THE Gospel-Mystery OF SANCTIFICATION Opened in Sundry Practical Directions Suited especially to the Case of those who labour under the guilt and power of Indwelling Sin To which is added a Sermon of Justification 1 Cor. 1.27 28 29 30 31. God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty And base things of the world and things which are despised hath God chosen yea and things which are not to bring to nought things that are That no flesh should glory in his presence But of him are ye in Christ Jesus who of God is made unto us wisdom righteousness sanctification and redemption That according as it is written He that glorieth let him glory in the Lord. By Mr. WALTER MARSHAL late Preacher of the Gospel LONDON Printed for T. Parkhurst at the Bible and Three Crowns in Cheapside near Mercers Chappel 1692. THE PREFACE READER MR. Walter Marshal Composer of these Directions how to attain to that practice and manner of Life which we call Holiness Righteousness or Godliness was Educated in New Colledge in Oxford and was a Fellow of the said Colledge and afterwards he was chosen a Fellow of the Colledge at Winchester but was put under the Bartholomew Bushel with nigh two Thousand more Lights a Sin not yet repented of whose illuminations made the Land a Goshen He was esteemed a Presbyterian and was called to be Pastor to a People at Gospert in Hampshire where he shined though he had not the Publick Oile the substance of these Meditations were there Spun out of his own Experiences he having been much exercised with troubled Thoughts and that for many Years and had by many Mortifying Methods sought Peace of Conscience but notwithstanding all his Troubles still increased Whereupon he consulted others particularly Mr. Baxter whose Writings he had been much conversant with who thereupon told Mr. Marshal he took them too Legally He afterwards consulted an Eminent Divine giving him an Account of the State of his Soul and particularizing his Sins that lay heavy on his Conscience who in his Reply told him He had forgot to mention the greatest Sin of all the Sin of Unbelief in not believing on the Lord Jesus for the Remission of his Sins and Sanctifying his Nature Hereupon he set himself to the studying and preaching of Christ and attained to eminent Holiness great peace of Conscience and joy in the Holy Ghost Mr. Marshal's dying Words were these The wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord having but just before said to those about him that he now dyed in the full perswasion of the Truth and in the comfort of that Doctrine which he had Preached the sum whereof is contained in the ensuing Discourse Some time since he was translated by Death Elijah-like dropping these sheets as his Mantle for succeeding Elisha's to go forth with for the Conversion of Sinners and Comfort of drooping Souls These Papers are the profound Experiences of a studious Holy Soul Learned of the Father coming from his very Heart and smell of no Party or Design but for Holiness and Happiness yet it is to be feared they will scarcely go down with the heady Notionalists of this Age who are of the Tribe of Reuben wavering with every Wind of Modish Doctrine but in Judah it will be praised and we may hope that many Shrubs and Cedars hereby may advance in knowledge and comfort But not to detain thee longer read over all these Directions that you may fully understand the Author or read none if you do it with the serious humble spirit in which they were wrote it may be hop'd the matter being so weighty and from so able an Hand through the Grace of God they will sink into thy Conscience and make thee a solid Christian full of Faith Holiness and Consolation N. N. THE Author of these Directions was well known to me and was with me in my House a Month together above twenty years past and I esteem him a Person deserving the Character which this Preface giveth him T. Woodcock The GOSPEL MYSTERY OF SANCTIFICATION DIRECTION I. That we may acceptably perform the Duties of Holiness and Righteonsness required in the Law our first Work is to learn the powerful and effectual Means whereby we may attain to so Great an End EXPLICATION THIS Direction may serve instead of a Preface to prepare the Understanding and Attention of the Reader for those that follow And First It acquainteth you with the Great End for which all those Means are designed that are the principal Subject to be here treated of the Scope of all is To teach you how you may attain to that Practice and Manner of Life which we call Holiness Righteousness or Godliness Obedience True Religion and which God requireth of us in the Law particularly in the Moral Law Exod. 20. summed up in the Ten Commandments and more briefly in those Two great Commandments of Love to God and our Neighbour Mat. 22.37 39. and more largely explained throughout the Holy Scriptures My work is to shew how the Duties of this Law may be done when they are known therefore expect not that I should delay my intent to help you to the knowledge of them by any large Exposition of them which is a Work already performed in several Catechisms and Commentaries yet that you may not miss the Mark for want of discerning of it take notice in few words that the Holiness which I would bring you to is spiritual Rom. 7.14 It consists not only in external Works of Piety and Charity but in the Holy Thoughts Imaginations and Affections of the Soul and chiefly in Love from whence all other Good Works must flow or else they are not acceptable to God not only in refraining the execution of sinful Lusts but in lusting and delighting to do the Will of God and in a chearful Obedience to God without repining fretting grudging at any Duty as if it were a grievous Yoak and Burthen to you Take Notice further That the Law which is your Mark is exceeding broad Psal 119.96 and yet not the more easie to be hit because you must aim to hit it in every Duty of it with a performance of equal breadth or else you cannot hit it all Isai 2.10 The Lord is not at all loved with that Love that is due to him as Lord of all if he be not loved with all our Heart Spirit and Might We are to love every thing in him his Justice Holiness Sovereign Authority All-seeing Eye and all his Decrees Commands Judgments and all his Doings We are to love him not only better than other things but singly as Only Good the Fountain of all Goodness and to reject all fleshly and worldly Enjoyments even our own Lives as if we hated them when they stand in competition with our Enjoyment of him
or New Testament which is the Ministration of the Spirit and the Power of God unto Salvation 2 Cor. 3.6 8. Rom. 1.16 7. For the performance of other Duties of the Law you are to consider not only these Endowments Priviledges and Properties of their new State which are meet and forcible to enable you to the Love of God and Universal Obedience but also those that have a peculiar force and aptitude suitable to the special Nature of such Duties And you must endeavour to assure your selves of them by Faith that you may be encouraged and strengthned to perform the Duties I shall give you some instances of this manner of practice in several Duties whereby you may the better understand how to guide your selves in the rest And as to the Duties of the first Table if you would draw near to God in a Duty of his Worship with a true Heart you must do it in full assurance of Faith concerning your enjoyment of Christ and his Salvation And would you perform the great Duty of trusting on the Lord with all your Heart easting your Care upon him and committing the disposal of your self to him in all your Concerns Perswade your self through Christ that God according to his Promise will never fail you nor forsake you that he taketh a Fatherly Care of you that he will with-hold no good thing from you and will make all things to work for your Good And thus you will be strong and couragious in the practice of this Duty Whereas if you live in a meer suspence concerning your Interest in the Priviledges you will be subject to carnal fears carping cares in despite of your Heart and you will be prone to trust on the Arm of Flesh tho your Conscience tell you plainly that in so doing you incur the hainous guilt of Idolatry Would you be strengthned to submit to the hand of God with a chearful Patience in bearing any Affliction and Death it self The way to fortifie your selves is to Believe assuredly that your Afflictions that are but for a moment do work for you a far more exceeding eternal weight of Glory that Christ is your gain in death and life that his Grace is sufficient for you and his strength made perfect in your weakness and that he will not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able and will at last make you more than Conquerours over all evil Until you attain to such perswasions as these you will be prone to fret and murmur under the burden of Affliction and to use indirect means to deliver your selves notwithstanding the clearest Convictions to the contrary Would you limit your selves to the Observation of Gods own Institutions in his Worship Believe that you are compleat in Christ and have all perfection of spiritual Blessings in him and that God will build you up in Christ by the Ordinances of his own Appointment This will make you account his Ordinances sufficient and Mens Traditions and Inventions needless in the Worship of God Whereas if you do not apprehend all fulness in Christ you will be like the Papists prone to catch at every Straw and to multiply Superstitious Observations without end for the supply of your spiritual Wants Would you confess your sins to God pray to him and praise him heartily for his Benefits Would you praise him for Afflictions as well as Prosperity Believe assuredly that God is Faithful and Just to forgive your sin through Christ that you are made an Holy Priesthood to offer spiritual Sacrisices of Prayer and Praises that are acceptable to God through Christ and that God heareth your Prayers and will fulfill them so far as they are good for you and that all Gods ways are Mercy and Truth toward you whether he prosper or afflict you in this life If you be altogether in doubt or otherwise perswaded concerning these Priviledges all your Confessions Prayers and Praises will be but heartless Lip-labours Slavish or Pharisaical Works In like manner you will be enabled to hear and receive the Word as the Word of God and to meditate on it with delight and you will be willing to know the strictness and spirituality of the Commands of God and to try and examine your ways impartially by them if you believe assuredly that the Word is the Power of God to Salvation and that Christ is your great Physician willing and able to heal you be the case never so bad And where your sin abounds his Grace towards you doth so much the more abound Whereas without these Comfortable Apprehensions all the works of Hearing Meditation Self-examination will be but uncouth heartless Works and they will be performed negligently and by halves or hypocritically and out of slavish Fear with much reluctancy without any good will or readiness of mind So also for the right receiving of the Sacraments you will find your selves much strengthned by Believing that you may have Communion with God and Christ in them and that you have a great High-Priest to bear the Iniquity of your holy things and to make you for ever accepted before the Lord. In the same way you are to apply your selves to all Duties towards your Neighbour required in the second Table of the Law by Acting in a perswasion of such priviledges of your new Estate as have a peculiar force to encourage and strengthen you for the performance of them That you may love your Neighbour as your self and do to him in all things as you would he should do to you without partiality and self-seeking that you may give him his due Honour and abstain from injuring him in his Life Chastity worldly Estate good Name or from Coveting any thing that is his according to the several Commands in the second Table of the Decalogue You must walk in a perswasion not only that these things are just and equitable toward your Fellow-Creatures and that you are strictly bound to the performance of them but that they are the will of your heavenly Father that hath begotten you according to his own Image in Righteousness and true Holiness and hath given you his Spirit that you may be like-minded to him in all things And that they are the mind of Christ who dwelleth in you and you in him That God and Christ are kind tender-hearted long-suffering full of goodness to Men whether good or bad Friends or Enemies Poor or Rich and that Christ came into the World not to destroy but to save and that you are of the same Spirit that the Injuries done to you by your Neighbours can do you no harm And you need not seek any good for your selves by injuring them because you have all desirable happiness in Christ and all things tho intended by your Enemies for your hurt certainly work for your good through Christ Such apprehensions as these wrought in us by the Spirit of Faith do certainly beget in us a right frame of Spirit throughly furnished for every good work towards our Neighbour
