fittest of all others to represent that Priest Jesus Christ who had no Predecessour from whom he might derive his right nor successour because he live in Heaâ—ven a Priest for ever who alone hath right to receive tithes and homage 〈◊〉 his people and blesse them with spiritual and eternall blessings And the Throne and Scepter of David and his successours in his Kingdome did shadow him whose Throne is for ever and ever and his Scepter a right Scepter Faith and obedience to pure morals to be performed to God Redeemer by the power of the renewing Spirit were alwayes required by the Lawes of this Kingdom for the Lawes of Faith and obedience to pure Morals were alwayes the same Yet to these Lawes of Faith and obedience in pure morals were added from the beginning divers positive and ceremoniall precepts especially that of sacrifice And when the promise of the Messias to descend of 〈◊〉 was renewed of Abraham circumcision was instituted as a Seal of the righteousnesse of faith and a solemn right of engagement unto their Saviour and of his admiâ—sion of them into the Church upon their submission And this was by his command to be administred to Infants born in the Church When Israel came out of Aegypt the Passeover was ordained in remembrance of that great deliverance and did continue till that great Paâ—chal Lamb was slain by whose blood we are redeemed from the wrath of God Hell and everlasting death But after that the posterity of Abraham Isacc Jacob being multiplyed into a nation were reduced by God into a Common-Wealth both civil and Ecclesiasticall and presented before God appearing in a glorioâ—s and retrible manner upon Mount Sinai they entred into a solemn Covenant with their God He promiseth to be their God to protect and blesse them and they engage themselves solemnly to be his loyall subjects Upon this Foundation of a Kingdom once layd God proceeds as their Lord and Soverenig to give them morall judiciall ceremoniall Lawes In the morall he reduceth all morall dutyes to certain heads in a brief exact and excellent method in the Ceremonials he reduceth all former rites and ceremonials Instituted by himself into order and adds many more as he saw convenient for that people in that time In the judicials he dilivered them a perfect body of the civill Law These judicials were for direction in judgment and the adminstration of their civil state The moralls and ceremonials were for the Church and looked far higher The moralls tended to give them a more perfect knowledge of morall dutyes to be a rule of moral obedience to let them see their inability to keep it their impossibility to be justified by it to make them sensible of their sin and seek a Saviour who should deliver them from the curse and paenaltyes threatned by the Law and deserved by their disobedience The ceremonial was more mysticall 〈◊〉 therein God did prescribe a Tabernacle a Priest and a solemn 〈◊〉 of service The Tabernacle was a type of the Heavenly Temple the High Priest of the great eternal Universall High Priest and the Services especially that 〈◊〉 Sacrifice and most of all that yearly Sacrifice of expiation to be offered onely by the High Priest the 10th day of the 7th moneth with the blood whereof he ente 〈◊〉 into the most holy place was a type of that sacrifice of Christ by which he obtayned eternal Redemption Besides that these did signifie heavenly things they were given to this people to keep and preserve them pure from Heathenisâ— Idolatry and superstition to continue them seperate especially in Religion and Divine Worship from all other nations of the world Tâ—ey were for the multitude and charge of them a burthen and heavy yoke to keep them undeâ—â— and cause them to long for their Messias who should free them from those dark and mysterious shadows give them a clearer and more glorious light and a perfect liberty and ease from this servitude This time was the time of the infancy and minority of the Church for as the Heyr so long as he is a Child differeth nothing from a Servant though he be Lord of all but is under Tutours and governours untill the time appointed of the Father So they when they were Children that is under age were in bondage under the elements of the world But when the fullnesse of that time that was appointed by God their Father was come God sent his Son made of a Woman made under the law to redeem them that were under the law c. Wherefore after that they were no more Servants but sons Gal. 4. 1 2 3 4. 7. The time of the Gospel therefore is a time of emancipation and liberty not onely from the Ceremonials but from the curse and servitude of the law of works which that law of Moses did threaten and could no wayes free them from it For in that law there was no promise of the Spirit to enable them for to obey the morall law nor of pardon though they did transgresse it Neither was there any Sacrifice Priest or Service that could expiate sin and purge the conscience from dead Works For though their expiations lustrations and purifying ceremonyes might free them from legall pollutions yet from sin they could not This covenant was not the same with that of the seed of the Woman § II which should break the Serpents head nor with the same renued more explicitly unto Abraham That in his seed all the nations of the earth should be blessed much lesse was it the same with the promises of the Gospel made in Christ exhibited And by the way we may take notice that the Apostle Gal. 3. puts a difference between the Promise the Law Faith The promise looks at Christ to come and was made more particularly to Abraham The Faith is the same with the Gospel and looks at Christ already come This law comes in between along time after the promise and a longer time before the Gospel And one end why it entred in between both was that sin might abound Rom. 5. 20. and it was added because of transgression till the seed that is Christ should come and before Faith that is Christ and the Gospel came they were kept under the Law shut up unto the Faith which should afterwards be revealed So that the Law was their School-Master or Tutour unto Christ Gal. 3. 19. 23. 24. By all this we may easily understand that this Law and Covenant made onely with the Jew of whom Christ was to come considered as God intended it was neither against the Promise nor the Gospel but subordinate to both And though it was not the same with the Law of works given to Adam innocent yet it had much affinity with it For it 's said Do this and live and Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things written and contained in it yet it promised no power to observe it nor pardon if not observed as was said before And the
Hatred The Subject and Persons who shall suffer are not onely Superstitious and Idolatrous Parents but their Children The extent is to the third and fourth Generation This punishment threatned is expressed in the word Visit I will visit God doth visit sometimes in mercy sometimes in justice and displeasure Here it 's Visitation in justice rendred by the Septuagint in this place by a word signifying to render and in many other places by a word signifying to Revenge Both these together teach us that here to visit is to render vengeance and justly to punish And when God saith He will do it it informs us of His determination that it is such that upon the Commission of the Sin the Punishment shall certainly be due and the Delinquent liable unto it and shall unavoidably suffer it if it be not prevented by timely repentance and God's Pardon This punishment is either Temporal or Eternal private or publique Sword or Famine or Pestilence and sometimes the Captivity sometimes the ruine of Families Cities States Nations besides the Eternal Poenalty This Commination was effectual and Israel found this Judgment certain and felt it often lye heavy upon them This as other sins against other Commandements bring the like Judgments upon Christians under the Gospel Yet so that as it was pardonable unto them upon repentance by vertue of the Promise So upon the like tearms it is to us by vertue of Repentance and Faith in Christ already come The Sin which makes liable to this Punishment is hatred of God Of those that hate me The Sin of such as hate Him in this place is the making and worshipping of Images To hate in Hebrew is many times not to love or not to love so much as 〈◊〉 due we should And as a Woman who affects another man besides her Husband though she may love her husband yet doth not love him so much as she should do Her love is not the love of a Wife as a Wife to her Husband as her Husband for that should be singular and exclude all Corrivality and So 〈◊〉 So whosoever is inclined and affâ—cted to Image-worship cannot love God as God who is jealous and can endure no Competitour To serve God and Baal is impossible according to His Rules The subject of this Punishment and Visitation is the Fathers that is the Idolatrous Fathers And these are principally in the sin and so principal in the punishment These are the Authors and first beginners of this sin and by their example instruction and direction cause their Posterity to sin and that long after they are dead So Jeroboam made Israel to sin and his institution and example began that sin I which once begun continued till the time of that Kingdoms ruine many years after The extent of this Penalty is such that it doâ—h not stay in the Parents but proceeds and reacheth the Children and not onely the immediate Children but Posterity to the third and fourth Generation This is not so to be understood as though the period wherein the penalty expires were the fourth Generation But in Scripture three and four Generations are many Generations and God doth not precisely limit Himself to this or that determinate number It 's true that in the time of four Generations the Posterity of some Idolaters may be either cut off or reformed Yet it seems unreasonable that Children should bear and suffer the Punishments of their Fathers sins And therefore some restrain the Visitation to Temporal Punishments and determine the Children to be onely such as continue in their Fathers sins And it 's true that the Children by repentance many times escape the Punishments deserved both by their own and their Fathers Crimes and no person truly pâ—nitent shall suffer Eternal Penalties for the sins of their Fathers no not of their Father Adam Yet this is certain that not onely penitent Children but such as were never guilty of their Parents Idolatry may suffer for the sins of their Fathers at least Temporally So Daniel with his three Associates and Fellow-Captives Ezra Nehemiah Zorobabel Joshuah the High-Priest lay unâ—er the guilt of their Fathers Idolatry as one person in God's own account with them Yea God doth inflict not only temporal but spiritual Judgments for the sins of Ancestours So the cursed Posterity of Ham must be Servants many years for his sin The Posterity of the first Apostate Gentiles lay under God's displeasure destitute of the means of Conversion for 2000 years at least And the Children of the unbelieving Jews who crucified the Lord Jesus and refused to believe the Gospel abide in Bâ—indness and under the Curse for these 1600 years and upward The Countries and the Eastern Empire where Image-Worship was establisht in * a General Councel is over-run and lyes now under the power of the Turk that great Oppressour of Christians and Enemy to Christ and the greatest part of them are deprived of the Gospel And all the Western-Nations and other Countries and People who received at the hands of the great Whore the Cup of Fornication are delivered up to strange Doctrines and God hath sent them strong Delusions that they should believe a Lye and many false Miracles and other things contrary not onely to Scripture but Reason and Sense and this for many years The pretence of the Worship of the true and living God and Jesus Christ His Blessed Son and the subtile Distinction devised to mâ—intain their Image Worship will not justifie them but prove that the great City built upon seven Hills which in the time of the Divine Apocalyptist reigned over the Nations even whilest She professeth her Self Christian is Babylon in a Mystery Histories tell us that the Old Babylon which once was an Imperial Seat and now a ruinous Heap was the first and most Idolatrous Ciâ—y in the World and that Image Worship and Idolatry was there first established by a Law But her Whoredoms were open and manifest and she profest her self to be what she was Yet Babylon in a Mystery professeth to believe in one onely true God and to renounce all false gods yet in practice is fearfully Idolatrous The last Reason is § VIII from the Promise of mercy to a thousand Generations of them that love God and keep His Commandements By Mercy understand such Blessings as God promised in the Law to Israel which are often mentioned in the Books of Moses especially Levit. 26. Deut. 28. The Subject of these Mercies are the Israelites 1. As loving God 2. Keeping His Commandements 1. The love of God in this place is opposed to the former Hatred and is that pure and chaste affection of the Soul towards God whereby it abhors all Image-Worship and even the appearance of it in toying with Images or the use of any thing in Religious Service invented by Man Therefore as Superstition Idolatry and all Worship of Images is called Fornication and Adultery contrary to the Contract and Covenant made with God as our God
new life and that seriously and we know nothing to the contrary we must judge them to have a right and we must give it them If a Simon Magus who is still in the gall of bitternesse do thus we must baptize him we have warrant for it and if we refuse then we offend Though all those things be true yet it 's certain God requires of such parties sincere faith sincere profession and sincere promise and such as shall afterwards be followed with sincere practise and if they be not such he will not Baptize them with the Holy-Ghost and though he allow them to be members of the visible Church till they shew themselves worthy to be cast out yet he doth not ingraft them into Christ and give them an immediate title to the heavenly inheritance But man having not the knowledge of God cannot passe the judgment of God neither must we presume to do so Yet if the Church or any that hath commission shall upon certain evidence bind or loose either in foro interiori or exteriori their judgment shall be made good and ratified in Heaven so far as it shall agree with the infallible judgment of God It 's doubted by many Whether the Children of ignorant or scandalous parents or such as are both ignorant and scandalous may be Baptized What to determine in this point is difficult because it may admit many different circumstances and cases If we consider these Children as born in a visible Church where there is a faithfull ministery and a good discipline setled there is hope of good education and the Children may be considered as members of that Church as a body Politick and so admitted to Baptism For the greatest danger is when there is little or no hope of Christian education The defects or crimes of the immediate parents in the Church of Israel did not deprive their Children of the right and priviledge of circumcision But except we know the particular case and the circumstances thereof with such parents of such Children in particular we cannot exactly define what is to be done They who affirm that onely the Children of Parents really regenerate have right to Baptism presuppose 1. That these Children derive their right to that Sacrament from their immediate Parents onely 2. That they derive it from them as they are regenerate and neither from any other nor from them any other ways considered But when they can prove clearly these things out of Scripture I may believe them For outward Priviledges such Circumcision and Baptism be they may be granted to the Seed according to the flesh if the Parents be not justly cast out of the Church and so of Christians if they be made no Christians before the Children be born Upon this account both Ismael and Esau were circumcised And if they be cast out before it 's a Question whether upon Adoption or some other Grant they may not be baptized But I leave this Controversie to be debated and determined by such as are so busie about it as though they had nothing else to do CHAP. XVIII Of Prayer BEcause Prayer is a principal and eminent part of God's Worship § I an effectual and excellent means both to avert God's Judgments threatned and obtain the Blessings promised a great Duty required in these Laws of God Redeemer as they are the Rule of our Obedience containeth in it many Divine Virtues as so many Ingredients whereof it 's compounded acknowledgeth the Supream Dominion of this Eternal King is the onely way of pleading before His Throne giveth all glory unto him confesseth man's wants and miseries and ascribeth all mercies to His Free-Will and abundant Grace in Christ I therefore thought good though I mention'd it in the Exposition of the Moral Law for it belongs and is reducible to the first four Commandements severally in several respects yet to speak something of it more at large and more distinctly and so take occasion to speak of that excellent Pattern of Prayer given by our Saviour Chirst unto his Disciples and left upon Record unto us and all Generations unto the Worlds end Of the necessity efficacy and excellency of Prayer many have excellently discoursed to whom I refer the Reader As for the order which it challengeth in the Body of Divinity we must find it in those 4 first Commandements which speak of the Worship of God for it 's a part of God's Worship required and prescribed more especially in the first and second Commandement of the Moral Law It 's sometimes used to signifie the whole Worship of God as a principal part virtually containing many of the rest It 's sometimes taken more strictly for Praise Thanksgiving Petition because all those are sometimes contained in one speech directed unto God Sometimes and that most usually it signifies Petition And as Thanksgiving is an acknowledgment of God's mercies we have received and praise of his perfections manifested in His glorious Works so Prayer is a presenting our Petitions for mercies promised unto God as All-mighty and All-merciful in the Name of Christ. And it 's then effectual when by Faith in Christ it's persumed with his Merits There is this more general Definition Prayer is a Presentation of our Petitions unto God And this is either directed to the true God or to a false suppose God Such the Prayers of Heathens and Idolaters be There is Prayer to the true God 1. According to the Light of Nature 2. According to the Scriptures of the Old Testament 3. According to the Gospel And such is the first and more particular Definition formerly given And we must distinguish between a Prayer and an effectual Prayer To an effectual Prayer is required not onely the right qualification of the person praying but of the Prayer it self And the efficacy depends upon neither but upon Christ's Merit and God's Promise It 's an excellent part of God's Worship and therefore some make it to be the Genus For it 's the general nature of it It 's the good pleasure of this Eternal King that all his Subjects should have access unto his Throne with all Humility and Reverence bow before him adore his glorious Majesty seek all mercies by way of Petition And in the Gospel we must approach in the Name of Christ For He is our High-Priest who in his Golden Censer must offer all our Prayers sweetned with his Merits who by his blood hath made the Throne of God the Throne of Grace and accessible by sinful man And for his merits fore-seen and fore-accepted the Prayers of the Saints from the times of Adam till his Incarnation and Ascension into Heaven were accepted This Worship of Prayer doth acknowledge his Supream Majesty his Almighty Power and his endless and infinite Mercy his Omniscience and Omnipresence and gives the glory of all Deliverances and Blessings unto him By it we confess our selves needy Suppliants and wholly dependent upon him who is the ever-living Fountain of all Mercies He is of that
Resurrection and last Judgment when God shall be all in all and Reign perfectly without any enemy without any opposition This we pray for here as that special and spiritual Kingdom which is distinguished from the civil government of temporall States opposed to the Kingdom of darknesse of Sin Sathan Death It 's called in Scriptures the Kingdome of God the Kingdome of Heaven the Kingdom of Light the Kingdom of Christ the Kingdom of Grace the Vniversal and Eternall Kingdom The King is God § VIII not merely as Creatour and Preserver of the World but as Redeemer who since Christs Exaltation Reigns by him in Heaven and Earth as by his Administratour-generall Heaven is the place of his speciall residence his glorious pallace and his Royal throne His Territory is the World His speciall subjects men Redeemed by the blood of Christ His Lawes the Rules of the Gospel to direct mans obedience with promises and threats which are the standard of his judgments The eternall holy Spirit is his power His Judgments are spirituall and eternall rewards and punishments with temporall and bodily thereunto subordinate And because men are found in the Kingdom of darknesse and under the power of Sathan they are reduced by the word and spirit unto subjection Which is a work of great and most free mercy The word and Laws must be made known outwardly by man and then written in the heart by the Spirit In this government he doth exercise his severe justice his greatest power his choisest wisdome and his sweetest mercy in the highest degree This Kingdom comes unto a people when God graciously vouchsafeth to give them the word Sacraments Ministers and all the meanes of conversion with a promise in the word of his Spirit to make this used effectual He continues it with them whilst he continues these meanes and doth not take away his spirit and deliver them up to a reprobate mind so that the things that concern their everlasting peace are not eternally hid from their eyes It comes close and effectually when God by these meanes made efficacious by his spirit destroyes the dominion of sin and dispossesseth Sathan It 's then consummate when sin is wholly destroyed and the person made fully subject and perfectly obedient to his eternall Sovereign It 's consummate to the Universall Church upon the execution of the final judgment It 's principally with in us and established in our hearts by God when he there to Reigns as first to take away the Dominion then in the end the very existence as I may so call it of sin For it proceeds by degrees and sin doth first cease to Reign then to Be in us This government therefore is an act of God Redeemer in Christ giving all things doing all things necessary sufficient effectuall for our Conversion confirmation perseverance and consummation as he hath promised and by promise bound himself to us So that in this Petition we pray for and humbly seek of God his Word his Sacraments the Ministery of the Gospel Christian Sabbaths Discipline pious Magistrates the gifts and graces of the spirit the continuance and good successe of these the ordering of all things for the good of the Church the conversion of the Jews the reducement of all Nations to subjection unto Christ justification the continuance and perfection of sanctication the first fruits of the spirit of joy and comfort the destruction of the Kingdom of Sathan and Antichrist and all enemies of his truth and our salvation for the comming of Christ the Resurrection of the last judgment the execution of it in the eternall glorification of his Saints and perdition of their enemies That God by Christ hath thus far reigned in the World in this Nation in our hearts is a matter of thanksgiving and a benefit never to be forgotten The next Petition for spirituall blessings § IX is Thy will be done on Earth as it 's done in Heaven Wherein we have 1. Our Heavenly Father's Will 2. The doing of it 3. The manner and degrees of doing it By Will is not meant the essence of God nor his Decrees but the Lawes of his spirituall kingdom wherein he requires Subjection and Obedience Repentance Faith good works and these to be performed to him as Lord Redeemer by Christ Jesus To do this will is to be really and sincerely subject and obedient in avoyding all sins prohibited and doing all good Commanded by the Laws of his Kingdome having a speciall eye to the rewards promised and the punishments threatned The manner how this duty is to be performed is set down by prescribing a Pattern in Heaven It 's true that the Starrs of Heaven do continually and constantly in their motion observe their order fixed unto them in Creation Yet this is far short though something it be and they continually accuse us of disobedience and exorbitancy seeing they have followed strictly and precisely the rule of Creation from the first time of their Being but we are exorbitant and continually wander The will of God is done in an higher degree and more excellently by the Angels those blessed and immortall spirits who never sinned and are so confirmed that they shall never sin For they do his commandements Hearkening to the voyce of his Word Psal. 103. 20. They subject themselves wholly unto him Whose throne is in Heaven and his Kingdome ruleth over all vers 19. They acknowledge Jesus Christ at Gods right hand to be their Lord. They performe an universall obedience to all his Laws and that 1. Most freely 2. Perpetually 3. In a degree of Perfection It must be our design desire endeavour to follow their example till we reach and attain their perfection And because we have no power to do this will in this manner we therefore in these words pray for Gods sanctifying assisting and confirming power accompanying his Word and that we may wholly subject our selves unto his power and be effectually and continaully inclined and enabled to do his Will in all things at all times with all our hearts The reason why this petition followes the former and is immediately subjoyned is manifest For except we subject our selves unto the power of this King and thus observe the Lawes of this Heavenly Kingdome we cannot be capable of have any right unto or enjoy the honour joy peace and happinesse of the same It hath very near connexion with the former petition and therefore we may desire of God some mercies which in both are the same but in different respects In the former we desire them so as they are such as without which he cannot Reign and give us everlasting peace We desire here the same things as necessary and without which we cannot performe our duty in observing his Laws which is the condition of the rewards promised By them we acknowledge our fall depravation inability the want of Gods divine Spirit to re-instamp his Image upon us and we earnestly desire his sanctifying grace to be given and continued unto
which doth not cannot rellish affect heavenly and spirituall things so as to be moved by them effectually Because the word finds the heart of man under the guilt and dominion of sin § V and his corrupt lusts therefore one of the first things man is made sensible of is his sinfull and miserable condition Upon this the heart begins to bleed grieve smart as being deeply and mortally wounded And it may be God doth not at the first represent unto man all his sin but it may be one and the same principall or more predominant or some other nor discover all the punishments due but some few or one especially the eternall This may be called that part of judgment which we tearme to be Conviction upon Summons and a charge and the same confessed For when God hath thus made the heart of man sensible he is convinced confesseth accuseth and condemneth himself And though at the first the work begins with the apprehension and sense of one sin yet afterwards he begins to see his sins to be many and heinous and so his condition to be very miserable And in this case a man may continue a longer or a shorter time as it shall please God and this his sad condition is sometimes made more sad by outward afflictions or inward terrours or both and all this while the sinfull wretch is in danger of dispair if God prevent it not by restraining Satans rage who then will be very busie Yet God gives man no occasion to cast away all hope because he doth not at the first represent sin as unpardonable but pardonable nor the punishment as unavoydable but avoydable Some say this is done by the Law and they meane the morall Law discovering unto man his sin by the precept and his misery by the commination But 1. God doth not use onely the morall law but all other laws or any law in force and he maketh use of the History of the first sin and â—all of man nay of the sufferings and death of Christ of his judgments executed upon others 2. No man ought to preach the law of works unto sinfull man as in force for that makes sin unpardonable and is the high way to cause dispaire He indeed that will onely threaten death and punishments according to the Law of works and silence and conceale the promise of the Gospel is a Legal-Preacher indeed and can be no faithfull Servant unto Christ in this work 3. It 's not the Law nor any other Doctrin preached by man which can break his stony heart without the Spirit and power of the Gospel That Doctrin which used by God in this work is most effectuall is the Doctrin of Christ Jesus crucified for our sins and it must be the law of the Spirit of life that must free us from the Law of sin and death In this sad condition § VI whilst man continues guilty and convicted by his own conscience at the bar of divine Justice he will begin to cast about and look on every side to see whether there be any help deliverance and hope of escape and he finds nothing in himself nothing in any Creature no not in Angels to help him and so despairs of any comfort in any thing excepting Christ and so casts away all confidence in any other things and with the Jews pricked in their hearts cryes out Men and Brethren what shall we do Acts 2. 37. And with the Jaylour Sirs what shall I do to be saved Act. 16. 30. To this question made in the anguish and bitternesse of Spirit the answer is Repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the Remission of sins and ye shall receive the Holy-Ghost Act. 2. 38. And Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved Act. 16. 31 This implyes 1. That the Sinner is Savable and remission possible 2. That Remission and Salvation is onely by Jesus Christ. 3. That the meanes to obtaine both by Christ is repentance and faith Upon this follows an appeal from the Throne of Justice to the Throne of Grace and mercy Christ is pleaded the guilty person offers the sacrifice of a broken heart and bruised Spirit to the supreme Judge and earnest suit is made not onely for pardon of sin past but for power against sin for the time to come And though man desires and endeavours to repent and beleive and quiet his mind in Christ's merits and Gods promises yet he cannot do these things to purpose nor any man in the world can give him effectuall comfort by the application of the promises till God put his laws in his mind and write them in his heart by his Divine Spirit Thus to do is a work of the Divine Spirit who alone can write immedâ—ately and imprint the Divine precepts and promises of the Gospel upon the heart of man and so give him a divine power to repent to believe to understand to do the Laws of God and apply his promises The word now is no longer onely in books or in mens mouths or in their eares but also in the heart Yet it 's here to be noted 1. That this great promise of the Gospel is not absolute as though God pre-required no duty to be performed by man 2. That he doth not this work without the word both taught heard and learned 3. That this Law is not fully and perfectly written in any mans heart in this life 4. That therefore the most illuminated and sanctified man in this life hath need of the written Word This is not any precept or promise of the Law it 's a performance of a promise upon some precepts performed and so an act of judgment and the same not a bare sentence pronounced out of man but executed in the soul of man and not a punishment but a blessed reward Upon this follows another performance § VII and that is repentance and belief and the same of a far higher degree then can be performed by any strength natural and moral They are divine and supernaturall not performed by any acquired power but by a strength from Heaven For in writing these divine precepts in the heart of man God himself so immediately speaks to man that he receives the Word of God as the Word of God indeed is taught of God drawn to Christ and comes unto him never to depart from him again I will not deny but there may be some supernaturall illumination and alteration in the heart of man and some comforts thereupon in an heart not fully humbled But for God so to write his laws in our hearts as to cause us to walk in his statutes and keep his judgments to do them and that sincerely and constantly Ezek. 36. 27. is a far higher degree of grace in Christ and the duty performed thereupon is far more perfect and excellent In this repentance and faith there are severall branches The 1. Is a sincere and totall submission unto Christ alone as our onely Saviour and to
