antient traditions of the Hebrews But as for their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the splendid body and spiritual vehicle they talk of they mean not that Glorious Coelestial body which the Apostle tells us this Terrestial one shall be changed into but a thin subtile body which they say the soul even while it is in this gross one is immediately inclosed in And which being in this life well purified from the pollution it hath contracted from its Case of flesh the soul taking its flight from thence with it enjoyeth its happiness in it But I say the change of this vile into a Glorious body they were perfectly strangers to Now what an unspeakable encouragement to Holiness is the happiness which the Gospel proposeth to us and gives us assurance of also that the now mentioned or any of the Philosophers could never by the best improvement of their Intellectuals have conceived to be so much as likely to be attainable by mankind And who would still serve their filthy lusts and in so doing be the vilest of slaves here that looks to reign with the King of the world for ever hereafter He that hath this hope in him saith S. Iohn purisieth himself even as he is pure 1 Iohn 3. 3. And what hath been spoken of the greatness of the Reward which is promised in the Gospel to obedient persons may be said also of the punishment it threateneth to the disobedient It would make one would think even an heart of Oak and the most hardened sinner to tremble and shake at the reading of those expressions it is set forth by Some of the Philosophers do speak very dreadful things concerning the condition of wicked men in the other world but they fall extremely short of what the Gospel hath declared But I confess a discourse on this head will not very properly come in here For mere reason might make it exceedingly probable that so highly aggravated sins as those which are committed against the Gospel are shall be punish'd as severely if impenitently persisted in as is declared by our Saviour and his Apostles they shall be But however it is no small awakening to us Christians that we have such an undoubted assurance from God himself what we must expect if we will not be prevailed upon by all the means afforded us for our reformation but shall notwithstanding them persevere in the neglect of known duties and in the allowance of known wickedness CHAP. XV. That the Gospel containeth incomparably greater helps for the effecting of the design of making men inwardly righteous and truly holy than God's most peculiar people the Israelites were favoured with Where it is shewed 1. That the Gospel is infinitely more effectual for this purpose than the Mosaical Law was 2. And that upon no other accounts the Jewes were in circumstances for the obtaining of a thorow reformation of life and purification of nature comparable to those our Saviour hath blessed his Disciples with IN the second place it is the clearest case That the Gospel of our Saviour containeth incomparably greater helps and advantages for the effecting of the great work of making men really righteous and truly holy than God's most peculiar people the Israelites whom he knew and favoured above all the nations of the earth were partakers of First Nothing is plainer than that the Gospel is infinitely more effectual for this purpose than the Mosaical Law was For indeed that was directly designed only to restrain those that were under the obligation of it from the more notorious sins It was added saith the Apostle because of Transgression till the Seed should come c. Gal. 3. 19. Iustin Martyr saith particularly of the Sacrifices that the end of them was to keep the Jews from worshipping Idols which Trypho also though a Jew that greatly gloried in the Law acknowledged They were an extremely carnal and vain people exceedingly prone to be bewitched with the Superstitions of the Gentiles God gave them therefore a pompous way of worship that might gratifie their childish humour and so keep them from being drawn away with the vanities of the Heathens among whom they dwelt and he gave them withall such Precepts inforced with threatnings of most severe and present punishments as might by main force hold them in from those vile disorders immoralities and exorbitances that had then overspread the face of the woefully depraved corrupted world It is certain that the Law of Moses strictly so called did properly tend to make them no more than externally righteous and whosoever was so and did those works it enjoined which they might do by their own natural strength was esteemed according to that Law and dealt with as just and blameless and had a right to the immunities and privileges therein promised But much less was it accompanied with grace to indue the observers of it with an inward principle of Holiness And the Apostle S. Paul expresseth this as the great difference between that Law and the Gospel in calling this the Spirit and that the Letter as he several times doth Not that God who was ever of an infinitely benign nature and love it self as S. Iohn describes him was wanting with his Grace to well-minded men under the Old-Testament or that the Jews were all destitute of an inward principle of Holiness nothing less But the Law which Moses was peculiarly the promulger of did not contain any promises of Grace nor did the obligation thereof extend any farther than to the outward man But there ran as I may so express my self a vein of Gospel all along with this Law which was contained in the Covenant made with Abraham and his Seed by virtue of which the good men among the Jews expected Justification and eternal Salvation and performed the substance of those Duties which the New Testament requireth and which were both by Moses and the Prophets at certain times and upon several occasions urged upon them But as for this Law of Moses considered according to its natural meaning it is called a Law of a carnal Commandment Heb. 7. 