his Gospel Promises they are neither grievous nor extream difficult but a burthen fair and easie to be born His Commandments saith S t John are not grievous 1 Joh. 5.3 And our Lord himself who best knew the measures both of our Natures and of his own Grace declares expresly that his Yoke of Precepts is easie or gracious and favourable and his burthen light Upon which inducement he exhorts all men with the greater willingness to take it upon them and submit to it Mat. 11.30 This then all Religions in the world and we Christians above any either are or may be undoubtedly assured of that no man is indispensably bound to do what no man can do and that those things cannot be injoyn'd which can never be performed But now to live wholly without sin in an impeccable and unerring obedience to go on exactly streight in Gods way without the least wandring and to tread always firm in the paths of righteousness without ever slipping to walk so uprightly as never to fall neither by security or rashness inadvertency or weakness surprize or weariness is more than humane nature can do and is a task not for a Man but an Angel And that some slips and transgressions of this nature are such as no man of what Religion soever whether Gentile Jew or Christian can avoid is plain because no meer man ever yet did avoid them It was an undeniable Argument of Atticus in S t Jerome Give an instance of some man that did it or else confess that no meer man yet ever could do it For since there is both an utter necessity and a severe Commandment requiring it it cannot be but that some of all mankind when they had so much reason and so infinite inducement should have endeavoured to the utmost and have done it if the doing of it had been within the power of humane nature So that if it be a failing inseparable from the practice of every man we must conclude it to be unconquerable by the humane nature also But now as for this inability of performing in every instance and transgressing at no time it has been the complaint of all persons in all Religions throughout all ages of the world For as for the bravest men among the Heathens we have Seneca their great Moralist confessing freely We have all sinned more or less sayes he even of his Countrey Laws For some have sinned in great matters some in little some out of choice and design some through constraint or through the ill example and seduction of others Some have been too easily driven from good purposes and sinned though it were against their wills Nay we have not only transgressed thus far but what augments our misery we shall continue still to transgress so long as we have breath in our bodies Yea if there be any man who has so well cleansed his soul as that no temptation can win upon him yet has he run through a long train of sins before he attained to that pitch of innocence Let us perswade our selves of this in the first place sayes he again that we are all sinners For what man is he that dare say he has broken none even of his Countrey Laws But granting that he had kept all them yet how scanty and defective an innocence is that to have done only all that Good which they oblige to For how many things are required and not performed by the Divine Law of Piety of Humanity of Liberality of Justice of Fidelity of all which whether we keep or break them the Laws of our Nation take no notice And as for the Jews we find David the man after Gods own heart crying out Who can understand his errors Cleanse thou me from my secret faults Psal. 19 12. And Solomon who was the wisest and most knowing man that ever was upon the earth layes it down for an Aphorism of universal observation that there is not a just man upon earth so perfect as alwayes to do good and never sin Eccles. 7.20 Nay even the Disciples of Christ themselves who have the noblest encouragements and the greatest assistances for a most compleat and entire obedience of any men whatsoever could never yet attain to such a state as to obey universally without ever slipping The Holy Fathers in the African Councils felt this by themselves and were so deeply sensible of it from their own experience and from what they heard and presumed of others that they condemned it as a proud errour for any man to think or speak otherwise To say that our Nature is as perfect as ever Adams was and that any man now may live if he will all his life long without sin and has the same free liberty that Adam had in Paradise never to do amiss is an errour that stands condemned by the Holy Councils And what these good men thus ingenuously confessed all others have constantly complained of there being none among them who was ever able to live up so exactly to the Precepts of the Gospel as not to do against them in any instance No that was the sole Prerogative of the man Christ Jesus who in that respect had no other man to whom he could be likened For he was made like unto us in all other things indeed save only in sin which we all had more or less but he wanted Heb. 2.17 and chap. 7.26 And since this state of unerring Obedience is such as in this life no man can because no meer man ever yet did attain unto we may be sure that God doth not indispensably require it But some infirmities the Gospel must of necessity dispense with because according to the present circumstances of Humane Nature we cannot help all some must be pardoned since all cannot be escaped But besides all that has been already said to shew the consistence of some failings with a state of salvation because of the unavoidable weakness of Humane Nature which cannot perfectly get quit of them we may add this further which will evidence it beyond all exception that the best Saints of God and the unquestionable heirs of happiness have alwayes lived subject to them Those very men who are most certainly gone to Heaven went thither with some of these slips and infirmities about them They could not plead an unerring obedience but yet notwithstanding all their errours they had right to all the Promises of the Gospel They died happily although they could not live wholly without offence So that some sins do not in any wise destroy a Saint or subvert the hopes and happiness of a good man but can and do consist with them And in the proof of this the Scriptures are many and plain Holy Job who maintained his own Integrity to be such as God would accept and approve of more stoutly it may be than any man ever did confesses notwithstanding a number of sins for which although God of his abundant Grace and Mercy would not yet
THE MEASURES OF Christian Obedience OR A DISCOURSE SHEWING What Obedience is indispensably necessary to a Regenerate State and what Defects are consistent with it FOR The Promotion of Piety and the Peace of Troubled Consciences By JOHN KETTLEWELL Fellow of Lincoln-College in Oxford LONDON Printed by J. Macock for Robert Kettlewell at the Hand and Scepter over against S t Dunstan's Church in Fleetstreet MDCLXXXI TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE AND RIGHT REVEREND FATHER in GOD HENRY LORD BISHOP of LONDON And One of His Majesties Most Honourable Privy-Council c. MY LORD HAving published this Treatise to promote as much as in me lies an intire Practice of our Blessed Saviours Precepts and a comfortable expectation of his Rewards amongst us I have presumed to address it to Your Lordship hoping it will find Acceptance in Your Pious Judgment for the sake of those things which are contained in it and because Your Lordship is a most eminent Example as a Christian and a most discreetly zealous and diligent Promoter as a Bishop of the Subject of it In this Work my Great Design has been to press men to a conscientious regard of their whole Duty and to show them how much contentment and cheerfulness of Spirit they have reason to enjoy in the careful observance of it And these are ends so excellent as may well excuse the imperfections of any honest Endeavours which shall be put forth in order to them For what greater service can be done to our Blessed Lord than to exalt his Authority in the hearts and lives of all his Followers What greater honour can be brought to Religion than to promote a pious practice and thereupon a constant joy and cheerfulness in the minds of all its Professors And what more faithful kindness can be shown to the Souls of Men than cleerly to lay before them and most earnestly to press upon them such things as will give them peace and comfortable expectations of God's love and favour in this World and secure their eternal happiness in that which is to come And since I have directed all the Parts and every thing that I have said in the following Discourse to these ends I am willing to hope that notwithstanding all its defects I have therein done no unacceptable service to my Saviour and to all good men who will be much readier to encourage any honest tendences to this purpose than to reprove and throw them by for the sake of those weaknesses and that want of skill which shall be found in them In this hope my Lord I make bold to Present it to Your Lordship whose great and most exemplary Virtue will not I believe be averse from Patronizing that which tends even in a low degree to further and promote it I pray God preserve Your Lordship and continue You what You now are an Illustrious Pattern of all Private and Political Virtues to this Your Native Country That Religion may still be adorned and this distressed Church supported by that exemplariness of an upright Conversation that great Prudence and unwearied Diligence and undaunted Courage and most wise and steady Zeal which Your Lordship has always shown in Your High Station for the things of God committed to Your Care and which have rendred You greatly serviceable to Your Saviour and a most valuable Blessing to this poor Church and Nation This my Lord is the most hearty Prayer of Your Lordships in all humble and dutiful Observance JOHN KETTLEWELL THE PREFACE READER THE design of this ensuing Treatise is to increase the piety and promote the peace of all sincerely honest Consciences by stating plainly and fully what are the terms indispensably required of all Christian men to their eternal pardon and salvation In this I have endeavoured to be as clear and particular as possibly I could For I write upon a Subject wherein all men are infinitely concerned and therefore I have studied to write so as all might understand me I have carried on my Discourse all along with a particular eye to the benefit of the plain and unlearned Reader and suited things as far as their nature would bear and my skill would reach to ordinary and vulgar apprehensions And that they might have nothing to hinder or offend them in their progress I have been industriously careful through the Body of the whole Book to insert nothing of the learned languages but wheresoever any thing of that seemed fit to be added for the sake of others I have preserved the Text unmixt and cast it into the Margine In the whole Work my study has been to speak things useful and necessary to be known that the weight and worth of the matter might purchase a favourable censure for all the defects of Art which shall be found in the composure By what I have here offered upon this Subject I doubt not but it will appear that although our Religion is most strictly pure and nobly vertuous yet is it by no means melancholy or apt in its own nature to engender tormenting fears and endless scruples For the Terms of pardon and salvation are no intricate or uncertain but a fixt and easie thing They are neither over-hard for our active powers nor dark and inevident to our understandings so that by the assistance of God's Grace we may perform them and be very well assured of it when we do God exacts an honest but not an unerring obedience he bears with our weaknesses though not with our wilful failings and this is ground enough whereupon to secure peace and yet in no wise to supplant piety since although our Religion is so exactly holy as utterly to dash all wicked mens presuming hopes yet is it so indulgent still as to tempt no man who is honestly obedient to despair In pursuit of this Argument what piety is indispensably required and what failings shall be indulged that men may know when to hope and when to fear and neither foster a peace without piety nor phansie such a rigour in piety as leaves no room for peace I have proceeded as particularly and perspicuously as possibly I could being unwilling in a matter of this importance to leave my Reader either in doubt by an account which is too general and ambiguous or in darkness by such as is obscure And to give a prospect of the whole business I have laid things down in this order in five Books In the first Book I have shewn what the condition of happiness is in general viz. our obedience to the Laws of the Gospel it being that whereby at the last Day we must all be judged to live eternally And because some are tempted to think obedience needless when they read of pardon and hapiness promised to other things as Faith Repentance c. I have shewn particularly of those Speeches that they are metonymical and that life and mercy are not promised to them as they are separate from obedience but only as they effect and imply it But obedience being a