differs in many things from all other Books especially in respect of the Authority thereof which is primarily Divine in the Original Copies secundarily in the Transcripts and Translations These sacred Writings are learned and known several ways and by several means of men that are not infallibly directed further then they follow the Scriptures rightly understood And by these especially Ministers by whom God speaks to men another way they are taught several ways in a certain order How these must be heard understood applyed so as the Hearer may attain to a Divine Faith and a Saving Knowledge Where something of the Tradition of the Church CHAP. III. The Doctrine of this Kingdom is contracted by Christ and His Apostles as such is the ground of all the Apostolical Creeds and Confessions all agreeing in method and matter The manner of the handling of the subject in this Treatise is different from that of ordinary Systems Catechisms and common places where something is said of Faith in general and of Divine Faith A Confession taken out of Tertullian CHAP. IV. Of the Divine Essence and Attributes How God's Essence is intelligible and how represented to us by certain Attributes What Attributes are and certain Rules concerning them The imperfect definition of God including all the Attributes CHAP. V. The Attributes in particular The distribution of them into Greatness Goodness In the Greatness unity infiniteness Infiniteness in Immensity from which ariseth His Incomprehensibility Vbiquity and in Eternity CHAP. VI. God's goodness being one and infinite is known by his excellent and most eminent Acts and Vertues of his Vnderstanding Will Power as His most excellent Knowledge and Wisdom the integrity of his Will and the perfection of his power CHAP. VII The Father Son and Holy Ghost their unity order distinction They are not Three Persons in that sense as Men or Angels are called persons The vanity of the Socinian Argument against the Trinity grounded upon the word person strictly taken How the Soul may be said to be an Image and imperfect resemblance of the Father Son and Holy Ghost CHAP. VIII God considered in his Regal Capacity in respect of his power acquired by Creation and continued by preservation How God is a cause of all things by his Counsel contriving Will decreeing Power actually producing The knowledge of GOD in respect of things out of Himself His Decrees free wise unchangeable The cooperation of the Persons their distinct manner of working The Creation in general the special Creation of Man The Conclusions deducible from this Principle God created Heaven and Earth and all things therein By this Work God hath a propriety in all things and may dispose of them and order them to the ends whereunto He hath made them ordinable Hence his supream universal absolute power How all things created are preserved and ordered Ordination in general the first act of God's Power acquired and continued CHAP. IX The Exercise of God's Power in general CHAP. X. The special Ordination and Government of the Intellectual and Immortall Creatures Angels Men. The government of Angels constituted administred according to certain Laws Judgment whereby some being obedient were confirmed rewarded Others disobeying rebelling and forsaking their station were punished and cast out of God's presence reserved for greater punishments in the end of the World CHAP. XI The special Government of Man which is two-fold 1. Of Justice without Christ. 2. Of Mercy in Christ. The constitution of the first Model The administrations Laws Moral Positive considered as a rule of Man's obedience God's Judgment CHAP. XII The Judgment of God-Creatour passed upon Man according to the Laws of Creation and strict Justice The Object of this Judgment 1. Man obedient rewarded with the continuance of a comfortable condition in Paradise 2. Sinning Sin in general is a disobedience to God's Laws The degrees and the consequents thereof The first sin of our first Parents in particular The causes of it The effects thereof before Judgment CHAP. XIII God's judicial proceeding against Adam Eve the Serpent Satan Their Convention Conviction Sentence Execution More particularly God's Sentence passed upon the old Serpent the Devil In which God new models his Kingdom of mercy in Christ promised and gives Man hope of Pardon and everlasting comfort CHAP. XIV The Penalties more particular both Bodily and Spiritual publike private Temporal Eternal all signified by Death to which Sin made man liable yet all by Christ removable CHAP. XV. Original sin what it is Whether it be properly so Whether Concupiscence in persons baptized be such in proper sense The derivation of Original sin Whether it be derived by Propagation or the just Judgment of God or both CHAP. XVI The principal Attributes of God manifested in this Judgment as Holinesse Justice especially Mercy in the manifestation whereof he exercised his transcendent power above the former Constitution and Laws LIB II. CHAP. I. THe Coherence of this Book with the former The difference of the two Models both the former and latter The acquisition of a New Power by the Word made Flesh and annointed taking upon him the form of a servant and being obedient to the Death of the Cross. A Description of the Redeemer His Person Nature Offices The union and distinction of the two Natures His particular Offices CHAP. II. The Humiliation of the Son of God 1. In taking upon Him the Form of a servant 2. In suffering Death A brief Historical Narration of His Sufferings 1. Before Judgment 2. His Judgment The Preparations of His Tryal His Tryal 1. Before the Ecclesiastical 2. The Civil Judge His Condemnation Execution with the Prodigies which hapned about that time CHAP. III. A more large Discourse concerning the Suffering and Death of Christ. It was an Act of Obedience to His Heavenly Father commanding Him to suffer for the sins of Man whereby He was offended To this Death He became obnoxious not onely by His Fathers Command but His own voluntary submission to be an Hostage and Surety for Man as guilty It was a Sacrifice offered freely to God as Law-giver offended and as supream Judge The effects of this sacrifice accepted are immediate mediate Immediate Satisfaction of Divine Justice and Merit What He merited for Himself what for Man How the benefit of this Sacrifiâ—â— became communicate from Christ as a Representator General and the Will of God the great Soveraign Of the extent of this benefit Whether Propitiation is to be ascribed to His active or passive Obedience severally or to both joyntly Whether this Death prevents all punishments or onely the Eternal And if not what punishments it removes The Attributes manifested in this great Work of Humiliation of the Word made Flesh by which a new Power was acquired CHAP. IV. The exercise of the new Power of God-Redeemer in the Constitution of His New Monarchy The Soveraign and Monarch The Subjects the Officers the Administrator-General the Enemies The manner of reducing Man to subjection the nature
Heaven will serve the turn God must give it and this he hath done The Rule is at hand even the Holy Scriptures The Method therefore to be observed is 1. To man fest that these Holy Writings are a certain and perfect Rule And 2. To proceed to speak of this Blessed and Glorious Kingdom according to the same And the Lord of all Wisdom Truth and Mercy in Christ direct and assist me and incline mine Heart with all care and humility to follow his Directions AMEN CHAP. II. Concerning the Holy Scriptures THE Holy Scriptures are the Mind of God concerning his special Kingdom expressed in Writing To understand this more fully we must observe 1. The Mind of God concerning this Kingdom 2. The Expression of his Mind 3. The several Ways and Degrees of this Expression First § 1 The Mind of God are his Thoughts and Counsels concerning this Kingdom as known unto himself For the Wisdome of God contrived and model'd this Kingdom before the World was and his Will decreed it For God ordained these things before the World to our glory 1 Cor. 2. 7. These his Thoughts and Counsels at first were known onely to himself and to none other For what man knoweth the things of a man save the Spirit of Man which is in him Even so the things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God 1 Cor. 2. 11. Therefore before there can be any knowledge of them God must express himself and communicate his Mind unto Angels or Men who alone are capable and fit to receive the knowledge of his Minde made known to them This Expression and Revelation of himself out of himself is called The Word of God The Word of God is § 2 1. A Word 2. The Word of God The nature of a word is to express or represent the mind of the Speaker The end of it is to make it known to another to whom it is spoken For the end of my speech and so of speech in general is to communicate my mind unto others who know it not So the Word of God declares the Mind of God to Angels or Men who know it not God is the Speaker his Mind the thing spoken his speech is that whereby he expresseth and maketh known his Mind By Word I do not understand that Word which was in the Beginning and was with God and was God and by which the World was made Joh. 1. 1 2. For that Word was a clear and full expression of God himself to himself the brightness of his glory and the express Image of his Person This was the Word in himself But this Word is an expression of some part of his Mind out of himself There be § 3 First several ways Secondly divers degrees of God's Expressions 1. Several ways for he may and doth express himself by his Works and make his Works his Word For the Heavens declare the glory of God and the Firmament sheweth his Handy-work Psal. 19. 1. Not onely the Works of Creation but of Providence speak much of Gods glorious perfections as of his Wisdome his Power his Goodness his Justice his Mercy He may express himself by Representations by Angels by an audible Voyce to the outward Senses or by Impression upon the inward and common Sense or by inspiration immediatly unto the immortal Souls of Men. For as God at sundry times so he spake divers ways to the Fathers by the Prophets Heb. 1. 1 How he spake to Angels and Man at the first Creation we know not The Expression by Inspiration and immediate Vision is the most perfect and excellent For by that the persons inspired know not onely what the things spoken are but that it is God that speaketh He expresseth himself by Writing as he wrote the Ten Words or Commandements of the Moral Law in two Tables of Stone and at length in process of time caused the whole Body of his Doctrine concerning his Kingdom to be written And hence that Book with all the parts thereof concerning this Kingdom is called the Holy Scriptures which both in regard of the Author the Matter and the Contexture is the most excellent Book and Writing in the World But before I come to speak of them I must observe the several degrees of Gods expression and signification of his Mind to Man The several degrees of God's expression of his Mind § 4 in the matters of this Kingdom are reducible to Two 1. He spake Immediatly unto man 2. Mediatly by man unto Man For God spake unto the Prophets and Apostles before he spake unto others by them The Word of the Lord came to the Prophets before they could signifie and declare it to the people And the Matter and Doctrine of the Scripture was first communicated by Inspiration and Revelation before it could be infallibly communicated unto others either by Word or Writing The holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost 2 Pet. 1. 21. For they must first be moved and inspired by the Holy Ghost before that they spake unto any man that which they received immediatly from God Paul received not the Gospel of man neither was he taught it but by the Revelation of Jesus Christ Gal. 1. 12. And the mystery of Christ was revealed unto the Apostles and Prophets by the Spirit Ephes. 3. 5. In this respect it is said that all Scripture that is all the Doctrine of Scripture is given by inspiration of God 1 Tim. 3. 16. Thus God speaks immediatly to man § 5 and secondly mediatly by man to man And this he doth two ways 1. By infallible and extraordinary Teachers 2. By ordinary men not immediatly inspired yet both of these agree in two things 1. That God speaks by both to Man and both speak from God 2. That the matter spoken by both is the same For if the latter and ordinary Teachers do not speak the same things which the former did God did not speak by them And the Doctrine of the former ought to be the Rule of the Doctrine of the latter First he speaks by extraordinary men and these are Prophets and Apostles to whom he did reveal his wisdome not that they should conceal it but that they should declare it to others And these expressed the mind of God two ways 1. By Word 2. By Writing And they were infallibly directed in both to a Word to a Letter For the holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost as before And so did write otherwise their Doctrine had not been infallibly true It 's said not onely that the Word but the Scripture all Scripture was given by inspiration of God And now § 6 at length we are come to the Scriptures That the Doctrine and Word of God should be written was no ways necessary in respect of God yet in respect of the frailty and corruption of man the Divine Wisdome thought it expedient if not necessary to express himself by Writing God could have supplyed all
World to come According to it he must be judged and sent to Heaven or Hell and made eternally happy or miserable All errours and false notions contrary unto it must be rased out of the mind All inordinate affections and unruly passions must be subdued For we must lay apart all filthinesse and Superfluity of naughtinesse and receive with meeknesse the pure and genuine word of God which is able to save our souls Jam. 1. 24. And we must lay aside all malice and all guile and hypocrisies and envies and evil speakings and as New-born babes desire the Sincere milk of the Word c. 1 Pet. 2. 1 2. We must make our minds like blank Paper and in our hearts we must be like little Children otherwise the Heavenly Doctrine cannot make so liâ—ely impressions upon us 2. When the heart is thus prepared we must hear and read attentively consider what is heard or read that we may understand it We must apply it and lay it close unto our own hearts and pray for the Spirit to make it powerful and effectual within us As it is Wisdom first to teach so it is first to learn the Principles and to understand them well and being once in these well grounded they will not be so subject either to be seduced or waveâ—ing in their judgment and it will be a great advantage to improve their knowledge And when once they understand the truth it will discover their woful condition to humble them and their Saviour to raise them up again It 's a part of the duty of every one that is a Scholler in this School not onely to understand the truth but also to endeavour the practise thereof out of an earnest desire of Salvation And if a man neglect the means use not the power that God hath given him and seriously intend the principal end it will be just with God to desert him and deny his grace unto him Practice must be the principal design and Knowledge so far as conducing thereunto If the man being taught § XVI be diligent and willing for to learn both to know and do that which is known and that with a prepared heart and desire of God's Blessed Spirit to teach him inwardly and effectually then God will remember his Promise and will give him a new Heart and a new Spirit he will put in him and will take the stoney heart out of his flesh and give him an heart of flesh He will put his Spirit within him and cause him to walk in his Statutes and keep his Judgments to do them Ezek. 36. 26 27. For this is a Promise of the Gospel and the New Covenant I will put my Laws into their mind and write them in their hearts Heb. 8. 10. And as man teacheth outwardly God teacheth inwardly yet he never writes his Word in an unprepared heart neither doth he write any thing within but that which is taught outwardly out of the Scriptures And as the Minister must teach so the People must hear and heed otherwise God will deny his Spirit Man cannot speak unto the Soul immediatly but by the outward and inward Senses God speaks immediatly unto the Soul pierceth deeply into it writes clear and lively Characters upon the mind and makes strong impressions upon the heart When the Ministers Doctrine is thus accompanied with the Power of God and brought home not onely unto but also into the Soul then the Teacher is a Minister not onely of the Letter but also of the Spirit and the Word is the Word of God indeed formally and properly when God thus speaks it immediatly himself and it will manifest it self by the Heavenly Light Power of Sanctification and Consolation following thereupon And then man knows the Word read or heard preached out of the Scripture to be from Heaven and God's Voyce and that upon better grounds then any Tradition possibly can be By the same Word we are begotten and born anew By the same we must grow and tend unto perfection the Spirit concurring with it And the Spirit by Divine Institution and God's Promise goes along with it except man by his neglect of the means or some other demeâ—it give caâ—â—e to God to deny it The sum of all this is § XVII 1. That the Doctrine of the Scriptures is the Rule whereby we are directed in the knowledge of God's Kingdome 2. This Doctrine was in the mind of God and known onely to himself before he communicated it to Men and Angels 3. He did make this known by immediate Inspiration to the Holy Prophets and Apostles 4. By them he communicated it to others both by Word and Writing in both which they were directed by him infallibly 5. The Originals therefore were immediatly of Divine Authority and most worthy to be believed and the Transcripts and Translations so far as they agreed with the Originals 6. The Tradition or Testimony of the Church may declare this yet as a Testimony it can satisfie no man fully 7. God communicates this Doctrine unto men by ordinary Teachers not immediatly inspired 8. The Scripture is the standing Rule to direct these ordinary Teachers And so far as they follow this Rule so far their Doctrine is good and no further 9. The people taught are bound to hear those Teachers with prepared hearts and in that manner as God requireth 10. If they hear in this manner God according to his Promise will make it effectual to convert justifie and comfort them 11. This Spirit testifying by real effects the matter of the Scripture to be Divine is not a private Spirit but the publique Spirit of Christ in the Universal Church and the thing testified by this Spirit is the Publique Doctrine believed and professed by the Vniversal Church It 's true that it 's testified to a private Man and in that respect it is not Publique 12 By this manner of ordinary teaching with the concurrence of the sanctifying Spirit God works ordinarily a Divine Faith in the hearts of men and not by the Vniversal Tradition of the Church 13. The Tradition of the Church so far as it may be known concerning the Divine Authority of the whole Canon is a ground of a probable Faith against which No rational man as rational can except CHAP. III. Concerning the ancient Creeds and Confessions and of Faith in general HItherto § I of the Original the Nature and Qualities of the Holy Scriptures which must be the Rule of the ensuing Discourse concerning God's Kingdom But before I proceed to the particular Explication of this excellent Subject it will not be amiss to enquire Whether the principal subject of the Scripture may not be reduced to a method or Whether some parts or passages of Scripture will not give a sufficient light and direction to this method if there be any such thing Many School-men and some Modern Authors of Theological Systems following the Rules of the great Philosopher have attempted to reduce the Doctrine contained in God's Book into
the form of an Art or Science as some use to speak They determine the Subject of it to be Man Quatenus Beatificabilis as capable of Spiritual and Eternal Happiness The Object of it must be Deus quatenus Beatificans God as the Fountain and Cause of Eternal Bliss And the end is to direct the Spiritual Acts and Operations of the Immortal Soul so that by them well regulated and fixed upon their due Object man may tend unto and in the end attain the full fruition of that Eternal Being in whom he shall be for ever blessed According to this determination some reduce the Doctrine of the Scriptures to Truths Promises Duties yet this is imperfect Others make three Heads of this Doctrine 1. The first is the Being and Perfection of God in himself 2. The second the Works of God 3. The third His Commands Yet this as the former proves defective and no ways exact Others tell us that the Scriptures represent God to us 1. As to be known And 2. As to be worshipped And so make the Parts of this Divine Doctrine to be 1. Knowledge 2. The Worship of God And this hath much affinity with that Distribution of Theologie into Faith and Obedience that is the Rule of Faith and Obedience These conceive all things in the Scripture especially conducing to Salvation to be credenda or agenda The things to be believed the Object of Faith the things to be done and performed the Object of Obedience For this they think that they have a sufficient ground in the Mandate and Commission of our Blessed Saviour Go and teach all Nations baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you Math. 28. 19 20. And that of the Apostle seems to confirm this Hold fast the form of sound words which thou hast heard of me in faith and love 2 Tim. 1. 13. I will not examine these distinctions now but onely say this much That Faith and Obedience or Observancy as some call it according to the intended sense of these two places are onely Duties to be performed by sinful man Redeemed and Called according to the Commands of their God-Redeemer and so do not reach the utmost bounds of this Heavenly Doctrine And even in this respect they refer to Government and belong onely to that One Head and part thereof The Commands and Laws of God Redeemer requiring obedience And Faith it self is but one part of this obedience as it is a Duty So that these things may be some ways true but no ways accurate and perfect And if they may be allowed mine intended method I hope may pass without any harsh censure For I know no reason to the contrary seeing it's evident that the Principal if not the adaequat subject of the Holy Scriptures is the Kingdom and Government of God The Doctrine whereof is methodically contracted in ancient Creeds and Confessions which take in the Agenda or things to be practised as well as the Credenda things to be believed Of these ancient Confessions it may be observed that 1. Though they differ in words and expressions § II as may appear by the several forms thereof some more brief some more large especially in Irenaeus and Tertullian yet they agree in the matter and the principal method 2. That divers of the Ancients inform us that the first Planted Churches received the Forms of Confession though different in some words and expressions yet the same for matter and the general and principal method from the Apostles the Apostles from Christ Christ from God Thus amongst others Tertullian 3. They were received from Christ 1. In that Mandate and Commission to the Apostles Go and teach all Nations baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost 2. By Inspiration of the Holy Ghost 4. In those Words we have 1. God the Father Almighty making Heaven and Earth by his Word 2. This Word and Son made flesh redeeming sinful man 3. The Holy Ghost by whom Christ was conceived and anointed the Prophets inspired the Church sanctified unto Eternal Glory For so the Ancients understood it being directed by the Apostles 5. This Form thus understood was 1. A Tradition unwritten and of Divine Authority as taught by Christ and his Apostles before it was written But 2. Being written and more fully explained in the Canon of the New Testament it can be no longer an unwritten Tradition And whosoever reading the New Testament doth not find and that in several places both the matter and method of the ancient Confessions understands little 6. No particular form of Confession considered as a Tradition of the Church since the time of the Apostles can be of equal authority with the Scriptures 7. That which we call the Apostles Creed which we find in the Works of Cyprian and Russinus with an Exposition is no more nor so much the Apostles Creed as some ancient Creeds in form differing from it 8. Those words of our Saviour and his Rule of Doctrine concerning the Father Son and Holy Ghost with the three glorious Works of Creation Redemption Sanctification is a divine and wonderful Abridgment of all the Doctrine of the Scripture especially of that which is necessary to Salvation The Confession and Creed of the Patriarchs § III in particular of Enoch was thus God is and he is a Rewarder of them who diligently seek him Heb. 11. 6. For they believed That there was one God most glorious and blessed in Himself who by his Wisdome and Power made preserved and governed the World and especially Mankind For to Reward is an act of judgment Judgment presupposeth Laws Laws a Governour a Governour Subjects made and to be governed So that in their ancient Creed we have God considered 1. In Himself 2. As a Governour of the World made by him and especially of Men and Angels and that by Laws and Judgments The obedience to these Laws is to seek God diligently according to the direction of those Laws and the reward of this Obeâ—ience is Eternal Life as the punishment of Disobedience is Eternal Death And after the Fall of Man no man in himself was capable of this Eternal Liâ—â— because all were guilty Therefore they sought this glorious Reward by Châ—iâ—â— to come whom all their Ilastical Sacrifices did typifie as they sought their God by Him The ordinary Analysis of that which we call § IV The Apostles Creed as delivered by more understanding Catechists and Authors of Theological Systems is this God being the Subject of that Confession is considered 1. In himself as God the Father Son and Holy Ghost 2. As in his Works 1. Of Creation 2. Of Providence Providence preserves and governs all things created especially Man Man made righteous holy happy 1. Falls 2. Is restored He is restored by Redemption and the Application of it The Redeemer for Person is the
Instincts Vertues Operations Multitude Variety Order and use of things oreated and the universal extent of their Administration As the Creatures are many and to us innumerable and very various according to their Forms and Characters imprinted upon them so their Instincts Vertues Operations are many and various as their effects also be And whereas this Multitude and Propriety might be a cause of Confusion and turn them into their Old Chaos and also would distract and perplex all the Wit and Wisdom of Men and Angels to prevent it yet this Administration is such that they are all and every one by it kept in order Every one severally and all joyntly have their rule keep their place observe their order and by the Eternal Power and Wisdom of God are governed with ease as though they were but one single Creature The use of all this is to make them all and every one subservient to the main end to minister unto man to be Instruments in the Execution of the Judgments and Collation of the Benefits which the great and everlasting King doth distribute in that higher Administration of his special Kingdom and to manifest that there is a supream intelligent Agent who makes moves orders all things Yet we take little notice of this but look upon the Works of God like Children or rather irrational Brutes Otherwise we might see the hand of Heaven in every thing even in the least much more in the greatest and most of all in the whole Body This Providence extends not onely to some few things § III or to the greatest and most noble and excellent but to all and every one For are not two Sparrows sold for a Farthing and one of them shall not fall upon the ground without your Father But the very hairs of your head are all numbred saith our Saviour to his Disciples Math. 10. 29 30. For he that makes and preserves all and every several thing must needs order them and all events even the least and also those which are ascribed to Chance and Fortune come under the Regulation and Limitation of this Providence Yet God's care of the Whole is greater than of the Parts and of the most noble than of the meanest Creatures CHAP. X. Of the special Government of Angels AFter the general Government of God § I or Exercise of his Power follows his special Administration and Ordination This special Government differs from the general in the Subject the Rules the End The Subject is the intellectual and immortal Creature endued with Free-will and considered in his Moral and Spiritual Capacity The Rules are properly Laws binding to obedience or punishment The End is a more eminent Manifestation of the Divine Perfections in the Rewards and Punishments not onely Temporal but Eternal of those noble and most excellent Creatures Therefore it may be described to be An Ordination of God whereby the Intellectual and Immortal Creatures are directed or ordered to an Eternal state of Felicity or Misery Government properly so called according to some is an Order of Superiority and Subjection And to govern is a Moral Act and presupposeth a Superiour invested with Power and certain persons subject to this Power The general nature of this special Government is Ordination and herein it agrees with the former Providence This Ordination necessarily required that an Order should be established and then observed The subject of this Ordination is the intellectual and immortal Creature endued with Free-will as he is such For the subject must be intellectual or else he cannot understand a Law and must be Immortal or else he cannot be capable of an immortal and eternal estate And must be endued with Free-will or else he can neither voluntarily submit unto a Superiour Power or so obey or disobey as to be capable of Punishments and Rewards The Rules of this Ordination are Laws binding to Obedience which is the condition of Reward promised or unto Punishment upon Disobedience threatned The Rewards and Punishments are rendred by a just Judgment upon certain Evidence of the Violation or observation of the Laws This Government is of Angels § II Men. For these onely are Intellectual and Immortal and capable of an Eternal Estate The first is that of Angels whereof the Scripture speaks little as being revealed and written for man In this Government the power of God was exercised both by the Constitution of some certain Order and observation of the same The Constitution delivers and determines that Fundamental Law of his own Soveraignty and the Angels subjection As by Creation God acquired a Properiety in them as well as in other Creatures and a power of Dominion over them and by it they were absolutely subjected to him as intellectual Spirits This subjection was natural and necessary for God could not create them independent upon his absolute Power because then they had not been Creatures yet he might make them subject unto himself and not bind them to subjection upon some positive Penalties as he might bind them unto it without any promise of Reward Again he might by Law bind them to obedience or punishment without any solemn Contract or Covenant wherein they should engage themselves by a voluntary submission to his Power yet it 's very likely as in all Government the first thing is the establishment of the Soveraign Power of the Prince or Governour and the Allegiance and Fealty of the People so it was here This was the order which God observed in the Constitution of the Polity of Israel They must enter into a Solemn Covenant and promise subjection and obedience unto him as their Lord and God before he publish his Laws Exod 19. 8. This Fealty they likewise promised unto Joshua before he took upon him to command them Josh. 1. 16 17 18. So likewise Saul and David though both designe by God yet must first before they can resign be acknowledged by the People And it 's most suitable and agreeable to the Government of intelligent and free Agents That the subjection which doth arise and result naturally necessariâ—y and immediatly from the Creation did not make them liable to though deserving of punishment if they should do something that was not just seems to be impâ—yed by that of the Apostle The Law worketh wrath For where there is no Law there is no transgression Rom. 4. 15. Where we may observe 1. That Wrath is punishment 2. That Punishment is from transgression going before 3. That there can be no Transgression where there is no Law This Establishment and Determination of the Soveraign's Power and the Peoples subjection is the Foundation of all Government and might be called The Fundamental Rule and Law After the Constitution § III followed the Administration which word I take in a large senâ—e so as to signifie and include not onely Jurisdiction but Legislation too Whether this be the common signification of the word in most Authors I do not much weigh seeing I have given mine own sense In
