with but not of others for that which gets an allowance for the breach of one would procure a favourable sentence for the like violation of all the rest That then which makes the difference of punishable and unpunishable in mens failings is not to be sought for in Christs Laws seeing the punishment of every one of them is the same but in their own actions For some sins shall be born with not for that they are against a Law whereto no penalty is annexed there being none such in all Christs Gospel but for that they are such imperfect actions as the punishing Law which they are against will not take hold of Every Law of Christ threatens death but these allowed offences are not of the number of those actions which are threatned by it For we must take notice that those works of ours whereon Christ's Laws lay restraint and whereto they as all other just Laws in the World threaten punishment are our voluntary and chosen actions They bind us up in all those performances which are placed in our own free power and come from the choice of our own will and they denounce woes to us if in them we go beyond those bounds which they have set us So that in all our free and chosen actions we must take care to do what the Law requires and to keep back from what it forbids and we are sure to suffer if we neglect it For it is among these actions of choice where the Law reigns on which it lays Commands and whereto it threatens punishment If we chuse and do what is commanded then have we a right to the promised reward and if we chuse to do what is forbidden then are we guilty and obnoxious to the punishment denounced But as for other actions which flow not from our own choice of which sort are all our pardonable and allow'd infirmities they fall not under the strict force of the Law either in the guidance of its Command or in the sting of its punishment so that at the last Day it will not be judged to have been either broken or kept by them That I may fully clear up this whereupon so much of that which I shall say under this Head depends I will show concerning it these two things 1. That all things whatsoever which are either good or evil and a fit matter of reward or punishment are made such by a Law 2. That all our actions are not governed by God's Laws so as to be strictly and directly either enjoined or prohibited punished or rewarded by them but only those among them which are voluntary and chosen 1. I say All things whatsoever which are either good or evil rewardable or punishable are made so by some Law For good and evil vertue and vice obedience and sin which are only so many different Names for the same thing have all relation to a Commandment Vertue and obedience is the performance as vice and sin is the transgression of it Where there is no Law saith the Apostle there is no transgression Rom. 4.15 And no man sins as saith another Apostle but he that transgresseth the Law for sin is the transgression of the Law 1 John 3.4 And as Law is the measure of sin and Duty so is it likewise of reward and punishment For God never afflicts and torments the Children of men out of the inclination of his Nature but only out of the necessity of Government He is the Ruler of the World and the Lord of men and therefore he must maintain his own Laws and punish the evil Doers But no man is ever punished without an offence and he must do evil before he suffer it He undergoes nothing but that which is his own choice for he chose rather to incurr the penalty than to perform the Commandment He feels no more than the Law denounced for God the Judg executes nothing but what the Law threatens he punishes according to it but not without it The Law doth always make a penalty due to an Offender before he either can or doth exact it Thus are all things which are either good or evil rewardable or punishable made such by a Law But then 2. As for our actions all of them are not governed by God's Law so as to be strictly either enjoined or prohibited punished or rewarded by them but only those among them which are voluntary and chosen And this being a a Point whereof I shall make so much use in all that follows I will spend the more time in clearing of it up as I hope beyond all question by showing the truth of it 1. From the clear reason of the thing it self 2. From the plain declarations of the Scripture concerning it 1. I say That only our voluntary and chosen actions are under the restraint of Laws and either enjoined or prohibited punished or rewarded by them is plain from the great and convincing reason of the thing it self For let us consider First The very nature of a Law and we shall find that in all those actions whereon it is imposed it supposes them who exert them to have a power of choice and a free liberty of making them either a piece of service to it or a transgression of it For all Law is a Bond or a Tye which lays restraint upon us and induces Obligation So that in all those actions whereupon the restraint is laid we are necessarily supposed to be free before it comes For it is an utter absurdity to bind any thing by a Law which is before necessitated by its very Nature Who would ever be so vain and foolish as to give a Law to a Stone that it should not speak or to a Tree that it should not walk or to the Fire that it should not chill and freeze him There can be no place for nor need of an Obligation where there is no choice and liberty For it is only where things have a power to act on both sides that there is room for a Law to oblige and tye them up to one And for this reason it is that among all that variety of Creatures which inhabit in this lower World men alone are capable of Laws because no Creature besides is endowed with freedom of will and liberty of choice which is to be bound up and restrained by them Nay even in men themselves those actions and tempers which are not subject to their own choice nor under the power of their own wills are no fit matter of a Law nor fall under the force of a Commandment For who can ever be so unreasonable and void of all sence as to command a man that he should not be born rich or poor base or noble that he should not be sick and weak hungry and thirsty sleepy or weary No since none of these instances is in his own choice or under the free disposal of his own will in none of them is he capable of an Obligation Seeing then that it is of the nature
our own making seeing it was at our own choice whether ever we should have come under it although when once we are subject to it it be no longer at our liberty whether or no we shall be acted by it And since all these sins which are thus indeliberate in themselves were yet so freely chosen and deliberated in their causes they are all imputable to us and fit to be charged upon us They were chosen indirectly and interpretatively in the choice of that cause which made them all afterwards to be almost if not wholly necessary For either we did deliberate or which is all one we had time enough to have deliberated as we ought before we chose our own necessity So that these sinfull actions which are unchosen and unconsidered in themselves are yet imputable to us and fit to be charged upon us as our own because we chose them by an indirect and interpretative volition As therefore there are some sins which are expresly will'd in the particulars by an express choice and deliberation so likewise are there several others which are expresly and deliberately willed only in their cause but in their own particulars are not chosen otherwise than indirectly and by interpretation And both these together take up the compass of our wilfull and chosen sins For either we expresly think and deliberately consider of the sinfull action when we commit it or we expresly and deliberately thought upon that cause when we chose it which makes us now to sin without thinking and deliberation And by all this it appears now at length how considerateness and deliberation is implyed in every wilfull sin For the sinfull action is seen and considered or it is our faults if it be not since we had both time and powers for such consideration either in it self or in its cause and being it is thus a matter of our consideration it is likewise a matter of our choice and a wilfull action And thus having shewn what sinfull actions are voluntary and chosen I proceed now to shew 2. That none of them is consistent with a state of grace but deadly and damning As for our wilfull sins they are all as we have seen of a most heinous nature being indeed nothing less than a contempt of Gods Authority a sinning presumptuously and with a high hand They are a plain disavowing of Gods will and renouncing of his Soveraignty they are acted in a way of defiance and are not the unavoidable slips of an honest and well-meaning servant but the high affronts of an open rebel So that no favourite or child of God can ever be guilty of them or he must cease to continue such if he be Because they interrupt all favour and friendship and put God and him into a state of hostility and defiance seeing they are nothing less than a renouncing of his Authority at least in that instance and a casting off his Law And this lawlesness or rejecting of the Law is that very word whereby S t John describes sin For sin sayes he is the transgression as we render it but more fully it should be the renouncing of the Law 1 Joh. 3.4 In which sense of sin for a wilfull and rebellious one he tells us that whosoever abides in God sins not vers 6 being indeed no longer a child of God if he do but of the Devil vers 8. They deprive us of all the benefits of Christs sacrifice so long as we continue in them and of all the blessings purchased for us by his death This was their effect under the Law of Moses and it is so much rather under the Gospel of Christ. For the sentence which that Law pronounced upon all presumptuous and wilfull offenders was death without mercy The soul that doth ought presumptuously the same by his contemptuous sin reproacheth the Lord and that soul shall be cut off from among his people Numb 15.30 If ever it could be proved against him by that dispensation there was no hope for him For he that despised or contemptuously transgressed Moses's Law died without mercy saith the Apostle being convicted under the testimony of two or three witnesses Hebr. 10.28 For even those very sins for which under the Law God had appointed an attonement were no longer to be attoned for than they were committed involuntarily and through ignorance In the fourth Chapter of Leviticus we are told that as for those sins which are committed against any of those Commandments which concerned things not to be done if they were acted involuntarily and unwillingly they should be allowed the benefit of an expiation and the sacrifices for that purpose are there prescribed But if they were acted wilfully and advisedly then had they no right to the expiation there promised nor would any sacrifices be accepted for them but that punishment must unavoidably be undergone which in the Law was threatned to them For to name no more this we are plainly told of two instances viz. the contemptuous making of perfume and eating of blood after both had been forbidden Whosoever shall contemptuously make any perfume like to that which was commanded to be made vers 35. to smell thereto that soul shall not be expiated by sacrifice but cut off from his people Exod. 30.38 And whatsoever man there be that eateth any manner of blood viz. willingly and wilfully the ignorant and involuntary transgressions of this and the like prohibitions being attoneable Lev. 4. I will even set my face against that soul and will cut him off from among his people Levit. 17.10 Thus severe was the sentence and thus unavoidable was the penalty of all wilfull sins under the Law of Moses And by how much the ministration of Christ is nobler than the ministration of Moses was by so much shall the punishment of all wilfull and contemptuous sins against the Law of Christ be more severe than it was for those against the Law of Moses And this is the Apostles own argument For if that word of the Law threatning death which was spoken unto Moses on Mount Sinai by the mediation only of Angels was stedfast and every transgression of it received the just recompence of that death which it threatned such persons dying without mercy How shall we Christians hope to escape it if we wilfully neglect and contemn those Laws which are published to us by so great a means of salvation as the Gospel is which was at first spoken to us not by Angels but by the Lord Jesus Christ himself who is far above all Angels being indeed the Son of God himself Hebr. 2.2 3. Surely as the Apostle argues in another place if he who despised even Moses's Law died without mercy for that contempt we ought to think with our selves not of how much less but of how much sorer punishment he shall be judged worthy who by wilfull sinning and despising of his Laws doth in a manner tread under foot not Moses but the Son of God
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
hath proved to us abundantly that that Religion of his which we now renounce is a most certain truth of God All these marks are evidently attributed to that sin which the Apostle here speaks of and then what can any man think it to be less than an absolute Apostasie from the whole Religion and an utter abrenunciation of all the Laws of Christ Now whosoever wilfully falls under this I confess he is in a very deplorable and most desperate case Because for him as saith the Apostle there remains no more benefit from Christs Propitiation or Sacrifice for sin He has affronted that so enormously that God will never suffer him to be the better by it And this to a Jew ought to be no uncouth or surprizing Doctrine seeing he who thus renounced Moses could have no Sacrifice to atone for him For no propitiation was allowed for him who wilfully rejected any one particular Command of Moses but least of all if he had apostatized from the whole Law He that despised even any one particular threatning death in Moses's Law died without mercy under two or three Witnesses But now this Covenant and Law of Moses was sealed only in the blood of Bulls and Goats whereas this Covenant and Law of Christ which these men renounce that I am speaking of was confirmed in his own blood Moses the Authour of that Law was but a Servant whereas Christ the Authour of this was a Son If then the revolting from Moses was so unpardonable that it inevitably incurred death and put a man out of all hopes of propitiation and benefit of Sacrifice of how much sorer punishment as he most rationally argues must all Apostates from Christ be accounted worthy who by their falling away from his Religion tread under foot the Son of God himself a Person infinitely above Moses and count the blood not of Bulls and Goats but of the Christ of God wherewith this Covenant was sealed to be an unholy thing They are indeed irrevocably plunged in death and their apostatizing or drawing back from that Religion which upon so good evidence they had before acknowledged is to their own ruine and destruction ver 38. But although this total apostasie and abrenunciation of Christianity it self when 't is wilfully committed be thus remediless and desperate a sin yet is that nothing to the breach of any particular Law or to the wilful transgressions of any baptized man so long as he still continues Christian. For all his sins of one sort or other have the salvo of repentance provided for them and if he doth but once reform and amend them he shall not be condemned for them And thus having shewed that this place in the tenth Chapter to the Hebrews makes nothing against the pardonableness of any Christian mans sin upon repentance but only against the forgiveness of those who have apostatized from Christ and become unchristian I proceed now 2. To consider that other place in the sixth Chapter of the same Epistle where the Apostles words are these Therefore leaving the Principles of the Doctrine of Christ wherein we are wont to catechize even Children and Novices let us go on unto perfection and to treat of such things as are fit for grown men not laying again for such as are apostatized from it the first Foundations of the Christian Doctrine as are the Doctrine of repentance from dead works and of faith towards God of the Doctrine of Baptisms and of laying on of hands and of resurrection of the dead and of eternal Judgment And this will we do if God permit without returning as I say to prove again the foundations of the Faith to them who are fallen from it which indeed were a very vain and fruitless undertaking For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened or baptized and have tasted of the heavenly gift and were made Partakers of the Holy Ghost and have tasted of the good word of God and of the powers of Christs Kingdom or the World to come if after all this they shall wilfully fall away from this Faith it is impossible for them I say to be recovered or for us by any endeavours of ours to renew them again unto the Grace and Covenant of repentance because God is irreconcileably provoked by this revolt seeing thereby they crucifie to themselves the Son of God afresh and put him once again to an open shame Here indeed the Case is as desperate as it was before and 't is no wonder why it should because the sin is the very same For it is nothing less than an universal backsliding an apostasie both in faith and manners a renouncing of all the Religion and Laws of Christ whereof all these severe things are spoken As for the word which is here put to note this falling away it signifies for the most part a fall which admits of a rise again and is recoverable but sometimes it denotes a fall that is desperate and beyond all hopes of remedy Thus the Apostle speaking of the incredulous Jews to whom the Religion of Christ was a stumbling block and a rock of offence distinguishes betwixt these two stumbling and falling making the latter to be much more dangerous than the former and denying it when he affirms the other Have they stumbled says he that they should fall mortally and irrecoverably God forbid Rom. 11.11 And thus it signifies in this place For the falling away here spoken of is nothing less than a revolting from all Christ's Laws and Doctrines and an apostatizing from his whole Religion Which appears from several things that are here said of it some whereof they are said to fall from and others are said to be implied in their falling It appears I say from some things which they are said to apostatize or fall from They fall away from their Baptism which is expressed by the word enlightened the common name in the antient Church to signifie the baptized from the remission of sins the preaching of the Word and the administration of the Sacraments which are such priviledges and gifts of God as are afforded to persons baptized from the hopes of Heaven and all the promises and good word of God from the gift of tongues and other effects of the Holy Ghost whereof upon the imposition of the Apostles hands they had been made Partakers and from the power of working miracles that were so conspicuous under the appearance of Christ those times of Messiah which the Jews were wont to call the Age or world to come If those says the Apostle who were once baptized or enlightned and have tasted of the heavenly gift and were made partakers of the holy Ghost and have tasted of the good word or promise of God and the powers of the world to come if they shall fall away or apostatize from all these it is impossible to renew them v. 4 5 6. This as is evident is the Apostasie which is
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 pursuit of another the great errour upon this score iâ— in the case of zeal Fifthly The clashing of Laws with opinions or prejudices 461 CHAP. VI. Of Prejudice The Contents The nature of prejudice It a cause of ignorance of our Duty The difference betwixt things being proposed to a free and empty and to a prejudiced or prepossessed mind An evident proposal sufficient to make a free mind understand its Duty but besides it a confutation of its repugnant prejudice is necessary to a mind that is prepossessed An account of several Opinions which make men ignorant of several instances of Duty One prejudice that nothing is lawful in Gods Worship but what is authorized by an express command or example of Scripture the acts of sin that are justified by this prejudice Another that all private men are publick Protectors of Religion and the Christian Faith the acts of sin justified by this Opinions Other Opinions cause a sinful neglect of the Sacraments These are incident to some honest and obedient hearts An account of other prejudices as that Christ is a Temporal King the acts of disobedience authorized by this Opinion That a good end will justifie an evil action the acts of sin upon this perswasion That Dominion is founded in Grace the disobedient acts avowed by this Principle These are more disobedient and damning The case stated what prejudices are consistent with and what destroy salvation Some prejudices get into mens minds not through a disobedient heart but through weakness of understanding and fallibility of the means of knowledge These are consistent with a state of salvation An instance of this in the prejudice of the Apostles about preaching of the Gospel to all Nations Other prejudices get into mens minds through damning lusts or sins A brief account of the influence of mens lusts and vices upon their Opinions This is illustrated in the Gnosticks They were famous for covetousness and worldly compliances and for impure lusts and excess in bodily pleasures The effect of these in producing agreeable Opinions Another of their vices was a turbulent and seditious humour Their Opinion was answerable A further illustration of it from the Pharisees An account of their vices and the influence which they had in begetting vile perswasions This influence of mens lust upon their judgments proved from the Scriptures The damnableness of such prejudices as enter this way Certain marks whereby to judge when prejudices proceed from unmortified lusts As first If the sin whereto the prejudice serves is unmortified in them Secondly If it lye so near to the prejudice that we could not but see that it ministred to it when we embraced it Thirdly Though it lye more remote if we still adhere to it when we plainly see that some unquestionable and notorious Laws are evacuated or infringed by it A Rule to prevent disobedient prejudices viz. Let Laws be the Rule whereby to judge of truth in opinions not opinions the Rule whereby to measure the Obligation of Laws Some Reasons of this viz. Because Laws are more plain and certain but opinions are more difficult and dubious Obedience to Laws is the end of revealed truth and so fit to measure it not to be measured by it 480 CHAP. VII A sixth cause of ignorance of the present actions being comprehended under a known Law And of the excusableness of our transgressions upon both these sorts of ignorance The Contents All the forementioned causes of ignorance of our present actions being included in the known Law are such to knowing and learned men Besides them the difficult and obscure nature of several sins is a general cause of it to the rude and unlearned Sins upon this ignorance as well as upon ignorance of the Law it self unchosen and so consistent with a state of Grace and Salvation Where there is something of choice in it they extenuate the sin and abate the punishment though they do not wholly excuse it The excuse for these actions is only whilst we are plainly ignorant they are damning when we are enlightened so far as to doubt of them but pardonable whilst we are in darkness or errour This excuse is for both the modes of ignorance 1. Forgetfulness 2. Errour All this pardon hitherto discoursed of upon the account of ignorance of either sort is no further than the ignorance it self is involuntary The wilfulness of some mens ignorance The several steps in voluntary ignorance The causes of it Two things required to render ignorance involuntary 1. An honest heart 2. An honest industry What measures necessary to the acceptance of this industry Gods candor in judging of its sufficiency This Discourse upon this first cause of an innocent involuntariness viz. ignorance summed up 522 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
in reprehending and exposing the faults of others is most usual among our selves Nothing being more common in our ordinary Discourse than when we would be sharp in reproving and inveighing against any thing by a most courteous Fiction to put it in our own Case and to suppose that we our selves should do this or that Whenas in the mean time we are no further concerned in it than to be able under this disguise with more success and less offence to disparage and chastise it And this way of transferring odious things to our selves when we would describe and reprove them which is so usual with all the world and with S t Paul in other Cases is particularly used by him in his Character of the ineffective Striver in this seventh Chapter of the Epistle to the Romans He speaks not those things above recited of willing but not performing c. in his own person or in the person of any regenerated man as will plainly appear from this reason Because in that Chapter such things are said of the person there spoken of as can by no means agree to S t Paul or to any regenerate person so that the Apostle must be made to falsifie if he should be understood to speak so of them Such things I say are there spoken as can by no means agree to S t Paul himself For we read Of the person there spoken of That he lived and was alive without the Law of the ten Commandments once ver 7.9 That the Law of his members wars against the Law of his mind and brings him into captivity to the Law of sin which is seated and rules in his members ver 23. That how to do or perform what is good he finds not ver 18. That sin works in him all manner of lust or concupiscence ver 8. That he is captivated and conquered and as a vanquished Slave sold under sin ver 14.23 That he sinned against his Conscience For what I do says he in my practice that I allow not in my mind or Conscience but what I hate and disapprove that I do ver 15.19 That he is in a state of death For sin revived and he died vers 9. and by deceiving him it had slain him v. 11. The good law he had found to be unto him the occasion of death by his falling into that disobedience whereto it had threatned it vers 10. For the motions of sin which were not and could not be restrained by the law wrought in his members to bring forth damning sins or fruit unto death vers 5. Of Saint Paul himself elsewhere That he was both born and bred up under the Law being circumcised the eighth Day of the Stock of Israel an Hebrew of the Hebrews or an Hebrew both by his Fathers and his Mothers side Phil. 3.5 That he keeps under his Body and is not led captive by it but on the contrary brings it into subjection and captivity 1 Cor. 9.27 That he can do all things which are good through Christ that strengthens him Phil. 4.13 That it works none but that instead of lusting and coveting worldly things the world is crucified to him and he unto the world Gal. 6.14 That he has fought a good fight against it 2 Tim. 4.7 And that by the Grace of God through Christ he is delivered from it Rom. 7.25 That he knew or was conscious of nothing by himself 1 Cor. 4.4 but that he trusted he had a good Conscience and that in all things being willing to live honestly Heb. 13.18 Acts 23.1 For this had all along been his care he hahaving made it his business and exercised himself to have not now and then but alwayes a conscience void of offence or not wounded and smitten with the sense of any offences either towards God or men Acts 24.16 That the law of the spirit of life hath made him free from the law of sin and death Rom. 8.2 That he has finished his course to his advantage so as there is laid up for him not a painfull death as the punishment of his disobedience but a Crown of Glory as a reward of his righteousness which the righteous judge will give him at the last day 2 Tim. 4.8 If therefore we will believe S t Paul and let those accounts which he gives of himself explain his own meaning he cannot be that very person who is there spoken of For they are persons altogether of a different stamp and a contrary character they are as opposite as a servant of God and a slave of sin as a spiritual and a carnal man as one whose conscience approves and another whose conscience condemns him as a child of God and a child of darkness as an heir of Heaven and a subject of Hell So that he cannot speak of himself in that seventh Chapter and in the other places too because then he would appear inconsistent with himself and be found false in his own story And therefore as sure as S t Paul is true he sayes all that is spoken there in an inoffensive disguise not intending to give a character of his own person but to personate another man Nay I add further that the person whom he represents in that Chapter is not only another from himself but also one of a quite opposite and contrary character He is not only no Apostle but even no good Christian or regenerate man For such things are there said of him as if S t Paul and the other Apostles say true are inconsistent with a regenerate state and destructive of salvation As will plainly appear by considering those things which are said Of the person described there That with his flesh or fleshly members he obeys the law of sin vers 25. And this he is forced to do and cannot help it For the law of his members wars against the law of his mind and brings him into captivity to the law of sin and death ver 23. He is as absolutely enslaved to it as ever any servant was to his master who was sold in the market For says he I am carnal and sold under sin vers 14. That sin works or accomplishes and brings on to outward act and perfection in him all manner of concupiscence vers 8. For taking occasion by the nakedness of the tenth Commandment whereto no punishment was expresly threatned it deceived him into the customary commission of it by that wile and thereby slew him vers 11. That the law he found to be unto death in discerning himself to be fallen under the curse and condemnation of it vers 10. For the motions of sin which were incouraged and emboldened by means of the fancied impunity of the law wrought in his members which are the seat of their Empire so far as to bring forth damning sins or fruit unto death vers 5. That in his flesh dwells no good thing vers 18. For sin dwells and inhabits in him vers 17. and that so as to rule and govern
doth evil he doth not allow but disapproves of it vers 15. but yet his practice is enslaved for to perform what is good he finds not vers 18. what in his mind he hates that he doth vers 15. the law in his members bringing him into captivity to the law of sin so that with his flesh or in his bodily actions he obeys the law of sin still vers 23 25. He strives something indeed but not enough he is not far from the kingdom of heaven but as yet he is short of it He is a sinner of the middle rate such as I have described in the last Chapter For he is not as yet either quite hardned in sin or perfect in goodness he is offering to go off from sin but still it lays hold of him and keeps him under he is in the rank of unwilling sinners but he is a lost sinner still He is something above the forelorn condition of meer Nature and something below the more perfect institution of Christ he is in a middle state between both under the discipline and assistance of the Jewish Law or the Religion of Moses And that this is the person there characterized will appear not only from the things themselves that are said of him and which I have already noted viz. his Conscience being awaken'd but his practice still enslaved which is the very state of midling sinners but also from the whole order and design of that seventh Chapter For the business which the Apostle drives at in the sixth seventh and eighth Chapters to go no farther of that Epistle as any man that attentively peruses them may plainly see is this viz. To shew the Jews at Rome a double change which they had come under by their becoming Christians One was in their subjection and the other in the consequent of that their service and obedience One change he tells them is in their subjection for now they are not subject to and under the law of Moses but under the Grace and Gospel of Christ chap. 6. vers 14 15. And upon that change in their subjection there is likewise another change in their service For now they serve not sin as they did formerly but they serve and obey God chap. 6. vers 15 16 17 18 and chap. 7. vers 4 5 6. And because this seems to be a great reflexion upon the Law of Moses as if it encouraged them in their sins and helped to make them sinners this latter part viz. their being wrought into this change of service by changeing their Master and Religion he explains more fully For to take off all reproach from the Law under which he had affirmed they served sin he shews that the reason why they sinned under it was not the sinfulness of the Law it self for it is holy and commands holiness chap. 7. vers 12. but the power of their own sinfull lusts which were too strong to be corrected and restrained by those aids which it offer'd towards it vers 11 13 23. In the management and evident proof whereof he shews two things One is the goodness and innocence of the Law because so far as they were influenced by it they were for that which is good For their mind and Conscience wherein the Law was seated did approve of it and their heart desired it chap. 7. ver 15 16 18 22. The other is the weakness and inability of that Grace which was offered in the Law to work mens reformation and to make this change in their service and obedience For notwithstanding it they served and obeyed sin still chap. 7. ver 15 19 21 23 25. Wherein yet to be more particular he shows further that those good effects which the Law was able to work in them were only in their mind and conscience chap. 7. ver 15 18 22 23. But that still the Law in the Members proved all the while too strong for it and kept possession of their life and practice ver 15 17 18 21 23 25. But then as for that change in their service which the Law of Moses had not strength enough to work in them he shows that the Gospel and Grace of Christ has wrought it effectually For now since they became subject to him they had thrown off the service of sin which the Law could not enable them to get quit of and had begun to serve and obey him chap. 7. ver 25. and ch 8. v. 1 2 3 4 c. This is the Argument which the Apostle pursues and the way wherein he manages it as every man will perceive who will be at the pains to peruse those three Chapters as I have pointed them out to him So that as for all the ineffective striving and sinning with regret which is so often mentioned in the seventh Chapter it belongs not to the Apostle himself nor to any other regenerate Christian but only to a midling Sinner among the Jews who is changed something by Moses's Law but not enough and who is in a way to become a Child of Grace although for the present he be a Son of Death and Hell This I say will appear to be the person whom S t Paul sets forth in that so much mistaken Chapter to any man who shall fairly consider those three Chapters observing that help for the understanding of them which I have already offered But because this is a matter of highest importance and I would not seem to shun any pains which may in probability make for the satisfaction of any though but one single man concerning this necessity of an active obedience I will here set down what I verily take to be the sense of those three Chapters or so much at least of the sixth and eighth as makes for the understanding of the seventh in this ensuing Paraphrase Which I hope will not be altogether unuseful for common Readers because they will thereby see what as I take it is the Apostles meaning in full and at length here whenas they read it more contracted and involved in their Bibles And to take our rise from thence that being sufficient for our present purpose at the fourteenth Verse of the sixth Chapter thus the Apostle discourses Hereafter now you are not in subjection under the Law of Moses but under the Grace and Gospel of Christ. But what then Shall we serve sin because we are not under the Law which condemns though it cannot conquer it but under Grace which pardons it God forbid that ever any of us who are come now under the Gospel which proffers pardon for sins past should think of refusing it all service for the time to come and continue still to serve and obey sin as much or more than we did under the weak aids of the Law before it came That we should continue to serve by continuing to obey it I say For Know you not this That to whom you yield your selves servants to obey his servants you are to whom you obey So
