of the Earth but bare understanding of them doth not make him partake with them or subject to be punished for them But to make these meer apprehensions and imaginations either of good or evil an instance of obedience or disobedience they must be causes and principles of an obedient or disobedient choice or practice For our inward thoughts and imaginations are Springs and Principles both of our inward choice and also of our outward operations And the service which God requires of them is the service of the principle He demands the obedience of our minds as a means and in order to a further obedience of our hearts and actions He expects that we should think so long and so often upon the absoluteness of his authority the kindness of his Nature the reasonableness of his Commands the glory of his rewards and the terrour of his punishments till in our hearts we chuse those things which he has commanded and perform them in our works and practice For our thoughts of him and of his Laws are not in themselves Obedience but only a Spring and Principle of it and a good step and degree towards it Our knowledge shall be judged an acceptable service as it carries us on to performance but no otherwise For hereby alone says S t John we know that we know him with such knowledge as shall be accepted by him if we keep his Commandments 1 John 2.3 And on the other side our bare imaginations and apprehensions of some forbidden sin are then only disobedient when they carry us on to chuse or practise those things that are sinful We must go on from thought to choice or practice before the vices thought of become our own and our apprehensions of sin become themselves sinful For the thoughts of sin have the sinfulness of means and causes they are sinful so far as they help on either our consent or performance So our Saviour has determined in one instance viz. that of lustful looks and apprehensions Matth. 5. He that looks upon a woman so long as to lust after her or to consent in his heart to the enjoyment of her he hath committed Adultery with her already in his heart ver 28. As for our thoughts and imaginations then we see what obedience in them is required to our acceptance and when they are disobedient and will destroy us For our counsels and contrivances of evil are always sinful and so are all such simple thoughts and apprehensions as have particular Laws imposed upon them And as for our imaginations and apprehensions of things commanded or forbidden by any other Laws they are imperfect things and not fully grown up to the perfect Stature either of obedience or of disobedience So that they are neither punished nor rewarded in themselves but so far only as they are causes and principles of an obedient or disobedient choice or actions And then as for our affections their measures are the very same with those already mentioned of our bare imaginations and simple apprehensions For their service and obedience is that of the principle and their Sentence shall be according to those effects either in our wills or practice which flow from it If we love and desire obedience so far as to chuse and act it this degree of affection will gain us God's love and favour and secure his rewards but less than it no other shall He that keeps my Commandments saith Christ he it is that loveth me and they only who so love me in obeying me shall be beloved again of my Father and I will love them John 14.15 21. But if our love and desire of evil things carry us on to chuse or act any instance of disobedience for the sake of that which is loved and desired then are our affections sinful and such as will destroy us The desire of evil is not so truly the state of mortal sin as of dangerous temptation it is not deadly in it self but kills by carrying us on to a sinful and deadly choice and actions For when once it has got to that degree it is obnoxious to a dreadful Sentence Whereof the Psalmist gives us one instance in the love of violence Him that loveth violence the soul of the Lord hateth Psal. 11.5 And S t John says the same of the love of lying and the Case is alike in every other sin Without in outer darkness are murtherers and whatsoever loveth or maketh a lye Rev. 22.15 And thus we see what measure of obedience is required in these two faculties and what kinds and degrees of thoughts and affections are to be used or restrained to make theirs an acceptable Service For we must abstain from all evil counsels and contrivances from all simple apprehensions which are particularly forbidden and put in use all such as are particularly enjoined and as for all other our bare thoughts and imaginations and all our affections and desires we must fix them upon our Duty so long till they make us perform it and never suffer them to issue out upon evil so far till they carry us on either to chuse or practise it But besides these two faculties viz. our minds and affections there is yet another whose service is necessary to render ours an acceptable obedience and that is Thirdly Our hearts or wills also It is an absurd Dream for any man to think of serving God without his will because without that none of his actions can be called his own For that only is imputed to us which is chosen by us and which it was in the power of our own wills either to promote or hinder no man deserving praise or being liable to answer for what he could not help But of all persons God most of all regards our hearts in all our performances He perfectly discerns them and he estimates our services according to them So that it is not possible for any of us to obey him unwillingly in regard the choice of our will and heart it self is that which renders any action a saving and acceptable obedience For out of the heart as Solomon saith proceed the issues of life Prov. 4.23 The choice then as well as the practice of our Duty is plainly necessary to render it available to our salvation But on the other side if we chuse sin although we miss of opportunity to act it the bare choice without the practice is sufficient to our condemnation For even by that when we proceed no further our heart has gone astray from God and we are polluted by the sin which we resolve upon in our own choice since out of the heart as our Saviour tells us proceeds the pollution of the man Matth. 15.19 20. We may commit all sort of transgressions and incurr the punishment of them merely by consenting to them inwardly in our hearts without ever compleating them in our outward operation For our Lord himself has thus determined it in one instance and the Case is the same in all
produce it For 2. Men are subject to be carried on to work what is both without and against their habitual liking and inclination through ignorance And this is the great source and intire cause of all our consistent slips and pardonable infirmities As for the will of man it is a blind faculty it can chuse nothing till the understanding shows it That is we cannot desire or will a thing before we see it nothing can be chosen which is not apprehended So that if at any time we offend through ignorance or inconsideration and do amiss either because we did not understand our Duty or because we did not think of it unless our ignorance and inconsideration be themselves damnable and charged upon us to our condemnation nothing else will For God will impute nothing to us at the last Day either to save or to destroy us but what proceeded from our own will and choice and therefore if any sinful action be innocently involuntary it is likewise uncondemning And this now is the Case of all our slips and transgressions of the Law of God which are consistent with a state of Grace and salvation We act them without understanding or considering of them and so they are involuntary and unchosen For in some of them we do not think or consider of what we do at all and in others although we know the action yet are we ignorant of the sinfulness of it so that even in the choice of that this still remains unchosen For sin and obedience is not all acting of a thing but an acting of it with certain ends and designs If we would be thought to obey Gods Law we must do it because he requires it and if we be judged to have sinned against it it will be for doing something when we saw that he had forbidden it For that service which God requires is not a heartless service but a service of the will and choice So that we must do what he enjoins for his sake and because his Law requires it if we expect that he should take himself to be obeyed in it and we must chuse to do whâ—t we know is against his Law for the sake of sin before we need to fear that he will punish us as men that have sinned against him Obedience then and disobedience besides the action require likewise the eye and intention viz. the chusing of what we do because his Law commands it or the chusing it when we know that his Law has forbidden it But if this knowledge of his Law be wanting although we chuse the evil action yet do we not chuse the sin because we do not see that it is sinful For we would not chuse it if we knew that he had forbid it so that in our hearts there is no contempt of him or disobedience at all When therefore at any time we knowingly and deliberately chuse an action which we do not know to be sinful except that ignorance be our own fault whatever the action be as to it self yet as to its relation to the Law viz. its sinfulness and disobedience it is not will'd and chosen For since we did not see its sinfulness we could not chuse and consent to it So that there is no rebellion in our wills whatsoever there may seem to be in our action but they may notwithstanding it be still intirely subject unto God and ready to obey him in every thing wherein they see he has laid his Commands upon them As some of our consistent slips and transgressions therefore are not thought of or considered at all so others although they are known and considered in themselves are yet unknown under that relation of sinful actions so that the sin is all the while unseen and therefore involuntary and unchosen Now as for these slips and transgressions which are thus unknown and thereby involuntary they are consistent with a state of Grace and such as Christs Gospel doth not eternally threaten but in great mercy bear and graciously dispense with To convince us of the truth whereof besides all that has been above discoursed upon this Argument it is first considerable that all these involuntary failings upon ignorance or want of knowledge are unavoidable and God we know will never damn any man for doing that which could not be avoided For no man can chuse to shun that which he doth not see but his understanding must first discern and apprehend a thing before his will is in any capacity to refuse it And forasmuch as these slips are no matter of our sight and knowledge they can be none of our refusal and avoidance Indeed if a man should pause and deliberate watch and examine at all times albeit he might still be subject to one sort of involuntary actions viz. that which arises from his ignorance of his Duty yet would he not be liable to the other which results from this inconsideration of it For where a man has time and his Powers are awake so that he is fit to look about him his thoughts are his own and he may fix them upon the consideration of what he pleases And where he has the power to consider of any action he has the power likewise to avoid it And this is that which is pleaded in behalf of mens ability to keep all Gods Commands intirely and to live wholly without sin by Atticus in S t Hierome Thus much we say That a man may live without all sin if he will for such time and place as his mind is intent and his care is at stretch and his bodily infirmities will suffer him to continue so But as for this power of avoiding all involuntary sins which arise from inconsideration it is no power at all For herein we must know lyes every mans unavoidable weakness and infirmity that whereas our obedience is required at all times this fitness is only in some certain time and place For no man is always in that good condition to be wise and well-disposed watchful and standing upon his Guard But he forgets when he should remember and his faculties are asleep when they should be awake and he is diverted by other business and hindred by intervening accidents So that sometimes either he has not leisure to consider in or his faculties are not well disposed and his thoughts free and at his own command so as when he has time duly to consider in it And this evil state which thus unfits a man for consideration is not always in his own power and at his own choice whether he shall fall under it or no. For as for the want of time a man in this world is placed in a crowd of business and whilst his thoughts are hot in the pursuit of one another many times waits for him And because opportunities do not stay till we are at leisure we must take them when we find them so that we act oftentimes without considering since if we should stay to think we should
of several of his dearest Saints who have experienced the truth of it By all which it appears that so long as we are guilty of no other slips but such as these we are safe in Gods favour and secure of his promises we shall be accepted by him although we live and dye in them And thus at length it appears what sins are truly and innocently involuntary viz. those which are acted ignorantly and unwittingly and that they do not unsaint a man or destroy his state of Grace and Salvation but consist with it CHAP. V. Of these involuntary and consistent sins particularly and of the first cause of innocent involuntariness viz. Ignorance The CONTENTS A twofold knowledge necessary to choice viz. a general understanding and particular consideration Consistent sins are either sins of ignorance or of inconsideration Of sins involuntary through ignorance of the general Law which makes a duty How there is still room for it in the world Of crying sins which are against Natural Conscience no man can be innocently ignorant Of what others he may This ignorance is necessary to all men for some time and to some for all their lives Mens sins upon it are not damning Of sins involuntary through our ignorance of the present actions being included in the known Law and meant by it The causes of this ignorance First The difference between Good and Evil in some actions being not in kind but only in degree Secondly The limitedness of most Laws which admit of exceptions Thirdly The indirect obligations which pass upon several indifferent actions Fourthly The clashing of several Laws whence one is transgressed in pursute of another the great errour upon this score is in the case of zeal Fifthly The clashing of Laws with opinions or prejudices BUt in regard this consistence of our ignorant and unconsidered slips is a matter of so great account in the quieting and comforting of troubled and fearfull Consciences I will yet proceed to enquire of it more distinctly and to shew what particular ignorances those are which will cause that innocent involuntariness which Christs Gospel doth not punish as has been already shewn but graciously dispense with To him that knows to do good saith S t James and doth it not to him 't is sin Jam. 4.17 And the reason why it is so is this because that sin which a man knows and sees he wills and chooses but if he commit sin when he sees it not it is not imputed to him for a sin because it is not chosen by him That we may clearly understand then what ignorance renders any sin involuntary and therefore unpunishable it is very proper to enquire what knowledge is necessary unto choice and fit to make any sin to be esteemed voluntary and chosen Now to our choice of any sin there is a two-fold knowledge necessary First An habitual and general knowledge that the action is sinfull Secondly An actual use and exercise of that knowledge in a particular animadvertence and express thinking upon what we know which is consideration Both these are necessary to a chosen sin for we must both know an action to be a sin and also actually bethink our selves and consider of its sinfulness before we can be said to chuse the sin and wilfully to disobey in it 1. Before we can be said to chuse the sinfulness of any action it is necessary that we know habitually and in the general that the action whensoever it is committed is sinfull I call that an habitual and general knowledge when we are not to learn of any sinfull