this Government of Angels which no doubt is wonderful we have 1. The Legislation 2. The Judgment of God For no doubt God gave them Laws and according to their obedience or disobedience judged them for both these are evident out of Scripture What Laws God gave them in particular we know not That they were bound to continue righteous and holy as God made them and to love God and one another there can be no question These were Principles written and concreated if I may so speak with them yet that upon the Performance Eternal Glory and Security of the same would follow or that upon the non-Performance eternal punishments would be inflicted could not be so clear by Creation unto them There was another Law whereby they were obliged to observe that order amongst themselves which he at first instituted For there is an Order and Polity amongst the Angels but whether Monarchical or some other we know not If the Devils those Apostate Angels do observe the order of their Creation it seems to be Monarchical For we read of the Prince of Devils the Prince of the World the Prince of the Power of the Air or Darkness as the Word doth sometimes signifie What their Duty was in respect of Man or of the other Creatures is not so evident It 's certain that the Holy Angels are Ministring Spirits for the good of Gods servants and Sons since the fall Though the Pure and Generall Morals of the Decalogue did bind them yet as that Law was given to Adam to Israel or to the Church-Christian it could not bind them For therein there be Duties proper to Man and such as no ways can agree to Angels And here I might take occasion to explain the Morall Law but this I reserve till I come to speak of the Laws of God as Redeemer by Jesus Christ exalted at his right hand and reigning in the Brightnesse of eternall Glory For there were Laws of Righteouâ—nesse and Holinesse and morall duties given to Angels to Adam to the Heathen to Israel to the Church-Christian as shall be made manifest hereafter After Laws Moral and Positive § IV follows Judgment and upon the observation and violation of the same God began to exercise his Jurisdiction and to judge the Angels And this was the first Court God kept and the generall Assises wherein all the Angels were convented and rewarded to punished according to Observation or Violation of the Laws given to them The rule of this judgment were those Laws The Object Angels obeying or disobeying The Retribution was of Rewards or Punishments That many of the Angels sinned and transgressed those Laws and many did obey them the Holy Scriptures make evident And here it 's to be noted that the Sin of Angels was personall For in one sinning all did not sin in one condemned all were not condemned though by one man sin entred upon all mankind and by sin death Some one oâ— few of the Angels might be leaders in this Apostacy and by their example and Perswasion pervert many That vision of the Dragon and his Angels Revel 12. 7. may seem to imply some such thing But whether it be so or otherwise it 's certain a multitude of Angels sinned and revolted under one Head and Prince under whom they continue Revolters unto this day And here I might take occasion to speak of sin in general but I defer it till I speak of the fall and sin of Man What the first sin of these immorall spirits was in particular is not so clear as it 's clear they did sin And therefore we must obâ—erve 1. That they sinned 2. Were judged and condemned 1. They sinned 2 Pet. 2. 4. They kept not their first estate or Principality but left their own habitation Jude v. 6. which seems to imply their Ambition through which they aspired higher as discontented with their Station wherein God placed them at first and so violated the order established by him were murtherers and lyars from the beginning and abode not in the truth Joh. 8. 44. And he sinned from the beginning 1 Joh. 3. 8. That they sinned signifies unto us their Disobedience in generall That they abode not in the truth kept not their first state or Principality seems to be their first sin That they were lyars and murtherers doth point at their Envy and Malice against man which moved them to seek and contrive his ruine And upon this many think their condition desperate and their eâ—ernal punishment unavoydable But this is certain it did aggravate their former sin and made their punishment more grievous which punishment is expresed in the said texts That God spared them not that he cast them down to Hell as some turn it But Jude explaines the meaning That they are reserved in everlasting or invisible Chaines under darknesse unto the Judgment of the great day And he accursed them The sentence passed upon them was a sentence of condâ—mnation and the execution was that curse of excommunication and their Banishment out of Heaven and the light of glory the confining of them in darknesse and the binding them over to the Punishment of the great day of Final Judgment and so that their eternal misery and torment is inevitable And these places with others inform us That their Punishment is not Consummate but shall be far greater then now it is When at the great and last day they shall be cast into the Lake of fire and Brimstone and tormented with eternall paines without any intermission Their Punishment for the Present is loss of Heaven and Light Darknesse imprisonment fear and torment in the remembrance of that dreadfull day And this judgment passed upon them is an example to us sinfull Wretches to take heed of their sins lest we be sent into that eternall fire prepared for the Prince of Devils and his Angels The judgment of the rest of the Angels was passed at the same time § V And therein we may Consider 1. Their obedience 2. Their reward Their obedience is implyed by the disobedience of the Apostate Angels For iâ— this was their sin that they abode not in the Truth then the obedience of the rest of the Angels was that they abode in the truth were contented with their Station and â—oved man upon whom Gods Image was stamped They were found humbly subject unto the Power and obedient to the Laws of their glorious and Eternall Lord and Soveraign and that in the day of their great triall when the rest of their fellow-Angels revolted rebelled and became murderers of mankind Their reward was agreeable to their loyalty and obedience And it may be considered as inchâ—ate and received in part or as Consummate As begun and received in part they continue in the happy condition wherein they were created and are confirmed and secured there in And their joy and happinesse must needs be great because they enjoy the Glorious habitation of Heaven though many times sent from thence They see the
face of God have free accesse unto and stand before the throne of the Eternall King Their glory peace and joy are never interrupted by feares troubles grief And though their confirmation be not expressed or expresly delivered yet its severall wayes implyed For we never read that any of them sinned or fell from God since the time of their first trial That they are called the Holy and Elect Angels That they are Angels of Heaven of light and not of darknesse that they do his Commandements hearkening to the Voice of his Word Psal. 103. 20. That they ever praise God that they protect the heirs of Salvation and are Ministring Spirits for their good that they execute Gods judgments and are his Servants and Ministers in the government of the World and are subject and obedient unto Christ now glorified and all this may amount to a Confirmation Yet their reward may seem as yet enjoyed onely in part and not consummate neither shall be till the last Judgment For as yet the work is not finished all enemies are not subdued the date of Christs Commission is not expired the number of the Saints is not yet finished the dead not raised and therefore neither they nor Saints are fully glorified nor compacted into one intire body under Christ their heâ—d and one day they shall be when the Sun of glory shall shine upon them in his full strength and perpetually abide in his Meridian Gods will is that they should not be perfect without us That these Angels continued in obedience it 's an excellent example to perswade us after we are once converted and born from Heaven to Persevere unto the end The race is not long and the Prize is incomparable We shall be as they are Their Confirmation and Assurance of eternal glory and full blisse may much encourage and comfort us and so much the more because they rejoyce at our conversion are Ministring Spirits for our good pitch their tents about us have a charge to keep us protect and guard us in all our wayes And they will do what they can and much they can do to promote our eternall Salvation and the least and meanest of Gods Saints is not without a guard of Angels That they continued Loyall and obedient was not from themselves but from God who made them and did assist and strengthen them so as to prevent their fall And their confirmation and glorious reward issued from Gods free love Therefore they are bound to give all Glory Praise Honour and thanks to him that sits upon the Throne and lives for ever and ever That their fellow Angels sinned it was not from any desertion of God but their own free will and choice CHAP. XI Of the special Government of Man AS God Created the Angels before he made man § I so he began to govern and order the Angels before he began to govern man and therefore this government follows the former and is partly the same partly differenâ— though after the last judgment when they shall be united in one body it shall be more the same then now it is They are both of them the Subject of Gods speciall Ordination They are both intellectual Creatures They are both endued with Free-will and so capable of Lawes punishment reward they are both ordinable to an immortal estate They have both the pure moral Laws and rules of Judgment Yet as they differ much in themselves to the Ordination of them is different in many particulars Angels are Spirits without bodies Men are bodies with spirits And according to this difference the government was different as shall appear hereafter This government of man as it is the principal Subject of the Scriptures so it shall be of this discourse and takeup the rest of the Doctrine following wherein I shall be far larger then formerly I have bin This special government of man is twofold § II 1. That wherein God exerciâ—ed his power acquired by Creation 2. That wherein he exercised his power acquired by Redemption or more briefly it 's The Government of God as Creatour Redeemer As God by Creation became an absolute Lord and had an unlimited power so he reserved the same in part both in the government of Angels and men For though he bounded and limited them yet he sometimes exerciseth an Arbitrary power above his Laws and hath bound himself onely by his promises And therefore when men had Violated the order and Laws of Creation he was at liberty and took occasion to alter and new model his goverment And hence the twofold government of man which take up the greatest part and in some respect the whole book of God in the Historicall the Doctrinall and the Propheticall parts thereof And hereafter I will call the one the first the other the second government or ordination of man This government is neither the naturall government § III which hath the same rules of generall Providence which that of other Creatures hath so far as it agrees with them Neither is it the government wherein Angels have power over men and are used as Ministers by God nor that civil goverment whereby man as God's Vicegerent ruleth over man as his Subject but it considers him in his spirituall capacity as he is ordinable to an immortall estate It 's true it presupposeth the three former ordinatious and makes use of them all especially the Civil as subordinate unto it It 's certain that mankind once 〈◊〉 and divided into severall societies could not long continue in any tolerable condition without some order of government in Families Vicinities and greater Communities Therefore as God assigned them their severall habitations upon the â—ace of the Earth and divided them in severall tribes and Societies according to their Vicinities so he ordained an order of superiority and subjection amongst them and communicated some portion of his power to some in which respect they become Gods deputies and are called Gods and subjected others unto them alwayes reserving a Power to himself to caâ—â— down one and â—et up another and sometimes one or more out of the dust from the Dunghill and of the basest of the People For the Crowns and Scepters of the World are in his hand and he disposeth them at his Will and Pleasure Besides He hath given them certain rules of Wisdom and Justice together with a great strength and power of the â—woâ—d whereby they are enabled to Model and Administer Common-Weales of great extent makes Lawes and Officers and execute Judgment And the end of all this is Peace and Concord that men may serve that God in obeying the Laws of this Spiritual eternal Kingdom and attain a more glorious and excellent estate of eternall felicity The differences between these two governments are many For in the Civil the Governour is man his power reacheth onely the body and temporall estate His wisdom and justice is imperfect his immediate end is justice and honesty amongst men for temporall Peace His Laws
Judgment Execution tends no further He is subject to God and accountable and his power is perpetuated by Succession and in the end shall totally determine and be dissolved In this government God is the Governour the souls and consciences of men the Subjects the wisdom justice and power thereof perfect the end is Spirituall Righteousnesse and eternal peace to which the Laws and judgments do effectually tend it continues for ever and the estate which it orders men unto is everlasting and it hath the Civill goverment subordinate unto it and in some respect a part of it That there is a first § IV and second government I take it for graunted and shall afterwards prove it The description of the first is this It 's Gods ordination of man whereby he bound all mankind in one man made holy and righteous and subjected to Him unto Perfect and perpetuall Obedience or death and according to his Obedience or Disobedience passed judgment upon him That there was such a government may be proved from many places in Gods book I will instance in that one As by one man sin entered into the World and by sin death As death passed over all men c. Rom. 5. 12 13 14. In which words we may observe 1. That there was sin entering into the world 2. That sin presupposeth a Law a Law the power of the Law-giver and the subjection of the party sinning 3. We have the sin of one man and the sin of all men 4. That this sin entered by one man and was from him derived unto all 5. There was death which is Punishment and the death of one man and the Death of all and that for sin and the sin of all 6. This death presupposeth Judgment and the execution of the same because death passed and reigned 7. This sin and judgment began with one man and that was Adam 8. As there can be no judgment or punishment but of sin so there could be no sin without a Law 9. This Law was given to Adam and it was the Law of the Tree of knowledge of good and evil annexed to the morall Lawes All this may be clearly understood by the History of Moses Gen. the 2d and the 3d. Chapters In this description We may observe § V 1. The constitution of the government in the Soveraignty of God and the Subjection of man 2. The administration in the Laws Judgment of God For the subjection of man unto God his Soveraign we must consider that it may be threefold according to a threefold ground For it may arise 1. From his totall and absolute dependence upon God both in his Creation and Preservation 2. From his Voluntary submission 3. From Gods Command The two latter add nothing to Gods Power which by his absolute Propriety is absolute and so great that it cannot be greater yet it may add unto the obligation and bind man more strongly both to subjection and obedience There is some resemblance of these degrees of subjection in the Israelites who though they were subject unto God by Creation and Preservation as all other men were yet as they were free men they received a new and better kind of Being by that great deliverance from Egypt and the Egyptian bondage and so 1. Became Subject to God in the first degree 2. They voluntarily submit and receive him for their Lord and God and engage themselves to serve him and obey him Exod. 19. 8. Deut. 5. 27. And they avouched the Lord their God Deut. 26. 17. This was their allegiance and fealty whereby they became his Servants and Vassals 3. God commanded and said They must have no other Gods This Voluntary submission and Promise of obedience on mans part and the Promise of Protection and reward on Gods side seemes to be a kind of contract and together with the condition a Covenant That there was any foederall contract between God stipulating and man restipulating at the first is not so expresse in Scripture But that in the constitution and fundamentall Law of Gods Soveraignty and mans subjection unto God at first there was something Positive wherein God limited his absolute Power is certain And this is evident from the tree of Life and the Law concerning the tree of knowledge of good and evil and the threatning of Death and that God made Adam the head of mankind and as such did stipulate with him and bound both him and his by the same Law And the Contract seems to have bin confirmed by solemnities For the two Trees in the midst of the Garden imply so much And whereas some make the Promise and the threat to be a Sanction to confirm the Law it 's certain that the Command of God did bind with full power without any such Sanction onely the Promise did bind God upon mans performance of his Duty and the threatning made man liable to Punishment upon Disobedience After the Constitution follows the administration of this first Government § VI For constitution must necessarily go before or else there can be no Regular administration and administration must follow or else the constitution will be in vain The body of man must first be made up of all his members united unto the Head and amongst themselves and then the head must give lie sense motion and direction So these bodies politick must first be moulded and made up of Soveraign and Subject and after that it 's once animated and hath received Being and life Political it begins to Act The Soveraign begins to Protect and Direct and order by Laws and judgments and the People continue their subjection loyalty and obedience and accoâ—ding to their regular or irregular motions they are judged And this I call Administration whereof There are two Parts Lawes Judgements The first Work of God after the constitution was Legislation or giving of Lawes For so God dealt with Israel 1. They avouch him to be their God and submitt unto him and promise obedience And after that 2 He gives them Lawes which are not onely rules to direct but have a binding force so as to give the obedient a right to rewards and make the disobedient liable to punishment So Jethro's advice to Moses as Governour of the People as subjects directs him 1. To teach them Lawes then 2. To appoint officers and judges and so to proced to judgment This Legislation was the first part of the administration whereby God bound man holy and righteous to perfect and perpetuall obedience with a promise of Life upon that condition or unto death if he once disobeyed The party to whom God gave these Lawes was Adam and in him all Mankind and he being made in the Image of God righteous and holy had power to understand and perfectly obey these Lawes and continue in subjection and obedience The obligation was strict and required perfect obedience without any promise of Pardon if he once offended and by constant obedience he might obtayne Life These Lawes are Morall § VII
tranâ—gressed by man at first could be no blameable cause of sin is evident because it was just easie to be observed man had power given him to keep it and the Law it self did express what and how great the evil would be whereunto man should certainly be liable if he transgressed and this was done to restrain man from sin for his own good By all this it 's evident that the first sin was neither from God nor the Law of God so as they could be blamed but from the Devil Woman Man who were justly chargable with it and punishable for it Let no man therefore charge God who is most holy nor the Decree of God nor the Law of God with sin as any ways a proper cause thereof Let God be true and every man a Lyaâ— as it is written That thou mightest be justified in thy saying and overcome when thou art judged Rom. 3. 4. But let every one charge his own heart and with all humility and grief confess his own sin It 's true that the temptation of the Devil tends directly to sin yet that could do us no hurt if we did resolutely reject it and not consent unto it CHAP. XIII Of God's Judicial Proceeding against Man upon the Commission of the first Sin HItherto § I I have spoken briefly of Sin in general and the first sin of man in particular as the Object of the Judgment of God which followed upon the perpetration of that sin In this Judgment God was the Judge Man the Party judged the Rule not onely the Moral but positive Law of God He was not bound to this Rule and therefore though in many things he observes it yet in some things he acts above it as supream Lord above his own Law and allays the severity of his Justice with abundance of Free-grace The Law promiâ—ed no mercy if man disobeyed yet he promiseth mercy even in the midst of Judgment and upon fairest terms This Judgment is described exactly in Gen. 3. Wherein we may observe the sin of man and the judgment of God The sin with the causes thereof and the first effects thereof before judgment the observant Reader will easily understand in the first part of that Chapter The Effects were two 1. Shame 2. Fear Shame for they saw their own Nakedness Fear For they heard the Voice of God and were afraid They sought to cover their shame and to hide themselves from God's Presence but both in vain In the Judgment or judicial proceedings â—ive things are most observable 1. The Summons 2. The Charge 3. The Conviction of the Parties summoned and convinced 4. God's Sentence 5. The Execution of the same God being Supream and absolute Lord was no ways bound to observe Formalities yet he omits nothing essential to judgment And this was the first great Court and Solemn Assizes kept on Earth 1. We have the Summons in these words Adam where art thou The end of Summons is Appearance which in respect of God was needless because of his Omnipresence And where could man disappear or hide himself from his All seeing Eye Yet because man had a foolish and fond conceit that he miâ—ht conceal himself God calls him out and by these words lets him know that 't was in vain to hide himself For let him be in the darkest and most secret place in the World yet there God was present and he did appear before his Tribunal For these words were not of ignorance as though God knew not where he was but a judicial Summons commanding him to appear before him where he should have full liberty to plead for himself Yet these words were not a bare Summons but a Charge For they implyed 1. That Adam did hide himself And 2. There must be some cause of it and there could be no cause but sin For why should an innocent person hide himself or seek to escape the presence of a just Judge The Righteous are as bold as a Lyon and dare look the greatest Judge in the face By this flying Gods presence he accused himself as guilty and sought to decline the Tryall This is a generall charge Adam upon this appeares and exuseth his hiding of himself but so that he rather accuseth himself by pretending that the cause of his hiding himself was his Nakednesse and the Presence of God whereas it was guilt of Conscience Therefore God taking hold of his own words proceeds to a Particular charge That surely he had transgressed the Law and had eaten of the Tree whereof God had commanded him that he should not eate Who should tell him that he was naked or how should he know it except he had offended This came so home and the crime was so evident and his own conscience so full a Witnesse that he could not deny it And therefore confesseth his offence yet so that he endeavours to attenuate it and excuse himself Thus the man was convicted yet so that he accuseth his Wife Sin is so odious filthy base that the Sinner himself is ashamed to own it but would charge it upon some other he cares not whom so that he might free himself And if man cannot deny his fact or prove it not to be a Sin yet he will endeavour to make it appeare lesse then it is that his shame and punishment may be lesse For we are not asham'd or affraid to Sin Yet when our Sin is charged upon us we are both ashamed of it and affraid of the punishment deserved Thus whilst Adam excuseth himself to no purpose he accuseth his dearly beloved Spouse and she indeed was two wayes guilty Not onely 1. Because she had eaten the forbidden fruit but 2. Because she had given it her husband to eate She therefor is summoned accused and convicted For she could no wayes plead Not guilty Yet she is willing to excuse her self and pleads she was deceived and the Serpent that is the Devill had deceived her Yet this could by no wayes clear and acquit her seeing she knew the Law and the words were plain and she had power not onely to resist but to overcome the Temptation For the controversie between the Devill and her if she had well considered proved in the issue to be this whether she should believe God saying If thou eate of that Tree thou shalt surely dye or the Devill saying Though thou eate thereof thou shalt not dye in plain contradiction to the Words of God The old Serpent the Devil and Sathan had no excuse none to cast the blame upon His crime was evident and notorious And thus the cause was evident and the partyes clearly convicted After conviction followes sentence § II declaring the Will of the supreme Judg concerning the Delinquents And 1. We must think and know that the Spirit in this History condescends unto our capacity and after the manner of humane judgements describes the judgement of God as in severall places of the new Testament our Saviour doth especially in Math. 25. 2. The order
as one And so far as God judged him one and made Adam the Head and Representative of all so far in Adam all men might be bound to obedience or penalty and so far judgments or rewards might be transmitted from him to all and no further And if God had not considered Adam and all his posterity as one person By one man sin could not have entred into the World and by sin Death so as to pass upon all men That this derivation was an act of judgment is evident from the Apostle because Sin and Death which is punishment presupposed a Law To impute sin and punish for sin and that with Death are Acts of Judgment and that according to a Law which was in force when Adam sinned and long before Moses Otherwise how could sin have reigned even over Adam and that from Adam to Moses and this by a Sentence of Judgment in force to this day according to a Law in force when Adam transgressed it For upon that transgression God condemned Adam and in him all Mankind In this respect the doubt how the Soul being made by God becomes corrupted is vain and that conceit that it is polluted by entrance into the body or from the body is false For 1. God in the Creation of the Soul of every individual person is to be considered as a Creatour and a Judge As a Creatour he makes a Soul and gives it Essence and all things necessary flowing from the Essence and appertaining to it As a Judge he denies that person as one with Adam sinning his sanctifying Spirit which Adam received for him and his and in him sinning was lost to him and his 2. It is evident that the Soul is not so much polluted by the body as the body by it and it from it self For there are many Spiritual sins as Pride Envie Malice and such like which are purely from the Soul and in the Soul as they are in Angels who have no bodies but are spirits And those sins which have their Rise from the sensitive appetite could not pollute the Soul except it were depraved in it self And the first sin began in the Soul as may easily be understood from Gen. 3. and was there compleatly moulded before Eve looked upon the forbidden fruit to covet it and desire it as a bodily food Yet whilest we discourse of the Derivation of Original Sin as it is a Deprivation and a depravation following thereupon because man falls under the power of Death yet we must consider that Adam's Posterity derive not onely that original corruption from him but many other evils together with their Being All the evils are reduced to Sin and Death We participate with him in some manner in the first sin and in him sinning we sin and in him being guilty we are guilty in him dying we die And by Death all Punishments God sentenced us to in him are understood not onely that which we call Original Sin but all Actual Sins virtually included in it and issuing purely from it by vertue of the first Desertion And here we may wonder at the severity of God's Judgment yet we must in no wise question the Justice and Equity thereof CHAP. XVI Of the Attributes of God manifested in this Judgment of Men and Angels THE last thing to be considered in this Judgment and Execution is the manifestation of the Attributes § I and perfections of God and of his Supream Power judicial as well as Legislative The Attributes manifested are these His Wisdom his Holiness his Power his Knowledge but principally his Justice and Mercy His Wisdom was wonderful in this particular in that he laid the Foundation of man's Eternal Life to be recovered again in sentencing the Devil to Eternal Death and in a wonderful way so that the Devil himself should be powerfully active to the ruine of his own Kingdom whilest he â—eeks to confirm and enlarge it His Holiness was evident in this that he spared not sin in his most noble Creatures punishing the Devils without mercy as first in the sin not sparing man made in his own Image though tempted to sin and in accursing the Serpent though an irrational Creature and but onely an Instrument abused All this signifies that he detests and abominates sin and being holy Himself requires holiness in Men and Angels made holy and if by sin they pollute themselves he casts them out of his presence His Power appeared in that he so presently and so fully executed his Sentence and makes it good to this day and none can hinder him His Knowledge is as exact for he evidently knew the sin of Men and Angels with the measure and circumstances thereof and proportions his Judgment accordingly But principally his Justice and Mercy shined forth in this judicial Proceeding § II First his Justice must be considered The Justice of God is Legislative or judicial Legislative Justice determines man's duty and binds him unto the performance thereof and also defines the rewards and punishments which shall be due upon the Creatures obedience or disobedience His judicial Justice which is called distributive is that whereby he renders unto the intellectual Creatures according to their Works This is remunerative or vindictive For taking cognizance of their cause he rewards the obedient and punisheth the disobedient The justice manifested in this judgment was punitive and vindictive and it did appear in that 1. He spared not sinners much less rewarded them 2. He punished none but sinners and such as did concur in this sin 3. He punished onely for sin and not out of any absolute and arbitrary power Therefore God said to the Serpent Because thou hast done this therefore thus and thus shalt thou be punished The Woman suffered and is condemned because she hearkened and gave consent to the Serpents temptation The man is judged to death because he had hearkened to the voyce of his wiâ—e 4. The punishments determined and executed did not exceed the measure of their sin 5. The Devil sinned most and therefore his punishment is the greatest and no ways mitigated or allayed by mercy The Woman and Man sinned being tempted and their sin was less and it was allayed by mercy yet the womans sin was greater then Adam's though less then the Devils For she was first in the transgression and brought man into the snare being instrumental to the Devil and therefore she was adjudged to two punishments to which man was not liable This Justice is not an Attribute but the exercise and manifestation of an Attribute as here it 's taken It 's called Anger Wrath Fury Rage Jealousie Indignation as the sin is more or less heinous and he more or less displeased It 's called Revenge in that it renders the evil of punishment for the evil of sin It 's Judgment because he proceeds according to Law upon the evident knowledge of the violation of the same It 's punishment as God inflicts it and the Creatures suffer it The principal