Law was the cause of our Sin and Death this we see is quite taken off and doth not follow at all For although we sinn'd yea and died too under the Law yet was not the Law the cause of these but the strength of our own Lusts. But the Law is holy still and so no cause of sin and the Commandment forbidding sin and promising Life to the obedient is not only holy and just but over and above that good too and so no cause of death and suffering But upon this you will say how was it then that that which is so good in it self as you say the Law is should be made the cause of the greatest evil even of Death unto me Could it prove so to me if it were not so in it self And to this I answer with abhorrence God forbid that I should say the Law is Death No this Death as I have told you is not the effect of the Law for it was ordained to procure Life for me But it was Sin I say again that was too strong for the Law which could only forbid but was not able by all its aids to restrain it this Sin it was that it might appear Sin indeed that went on working transgression unto Death in me by advantage taken over that Law which is good although not strong enough to overpower the setled habits of evil And by this conquest of Sin over the good Law which was set up as a bar against it and should have destroy'd it it appears to be most mischievous For this comes of it that Sin by proving too hard for the Commandment might by such prevailing over all that is set against it be extremely heightned and aggravated and become exceeding sinfull And that the Law should thus be worsted by Sin is no wonder For we know that although the Law which commands is spiritual to shew and suggest better things yet I who am to obey in that state of sensuality and sin wherein the Law finds me and out of which it is too weak to rescue me am carnal so as to serve sin notwithstanding it Which I am to such a degree as if I were sold under sin and my actions were as much at its command as the actions of a slave bought with money are at the command of his master So that although the Law shews me that which is good and commands me to perform it yet cannot I obey it in regard I am under anothers power under the beck of sin And in very deed to speak yet more particularly to this business the good Law can and doth produce good effects in the mind and conscience which is the throne wherein it is seated but still the law of sin which is seated in the members or executive powers prevails over it and engrosseth all our actions So that the utmost that it can ordinarily do with us is to make us in our mind to disapprove sin but when it hath done that it cannot hinder us in our lives from practising it And of this the complaints of those who are subject to it are a sufficient proof For who is there among them for the most part that is not ready to confess and cry out thus that which through the prevailing power of my lusts I do in my practice that through the power of the Law I allow not in my mind and conscience for what being excited by the Law I would do that being hindred by sin do I not but what from the Laws prohibiting in my mind I hate and disapprove that from my own lusts forcing and overpowering me in my actions still do I. And this by the way as it is an evident argument of the weakness and inability of the Law to restrain sin is also a clear testimony to the holiness and goodness of the Law it self which shews plainly that it is no favourer or author of Sin as was objected vers 7. Because if even then when I do sin I do not approve of it but in doing so I do what I would not I thereby consent in my own conscience unto the Law and acknowledge by my approving what it commands that it is good Yea I shew moreover that all that which it produces and effects in me is good also For even when I do sin sinning thus against my conscience the sin cannot in any wise be charged upon my conscience where the Law reigns so as that the Law in my mind may be stiled the cause of sin as it is vers 7. but only upon the power of my habitual sin and fleshly lusts that reign in my members which are so strong as that the law of my mind cannot restrain them And now then in this state of sinning thus with regret and against my conscience even when I do sin it is no more I or my mind and conscience that is governed by the Law and which may be called my self that do it seeing it disapproves it but it is sin that dwells in me and reigns in my members It must not be charged upon the Law in my mind I say but upon this inhabiting Sin which rules in my members For I know and confess freely that in that other part of me that is to say in my flesh and members which for all the Law rules in my mind doth yet keep possession of my practice dwells no good thing Nay on the contrary there dwells so much evil as proves too strong for the good Law restraining all its effect to the approbation of my mind but not suffering it to influence my practice Which we as I said who are subject to the Law find by sad experience For almost every one of us feels and must confess this that to will upon the account of the Law is present with me but then how to perform that which is good after I have will'd it that I find not For after the Law has done all that it can upon me this is still true that the good that being instructed by the Law I would do that being hindred by the prevalence of my lusts I do not but as for the evil which because of the prohibition of the Law I would not do that being over-master'd by my lusts I do But now all this while as I said if what my lusts make me practise through the Law in my mind I do not approve but in doing it I do that which I would not then 't is clear that my sinning cannot be charged upon the Law as it is vers 7. because it hinders it as far as it can It cannot I say be attributed to that for it is no longer I or my mind and conscience that do it but to the power of habitual Sin which the good Law cannot conquer to that sin which dwells and rules in me i. e. in my bodily members And therefore to summ up all I find another Law in my members opposite to the Law of God in
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
enable men to do what it commanded is true still For the Law did not promise it although several both before and under the Law enjoyed it but they who had the benefit of it received it not from the Covenant of the Law but from the Covenant of Grace and the Gospel which has been more or less on foot through all times ever since the World began And in this Covenant since Christ has given us the last Edition and perfection of it both these great defects of the Mosaick Law which rendered it so unable to work this intire reformation and obedience are fully supplied For in every Page of Christ's Gospel what is so legible as the promise of eternal life The joys of Heaven are as much insisted on by Christ as the delights of Canaan were by Moses And then as for the other promise viz. that of the Spirit it is now as plainly revealed as words can make it For we need not to guess at it by signs or to presume it from probabilities or to believe it upon Syllogism and consequence but Christ has spoke out so as to be understood by every capacity God will give the holy Spirit to them that ask him Luke 11.13 Now because the Law of Moses laboured under these two great defects which are happily supplied by the Gospel of Christ by reason whereof it was very unable to effect that reformation of the World which was necessary therefore doth the Apostle in several places speak very meanly of it as of a weak and ineffective Instrument He affirms plainly and proves also That it neither could nor did make men throughly good and that therefore God was forced in the fulness of time to make known and in Christ's death to establish a better If there had been a Law given by Moses which could have given life then saith he verily righteousness should not have needed to be sought by another Covenant but have been by the Law But this we see it could not for the Scripture hath concluded all those who lived under it to be still under the dominion of sin that so since the Law of Moses could not do it the promise of eternal life of the Spirit and of other things which we have by the faith of Jesus Christ might be given to work and effect it to those that believe Gal. 3.21 22. Something indeed the Law did towards it for it armed their consciences against sin so that they could not take their full swing and transgress without all fear and remorse And this was some restraint and kept them from being so ill by far as otherwise they would have been although it was not able to make them so good as they should And to lay this hank upon sin and to check it in some measure till such time as the Gospel should be more clearly revealed to subdue it perfectly was that very end for which the Law was at first given and whereto so long as it was in force it served Wherefore saith he serveth the Law of Moses It was added to the rude draught of the Gospel-Covenant made with Abraham because of the transgressions of men which grew very high that it might in some degree restrain them till Jesus Christ the seed of Abraham should come to whom as to the head and in behalf of his Church the promise of such Grace as would restrain it fully was made And to fit it the more for imprinting an awe upon peoples Consciences whereby it might lay this restraint upon sin it was ordained at the first giving of it by terrible fire and thundrings made by the Angels which were so dreadful that the people desired of God that those formidable Angels might be no more employed in delivering it to them but that it might be put into the hands of another Mediator viz. Moses who was a man like unto themselves Gal. 3.19 But although this restraint upon Sin were something yet was it far from sufficient so that still it is true of the Law of Moses that notwithstanding it could begin yet it could finish and make nothing perfect but that it was the bringing in of a better hope than was warranted by the Law which should do that Heb. 7.19 And as for this imperfection and faultiness which the Apostle imputes to the first Covenant or Law of Moses in these and other places it is nothing more as he observes than God himself has charged upon it when he speaks of establishing a better instead of it For if the first Covenant by Moses had been faultless and void of imperfection then should no place have been sought for the introduction of the second which it is plain there was For finding fault with them for their breach of the first Covenant he saith in Jer. 31.31 the dayes come when I will make a New Covenant with the house of Israel such as shall make me to be for ever unto them a God and enable them to be unto me an obedient People Heb. 8.7 8 9 10. Now this Inability of the Law of Moses to work a compleat conquest over sin and a thorow reformation which the Apostle affirms so clearly in these other places he sets out more largely and particularly in that seventh Chapter to the Romans For from the beginning of this Discourse which I have taken at the 14 th Verse of the 6 th Chapter to the end of it at the 5 th vers of the 8 th this weakness and inability of the Law is that still which is every where endeavour'd to be made out and which returns upon us as the conclusion and inference from every argument Sin must not have dominion over you saith he because you are not under the Law where is the place of its reigning but under the Grace of Christ at the 14. verse of the 6 th Chapter And in the 7 th it is taken notice of at every turn When you were in the flesh or under the Law which from its consisting so much of Carnal Ordinances and giving the flesh so much advantage is called flesh Galat. 3.3 the motions of sin which were encouraged by the weakness of the Law brought forth fruit unto death but now being delivered from the weak Law you serve in newness of spirit not as you did then in the oldness of the letter vers 5 6. Sin taking occasion or advantage over the weak Commandment wrought in me all manner of concupiscence vers 8. When the weak Commandment came sin revived and I died vers 9. Sin taking occasion or advantage by the Commandment slew me vers 11. by which prevailing over the Commandment it appears to be exceeding sinfull vers 13. And at the end of the discourse at the 8 th Chapter we are told again of the Law of Moses being weak through the conquering power of the flesh which made it necessary for God to send his own Son with a better Law which was strong enough to rescue us not of the dominion of
suffer under it he cannot be my disciple Luk. 14.27 This God peremptorily and indispensably exacts of us and there is all the reason in the world why he should For he will infinitely recompence in the next world either the want or loss of all those things which for his sake we are content to be without in this Heaven and eternal life will be an abundant and incomparably surpassing compensation all the wants and sufferings of this present time being as S t Paul sayes utterly unworthy to be compared with that Glory which shall then be revealed in us Rom. 8.18 Let no man therefore disobey Gods Laws for the love of the world for the supplying of his wants and the satisfaction of his appetites and yet for all that perswade himself that God will own him and connive at his disobedience For in doing so he plainly renounces God and sets the World above him he makes his Duty truckle to his Interest he slights obedience and submits to a temptation He does the work of sin for the interest which tempts to it and that will certainly bring upon him that death which God has established for the wages of it Thirdly A third pretence whereby men justifie to their own souls the indulged transgression of several Laws whilst they obey in others is because those transgressions wherein they allow themselves are only such as are sins of temper and complexion age or way of life Sometimes mens place and way of life is a continual temptation to some particular sin and if they may but have leave to indulge that they will abandon every other The Courtier takes himself obliged by the fashion of his place to lies and dissimulation ostentation and vanity to sinfull compliances and faithless engagements to promise all but to perform nothing The Merchant in pursute of his gain serves the end of his trade by fraud and dishonesty He accounts it a piece of his Art to over-reach to defraud customes to vend false wares and set exacting prices The Lawyer thinks it a part of his profession to encourage strife and foment difference the malice and revenge the wrath and bitterness the slanders and evil-speakings the strife and contentions which are other mens sins are his livelihood These sins being ever before them are alwayes a snare to them for they are continually importuned by them and it must be a toilsome pains and an uninterrupted watchfulness which can preserve them from being either won or wearied into the commission of them And since obedience in these instances is a thing which they can so very hardly spare they hope that God in mercy will not exact it but will graciously accept them upon their service in other particulars although here they continue to disobey him Other sins men are invited and importunately tempted to by their age and condition their particular temper and complexion Lust and rashness are the vices of youth as craft and covetousness are of the gray hairs Some sins are rooted in mens very natures for some are naturally inclined to be passionate and hasty some to be peevish and others to be malicious and revengefull The temper of their bodies hurries on some to lust and intemperance some to turbulency and fierceness and others to slavish fears and sinfull compliances Nay a sharp and long affliction will sometimes embitter even a good nature and make it habitually sowr and fretfull peevish and morose So that mens very natural temper their age and condition prove many times an uninterrupted sollicitation to some sin or other and they alwayes fall by being alwayes under the power of their temptation Now when men find that some sins have got thus near to them and have taken such deep root in their way of life nay in their very natures since they will not be at the pains to reform and amend they expect that God should be so gracious as to dispense with them As for all the instances of this kind he must abate them seeing they will not perform them his pardoning goodness must supply all the defects of their sloth For God and they must still be agreed and therefore because they cannot well abandon some of their darling lusts and bosom sins for his sake the compliance must fall on his side and he must desert and cancel all those severe and grating Laws to serve and pleasure them They will obey him most willingly in all other things only in these they beg that he would excuse them they will do any thing else for his sake which doth not contradict their beloved sin and never displease him but when they cannot otherwise fulfill and pleasure it Thus for instance the Covetous man will obey in keeping back from drunkenness and whoredom from ambition and profuseness and all other sins which are expensive But as for those other duties of suffering loss our selves rather than defrauding and over-reaching others of a contented mind and contempt of the world of alms and beneficence and all the chargeable expressions of an active love and an operative charity here he stands upon his points and chooses to dispute rather than to perform to article rather than to obey The peevish and angry man will readily keep the commands of Justice and Temperance he will neither spoil his neighbours Goods nor wrong his Bed nor pamper and defile his own body he will do any thing which either ministers to his reigning lust or which doth not contradict and make against it But then as for the commands of meekness and patience of long-suffering and forgiveness of speaking well and doing good to enemies of passing over provocations and peaceableness and all other instances of pardoning and forgetting injuries in these God must excuse him for his dear lust opposes them and he can not he will not serve him in the practice of them Some who are of a tractable and submissive of a soft and governable temper will observe readily all those duties which their constitution has made easie and which their natural genius enclines them to They will be constant performers of all the cheap because agreeable duties of submission to Governours and obedience to publick Constitutions of uniformity in worship of honour and observance of the Laws and establishments and of all things belonging to the Churches Vnity and outward peace But as for the severities of an inward and hearty Religion in mortification and self-denial in paring off all sinfull lusts and exorbitant desires in patience and taking up the Cross and in all other hard instances of duty and a holy life here they withdraw their service because they must contradict their natures and go against their ease and set themselves not to obey these Laws but to evacuate or evade them Whereas others who are of a temper more severe but withall of a querulous and restless a busie and ungovernable spirit will keep off from atheism and prophaneness from idolatry and witchcraft and other heinous impieties from drunkenness and
revellings from fornication and adultery from oppression and fraud and other alike gross and notorious instances of injustice and immorality For all these their strict temper can easily avoid they have no great temptation to them and are therefore able without much pains to abstain from them But then as for those other sins which agree with the bent and inclination of their busie and ungovernable humour they will still indulge themselves in the practice of them for all they are of an equal guilt although indeed of a more spiritual and refined nature For they will strive to weary laws to vilifie and contemn to undervalue and disparage Governours they will permit themselves to be overswayed by spite and malice by wrath and bitterness by envy and emulation by strife and sidings to be drawn aside into censoriousness and evil-speakings into the raising and spreading of uncharitable and envious yea false and slanderous reports they will be forward to magnifie themselves to publish their own praise and to boast of their own actions and attainments but withall to detract and lessen to shame and disparage others Thus will even these men who make the fairest appearance of abominating all impious and ungodly all immoral and debauched actions halt still in their obedience and think to please God not by a perfect and entire but a partial and a maimed service For their Conversion goes but half way not from sin to righteousness but from some sorts of sin to some others All the alteration that their Religion has wrought in them is not a forsaking of sin but an exchange of it a turn from what is more easily left to a more liberal practice of that which they find it hard to part with a remove from grosser and more scandalously fleshly sins to other more spiritual and refined but still as deadly and damnable transgressions And thus by all these instances it appears that when men have got some sins that are close and pleasing such as their temper and complexion their age or condition or way of life has endear'd to them so far as that even for Gods sake they will not part with them their recourse is presently to some more cheap and easie instances of obedience that they may attone for them And the same might be shewn in all other instances of a partial and a maimed service In all things they will obey God no further than their beloved sins will suffer them but as they yield to the Law in other things so must the Law yield to them in these for neither God nor their Sin shall rule alone but the service shall be shared between them and both shall enjoy a divided empire But this is a most damnably delusive and a desperately false pretence For whatsoever fond conceits men who Love and are resolved not to let go their sins may please themselves withall yet God when he comes to judge us will accept of nothing less than an entire obedience All his Laws are established under the pains of death and he will exact all that he has required whatever at that day be our concern in it For he comes not then as a corrupted party to judge for us to make his own Laws bend and bow to serve our Interests and to cancel and disanull all such among them as make against us No he comes as an upright and even Judge to execute all his Laws but not to destroy any he comes to inflict what his Gospel threatens and his sentence will then be what it sayes not what we can bear So that if we have wilfully disobeyed and have not repented whether in one instance or in many we must undergo the punishment of our disobedience For God is a friend to no Vice neither one nor other but he alwayes forbids and he will most severely punish every one And as for all these pretences whether that of our age or our way of life or of our very natural temper and inclination it self there will be no shelter or excuse in any of them to bear us out in any There is no protection to any sin from our Age for no young man may pursue lusts because they are youthful but is bound to fly and avoid them as those things which war against and would destroy his soul 2 Tim. 2.22 Gods Laws make no distinction of young or old but the same Duties are the Rule for both their practices and the same rewards or punishments will be returned indifferently to them both upon their obedience or transgressions There is no justifiable Plea for any sin from our way of life for a constant practice or trade of sin as S t John says can be no mans employment but his who is born of the Devil and must inherit under him 1 John 3.8 But the way of life whereunto God calls us is a way of piety and obedience He has given us his own Laws for the way which we are to walk in and in that alone it is that we can escape death and obtain salvation Nay so far is any thing in the world from sheltring us under the service of any one sin that even that which may have the highest pretence to it of all things else whatsoever viz. our very natural temper and inclination is no excuse to us if it makes us continue in any disobedience If any thing in the world could be a just defence for the practice of any sin surely this must For our Nature is not of our own chusing and therefore its effects ought least of all to be charged on us seeing they least of all proceed from us but are in great degrees determined to our hands before we have any power either to will or to refuse them But such is the purity and strictness of Christ's Gospel that it indispensably requires us to conquer sin not only where it makes no opposition but even where it has the greatest strength and the highest force of all For if our very Nature draw us on to disobey it enjoins us under all our hopes of Heaven not to submit to it but to strive against it so long till we vanquish and subdue it For if we would be judged to be Christ's Disciples at the last Day we must deny our selves Matth. 16.24 As we hope to live we must not perform and fulfil but kill and mortifie those deeds whereto we are hurried on by the temper of our Bodies Rom. 8.13 We must renounce and forsake all sin although never so dear and useful to us before Christ's Gospel will acquit or he will save us If a lust so dear to thee as thy right eye offend thee or cause thee to offend pluck it out says our Saviour and cast it from thee or if one so useful to thee as thy right hand cut it off likewise and cast it from thee and that for no less reason than this Because it is more profitable for thee that one of thy members should in this
of every Law to be given as a Bond and Obligation to us in such Actions to which otherwise our will is free and able either to chuse or refuse them it is plain that Laws are intended for a restraint upon us only in our voluntary and chosen actions For there are none else wherein we are free and therefore none besides wherein they should intend to bind us Secondly That only our voluntary and chosen actions are under the restraint and punishment of Laws is plain from that way which all Laws have of obliging men The Law is no Law further than it obligeth and all its obligation is only upon our chosen actions For all the force which it can possibly have upon us to bind us to the performance of any thing is only so far as it can make us will and chuse it And therefore as for all unchosen actions they are not within the reach of Law because they are not subject to the force of Obligation Now that this is the only way which all Laws have of obliging us to a thing viz. their engaging us to will and chuse it so that the force of obligation can fall upon no action which is unchosen is evident For that whereto they would oblige us is such actions as they injoyn or forbid and that power or faculty in us which they would oblige to it is our wills For our wills are the Disposers of our actions seeing we work at our own choice and do what we will and like our selves But now as for all the obligation which any thing can possibly lay upon our wills it is not by way of necessitating compulsive force but only of moving and exciting Arguments Because from the very constitution of our nature our will cannot be forced by any Bond but only moved of it self to chuse that which it is intended to be bound to so that in its nature it is capable of being obliged to nothing which is unchosen For the will of man is not a Subject capable of natural force or bodily violence a man may as soon hope to grasp a shadow or to lay violent hands upon an Angel as to engage it that way No it is no Body nor bodily faculty so that it is not subject to any physical force to be bound hand and foot by a Law as a Thief is by a Chain but the only possible way whereby to work upon it is to win it by Arguments It must determine its own choice since other things cannot determine it and therefore such things must be suggested and proposed to it as can perswade but nothing that can force and compel it For this indeed is all the hold that any Law can have upon the will of man iâ— naturally wills and chuses what is good and hates and refuses what is evil And this gives a Law some power over it in binding it to chuse what the Lawgiver has a mind it should if he first make it desirable He may win it in its own way viz. If he make obedience to become its interest and shew it plainly that it can be no gainer by disobedience but that it is by far the better for it to chuse what he enjoins than to refuse it For the wills own proper motion and natural way of working carries it on to desire and chuse that which appears to be good and to fly and refuse that which is known to be evil And therefore when the things proposed in the Law have a most desirable good annexed to the performance and a most hateful evil joined with the transgression of them this is an engagement and tye upon it indeed to chuse the Duty for the goodness sake and to avoid the sin for the evil that accompanies it It binds it so far as its own desires and inclinations can bind it it tyes it up as much as can be by its own hopes and fears it lays obedience in the way to that which it loves and longs after so that if it would come at that there is no other means but this must be the way to it And this is the way whereby all Laws oblige us For they are backed with such rewards and punishments as make it every mans advantage to do what they enjoin him The evil of disobedience is always infinitely greater than the evil of obeying so that if the wills of men chuse in their own way and will be wrought upon by their own motive they must determine themselves to that whereto the Laws would bind them And this securing of that which is commanded by making it far worse for any man to break than to fulfil it is absolutely necessary and naturally inseparable from all Laws For a frightful penalty is either expresly mentioned or if not it is always implyed If the punishment is set down then they who transgress must suffer what the Law threatens but if it be not they must undergo what the Legislator pleases So that punishment can never be pulled away from Law but if there be a Command given which makes no penalty due nor creates a right of inflicting any it has only the name of a Law or Commandment but that is all for it contradicts its nature A request or entreaty it may be a counsel or advice but a Law or Command it never is And seeing all obligation to action is only such a motive and convincing reason to our wills as makes them chuse to act rather than to omit what the Law intends to oblige them to 't is plain that where there is no room for choice there is none likewise for Law and Obligation For we cannot be moved to chuse those actions which are unchosen and therefore we cannot be obliged to them But all obligation being only a convincing motive to our choice we cannot be capable of being obliged by Laws in any other than our voluntary and chosen actions And thus it appears both from the nature of Law and from the force of obligation both which are antecedently necessary to make up the nature of sin or obedience that all the restraint which is laid and all the punishments which are inflicted by Laws are only upon our voluntary and chosen actions And this will yet further appear if we consider some other things which are consequent to sin or obedience and ensue upon the working or commission of them as are Thirdly Rewards and punishments commendation and reproof Every Lawgiver commends and rewards those who keep his Laws and punishes and reproves all such as break and transgress them But now all this can have place only upon their voluntary actions which were at their own choice and in their own liberty either to have exerted or omitted For no actions can be imputed to a man either for him or against him further than they depended on him Because there is no thanks at all due to him for doing that which he could not avoid nor any charge at all capable to be brought against
him for failing to do what he could not do Who would ever be so absurd as to reprove and punish a man for being low of Stature or weak of Body for being born of mean persons or to a small Fortune These and all other things of like nature which a man could never help may be his misfortune but not his fault and whatsoever he suffers upon the account of them may be and often is his calamity but by no means his punishment No man can justly be charged with that which was never subject to his own choice but if any imputation is laid upon him for its sake it rests not there but falls all upon that Cause whose free pleasure it was so to order him Agreeably whereunto the Wise man tells us That whosoever mocketh the poor reproacheth not him who cannot help his poverty but his Maker whose pleasure it was to dispose of him in that condition Prov. 17.5 And as a man can bear no just blame for that which it never was in his power to hinder so neither can he undergo any just punishment Barbarous cruelty indeed he may fall under which would have taken place without a Law as well as with it but legal and just penalties he never can And seeing no action is punishable but what is chosen it is plain that the Laws of God impose restraint and threaten punishment only to our voluntary actions Which will still further appear from another effect of every sinful and punishable action namely this Fourthly That it is such for which our own Consciences will blame and condemn us and which we shall lament in repentance and remorse One great part even of Hell torments is this remorse and worm of Conscience For there is no action for which we shall there be punished but when it is too late we shall endlesly repent of it Their worm there as our Saviour saith dyeth not Mark 9.44 But now it is an utter absurdity and downright madness for any man to be angry at himself for that which he could never help and to repent that ever he committed that which it was not in his power to hinder For doth it ever repent any man that he is not tall of Stature that he was not born as strong as Samson or made immortal as an Angel Was any man ever touched with remorse because he breathes and sleeps and thirsts and hungers No man ever is or ever can be angry at himself but when he sees that he has been wanting to himself when he has done that which it was in his own choice to have done otherwise For all remorse is for a willing offence a man chuses it when he commits it and therefore when afterwards he sees his errour he condemns himself for it And since a mans own Conscience condemns him for all those things for which God's Law will punish him and no man can condemn himself for doing any thing but what he chose to do neither his own Conscience can condemn nor the Law punish him for any but his voluntary and chosen actions And thus upon all these reasons we see That it is only our voluntary and chosen actions whereupon God's Laws lay restraint and wherefore at the last Day he will inflict punishment so that no sin is damning which is not chosen This is a very clear and well-grounded truth For the nature of Law which makes good and evil of obligation which enforceth it of rewards and punishments from God of acquiescence and remorse from our own Conscience which ensue upon it all these evidently evince and prove it For not any one of them is concerned about any actions but those which proceed from choice nor have to do with any works but what are wilful So that every action whereto there is Law and obligation exhortation and admonition reward or punishment commendation or reproof acquiescence or remorse as there are for all those which the Laws of God will sentence every such action I say is an effect of our own will or a voluntary chosen action Thus is it clear from the reason of the thing it self that all our actions are not governed by God's Laws so as to be strictly either enjoined or prohibited punished or rewarded by them but only those among them which are voluntary and chosen And this will appear yet further 2. From the plain declarations of the Scripture concerning it That whereby God looks upon his Laws to be either broken or kept is the choice and consent of the heart My Son give me thy heart saith Wisdom Prov. 23.26 So long as that is pure we can have no damning stain upon us for out of the heart as our Saviour assures us all those things must proceed which God will judge to defile a man Matth. 15.18 19 20. The lusts of our Flesh must gain the consent of our wills before they become deadly sins and consummate transgressions Lust says S t James when having won over the liking and approbation of our wills and a half consent to its impure embraces it has conceived bringeth forth the Embryo or rude Draught answerable to conception which is but a half production of sin and this Embryo of sin when by being brought on to a full choice and consent or what is more to action and practice it is finished bringeth forth its genuine Offspring Death Jam. 1.15 The consent of our hearts then must compleat our sin and our own wills must of necessity concurr to work our ruine For we must wilfully reject or cast off the Law which would keep us in and go beyond it when we behold it before our transgression will have got up to the pitch of a damnable pollution or a mortal crime Nay I add further till we are come thus far as wilfully to reject the Law and knowingly to transgress it we shall not be interpreted to commit that which the Gospel calls sin and which it strictly forbids and severely threatens under that name For if we will take S t John's word this is his explication of it Sin says he is the transgression as we render it but more fully and more agreeably to the Original it should be the renouncing or casting off the Law 1 John 3.4 And thus we see that from plain Scripture as well as from clear reason it manifestly appears that all our actions are not governed nor will hereafter be judged by Gods Laws but such only among them as are voluntary and chosen And therefore although there be no Law of Christ which gives men leave to sin without fear of punishment yet some actions there may be against many or most of Christ's Laws which shall not be judged to be punishable transgressions of them as are all our involuntary and unchosen actions And of this sort are all those consistent slips which as I shewed before not only are but needs must be born with and allowed by the Covenant of the Gospel For it is our involuntary
failings which are our unavoidable ones because we have no power to avoid where we have no liberty to will and chuse and since they are such as we cannot help they are such likewise as God pities and such as the Gospel doth not punish but graciously pardon and dispense with CHAP. III. Of the nature and danger of voluntary sins The CONTENTS The nature of a wilfill and a deliberate sin Why it is called a despising of Gods Law a sinning presumptuously and with a high hand Wilfull sins of two sorts viz. some chosen directly and expresly others only indirectly and by interpretation Of direct and interpretative volition Things chosen in the latter way justly imputable Of the voluntary causes of inconsideration in sins of commission which are drunkenness an indulged passion or a habit of sin Of the power of these to make men inconsiderate The cause of inconsideration in sins of omission viz. Neglect of the means of acquiring virtue Of the voluntariness of all these causes Of the voluntariness of drunkenness when it may be looked upon as involuntary Of the voluntariness of an indulged passion mens great errour lies in indulging the beginnings of sin Of the voluntariness and crying guilt of a habit of sin Of the voluntariness of mens neglect of the means of virtue No wilfull sin is consistent with a state of Grace but all are damning A distinct account of the effect of wilfull sins viz. when they only destroy our acceptance for the present and when moreover they greatly wound and endanger that habitual virtue which is the foundation of it and which should again restore us to it for the time to come These last are particularly taken notice of in the accounts of God HAving thus clearly shown in the General that all the dispensation and allowance for our consistent slips under the Gospel comes not from the nakedness and want of penalty in any of Christs Laws but only from the imperfection and involuntariness of our own actions I will descend now to consider particularly what those consistent slips and transgressions are In the management whereof I shall shew these two things First That our voluntary and chosen sins and transgressions of any of Christs Laws are not consistent with a state of Grace and Salvation but are deadly and damnable Secondly That our involuntary and unchosen slips are consistent and such as Christs Gospel doth not eternally threaten but graciously bear and dispense with First I say No voluntary sin or chosen transgression of any of Christs Laws is consistent with a state of Grace and Salvation but is deadly and damning To make this out it will be very requisite to show 1. What sinfull actions are voluntary and chosen And 2. That none of them is consistent with a state of Grace but deadly and damning 1. What sins and transgressions are voluntary and chosen Then we commit a wilfull chosen sin when we see and consider of the sinfulness of any action which we are tempted to and after that choose to act and perform it Every chosen sin is a sin against Knowledge for the will is a blind faculty and can choose nothing till our mind proposeth it All choice is an act of Reason and Vnderstanding a preferring one thing before another and we must view and consider both before we can prefer either That which suggests the sinfulness of any action to us and sets the evil of it before us when we are about to choose it is our Conscience For God has placed this Monitor of every mans Duty in every mans breast to tell him upon every occasion what he requires from him And till such time as men have debauched their understandings into a gross mistake of their Duty so as to call Evil Good and Good Evil and God in his just anger has given them up to a reprobate mind or a mind void of judgment their own consciences will keep them in mind of Gods Laws and not suffer them to transgress without reproof So that every wilfull sin is a sin against a mans own mind or conscience Nay further so long as mens hearts are soft and their consciences are tender and before such time as they are wholly enslaved to their appetites and quite hardened in sin their consciences especially in some great and frightfull instances will not only suggest and represent their Duty but argue also and debate against their lusts for the practice and performance of it And then men are not won at the first offer nor consent to fulfill the sin upon the first assault of the temptation but are drawn in after a long deliberation and debate and dispute the matter with themselves before they submit to it For when mens consciences do not nakedly suggest but moreover plead the cause and urge the observance of their Duty there are arguments on both sides to render the choice at first somewhat doubtfull The Law of God promises an infinite reward to the action of obedience and threatens an endless punishment if we disobey both which are future and to be expected in the next world And the temptation inducing us to sin presents us with a fair shew of sensitiv pleasure profit or honour if we practise and threatens us with all the contrary evils if we neglect it both which it sets before us as things present to be felt and enjoy'd by us even now whilst we are here in this world Now these are great motives on both sides each of them bidding fair for our consent Our minds or consciences suggest the first and our fleshly appetites and carnal reason represent the latter and for a good while these two advocates solicite the cause on both sides and distract and divide our wills between them So that when at last the temptation doth overcome and the Law of Lust in the members prevails over the Law of God in the mind yet is that after a strife and a war after a tedious toyle and much contention And these wilfull sins because we underwent a great conflict in our own minds about them and past through a long deliberation in an alternate succession of desires and aversations hopes and fears imperfect choices and refusals e're the consent of our wills was gain'd over to the commission of them are call'd deliberate sins Every wilfull chosen sin then is a sin against knowledge and against conscience when our own heart rebukes and checks us at the time of sinning telling us that God hath forbidden that which we are about to do notwithstanding which we presume to do it And if it happen to be in an instance that is greatly criminal and frightfull unto Conscience which therefore puts us upon demurs and creates dispute and arguing then is it not only a known but a deliberate sin also Nay where we have time and there is a sufficient space to consider in between the opportunity and the action if we know that the action is sinfull and are not in