16. And the services it imposed weak and beggerly Elements Gal. 4. 9. And a Law which made no man perfect Heb. 7. 19. Its promises therefore were only temporal upon which account the Author to the Hebrews saith that the Gospel is established on better promises Nor was Justification before God obtainable by it as S. Paul frequently sheweth and therefore did account the righteousness of it very mean and vile in comparison of that which the Gospel indued men with No man could be acquitted by the severest observance of this Law from any other than Civil punishments nor were its Sacrifices able to make the offerers perfect as pertaining to the conscience Heb. 9. 9. And though it be true as Mr. Chillingworth observeth in his Sermon on Gal. 5. 5. That the legal Sacrifices were very apt and commodious to shadow forth the oblation and satisfaction of
if multitudes of those which lay a great claim to it should be as Excellent a Religion as it is little the better nay and in some respects even the worse for it And on the Contrary it is not to be in the least doubted That nothing can be so available to the introducing of a better state of things the abating and perfectly quenching our intemperate Heats the regulating and bringing into due order our wild exorbitances the governing and restraining our extravagant and Heady Zeal the induing us with becoming tempers sober thoughts and good spirits as would the thorow-belief the due minding and digesting of this one Principle And for this Reason I am not able to imagine how time may be spent to better purpose than in endeavouring to possess mens minds with it And to Contribute thereunto what it can is the Business of this Treatise Whereof these following are the General Heads which shall be insisted on with all possible perspicuity and convenient brevity viz. 1. First A plain Demonstration that True Holiness is the Special Design of Christianity 2. Secondly An Account how it comes to pass that our Saviour hath laid such Stress upon this as to prefer it before all other 3. Thirdly An Improvement of the whole Discourse in diverse and most of them Practical Inserences SECT I. That True Holiness is the Design of Christianity plainly Demonstrated CHAP. I. The Nature of True Holiness Described IN order to this Demonstration it is necessary to be premised That the Holiness which is the Design of the Religion of Christ Jesus and is by various Forms of Speech express'd in the Gospel as by Godliness Righteousness Conversion and Turning from Sin Partaking of a Divine Nature with many other is such as is so in the most proper and highest sense Not such as is Subjected in any thing without us or is made ours by a meer External application or is onely Partial But is Originally seated in the Soul and Spirit is a Complication and Combination of all Vertues and hath an influence upon the whole man as shall hereafter be made to appear and may be described after this manner It is so sound and healthful a Complexion of Soul as maintains in life and vigour whatsoever is Essential to it and suffers not any thing unnatural to mix with that which is so by the force and power whereof a man is enabled to behave himself as becometh a Creature indued with a principle of Reason keeps his Supreme Faculty in its Throne brings into due Subjection all his Inferiour ones his sensual Imagination his Brutish Passions and Affections It is the Purity of the Humane Nature engaging those in whom it resides to demean themselves sutably to that state in which God hath placed them and not to act disbecomingly in any Condition Circumstance or Relation It is a Divine or God-like Nature causing an hearty approbation of and an affectionate compliance with the Eternal Laws of Righteousness and a behaviour agreeable to the Essential and Immutable differences of Good and Evil. But to be somewhat more express and distinct though very brief This Holiness is so excellent a Principle or Habit of Soul as causeth those that are possessed of it I mean so far forth as it is vigorous and predominant in them First To perform all Good and Virtuous Actions whensoever there is occasion and Opportunity and ever Carefully to abstain from those that are of a Contrary Nature Secondly To do the one and avoid the other from truly generous Motives and Principles Now in order to the right understanding of this it is to be observ'd That Actions may become Duties or Sins these two ways First As they are Complyances with or Transgressions of Divine Positive Precepts These are the Declarations of the Arbitrary Will of God whereby He restrains our liberty for great and wise reasons in things that are of an indifferent nature and absolutely considered are neither Good nor Evil And so makes things not good in themselves and capable of