to such Rules as that he might attain Eternal Salvation For there was a Foundation of this new Government laid in that Judgment God passed upon the Devil and he began instantly to act according to the same Yet though he abolished the former Government yet he continued the memory of it and revealed the Doctrine thereof unto the Church and it remains in the same and it serves to let men see their misery and humble them that they may seek for remedy and vehemently desire it and follow the Directions God hath given And by this he may and ought to know that in strict Justice he can expect nothing but Eternal Death and that all hope of life depends upon the mere mercy of God and the merit of a Second Adam This Second Government did not abolish the power acquired by Creation § II for that continues still and will continue whilest man receives his Being from God by Creation and the continuance of his Being by preservation Yet God acquired a new power superadded unto the former and did exercise the same after a new manner In this respect there must needs be a great difference between the former and this latter Government For in the former the Governour was God-Creatour by the Word not incarnate or made flesh but in this he is not onely Creatour but Redeemer by the Word made Flesh. The subject of this latter is not man holy righteous innocent as he was created but sinful guilty miserable in Adam fallen The Laws thereof do not bind man as the former did to perfect and perpetual obedience as the condition of Life but to Faith in the Redeemer Neither in this New-Model doth God alone without a President-general as in the former◠govern Mankind but doth administer all things by his Son made Lord and King at his Right-hand after the Incarnation This Government is that Act of Divine Providence § III whereby he orders sinful man redeemed by Faith in Christ-Redeemer unto Salvation or upon his Unbelief unto Eternal Death unavoidable This is evident out of the sacred Writings both of the Old and New Testament For all the Holy Patriarchs from Adam were saved by their Faith in God Redeemer and the Seed of the Woman And after the exhibition of the Redeemer and his manifestation he himself faith That God so loved the World that he gave his onely begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have Eternal Life And He that believeth on him is not condemned And he that believeth not is condemned already because he hath not believed in the onely Begotten Son of God Joh. 3. 16 18. John the Baptist testifieth that the Father loveth the Son and hath given all things into his hand He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life but the wrath of God abideth on him Joh. 3. 36. And all power in Heaven and Earth was given to Christ Math. 28. 18. And from this Power the Apostles received Commission and Command to go to all the World and to preach the Gospel to every Creature And He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved and he that believeth not shall be damned Mark 16. 15 16. In all which words we have a New Power a New Government New Laws both as a Rule of Man's Duty and God's Judgment differing much from the former This might be called the Government of Mercy as the former the Government of Justice Whereas many tell us that the former Government continues that the Laws are still the same that God as Rectour by Substitution transferred the punishment merited by transgressions of the Law upon Christ and for and in consideration of satisfaction made by him remits sin and this is nothing but a relaxation or interpretation of the former Law they are much mistaken and reach not the truth in this particular And this shall be made evident when we come to speak of the Administration of this Kingdom from the times of Adam till the preaching and baptizing of John the Baptist and the manifestation of Christ's entring upon his Publique Office As in the former Government § IV so in this we must consider 1. Who is the Governour invested with Power 2. How this Power was 1. Acquired 2. Exercised The Governour is God Creatour and Preserver of Mankind the same who was Lord and King by Creation Yet here he must be considered under another notion as God-Redeemer For as the Work of Creation and Redemption differ so the Power acquired by Redemption differs from that acquired by Creation This Power is Supream Universal Eternal Monarchical as the former In the Acquisition we must consider by 1. Whom 2. What it was acquired It was acquired 1. By the Word made Flesh. 2. By the Humiliation of this Word made Flesh. The Person by whom God acquired this new Power was the Word made Flesh for as by the Word he made the World and in particular Man and so acquired a Properiety in Man and a Dominion over Man as a rational free Creature So by this Word incarnate and made Flesh in a wonderful manner he acquired a new propriety in Man fallen and a dominion over him as capable of Spiritual and Eternal Felicity to be recovered by a new way The work whereby this Power was acquired was the Humiliation of this Son of God So that now Man is God's and subject unto God not onely as Creatour and Preserver in general but as Redeemer and Sanctifier For this new Dominion considers Man in his Spiritual Capacity For the better understanding of this acquisition of New-Power § V we must consider 1. Who the Redeemer is 2. What the Work of Humiliation is The Redeemer is Jesus Christ our Lord first promised then exhibited Jesus Christ our Lord who is blessed for ever In himself is the Word made Flesh Ioh. ◠14. As our Redeemer he was anointed with the Holy Ghost and power to be a Prophet Priest and King Universal Act. 10. 38. In Him as the Word made Flesh we may observe 1. His Person 2. His Natures For his Person in a large sense as here I take Person He is the Word which was in the beginning and was with God and was God and by whom all things were made Joh. 1. 1 2. The onely begotten Son of God Joh. 3. 16. The Image of the Invisible God the first-born of every Creature by whom all things were not onely created but do subsist Col. 1. 15 16 17. The brightness of his Father's glory and the express Image of his Person Heb. 1. 3. He was begotten of the Father from Everlasting and is the full expression and representation of Himself unto Himself By these places it evidently appears that the Word did exist before the World was and so exist that He was with God and God To be with God implies some distinction to be God an identity of substance and this is that which we call
who out of his unspeakable love gave him this command to be servant for a while and suffer death for sinful man's salvation This was an Act of transcendent power to give such a Law and Christ willingly out of pitty unto his Brethren submitted to this power and was willing to be bound by this Law and become a servant and was obedient unto this Death Therefore it is written Loe I come to do thy will that is this great Command of suffering death not for himself but for others being guilty and bound in their own persons to suffer which was an act of greatest love that possibly can be expressed In that it was an act of obedience it signifies his willingness and doth teach us that he suffered freely For all obedience is free and willing or else no obedience That it was willing and free is many ways evident For no man saith he taketh my life from me but I laid it down of my self Joh. 10. 18. No man took it from him because no one could do it if he had not bin willing to have parted with it His Prayer wherein he so earnestly three several times deprecated the Cup of his Passion makes it clear by that clause wherein he corrected his natural desire Thy will not mine be done It was often attempted both by fraud and force to take away his life but it could not be done before that hour-wherein he was willing to lay it down himself He offered himself unto the Band of Souldiers which came to apprehend him and said unto them Whom seek ye They said Jesus of Nazareth He answers I am he and resently at that word they went backward fell down to the ground Besides he could have called for 12 Legions of Angels to defend or rescue him and yet he would not do it To be a servant and suffer the death of the Cross was an act of greatest humility For the Son of God the Word made flesh Humane Nature united so nearly to the Deity to deny himself so far as to be below the Angels below so many men to be a Servant in the meanest rank of men subject to the Law to Civill and Ecclesiastical Power and though Lord of Angels yet to abase himself so low as to suffer such reproach and all kind of indignities from the basest sort of Abjects and Refuse of the people and as it were to be trampled upon as though he were a Worm and the baâ—eâ—â— and most guilty Wretch in the World though he was most innocent was humility indeed and a stupendious humiliation This Act of Obedience was performed with greatest patience and charity that ever any was For he opened not his mouth was dumb as the sheep befor the Shearer When he was reviled he reviled not again They curse him blaspheme him deride him and many ways abuse him yet he is quiet and his Soul so calm as though he suffered nothing though he suffered more than ever any did And this was his Charity that he humbled himself and suffered all this for unworthy ungodly sinners and enemies even for the Eternal Salvation of those who did afflict and crucifie him praying to his Father to forgive them for they knew not what they did In that § II as a Servant he was obedient unto Death the Death of the Cross and endured such cruel pains and so shameful a death though he was so excellent and innocent this doth give us occasion to think and consider of many things For 1. By this we may understand that his sufferings were very great not onely in respect of the multitude of them the quality of the persons from whom the parts wherein he suffered and the nature of his sufferings But from this that he died the death of the Cross. And this Death was 1. Violent not Natural 2. Cruel and full of Pain 3. Ignominious and most Reproachful 4. Most accursed 5. Joyned with far greater Torments and trouble of the Soul then we can conceive 2. Seeing Death is the wages of Sin it must be for Sin and seeing he had no sin of his own it must be for the sins of others And because where there is no Law there is no sin therefore must there be some Law transgressed whereby He became liable to this punishment of death The Law of it self made none liable to death but the parties violating it which Christ never did therefore there must be a Law-giver and a Judge above the Law who had power to transfer the punishment from the guilty upon One innocent who was willing to take it upon him The Law-giver was God and He was the Judge and gave a Command to Jesus Christ to suffer this death due to sinful man and he willingly submitted and became Surety or Hostage for man And by vertue of this Command and Christ's Voluntary Submission the Law transgressed had power over him and he became liable to this death And so he who knew no sin became sin for us that we might be the righteousness of God in Him 2 Cor. 5. ult So that in this suffering of death though the Devil and the Jews with Pontius Pilate were active in crucifying Christ We must consider God as Supream Judge did pass the Sentence and execute the same Christ is the Head of and Hostage for Mankind and a general person suffering for many that the benefit might redound to many In this respect that Christ suffered for the sin of others we may conclude that his suffering was a punishment in proper sense and that God in threatning death to Adam and Mankind sinning reserved a power and liberty to himself to punish the party sinning or some other for him Yet because the thing in the obligation was the punishment of the guilty offending and not the Innocent it must needs be an Act of Grace in God by his Command to substitute another and also to accept his Suffering as an Expiation of their sins It was Justice in Him that He would punish Sin but free Mercy to punish it in Christ and be satisfied with that death of another person But of these particulars more hereafter when I shall declare how and how far the benefit of this Redemption may be derived to others This Death was Death § III and Death of the Cross to signifie the justice and severity of God and the desert of sin which is shame pain a Curse For this death was shameful painful accursed Therefore it is said that Christ endured the Cross and despised the shame Heb. 12. 2. and that he became a Curse for us God 3. 13. Therefore the bitter passion of our Saviour may perswade us all for ever to â—ear and hate that sin which so much offended the just God that He punished it so severely in our Saviour For he never suffered death neither did he lay upon him the iniquities of us all to this end that we might have liberty to sin but that we should repent with godly sorrow and ever
for an Act of Divine Power as it is a cause of subjection which must â—o before admission To understand this we must consider the Subject of it and that is Man as sub alienâ potestate under the power of Sin and Sathan and so out of God's Kingâ—om and as an Alien to this Heavenly Common-wealth and such is every one by Nature as he is out of Jesus Christ. Yet there are degrees of this distance some are further off some nearer to this Kingdom This is evident from the condition of Jews and Gentiles in former times and always especially since the times of the Gospel Because all men are either in the visible Church or out of it And men may be out of the Church two ways 1. As never admitted into the same Or 2. Such as being in the Church prove Apostates The Gentiles once were not Gentiles For their first Apostate Fathers were in the Church and the Jews in former times were God's people but for their unbelief are cast out and continue LO-AMMI none of God's people and this shall be their condition till such time as the fulness of the Gentiles be come in And we must distinguish of such as are in the visible Church for some are sincerely subjected unto God-Redeemer according to their Allegiance Some are Subjects onely by Name and Profession and by their ignorance unbelief disobedience are little better then Heathens and Aliens Some are subject in some measure but come short of that degree which is required to admission All these excepting one sort are out of this Kingdome as it consists of reall Saints and living members of Christ. Apostates shall never be called much lesse admitted if they be personally and wilfully such For if we sin wilfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth there remaineth no more Sacrifice for sins Heb. 10. 26. and if no more Sacrifice then calling is in vain and to no purpose Yet the posterity of Apostates may be and have been called And if once God vouchsafe the meanes of conversion to Idolators who have forsaken not only God as their Redeemer but as Creatour and Preserver he requires of them to renounce the Devil and turn from their Idols to the living God first and then unto him as Redeemer by Jesus Christ. They which have forsaken Jesus Christ or deny him as their Saviour and yet acknowledge and worship God alone as the Creatour of Heaven and Earth the Preserver and Governour of the World as Turks all Mahumetans and the unbelieving Jews do at this day are bound to acknowledge Christ as their Saviour and Redeemer and sure his incarnation and glorification as already come into the World The case of the Jew in the times of Christ and the Apostles was singular For the sincere Proselyte and Jew had onely this to do to believe in Christ already come as before they believed in him to come and so they became compleat members of the Church Christian and perfectly subjects of the Kingdome of Christ glorified The Ignorant and Prophane as also the Hypocrits must forsake their wicked wayes and sincerely submit themselves Yet none of these things can be done without a power from Heaven and a Vocation which is a gracious work of God Redeemer wherein he by his Word and Spirit reduceth man to subjection so that he is fitted to be a subject of his Blessed Kingdome For by Calling we are delivered from the power of darknesse and translated into the Kingdome of His Dear Son Col. 1. 13. Therefore said to be called out of darknesse into his marveylous light 1 Pet. 2. 9. And upon this they who were not a people are made the people of God verse 10. For God will put his lawes into their mind and write them in their hearts and thereupon He will be their God and they shall be to him a People Heb. 8. 10. In all these Passages and many more it 's evident 1. That by nature and as born of sinfull Adam we are in darknesse out of Gods Kingdome none of Gods People 2. That we passe out of darknesse into light and into Christs Kingdom 3. This is not a work of our own merit or power For it 's God that delivers us translates us writes his lawes in our hearts and this of his free mercy and by his great and wonderfull power 4. By this we become Gods people and subjects of Christ's Kingdom And all this is said to be by calling For he called us out of darknesse into his marvaylous light All these particulars are expressed or implyed in those words of the Apostle who signifies that God would send him to the Gentiles to open their eves and to turn them from darknesse to light and from the power of Sathan unto God that they may receive remission of sins and as inheritance among them which are sanctifyed by saith in Christ Act. 26. 17 18. This Vocation § VII as it is an act of power and great mercy and free grace for by grace we are saved so it s a work which is effected by the Word and Spirit For as we are regenerate so we are called and we are regenerate 1. By the Word 2. By the Spirit By the Word For of his own will he begat us with the word of truth Jam. 1. 18. By the Spirit For except a man be born again of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdome of God Joh. 3. 5. In the Word God commands and promiseth The command binds man to submit The promise is a motive to enforce the performance of the precept This we maâ— understand and observe in the Call of Abraham For 1. He is commanded to get him out of his Countrey and from his kindred and from his Fathers house unto a land that God would shew him and to perswade him God promiseth to make him a great nation and to blesse him c. But the principall promise was that in him all the familyes of the earth should be blessed Gen. 12. 1. 2 3. This precept implyes that man is under the domiâ—ion of sin and Sathan and therefore commands him to forsake his sin and Sathan and turn from Satan unto God In this God makes use of the Doctrine of the fall of Adam and the Morall Law as given unto him and binding him to perfect and perpetual obedience and upon disobedience threatning Death And by the precept is discovered mans sin and by threatning his misery to humble him break his heart make him weary of sin and desirous of deliverance and willing upon any termes to accept a Saviour Yet this gives him no Comfort nor any Power to do that which is his duty though God make use of it to prepare mans heart The first dutyes commanded are 1. A sight of sin as sin in our selves whereby we are miserable The 2. Is saith whereby we believe that God being satisfyed and attoned by the blood of Christ will be mercifull and pardon sin This faith
presupposeth knowledge of the promise and a serious consideration 1. That it's God who promiseth 2. That the thing promised is everlasting life and all things necessarily conducing thereunto 3. The termes upon which it is to be obtayned and enjoyed And the principal is sincerely to submit under the Power and wholly rely upon the mercy of God Redeemer by Christ for remission of sin and eternall Salvation which Christ hath merited and God will give This Remission and eternall life are promised for Christs sake and the Promise it self is made for and in the consideration of his death and these things as promised are a mighty motive and powerfully work upon the heart of man to incline it to submission and if ever they prevayle this submission will follow The promise binds God gives hope moves mans heart and presents unto the soul the unspeakable benefit to follow upon the Performance of the duty and that certainly without any doubt This submission presupposeth certain dutyes antecedent and includes virtually all Particular dutyes following This word as written in a book § VIII or uttered outwardly by man or Angel may represent unto sinfull man both what he must do and what God upon his performance will give and by the senses be conveyed to the soul of man and cause him to understand and approve of the justice of the duty and excellency of the benefit promised and may incline man to some moral submission Yet such is the blindnesse of mans understanding in respect of these heavenly mysteryes and perversenesse and depravation of the will that without some power to pâ—riâ—ie and rectifie the soul this word of calling will prove insufficient Both this blindnesse and depravation are the greater to such as are at age by reason of false notions and errours and the habits of sin Therefore with the word is required the Spirit and divine power not onely to convey the word close unto the soul but also to prepare qualifie and fit it for the reception and entertainment of the Word This is evident by the experience of all times For the very words of our Saviour Christ who spake as never man spake and confirmed his Doctrin not only by his holy life but by such works as never man did or could do proved not effectuall upon the greatest part of his hearers Therefore said he No man can come unto me except the Father draw him Joh. 6. 44. To draw us is a work of power not a meere outward Word or Writing In the new Covenant God doth promise to put his lawes in our minds and write them in our hearts And this is said to be done by putting his Spirit within us and so causing us to walk in his Statutes and keep his judgments to do them Ezek. 36. 27. And before this can be effected he must take away our stony hearts and give us hearts of flesh One effect of this Spirit is generally granted to be illumination another to be sanctification of the heart This illumination may not be onely a restoring of a spirituall sight and viâ—ve power but also a more clear representation of the things spoken in the Word and the same more immediate and in an higher light This cannot be done except it free the soul from false notions and errours in matters of Religion This sanctification of the heart doth certainly subdue if not wholly take away predominant lusts and elevate and perfect the rationall appetite by giving and imparting a divine sense and Vigour whereby it more effectually doth relish heavenly things but reject and abhorr evil and sin I will not here dispute whether this Spirit be a distinct thing or power different from the Word of God as spoken immediately by himself to the soul of man or it be the very same No doubt the Word of God as the word of God is power For as it is said of Thunder naturally so its true of this Word spiritually The voyce of the Lord is powerfull the Voyce of the Lord is full of Majesty and it breaketh the Cedars and shaketh the Wildernesse So this word as his is powerfull and full of Majesty able to break the most stony and senslesse stubborn heart and shake it in pieces If it come close unto the soul it cleares the understanding dispels the mists and foggs of errour pierceth the inward parts and makes most lively and lasting impressions upon the same As I will not diâ—pute this point of difference between the word and this power so I will not perplex thâ— Reader nor amaze him with the controversie concerning the manner of conversion the resistibility or irresistibility of grace and the necessitation of the Will of man The manner of conversion is to us unsearchable both because we are ignorant of the nature of the immortall Soul and because much more are we ignorant of the manner of Gods working upon that immortall Spirit As for the resistibility or irresistibility of grace we know that the power of God is Almighty and cannot be resisted by any created strength if he please to exercise it to the full or in some high measure But if God give power to the creature or work by that created power given it may be resisted by a contrary created power And so grace or the power of conversion as a created thing in man may be so given as to be resisted by the Will of man And both the understanding of man will and doth either deny or doubt of divine truths represented to the soul and the Will will wrangle oppose and reject or not sincerely affect and submit unto the divine commands and promises And hence the many conflicts not onely in conversion but after we are converted As for necessitation of the will in this work of divine calling its certaine and granted of all that the illumination of the understanding may be necessary so farr as the soul in respect of the same is onely passive though in the apprehension and judgement concerning the truths represented by the Word it be active Besides God may give an active power to the Will and it may be passive in receiving of it and also necessitated to an act of complacency in generall so that it necessarily may approve by a generall approbation of the justice and equity of the command and the excellency of the good promised For even a wicked Medaea may truly say Video Meliora Proboque And a simple apprehension of a thing as good much morâ— an act of judgement may produce an act of approbation complacency and volition in generall and the good represented may be not onely approved as good in respect of the contrary evill but as better in respect of that good which is apprehended as lesse For it 's not possible to apprehend good as good and not approve it because as Bradwardine saith well in that respect it is not Objectum nolubile Yet notwithstanding this necessary and naturall act of complacency that act of the Will which Buridan