fair and likely and withal it is most secure It is sure to preserve obedience because it admits of nothing that interferes with it and it is also very likely to preserve truth for it is most certain that no Doctrine can ever come from God which encourages or justifies any wickedness so that not only an obedient heart but even a free and impartial reason must quit the Principle if it appear to draw after it an evil consequence To settle Principles and Rules of Judgment then especially for simple and unlearned minds the first enquiry ought to be not what is true or false but what is good or evil For since the knowledge of this is more plain and obvious easie and accessible to all but to them most especially 't is evident that as all others so particularly they if they would secure even Truth as well as Duty must begin with Laws as their Principle and from thence make their inference to Doctrines and Opinions To avoid sinfull errours and disobedient prejudices they must use Laws and Duties as the measure whereby to judge of notions not notions and opinions as the standard whereby to measure and interpret plain Laws CHAP. VII A sixth cause of ignorance of the present actions being comprehended under a known Law And of the excusableness of our transgressions upon both these sorts of ignorance The CONTENTS All the forementioned causes of ignorance of our present actions being included in the known Law are such to knowing and learned men Besides them the difficult and obscure nature of several sins is a general cause of it to the rude and unlearned Sins upon this ignorance as well as upon ignorance of the Law it self unchosen and so consistent with a state of Grace and Salvation Where there is something of choice in it they extenuate the sin and abate the punishment though they do not wholly excuse it The excuse for these actions is only whilst we are plainly ignorant they are damning when we are enlightned so far as to doubt of them but pardonable whil'st we are in darkness or errour This excuse is for both the modes of ignorance 1. Forgetfulness 2. Errour All this pardon hitherto discoursed of upon the account of ignorance of either sort is no further than the ignorance it self is involuntary The willfulness of some mens ignorance The several steps in voluntary ignorance The causes of it Two things required to render ignorance involuntary 1. An honest heart 2. An honest industry What measures necessary to the acceptance of this industry Gods candour in judging of its sufficiency This discourse upon this first cause of an innocent involuntariness viz. ignorance summed up THus upon all these accounts which are mention'd in the two former Chapters we see it will often happen that although in the general we do know the Law which forbids any sin yet shall we still be ignorant of our present actions being comprehended under it For the small and barely gradual difference between Good and Evil the limitedness of most Laws the indirect obligations which pass upon some indifferent actions the clashing and enterfering of some of Christs Laws sometimes with other commands and sometimes with our own prejudices and prepossessed Opinions are also many reasons why after we know the General Laws that forbid them we shall still venture upon several particular actions through ignorance of their being forbidden And yet besides all these which are causes of such ignorance to the most knowing men and to those who have great parts and learning there will be moreover one great and general cause of it to the more rude and ignorant and that is the difficult and to them obscure nature of the sin it self which in the Law is expresly and by name forbidden For how many of them who hear it may be of the Law against censoriousness lasciviousness uncleanness carnality sensuality refusing of the Cross and other things do not well understand what those words mean Alas the greater number of men in the world have but very rude and imperfect notices of things they see them only in a huddle and by halves And as it is in their knowledge of other things so is it in their understanding of Sin and Duty likewise For their sight and sence of them is dark and defective and albeit they have some general and confused apprehensions of them yet is not their knowledge so clear and distinct as that they are thereby enabled to judge of every particular action whether it falls under any of them or no. And since they have but such half and imperfect notions of several sins it is no wonder although they know the General Law if they venture upon several actions which really come under it not knowing that they do And thus we see that besides the ignorance of the Law it self there is also another sort of ignorance which will be a cause of sin to several men of all sorts and that is their ignorance of their present actions being comprehended under the letter of the Law and meant by it But now as for those transgressions which men of an honest heart are guilty of through this ignorance of their own actions being included in the Law when they do know the Law that includes it They do not put them out of a state of Grace but consist with it For this Ignorance is mens unhappiness rather than their fault it is not an Ignorance of their own choosing seeing their will and choice is against it For they desire to be free from it and strive to prevent it and endeavour according to those abilities and opportunities which God has afforded them to get right and true apprehensions of all Gods will that they may perform and of every evil action that they may avoid it But it is the difficulty and intricateness of things which renders them ignorant and that is not of their making For the sins forbidden are not easily distinguished from the Liberty allow'd or from the Duty commanded in some cases and therefore it is that they mistake them and are ignorant of the sinfulness of their present action when their knowledge of it should enable them if they would to avoid it And since it has so little of their own will and the men even when by reason of their ignorance they transgress are industriously desirous to know their Duty and prepared to practise it so far as they understand it it shall have nothing of Gods anger It is altogether a pardonable slip and a pitiable instance and that is enough to recommend it to Gods mercy For he is never rigorous and severe in a case that is prepared for pity and pardon so that he will not punish but graciously forgive it And if it were otherwise who could possibly be saved For this ignorance of their present actions being comprehended in the words of the known Law is such as the wisest men have been subject to and they among the rest who were
any of these Failings will deprive us of that which Christs Gospel will construe to be a perfect and intire obedience they do not destroy a state of Grace and Salvation but consist with it And all these allowances the Gospel makes to our sinful actions besides some others to our thoughts and desires which are sin only in an imperfect birth and not yet arrived to the guilt of a compleat transgression as I shall have a fit occasion to show in answering of those groundless doubts and scruples that perplex good and honest but weak minds which shall hereafter follow But the great Condition of the Gospel being nothing less than an intire Obedience and the generality of men being so maimed and defective in obeying what shall become of them For who is there but at one time or other has willingly transgressed some of those Laws which I have described and therefore if the Curse take place upon every wilful offence then wo be to all Mankind And so indeed it would if Christ had not taken pity on us and come into the World for this very purpose that he might succour and relieve us But the very end of his coming amongst us was to find out a remedy for all these evils He came to rescue us from the Curse of the Law and to procure for us new Terms and put us into a capacity of Pardon So that whatsoever his Laws threaten or whatsoever we have committed yet are we still secure from suffering if we make use of his remedy i. e. if we repent of it as shall appear in the next Book BOOK V. Of those Remedies which restore men to a state of Salvation when they are fallen from it and of some needless Scruples concerning it CHAP. I. Of Repentance which restores us to Gods Favour after Sins of all sorts The CONTENTS The Rigour of the Mosaick Law is taken away by Christ who came to preach Pardon upon Repentance where that denounced an unavoidable punishment Repentance is the great Remedy God heartily desires mens Repentance and promises Forgiveness to it This has been preached in all times The Remedy for our unknown sins They are uncapable of a particular Prayer and Repentance but are forgiven upon a general one The Remedy of wilful sins is a particular Repentance That is available for their pardon for wilful sins after Baptism as well as before it Two places which seem to deny all pardon to wilful sins after Baptism cleared the wilful sin Heb 10.26 is not any wilful transgression of any particular Law of Christ which have all been pardoneâ— but a wilful Apostasie from his whole Religion which is proved from sundry things there spoken of it The falling away mentioned Heb. 6 is likewise Apostasie from Christianity which is shewn from those things which they are said to fall from and those others which are said to be implied in their falling An account of the desperate state of these men The state of some habitual Sinners desperate and irreclaimable by reason their period of Grace is over but this is no discouragement to any mans Repentance HAving hitherto insisted largely upon that Integrity of Obedience which the Gospel indispensably requires of every man to his Salvation and upon those Defects which either destroy or consist with it I proceed now to inquire what Remedies it directs us to for recovering a state of Grace and Favour when at any time we happen to fall from it Among the Jews according to the strictness of the Law of Moses the punishment took place upon the first wilful breach and therefore in those Laws which were established under pain of death when it appeared by sufficient evidence that any man was guilty of the wilful transgression of them the Sentence was unavoidable and the man dyed without mercy He that despised Moses's Law saith the Apostle if it were in an instance whereto the Law threatned death dyed without mercy being convicted under the hands of two or three witnesses Heb. 10.28 A man that had committed Murder or Adultery or any other crime whereof Death was the established Penalty was to dye without all remedy for no Sacrifice would be accepted for him nor would the Law admit of any favour or dispensation And therefore David when he made his Penitential Psalm for murdering Vriah and adulterating his Wife expresses the Legal unpardonableness of his offence in these words thou desirest not sacrifice else would I give it but thou delightest not in burnt-offerings for such sins as I stand guilty of No my crimes are of that nature for which any man less than a King should dye and such wherefore no Sacrifice will be accepted Psal. 51.16 This was the rigour of that Political Law which God imposed upon the Jews by Moses those punishments that were threatned by it which were temporal and of this World were irreversible when once they were incurred But when Christ came into the World his business was to give Laws of a much more gracious nature which would admit of a Salvo for every sin and offer men a remedy which if they did but use although they had transgressed they should not suffer punishment This gracious Covenant whose Promises and Rewards are future and to be enjoy'd in the next World was published more or less ever since Adam For by the Grace of this all the holy Patriarchs hoped for pardon and by it likewise all the Good men among the Jews when they should be brought to Gods Tribunal in the next World hoped to be forgiven But the Promulgation of it under Moses was dark and obscure and lay hid in great measure and almost buried under the crowd of the rigid and inexorable Laws of the Mosaick Covenant But when Christ came into the World his Errand was to abrogate all the rigour of Moses's Law and to preach an universal Pardon upon Repentance And of this he gave them a clear instance in the case of the Woman who was taken in the very act of Adultery Moses say they and that very truly commanded us in his Law that such should be stoned but what sayest thou Joh. 8.5 But his Sentence was Go and sin no more and then will not I condemn thee v. 11 which was a fit sentence for that Religion whereby they should be justified from all those things from which they could not be justified by the Law of Moses Act. 13.39 Whatsoever it was therefore under the rigour of the meer Law of Moses under the Religion and Law of Christ our case is not become quite desperate and irrecoverable upon the first offence It is not every wilful sin and much less our slips of ignorance and inconsideration which can for ever exclude us from the Favour of God and incapacitate us for his Mercy No the Religion of Christ is not a Religion that seeks advantages of us and shuts us up close Prisoners of Damnation as soon as we are guilty of any thing which may deserve it
For Christ need never have come into the World for that end since the Law had rendred us accursed and miserable enough already But he came on a quite contrary Errand to be the Minister of Life and Pardon and not to seal us up to eternal Death upon the first wilful transgression but to procure for us remission of all our deadly and damning sins and to restore us out of a state of Enmity and Death to a state of Mercy and Reconciliation He came to find out a remedy for all our evils and to prescribe us a way of recovering our selves when we had fallen by any sin so that although none of us all have lived free from it yet in the event sin shall not be our ruine And that remedy which God has provided us for this purpose is Repentance He doth not abandon us upon the commission of every sin but he is heartily desirous that we should repent of it and when we do so he has obliged himself by his Truth and Faithfulness to forgive it He is heartily desirous I say that whensoever we commit any sin we should repent of it If we dare take his own word he tells us as he lives that he doth not delight in the death of any sinner but that the wicked turn from his way and live turn you turn you as he goes on from your evil ways for why will you dye O house of Israel Ezek. 33.11 And this all the World experience by him in his long-suffering and forbearance with them For he doth not exact the punishment so soon as we have incurred it but expects long to see if we will return and repent that then he may with honour pardon and remit it this being as S t Paul assures us the end of his forbearance and long-suffering to lead us to repentance Rom. 2.4 And what S t Paul says that we all experience For during all that time wherein he bears with us how restless and unwearied earnest and affectionate are his endeavours for this purpose He admonishes us of our faults by his Word and by his Ministers he invites us to return by his Love and by his Promises he moves us to bethink our selves by his Spirit and by his Providences and if we are stubborn and not to be thus gently won by these methods of mildness he seeks to reclaim us by a blessed and a most affectionate force and violence For he corrects us with his Rod and visits us in chastisement and never ceases to try all means of reducing us to a sense of our sin and repentance till we are become plainly incorrigible and utterly rebellious and so fit for nothing but to be swallowed up of ruine And yet even then his desire of reclaiming us is so strong and his love so affectionate that he scarce knows how to give us over How shall I give thee up saith he O Ephraim how shall I deliver thee O Israel Hos. 11.8 And when we do repent I say he has obliged himself by his Truth and Faithfulness most graciously to forgive us This was the Doctrine of the Prophets Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return unto the Lord says Isaiah for he will have mercy upon him and to our God for he will abundantly pardon Isa. 55.7 If the wicked man says God by Ezekiel will turn from all his sins that he hath committed and keep all my statutes and do that which is lawful and right he shall surely live he shall not dye All his transgressions which he hath formerly committed shall not be mentioned unto him but in his righteousness that he hath done since he shall live For have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should dye saith the Lord God and not that he should turn from his ways and live Ezek. 18 21 22 23. This iâ— the great Doctrine of the Gospel which is a Covenant of remission of sins upon Repentance Repentance is its great Article and fundamental Truth and is therefore called by S t Paul the Foundation of Repentance Heb. 6.1 For that which was taught to all the World in all the degrees of Publication of the Gospel was that now God called all men to repent and that he would forgive them all their sins upon their true repentance S t John the Baptist who was Christs Herald and Fore-runner at his entrance upon that work begins with it John says S t Luke in all the Country about Jordan came preaching the Baptism of repentance for the remission of sins Luk. 3.3 Our Lord and Saviour Christ himself when he comes after to proclaim his own Gospel goes on with it Jesus began to preach says S t Matthew and to say Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand Mat. 4.17 And when he left the World the Commission which he gives to his Apostles is to proceed on still in the Promulgation of it to all the World as he had done to the people of the Jews For at the last time of his being with them just before his Ascension into Heaven when as S t Matthew tells us he commissioned them to preach to all mankind those instructions which he gave to them S t Luke informs us were that repentance and remission of sins should be preached to all Nations in his Name beginning at Jerusalem Luk. 24.47 This was the chief thing which they had in Commission and the summ and substance of their Embassy For that Ministry which was committed to them was a Ministry of reconciling God and men by this means as St. Paul says or a Ministry of Reconciliation so that they were Ambassadours for Christ as though God did beseech men by them and they as Christs Deputies who is the prime Mediator did pray them in his stead to be reconciled to God 2 Cor. 5.19.20 And when the Apostles came to execute their Orders the publishing of this was all their care and practice For they all of them went about preaching in all places and to all persons repentance for the remission of sins St. Peter in his first Sermon thus exhorts the people Repent and be baptized every one of you for the remission of sins Act. 2.38 and so again Act. 3. Repent and be converted that your sins may be blotted out v. 19. And the same he proclaims more generally in his second Epistle assuring all Christians that the Lord is not willing that any man should perish but that all should come to repentance which is sure to prevent it 2 Pet. 3.9 St. Paul preaches to the Athenians that now God had commanded all men every where to repent Act. 17.30 And St. John assures us that by virtue of that Gospel-Covenant which was confirmed with us in Christs Blood if with repenting hearts we confess our sins he is faithful to his word and just to his promise to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from the guilt and stain of all unrighteousness of
sins are daily slipping from us that our remedy might be as near as our disease our Lord has put into our daily prayers this general petition for our expiation Forgive us our trespasses Matth. 6.12 As for this first sort then our unknown and secret sins a general prayer and repentance is their remedy If we obey all known Laws and particularly repent of all our known transgressions our secret and unknown sins need not lye heavy on us For if we are honestly igrant of them and use due pains and ingenuity about them if we neither overlook them through sloth and negligence nor mistake them through partiality and wilfulness a general and penitential prayer shall serve their turn and restore us unto mercy and reconciliation And then 2. As for all our known sins God has not been wanting to us in them neither but has most graciously provided us of a remedy and means of reconciliation for them of what nature or degree soever they be Whether 1. Our voluntary and wilful or 2. Our involuntary sins 1. In the Gospel God has provided us of a remedy to restore us again to his favour when once we have lost it through our voluntary and wilful sins and that remedy is a particular repentance of them To the pardon of these it is altogether necessary that we particularly amend and forsake them For they interrupt a state of love and good agreement and set God and us at enmity and defiance So long as they are continued in they keep God and men at a distance they interpose betwixt us and his mercy and hinder all the signs of his approbation and all the expressions of his pardoning Grace from issuing out upon us To restore us therefore to Gods Grace and acceptance these voluntary sins must be taken out of the way and by a voluntary amendment and reformation we must undo all that was done amiss in our wilful transgression And of these sins all those places are meant that make repentance which as we saw above includes in it amendment the indispensable condition of life and pardon As when repentance and remission of sins is commanded to be preached to all Nations Luke 24.47 and men are bid to repent that their sins may be blotted out Acts 3.19 or as it is in the peremptory and severe words of our Saviour to repent or else they shall all perish Luke 13.3 And as this particular repentance and reformation is altogether necessary to the pardon of our wilful sins so is it most certainly available and sufficient for them Although they are of a most heinous guilt and provoking Nature yet is not their offence unpardonable or their case desperate For after a man has put himself out of a state of Grace and God's favour by them he is not quite cast off nor need to despair of getting in again He is not presently upon every such offence banished this Kings Court and Presence for ever but upon his particular repentance and reformation he will be allowed to recover his former station For the preaching of the Prophets of the Baptist of Christ and of his Apostles was to call the wilful and all lost Sinners both of the Jewish and Gentile World to this reconciliation Christ as himself informs us coming to save that which was lost and to call all Sinners of one sort or another to repentance Mens very Baptism or entrance into Christianity is a cleansing of them from the guilt of all former sins without exception Repent and be baptized every one says S t Peter for the remission of sins Acts 2.38 and be baptized says Ananias unto Saul and wash away all thy sins Acts 22.16 Nay after men are once baptized and have all their former wilful sins washt off in that water of regeneration yet is not every wilful sin which they are guilty of thenceforward irrecoverably damnable but they are still called to accept of mercy and forgiveness upon repentance as before When men come under the Covenant of Grace and list themselves under the Discipline of Christ they do not subject themselves to a Covenant of Terror and Desperation which takes hold of the first offence and denounces an irrevocable enmity ever after No a baptized offender is under the Grace of repentance as well as others For that repentance whereto we are called by Christs Gospel is not so much an act as a state which S t Paul intimates when he talks of renewing men unto repentance that is unto the condition and standing terms of it Heb. 6.4 6. It is of Gods Grace that there is any forgiveness and in order thereunto any place for repentance at all and of the same Grace we have received a promise of forgiveness upon repentance for all sins and at all times whatsoever If any man among us baptized Christians sin says S t John his case is in no wise desperate for we have an Advocate with the Father Jesus Christ the righteous and he is the propitiation for our sins as well as for the sins of the whole unchristned world 1 Joh. 2.1 2. The Gospel doth not bid every wilfully offending Christian to despair and conclude himself to be irrevocably lost and fallen beyond remedy into a damned condition But its design is quite another thing to recover them again from that state of death and to call them by repentance to mercy and forgiveness For the Spirit of God himself writes to the back-sliding Church of Ephesus to remember from whence they were fallen and to repent and do their first works Rev. 2.5 And S t Paul finds fault with the Christians at Corinth for not repenting of their uncleanness and fornication and lasciviousness which they had wilfully committed threatning to bewail them or to excommunicate them in sorrow and lamentation according to the custom of those times if they did it not 2 Cor. 12.21 Nay in the case of the incestuous Criminal who had committed such a fault as was not so much as named and much less done among the unbaptized Heathens themselves he doth not consign him up to eternal Torments but endeavours by the rod of Discipline and Church-censures to reduce him to repentance that his spirit might be saved in the judgment day of the Lord Jesus 1 Cor. 5.1 5. And as for the other Members of the Church of Corinth who were unconcerned and puffed up at such an enormous accident he reproves them smartly that by bringing them to a sense of their sin he may work them into a reformation v. 1 2. Which good effect when he understood that his reproof had wrought upon them he rejoyces mightily and glories in it in his next Letter I rejoyce says he that by my former letter you were made sorry seeing it was after a godly manner and you sorrowed to repentance For such godly sorrow worketh repentance unto salvation which is not to be repented of 2 Cor. 7.8 9 10. And as he practised thus with baptized wilful offenders
our selves together as the manner of some is but exhorting one another to the open owning and frequenting of them and this we ought to do so much the more forasmuch as ye see the day of Gods righteous Judgment approaching For if we sin wilfully in this backsliding from the publick Assemblies and from the profession of the Christian Faith after that we have once received the knowledge or professed belief and acknowledgment of the truth of it there remains no more benefit to us from Christs sacrifice for sins but a certain fearful looking for of that judgment I say which shall devour the adversaries And this all you Hebrews have reason to expect from Christ from what you very well know of the manner of proceeding in such cases under Moses For he that despised or rejected the whole yea or even any one particular instance of Moses's Law whereto death was threatned dyed without mercy if the thing was proved against him under the testimony of two or three witnesses And then of how much sorer punishment suppose ye shall this wilful sinner be thought worthy who hath by such wilful rejecting of all Christs Laws and Religion trodden under foot the Son of God as if he were not raised up again from the dead but were yet in his grave and hath accounted that blood of his which confirmed the New Covenant and wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing making it to have been justly shed as the blood of a Malefactor and hath done despite unto the Spirit of Grace and all its evidence by rejecting it as insufficient I have set down the place at large that the very Text it self may afford us an accumulated proof of the ensuing Explication But now as for this sin which being wilfully committed after the belief and acknowledgment of Christs Gospel is here said to have no help from Christs Sacrifice nor any benefit of his Propitiation it is not the sinful transgression of every Law of Christ no nor of any one but a total Apostasie and abrenunciation of them all The sin I say which being wilfully committed after the belief of Christs Gospel is here said to exclude us from all benefit of Christs Sacrifice is not the transgression of any of Christs Laws whatsoever nay nor of any one For the Corinthians were guilty of the wilful transgression of several Laws and that too after they had embraced the Faith of Christ. They were guilty of an indulged Lasciviousness Vncleanness and Fornication 2 Cor. 12.21 Nay one of them was guilty of it in such an instance as was not so much as named and much less practised among the Gentiles themselves viz. in a most incestuous marrying of his Step-mother or his Fathers wife 1 Cor. 5.1 And St. Peter a great Apostle after three years converse with his Lord and Master denies him three times and that not suddenly e're he could bethink himself but after a due space of time between one denial and another Luk. 22.57 58 59. All which he did in the most aggravated manner by accumulating perjuries and prophaneness upon the sin of disowning his Master for when his bare word would not be believed he began to curse and to swear that he knew him not Mar. 14.71 All these were sins wilful in their commission and some of them most highly criminal in their nature but yet none of them was excluded from the benefit of Christs Sacrifice for they all enjoyed it So that it is not any one transgression of a particular Law after men have embraced the Faith of Christ which is the un-atoned sin here mentioned But it is an utter rejecting of all the Laws of Christ and a total Apostasie from his whole Religion It is the renouncing of Christs Authority the disowning of his Gospel and falling quite off from him to Judaism or Paganism or something directly Antichristian which is the sin here intended And whosoever doth this wilfully after he has once acknowledged it and been convinced by it as most men if not every man must do who is guilty of it at all for him there remains no more sacrifice for sin but a fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation which shall devour him and all other Antichristian adversaries That the word which is here translated sin signifies sometimes not all sin in general but particularly this superlative height and aggregation of all sin an utter revolt from Gods service and Apostasie from his whole Religion appears plainly from 2 Pet. 2 where the Apostate Angels are called the Angels that sinned v. 4. And that this particular way of sinning by an universal Apostasie and falling quite off from the profession of the Christian Faith is that very sin which is here intended will appear from all those things which are spoken of it in this place 'T is plain from the Apostles exhortation against it Let us hold fast says he the profession of our faith and not revolt from it v. 23. From his further disswasion from it in the verse next but one not forsaking the Christian Assemblies which is a great step towards the disowning of Christ himself as the manner of some is v. 25. From his Character of it in the verses that follow it being a sin that includes in it all these instances of aggravation By it we become utterly Antichristian and Adversaries to Christ and his Religion the fiery indignation that is kindled by this sin shall devour all them who by reason of it are become Adversaries ver 27. By it we deny Christ to be risen and look upon the Son of God as yet in the Grave and under our feet we count his blood which was spilt for the confirmation of the New Covenant to have been the impure and unholy blood of a Malefactor justly executed we despise all the clear proof and convictive evidence of the Spirit of Grace which we once thought a sufficient Argument for his Religion and whereby we were moved to the acknowledgment of that truth of his which now we contumeliously reject Whosoever hath committed this sin saith the Apostle I will show him what he hath done he hath trodden under foot the Son of God and hath counted the blood of the Covenant wherewith he was sanctified an holy thing and hath done despite unto the Spirit of Grace ver 29. As for the sin then which is here spoken of it is plainly this viz. a sin that is contrary to the holding fast of our Christian profession that implies a forsaking of the Christian Assemblies that makes us open enemies and adversaries to Christ and his cause seeing thereby we deny Christ to be risen and affirm him to have been an Impostor and his blood to have been like that of the Thieves which were crucified with him unholy and impure as the blood of a Malefactor and set at nought all the miraculous proofs and despise all the convictive evidence of the Holy Ghost that Spirit of Grace which
of the pleasure which accompanies it and from that apprehension of its pleasurableness he begins to love and from that loved he goes on straightway to desire it And now his will being sollicited by his lust or bodily desire consents to the fulfilling of it And this consent being once gained the next thing in order is to deliberate and contrive what company what time and what place are fittest for it And when by comparing all things together he comes to make a judgment of that he immediately chuses and resolves upon it and that being done there is nothing remaining further but to execute what he has resolved and go on to the performance of it This then is the method and progress from our lusting and desiring of any thing that is evil to our acting and committing it It begins in delight and love and desire and thence goes on to our consenting to it to our contrivance for it to our resolutions upon it and after all these to our practice and performance of it Now so long as the evil is entertained only in a short delightsom thought or love or desires and rests there but goes no further it is not so much our damning sin as our dangerous temptation it will be connived at and at the last Day we shall not be condemned for it For thus far the sin is only solliciting our choice but has not got it and as yet we have not committed a mortal crime but are only under a tryal whether we will be drawn to the commission of it or no. But if once our wills consent to it then begins the sting and there the danger enters for the lusting after evil so far as to consent to it and much more so as to contrive for it or to fulfil it makes us liable to death and eternal condemnation For our own choice as we heard above makes any sin damning so that if by means of the tempting lust any sin has prevailed so far it is become a deadly offence and subjects us to destruction Lust says S t James when it has conceived or is imperfectly consented to answering to conception which is an imperfect information bringeth forth sin and sin when by being perfectly consented to it is finished bringeth forth death which is the wages of it Jam. 1.15 And that our lusts after any sin are then damnably sinful when they are gone beyond desire and are come on either to our consent or contrivance or actual performance appears further from these instances in them all three If we lust so long after any evil thing as to consent to the sinful enjoyment of it we are guilty of all that punishment which is threatned to it He that looks upon a woman says our Saviour so long as to lust after her or to consent in his heart to the enjoyment of her he hath committed adultery already with her in his heart Mat. 5.28 If we lust so long as to contrive for it which is a degree further we are more guilty of the sin and more liable to the punishment of it still The inclinations and contrivances of murder as was observed above are reckoned among those things which pollute a man and thereby unfit him for entring into Heaven where nothing can ever have admittance that is unclean as well as murder it self is Mat. 15.19 But if our lust after any sinful enjoyment carry us on not only to consent to it or to contrive for it but what is the perfection of all to work and fulfil it then has it ensnared us into as much mischief as it can and is become dangerous and damning with a witness For then it has prevailed with us to compleat our sin and give the last hand to it it has brought us under that which is most of all threatned for now we fulfil the lusts of the flesh Gal. 5.16 19 we work iniquity Mat. 7.23 And if we continue to do this not only for once or twice but in constant returns and in a fixt course and tenure of action then as our sin is grown higher the acts thereof being more numerous and the guilt more crying so will our punishment also be more dreadfully severe And this is called walking after the flesh 2 Pet. 2.10 and living after the flesh Rom. 8.13 And this being a state of wasted virtue and habitual reigning sin it is not only through its obnoxiousness to punishment a state of death but also through its hardness of cure and difficult recovery a state of great doubt and danger likewise So that as for all these further degrees from the consent of our wills onward if our lusts after any sin have gone on to them they are deadly and damning For the same Law in the members which wars against the law of the mind so as thus to captivate and triumph over it is as the Law of sin so as the Apostle says the Law of death too Rom. 7.23.24 All our lustings after evil therefore when once they come to be consented to although before they were connived at are thenceforth deadly and damning So that whosoever hopes to be saved at the last Day from the punishment of them must thus far mortifie and kill them Mortifie says S t Paul those desires which are seated in your earthly members Col. 3.5 for it is only if you through the spirit do mortifie the deeds of the body that you shall live Rom. 8.13 As to these damnable degrees all fleshly lusts must of necessity be crucified in all good Christian men for no man will be reputed to belong to Christ till this change is wrought in him They that are Christs says the same Apostle have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts Gal. 5.24 Mortifie and crucifie them I say we must not so as to have no fleshly appetites and bodily desires of evil for then must we have no bodily desires at all Because our lusts themselves as was observed do not distinguish of lawful or unlawful but are naturally moved by an agreeable object whether it be with God or against him But we must mortifie them to that degree as that they never be able to win us over to consent to any forbidden thing for their gratification They must never have so much interest in our hearts as to make us prefer them before our duty and chuse to perform what they bid us rather than what God doth Some stirrings and ineffective motions of them which cannot prevail against God nor gain over the consent of our wills to any thing that he has forbidden are dispensed with they are the stage of temptation but not of death for God bears with them and the mortified men themselves do daily feel and labour under them But it is the prevailing strength of our lusts after evil things when they get our consent to them and carry us on to transgress Gods Laws to fulfil them this conquering power of fleshly lusts I say it is which is to