action that there is a Law that forbids it nor are in any doubts or darkness in our own thoughts whether it be a sin or no. But if it is proposed to our minds they are already resolved about it and need not further to enquire of it they know and judge it to be a sin when they are asked the question and that is their standing opinion and fixt perswasion And this knowledge because it is no more of one particular action than of another I call general and because it is fixt and permanent having grown into a lasting impression and habitual judgment of the mind I call an habitual knowledge Now that we may be said to chuse to sin and disobey in any particular action it is necessary that we have this general and habitual knowledge of its sinfulness For if we do not understand that although we do chuse the action yet we cannot be esteemed to chuse the sin since our will may be all the while innocent and obedient and ready to refuse the action if it were made to see that it is sinful We can have no choice of that whereof we have no apprehension for the will as it is truly said is a blind faculty and can chuse nothing till it be represented and proposed to it by the understanding So that if our minds are in darkness about any action and have no knowledge of its being forbidden our wills can have no share in chusing of the sin but since it was unknown it must be also involuntary and unchosen But besides this general and habitual knowledge of the sinfulness of any action there is moreover necessarily required to our choice of it 2. An actual use and exercise of that knowledge in a particular animadvertence and express thinking upon what we know which is consideration For there is no knowledge that directs and influences our choice further than we actually attend to it and consider of it but if at any time we did not think of it it is all one as if we did not know it Nothing is a motive to our will further than it is heeded and attended to at the time of willing and unless we see and consider of it then when we are to chuse upon it For in this Case the Civilians Maxim is very true That which doth not appear to be is of no more account than if really it were not at all That any sin then may be said to be willed and chosen by us it is necessary that it occur to our thoughts and be present to our minds at the time of chusing of it For if we transgress when we do not think of it our heart may be innocent all the while and our will incur no disobedience at all since if we did but consider of the sin we would by no means embrace but utterly refuse it So that all that can be charged upon us in such Cases is only the hast and errour of our understandings but not any rebellion in our wills for our heart is good although the outward action appear to be evil Now since both a general knowledge and a particular consideration are necessary in every wilful and chosen sin the involuntariness of any transgressions may arise from the want of either of them So that those sins are justly reputed to be involuntary and unchosen which proceed 1. From the want of the general knowledge
most eminently skill'd in all the Laws of God S t Paul is not certain but that some such ignorance adhered to himself I know or am conscious of nothing by my self saith he but yet I am not hereby justified because some such sins may have escaped my knowledge 1 Cor. 4.4 Why sayes S t Chrysostome should the Apostle say that he is not thereby justified although he is conscious of nothing by himself wherefore he should be condemned because it might so happen that he had committed several acts of sin which at the time of action for all his knowledge of the Laws themselves he did not know were sinfull And this is no more than holy David the man after Gods own heart thought he had reason to suspect himself for before him who says he can understand his errours cleanse thou me from my secret faults Psal. 19.12 The best men in all times whether Jews or Christians have been subject to miscarriages through this sort of ignorance and God who is never wanting to the necessities of his servants has alwayes provided a sufficient atonement and propitiation for them For under the Law if any honest Israelite happen'd to do any thing which was forbidden to be done by the Commandment of the Lord and wist not that it was forbidden Moses appointed the Priests to make an expiation for him and several atonements for that purpose are set down Levit. 4. And under the Gospel our Saviour Christ by whom Grace and Favour is said to be given much more largely than it was by the Law of Moses has provided us of a much more powerfull and valuable propitiation He himself by virtue of his own sacrifice atones for all such unknown offences as well as the Jewish Priests did by their Sacrifices which were prescribed in the Law of Moses For in comparison of the two Priesthoods as to that part of their Office which lay in making these atonements S t Paul assures us that like as the Jewish Priests had so Christ can have compassion upon the ignorant Heb. 5.2 As for those transgressions then which are therefore involuntary and unchosen because we do not know that the Law which they are against doth comprehend them they shall not finally damn any man So long as we have an honest heart that is ready to perform what it knows and unfeignedly desirous and industrious to know more that it may perform it likewise if in some things still we happen ignorantly to offend such ignorant offences shall not prove our ruine For our ignorance will excuse our sin and make it consistent with Gods Favour and with all the hopes and happiness of heaven Nay even where our heart is not so honest as it should be and we are ignorant of the present actions being comprized under that sin which the Law forbids through our own fault yet even there our ignorance although it cannot wholly excuse doth still extenuate our sin and proportionably abate our punishment Perhaps it is our rashness or inconsiderateness or violent pursuit of some opinions and prejudice against others which makes us judge wrong of some particular actions and not to see that they are included in the prohibition of some known Law when really they are Nay so far may our mistake go as not only to judge them to be no sinfull breaches of these Laws but moreover to be virtuous performances of others For our Saviour tells his Disciples that the time was coming when even they who killed them should think that thereby they did God good service Joh. 16.2 And S t Paul sayes plainly that he verily thought with himself that he ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth Acts 26.9 All which murders and persecutions they were ignorantly guilty of not as if they did not know the Laws against murder and persecution but because they thought their present actions to be unconcern'd in them and not forbid by them nay on the contrary to be warranted and injoyn'd by other Laws requiring zeal for God and judgment against false Prophets Now this Ignorance was such as they might very well have prevented had they been calm and considerate humble and teachable and would have hearkned honestly and with an even mind to that evidence which Christ gave of his being the Messiah which was sufficient to convince any honest mind And this patience humility and teachableness were in their own Power to have exercised if they would so that they were ignorant in good measure through their own choice and by a wilful neglect of those means which would have brought them to a true belief and a right understanding And since their Ignorance was thus a matter of their own choice it is their sin and they must answer for it But although being as I say their own fault it could not wholly excuse yet was it fit to lessen and mitigate their crime and to abate their punishment Their account should be less by reason of their Ignorance and the sinfull actions being committed with an honest heart through a misguided understanding were much more prepared for pardon than otherwise they would have been And this Christ himself has plainly taught us when he uses it as an argument with his Father for the forgiveness of that sinfull murder of the Jews whereof they were guilty in his Crucifixion Father sayes he forgive them for they know not what they do their killing of me they take to be no sinful murther of an innocent and anointed person but a virtuous execution of a lying Prophet Luk. 23.34 And this likewise S t Paul experienced I obtained Mercy sayes he for persecuting the Church of God because I did it ignorantly not thinking it to be a sinfull persecution but a pious service 1 Tim. 1.13 Yea if the culpaâ—le ignorance be either of the Law it self or of our present actions being contained under it â—â—though God should not call us to repentance for what we ignorantly committed and so to pardon yet even unpardoned we shall undergo a much lighter punishment by reason of our ignorance than we should have suffered had we sinned in knowledge For in this Point the words of our Lord and Judge are express He who knew not his Masters will and did things worthy of stripes shall be beaten with few stripes Luke 12.48 This allowance the Gospel makes for our sinful actions so long as we are ignorant that the Laws which they are against do include and comprehend them Whilst our Consciences are in darkness about them and we do not see that we transgress in them though that ignorance were in good measure culpably wilful we should obtain a milder punishment but if it were involuntary and innocent we shall be fully acquitted and excused This allowance I say there is whilst our sin is ignorant and our Consciences do not see that the known Law is transgressed by our sinful action But if our Consciences should come to know so
God had spoken to them than by his Testimony and upon his Authority therefore are they said in believing and embracing that Divine Law which was delivered to them by Moses to believe not the Lord alone but also his Servant Moses Exod. 14.31 Joh. 5.46 to be Baptized into Moses 1 Cor. 10.2 to be Moses's Disciples Joh. 9.28 to trust or place their hope in Moses Joh. 5.45 to obey or hearken unto Moses Luk. 16.31 But the most clear and full Revelation that God ever made of his will to men was by the message and mediation of his own Son Jesus Christ. For God who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in times past to the Jews by Moses and to the Fathers by the Prophets hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son Heb. 1.1 And the belief of his Gospel or taking for certain Truths upon his Authority all those things which he has declared to us in Gods Name is call'd the Christian as the other was the Mosaick Faith For he being the great Author and deriver of this last and greatest Revelation of God down to us and our belief of it being upon his immediate Authority he being as S t Paul says the Authour and finisher of our Faith Heb. 12.2 Our belief of it is called not only Faith towards God Heb. 6.1 but also Faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ Acts 20.21 And because the knowledge of our whole Religion got into our minds this way upon our submission to Christs Authority and our Faith or belief of his Testimony therefore is our Religion it self most commonly in the Scriptures called our Faith The Preaching of it is called Preaching the Faith Gal. 1.23 the hearing of it hearing of Faith Gal. 3.2 the profession of it a profession of Faith Heb. 10.23 the contending for it a striving for the Faith Phil. 1.27 the erring in it an erring from the Faith 1 Tim. 6.10 the falling from it a making shipwrack of the Faith 1 Tim. 1.19 obedience to it the obedience of Faith Rom. 1.5 and the Righteousness required in it and effected by it the Righteousness of Faith Rom. 4.11.13 So that in like manner as the Mosaick Faith was a belief of the Divinity of the Mosaick Law and Religion upon the Authority of Moses the Christian Faith is a belief of the Divine institution of our Christian Religion upon the Authority of Christ. It is a taking upon his word all those things for truths of God which he has declared to us in Gods Name A belief begot in us by vertue of his Testimony that all his Doctrines are Gods Truths that all his Laws are Gods Precepts that all his promises are Gods Promises and that all his threats are Gods threatnings in sum that that whole Religion and Gospel which Christ has delivered to us in Gods Name is the very Religion and Word of God The belief of all this upon the Authority of Christ makes our Faith Christian and the good effects of it upon our hearts and lives make it justifying and saving For when by vertue of this Faith we truly Repent and sincerely obey which is the great condition as we have seen whereupon at the last day we must all be pardoned and justified Eternally it is a justifying as when by vertue of it we are saved and delivered from the dominion and service of our Sins which as the Angel hath assured us are those principal evils that Christ came to save us from it is a saving Faith This is the nature of our Christian knowledge and our Christian Faith And as for it now it is the very fundamental cause and natural spring of all our Christian service and obedience For it is because we believe Jesus to be the Lord because we know those Laws which he has given us and give credit to him when he tells us of the insupportable punishments which he will one day inflict for sin and of the glorious rewards which he will confer upon obedience It is by means of our knowledge and belief of all these in our minds I say that we serve and obey him in our outward actions It is our knowledge and belief that lets us see the reasonableness of his Precepts the power of his Assistances the glory of his Rewards and the terror of his Punishments and in all respects convinces us of the beauty and profit of Obedience And this sight and conviction in our minds cannot well miss of gaining our hearts and resolutions For the belief of his endless judgments will raise our fears the belief of his infinite rewards will quicken our hopes the belief of his inexpressible kindness will kindle our love and by all these our souls will be led Captive into eager desires and firm resolutions and be fully purposed to keep Gods Laws that so they may avoid that terrible Death which he threatens and attain those matchless joys which he promises to our Obedience And when once by means of this faith and knowledge Gods Laws have gain'd both our wills and passions which are the inward springs and causes of them they cannot fail of being obeyed in our works and actions which are produced by them But we shall quickly go on to perform what we resolve and to do what we desire and so in very deed fulfill and obey them Upon which account of our Christian Faith having so mighty an influence upon our Christian and obedient practice our obedience it self as being the effect of it and produced by it is call'd the obedience of Faith Rom. 16.26 The Righteousness which it exacts of us and cooperates to work in us the Righteousness of Faith Gal 5.5 Our Christian warfar or striving against Sin is called the good sight of Faith 1 Tim 6.12 And because in this contest our great succors which protect us and keep us from fainting and at last make us victorious are some points or promises of our Religious belief therefore it is stiled a shield and a breast-plate of Faith 1 Thess. 5.8 and S t John affirms plainly that this is the victory over the world even our Faith 1 Joh. 5.4 And for this reason it is because our Faith and knowledge are so powerful a cause and principle of our Obedience that God speaks so great things of them and has made such valuable promises to them He never intends to reward the Faith and knowledge of our minds further than they effect the obedience of our actions It is only when they are carryed on to this effect when they become an obedient knowledge and a working Faith that they confer a right to the promised reward and are available to our Salvation For when in the places mentioned or in any other God promises that he who knows Christ or believes in Christ shall live he speaks metonymically and means Faith and knowledge with this effect of a working service and obedience As for knowledge 't is plain that God accepts it no otherwise