or our Duty toward him We must love him as to yield ourselves wholly up to his constant Service in all things and to his disposal of us as our absolute Lord whether it be for Prosperity or Adversity Life or Death and for his sake we are to love our Neighbour even all Men whether they be Friends or Foes to us and so do to them in all things that concern their Honour Life Chastity Worldly Wealth Credit and Content whatever we would that Men should do to us in the like Condition Mat. 7.12 This Spiritual Universal Obedience is the Great End to the attainment whereof I am directing you And that you may not reject mine Enterprize as impossible observe that the most I promise is no more than an acceptable performance of these Duties of the Law such as our gracious merciful God will certainly delight in and be pleas'd with during our State of Imperfection in this World and such as will end in Perfection of Holiness and all Happiness in the World to come Before I proceed further stay your thoughts a while in the contemplation of the great Dignity and Excellency of these Duties of the Law that you may aim at the performance of them as your End with so high an esteem as may cast an amiable luster upon the ensuing discovery of the Means The principal Duties of Love to God above all and to each other for his sake from whence all the other Duties flow are so excellent that I cannot imagine any more Noble Work for the Holy Angels in their glorious Sphere They are the chief Works for which we were at first framed by the Image of God engraven upon Man in the first Creation and for which that beautiful Image is renewed upon us in our New Creation and Sanctification by Jesus Christ and shall be perfected in our Glorification They are Works which depend not meerly on the Sovereignty of the Will of God to be commanded or forbidden or left indifferent or changed or abolished at his pleasure as other Works that belong either to the Judicial or Ceremonial Law or to the means of Salvation prescribed by the Gospel but they are in their own Nature holy just and good Rom. 7.12 and meet for us to perform because of our natural relation to our Creator and Fellow-Creatures so that they have an inseparable dependance upon the Holiness of the Will of God and an indispensable Establishment thereby They are Works sufficient to render the Performers holy in all manner of Conversation by the Fruits which they bring forth if no other Duties had ever been commanded and by which the performance of all other Duties is sufficiently established as soon as they are commanded and without which there can be no Holiness of Heart and Life imagined and to which it was one great Honour of Mosaical and is now of Evangelical Ordinances to be subservient for the performance of them as Means which shall cease when their End this never-failing Charity is perfectly attained 1 Cor. 13. They are Duties which we were naturally obliged to by that Reason and Understanding which God gave to Man at his first Creation to discern what was just and meet for him to do and to which even Heathens are still obliged by the Light of Nature without any written Law or supernatural Revelation Rom. 2.14.15 Therefore they are called Natural Religion and the Law that requireth them is called the Natural Law and also the Moral Law because the Manners of all Men Infidels as well as Christians ought to be conformed to it and if they had been fully conformable they would not have come short of Eternal Happiness Mat. 5.19 Luke 10 27 28. under the penalty of the Wrath of God for the violation of it This is the true Morality which God approveth of consisting in conformity of all our Actions to the Moral Law and if those that in these days contend so highly for Morality do understand no other than this I dare joyn with them in asserting The greatest Saint is the greatest Moralist that the best morally honest Man is the greatest Saint and that Morality is the principal part of true Religion and the Test of all other parts without which Faith is dead and all other Religious Performances are a vain shew and meer hypocrisie for the faithful and true Witness hath testified concerning the two great Moral Commandments of Love to God and our Neighbour that there is none other Commandment greater than these and that on them hang all the Law and the Prophets Mar. 12.31 Mat. 22.40 The Second thing contained in this Introductory Direction is the necessity of learning the powerful and effectual Means whereby this great and excellent End may be accomplished and of making this the first Work to be done before we can expect success in any attempt for the attainment of it This is an Advertisement very needful because many are apt to skip over the Lesson concerning the Means that will fill up this whole Treatise as superfluous and useless When once they know the Nature and Excellency of the Duties of the Law they account nothing wanting but diligent performances and they rush blindly upon immediate Practice making more hast than good speed They are quick in promising Exod. 19.8 All that the Lord hath spoken we will do without sitting down and counting the cost They look upon Holiness as only the Means of an End Eternal Salvation not as an End itself requiring any great means to the attaining to the Practice of it The enquiry of most when they begin to have a sence of Religion is What good thing shall I do that I may have Eternal Life Mat. 19.16 Not How shall I be enabled to do any thing that is good Yea many that are accounted powerful Preachers spend all their Zeal in the earnest pressing the immediate Practice of the Law without any discovery of the effectual means of performance as if the Work of Righteousness were like those servile Employments that need no skill and artifice at all but industry and activity That you may not stumble at the Threshold of a Religious Life by this common oversight I shall endeavour to make you sensible that it is not enough for you to know the matter and reason of your Duty but that you are also to learn the powerful and effectual means of performance before you can successfully apply yourselves to immediate Practice And for this end I shall lay before you the Considerations following 1. We are all by Nature void of all strength and ability to perform acceptably that Holiness and Righteousness which the Law requireth and are dead in Trespasses and Sins and Children of Wrath by the Sin of our first Father Adam as the Scripture witnesseth Rom. 5.12 15 18 19. Eph. 2. v. 1 2 3. Rom. 8.7 8. This Doctrine of Original Sin which Protestants generally profess is a firm Basis and Ground-work to the assertion now to be proved
Rom. 8.7 8. Therefore that they may be encouraged and rationally enclined to Holiness they must hope that God will work savingly in them Now I leave it to considerate Men to judge whether such an Hope can be well grounded without a good Perswasion of such a Reconciliation and Saving-love of God to us as dependeth not upon any precedent goodness of our Works but is a cause sufficient to produce them effectually in us Yea we know further if we know our selves sufficiently that our Death in Sin proceeded from the Guilt of the first Sin of Adam and the Sentence denounced against it Gen. 2.17 And that it is still maintain'd in us by the Guilt of Sin and the Curse of the Law and that Spiritual Life will never be given us to free us from that Dominion except this Guilt and Curse be removed from us which is done by actual Justification Gal. 3.13 14. Rom. 6.14 And this is sufficient to make us despair of living to God in Holiness while we apprehend our selves to be under the Curse and Wrath of God by reason of our Transgressions and Sins still lying upon us Ezek. 33.10 Thirdly The nature of Duties of the Law is such as requireth an Apprehention of our Reconciliation with God and his hearty Love and Favour towards us for the doing of them The great Duty is Love to God with our whole Heart and not such a contemplative Love as Philosophers may have to the Object of Sciences which they are concern'd in no further than to please their Fancies in the knowledge of them but a practical Love whereby we are willing that God should be absolute Lord and Governour of us and all the World to dispose of us and all others according to his Will as to our temporal and everlasting Condition and that he should be the only Portion and Happiness of all those that are happy a Love whereby we like every thing in him as he is our Lord his Justice as well as any other Attribute without wishing or desiring that he were better than he is and whereby we desire that his Will may be done upon us and all others whether for Prosperity or Adversity Life or Death and whereby we can heartily praise him for all things and delight in our Obedience to him in doing his Will though we suffer that which is never so grievous to us even present Death Consider these things well and you may easily perceive that our Spirits are not in a fit frame for the doing of them while we apprehend our selves under the Curse and Wrath of God or while we are under prevailing Suspitions that God will prove an Enemy to us at last Slavish Fear may extort some slavish hypocritical Performances from us such as that of Pharaoh in letting the Israelites go sore against his Will but the Duty of Love cannot be extorted and forced by Fear but it must be won and sweetly allured by an Apprehension of God's Love and Goodness towards us as that eminent loving and beloved Disciple testifieth 1 Job 4.18 19. There is no fear in love but perfect love casteth out fear because fear hath torment He that feareth is not made perfect in love we love him because he first loved us Observe here that we cannot be before hand with God in loving him before we apprehend his Love to us And consult your own Experience if you have any true Love to God whether it were not wrought in you by a sense of God's Love first toward you All the goodness and excellency of God cannot render him an amiable Object to us except we apprehend him an agreeable good to us I question not but the Devils know the excellency of Gods Nature as well as our greatest Metaphysical Speculators and this doth but fill them the more with tormenting horror and trembling that is contrary to Love Ja. 2.19 The greater God's Excellency and Perfection is the greater Evil he is to us if he hate us and curse us and therefore the Principle of Self-preservation deeply rooted in our natures hindreth us from loving that which we apprehend as our own Destruction if a Man be an Enemy to us we can love him for the sake of our loving reconciled God because his Love will make Man's Hatred to work for our good but if God himself be our Enemy for whose sake can we love him Who is there that can free us from the evil of his Enemity and turn it to our Advantage until he be pleased to reconcile himself to us Fourthly Our Conscience must of necessity be first purged from dead works that we may serve the living God and this is done by actual Remission of Sin procured by the Blood of Christ and manifested to our Consciences as appeareth by Christ's dying for this end Heb. 9.14 15. and 10.1 2. 4. 14 17 22. That Conscience whereby we judge our selves to be under the guilt of sin and wrath of God is accounted an evil Conscience in Scripture though it perform its Office truly because it is caused by the evil of sin and will it self be a cause of our committing more sin until it can judge us to be justified from all sin and received into the Favour of God Love which is the end of the Law must proceed from a good Conscience as well as from any other cleanness of Heart 1 Tim. 1.5 David's Mouth could not be opened to shew forth the Praise of God until he was delivered from Blood-guiltiness Psal 51.14 15. This evil guilty Conscience whereby we judge that God is our Enemy and that his Justice is against us to our everlasting Condemnation by reason of our sins doth strongly maintain and increase the Dominion of Sin and Satan in us and worketh most mischievous effects in the Soul against Godliness even to bring the Soul to hate God and to wish there were no God no Heaven no Hell so we might escape the Punishment due to us It so disaffecteth People toward God that they cannot endure to think or speak or hear of him and his Law but strive either to put him out of their minds by fleshly Pleasures and worldly Imployments and thus they are alienated from all true Religion only blinding it and stopping the mouth of it It produceth Zeal in many outside religious Performances and also false Religion Idolatry and the most inhumane Superstitions in the World I have often considered by what manner of working any Sin could effectually destroy the whole Image of God in the first Adam and I conclude it was by working first an evil guilty Conscience in him whereby he judged that the just God was against him and cursed him for that one Sin and this was enough to work a shameful Nakedness by disorderly Lusts a turning his Love wholly from God to the Creature and a desire to be hidden from the Presence of God Gen. 3.8 10. which was a total Destruction of the Image of God's Holiness And we have cause to