repentance that being such a sin as God will never give repentance to Heb. 6.6 The sinning against the Holy Ghost in this sence then as it denotes the gift of tongues of prophecy c. which is the last evidence that God is resolved to make use of for the conversion of an unbelieving World is that unpardonable sin which shall never be forgiven And yet even here in this limited and contracted sence of the word Holy Ghost we must still proceed with some caution For it is not every affront and dishonour that is put upon these gifts which is the sin here styled irremissible Simon Magus cast a very high indignity and reproach upon them in his actions for he went about to purchase the gift of tongues and other sacred illuminations called the Holy Ghost which fell upon men at the imposition of the Apostles hands as if they had been only a trick to get money or a fit thing to drive a trade withal and make a gainful merchandise When Simon saw that through the laying on of the hands of the Apostles the Holy Ghost was given he offered them money says S t Luke saying Give me also this power that on whomsoever I lay hands he may receive the Holy Ghost Acts 8.18 19. This was a very great abuse and a most unworthy comparing of the heavenly and holy Spirit of God to a mercetable ware and vendible commodity thinking it fit to serve any ends and to minister to the basest purposes of filthy lucre and covetousness But yet this sin against the Holy Ghost in its strictest acceptation was not the unpardonable sin it came very near it indeed and would hardly be remitted but still in all likelihood it was remissible And therefore S t Peter although he be very severe upon this sordid man for the high affront doth not yet pronounce an irreversible doom of damnation upon him but on the contrary exhorts him to repent that the sin of his heart may be forgiven Repent says he of this thy wickedness and pray God if perhaps the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee ver 22. But that which is the desperately damning sin against the Holy Ghost which shall never be forgiven either in this world or in that which is to come is the sinning against it not by interpretation only in our actions but directly in our words and expressions It is our speaking reproachfully and slanderously of it as the Pharisees did of the spirit when they attributed it to Beelzebub And therefore it is expresly called the speaking blasphemously against the Holy Ghost Whosoever speaketh blasphemously against the Holy Ghost when he shall come it shall never be forgiven him neither in this world nor in the world to come Matth. 12.21 32. The great weight lyes in that for this heavy doom he denounced upon them says S t Mark because they said he hath an unclean spirit Mark 3 30. And thus at length we see what that sin against the Holy Ghost is whose doom is so dreadful and whose case is so desperate under the Gospel It is nothing less than a slandering and reviling instead of owning and assenting to that last evidence which God has given us of the truth of the Gospel in the gifts of tongues prophecy and other extraordinary illuminations called the Holy Ghost So that no man who ownes Christ's Religion and thinks he was no Impostor and believes that these miraculous gifts of the Holy Ghost were no magical shows or diabolical delusions can ever be guilty of it No before he arrive to that he must not only be an Infidel to the faith but also a Blasphemer of it he must not only disbelieve this last and greatest evidence but disparage and rail against it If then there be any man who ownes Christ's Authority and obeys his Laws and believes his Gospel and hopes in its promises and fears its threatnings and expects that every word of that Covenant which was confirmed to us by the infallible evidence of the Spirit and the Holy Ghost shall come to pass he is not more guiltless of any sin than of this against the Holy Ghost for he doth not so much as sleight and disparage but ownes and submits to it If good men therefore are afraid by reason of the irremissibleness of the sin against the Holy Ghost they fear where they need not and their scruple is utterly unreasonable and groundless For let it be as unpardonable as it will that shall not hurt them for they can never suffer by it since whilst they continue such as now they are they cannot possibly be guilty of it or of any thing that comes near it CHAP. VII The Conclusion The CONTENTS Some other causless scruples The point of growth in Grace more largely stated A summary repetition of this whole Discourse They may dye with courage whose Conscience doth not accuse them This accusation must not be for idle words distractions in Prayer c. but for a wilful transgression of some Law of Piety Sobriety c. above mentioned It must further be particular and express not general and roving If an honest mans heart condemn him not for some such unrepented sins God never will BEsides these scruples already mentioned some good minds may be put in fear and doubt of the safety of their present state because S t John says that whosoever is born of God sinneth not being no longer a child of God if he do 1 Joh. 3.6 9. But the sin here spoken of as was observed above is defined by S t John himself at the fourth verse of this Chapter to be not every deviation or going beside the Law but a wilful transgression and rejecting of the Law it self And this indeed is inconsistent with a regenerate state and puts us out of Gods favour making us liable to eternal destruction But then the case for these sins is not desperate seeing if once we forsake them and repent of them we are as safe again as ever we were before we committed them For our repentance will set us straight and if we transgress not wilfully again we are without the reach of condemnation Others doubt whether when once they have wilfully sinned they ever can repent or shall afterwards be pardoned because they read of Esau that after he had sold his birth-right with the blessing that attended it when he would have inherited it afterwards he was rejected and found no place of a change of mind or repentance though he sought it carefully with tears Heb. 12.17 In answer to this it will be sufficient to observe that this change of mind or repentance which Esau sought but could not find was not in himself but in his Father Isaac It was not in himself I say for there he did find a place for it being he was really possessed of it For he was heartily sorry for his former folly in parting with his birth-right and for his present unhappiness in being
sufferings Where it needs to be defended disobedience is no fit means to preserve it because God cannot be honoured nor Religion served by it Religion and the love of God is only the colour but the true and real cause of such disobedience is a want of Religion and too great a love of mens own selves Men are liable to be deceived by this pretence from a wrong Notion of Religion for religious opinions and professions A true Notion of Religion for religious practice upon a religious belief as it implies both faith and obedience The danger of disobedience upon this pretence The practice of all religious men in this case Of Religion in the narrow acceptation for religious professions and opinions The commendable way of mens preserving it First By acting within their own sphere Secondly By the use only of lawful means Thirdly By a zeal in the first place for the practice of religious Laws and next to that for the free profession of religious opinions 330 CHAP. VII Of the two remaining pretences for a partial obedience The Contents The second pretence for the allowed practice of some sins whilst men obey in others is the serving of their necessities by sinful arts in times of indigence An account of mens disobedience upon this pretence The vanity of it and the danger of disobeying through it A third pretence is bodily temper and complexion age and way of life A representation of mens disobedience upon this pretence The vanity of it and the danger of sinning through it No justifying Plea for disobedience from our age Nor from our way of life Nor from our natural temper and complexion So that this integrity of the Object is excusable upon no pretence It was always required to mens acceptance 355 CHAP. VIII Of obeying with all the heart and all the soul c. The Contents Of obeying God with all the heart and with all the strength c. It includes not all desire and endeavour after other things but it implies First Sincerity Secondly Fervency Thirdly Integrity or obeying not some but all the Laws of God These three include all that is contained in it which is shown from their obedience who are said in Scripture to have fulfilled it Integrity implies sincerity and fervency and love with all the heart is explained in the places where it is mentioned by loving him entirely Sincerity and uprightness the Conditions of an acceptable Obedience This a hard Condition in the degeneracy of our manners but that is our own fault It was easie and universally performed by the primitive Christians This shown from the Characters of the Apostles and of the primitive Writers Hence it was that they could despise Death and even provoke Martyrdom Some Pleas from our impotence against the strictness of this Obedience which are considered in the next Book 370 BOOK IV. Shewing what defects are consistent with a regenerate state and dispensed with in the Gospel CHAP. I. Shewing in general that some sins are consistent with a state of Grace The Contents SOme failings consistent with a state of Grace This shewn in the general First From the necessity of humane Nature which cannot live without them Secondly From sundry examples of pious men who had right to life whilst they lived in them 385 CHAP. II. Of the nature of these consistent slips more particularly The Contents Our unchosen sins are consistent with a state of Grace but our wilful and chosen ones destroy it All things are made good or evil a matter of reward or punishment by a Law Laws are given for the guidance and reward only of our voluntary and chosen actions This proved first from the clear reason of the thing Where it is inferred from the nature of Laws which is to oblige from that way that all Laws have of obliging which is not by forcing but perswading men from the dueness of rewards and punishments commendations and reproofs from the applause or accusations of mens own Consciences upon their obedience or transgressions Secondly From the express declarations of Scripture 396 CHAP. III. Of the nature and danger of voluntary sins The Contents The nature of a wilful and a deliberate sin Why it is called a despising of Gods Law a sinning presumptuously and with a high hand Wilful sins of two sorts viz. some chosen directly and expresly others only indirectly and by interpretation Of direct and interpretative volition Things chosen in the latter way justly imputable Of the voluntary causes of inconsideration in sins of commission which are drunkenness an indulged passion or a habit of sin Of the power of these to make men inconsiderate The cause of inconsideration in sins of omission viz. Neglect of the means of acquiring Vertue Of the voluntariness of all these causes Of the voluntariness of drunkenness when it mâ—y be looked upon as involuntary Of the voluntariness of an indulged passion mens great errour lies in indulging the beginnings of sin Of the voluntariness and crying guilt of a habit of sin Of the voluntariness of mens neglect of the means of Vertue No wilful sin is consistent with a state of Grace but all are damning A distinct account of the effect of wilful sins viz. when they only destroy our acceptance for the present and when moreover they greatly wound and endanger that habitual Vertue which is the foundation of it and which should again restore us to it for the time to come These last are particularly taken notice of in the accounts of God 409 CHAP. IV. Of the nature of involuntary sins and of their consistence with a state of salvation The Contents Of involuntary actions Of what account the forced actions of the Body are in Morals Two causes of involuntariness First The violence of mens passions It doth not excuse Secondly The ignorance of their understandings This is the cause of all our consistent failings and the sins that are involuntary upon this account are consistent with a state of salvation This proved 1. From their unavoidableness The causes of it in what sense any particular sin among them is said to be avoidable 2. From the nature of God A representation of God's nature from his own Word and mens experience The Argument drawn from it for the consistence of such failings 3. From the nature and declarations of the Gospel It is fitted to beget a cheerful and filial confidence and therefore is called the Spirit of Adoption The Argument from this The Scripture Declarations and Examples in this matter These Arguments summed up 440 CHAP. V. Of these involuntary and consistent sins particularly and of the first cause of innocent involuntariness viz. ignorance The Contents A twofold knowledg 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
regard them Neither can it be collected beforehand from any fixt rule or reason seeing it observes none And what neither our greatest wisdom can foretel nor our exactest care prevent it is wholly to no purpose to make a matter of our study and enquiry But as for the Everlasting happiness or misery of our Souls and Bodies in the other Life and at the Resurrection they are not left at random nor fall out by accident but are dispensed by a wise hand and according to a fixt and established rule For it is God who distributes them and this distribution is in Judgment and the procedure in that is by Laws and those laws are unalterably fixt for us and most plainly declared and published to us in the Gospel So that now it is no impossible no nor extream difficult thing for us to understand which shall be our own state in the next world For the laws are well known proclaimed daily to every ear by a whole order of men set apart for that purpose their sence and meaning is obvious to any common understanding and the Judgment according to them at that day will be true and faithful God will Absolve all those whom his Gospel acquits but Condemn every man whom it accuses There will be no perverting of Justice through fear or favour no Sentence passed through partiality or ill will but a Tryal every way unbyassed and uncorrupt where Every one shall receive according to the things done in the body 2 Cor. 5.10 And Judgment shall pass upon all men according to their works Rom. 2.6 And thus as the belief of the two former Articles the immortal state either of Bliss or Misery for our Souls and the Resurrection of our Bodies will inflame us with restless desires so if we seriously believe it will this third Article of the great and general Judgment possess us with sure hopes of being satisfyed in this great enquiry which of the two States will fall to our own share And as this belief of the last Judgment will be the most effectual means to encourage so will it be withal the surest to guide our Enquiries after it It chalks us out a method for our search and directs us to the readiest course for satisfaction For if the happiness and misery of the next world is to be dispensed to every man for a reward or punishment according to the direction of those Laws which promise or threaten them then have we nothing more to do in this enquiry but to examine well what those laws are what obedience they require what allowances and mitigations they will bear and what lot and condition they assign us For in that day we shall be look'd upon to be what they declare us and be doom'd to that state which they pronounce for us What they speak to us all now that the Judge of all the world will pronounce upon us all then their sentence shall be his and what they denounce he will execute He will judge us by no other measure but his own Laws those very Laws which he has taken so much care to proclaim to us and continually to press upon us which he has put into every one of our hands and made to be sounding daily in our ears the laws and sanctions of the Gospel Our blessed Saviour Christ the Judge himself has told us this long ago The word that I have spoken the same shall judge men at the last day Joh. 12.48 And his great Apostle Paul has again confirmed it Rom. 2. God shall judge the world at that day according to my Gospel vers 16. If we perform what those Laws peremptorily require they now already declare us blessed and such at the last day will Christ pronounce us But if by sinning against them we fall short of it they denounce nothing but everlasting woes and miseries and those he will execute For he tells us plainly that when he shall come to judgment in the Glory of his Father with his holy Angels he will reward every man according to his works Mat. 16.27 To them who by patient continuance in well-doing seek for glory and immortality he will give eternal life Rom. 2.7 But to them who obey not the Truth but obey unrighteousness indignation and wrath tribulation and anguish and that upon every man whether he be Jew or Gentile vers 8 9. For all this shall be acted in the greatest integrity without preferring one before an other It is only the difference in mens works which shall difference their conditions but they who have been equal in their sins shall be equal also in their sufferings For at the appearance of Jesus Christ God as S t Peter tells us without any respect of persons judges according to every mans work 1 Pet. 1.7.17 The way then whereby to satisfie our selves in this great matter is this To look well into the Gospel there to learn what we should be and into our own hearts and lives there to see what indeed we are and thence to conclude what in the next world whether in a state of Life or Death we shall be And to shew this to every man and to let him see now beforehand how he stands prepared for the next world and whether if he should be called away presently to the Bar of that Judgment he would be everlastingly acquitted or condemned in it is my present business and design It is to let us see our Eternal Condition before we enter on it and to make it evident to every man who is both capable and willing to be instructed what shall be his endless doom of Life or Death before the Judge pronounce it And since the Rule of that Court whereby we must all be tryed and which must measure out to us either Life or Death is as we have seen none other than the Gospel of our Judge and Saviour Jesus Christ that I may manage this enquiry with the greater light and clearness I will proceed in this method First I will enquire What is that condition of our happiness or misery which the Gospel indispensably exacts Secondly What are its mitigations and allowances those defects which it pardons and bears with And when at any time we fall short of this condition and thereby forfeit all right and title to that happiness and pardon which is promised to us upon it Then Thirdly What are those remedies and means of recovery which it points us out for restoring our selves again unto a state of Grace and Favour and whereupon we shall be reconciled And having by this means discovered what in the great and general judgment shall really and truly determine our last estate what shall be connived at in it and when once 't is lost what shall restore to it I shall in the Fourth and last place Remove those groundless doubts and scruples which perplex the minds of good and safe but yet erring and misguided people concerniâ—â— it And having in this manner cleared up all thâ—se
things relating to our last doom and shewâ—â—â—oth what in the Judgment shall be indispensably required to our salvation what Defects do not overthrow but consist with it what Remedies when 't is wounded or lost can heal and restore us to it and what and of how great consideration those things really are which being wrong understood do often create causless fears and jealousies in good peoples minds about it Having I say clearly accounted for all these I suppose I may think I have said enough to shew men their Future State and fairly take leave of this Argument BOOK I. Of the indispensable condition of happiness in the general CHAP. I. Of Obedience the general condition of happiness The CONTENTS Obedience the indispensable condition of happiness The Laws of the Gospel are given as a Rule to it The Promises are all upon condition of it and intended to encourage it All the threatnings are now denounced and will be executed upon the disobedient Of those other things whereto Pardon is promised as well as to obedience Of Metonymy's Of the Principles of Humane Actions Of Principles of Obedience All those speeches metonymical where obedience is not express'd and yet pardon is promised THat Condition which the Gospel indispensably requires of us and which is to mete out to us our last doom of Bliss or Misery is in the General our Obedience When we are brought to that Bar and stand to be judged according to those Laws which are proclaim'd to us in the Gospel it is only our having kept them and Repented of all such transgressions of them as we have wilfully been guilty of which can capacitate us to be rewarded by them For 't is just with them as it is with all other Laws they never promise any thing but to obedience but threaten and punish all that disobey Whosoever breaks and despises them is guilty they do not comfort but accuse not acquit but condemn him For there is no Law that is wisely ordered but is sufficiently guarded against affront and back'd with such punishments as will make it every mans interest to fulfil and keep it The evil threatned must always by far exceed the pleasure that is reaped by disobedience so that no man may have any temptation sufficient to bear him out in Sin or ever hope to be a gainer by his transgression This is the tenour of all wise laws whose enactors have both wit and power sufficient to defend them They have dreadful Punishments annexed to them which take place upon disobedience they encourage and reward the obedient but severely punish all that dare presume to disobey And this is most eminently seen in all the Laws of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. He gave them for the compleatest Rules to mens Lives and has annexed to them most glorious Promises to encourage our obedience but has made them breath out nothing but woes and intolerable punishments to all that disobey He has given them for Rules of Life and annexed Rewards as encouragements to obedience He never intended his Laws for an entertainment of our eyes but for a Rule for our Actions not for a matter of talk and discourse but of practice not to be complemented by words of honour and lofty expressions but to be own'd in our lives and served by obedience He is our King and issues out his Laws as the instruments of his Government he is our Lord and they are Rulers for his Service They must be guides of our Lives and Actions it is not enough to know and talk of them but as ever we hope to live by them we must do and keep them For in the end they will be available to no mans happiness but his who has conscientiously performed them In Christ Jesus or the Christian Religion says S t Paul nothing avails but keeping of the Commandments of God 1 Cor. 7.19 Blessed are they saith S t John who do the Commandments for they only have right to the Tree of Life Rev. 22.14 It is not an idle wish or ineffectual endeavour but a thorough practice and performance of Christs Laws which can continue us in his Love and approve us Righteous in his Judgment If ye keep my Commandments says he ye shall abide in my Love Joh. 15.10 Let no man deceive you for it is he only that doth Righteousness who in Gods account is Righteous 1 Joh. 3.7 They only are pronounced Righteous and Sons of God in the Gospels estimation who walk after the spirit Rom. 8.4 who are led by the spirit vers 14. who bring forth the Fruits of the Spirit all words expressing Action and Practice Gal. 5 16-22 No man therefore will be acquitted and rewarded at that Bar barely for knowing and discoursing for wishing or desiring but only for working and obeying Such only the Gospel reckons for true servants now his servants ye are not whom you confess in words but whom in actions you obey Rom. 6.16 And such only he will honour and reward then For it is not every one who fawns upon me in his words whilest he reproaches me in his actions who says unto me Lord Lord that shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven but he only who doth the will of my Father which is in Heaven Which will he had just then proclaim'd to them in that Volume of Christian Laws which was published in the Sermon upon the Mount whereof this is in part the conclusion Matt. 7.21 He tells us that when the Son of Man shall come to judgment he will reward every man according to his works Matt. 16.27 and he repeats it again in his declaration to S t John Behold I come quickly and my reward is with me to give every man according as his work shall be Rev. 22.12 And so it was in that Prophetick sight of the Last Judgment which this same Apostle had vouchsafed him Rev. 20. For there as we are told when the Sea gave up the Dead which were in it and Death and Hell delivered up the Dead which were in them and they all both small and great stood before the Throne and him that sate thereon they were judged every man according to his WORKS vers 11 12 13. His Laws then Christ has given us not for talk and discourse but for action and practice and his Promises he has annexed to them not as rewards of idleness but only of active service and obedience Wherein if men fail Gods Rewards belong not to them they can make no claim or colourable pretence to them because they cannot show that which is to be rewarded by him Nay further if men disobey they are not only excluded from all glorious hopes but are moreover put into a desperate state of fears and dreadful expectations For God has back'd his Laws with threatnings as well as promises and as they propose most noble rewards to all that are obedient so likewise do they breath out most intolerable punishments to all that disobey
continue to separate between him and his God whatever God CAN do yet certainly he WILL not save him The Lords hand saith the Prophet Isaiah to the afflicted Jews is not shortened that it cannot save nor his ear heavy that it cannot hear but your iniquities have separated between you and your God and your sins have hid his face from you that he will not hear For your hand 's are defiled with blood and your fingers with iniquity your lips have spoken lies your tongue hath muttered perverseness none calls for Justice nor any pleads for Truth and since your disobedience is so heinous your hopes must needs be false you TRVST in vanity Isai. 59.1 2 3 4. Christ himself never dyed to reconcile God to mens sins and to procure hopes of pardon for the finally impenitent and unperswadably disobedient So that no man may ever think himself delivered to act wickedness or wilfully transgress Gods Laws and still dare to trust in him But if any are so bold and frontless Christ will rebuke them at the last Day as God doth the presumptuous Jews by the Prophet Jeremiah Behold says he you trust in lying words which cannot profit you Will you steal murther and commit adultery and swear falsly and notwithstanding all that come and stand before me in this house which is called by my Name as Men that owne my service and dare trust in my love and say as in effect you do by such usage we are delivered to do all these abominations Dare you by thus presuming upon my favour in the midst of all your transgressions make me become a Patron and Protector of your villainies And is this house which is called by my Name become a Den or Receptacle and Sanctuary of Robbers in your eyes Behold I even I have seen it saith the Lord and that surely not to encourage and reward but most severely to punish it for I will utterly cast you out of my sight Jer. 7.8 9 10 11 15. God will by no means endure to have his own most holy Nature become a support to sin nor his Religion to be made a refuge for disobedience nor his Mercy and Goodness a Sanctuary to wicked and unholy men So that no man must dare to hope and trust in him but he only who honestly observes his Laws and uprightly obeys him That fear of God then and trust in his mercy which the Gospel encourages and Christ our Judge will at the last Day accept of is not a fear and trust without obedience but such only as implies it We must serve him in fear and obey him through hope as ever we expect he should acquit and pardon us For no fears or hopes will avail us unto bliss but those that amend our lives and effect in us an honest service and obedience CHAP. VII Of Pardon promised to the love of God and of our Neighbour The CONTENTS Of Pardon promised to the love of God and of our Neighbour Of the fitness of an universal love to produce an universal obedience That pardon is promised to it for this Reason The Conclusion EIghthly That condition which the Gospel indispensably requires of us to our pardon and happiness is sometimes called Love For of this S t Paul says plainly that it is the fulfilling of the Law Rom. 13.10 It is the great condition of Life the standing Terms of mercy and happiness We have the same Apostles word for it of our love of God Those things which neither eye hath seen nor ear heard neither have entred into the heart of man to conceive are prepared for them who LOVE God 1 Cor. 2.9 And again Chap. 8. If any man love God the same is known or accepted of him vers 3. And S t John says as much of the love of our Neighbour Beloved let us LOVE one another for LOVE is of God and every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God 1 John 4.7 And again God is Love and manifested his Love in giving Christ to dye for us And if we love one another God dwells in us For hereby by this mark and evidence we know that we dwell in him and he in us because he hath given us of this loving temper and Spirit of his ver 8 9 12 13. And to the same purpose he speaks fully in the third Chapter of that first Epistle We know says he that we have passed from death unto life because we LOVE the BRETHREN ver 14. Now our hearty love both of God and men is a most natural and easie Principle of an intire service and obedience For the most genuine and proper effect of Love is to seek the satisfaction and delight of the persons beloved It is careful in nothing to behave it self unseemly but to keep back from every thing that may offend and forward in all such services as may any ways pleasure and content them If they rejoyce it congratulates if they mourn it grieves with them If they are in distress it affords succour if in want supply in doubts it ministers counsel in business dispatch It is always full and teeming with good offices and transforms it self into all shapes whereby it may procure their satisfaction and render their condition comfortable and easie to them So that it exerts it self in pity to the miserable in protection to the oppressed in relief to the indigent in counsel to the ignorant in encouragement to the good in kind reproof to the evil in thanks for kindnesses in patience and forbearance upon sufferings in forgiveness of wrong and injuries In one word it is an universal Source and Spring of all works of Justice Charity Humility and Peace Now the Body of our Religion is made up of these Duties For what doth the Lord thy God require of thee O man saith the Prophet Micah but to do justly to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God Mic. 6.8 Those things which God has adopted into his Service and made the matter of our duty towards one another are nothing else but these natural effects of love and kindness and expressions of good nature towards all men All the Precepts of Religion only forbid our doing evil and require our doing good to all the World And since as the Apostle argues love seeketh all things that are good and worketh no evil to our Neighbour therefore Love must needs be the fulfilling of those Laws which concern them This Commandment for instance as he illustrates it Thou shalt not commit Adultery thou shalt not kill thou shalt not steal thou shalt not bear false witness thou shalt not covet all these and if there be any other Commandment relating to our Brethren it is briefly comprehended in this Saying Thou shalt LOVE they Neighbour as thy self For LOVE worketh none of all these ills to our Neighbour therefore LOVE is the fulfilling of the Law Rom. 13.9 10. Thus doth our Love of our Neighbour fulfil all those particular Laws which contain our Duty
of both is Whoredome or bare Fornication and this when the Parties are too nearly allied is called Incest 2. By forcing of one and then 't is Rape or ravishing Which Vice S t Paul expresses by that word which we translate Extortioners 1 Cor. 5.11 and Chap. 6.10 Fourthly To contempt of the world and contentment with our present condition is opposed covetousness which is an immoderate love of the world or an unsatisfiedness with what we have and an insatiable desire of more and grudging or repining Fifthly To taking up the Cross is opposed our being scandalized or turn'd out of the way of Duty and Obedience by reason of it or a politick and selfish deserting of our Duty to avoid it Sixthly To diligence and watchfulness in doing of our Duty is opposed a heedlesness of it and remiss application to it which is carelesness and idleness Seventhly To patience in suffering for it is opposed an immoderate dread of pain and dishonest avoidance of it which is softness and fearfulness Eighthly To mortification and self-denial is opposed self-love and self-pleasing which as it is an industrious care to please and gratifie our bodily senses is called sensuality and as it is a ready and constant serving and obeying the lusts and desires of the Flesh especially when they carry us against the Commands of God is called carnality These are those Vices and breaches of Duty towards our selves which Gods Laws have prohibited under the pains of Death and Hell as the other were such Vertues as under the same penalty he exacts of us So that in the general Law of Sobriety we see are contain'd all these following whether commanding or forbidding Laws The commanding Law of humility of heavenly-mindedness of temperance of sobriety of charity 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 And opposite to these the forbidding Law against pride against arrogance or ostentation against vain-glory against ambition against haughtiness against insolence against imperiousness against dogmaticalness against envious back-biting against emulation against worldliness against intemperance against gluttony against voluptuousness against drunkenness against revelling against incontinence against lasciviousness or wantonness against filthiness against obscene Jestings against impurity or uncleanness against Sodomy against effeminateness against adultery against fornication against whoredom against incest against rape against covetousness against grudging and repining against refusing or being scandaled at the Cross against idleness and carelesness against fearfulness and softness against self-love against carnality against sensuality CHAP. II. Of LOVE the Epitome of Duty towards God and Men and of the particular Laws comprehended under Piety towards God The CONTENTS Of the Duties of Piety and Righteousness both comprehended in one general Duty LOVE It the Epitome of our Duty The great happiness of a good nature The kind temper of the Christian Religion Of the effects of LOVE The great Duty to God is Honour The outward expression whereof is worship The great offence is dishonour Of the several Duties and transgressions contained under both FOR the two remaining Members in S t Paul's Division viz. Godliness or Piety and Righteousness which require something from us to God or to our Neighbour they may yet be reduced into a narrower compass and are both comprized in that one word LOVE For all that ever God requires of us either to himself or towards other men is only heartily and effectually to LOVE them And this abridgment of our whole Duty in respect of these two remaining parts of it towards God and man into that one compendious Law of LOVE is no more than what our Saviour Christ and his Apostle Paul have already made to our hands For hear how they speak of it Jesus saith unto the Lawyer Thou shalt LOVE the Lord thy God with all thy heart and all thy soul and all thy mind This is the first and great Commandment and the second is like unto it Thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thy self On these two which in the thing commanded LOVE are but one hang all the Law of the ten Commandments viz. which meddle not with our Duty towards our selves but only towards God and our Neighbour and the Prophets Matth. 22.37 38 39 40. And S t Paul speaks home to the same purpose By love says he serve one another for all the LAW is fulfilled in one word even this Thou shalt LOVE thy Neighbour as thy self Gal. 5.13 14. And speaking again of the Laws concerning our Neighbour he tells us that LOVE worketh no ill to his Neighbour and therefore Love is the fulfilling of the Law Rom. 13.10 Thus rare and heavenly a Religion is that of our Saviour Christ a Religion that is not content to have only great and eminent measures of goodness in it but is perfectly made up of LOVE and good Nature All that it requires from us is only to be kind-hearted and full of good Offices both towards God and men Every man of a loving good nature is enclined by his temper to do all that is demanded by Gods Law so that he has nothing remaining to turn his temper into obedience but to direct his intention and to exert all the effects of love for the sake of Gods Command which he is otherwise strongly excited to by the natural propensions of his own mind His passion and his God require the same service and that which is only a natural fruit of the first may become if he so design it a piece of Religion and Obedience to the latter For the particular effects of Love are the particulars of our Duty Love is the great and general Law as ill-will and enmity are the prime transgression and the instances of Love are the instances of our obedience as all the particular effects of ill-will are those very instances wherein we disobey So that by running over all the special effects of love or ill-will we may quickly find what are the Particulars of Duty and Transgression Now the prime and most immediate Effects of Love are 1. To do no evil to the persons beloved nor to take away from them any thing which is theirs and which they have a right to And this founds all the Duties of Justice But 2. To do all good offices and show kindness to them which founds all the Duties of Charity And these two take in our whole Duty both in Piety towards God and also in Righteousness towards men 1. The proper and genuine effect of love to God is to do no evil but in great readiness to do all the good and service which we can for him in which two are implied all the branches of piety which is the great and general Duty towards him To be kind and serviceable to God is nothing more than to honour him For his Nature is so perfect and self-sufficient that it cannot receive and ours so impotent