opposition of these Enemies their cruelty the sufferings of God's People God frustrating of their Designs and confounding of their Counsels His Defence His mâ—ny and strange Deliverances the Valour of God's Saints and their glorious Victories mentioned in the Scripture would require a whole Volume and be an excellent Subject of some Sacred Pen. As this Administration refers to the Church the Subjects of God-Redeemer by Christ the Parts thereof are LAWES And JVDGMENT For as there be two Branches of this Supream Power § II the one of Legislation and the other of Jurisdiction so the Parts of this Administration which is the Exercise of this two-fold Power are Laws or rather giving of Laws or judging according to these Laws For these Laws are the Rules of this Administration of the Subjects Duty and of God's Judgment as the Judgment puts the Laws in execution according to the obedience or disobedience of the Subjects Concerning these Laws we may observe 1. That they bind the Conscience and the Immortal Souls to obedience and make men upon their disobedience liable not onely to Temporal but Spiritual and Eternal Punishments And in Judgment God takes cognizance of all causes even the most secret and spiritual and rewards and punisheth accordingly 2. The Church was never without these Laws since God made the first Promise of Christ. 3. They were made known and promulgate before the Exhibition of Christ by Angels and Men and by men either immediatly inspired as by extraordinary Prophets or by ordinary Prophets Priests and other Teachers The Decalogue which we call the Moral Law was once delivered by God in wonderful manner upon Mount Sinai And after Christ was exhibited they were promulgated by Christ His Apostles Prophets Evangelists and after that by ordinary Pastours and Teachers The Gospel began to be made known by our Lord Jesus Christ Heb. 2. 3. 4. They are delivered to us and reserved in the Church by Word and Writing 5. They are not bare Precepts Prohibitions Threatnings and Promises but have annexed many Admonitions Reproofs Exhortations Dehortations absolute Denunciations of Judgments and Examples The Examples are delivered in the Historical Part and they set before us the Obedience and Vertues of some and their Rewards with the Disobedience Apostacy Rebellions of others and their Punishments And all these are further illustrated by Parables and Similitudes and the same Commands and Prohibitions repeated often in several parts of the Scriptures The final and universal Judgment with many other particulars of this Administration we may read in the Prophetical Part. 6. All these are Laws of God-Redeemer who doth not expect from sinfull man perfect and perpetual Obedience nor promise Eternal Life upon that condition but upon the Faith of Christ's Satisfaction and Merit 7. They presuppose man sinful and destitute of all power to observe them Therefore they require obedience by way of Return to be performed by the power of the Spirit merited by Christ and restored in great mercy unto us And which is strange Obedience as Obedience and performed by us gives us no Title unto everlasting life For it 's derived by the Promise of God from the merit of Jesus Christ from and for which we receive our Faith and Obedience 8. Some of these Laws were Temporary and to stand in force onely for a time Some perpetual and after they were once given to continue unto the Worlds end These Laws must be considered 1. As a Rule of Man's Duty § III 2. Of God's Judgment In respect of the Commands they bind man to duty and are the Rule thereof In respect of the Promises and Threatnings they are the Rule of God's Judgment As they are the Rule of Man's Duty they are either Moral or Positive The Moral require or presuppose Subjection unto God not onely as Creatour but Redeemer in the first place The Moral Law as such is of perpetual obligation and was given to Adam innocent and continues in force for ever yet as it is purely Moral Yet the obligation thereof which followed the Promise of the Redeemer differed much from the former as it bound Adam innocent as shall appear hereafter at large This Law is called Moral not merely because it 's Regula morum a Rule of Humane Actions for so other Laws may be but to distinguish it from Laws Positive as Judicial and Ceremonial be and because the Acts commanded by it are intrinsecally just For we must not so much attend to the proper signification as the use of words And it 's so called not by the Prophets or Apostles but by Latine Christian Writers especially of later times The reason why it is of perpetual obligation is because God having made man righteous and holy never gave him liberty to be unrighteous and unholy and He always bound him to love his God himself his neighbour The Duties thereof arise from the Natural Relation of Man unto God and unto his Neighbour therefore called the Law of Nature The very frame and constitution of his reasonable and immortal Soul and of his Body did dictate the Equity and Justice of this Law Some therefore say that this Law did result from the Image of God wherein Man was created Yet there are degrees of Morality For some acts are more immediately Moral Others derive their Morality from some other and are such at second hand In the Decalogue all the Commandements derive their Morality from the first And all the Precepts of the second Table receive their Morality from the last as that receives Morality from the first of the first Table Some are Moral in this life which shall cease to be so in the life to come And we must diligently consider what Duties are purely Moral and of perpetual continuance Consider the matter of this Law as consisting in so many Rules or Propositions of Divine Wisdom and Justice as abstracted from the Nature of a Law and the commands of God's Legislative Will and the same known unto man if he act according to these Rules he may be capable of reward yet can have no title to it if he act contrary he may be worthy of punishment yet not bound to suffer it But consider the Parts and Branches of it not onely as Rules and Acts of the Understanding but of Gods Legislative Will so they have the form of Laws and such God's Will hath determined them to be unto Man The nature of them as Laws is to bind unto obeâ—ience or upon disobedience unto punishment This is that which they call active obligation which is the essential act of a Law Passive obligation whereby Man is bound flows necessarily from the essence of it That this Law should have a Promise of Eternal Life annexed unto it upon condition of obedience and a threatning of Eternal Death upon Disobedience was accidental unto it That if Man sinned he should actually suffer the punishment threatned was so too That the particular Precepts thereof should be Articles of a Covenant was not
essential And that perfect and perpetual obedience should be that condition upon which perâ—ormed it was God's Will Eternal Life should follow and no ways else was accidental So likewise it was that the sin of one should be the sin of all and His Death their death For the Law might have been a Law without any such thing This Law may be considered § IV 1. As given to Adam and in him to all Mankind 2. As continued yet with several accidental and extrinsecal alterations in the Kingdom of God-Redeemer As it was given to Adam it 's of a two-fold consideration in respect 1. Of him as Innocent 2. Of him as Fallen Adam as Innocent received this Law and it was given unto him as righteous and holy by Creation and he was able to keep it And he was bound to perform it perfectly and perpetually together with other Positives And this perfect and perpetual obedience was the onely condition of life to him and his and one sin one committed made him and his liable to death After that Adam and in him all his had sinned it was a Law of Sin and Death unto them and if God had made it a standing Rule of Judgment in strict Justice man must needs have bâ—en condemned to Eternal Death and there was no hope or possibility of Eternal Life by this Law For suppose God had pardoned this first sin and yet continued this Law in force man could not have been saved by it For he lost the Spirit of Sanctification and if God had continued to say Do this and live because he could not do this he could not live Neither was there any Promise of a Saviour to expiate his sin nor of the Spirit to enable him to keep it nor of Pardon upon expiation made if he afterwards transgressed it After that God in passing Sentence upon the Devil had said § V that the Seed of the Woman should bruise the Serpents Head this Law continued but with a great alteration in respect of man A Redeemer who should satisfie God's Justice and merit God's favour unto man was promised his satisfaction accepted the Spirit restored pardon and eternal life promised Faith in the Redeemer made the condition of life the Law of the forbidden Fruit ceased the Law of Works as the condition of life and rule of judgment for punishments and rewards repealed And all this was done in great mercy by God as Supream and absolute Lord above his own Law which bound not Him the Soveraign but Man His Subject Thus much I observed when I spake of the Judgment which God passed upon the Authors of the first sin But how the Law-Moral continued you shall hear-anon The knowledge of this Law § VI as applyed to the Acts Dispositions Habits of men is commonâ—y called Conscience which is nothing else but the knowledge of a man's Acts Dispositions Habits as agreeable or disagreeable to this or other Laws of God This Knowledge in respect of acts future is the Law of God within him to bind him to obedience and restrain him from disobedience In respect of acts past it 's a Judge within himself or a Witness for or against him before the Tribunal of God This it is properly yet tropically in Scripture it 's several times taken in another sense according to the several adjuncts thereof For the practical judgment of man is sometimes more sometimes less perfect and great is his Ignorance and many his Errours both in matter of Law and of Fact and most of all in applying the Law unto the Fact or Fact unto the Law Sometimes it 's a false Witness and an unjust Judge and hence man's Security in greatest Guilt and Despair when there is hope of Mercy This Knowledge of this Law-Moral in Adam innocent was more perfect § VII in his Posterity more imperfect For the enlightening Spirit was taken from him it was not so purely diligently constantly taught neither was the outward Revelation thereof renewed to all Besides the erroneous Traditions without the Corruptions of man's Heart within with other vicious Habits together with God's just judgment had much impaired this Knowledge though not utterly razed it out For even the wicked Heathen who had not the Law written yet by Nature did something contained in the Law and were a Law unto themselves which did shew the Works of the Law of God written in their hearts Rom. 2. 13 14 15. Yet the knowledge of it was always preserved in the Church by constant Teaching and reiterated Revelations improving the Natural Light of Reason Yet some Positives and Ceremonials were always added and it was joyned to the Law of Faith God renewed the Doctrine of it more perfectly and in a more solemn manner unto Israel both by an audible Voice and by writing it in Tables of stone Moses and the Prophets Christ and His Apostles more fully and clearly explain it And by outward Teaching and inward Illumination God writes it by degrees in the hearts of His people The use of the Law may be considered § VIII 1. In respect of the Gentile 2. Of the Jew 3. Of the Church in general but especially Christian. In respect of the Gentiles who had other positive Laws and Customs either by Tradition or the invention of the Devil and wicked men this moral-Moral-Law so far as it was left written in their hearts taught them their Duty to the onely true God and also unto Man For it was a Rule in matters of Religion and in matters of Justice unto them both as they were single persons and also associated in a Family or a Common-wealth It was the Rule of their Civil Government both in making Laws and in Judgment And according to the violation of this Law God judged single persons Families Nations and Kingdoms And the knowledge thereof which they had or might have had though imperfect did manifest in their own Conscience the justice of God's Judgments executed upon them And so much the more because by His patience long-suffering and bounty together with this law he sought to draw them to Repentance But they holding the truth of God in unrighteousness and continuing impenitent were inexcusable and justly delivered up unto a Reprobate mind as may appear Rom. 1. from ver 18. ad finem Chap. 2. from ver 1. to the 17th And they that disobeyed this clear light of Nature were justly punished by God with the ignorance of Jesus Christ and the want of the Laws and Promises of God-Redeemer It was of singular use to the Jew For § IX 1. It was added to the Promise made to Abraham four hundred and thirty years before 2. It was so revealed that it reduced all Moral Duties to a few Heads and digesteâ— those Heads into an exact and excellent Method and was given with a special application to that People 3. It was Supernaturally written in two Tables of Stone that it might be reserved in the Ark as a rare and lasting Monument from Heaven
be without sorrow for sin past Humiliation hatred of sin a love of God and desire to please Him 3. This Obedience cannot be performed without the Spirit merited by Christ and restored unto us first to prepare us then to dwell in us by degrees renewing the Image of God and imprinting it upon us 4. We must be in Christ as the Branch in the Vine and be conformed unto His Death and Resurrection before we can perform any obedience acceptable to God so as to tend towards the attainment of Everlasting Life For without me saith Christ ye can do nothing Joh. 15. 5. And we are God's Workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works Ephes. 2. 10. It 's one thing to do that which is Morally good as the Heathen might do and be rewarded Temporally another to perform Christian obedience 5. It presupposeth Faith whereby we are united unto Christ and sincere Faith is virtually Repentance and all Obedience and a part and beginning thereof 6. This Obedience is imperfect and defective in the best man living upon Earth and therefore is not the condition of life For if the Moral Law should be in force so as it was to Adam at the first to require and bind man unto perfect and perpetual obedience or else upon one act of Disobedience unto Death no man could be saved Therefore that manner of strict Obligation ceaseth unto sinful man for ever To think that the Promises Threats and Obligation of the Law of Works continue under the Gospel or remain at any time in the Kingdom of God-Redeemer is an errour and a great mistake It 's one thing to bind unto perfect obedience another to bind unto perfect obedience as the condition of life This latter was essential even to the Moral-Law as given to Adam at the first and in that respect it 's truly and properly said that the Law of Works is abâ—ogated The Law binds according to the will and pleasure of the Law-giver and no otherwise If Man perform not perfect obedience and yet be bound unto it he is in the hands of his Judge above the Law to dispose of him as he pleaseth 7. This obedience is performed to God-Redeemer as satisfied atoned and propitiated by the bloud of Christ who hath merited that it should be accepted and rewarded In this respect it 's not proper nay it 's not true to say that God in the Moral Law binds man to perfect or perpetual obedience For so He doth not He binds to perfect and perpetual obedience which he neither doth nor can perform or to punishment suffered by his Saviour and upon Faith in him removable not to obedience and punishment too For time-past Man hath been already disobedient and for time to come he will not be perfectly obedient till the time of glory Yet the Suffering of Christ doth not free man sinning from all suffering For it 's the Will of God that even regenerate men should suffer much for their own sins Yet man's suffering cannot satisfie it may dispose him through the help of God's sanctifying Spirit to Repentance and make him capable of the benefit of that Suffering which hath satisfied the Justice of God who hath accepted it for sinful disobedient Man pleading his Saviours suffering This Obligation of the Law is purely Evangelical and in this respect the Precept and the Condition are of equal extent as well as they were in the time of the Law of Works 8. Faith and Repentance as they are Acts of Obedience in general are commanded in the Moral Law Yet as Faith is in God-Redeemer and Repentance a return to obedience to be performed to God in Christ by the Spirit of Christ they are not to be found in the Law at all as such they are purely Evangelical and conditions of life even to sinful guilty man Though Faith and Obedience as different from Faith be conditions of the New-Covenant yet there is both a difference and an inequality between them as a condition Faith unites us unto Christ from whom immediately by viture of the Promise we derive a right to Justification and so to Life In which respect it may be said to be a Title-Condition that is â—a condition upon which follows immediately a right to Righteousness and Life Faith considered as Faith in general in it self cannot be a Title without reference to Christ's merit and God's Promise For Faith this Faith is terminated upon both and as such and no ways else is Saving The Promise is a kind of Donation of Righteousness and Life as purchased by Christ and God's the Donour and the Believer by his Faith becomes the Doneè Good Works are a condition and all obedience which follows and flows from Faith as distinct from Faith yet virtually included in Faith is so too Obedience is two-fold 1. In Morals 2. In Positives Obedience in Morals and good Works as morally good are a condition not to give a right but to render a man capable of communion with God and make him fit for the possession of that life Christ hath purchased For without Holiliness we cannot see God and except we walk in the light as he is light we can have no communion with him and till our obedience in Morals be perfect we can have no full fruition of him Obedience in Positives is a condition yet neither as giving right nor making man capable but because God's institution makes them binding except in case of necessity wherein God dispenseth with Man This is so far a condition that life follows thereupon if it be joyned with Faith and Obedience in Morals and in case of Contempt life will not follow not be communicable From all this we may understand that there is a twofoâ—dness of the Moral Law Evangelically considered 1. To discover sin 2. To be a Rule of Obedience Thus the Composers of our Liturgie did understand it and that rightly according to the Scripture when they added this short Petition Lord have mercy upon us and incline our hearts to keep this Law after every Commandement This Petition is two-fold For 1. Pardon of sin that is past 2. For Grace to enable them to keep it for time to come The first includes a confession of sin a Belief in Christ and a Petition for pardon The second an acknowledgment of their inability to keep it a necessity of the sanctifying Spirit a Petition or the same and the end and effect thereof obtained which is to incline their hearts to keep it And after all the Commandements and every particular they desire God to give them a general pardon of all sins against this Law and such a measure of Grace as that they might perform an Universal Obedience For so the Petition runs Write all these thy Laws in our hearts we beseech thee In the next place § XII let us consider what hath been the binding force of it in all times since it was first given to Man To this purpose we must observe many things
1. That as purely Moral it is always in force and God did never at any time dispense with it but made it the Foundation of all other Laws and it shall continue in force in Heaven For in the very estate of perfect glory all the Subjects of that eternal glorious Kingdom shall be bound eternally to love their God themselves and one another 2. God bound Adam in the day of Creation to the perfect and perpetual personal obedience of this Law and of other Positives as the onely condition of life and so that upon one sin he and all his should be liable to death without any remedy as from that Law This was the highest obligation 3. After that Adam and in him all his had once sinned this Law with the Positives did render him liable and bound to death 4. After that Christ was once promised as a Surety and Hostage to satisfie God's Justice offended by the sin of man it made him liable to death and all such punishments as God should inflict upon him 5. After the Fall of Adam it was in force so fa◠as to bind all such as were out of the Church to Temporal and Eternal Punishments for their sins against it without any hope of Pardon and all such as were in the visible Church to Temporal and Eternal Punishments no ways removable but upon Faith in the Death of Christ. 6. It is in force always since sinful Man received the New Law and Covenant of Grace to bind him to repentance present repentance and return unto the sincere obedience of it to be performed by the power of the Spirit 7. It always is in force to bind the Regenerate Children of God here on Earth to endeavour and aym at an universal perpetual and perfect obedience and upon defect or default presently to return to God-Redeemer for mercy and pardon of what is past to be obtained by a Plea of Christ's Satisfaction and Merit and also further for the continuance and increase of His Sanctifying Grace Lastly after that Man is perfectly sanctified it 's so far in force as to bind him to perfect and eternal obedience unto it Such is the excellency of this Law as purely Moral that 1. If Man had kept it God would give life by it 2. That God never gave Man a liberty to be free from the Obligation of it 3. That God would never pardon any sinne against it without satisfaction made by the Blood of Christ believed and pleaded by sinful Man 4. That Christ merited and God restored the Spirit of Sanctification that Man might keep it 5. That He will not spare His own children when they transgress it by heynous and especially scandalous sins 6. That no Man can have union with Christ except he willingly separate from sin and return to the obedience of this Law 7. That no man can have full communion with God before he perfectly obey it 8. That there is one great change in respect of this Law First perfect Obedience unto it with other Positives was made the onely condition of life But afterwards that Promise of Life upon those strict tearms and that severe commination of Death upon Sin were abolished and Faith was made the onely condition of life So that it may be truly said that the Law of Works is abrogated but not the Moral Law considered in it Self Yet this change was but accidental as before These things premised § III concerning the Moral Law in general I proceed unto the Exposition of the DECALOGVE which though it was given to the Jewes contains the Heads and Method of the Morall Law And it may be considered either as a part of the Law of Works or merely as the Moral Law in general or as part of the Gospel in an Evangelical Notion As it was delivered in that terrible manner with these Clauses Do this and live and Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things written in this Book it had something of the Law of Works in it As it was annexed to the Promise made to Abraham and joyned with the Ceremonies typifying Christ it was Evangelical As considered in general abstracted from both these it was an Abridgement of the Moral Law respecting Man in this life not in the life to come It 's to be understood not strictly as given to Israel at that time but in a Latitude as it is explained in other parts of the Books of Moses especially in Deuteronomy in the Prophets and most of all as in the New Testament where it is explained by our Blessed Saviour and the Duties thereof pressed by Him and the Apostles upon all Christians And this is an Argument that some ways it continues in force in the Gospel As delivered in Exodus and repeated in Deuteronomy it rather contains the Heads to which other Duties not there expressed may be reduced rather then the Principles from whence they may be deduced It 's abridged in many places of Moses the Prophets and Apostles Yet that of our Saviour is most perfect wherein according to Moses he reduceth all to Love For Love is the whole Law This Loves either of God or of our Neighbour To love God above all is the first and great Commandement of the first Table To love our Neighbour as our Selves is the last Commandement of the second Table These two are purely Moral especially the former and the rest are such by participation as before Therefore the first is said to be the great Commandement The last to be like it CHAP. VII An Exposition of the Moral Law as methodically reduced to Ten Heads in the Decalogue by God himself And of the first Commandement With the Preface THE Decalogue so called by the Septuagint § I because consisting of ten words or Commands we find first delivered Exod. 20. and repeated Deut. 5. Wherein we have 1. The Preface 2. The Precepts or Commandements themselves The Preface is two-fold 1. Of Moses the Historian 2. Of God Himself The first Preface in these words God spake all these words The meaning is that 1. These Words or Commandements for so the Word in the Original sometimes signifies These I say and none else 2. These and all these 3. Were spoken published and promulgate 4. By God and God alone immediately in a wonderful and extraordinary manner in the hearing of all Israel prepared and assembled before Mount Sina in Arabia By this we understand that God Himself was the La-wgiver and the immediate Author of this Law And therefore it 's more excellent then any Law or Laws of any Nation in the World And seeing He spake these and these onely these and all these it 's not for Man to add and diminish And all and every one are authentick and of Divine Authority in an high degree The second Preface we have in these words I am the Lord thy God who brought thee out of the Land of Aegypt out of the House of Bondage This second Preface is of God
particular dutyes here commanded § XIII we must out of the Scripture observe the particular institutions of God Some of these were required of God in all times as Word and Prayer For the Church did alwayes serve their God in these two neither could it at any time continue a Church without them There be two acts of worship in respect of the word Teaching and Learning it as the onely Doctrine revealed from Heaven to direct man unto eternall life It might be taught by many kind of Persons and many ways The Persons were extraordinary as Prophets and Apostles and such as were immediately inspired from Heaven or ordinary private or publique Every Person and Servant of God endued with the knowledge thereof might instruct one another every man his Brother Parents were bound to instruct their Children and Masters their Servants But the Publique Teachers in Congregations and Assemblies were persons of more eminent knowledge designed for this purpose as ordinary Prophets Levites and Doctours amongst the Israelites Presbyters and Ministers who are called Pastours and Teachers in the time of the Goâ—pel and also Catechists Therefore the Ordination and Publick Approbation of Teachers according to the Rules of the Word of God is hither to be reduced as a part of Worship This Doctrine for the manner is taught by Word or by Writing By word of mouth as by Preaching Expounding Catechizing The learning of this Word is also a part of this Service And to this belongs Hearing Reading Conference and asking and proposing Questions to receive Answers and Instruction Meditation Repetition For the means by which the knowledge of this Heavenly and Saving-Doctrine is either communicated or received are hither to be referred This Teaching and Hearing are Duties as commanded by God and instituted by Him as a part of His Worship Yet such it is not except the Doctrine taught and heard be Divine and from Heaven and as such taught and received by an undoubted assent and acknowledgment of it as infallible In the teaching of this Word Precepts must be delivereâ— as Precepts Prohibitions as Prohibitions Promises as Promises Threatnings as Threatnings Reproofs as Reproofs Exhortations as Exhortations and so of the rest of the distinct parts of this Word To communicate and receive this Word as a means to know God His Works and His Will is a Duty of this Commandement but to communicate and receive it as the Word of the everlasting King and onely Lord with the highest degree of honour and respect is a Duty of the first Commandement And God in His Wisdom ordained this signification of His Mind by Word and Writing as far more excellent and perfect than that by Images and the works of mens hands as not only base and imperâ—ect but dangerous and unsafe This of Word was more sutable unto the Nature and Constitution of Man as a Rational Creature who had a Tongue given him to speak and teach and an Ear to hear and learn and an Eye to read not onely in the Book of Gods gloriouâ— Works but also of His Blessed Writings And when He gave this Law He spake it and did write it but did not represent and signifie it by any Image much less by any work of mens hands This Representation by His Word was the purest and the best for man that this life is capable of Prayer is another principal part § XIV both of publique and private Worship and instituted by God And as it is to be made to God and God alone so it 's to be referred to the first Commandement as a means of our converse and communion with God so it is required in this And by this it 's evident that no man can observe this Commandement except he observe the former And here we must distinguish between the matter the form and the outward expression of Prayer All these must be such as God hath instituted and prescribed to Man in His Word and agreeable to the same There may some circumstances observable in the performance of this Duty be left unto the Reason and Prudence of Man For God hath not determined all the Particulars to be observed in the Method the outward expressions the gestures This Prayer may be in private and in secret the work onely of the Soul But with company and in publique there must be outward expressions and gestures of the body The outward expressions without the inward acts and affections of the Soul are not properly a Prayer but onely a carkass thereof To draw near unto God with the Lips and not with the 〈◊〉 is a poor service and no ways worthy to be called the act of a Man as he is a Rational Creature much less the Worship of God To this head of Prayer may be reduced Praise Thanksgiving Confession of 〈◊〉 singing of Psalms which if they be merely Doctrinal belong unto the Word iâ— any thing of Petition Praise Thanksgiving to be offered to God be in them then they belong to this of Prayer Fasting also and Humiliation is annexed to Petition and especially Deprecation may come under this Head Publick Prayer in an unknown Language is both unprofitable and unwarrantable For the People ignorant of the Language wherein it is expressed cannot say Amen Yet Set-Forms and premeditated Prayers are not unlawful if they be offered to God with Understanding Attention and Affection neither do they as some sonâ—â—ly affirm stint the Spirit of Supplication They may be a great help unto weaker Christians and supply their deâ—ects Yet for men to tye themselves to such or such a form of words with affectation as though there were some greater efficacy in thsoe words and expressions then in others as good and significant as they can be no less then Superstition For so to do is to turn Prayer into a Charm or Inchantment Again to tye our selves to a form 〈…〉 neglect those gifts which God hath given us cannot be excused for it 's ceâ—tainâ—y a â—ault The forms and expressions used in Scripture if rightly applyed 〈◊〉 the best But assectate and curious tearms and the gaudy colours of Rhetorâ—â—â— used by some in their Devotion are not tollerable For we must not compâ—eâ—ent with our great and glorious God To think we cannot so well say Amen â—o the devout and godly Prayers of others which we know not before we heâ—r them as to those Set-Forms which we know and have used before is a Foolery To offer unto God some part of our goods to relieve the Poor or maintain His Worship or for some other Religious Uâ—e is a Duty here required So likewise to give Him some part of our time To consecrate the seventh part of our time belongs unto the â—ourth Commandement as it determines that distinct portion To this Commandement belong all Ceremonies instituted by God and especially Sacraments as Circumcision and the Passover before the Exhibition of Christ and His coming in the flesh and Baptism and the Lords Supper in the times of the Gospel
