev. 5.12 so also such is the infinite prevalency of his mediation with his Father through the same that he obtains of him what he desires and such is his infinite love and grace to his that love and obey him that as his Father loves him so he loves them Joh. 15.9 and therefore aim'd at askes and obtaines of his Father for them the highest and most inconceivable happiness and glory that may be injoyed by them whence also we may say that 4 It springs from Christs unspeakeable love to them as his Members Spouse Inheritance which is such as that he thinks nothing too good or great for them that he hath in his power or may by his power and prevalency obtain of God for them Thence he tells them that he appoints to them a Kingdom as his Father appointed him that they may sit and eat and drink with him at his table in his Kingdom and sit on thrones c. Luc. 22.28 29. Rev. 2.26 27. and 3.21 and to give to them to sit with him on his throne and he gave himself for his Church that he may sanctify it with the washing of water in the word to present it to himself a Glorious Church c. Ephes 5.26 27. improving all the infinite vertues of his Cross and Sufferings and all the authority and power he hath with his Father and over all things for the advancing them to the heighth of happiness How great must that happiness needs be how great that glory that shall be to the heighth of Christs power and interest by which also they are prepared for that glory and brought to it too Whence the Spouse glories also my beloved is mine He and all that he is and hath and I am his to love delight in and make me happy as well as also to obey and serve him Yea 5. It springs from the love both of the Father and Son to them which leads them so to accept of any their breathings after them love and services to them as to reward them not after their worthiness in themselves but according to the graciousness of their own acceptance of them in their love to them and according to the infinite munificence and magnificence of so great and glorious persons so as they may shew forth the glory of their grace and love therein to them and upon them 6 It springs from the truth and faithfulness of God and Christ for whereas love and goodness led or moved God and Christ to promise so great and glorious recompences to them that overcome their corruptions and lusts and wills and enemies in the power of his grace given them in Christ and that do not through sloth cowardliness or contempt of the riches of his goodness unbelief or the like yeild themselves to them his faithfulness truth and power are ingaged to perform and make good these ingagements to them To which he hath bound himself both by promise and oath that by two immutable things in which it is impossible for God to lye they may have strong consolation that flee for refuge to the hope set before them Heb. 6.13.17 18. Now God is faithful and able to perform that that he hath promised and will not faile his righteousness shall be seen and glorified therefore in the performance to the heires of promise 2 Thess 1.5 6. 7. Lastly it springs also from the great wisdom of God that such and so great a reward and End was prepared for and is promised by him that he may induce and incourage the hearts of poor mortal creatures to obedience to the faith of Jesus and to the way and practise of righteousness For such is the power of corruption errour and ignorance in us naturally such the powerful influences of this world and its allurements upon us such the force also of its threats frownes and hardships to be met with in the way of God and such the force and violence of Satan in thrusting against us in and with all afore-mentioned and endeavouring to ruine us that did not God bid so high for us and our service he would have few that would deny themselves of the baits and encounter with and stand against the difficulties and discouragements they meet with But the veiw of such a price or prize kept in the eye may and doth and will allure and draw and keep up the heart in and through Christ Jesus to all