our example than their own opinions would draw them on to practise it too though their own Conscience condemns it which would be to them a sin in this Case the way of Loves affording pity and succour is by making us forgoe the lawful practice of it at that time which is restraining of our Christian Liberty for our Brothers edification For this Vertue there was great place in the Apostles Times among the Christianized Jews For the Jewish Law placed Religion in forbearing certain sorts of Meats as unclean and unlawful and particularly in abstaining from Meats offered to and set before an Idol God as it was in the Gentile Sacrifices And the simpler sort and weaker people who had all along placed so much Religion in these things could not be brought over without much patience of instruction and a long usage to know and see that Liberty which upon their becoming Christians they had obtained either to use or forbear them And whilst the judgments and opinions of many good people were in these things thus weak the Apostles that they might secure the innocency of their practice under their errour and prevent their being scandalized or drawn on to do what themselves condemned as evil through the authority of other mens examples whom they looked upon as wiser Christians are wont very much to press this part of Charity our using of our Christian Liberty not in all things for our own ease but for our weak Brethrens edification Particularly S t Paul is earnest in it Rom. 14. 1 Cor. 8. 3. If they are wicked and vicious this kind-heartedness will effect in us a pious admonition to reduce and reclaim them which is friendly reproof And whether they be good or evil weak or strong it will produce an affectionate tenderness and near concern for them such as we have for those of our own Kindred which is brotherly kindness 2. As to what we see them receive from others And in this respect this kindness and desire to please effects in us 1. If it were good an expression of pleasure and rejoycing in it which is Congratulation 2. If evil then 1. If we cannot redress and remove it it will make us help to bear it in concern and sorrow for it which is compassion 2. If we can it makes us relieve and ease them of it Which it doth if the evil be 1. Of want by supplying it according to our power which is Alms and Distribution 2. Of disgrace by endeavouring to hide and smother it where it is deserved which is covering and concealing of our Brethrens defects and by confuting and wiping it off where we know they have not deserved it which is vindicating our Neighbours reputation 3. As to that place and quality which they bear in respect of us this kindness and desire to please will exert it self if they are persons 1. Below us in a freedom of access and easiness of being spoke with which is affability or graciousness 2. Equal to us or below us in a readiness to do good Offices and to make their concern our own which is courteousness or officiousness And in pursuit of this in stooping down to some things below our Rank and Quality either in words or actions which is condescension And if this courtesy be used towards Strangers and expressed in entertaining them at our own house 't is hospitality 3. Towards all men whomsoever we converse with it will beget 1. A quietness of temper and tameness of intercourse which is called gentleness 2. A fair interpretation and putting the best sense upon any thing that is done or spoken which is candor 3. A maintenance of good agreement and correspondence which is unity 4. And as to what we our selves receive from others this kindness of nature and desire to please will produce 1. If it were good a grateful sense and affectionate resentment of it with a longing desire to requite it which is thankfulness 2. If evil and injury then it will effect 1. A slowness to take provocation and to be angry at it which is meekness or lenity 2. When the wrong is such that we may justly and reasonably be angred at it an easiness of being entreated and a readiness to be appeased which is placableness 3. And for the requital of the wrong if it were 1. Only an affront or light injury it makes us seek none but pardon and put it up which is forgiving injuries And instead of that to render in return to it kindness and such good Offices as are in our power as praying to God for them and blessing or speaking all the good which we can of them as often as we have occasion to mention them always are which is doing good to enemies or as our Saviour says blessing them that curse us and praying for our enemies Matth. 5.44 2. Too burthensome or scandalous to be past over so that 't is fit to punish it then in exacting 1. Punishment as being an unpleasant work it makes us bear long before we come to it which is long-suffering 2. Satisfaction it suffers us not to go to the utmost of what might be exacted but through a care of our enemies as well as of our selves to take up with such a competency as is no more than they can bear which is mercifulness These are such particular Laws of Charity as naturally flow from this effect of love to men our kindness and desire to benefit and please them And all these effects of love are parts of Duty and those several Precepts which God has commanded us to keep and obey And as our love of men with this effect of it our desire to benefit and pleasure them includes in it all the instances of Charity so doth our hatred of them with a delight to spite and trouble them which naturally flows from it comprehend in it all the contrary instances of uncharitableness For this ill-will and habitual hatefulness of temper will effect in us opposite to goodness and a desire to please and delight others an universal mischievousness or forwardness to make others work to put them to pains and trouble and create them sorrow which is called wickedness And this will express it self in creating our Neighbour discontent and vexation in all those ways wherein we are concerned with him or conversant about him For instance 1. As for any thing which we see he has 1. Of Vertue and Goodness instead of honouring it will make us wish ill to him and set him at nought which is hating and despising him 2. Of weakness and ignorance it will make us not to restrain our selves at all in the use of our Christian Liberty for his sake but to act to the utmost of what is lawful though he be scandalized by it or encouraged upon the authority of our example to commit what his own Conscience tells him is a sin which is scandalizing or making him to offend 2. As for what we see him do or
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
them mens own reason and passion will represent and suggest them for a rule of obedience and when they wilfully transgress them their own Conscience must needs check and reprove them which will be sufficient to them for a rule of trial For all the Laws of this second which is the Gospel-Covenant are so agreeably suited to our natural reason and conscience that every mans own mind may be a sufficient Monitor What our own understanding tells us is fit and becoming us that we should do that has God bound upon us by his Laws and made it our Duty to do His Precepts are the very same with the best results and purest dictates of our own reason so that every pious and honest Conscience cannot but of it self approve all that God has enjoined it Which God himself has clearly intimated when he says of all the Laws of the second which is the Gospel-Covenant that he will put the Laws contained in it into their minds and write them in their hearts so that in regard they have them so legible within themselves they shall not need to be still enquiring of others and to teach every man his Neighbour and every man his Brother saying Know the Lord and that in this or that particular you must serve him for all shall know him and his Laws without any other Monitor than their own Conscience from the least to the greatest Heb. 8.10 11. Besides as for all the Laws of piety towards God and of righteousness towards men which make up by far the greatest part of our Duty they are only so many several effects and various expressions of our Love to them So that he who acts nothing against love breaks none of all these Laws but keeps them every one Whereof Christ himself who has given these Laws and who is to judge of our obedience to them and his Apostle Paul have given us sufficient assurance when they both affirm of Love that as to these two general parts of Duty it is the fulfilling of the Law And therefore any man that knows what Love is may quickly understand what is Law and when he is about to venture upon any action it is but asking his own soul whether it be against Love and he has his Answer whether or no it be against Duty And since whensoever we have occasion for it we shall be admonished of our Duty both these ways both from our reason and our passion though this Catalogue prove defective in some instances and omit it that defect can be of no danger seeing it will be otherwise supplied We may by its help know those Duties which it mentions and by the help of the other two those Particulars wherein it fails us So that we shall still be sufficiently directed in our Duty and shewed what we should do and when we sin against it wilfully our own Conscience is privy to it which will enable us to examine also whether indeed we have done it or no. This then may suffice for a particular enumeration of all the commanding Laws of God whereto our obedience is required as an indispensable condition of our life and happiness And as for all the forbidding Laws which contain those things which under the highest pains of death and misery we are indispensably required to abstain from they are these that follow The Law against unsoberness towards our selves with all its particulars which are the Law against pride against arrogance or ostentation against vain-glory against ambition against haughtiness against insolence against imperiousness against dogmaticalness against envious backbiting against emulation against worldliness against intemperance against gluttony against voluptuousness against drunkenness against revelling against incontinence against lasciviousness or wantonness against filthiness against obscene Jestings against impurity or uncleanness against sodomy against effeminateness against adultery against fornication against whoredom against incest against rape against covetousness against grudging and repining against refusing or being scandaled at the Cross against idleness and carelesness against fearfulness and softness against self-love against carnality against sensuality The Law against impiety towards God with all its Retinue which are the Law against dishonour against atheism against denying Providence against blasphemy against superstition against idolatry against witchcraft and sorcery against foolishness against headiness against unbelief against hating God against want of zeal against distrust of him against not praying to him against unthankfulness against fearlesness against contumacy or repining against disobedience against common swearing against perjury against prophaneness The Law against injustice towards men in all its instances which are the Law against murder against false witness against slander or calumny against lying against unfaithfulness or perfidy against adultery against covetousness against stealing or robbing against oppression against extortion and depressing in bargaining against circumvention and deceit against craftiness The Law against uncharitableness with all its Train which are the Law against maliciousness or hatefulness against wickedness against despising and hating them that are good against giving scandal to weak Brethren against envy or an evil eye against rejoicing in evil against uncharitableness in alms against not vindicating an innocent mans reputation against evil speaking against censoriousness against back-biting against whispering against railing or reviling against upbraiding against reproaching against mocking against difficulty of access against contumely or affront against uncourteousness against stiffness or uncondescension against unhospitableness against surliness against malignity against turbulence and unquietness against unthankfulness against anger and passionateness against debate and variance against bitterness against clamour and brawling against hatred and malice against implacableness against revenge against cursing and reproaching enemies and imprecation of them against hastiness to punish against rigour The Law against enmity and discord with all its Dependants which are the Law against unpeaceableness against emulation or provoking one another against pragmaticalness or being busie Bodies against tale-bearing a-against whispering against not satisfying for injuries against strife or contention against division and faction in the State against heresie and against schism in the Church against tumult The Law against hatred in the particular relation of Subjects towards their Princes with the several effects of it which are the Law against dishonour against irreverence against speaking evil of Dignities against refusing Tribute and Taxes against traiterousness against neglecting to pray for Kings against disobedience against resisting lawful Powers and Authority against rebellion The Law against hatred to our Ecclesiastical Governours Bishops and Ministers with all the particulars implied in it which are the Law against dishonour of our Bishops and Ministers especially against setting them at nought for their works sake against irreverence to them against speaking evil of them against mocking them against not providing for them against sacriledge or stealing from them against not praying for them against disobedience The Law against hatred in the relation of Husband and Wife with all its Particulars which
are on both sides the Law against unconcernedness in each others condition against not bearing each others infirmities against provoking one another against estrangedness against strife or contention against hatred and enmity against publishing each others infirmities against not praying for each other against adultery against jealousie On the Husbands towards the Wife the Law against not maintaining her against not protecting her against imperiousness against uncompliance or uncondescension On the Wives towards her Husband the Law against dishonour against irreverence against unobservance against disobedience against casting off his yoke or unsubjection The Law against hatred in the particular relation of Parents and Children with all its Instances which are on both sides the Law against want of natural affection against not praying for each other and imprecation On the Parents side the Law against not providing for those of their own house against irreligious and evil education against harsh Government or provoking their Children to anger On the Childrens the Law against dishonour against irreverence against being ashamed of their Parents against mocking them against cursing or reproach and speaking evil of them against disobedience against contumaciousness against robbing them The Law against hatred in the particular relation of Brethren and Sisters with its effects which are the Law against want of natural affection against not providing for our Brethren against not praying for them against imprecation or praying against them The Law against hatred in the particular relation of Master and Servant with all its expressions which are on the Masters side the Law against not providing maintenance for his Servant against not catechizing or instructing him against unequal Government against unjustness wantonness and rigour in commanding against imperiousness against immoderate threatning against railing at him against defrauding or keeping back the wages of the Hireling against not praying for him against imprecation And on the Servants the Law against dishonour of his Master against irreverence against non-observance against publishing or aggravating his Masters faults against not vindicating his injured reputation against unfaithfulness against wasting his Goods against purloining against disobedience against answering again against slothfulness against eye-service against contumacy and resistance against not praying for him against imprecation or praying against him To all which we must adde the two positive and arbitrary prohibitions of the Gospel the Law against neglecting Baptism and the Lords Supper And when we wilfully transgress any one or more of the Commands foregoing a perseverance in it without amending it which is impenitence And these are those particular prohibitions whereto our obedience is indispensably required by the Gospel and whereby at the last Day we must all be judged And for the performance of all these Commands and keeping back from all these prohibitions when it is become any mans habitual course and practice it is oft-times expressed by the general word holiness as the contrary is by unholiness CHAP. V. Of the Sanction of the foregoing Laws The CONTENTS Of the Sanction of all the forementioned particular Laws That they are bound upon us by our hopes of Heaven and our fears of Hell Of the Sanction of all the particular affirmative or commanding Laws NOW it is upon our obedience of all those Laws which are mentioned in the foregoing Chapters that all our well-grounded hope of pardon and a happy Sentence at the last Day depends They are that Rule which God has fixt for the Proceedings at that Judgment whereby all of us will be doomed to live or dye eternally There is not any one of them left naked and unguarded for men to transgress at pleasure and yet to go unpunished but the performance of every one is made necessary unto life and the unrepented transgression of it threatned with eternal damnation And that it is so is plain from this because almost the whole Body of them viz. all those which are implyed in piety towards God and in Justice Charity and peaceableness towards men are nothing else but instances and effects of Love which is plainly necessary and that in the greatest latitude For the words of the Command are as comprehensive as can be That thou mayest inherit eternal life thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy strength and with all thy mind which plainly take in our whole affection towards God and every part and expression of it and thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thy self which again implies all instances of love towards other men seeing towards our own selves not any one is wanting This do and thou shalt live Luke 10.25 27 28. So that in shewing of them all that they are natural effects of an universal love I have shewn withal that they are necessary means of life and conditions of salvation This is a plain mark whereby it is obvious and easie for us all to understand what Laws are necessary terms of life For every mans heart can inform him what are the natural effects of love they being such things as the meanest reason may discern nay such as every mans affection will suggest to him And because they are so the Apostles themselves when they set down Catalogues of indispensable Laws never descend to reckon up all particulars but having plainly declared the absolute necessity of an ample and universal love in the general they content themselves with naming some few instances of it and leave the rest which are like unto them to be suggested to us by our own minds And the same course they take in recounting those sins which are opposite to them and which without repentance will certainly destroy us Thus for instance in S t Paul's Catalogue of damning sins Gal. 5. he doth not trouble himself to name all particulars but having mentioned several of them he concludes with this general intimation of the rest and such like vers 21. This way then of shewing the necessity of all the forementioned Laws by shewing expresly that Love in the general is plainly necessary and leaving it to mens own minds to collect of them all severally that they are natural effects of it is sufficient in it self and such as the Apostles of our Lord are wont to take up with But because our belief of the necessity of our obedience in all the preceding particulars is of so great moment and it is so infinitely our concern to be fixt and settled in it I will here set down such express declarations of it in every one of them as are to be met with in the Scriptures And to begin with the several Classes of them in the same order wherein they are laid down for sobriety and all the particular Laws comprehended under it we have their sanction set down and the necessity of our obedience to them to our life and pardon expressed in the following Scriptures For the Law of humility and lowliness of mind take these Put on as necessary qualifications
be expected You have not saith S t James because you ask not James 4.2 Gods mercy is on all that fear him Luke 1.50 I will warn you saith our Saviour whom you shall fear fear God who after he hath killed hath yet further power to cast you into Hell if you are fearless and contemptuous I say unto you Fear him Luke 12.5 In every thing give thanks for this is the will of God concerning you 1 Thess. 5.18 It is one part of our walking as Children of the light to give thanks always and in all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ Ephes. 5.8 20. And the Apostle's exhortation is Offer to God the Sacrifice of Praise continually giving thanks to his Name and that because we have no abiding City but seek one to come Heb. 13.14 15. The Church of Laodicea to the end that she may be rich and cloathed is advised to be zealous and to repent Rev. 3.18 19. And one effect of a godly sorrow and a saving repentance S t Paul saith is zeal for God and goodness 2 Cor. 7.11 In Christ Jesus or the Christian Religion neither Circumcision availeth any thing nor Vncircumcision but keeping of the Commandments of God 1 Cor. 7.19 For it is this only that gives right to life and happiness Blessed are they that do his Commandments that they may have right to the Tree of Life Rev. 22.14 Our Fathers after the flesh corrected us and we gave them reverence and shall we not much rather be in subjection to the Father of Spirits and live Heb. 12.9 And thus are all the Particulars of this second Class of Duties Piety bound upon us with the same sanction as the former and our obedience to them all made necessary to our being pardoned at the last Day and eternally rewarded by them And the same is further true of the Duties of the third Class righteousness towards our Neighbour For as for the necessity of Justice S t Paul is clear Owe no man any thing but to love one another Rom. 13.8 For if you wrong and defraud one another saith the same Apostle know that the unrighteous shall not inherit the Kingdom of God 1 Cor. 6.8 9. And as for all the particular Laws of Charity their necessity will appear from what follows Be kindly affectioned one to another as if you were of the same blood and near Kindred with brotherly love in honour preferring one another for your Vertues before your selves and much more vindicating each other from the unjust aspersions of others Distributing or communicating to the necessity of Saints given to or earnestly pursuing hospitality Bless or speak well of them which persecute you Bless and curse not Rejoyce with them that do rejoyce in congratulation and weep with them that weep in compassion Be of the same mind one towards another mind not state and high things but be affable and condescend by going even out of your way to bear them company to men of low estate Recompence to no man evil for evil but if thine enemy hunger feed him if he thirst give him drink Rom. 12.10 13 14 15 16 17 20. All which Precepts with several others delivered in that Chapter he gave in Command as he tells them through the Grace or Authority of Apostleship which is here and elsewhere called Grace given unto him ver 3 and that is a plain proof of their indispensable necessity For he that despiseth you Apostles says our Saviour despiseth me Luke 10.16 And if the transgression and disobedience of the Law of Moses spoken to him only by Angels in the Mount received a just recompence of reward such Offenders dying without mercy how shall we escape the same death or greater if we neglect and much more if we despise so great a means of salvation as Christs Gospel and his Laws are which was at first spoken to us by the Lord Jesus himself who is far above all Angels and was afterwards confirmed to us by his Apostles or them that heard him Heb. 2.2 3. The wisdom from above and which must bring us thither is gentle easie to be entreated full of mercy and good fruits James 3.17 And S t Paul bids the Colossians to put on as the elect of God holy and beloved these Vertues viz. bowels of mercies kindness or courtesy meekness long-suffering or forbearing one another and forgiving one another If any man hath a quarrel against any even as Christ forgave you so do ye Col. 3.12 13 15. The fruits of the Spirit saith the same Apostle are love long-suffering gentleness goodness meekness against such there is no condemning force of any Law Gal. 5.22 23. The description which S t Paul gives of Charity is this Charity suffers long in great meekness before it be provoked and is kind or courteous towards all men is not puffed up with supercilious and haughty behaviour for men do not assume state over those persons whom they love but is lowly and affable doth not behave it self unseemly or contumeliously but with much respect and civility seeks not her own Praise and Glory at other mens cost or discredit is not easily provoked or not provoked to the height but mixes mercifulness with anger opposite to rigour rejoyces or congratulates the truth or sincerity and integrity of men and as for their infirmities it bears or covers and conceals all things that are defective believes all things to their advantage in putting the most candid and favourable sence upon any thing which they do or say and where there is no excuse for the present it hopeth all things good for the future and for injuries offered to it self it is not hasty and vindictive but patiently endureth all things 1 Cor. 13.4 5 6 7. And for the necessity of that Charity which includes all these S t Paul is express in the same Chapter when he tells us that although he have all faith and all knowledg and bestow all his goods to feed the poor yea and give his Body to be burned in Martyrdom if still he have not Charity in all these other effects and in that latitude wherein it is here described it profiteth him nothing ver 2 3. I say unto you Love your enemies bless or speak all the good you can of them that curse or reproach you do good to them that hate you and pray for them who despitefully use you and persecute you that by this means you may be the Children of your Father which is in Heaven Matth. 5.44 45. Which Laws are of the number of those which are contained in Christ's Sermon on the Mount at the beginning whereof he declared that whosoever should break the least of his Commandments which he was then about to deliver and should teach men to
necessary for you for even hereunto were you called that you may be like to Christ who has left you an example of such patient suffering for this end that you might follow his steps 1 Pet. 2.18 19 20 21 c. And thus are all the particular Laws of this last relation imposed in the same strictness of obligation and under the same severe sanction with all the rest that went before And as for the Law of Baptism and of the Lords Supper and of Repentance and amendment whensoever we fail in any of the former which are all the commanding Laws yet remaining their necessity will appear from the Scriptures following Except a man be born again of Water as well as of the Spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God says Christ to Nicodemus John 3.5 And when Christ sends his Apostles out to preach to all the World that Doctrine which he commissions them to declare is this He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved Mark 16.16 Take eat this is my Body Do this in remembrance of me For as often as you eat this Bread and drink this Cup you do shew forth the Lords death which you must do till he come the second time to judge us and to punish all impenitent Transgressors as well of this as of all his other Precepts 1 Cor. 11.24 25 26. And this Command he further says he received of the Lord to deliver to them ver 23. And for the fuller proof of the necessity of this Sacrament that is very remarkable which as some have observed the Jewish Doctors have taken notice of viz. that whereas God forbad twenty three things under pain of being cut off from the people to them who committed them yet in the whole Old Testament there are but two things commanded under that penalty to those who should neglect them and they are Circumcision and the Passover which are Types and Figures of and answer to our two Sacraments Baptism and the Lords Supper And for that necessity particularly of the Passover among the Jews which answers to the Eucharist among us Christians where as the Apostle says Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us 1 Cor. 5.7 we have a plain Text at the institution of it Exod. 12. Whosoever in the Feast of the Passover eateth leavened Bread from the first Day to the eleventh Day that soul shall be cut off from Israel ver 15. Repentance and remission of sins thereupon is commanded to be preached to all Nations Luke 24.47 And as Christ ordered so his Apostles practised Repent says S t Peter in his first Sermon and be baptized for the remission of sins Acts 2.38 But without this there is no mercy for any wilful Offenders for except you repent says our Saviour you shall all perish Luke 13.3 And thus we have seen of all the commanding Laws particularly that our obedience to every one of them is plainly necessary to our salvation They are that Rule which God has fixt to measure out to us either Life or Death and which at the last Day we must all be eternally acquitted or condemned by CHAP. VI. Of the Sanction of all the forbidding Laws The CONTENTS Of the Sanction of all the negative or forbidding Laws particularly The perfection of the Christian Law How our Duty exceeds that of the Heathens under the revelations of Nature And that of the Jews under the additional light of Moses's Law AS for all the Vices opposite to the several Vertues in the foregoing Chapter which are the number of the negative or forbidding Laws they must needs be under the same sanction and our observance of them be bound upon us by the same necessity with our observance of the former For whatsoever any of the particular Laws commanding any Vertues threaten they denounce against these opposite Vices which are the several transgressions of them So that in shewing the severe sanction and necessity of the one I have shown it sufficiently of the other also And this might very well excuse me all further trouble in searching after an express sanction of every particular forbidding Law But on the other side I consider that men are infinitely concerned to be fully convinced of the particular necessity of abstaining from every Vice as well as of performing every Vertue And that there is much more force to work this full Conviction in an express and particular proof than there can be in a general and implicite intimation And because I would shun no pains which may be likely to quicken the obedience or secure the interests even of any one soul I will not leave it to mens selves to collect and inferr this necessity although the meanest capacities may do it without any great difficulty but proceed still to set down such sanctions of all the particular forbidding Laws as I meet with in the Scriptures And to take the several Classes of them in that order wherein they are described above for the penalties threatned to all the Particulars of unsoberness they will appear from the places following The works of the Flesh are manifest saith S t Paul which are adultery fornication uncleanness lasciviousness drunkenness revelling emulations of the which I tell you that they who do such things shall not inherit the Kingdom of God And besides these if we live in the Spirit without which there is no hopes of happiness Rom. 8.6 let us not be desirous of vain-glory provoking one another Gal. 5.19 20 21 25 26. Neither the effeminate those that suffer themselves to be unnaturally abused nor the abusers of themselves with mankind nor extortioners or ravishers and men that commit rapes shall inherit the Kingdom of God 1 Cor. 6.9 10. But the fearful and soft the abominable or abusers of themselves with mankind and whoremongers shall have their part in the Lake which burneth with fire and brimstone which is the second death Rev. 21.8 Let not filthiness nor foolish or obscene talking nor jesting in filthy jests be so much as named among you For this ye know that no whoremonger or covetous man c. hath any inheritance in the Kingdom of God and of Christ. Let no man deceive you for these things sake cometh the wrath of God upon the Children of disobedience Ephes. 5.3 4 5 6. In the last Days perillous times shall come for men shall be lovers of themselves or of their own Flesh covetous proud Boasters or arrogant incontinent high-minded or enormously haughty in behaviour or insolent lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God or sensual having a form of godliness but denying the power thereof from such turn away for they are men of corrupt minds and reprobate concerning the faith 2 Tim. 3.1 2 3 4 5 8. Being filled with covetousness Back-biters Boasters or arrogant which in the judgment of God are worthy
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
expresser promises yet were many things still for the hardness of their hearts indulged to them for which without repentance we shall smart most severely if we are guilty of them A man might be innocent in the charge made against him by the Law of Moses although he should return ill for ill or retaliate injuries and curse and pray against his enemies And this their most righteous persons and greatest Prophets even David himself who was the man after Gods own heart have done frequently They had no express Law threatning death to bare sensuality and worldliness but the very constitution of their Law which consisted mainly if not wholly in temporal promises seemed much to encourage it They were in no danger of being damned by Moses for not bearing with the infirmities and weaknesses of their wives since their Law it self allowed them to put them away when they did not please them yea and even whilst they continued with them to marry and take others to them For all which with others that might be mentioned although we Christians are liable to damnation yet they were not For they will be judged at the last Day according to their obedience to their own Laws not to ours As many as have sinned in the Law of Moses says the Apostle shall be judged by that Law Rom. 2.12 But as for us Christians we must walk by a more perfect Rule and live up to a nobler pitch than ordinarily either Jew or Gentile did or at the last day we shall be eternally condemned For take even those Sects among the Jews which in the judgment of S t Paul are the strictest of any in their Religion viz. the Scribes and Pharisees and yet as our Saviour himself has peremptorily and plainly affirmed our obedience must of necessity surpass theirs Except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees you shall in no case enter into the Kingdom of Heaven Matth. 5.20 In the accounts of our Religion we are guilty and punishable when no other Law would take hold of us For by the Gospel of Christ as we have seen we shall be damned not only for Adultery Fornication and Whoredom but also for uncleanness for lasciviousness nay for filthy jests and obscene discourses We are liable to dye non only for drunkenness and revellings for gluttony and surfeiting but also for carnality sensuality and voluptuousness There is enough against us to condemn us although we do not kill our enemy if we hate him or rail at him nay if we refuse to do good to him to speak well of him or to pray for him We are strictly charged not only that we should not lye and slander but moreover that we should not so much as revile or reproach or mock or upbraid or censure or speak evil We are severely threatned not only if we offer violence to our Neighbour but if we are surly towards him if we are hasty and fierce with him if we are stately uncondescensive or uncourteous to him So far must we be from fighting and blows from seditions and tumults that under the highest penalties we must abstain from clamour and brawling from debate and variance from unquietness yea from pragmaticalness or busying our selves in others mens matters We must keep back from dishonour irreverence and speaking evil of Dignities whilst we submit to them as well as from disobedience and resistance of our lawful Prince in open rebellion To extort depress or circumvent our Brother in any matter is an Article of our Condemnation as well as direct theft and downright robbery To refuse the Cross to scandalize a weak Brother to envy our Neighbours praise and to be vain-glorious arrogant and forward upon all occasions to boast and set off our own are all mortal sins in the accounts of our Law and such as subject the impenitent Actors of them to eternal destruction These and all the other instances set down in the foregoing Catalogues which are too many to mention here let us plainly see the height of that holiness and the perfection of that love which we are to live or dye by Our Law is the most perfect Rule that ever the World heard of and as ever we hope for mercy and bliss ours is to be the most perfect obedience For as all these Laws which under the pains of Death we are bound to obey are most Heavenly and Divine so is that a most perfect obedience which is indispensably required to them Which will more fully appear by clearing up what I am to show in the next Book viz. What degrees and manner of obedience is indispensably required to them BOOK III. What degrees and manner of Obedience is required to all the Laws forementioned CHAP. I. Of Sincerity The CONTENTS The first qualification of an acceptable Obedience that it be sincere Two things implied in sincerity truth or undissembledness and purity or unmixedness of our service Of the first Notion of sincerity as opposite to hypocrisie or doing what God commands out of a real intention and design to serve him Of a two-fold intention actual and express or habitual and implicite Of intention in general and of these two in particular Where an actual intention is necessary and where an habitual is sufficient to our obedience Of the second Notion of sincerity as it notes purity of our service in opposition to mixture and corrupt alloy This Point stated viz. What intention of our good together with Gods service is consistent with an acceptable and sincere Obedience and what destroys it Integrity of our Obedience a sure mark whereby to judge whether it be sincere or no. THE Qualifications which must render our obedience acceptable to Almighty God and make it avail us unto life and pardon at the last Day are comprehended in these two 1. Sincerity 2. Integrity 1. To render our obedience to the forementioned Laws of God acceptable and available to our salvation at the last Day it is necessary that it be sincere Sincerity is a true and undissembled service of God opposite to hypocrisie or a false and feigned pretence of obeying him when in reality we only serve our own selves For we must take notice that God has been so gracious to us in chusing out the instances of our Duty and of his Commands as to adopt for the most part those particular sorts of actions into the matter of our obedience which by the natural Order and Constitution of things make for our own present pleasure reputation or interest And every one of these from the first and fundamental principle of our Natures self-love are sufficient inducement to us to practise them although God had never laid his Commands upon them So that although we have no kindness at all for God nor would do any thing for his sake yet shall we observe many things which he enjoins us not for his pleasure but our own Thus for instance may we be chast and sober