the strength of our own sinfull lusts that gives such an irresistible strength to the outward temptation A great offer of gain indeed cannot be withstood by a covetous heart and an inviting beauty and a fair opportunity are irresistible to a slave of lust and a lascivious reigning inclination But if the man is above the world and his heart is chaste they are of no force nor can they offer any violence at all It is the wickedness of our own hearts lusts therefore which are so deeply in love with them and so unbridledly bend after them that gives all the prevailing force and overpowering strength to the outward temptation But now this is our Sin and so can by no means plead our excuse it is our damnable disease and therefore it can never prove our saving remedy For this is that reigning power of Sin which the Gospel has indispensably required us to mortifie but not to submit to It is only if you through the spirit do mortifie the deeds of the body says S t Paul that you shall live Rom. 8.13 Col. 3.5 But if we are not under this damnable servitude to Sin there are no temptations so strong but that God has given us sufficient defensatives against them For the present offer of a Gibbet would fright away the most endearing temptation the near expectation of a great Estate or of a Crown would make us prevail over it And what are these to hell fire and an eternal Crown of Glory Heaven therefore and Hell when they can be considered of are an answer to all temptations in the world they will engage our hearts more than all the endearments of a lust and infinitely out do all the baits and allurements of sin If we commit sin then it is no sufficient excuse to us that the temptation was strong because it was only the strength of our own unmortified lusts that made it so For we loved the sinfull pleasure too well and that was the reason why it overpower'd us And since the strength of temptation is owing only to the strength of sin it can never excuse us from undergoing punishment So that this must needs be a false hope to think of being excused for our sin because we acted it through the violence of a great temptation Fourthly Another ground of false confidence whereupon men hope to be saved although they do not obey in their works and actions but are workers of sin and disobedience is because when they do transgress it is with reluctance and unwillingness Albeit in their actions they do serve sin yet in their minds they do not approve of it their service of it is an unwilling and a slavish service They cannot sin freely and at their own ease but with fearfulness and regret For the Conviction of their duty abides in their Consciences the fear of hell torments sticks fast in their souls they cannot shake off either their sense of duty or their fears of punishment So that even when they do sin against God it is with remorse of mind and fearfulness of apprehension They cannot embrace their sin with a full choice because they know that it is not an unmixed pleasure They believe and know it to be of a compound and mixt nature to have some present pleasure which will delight but withall much future punishment which will torment them And since they know it to be a composition of good and ill they do not perfectly either love or hate choose or refuse it Their will is distracted by different motives in the same choice for the future pains would draw them to reject but the present joyes invite them to embrace it So that in a different degree they both will and nill the same thing they would have it and yet they would avoid it For they would enjoy what they desire but withall they would keep off from what they fear they have a mind to commit the sin because it will please them for the present and yet they are afraid of it because of that wrath which it treasures up for them against the time to come But notwithstanding all this conflict in their own choice yet at last their sin prevails and they obey it For they had rather hazard all its torments than miss of its delights they are unwilling to venture upon those dangers which it brings but yet they had rather venture on them than go without it They sin unwillingly just as a labourer works or as a soldier fights unwillingly that is they do not will it for it self they would not do it unless they were hired to it For considering all things they will to act and not to omit it their will is against it indeed at the first sight but upon better consideration it resolves upon it and all things laid together they choose to commit the sin rather than to forbear it But now this is such a State as will never bring any man to Heaven For whether he transgress willingly or with reluctancy is not the question but if he choose at last to disobey when God comes to judgment he shall be sure to pronounce upon him that death which he has established for the punishment of disobedience Because for all he fears and mistrusts grumbles and repines yet he serves and obeys his lusts all the while notwithstanding He works at their will and doth what they command him He serves not with a full heart or a fearless mind but yet he is their servant still 'T is true indeed it is some mitigation of his sin that he doth it with regret and the transgression is something the less for being acted not without reluctance and aversion It shews that his sense of duty is not quite lost his Conscience wholly fear'd or his fear of God utterly extinguished It is some extenuation that he startles at the offence for it argues that his soul is not wholly depraved or his heart harden'd in disobedience But although his sins be not of the highest rate yet he is a lost sinner still For so long as his lusts prevail and he chooses at last to act and commit them he serves and obeys them It is his works and actions that must determine his service and obedience so that if he commit sin he is the servant of sin Willing or unwilling may extenuate or heighten his disobedience but not utterly destroy or alter the nature of it For indeed something of struggling and regret is to be found in the obedience and disobedience of the greatest part of the world There being few so good as to obey without all reluctance and few so wicked as to sin without all remorse For as long as we are in this life we are a mixt and compound substance of Soul and Body Flesh and Spirit Our carnal appetite draws us on to forbidden things to transgress those restraints which Gods Law has set to it and to sin And our Conscience being enlightned with the knowledge of Gods Laws and
that the motions of sin which were occasioned and strengthened by the weakness and inability of the Law which could not restrain them did work such service and obedience to them in our members or bodily powers as to bring forth fruit unto death But now upon our becoming subject unto Christ we are delivered from the subjection of the Law whose weakness gave sin so great advantage over us that Law I say being now dead and abolished wherein whilst we so served sin we were held in subjection which deliverance is vouchsafed us as I said for this end that being made not the Laws but Christs Subjects now we should answerably to that serve in newness of Spirit or in such sort as the new Spirit and Grace of his Religion enables us and not as we served formerly under our subjection to the Law in the oldness of the letter or in those weak and ineffective degrees whereto the helpless letter of the old Law could assist us But upon what I say of this change of service from sin to God which we have all felt upon our becoming Christians being an effect of this change of subjection from the Law to Christ some of you 't is like may think that the Law which I affirm we sinned under is aspersed and reproached by me and thus object What say we then Is the Law under which you say we sinned so much and from which being now delivered we have ceased to serve sin the cause of sin to them who live under it Now to this I must answer God forbid that any man should either say or think so No we served sin under the Law but yet the Law was no cause of sin And both these all they who live under it feel in themselves and must acknowledge To avoid offence suppose that I my self were this Subject of the Law now as I was formerly 't is very true as I have said that I do serve sin under it but is the Law the cause of it By no means Nay so far is the Law from causing or encouraging sin in me that on the contrary it points it out to me and forbids it I had not known what things are sin but by the help of the Law which shews it for I had not known lust or concupiscence for instance which is only in the heart and not in the outward action to be a sin except the Law of the tenth Commandment had said expresly thou shalt not covet But for all the Law both shews and prohibits sin and so can contribute nothing to produce but rather to destroy it yet I must truly tell you still that whereas Sin has other causes more than enow that are sufficient to produce it the Law is so weak and imperfect as not to be able to hinder it For in this instance of Concupiscence especially whereto in the Law there is no express punishment threatned the sinfull inclinations of our flesh which are cause enough of all sin grow bold and hearing of no express threatning from it will not be restrained by it And by this means the Sin of Concupiscence taking occasion from the impunity of the Commandment instead of being restrained by it took liberty and presumed upon it and so without all fear wrought and accomplished or brought on to compleat action and practice in me all manner of concupiscence And seeing the Law only forbid but could not restrain it it helped on in the end rather to make and let me see my self to be a sinner than to deliver me from sin for without the promulgated Law Sin was almost dead being both little in it self and less upon the Conscience For the less knowledge there is of the Law the less is there of sin in transgressing it and also the less sense of it And therefore as I say as for this instance of Concupiscence which I had not known to be a Sin unless the Law had told me so without the Law I had neither offended so highly in it nor had so great a sense of my offence And this was found by experience in the men of our Nation For any one of them who was alive at the promulgation of the Law upon Mount Sinai might say I was alive to my thinking and as to great degrees of that guilt which I contracted afterwards without the Law once or before such time as it was there proclaimed to us for till then I knew not lust to be a sin and so by reason of my ignorance neither sinn'd so much in it nor was so sensible of it as now I am but when the Commandment came and was plainly made known to me by Moses then Sin I say which was only shewn and forbid but could not be restrained by it revived and begun to have the fulness of guilt and terrour in it and I thenceforward being warn'd against it and not being able to keep back from it became liable to that death which is the wages of it and died by it And thus the Law or Commandment which was not only holy and innocent in it self but moreover intended by God for my good and ordained to life which it promised could I have obeyed it I notwithstanding found to be unto death to me because that became my due when I sinn'd against it Not as if the Law can be said to be the Author of death to me more than it is of sin in me For it was aim'd to destroy sin which it shews and forbids and to procure life which it offers and promises But the true cause of this effect so contrary to its intention viz. its producing Sin and Death whenas it was ordained to Holiness and Life is its being as I said before weak and unable by all its aids to conquer fully and restrain that Sin which brings Death upon us for it cannot subdue but only shew and forbid it And therefore our habitual Lusts finding themselves too strong for it burst through it and in spite of all its restraint make us commit the one and so become liable to the other For in very deed it is not the Law which is the cause of Death to me but Sin it self which taking occasion or advantage by the literal and fancied impunity of the tenth Commandment deceived me through a false hope into the commission of it and by it made me in reality liable to that Death which is truly the wages of it or in a word slew me Wherefore notwithstanding we sinn'd yea and died also during our subjection under the Law yet for all that neither can our Sin nor our Death be charged upon the Law it self because instead of contributing to them it tends to destroy them by expresly forbidding the one and offering to deliver us from the other And therefore as for this difficulty that was made at the seventh verse against my saying that we served Sin under the Law viz. its following thence that the
false it is the only rule that we can act by We cannot perform duty without we understand it nor obey Laws before we have some knowledge of them we must judge what is commanded before we can observe it and whether we judge right or wrong we have no way to obey but by acting according to such judgment Yea if our Conscience does err and innocently mistake our Duty yet whil'st we follow it in the simplicity of our hearts we perform the life and soul of Obedience even when we erroneously transgress it For we do the mistaken action out of an obedient intention we exert it for Gods sake in an acknowledgement of his Authority and a resignation to his pleasure and this is so truly the life and spirit of an acceptable obedience that in case of such erroneous belief we should sinfully and damnably disobey should we neglect it So that if the errour of our conscience it self be inoffensive God will not take offence at our well meant and obediently design'd performance of that which our conscience erroneously tells us we are bound in duty to perform Nor will God be offended at us for having such a scandal or rock of offence as this prejudice and errour of our conscience is if the errour it self is thus innocent He will not take it ill that we did not judge that to be our Duty which the Principle we had to judge by told us was no Duty or it may be a breach of Duty and a sin For this was truly to judge by Principles and to have recourse in judgement to the best and likeliest notions which we could find in our own minds which way of passing judgment is all that we have and the very method which he himself has prescribed us Neither will he be angry at us for admitting such false Opinions into our minds as should afterwards misguide us if it were not our sins and passions but the ordinary way and usual means of knowledge which got them entrance For when the very same means of information and discourse which carry us on to truth in other opinions mislead us into errour and mistake in these we erre in the honesty of our hearts and in the use of means and ordinary endeavours so that nothing remains for our errour to be charged upon but either a weakness of understanding or an ill fortune either that using fallible means we were not so wise as to avoid being deceived by them or that we had the ill hap to be guided by them in such an instance when errour lay at the end of them And since these Causes of errour are only our weakness and unhappiness but not our fault and disobedience God will graciously bear with us and will not be extream to punish us for them Or if we happen to erre in an instance wherein he will exact obedience he will at least bear with us so long till besides the plain declarations of our Duty and the common means of knowing it we have had moreover such accumulation of proof and clearing of the Case as will if we are not wanting to our selves answer all our exceptions and bear down all our prejudices against it And of this we have a clear instance in the errour of the Apostles about the discharge of that great Duty of preaching the Gospel to all Nations immediately after Christ's ascension He had enjoined this in a Command as plain one would think as words can make it All power is given unto me in Heaven and in Earth Go ye therefore and teach not the Jews only to whom I sent you at first but all Nations Matth. 