becoming so onely by reason of certain Circumstances Duties and things not evil in themselves Sins Such were all the Injunctions and Prohibitions of the Ceremonial Law and some few such we have under the Gospel Secondly Actions are made Duties or Sins as they are agreeable or opposite to the Divine Moral Laws That is Those which are of an Indispensable and Eternal obligation which were first written in mens hearts and Originally Dictates of Humane Nature or necessary Conclusions and Deductions from them By the way I take it for granted and I cannot imagine how any Considerative supposing he be not a very Debauch'd person can in the least doubt it That there are First Principles in Morals as well as in the Mathematicks Metaphysicks c. I mean such as are self-evident and therefore not capable of being properly demonstrated as being no less knowable and easily assented to than any Proposition that may be brought for the proof of them Now the Holiness we are describing is such as engageth to the performance of the Former sort of Duties and forbearance of the Former sort of Sins for this Reason primarily because it pleaseth Almighty God to command the one and forbid the other Which Reason is founded upon this certain Principle That it is most highly becoming all Reasonable Creatures to obey God in every thing and as much disbecoming them in any thing to disobey him And secondarily upon the account of the Reasons if they are known for which God made those Laws And the Reasons of the Positive Laws contained in the Gospel are declared of which I know not above three that are purely So viz. That of going to God by Christ and the Institutions of Baptism and the Lord's Supper Again This Holiness is such as engageth to the performance of the Duties and forbearance of the Sins of the second kind not meerly because it is the Divine pleasure to publish Commands of those and Prohibitions of these but also and especially for the Reasons which moved God to make those Publications namely because those are Good in themselves and infinitely becoming Creatures indued with Understanding and Liberty of Will and these are no less evil in their own Nature and unworthy of them That man that would forbear gratefully to acknowledge his Obligations to God or to do to his Neighbor as he would that he should do to him c. on the one hand and would not stick at dishonouring his Maker or abusing his Fellow Creatures in any kind c. on the other if there were no written Law of God for the former and against the latter doth not those Duties nor forbears these Sins by virtue of an Holy nature that informs and acts him but is induced thereunto by a meer Animal principle and because it is his interest so to do And the Reason is clear because no one that doth thus onely in regard of the Written Precepts and Prohibitions of the Divine
not our Relations or our Friends onely but also all Mankind and to do good to all without exception though especially to the Houshold of Faith to good men Nay our Saviour hath laid a strict charge upon us not to exclude our malicious enemies from our love that is of benevolence but to pray for them that despitefully use us and to Bless those that Curse us Which Law as harshly as it sounds to Carnal Persons they themselves cannot but acknowledge that what it enjoyneth is heroically and highly vertuous Secondly The Christian Precepts require the most Intensive Holiness Not onely Negative but Positive as was now intimated that is Not onely the forbearance of what is evil but the performance also of what is good Not onely Holiness of Actions and Words but likewise of Affections and Thoughts The worship of God with the Spirit as well as with the outward man a Holy frame and habit of mind as well as a holy life They forbid cherishing sin in the heart as well as practising it in the Conversation They make Iusting after a Woman Adultery as well as the Gross Act of Uncleanness They make Malice Murther as well as Killing They forbid Coveting no less than defrauding and being in love with this worlds goods as much as getting them by unlawful means And I shall digress so far as to say That there is infinite Reason that Thoughts and the inward workings of mens souls should be restrained by Laws upon these two accounts First Because Irregular Thoughts and Affections are the immediate Depravers of Mens Natures and therefore it is as necessary in order to the design of making men Holy that these should be forbidden as that evil Actions and Words should But suppose this were otherwise Yet Secondly Laws made against evil words and Actions would signifie very little if men were left at liberty as to their Thoughts and Affections It would be to very little purpose to forbid men to do evil if they might think and love it For where the sparks of Sin are kept glowing in the Soul how can they be kept from breaking out into a Flame in the Life From the abundance of the Heart the Mouth will speak and the Hands act But to proceed The Precepts of the Gospel command us not onely to perform good Actions but also to do them after a right manner with right ends c. or in one word from good Principles Whatsoever we do to do it heartily as to the Lord and not as to men To be fervent in Spirit in our service of God To do all to the glory of God To be holy as he that hath called us is Holy in all manner of Conversation