〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Just 'T is the Office of Justice to take notice in all its proceedings of Right and Wrong but if the Right approve its reality 't is no Work of Justice to take Cognizance how we came by it whether it be natural Inheritance or personal Acquisition whether our own indefeisible Possession or anothers free Donation these are things Foreign and out of the Circuit of Justice Right must carry it whatever be the Foundation of it whatever be the Nature of it whatever Title it proceeds upon For no Varieties in the Right alter the Justice of the Procedure nor convert Justice into Injustice or any other thing The very Essence and Formal Nature of Justice as Distributive consists in dispensing Right Whereever that is the Act is formally Justice and nothing else although some other Vertue may have an antecedent Influence in forming the Right So here No Man hath a Natural Personal Right to that everlasting Rest neither do the best Services of the most perfect Creatures Angel Archangel Cherubim Seraphim found a right to it able in the nature of the thing to command and necessarily over-rule strict Justice so as 't would be Injustice properly so called to withhold or deny it For Heavenly Glory in its full Latitude which I understand by that Rest is a thing boundlesly above the Proportion of any finite Qualities or Operations Those ever Blessed Spirits are doubtlesly incapable of exerting any Acts that in Arithmetical Proportion can be as considerable and valuable as the Reciprocal Actings of the Deity that are return'd upon them For instance those flaming Ardours of Love in Seraphims which denominate them cannot in the Estimate of Reason and Justice be conceiv'd equally valuable with those reactions of Love in the Deity to them Certainly God loves them better than they can possibly love him and his Love rays out to them in infinite more Varieties than theirs can to him and the least degree of his Love is more honourable and worthy than the highest of theirs So that in Commutative Justice they cannot expect his for theirs especially since theirs is this due and the Payment of a Debt cannot make the Creditor a Debtor I have a Conceit but will not impose it that the Devils sin was not an aspiring to a Coaequality or Superiority to his Creator which his Innocent nay even Corrupt Understanding could not but represent as impossible impracticable therefore not designable But rather a challenge and expectation of those Honours from his Maker as due in Commutative Justice to the Excellencies and Actions which he admired in himself and would have had his Inferiours to adore Whence in that Kingdom of the Beast which he established and upholds this is or has been a principal Pillar though now painted over a new and is indeed the Universal Sentiment of all in whose disobedient hearts he retains the Dominion which he usurpt upon the Fall Even good Souls have a difficult Work to disengage themselves from it However 't is madness to conceit that the imperfect Duties or Graces of the lapsed Sons of Adam can stand in a Parity with Coelestial Recompences Nay the Proportion cannot amount to the heighth of that call'd Geometrical proper to distributive Justice which consists in a likeness of Reason For can there be any comparison betwixt finite and infinite imperfect and perfect temporal and eternal Can any say as the Work to the Wage so is Duty to Heaven The Right then here stands upon another bottom than the reason of the thing and that is the free investiture and gift of Sovereign Love and Mercy by a voluntary Grant and Covenant 'T is not common Soccage but Copy hold only Yet on the other hand Hell and Sin stand more in a Parity or equal Proportion There is full as much evil in the Sin as in the Punishment though not as much good in the Duty as in the Reward The demerit of Sin is unlimitable the Treasures of Wrath and Woe comprehended in it are inexhaustible therefore eternal 'T is just then to recompence Tribulation to the wicked because their Works merit it Just to recompence Rest to the godly not because their Works merit it but because free Grace hath promised it Neh. 9.8 And hast performed thy Words for thou art Righteous God cannot be just to the Wicked if he reward not their Works he cannot be just to himself to his own Word and Covenant if he reward not the Works he hath wrought in the Righteous Now even Troubles and Afflictions are less grievous if recompence may be hoped for upon good and sure Grounds If our Miseries become Antidotes to greater Miseries it encourages our Patience if they Work out greater Mercies it increases our Courage and so our Comfort The gain sweetens the pain and we are not so much offended with our Crosses as pleased with the Compensation The World is as a Lottery for a while we must draw nothing but Blanks or what will more grievously vex disquiet or torment us but the last cast will pay for all to our fullest Contentation if we belong to God's Election For this light Affliction which is but