of a good conversation in Christ i. e. in Christs Religion 1 Pet. 3.16 And to name no more instances in a case so evident we read not only of men but likewise of bonds in Christ i. e. of mens being bound for the Religion and Faith of Christ. My bonds in Christ says S t Paul are manifest in all the Palace and in all other places Phil. 1.13 But besides this sence of the words our being in Christ for our being of the Christian Religion there is another very near it which it is pertinent to our present business to observe and that is our being in the Christian Church Thus S t Paul says that we being many members are yet one body or Corporation in Christ or in the Society and Church of Christians wherein we are every one members one of another Rom. 12.5 And Gods gathering together all particular Christians scatter'd over the world into one Catholick Church or Society is called his gathering together in one all things in Christ Eph. 1.10 Thus our admission into Christs Church by baptism is called our being engraffed or implanted into him We have been planted together says the Apostle in the likeness of his death or in Baptismal immersion which is a representation of burial after death Rom. 6.5 As for our Being in Christ then which sets us beyond the reach of danger and condemnation it is the same as our being of the Christian Religion and members of the Christian Church And this Communion and membership of Christs Church and profession of his Religion is a most ready and effectual means to make men practise and obey it For to be in the Church of Christ is to live under the preaching of his word the solemn return of Holy Prayers the Administration of Blessed Sacraments the counsel and direction of wise Guides the Authority of good examples the correction and discipline of Church Governours and all the other outward means of Grace and Obedience And then the profession and owning of his Religion if it be true and undissembled implies our Faith and belief of it which is the great and only expedient that Christ could think of for the reformation of a wicked world and which as we have already seen is a most effectual means and sure principle of good life and practice And because our being in Christ i. e. our profession of Christs Religion and Communion and Society with Christs Church is so powerful a principle of our obedient service therefore has God promised to it that Life and Pardon which is the inseparable reward of Obedience it self He doth not in any wise intend that every man who bears the Name of Christ and is of his retinue that will make a bare profession of his service in calling of him Lord Lord without any real works and performance shall have right to these Rewards when he comes to Judgment Not every one that saith unto me Lord Lord shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven but he only who doth the will of my Father which is in Heaven Matt. 7.21 Nay in the next verse he goes higher Many will say unto me in that day Have we not done more than barely professed thy Name have we not done thee high and honourable service viz. prophesied in thy Name and in thy Name cast out Devils and in thy Name done many wondrous works And then will I profess unto them I never knew you depart from me you are no such Christians as I own for whatsoever your names and professions be ye are of their number that in their lives work iniquity vers 22 23. When God assures us by S t Paul therefore that there is no Condemnation to them that are in Christ or in Christs Church and Religion he means to them that are so in them as thereby to become obedient He speaks metonymically and implies our works and actions as well as that Communion and profession which signifies them and ought to produce them And in this the Scriptures are express He that KEEPS his Commandments dwells in Christ and Christ in him says S t John 1 Ep. 3.24 It is nothing less than our fulfilling of his Laws who is head of that body whereunto we joyn our selves as members and our being indeed what we pretend and obeying the rules of that Religion which we profess that will at the last day be interpreted for our being in him in such sort as qualifies us to be saved by him Whoso KEEPETH his word says the same Apostle in him is the love of God made perfect and hereby by this perfection of love in Obedience we know that we are in him So that whosoever he be that saith he abideth in him he ought himself also so to walk even as he walked 1 Joh. 2.5 6. The necessity of connexion between these two viz. being a member of Christs Church and a good Man between professing of Christs Religion and obeying it was so evident and so well known and allowed of in the first times of Christianity that both were understood when either was mentioned To put on Christ in the Apostles days was the same as to make no provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof Rom. 13.14 And to learn Christ was but another phrase for to put off concerning their former CONVERSATION the old man which is corrupt according to the deceitful Lusts and to put on the new man which after the similitude of God is created in righteousness and true holiness Eph. 4.20 22 24. A Christian and a keeper of Gods Laws were then only two words for the same thing For they thought nothing could be a greater contradiction than for a man to profess himself a servant of Christ and yet to pay him no Obedience to own the Name of a Christian and yet to lead the life of a Heathen The time past of our lives says S t Peter or that time before we became Christians must suffice us wherein to have wrought the will of the Gentiles 1 Pet. 4.3 But when once we have listed our selves in Christs service and are called upon by his Name we must renounce all our former ways and depart from all iniquity 2 Tim. 2.19 So that in the language of those first times and in the meaning of the Scriptures mens being in Christ is by no means separate from obedience but implies it To talk of an interest in him without fulfilling of his Laws is but vain Cant and unprofitable speech It is to talk without Book and to use a Scripture phrase but against the Scriptures meaning For at the last day when Christ comes to expound his own Gospel we shall hear him pronounce what it has already in plain words declared to us that no man is savingly in Christ who is out with his Laws but that he only is so in him as to be secure from all Condemnation who has kept his Commandments and faithfully obey'd him CHAP. III. Of Pardon promised to Repentance The CONTENTS
way to your bliss and happiness said Samuel to the Israelites only fear the Lord and in vertue of that fear serve him 1 Sam. 12.24 25. This fear has given right to pardon in all times and will eternally secure it For Gods mercy is on them that fear him from generation to generation Luke 1.50 From everlasting to everlasting Psal. 103.17 So that well might Solomon say The Fear of the Lord is a Fountain of life Prov. 14.27 and that he surely knew it will go well with them that fear the Lord Eccles. 8.12 And then as for our Hope or Trust in God great things are spoken of it Blessed is he saith the Psalmist who maketh the Lord his Trust Psal. 40.4 He is secure from all effects of his wrath and anger for the Lord taketh pleasure in them that hope in his mercy Psal. 147.11 In particular our relying on Christ and confiding in him for our pardon and eternal salvation is said to be that which will never fail or deceive us For he that hopeth or believeth on him says S t Paul shall never be ashamed by a misplaced confidence or expectation Rom. 10.11 Now our fear of God and our hope or trust in his mercy are of all our passions the most active Causes and powerful Springs of our good works and obedience As for our fears no passion puts us upon so much pains and industry as they do They make us act to the utmost of our power and do all that is to be done to get protection from that evil which excites them For fear has the deepest root in our natural self-love and desire of our own preservation being raised in us by the nearness of such things as either utterly destroy or in some degree impair it And therefore in them the activity of our self-love is shown to the utmost as vehemently as we desire and endeavour to preserve ourselves and our own ease so vehemently must we desire and endeavour likewise to remove the matter of our fears which hangs over us to destroy or to torment us The most natural effect of fear then is a most vigorous endeavour by all means to remove that evil which we are afraid of And according as this may be done several ways so doth our passion of fear exert it self after several manners If we think the evil may be conquered it pushes us on to fight and subdue it If it be above our strength but may yet for all that be avoided it puts us upon all means of concealment or escape and makes us seek either to lye hid or to fly from it But if there is neither any prospect of withstanding the power nor of escaping the eye of him who is ready to inflict it as there never can be when God who is both Almighty and Al-seeing is the Person feared then it hurries us on by all means to regain his favour and good will that thereby we may prevent it And in Times of Ignorance when men had great fears and little knowledg when they were grievously afraid of God but knew not what things he loved and delighted in nor wherewith they might please him this fear of God put them upon all the nonsensical services and foolish propitiations of Superstition But where God has plainly and clearly revealed his will and manifested to all that it is their obedience alone that can continue them in his favour or restore them to it after they have lost it here the only effect of fear must needs be that which is known to be the only means of favour viz. our keeping of his Commandments or obedience So that our fear of God is a most sure principle and effectual means of our serving and obeying him And then as for our hope or trust in Gods mercy it is a most natural cause of our doing our Duty likewise For all hope implies both desire and a likelihood of getting that which is desired which two are all that is at any time needful to make us vigorously endeavour after it For if men will be at no pains for a thing it is either because they have little or no desire of it or no probability of succeeding in it But when once they are push'd on by an eager desire it is only despair that can dull their endeavours in pursuit of it So that if we hope for mercy we shall be at some pains for it and by an active service and obedience seek to procure it Indeed when the good thing that is hoped for needs no labour of ours but our naked trust and reliance is all that on our sides is required to it our hope will effect no endeavour after it because none is necessary to obtain it But as for that eternal life and pardon which Christs Gospel proposeth to our hopes they are offered us only upon certain Terms and Conditions and will never be attained by us without our Service and Obedience And seeing obedience here is the necessary means to the acquisition of that which we desire the same desire and hope which carries us on towards mercy and life must spur us on withal to works of duty and obedience also They must be a Spring of industry and good endeavour because they make us resolve to procure that which is not to be got without them And in regard our fear of God and our hope or trust in his mercy are such powerful Principles of our obedience to his Laws therefore are Pardon and Life which are the rewards of Obedience so frequently promised to them God never intends to reward an idle fear or an unactive and careless trust but such only as are industrious and obedient 'T is true indeed the generality of men have taken up a dangerous errour especially in the latter of these and are bold and presumptuous in their hopes at the same time that they are most wicked and disobedient in their lives and practice They find no service of their own works wherein they may be confident and therefore they fly from them to Gods Goodness They know this full well by themselves that they are wicked but they know withal that God is gracious and their hope is that He will be merciful to them notwithstanding their sins They find themselves condemned indeed by his Gospel but their trust is to be relieved by his Nature they are punishable and wretched by his Laws but they expect to be saved by his pity and kindness The Revelations of his Word 't is true breathe out nothing to them but Death but their hope is that he will be better than his Word and that through the infiniteness of his mercy they shall at last be adjudged to pardon and eternal life But such bold hopes and presumptuous confidences as these are the ready way to provoke and offend God but by no means to attone and appease him For thus to hope in his Mercy against the plain Declarations of his Will is to chashier those measures of life
of both is Whoredome or bare Fornication and this when the Parties are too nearly allied is called Incest 2. By forcing of one and then 't is Rape or ravishing Which Vice S t Paul expresses by that word which we translate Extortioners 1 Cor. 5.11 and Chap. 6.10 Fourthly To contempt of the world and contentment with our present condition is opposed covetousness which is an immoderate love of the world or an unsatisfiedness with what we have and an insatiable desire of more and grudging or repining Fifthly To taking up the Cross is opposed our being scandalized or turn'd out of the way of Duty and Obedience by reason of it or a politick and selfish deserting of our Duty to avoid it Sixthly To diligence and watchfulness in doing of our Duty is opposed a heedlesness of it and remiss application to it which is carelesness and idleness Seventhly To patience in suffering for it is opposed an immoderate dread of pain and dishonest avoidance of it which is softness and fearfulness Eighthly To mortification and self-denial is opposed self-love and self-pleasing which as it is an industrious care to please and gratifie our bodily senses is called sensuality and as it is a ready and constant serving and obeying the lusts and desires of the Flesh especially when they carry us against the Commands of God is called carnality These are those Vices and breaches of Duty towards our selves which Gods Laws have prohibited under the pains of Death and Hell as the other were such Vertues as under the same penalty he exacts of us So that in the general Law of Sobriety we see are contain'd all these following whether commanding or forbidding Laws The commanding Law of humility of heavenly-mindedness of temperance of sobriety of charity of continence of contempt of the World and contentment of courage and taking up the Cross of diligence and watchfulness of patience of mortification and self-denial And opposite to these the forbidding Law against pride against arrogance or ostentation against vain-glory against ambition against haughtiness against insolence against imperiousness against dogmaticalness against envious back-biting against emulation against worldliness against intemperance against gluttony against voluptuousness against drunkenness against revelling against incontinence against lasciviousness or wantonness against filthiness against obscene Jestings against impurity or uncleanness against Sodomy against effeminateness against adultery against fornication against whoredom against incest against rape against covetousness against grudging and repining against refusing or being scandaled at the Cross against idleness and carelesness against fearfulness and softness against self-love against carnality against sensuality CHAP. II. Of LOVE the Epitome of Duty towards God and Men and of the particular Laws comprehended under Piety towards God The CONTENTS Of the Duties of Piety and Righteousness both comprehended in one general Duty LOVE It the Epitome of our Duty The great happiness of a good nature The kind temper of the Christian Religion Of the effects of LOVE The great Duty to God is Honour The outward expression whereof is worship The great offence is dishonour Of the several Duties and transgressions contained under both FOR the two remaining Members in S t Paul's Division viz. Godliness or Piety and Righteousness which require something from us to God or to our Neighbour they may yet be reduced into a narrower compass and are both comprized in that one word LOVE For all that ever God requires of us either to himself or towards other men is only heartily and effectually to LOVE them And this abridgment of our whole Duty in respect of these two remaining parts of it towards God and man into that one compendious Law of LOVE is no more than what our Saviour Christ and his Apostle Paul have already made to our hands For hear how they speak of it Jesus saith unto the Lawyer Thou shalt LOVE the Lord thy God with all thy heart and all thy soul and all thy mind This is the first and great Commandment and the second is like unto it Thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thy self On these two which in the thing commanded LOVE are but one hang all the Law of the ten Commandments viz. which meddle not with our Duty towards our selves but only towards God and our Neighbour and the Prophets Matth. 