Promises and Threats he hath dealt not onely with private Persons but Kingdoms and States For he hath blessed such as did observe the Sabbath and cursed such as did prophane it This is evident not onely from the History of the Scriptures but from his Judgments in all Times We might easily by observation understand it in our Times It 's somewhat remarkable and not altogether to be neglected that even in this Nation upon the publike allowance of Sports and Recreations upon the Lords Day which is our Christian Sabbath Civil and Bloody Wars and ruine of the Royal Family should so shortly follow and that the hand of God should be most against those who by Writing Words or Practise had maintained the lawfulness of that Doctrine I forbear to cite the particular places of Scripture whence these Reasons are taken and the Examples of God's Judgments because this is done already by many others who have written of the Sabbath Before I conclude this Doctrine of the Sabbath § XVII it will be expedient to say something of the Lords Day which we Christians observe and as Christians are bound to sanctifie These things I suppose will be granted by rational and impartial men 1. That we under the Gospel are as much bound to serve and worship God as the Jews were under the Law 2. That the Lords-Day is as necessary for the preservation and continuance of Religion as the Jewish Sabbath was 3. It 's as fit and as due proportion of time as theirs was For our condition in respect of the business and necessities of this life did not differ from theirs but is the same 4. It 's as useful and conducing to our Spiritual good and the attaining of our Eternal Sabbath as theirs 5. It 's the 7th part of our time and a 7th day in order as theirs also was and so consecrates no less time to God but so much as the Commandement requires 6. The morality of the Commandement and the principal thing therein aimed at is not this or that 7th day but this or that 7th day which God shall determine for Sanctification 7. As God set a Character upon their Day so He hath upon ours Upon the 7th Day He rested from the great Work of Creation and therefore sanctified and blessed it and honoured it above other days and in remembrance of the great and glorious Work of Creation He commanded the Day to be observed So upon the first Day of the Week when Christ had finished His great Work of Redemption He began His Everlasting Sabbath For upon this Day He rose again upon this Day He sent down the Holy Ghost and by these two glorious Works He honoured this Day above all others even above their Sabbath The Creation was a glorious Work the Redemption is more glorious The Creation is a great benefit the Redemption is greater And if we must remember the former we must much more remember the latter If the Day whereon He rested from the former be fit to be observed much more is the Day wherein He rested from the latter The Resurrection of the Son of God made Man and the sending down of the Holy Ghost are never to be forgotten but eternally to be remembred by Christians For upon them depend our Eternal Salvation and without them we cannot attain unto or enter into our Everlasting Rest. And he is unworthy the Name much more the Priviledges of a Christian that will not remember these things And we can hardly find any to have dis-esteemed or neglected this Day but they were either prophane Wretches or giddy Sectaries and Hereticks For the alteration of the Day to be sanctified § XVIII there was great reason For 1. Seeing Christ did not rise again nor send down the Holy Ghost upon the Iewish Sabbath but upon the first day of the Week there was more reason to observe this our first then that their last Day of the Week And surely seeing Christ could have risen upon their Sabbath and sent down the Holy Ghost upon that Day and yet did not either of them upon the same nor any other Day of the Week there was some reason in it And by singling out this time for those Blessed Works He did intimate that this should be His Day wherein all Christians should honour Him to the end of the World and that the former Sabbath was to be laid aside 2. The former Sabbath did several ways respect the Jews in particular 1. As having the Ceremonial Law annexed unto it the Services and Rites whereof were to be observed in the Tabernacle and Temple upon this Day 2. It was a Sign between God and them that they might know that it was the Lord which did sanctifie them Exod. 31. 13 17. Ezek. 20. 12. So that it was part of that Partition-Wall whereby they were separated from the Gentiles Therefore after that Christ was risen the Holy Ghost given from Heaven upon this Day the Apostles received Commission to preach unto all Nations and God taking away the Partition-Wall made of both one Body-Politick in Religion it was though altogether convenient to surrogate the Lords-Day in the place of the former Sabbath and upon these grounds the first day of the week began to be observed in the days of the Apostles and had the name of the Lords-Day and both the observation and the name have universally amongst Christians continued since that time By laying aside the former Day was signified that the Covenant with the Fathers which had this Sabbath annexed was now with that Day expired and abolished by a more excellent time which succeeded it which being sanctified by us doth distinguish us from the unbelieving Jew in all Nations For by it we profess our Belief of Christ's Resurrection and our Sanctification by the Holy Ghost sent down from Heaven Many remain to this day unsatisfied § XIX and doubt of the Morality of the fourth Commandement and if it were Moral by what Authority the Sabbath of the Jews determined in that Commandement of the Moral-Law given unto them could be altered For the Morality of it we must observe as before 1. That some Commandements were primitively some derivatively moral so that there were degrees of morality in that Law which is called Moral and in that respect though they were all moral yet there is a great inequality in their morality 2. This Commandement as some others have something positive in it 3. This Commandement was positive in respect of the time For neither time in general nor this or that particular time nor this or that portion of time as a day one day in seven this or that 7th day are moral They are not intrinsecally good nor have any connexion inseparable with the last end and felicity of man 4. This Commandement derives its morality ab extrinseco from the Divine Determination of the time and the Rest for Sanctification commanded in that time The Sanctification of one 7th determinate day every week
for the worship of the true and living God as it was a fit proportion of man's time and excellent means for the preservation and continuance of Religion had some connexion with the supream end and did conduce to the attaining of it The Divine Determination of that time for that end signified by a Command added did plainly make it moral For the alteration of the day it 's certain 1. That if God had in the beginning determined one and the same 7th Day to be of perpetual and universal obligation § XX then it could not be justly and by any sufficient Authority altered 2. It 's certain that the day prescribed to the Jew in time of the servitude and bondage of the Law was altered and another substituted and observed in the place thereof 3. This was altered after Christ's Incarnation and Glorification sending down of the Holy Ghost the Revelation of the Gospel preached to Jew and Gentile and in the Apostles days according to an Order given by them to the Churches planted by them 1 Cor. 16. 1 2 4. The day substituted was the first day of the week ibid. and the Lords Day and was so called and observed universally by Christians from that time to our days 4. In that one day in 7 as also this or that 7th day were positive and not moral therefore the 7th formerly observed by the Jew was alterable considered in it self 5. The 4th Commandement given to the Jew did not say that that 7th day determined then by Him should never be altered but be the Sabbath to Jew and Gentile to the end of the World 6. There were as you heard before great and weighty Reasons why the Apostles not onely might but should aâ—ter it For if the Character set upon it by the Work of Creation and the deliverance of Israel out of Aegypt the separation of them from all Nations till the exhibition of the Messias was a reason and ground to God for to institute and for them to observe them much more was the Character set upon the first day of the week by Christ's Resurrection the general manifestations and apparitions of him rise uon that day and the coming of the Holy Ghost as far greater blessings to sinful man then Creation and deliverance out of Aegypt was a sufficient ground and reason to lay aside the former day as joyned with the Ceremonial Law the Covenant with their Fathers in the Wilderness and the separation of the Jews from all other Nations and to institute and observe the first day unto God-Redeemer by Christ exhibited as the former was observed to God-Creatour and Deliverer of one Nation out of Aegypt Neither was there any need of a new express Precept seeing to the Apostles the Reasons for the alteration were so weighty clear and evincing For the former Sabbath being joyned with the Ceremonial Law given to the Jew did presuppose the Church confined to a Nation the Gentiles excluded the people of God in minority and servitude under a Tutor and Christ fo come therefore for the positive part it was to cease with the legal dispensation And as there followed a new manner of Worship and a new Administration so there must be a new day The Commandement it self requires one day in seven and if so then no day could be so fit as the day of Resurrection and the coming down of the Holy Ghost from Heaven By the observation of this we acknowledge the Levitical Priesthood and Service to be abolished Christ exhibited the Work of Redemption finished and that Jesus of Nazareth who was born at Bethlem brought up at Nazareth crucified at Jerusalem rose again the third day ascended into Heaven hath sent down the Holy Ghost is the Son of God and Saviour of the World CHAP. XI The Fifth Commandement BEfore I enter upon the words of this Commandement § I Something must be said in general 1. Concerning the difference 2. The order of these two parts of the Law For our Saviour reduceth the whole Law to two heads 1. Of the Love of God 2. Of our Neighbour And as God and our Neighbour differ and that very much so the dutyes of this latter part differ from those of the former for as the former have God for their object so these have Man The former respect our communion with God the latter our communion with our Neighbour The former presents the dutyes of men as subjects to be performed to their Soveraign the Great and everlasting the latter commands dutyes to be performed to man who is the fellow-Subject The former give morality to the latter The latter receive morality from the former and depend upon them and are so far good as they agree with the former The former have more connexion with as they conduced more immediately unto the last end Gods glory and Mans happinesse So that the difference between them is very great According to this difference there is an inequality It 's true that they are equall as they are commands and also commands of God and bind unto obedience unto God and the matter of both is just Yet their inequality is great because the dutyes of the former according to the object are far more excellent and if they come in competition with these of the second Table they must be preferred Yet we must make a distinction For in both parts of the Law there be some dutyes morall some positive and one and the same duty is in some respect moral in another positive This therefore is the certain rule that moralls of the first part or Table as some call it are to be performed beâ—ore the morals of the second Table and positives of the first before positives of the second Upon this account if the love of Father and Mother a moral duty of the latter part come in competition with the love of God required in the first part then its true our Saviour â—aith He that loveth Father or Mother more then God or hateth not Father and Mother for Christs sake is not worthy of Christ. In this respect obedience to our lawfull superiours inconsistent with our obedience to God is unlawfull for we must obey God rather then man the supreme Lord before the subordinate But if we compare positives of the first Table with morals of the second the morals of the second must be prefer'd before the positives of the first Therefore we may intermit the outward solemne worship of God upon the Sabbath day to save the life of a Beast or much more of a man though the work should take up the whole time of one Sabbath or more This lesson our Saviour taught us when he proved that it was lawfull to heale on the Sabbath This inequality is implyed in the words of our Saviour to the Scribes and Pharisees when he not onely reproves them but denounceth a judgement against them in that they pay'd tith of Mint and Annise and Cummin and omitted the weightyer matters of the Law
congregation in particular From hence ariseth a relation of Pastour and People The Duty of the people is to esteem their Pastours and Teachers highly in love for their works sake 1 Thes. 5. 13. To obey them and submit unto them Obey them saith the Apostle who have rule over you and submit unto them for they watch over your Souls Heb. 13. 17. They must atttend unto their Doctrine and follow their good example Heb. 13. 7. They must maintain them and provide for them For Christ hath ordained that they who preach the Gospell should live of the Gospel 1 Cor. 9. 14. And let him that is taught in the Word communicate to him that teacheth in all his goods Gal. 6. 6. The Duty of Ministers and Pastours amongst others are these To be rightly qualified and also called to their places binding themselves to do Christ service in that Office They must plant and water preach catechize and edifie the people wholly in the saving Doctrine of the Gospel and though they cannot confirm their Doctrine by Miracles yet let them do it by good example They must administer the Sacraments according to Christ's institution pray for the People perform all publick services of Religion and do all things that tend to the conversion confirmation and Salvation of the People The Sins of the People § XIX as subject to their Pastours are many amongst the rest these They neglect and contemn their persons places doctrines reprooâ—s admonitions good example They deny them maintainance have itching ears affect novel opinions are carried away with strange Doctrine They prove schismaticall desert their faithfull Pastours vex them persecute them Ministers offend when not rightly qualified enter upon the place without a due call and in an undue manner when their end is gain not the good of the peoples souls when they neglect their calling or are carelesse or remisse in the discharge of the Ministery preach false or unprofitable Doctrine give bad example corrupt Religion are Authors of Schism Faction Rebellion and so disgrace their calling dishonour Christ and drive multitudes to Hell Many of these are ambitious and insolent domineering over men's Consciences Christians may associate for Discipline § XX and the outward Government of their Society and that in greater and lesser Associations and for this end declare and constitute Canons and Orders chuse and ordain Officers erect several Courts of Jurisdiction Spiritual In these Ecclesiastical States the Supream Power of the Keys or Church-Government is in the whole Combination the delegated Power is in their Officers and in their Representatives This Constitution finished the Superiours and Governours are the Officers and Representatives whereby the whole Church doth exercise her Power and every particular member whether Officer or any other is subject This Constitution should be agreeable to Christ's Institution and it 's no ways safe that the Association should be of too little or too great extent And most certain it is that Christ did never ordain that there should be one Universal Supream Court in any part of the World to which all Christian of all Nations should submit or make Appeals The Duty of the People and Members of this Spiritual Common-wealth and every particular Person Officer or any other is to submit to this Order once established according to the Laws and Rules of Christ obey the Canons acknowledge the Officers receive their Jurisdiction The Duty of the Governours is to consider whether the Constitution be according to the Gospel to have a special care to make good Canons and to constitute able prudent pious and sit Officers to inform the Ignorant reform the Scandalous reprove admonish suspend or excommunicate absolve and in such a manner that Doctrine and Discipline may be preserved pure the People reformed the Church edifyed and Christ glorified And the Civil Magistrate should countenance protect assist them so far as his Civil Power in this particular may be useful The Discipline is easily corrupted hardly reformed the Primitive and Apostolical Order little known And in this point many are our Divisions Men have their several conceits of it Every Party fancy their own way to be the Pattern in the Mount and few are impartial and unprejudiced and though a good Discipline may be proposed yet the greatest part cannot endure it Schools § XXI Colledges Vniversities are a kind of little Common-Wealth wherein we have Ordinem Imperii Subjectionis wherein the Governours have power the governed are subject according to their Charters and Statutes and as there be Duties so there are contrary Offences in both There be also Superiours and Inferiours in respect of excellency and age yet without any power Those who for Wisdom Parts Experience rare Exploits do excel others should according to their eminency benefit others and others should honour them Yet Pride is the usual sinne of the one and Envy of the other Age and the gray-head if accompanied with Wisdom and Vertue should be reverenced and it 's a bad sign of a declining State when the Child shall behave himself proudly against the Ancient and the Base against the Honourable Esa. 3. 5. CHAP. XII The Sixth Commandement GOD § I by the former Commandement determined the right of Persons and in this He begins to define man's right in things which He commands to be observed The first and principal thing which a man hath right unto is his life and therefore after the duty to be performed to our Parents by whom we receive life from Him he takes care and provides for the safety of man's person and the preservation of his life by prohibiting Murder This Commandement presupposeth that God alone according to his absolute propriety hath the absolute power to dispose of man's life and can take it away and that justly at will and pleasure and that no man can do without Warrant extraordinary or ordinary from him Man hath no absolute right to dispose of his own life whereof he hath onely the possession and use but not the propriety and therefore he must not so much as hazard it without Divine Warrant The subject therefore of this Commandement § II is this mortal and bodily life of man which we receive by Conception and Birth and part with by Death It consists in the union of Soul and Body which is not so firm since that sin entred into the World but that it easily may be dissolved For man consists of two parts Soul and Body The Soul in it self is incorruptible and immortal and no man can kill it though man and many things else may separate it from the Body and the Body from it Therefore in the profession of the Gospel we need not fear men who kill the Body but are not able to kill the Soul Math. 10. 28. The malice and violence of man may make the Body an unfit Habitation for the Soul to dwell in and no fit Instrument for the Soul to act by and then the Soul no ways able to animate the
judiciall proceedings whether from Law-givers or Judges or Witnesses or Advocate or any person acting in judgment is prohibited and justice Distributive is commanded For the Judges of the Earth should be like unto God whose Deputyes they are and render to every one according to their Works This justice is necessary to the preservation of humane society all civil states which may subsist without this or that form of government so that they have a government but cannot continue long without the administration of justice which is in all Polities like the Sun in Heaven and the World cannot be withit And as Laws are in vain without judgement and execution so judgement is not onely vain but a mischief if it be not just Though the Commandement hath speciall reference to civil judgment in a Common-wealth constituted yet it may extend to all private families and societies Schooles and Colledges of Discipline and Corporations yea and to all Ecclesiasticall Courts And by â—alse Witnesse analogically may be understood all private rash and uncharitable censures whisperings false reports and too much Readinesse to Believe them This sin of false Witnesse § III as also unjust Judgment hath its root and beginning in the heart for out of the heart proceed not onely Murders Adulteries Theft but false Witnesse for the heart must needs be corrupt before the testimony can be false or the judgment unjust For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh Therefore all such as have any desire resolution or intention to pervert and corrupt judgment must needs transgresse this law It goes on in words and writings and ends in actions all which as they tend to hinder just proceedings and promote injustice must needs be unlawfull And in this sin we must neither be principall nor accessary If in this particular our Neighbour suffer either by our silence or neglect or imprudency we cannot be excused By all which we learn that here we are commanded to desire and love justice in our hearts and endeavour by words writings and actions to promote the same And herein we must not be cold and carelesse spectators with Gallio not caring for such things when we see injustice done but we must be zealous and diligent to prevent it if we have power The sins here forbidden § IV and the dutyes commanded are many and may be reduced unto a certain order either according to the acts of judgement from the first information unto the last execution or according to the severall persons who in a certaine order act in judiciall processe as 1. Plaintiff and Defendant which are the parties litigant in the civil law called Actor et Reus 2. Sollicitours 3. Atturneys 4. Advocates and Lawyers who give Counsel or plead 5. Clarks and Notaries 6. Judges 7. Such as are trusted with the execution as Sheriffs Bayliffs Constables who are imployed in serving Writs Summoning Arresting Attaching Imprisoning and Executing of the sentence 8. Witnesses 9. With us Jurors They may be reduced to three sorts 1. The parties 2. The Judge 3. The assistants But before this Commandement can be obeyed the foundation must be well laid in the enacting of just laws Therefore the Law-givers and Supreme governours have two things to do 1. To enact good wise just laws and such as tend to the publick weale peace and prosperity of the subjects 2. To appoint good Judges and Officers and if this be not done and so sin prevented no justice can be expected And it 's a sad thing when these fail and neglect their duty rebel against God neglect the publick good and they which should reform others have need to be reformed themselves and there is none can reform them This foundation of just Laws and good Officers and Judges being laid and a right course taken for a true and faithfull information of publick crimes and private offences just Judgement will very much depend upon the Judges whose duty is after they are commission'd as inferiour or as supreme to be well skill'd in the laws make diligent search into the cause passe sentence impartially according to the merit or demerit thereof and see the same faithfully and fully executed But if they be insufficient negligent in the discussion of the cause corrupt covetous partial devoyd of the fear of God love gifts favour friends hate enemyes fear great ones or despise the poor Fatherlesse and Widdows their sin against this Commandement will be very great Before I proceed to other particulars § V I desire every subject to observe the former laws and love his Neighbour as himself live peaceably in the State where God hath cast him Love will do no evill and if we would thus do we need not feare the sword we should prevent Suites and many ungodly intentions and this should be the design of every good Christian. But seeing this will not be done and we can neither find any State free from evill doers nor Church without scandalous persons the duty of Informers Plaintiffs comes in first to be observed And as publick informers should accuse no man falsly either for gaines or out of spite and for revenge so their duty is to give-in true information and be able to make it good and they ought to spare no offendours whom they certainly know to be such What is to be done in the Church in this particular our Saviour hath informed us fully Math. 18. As for Plaintiffs and Prosecutors in Criminal causes against the publick we should ayme principally at reformation and in capitall at the publick good that others may heare and feare But in private wrongs whether they concern our credit or persons or goods it 's our duty first to seek satisfaction in private between our selves or upon a reference to others But if in this way we cannot prevayl and there is a necessity for in that case suits in law are lawfull though sometimes it will be better to sit down and suffer wrong pray and refer our cause to God then we must not be so unconscionable as to charge our adversary with any thing whereof he is not guilty nor so imprudent as to undertake the charge against him and not be able to make it good If after the suit is commenced and before it receive a finall determination the adversary be willing of transaction and there be any hope of good and it be not likely to prove prejudiciall the Plaintiff ought to accept it and all the time of the controversie and the duration of the tryall he ought to be in Charity As for the Defendant if he be wrongfully charged he may justly defend himself so that he do it not unjustly nor use any unlawfull meanes to free himself In this particular we find many guilty litigious delighting in suits loving to vex their Neighbours and many Defendants who have done wrong and are questioned yet will deny it and that upon Oath and will use the most cursed meanes to put the Plaintiff to the greater
mother of concord the harmony of the world Therefore let us love our neighbour him more then his and endeavour by all means to observe this Commandement Though I have delivered many things concerning this Law § IX before I entred upon the Exposition of the several Commandements and therefore might immediately proceed to the Ceremonials and Positives yet it will not be amiss to add some Observations unto the former And 1. Obedience to this Law pre-requires the knowledge of the excellency and power of the Law-giver the matter of the Law it â—elf the binding force of it and the measure of this Obligation 2. These things first known we must consider the Wisdom of the Law-giver who knowing the Nature of Man and his very inward frame and so much the more perfectly because He made us He chiefly in this looked at the Immortal Soul and in the Soul at the Heart and Will which is the Queen and hath an Imperial Power over the whole Man and is resident in the Throne of the Soul and in the Heart at Love which is the principal Act of the Heart and is called Pondus Animae the Poise of the Soul inclining and carrying it whither it pleaseth 3. This love He directs by this Law upon the right Objects and gives it a right measure in respect of every Object whether God or our selves or our Neighbour 4. When we consider the right Objects and the right measure of love required in this Law and how far we observe both we shall find our obedience either to be disobedience or to be far short of what is required 5. By this we easily understand that by the obedience to this Law no man living can be justifyed and that after the Fall of Man it was never given or renewed for that end for if it had it must needs have proved ineffectual and such as could never reach that end 6. Yet it was an excellent means to discover unto man his sin let him see his misery and the necessity of a Saviour And when we make use of it to that end we must not onely examine whether we be Worshippers of Images perjured persons Prophaners of the Sabbath disobedient to Superiours Murderers Adulterers Fornicators Thieves False-Witnesses but how our very Hearts stand affected and in what measure we love God and our Neighbours Whether our love be rightly qualifyed fully extended and intended And by this we shall easily find the best imperfect the most abominably corrupted and few sincere and all of us by Nature before we be in Christ to be base and cursed Caitiffs And till by the first and last Commandements we see the inward depravation and the deep stain of our Souls we cannot throughly be humbled noâ— sincerely penitent nor truly reformed nor vehemently and effectually desirous of Christ for pardon of sin past and grace of Sanctification for time to come 7. It 's an excellent Rule of Obedience yet except we have a special care in the first place to observe the first and last Commandements all our performances are greatly defective and no ways acceptable 8. Though Faith as fixed in Christ dying for our sins and rising again for our Justification and Repentance as a return to God Redeemer be not commanded in this Law as given to Adam innocent yet both Faith and Repentance in their general Nature abstracted from their proper and formal notions in the Gospel are required in this Law For Faith as an assent to God's infallible truth revealed or as a reliance on God for his Blessings and Happiness is commanded in the first Precept Repentance as it 's an hatred of sin and an obedience to God in general is required in all the Commandements But Faith as presupposing the Party believing a sinner and guilty and as fixed upon Christ saving from sinne and Repentance as a return to obedience after disobedience and an hatred of that sin which is in us they cannot any ways belong to this Law as given at first or so understood 8. When we fell in Adam we lost our power to believe and return to God again otherwise what need is there to be born again of the Spirit And why are Faith Hope and Charity Gifts of the Spirit merited by Christ and given freely of God Actual Faith in God-Redeemer by the Word made Flesh they never had and therefore could never lose it 9. This Faith considered in general is a Moral Duty required in the Moral Law otherwise it could have no aptitude to be a condition of Justifycation and Eternal Life 10. Yet we by this Faith could not obtain either Justifycation or Eternal Life except Christ had merited and God had promised and ordained and that freely that upon Faith both should follow and Faith as a Moral Duty or a part of inherent Righteousness is not that whereby we are justifyed but as fixed on Christ and uniting us unto him 11. This Faith as a practical assent to the Truths of the Gospel which reveal the love of God in Christ suffering for our sins is a most excellent principle of obedience and love in the highest degree as it 's a confidence in God saving us onely for Christ's sake it tends most effectually to God's Glory and empties man wholly of all power and merit in himself as a base and miserable Wretch CHAP. XVII Of Positive and Ceremoniall Laws ordained by God HItherto of the morall Laws of God § I as a rule of obedience The Ceremonials and Positives come next to be considered And I will first enquire into the nature of a Ceremoniall Law in generall and so proceed to the more particular handling them according to their severall differences and distinctions The generall nature of these is 1. That they are Laws of God have a binding force and that upon the conscience The speciall nature and difference of them whereby they are distinguished from morall Laws is 1. In the matter which in it self is neither good nor evil morally 2. They differ in this also that they are religions rites which are compounded of outward and inward visible and invisible corporeall or sensible and spirituall sacred hidden parts In respect of the invisible and spirituall part and as instituted by God They are called Sacred and Religious Rites and if Ceremonia come of the Hetruscan word Cerus Sanctus then in the same respect they are called Ceremoniall too They are called Positive that is Arbitrary because they principally depend upon the arbitrary institution and position of the Law-giver The outward part may be performed without any respect to the inward and so ignorant and wicked men may observe them Yet the performance of them is never acceptable without the moral qualification of the party performing them in obedience to the institution and also joyning the practise of Morall duties with them This is evident out of many places of Scripture where men are reproved 1. For performing them with impure hearts and polluted hands 2. For neglecting the