for a moment works for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory 2 Cor. 4.17 The happiness of the recompence of Reward is a thing of so transcendent Nature that even the serious Thoughts of it may entertain us with more abundant Joy than there can be Grief in the feeling it self of the bitterest Sufferings The Antepasts or Foretasts of Heaven are incomparably a greater delight than the very sense of Misery can be a Torment Therefore sure these exceeding glorious Riches of Coelestial Satisfactions will be an all-sufficient Requital for all the labour of Love the patience of Hope and work of Faith that we exert in this Semibrief moment of our transitory Life And it is no small Comfort to consider that the Fidelity of God has made these Gratuities Justice by making them the subject Matter of so many gracious Promises that what otherwise was mere liberty is now necessity and God by vertue of these his Bonds is become a Debtor to God Oh rich Treasury of strong Consolations God's grace having so ordered it not only that he may but that he must give the penitently troubled Soul in his own way and time the sweetest Peace Comfort and Rest It may indeed be delay'd but never can be finally deny'd and this we owe chiefly to the Justice of God his sweetest Perfection through Christ and the Covenant to an humbled Soul But there are also external Administrations of Justice which are of a refreshing consideration and such did the Psalmist reflect upon and solace himself withal Vers 1 2 15 23. Vindictive Justice is a notable relief to the Oppressed and the sweetness of Revenge a potent Cordial To see those suffer from whom we suffer and the Wicked fall into the trap and snare they lay for us does not a little glad us especially if it
against the Poison of all adverse accidents For since nothing diseases disquiets me but only as far as it gets within me and no external Occurrents can be so great Evils as internal Sanctity is a good because the utmost that the fiery rage of Earth and Hell can do against me is but finite whilst under the conduct and influence of real Holiness I am secure that I do and shall enjoy the all-sufficient Reliefs of infinite goodness and therefore my Miseries only commit a Rape upon my imaginative and irascible Powers whilst my Comforts are seated deep in my Rational which through Divine Grace have regain'd the Soveraignty it necessarily follows that the potency of all outward Evils to torment me is boundlesly short of the Omnipotency of that Internal Heaven that I feel in my conscience to content and ease me and my Sorrows will be perfectly run down by my Joys and Consolations But then this I must acknowledge that neither can my Conscience be good nor I comfortably Innocent i. e. neither acting nor imagining evil against Men nor Righteous i. e. designing and doing all the good I can out of an inward principle of Love and Justice unless I be truly a Sanctified Person For external fair demeanour toward Men without an inward Inclination and Affection thereto is but only Hypocrisie before God 2. Privilege is Propriety in God with the assurance of it both in Vers 22. and in those Two Words MY GOD. For he could not without presumption or falshood say this if he knew it not And 't is not the common interest of Nature founded in the Relation of Creatures which every Man nay Devil may justly claim that these words here import but a special Propriety through Grace founded in Regeneration and Adoption In short 't is not a congenit and general but a federal and peculiar right in God which must bottom our Consolation When we are taught of God out of his Law Vers 12. in such a manner as to have that Law of God Writ in our Hearts according to the tenor of the Covenant of Grace Jer. 31.33 c. God thereby giving us a sensible Demonstration that he is our God so as he is not to those who though the Work of his hands of Power yet are not his Workmanship by Grace created in Christ Jesus to good Works Ephes 2.10 Then and not till then have we Right to the Fruits of Righteousness in Peace and Joy unspeakable and upon our assurance Right in them 'T is but little Satisfaction to be able to plead no better title to God than Apostate Spirits or Infidels But if we can upon good Grounds assure our selves that God is ours in the singular Relation of a gracious Father who hath begot us again to a lively hope through the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the Dead we therein have also the evidence that every thing in God is ours to enstate us in the Perfection of Felicity and Consolation He that is blest with any Plerophory that God is federally his and consequently that he hath a clear title to Jesus Christ and all his Benefits hath also a full and sufficient Testimony in that very thing of a sure and indefeisible right to the Holy Spirit and all his Comforts For these are absolutely inseparable both in Nature and Divine Donation And if we have an interest in one Covenant Blessing 't is a pledge of assurance that we have all They are four 