22.37 38 39 40. And S t Paul speaks home to the same purpose By love says he serve one another for all the LAW is fulfilled in one word even this Thou shalt LOVE thy Neighbour as thy self Gal. 5.13 14. And speaking again of the Laws concerning our Neighbour he tells us that LOVE worketh no ill to his Neighbour and therefore Love is the fulfilling of the Law Rom. 13.10 Thus rare and heavenly a Religion is that of our Saviour Christ a Religion that is not content to have only great and eminent measures of goodness in it but is perfectly made up of LOVE and good Nature All that it requires from us is only to be kind-hearted and full of good Offices both towards God and men Every man of a loving good nature is enclined by his temper to do all that is demanded by Gods Law so that he has nothing remaining to turn his temper into obedience but to direct his intention and to exert all the effects of love for the sake of Gods Command which he is otherwise strongly excited to by the natural propensions of his own mind His passion and his God require the same service and that which is only a natural fruit of the first may become if he so design it a piece of Religion and Obedience to the latter For the particular effects of Love are the particulars of our Duty Love is the great and general Law as ill-will and enmity are the prime transgression and the instances of Love are the instances of our obedience as all the particular effects of ill-will are those very instances wherein we disobey So that by running over all the special effects of love or ill-will we may quickly find what are the Particulars of Duty and Transgression Now the prime and most immediate Effects of Love are 1. To do no evil to the persons beloved nor to take away from them any thing which is theirs and which they have a right to And this founds all the Duties of Justice But 2. To do all good offices and show kindness to them which founds all the Duties of Charity And these two take in our whole Duty both in Piety towards God and also in Righteousness towards men 1. The proper and genuine effect of love to God is to do no evil but in great readiness to do all the good and service which we can for him in which two are implied all the branches of piety which is the great and general Duty towards him To be kind and serviceable to God is nothing more than to honour him For his Nature is so perfect and self-sufficient that it cannot receive and ours so impotent
three more is comprized the Body of our whole Duty If we adde two or three more I say for besides the several Laws already mentioned there are three particular Duties yet remaining of a more positive and arbitrary nature which Christ has bound all Christians to observe and they are the Law of Baptism of the Lords Supper and of Repentance Baptism is our incorporation into the Church of Christ or our entrance into the Gospel Covenant or into all the duties and priviledges of Christians by means of the outward Ceremony of washing or sprinkling in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost The Eucharist or Lords Supper is our Federal Vow or repetition of that engagement which we made at Baptism of performing faith repentance and obedience unto God in expectation of remission of sins eternal happiness and those other promises which by Christ's death are procured for us upon these terms which engagement we solemnly make to God at our eating Bread and drinking Wine in remembrance and commemoration of Christs dying for us Repentance is a forsaking of sin or an amendment of any evil way upon a sorrowful sense and just apprehension of its making us offend God and subjecting us to the danger of death and damnation And if to all the forementioned instances of those three grand Vertues which by the Apostle Tit. 2.12 13 are made the summ of our Christian Duty we join these three positive and additional Laws we have all that whereby God will judge us at the last Day even all those particular Laws whereto our obedience is required as necessary to salvation And thus we have seen what those particulars Laws are which the Gospel indispensably requires us to obey They are no other than those very instances which I have been all this while recounting and describing But because the Catalogue of them hitherto has been broken and interrupted and therefore cannot be run over so easily as might be desired in a matter of that importance I will here repeat them all again for the greater ease of all such pious souls as desire to try themselves by them and place them all in one view and all together The commanding Laws then whereby at the last Day we must all be judged are these that follow The Law of sobriety towards our selves with all its Train which are the Law of humility of heavenly-mindedness of temperance of sobriety of chastity of continence of contempt of the world and contentment of courage and taking up the Cross of diligence and watchfulness of patience of mortification and self-denial The Law of piety towards God with all its Branches which are the Law of honour of worship of faith and knowledge of love of zeal of trust and dependance of prayer of thankfulness of fear of submission and resignedness of obedience The Law of Justice towards men in all its parts which will be seen by the contrary prohibitions of injustice The Law of Charity in all its instances which are the Law of goodness or kindness of honour for our Brethrens Vertues of pity and succour of restraining our Christian Liberty for our weak Brothers edification of friendly reproof of brotherly kindness of congratulation of compassion of almes and distribution of covering and concealing their defects of vindicating their reputation of affability or graciousness of courtesy and officiousness of condescension of hospitality of gentleness of candor of unity of thankfulness of meekness or lenity of placableness of forgiving injuries of doing good to enemies and when nothing more is in our power praying for them and blessing or speaking what is good of them when we take occasion to mention them of long-suffering of mercifulness The Law of Peace and Concord with all its Train as are the Law of peaceableness of condescension and compliance of doing our own business of satisfying for injuries of peace-making The Law of love to Kings and Princes in all its Particulars which are the Law of honour of reverence of paying Tribute and Customes of fidelity of praying for them of obedience of subjection The Law of love to our Bishops and Ministers with all its expressions which are the Law of honour or having them highly in esteem for their works sake of reverence of maintenance of praying for them of obedience The Law of Love in the particular relation of Husband and Wife with all its Branches which are on both sides the Law of mutual concern and communicating in each others bliss or misery of bearing each others infirmities of prayer of fidelity On the Husbands towards his Wife the Law of providing for her of protecting her of flexible and winning Government of compliance and condescension On the Wives towards her Husband the Law of honour of reverence of observance and obedience of subjection The Law of Love in the particular relation of Parents and Children with its several effects which are from the Parents towards their Children the Law of natural affection of maintenance and provision of honest education of loving Government of bringing them up in the institution and fear of God of prayer for them From the Children towards their Parents besides the Duty of natural affection common to both the Law of honour of reverence of obedience of subjection of requiting upon occasion their care and kindness of prayer for them The Law of Love in the particular relation of Brethren and Sisters with all its instances which are the Law of natural affection of providing for our Brethren of praying for them The Law of Love in the particular relation of Master and Servant with its several expressions which are on the Masters side the Law of maintenance of religious instruction of a just and equal Government of them of kindness and equity in commanding of forbearance and moderation in threatning of punctual payment of the wages of the Hireling of praying for them On the Servants the Law of honour of reverence of observance of concealing and excusing their Masters defects of vindicating their injured reputation of fidelity of obedience of diligence of willing and hearty service of patient submission and subjection of praying for them To all which we may add the two arbitrary institutions and positive Laws of the Gospel Baptism and the Eucharist or Lords Supper and when we transgress in any of the instances forementioned that great and only remedy of Christs Religion the Law of repentance This so far as I can call to mind at present is a just enumeration of those particular Injunctions and Commands of God whereto our obedience is indispensably required and whereby at the last Day we must all be judged either to live or dye eternally But supposing that some particular instances of Love and Duty are omitted in this Catalogue yet need this be prejudicial to no mans happiness since that defect will be otherwise supplied For as for such omitted instances where there is an occasion for them and an opportunity offered to exercise
them mens own reason and passion will represent and suggest them for a rule of obedience and when they wilfully transgress them their own Conscience must needs check and reprove them which will be sufficient to them for a rule of trial For all the Laws of this second which is the Gospel-Covenant are so agreeably suited to our natural reason and conscience that every mans own mind may be a sufficient Monitor What our own understanding tells us is fit and becoming us that we should do that has God bound upon us by his Laws and made it our Duty to do His Precepts are the very same with the best results and purest dictates of our own reason so that every pious and honest Conscience cannot but of it self approve all that God has enjoined it Which God himself has clearly intimated when he says of all the Laws of the second which is the Gospel-Covenant that he will put the Laws contained in it into their minds and write them in their hearts so that in regard they have them so legible within themselves they shall not need to be still enquiring of others and to teach every man his Neighbour and every man his Brother saying Know the Lord and that in this or that particular you must serve him for all shall know him and his Laws without any other Monitor than their own Conscience from the least to the greatest Heb. 8.10 11. Besides as for all the Laws of piety towards God and of righteousness towards men which make up by far the greatest part of our Duty they are only so many several effects and various expressions of our Love to them So that he who acts nothing against love breaks none of all these Laws but keeps them every one Whereof Christ himself who has given these Laws and who is to judge of our obedience to them and his Apostle Paul have given us sufficient assurance when they both affirm of Love that as to these two general parts of Duty it is the fulfilling of the Law And therefore any man that knows what Love is may quickly understand what is Law and when he is about to venture upon any action it is but asking his own soul whether it be against Love and he has his Answer whether or no it be against Duty And since whensoever we have occasion for it we shall be admonished of our Duty both these ways both from our reason and our passion though this Catalogue prove defective in some instances and omit it that defect can be of no danger seeing it will be otherwise supplied We may by its help know those Duties which it mentions and by the help of the other two those Particulars wherein it fails us So that we shall still be sufficiently directed in our Duty and shewed what we should do and when we sin against it wilfully our own Conscience is privy to it which will enable us to examine also whether indeed we have done it or no. This then may suffice for a particular enumeration of all the commanding Laws of God whereto our obedience is required as an indispensable condition of our life and happiness And as for all the forbidding Laws which contain those things which under the highest pains of death and misery we are indispensably required to abstain from they are these that follow The Law against unsoberness towards our selves with all its particulars which are the Law against pride against arrogance or ostentation against vain-glory against ambition against haughtiness against insolence against imperiousness against dogmaticalness against envious backbiting against emulation against worldliness against intemperance against gluttony against voluptuousness against drunkenness against revelling against incontinence against lasciviousness or wantonness against filthiness against obscene Jestings against impurity or uncleanness against sodomy against effeminateness against adultery against fornication against whoredom against incest against rape against covetousness against grudging and repining against refusing or being scandaled at the Cross against idleness and carelesness against fearfulness and softness against self-love against carnality against sensuality The Law against impiety towards God with all its Retinue which are the Law against dishonour against atheism against denying Providence against blasphemy against superstition against idolatry against witchcraft and sorcery against foolishness against headiness against unbelief against hating God against want of zeal against distrust of him against not praying to him against unthankfulness against fearlesness against contumacy or repining against disobedience against common swearing against perjury against prophaneness The Law against injustice