or unbelieving Jewes are The distance from God and Salvation of the one is not such or so great as the distance of the other The Apostle puts the Ephesians in mind That before their conversion they were Gentiles in the slesh who were called uncircumcision by that which was called circumcision in the slesh made by hands That at that time they were without Christ being aliens from the Common-wealth of Israel and strangers from the Covenant of promise having no hope without God in the world Ephes. 2. 11 12. It 's not to be understood that they were without God as Creatour or Preserver but without God promising to save them For God did not promise to save them or their Children upon any terms They were excommunicate and banished out of his Kingdome and were denyed the very meanes of conversion Therefore they must needs be without Christ and without hope For where there is no Christ nor promise in Christ there could be no hope But after their conversion they were Subjects of Gods Kingdome fellow-Citizens with the Saints and of the houshold of God and if the Parents being the root were holy then their Children the branches were holy and within the Verges of Gods spiritual Kingdom And as the promise in Christ to come was to the Jews and their Children so the promise in Christ already come is to Christians and their Children For the Covenant made to Abraham and his seed is essentially though not accidentally the same with the promise of the Gospel and must necessarily include the Children with the Parents as that did except any man can produce a clause of exclusion which no man to this day ever could When Peter said The promise is to you and to your Children and to all that are afar off even as many as the Lord our God should call Acts 2. 3. He spake not to the Jews merely as Jews but as Christians believing in Christ already come and the promise was not personal to them alone excluding their Children but to them as such and their Children For their conversion did no wayes limit or straiten the promise made to Abraham but continued it in the same extent it was before And the words imply that if he called the Gentiles who were afar off both they and their Children as he did call them afterward even they should enjoy the promise in the same extent so as to include the Children with the Parents To understand it otherwise is to offer violence to the Text. For the Gentiles once called must enjoy the priviledges for them and theirs in as large and ample manner as the Jew did this onely was the proper and special priviledge of the Jew he must first be called Yet this we must know that Children are in the lowest form of Christs Kingdom whilst they are Children and after they are at age by their actual disobedience may loose the benefit and by Apostacy they may forfeit all their priviledges and their hope These priviledges which these Children enjoy are not ordinarily immediate conversion or justification and the Spirit of Adoption and regeneration and the actuall enjoyment of those blessings but that which they have immediate right unto is the meanes of conversion which he denyes to such as are not of the Church For this was the priviledge which the Jew enjoyed though he did not believe he was trusted with the Oracles of God wherein were precepts of duty promises for mercy and also of power to keep the precepts and the outward confirmation both of precepts and promises This was the Childrens bread which was not given to doggs of the Gentiles and such as were strangers to the Common-wealth of Israel These Children born in the Church and of believing Parents who are Christians are members of the Church subjects of Christs Kingdome and have a special relation to God to Christ to the Church and the same such as no Infants in the world born of Parents out of the Church have or as such can have The summe of this discourse is That as all Children are part of their parents make but one person by the Laws of God and men so Christian Infants are one person with their Christian parents and make but one body with them as the root and branches are but one Tree and this by divine ordination and especially in obligations to dutyes and right unto favours and priviledges spiritual so far as they are capable So that the question so much vexed in our dayes rightly stated is this Whether Christian infants as part of their parents and one person with them have right to Baptism or are subjects immediately capable of baptism according to Divine ordination To this thus stated the Antipaedo-baptists have said nothing to this hour And whereas they alleage that there is no example or precept in the Gospel for Infant-baptism it hath been answered that there is no expresse precept or example for women to receive the Lords Supper and yet they themselves administer it to women But this is but very little if not the least that may be said for infant-baptism For so many precepts and examples as they can find in the New-Testament for the Baptism of such as are at age so many precepts and examples they give us for Baptizing Infants For if the parents or one of the parents may be baptized then the Infant may be baptized For they are one person in respect of Baptism and therefore what right the one hath the other must have Neither can it be upon any sufficient ground alledged that Children are uncapable of Baptism either as it is a Sacrament or as a Sacrament of initiation or as a seale of the righteousnesse by faith For circumcision was 1. A Sacrament 2. A Sacrament of initiation 3. A Seal of the righteousnesse by faith Yet this was administred to Infants and that by Gods Institution which never would have been done by Divine Warrant if they had been uncapable The difference between Baptism and Circumcision was 1. That the signes are different 2. That there was a different modification in the object of faith required in both The signe of the former was the cutting off the foreskin of the â—lesh in the second washing with water in the name of the Father Son and Holy-Ghost The different modification of the object of faith was Christ to come and Christ already come The spirituall thing sealed and signified in both was the same that is righteousnesse by faith in Christ. And as there is no place of Scripture alleaged so I think there can be no reason sufficient given why the covenant being essentially the same the Children included then should be excluded now If the faith profession and promise of the Parents then was sufficient to obtain the sealing of the covenant by the initiating Sacrament why should they not be now For Children are as much one person now with their parents as they were then Neither should any wonder that the Faith of one may
transgress the just and holy Laws of this Spiritual Kingdom That we may he better understand the words of this Petition we must enquire 1. What Temptation is 2. What it is to be â—ed into Temptation 3. What we pray for in these words Temptation morally and strictly taken may be said to be any thing which unduceth and moveth us to sin as of it 's own Nature tending thereunto For we must conceive Temptations as in themselves tending directly to pâ—oduce or cause actual sins Yet because many times they are not onely resistâ—d but overcome they are like Attempts Assaults Endeavours which aim at sin yet do not always take effect They may be actual causes of sin yet sometimes are not sometimes are essicients thereof A Temptation may be called not merely a thing but an act Binsfield the Sâ—ffragan of Triers defines it to be Assimulatio Boni ad fallendum His meaning is that it is a Representation of a thing as good though it be evil to incline us to it or of something that is good as evil to restrain us from it And the end of it is to deceive the party tempted For because the Will of Man is so created of God that it neither can be forced or necessitated to sin not approve like chuse desire love consent unto anything represented and apprehended as eâ—il therefore every Tempter goes about to delude the apprehension pervert the Judgment corrupt the Will and so entice incline and incite it freely unto evil The great Tempter is the Devil § XIV an implacable and eternal Enemy to the Subjects of God's Kingdom And if he can perswade them to sin and to transgress the Laws of their Soveraign he knows he doth them a mischief Because upon their obedience depends their Eternal Peace and Welfare He knows our Constitutions Inclinations Frailties and Imperfections He observes our security and negligence and takes all advantages against us as being active restless subtile strong vigilant raging and malicious ever seeking not onely our Temporal but Eternal Ruine The danger from him is the greater because of his boldness in that he durst attempt our Saviour the Son of God and of his success in that he prevailed not onely against Sampson David Solomon Peter and other great Worthies but also against Adam Innocent He tempts man sometimes immediately and that either invisibly or visibly by some Form or Bodily Shape assumed wherein he appears to Man as once he abused the Serpent to deceive Eve Yet often he doth his cursed Works by others mediately and his most effectual Instruments are the wicked of the world who by their evil example bad Custom false Doctrine pernicious Counsels impious and unjust Laws perverse Judgments Perswasions Menaces Promises Persecutions Gifts Allurements and other ways restraining thousands from doing good stirring them up and inclining them to evil He also takes advantage from the Sensitive Part from the Ignorance of the Understanding the Depravation of the Will the Flesh lusting against the Spirit and rebelling not onely against the Dictates of right Reason but the Illuminations and Motions of the Spirit and from the Violence of our Passions and Vehemency of our inordinate Affection The more of Flesh and Lust is in us the stronger he is against us because we carry in our Bosome nay in our Bowels a treacherous Enemy ready to confederate with him and betray us unto him and so makes our selves to tempt our selves For Man is tempted of himself when he is drawn away of his own Lust and enticed Jam. 1. 14. Thus you understand in some measure what Temptation is and that the parties tempting us without are the Devil and the World and within us the Flesh and Corruption But what is it To be led into Temptation It 's not merely to be tempted for so have many been and have not onely resisted but overcome the Tempter and that sometimes with ease And no Temptation except entertained and in some measure consented unto can do us any hurt And whatsoever God by His Almighty Power may do yet neither Man or Devil can necessitate us to sin To be led or brought into temptation therefore is so to be tempted as that there is great danger we shall be overcome For if we be surprized found neither watching nor armed nor any way prepared for Defence or if we be weak and the Temptation violent and above our strength or if we be deserted and left destitute of help and sufficient assistance or if Divine Providence leave us circumvented so that there is no ways to escape then are we led into Temptation and shall hardly escape The thing § XV therefore prayed for is Not to be led into Temptation It 's not that God would not suffer us to be tempted at all at any time but that He would be pleased when He sees us weak and not able to stand either to divert it or delay it and so for the time to prevent it Or if that it be His Will that we must be tempted that He would not desert us and deny His assistance or not suffer us to presume or despair or that He restrain the violence of the Tempter and abate the strength of the Temptation or proportion it to our strength and our strength to it lest it prove Superiour so that though the Temptation be continued long be violent and extraordinary we may have great and extraordinary power and assistance not onely to resist but conquer or that He would make a way to escape and that He would never suffer us to be secure but stir us up that we may be ever watchful In a word we pray for clearness of Understanding soundness of Judgment integrity of Heart a great measure of Confidence and Prudence in Heavenly Things and all the Graces of the Spirit strong Resolutions against Sin constancy in the profession and practice of His Truth power over Passions and Affections Noble and Divine Affections so that we may be above the fears and desires of the World whereby men are intangled in the snares of Sathan his continual care and assistance until the very hour of Death and that in our hardest and extream Conflicts He would stand at our right hand perfect stablish strengthen settle us and shortly tread Sathan under our feet that so we may obtain a final Victory and the state of safety and security wherein we shall never be in danger of sin and temptation any more We ought to be the more earnest and fervent in this Petition because we know our own weakness the strength and violence of temptation the sad condition of such as are foyled the glory joy and comfort of the Victory And this is our great advantage that Christ hath overcome the World cast out the Prince of Darkness and being tempted and that violently himself He pities us the more and hath the greater care of us Yet Importunity will little avail us except we stand continually upon our Watch strongly armed with the compleat
said to be the confirmation of Prayer CHAP. XIX Concerning the Laws of God as a Rule of Judgment in the Promises and Comminations HItherto of the Law of God Redeemer § I both Moral and Positive as it 's a Rule of Obedience in Precepts and Prohibitions It remains that we speak of it and consider it as a Rule of God's Judgment in Promises and Threatnings By Precepts God binds Man by Promises He binds Himself Before I proceed one thing formerly omitted is to be added That some Precepts of this Law are mixt and are partly Moral partly positive as Faith and Repentance considered in their general Nature as Duties to be performed to God are Moral For Faith whether it be assent unto the Truth of God's Word or a reliance upon Him promising any Reward or Benefit Repentance as it includes materially in it subjection to God as Supream Lord and Obedience unto His Commands are Duties of the Moral Law as Moral But as Faith assents unto the Truths of the Word concerning Jesus Christ and relies upon God's Promises in Christ and Repentance as it 's a Return unto God-Redeemer in Christ as atoned by his Bloud and so made propitious may be said to be positive as the Objects of both are positive and above the Law of Nature as those positives which are Ceremonial are below it But to return to the Law as a Rule of Judgment we must enquire into 1. The Nature of Promises and Threats in general 2. The Order of this part of Divine Laws 3. The particular Nature of these Promises and Threats in the Laws God-Redeemer 1. For the Nature of Promises and then of Threats The Object of the Promises is Bonum suturum For we cannot promise evil but good at least that which is conceived to be good neither can we properly be said to promise good past or present The act of a promise is a voluntary Obligation whereby the party promising doth bind himself unto another for to do or give some good unto the foresaid party All promises are voluntary otherwise they are not promises The effect of them in respect of the party promising is Obligation in respect of the party to whom the promise is made some kind of right unto the thing promised To threaten is to signifie to another that we intend to do him some hurt or evil The Object is 1. Evil For we cannot properly threaten good 2. It 's evil to come otherwise it 's actual hurt or punishment 3. It presupposeth some intention or resolution to do hurt or inflict evil 4. It signifies by words or other signs this intention as Promises 1. Presuppose some intention to do good 2. A signification of this intention or purpose I will not here spend time in the enumeration of the Accidents or Adjuncts of these Promises to shew how they are private or publike annexed to the Precepts of the Law or not absolute or conditional made by Superiours Inferiours Equals feigned or unfeigned the Promises of such as have power to make them and also strength to perform them or of such as have nor I also pass by the accidental distinctions of Threats which word some think comes of Terreo to terrifie There are Promises and Threats of Man and of God These are of God annexed to His Precepts and Prohibitions as a Rule of Man's Obedience And in this respect they differ from other Promises and Threats The Order of these § II in this Government of God-Redeemer is very evident For 1. They are referred to that part of Government which is concerning Laws 2. In Laws they follow that part which in Precepts and Prohibitions is a Rule of Obedience For as the Law considered as a Rule of Judgment presupposeth something before in it as a Rule of Obedience So these Promises relate unto the Precepts observed as the Threats consider them as violated This is the Order determined by God to manifest His Justice in His Retribution of Rewards and punishments and hereby He signifies that though He be much inclined to reward and do good yet He will judge onely the Obedient a fit Subject of His Bounty and Rewards They that are just and obey His Laws and they onely shall live and enjoy His Mercies And he never threatens as He never inflicts punishments but upon demerit of the Disobedient For He never punished any but such as violated just Laws neither did ever intend it or signifie His intention otherwise The particular and distinct Nature of these Promises § III and Threats is the third thing to be considered They agree with the Promises and Comminations of the Law of Works in Creation with the Law also given to Israel from God by Moses both in that they are Promises and Threats of God and also because they are annexed to the Precepts as a Rule of Obedience These likewise as well as those may be called Sanctions as added to the Precepts for to enforce the Obedience For the Promises are mighty Motives and powerfully perswade to the Observation as Threatnings restrain from the violation of the Precepts And both these were so much the more effectual because there is â—n inward principle in man whereby he naturally desires his own preservation â—nd happiness and abhors to think of his own destruction or misery But these are distinguished from other Promises and Threats even of God 1. Because the Author of them is God-Redeemer as Redeemer 2. The things promised are merited by Christ and so promised and given and to be expected of Free-grace 3. The tearms upon which the Promises are made is Faith in Christ and sincere obedience to God Redeemer 4. The parties who must receive the mercies promised are in themselves 1. Unjust and unworthy 2. Derive their power to perform the Conditions and Precepts of the Law from the Redeemer upon the merit of Christ having satisfied God's Justice whereas the Promises of the Law of Works presupposed man to have power to keep it given in Creation and required perfect and perpetual obedience by that power And if man once lost that power there was no promise in that Law of restoring it again or giving new power It 's said Do this and live Sin in the least and die And so it bound to perfect and perpetual performance or unto death as unavoidable by that Law for there was no promiâ—e of pardon The Law of Moses did strictly command universal and constant obedience for Cursed is he that continueth not saith the Law in all things written in that Book it promised no Spiritual Blessing no Spiritual power nor Spiritual pardon As for the Threats of this Law they make Offenders liable punishment yet they determine Eternal Death as unavoidable to none offending but to final Impenitents and Unbelievers And this was the Imperabundant goodness of 〈◊〉 â—hat whereas He had given Man his Being his Laws his power to keep the 〈…〉 and by his absolute power might have required man's Service without any reward
impetuous stream did carry all before them This was the judgment of the Eastern and Southern Christians invaded by the Saracens and possessed by them from beyond Babylon and Arabia unto Barbary and Spain where they met the Northern Barbarians In these latter days How many Churches Christian are swallowed up by the Turkish Empire These were not meerly temporall judgments but spirituall Because the enemies did not onely invade and possesse their Countryes but in many places deprive them of their Teachers and the Gospel the glorious light whereof is mightily darkened as in â—ormer times so in these latter dayes by that Smoak and mist of Hell the doctrine of the Alcoran and that in many places of the World This is a just judgment of God which Christ avert from us because they walked not in the light of the Gospel when it so clearly shined upon them And its one of the most feafull punishments of Christians to be delivered up to believe lyes and false doctrine in matters of Salvation Yet Turks and other Mahumetans do not professe themselves Christians as we in this Western Corner of the World do But amongst us there be such as professe their faith in Christ who yet are in the just judgment of God delivered up to superstition Idolatry and most dangerous doctrines which have formerly been and now are dispersed into severall Nations We read That because men received not the Love of the truth that they might be saved for this cause God shall send them strong delusions that they should believe a Lie 2 Thes. 2. 10 11. Where we may observe 1. The sin which is Not to receive the love of the truth that they might be saved 2. The Punishment God shall send them strong delusions that they should believe a lye For when God doth take away his Spirit from such as enjoy the word of God which they will not believe and practise it 's an easy thing for the Devil to delude the wisest and most learned in matters of Religion and then there is no Doctrine so false and absurd which man so deluded will not believe This hath been confirmed by experience of former times especially in that Temple or Church wherein the Son of Perdition shall exalt himself above all Civil and Ecclesiasticall powers The seat of this Wicked one must be some eminent City so the Scripture tells us and this City shall be called Babylon in a mystery and stand built upon seven hills Some say that Constantinople which was called New-Rome is so Yet that cannot be it Because it must be that City which did Reign over the Kings of the Earth when John received the Revelation from Heaven and that was not Constantinople which was obscure at that time The Character of this Whore was 1. That She made the Nations of the Earth drunk with her cup of fornication And 2. She Her self was drunk with the blood of the Saints and the Martyrs of Jesus Fornication is Superstition Image-worship and Idolatry The drinking of the blood of the Saints is the persecution and murder of all such Christians as shall refuse to acknowledge Her power and to receive Her abominable and Idolatrous worship Lest any therefore should be ignorant what City this is The spirit informs us 1. That it 's a City which professeth Christ. 2. It 's the seat of the Son of Perdition arrogating Supreme power not only in temporals but spirituals 3. It 's Idolatrous and Superstitious worshiping of Images 4. It sheds the blood of such Christians as will not acknowledge Her power and drink of Her cup of fornication 5. It 's a City that was built and once stood upon seven hills 6. It Reigned over the Kings of the Earth in the times of John the Divine 7. It 's a City that boasts of many lying signs and wonders and believes lies receives false Doctrine That this City and the man of sin therein should continue so long have so great power delude so many Nations inâ—atuate them seem to be holy profess her self the Mother of all Christian Churches the Temple of God infallible and that society out of which there is no salvation is a spirituall judgment from Heaven and far greater then the Iâ—vasion of the Saracens and Barbarous Nations yea then the damned Doctrine of the Alcoran For that in many things is grosse ridiculous and absurd In this Mysticall Babylon the grossest errours put on the Vizard of saving and infallible truth the most abominable superstition of zealous devotion the greatest pride of deepest humility and he that beareth the title of Servant of Servants will be the Lord of Lords Besides all the transcended perogatives of this Church as of Supremacy Infallibility Authority above Scripture are maintainâ—d by the choisest wits of greatest Schollars And their Sophisms are so effectuall that not only the ignorant sort of people and silly women but persons of greatest power the Princes and Potentates of the Earth men of most excellent parts profoundest Learning and Policy are enchanted and bewitched by this great City This is one of the greatest trialls of Christians and the Church of God that ever came upon the World And if we Seriously consider we may easily understand that it 's God alone who preserves us in the truth And all such as love the truth and endeavour to practise it according to the plainnesse and simplicity of the Gospel may expect this blessing from Heaven even in the midst of these most dangerous times This is a fair warning to us all who enjoy the Scriptures and therein the word of God to take heed least we live unprofitably through our own neglect under the means of salvation For if we do not seriously attend unto the saving doctrine of the truth and give all diligence to practise it so far as we know it it will be just with God to suffer Sathan to delude us be a lying spirit in the mouths of our Prophets and to give us over to believe lyes errours heresies as we see it come to passe with many amongst us at this day By the former sins and neglect of our duty we do not only lose all the benefits and comforts which God hath promised and we might enjoy in a well constituted Church reformed in Doctrine Worship Discipline according to the word of God but also make our selves liable to the former punishments and all others which God hath threatned against us in his Book It 's the great and unspeakable mercy of God § XII which signifies his tender care oâ— our poor souls that he will make known unto us what glorious rewards we upon obedience to his Laws may expect from him and what fearfull punishments will follow upon our disobedience and impenitency The Law-givers and Rulers of the World think it sufficient to publish their Laws once enacted and to leave every man to take notice of them or neglect to do so at their perill But our gracious and most mercifull Lord sends his
subject § VI and makes the subject capable of the reward according to the eternall and unchangeable Laws of God-Redeemer It doth not justify but makes us justifiable To justify must be an act of the Judge To believe is the duty of the Subject To the duty man is bound by the command to render the reward God is bound by his promise But faith doth not only make him capacable and a fit subject to receive justification but upon it by vertue of the promise made in the blood of Christ the party thus as thus believing hath a right unto it The foundation of this right or the title which is sometimes taken for the right sometimes for the foundation of this right is faith but not faith as a duty performed or such a duty in particular but as it is specified and made a condition in the grant and promise made for Christs sake For a donation essentially includes the Donour the Donee and the Consideration if there be any as if it be nudum pactum there is none In this Grant God is Donour sinfull man believing the Donee the Consideration is the blood of Christ. If Christ have made no purchase there is nothing to be granted If He have purchased and there be no grant there is no conveyance If Christ hath purchased and God hath granted and yet the Donee be not specifyed it 's no grant no donation But in this donation man is the Donee and is specifyed as a Believer Yet the party doth not only believe but in and by the power of this faith doth confesse pray vow and Christ an Advocate in Heaven doth plead The Devil accuseth chargeth the sinner desires justice to be done upon the guilty wretch For why should he himself be guilty being condemned and punished and man being guilty as he is go unpunished Here Christ comes in confesseth his client guilty in himself yet just another way and though he deserve to be punished yet by law he ought not to be punished He Pleads three things 1. His own propitiation made 2. Gods promise as part of his Law 3. His clients unfeigned faith By this plea the charge of the Devil is make void the cause of his client made good and the judge effectually moved to pardon This pleading and intercession of Christ is necessary not onely because God ordained and required it but also because our prayer and pleading is very imperfect and His perfect And happy is he that hath such a Counsellour and Advocate in Heaven who is ever ready day and night before his Fathers Throne taking care of the cause of all his Clients pleading GRATIS without any Fee and ever carrying the cause Yet a sinner may be justifiable and yet not instantly actually justifyed For the sentence may be delayed for a certain time But this is the comfort of a true believer that the sentence will certainly be passed in Gods due time which in his wisdome he knoweth to be best Thus you have heard 1. Who is the Judge § VII 2. Who is the party judged Now 3. It 's high time to say something of the judiciall act which is the principall thing But before I proceed to unfold the nature of it I must digresse a little and examine the different opinions of men in this point For some question whether it be a sentence properly or no and if it be a sentence properly when and where it 's passed and if it be passed whether it be a bare sentence without any execution or with some execution 1. That t is a sentence most will grant but some distinguish of Sententia Legis and Sententia judicis The one is not the other is properly a sentence and this no doubt is an act of judgment not of Legislation For if it be an act of Legislation it 's then onely promise and that looks at none in particular but all in generall to whom the promise is made and presupposeth a duty to be performed But justification presupposeth a particular person a particular cause a duty performed and the performance as already past is pleaded and the Judge sollicited to passe judgment accordingly But let it be a sentence and that properly and of the Judge as it is When and where is it passed For passed if properly a sentence it must be For it 's not a sentence as conceived in the breast of the Judge but as judicially pronounced It 's not Sententia mere concepta sed prolata some wayes declared Whether for the time is it passed in eternity before time or in time For the place whether is it passed in man or out of man If out of man whether in Heauen or in Earth If on Earth whether by God and Man If by God whether by the promise of the Law that whosoever believeth is not condemned or some other thing If by man whether by the Minister or the Church binding or loosing so on earth as to be bound and loosed in Heaven If it be whether it be an act of conscience or the blessed spirit If the spirit whether it be by inspiration and enthusiasm or by some real operation Thus the wit of man forsaking the rule of Gods word will wander and ignorance joyned with curiosity will start many doubts puzzle a clear truth infinitely multiply questions not so much for edification as destruction and distraction 1. The sentence was not passed in eternity and onely manifested in time for if it were passed then and onely manifested now it might from hence be argued that the world was created from eternity and so is eternall and the glorious work of creation in the beginning had only been a manifestation of that which was from everlasting And how absurd if not blasphemous must such a fancy be It is trâ—e that as God before the foundation of the World did decree all things to be done in time so he decreed to passe this sentence But the decree it self without the issuing out and exercise of an almighty executive power is no sentence In eternity before time no man was created no sin committed no Saviour promised no law published no duty of faith performed no person convenâ—ed no promise pleaded and therefore no sinner believing justified 2. For the place 1. It 's not passed in Heaven and only there for no Scripture saith so neither is there any meanes discovered how the poor guilty sinner should know whether it be past or no and if past when and so till it be known to be passed and that certainly the believer must alwayes be in doubt The cause indeed is pleaded in Heaven by the great High Priest and his plea is effectual But that the sentence is always passed presently upon the cause pleaded cannot be proved It 's true that if a man doth certainly know his faith and the sincerity thereof he may certainly know his right unto justification and so he knows his cause to be good in Law He is justified in law-title that is he