How can such an one be willing to lay down his Life for the sake of God when by his Death he must part with God as well as with other things How can he willingly chuse Afflictions rather than Sin when he shall be more miserable in this Life for it and not at all happy hereafter I grant if Affliction come unavoidably upon such a Person he may reasonably judge that Patience is better for him than Impatience but it will displease him that he is forced to the use of such a Virtue and he will be prone to fret and murmure at his Creator and to wish he had never been rather than to endure such miseries and to be comforted only with vain transitory Enjoyments I think I have said enough to shew how unfurnished such a Man is for Holiness and he that will burn up Heaven and quench Hell that he may serve God out of Love doth thereby leave himself â— little better furnished than the Sadduce the one denieth them the other will not have them at all to be considered in this case Secondly The sure Hope of the Glory of Heaven is made use of ordinarily by God since the Fall of Adam for the Practice of Holiness as the Scripture doth abundantly shew Christ the great pattern of holiness for the joy that was set before him endured the cross despising the shame Heb. 12.2 And though I cannot say that the first Adam had such a sure Hope to preserve him in Innocency yet he had instead of it the present Possession of an earthly Paradice and an happy Estate in it which he knew would last if he continued in Holiness or be changed into a better Happiness The Apostles did not faint under Affliction because they knew that it worked for them a more exceeding eternal weight of glory 2 Cor. 4.16 17. The believing Hebrews took joyfully the spoiling of their Goods knowing in themselves that they had an Heaven a better and more enduring Substance Heb. 10.34 The Apostle Paul accounts all his Sufferings unprofitable were it not for a glorious Resurrection and that Christians would be of all Men most miserable and that the Doctrine of the Epicures were rather to be chosen Let us eat and drmk for to morrow we shall die And he exhorts the Corinthians to be abundant in the work of the Lord knowing that their labour shall not be in vain in the Lord 1 Cor. 15.58 As worldly Hope keepeth the World at work in their various Employments so God giveth his People the Hope of his Glory to keep them close to his Service Heb. 6.11 12. 1 Joh. 3.3 And it is such a sure Hope as shall never make them ashamed Rom. 5.28 Those that think it below the excellency of their Love to work out of Hope of the Heavenly Reward do thereby advance their Love beyond the Love of the Apostles and Primitive Saints and even of Christ himself 3dly This perswasion of our future enjoyment of everlasting Happiness cannot tend to Licentiousness if we understand well that perfect Holiness is a necessary part of that Happiness and that tho' we have a Title to that Happiness by free Justification and Adoption yet we must go to the possession of it in a way of Heliness 1 Jo. 3.1 2 3. Neither is it legal or mercenary to be moved by this Perswasion seeing the Perswasion it self is not gotten by the Works of the Law but by free Grace through Faith Gal. 5.5 And if it be a working out of self-love yet for certain it is not that carnal self-love which the Scripture condemneth as the Mother of Sinfulness 2 Tim. 3.2 but an holy self-love enclining us to prefer God above the Flesh and the World such as God directeth us unto when he exhorteth us to save our selves Acts 2.40 And it is so far from being contrary to the pure Love of God that it brings us to love God more purely and entirely The more good and beneficial we apprehend God to us to all Eternity doubtless the more lovely God will be to us and our Affections will be the more enflamed towards him God will not be loved as a barren Wilderness a Land of Darkness to us neither will he be served for nought Jer. 2.31 Is 45.19 He would think it a Dishonour to him to be owned by us as our God if he had not prepared for us a City Heb. 11.16 And he draweth us to love him by the Cords of a Man such Cords as the Love of Men useth to be drawn by even by his own Love to us in laying his Benefits before us Hos 11.4 Therefore the way for us to keep our selves in the Love of God is to look for his Mercy unto eternal Life Jude 21. The last Endowment for the same end as the former is that we be well perswaded of sufficient Strength both to will and perform our Duty acceptably until we come to the Enjoyment of the heavenly Happiness This is contrary to the Error of those that account it sufficient if we have strength to practice Holiness if we will or to will it if we please and this is the sufficient strength which they earnestly contend for as a great Benefit bestowed on all Mankind by universal Redemption It is also contrary to the Error of those that think the Practice of Godliness and Wickedness to be alike easie excepting only some difficulty in the first Alterations of vicious Customs and in bearing Persecutions which they account to be a rare Case since the Kingdoms of the World have been brought to the Profession of Christianity or that think that God requireth of Men only to do their Endeavour that is what they can do and it is nonsence to say they cannot do what they can do According to their Judgment it is needless to concern our selves much about sufficient Strength for holy Practice For the confirmation of the Assertion against these Errours take these Arguments First We are by nature dead in Trespasses and Sins unable to will or do any thing that is spiritually good notwithstanding the Redemption that is by Christ until we be actually quickened by Christ Ephes 2 1â— Rom. 8.7 8 9. Those that are sufficiently enlightned and humbled know themselves to be naturally in this Case and that they do not want only executive Power to do good but chiefly an Heart to will it and to be pleased with it and that if God work not in them both to will and to do they shall neither will nor do any thing pleasing to him Phil. 2.13 And that if he leave them to their own Corruption after he hath begun the good Work they shall certainly prove vile Apostates and their latter end will be worse than their beginning We may conclude from hence that whosoever can couragiously attempt the Practice of the Law without being well perswaded of a sufficient Power whereby he may be enabled to be heartily willing as well as to perform when he is
after the Spirit Rom. 8.3 4. Observe here that though Christ died that we might be justified by the Righteousness of God and of Faith not by our own Righteousness which is of the Law Rom. 10.4 5 6. Phil. 3.9 yet he died also that the Righteousness of the Law might be fulfilled in us and that by walking after his Spirit as those that are in Christ Rom. ibid. He is resembled in his Death to a Corn of Wheat dying in the Earth that it may propagate its own nature by bringing forth much Fruit Joh. 12.24 to the Passover that was slain that a Feast might be kept upon it and to Bread broken that it may be Nourishment to those that eat it 1 Cor. 5.7 8. and 11.24 To the Rock smitten that Water may gush out of it for us to drink 1 Cor. 10.4 He died that he might make of Jew and Gentile one New Man in himself Ephes 2.15 and that he might see his seed i. e. such as derive their holy Nature from him Is 53.10 Let these Scriptures be well observed and they will sufficiently evidence that Christ died not that we might be able to form an holy Nature in our selves but that we might receive one ready prepared and formed in Christ for us by Union and Fellowship with him By his Resurrection he took Possession of Spiritual life for us as now fully procured for us and made to be our Right and Property by the Merit of his Death and therefore we are said to be quickned together with Christ even when we were dead in sins and to be raised up together yea and to be made to sit together in heavenly Places in Christ Jesus as our Head while we continue upon Earth in our own Persons Ephes 2.5 6. His Resurrection was our Resurrection to the Life of Holiness as Adam's Fall was our Fall into spiritual Death and we are not our selves the first makers and formers of our new holy Nature any more than of our Original Corruption but both are formed ready for us to partake of them And by Union with Christ we partake of that spiritual Life that he took Possession of for us at his Resurrection and thereby we are enabled to bring forth the Fruits of it as the Scripture sheweth by the Similitude of a Marriage Union Rom. 7.4 We are married to him that is risen from the Dead that we might bring forth Fruit unto God Baptism signifieth the Application of Christ's Resurrection to us as well as his Death we are raised up with him in it to newness of Life as well as buried with him and we are taught thereby that because he died unto sin once and liveth unto God we should likewise reckon our selves to be dead indeed unto Sin and alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord Rom. 6.4 5 10 11. Fourthly Our Sanctification is by the Holy Ghost by whom we live and walk holily Rom. 15.16 Gal. 5.25 Now the Holy Ghost first rested on Christ in all fulness that he might be communicated from him to us as was signified to John the Baptist by the Similitude of the descending of a Dove from the opened Heavens resting on Christ at his Baptism Joh. 1.32.33 And when he sanctifieth us he baptizeth us into Christ and joyneth us to Christ by himself as the great Bond of Union 1 Cor. 12.13 So that according to the Scriptural Phrase it is all one to have Christ himself and to have the Spirit of Christ in us Rom. 8.9 10. He glorifieth Christ for he receiveth those things that are Christ's and sheweth them to us Joh. 16.14 15. He giveth us an experimental Knowledge of those spiritual Blessings which he himself prepared for us by the Incarnation Death and Resurrection of Christ Fifthly The effectual Causes of those four principal Endowments which in the foregoing Direction were asserted necessary to furnish us for the immediate Practice of Holiness are comprehended in the fulness of Christ and treasured up for us in him and the Endowment themselves together with their Causes are attained richly by Union and Fellowship with Christ If we be joyned to Christ our Hearts will be no longer left under the Power of sinful Inclinations or in a meer indifferency of Inclination to good or evil but they will be powerfully endued with a Power Bent and Propensity to the Practice of Holiness by the Spirit of Christ dwelling in us and inclining us to mind spiritual things and to lust against the Flesh Rom. 8.1 4 5. Gal. 5.17 And we have in Christ a full Reconciliation with God and an Advancement into higher Favour with him than the first Adam had in the State of Innocency because the Righteousness that Christ wrought out for us by his Obedience unto Death is imputed to us for our Justification which is called the Righteousness of God because it was wrought by one that is God as well as Man and therefore it is of an infinite value to satisfie the Justice of God for all our sins and to procure his Pardon and highest Favour for us 2 Cor. 5.21 Rom. 1.19 And that we may be perswaded of this Reconciliation we receive the Spirit of Adoption through Christ whereby we cry Abba Father Rom. 8.15 Hereby also we are perswaded of our future Enjoyment of the everlasting heavenly Happiness and of sufficient Strength both to will and to perform our Duty acceptably until we come to that Enjoyment For the Spirit of Adoption teacheth us to conclude that if we be the Children of God then we are heirs of God joynt-heirs with Christ And that the Law of the Spirit of Life that is in Christ Jesus maketh us free from the Law of Sin and Death and that nothing shall be against us nothing shall separate us from the Love of God in Christ but in all opposition and difficulties that we meet with we shall be at last more than conquerours through him that loved us Rom. 8.17.23 35 37 39. Furthermore this comfortable Perswasion of our Justification and future Happiness and all saving Priviledges cannot tend to licentiousness as it is given only in this way of Union with Christ because it is joyned inseparably with the Gift of Sanctification by the Spirit of Christ so that we cannot have Justication or any saving Priviledge in Christ except we receive Christ himself and his Holiness as well as any other Benefit as the Scripture testifieth that there is no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit Rom. 8.1 Sixthly Whereas it may be doubted whether the Saints that lived before the coming of Christ in the Flesh could possibly be one Flesh with him and receive a new Nature by Union and Fellowship with him as prepared for them in his fulness we are to know that the same Christ that took our Flesh was before Abraham Joh. 8.58 and was fore-ordained before the Foundation of the World to be sacrificed as a Lamb
or Christ for Salvation to be accounted the principal Saving-act of it because as it seemeth to them many loose wicked People trust on God and Christ for their Salvation as much as others and are by their Confidence hardened the more in their Wickedness But they had rather it should be Obedience to all Christ's Laws at least in their Resolution or a Consent that Christ should be their Lord accepting of his terms of Salvation and a resignation of themselves to his Government in all things It is a sign that the Scripture-form of Teaching is grown into disesteem with our great Masters of Reason when trusting in the Lord so much commended in Scripture is accounted a mean and ordinary thing They endeavour to affright us from owning Faith to be an Instrument of Justification by telling us that thereby we that use the Instrument are made our own principal Justifiers to the dishonour of God though it might be easily answered that we are made thereby only the principal receivers of our own Justification from God the Giver of it to whom all the Glory doth belong All these Errors will fall if it can be proved that such a Faith as I have described is an Instrument whereby we actually receive Christ himself into our Hearts and Holiness of Heart and Life as well as Justification by Union and Fellowship with him For the proof of it I shall offer the following Arguments First By Faith we have the actual enjoyment and possession of Christ himself and not only of Remission of Sins but of Life and so of Holiness Christ dwelleth in our hearts by faith Ephes 3.17 We live to God and yet not we but Christ liveth in us by the Faith of the Son of God Gal. 2.19 20. He that believeth on the Son of God hath the Son and everlasting life that is in him 1 John 5.12 13. John 3.36 He that heareth Christ's word and believeth on him that sent Christ hath everlasting life and is passed from death unto life These Texts express clearly such a Faith as I have described therefore the efficiency or operation of Faith in order to the enjoyment of Christ and his Fulness cannot be the procurement of a bare Right or Title to this Enjoyment but rather it must be an entrance into it and taking possession of it We have our accâ—ss and entrance by faith into that Grace of Christ wherein we stand Rom. 5.2 Secondly The Scripture plainly ascribeth this effect to Faith that by it we receive Christ put him on are rooted and grounded in him and also that we receive the Spirit remission of sins and an inheritance