28.18 19 preaching remission of sins upon repentance to all Nations beginning at Jerusalem Luke 24.47 But for all this Precept was so express and this Declaration of their Duty was so plain and evident yet was it not of it self sufficient to give them an understanding of it For those prepossessions which they lay under drew such a Veil before their eyes and linked their minds so fast to a contrary belief that they took no notice of it nor ever thought their contrary practice to be forbid by it They thought still that Israel was Gods peculiar people that the Jews were the only seed of Abraham and that the great Prophet Messiah whom Moses told them God would one Day raise up among them for eminence and extraordinariness of Divine Commission like unto him was to be theirs peculiarly to whom God had promised him These prejudices and anticipations of Judgment had been instilled into their young and tender minds by the early care of their Parents and fomented by the instruction of their Teachers and daily more and more confirmed in them by conversation and an uninterrupted custom of perswasion And being thus forcibly impressed upon them they had so blocked up their obedient and well-meaning minds that when a plain Command required them to practise contrary to this belief they did not understand but overlook it Insomuch that Peter himself was not convinced of it by the manifest injunction of a clear Law but stood in need to have his doubts solved and his exceptions answered and his former prejudices confuted and overborn by such accumulation of proof and evidence as God was pleased to give him in a most condescensive Dispute upon that Subject by an after and repeated Revelation Acts 10. and 11. Chapâ—ers But now this ignorance of their Duty which was so plainly delivered in the words of a clear Law did not put them out of Gods favour because it was occasioned only by such hindrances as were consistent with an honest heart or such whereto not their sins and passions but their natural weakness of understanding and their education and custom those fallible means of knowledge had betrayed them For God still lovingly embraced them he bore with their weaknesses and helped their infirmities he pitied their ignorance whilst they laboured under it and because he saw it was fit and necessary that they should get quit of it he graciously afforded them a further and more powerful evidence whereby to overcome it And all this pardon and forbearance I say they found because their prejudices were consistent with an honest heart since they were begot in them not by any lusts or vices but only by their weakness of understanding and the fallibility of the means of knowledge But as some prejudices which lead to sin and disobedience get into mens Consciences only through weakness of understanding and fallibility of means which are therefore consistent with a state of favour and salvation so are there 2. Several others which are got into their Conscences through the assistance of their lusts and vices and these are deadly and damning Mens lusts and vices have a great influence upon their minds and the chief hand many times in molding of their judgments and opinions And therefore we may know mens manners by their perswasions about their Duty before ever we see their practices
one sort or other 1 Joh. 1.9 I should recite almost the whole New Testament if I were to repeat all that the Scriptures affirm in this point But by what I have already offered I take it to be clear beyond all doubt and scruple that the Gospel-Covenant is a Covenant of remission of sins upon repentance God most earnestly desires that we should repent and he is most truly and faithfully willing to forgive us all our former sins upon our true repentance Nay I might add he is not only willing but extremely joyful and glad of the occasion For it is his highest pleasure to go out and meet a returning Soul and the joy of his heart to embrace a reclaimed Penitent as our Saviour has most clearly intimated to us in the most welcome reception of the returning Prodigal Luk. 15.11 12 c. There is a general joy in the Heavenly Court says our Saviour again and in the presence of all the Angels of God even over any one sinner that repenteth Luk. 15.10 nay there is more joy over one penitent than there is over ninety and nine just persons which need no repentance v. 7. Thus had God provided us of a means which will most certainly restore us to his favour He has not left us in our forlorn state but has prescribed us this method of repentance to recover us out of it and to be the great Instrument of our Pardon and Reconciliation And this remedy is adequate to all our needs and able to regain all that which our sins at any time have made us lose For it will repair the breach upon all sorts of offences whether they be our known or unknown our voluntary or involuntary sins Of all which I shall now proceed to speak particularly This remedy of repentance I say God has fitted for all sorts of transgressions whether they be 1. Our known or 2. Our unknown and secret sins 1. Our unknown and secret sins have the benefit of this remedy and that whereupon God will pardon them is a general repentance and a general prayer for forgiveness As for several both of our voluntary and involuntary sins they are secret and concealed from us and quite without our knowledge and remembrance We are wholly ignorant and in the dark about them and our Consciences have no more sense of them than they have of those which we were never guilty of For as for our involuntary sins in some of them we are wholly ignorant and never think them sinful and in others we are inconsiderate and do not many times observe that we sin in them And as for our voluntary and wilful sins though we know full well and observe when we at first commit them yet doth our knowledge of them as of other things slip out of our minds by degrees and through length of time and throng of other thoughts at last we quite forget them And these sins being thus quite out of our thoughts and wholly secret and unknown to us we cannot particularly either beg pardon for them or repent of them We cannot I say particularly beg pardon for them For no man can become a suiter in behalf of he knows not whom nor recommend any thing to Gods mercy before he has discovered it himself And since these particular sins are secret and unknown they cannot be the matter of a particular prayer and recommendation Nor can we particularly repent of them As for our wilful sins indeed whether we remember them or have forgot them the case is the same as to one prime part of a particular repentance viz. our forsaking of them and beginning to obey that particular known Law which we had wilfully sinned against We must retract every voluntary sin by a voluntary obedience and without this we can have no just hopes of pardon For there is no hopes of salvation to any man but upon a particular obedience to all known Laws so that when once he sees and understands a Duty he must obey it particularly before he can expect to live by it But now as for those Laws which are transgressed by our wilful sins they are all known since we could not will and chuse to disobey them unless we saw and knew our selves to be bound by them So that whether we had sinned against them formerly or no whether we remember it or have forgot it obedience to them is our present Duty and a Duty too so necessary that without it we cannot be saved If therefore we have sinned against any such known Law we must amend it and leave off wilfully to repeat it for our obedience to all them is necessary to our pardon and whether we remember or have forgot that we transgressed formerly as to the present it is all one for we must chuse to obey now As for our wilful sins then which being long since acted are now quite forgotten and unknown one great act of a particular repentance is necessary to their pardon viz. conversion or new obedience and reformation For all wilful sins are transgressions of known Laws and whether a man has broken or kept it formerly a present obedience in all chosen actions to every such particular Law is necessary to put him into a state of mercy and salvation But as for other acts of a particular repentance viz. confession sorrow detestation and the like there is no place for them about any of our Secret whether they be voluntary or involuntary sins For no man can confess he knows not what nor grieve he understands not why nor hate and detest he knows not whom so that he must particularly know his sins before he can be thus particular in his repentance of them A particular prayer and repentance then have no place about our unknown sins they are not capable to be exercised about them and therefore they cannot be exacted for the pardon of them But that prayer and repentance whereof they are capable and whereupon God will graciously forgive them is indefinite and general These may very well be used about them For we may all understand thus much by our selves that we are all Sinners and are guilty of much more than we know and can remember Several sins slipt from us at first without our knowledge and observation and several others which were at first observed were afterwards forgotten And when we know this general number although we are not able to recover any particular instance we may very well be sorry for it and beg God to forgive it and so expiate them as much as may be by a general prayer and repentance And this remedy God has assigned for our unknown sins and when we make use of it he will forgive them Holy David was very sensible that he laboured under many such secret faults and by this means of a general penitential prayer he endeavours to procure their pardon Who says he can understand his errours Cleanse thou me from my secret faults Psal. 19.12 And because such
returning Repent and TVRN to God and do works meet for Repentance Acts 26.20 Repent and turn from all your transgressions and so iniquity shall not be your ruine Ezek. 18.30 For it is only when the wicked man TVRNETH away from his wickedness that he hath committed and in his works DOTH that which is lawful and right that he shall save his soul alive vers 27. Let no man therefore think that he ever savingly repents of any damning sin so long as he perseveres to practise and repeat it â—his Repentance must deliver him from sin before it rescue him from suffering for 't is then only when the wicked man forsakes his way and returns unto the Lord that God will have mercy upon him and abundantly pardon Isa. 55.7 And as for that part of Repentance viz. Regeneration a New Nature or a New Creature God tells us plainly that he accepts of them no further than they are principles of a new service and we obey with them The new Creature in Christs Religion is a being Created as St. Paul speaks unto good WORKS which God hath before ordained for us that we should walk in them Eph. 2.10 It is our actions which must evidence our nature the tree says our Saviour is known by its fruits so that we must either make the fruit good as well as the tree is good or if the fruit be evil the tree will be known to be so too Matt. 12.33 For do men gather Grapes of Thorns or Figs of Thistles Even so a good tree CANNOT bring forth evil fruit neither CAN a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit by their fruits therefore you shall know them Matt. 7.16 17 18. Nothing less than a good life will be allowed either by God or Men for a sufficient proof of a good heart nor any thing below a new Conversation and Obedience will pass for a good evidence of a new Nature Doth a Fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter saith S t James can the Fig-tree bear Olive-berries or a Vine Figs Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you Let HIM show out of a good CONVERSATION his works with meekness of wisdom Jam. 3.11 12 13. Let no man therefore dare to think himself regenerate and born of God so long as he is disobedient and his works are sinful For whosoever is born of God doth not COMMIT sin because his seed his new nature remaineth in him and through the determining power and strength of that he is almost come to this that he cannot sin it is become the bent of his nature to do otherwise he is born of God Joh. 3.9 If any man therefore would pass a true judgment upon his nature whether it be the new or old Man from God or from the Devil let him consult his works and actions those undissembling effects of it and from thence he may have a sure evidence which will not deceive him For in this as S t John goes on in the next words is manifested who are Children of God and who are Children of the Devil whosoever DOTH not Righteousness is not of God vers 10. So that when Christ comes to judge us according to his Gospel we see plainly that no repentance will bear us out nor any pretended regeneration or new Nature avail us unto life but that only which either implies or ends in our Obedience For no man can with any show of reason hope to be acquitted and rewarded at that Bar but he that repents unto amendment that is Created unto good works and is born again to a new practice and obedience One case indeed there is wherein a new birth will surely save a man without a new practice and that is when a man is forthwith called away upon the change before any opportunities of action come Some men are listed into Gods service late at the eleventh hour of the day Matt. 20.6 They have just time to become obedient in will and purpose but not in life and practice they have no leisure left them to work in but the night comes suddenly upon them when all the time of labour is at an end And this is the case of all dying Penitents And here indeed the will shall be accepted for the deed For in heart and mind such Penitents are become Gods honest servants their desires are in great strength and their inward purposes are come up to effectual degrees that want nothing but time wherein to show themselves and are sufficient whensoever an opportunity should occur to beget a change of life and to make their actions answer them So that if they are destitute of an entire obedience and have not as yet evidenced their change of nature in their change of practice that is not for want of inward readiness but of outward opportunities and therefore it is not so ' much their fault as their unhappiness And when God sees it is thus he takes the inward will and choice for the outward service and performance He judges us by our wills which are in our own power and not by chance and fortune which are utterly without it This he doth in evil actions as shall be shown afterwards the will in them is taken for the deed and if once our hearts are effectually resolved and fully set upon them in his account we are guilty of them though by some intervening accidents we are hindred from committing them And since as S t Bernard argues undeniably in this matter he is much more prone to pity than he is to punish and had far rather interpret things to our profit than to our prejudice we may be sure that our obedient purposes shall have as much force to the full as our disobedient have and that an effectual will in them when nothing but time is wanting to perform in shall pass for the deed likewise God is by no means forward to seek our hurt and to take advantages of our necessities but in this and all other cases where there is first an effectually willing mind and nothing but opportunity is wanting to an answerable practice he takes as S t Paul says the will for the deed and accepts men according to that sufficient and effectual desire which they have and not according to that outward performance which through some unhappy and preventing accidents they have not 2 Cor. 8.12 And of this we have a clear instance in one dying Penitent the Thief upon the Cross. His return was late indeed he begun not to befit himself for the next world till he was in his departure out of this His conversion was in his very last hour under the pangs of Death and at the instant of Execution But when Christ saw that his change of heart was true full and sufficient and needed nothing but opportunity to show it self effectual he tells him that it should serve his turn and secure his happiness Because he would have been obedient in his practice