Spiritual as opposed to Temporal For otherwise Bodily punishments which we call Temporal may by continuance be Eternal To pass by therefore these Temporal Penalties one Spiritual Punishment and the greatest is the want and loss of the Holy Spirit to be a continual and constant Principle and cause of Sanctification This Spirit was given Man in the day of his Creation and was taken away from Adam and in him from all his Posterity by the judgment of God and a Sentence yet in power and force and to continue to the end of the World The Law indeed of Works is abâ—ogated but it was in force at that very time when the Sentence was passed and upon the Promise of Christ the Law was abrogated as a Law of Works but the Sentence remained in force still Concerning the sanctifying Spirit we may observe and consider 1 That the loss and so the want of it is a punishment 2 This punishment lying upon every Man before this Spirit be restored presupposeth a guilt 3 This punishment and guilt is never taken away till this Spirit be restored 4 This Spirit may be testored for preparation of a sinner for justification or in and after to continue as a constant cause of Sanctification Or as others express it for perpetual Habitation to prevent the Dominion of Sin and Damnation for time to come It doth not prevent all sin and so the contracting of new guilt nor is given in that measure to us and this is the reason why your estate of Justification is not perfect at the first 5 God never justifies any man with that justification whereof Paul speaks in the Epistle to the Romans and Galatians and elsewhere but in justifying them He gave them instantly this Spirit as the Spirit of Christ to be in them a constant cause of Regeneration and Sanctification and therefore that Justification is not without some Execution 6 Consider this restoring of the Spirit as the removal of a Punishment and the loss and want of the Spirit as a Punishment it must needs be essentially included in Justification and Remission of Sin For that which 1 Takes away the Punishment of sin And 2 The Guilt and Obligation unto Punishment is properly remission of sin If the Punishment as a Punishment should remain so far as it doth remain it doth invincibly prove that the guilt is not taken away so far and in that respect If any distinguish of the Sentence and Execution and make the one the cause the other the effect I will not quarrel about words Onely I will demand Whether it 's not better to say in this particular judgment of God that the Sentence and Execution are really the same and differ onely in respect or at most in degree 7 The active sanctification of this Spirit taken in it self either habitually or actually and as inherent in us can in no wise be Justification or any Branch of Justification as Justification is a remission of sins For God gave this Spirit to Angels He gave it to Adam in the day of Creation and this Spirit did sanctifie and now doth sanctifie the blessed Angels yet this Sanctification is not reâ—mission But consider remission of sin as a removal of punishment as punishment whether of sense or loss deserved by sin and the loss of the Spirit and the blindness perversness and slavery under the power of Sathan following necessarily upon the taking away and denying the Spirit by a just Judgment as a Penalty then this restoring of the Spirit must needs put on another Notion as it hath another Nature This restoring of the Spirit is so necessary that a bare Sentence without it can give a man no comfort nay Heaven without it is no Heaven or place of Bliss and abode But lest I may be thought to agree with the Doctrine of the Councel of Trent or at least come too near it Let us consider what they say Their Doctrine Sess. 6. Cap. 7. is this That Justification is not onely remission of sins but also the sanctification and renovation of the Inner-Man by the susception of Grace and Gifts whereby or whereupon a man of unjust is made just and of an Enemy a Friend that he may be an Heir according to the hope of Eternal Life And afterwards The onely formal cause of Justification is the Righteousness of God not whereby he is just but whereby He makes us just They mean inherently just Thus far they Now let 's examine Whether there be any Agreement between the former Doctrine and this And 1 I grant with all our Divines that Justification and Sanctification go always inseparably together and this they of Rome know well enough to have been always the constant Doctrine of the Reformed Churches 2 They say that Justification is not onely remission of sins but Sanctification I say it 's onely remission 3 They assert that this Sanctification and Renovation is by voluntary Susception and so understand this Sanctification passively as formally inherent I make neither Sanctification active nor much less passive as considered in themselves to be justification nor any part of justification 4 They make the formal cause of Justification to be this Sanctification I utterly disclaim this I had said before that Sanctification in it self is no remission and is in Angels without any such thing and do affirm that this Sanctification as they understand it is no part of that justification which the Gospel speaks of and that the restoring of the sanctifying Spirit for Renovation as an act of God as Judge for to remove a punishment as a punishment and the obligation thereunto is properly remission And here I cannot but much wonder what these Tridentine Divines did understand by Remission For if the formal cause of Justification be Sanctification and inherent Righteousness as they make it so to be I find no place nor need of any place for remission Yet first they make it a part of Justification distinct from Sanctification It 's neither final nor efficient nor meritorious nor material neither by their own words can it enter the formal That this Sanctification considered in it self especially Passive and inherent cannot be Justification is evident For 1 Sanctification thus understood is not properly any act of God as a Judge much less a Sentence passed upon a guilty Wretch 2 That justification of Believers in this life whereof the Scripture speaks doth leave the party chargeable with no sin is perfect and bears out the severity of God's Justice before His Throne This our inherent Righteousness in this life can never do both because we are guilty before and also it 's imperfect 3 A man may be sanctifyed and that perfectly so as to prevent all sin for time to come and yet the party may remain guilty and liable to Eternal Death for the guilt of former sins committed before this Sanctification and not remitted by it Some make remission two-fold Remissio Culpae Remissio Poenae 1. Of Sin 2. Of
we are Heirs according to express Scripture Rom. 8. 17. It differs from Reconciliation because God may love us as his Servants and yet not as Sons and Heirs Therefore it 's a further degree of God's love and special favour For we may be His Subjects and yet not of His Houshold and Family We may be of His Family as Servants and Friends yet not as Sons and Heirs in the highest Rank and Degree of Dignity in His Family And we must here take special notice 1 That God by one act doth justifie regenerate reconcile and adopt For though we may distinguish them and conceive of them under several notions yet we must not separate them For though God might have separated some of them yet He doth not 2 That Justification Regeneration Reconciliation are not distinct and different Titles but one and the same Title unto Everlasting Life which God doth give us by these in our Lord Jesus Christ. For we are justifyed by His Grace that we should be Heirs according to the hope of Eternal Life Tit. 3. 7. Where Justification gives right unto Eternal Life And Blessed be God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who of his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the Dead unto an Inheritance c. 1 Pet. 1. 3 4. Where Regeneration is said to give right unto glory And again If Children that is adopted then Heirs joint-Heirs with Christ. Where Adoption is said to be the Title unto this Heavenly Inheritance Rom. 8. 17. The like may be said of Reconciliation For having Peace with God by Jesus Christ our Lord by whom also we have access by Faith into this Grace wherein we stand we rejoyce in the Hope of Glory Rom. 5. 2. How Faith and these may be the Title shall be known hereafter The second thing to be considered § IV and observed is the nature of Adoption This actively considered in general is a gracious act of God in Christ But in particular it 's such an act as whereby we are made of no Sons Sons and Heirs of God with Christ of glory Where we must acknowledge that by Nature we are not Sons For according to the Laws of men such as are adopted are different from Natural Sons which are Sons necessarily but these are made Sons freely by an act of free grace For Adoption is a free Election and always makes a person who is not a Child to be a Child By Nature indeed we are the Sons and heires of Wrath or rather Slaves to sin and Satan By sin we lost our â—iliation and our right to the inheritance of eternal life and this was a very sad condition and an heavy judgment of God This is our condition before Adoption But presently upon our Adoption we who were no Sons are Sons of God and heires of an eternall Kingdom and being washed in Christs blood are as Sons advanced to the dignity of Kings and Priests unto ouâ— God for ever Yet we are not heires severally and apart from but joyntly with Christ and of the same estate in our measure but in his right For as one with him and members of his body as he is a Son and heir so we must needs be Sons and heirs with Him In the third place § V The parties who are adopted are Believers in Christ for as by faith in him we are justified regenerated reconciâ—ed so by the same faith we are adopted For as many as received Christ he give them the priviledge or dignity to be the Sons of God even to them that Believe on his name Joh. 1. 12. You have heard often before that faith is the Title to justification by vertue of Christs merit and Gods promise But the immediate title to eternall glory is justification in regeneration reconciliation and Adoption For thoâ—gh by faith we have a remote and mediate right to glory yet the immediate subjects of this right to glory are the justified regenerate reconciled and adopted Saints and Sons of God For though God give this inheritance of glory unto Believers yet he gives it to Believers as justified regenerated and adopted This faith is fixed on Christ as meriting and interceding for this adoption For such as believe in his name are made the Sons of God Joh. 1. 12. And as God predestinated us unto the Adoption of Children by Jesus Christ unto himself according to the good pleasure of his Will Ephes 1. 5. So he also by him according to this Pedestination by him before time adopts us by him in time The fourth thing to be considered § VI is the estate and condition of these adopted Sons of God which is imperfect in this life and onely begun For it was a great and transcendent love of God that we should now in this life be called the Sons of God and have not onely the name but the thing it self And though now in this life we be the Sons of God it doth not yet appear what we shall be but we know that when Christ shall appear we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is 1 Ioh. 3. 1 2. And now we have the first fruits of the Spirit and we our selves groan within our selves waiting for the Adoption to wit the Redemption of our bodyes Rom. 8. 23. Where by the Redemption of our bodyes is understood the Resurrection when our Adoption shall be perfect And this is our great comfort for the present that we not onely are but certainly know that we are the Sons of God For the Spirit it self beareth witnesse with or rather to our Spirits that we are the Children of God Rom. 8. 16. And we are assured and have good security that in due time when we shall be at full age and past our minority we shall have â—ull enjoyment of the inheritance For we have the first fruits now ibid. 23. and are sealed with the holy Spirit of promise which is the earnest of our inheritance untill the Redemption of the purchased possession unto the praise of his glory Ephes. 1. 13 14. Where the Redemption may be the Resurrection and it 's the Redemption of Acquisition because upon the same we shall have full possession Great is the happinesse joy and comfort of the Adopted Sons of God For 1. By Adoption we are not onely freed from the slavery of sin but the bondage and servitude of the Law now in the times of the Gospel We have not received the Spirit of Bondage to fear again as it was under the Law Rom. 8. 15. We are not now under Tutours and Governours nor in Bondage unâ—er the Elements of the World that is the Ceremonial Law Galat. 4. 3 4. 2. We have the Spirit of Adoption whereby we cry Abba Father Rom. 8. 15. Gal. 4. 6. We cry and pray and we pray unto God as a Father and that with greatest confidence For what may not Children expect from a Father such a Father
before whose Throne of Grace we may approach without fear We are free Children of a free Mother We are not Servants born of Hagar the Bond-woman but free women of Jerusalem which is above and Mother of us all Gal. 4. 26. And as Jerusalem is our Mother so God is our Father who hath given us the Spirit of Adoption 3 We being adopted enjoy the Ministery of Angels those Blessed and Immortal Spirits who have a charge to keep us in all our ways guard us and pitch their Tents about us If we be in any place in any danger at any time they must be ready at hand If Jacob fear his Brother Esau two Armies of them shall meet him and secure him from danger When man by sin forsakes his God he 's out of God's special Protection and the Angels have no Commission to take care of him But if he return unto his God again they rejoyce upon his Conversion and upon God's Command do pitch their Tents about him And since Jesus Christ the Son of God was made Lord of Angels as soon as any do believe in him and are made the Sons of God he gives them special charge concerning his little Ones For they are all ministring Spirits sent forth to minister for them that shall be Heirs of Salvation Heb. 1. 14. 4 So soon as we are Sons we fall under God's special Providence and so He takes a far greater care of us than of others If we offend He in dearest love will chastise us not to destroy us but correct us because He will not suffer sinne to lye upon us He will try us not vex us but to exercise our Virtues and purifie our Faith that so we may come out of the Furnace of afflictions more pure then finest Gold If we fall He will raise us up again If we grow cold He will quicken us If we fall into danger He will deliver us if into want He will provide for us necessaries For our Heavenly Father knoweth that we have need of all these things 5 He in His excellent Wisdom out of greatest mercy so orders all events all conditions either of Prosperity or Adversity all his Works of Providence so that Heaven and Earth Men and Angels yea all Creatures and all things shall conspire and work together for our good and all shall unite Forces and full power which united as in one single cause shall further our Salvation 6 God loves them as his Children with a special love and pities them far more then any Father in the World pities his Child and nothing shall be able to separate from the love of that Father whom they love 7 He gives his Spirit of Adoption into their Hearts to anoint them seal them assure them of their present right unto and the full Possession in due time of their Heavenly Inheritance God their Father loves them and they must certainly know it Their estate therefore is an estate of unspeakable joy comfort Yet it requires that we should be obedient and dutiful Children and the love of God which is so great and advanceth them so high should deeply engage them to the love and obedience of their Heavenly Father This is the beginning of God's Judgment § VII in dispensing and disposing of his Spiritual Rewards of Conversion and Justification which include all the rest and bring them into an happy and blessed estate After this the continuance of this blessed estate is to be considered For God continues to judge and reward according to the continuance of their Faith and this in all parts of the World where any of his Saints shall be For all jointly and every one severally are the subjects of this Judgment which continually proceeds according to his Laws of Redemption As their Faith and Repentance are not made perfect at the first so their rewards joys and comforts are not consummate but by degrees And as their Faith may be sometimes greater sometimes less so this estate is better or worse or rather not so good Whilest Faith habitual remains rooted in 〈◊〉 heart they are virtually justified When it 's actual their Justification actual will follow When their Faith is lively and continues to act vigorously their estate is so much the more comfortable In this continuance of Rewards the same Rewards formerly given there is required a continuance of the grace of God's Spirit abiding in them to enable them to Duty and observance of his Laws and according to the continuance of this grace a continuance of performances without both which there can be no continuance of Rewards The grace of God is so continued that it doth not prevent all sin and disobedience and therefore we are not free from all punishments Yet as we contract new guilt every day so every day we should renew our Repentance and Faith and so present our selves before the Tribunal of this Heavenly Judge and sue for Pardon in the Name of Christ and suffer no guilt to lye long upon us And as this Court is continually open to dispense Rewards so it is to punish and chastise according as our deserts shall be If our sins shall be greater and our neglect of our renewing our Repentance and Faith longer the greater punishments both of loss and pain shall be as was evident in David This state of Conversion § VIII and Justification may be considered as continued in this Life or after Death until the Resurrection And it 's a continuance of it in the several Branches of Justification as in the continuance of Regeneration Reconciliation Adoption Regeneration which is commonly called Sanctification as continued is the first For that which they call Sanctification which follows Justification is the continuance of the first Regeneration which is a Bâ—anch of Juâ—â—ification and a removing of that great Penalty of loss of the sanctifying Spirit and the woful immediate consequent thereof as Blindness Perversness and the Dominion of Sin from which issue all Actual Transgressions which would multiply to a great number and rise to a higher degree of Malignancy if God by Reâ—â—raint or Renovation did not prevent both To understand this Sanctification continued the better we must distinguish of it as Active and Passive As Active it's an act of God sanctifying us Passive it 's those gifts and graces of the Spirit whereby we are enabled to avoid sin and obey God For though this be an active Power yet in respect of God giving it and us receiving it it may be called Passive though properly it be an effect of God the cause and a cause of an obedience following The active Sanctification is 1 The acting of the Spirit to prepare us convert us work Faith in us and by Faith unite us unto Christ. For all these may be called Acts of Sanctification in a large sense yet in Scripture they are called Vocation whereby God through the power of the Spirit accompanying the Word doth convert us and bring us to Christ. 2 This Sanctification active
The excellency and dignity of that Nature and flesh not onely above all men but all Angels 4. The concurrence of the Word and flesh in the acts of Redemption and the same singular and extraordinary But whether the gifts of the Spirits confirmation in holinesse universall power glory and happinesse which Christ attayned did necessarily and instantly follow upon this Union may justly be doubted That the redeemer should be the Word and so God and Flesh too One and the chief Reason was the Wisdome and Will of God And other reasons not clearly contayned in Scripture are better forborne then mentioned After the number and union follows the distinction of the two Natures § IX for although they were personally united which union is extrinsecall yet they remained really distinct The Word was not changed into flesh nor flesh into the Word but the Word is the Word still and flesh flesh still and that essentially It 's true the word before the conception of the humane nature was not flesh but then it was flesh yet so that it continues the Word Neither was there any mixture or composition of these two to make one substance different from both nor any such union of both that so a third thing should arise by way of resultancy except we may say and that according to the Scripture that the word and flesh were so united that thence did arise a third thing which we call Christ and some call God-Man Yet still he was so God that he was Man and so man that he was the Word and God and so shall continue blessed for evermore Jesus Christ our Lord is the word made flesh § X and this is the definition that the Scriptures give of him That which followes is his office as he is Redeemer An office is a derivative power and therefore cannot be supreme but subordinate and as an officer by commission with a Mandate receives his power so he is liable to account In this respect and for this cause it is that though Jesus Christ of Nazareth be the Word and so God yet as God he cannot be an officer as flesh and man he may be and was such This the Scripture teacheth plainly when it saith that he was sent received commandement from his Father was sealed annoynted with the Holy-Ghost and with power did not glorifie himself that his Father gave him power over all flesh and that all power in Heaven and earth was given him all these things are true of him only as man His office was the greatest and highest that ever was Because he was supreme and universall governour above the Angels and all other creatures next unto God Therefore his place upon his investitute and solemn inauguration was at the right hand of the eternal Throne of God And in this particular Joseph advanced by Pharoah was a lively type of him In him as an officer we may consider 1. His Ability 2. His power and Authority His Ability is expressed in that metaphor of being annoynted with the Holy Ghost for he was endued with all the gifts of the Holy Ghost and in the highest degree that any creature was capable of therefore it is said God giveth not the Spirit in measure unto him Joh. 3. 34. but in fullnesse So that of his fullnesse we all have received grace for grace Joh. 1. 16. And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him the spirit of Wisdome and understanding the spirit of counsail and might the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord Isay. 11. And at his Baptism the Heavens were opened and the Holy-Ghost was seen in the likenesse of a Dove to descend and rest upon him These gifts and endowments he received with a power to communicate in a certain measure unto others The Spirit in this fullnesse was given him not only to sanctifie him but to enable him for the undertaking managing and accomplishing the great work of Redemption which was committed unto him Besides these Abilityes he received power and authority accordingly and so had plain right to do such things as neither men nor Angels had right to do He had power to command all the Angels of Heaven the Devils and all Creatures and they must obey him because they were subject unto him And because he must discharge this Office for that end was required an high degree of wisdom and the knowledge of the deep and secret Counsels of God especially concerning the Eternal Salvation of sinful man whose Nature he had taken upon him Therfore he must be a Prophet able fully infallibly and with Power and Majesty to declare the Mind and Will of God In which capacity and faculty he was more excellent then all the Prophets then Moses then the Angels who have the Spirit of Prophesie as being in the Bosome of the Father and more intimate then the Angels were And he could reach men not onely outwardly but inwardly and speak by the Spirit immediately unto the Souls of men and that not onely ordinarily by imprinting the Doctrines of the Scripture outwardly upon the Tables of the Heart but also extraordinarily by Inspiration and immediate Revelation of the Mysteries of Gods Kingdom Thus he taught Apostles Prophets Evangelists And he is the Head and Lord of all Prophets and all Angels Prophets Apostles Pastours Teachers are his Servants and subject unto him as a Prophet and his Doctrine must be heard believed obeyed and he that will not submit unto it must be cut off and everlastingly accursed Because Man is guilty § XI and God angry and Justice requires Eternal Punishments to be executed if not prevented therefore there must be some to interpose between the just God and unjust Man and make satisfaction unto justice procure his favour and plead the cause of penitent sinners before the Throne of God in the Heavenly Temple Therefore Christ if he will be a Redeemer must do all this and be a Priest and as a Priest offer a Sacrifice for the Eternall expiation of sin and as an Advocate plead his bloud and sacrifice before his Father for all such as come to God by him And he must not onely be a Priest but an Universal and Eternal Priest holy without any sin who may have free and immediate access to the Throne of God and such who is sensible of the Peoples misery and in that respect willing and ready to make reconciliation for their sin Such a Priest Christ and onely Christ Jesus of Nazareth is made so by God and now confirmed by Oath to minister in the Heavenly Tabernacle there to appear before God for us Therefore he is more excellent and above all other Priests even Aaron nay above Melchizedeck one of the greatest Priests on Earth and also above the Highest Priests of Angels if there be any Priest-hood amongst them Besides because he must have Subjects of all Nations in times successively unto the end of the World and He and His shall have many Enemies both Men and Devils
and of great power and policy therefore he must be a King invested with Universal and Eternal Power to make Laws and Officers to judge and to execute Judgment in rendring eternal rewards and punishments according to the Works of such as shall be judged that so he may subdue all Enemies even Death it self protect his people and give Eternal Peace and Felicity to such as shall unfeignedly submit unto his Power and continue loyal and obedient Subjects to the end As God hath decreed before the World upon the fore-sight of man's sin that the World should be made flesh so he likewise decreed that he should be invested with this three-fold power and to confer it upon him as Flesh united to the Word Upon the Fall of Adam this Office was promised in his Conception and Birth he was designed unto it in his Baptism he was declared to be the Son of God Upon his manifestation after his Baptism he began to act in this Three-fold Office Upon his Resurrection he was constituted a compleat Priest Prophet King and all power in Heaven and Earth given Him Upon his Ascension he was solemnly invested and confirmed in the place and began at the right hand of God to exercise his Power more gloriously CHAP. II. Concerning the Humiliation of Jesus Christ whereby this New Power was acquired And a brief Historical Narration of His Sufferings THis New Power as you heard before was acquired by the Word made flesh § I and now we know by whom In the next place we must enquire by what it was acquired It was acquired by the Humiliation of the Son of God This Humiliation of Jesus Christ is that whereby He in the form of a Servant was obedient unto Death the Death of the Cross. In this Humiliation we have two degrees 1. He took upon him the form of a Servant 2. In that form he suffered the Death of the Cross. 1. He was a Servant For being in the form of God he thought it not Robbery or Sacriledge to be equal with God yet he made himself of no reputation and took upon him the form of a Servant and was made in the likeness of men Phil. 2. 6 7. This state and condition of a Servant taken upon Him was the first part of his Humiliation But here it 's to be noted 1. That He was not a Slave taken in War nor sold nor born of Servile Parents or Parent 2. As He was the Word and equal with God He could not be a Servant but as He was flesh and made Man For as Man He was a reasonable Creature and so subject to God and bound to Obedience 3. Yet to be Man was not all For He was a Servant in respect of the mean condition of His Humane Nature For He was born of a Mother though of Royal Extraction from the house of King David at a great distance yet poor and mean as appears in that she was espoused and married to Joseph a Carpenter and so a Mechanick and of the lowest Rank of Subjects and also by his poor Birth in a Stable 4. He as Man for the time laid aside or did not assume the Robes of Glory the State and Dignity which did agree unto Him as He was the Son of God neither did He take upon Him any Civil Command or Jurisdiction much less that Universal and Supream Power wherewith He was invested afterward 5. He was born not onely a Man but a Jew under the Bondage and Servitude of the Law as was manifest by His Circumcision and Presentation in the Temple 6. He subjected himself unto the Ecclesiastical Power of His own Nation and the Civil Power of the Romanes so far as to be tried and condemned by both though He was innocent and was willing to be obedient not onely in doing the good commanded but to suffer the evil even Death the death of Servants nay of Slaves nay of Dogs which He no way deserved So that He wholly denied Himself renounced his own Will even in things lawful and was a Servant to his Father in one of the hardest and lowest services that ever was the service of Sin excepted This was a way which the unsearchable depth of Eternal Wisdom contrived to acquire a new transcendent Power It 's true that alter He appeared in publique He took upon him some power and acted accordingly He began to preach the Gospel with power and majesty not onely in private but publick He gathered Disciples and made Apostles and other Officers instituted Sacraments and gave Laws and Commissions and signified that He was the Son of God and should one day come in the Clouds of Heaven yet still He was a Servant The second degree of his Humiliation was § II that as a Servant he was obedient unto Death the Death of the Cross. He was always obedient both to God and Man in all things so far as He was bound He observed not onely the Moral but the Ceremonial Laws of the Jews and the Civil Laws of the Romans so far as they were just He many ways manifested himself to be the Word made flesh and the onely Begotten Son of God and that not onely by his eminent Vertues but by his Heavenly Doctrine and glorious Works So that never any gave better Example taught better Doctrine or did greater Works so beneficiall to Mankind and to destructive to Sathan's power Yet he manifested himself in this manner onely amongst his own people seeking earnestly not onely their Temporal Peace but their Eternal Salvation And all this may be called his Active Obedience which though so excellent and perfect yet could not free him from obedience in sufferings which were many and ended in the death of the Cross. The History hereof I will 1. Deliver briefly out of the Evangelists And 2. Discourse of the same more at large out of these and other places of Scripture Though he suffered by the Determinate Counsel and sore-knowledge of God and God had shewed before by the mouth of all his Prophets that he should suffer yet the Counsel of God and Predictions of the Prophets were fulfilled in the manner following 1. By his Sufferings before Judgment 2. By his Sufferings in Judgment 1. Before Judgment He by his Example Doctrine Works gathered many Disciples and the people followed him in great multitudes This was a provocation to the ambitious Rulers of the Jews many of whom were Pharisees a Sect in those times in great account and admiration with the people for eminent Piety and Learning wherein they seemed to excel And this did grieve them much that He did neither comply with them nor their Designs nor receive any Commission from them but did reprove their Hypocrisie and took off their Vizard of Sanctity and open before the people their Ambition Covetousness Cruelty Oppression and other enormous Sins confuted their false Doctrine and denounced most fearful Woes against them His eminency and respect with the People with the multitude of Disciples