To be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect Which Precepts shew that we ought to imitate him not onely in the matter of our actions but likewise in the qualifications of them Among which that which I said is Essential to true Holiness is a principal one namely To do good actions for those Reasons which moved God to enjoyn them and I adde which make it pleasing to him to perform them himself viz. because they are either in themselves and upon their own account excellent worthy and most fit to be done or are made so to be by some Circumstance Our whole Duty to God and our Neighbour as our Saviour hath told us is comprehended in the love of them But the love of God required by him is a most Intense love we are commanded to love him with all the Heart and Soul mind and strength And that of our Neighbour which he hath made our duty is such as for the kind of it is like the love which we bear to our selves such as will not permit us to wrong him in his good name any more than in his estate or person such as will not allow us rashly to speak or so much as think ill of him such as will cause us to put the best constructions on those actions of his that are capable of various interpretations c. And for the degree such as will make us willing to lay down our very lives for him that is for the promoting of his eternal happiness To summe up all together We are commanded to adde to our faith vertue to vertue knowledge to knowledge temperance to temperance patience to patience Godliness to Godliness Brotherly Kindness and to Brotherly kindness Charity To behave our selves in all respects towards our Creatour as becometh his Creatures and those which are under unspeakable obligations to him Towards one another as becometh those that are indued with the same Common nature and according to the diverse relations engagements and other Circumstances we stand in each to other and Towards our selves according as the Dignity of our Natures require we should In short whatsoever things are true whatsoever things are honest Whatsoever things are just whatsoever things are pure whatsoever things are lovely whatsoever things are of good report whatsoever things have vertue and praise in them are the objects of the Christian Precepts and by them recommended to us Let any one read but our Saviours incomparable Sermon upon the Mount the 12 th to the Romans and the third Chapter of the Epistle to the Colossians and well consider them and it will be strange should he find it difficult to assent to the truth of that Proposition Even Trypho himself in the Dialogue betwixt Iustin Martyr and him confessed that the Precepts contained in the Book called the Gospel are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Great and Admirable He saith indeed that they are so admirable as that he suspected them not to be by Humane Nature Observable but in that he spake not unlike to himself that is a prejudiced and Carnal Iew. If it be now objected that notwithstanding what hath been said concerning the Christian Precepts recommending the most elevated Vertue to be practised by us it is acknowledged by all Sober Christians that they are not to be understood in so high a sense as to require of us indefective and unspotted Holiness or at least that our Saviour will accept of and reward that Holiness which is far short of Perfect and therefore he can be no such Great Friend to it as hath been affirmed The answer is very easie and obvious viz. That our Saviour's not rigidly exacting such a degree of Holiness as amounts to Perfection proceeds from hence that the attainment of it is in this state impossible to us and therefore it is not to be attributed to his liking or allowance of the least Sin but to his Special grace and good will to fallen Mankind Nay moreover it proceeds from his passionate desire that we may be as pure and holy as our unhappy Circumstances will admit he well knowing that should he declare that nothing short of Perfection shall be accepted at our hands he would make us desperate and take the most effectual Course to cause us to
severe enough for ungodly Ministers of the Glorious and most Holy Gospel of the Blessed Jesus I will adde one more saying of our Saviour's which he spake to his Disciples whom he was training up for the Ministry Matt. 5. 13. Ye are the Salt of the earth but if the Salt hath lost its savour wherewith shall it be salted It is thence-forth good for nothing but to be cast out and to be trodden under foot of men Well I say that the Design of our Saviour and his Gospel being to make men holy those behave themselves infinitely disbecoming his Ministers and the Preachers of the Gospel that live unholily and so do all such also as was at first intimated as do not above all things endeavour the promoting and furtherance of that Design And of that number are those that are ever affecting to make people stare at their high-flown and Bum-baste Language or to please their Phancies with foolish jingles and Pedantick and Boyish wit or to be admired for their ability in dividing a hair their Metaphysical acuteness and Scholastick subtilty or for their doughty dexterity in controversial squabble And among such may those also and those chiefly be reckoned that seek to approve themselves to their Auditors to be men of Mysteries and endeavour to make the plain and