three more is comprized the Body of our whole Duty If we adde two or three more I say for besides the several Laws already mentioned there are three particular Duties yet remaining of a more positive and arbitrary nature which Christ has bound all Christians to observe and they are the Law of Baptism of the Lords Supper and of Repentance Baptism is our incorporation into the Church of Christ or our entrance into the Gospel Covenant or into all the duties and priviledges of Christians by means of the outward Ceremony of washing or sprinkling in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost The Eucharist or Lords Supper is our Federal Vow or repetition of that engagement which we made at Baptism of performing faith repentance and obedience unto God in expectation of remission of sins eternal happiness and those other promises which by Christ's death are procured for us upon these terms which engagement we solemnly make to God at our eating Bread and drinking Wine in remembrance and commemoration of Christs dying for us Repentance is a forsaking of sin or an amendment of any evil way upon a sorrowful sense and just apprehension of its making us offend God and subjecting us to the danger of death and damnation And if to all the forementioned instances of those three grand Vertues which by the Apostle Tit. 2.12 13 are made the summ of our Christian Duty we join these three positive and additional Laws we have all that whereby God will judge us at the last Day even all those particular Laws whereto our obedience is required as necessary to salvation And thus we have seen what those particulars Laws are which the Gospel indispensably requires us to obey They are no other than those very instances which I have been all this while recounting and describing But because the Catalogue of them hitherto has been broken and interrupted and therefore cannot be run over so easily as might be desired in a matter of that importance I will here repeat them all again for the greater ease of all such pious souls as desire to try themselves by them and place them all in one view and all together The commanding Laws then whereby at the last Day we must all be judged are these that follow The Law of sobriety towards our selves with all its Train which are the Law of humility of heavenly-mindedness of temperance of sobriety of chastity of continence of contempt of the world and contentment of courage and taking up the Cross of diligence and watchfulness of patience of mortification and self-denial The Law of piety towards God with all its Branches which are the Law of honour of worship of faith and knowledge of love of zeal of trust and dependance of prayer of thankfulness of fear of submission and resignedness of obedience The Law of Justice towards men in all its parts which will be seen by the contrary prohibitions of injustice The Law of Charity in all its instances which are the Law of goodness or kindness of honour for our Brethrens Vertues of pity and succour of restraining our Christian Liberty for our weak Brothers edification of friendly reproof of brotherly kindness of congratulation of compassion of almes and distribution of covering and concealing their defects of vindicating their reputation of affability or graciousness of courtesy and officiousness of condescension of hospitality of gentleness of candor of unity of thankfulness of meekness or lenity of placableness of forgiving injuries of doing good to enemies and when nothing more is in our power praying for them and blessing or speaking what is good of them when we take occasion to mention them of long-suffering of mercifulness The Law of Peace and Concord with all its Train as are the Law of peaceableness of condescension and compliance of doing our own business of satisfying for injuries of peace-making The Law of love to Kings and Princes in all its Particulars which are the Law of honour of reverence of paying Tribute and Customes of fidelity of praying for them of obedience of subjection The Law of love to our Bishops and Ministers with all its expressions which are the Law of honour or having them highly in esteem for their works sake of reverence of maintenance of praying for them of obedience The Law of Love in the particular relation of Husband and Wife with all its Branches which are on both sides the Law of mutual concern and communicating in each others bliss or misery of bearing each others infirmities of prayer of fidelity On the Husbands towards his Wife the Law of providing for her of protecting her of flexible and winning Government of compliance and condescension On the Wives towards her Husband the Law of honour of reverence of observance and obedience of subjection The Law of Love in the particular relation of Parents and Children with its several effects which are from the Parents towards their Children the Law of natural affection of maintenance and provision of honest education of loving Government of bringing them up in the institution and fear of God of prayer for them From the Children towards their Parents besides the Duty of natural affection common to both the Law of honour of reverence of obedience of subjection of requiting upon occasion their care and kindness of prayer for them The Law of Love in the particular relation of Brethren and Sisters with all its instances which are the Law of natural affection of providing for our Brethren of praying for them The Law of Love in the particular relation of Master and Servant with its several expressions which are on the Masters side the Law of maintenance of religious instruction of a just and equal Government of them of kindness and equity in commanding of forbearance and moderation in threatning of punctual payment of the wages of the Hireling of praying for them On the Servants the Law of honour of reverence of observance of concealing and excusing their Masters defects of vindicating their injured reputation of fidelity of obedience of diligence of willing and hearty service of patient submission and subjection of praying for them To all which we may add the two arbitrary institutions and positive Laws of the Gospel Baptism and the Eucharist or Lords Supper and when we transgress in any of the instances forementioned that great and only remedy of Christs Religion the Law of repentance This so far as I can call to mind at present is a just enumeration of those particular Injunctions and Commands of God whereto our obedience is indispensably required and whereby at the last Day we must all be judged either to live or dye eternally But supposing that some particular instances of Love and Duty are omitted in this Catalogue yet need this be prejudicial to no mans happiness since that defect will be otherwise supplied For as for such omitted instances where there is an occasion for them and an opportunity offered to exercise
in opposition to some who vented contrary Doctrines who upon the account of those Rules which they gave their Followers opposite to these are called abominable disobedient and to every good work reprobate Chap. 1.16 Let as many Servants as are under the Yoke count their own Masters worthy of all honour and not despise and dishonour them by their irreverent behaviour publishing their faults and wounding their reputation that the Name of God and the Christian Doctrine be not blasphemed or evil spoken of through the contrary usage If any man teach otherwise he is proud knowing nothing 1 Tim. 6.1 2 3 4. Servants obey your Masters not with eye-service but heartily and in singleness or simplicity of heart without acting double viz. something whilst their eye is over you but nothing when it is off you which you are bound to do not only out of a dread of your Masters anger but as fearing God who will be sure to punish you although your Master should not take notice of you Col. 3.22 Servants he not stubborn and contumacious but subject to your Masters with all fear and reverence and that not only to the good and gentle or equitable and moderate but also to the hasty and morose or froward For if when you do well and suffer for it you yet take it patiently this is truly thank-worthy and acceptable to God And indeed hereunto are you called in Christianity to suffer many times unjustly but still with patience as Christ did that hereafter you may reign with him also 1 Pet. 2.18 19 20 21. Thus is our observation of these particular prohibitions plainly necessary unto life and indispensably required to mercy and salvation And as for that small remainder of them which are not expresly insisted on in this proof their necessity is sufficiently evidenced by the indispensableness of the opposite Commands which in the proof of the affirmative Laws is shown expresly As to all the particular Laws then recited in the foregoing Catalogues whether they be affirmative or negative Commands or Prohibitions 't is plain that they are all bound upon us by the severest sanction no less than our fears of Hell and hopes of Heaven They are the adaequate and compleat matter of that obedience which is to secure for us a happy Sentence At the last Day we must all stand or fall by them where they promise God will bestow rewards but if they threaten he will eternally condemn us And thus at length it plainly appears what those particular Laws are which under the sanctions of Life or Death the Gospel indispensably binds us to obey And upon the whole we see That when we become Christians we are not turned loose and set at liberty to do what we list but are put under a most strict Rule and bound up by a most exalted purity and a most compleat and perfect love The height of our Duty is answerable to the greatness of our Priviledges and advantages For as never any people had so much Grace given to them as we Christians have by the Gospel so never was there of any so much Duty required The poor Heathens who knew nothing more either of Gods Laws or of his rewards and encouragements than they could argue themselves into a belief of by the strength of their own wit and reason knew nothing of nor shall at the last Day be condemned for the transgression of several of those Commands which we shall dye for So far were they from thinking that in the judgment of God lasciviousness uncleanness filthy talk and obscene jests deserved death that as wise men as any among them did not believe it of Fornication and Whoredome it self They were in no fear of being called to account then and being found liable to eternal punishment for being angry at an enemy for cursing or reproaching for praying to the Gods against him nay nor for other higher acts of malice and revenge They never dreamed of being condemned for censoriousness uncourteousness surliness malignity mockery upbraiding reproach and least of all for scandalizing an ignorant and weak Neighbour or not relieving an enemy for not taking up the Cross or not mortifying their own Bodies Vain-glory and emulation they looked upon as deserving commendation rather than reproof and boasting and ostentation when it had no mixture of ill design but was only for boastings sake even they who would find fault with it rebuked only as a vanity but not as a mortal crime The most that any of them could say of these or of several others which it would be too tedious to mention was that it would be a point of praise for men to observe them but not of duty they might be advised to it by a sage Philosopher but not imposed and commanded by a Judge and Lawgiver Thus dark and defective was that sense of Duty which governed the heathen World The priviledg of a clear and full revelation of it which God in great degrees afforded the Jews under the Law of Moses and us Christians in the compleatest measures under the Gospel of Christ was a Grace and Favour which he did not vouchsafe them He shewed as the Psalmist says his Word unto Jacob and his Statutes unto Israel but he hath not dealt so with any of the heathen Nations for as for his Judgments or those Laws which we are to be judged by they have not known several of them Psal. 147.19 20. And since not only the poor and ignorant but even the more wise and learned sort of Heathens were thus void of knowledge in the simplicity of their hearts and did not discern several of those to be Laws of God which every one of us may discern most clearly if we will although we must stand or fall by them yet they shall not but when they are brought to Judgment they shall go unpunished for their transgressions of them because they did not know them They shall not be condemned for acting against they knew not what nor suffer for the breach of such Laws as were not sufficiently published and proclaimed to them They that sinned without our Law shall also perish not by it but without our Law according to the Sentence of such other Laws as are not ours but their own and it is only as many as have sinned in or under our Law that shall be judged and condemned by the Law Rom. 2.12 Whatsoever they may suffer then for their transgressions of their own plain natural Laws which all of them might have known that had a mind to it they shall not be punished for their ignorant breach of such as are peculiarly ours but that part of their offences shall be overlooked and graciously connived at For those times of ignorance saith the Apostle God winked or connived at Acts 17.30 And as for the Jews although they had a stricter Rule and a more perfect Precept answerable to their clearer light and
take up with their leavings Nay what is yet more by such a partial and squeamish belief as this we do not only give or take at our own liking from that attribute of his which in believing we would be thought to honour viz. his Truth but even where we seem to submit to it we wrong and pervert it For we wrest his sense and spoil his meaning and undermine all that he intends So that even that which we do believe is not his mind but our own For the true meaning of his Promises which run all upon condition of our Obedience we pervert the force of all his threatnings which denounce woes to every sin and transgression we cancel We do as much as in us lies to corrupt his Word and to belie his very Gospel We make his whole Religion signifie another thing than what he intended For we make it allow what he forbids and encourage such as he threatens and save those whom at the day of Judgment he will condemn And since this perverse faith and knowledge which believes what it likes and is infidel to all the rest which sets up one part of his Word against another by making his Promises to undermine his Precepts and the Truth of his Doctrines to render all his threatnings false and useless I say since such an untowardly partial and gainsaying knowledge and belief as this is in very deed so plain a Libel to his Person so hateful a violence to his Truth and such a contradicting piece of Infidelity to his Gospel it can never be thought to be that Obedience which he commands and encourages but such a piece of contumelious flattery and fawning disobedience as he will most severely punish and condemn But if we believe his whole Gospel and besides the faith of his Doctrines and Promises take moreover all his Precepts to be such as he injoyns and all his threatnings in their true meaning to be such as he will execute and yet for all that in our works and practice despise and sin against them then is such our faith and knowledge so far from rendring our condition safe and comfortable that in very deed it makes it quite desperate and utterly bereft of all colour and excuse For it takes from us all plea for disobedience and leaves us not so much as the common refuge of all misdoing the pretence that we did offend but did not know it It makes every sin which we commit to be acted with a high hand and all our offences to become contempt our disobedience rebellion and our transgressions presumptuous For we sin then with open eyes we know Gods Commands but refuse to practise them we discern our duty but despise it It makes us not only to renounce his Authority but also to defie his Power For we know his Almighty Strength but we will not fear it we see his dreadfull threatnings but yet dare to commit the things which he has threatned in despite of them We see and believe that our Death is entailed upon our disobedience but for all that we choose and run upon it We contemn all his Commands and set light by all his Promises and despise all his Threatnings We see and believe them all but prefer the pleasure of our sins before them and transgress in open affront to them And such a state as this every man must needs see is so far from gaining his favour and ascertaining his acceptance that in reality it is a continued heightning of every provocation an habitual hostility and state of crying sin But if ever our Orthodox Faith and Professions avail us unto Life and Pardon they must end in our Obedient Works and Actions We must do that which we know God requires and practise that Pure Religion which we profess If ye know these