1. Sanctification of which before I will put my Laws into their Minds and write them in their Hearts 2. Propriety in God or Adoption I will be to them a God and they shall be to me a People 3. Special Illumination or saving Knowledge They shall not teach every Man his Neighbour and every Man his Brother saying Know the Lord for all shall know me from the least to the greatest 4. Pardon of Sin or Justification I will be merciful to their Vnrighteousness and their Sins and their Iniquities will I remember no more All here is will and shall Words of Authority and Command These Four are not only by the Covenant indissolubly connected but also in the reason of the thing For there can be no possible evidence that God is ours in special and hath savingly enlightned our Minds and pardoned our Sins but only real and undissembled Goodness and that which is of God's Creation by Writing his Laws in our Hearts can be no other Therefore this is the leading Mercy in the Covenant as inferring the rest and declaring the truth of all If then God be ours we are certainly Sanctified Illuminated and Pardoned but the contrary if God be not ours by peculiar and special Right They mutually prove each other and the absence or denial of one excludes all 't is impossible they should be divided Canst thou without self-deceiving say with the Psalmist and in his sence MY GOD then canst thou as truly say I am Pardoned I am Sanctified c. Here then is the very Root of all Spiritual Comfort For trouble of Conscience which is its contrary is founded by Sin The Filth the Guilt the Power afflict and wound our Spirits If these be removed the ground of the trouble vanishes and if we have an inward feeling and assurance that they are removed the trouble it self is actually taken away Now Pardon is the taking away the guilt of Sin we have no reason to fear the Wrath to which it did bind us over and Sanctification is the taking away the Power and Filth of Sin in us I say in us for Sanctification doth not abolish the filthy Nature of Sin in it self but rather discover it to us more abundantly to excite our abhorrency and loathing and this very Detestation is the main of our cleansing from the filth of Sin this washes away that stain wherewith our Souls were blemished that is God deals with us as if there were none is as kind and favourable to us and as freely converses with us as if we never had been polluted and will continue so to do till we renew the defilement For the sake of Christ he overlooks all those spots and deformities the turpitude and disgrace whereof made us cover our Faces in shame before his pure all-discerning Eye and he looks upon us and we look upon our selves as clear unblamable and beautiful in his Eyes when we really hate those Evils that have defiled us and as the spring of that hatred without which it can never be nor be pleasing to God when we are replenished with the Riches of his Grace and adorned with the Robes of his Sons Righteousness for both concur to our acceptation Sanctification also destroys the Commanding but not at first the Rebelling the Regal but not Tyrannical Power of Sin though it be our strength even against this and at last will abolish it It so subdues our Lusts that they shall not Reign though they may resist as contumacious Enemies They are look'd upon as Traitors
know to be true and sound I can have no Evidence that God or any Covenant Mercy is mine For I can have no demonstration hereof but only by the Effects And if I be not sure that these are genuine the true Productions of God's Relation-Love the Legitimate issue of the Marriage Union betwixt Christ and my Soul I cheat my self under the disguise of a fallacious Peace into real Wretchedness and Woe The Assurance therefore of the Truth and Sincerity of my Grace is to me the very bottom Stone in the Foundation of my Comfort and an experimental sense of the vital Influence Presence and Power of that indwelling Grace is the basis of this Assurance This the Psalmist here does make the nearest ground of his assuming to himself Comfort in God ver 17 18. Vnless the Lord had been my help my Soul had almost or quickly dwelt in silence This was an Experience in a Temporal Case and plainly implies that in his extreme peril when there was no help or hope visible in and from the World yet God did interpose in a peculiar remarkable manner so that it could not but be apparent that his Deliverance was a special work of Providence So ver 18. When I said my Foot slippeth thy Mercy O Lord held me up I was in such eminent danger so near falling that I could not see any possibility of recovering my self but Betwixt the Stirrup and the Ground Mercy I crav'd and Mercy found A visible palpable observable special Intervention of Mercy sustain'd me when otherwise I was irrecoverably gone These were possibly some uncommon undertakings of Grace and Providence for him 1 Sam. 23.6 27. and chap. 25. like that in diverting Saul from the pursuit when he had hunted him to a view and the other in preventing his revenge