towards men in all its instances which are the Law against murder against false witness against slander or calumny against lying against unfaithfulness or perfidy against adultery against covetousness against stealing or robbing against oppression against extortion and depressing in bargaining against circumvention and deceit against craftiness The Law against uncharitableness with all its Train which are the Law against maliciousness or hatefulness against wickedness against despising and hating them that are good against giving scandal to weak Brethren against envy or an evil eye against rejoicing in evil against uncharitableness in alms against not vindicating an innocent mans reputation against evil speaking against censoriousness against back-biting against whispering against railing or reviling against upbraiding against reproaching against mocking against difficulty of access against contumely or affront against uncourteousness against stiffness or uncondescension against unhospitableness against surliness against malignity against turbulence and unquietness against unthankfulness against anger and passionateness against debate and variance against bitterness against clamour and brawling against hatred and malice against implacableness against revenge against cursing and reproaching enemies and imprecation of them against hastiness to punish against rigour The Law against enmity and discord with all its Dependants which are the Law against unpeaceableness against emulation or provoking one another against pragmaticalness or being busie Bodies against tale-bearing a-against whispering against not satisfying for injuries against strife or contention against division and faction in the State against heresie and against schism in the Church against tumult The Law against hatred in the particular relation of Subjects towards their Princes with the several effects of it which are the Law against dishonour against irreverence against speaking evil of Dignities against refusing Tribute and Taxes against traiterousness against neglecting to pray for Kings against disobedience against resisting lawful Powers and Authority against rebellion The Law against hatred to our Ecclesiastical Governours Bishops and Ministers with all the particulars implied in it which are the Law against dishonour of our Bishops and Ministers especially against setting them at nought for their works sake against irreverence to them against speaking evil of them against mocking them against not providing for them against sacriledge or stealing from them against not praying for them against disobedience The Law against hatred in the relation of Husband and Wife with all its Particulars which
are on both sides the Law against unconcernedness in each others condition against not bearing each others infirmities against provoking one another against estrangedness against strife or contention against hatred and enmity against publishing each others infirmities against not praying for each other against adultery against jealousie On the Husbands towards the Wife the Law against not maintaining her against not protecting her against imperiousness against uncompliance or uncondescension On the Wives towards her Husband the Law against dishonour against irreverence against unobservance against disobedience against casting off his yoke or unsubjection The Law against hatred in the particular relation of Parents and Children with all its Instances which are on both sides the Law against want of natural affection against not praying for each other and imprecation On the Parents side the Law against not providing for those of their own house against irreligious and evil education against harsh Government or provoking their Children to anger On the Childrens the Law against dishonour against irreverence against being ashamed of their Parents against mocking them against cursing or reproach and speaking evil of them against disobedience against contumaciousness against robbing them The Law against hatred in the particular relation of Brethren and Sisters with its effects which are the Law against want of natural affection against not providing for our Brethren against not praying for them against imprecation or praying against them The Law against hatred in the particular relation of Master and Servant with all its expressions which are on the Masters side the Law against not providing maintenance for his Servant against not catechizing or instructing him against unequal Government against unjustness wantonness and rigour in commanding against imperiousness against immoderate threatning against railing at him against defrauding or keeping back the wages of the Hireling against not praying for him against imprecation And on the Servants the Law against dishonour of his Master against irreverence against non-observance against publishing or aggravating his Masters faults against not vindicating his injured reputation against unfaithfulness against wasting his Goods against purloining against disobedience against answering again against slothfulness against eye-service against contumacy and resistance against not praying for him against imprecation or praying against him To all which we must adde the two positive and arbitrary prohibitions of the Gospel the Law against neglecting Baptism and the Lords Supper And when we wilfully transgress any one or more of the Commands foregoing a perseverance in it without amending it which is impenitence And these are those particular prohibitions whereto our obedience is indispensably required by the Gospel and whereby at the last Day we must all be judged And for the performance of all these Commands and keeping back from all these prohibitions when it is become any mans habitual course and practice it is oft-times expressed by the general word holiness as the contrary is by unholiness CHAP. V. Of the Sanction of the foregoing Laws The CONTENTS Of the Sanction of all the forementioned particular Laws That they are bound upon us by our hopes of Heaven and our fears of Hell Of the Sanction of all the particular affirmative or commanding Laws NOW it is upon our obedience of all those Laws which are mentioned in the foregoing Chapters that all our well-grounded hope of pardon and a happy Sentence at the last Day depends They are that Rule which God has fixt for the Proceedings at that Judgment whereby all of us will be doomed to live or dye eternally There is not any one of them left naked and unguarded for men to transgress at pleasure and yet to go unpunished but the performance of every one is made necessary unto life and the unrepented transgression of it threatned with eternal damnation And that it is so is plain from this because almost the whole Body of them viz. all those which are implyed in piety towards God and in Justice Charity and peaceableness towards men are nothing else but instances and effects of Love which is plainly necessary and that in the greatest latitude For the words of the Command are as comprehensive as can be That thou mayest inherit eternal life thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy strength and with all thy mind which plainly take in our whole affection towards God and every part and expression of it and thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thy self which again implies all instances of love towards other men seeing towards our own selves not any one is wanting This do and thou shalt live Luke 10.25 27 28. So that in shewing of them all that they are natural effects of an universal love I have shewn withal that they are necessary means of life and conditions of salvation This is a plain mark whereby it is obvious and easie for us all to understand what Laws are necessary terms of life For every mans heart can inform him what are the natural effects of love they being such things as the meanest reason may discern nay such as every mans affection will suggest to him And because they are so the Apostles themselves when they set down Catalogues of indispensable Laws never descend to reckon up all particulars but having plainly declared the absolute necessity of an ample and universal love in the general they content themselves with naming some few instances of it and leave the rest which are like unto them to be suggested to us by our own minds And the same course they take in recounting those sins which are opposite to them and which without repentance will certainly destroy us Thus for instance in S t Paul's Catalogue of damning sins Gal. 5. he doth not trouble himself to name all particulars but having mentioned several of them he concludes with this general intimation of the rest and such like vers 21. This way then of shewing the necessity of all the forementioned Laws by shewing expresly that Love in the general is plainly necessary and leaving it to mens own minds to collect of them all severally that they are natural effects of it is sufficient in it self and such as the Apostles of our Lord are wont to take up with But because our belief of the necessity of our obedience in all the preceding particulars is of so great moment and it is so infinitely our concern to be fixt and settled in it I will here set down such express declarations of it in every one of them as are to be met with in the Scriptures And to begin with the several Classes of them in the same order wherein they are laid down for sobriety and all the particular Laws comprehended under it we have their sanction set down and the necessity of our obedience to them to our life and pardon expressed in the following Scriptures For the Law of humility and lowliness of mind take these Put on as necessary qualifications
do so too he should be least or none at all in the Kingdom of Heaven ver 19. Thou shalt not hate thy Brother in thy heart thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy Neighbour and not suffer sin to rest upon him I am the Lord who will surely punish thee if thou neglect this Lev. 19.17 18. But when any man by such charitable admonition doth convent a Sinner from the errour of his way let him for his encouragement know this says S t James that he shall save a soul of him who is reproved from death and besides that shall hide also a multitude of his own sins James 5.19 20. And as for the method of performing this what course we are to take and how far we are to proceed in it our Saviour has set that down according to what had obtained in the Jewish custom Matth. 18. For there in the case of private injuries which are no fit Subject of Church censures that are exercised only upon open and scandalous Sinners he prescribes thus If thy Brother shall trespass against thee take this course to reclaim him Go first and tell him of his fault privately between thee and him alone if he shall hear thee and amend upon thy admonition thy work is done and without any more ado thou hast gained thy Brother But if he be not to be won thus easily and will not hear thee admonishing him thus privately by thy self alone then give not over but go one step further take with thee one or two more to join with thee in thy admonition that by the authority of their concurrence he may be the more prevail'd upon and that the reproof now appearing not in thy mouth alone but also in the mouths of thy two or three Witnesses every word may have the more effect and be the firmlier established And if he shall be incorrigible still and neglect to hear both thee and them too yet give him not over for a lost man but try one means more which is the last that I enjoin thee Pick out a select Assembly and choice Company of men who are more in number than thou tookest before and tell it unto that Church or Assembly and reprove him before all them But if he prove obstinate against this last means and neglect to hear them then thou hast discharged thy self and needest to look no further after him but mayest let him be unto thee thenceforward as a lost and hardened man whose Conversion thou art no longer bound in vain to labour after such as we are wont to express by a heathen man and a Publican ver 15 16 17. Take heed lest by any means this Christian Liberty of yours become a stumbling Block or scandal to those that are weak by seducing and encouraging them on the authority of your example to do that against their Conscience which you who know more do according to it and so through thy knowledge shall the weak Brother perish for whom Christ dyed But when ye sin so against the Brethren and by such unrestrained liberty wound their weak Consciences you sin against Christ 1 Cor 8.9 11 12. It is a most uncharitable thing and without Charity all things else will profit nothing 1 Cor. 13.3 For if thy Brother be grieved or scandalized with thy liberty in meat or other things now walkest thou not charitably if for all that thou abstain not from it destroy not him therefore with thy meat for whom Christ dyed Rom. 14.15 But if any man will still be prone to give offence his Sentence is severe and dreadful For he that shall offend or scandalize one of these little Ones which believe in me it were better for him that a Milstone were hanged about his neck and that he were drowned in the depth of the Sea Matth. 18.6 And thus are all the particular Laws of Charity and Justice also imposed with the same strictness and under the same necessity with the former And that the sanction is the same in the Particulars of the next Class viz. Peace will appear by what follows Follow peace with all men without which no man shall see the Lord Heb. 12.14 It is not enough that we accept of it when it is offered but we must enquire it out and seek after it nay if it be denied us at first we must endeavour after it still and ensue it when it flyes from us and that not coldly or carelesly with weak desires or little industry but with the greatest concern and utmost diligence that possibly we can He that will love life and see good days saith S t Peter let him seek peace and ensue it 1 Pet. 3.10 11. Be of the same mind saith S t Paul among those Laws which he enjoins by his Apostolical Authority Rom. 12. one towards another mind not high things but condescend to men of low estate If it be possible and as much as in you lies live peaceably with all men ver 16 18. Yea we must pay dear for it rather than want it and bear long and suffer much from men before we contend with them and use all arts and shew all kindness to pacifie and reconcile them Not rendring evil for evil or railing for railing but contrariwise blessing or benediction knowing this That we are thereunto called in Christianity that from our Lord Christ who was so exemplary for it we should inherit this Vertue of speaking well and kindly of men or blessing 1 Pet. 3.9 I say unto you says our Saviour resist not the evil or injurious man which is the way to inflame and consummate contention but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek turn to him the other also and if any man will sue thee at the Law and take away thy Coat bear a little more and rather than contend with him let him have thy Cloak also Mat. 5.39 40. Which Precepts with all the others delivered in that Sermon are bound upon us as was observed under the forfeiture of all right to happiness and Heaven ver 19. The wisdom which cometh from above and which must raise us thither is peaceable saith S t James Jam. 3.17 And S t Paul reckons it as one of the Commandments which were given to the Thessalonians by the Lord Jesus that they should study even so as to be ambitious of it to be quiet or to acquiesce in their present state and not to interrupt the quiet and tranquillity of other men and to do their own business 1 Thess. 4.2 11. The method of procuring pardon for injustice is prescribed thus in the Law of Moses If a man commit a trespass against another man and be guilty he shall come and recompence his trespass with the Principle thereof and over and above that add unto it the fifth part thereof more and give it unto him against whom he hath trespassed Numb 5.6 7. And Christ