things sayes our Saviour happy are ye if ye do them Joh. 13.17 It is not every verbal Professor every one that saith unto me or calls me Lord Lord that shall enter into the kingdom of heaven but he only that doth the will of my Father which is in Heaven Mat. 7.21 We are condemn'd out of our own mouths if we commend Christs Religion whilst we contemn and disobey it Every word which we speak in its behalf is a charge against our own selves and every Plea which we make for it is to us an accusation For if it be a Religion so pure so good so worthy of God and so beneficial to men as we profess it is the more unpardonable wretches we that transgress and act against it All the praises which we heap upon our Duty are a most bitter invective upon our own practice and the more we commend Christs Religion and Laws the more we condemn our own transgressions so that now God in exacting the punishment be it as severe as it well can only executes our own sentence We are made the worse for our knowledge if our Actions are not ruled by it for it shews plainly that our Lusts are most obstinate and our wills most wicked when for all we are clearly shewed the Laws the Promises and the threats of God we can yet despise them all and for the short pleasure of a silly sin transgress and act against them And since it doth thus enhanse our Sin we may be sure that it will proportionably encrease our punishment For he that knows his masters will and doth it not shall be beaten with many stripes Luk. 12.47 And thus we see that this thinking to be saved by the labour of our minds without any works of our lives and practice and coming to Heaven barely by a True Belief and Orthodox Opinions and Right Professions without ever obeying in our works and actions is one of those false and delusive grounds whereupon men shift off the necessity of this service with all their strength the service of their Actions And another false ground of shifting off the same service is 2. The delusive confidence which wicked men have of being saved at the last Day for an obedience of idle desires and ineffective wishes It is a strange conceit which some people have been taught viz. that the desire of Grace is Grace and that God will at the last Day judge men to have obeyed although they have not wrought but only desired it There is a complaisant sort of Casuistry and a much easier than ever God made that has been brought into the World which bids men to hope well though they do nothing so long as they find in themselves a desire that they could do it They wish they were what God expects and that they performed what he commands but they do no more but wish it They sit still and work no more now they have wished it than they did before Theirs is a weakly infant-desire it just lives but that is all it can effect nothing For the smallest lust is too strong for it and the least temptation over-bears it the desire of the Vertue is hush'd when
and the perfection as to this particular of the Law of Christ. The Law of Moses was unable to work a general reformation by reason of several defects two whereof I shall particularly mention which in the Religion of Christ are fully supplied and they are the great motive to all obedience eternal life and the great encouragement of all endeavour the promise of the Spirit Eternal life are words that are never heard of in all Moses's Law Indeed the good people under it had all some rude thoughts and confused expectations of it but the Law it self did no where clearly and expresly propose it Whereof this may serve for a probable proof because a whole Sect among them the Sadducees I mean did flatly deny it and this for an undeniable Argument because those very places of the Law which are brought to confirm it by those Jewish Doctors that are most for it are in all appearance so remote from it Nay even our Saviour himself when he goes to prove it against the Sadducees out of the Books of Moses can find no other Testimonies for it than such as are fetched about to speak it by art and brought to it by consequence Luke 20.37 38. So that well might S t Paul say in triumph over all other Religions in the World That life and immortality were brought to light by the Gospel 2 Tim. 1.10 And in the comparison of that Covenant which came by Moses with that other which came by Christ to affirm that the Covenant which came by Christ was the bringing in of a better hope Heb. 7.19 and a better Covenant for this reason because it was established upon better promises Heb. 8.6 And then as for the promise of the Spirit to enable men to do what was required of them of that Moses made no mention By this Law as S t Paul says was the knowledge of sin Rom. 3.20 It shewed men what they should do and denounced a Curse upon them if they failed to do it but it stopt there and went not on to promise any inward Grace and help that might enable them to be as good as it required them No the promise of that was reserved to another dispensation and to be the hope of a better Covenant it was not to come by Moses but by Christ nor to be an express Article of the Law but of the Gospel Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the Law saith the Apostle that now being under the Gospel we might receive the promise of the Spirit which comes not by the Law of Moses but through the Faith of Christ Gal. 3.13 14. The Law by its prohibition made several actions to be sinful it shewed us what was sin and it threatned the curse to it but that was all that it did towards the extirpation of it for as for any inward strength and ability to overcome it it offered none but left us there to our own selves And because sin was too strong for us and had got possession of our Bodies and executive Powers insomuch that we were quite enslaved to it and as it were sold under it therefore the Law by making more things sinful through its prohibition and not strengthening us against sin through spiritual assistance instead of lessening the Empire of sin proved in the end to encrease it For our lusts not being restrained by it and more of them becoming sinful by being prohibited when the Law entred as S t Paul says the offence did more abound Rom. 5.20 and the Law became not the bane and overthrow of sin but by making its services more numerous it was rather as the same Apostle says the strength of it 1 Cor. 15.56 And forasmuch as the Law did only thus outwardly shew and reveal sin to our eyes but brought along with it nothing of inward Grace and assistance to help us against it therefore is it called a Letter without us opposite to the Grace of the Gospel which is an enlivening Spirit within And since it did nothing more but outwardly shew and threaten sin but did not inwardly assist and rescue us from it it served only to condemn us for what we did from the doing whereof it brought no inward Grace to hinder us and so proved the ministration of death and condemnation not of life and pardon All which is plainly affirmed of it in the third Chapter of the second Epistle to the Corinthians God says S t Paul hath made us Apostles ministers of the New Testament or Covenant not of the external Letter only as Moses and the Ministers of the Law were but of the internal Spirit also For the Letter or old Law shews sin and curses men upon the breach of that which they cannot keep and thereby kills them but the Spirit or new Law enables them to do what it commands and thereby giveth right to life which is the mercy that it promises That was the ministration of condemnation for it shewed men the curse which it did not enable them to shun this is the ministration of justification and righteousness which it both promises and enables them to attain to ver 6 7 8 9. 'T is very true indeed that several of the Jews themselves under the Law of Moses had really such assistances of Gods Spirit as enabled them to do as well as to know what was required of them For David in all his life and behaviour was a man after Gods own heart 1 Sam. 13.14 Zacharias and Elizabeth as to their walking in all the Commandments of the Lord were blameless Luke 1.6 And the Case was the same with a number of other honest and godly Jews But then this assistance which they enjoyed was no Article of their Law although God afforded it yet had their Law no where promised it nor was he bound to it by the Mosaical Covenant For in very truth all this inward Spirit which was vouchsafed to them was reached out not by virtue of the Covenant of the Law but of the Covenant of Grace For the Covenant of Grace was not first made with the World when Christ came into it but was established long before with Adam Gen. 3.15 and after that confirmed again with Abraham and all his Seed after him Gen. 12.3 Gal. 3.8 17. So that under it as well as under Moses all the Jews lived and by the gracious terms and assisting Spirit of it all the righteous people that have been since the beginning of the World were justified It being as S t Paul says by faith which is the righteousness of the second Covenant that the Elders who lived before the Law obtained a good report Heb. 11.2 and that the Jews who lived under it were delivered and justified from all things from which they could not be justified by any virtue of the Law of Moses Acts 13.39 And therefore that which the Apostle affirms of the defectiveness of the Mosaick Law viz. it s having no promise of the Spirit to
as in all sins of ignorance 2. From the want of particular animadvertence as in all sins of inconsideration 1. The first Cause of an innocent and pardonable involuntariness is ignorance of our Duty when we venture to do what God forbids because we do not know that he has forbidden it And this ignorance may enter upon two accounts either First From our ignorance or mistake of the Law it self when we know not that God has made any such Law as our present action is a transgression of Or Secondly From our ignorance or mistake of the thing it self which the Law enjoins or forbids when we know not that our present action comes under that which in the known Law is enjoined or forbidden Thus for instance a man may sin by backbiting censoriousness c. either because he knows not that backbiting and censoriousness are things prohibited or because he knows not that what he doth is censuring and backbiting And either way the errour may be confined to his understanding and the transgression be no where else but in his mind but may not reach his heart or will at all For he would neither utter the backbiting nor censorious word if he knew that it were against God's will but for this very reason he ventures on them because he knows not that actions of that kind are forbidden or that his is of that forbidden kind of actions First The first sort of ignorance which can effect an innocent involuntariness is our ignorance of the general Law which makes a Duty when we know not that God has given any such Commandment as our present action is a transgression of All the Laws of Christ are not known by every man but some are ignorant of one or other of them Nay there is no man how perfect soever his knowledg of them be at present but at some time he did not know them He had a time of learning before he attained to a compleat understanding of them For our knowledge of them as of all things else is gradual it goes on by steps and from the notice of one proceeds to the notice of another So that even the wise and learned themselves do not at all times see all those things which Christ has required of them but pass through a long time of ignorance before they arrive at that pitch of compleat knowledge But then there are others who have neither abilities nor opportunities to know every particular Law of Christ in a longer time nor some it may be in their whole lives For how many men are there in the world whose understanding is slow and who come to apprehend things with great difficulty And as their faculties are narrow so are their opportunies very small For although they are most heartily willing and desirous to see all that God has required of them that they may keep and practise it yet their education has been so poor that they cannot read it the place which Gods Providence has allotted for them is so destitute that they are far from them who should instruct them in it their condition in the world is so subject and dependant that they have little time and leisure of their own wherein to seek instruction and their apprehensions are so slow and their memories so frail that it is not much of it at a time which they can retain when they have got the freedome of it They are servants or poor men and must be working for their bodily maintenance when they should be in search of spiritual Doctrine Indeed through the infinite goodness and gracious Providence of God it seldome happens if at all that they who have honest hearts which stand ready and prepared to obey his Laws in Christian Countries live long without the means of understanding them For although they themselves cannot read yet if they desire it and seek after it they cannot miss of Christian people and of Christian Guides who will be most ready and willing to instruct them So that no man amongst them whose heart is first desirous of it can ever be supposed to want all opportunities of coming to the knowledg of his Duty But then we must consider that knowledge of our Duty is a word of a great latitude and has many parts and degrees in it For our Duty takes up a great compass no less than all the particular Laws which are contained under the general Precepts of Piety Sobriety Justice Charity Peaceableness And although every mans opportunities will serve him to know some and to understand the most general and comprehensive yet will they not enable him to understand all Our whole Duty 't is true both towards God and men is comprehended in that one Law of Love which as S t Paul says is the fulfilling of the Law Rom. 13.10 So that if every man had but the wit and parts the time and leisure to make deductions and to run this general Law into as many particular instances and expressions as it would reach to in the knowledge of that one Law which is soon learned he might have it within his own power when he would to understand all the rest which are contained within the compass of those two great Branches and general Heads of Duty But alas it is not every common head no nor very many even of the wise and learned who are so quick and ready so full and comprehensive in making inferences But they have need to be showed the particulars and are not able of themselves to collect them by a tedious and comprehensive train of consequences So that even when they have learned their obligation to the most material and general Precepts of the Gospel yet may there be several Particular ones still remaining which not only the poor and ignorant but they also who think themselves to be more wise and learned do not see and take themselves to be obliged by As for the crying sins of Perjury Adultery Murther Theft Oppression Lying Slander and the like which even natural Conscience without the assistance and instruction of Christ's Gospel would be afraid of these 't is true no man who is grown up to years of common reason and discretion can be ignorant of and yet be innocent But then besides these there are many other sins which are not of so black a Die or of so mischievous a Nature which many of them who profess the Gospel through the littleness of their abilities their leisure or opportunities do not understand to be sinful Their Consciences are not afraid of them nor check them either before or after they have committed them For how many are there of the Professors of Christ's Religion who never think of being called to an account for lasciviousness and uncleanness for passionateness and uncourteousness for backbiting and censoriousness for disturbing the publick peace and speaking evil of Dignities for not speaking well of an enemy or not praying for him or for the like Breaches of several other particular Laws