among them which are sanctified John 1.2 Gal. 3.26 27. Col. 2.6 7. Gal. 3.14 Acts 26.18 And the Scripture illustrateth this Receiving by the Similitude of Eating and Drinking He that believeth on Christ drinketh the living water of his spirit John 7.37 38 39. Christ is the bread of life his flesh is meat indeed and his blood drink indeed and the way to eat and drink it is to believe in Christ and by so doing we dwell in Christ and Christ in us and have everlasting Life John 6.35 47 48 54 55 56. How can it be taught more clearly that we receive Christ himself properly into our Souls by Faith as we do receive Food into our Bodies by eating and drinking and that Christ is as truly united to us thereby as our Food when we eat or drink it So that Faith cannot be a Condition to procure a meer Right or Title to Christ no more than Eating or Drinking procureth a meer Right or Title to our Food but it is rather an Instrument to receive it as the Mouth that eateth and drinketh the Food Thirdly Christ with all his Salvation is freely given by the Grace of God to all that believe on him for we are saved by Grace through Faith and that not of our selves it is the Gist of God Eph. 2.8 9. We are justified freely by his Grace through Faith in his blood Rom. 8.24 The Holy Ghost who is the Bond of Union betwixt Christ and us is a Gift Acts 2.38 Now that which is a Gift of Grace must not be at all earned purchased or procured by any Work or Works performed as a Condition to get a right Title to it and therefore Faith it self must not be accounted such a Condition If it be by Grace it is no more of Works otherwise Grace is no more Grace Rom. 11.1 The Condition of a free Gift is only take and have and in this sence we will readily acknowledge Faith to be a Condition allowing a Liberty in Terms where we agree in the thing but if you give a Pepper-corn to purchase a Title to it then you spoil the freeness of the Gift The free Offer of Christ to you is sufficient to conferr upon you a Right yea to make it your Duty to receive Christ and his Salvation as yours and because we receive Christ by Faith as a free Gift therefore we may account Faith to be the Instrument and as it were the Hand whereby we receive him Fourthly It hath been already proved that all spiritual Life and Holiness is treasured up in the Fulness of Christ and communicated to us by Union with him therefore the accomplishing of Union with Christ is the first work of Saving Grace in our Hearts and Faith itself being an holy Grace and part of spiritual Life cannot be in us before the beginning of it but rather it is given to us and wrought in the very working of the Union And the way wherein it conduceth to the Union cannot be by procuring a meer Title to Christ as a Condition because then it should be performed before the uniting Work beginneth but rather by being an Instrument whereby we may actively receive and embrace Christ who is already come into the Soul to take possession of it his own Habitation True Saving-Faith such as I have described hath in its nature and manner of Operation a peculiar aptitude or fitness to receive Christ and his Salvation and to unite our Souls unto him and to furnish the Soul with a new holy Nature and to bring forth an holy Practice by Union and Fellowship with him God hath fitted natural Instruments for their Office as the Hands Feet c. so that we may know by their nature and natural manner of operation for what use they are designed In like manner we may know that Faith is an Instrument formed on purpose for our Union with Christ and Sanctification if we consider what a peculiar fitness it hath for the Work The discovery of this is of great use for the understanding of the mysterious manner of our receiving and practising all Holiness by Union and Fellowship with Christ By this precions Grace of Faith and to make you as it were to see with your Eyes that it is such an Instrument as I have asserted it to be I shall present it to your view
the Old or New Testament shall at last stand or fall according to those Terms Thirdly Sincere Obedience cannot be performed to all the Commands of Christ in the Gospel except it be also performed to the Moral Law as given by Moses and as obliging us by that authority Some Assertors of the Condition of Salvation by sincere Obedience to the Commands of Christ would fain be free from the authority of the Law of Moses because that justifieth none but thundereth out a Curse against all those that seek Salvation by the Works of it Gal. 3.10 11. But if they were at all justified by sincere Works their respect to Moses's Authority would not hinder their Success for many that were good Christians accounted themselves bound to obey not only the moral but the ceremonial Law and if they had sought Justification by any Works they would have sought it by those Acts 20 20 21. They knew not of any Justification by sincere Works as commanded only in the Gospel yet if they had erred in any thing absolutely necessary to Salvation the Apostles would not have tolerated their weakness And whether they will or no they must seek their Salvation by the Works of the moral Law as given by Moses or else they can never get it by sincere Obedience to the Commands of Christ Christ never loved their new Condition so well as to abolish the Mosaical Authority of the moral Law for the establishment of it he came not to destroy the Law and the Prophets but to fulfill them in the Practice required by them and hath declared that those that break one of the least of these Commandments and teach men so shall be called the least in the Kingdom of Heaven but whosoever shall do and teach them the same shall be called great in the Kingdom of Heaven Mat. 5.17 19. He commandeth us to do to men whatsoever we would they should do to us because this is the Law and the Prophets which is sufficient to prove that He would have us to account the Law authoritative to oblige us in this matter He requireth his Disciples to observe and do whatsoever the Scribes and Pharisees bid them because they sate in Moses's Seat Mat. 23.23 And to come to the point in hand when Christ had occasion to answer the Questions of those that were guilty of the same Error that I am now dealing with in seeking their Salvation by their own Works He shewed them that they must obey the Commands as they were already established by the Mosaical Authority in the Scripture of the Old Testament What is written in the Law how readest thou This do and thou shalt live Luke 10.26 If thou wilt enter into life keep the Commandments which are Thou shalt do no Murder Thou shalt not commit Adultery c. In like manner the Apostles of Christ urged the performance of moral Duties upon Believers by the authority of the Law given by Moses The Apostle Paul exhorteth to love one another because He that loveth another hath fulfilled the Law Rom. 13.8 and to honour our Father and Mother which is the first Commandment with Promise Ephes 6.2 The Apostle John exhorteth to love others as no new but an old Commandment The Apostle James exhorteth to fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture Thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thy self and to keep all the Commands of the Law one as well as another because He that said Do not commit Adultery said also Do not kill Jam. 2.8 10 11. Sound Protestants have accounted the denial of the Authority of the moral Law of Moses to be an Antinomian Error tho' our late Prevaricators against Antinomianism maintain this Error yet they establish a worse Error of Justification by their sincere Gospel-works I think the denomination of the Antinomians arose from this Error The Law of Moses had its Authority at first from Christ for Christ was the Lord God of Israel that ordained the Law by Angels on Mount Sinai in the hand of Moses a Mediator for the Israelites who were then his only Church and with whom we believing Gentiles are now joyned as fellow-Members of one and the same Body Eph. 3.6 And though Christ hath since abrogated some of the Commandments then given by Moses concerning figurative Ceremonies and judicial Proceedings yet he hath not anulled the obligative Authority of the moral Law but hath left it in its full force to oblige us in moral Duties that are still to be practised as when some Acts of any Parliament are repealed the Authority of the same Parliament remaineth inviolable in other Acts that are not repealed I know they object that the Ten Commandments of the Moral Law the Ministration of Death written and engraven on Stones are also done away by Christ 2 Cor. 3.7 but this maketh altogether against their Conditional Covenant for they are the ministration of Death and done not as they commanded perfect Obedience for even Christ himself commandeth us to be perfect Mat. 5.48 but as they were Conditions for procuring Life and avoiding Death established by promise of Life to the Doers and a Curse to the Breakers of them Gal. 3.10 12. The Covenant made with Israel on Mount Sinai is abolished by Christ the Mediator of the new Covenant Heb. 8.8 9 13. And the Ten Commandments bind us not as they were words of that Covenant Exod. 34.28 I mean they bind us not as Conditions of that Covenant except we seek to be justified by Works for the Law as a Covenant doth still stand in force enough to curse those that seek Salvation by their own Works Gal. 3.10 and if abolished it is only to those that are in Christ by Faith Gal. 2.19 20. 15.15 But the Ten Commandments bind us still as they were then given to a People that were at that time under the Covenant of Grace made with Abraham to shew them what Duties are holy just and good well pleasing to God and to be a Rule for their Conversation The result of all is that we must still practise moral Duties as commanded by Moses but we must not seek to be justified by our Practice If we use them as a Rule of Life not as Conditions of Justification they can be no ministration of Death or killing Letter unto us their Perfection indeed maketh them to be harder Terms to procure Life by but a better Rule to discover all Imperfections and to guide us to that Perfection which we should aim at And it will be our Wisdom not to part with the Authority of the Decalogue of Moses until our new Divines can furnish us with another System of Morality as compleat as that and as excellently composed and ordered by the Wisdom of God and more authentick than that is 4ly Those that endeavour to procure Christ's Salvation by their sincere Obedience to all the Commands of Christ do act contrary to that way of Salvation by Christ's Free-grace and Faith discovered in the
hath been one occasion of the prevailing of Heathenish Jewish and Popish Superslitions in the World We find by experience how Popery fell in several Nations in late years when the great Pillar of it the Doctrine of Justification by Works was overthrown by the Protestant Doctrine of Justification by Faith alone If these Legal Zealots be forced by strong Conviction to endeavour the Practice of spiritual Duties for the quieting of their guilty Consciences they may be brought to strive and labour earnestly and even to macerate their Bodies with Fasting that they may kill their Lusts but still their Lusts are alive and as strong as ever they were and do shew forth their Enmity against the Law of God by inward fretting repining and grudging at it as a grievous Task-mastertho ' a slavish Fear restrain their gross outward actings And if once these Zealots be enlightned with the Knowledge of the Spiritual nature of the Law to discern that God rejecteth all their slavish Service and will not own it for sincere Obedience then they fall into Despair of their Salvation because they see they have failed in their highest attempts to perform the Condition and then they can easily discover themselves that their Hearts swell in Anger and manifest Hatred against the Law yea and against God and Christ for prescribing such hard Conditions of Salvation which they cannot keep and yet expect to be damned eternally for breaking of them This filleth them with blasphemous thoughts against God and Christ and they can hardly refrain from blaspheming with their tongues and when they are brought to this horrible Condition if God doth not in mercy discover to them the way of Salvation by Free-grace through Faith alone they will endeavour if they can to sear their Consciences past feeling of Sin and fully to abandon all Religion which have proved such an unsufferable Torment to them or if they cannot sear their Consciences some of them are easily prevailed over by Satan rather to murder themselves than to live longer in the Hatred of God the Spirit of Blasphemy and continual horror of Conscience This is the pestilent effect of Legal-Doctrine upon a carnal heart that doth but rouse up and terribly enrage the sleeping Lion our sinful Gorruption instead of killing of it as is too evident by the sad Experience of many that have endeavoured with all their might to practice it and by the Scripture that sheweth a sufficient cause why it cannot be otherwise Therefore the Doctrine of Salvation by sincere Obedience that was invented against Antinomianism may well be ranked amongst the worst Antinomian Errors For my part I hate it with perfect Hatred and count it mine Enemy as I have found it to be and I have found by some good Experience the Truth of the Lesson taught by the Apostle that the way to be freed from the Mastery and Dominion of Sin is not to be under the law but under grace Rom. 6.15 6thly The way of Salvation by works was blasted by the Curse denounced against the first Adam's Sin so that now it cannot work Life in us or Holiness but only Death For the Law which requireth both sincere and perfect Obedience to God in all things was made known to Adam at his first Creation as the means of continuing the happy Life that was then bestowed upon him and it would have been effectual for this end if