which are delivered in that Chapter are required as part of our walking as Children of the light and proving what is acceptable unto the Lord ver 8 10. Marriage is honourable and the Bed undefiled but Whoremongers and Adulterers God will judge Heb. 13.4 Wives are to be taught to be obedient to their own Husbands that the Word of God or Doctrine of the Gospel be not blasphemed Tit. 2.5 Let Wives be in subjection to their own Husbands For with this in old time the holy women adorned themselves even as Sarah obeyed Abraham calling and observing him as her Lord whose Daughters ye are as long as you do well and imitate her but no longer 1 Pet. 3.5 6. So that all the Laws in this relation are enjoined under the same necessity and confirmed with the same sanction as the former And as for the Particulars of the next relation they are imposed with the same strictness For natural affection the want of it S t Paul affirms plainly makes men worthy of death Rom. 1.31 The Children ought not to lay up Treasure or provide for the Parents but the Parents for the Children 2 Cor. 12.14 And if any man provide not for his own house he hath denied the Faith of Christ which indispensably enjoins it nay despising such a notorious and necessary Precept of mere Nature he is worse than any honest Infidel 1 Tim. 5.8 Fathers provoke not your Children to wrath against you by a harsh and austere Government of them but rule them in kindness and love and bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. And ye Children on the other side obey your Parents in the Lord for this is right Honour your Father and Mother that it may be well with you Ephes. 6.1 2 3 4. Which Precepts are of the number of those which he imposes on them as parts of their walking as Children of the light and proving what is acceptable unto the Lord Chap. 5.8 10. If any man have Children or Nephews let them first learn to shew piety at home and requite their Parents for this is good and acceptable to God But if any man provide not for his own especially those of his own house or Family as Parents are in the first place he hath denied the Faith and in his unnatural actions is worse than an honest Infidel 1 Tim. 5.4 8. And thus are all the Laws of this relation likewise established in the greatest strictness and our obedience to them made plainly necessary to our bliss and happiness And as for the particular Laws of natural affection and communicating upon occasion to each other of their Substance in the relation of Brethren and Sisters they are proved to be necessary in the proof of the former For the same places which require them in that relation require them in this also And then as for the Particulars of the last relation viz. that of Masters and Servants they are of equal necessity with all the foregoing If any man provide not for his own house whereof Servants are one part he hath denied the Faith and is worse than an Infidel 1 Tim. 5.8 Masters give unto your Servants that which is just and equal knowing that ye also have a Master in Heaven who will punish your unequal dealing towards them Col. 4.1 If I despise the cause of my man-servant or of my maid-servant when they argue in their own defence and contend with me what then shall I do when God rises up and when he visiteth what shall I answer him Job 31.13 14. Thou shalt not oppress an hired Servant that is poor and needy whether he be of thy Brethren a Jew or a Stranger of the Gentiles At his Day thou shalt give him his hire neither shall the Sun go down upon it for he is poor and setteth his heart upon it Deut. 24.14 15. Weep and howl O ye rich men says S t James for the miseries that shall come upon you for behold the hire of the Labourers who have reaped down your Fields and which is of you keept back by fraud crieth against you and the Cries are entred into the ears of the Lord who hearkens to them and in great Justice will one Day avenge them James 5.1 4. Ye Masters do the same things viz. good whether as to their Bodies in providing for them or to their Souls in religious instruction with a good will in expectation of a reward from the Lord to your Servants forbearing threatning knowing that your Master also is in Heaven who has threatned you if ye neglect this necessary Duty neither is there any respect of persons with him Ephes 6.8 9. Let as many Servants as are under the Yoke count their own Masters worthy of all honour that the name of God be not blasphemed as certainly it would upon their contrary practice And if any man teach otherwise he is proud knowing nothing 1 Tim. 6.1 3 4. Servants obey in all things your Masters according to the Flesh not with eye-service but in singleness or sincerity of heart without fraud or double dealing as persons fearing God And whatsoever you do do it heartily as to the Lord not to men knowing that of the Lord you shall receive the reward of the inheritance for such your obedient practice for in thus serving them you serve the Lord Christ Col. 3.22 23 24. Servants obey your Masters with fear and trembling not with eye-service as Men-pleasers but from the heart with good-will doing service as to the Lord who commands this of you and not only to men knowing that whatsoever good or ill in this particular any man doth the same shall he receive of the Lord Ephes 6.5 6 7 8. Exhort Servants to be obedient to their own Mâ—sters and to please them well by all manner of observance in all things either as to their reputation in vindicating it when 't is injured or concealing such defects as would stain and fully it or their other interests showing all good fidelity For the Grace of God which brings salvation hath appeared to all men teaching them as ever they hope to be saved by it That denying all ungodliness and worldly lusts whereof the contrary practices to these are the effect and offspring they should live soberly c. Tit. 2.9 10 11 12 13. And moreover these Precepts are part of that sound Doctrine which Titus is required to speak ver 1. in opposition to their Doctrine who in the Verse before are said to be abominable disobedient and to every good work reprobate Servants be subject to your own Masters with all fear or reverence not only to the good and gentle but also to the hard or hasty and froward For this is thank-worthy if for Conscience towards God you patiently endure grief suffering wrongfully This is acceptable to God and likewise
and practise all other Vertues that are gainful not because we love God but only because we love mony We may be just and honest and seemingly religious not for the sake of a Commandment but of our own credit because the contrary practice would wound our good Name in the world and stain our reputation And now when our own lusts and vices our carnal pleasures and temporal advantages strike in after this manner with Gods Laws and command the same service which he enjoins us we may pretend if we will and as too oft we do that all is for his sake and that these performances which are really owing to our own self-interests come from us upon the account of Religion and Obedience And when we falsifie and feign thus it is flat dissimulation It is no more but acting the part of an obedient and religious man seeing like an Actor on the Stage we are that person whom we represent not in inward truth and reality but only in outward shew and appearance which is the very nature of hypocrisie But for a man to be sincere in Gods service is the same as really to intend that obedience which he professes It is inwardly and truly to will and do that for his sake which in outward shew and appearance we would be thought to do It is nothing else as the Psalmist says but truth in the inward parts Psal. 51.6 the having our inward design and intention to agree with our outward profession and being verily and indeed those obedient persons which we pretend to be And as for this sincerity of our performance of what God requires viz. our doing it for his sake and because he commands it it is altogether necessary to make such performance become obedience and to qualifie us for the rewards of those that obey For without it we do not observe Gods will but our own his Command had no share in what we did because it had been done although he had said nothing so that in our performance of it we served not him but our own selves And what has God to thank us for if we do nothing but our own pleasure Wherein do we serve him by acting only according to our own liking That cannot be charged on him which is not designed for him and if we do what he commands no otherwise than thus it is all one as if we had done nothing But if ever we expect that God should judge us at the last Day to have obeyed him we must be sincere in our obedient performances For the Lord looketh not on the outward appearance and pretence saith Samuel but he looks on the inward intention and design which is the heart 1 Sam. 16.7 He saves as the Psalmist tells us the upright in heart Psal. 7.10 And again As for the upright in heart they and they alone shall glory Psal. 64.10 For it is not from the bare outward appearance and profession but from the heart says Solomon that proceed the issues of life Prov. 4.23 And this is plainly declared in the express words of the Law it self For it accepts not a heartless service nor accounts it self obeyed by what was never intended for it But thus it bespeaks us The Lord thy God requires thee to serve him with all thy heart and with all thy soul. For he is a great God a mighty and a terrible to all that do otherwise and who in his Judgement regardeth not persons nor to corrupt him taketh rewards Deut. 10.12 17. And the Apostle tells the Philippians that their being sincere is the way to be without offence till the Day of Christ Phil. 1.10 And thus we see that to render our obedience acceptable at the last Day it is absolutely necessary that it be sincere and unfeigned We must do what Gods Laws prescribe not only because our own credit or interest sometimes requires it but because God has commanded it In all our obedient performances our heart and design must go along with him before ever he will recompence and reward us So that 't is plain we cannot obey God either against our will and intention or without them seeing our wills and intentions themselves are the very life and soul of our obedience The prime part of our Duty consists in the directing of our Design for even that which is done agreeably to Gods Command must be aimed and intended for him or else it will never be owned and approved by him But that we may the better judge of this sincerity of our service which is measured by our intention and design we must take notice of a two-fold intention For it is either 1. Actual and express Or 2. Habitual and implicite Now it is this latter which is always and indispensably required to the sincerity of our service but as for the former it is not always necessary though oftentimes it be Intention is the tendency of the soul towards some end which it likes and which it thinks to compass and endeavour after And this is one prime requisite in the actions of men and that which distinguisheth our operations from the actions of brute Beasts for what they do proceeds from the necessary force of uncontriving Nature and instinct but what we from reason and design And the cause of this difference is this Because God has given the brute Beasts no higher Guide and Commander of their actions than appetite and passion whose motions are not chosen with freedom and raised in them by reason and thought but merely by the necessitating force of outward objects themselves and those impressions which they make upon them For they act altogether through love and hatred hopes and fears and they love and hate not through reason and discourse but through the natural and mechanical suitableness or offensiveness of those objects which they act for But as for us men he has put all our actions under the power and in the disposal not of outward things but of something within us even our own free will They are not imposed upon us by the force of any thing without us but are freely chosen by us we are not their Instruments but their Authours they flow from our own pleasure and undetermined choice Now as our actions are at the disposal and command of our wills so do our wills themselves command and dispose of them not blindly and by chance but always for some reason and upon some design For in themselves they are indifferent to make us either omit or act neglect or exert them And therefore to determine our wills one way rather than the other to act them rather than to let them alone they must be moved and perswaded by such Arguments as are fit to win upon them Now that which can move and gain upon our wills is only goodness We will and desire nothing but what we think is good for us and which tends some way or other to better and advantage us For what we