For they who will live wickedly will quickly bring their minds to think wickedly Their lusts and vices will soon insinuate themselves into their judgments and apprehensions they will dispose their souls for such perswasions as are most serviceable to them and win them with ease into a belief of evil things by making them willing first and eagerly desirous to believe them For our belief of any opinion is produced in us by our diligent search and consideration of all such Arguments as can get credit to it by overlooking or clearing such difficulties or industriously considering and improving all the answers to such exceptions as are made against it As on the contrary our disbelief of any opinion is effected by overlooking or weakening all those reasons which are brought to prove it by darkening it with difficulties perplexing it with doubts and raising such exceptions as may shake or overthrow it But now as for the employing of our wit and industry in either of these it is plainly in our own choice and we deal indifferently and impartially between both or espouse either part as we stand affected If then we are earnestly desirous and strongly enclined for one way we can overlook or answer all that makes against it and throw by difficulties clear up doubts invent reasons to justifie and prove it So that the will and pleasure of our hearts will quickly draw after it the judgment of our understandings and if once we are resolved upon a way we shall soon find reasons to avow it When therefore our lusts and vices have got our hearts and give Laws to our wills and appetites they will quickly bear Rule in our understandings also We shall quickly believe that any of their gratifications are lawful when once we are greatly desirous to have them so Nothing being a more probable and ordinary effect in the nature of things as well as in the just judgment of God of a disobedient and rebellious heart than a reprobate mind or a mind void of Judgment Rom. 1.18 21 28. So long then as men have wicked hearts it cannot be expected but that they will have debauched consciences for whilst they retain unmortified lusts and vices they will justifie them in their own thoughts by damnably sinful and disobedient opinions They will take up prejudices and a wrong belief not to direct and guide but to defend their wicked practice The factious and unpeaceable man will easily perswade himself into that belief which disturbs Peace and opposes Government The covetous soul will favour any Tenet which promotes gain and advances interest The licentious Libertine will snatch at any opinion that gratifies the flesh and pleads the Cause of sensuality and softness Mens pride and ambition their fierceness and cruelty their malice and revenge their contentiousness and faction their sensuality and covetousness will make them overlook the humble and lowly the meek and gentle the patient and merciful the quiet and peaceable the generous and self-denying Laws of Christ and greedily imbibe such wicked prejudices and erroneous conceits as evacuate and overthrow them To illustrate this business let us consider it in some instances That execrable Sect of men the Gnosticks who were so famous for their impure and lawless consciences were not more notorious for their vile opinions than for their evil lives I will consider both that it may from thence more clearly appear how influential their lusts were upon their minds in begetting suitable perswasions As for their lives they were infamous for covetousness cowardice and softness in heaping up wealth and avoiding all loss of Goods and bodily pains though by means never so wicked and dishonourable and for the greatest luxury and unnaturalness in their lusts and unclean pleasures They were notoriously infamous for their covetousness and abominably soft and irreligious compliances For they are described as men that have their hearts exercised with covetous practices 2 Pet. 2.14 that do any thing because of advantage Jude 16 that forsake the right way of Worship and Religion and go astray from it into the by-paths of idolatry and prophaneness when they are like to suffer by it being thus far fitly compared to Balaam the Son of Bozor that they professing true Christianity join in idol-worship with the idolatrous Gentiles as he being a true Prophet did in the idolatrous worship of the King of Moab Numb 22.40 41 and also in that they sort and combine with the Jewish and Gentile Persecutors of the Christians as he did in cursing first and afterwards in fighting against the Israelites in the Army of Midian Numb 31.8 upon which accounts his way or errour they are said to follow 2 Pet. 2.15 Jud. 11. Their Character is to desert the publick Assemblies by reason of the heat of persecution against all that dare frequent them Heb. 10.25 to deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ when they are in danger to suffer for the owning of them Jud. 4. They were also equally notorious for abominable luxury and unnaturalness in their lusts and unclean pleasures For they are set out to us as men that are sensual Jud. 19 that account it a pleasure to riot in the day time 2 Pet. 2.13 that defile the flesh Jud. 8 that walk after the flesh in lusts of uncleanness 2 Pet. 2.10 in pernicious or as it is rendred from other Copies in the Margin of our Bibles lascivious ways vers 2 that have eyes full of adultery ver 14 and that are not content to riot in these abominable filthinesses themselves but use them as baits to decoy and draw in others alluring through the lusts of the flesh and through much wantonness those who really or for a little while had escaped from such an abominable life of errour ver 18. Thus was their life and temper over-run with covetousness basely cowardous and sinful compliances and with most filthy lusts and unnatural uncleannesses Both which S t Peter setting himself against requires all men who would be thought to have that true and saving knowledge which is opposite to that false and spurious one which they pretended to to give all diligence in adding to it these two Duties which are directly contrary to their vile lusts viz. vertue or courage and constancy which is opposite to their base arts of tergiversation and sinful compliances and continence or chastity which is contrary to their unclean practices Give all diligence to adde to virtue or valorous courage knowledge and to knowledge temperance or continence 2 Pet. 1.5 6. Now these men having such a Scene of debauchery in their lives they quickly became as lewd and debauched in their consciences When once for all their professions of knowing God they began as S t Paul says in works to deny him they quickly made their Consciences to be as filthy and polluted as were their practices To these defiled Wretches saith he is nothing pure their very mind and conscience is
be ignorant of their Duty and that is the reason why they do not understand it For either they shut their eyes and will not see it or they are idle and careless and will not enquire after it or they bend their wits at the instigation of their lusts to dispute against it that after they have darkened and confounded it in their own thoughts they may mince or evacuate mistake or disbelieve it So that if at last they do not know it it is because they do not desire the knowledge of it or will be at no pains for it or take pains against it to supplant and disguise it And these are they who are not ignorant against their wills but as S t Peter says willingly ignorant 2 Pet. 3.5 And as for such ignorance as this it will by no means excuse us before God but if we will be ignorant God's will and pleasure is that we shall suffer for our sinful ignorance and for all those sins that we commit under it which we might and should have seen and avoided For all those Laws which are ignorantly transgressed by us threaten death and the ignorance being of our own chusing takes nothing off so that death and damnation rest upon us But that ignorance which can be pleaded to excuse us before God must be an ignorance that is involuntary an ignorance which in the constitution of our nature is imposed upon us and is not chosen by us And a right understanding of this difference in ignorance being of so great moment I shall before I dismiss this Point observe when our ignorance is voluntary and when it is involuntary First I will show when our ignorance is â—â—voluntary As for the knowledge of our Duty like as of all other things it doth not spring up in our souls as an Herb doth out of the ground nor drop into us as the rain doth from a Cloud but it must be sought for and endeavoured after and unless we use the means of acquiring it we must be content to live without it The means of obtaining the knowledge of God's Laws and of the innocence and sinfulness of our own actions are the reading of his Word the attendance upon his Ministers the thinking or considering upon what we read or hear in our own minds and praying to God to make all these means effectual for our information and if ever we expect to know God's will we must put these in practice But now whether we will make use of these or no is plainly in our own choice and at our own pleasure For if we will we may exercise and if we will we may as well neglect them And when both these are before us if we refuse to make use of the means of understanding and wilfully neglect the methods of attaining to the knowledg of sin and Duty good and evil if we sit down without the knowledg of Gods Law it is because we would our selves and our ignorance is a voluntary and a wilful ignorance And this is the first way of our ignorance's becoming voluntary viz. when it is so upon a voluntary neglect of those means which are necessary to attain knowledge And this in the Schools is called a supine slothful careless ignorance And if it be of such things as lay near in our way and might have been known without much pains or much seeking it is called gross or affected ignorance But besides this sort of wilful ignorance of our Duty through a wilful neglect of those means which are necessary to the knowledge of it there is another which is higher and more enormous and that is Secondly When we do not only sleight the means of knowing God's Law but moreover use those of confounding or mistaking it For our knowledge of things is then made perfect and useful when it is clear and distinct and our assent and belief of things is then gained when their evidence is represented and duly considered of But now as for the employing of mens thoughts in clearing or confounding believing or disbelieving of the Laws of God it is perfectly in their own power whether to use it on one side or on the other And commonly it is their pleasure to use it on the worse For they will consider only of the difficulties and intricacies of Gods Laws which may darken and disturb confound and perplex their thoughts about them and attend only to such exceptions as they can make against them which may unsettle their minds either about the meaning or the truth of them so that after all their reading and considering of them they shall not understand but err and mistake them As it happens to all those who had disputed themselves out of the knowledge of their Duty until as Isaiah says they call evil good and good evil put darkness for light and light for darkness Isai. 5.20 And when men are ignorant of their Duty because they chose thus to endeavour it and take pains for it this ignorance is voluntary and wilful with a witness These two reasons of mens being ignorant of their Duty viz. their neglect of such means as are necessary to the knowledge of it or their use of the contrary means of confounding or discrediting it are the causes of their wilful ignorance And that which makes them guilty of both these is either the gross idleness or the profligate wickedness of their hearts which are wholly inslaved to some beloved lust or sin They are wretchedly idle and therefore they will not learn their Duty because that is painful they are greatly wicked and so care not for the knowledge of the Law because that would disquiet them Men love darkness says our Saviour better than light because their works are evil they hate the light and will not come to it lest their deeds should be reproved by it John 3.19 20. Because they hate and fear the Law they neglect the means of knowing it nay they pick quarrels with it and endeavour all they can to perplex or darken to evacuate or disparage it So that our ignorance is then wilful when we are therefore ignorant because we neglect the means of knowledge or industriously endeavour to be mistaken And that because we are either too idle to learn or too wicked to care for the knowledge of our Duty The idleness and wickedness of our hearts is the first spring and the neglect of means and industrious perverting of the truth are the great productive instruments of our wilful ignorance Which is therefore called voluntary and wilful because the Principle and the Instruments the motive and the means to it are both under the power and choice of our own wills And these things making our ignorance wilful viz. a wilful neglect of the means of knowledge or a wilful perverting of those Laws which we are to know we shall easily discern Secondly What ignorance is unwilled and involuntary namely that which implies a freedome from and an absence
of both these so that unto it there is required First An honest heart Secondly An honest industry First In all involuntary ignorance it is necessary that we have an honest heart We have S t Paul's word for it that our receiving of the love of the truth is necessary to a saving belief and understanding of it They who believed not the truth but believed lyes fell into that miscarriage by this means says he because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved 2 Thess. 2.10 11 12. And our Saviour has taught us that an obedient heart is the surest step to a right understanding If any man will or is willing to do God's will he shall know of the Doctrine which I preach whether it be of God John 7.17 The heart or will must in the first place be obedient and unfeignedly desirous to know Gods will not that it may question and dispute but practise and obey it For a failure here spoils all besides because the Heart and Will is the Principle of all our actions and if it be against obeying any Law it will be also against understanding it and so will be sure to make us neglect and omit more or less the means of coming to the knowledge of it To prevent therefore all wilful defects afterwards care must be taken in the first place that our hearts be honest and truly desirous to be shewn our Duty be it what it will They must entertain no Lusts which will prejudice them against Gods Laws and make them willing either to overlook or to pervert them But they must come with an entire obedience and resignation being ready and desirous to hearken to whatsoever God shall say and resolv'd to practise it whensoever they shall understand it Of their sincerity in which last besides their own sense and feeling they cannot have a greater Argument than their being careful to be found in the practice of so much as they know already without which it is not to be expected that they should be perfecter in their practice by knowing more This Honesty and obedience of the Heart then is necessary in the first place to make our ignorance involuntary because we should wilfully omit the means of knowledge and become thereby wilfully ignorant if we wanted it But then as an effect of this Honesty of the heart to make our ignorance involuntary and innocent there is yet further required Secondly An honest Industry For the knowledge of our Duty as was observed is not to be got without our own search but we must inquire after it and make use of the means of obtaining it before we shall be possessed of it We must read good Books which will teach us Gods Will but especially the Bible we must be constant and careful to hear Sermons attend diligently to the instructions of our spiritual Guides whom God has set over us for that very purpose We must submit our selves to be catechised by our Governours taught by our Superiours and admonished by our Equals begging always a Blessing from God to set home upon our Souls all their instructions And after all we must be careful without prejudice or partiality to think and meditate upon those things which we read or hear that we may the better understand them and that they may not suddenly slip from us but we may remember and retain them All these are such means as God has appointed for the attainment of spiritual knowledge and laid in our way to a right understanding of his Will And they are such as he has placed in every mans power for any of us to use who are so minded So that if we are ignorant of our Duty through the want of them we are ignorant because we our selves would have