and practise all other Vertues that are gainful not because we love God but only because we love mony We may be just and honest and seemingly religious not for the sake of a Commandment but of our own credit because the contrary practice would wound our good Name in the world and stain our reputation And now when our own lusts and vices our carnal pleasures and temporal advantages strike in after this manner with Gods Laws and command the same service which he enjoins us we may pretend if we will and as too oft we do that all is for his sake and that these performances which are really owing to our own self-interests come from us upon the account of Religion and Obedience And when we falsifie and feign thus it is flat dissimulation It is no more but acting the part of an obedient and religious man seeing like an Actor on the Stage we are that person whom we represent not in inward truth and reality but only in outward shew and appearance which is the very nature of hypocrisie But for a man to be sincere in Gods service is the same as really to intend that obedience which he professes It is inwardly and truly to will and do that for his sake which in outward shew and appearance we would be thought to do It is nothing else as the Psalmist says but truth in the inward parts Psal. 51.6 the having our inward design and intention to agree with our outward profession and being verily and indeed those obedient persons which we pretend to be And as for this sincerity of our performance of what God requires viz. our doing it for his sake and because he commands it it is altogether necessary to make such performance become obedience and to qualifie us for the rewards of those that obey For without it we do not observe Gods will but our own his Command had no share in what we did because it had been done although he had said nothing so that in our performance of it we served not him but our own selves And what has God to thank us for if we do nothing but our own pleasure Wherein do we serve him by acting only according to our own liking That cannot be charged on him which is not designed for him and if we do what he commands no otherwise than thus it is all one as if we had done nothing But if ever we expect that God should judge us at the last Day to have obeyed him we must be sincere in our obedient performances For the Lord looketh not on the outward appearance and pretence saith Samuel but he looks on the inward intention and design which is the heart 1 Sam. 16.7 He saves as the Psalmist tells us the upright in heart Psal. 7.10 And again As for the upright in heart they and they alone shall glory Psal. 64.10 For it is not from the bare outward appearance and profession but from the heart says Solomon that proceed the issues of life Prov. 4.23 And this is plainly declared in the express words of the Law it self For it accepts not a heartless service nor accounts it self obeyed by what was never intended for it But thus it bespeaks us The Lord thy God requires thee to serve him with all thy heart and with all thy soul. For he is a great God a mighty and a terrible to all that do otherwise and who in his Judgement regardeth not persons nor to corrupt him taketh rewards Deut. 10.12 17. And the Apostle tells the Philippians that their being sincere is the way to be without offence till the Day of Christ Phil. 1.10 And thus we see that to render our obedience acceptable at the last Day it is absolutely necessary that it be sincere and unfeigned We must do what Gods Laws prescribe not only because our own credit or interest sometimes requires it but because God has commanded it In all our obedient performances our heart and design must go along with him before ever he will recompence and reward us So that 't is plain we cannot obey God either against our will and intention or without them seeing our wills and intentions themselves are the very life and soul of our obedience The prime part of our Duty consists in the directing of our Design for even that which is done agreeably to Gods Command must be aimed and intended for him or else it will never be owned and approved by him But that we may the better judge of this sincerity of our service which is measured by our intention and design we must take notice of a two-fold intention For it is either 1. Actual and express Or 2. Habitual and implicite Now it is this latter which is always and indispensably required to the sincerity of our service but as for the former it is not always necessary though oftentimes it be Intention is the tendency of the soul towards some end which it likes and which it thinks to compass and endeavour after And this is one prime requisite in the actions of men and that which distinguisheth our operations from the actions of brute Beasts for what they do proceeds from the necessary force of uncontriving Nature and instinct but what we from reason and design And the cause of this difference is this Because God has given the brute Beasts no higher Guide and Commander of their actions than appetite and passion whose motions are not chosen with freedom and raised in them by reason and thought but merely by the necessitating force of outward objects themselves and those impressions which they make upon them For they act altogether through love and hatred hopes and fears and they love and hate not through reason and discourse but through the natural and mechanical suitableness or offensiveness of those objects which they act for But as for us men he has put all our actions under the power and in the disposal not of outward things but of something within us even our own free will They are not imposed upon us by the force of any thing without us but are freely chosen by us we are not their Instruments but their Authours they flow from our own pleasure and undetermined choice Now as our actions are at the disposal and command of our wills so do our wills themselves command and dispose of them not blindly and by chance but always for some reason and upon some design For in themselves they are indifferent to make us either omit or act neglect or exert them And therefore to determine our wills one way rather than the other to act them rather than to let them alone they must be moved and perswaded by such Arguments as are fit to win upon them Now that which can move and gain upon our wills is only goodness We will and desire nothing but what we think is good for us and which tends some way or other to better and advantage us For what we
become infinitely our greatest self-interest and render it impossible for us not to serve our own advantage in the highest measure if we do obey at all And since Gods Laws themselves propose such incomparable Arguments to perswade us to obedience they can never forbid us to have an eye to them or to be excited to obedience by them For the very end why God annexes such allurements to his Commands is that they may be a motive to win our choice and make us willing to obey them But now our wills are moved by nothing further than they desire it and intend to purchase it We cannot be drawn by it longer than we have an eye to it nor can we endeavour after it further than we design to obtain it For we must always design the end before we chuse the means since it is only for the sake and hopes of that that the trouble of these is undertaken So that if any thing must be the final cause and encouragement of our endeavour it must be the matter of our intention and design also And therefore seeing God himself has placed such infinite advantages and self-interests at the end of our Duty to perswade and excite us to a willing performance of it 't is evident he designs first of all that we should have an eye to them in obeying because otherwise it is not possible that we should be moved by them Nay so far is God from forbidding all respect to our own advantage in our obedient performances of his Laws that 3. In asserting so clearly as he has done the necessity of faith to our obedience he plainly tells us that If we must obey at all it cannot be denied us Faith is a most necessary Principle of all natural as well as Gospel service For without faith saith S t Paul it is impossible for any man whether he be Heathen or Christian to please God because he that cometh to God in whatsoever Religion must believe thus much of him at least that he is and also that he is a rewarder of all them that seek him without an eye whereat no man would ever be perswaded to seek after him Heb. 11.6 And as for the belief of the Gospel in particular which is the faith of us Christians so necessary is it to make us obey the Laws of Christ that our obedience as being effected by it is called the obedience of faith Rom. 16.26 and disobedient men in the Scripture language are ordinarily styled unbelievers and disobedience unbelief But now what is there in our faith so indispensably necessary to effect this obedience but our belief as S t Paul says of Gods readiness to reward us and of those advantageous promises which the Gospel proposes to us upon our performance of it And how is it possible for our belief of them to carry us on to obey further than we concern our selves for those things which are promised and intend by such obedience to procure them The Gospel indeed has furnished us with all manner of Motives if we will believe it without which it is not possible that we should be moved by it It tells us of a most surpassing love and infinite kindness which God and Christ have shown to us and if we believe this it is fit to raise in us a most exalted love which will make us perform any thing for their sakes out of very gratitude Now this is a most noble and ingenuous Principle of obedience which although it have something has yet the least of self-love in it But it is weak and insufficient unable of it self to carry us far and to bear us through our whole Duty And therefore besides it for a perfect supply of all our wants we have in it moreover the greatest good things and such as we are most in love with promised to our obedience and the greatest evils such as we most fear threatned if we disobey And if we believe these we must take obedience to be our highest not service only but self-interest and that no temptation can either promise or threaten so much to our own self-love as God doth And this indeed carries us through all and makes us obey intirely It overcomes every difficulty and overballances all contrary inticements But this it doth only so far as we intend to purchase all those surpassing advantages by our obedience which infinitely exceed all those other inticements that are attained by men who disobey And as this respect to our own advantage in our obedient performances is nothing more than the condition of our Nature absolutely requires than the necessity of Faith supposes and than Gods Law it self offers and proposes to us so neither is it any thing more 4. Than the best men have always used who yet were graciously accepted upon such obedience For just Noah obeyed Gods Law through the fear of that destruction which it threatned and with a design of escaping it himself when all the wicked of the World should be overwhelmed in it Noah saith the Text was moved with fear to the preparing of his Ark as God had commanded and to the saving of his house thereby And for that very reason because he believed Gods threatning and was effectually afraid of it he is in that very place called an Heir of the righteousness which is by Faith Heb. 11.7 The obedience of Moses is ascribed in plain words to his design upon those rewards which God had promised and which he hoped to compass by it For he had respect saith the Apostle to the recompence of reward Heb. 11.26 And to put it beyond all doubt that this respect to our own advantage in our performance of Gods Laws is not only the necessity of some men but as I said before the very frame and constitution of the humane nature we are told that it was found in it in the highest advancement which it either ever did or possibly can receive I mean in our Saviour Christ himself For even of his obedience and of the highest instance of it his death it self the Apostle assures us that it was performed through a design upon his own advantage as well as upon that Glory which would thereby redound to God It was says he for the sake of the joy that was set before him that he endured the Cross and despised the shame of it Heb. 12.2 Thus upon all these accounts it appears that the having respect to our own advantage in our obedience to Gods Laws is not only an innocent but an absolutely necessary thing God can never be offended with it because the necessity of our nature requires it because his own Laws propose it because our faith is made effectual by it and lastly because the best men that ever lived have stood in need of it and obeyed through it And since some respect to our own good and intention of our own advantage in Gods service is so plainly lawful that surely must be such where the good things
with all thy heart or will and with all thy soul or affections and with all thy strength or executive and bodily powers and with all thy mind or understanding Luke 10.25 26 27 28. Obedience with all these powers and with our whole Nature is the means of life and the indispensable condition of our eternal happiness First We must keep all Gods Commandments with our minds or understandings It is a dangerous conceit for any man to phansie that he may be as sinful as he will in his thoughts so long as he only loves and chuses projects and contrives for the forbidden instance in his mind but doth not proceed so far as to obey it in his outward practice For at the last Day we must be called to account and justified or condemned by the counsels and imaginations of our minds as well as by the works of our lives For not only the works and practice but also the thoughts of the wicked or of wickedness are an abomination to the Lord Prov. 15.26 The thought of foolishness is sin Prov. 24.9 And since God forbids and hates them as ever we hope for his favour we must repent of them and forsake them Let the wicked man forsake his thoughts saith the Prophet and turn them from his sin unto the Lord and then he will have mercy upon him and abundantly pardon him Isai. 55.7 For the warfare that God has set us after which we are to attain the reward of eternal happiness is a casting down imaginations as the Apostle tells us and bringing into captivity every rebellious thought to the obedience of Christ 2 Cor. 10.4 5. In particular this obedience of our minds to the Law of God must be as a doing what he enjoins so likewise a keeping off from every thing which he forbids First In our imaginations We must not phansie it in our minds with love and delight nor indulge to any thoughts of it with such pleasure as may be a bait to our choice and weaken our aversation and hatred of it and thereby ensnare us into the practice of it Our warfare as we have heard from the Apostle must not be against actions only but against imaginations also and insnaring phancies of evil casting down rebellious imaginations and making every thought obedient to the Laws of Christ 2 Cor. 10.4 5. And in the old world when the imaginations of mens thoughts were always evil it repented the Lord that he had made man insomuch as he resolved to destroy him Gen. 6.5 6 7. Secondly In our counsels and contrivances We must not study what means are fittest what times are best and what manner is most advantageous for the acting of our sins They must no more have our care and contrivance than our service and obedience For if we cast about in our thoughts and consult about the most commodious way of committing any sin although all our designs be defeated before we come to any effect yet shall we be damned for our contrivance as well as we should for the compleat action And this our Lord himself has plainly determined in one instance and the Case is the same in all the rest For of the contrivances and machinations of murther he assures us That they as well as murther it self are of the number of those things which pollute a man and so utterly unfit him for Heaven where nothing can ever enter that is polluted or unclean Out of the heart saith he proceed evil thoughts or murtherous machinations and besides them compleat murthers adulteries c. and these defile the man Matth. 15 19. And as for that particular sort of contriving for sin which is the height and perfection of villany viz. the inventing of new and before unknown ways of transgressing it of all others is sure to meet with the severest punishment and to thrust men down into the deepest Abyss of Hell Of this sort are all invention of new Oaths new Nick-names or evil speakings new frauds and methods of couzenage new incentives of lust new modes of drinking and arts of intemperance But of these and of all others that are like unto them God will one day exact a most rigorous and terrible account For he that deviseth to do evil saith Solomon although he himself doth not act but only devise it he shall be called and dealt with as a mischievous and wicked person Prov. 24.8 And S t Pauls words are full to this purpose For he tells us expresly that in the judgment of God inventers of evil things shall be declared worthy of death Rom. 1.30 32. As for our minds or understandings then they are one faculty which is plainly implied in the Integrity of our service and without the obedience whereof at the last day God will not accept us And another faculty implied in it likewise is Secondly Our Soul or Affections It is a vain thing for any man to love and set his heart upon any particular sin and yet for all that to expect that God should love and reward him If I regard iniquity in my heart saith the Psalmist the Lord will not hear me Psal. 66.18 No man as our Saviour sayes can serve two masters for if he love the one for his sake when their interests enterfere he will hate the other so that we cannot serve God if with our affections we continue to serve sin Mat. 6.24 To pretend obedience to God and yet to love what he sorbids to make a show of his service and yet in our very hearts to hanker after his vilest enemies whom above all things his soul abhors this surely is not honestly to serve but grosly to collogue and slatly to dissemble with him For in very deed if any man love sin he sides with Gods enemy but for the service and fear of the Lord it is to hate evil Prov. 8.13 If ever we expect that God should accept our works we must offer up our affections with them For if our hearts go along with our lusts whilst our practice is against them we serve God only against our wills we submit to him as a slave doth to a tyrannous Lord not through any kindness for him but through a hatefull fear of him We utterly dislike what he bids us but yet we do it only because we dare not do otherwise But now this is such a way of performing obedience as God will never endure to accept of For he scorns to be served by a slavish fear and an unwilling mind he will never look upon a heartless sacrifice but it is the affection that we do it with which makes him set a price upon any thing that we do and our love that he regards more than our performance For this is that very thing which was thought fit to be mentioned in the command it self Thou shalt love the Lord with all thy heart with all thy soul and with all thy mind Mat. 22.37 'T is true indeed we do not find our affection so quick 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
or have all the force of a law in his members vers 23. That he sins against his own conscience For what he doth that he allows not but what in his own mind he hates and disapproves that he doth vers 15.19 That to do good although he might wish or approve it he found not v. 18. That he stands in need to cry out O wretched man that I am who will deliver me from this body of death being as yet not rescued from it but labouring under it vers 25. Of the regenerate elsewhere That as for their members they yield them not to be instruments unto sin but unto righteousness because now since their regeneration into true Christians Sin is not to reign in their mortal bodies that they should obey it in the lusts thereof Rom. 6.12 13. In becoming Christians they are dead and crucified with Christ that the body of sin might not be maintained to live and rule in them but destroyed that thenceforward they should not serve sin For he that is dead is freed from sin vers 6 7. The Gospel of Christ or the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath not enslaved but freed them from the law of sin and death Rom. 8.2 So that sin now shall not have dominion over them because they are not under the law through the weakness whereof it tyrannized but under Grace Rom. 6.14 That their body is dead because of sin Rom. 8.10 And that they make no provision for the flesh to fulfill and accomplish the lusts or concupiscence thereof Rom. 13.14 Because if they should they would cease to be sons of God and heirs of happiness and be rendred obnoxious to misery and death For the plain declaration of Christs Gospel concerning the heirs of life and death is this If you live after the flesh in accomplishing its lusts you shall die and 't is only if you through the spirit instead of acting and compleating do kill and mortifie the deeds of the body that you shall live Rom. 8.13 That against them there is no condemning force of any law Galat. 5.23 For the law of the spirit of life hath not left them still enslaved but made them free from the law of sin and death too Rom. 8.2 And being become the servants of God they have their fruit not to sin and death but to holiness at present and the end thereof at length everlasting life Rom. 6.22 That their bodies or fleshly members are temples of the Holy Ghost and sacred places wherein it inhabits and that they glorifie God in their bodies as well as in their spirits seeing both are Gods 1 Cor. 6.19 20. That they hold faith and a good conscience without which of faith in dangerous times they would soon make shipwrack 1 Tim. 1.19 And that they are saved by the answer of a good conscience which comforts and applauds but cannot accuse them 1 Pet. 3.21 That he only who doth good is of God 3 Joh. 11. and that there is no condemnation to them who do and walk after the spirit Rom. 8.1 And that without these new fruits it is in vain to lay any claim to a new nature because as our Saviour sayes if men were the children of Abraham they would do the works of Abraham Joh. 8.39 That the body of sin is already destroyed in them that henceforth they should not serve sin which the other complains so much of Rom. 6.6 For they are delivered from the law upon occasion of the weakness whereof sin brought forth in them fruits unto death to serve now in newness of Spirit Rom. 7.5 So that what the weak ineffective law could not do for them that the Grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord hath done in an effectual deliverance of them v. 25. So that if we will take the word of S t Paul and of the rest of the Apostles in this matter we must needs believe that regenerate men and heirs of heaven are not in any wise such persons as are described in that seventh Chapter to the Romans there being no agreement or resemblance at all between them Their tempers and behaviour are utterly inconsistent and as far distant as Heaven and Hell For one serves and fulfills the lusts of his flesh the other crucifies and subdues them one yields his members servants unto sin the other unto righteousness one is made a perfect captive and sold under sin the other is made free from it one is forced to act against his conscience the other alwayes acts according to it one complains of being oppressed by the body of death the other rejoyceth in being deliver'd from it one can perform and do no good the other doth all good one brings forth fruit unto death the other to eternal life These with others that might be mention'd are the lines of difference and the contrary characters of the person represented in the seventh Chapter to the Romans and the regenerate man described by S t Paul himself in all his other Epistles and in the following and foregoing Chapters of this By all which it appears that they are descriptions contradictory and incompatible which cannot at the same time be affirmed of the same man And that to give such an account of a regenerate man as is there set down would not in all appearance be the way to describe but rather slanderously to libel and revile him If any therefore enquire now how I know that S t Paul doth not speak of himself in that Chapter nor of any other regenerate person but of an unregenerate man who is yet in the state of death and sin he has his Answer full and undeniable already I know he doth not mean so because he cannot mean so the things which he sayes not bearing to be so understood For that meaning would make his speech to be no Apostolical Truth but an open falsehood it would make S t Paul inconsistent with himself and to unsay at one time what he had said most peremptorily at another It would make him flatly to gainsay all that he has taught elsewhere yea even what he had affirm'd almost in the same breath in the foregoing and the following Chapters So that he cannot be understood of himself or of any other regenerate person but must be allow'd according to his usual custome in such odious topicks as this was to speak all in a borrowed disguise and in the person of a sinfull and a lost man For indeed to be yet more particular all that discourse in that seventh Chapter is not meant either of S t Paul or of any other regenerate Christian but of a struggling and contending although yet unconquering and unregenerate Jew For the Apostle is there describing the state not of a perfect debauch nor of a perfect Saint but of a middle man He is one whose Conscience is awaken'd for he delights in the Law of God after the inner man of his mind and reason vers 22. and when he
my mind which strives against it and prevails over it and makes me practise contrary to what my mind approves So that when being enclined by Gods Law I would do good then being over-ruled by the law of sin I cannot but evil is laid before me and present with me Gods Law I say I serve with the mind For I delight in the Law of God after the inner man of my mind and conscience But all this while I only approve of it but no more For all the effect which it has upon me is only to create a liking of it in my mind But as for my practice and Outward performance it is under anothers power For I see another opposite Law viz. that of Lust and Sin which is seated in my bodily members not only warring against the Law of God in my mind but conquering also and prevailing over it bringing me into captivity that absolute sort of subjection and slavery to practise the Law of Sin which is seated in my members And since I am so far enslaved to the Law of Lust and Sin when the Law of God undertakes me that even that Law it self which God has appointed for my remedy is not able to rescue and deliver me I have too great reason to cry out O! wretched man that I am who shall deliver me since this Law given me by Moses is not able to do it from the slavery and misery of this body of death This indeed was our condition under the Law which shews at once the Laws holiness and goodness and withall its inability and weakness because notwithstanding it offer'd some Grace yet was not that enough but that during our subjection under it we commonly served sin still But now as for that slavish service of sin which a bare Jew who has no other help against it but Moses's Law complains of and longs to be delivered from that as I told you at first we Christians through the surpassing Grace of Christs Gospel are delivered from already So that to such a complaining Jew as I have here personated I Paul an Apostle of Jesus Christ can readily make answer Alter your subjection and you shall alter your service too for in becoming subject unto Christ instead of the Law you shall become servants of God instead of serving sin I thank God there is a way now in Christ for such deliverance or as it is read by some copies the Grace of God which comes through Jesus Christ our Lord shall deliver you although the Law could not which came by Moses But without this Grace I must still tell you that the Law it self will not generally have any such effect upon you seeing as I said it will only awaken your conscience but not reform your practice So then to shut up this discourse this you must still conclude upon that whilst you continue subject to the Law you will serve sin in your practice however you may disapprove it in your minds For I my self or the same I under the Law who with the mind as has been often observed serve in approving the Law of God do yet with the flesh so long as it has nothing else but the Law to restrain it serve in practising the Law of Sin But to return to what I said vers 5 6. of the last Chapter from whence we have hitherto diverted to answer this objection I say having by this passage from subjection to the Law to subjection unto Christ upon the Laws being abolished changed our service together with our subjection and become servants now not unto Sin but unto Christ All we Christians are safe from that Death which the Law of the members brought forth fruit to Chap. 7. vers 5. and have right to that Eternal Life which as I said is the gift of God to all his servants Chap. 6. vers 22 23. So that what reason soever a poor Jew under the Law who serves and obeys Sin may have to cry out of the body of Death yet we Christians who began to serve God upon our becoming subject unto Christ may comfort our selves to see that we are delivered from it And therefore whatever there be to a striving but yet unconquering Jew there is now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus's Religion because they are such who have changed their service together with their subjection and walk not now after the Flesh as they did formerly whilst the Law held them in subjection but after the Spirit This change of service I say is wrought in all true Christians by the Law of Christ although it could not generally be wrought in the Jews by the bare Law of Moses For the Law and power of the Spirit of life which is given to us in Christ Jesus and is expresly promised in his Religion though it were not in the Law of Moses that enabling Spirit I say hath made me Christian free from the so often mentioned Law of sin and from the punishment of it Death For what the Law of Moses could not do towards our deliverance from the service of sin in that it was too weak through the overpowering wickedness of the Law of lust in the Flesh even that hath God done in sending his own Son Jesus Christ in the likeness of sinful Flesh and in making him a Sacrifice for sin that in his death he might found his own Religion whereby he hath condemned and destroyed what the Law of Moses was overcome by viz. the Law of sin seated in the Flesh. So that by the help of Christs Law perfecting what the Law of Moses wanted the righteousness which was shown to us and required of us in the Book of the Law of Moses might be performed and fulfilled in us Christians although it was not ordinarily in the bare Jews because we are such who being Christs Subjects must be his Servants likewise and in our works and practice walk not after the lusts of the Flesh but after the motions of the Spirit Thus have I given a Paraphrase upon this involved and so much mistaken Chapter Wherein I have largely and as I hope truly represented the Apostles meaning his design and manner of arguing in this place In all which we see he intends not at all to give a Character of himself or of any other regenerate man but only of a midling Sinner who sins against his Conscience and transgresses with reluctance Which Transgressor of a middle rank he particularly represents under the person of an awaked but as yet unregenerate Jew who was one on whom the Law of Moses had wrought some change but could not work enough being able only to awaken his Conscience but not to reform his practice So that all that is there said in that seventh Chapter of willing but not performing c. only sets off the weakness and imperfection of the Law of Moses as to the making men compleatly obedient
to disobey in it our obedience in other things is all that we have to shew besides and therefore it must be our excuse for it And this being an errour of such eternal moment and a Rock whereupon all the souls which miscarry under any appearances of piety are split I will be particular in recounting and evacuating those colours and pretences wherewith men deceive their own souls and think that they justifie and defend it Now as for those false grounds and pretensions whereby men seek to shelter themselves under the practice of such bosome-sins as they overlook because they have no mind to leave them hoping to be secured whilst they continue in them because of their obedience in other parts of Duty which is a partial obedience Those pretensions I say which are most pleadable in this matter are these that follow viz. because their indulgence of themselves in those instances wherein they disobey is either upon one or more of these accounts 1. For the preservation of their Religion and of themselves in times of danger and persecution 2. For the supply of their necessities by sinful arts compliances and services in times of want and indigence 3. For the satisfaction of their Flesh in sins of temper and complexion age or way of life 1. The first pretence whereby men justifie to their own thoughts the indulged transgression of several Laws whilst they obey in others is because those transgressions wherein they allow themselves are necessary for the preservation of their Religion and of themselves in those times of danger and persecution wherein Gods Providence has placed them Religion is in danger and like to be undermined by the close and subtle arts or overborn by the more open and powerful violence of strong and witty Enemies And this is Gods Cause and Christ our Lord and Saviours interest so that whatever is done here we think is in service of our Maker If we fight it is his battles if we spitefully persecute and devour it is his enemies if we rob and spoil it is to weaken his adversaries if we lye and dissemble it is to defeat the designs of such as he will call Rebels if we transgress in all the instances and use all the lawless liberties of war it is because we are engaged in his quarrel The Cause which we contend for and have to manage is sacred and that we believe will justifie all means and hallow any services whatsoever So that our heat and fierceness wrath and bitterness envy and malice revenge and cruelty endless strife and ungovernable variance spoils and robberies seditions and murthers wars and tumults in a word all the transports of passion and peevishness anger and ill nature rigour and revenge are all sacred under this Cover and pass for holy zeal and pious vehemence and religious concern for God whenas in reality they are a most impious throwing off and bursting through all the Tyes of Religion and Bonds of Duty towards men All these enormous effects and horrible instances of an indulged disobedience are at this Day the consequents of this pretension For some on one hand who call us Hereticks and enemies to Christ and holy Church think no means sinful whereby they can weaken and divide seduce surprize or any way destroy us For they esteem it lawful to dissemble under all shapes to gain a Proselyte or to disaffect a Party to our Communion and Government They act a part and play the Hypocrite in all Disguises and under cover of all Trades the better to insinuate themselves among all sorts of men they will affirm falshood even of their own Church when it serves their turn and deny any Doctrines Precepts or Parts of it when they are a scandal to the persons whom they would practise upon and make against them They make no conscience of lyes and perjuries in conversation when thereby they can promote the Churches interest For they have found out ways to deceive without lying and to lye without sin and to forswear without perjury and to perjure themselves without danger by their pious frauds and religious arts of equivocations mental reservations dispensations pardons and indulgences They can be treacherous and faithless without breach of faith if it were made to Hereticks they assassinate and murther Magistrates embitter and embroil Subjects against their Governours and against one another they conspire the death of Kings the confusion and fall of Kingdoms the ruine of all that dare oppose them yea even of all that differ from them And all this they do for Christ's sake in a zealous concern for God and Religion and for the utter extirpation of all heresie and schism It is this pretence which bears them out through all and makes them believe that they are serving God whilst after this extravagant rate they are overturning his whole Gospel And others again even of our own selves who justly abhor these damnable instances of disobedience upon the pretence of preserving or propagating Religion in some furious and fiery spirited sort of Papists for God forbid that we should think them all to be of this temper do yet run into the same extravagance which upon so great reason they condemn in them For if we look into our zeal for the common Religion of Protestants we shall find that we transgress many and those most material and weighty Laws of it whilst we express our affection and concern to defend and preserve it For doth not this pretence of preserving our Religion carry us beyond all the bounds of peaceableness and good subjection Our great fears about its defence make us daily to distrust our Governours to think and speak irreverently and reproachfully of their persons to undervalue all their counsels to misconstrue all their actions and proceedings and with much undutifull credulity and unchristian rashness to believe and spread abroad concerning them most odious suspicions and invidious reports they make us pragmatical and busie-bodies to go out of our own sphere and to usurp upon the Magistrates in projecting means and expediencies prejudging Criminals and irreverent censuring reproaching yea and oft-times slandering of our Governours if they either in Court or Council at the Board or on the Bench determine contrary to our anticipations They make us to disturb the quiet and to unsettle the peace of our fellow-subjects in filling their minds with endless jealousies about their Princes care and their own safety and in possessing them with discontents and undutifull suspicions words and actions to the great weakning of Government and disturbance of the publick peace Yea I add further these same fears for our endangered Religion transport us into the transgression of sundry weighty Laws which oblige us towards our very enemies who have contrived to destroy us For they have made us most partially backward to believe any thing that is good and forward to catch at every thing that is spoken ill against them They have made many of us fierce and implacable malicious