he had not transgressed in the forbidden fruit but when he had once brought himself and his Posterity under the terrible Sentence Thou shalt surely die Gen. 2.17 all that Knowledge of God or his Law that before wrought for continuance of Life was turned by that cursing Sentence the contrary way to work for his death even for the death of his Soul in sin as well as for the death of his Body and therefore it quickly moved him to hide himself from God as an enemy It was as if God should say All the light and knowledge that thou hast shall not be able to continue thy life or restore it but it shall rather tend to thy death Therefore while we continue in our Natural state under the first Adam's Guilt and Curse the knowledge of the Law yea and all such knowledge of God and his Attributes as natural Men may attain to must needs be in like manner accursed to us and seeing Man did not use his natural Knowledge and Wisdom aright God is resolved to revenge the abuse of it by giving us Salvation in a way contrary to it that seemeth foolishness to the Natural man and wholly to abolish the way of living by any of our works or by any Wisdom or Knowledge that the Natural-man can attain unto for it is written I will destrey the wisdom of the wise and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of the world For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe 1 Cor. 1.19 20 21. Hence we may conclude that no Truth known by the light of Nature can be an effectual Principle or Motive to work Holiness in us and Gospel-principles and Motives are but abused when they are applied to a Legal-way of Salvation 7thly The end which God aimed at in giving the Law by Moses was not that any should ever attain to Holiness or Salvation by the condition of perfect or sincere Obedience to it tho' if there had been any such way of Salvation at that time it must have consisted in the Performance of that Law which was then given to the Church to be a Rule of Life as well as a Covenant There was another Covenant made before that time with Abraham Isaac and Jacob a Covenant of Grace promising all Blessings freely through Christ the promised Seed by which only they were to be saved and the Covenant of the Law was added that they might-see their sinfulness and subjection to death and wrath and the impossibility of attaining to life or holiness by their works and be forced to trust on the free Promise only for all their Salvation and that Sin might be restrained by the Spirit of Bondage until the coming of that promised Seed Jesus Christ and the more plentiful pouring out of the sanctifying Spirit by him This the Apostle Paul sheweth largely Gal. 3.15 to 24. Rom. 5.20 21. Rom. 10.3 4. None of the Israelites under the Old Testament were ever saved by the Sinai-Covenant neither did any of them ever attain to Holiness by the terms of it Some of them did indeed perform the Commandments of it sincerely tho' imperfectly but those were first justified and made Partakers of Life and Holiness by virtue of that better Covenant made with Abraham Isaac and Jacob which was the same in substance with the New-covenant or Testament establish'd by the Blood of Christ Had it not been for that better Covenant the
are as unfit for the glorious Presence as Swine for the Presence-Chamber of an Earthly Prince I confess some may be converted when they are so near the point of Death that they may have little time to practice Holiness in this World but the Grace of the Spirit is active like fire Mat. 3.11 And as soon as it is given it will immediately produce good inward Workings of Love to God and Christ and his People which will be sufficient to manifest the righteous Judgment of God in saving them at the great Day when he shall judge every Man according to his Work though some possibly may not have so much Time to discover their inward Grace in any outward good Works as the Thief upon the Cross Luke 23.40.43 The third and last thing to be noted in this Direction is that Holiness of heart and life is to be sought for earnestly by Faith as a very necessary part of our Salvation Great multitudes of ignorant People that live under the Gospel harden their hearts in sin and ruine their Souls for ever by trusting on Christ for such an imaginary Salvation as consisteth not at all in Holiness but only in Forgiveness of Sin and Deliverance from everlasting Torments They would be free from the Punishments due to Sin but they love their Lusts so well that they hate Holiness and would not be saved from the Service of Sin The way to oppose this pernicious Delusion is not to deny as some do That trusting on Christ for Salvation is a saving Act of Faith but rather to shew that none do or can trust on Christ for true Salvation except they trust on him for Holiness neither do they heartily desire true Salvation if they do not desire to be made holy and righteous in their Hearts and Lives if ever God and Christ give you Salvation Holiness will be one part of it if Christ wash you not from the filth of your Sins you have no part in him Joh. 13.8 What a strange kind of Salvation do they desire that care not for Holiness They would be saved and yet be altogether dead in Sin Aliens from the Life of God bereft of the Image of God deformed by the Image of Satan his Slaves and Vassals to their own filthy Lusts utterly unmeet for the Enjoyment of God in Glory Such a Salvation as that was never purchased by the Blood of Christ and those that seek it abuse the Grace of God in Christ and turn it into Lasciviousness They would be saved by Christ and yet out of Christ in a fleshly state whereas God doth free none from Condemnation but those that are in Christ that walk not after the Flesh but after the Spirit or else they would divide Christ and take a part of his Salvation and leave out the rest but Christ is not divided 1 Cor. 1.13 They would have their Sins forgiven not that they may walk with God in Love in time to come but that they may practice their Enmity against him without any Fear of Punishment but let them not be deceived God is not mocked they understand not what true Salvation is neither were they ever yet throughly sensible of their lost Estate and of the great evil of Sin and that which they trust on Christ for is but an Imagination of their own Brains and therefore their Trusting is gross Presumption True Gospel Faith maketh us to come to Christ with a thirsty Appetite that we may drink of living Water even of his sanctifying Spirit John 7.37 38. And to cry out earnestly to save us not only from Hell but from Sin saying Teach us to do thy will thy spirit is good Psal 143.10 Turn thou me and I shall be turned Jer. 31.18 Create in me a clean heart O God and renew a right spirit within me Psal 51.10 This is the way whereby the Doctrine of Salvation by Grace doth necessitate us to Holiness of Life by constraining us to seek for it by Faith in Christ as a substantial part of that Salvation which is freely given to us through Christ DIRECT IX We must first receive the Comforts of the Gospel that we may be able to perform sincerely the Duties of the Law EXPLICATION SInce Man fell from Obedience to God which he was enabled and engaged to perform by the Comforts of his first happy state in Paradice God might have justly refused ever to give Man again any Comforts before-hand to encourage him to his Duty that the way to Holiness being hedged up against him with the Thorns and Briars of Fear Grief and Despair he might never be able to escape the Sentence of Death which was denounced against his first Transgression This Justice of God is manifest in the Method of the Legal Covenant wherein God promiseth us no Life Comfort or Happiness until we have throughly performed his Law and may be seen in the Mount Sinai Promulgation explicated Levit. 26. throughout and we are by Nature so strongly addicted to this Legal Method of Salvation that it is a hard matter to disswade those that live under the Light of the Gospel from placing the Duties of the Law before the Comforts of the Gospel if they cannot make Salvation it self yet they will be sure to make all the Comforts of it to depend upon their own Works They think it as unreasonable to expect Comfort before Duty as Wages before Work or the Fruits of the Earth before the Husband Man's Labour 2 Tim. 2.6 They account the only effectual way to secure the Obedience we owe to the Law of God is to ground all our Comforts on the Performance of it and that the contrary Doctrine strengthens the Hands of the Wicked by prophesying Peace to them where there is no Peace Ezek. 13.16 22. And openeth the Flood-gates to all Licentiousness therefore some Preachers will advise Men not to be sollicitous and hasty of getting of Comfort but that they should rather exercise themselves diligently in the Performance of their Duty and they tell them that in so doing their Condition will be safe and happy at last though they never enjoy any Comfort of their Salvation as long as they live in this World That you may rightly understand what I have asserted in the Direction against such vulgar Errors take notice That I do not make the only place of Gospel-comfort to be before the Duties of the Law I acknowledge that God comforteth his People on every side Psal 71.21 both before and after the Performance of their Duty and that the greatest Consolations do follow after Duty yet some Comforts God giveth to his People before hand as Advance-money to furnish them for his Service though most of the Pay comes in afterward Neither do I hereby speak any Peace to those that continue in their sinful natural state for the Comforts that I speak of cannot be received without rejecting those false Confidences whereby natural Men harden themselves in Sin and without that effectual working of
foregoing Directions That Faith in Christ is the Duty with which a holy Life is to begin and by which the Foundation of all other holy Duties is laid in the Soul It is before sufficiently proved That Christ himself with all Endowments necessary to enable us to an holy practice is received actually into our hearts by Faith This is the uniting Grace whereby the Spirit of God knitteth the knot of mystical Marriage betwixt Christ and us and maketh us Branches of that noble Vine Members of that Body joyned to that excellent Head living Stones of the spiritual Temple built upon the precious living Corner-stone and sure Foundation partakers of the Bread and Drink that came down from Heaven and giveth Life to the World This is the Grace whereby we pass from our corrupt natural State to a new holy State in Christ also from Death in Sin to Life in Righteousness and whereby we are comforted that so we may be established in every good Word and Work If we put the Question what must we do that we may work the works of God Christ resolveth it That we believe on him whom he hath sent Joh. 6.28 29. He putteth us first upon the work of believing which is the work of God by way of eminence the work of works because all other good works proceed from it The scope of the present Direction is to put you upon the performance of this great work of believing on Christ and to guide you therein for which end you are to consider distinctly four things contained in it 1. The first is you are to make it your diligent endeavour to perform the great work of Believing on Christ Many make little Conscience of this Duty It is not known by Natural Light as many moral Duties are but only by supernatural Revelation in the Gospel and it is foolishness to the natural Man These are sometimes terrified with apprehensions of other sins and will examine themselves concerning them and it may be will write them down to help their Memories and Devotion but the great sin of not believing on Christ is seldom thought of in their self-examinations or registred in the large Catalogues of their sins and even those who are convinced that Believing on Christ is a Duty necessary to Salvation do neglect all diligent endeavours to perform it Either because they account that it is a motion of the heart which may be easily performed at any time without any labour or diligent endeavour or on the contrary because they account it as difficult as all the works of the Law and utterly impossible for them to perform by their most diligent endeavours except the Spirit of God work it in them by its mighty power And that therefore it is in vain for them to work until they feel this working of the Spirit in their Hearts Or because they account it a Duty so peculiar to the Elect that it would be presumption for them to endeavour the performance of it until they know themselves to be elected to Eternal Life through Christ I shall urge you to a diligent performance of this Duty notwithstanding all these Impediments by the following consideration It is worthy of our best endeavours as appeareth by the preciousness excellency and necessity of it already discovered If the Light of Nature were not darkned in the matters of Salvation then it would shew us that we cannot of our selves find out the way of Salvation and would condemn those that despise that Revelation of the way of Salvation that God hath given us in the Gospel declared in all the holy Scriptures The great end of Preaching the Gospel is for the Obedience of Faith Rom. 1.5 that so we may be brought to Christ and all other Obedience yea the great end of all revealed Doctrines in the whole Scriptures is to make us wise to Salvation by Faith that is in Christ Jesus 2 Cor. 3.15 The end of the Law given by Moses was for Righteousness to every one that believeth Rom. 10.4 and Christ was that end for Righteousness The moral Law it self was revealed in order to our Salvation by believing on Christ or else the knowledge of it had nothing availed fallen Man that was unable to perform it Therefore they that slight the Duty of Believing and count it foolishness do thereby slight despise and villisie the whole Counsel of God revealed in