it so But if ever we expect that our ignorance should be judged involuntary we must industriously use all those means of knowledge which are under the power of our own wills whereby we may prevent it And as for the measures of this industry viz. what time is to be laid out upon it and what pains are to be taken in it that is so much as in every one according to their several abilities and opportunities would be interpreted an effect of an honestly obedient heart and of an unfeigned desire to know our duty by any honest man For God has not given all men either the same abilities or opportunities for knowledge and since he has not he doth not expect the same measures from them He doth not reap where he has not sown but that which he exacts is that every man according to his opportunities should use and improve that talent be it more or less which was intrusted with him as we are taught in the Parable of the Talents Mat. 25. And to name that once for all we have this laid down by our Saviour as an universal maxime of Gods Government unto whomsoever much is given of them shall much be required Which is the very same equitable proceeding that is daily in use among our selves For to whom men have committed much of him they will exact the more Luk. 12.48 If any man therefore is industrious after the knowledge of Gods will according to the measure of those abilities and opportunities which God has given him he is industrious according to that measure which God requires of him All men have not the same leisure for some are necessarily taken up by their place and way of life in much business some in less some have their time at their own disposal some are subject to the ordering of others And all have not the same abilities and opportunities for some are able by study and reading to inform themselves some have constant need of the help and instruction of others some have most wise and understanding teachers and may have their assistance when they will others have men of meaner parts and attainments and opportunity of hearing them more seldom But now of all these whose leisure and opportunities are thus different God doth not in any wise exact the same measure No one shall be excused for what another shall be punished but if every man endeavours according to his opportunities he has done his Duty and God has accepted him And in the proportioning of this where there is first an honest heart God is not hard to please For he knows that besides their Duty men have much other business to mind which his own constitution of Humane Nature has made necessary and he allows of it The endeavours which he exacts of us are not the endeavours of Angels but of men who are soon wearied and much distracted having so many other things to employ us But he accepts of such a measure of industry in the use of all the means of knowledge as would be interpreted for an effect of an hearty desire to know his Laws by any honest man For where there is first an obedient heart God will not be equalled and
much less out-done by the best of men in pity and kindness Which is the argument from which our Saviour himself concludes that God will give the holy spirit at our prayers because that men themselves who are infinitely below him in goodness will give good gifts to them that ask them Luk. 11.13 Let us therefore take care in the first place to secure our selves of an obedient heart and to give such evidence of an honest industry as any kind hearted honest man would accept of and then we may have just reason to be confident that although our endeavour is weak and imperfect being much hindred and often interrupted yet shall it still be esteemed sufficient For Christ himself who is to judge of its sufficiency is no stranger to our weaknesses but having felt them in himself he is prone to pity and pardon them in us He experimented the backwardness of our flesh and the number of our distractions and the tiredness of our powers and the insinuations and strength of temptations So that having such an High Priest to intercede for us at present and to judge us at the last day who is touched with a feeling of our infirmities having been tempted himself in all points even as we are let us come boldly unto the throne of Grace as the Apostle exhorts us that we may obtain mercy for what we cannot master as well as find grace in a seasonable time of need to conquer what he expects we should overcome Hebr. 4.15 16. And this mercifull connivance at our imperfections and gracious acceptance of our weak endeavours we may with the greater reason and assurance hope for because Christ our Judge will be most candid and benign in putting the best sense and in interpreting most to our advantage all those our actions and endeavours which shall then be brought before him Whereof he has given us a clear instance in that most favourable construction which he made of that Charity that was shewn unto his Brethren by those on his right hand Mat. 25. For although it was not expressed to him but only to their fellow Christians for his sake yet because their kindness reached him in the intention of their minds and what they did to his servants for his sake they would have done to himself much rather could they have met with an opportunity he resented it as if it had been really shown to his own person For when they say unto him Lord when saw we thee an hungred and fed thee or naked and cloathed thee c. he answers inasmuch as ye have done it to one of the least of these my brethren I take the affection for the performance and interpret it as if you had done it unto me vers 40. When therefore the sufficiency of our endeavours fater the knowledge of our Duty is come to be enquired into by our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ we may be assured that it will have a favourable tryal It it to be censured by a candid equitable and benign judge who will interpret it to our advantage as much nay more than any good natured honest man would So that if our industry after the knowledge of Gods will be in such a measure as a candid and benign man would judge to be a sufficient effect of an obedient heart and of an honest purpose Christ will judge it to be so too And where our Ignorance of any of Christs Laws is joyned with an honest heart and remains after such an industry we may take comfort to our selves and be confident that it is involuntary and innocent If we are desirous to know Gods Laws and read good Books frequent Sermons hearken to any good instructions which we meet with and that according to our opportunities and in such measure as any good man would interpret to be an honest endeavour after the knowledge of our Duty if it were to himself if after all this I say in some points we are still Ignorant our Ignorance is involuntary and shall not harm us it is not chosen by us and therefore it never will condemn us And thus we have seen what ignorances excuse our slips and transgressions which are committed under them and when those Ignorances are themselves involuntary and innocent so as that we may comfortably expect to be excused upon the account of them And the summ of all that has been hitherto discoursed upon this subject is this That as for the Laws themselves all men must needs be ignorant of some of them for some time and some men for all their lives because they want either ability or opportunity to understand them And as for their present actions being comprehended under them that many men of all sorts and capacities after that they have known the General Laws will still be ignorant of it likewise For as for the wise and learned the small and meer gradual difference between good and evil in some instances the allowed exceptions from the generality of others the indirect force and obligation of a third sort and the frequent clashing and enterfering whether of Laws with Laws or of Laws with their repugnant prejudices and opinions will be sure to make them very often overlook it And as for the rude and ignorant that besides all these causes of such ignorance which are common to them with learned men the difficult and obscure nature of several Vices and Virtues themselves which are plainly and expresly forbidden or injoyn'd will be of force sufficient to make the generality of them in many instances not to understand it And as for the pardon and excuse of our ignorance and unknown transgressions from all or any of these causes that it is involuntary and innocent so long as it is joyned with an honest heart and remains after an honest industry and begins then only to be our wilful sin and an Article of our condemnation when our Lusts or Vices introduce it and we have a mind to it and take no pains against it or what is the consummation and height of all industriously labour and endeavour after it And this may suffice to have spoken of the first sort of want of Knowledge which as I said above produces an uncondemning involuntariness viz. Ignorance when we commit sin because we do not know the sinfulness of our present action or the Law which we sin against CHAP. VIII Of Sins consistent through the second Cause of an innocent Involuntariness viz. Inconsideration The CONTENTS Consideration is necessary to choice Some sins are inconsiderate Three innocent causes of inconsideration 1. Suddenness and surprize of opportunity An account of this The involuntariness of it Slips upon it are consistent 2. Weariness of our thinking powers or understandings An account of this and of its involuntariness The consistence of our Transgressions by reason of it 3. Discomposure or disturbance of them An account of this The causes of it are Drunkenness or a strong Passion Drunkenness is always our own fault Our
Passions grow strong in us sometimes by our own indulgence and then they are our damning sin and we must suffer for the evil that we commit under them sometimes through the suddenness and greatness of outward objects and then they are pardonable and our inconsiderate slips upon them are excusable The Passions which have Good for their object as Love Desire c. cannot by any force of outward objects be so suddenly forced upon us But the Passions which have Evil as Grief Anger and Fear especially often are The reason of this difference Inconsideration upon the latter excusable but not upon the former This difference made by our Saviour in a case where both were criminal Excusable slips upon discomposure of our thinking powers are such as proceed from an unwill'd sudden Grief or Anger but especially from a sudden Fear No fear is involuntary but what is sudden and sins upon deliberate fear are damning but upon unwill'd sudden Fear Grief or Anger consistent with Salvation Cautions about inconsiderate sins to prevent false confidence No sin is innocently inconsiderate 1. Where we have time and an undisturbed understanding 2. Where the sin is mischievous or greatly criminal 3. When we do not strive against it We must endeavour against all involuntary Failings though we cannot resolve against them 4. When we are not sorry after we have committed it nor beg pardon for it 5. When it is committed with observation A summary Repetition of this fourth Book HAving in the foregoing Chapters discoursed largely of the first cause of an innocent Involuntariness viz. Ignorance of our Duty or want of a general Knowledge I proceed now to the second viz. want of particular Animadvertence and Consideration of what we know which is Inconsiderateness And this is the second way of rendring our Transgressions pardonably involuntary which I proposed above namely when in any sinful action we do not bethink our selves and consider of its sinfulness It is not all knowledge of our Duty that renders every particular sin against it chosen and voluntary For a knowledge that is only general and at such time as the thing occurs to our thoughts and we are asked the Question will not do but as all our choice is of particular actions so must our knowledge be likewise Before we can be said to chuse a particular action we must see and know it particularly and if we act it without thinking we act it also without chusing seeing all choice is upon sight and knowledge of what is chosen But now this is the case in several of our Transgressions they slide from us without this actual application of our minds to them For we do not think and consider of the evil of them when we commit them and so their sinfulness being unseen it is withal unchosen They are of the number of our involuntary sins and such as implying nothing of our own will shall have nothing of Gods anger who will not punish but graciously bear with them And these slips stealing from us without our considering and thinking on them or adverting in the application of our minds to them are called by these several names which are all of the same signification viz. sins of inadvertency incogitancy and inconsideration Which because they are such as through the weakness of our Natures we are continually subject to and liable daily to incur are stiled in another word sins of daily incursion Now as for this second sort of sins our inconsiderate Transgressions they may steal from us involuntarily and innocently upon as many grounds as there may be innocent causes of inconsiderate actions And as for the unwill'd and therefore innocent causes of inconsideration they are reducible to these three 1. Suddenness and surprize of Opportunity 2. Weariness and 3. Discomposure and disturbance of our thinking powers wherewith we should consider 1. The first cause of inconsideration in our Actions whereupon we venture upon some sin without thinking or considering of it is the suddenness of the Opportunity and the surprize of Temptation It falls out unexpectedly and stays for us at such time as our minds are otherwise employ'd and so we act it without considering because it lyes ready and prepared for us just then when we have no leisure for thinking and consideration And the first beginnings of a sinful Passion whether of Anger of Envy c. and the unadvised slips of the Tongue in rash censuring in uncharitable speaking in indeliberate backbiting and the like generally enter this way For they come upon us in the throng of Conversation and opportunities are offered for them before we foresee them and so we spring out indeliberately to act and exert them And this inconsideration is such as we cannot avoid For we have no freedom of acting where we want a freedom of thinking seeing we cannot chuse without consideration But as for these inconsiderate slips they steal from us before we can bethink our selves and stay not for our consideration but run before it For our operative Powers when they are spurr'd on by any thing of an inward desire or of a remaining corrupt inclination and who as long as he lives here can be wholly free from it are ready of themselves to spring out into Action and Practice upon the first offer of Temptation and stand in need of reason and consideration not to raise and excite but to restrain and repress them So that upon the offer of a fit occasion we act many times amiss before we are aware and we cannot help it because we cannot deliberate and consider of it But as these slips of surprize are such as we cannot avoid so are they such withal wherefore God will not exact a severe account of us He will not punish but pity us for them and in great mercy dispense with them For they are necessarily incident to all men they have been incurr'd by his best servants but were never looked upon to be of that provoking nature as to put them out of his favour or to interrupt their state of salvation and acceptance Just Noah through his ignorance of the strength of Wine was surprized into one sin for he was drunken before he was aware or could discern what effects the fruits of his new Vineyard would have upon him Noah drank wine says Moses and was drunken Gen. 9.21 But this was perfectly a mixture of surprize and ignorance for his wits had left him before he was aware and before he ever knew that the Wine which he drunk would drive them from him For it was at his first planting of a Vineyard before he understood what measure of it would cause intoxication He began says the Text to be a Husbandman and he planted a Vineyard and he drank of the wine of his new Vineyard and was drunken v. 20 21. The great Apostle Paul himself was guilty of one sudden slip towards Ananias the High Priest who whilst his mind was intent upon his Speech which he was