prophanation also of what is holy or an abuse of what is sacred and together with the service of the sin joyns an immediate and direct affront of God too At other times I say men design some temporal ends for themselves as much or more than they design Gods service And this also renders their performances unsincere and qualifies their own temporal self-interests instead of being subservient to obedience to oppose and undermine it Their temporal advantages they intend sometimes as much as they do Gods service They make them equal and co-ordinate and are moved by the one as much as by the other Their love for the world is as great as their love for God and they are induced to perform what he commands them as much for its sake as they are for his Now this is an indignity which God will by no means endure For it is plainly an intolerable degradation of him and a bringing him down to nothing more than an equal amiableness with those earthly pleasures and temporal interests which we joyn in co-ordination with him It is a setting up the world for his rival and making the Creature equall in our estimation to him who is the Creator and Lord of all But the peremptory words of his Law are Thou shalt have no other Gods before me or in my presence Exod. 20.3 He will be served and respected above all and to bring other things into competition with him he looks upon to be the same thing as to renounce him For he is jealous of the preheminence of his service above all other things as a husband is of his wives love to him above all other men I the Lord saith he am a jealous God Exod. 20.5 And since this intending of our temporal advantages equally to Gods service is looked upon to be so great an affront and degradation of him the making them superior to him and being won more for their sakes than for his must do so much rather For this is a setting up other things above him and is like making and serving of another God Upon which account as some expound it Covetousness which is a loving and serving of Riches more than God is called Idolatry Col. 3.5 And when any Temporal Interest of our own has got as great power over us or greater than God himself has as it makes for the performance of his Command at one time so will it at another be as ready to make against it For although our Duty and our Interest do ordinarily strike in together yet always they do not but are sometimes divided And then this hank which our own advantage has got over us will not determine us for God but contest with him It will make us neglect his Service that we may serve our selves and carry us on to transgress his Commands whensoever we may thereby promote our own worldly interests So that the intending to serve our sins together with our intending to serve God or the intention of our own temporal interests in a degree either equal or superior to our intention of obedience to him by both which ways all worldly advantages are qualified to oppose him this mixture of intention I say makes our performance of his Commands to be no acceptable obedience but an unsincere service and a damning sin As for that unmixedness of intention therefore which is implied in sincerity and which is necessary to the acceptance of our obedience of all the forementioned Laws it excludes not all intention of our own advantage together with Gods service No to have respect to the spiritual and eternal advantages which in Gods Laws themselves are expresly promised to our obedience is always lawful and to have an eye upon those temporal advantages which will accrue to us by obeying is lawful so far as we intend them not in a degree either equal to Gods service or superior to it by both which ways they are empowered to undermine it But then only our mixing a design of our own self-interest together with our design of serving God makes our service unsincere and our damning sin when together with our design of serving God we join a design of serving sin or when we design some temporal ends of our own as much or more than we design obedience unto him And therefore it is a vain fear wherewith many good people are wont to perplex their souls when they doubt of the sincerity of their obedience because it was performed with an eye at their own advantage through their fears of Hell or their hopes of Heaven For whatsoever some out of a mistaken zeal for God's honour may have said to the contrary this is not only innocent but as I have shewn plainly necessary If they scruple at this they must scruple eternally For it is not their choice but their very Nature to act thus and they cannot help it This I say is their very Nature and they must leave off to be men before they can get quit of it Men may speak loftily and talk of obeying purely for God's sake without seeking any thing at all for themselves But this is mere talk and empty rant that can never come beyond words or appear in action For they must be made something else than what they are before they can practise it If any man doubts then whether God will accept his obedience because in obeying he had an eye at his own self interest he doubts whether God will accept him because he obeys as a man Noah and Abraham and Moses nay Christ himself might have doubted at this rate for in their obedience they all intended their own good as well as God's Glory and had respect unto the recompence of reward If this be a sufficient ground of scruple every Christian man must of necessity scruple without end For all our obedience is an obedience of Faith and our faith or belief of Heaven and Hell makes us chuse to obey in making us first to intend by such obedience to obtain the one and escape the other So that either our own nature and Christ's Gospel must be changed into something different from what they are or we must acknowledge that such honest intention of our own good as I have mentioned is lawful for us in God's service since it is made so necessary and unavoidable for us in the one and so much encouraged by the other And thus at last we see what is the first requisite to an acceptable obedience viz. sincerity And that it implies both the reality of our intention in Gods service or our performing it truly for Gods sake as we pretend to do and also the uncorruptness of it or our performing it for his sake more than for any thing else whatsoever and without regard to any other advantages of our own than such as are allowed by him and are subordinate under him But in regard the degrees of our intention and design are not so obvious and easily dâ—scâ—verable in themselves but
Romans The CONTENTS A further pursuit of this last ground of false confidence The Plea for it from Rom. 7. represented This refuted A Metaschematism usual with Saint Paul in an odious Topick The Apostle shown not to speak of himself in that Chapter because of several things there spoken which are not truly applicable to him This evidenced in sundry instances Nor to have spoken in the person of any regenerate man which is proved by the same reason and manifested in sundry Particulars But to have personated a strugling but as yet unregenerated Jew who had no further assistance against his lusts but the weak and ineffective Law of Moses This shown from the order and design of that Chapter This whole matter represented in a Paraphrase upon the seventh Chapter with part of the sixth and the eighth Two Reasons of the inability of Moses's Law to make men wholly obedient and the perfection as to them of the Law of Christ viz. First The promise of eternal life Secondly The promise of the Spirit Both these were wanting in the Law and are most clearly supplied in the Gospel The Jews had the assistance of the Spirit not by virtue of any Article in their Law but by the gracious Covenant of the Gospel which has been confirmed with the world ever since Adam The Law mentioned in Scripture as a weak and mean instrument upon the account of these defects This weakness of the Law set off particularly in this seventh to the Romans No hopes to any man who acts sin from this Chapter but plain declarations of the necessity of a working obedience shown in several expressions of it to that purpose A proof of the necessity of this fourth part of integrity the obedience of our executive powers in our works and actions and the insignificancy of all the rest when it is wanting THAT which has been the great occasion of this last pretence whereby men justifie themselves in the practice of disobedience viz. because when they do transgress it is with reluctancy and an unwilling mind is a wrong understanding of the words of S t Paul in the seventh Chapter of his Epistle to the Romans For thus says he That which I do I being sufficiently instructed in the Law which forbids it in my mind and conscience allow not For what through the Laws commanding I would do that do I not but what from the Laws prohibiting I hate and would not do that do I. The good that I would do I do not For although to will it is present with me yet through the prevailing power of my Flesh how to perform and practise that which is good I find not But the evil which I would not do that do I. And all this happens to me by reason that the Law of my lusts or members wars against the Law of God in my mind or Conscience and that with so much success as to make me act against my Conscience and bring me into a slavish observance or captivity to the Law of sin which is in my members So that I my self or the same I who with the mind and Conscience in approving and willing serve the Law of God do yet with the Flesh in my bodily and outward works and operations serve the Law of sin Now since no less a man than S t Paul himself speaks thus of sinning against his will of doing what he disallows and transgressing through the power of a ruling lust against his Conscience it may well be thought reasonable for any other man to conclude himself in a safe condition although he do so likewise For who would desire to be more perfect than S t Paul Who would ever scruple to have the same Lot in the next World with an Apostle If an unwillingness in sin and transgressing with reluctance could bear him out notwithstanding he did against his Duty and in works and actions disobeyed his Lord who can ever question but that it will be a sufficient Plea for us also And indeed if S t Paul had spoken all that of himself and meant it of his own Person the Inference is undeniable and it is not to be doubted but it would But for a full Answer to this Allegation it is plain that S t Paul when he expresses all those things in the first person uses that merely out of modesty but not out of truth For he was upon an odious Topick representing the unmortified state and sinful condition of those persons who had no other help against their Lusts but the Religion and Law of Moses And because this was a Charge which they who were most guilty would not love to hear of that he may soften the matter as much as may be and discover things of so much reproach with the least offence he wisely takes all the business and fathers all the shameful Narrative upon himself and expresses it not in theirs to whom it really did belong but in his own person And as for this Metaschematism or speaking things that are odious in his own name when indeed they belong not to him but to other men it is very usual with the Apostle For in this Disguise he recites a most blasphemous perversion which some men had made of his most pious Doctrine Rom. 3. If the truth of God or his faithfulness in performing his Covenant with us hath more ahounded to his Glory through my lye or unfaithfulness in breaking my Covenant with him which makes the most that can be for the honour of Gods faithfulness since no perfidiousness of ours can weary or provoke him out of it why yet am I not I Paul who could never act thus falsly or argue thus prophanely but I blasphemous Objector judged as a Sinner ver 7. And the same way of speech he observes again when he charges the wicked lives of those who have given up their names to Christ not upon his Religion but upon their own selves If while we seek to be justified by Christ in the profession of his Religion and not of Moses's Law we our selves are still found Sinners and as flagitious in our lives as ever is therefore Christ the Minister of sin God forbid For if I build again the things which at my very Baptism into Christianity I destroyed as 't is plain all Christians do who after Baptism prove customary Sinners it is no longer Christ who would rescue and free me from sin but I my self not I Paul but I flagitious Christian that make my self a Transgressor Gal. 2.17 18. Thus also he speaks in his own person when he only personates the strong but uncomplying Christian 1 Cor. 6. All things are lawful for me but all things are not expedient ver 12. And when he personates the uncharitable Christian 1 Cor. 13. If I have all faith and have no Charity what doth it profit me ver 2. And the same inoffensive way he uses in noting faults in other places And such an obliging disguise
and universally performed by the primitive Christians This shown from the Characters of the Apostles and of the Primitive Writers Hence it was that they could despise Death and even provoke Martyrdom Some Pleas from our impotence against the strictness of this obedience which are considered in the next Book NOW as for this intire obedience of the whole man at all times to the whole will of God whereof I have hitherto discoursed in the foregoing Chapters it is that very obedience with all the heart and with all the soul and with all the mind and with all the strength which is so expresly called for in the words of the Commandment Luke 10.27 Deut. 11.13 It is not to be expected that all our heart and all our mind and all our soul and all our strength should be so wholly devoted to God as that we should never either will or think or desire or do any other thing than what he has commanded us No that is a Dream of utter absurdities and impossibilities For God has not only allowed us but he has made it plainly necessary for us to employ our thoughts and desires and endeavours upon several other things besides himself and his Commandments Because we cannot live without meat and other necessaries and these we cannot get without seeking nor seek without desiring nor desire without thinking on them All the innocent enjoyments of Nature and all the necessaries of life all the laudable advantages of converse and all the lawful benefits of trade and employment require our minds and hearts and souls and strength as well as God and our Duty all our Powers not only may be exercised about them but they needs must For God himself has so ordained it it being a necessity of his own making so that we must employ our endeavours about them and we cannot do otherwise And therefore when the Commandment calls for all our hearts and all our strength c. it is utterly absurd and unreasonable to understand it of such an all as excludes the exercise of these faculties upon any thing besides It doth not ingross all our power to God's use alone and shut out all other things from any place in them but may and must be understood so as to leave room for them likewise But all that is included in the latitude of that expression with all thy heart c. is set out agreeably to the use of the Phrase at other times in these three Particulars 1. It notes the sincerity and undissembledness of our faculties so as the Phrase with all the heart signifies the same as in simplicity and honesty without guile