the Scripture The Law and the Gospel and Christ himself are become of none effect to the Salvation of such the only fruit that such an one can attain to of all the saving Doctrines of the Scripture is only some hypocritical moral Duties and slavish performances which will be as filthy rags in the sight of God in the great day However many mind not the sin of unbelief in their self-examinations and write it not in their Scrouls yet let them know that this is the most pernicious sin of all All the sins in their Scrouls would not prevail to their Condemnation yea they would not prevail in their Conversation were it not for their unbelief This one sin prevailing maketh it impossible for them to please God in any Duty whatsoever Heb. 11.6 If you will not mind this one main sin now God will at last mind you of it with a Vengeance For He that believeth not on the Son shall not see Life but the wrath of God abideth on him Joh. 3.36 The Lord Jesus shall be revealed from Heaven in flaming fire taking Vengeance on those that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ 2 Thes 1.5 2. Believing on Christ is a work that will require diligent endeavour and labour for the performance of it we must labour to enter into that rest lest any man fall by unbelief Heb. 4.11 we must shew diligence to the full assurance of hope to the end that we may be followers of them who through Faith and Patience inherited the promises Heb. 6.11 12. It is a work that requireth the exercise of Might and Power and therefore we have need to be strengthned with might by the Spirit in the inward Man that Christ may dwell in our hearts by Faith Eph. 3.16 17. I confess it is easie pleasant and delicious in its own nature because it is a motion of the heart without any cumbersome bodily Labour and it is a taking Christ and his Salvation as our own which is very comfortable and delightful and the Soul is carried forth in this by Love to Christ and his happiness which is an Affection which maketh even hard works easie and pleasant yet it is made difficult to us by reason of the opposition that it meeteth withall from our own inward Corruptions and from Satans temptations It is no easie matter to receive Christ as our happiness and true Salvation with true confidence and lively affection when the guilt of sin lyeth heavily upon the Conscience and the wrath of God manifested by the Word and terrible Judgments especially when we have been
Conversation in the World not with fleshly Wisdom but by the Grace of God 2 Cor. 1.12 having or holding fast Grace that we may serve God acceptably labouring abundantly in such a manner as that the whole work is not performed by us but by the Grace of God that is with us 1 Cor. 15.10 By Grace therefore we may well understand the priviledges of our new state given to us in Christ whereby we ought to be influenced and guided in the performance of holy Duties 4. It is also signified when we are to put off the old and put on the new Man yea to continue in so doing tho we have done it in a measure already and that we avoid our former sinful Conversation Ephes 4.21 22 24. and to avoid sin because we have put off the old and put on the new Man Col. 3.9 10 11. I have already shewed that by this twofold man is not meant merely sin and holiness but by the former meant our natural Estate with all its Endowments whereby we are furnished only to the practice of sin and by the later or new Estate in Christ that whereby we are furnished with all means necessary for the practice of Holiness 5. We are to understand the same thing when we are taught not to walk after the Flesh but after the Spirit that we may be free from the Law of sin and that the righteousness of the Law may be fulfilled in us Rom. 8.1 2 3. and through the Spirit to mortifie the deeds of the body and to be led by the Spirit because we live by the Spirit and have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts Gal. 5.24 The Apostle doth shew by these expressions not only that we are to practise holiness but also by what means we may do it effectually By the Flesh is meant our old Nature derived from the first Adam And by the Spirit is meant the Spirit of Christ and that new Nature which we have by him dwelling in us We are said to walk after either of these Natures when we make the Properties or Qualifications of either of them to be the principles of our Practice So when we are taught to serve in newness of the spirit and not in the oldness of the Letter that so we may bring forth fruits unto God The meaning is that we must endeavour to bring forth the fruits of holiness not by vertue of the Law that killing Letter to which the Flesh is married and by which the motions of sin are in us but by vertue of the Spirit and his manifold Riches which we partake of in our new state by a mystical marriage with Christ Rom. 7.4 5 6. and by vertue of such Principles as belong to the New State declared in the Gospel whereby the holy spirit is ministred to us 6. This is the manner of walking which the Apostle Paul directeth us unto when he teacheth us by his own Example That the continual work of our lives should be to know Christ and the power of his Resurrection and the fellowship of his Sufferings being made conformable to his Death if by any means we may attain to the Resurrection of the dead and to encrease and press forward in this kind of knowledge Phil. 3.10 11 12 15. Certainly he meaneth such an experimental knowledge of Christ and his Death and Resurrection as effectually makes us conformable thereunto in dying to sin and living to God And he would hereby guide us to make use of Christ and his Death and Resurrection by Faith as the powerful means of all Holiness in Heart and Life and to encrease in this manner of walking until we attain unto perfection in Christ 2. The second thing proposed was to lay before you some necessary Instructions that your steps may be guided aright to continue and go forward in this way of Holiness until you be made perfect in Christ And seeing we are naturally prone to mistake this way and are utterly unable to find it out or discern it by our own Reason and Understanding we should the more diligently attend to these Instructions taken out of the Holy Scriptures And we should pray earnestly that God would give unto us the Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation that we may discern the way of Holiness thereby and walk aright in it according to that gracious promise The wayfaring men tho Fools shall not err therein Isa 35.8 1. Observe and consider diligently in our whole Conversation That tho you are partakers of a new holy state by Faith in Christ yet our natural state doth remain in a measure with all its corrupt Principles and Properties as long as we live in this present World our apprehension of Christ and his perfection in this Life is only by Faith whereas by Sense and Reason we may apprehend much in our selves contrary to Christ and this Faith is imperfect So that true Believers have cause to pray to God to help their Unbelief Mar. 9.24 Therefore tho we receive perfect Christ by Faith yet the measure and degree of enjoying him is imperfect and we hope still so long as we are in this World to enjoy him in a higher degree of perfection than we have done we are yet but weak in Christ 2 Cor. 13.4 Children in comparison to the perfection we expect in another World 1 Cor. 13.10 11. and we must grow still till we come to the perfect man Eph. 4.13 and some are less Babes than others and have received Christ in so small a measure that they may be accounted carnal rather than spiritual 1 Cor. 3.1 And because all the Blessings and Perfections of our new state as Justification the gift of the Spirit and of the holy Nature and the Adoption of Children are seated and treasured up in Christ and joyned with him inseparably we can receive them no further than we receive Christ himself by Faith which we do in an imperfect measure and degree in this Life The Apostle Paul proposeth himself as a pattern for all those that are perfect in the truth of Grace to imitate And yet he professeth That he was not yet made so perfect in the degree or measure of saving Endowments but that he did still press forward towards the mark of the prize of the high-calling of God in Christ Jesus labouring still to apprehend and win Christ more perfectly and to be found in him not having his own Righteousness but that which is of God by Faith and to gain more experimental knowledge of Christ and of the fellowship of his sufferings and the power of his Resurrection being made conformable thereunto Phil 3.8 10. Believers are Justified already yet wait for the hope of Righteousness by Faith i. e. for the full enjoyment of the Righteousness of Christ Gal. 5.5 They have received but the first-fruits of the spirit and must wait for a more full enjoyment of it The Spirit witnesseth now to them that they are the Children of God and yet they groan
within themselves waiting for more full enjoyment of Adoption Rom. 8.23 Now seeing the degree and measure of our Reception and Enjoyment of Christ with all the Blessings of our new state in him in this Life is imperfect it followeth clearly that our contrary natural state with its Properties remaineth still in us in some degree and is not perfectly abolished so that all Believers in this World do in some degree partake of these two contrary states Believers have indeed put off the old man and put on the new man where Christ is all and in all Col. 3.10 11. yet they are to put the old Man off and the new Man on more and more because the old Man remaineth still in a measure They are said to be not in the flesh but in the spirit because their being in the Spirit is their best and lasting state as denominations are usually taken from the better part but yet the Flesh is in them and they find work enough to mortify the deeds of it Rom. 8.9.13 Therefore several things which are contrary to each other are frequently attributed to Believers in the Scripture with respect to these two contrary States wherein one place seems to contradict another and yet both are true in divers respects Thus holy Paul saith truly of himself I live yet not I Gal. 2.20 because he did live to God by Christ living in him and yet in another respect according to his natural State he did not live to God Again he professeth that he was carnal sold under Sin and yet on the contrary that he allowed not Sin but hated it he sheweth how both these were true concerning himself In diverse respects he saith in me that is in my Flesh dwelleth no good thing And I delight to do the Will of God according to the Inner-Man With my Mind I my self serve the Law of God but with my Flesh the Law of Sin Rom. 7.14.15 John saith He that saith he hath no sin deceiveth himself and is a Lyar 1 Joh. 1. and also that it 's true that whosoever is born of God doth not commit Sin for his Seed i. e. Christ's the new spiritual Nature remaineth in him and he can't sin because he is born of God 1 Joh. 3.9 It is true that we are weak and nothing and yet strong and able to do all things 2. Cor. 12.10 11. Phil. 4.13 It 's true that Believers are dead because of Sin but alive because of Righteousness Rom. 8.10 and that when they dye by a natural Death they shall never dye Joh. 11.25 26. They are Sons that have the Inheritance by their Birth-right and yet in some respects may differ nothing from Servants and so they may be under the Law in a sense and yet under Grace and Heirs according to the free Promise at the same time Gal 4.1 2. They are redeemed from the Curse of the Law and have forgiveness of Sins and a Promise that God will never be wroth with them nor rebuke them any more Gal. 3.13 Eph. 1.7 Isa 54.9 And yet on the contrary the Curse written in the Law is sometimes poured out upon them Dan. 9 11. and they have need still to pray that God would deliver them from their Guiltiness and forgive their Debts Psal 51.14 Mat. 6.12 and they may expect that God will punish them for all ther Iniquities Amos 3.2 These contrary things asserted concerning Believers in Scripture do sufficiently manifest that they partake of two contrary States in this Life and this is a plain and easie and ready way to reconcile these seeming Contradictions whatever other ways may be used to reconcile some of them And what reason is there to question that the old Sate remaineth in Believers in some degrees seeing all sound Protestants acknowledge that the sinful Depravation and Pollution of our Natures commonly called Original Sin which is one principal part of this old State doth remain in all as long as they live in this World Now though some penal Evils may be said to remain in us yet we can't suppose that this original Pollution is continued in us and considered in Christ But as considered in our old State derived from the first Adam therefore the first sin of Adam is imputed in some respect even to those that are justifyed by Faith and they remain in a measure as aforesaid under the Punishment and Curse denounced Gen. 2.17 in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely dye and on this account the same original Guilt and Pollution is propagated to the Children of believing Parents as well as others by natural Generation and if such a great and fundamental part of the natural State continue in Believers as subjection to the Guilt of the first Sin and original Corruption which is one great part of the Punishment and Death threatned and by which we are prone and inclined to all actual Sins why should we not judge that other parts of the same State do likewise continue in them as well as the guilt of their own actual Sins and subjection to the Wrath of God and the Curses and Punishments denounced against them in the Law and why should we not judge that all the Miseries of this Life and Death it self are inslicted upon Believers at least in some respect as Punishments of Sin It may be objected that this Doctrin of a twofold State of Believers in this Life doth much derogate from the Perfection of our Justification by Christ and from the fulness of all the Grace and spiritual Blessings of Christ and from the Merits of his Death and the power of his Spirit and that it greatly diminisheth the Consolation of Believers in Christ But it may be easily vindicated from this Objection if we understand it rightly for notwithstanding this twofold State it still holdeth true that Believers while they are on Earth have all Perfection of spiritual Blessings Justification Adoption the Gift of the Spirit Holiness Eternal Life and Glory in and with Christ Eph. 1.3 in the person of Christ who is now in Heaven the Old Man is perfectly crucifyed they are dead to Sin and to the Law and its Curse and they are quickned together with him and raised up with him and made to sit in heavenly Places in Christ Jesus Eph. 2.6 7. and Believers do in their own persons receive and enjoy by Faith all these perfect spiritual Blessings of Christ as far as they receive and enjoy Christ himself dwelling in them and no further Thus far they are in a new State free from the Guilt Pollution and Punishment of Sin and so from the Wrath of God and all Miseries and Death it self while they are in this World Yea all the Guilt Pollution and Punishments of Sin and all Evils whatsoever which they are subject to according to their natural State do them no harm according to this new State but work for their good and are no Evils but rather Advantages to them tending to the Destruction only