upon Nabal or such as Hozekiah beg'd Isa 38.14 I know Experiences are things of late more derided than understood by some Admirers of a Rational Religion but whose pretended Reason is indeed too hard for their Religion overturning its Basis that Lowliness which would instruct them to think there are other Men and Christians beside that understand themselves though not understood by these and no more dote on an Animal Religion than their Accusers who are prejudic'd and prepossest against them by other things than either Religion or Reason or common Sence But these I refer to the after-thoughts of one of the great Propugnators of that way the Author of Anti-Sadducism Page 39 40 in 4º in one point of the highest Experience and sometimes most of all scoft at viz. Communion with God His Reason at length was reconciled to the Thing yet so will not his Charity to the Persons of those that alway own'd it they must be still Melancholists and any thing ill enough which a stout Reasoner ex Particulari can make them But possibly their Reason as in that so in other particulars that have undergone the same fate may in like manner approve it self when it has the happiness to be thus an Aborigin in the Rational World for 't is below the grandeur thereof to receive it from the poor despised Animal Well blessed be God that Heaven is an Experimental as well as Rational State although I doubt the Religion thereof will on that account proceed and commence animal in the Schools of Reasons Idolizers 'T is no matter I shall still commend three things as necessary Antecedents to Sincerity in the practice of true Religiousness 1st Reason the lowest the Handmaid which must submit and veil to the 2d Faith the Chamberlain of which is begotten the 3d. Experience the Treasurer the Heir of Faith which hath the honour to abide live and inherit when Faith ceases and dies yet it is not posthumous but brought up under it till it arrive at maturity in Paradise When I speak of Faith I am not so fond as to postpone a credence to Divine Revelations in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments I build all Christian Faith upon that bottom solely and exclusively to all Unwritten Traditions or pretended Revelations which can never found a Divine Faith of which alone I discourse Neither am I so stark drunk as to think that those Scripture Revelations are not most highly rational in the matter of them as well as the motives to believe them nor yet so frantick as to advance any Experiences unconform to Scripture Let the Antinomians and Papists see to the first the promoters of Reason in contradistinction not to say contradiction to Scripture look to the second and Enthusiasts to the last Experience with me is nothing but a sensible yet rational feeling of the performance of Promises to a Man's self in particular When my inward sense assures me that the spiritual Covenant Mercies are really bestow'd upon me and my outward Circumstances demonstrate that God owns me with the Temporal I do not place these in Opposition but Conjunction for without the inward Experiments the outward signifie nothing They may be and are Providential but not Federal Both are call'd Tasts of God's Goodness and Graciousness or of his Word Psal 34.8 1 Pet. 2.3 Psal 119.103 c. Now when an Experience of the performance of any Promise superadds as it were a Seal to that Faith which receiv'd it as true it gives a more full confirmation to a Man's title to the Covenant and all the Blessings and Comforts of it and a further ground of quieting the Heart and therefore is completive of Comfort as Faith is inchoative For if I do but weakly and doubtingly apprehend and apply the Comforts that are in God yet when he bestows upon me some special token of his Favour 't is an emboldning encouraging pledge of his willingness to grant more and a testimony of his owning my right to all As in case of litigious Titles when all stands upon the same bottom if the Occupant freely yield up part to the Claimer 't is a vertual acknowledgement of his right to all and therefore exceedingly animates him in his future proceedings for its recovery Oh Divine Experience the blessed earnest of everlasting Consolation how sweet how satisfying art thou When a disconsolate Heart is sick of its own wants and woes weary of it self and the World as insufficient to yield the least drachm of solid Contentation 't is necessitated at last to send out Faith as a Harbinger to seek for Peace and Rest which it can no where find but in God and no way deduce from God but through those free Engagements which his boundless Goodness has exhibited in the Covenant of Grace These Blessings are as a Honey-comb in the promise but Heaven in the performance Indeed Heaven is no more nor less than the full and universal accomplishment of Promises and that partial incompleat fulfilling them in this Life wherein consists the happiness of Experience is no other than an Antepast or foretast of those eternal Felicities which constitute that immortal state And now am I