or a double heart For a dissembling hypocritical man has one heart in shew and another in reality His heart is not one intire thing but double and divided He appears to will what indeed he doth not will and to desire what in truth he doth not desire so that his whole heart doth not go together that which he outwardly professes being one but that which he inwardly intends another And this simplicity and sincere honesty of intention is expressed in the course of our common speech by this Phrase all the heart nothing being more usual in our daily converse than to give assurances of our sincerity in any thing which we do by saying it is with all our heart And as sincerity is expressed by all the heart so is dissimulation and hypocrisie on the contrary set out by a double heart And thus the men of war who were faithful to David and undissembled in their service of him are said not to have been of a double heart Psal. 12.2 Which sence the word double has not only when it is applyed to this particular faculty viz. our wills and hearts but also when it is attributed to any other And thus we read of a double that is of a dissembling tongue 1 Tim. 3.8 2. This Phrase all the heart c. implies the fervency and concernedness of our faculties And thus the Latines use the word whole when they express their being very busie or industriously intent upon a thing by saying they are whole upon it And as this Phrase all the heart c. in respect of our faculties themselves denotes these two things viz. sincerity and fervency so likewise in respect of their object or that will of God which they are to be employed about doth it imply 3. Integrity so as that this fervency and sincerity be shown in obeying not some but all the Commandments not part but the whole will of God For our heart and soul and strength must be all or whole for God that is they must be constant and uniform not various and divided being sometimes for him and at other times against him They must be for all things which he commands and for nothing that he forbids for we must neither think nor desire nor do any thing against him And in this sense the word all or whole is opposed to divided and expresses thus much that our faculties do not stand for some commands and against others that they do not divide and parcel pick and choose with Gods Laws but that they obey wholly and universally observing all and every one Now these three viz. the sincerity and fervency of our faculties and the integrity of our obedience which are conveniently expressed by the word all or whole are all indispensably required of us as appears plainly from what has been above discoursed upon this subject So that they are all implied in the latitude of this Commandment Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy mind c. But besides them nothing else is For if we should extend that precept further and make it include all that the largest compass of those words would comprehend we should give it a sence which is as I said absurd and utterly impossible And to clear this a little more wherewith so many good souls are oft-times perplexed we may further observe that those very men who will'd and thought and desired and acted other things as well as Gods Laws are yet in the Scriptures expresly recorded to have performed all that is meant in this Commandment because they served God in the particulars which I have mention'd viz. sincerely fervently and entirely For Caleb and Joshua are said to have followed the Lord wholly Numb 32.12 David kept my Commandments saith God and followed me with all his heart 1 King 14.8 Josiah did what was right in the sight of the Lord 2 Kings 22.2 Now these persons were men not only of as great necessities as others but also of far higher place and greater business in the world For their station required them to be much employed about it and to spend frequent thoughts and many desires and great pains upon it So that their whole heart and mind and soul and strength could not be employed in Gods service any otherwise than as they loved and served
him entirely and above all things and neither will'd nor acted any thing besides when it stood in competition with him The sincerity fervency and integrity of their service was all which they had to shew in answer to this Commandment and upon the account of them God did accept them and has left it on record to all the world that they have fulfilled it As for the last of these viz. Integrity it indeed includes in it all the rest For it is the greatest warranty and effect of fervency and the best evidence of the sincerity of our service Because this as I said before is the great measure of acceptance in our thoughts and affections viz. that they carry us on to acceptable works and actions And this is the great Rule whereby to judge of a sincere service viz. that men be universal and entire in their obedience So that if once we perform all that God requires of us there is no further question to be made but that we perform it honestly and with that fervency and concernedness which is sufficient to our acceptance And this integrity of obedience including both the other is that very thing which is meant by the service with all the heart and with all the soul which is exacted of us in the Commandment Whereof we have still a further argument because in almost all the places where any man is said to fulfill this we find that annexed as its explication Which is a plain interpretation of the Scripture to it self that to obey with all our powers in its sence is nothing else but to be uniform undivided and entire in our obedience David sayes God followed me with all his heart which appears in this because he followed me so as to fulfill all my will and to act nothing against it but to do that only which is right in mine eyes 1 Kings 14.8 Caleb and Joshua followed the Lord wholly which was seen in that their obedience was entire to him and they did not transgress in those particular Laws of Duty by the breach whereof others provoked him Numb 32.10 11 12. And of Zacharias and Elizabeth S t Luke sayes that they were blameless because they walked not in some but in all the Commandments and Ordinances of the Lord Luk. 1.6 But on the other side as for all such as were partial in their obedience to God and kept some instances of duty but transgressed others according as they themselves listed they are said not to be whole in their hearts and other faculties towards him Jehu sayes the text took no heed to walk in the Law of the God of Israel with all his heart for of this there is a clear proof in that his heart run after some sins as well as some duties because he departed not from the sins of Jeroboam although he did from others 2 King 10.31 If you return unto the Lord with all your heart sayes Samuel then put away that particular sin which you still adhere to your strange Gods and serve him only 1 Sam. 7.3 And that this is true in every mans case as well as it was in theirs the Psalmist plainly assures us when he layes it down for an universal maxime that they seek the Lord with their whole heart who do no iniquity Psal. 119.2 3. And thus upon all these accounts it appears that to serve the Lord with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind and with all our strength according to the tenour of the Commandment is neither more nor less than to serve him universally and entirely For it can bear no other sense because upon no greater or better service than this God himself has declared that men have served him with all their heart according to the Commandment and more cannot be required when this fulfills it It can mean no more because that all which it should mean further is impossible in the present condition of humane nature and therefore is no fit matter of a Law nor subject to a Commandment And lastly it doth mean no more because the Scriptures themselves where they set it down are wont to annex this interpretation and thus explain it And thus at last we have seen what degrees and manner of obedience to all the Laws recounted in the former Book is necessary to our acceptance For we must obey sincerely and entirely if ever we expect to reap the rewards of obedience We must keep every particular Law of God and that through our whole lives we must think on them in our minds and pursue them with our affections and choose them with our wills so far till we perform them with our strength in outward and bodily operation This uprightness of obedience which is a certain evidence of its sincerity is all that Gods Law requires of us and it will infallibly save us at the last day although less than it nothing in the world will As for that condition of life and pardon then which the Gospel indispensably exacts of us we now see plainly what it is For it is nothing else but our obedience to all the forementioned Laws of God in sincerity and uprightness It is by this that all the world must stand or fall at the last day according to their performance or neglect whereof they shall then be judged either to live or die eternally This indeed though it be a very great will seem a very uncouth and severe truth in the degeneracy of manners and loose lives of our times But if it do that is wholly our own fault and can be no prejudice at all to the declarations of Christs Gospel For our Lord has proclaimed it to us plainly enough and if our own wicked hearts make us shut our eyes and willing to overlook it for that we must blame our selves but can never hope thereby to evacuate his sentence This in very deed is the Gospel that he has published and these are the terms of mercy which he has procured for us So that if we live up to them we shall be saved by him but if we fail to perform these gracious demands we have no benefit at all by his death nor any ground of hope from his Gospel All that can be said is that he offered us Grace and Pardon upon most fair and easie terms but that we would not accept them But we preferred the pleasure of our sins before all the glory of his rewards and chose to hazard all those evils which he threatned rather than to be at the pains to perform that condition which he peremptorily injoyned But although by our wicked lives we in these dayes cast off the light yoke of Christ as over-burdensome and make the Covenant of Grace it self to become a rigorous condition yet once the case was otherwise and the world was more Christian. For they who professed Christs Religion then performed all that he commanded and practised all that which as we have seen his Gospel doth injoyn
And to go no further for an evidence of this we will take those accounts of the obedience of Christians in the first times which the Apostles themselves give us You sayes the Apostle to the Colossians that were sometimes in your Gentile State alienated from God and enemies in your minds by means of your wicked works yet now since you become Christians hath he reconciled in his death to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable according to the terms of the Gospel in his sight Col. 1.21 22. And to the same purpose he speaks of the Ephesians yet more fully You saith he hath God quickned by the preaching of the Gospel who before you heard of that were dead in trespasses and sins wherein in times past of Gentilism ye walked as well as others according to the wicked course of this world according to the instigation of the Prince of the powers in the air who is the spirit that both aforetime and even now worketh in the children of disobedience Among whom also we all as I say had our conversation in times past living just as they did in the lusts of our flesh fulfilling and performing the desires of our flesh and were thereby the children of wrath as well as others But God even when we were thus dead in sins hath upon our embracing of Christs Religion quickned us together with Christ by that same spirit whereby he raised up him Ephes. 2.1 2 3 4 5. But the character which he gives of the Corinthians is more particular and compleat still No unrighteous saith he of one sort or other shall enter into the kingdom of heaven For neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers nor effeminate nor abusers of themselves with mankind nor thieves nor covetous nor revilers nor drunkards nor extortioners shall inherit the kingdom of God And such indeed as these were some of you once viz. in your Gentilism but since you were Christned I bear you record that you are washed from those impurities that you are sanctified from those wickednesses and that you are justified from the condemning force of all these Commandments in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the help of the enlivening and converting spirit of our God 1 Cor. 6.9 10 11. These places are very full and particular for the power of Christianity and the perfect and entire obedience of Christians in those dayes And yet there is one testimony more of this Apostle which I must not omit because it is so very comprehensive and that is the account which he gives us of the Reformation which the Gospel wrought among the Romans For before it was preached among them they were strangely debauched and unaccountably wicked as we may be fully informed were there no other register of their vices from that prodigious Catalogue of their sins which S t Paul himself has given us Rom. 1. For they worshipped and served the Creature more than the Creator Their very women were so unnatural in their lusts as to change their natural use into that which is against nature And the men leaving the natural use of the women burned in their lusts towards one another men with men working that which is unseemly They were filled with all unrighteousness fornication wickedness covetousness maliciousness being full of envy murder debate deceit malignity whisperers back-biters haters of God despitefull proud boasters inventers of evil things disobedient to parents without understanding covenant-breakers without natural affection implacable unmercifull Thus had they degenerated from all sense of common honesty and honour and fallen into the vilest sink of vices But when once Christianity took place among them it quickly turned them from a most impious and monstrously unclean into a most religious and holy people For so S t Paul himself bears witness to them You were sayes he in your time of Heathenism the servants nay the rankest slaves of sin but God be thanked that ye have now since you became Christians obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was by us Apostles delivered to you For being made free from that strange inventory of sins ye became the servants of righteousness Rom. 6.17 18. And what S t Paul tells us of these particular Churches under his care S t Peter will also inform us was true of all the Churches in Pontus and Asia with whom he was