this otherwise most offensive an acceptable service Is any thing that we can offer to him so pleasing as our obedience Is he more delighted when we follow our own counsel than when we follow his when we do our own than when we do his pleasure For all those Laws of the Gospel and instances of obedience which under this pretension we transgress are wayes of Gods own appointment they are a service of his own choosing a Religion that is most agreeable to his mind and fitted in all things according to his liking a rule that he has thought most absolute to direct our actions and most fit for us to walk by If then we would expâ—â—ss our concern for God our venerable esteem of his wiâ—dom our acquiescence in his choice our submission to his ordering our acknowledgement of his authority and our chearfull compliance with his pleasure let us do it by a religious observance of these Rules which are of his own prescribing Let us honour him in his own way by doing our duty and practising such things as he has made expressions of honour by making them instances of obedience For disobedience can serve no interest of God nothing that we can do being so effectual a reproach to all his Attributes as to disobey him Nor is the use of evil and unlawfull means in any wise a fitter expression of our care for Religion For what is there in Religion that can be honoured and advanced by disobedience Is there any thing in it so sacred as the Divine Laws and dare any man call that his care of them when he lays wast and plainly rejects them It is gross impudence for any man to pretend Piety in the breach of Duty and to cry up Religion whilst he is acting irreligiously he prides himself in the empty name when it is clear to all that he has lost the thing for as for Piety it self and true Religion by transgressing and trampling upon the Divine Laws he doth not further and defend but impiously and irreligiously destroys it It is not Religion then whatever men may vainly pretend that makes them run into the breach of Laws and contempt of Duty lest they should suffer in the profession of it For God and Religion owe them no thanks for such a course because he is not honoured nor it strengthned and preserved but ruined and destroyed by it But the true and real cause of such disobedience whereof God and Religion are only the colour and false pretence is plainly a great want of Religion and of the love of God and too great a love of the world and of mens own selves Men are hurried away by an unmortified love of pleasures honours and temporal interests and they have not Religion enough to restrain and over-rule them For these it is and not Religion which sufferings and persecuting times take from them and an ungovernable desire to preserve these which makes them so violent as that at such times no Laws of Religion can hold them When men set at nought and disparage Governours disobey Laws disturb the Publick Peace injure their Fellow-subjects and commit several other sinfull acts and irreligious violations of the Laws of Christ that they may keep off Persecution for the profession of the Christian Faith they shew plainly that they will follow Christ only in a thriving but not in a suffering Religion They will serve him no longer than he sets them uppermost and above their Brethren For rather than suffer any loss and fall into any dangers for their adherence to him they will leave him and his Laws to fend for themselves and flatly disobey him But when they do so it is shameless hypocrisie to pretend that all their transgressions and disobedience is still upon the Principle and from the Power of Religion since it is not Religion but a resolution to be uppermost not duty but ambition covetousness sensuality revenge or a nest of some other unmortified and reigning vices of like nature which makes them under pretence of a conscientious care for religious profession to destroy all religious practice This one would think is plain and evident to any man who can have the patience to consider it that True Religion can never be the cause of sin or make men irreligious and disobedient That must not for shame be called mens Religion but their Lust which makes them wicked and carries them on to transgress Gods Laws that are the chief and sovereign part of his Religion which who so keeps is a religious as whosoever breaks them is an ungodly and irreligious man This indeed is clear Doctrine and obvious to any common if it be withall a free and considerate understanding And it were scarce possible that any men should think otherwise had they not either by accicident hast or ill design taken up an odd notion of Religion altogether different from that which the Scriptures give and which all considerately religious men have of it For by Religion they mean only their adherence to the Doctrines and Opinions but not to the Laws and Precepts of the Gospel And when they talk of defending and maintaining of Religion they intend not a defence of Laws but of Notions not a maintenance of the practice of Christian Precepts but only of the profession of Christian Doctrines They are of the Religion which Christ reveals but not of that which he commands they will know and believe what he pleases but do what they please themselves They are only for a Religion of Orthodox Tenets but not of Vpright Practice and if thereby they can preserve men safe in thinking and professing well they fancy that God will not be offended with their use of any means though never so wicked and disobedient But this is a most gross mistake and a most dangerous Notion of Religion which is quite another thing than what this conceit doth represent it to be For First The prime part and matter of Religion is the practick part viz. the Laws and Precepts the Promises and Threatnings of the Gospel And agreeably thereto the prime business of all Religious men is an obedient practice and performance of them or a virtuous discharge of duty and a holy life This is that Religion whereby all of us must stand or fall and that great condition which as I have shewn we must for ever live or dye by When Christ comes to judgement sayes Saint Paul he will render to every man according to his deeds Rom. 2.6 And in that prospect of the last judgment which S t John tells us God vouchsafed him men were judged every one according to their works Rev. 20.13 This Religion of Obedience and a good Life is that which the Gospel is full of wherein every Chapter nay almost every verse of it instructs us and some way or other directs exhorts encourages and excites to And therefore as ever we would pass for Religious men in the Scripture Notion we must be carefull to live in
I forsook not thy Commandments vers 87. and many now still are my persecutors and enemies yet do I not decline from thy testimonies vers 157. The Holy Apostles of our Saviour conflicted with more difficulties and distress persecutions and sufferings for the Religion and Obedience of their Lord than any men I think ever did or it may be ever will do I think sayes S t Paul that God hath set forth us Apostles last as it were men appointed to the bloodiest which is usually the last scene of all even to death it self For we are exposed to slaughter as men were in the tragical sports of that time upon a publick theatre being made a spectacle unto the world and to angels and to men From the first entrance on our office even to this present hour we both hunger and thirst and are naked and are buffetted and have no certain dwelling place being made as the very filth of the world and the off-scouring of all things from the first to this day 1 Cor. 4.9 11 13. If any straits could authorize an evil action or if any pressures could justifie a disobedient escape sure these would But they knew too well the nature of their Religion ever to dream of a liberty to sin that they might avoid persecution and they were too resolutely addicted to it ever to attempt it For neither the extremity of their sufferings nor the desperateness of their danger could ever make them transgress their duty or go beyond the Laws of their Religion to lessen or prevent them But they obeyed bravely and entirely even in the highest strains even in the most ungratefull instances even in those matters wherein if any where the malice and violence of their enemies would provoke or rather force them to disobey For in the midst of all these pressures sayes S t Paul being reviled we bless being persecuted we suffer it being defamed we do nothing worse than entreat and pray for our defamers 1 Cor. 4.12 13. In patience in afflictions in necessities in distresses in stripes in imprisonments in popular tumults in manual labours in all these things and in the throng and distraction of all our sorrows we approve our selves as the true obedient Servants and faithfull Ministers of God shewing that not by any selfish disobedient politick shifts but by pureness of conversation by long-suffering by kindness even to our very enemies in a word by the most excellent of all gifts and the Epitome of all Duty Charity or love unfeigned 2 Cor. 6.3 4 5. Religion then can never give protection to any disobedience nor our concern and zeal for God be pleaded with any shew of modesty or reason in vindication of our transgressions of any of his Laws or Precepts For Religion needs no defence from times of suffering it can live in them it is improved by them nay some of its most glorious parts and eminent instances are never shown in any lustre but when we fall under them and where it ought to be defended the breach of Laws is in no wise a fit instrument for its advancement and protection For God cannot be honoured nor Religion advanced by disobedience Obedience is so essential and super-eminent a part of its Nature and so preferable to any idle profession or ineffective belief that to transgress Christian Laws for the maintenance of an undisturbed liberty in professing Christian opinions were not to strengthen and preserve but dangerously to wound if not wholly to destroy it This disobedience to Christian Laws that we may avoid suffering for the profession of Christian Doctrines is such as the very temper of the Gospel which is made up in great part of passive Precepts and a suffering Religion plainly contradicts such as its Laws and Precepts strictly forbid such as Christ our Lord and Judg will certainly and most severely punish and such as the most persecuted religious men could never be provoked or forced into either by the greatness of their fears or by the violence of their pains although the most exquisite that could be invented by the most searching wits and keenest malice in the world So that whensoever men sin to avoid suffering and disobey the Laws of Religion to preserve the profession of it from persecution it is not Religion but their Lusts not their love of God but their love of their own selves which makes them disobedient Religion will upon no accounts justifie their transgressions but utterly condemns them and unless their repentance prevents it God at the last Day will endlesly punish and avenge for them But as for Religion in that narrow sense wherein some understand it i. e. the use of religious Ordinances and the profession and belief of religious Opinions if men would shew their care and concern to preserve the free liberty and unpersecuted use of that so as both God and all good men should honour and commend them let them shew it in a pious and discreet management Which they will justly be thought to do if they keep within their own sphere and use even there no sinful and disobedient means and are zealous in the first place for the practice and preservation of religious Laws and next to that for religious Ordinances and Opinions 1. In shewing their care to preserve the free liberty and unpersecuted use of religious Ordinances and Professions they must act within their own sphere We private Christians must not prescribe methods of preserving it to publick Magistrates or censure their proceedings and speak irreverently of their persons and administrations when they determine otherwise than we had thought fitting We must not without consent and approbation of Authority combine in Bodies and associate in solemn Leagues Bonds and Covenants to be aiding and assisting to each other with our Persons Armes and Purses to protect it against all Opposers For these are such things as are no part of our business but God has hedged them in and entrusted them in other hands He has delegated that power to Kings and Governours to take care of the common good and to judge of publick expedience He has put the sword into the Magistrates hands and has authorized him and him only to have power of life and death and to decree and establish peace and war And if any man without his order shall take the Sword and use it against his Brother he may read his Sentence which is writ in plain words already They that take the sword as every man doth when Authority doth not allow or reach it out to him shall perish by the sword Matth. 26.52 These means then and any others which God has appropriated to the care and entrusted in the hands of other men can be no lawful expressions of our care but an unlawful intruding into anothers Office a sinful use of what is put out of ours and committed to an others management Our exercise and use of them is a proud usurpation an unpeaceable encroachment a busie medling in other mens
And to go no further for an evidence of this we will take those accounts of the obedience of Christians in the first times which the Apostles themselves give us You sayes the Apostle to the Colossians that were sometimes in your Gentile State alienated from God and enemies in your minds by means of your wicked works yet now since you become Christians hath he reconciled in his death to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable according to the terms of the Gospel in his sight Col. 1.21 22. And to the same purpose he speaks of the Ephesians yet more fully You saith he hath God quickned by the preaching of the Gospel who before you heard of that were dead in trespasses and sins wherein in times past of Gentilism ye walked as well as others according to the wicked course of this world according to the instigation of the Prince of the powers in the air who is the spirit that both aforetime and even now worketh in the children of disobedience Among whom also we all as I say had our conversation in times past living just as they did in the lusts of our flesh fulfilling and performing the desires of our flesh and were thereby the children of wrath as well as others But God even when we were thus dead in sins hath upon our embracing of Christs Religion quickned us together with Christ by that same spirit whereby he raised up him Ephes. 2.1 2 3 4 5. But the character which he gives of the Corinthians is more particular and compleat still No unrighteous saith he of one sort or other shall enter into the kingdom of heaven For neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers nor effeminate nor abusers of themselves with mankind nor thieves nor covetous nor revilers nor drunkards nor extortioners shall inherit the kingdom of God And such indeed as these were some of you once viz. in your Gentilism but since you were Christned I bear you record that you are washed from those impurities that you are sanctified from those wickednesses and that you are justified from the condemning force of all these Commandments in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the help of the enlivening and converting spirit of our God 1 Cor. 6.9 10 11. These places are very full and particular for the power of Christianity and the perfect and entire obedience of Christians in those dayes And yet there is one testimony more of this Apostle which I must not omit because it is so very comprehensive and that is the account which he gives us of the Reformation which the Gospel wrought among the Romans For before it was preached among them they were strangely debauched and unaccountably wicked as we may be fully informed were there no other register of their vices from that prodigious Catalogue of their sins which S t Paul himself has given us Rom. 1. For they worshipped and served the Creature more than the Creator Their very women were so unnatural in their lusts as to change their natural use into that which is against nature And the men leaving the natural use of the women burned in their lusts towards one another men with men working that which is unseemly They were filled with all unrighteousness fornication wickedness covetousness maliciousness being full of envy murder debate deceit malignity whisperers back-biters haters of God despitefull proud boasters inventers of evil things disobedient to parents without understanding covenant-breakers without natural affection implacable unmercifull Thus had they degenerated from all sense of common honesty and honour and fallen into the vilest sink of vices But when once Christianity took place among them it quickly turned them from a most impious and monstrously unclean into a most religious and holy people For so S t Paul himself bears witness to them You were sayes he in your time of Heathenism the servants nay the rankest slaves of sin but God be thanked that ye have now since you became Christians obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was by us Apostles delivered to you For being made free from that strange inventory of sins ye became the servants of righteousness Rom. 6.17 18. And what S t Paul tells us of these particular Churches under his care S t Peter will also inform us was true of all the Churches in Pontus and Asia with whom he was concerned and to whom he directed his first Epistle The time past of our life may suffice us saith he to have wrought the will of the Gentiles when we walked with them in lasciviousness lusts excess of wine revellings banquettings and abominable idolatries Yea indeed this doth suffice us For since we became Christians we have left off to accompany them in these vices for which they are estranged to us and revile us For they think it strange that we run not with them to the same excess of riot as we used formerly speaking evil of us for abstaining from them 1 Pet. 4.3 4. Thus honest was the service and thus entire was the obedience of Christians in the Apostles dayes And when they had finished their course and were called out of the world Christs Gospel had still the same effects and his subjects continued to pay him the same service As for the Religion and Laws of Christ sayes Lactantius what excellent effects they have upon the minds and lives of men is plain from every dayes experience For give me a man that is fierce hasty and ungovernable and with this Law I will make him as tractable and gentle as a lamb Give me one who is covetous greedy and tenacious this Religion shall quickly make him liberal and generous It will make the cowardly and timorous to become bold and venturous the lustful and intemperate to turn chast and sober the cruel and revengeful to grow merciful and placable In one word it works a perfect change and alteration making the wicked and injurious to become forthwith most innocent and holy men For all manner of sin is renounced at their entrance all filthy habits are washt off at the Font and never again resumed They are so wholly altered in their life and temper by embracing of our Faith that you will scarce know them to be the same men Thus were the Christians in those Days the holiest sort of men and the most noble patterns of Vertue and Goodness being distinguishable from other men as Tertullian says in nothing so much as this That they had left off all their former vices For they lived what they taught and performed what others only could discourse of their common Motto being this Although we have not the skill to talk yet we have the Grace to live as well as any Nay their very enemies themselves who would be sure to spare no pains nor skill in fastening some immoralities upon them were yet forced at last to confess that they had no fault but one and that was that they were called
if he would he might contend with him How shall man sayes he be just with God If he will contend with him he cannot answer him so much as one of a thousand If I justifie my self in the unerringness of my obedience my own mouth shall condemn me if I say before him that I am perfect and have sinned in nothing it should also by such confessions as he would extort from me prove me perverse Job 9.2 3 20. And David a man after Gods own heart acknowledges freely that he is guilty not only of several sins which he remembers but also of many more which he doth not know of Who can understand his errours cleanse thou me from my secret faults Psal. 19.12 Nay even Paul the Apostle who at that time was a most undoubted heir of Heaven doth yet own freely that as yet he had not attained to perfection but only endeavoured after it Phil. 3.12 13. But although he were not so perfect as to obey without all errour and to offend in no instance yet had he as much perfection as the Gospel exacts and such as the best men on earth attain to For at the 15 th verse he calls upon as many as be perfect in such measure as the Gospel accepts of to be thus minded as he was and forgetting those things whereto they had already attained which were now behind to press on towards that higher perfection which was yet wanting in them and before them as he told them he himself did vers 13. And since men of this full growth and high pitch in goodness could never yet get free of these unavoidable infirmities it cannot be expected that others who are endowed with a more imperfect Grace and a lower Virtue should ever live entirely above them No alas God himself declares plainly by the mouth of his inspired Servants that no man yet ever did attain so far There is no man sayes Solomon that sins not 1 Kings 8.46 He challenges any person how good and holy soever to say that he is wholly blameless and has no stain at all upon him Who can say I have made my heart clean I am wholly pure from my sin Prov. 20.9 No man certainly not the most nobly good and eminently virtuous themselves For there is not a just man upon earth that doth good and sinneth not Eccles. 7.20 The blessed Saints who are now in heaven could never get perfectly free from sin till they got thither For it is only in heaven the New Jerusalem where the spirits of just men are made perfect Heb. 12.23 But so long as we continue here on earth let us aspire after that pitch of Righteousness never so much yet such is the inseparable infirmity of our nature we shall still fall short of it Be favourable in censuring one anothers faults sayes S t James because every man will need that favour from others towards his own faults more or less for in many things we offend all Jam. 3.1 2. whatever some may falsly pretend yet in reality no man lives entirely innocent For if we say that we have no sin we deceive our selves and the truth is not in us 1 Joh. 1.8 we are never able to show this height of obedience nor doth Christs Gospel exact it of us For even there we are taught in our daily prayers to confess our daily trespasses and yet notwithstanding that we are allow'd nay commanded in the same breath to call God our Father still Mat. 6.9 12. As for some slips and transgressions therefore we see plainly that they are consistent with a state of salvation and are not eternally threatned but dispensed with by the Covenant of the Gospel For the infirmity of our Nature is such that we never can and Gods goodness is so great that he never will require us to be entirely free from them The very best men and those very Saints who are now in bliss have lived subject to them and fallen under them but yet they made no blot in their character nor robbed them of Gods favour and that life and pardon which is promised in the Gospel And that we may be certain is consistent which as we plainly see not only needs must but indeed alwayes has consisted with a state of Mercy and Regeneration For the terms of the Gospel are the same to all times and what they bear with in one they do likewise in another God is no respecter of persons nor can ever render different judgement to them who have done the same things So that as for some sins we are fully assured from the foregoing considerations that they are not eternally threatned but dispensed with by the Covenant of the Gospel and that so long as we are free from others if we die in them without amending them we shall not at the last day be condemned for them Thus then in the General it appears that some slips are consistent with a state of Grace God under the Gospel-Covenant doth not punish them but bear with them so that although we die unreformed from them we shall yet be saved notwithstanding them But to clear up this business more fully I shall proceed now to what I undertook in the second place namely to shew more particularly what and of what Nature those allowed slips and transgressions are whereof I shall discourse in the ensuing Chapters CHAP. II. Of the Nature of these consistent slips more particularly The CONTENTS Our unchosen sins are consistent with a state of Grace but our wilfull and chosen ones destroy it All things are made Good or Evil a matter of reward or punishment by a Law Laws are given for the guidance and reward only of our voluntary and chosen actions This proved first from the clear reason of the thing Where it is inferred from the Nature of Laws which is to oblige from that way that all Laws have of obliging which is not by forcing but perswading men from the dueness of rewards and punishments commendations and reproofs from the applause or accusations of mens own consciences upon their obedience or transgressions Secondly From the express declarations of Scripture IF any man should ask which of all Christs Laws those are which he may keep or break at his own pleasure and yet go unpunished I must tell him none at all For there are no failings and transgressions in a mans life allowed of for this reason because disobedience is warranted to some Laws although it be not to others No in our whole Religion there is no one Law that is left so naked For God has not given any Commandments with that indifference to them as if he cared not what became of them or were unconcern'd whether men kept or broke them but he has established them all under the same penalty so that he who breaks any one is guilty as S t James sayes and obnoxious to the punishment of all Jam. 2.10 It is not therefore the transgression of some Laws which shall be born
stay beyond that time which we are to act in if we do act at all Besides our powers of action especially where there is any strong temptation of pleasure or profit to act for are forward of themselves and ready to spring out upon the first occasion As soon as the temptation is offered to our thoughts our wills indeliberately approve and all our bodily and active powers by an unconsidered emanation start up to pursue and endeavour after it whence thinking and considering is necessary not to raise but to stop and restrain them And then if either our thoughts have been otherwise engaged and so cannot readily withdraw themselves to consider of a new object or if our thinking powers themselves are dull and heavy and thereby unfit to consider of it we presently and indeliberately go on to act the thing without all pausing and due consideration For this other reason of inconsideration also viz. the want of power or indisposition of our thinking faculty it self is not a thing wholly subject to our own will to chuse whether or when we shall fall under it Because in this state of our souls during their being here united to our Bodies they make use of our bodily powers in their use of reason and in the very exercise of thought and consideration and therefore even in them they are liable to be changed and altered just as our Bodies are For in a brisk and healthy Body our thoughts are free and quick and easie but if our Bodies are dull and indisposed our minds are so too A heaviness in our heads will make us heavy in our apprehensions and a discomposure in our Spirits whether through the strength of Wine or of a violent passion will make us discomposed and incoherent in our thoughts also And if there be an utter perverting or blasting of our bodily powers as is often seen in the bodily Diseases of Epilepsies Phrensies Apoplexies and the like there will be the same perversion or utter extinction of our conceptions likewise But now these indispositions of our Bodies which thus unfit our very souls for thought and due consideration are not in our power to order when and where they shall seize upon us For our Bodies are liable to be thus acted upon by any other Bodies of the world whether we will or no. A heavy air or an indisposing accident will work a change in our bodily temper without our leave and when once that is indisposed we cannot hinder our thoughts themselves from being indisposed too And since it is not in our power at all times to chuse whether or no we will pause and consider although we can avoid offending in those Cases wherein we can consider of it yet is it manifest that we cannot avoid offence in all Indeed if we take any particular action and in our own thoughts separate it from any particular time and from the Chain of other particular actions amongst which it lyes we shall be apt to affirm that it is such whereof we can think and consider For take any action by it self and being aware of it we can let other things alone and watch for it particularly and when we do so we are sure to find one time or other when our understandings are disposed for a due deliberation and fit and able to consider of it But then we must take notice that this supposed state of an action as separate from the Crowd of other actions and determined to no time is only imaginary and in speculation For when we come to practise them though in some we have time and power enough yet in others we find that we have not Because either they come in the throng of other business and then our thoughts being hotly employed upon other things cannot so easily be drawn from them upon the sudden to consider of them or if they call upon us when we have time to consider in yet it happens that our faculties are heavy and indisposed and so we exert them still without due consideration When we think of any particular action by it self therefore we take it out of the throng of business wherein it is involved and out of that time wherein we are indisposed and then we are bold to conclude that we can consider of it But when we come to practise it we find that our former speculation supposed false and that it comes mixt with a crowd of other things or in a time when we have troubled and discomposed thoughts So that how subject soever it was to our consideration in that separate state wherein we imagined it yet have we no power to consider of it in that throng of business or indisposition of faculties wherein we find it And this is verily the Case of several of our slips and transgressions For look upon any of the particulars by it self and take it asunder from the rest and then we shall be confident that we may bethink our selves and consider of it But take it as indeed it lyes among the mixt Crowd of other actions or as offered to our indisposed understandings and then we shall find that it slips from us without all consideration And this as I take it is intended by a great man when he tells us of sins of pardonable infirmitie that the liberty which they seem to have when we consider them in special and asunder they indeed have not when we consider them in the general viz. as involved in the crowd of other actions amongst whom they lye and altogether Upon which account of their having in them no choice and consideration he questions whether they contain that which can in strictness and propriety of speech be called sin And indeed if we understand the same by sin which S t John doth when he gives the explication of it 1 John 3.4 viz. a rejecting or contemning of the Law in which sence only a state of Grace is destroyed by it and he who is born of God cannot commit it they have not For men cannot be said to reject and despise a Law when they do not see and consider of it The liberty then which we have about those slips and transgressions which we do not know and consider of is in effect no liberty at all For we neither chuse the disobedient action it self nor the cause of it We do not chuse the sinful action it self because we do not know or consider of it Nor do we chuse the inconsideration because it is not left to our liberty whether in some of our actions we should be inconsiderate or no. And since our slips and failings which are thus involuntary by ignorance cannot be chosen or refused 't is plain that they cannot be avoided And as for all those things which we cannot avoid it is clear from what has been said above that the Gospel doth not eternally threaten us nor will God ever condemn us for them But that these slips and transgressions which being thus unknown
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
of Christ's Gospel whereby at the last Day we must all be judged Alas they know not of any such Laws nor ever think of being tryed by them In the Gospel 't is very true they are all recorded and by Christs Ministers at one time or other they are all proclaimed and by some exemplary good men although God knows they are very few in one place or other they are duly practised but yet for all this a great many Christian men are ignorant of some or other of them For either they cannot read the Scriptures where they are mentioned or they have not opportunity to hear the Preacher when every one of them particularly is taught or they are not in sight and observation of those patterns of piety by whom they are practised so that still they do not understand them Or if at last they do come to know them yet is it some time first and they acted several times against them before they saw that they were bound by them So that still we see there is room in the World for sins of ignorance from mens not knowing of the Law which they sin against Several particular Laws which lye more remote and are not so plainly of natural obligation nor startled at by natural Conscience are oftentimes and by many persons transgressed because they do not perceive themselves to be bound by them And as for this ignorance of one Branch or other of their Duty it is some mens unhappiness rather than their fault they do not so truly chuse it as through an unchosen necessity fall under it For it is necessary to all people whether they will or no for some time and to some for all their lives It is necessary I say to all people whether they will or no for some time For by the very constitution of our Nature which is before any thing of our own chusing we are born ignorant the mind of man being as Aristotle compares it like a blank paper wherein is nothing written No man ever since Adam came into the World in the free exercise of his understanding and with his perfect wits about him And when after some time we do begin to know yet even then is all our knowledg gradual and by little and little For we first learn one thing and then another and so by several steps attain at last to a competent pitch of knowledge When therefore any man doth begin to know Gods will and to discern his Laws yet is it not possible that he should understand them all at once but some of them every man must needs be ignorant of till he has had time to learn and know them all To some people I say it is necessary for their whole lives to their dying Day they do not arrive to the understanding of some things which God has required of them And that because they wanted either abilities or opportunities neither of which is of their own chusing They are of a slow understanding and have not those means of instruction or that time and leisure to attend upon it which others have And that by reason of their place and low condition in the world wherein it was Gods pleasure and not their own to dispose of them But now this ignorance of some or other of Christ's Laws being thus involuntary it must likewise be innocent For there is no damning sin and disobedience but in our own choice so that as long as the heart is true to God he will not be at enmity for any thing else which may seem to be against him And since our ignorance it self is innocent the sinning upon it will never be rebellious and damning For the disobedience is not any way chosen neither in it self nor in its Cause we do not chuse the sin because we do not see that the action is sinful nor do we chuse not to see it because we cannot help it But where there is no choice there will be there no condemnation So that the action which is done against the Law shall not be punished by the Law if we were thus innocently ignorant of the Law whereof it was a transgression And that it will not is plain For God never did nor ever will condemn any man for the transgression of a particular Law before he has had all due means and necessary opportunities such as may be sufficient to any honest and willing heart to understand it The Jewish Law obliged none but those whom it was proclaimed to who had the advantages of being instructed out of it It is they only says S t Paul who have sinned in or under the Law who shall be judged by the Law Rom. 2.12 The Law of Christ did not bind men until they had sufficient means and opportunities of knowing it and being convinced by it If ye were blind or wanted abilities says our Saviour to the Pharisees you should have no sin John 9.41 And again if I had not given them sufficient opportunities of knowing come and spoken unto them they had not had sin but now since I have they have no cloak or no pretence or excuse for their sin Nay if I had not given them all due means of conviction and done among them the works which no other man hath done they had not had sin still John 15.22 24. These slips of honest ignorance of our Duty are no more punished under the Gospel of Christ than they were under the Law of Moses For Christ our High Priest doth attone for them by virtue of his Sacrifice of himself as well as the Aaronical Priest in behalf of the ignorantly offending Jews made an attonement for them by his sin-offering Levit. 4.2 3 c. This S t Paul tells us in his comparison of Christ's Priesthood with that of the line of Aaron In his interceding to God and offering Sacrifice for sins he can have compassion on the ignorant Heb. 5.2 Ignorance therefore of the general Law which makes any thing a Duty so long as it is not wilful and affected by us through the merits of Christ's Sacrifice and the Grace of his Gospel renders those offences which we commit under it pardonable transgressions such as do not destroy a state of Grace but consist with it And this is the very determination which S t Cyprian gives in the Case of transgressing our Lords institution in the participation of the Lords Supper For some Churches in those Days were wont to make use of Water instead of Wine in which way of communicating several of them had been educated and brought up having received it ignorantly and in the simplicity of their hearts as they had done other things of their Religion from the practice and tradition of their Forefathers Now as for the usage it self S t Cyprian declares plainly that it is a breach of Duty and a custom very dangerous and sinful It is says he against our Lords Command who plainly bid us do what he did i. e.