easie Doctrines of the Gospel as intricate and obscure as ever they are able These are so far from endeavouring above all things to advance the Design of the Gospel that it hath not any greater enemies in the whole world than they are And to them I may adde such as preach up Free-grace and Christian Privileges otherwise than as Motives to excite to Obedience and never scarcely insist upon any Duties except those of believing laying hold on Christ's Righteousness applying the promises which are all really the same with them and renouncing our own Righteousness which those that have none at all to renounce have a mighty kindness for All which rightly understood may I grant and ought to be preached but to make the Christians duty to consist either wholly or mostly in those particulars and especially as they are explained by not a few is the way effectually to harden Hypocrites and encrease their number but to make no sincere converts Those again do nothing less than chiefly promote the business of Holiness that are never in their Element but when they are talking of the Irrespectiveness of God's Decrees the Absoluteness of his Promises the utter disability and perfect impotence of Natural men to do any thing towards their own conversion c. and insist with greatest Emphasis and Vehemence upon such like false and dangerous opinions And those may well accompany and be joyned with the foregoing that are of such narrow and therefore Unchristian Spirits as to make it their Great business to advance the petty interest of any party whatsoever and concern themselves more about doing this than about promoting and carrying on that wherein consists the chief good of all Mankind and are more zealous to make Proselytes to their Particular Sects than Converts to a Holy Life and press more exact and rigid Conformity to their Modes and Forms than to the Laws of God and the Essential Duties of the Christian Religion Such as all the forementioned have doubtless little cause to expect a well done good and faithful servant from the mouth of their Saviour at the last day their practice being so very contrary to that of his whose Ministers they profess themselves to be when he was in the world and they making Christianity so infinitely different a thing from what he made it And furthermore it is unquestionably the Duty of all the Stewards of the Mysteries of God to take special heed that they do not by over-severe insisting on any little matters and unnecessary things give their people a temptation to conclude that they lay the greatest weight upon them but so to behave themselves towards them as to give them assurance that there is no interest so dear to them as is that of the Salvation of their Souls And lastly to be so self-denying as to have a regard to the weaknesses of persons so far as lawfully and without disobeying Authority they may to prevent their departure from Communion with the Church they belong to and to use all fair and prudent ways to perswade those back again thereunto which there is any the least reason to hope are not irrecoverably gone away It being very much the interest of their souls not to continue in separation and not of theirs only but of others too in that strifes and contentions envyings and animosities are like to be kept alive and greatly to encrease while men keep at a distance from one another and where these are as it was said S. Iames hath told us there must needs be confusion and every evil work And this is no other than what the great S. Paul thought it no disparagement to him to be exemplary to us in For saith he 1 Cor. 9. 19 c. Though I be free from all men yet have I made my self a servant to all that I might gain the more And unto the Iews I became as a Iew that I might gain the Iews to them that are under the law as under the law that I might gain them that are under the law to them that are without law or observe not the law of Moses as without law that I might gain them that are without law To the weak became I as weak that I might gain the weak I am made all things to all men that I might by all means save some The summe of which words amount to this That he denyed himself in the use of his liberty to gain those who were not acquainted with the extent of it and dealt with all sorts of men in that way which he thought most probable to convert them to Christianity and keep them in the profession of it Not that he sneaked and dissembled and made weak people think that he was of their mind and so confirmed them in their mistakes and follies or had any regard to the humours of unreasonable and meerly captious people that will be finding faults upon no ground at all this must needs be unworthy of an Apostle for it is so of all Inferiour Ministers and likewise of every private Christian. And our past discourse assures us also that the promoting of Holiness in mens hearts and lives ought to be the only design of Ecclesiastical Discipline and Church Censures And 't is easie to shew that if the Laws of all Christian Churches were framed and the execution of them directed onely or above any other to the service of this Design or that no interest did sway so much with their Chief Governours as that which was and still is most dear to the Great Founder and King of the Church whom they represent and if they were willing to lose in their little and petty concerns