any present interest in Christ and shall never attain unto Holiness or Happiness until they learn a better way of Religion 4. Think not that you can effectually encline your Heart to the immediate practice of Holiness by any such practical Principles as do only serve to bind press and urge you to the performance of holy Duties But rather let such Principles stir you up to go to Christ first by Faith that you may be effectually enclined to the immediate practice of Holiness in him by Gospel Principles that strengthen and enable you as well as oblige you thereunto There are some practical Principles that do only bind press and urge us to holy Duties by shewing the reasonableness equity and necessity of our Obedience without shewing at all how we that are by Nature dead in sin under the wrath of God may have any Strength and Ability for the performance of them As for Instance the Authority of God the Law-giver our absolute dependance on him as our Creator Preserver Governour in whose hand is our Life Breath and all our Happiness here and for ever His All-feeing Eye that searcheth our Heart discerneth our very Thoughts and secret Purposes his exact Justice in rendring to all according to their works his Almighty and Eternal Power to reward those that Obey him and to punish transgressors for ever The unspeakable Joy of Heaven and terrible Damnation of Hell Such Principles as these do bind our Consciences very strictly and do work very strongly upon the prevalent Affections of Hope and Fear to pross and urge our Hearts to the performance of holy Duties if we believe them assuredly and work them earnestly upon our Hearts by frequent serious lively Meditation And therefore some account them most forcible and effectual means to form any Vertue in the Soul and to bring it to immediate performance of any Duty tho never so difficult and that the Life of Faith consisteth principally in our living to God in Holiness by a constant Belief and Meditation on them And they account those things that serve to mind them of such Principles very effectual for Holiness as looking on the Picture of Death or on a Deaths-head keeping a Coffin by them ready made walking about among the Graves c. But this is not that manner of living to God whereof the Apostle speaketh when he saith I live yet not I but Christ that liveth in me and the Life that I live in the Flesh I live by the Faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me If a Man make use of these obliging Principles to stir him to go to Christ for Strength to Act holily he walketh like one that hath received Christ as his only Life by Faith otherwise he walketh like other Natural Men. For the Natural Man may be brought to Act by these Principles partly by Natural Light and more fully by Scripture-Light without any true knowledge of the way of Salvation by Christ and as if Christ had never come into the World And he may be strictly bound by them and vehemently urged and pressed to holy Duties and yet all this while is left to his own Natural Strength or Weakness being not assured by any of these Principles that God will give him Strength to help him in the performance of these Duties and can do nothing aright until he get new Life and Strength in Christ by a more precious saving Faith There would be no need of a new Life and Strength by Christ if these Principles were sufficient to bring us to a holy Conversation Therefore this manner of practice is no better than walking after the flesh according to our corrupt state and a seeking to be made perfect in the flesh No question but Paul was very diligent in it while he was a blind Pharisee Yea the Heathen Philosophers might attain to it in some measure by the Light of Common Reason The Devils have such Principles as they do believe assuredly yet they are never the better for them It s a part of that Natural Wisdom whereby the world knew not God not that Wisdom of God in a Mystery discovered in the Gospel which is the only sanctifying Wisdom and Power of God unto Salvation VVhat can you produce but corruption by pressing with Motives to Holiness one that hath no soundness in him from the sole of the foot even to the head only wounds and bruises and putrified sores He that is made truly sensible of his own vileness and deadness by Nature will despair of ever bringing himself to Holiness by Principles that afford him no Life and Strength but only lay an Obligation upon him and urge and press him to Duty What are meer Obligations to one that is dead in sin While the Soul is without spiritual Life sin is the more moved and enraged by pressing and urging upon the Soul the Obligations of the Law and its Commands The motions of sin are by the Law and sin taking occasion by the Commandment worketh in us all manner of Concupiscence Rom. 7.5 7 8. And yet these obliging Principles are very good and excellent in this right Gospel use of them as the Apostle saith of the Law that it is good if it be used lawfully 1 Tim. 1.7 The humbled sinner knoweth well his Obligations but it is Life and Strength that he wanteth and despaireth of walking according to such Obligations until he get this Life and Strength by Faith in Christ Therefore these obliging Principles do move him to go in the first place to Christ that so he may be enabled to answer their End by the strengthning and enlivening Principles of Gods Grace in Christ Some there are that make use of Gospel-Principles only to oblige and urge to Duty without affording any Life and Strength for the performance as they that think that Christ dyed and rose again to establish a New Covenant of Works for our Salvation and to give us a pattern of Good Works by his own Obedience rather than to purchase Life Obedience and good Works for us Such as these do not understand and receive the Principles of the Gospel rightly but they pervert and abuse them contrary to their true Nature and Design and thereby they render them as ineffectual for their Sanctification as any other natural or legal Principles 5. Stir up and strengthen your self to perform the Duties of Holiness by a firm perswasion of your enjoyment of Jesus Christ and all spiritual and everlasting Benefits through him Set not your selves upon the performance of the Law with any prevailing thoughts or apprehensions that you are yet without an Interest in Christ and the love of God through him under the Curse of the Law the power of Sin and Satan having no better Portion than this present World no better strength than that which is in the purposes and resolutions of your own Free-will While such thoughts as these prevail and influence your Actings its evident that you
necessary to the very being there of because Faith cometh by hearing the Word of God and receiveth Christ as manifested by the Word as I have before proved Raab the Canaanite was justifyed by Faith before she had any visible Commuion with the Church in any of God's Ordinances yet not without the Word of God even the same Word for Substance which was written in the Scriptures and was then extant in the Books of Moses Though that Word was not brought to her by any Book of Holy Scripture nor by the Preaching of any Holy Minister but by the Report of the Heathens Josh 2.9 11. But here our great work must be to get such a Knowledge of the Word as is necessary and sufficient to guide us in receiving of Christ and walking in him by Faith You must not be of their Minds that think the Knowledge of the Ten Commandments to be sufficient to Salvation or that would have Mysteries to remain hidden from the Understanding of the Vulgar and nothing to be Preached to them but that they can readily assent to and receive by the Light that is in all Men of which Mind it may be some Ministers are who unwitingly agree with the Quakers in a Fundamental of their Heresie But you must endeavour chiefly to know the Mystery of the Father and the Son as it is discovered in the Gospel Wherein are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge Col. 2.2 3. Which to know is life eternal and the ignorance of it is death eternal Joh. 17.3 2 Cor. 4.3 You must know that Christ is the end of the law Rom. 10.4 and therefore you must endeavour to know the Commands of the Law not that you may be enabled by that Knowledge to practife them immediately and so to procure Salvation by your Works but rather by your Knowledge of them you may be made sensible of your Inablility to perform them and of the Enmity that is in your Heart against them and the Wrath that you are under for breaking of them and the Impossibility of being saved by your own Works that so you may flee to Christ for Refuge and trust only to the Free Grace of God for Justification and Strength to fulfill the Law acceptably through Christ in your Conversation And for this end you must endeavour to learn the utmost Strictness of the Commands the exact Perfection and spiritual Purity which they require that you may be the more convinced of Sin and stired up to seek unto Christ for Remission of Sin for Purity of Heart and spiritual Obedience and be brought nearer to the Enjoyment of him As Christ testified that the Scribel who understood the greatness of that Command of Loving the Lord with all the Heart and Soul was not far from the Kingdom of God Mar. 12.34 the most effectual Knowledge for your Salvation is to understand these Two Points The desperate Sinfulness and Misery of your own natural Condition and the alone Sufficiency of the Grace of God in Christ for your Salvation that you may be abased as to the Flesh and exalted in Christ alone And for the better understanding of these Two main Points you should learn how the first Adam was the figure of the second Rom. 5.14 How Sin and Death came upon all the natural Seed of the first Adam by his Disobedience in eating the forbidden Fruit and how Righteousness and Everlasting Life come upon all the spiritual Seed of the second Adam Jesus Christ by his Obedience unto Death even the death of the Cross You also should learn the true difference betwixt the Two Covenants the Old and the New or the Law and the Gospel that the former shutteth us up under the Guilt and Power of Sin and the Wrath of God and his Curse by its rigorons Terms Do all the Commandments and live and cursed are you if you do them not and fail in the least Point The latter openeth the gates of righteousness and life to all Believers i. e. the New Covenant by its gracious Terms Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and live i. e. All your Sins shall be forgiven and Holiness and Glory shall be given to you freely by his Merit and Spirit Furthermore you should learn the Gospel Principles that you are to walk by for the attainment of Holiness in Christ And here I shall mind you particularly that you would be a good Proficient in Christian Learning if you get a good Understanding of the 6th and 7th Chapters of the Apostle Paul to the Romans where the powerful Principles of Sanctification are purposely treated of and differenced from those weak and ineffectual Principles which we are most naturally prone to walk by I need not particularly commend any other Points of Religion to your Learning for if you get the Knowledge of these principal Points which I have mentioned and improve it to a right end which is to Live and Walk by Faith in Christ your own renewed Mind will covet the Knowledge of all other things that appertain to Life and Godliness And if in any thing you be otherwise minded than is according to saving Truth God shall reveal even this unto you Phil. 3.15 Yet let me caution you lest instead of gaining Christ by your Knowledge you rather lose him by putting your Knowledge in the place of Christ and trusting on it for your Salvation One cause of the Jews perishing was that they rested in a form of knowledge and of the truth in the law Rom. 2.20 and doubtless all that many Christians will gain by their Knowledge in the end will only be to be beaten with more Stripes because they place their Religion and Salvation chiefly in the Knowledge of their Lords Will and in their Ability to Talk and Dispute of it though it may be for the most part at the Tavern or Ale-Bench without preparing themselves to do according thereunto Luk. 12.47 much less are you to place your Religion and hope of Salvation in a daily Task of reading Chapters or repeating Sermons without understanding more than the Papists do their Lessons in the Latin Mass and Canonical Hours as sad Experience sheweth that many seemingly Devout and frequent Hearers of the Word do notwithstanding remain in lamentable and wonderful Ignorance of the saving Truth and in them is fulfilled the Prophecy of Isaias That in hearing they shall hear and not understand and in seeing they shall see c. Mat. 13.14 15. 2. Another means to be used diligently for the promoting of the Life of Faith is Examination of our State and Ways according to the Word whether we be at present in a State of Sin and Wrath or of Grace and Salvation that if we be in a State of Sin we may know our Sickness and come to the great Physician while it is called to day And if we be in a State of Grace ws may know that we are of the truth and assure our hearts before God with the greater confidence by