make use of bread and wine which were those things that he used The blood of Christ is not offered if there be no wine in the cup to represent it and how can we ever hope to drink wine with him in his Fathers Kingdom if we drink it not at his Table here on Earth So that in the good Fathers judgment the Duty was express the Law binding and the transgression dangerous But yet as for those innocent and well-meaning souls who had no opportunity to be told of it but were bred up in a contrary way under the authority of a tradition that opposed it and therefore in the simplicity of their hearts were ignorant of it They says he even whilst they do transgress shall go unpunished Their simplicity and ignorance shall excuse them whilst our knowledg will certainly condemn us they shall be pardoned because they could not know it but we shall be punished because when we might have known and kept it if we would we neglected and despised it In the mean time herein is Gods great mercy shown to us and for this should we return most hearty thanks to him that even now when he plainly instructs us in that which under pain of his displeasure we are to do hereafter he at the same time pardons us for all that which through simplicity and honest ignorance we have already done And as this innocent unwill'd ignorance of the Law it self excuses all those transgressions which we incur by reason of it so doth 2. The second sort of ignorance viz. the ignorance of the thing it self which the Law injoyns or forbids when we know not that our present action is included in it or meant by it Gods Laws as all others run in general terms and never go to reckon up all particular actions which are with them or against them but leave the judging and discerning of that to our own selves He tells us that theft and revenge are sinfull but leaves us to inform our selves what actions are thievish and revengefull He teaches us that Covetousness is forbidden but he puts us to see of the action before us that it be covetous and the same he doth in every other Law For that which he expresly mentions is the general name of the action which he forbids but as for the particular application he leaves that to our own selves Now here is the wide place for the ignorance and errours of all sorts of men For what Arrian sayes of happiness and misery is equally true of sin and duty in the application of the acknowledged notion or law to particular things or actions is the cause of all our evils here the great scene of ignorance in morals the field of doubting and dispute lies The great controversies which men have either in their own thoughts or with Gods ministers is not so much whether evil-speaking back-biting censoriousness unpeaceableness drunkenness sensuality or any such prohibited vice be a sin For as to that the Law is express the very word is mentioned in it and he that reads or hears the Law if he attend to what he reads or hears cannot but observe and understand it But the great doubt is whether this or that particular action which they are about to commit be indeed a censorious an unpeaceable a sensual or a drunken action And the Reasons of this are several For 1. In some actions although we know the general Law yet we know not whether the particular action be comprehended under it because what is forbidden in the Law differs from what is innocent not in kind but only in degree For a great part of our appetites and actions are neither determined to good nor ill in their whole nature but only as they are in certain measures The use of meats and drinks within due bounds is harmless but beyond that 't is intemperance the desire and search of money in a moderate degree is lawfull but above that 't is Covetousness the modest pursute of honour and promotion is innocent but when it exceeds it is ambition to have just thoughts of a mans self is allowable but to be puffed up with over-high conceits is pride and so it is in several other instances A great many passions and actions are not alwayes sinful but so far only as they are deficient or exceed Which holding true of several virtues and vices made Aristotle lay it down as a part of the nature of virtue in general that it is something consisting in mediocrity and agreeably that vice is something consisting in defectiveness or excess Now the actions which are prohibited by several Laws not coming under the compass of the Laws in their whole natures but only when they are arrived to certain measures and degrees herein after we have known the general Law lies the difficulty and unresolvedness whether or no the present action falls under it For it is a very hard thing and it may be impossible to any humane understanding to fix the exact bounds and utmost limits of virtue and vice to draw a line precisely between them and tell to a tittle how many degrees are innocent and the just place where the excess begins Here the Wise and Learned themselves are at a loss and much more the rude and ignorant so that in Laws of this nature they may many times mistake their sin for their liberty and allowance and go beyond the innocent degree when they do not know it 2. In other actions although we do know the general Law yet many times we are ignorant of the present actions being comprehended under it because the Law is not absolute and unlimited but admits of several exceptions whereof we may mistake the present action to be one The great and general Laws of Christ as of any other Legislator have several cases which are not included in the general name of the duty injoyned or of the sin prohibited in the Law but are exempt from it What Duty is injoyned in more universal words than that of Peace but yet in several cases we not only may but out of Duty must nourish contention For we are bid to contend earnestly for the Faith which was once delivered to the Saints Jud. vers 3. We must be concerned for God and Religion when others concern themselves against them We are not tamely and unaffectedly to see Gods Laws cancelled or our countries peace disturbed but must strive and contend with as much wise zeal and active courage and with infinitely more honour and peace of mind to maintain and defend than ill men do to oppose and destroy them Again what Law is delivered in fuller and plainer terms than that of forgiving injuries but yet there are several cases wherein we may justly seek amends for them For we may bring a malefactor to condign punishment or an injurious man to restitution and the like is observable of other Laws Now those actions which come under the general name of the sin
prohibited not being forbidden universally but some being excepted here again is room for ignorance and mistake about the particular action after we have known the general Duty For we may take that to be a case excepted which is indeed a case prohibited and venture upon an action as an exempted liberty which in truth and reality is a forbidden sin 3. In other actions although we know the general Law yet many times we are in ignorance about the particular action because there are several actions which are not directly forbidden by any Law but are alwayes innocent and indifferent unless when some Law takes hold of them indirectly The action is usually allowed except when it is committed in such a manner as that the transgression of some Law accompanies it There is no Law against it self but only against some thing that is annexed to it For God has not given a particular Law for every sort of actions but has left us in several to govern our selves by other motives and inducements of pleasure honour or interest and not by virtue of a Commandment But although these unrestrained actions are no matter of a particular Law which expresly names them and directly binds us up to one side either in chusing or refusing the whole kind of them yet in our use and exercise of them they may at one time or other fall under the power of several For to illustrate this by an instance there is no Law which directly and expresly either enjoyns or forbids us to play at cards or other pastime but yet several Laws commanding or forbidding other things may be transgressed in our use of them For even in a game at cards we may incur the sin of Covetousness by our desire of money the sin of Injustice by our endeavours to cheat and cozen and the sins of passionateness impatience and unpeaceableness by our repining at our ill luck our quarrelling and contending and the like might be shewn in other cases Now seeing several actions which in themselves are thus innocent and under no Law may yet at one time or other by reason of some thing concomitant and annexed to them be indirectly a transgression of a Law here is still a further reason why when we know the general Law we yet are ignorant of our present actions being forbid by it For the Law doth not look upon it directly but takes a compass before it comprehends it They lie not in the same line and so one may be particularly seen and considered of and much more known and understood in the general without seeing of the other 4. In other actions although we know the General Law which we sin against yet we do not believe that our present action is included in it or forbid by it because another Law happens to clash with it in some instance and seems to injoyn and justifie what we do although that be transgressed by it For it often happens in a Christians Life that two Laws interfere and command differently in the same instance Our Duty is at variance with it self so that when we pursue obedience in one particular another is disobeyed by us How obvious and usual is it for him who would avoid the passion and impatience of discourse to fall into a fault of the opposite extream by fullenness and unsociable moroseness What is more common than for men to be over censorious and troublesomly rigid in conversation who aim at nothing but to be severely virtuous and piously austere It is an obvious errour for any whilst they intend a charitable feasting to run into some small intemperance for inoffensiveness and kind compliance to justle out the due severities of reproof for severity to exceed into ungentleness for affection to degenerate into fondness and which is the great instance of errour upon this score for our zeal for God to disturb the peace and transgress the bounds of charity towards men I do not mean such zeal as transgresses notorious and weighty Laws for disputable nay even for clear and evident Doctrines and Opinions A zeal that will stick at nothing but bursts through all Gods Commands to propagate an Article and ventures upon murders tumults lying slander wars blood-shed and other instances of a most notorious and damning disobedience in practice to promote an Orthodox belief For these are such instances of offence as no honest heart can overlook but if a man has not debauched his Conscience they must needs appear to be of a frightful guilt and of a damning nature Any virtuous temper must abhor and every good conscience utterly condemn them So that no man of an honâ—st and obedient heart can ever hope to serve God by them or think any pretence whatsoever of force enough to justifie the practice of them But then there are other sins which are of a smaller guilt or of a more alterable nature such as either are not greatly or not alwayes evil but only when they happen to have ill effects or are in an exorbitant degree and these an eager zeal doth many times drive men to and they think all is obedience even when they proceed so far in them as to disobey Mens 〈◊〉 for those Opinions which they account Religious 〈…〉 them daily into estrangedness of mind and 〈◊〉 of behaviour into passione disputes and 〈◊〉 reflections into animosities and disquietness and a great breach of mutual charity and love And all these though really they are breaches of their Duty are looked upon as innocent nay praise-worthy they judge them to come from an honest Principle and therefore doubt not but that they will end in an happy reward The duty of pious zeal is the spring although it contract much of humane passion in the passage and that they hope will be acceptable to God which goes under cover of a Commandment and comes to serve him And this was the case in that hot and sinfull contest which happened betwixt those two great lights of Virtue and Learning Epiphanius and Chrysostome For it was a zeal for publick good and against such things as were likely in their opinion to corrupt the Faith or disturb the Peace or pervert the practice of the Church which transported them into that warm contention that ended in an uncharitable breach and passionate imprecation when Epiphanius wrote to Chrysostome That he hoped he would lose his See and never dye a Bishop and Chrysostome replyed to him that he hoped he would come to an untimely end and never return safe into his own city And a real transgression of one Law being thus through the clashing and enterfering of two Laws of Christ in fair appearance an act of laudable and necessary obedience to another Here again is a further reason why when we know the Law which we sin against we yet think that our action is not sinfull because we take it to be justified nay what is more commanded by another 5. In other actions although we know the General Law
among your selves for Charity shall cover or procure pardon for the multitude of those many because unavoidable and involuntary sins 1 Pet. 4.8 And hereto Charity is then especially available when it is shewn in the highest instance of all viz. in procuring our Brethrens repentance and conversion For thus says S t James Brethren if any of you do err from the truth and one convert him for his encouragement let him know this from me That he who converts the Sinner from the errour of his way shall not only save the others soul from death but shall also hide a multitude of his own sins James 5.19 20. Thus is Charity in all acts of kindness and beneficence most available to procure the pardon of our many because unavoidable and involuntary sins But among all the instances of Charity one is particularly singled out by our Saviour as a necessary Condition to our forgiveness at Gods hands and that is our forgiving others that offend against us For the man who would have no pity upon his Fellow-servant as his Lord had shewed upon him was unpardoned all again and delivered over to the tormentors till he should pay the uttermost Farthing Matth. 18.32 33 34 and the same measure our heavenly Father will mete out to us if we forgive not every one his Brother their trespasses v. 35. And that a Condition so necessary to our forgiveness might never be forgotten our Lord has put it expresly into that Prayer which he has taught us to put up daily for the pardon of our own sins For he bids us pray that God would forgive us our trespasses against him even as we forgive those that trespass against us Matth. 6.12 And that we may take the more notice of a Point so indispensable he tells us as soon as ever the Prayer is done that if we forgive men their trespasses our heavenly Father will also forgive us but if we forgive not men their trespasses neither will our heavenly Father forgive us our trespasses vers 14 15. If we are rigorous and severe therefore with our Brethren God will be so with us also and when he comes to judge us we shall find as little allowance at his hands as they have done at ours For he shall have judgment from God without mercy who to men hath shewn no mercy but if any man has been merciful to his Brethren God will be much more so to him for mercy rejoyceth even against judgment James 2.13 This will be the greatest motive to procure Grace and the best Plea that can be urged to obtain mercy at Gods hands Blessed are the merciful says our Saviour for they shall obtain mercy Mat. 5.7 And thus as for our involuntary slips we see now what is their remedy they shall be forgiven us upon our prayers and upon the prayers of our friends and other good Christians for us and upon our Charity and forgiveness of other men With the same measure that we mete God will mete out to us again Mat. 7.2 So that if we shew mercy to the unwill'd sins yea and the voluntary offences of other men if in other things we are obedient we shall be sure to find it for our own And thus at last we see what remedy the Gospel has provided us for all sorts of offences whether they be our voluntary or involuntary sins And upon the whole matter we find that our case is not desperate under any sort of sins but that if we will use it we have a sufficient cure for them For if we are in a state of death by reason of any wilful sin let us but particularly repent of it and amend it and if it either injured or offended our Brethren seek to be reconciled and repair the wrong and we are restored to pardon And if in any thing we have fallen involuntarily let us but pray and be merciful and we are forgiven And either way when God comes to judge us whether we have in all points fulfilled his Laws or are pardoned our transgressions of them we shall be acquitted by him We shall be safe at that day if we have either kept the condition or used the remedy for a pardon will justifie us to as much purpoâ—â— as we should have been justified by an unerring obedience To apply this then to every mans particular case Has any man whether learned or unlearned committed wilfully and advisedly an act of any known and notorious sin whether of Blasphemy Perjury common Swearing Witchcraft Idolatry Drunkenness Fornication Adultery Lying Slander Fraud Oppression Theft Murder Rebellion Tumult or the like has he been guilty of these or of any other sins of like nature whereat all mens consciences are wont to boggle and their hearts to check them till they have sinned themselves into numbness and stupefaction let him particularly amend that evil way and retract that very sin and if his crime implied any as far as he can repair the wrong it did his brethren and then he is in a safe condition For his particular repentance and amendment shall make up the breach which such wilful offence had made betwixt God and him and shall most certainly procure his pardon Has any man of opportunities and understanding committed any action of Lasciviousness Vncleanness Passionateness Fierceness evil Speaking Backbiting Censoriousness Vncandidness Vnmercifulness Vnpeaceableness or the like has any such man or any other whatsoever been guilty of these or the like offences when his own Soul reproved him and either did or would have set the sinfulness of his present action before him unless he has sinned in it so long as to lose all sense of it and to stifle all suggestions against it let him also particularly amend and reform such voluntary sin and make his peace with his offended brethren that he may be saved His particular repentance shall likewise make his peace and procure for him Gods favour and acceptance Has any man lastly been surprized into rash words and censures into sudden anger and trifling discontents and peevish or uncourteous or uncandid or uncondescensive behaviour has he been wearied by long importunity into some loose thoughts and wanton fancies into some small fretfulness or impatience or the like has he spoke or acted unadvisedly through deep grief or violent fears or other astonishing unwill'd passion let him bewail his failings and strive against them although he be not able perfectly to overcome them let him seek peace and use charity and shew mercy upon the like errours and escapes and upon the more wilful offences of his brethren and then with comfort beg Gods pardon For his prayers thus attended shall set him straight and procure his reconciliation If a man is conscious to himself of any of these sorts of sins these remedies will certainly restore him And as for those unknown and secret sins whereof his conscience cannot inform him he has an obvious and an easie expedient for a general penitential prayer will undoubtedly be
of none but what we have repented of we have just reason to take a good heart to our selves and to wait for death in hopeful expectations If our own hearts condemn us not says Saint John then have we confidence towards God 1 John 3.21 There is no sin that will damn us but a wilful one and when we sin wilfully if our heart is soft and honest we sin willingly and against our Conscience our own heart sees and observes it before and will keep us in mind of it after we have committed it So that if any man has a vertuous and a tender heart a heart that is truly dâ—sirous to obey obey God and afraid in any thing to offend him when his Conscience is silent he may justly conclude that his Condition is safe for if it doth not condemn him God never will An honest mans heart I say must condemn him before he have sufficient reason to condemn himself And that too not for every idle word or every fruitless lust or every dulness of spirit and distraction in prayer and coldness in devotion or such other mistaken marks whereby too many are wont to judge of their title to salvation No Heaven and Hell are not made to depend upon these things but although a man be guilty of them he may be eternally happy notwithstanding them But that accusation of his Conscience which may give an honest man just reason to condemn himself must be an accusation for a wilful breach or deliberate transgression of some particular Law of Sobriety Piety Justice Charity Peaceableness it must accuse him of an unrepented breach of some of those Laws above mentioned which God has plainly made the terms of life and the condition of salvation And the accusation for the breach of these Laws must be particular and express not general and roving For some are of so suspicious and timorous a temper that they are still suspecting and condemning of themselves when they know not for what reason They will indict themselves as men that have sinned greatly but they cannot shew wherein they judge of themselves not from any reason or experience but at a venture and by chance they speak not so truly their opinions as their fears not what their understandings see and discern but what their melancholy suggests to them For ask them as to any one Particular of the Laws of God and run them all over and their Consciences cannot charge them with any wilful which is withal an unrepented transgression of it But let them overlook all Particulars and pass a judgment of themselves only in general when they do not judge from particular instances which are true evidence but only from groundless and small presumptions and then they pass a hard sentence upon themselves and conclude that their sins are very great and their condition dangerous But no man shall be sentenced at the last Day for Notions and Generalities but it is our particular sins which must then condemn us For God's Laws bind us all in single actions and if our own Consciences cannot condemn us for any one wilful which is withal an unrepented action God will not condemn us for them altogether If our own heart therefore doth not accuse us for the particular wilful and unrepented breaches of some or other of those Laws above mentioned which God has made the indispensable condition of our acceptance we are secure as to the next World and may comfortably hope to be acquitted in the last Judgment Being conscious of no wilful sin but what we have repented of and by mercy and forgiveness of other men and our prayers to God begging pardon for our involuntary sins we shall have nothing that will lye heavy upon us at the last Day but may go out of the World with ease and dye in comfort Our departure hence may be in peace because our appearance at Gods Tribunal shall surely be in safety For we shall have no worse charged upon us there than we are able here to charge upon our selves but leaving this World in a good Conscience we shall be sentenced in the next to a glorious reward and bid to enter into our Masters joy there to live with our Lord for ever and ever Amen Soli Deo Gloria FINIS * 1 Joh. 2 17-29 ‖ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Clâ—m Ro. 1. Epist. ad Cor. c. 30. a Gal. 3.19 b Matt 1.21 c Jam. 2.22 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 d 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Clem. Rom. Ep. 1. ad Cor. c. 31. e Quid est â—ide liter Christo credere â— est fideliter Dei mandata servare Salvian de Gub. l. 3. p. 67. Ed. Oxon. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Clem. Rom. 1. Ep. ad Cor. c. 10. f Matt. 25.34 35 3â— c. g Heb. 1.17 19. h 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 wrought to his works or to make him work i 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 k Neâ— Christianus esse videtur qui Christiani nominis opus non agit Salvian de Gub. l 4. p. Ed. Ox. 90. a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 b Noah's preaching Righteousness and Repentance before the flood 2 Pet. 2.5 and 1 Pet. 3.20 is thus expessed by St. Clement 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1. Epist. ad Cor. c. 9. c Prophetarum Filii And in the like sence among the Gentiles Poetarum Filii d Jer. 8.6 So St. Clement uses the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 promiscuously 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And what in the Septuagint whom he follows in Citations is expressed by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ezek. 33.11 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. he giving the sence though not the words according to the Apostolical usage expresses thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Clem. Rom. 1. Ep. ad Cor. c. 7.8 And agreeably to this the compilers of our Liturgy in the Sentences before Morning Service in our Old Common Prayer Books translate Matt. 3.2 Repent ye for the Kingdom of God is at hand thus Amend your lives for the Kingdom c. As on the other side they expound Ezek. 18.21 If the wicked turn from all his sins that he hath committed and keep all my statutes and do that which is lawful and right c. thus At what time soever a sinner repenteth c. Quid planius quà m quod voluntas pro facto reputâ—tur ubi factum exclâ—dic necessitas nisi forte putetur in malo quà m in bono efficacior inveniri voluntas apud Deum qui charitas est promptioresset ad ulciscendum quam ad remunerandum misericors miserator Dominus Bernard Ep. ad Hugonem de Sancto Victore quae est Ep. 77. p. op 1458. f Quid dicam nescio quid promittam penitus ignoro revocare ab inquisitione ultimi remedii periclitantes durum impium spondere autem aliquid in tam sera cautione temerarium Salv. de Avaritia l. 1. p. 363. Ed. Oxon. a Levit. 26.40.42 b Novum monstri genus â—adem
qui sit iracundus maledicus effraenatus paucissimis Dei verbis tam placidum quam ovem reddam Da cupidum avarum tenacem jam tibi eum liberalem dabo pecuniam suam plenis manibus largientem Da timidum doloris ac mortis jam cruces ignes Phalaridis taurum contemnet Da libidinosum adulterum ganeonem jam sobrium castum continentem videbis Da crudelem sanguinis appetentem jam in veram clementiam furor ille mutabitur Da injustum insipientem peccatorem continuo aequus prudens innocens erit Vno enim lavacro malitia omnis abolebitur pauca Dei praecepta sic totum hominem immutant exposito vetere noâ—um reddunt ut non cognoscas eundem esse Lactant. de Fals. Sap. l. 3. c. 26. c Non aliunde noscibiles quam de emendatione vitiorum pristinorum Tertul. ad Scap. c. 2. d Non magna loquimur sed vivimus Cypr. de bono patientiae Ed. Rig. p. 222. Bonus vir Caius Sejus sed malus tantùm quod Christianus Tertul. Apol c. 3. f Quid facies de tantis millibus hominum tot viris ac foeminis omnis Sexus omnis Aetatis omnis Dignitatis offerentibus se tibi Tertul. ad Scap. c. 4. g 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ignat. Epist. and Smyrn h 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is S t Clement's Character of good men 1 Ep. ad Cor. c. 26. a Quis peccat in â—o quod nullo modo careri potest Aug. de lib. Arbit l. c. 18. â—ohn 14.6 Luke 2.10 d Verse 14. e Mat. 1.21 f Joh. 1.17 g 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 h 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i Da exemplum qui absque peccato fuerit in perpetuum aut confitere imbecillitatem tuam Jerom. lib. 1. Dial. adv Pel. paulo ab initio k Peccavimus omnes alii gravia alii leviora alii ex destinato alii fortè impulsi alii aut aliena nequitia ablati alii in bonis consiliis parùm fortiter sâ—â—timus innocentiam inviti ac renitentes perdidimus Nec delinquimus tantum sed usque ad extremum aevi delinquimus Etiam siquis tam bene purgavit animum ut nihil eum obturbare amplius possit ac fallere ad innocentiam tamen peccando pervenit Sen. de clem lib. 1. cap. 6. l Hoc primum nobis suademus neminem nostram esse sine culpâ Quis iste est qui se profitetur omnibus legibus innocentem Et ut hoc ita sit quam angusta innocentia est ad legem bonum esse quà m multa pietas humanitas liberalitas sides justitia exigunt quae omnia extra publicas tabulas sunt Id. de Ira lib. 2. cap. 27. m Et Quoniam tales nascantur nunc quoque qualis Ille suit nostri Generis pater ante reatum Posse hominem sine peccato decurrere vitam Si velit ut potuit nullo delinquere primus Libertate sua nempe haec damnata fateris Conciliis Prosper lib. de Ingrat contra Pelag cap. 9. a 1 Sam. 16.7 b Non est cui recte imputetur peccatum nisi colenti Aug. de lib. Arbit l. 3. c. 17. b 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Justin Martyr Apol. 1. c He calls it not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is the proper word to denote a going beside the Law or a transgression of it but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which imports a being without Law or a renouncing of it As 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are the lawless and disobedient a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Andron Rhod. Paraph. in Eth. Arist. lib. 3. cap. 4. b 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ibid. c 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 1.28 d Deut. 17.12 Will do presumptuously is explained by will not hearken e 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 f Ira furor brevâ—s â—st g Omne in praecipiti vitium Stat. Juv. Sat. 1. Rom. 7.23 i Elatio contemnentis in minimis mandatis culpam facit non minimam convertit in crimen gravis rebellionis naevum satis levem simplicis transgressionis Bernard de Praecept Dispens c. 14. p. op 931. k 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 k In the Syriack version according to Tremeliâ—s's translationâ— it is transgressus est sâ—â—l aspernanter l Vers. 2. m 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in vers 70. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 o 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p Peccata sanciantia and vastantia q 2 Sam. 11.4 5 27. r vers 6 7 8 9 10 13 14 15. s Chap. 12. vers 1 5. a Voluntas non potest cogi Axioma Scholast b Invitae per vim c Meâ—tem peccare non corpus â—nde consilium abjuâ—rit â—ulpam abissâ— Liv. Dec. â— vers sin d Book 3. Ch. 4. e 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 f Ergo non est cui relle impatetur peccatum nisi volâ—nti Aug. de lib. â—rbit l. 3. c. 17. g Non sacit aliquid contra Legem Legis ignarus Nullus potest ejus rei praevaricator esse quam nescit Salvian de Gub. Dei l. 4. p. 134 138. Ed. Oxon. i Hoc nos dicimus possâ— hominem non peccare si velit pro tempore pro loco pro imbecillitate corporea quamdiu intentus est animus quamdiu chorda nullo vitio laxatur in cithara Hieron Dial. adv Pel. l. 3. p. 302. Ed. Erasm. k Libertatem eam quam in specie habere videntur in sua generalitate considerata non habeant Grot. de Jure Belli l. 2. c. 20. §. 19. l 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 m Nil contemptu agunt câ—â—lestium praeceptorum praecepta Domini nesâ—ientes c. Nemo ignota contemnit c Salv. de Gub. Dei l. 4. p. 134. 148. Ed. Oxon. a Non apparentis non existentis eadem est ratio Rom. 5.13 b 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c Invenimus non à nobis observari quod mandatum est nisi eadem quae Dominus secit nos quoque faciamus calicem pari ratione miscentes à Divino magisterio non recedamus d Apparet sanguinem Christi non offerri si deest vinum calici nec Sacrificiam Domini cum legitima Sanctificatione celebrari nisi Oblatio Sacrificium nostrum responderit Passioni Quomodo â—lim de Creatura vitis novum vinum cum Christo in Regno Patris bibemus si in Sacrificio Dei Patris Christi vinum non offerimus nec calicem Domini Dominica traditione miscemus e Siquis de antecessoribus nostris vel ignoranter vel simpliciter non hoc observavit ac tenuit quod nos Dominus â—acere exemplo magisterio suo docuit potest simplicitati ejas de indulgentia Domini venia concedi nobis vero non poterit ignosci qui nunc à Domino admoniti instructi sumus ut calicem Dominicum vino mixtum secundum quod Dominus obtulit osseramus agentes graetias quod dum instruit de futuro