they know at what time and by what Text of Scripture they were converted and can make large Discourses of the workings of God upon their Hearts and are prone to talk unseasonably with Vain-glorying of their own Experiences when at last all their Experiences are not sufficient to evidence that they ever attained to the least measure of true saving Faith Therefore that we may not unjustly condemn or justify our Faith by proceeding on in-sufficient Evidences in its Tryal our best way is to examine it by the inseparable Properties of a true saving Faith by putting to our selves such Questions as these Are we made throughly sensible of our Sinfulness and of the Deadness and Misery of our natural State so as to despair absolutely of ever attaining to any Righteousness Holyness or true Happiness while we continue in it Are the Eyes of our Understandings enlightned to see the Excellency of Christ and the alone Sufficiency and All-sufficiency of his Grace for our Salvation Do we prefer the Enjoyment of him above all things and desire it with our whole Heart as our only Happiness whatsoever we may suffer for his sake Do we desire with our whole Heart to be delivered from the Power and Practice of Sin as well as from the Wrath of God and the Pains of Hell Do our Hearts come to Christ and lay hold on him for Salvation by trusting him only and endeavouring to trust on him confidently notwithstanding all Fears and Doubts that assault us If you find in your self a Faith that hath these Properties though as small as a Grain of Mustard-Seed and opposed with much Unbelief and manifold Corruptions in your Soul you may conclude that you are in a state of Salvation at present and that your remaining work is to continue and grow in it more and more and to walk worthy of it you should also examine the Fruits of your Faith and try whether you can shew your Faith by your works as you are taught Jam. 2.18 that you may be sure not to be deceived in your Judgment concerning it And though it be true as I have noted that Doubts concerning your Faith will breed doubting concerning the Sincerity of other Qualifications that are Fruits thereof yet possibly you may get such clear Evidences of your Sincerity as may overcome and expell all your Doubts And here you are not only to enquire whether your Inclinations Purposes Affections and Actions be materially good and holy but also by what Principles they are bred and influenced Whether it be by slavish fears of Hell and mercenary hopes of getting Heaven by your Works which are legal and carnal Principles that can never breed true Holiness or by Gospel Principles as by love to God because God hath loved you first and to Christ because he hath dyed and by the hope of eternal Life as the free Gift of God through Christ and dependance on God to sanctify you by his Spirit according to his Promises Remember that the New Testament is the ministration of the Spirit 2 Cor. 3.6 and the Spirit will sanctify us not by legal but by Gospel Principles Take notice further that you need not trouble your self to find out a multitude of Marks and Signs of true Grace if you can find a few good ones Particularly you may know That you are passed from death to life if you love the brethren 1 Joh. 3.14 i. e. if you love all whom you can in Charity judge to be true Believers and that because they are true Believers and for the Truth Sake that dwelleth in them As Solomon discerned the true Mother of the Child by her Affection towards her Child so the Mother Grace of Faith may be discerned by the Love that it breeds in us toward all true Believers To conclude this Point Happy are you if you can find so much Evidence of the Fruits of your Faith as may enable you to express your Sincerity in these moderate Terms Pray for us for we trust we have a good conscience in all things willing to live honestly Heb. 13.18 3. Meditation on the Word of God is of very great use and advantage for the attainment and practice of Holiness through Faith in Christ It is a Duty whereby the Soul doth Feed and Ruminate upon the Word as its Spiritual Food and digesteth it and turneth it into Nourishment whereby we are strengthned for every good Work Our Souls are satisfied therewith as with marrow and fatness When we remember God upon our Beds and meditate on him in the Night-watches Psal 68.5 6. The new Nature may well be called the Mind Rom. 7.25 because it liveth and acteth by minding of and meditating on spiritual things Therefore it is a Duty to be practised not only at some limited times but all the day Psal 119.97 yea day and night Psal 1.2 even in our ordinary Employments at home and abroad An habitual knowledge of the Word will not profit us without an active minding it by frequent Meditation Some think that much Preaching of the Word is not needful where a People are already brought to the knowledge of those things that are necessary to Salvation But they that are regenerated by the Word find by Experience that their Spiritual Life is maintained and encreased by often minding the same Word And therefore as new born Babes they desire the sincere milk of the Word that they may grow thereby 1 Pet. 2.2 and would by the Preachers be put often in remembrance of the same things that they may feed upon them by Meditation tho they know them already and are established in the present Truth 2 Pet. 1.12 But here our greatest Skill and chiefest Concernment lies in practising this Duty in such a manner as that it may be subservient and not at all opposite to the Life of Faith We must not rely upon the performance of a daily task of Meditation as a work of Righteousness for the procurement of the Favour of God instead of relying on the Righteousness of Christ as indeed we are prone to do to catch at any Straw rather than to trust only on the Free Grace of God in Christ for our Salvation And the end of our Meditation must not be meer Speculation and Knowledge of the Truth but rather the vigorous pressing it upon our Consciences and the stirring up our Hearts and Affections to the Practice of it And in stirring up our selves to holy Practice we must warily observe how far the several parts of the Truth of God are powerful and effectual for the attainment of this End that we may make use of them accordingly We must not imagine as too many do yea and some great Masters in the Art of Meditation that we can bring our Hearts effectually to the Love of God and Holiness and can work strange Metamorphoses and work or frame in our Hearts any holy Qualifications or Vertue meerly by working in our selves strong Apprehensions of God's eternal Power and God-head his
this Mercy-seat was a sign of God's Favourableness to a sinful People in residing among them and was called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heb. 9.5 Now this Doctrine appears confirmed for these Reasons 1. Because Christ by the will of God gave himself a Ransom for us to redeem us from Sin and Punishment Wrath and Curse Tit. 2.14 He gave himself for us to redeem us from all iniquity He gave himself to Death for us was delivered for our Offences his Death was the Price of our Redemption that we might be justified in Gods Sight God gave him up to Death he spared him not that he might be made Righteousness 1 Cor. 1.30 and Mat. 20.28 He gave his own life a Ransome for many And so 1 Tim. 2.6 He hereby bought us by this Price 1 Cor. 6.6 He Redeemed us not with Silver and Gold but with his precious Blood as of a Lamb without spot 1 Pet. 1.18 19. 2 Pet 2.1 Rev. 5.9 He suffering the Penalty due to us for Sin 1 Pet. 2.24 He bare our Sins in his Body on the Tree Gal. 3.13 He was made a Curse for us thereby redeemed us from the Curse of the Law and that he might be made a Curse he was made sin for us 2 Cor. 5.21 Isa 53.5 6. He subjected himself to the Law both in active as well as passive Obedience Gal. 4 4. And obeyed his Father even to Death doing and suffering at his Commandment John 14.31 Heb. 10.7 And his Obedience was for our Justification Compare Rom. 5.19 with Phil. 2.8 So Christ satisfied both for our Debt of Righteousness and Debt of Punishment for our Faultiness taint of Sin and want of Righteousness as well as for our guilt and obnoxiousness to punishment that we might be free from Wrath and deemed Righteous in God's Sight His Suffering was the consummating Act of Redemption and so all is attributed to it Heb. 2.9 10. Even to his Blood though other doings and sufferings concur 2 Cor. 8.9 We are righteous by him as we were guilty by Adam Rom. 5.12 2 God accepted this Price as a Satisfaction to his Justice which he shewed in raising Christ from the Dead and so acquitting him from all our Sins He was justified by the Spirit 1 Tim. 3. ult for us Rom. 4. ult raised for our Justification see Rom. 8.34 It is God that Justifieth Who is he that condemneth It is Christ that dyed yea rather that is risen from the Dead And Heb. 10.5 14. By one Offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified And Eph. 5.1 2. This Sacrifice was a sweet smelling savour unto God If Christ had sunk under the weight of our sins and not been raised the Payment had not been finished and so the Debt not discharged John 16.10 Of Righteousness because I go to my Father 3. This Righteousness is in Christ as to the benefit of it So that it can't be had except we be in Christ and have Christ So the Text expresseth and sheweth that he is the Propitiation and as so he is our Righteousness 1 Cor. 1.30 We have Redemption and Righteousness in him Eph. 1.7 2 Cor. 5.21 And therein our freedom from Condemnation Rom. 5.1 Christ dyed that his Seed might be justified Isa 53.10 11. Those that are in him by Spiritual Regeneration 1 Cor. 4.15 Observ VI. The formal cause of Justification or that wherein it consists is the Remission of Sin i. e. not only the Guilt and Punishment is removed but fault because it 's a Pardon grounded on Justice which cleareth the fault also By him we are justified from all things that the Law chargeth us with Act. 13.39 In Men subject to a Law there is no middle condition between not Imputing of Sin and Imputing of Righteousness and so these terms are used as Equivalent Act. 13.36 39. Through this Man is Preached Forgiveness of sins And by him all that believe are justified c. Rom. 4.6 8. 2 Cor. 15.19 21. Rom 5.17 This is through the Bloodshed of Christ Eph. 1.7 Mat. 26.28 Observ VII God Justifieth a Sinner through Faith in Christs Blood Faith is the Instrumental Cause of receiving this Benefit Faith in the Blood of Christ 1. This Faith is believing on Christ that we may be justified by him Gal. 2.16 Knowing that a Man is not justified by the Works of the Law but by the Faith of Jesus Christ even we have believed in Christ that we might be justified by the Faith of Christ and not by the works of the Law we believe in Christ for Justification out of a sence of our inability to obtain Justification by Works 2. This Faith doth not justify us as an Act of Righteousness earning and procuring our Justification by the work of it for this would have been Justification by works as under the Law diametrically opposite to Grace and free Gift which excludes all consideration of any works of ours to be our Righteousness under any denomination or diminutive terms whatever whether you 'l call it Legal or Evangelical though you reckon it no more then the payment of a Pepper-corn Rom. 11.6 Faith in this case is counted a Not working Rom. 4.5 And it 's not Faith that stands in stead of the Righteousness of the Law but the Righteousness of Christ which satisfieth for what we ought to have done or suffered as hath been shewed 3. God Justifieth by Faith as the Instrument whereby we receive Christ and his Righteousness by which we are Justified properly and we are justified by Faith only Metonymically by reason of the Righteousness received by it and to be justified by Faith and Christ is all one Gal. 3.8 Rom. 5.1 By Faith we receive remission of sins Act. 26.18 and Chap. 10 43. It s effect is the reception of Justification not the working of it as a man may be said to be maintained by his hands or nourished by his mouth when those do but receive that which nourisheth his food and drink the Cup is put for the Liquor in the Cup 1 Cor. 11.26 27. See Rom. 1.17 and 13.22 Christ is in us by Faith Eph. 3.17 perceived eat drunk Joh. 1.12 Chap. 9.49 53. 4. This Faith is to be understood Exclusively to all our works for Justification we defend against the Papists Justification by faith only and there is nothing more sully expressed in Scripture Phrase Rom. 3.28 Gal. 2.16 Phil. 3.8 9. Rom. 4.16 5. We must understand faith in a full sence of receiving Remission of the sault as well as of the punishment we believe that God accounts not the fault to us of the least sin and where faith is said to be accounted for Righteousness it is because of the object it receives Rom. 4.6 7 8. 2 Cor. 5.19 21. We believe Christs Righteousness imputed to us as our sins to him or else we receive not remission of Sins by believing which is contrary to charging us with sin and condemnation which charging signifieth imputing sin Rom. 8.33 34 together