concerned and to whom he directed his first Epistle The time past of our life may suffice us saith he to have wrought the will of the Gentiles when we walked with them in lasciviousness lusts excess of wine revellings banquettings and abominable idolatries Yea indeed this doth suffice us For since we became Christians we have left off to accompany them in these vices for which they are estranged to us and revile us For they think it strange that we run not with them to the same excess of riot as we used formerly speaking evil of us for abstaining from them 1 Pet. 4.3 4. Thus honest was the service and thus entire was the obedience of Christians in the Apostles dayes And when they had finished their course and were called out of the world Christs Gospel had still the same effects and his subjects continued to pay him the same service As for the Religion and Laws of Christ sayes Lactantius what excellent effects they have upon the minds and lives of men is plain from every dayes experience For give me a man that is fierce hasty and ungovernable and with this Law I will make him as tractable and gentle as a lamb Give me one who is covetous greedy and tenacious this Religion shall quickly make him liberal and generous It will make the cowardly and timorous to become bold and venturous the lustful and intemperate to turn chast and sober the cruel and revengeful to grow merciful and placable In one word it works a perfect change and alteration making the wicked and injurious to become forthwith most innocent and holy men For all manner of sin is renounced at their entrance all filthy habits are washt off at the Font and never again resumed They are so wholly altered in their life and temper by embracing of our Faith that you will scarce know them to be the same men Thus were the Christians in those Days the holiest sort of men and the most noble patterns of Vertue and Goodness being distinguishable from other men as Tertullian says in nothing so much as this That they had left off all their former vices For they lived what they taught and performed what others only could discourse of their common Motto being this Although we have not the skill to talk yet we have the Grace to live as well as any Nay their very enemies themselves who would be sure to spare no pains nor skill in fastening some immoralities upon them were yet forced at last to confess that they had no fault but one and that was that they were called
For Christ need never have come into the World for that end since the Law had rendred us accursed and miserable enough already But he came on a quite contrary Errand to be the Minister of Life and Pardon and not to seal us up to eternal Death upon the first wilful transgression but to procure for us remission of all our deadly and damning sins and to restore us out of a state of Enmity and Death to a state of Mercy and Reconciliation He came to find out a remedy for all our evils and to prescribe us a way of recovering our selves when we had fallen by any sin so that although none of us all have lived free from it yet in the event sin shall not be our ruine And that remedy which God has provided us for this purpose is Repentance He doth not abandon us upon the commission of every sin but he is heartily desirous that we should repent of it and when we do so he has obliged himself by his Truth and Faithfulness to forgive it He is heartily desirous I say that whensoever we commit any sin we should repent of it If we dare take his own word he tells us as he lives that he doth not delight in the death of any sinner but that the wicked turn from his way and live turn you turn you as he goes on from your evil ways for why will you dye O house of Israel Ezek. 33.11 And this all the World experience by him in his long-suffering and forbearance with them For he doth not exact the punishment so soon as we have incurred it but expects long to see if we will return and repent that then he may with honour pardon and remit it this being as S t Paul assures us the end of his forbearance and long-suffering to lead us to repentance Rom. 2.4 And what S t Paul says that we all experience For during all that time wherein he bears with us how restless and unwearied earnest and affectionate are his endeavours for this purpose He admonishes us of our faults by his Word and by his Ministers he invites us to return by his Love and by his Promises he moves us to bethink our selves by his Spirit and by his Providences and if we are stubborn and not to be thus gently won by these methods of mildness he seeks to reclaim us by a blessed and a most affectionate force and violence For he corrects us with his Rod and visits us in chastisement and never ceases to try all means of reducing us to a sense of our sin and repentance till we are become plainly incorrigible and utterly rebellious and so fit for nothing but to be swallowed up of ruine And yet even then his desire of reclaiming us is so strong and his love so affectionate that he scarce knows how to give us over How shall I give thee up saith he O Ephraim how shall I deliver thee O Israel Hos. 11.8 And when we do repent I say he has obliged himself by his Truth and Faithfulness most graciously to forgive us This was the Doctrine of the Prophets Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return unto the Lord says Isaiah for he will have mercy upon him and to our God for he will abundantly pardon Isa. 55.7 If the wicked man says God by Ezekiel will turn from all his sins that he hath committed and keep all my statutes and do that which is lawful and right he shall surely live he shall not dye All his transgressions which he hath formerly committed shall not be mentioned unto him but in his righteousness that he hath done since he shall live For have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should dye saith the Lord God and not that he should turn from his ways and live Ezek. 18 21 22 23. This iâ— the great Doctrine of the Gospel which is a Covenant of remission of sins upon Repentance Repentance is its great Article and fundamental Truth and is therefore called by S t Paul the Foundation of Repentance Heb. 6.1 For that which was taught to all the World in all the degrees of Publication of the Gospel was that now God called all men to repent and that he would forgive them all their sins upon their true repentance S t John the Baptist who was Christs Herald and Fore-runner at his entrance upon that work begins with it John says S t Luke in all the Country about Jordan came preaching the Baptism of repentance for the remission of sins Luk. 3.3 Our Lord and Saviour Christ himself when he comes after to proclaim his own Gospel goes on with it Jesus began to preach says S t Matthew and to say Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand Mat. 4.17 And when he left the World the Commission which he gives to his Apostles is to proceed on still in the Promulgation of it to all the World as he had done to the people of the Jews For at the last time of his being with them just before his Ascension into Heaven when as S t Matthew tells us he commissioned them to preach to all mankind those instructions which he gave to them S t Luke informs us were that repentance and remission of sins should be preached to all Nations in his Name beginning at Jerusalem Luk. 24.47 This was the chief thing which they had in Commission and the summ and substance of their Embassy For that Ministry which was committed to them was a Ministry of reconciling God and men by this means as St. Paul says or a Ministry of Reconciliation so that they were Ambassadours for Christ as though God did beseech men by them and they as Christs Deputies who is the prime Mediator did pray them in his stead to be reconciled to God 2 Cor. 5.19.20 And when the Apostles came to execute their Orders the publishing of this was all their care and practice For they all of them went about preaching in all places and to all persons repentance for the remission of sins St. Peter in his first Sermon thus exhorts the people Repent and be baptized every one of you for the remission of sins Act. 2.38 and so again Act. 3. Repent and be converted that your sins may be blotted out v. 19. And the same he proclaims more generally in his second Epistle assuring all Christians that the Lord is not willing that any man should perish but that all should come to repentance which is sure to prevent it 2 Pet. 3.9 St. Paul preaches to the Athenians that now God had commanded all men every where to repent Act. 17.30 And St. John assures us that by virtue of that Gospel-Covenant which was confirmed with us in Christs Blood if with repenting hearts we confess our sins he is faithful to his word and just to his promise to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from the guilt and stain of all unrighteousness of
For we shall always live subject to them more or less and although we may labour and strive against them yet shall we never be able as long as we are in this world to get entirely free from them We have no power and choice to avoid what we cannot see and consider of and all these sins come in upon the account of our unwill'd ignorance or inconsideration and since we cannot see and consider of them we cannot particularly prevent them which is effectually to repent of them A particular Repentance and Reformation then is not the Gospel-remedy for our involuntary sins It cannot be the cure assigned for them because it is impossible to them their pardon must not depend upon it because then they were wholly impardonable and desperate since in them no man on earth can use it But that remedy which Christ has appointed for them and that repentance whereupon he will graciously pardon and forgive them is in the general an hearty repentance and reformation of all wilful sins and an entire obedience in all such actions as are voluntary and chosen If we serve God faithfully and truly in all our other actions where we do see our duty and can chuse to practise it he will connive at these slips which after an honest care and industry are involuntary and unchosen For any kind master would do so to his honest servant and more especially every tender father would to his obedient child And God who is Love it self being the first Fountain and the compleatest Pattern of all kindness in the world will never be out-done in any love that is excellent and praise-worthy by his own creatures But if their kindness would bear with such infirmities and oversights of an honest mind his will dispense with them much rather The faithful servants therefore and obedient children of God who repent particularly of all their other sins that are known and wilful and effectually amend them shall be sure to find this favour at the hands of their heavenly Lord and Father for all these failings which are involuntary and unchosen Their obedience in other things shall plead their excuse and make their unwill'd slips in these to be uncondemning But to be yet more particular these involuntary transgressions of men that are obedient in all their voluntary actions shall certainly be pardoned through the means of these particular duties 1. Their Prayers 2. Their Charity and forgiveness towards the offences of others 1. Their involuntary failings of ignorance and inconsideration shall be forgiven them upon their prayers if they beg Gods pardon for them he is as ready to grant as they are to desire it And this we are sure of because that no earthly Parent who is wise and good would refuse to bestow it in such Cases at the request of his Children whereas they have nothing near that pity and tenderness for their Children which God has for his And this is an Argument which Christ himself has taught us to rely upon in this matter If you says he being evil will yet for all that at their request give good gifts to your Children how much more shall your heavenly Father who has not the least taint of your illness give the best of gifts even the Holy Spirit to them that ask him Luke 11.13 And indeed that we may never want this remedy Christ has put a Prayer for this purpose daily into our mouths that since our involuntary sins are of daily incursion we may as daily beg pardon for them For he has made it a part of our daily prayers to ask pardon among others for our daily trespasses this being one of those Petitions which he has taught us to put up as often as we do that for our daily bread that he would forgive us our trespasses Matth. 6.11 12. And this S t Austin observes of it for those small sins saith he which no man can avoid was this Petition in the Lord Prayer inserted Nay long before him S t Clement teaches the same Doctrine of our prayers being a most sure expiation for all our involuntary sins For in his first Epistle to the Corinthians relating that truly Christian state wherein their great Apostle Paul had very lately left them among several other parts of their Character he gives this for one Being filled with holy desires and a vertuous will with a good and commendable forwardness of mind and with a pious assurance of being heard you lifted up your hands to Almighty God beseeching him to be merciful and propitious to you if in any thing you had sinned INVOLVNTARILY Having first as says the good Father a vertuous heart and a holily disposed will so that in nothing their heart was disobedient by sinning wilfully they were forward to ask God forgiveness for all those sins which they had committed involuntarily And this forwardness says he was good and commendable and their confidence of obtaining pardon upon their prayer was pious it was a godly and a pious confidence This is a plain and full testimony and withal it is authentick and such as we may rely upon as much in a manner as if an Apostle himself had told us so For this Clement as we may observe was one who was sent out by the Apostles themselves to preach Christ's will and intrusted by them to declare unto the World what are the terms of remission of sins and the condition of pardon so that what we hear from his mouth we may look upon as Gospel S t Paul himself makes honourable mention of him calling him his Fellow-Labourer Help Clement my Fellow-Labourer whose name is in the Book of Life Phil. 4.3 And the thing it self which he testifies is not so much a matter of saith and 〈◊〉 wherein an honest man may sometimes erre and be mistaken as an historical relation of a matter of fact For he is recounting what a brave and gallant Church they were in that state wherein the great Apostle left them and as one of the Particulars of that relation this comes in That as for their involuntary sins they begged Gods pardon and that too with a pious assurance of obtaining it So that as for this practice of a confident hope of pardon for their involuntary sins upon their prayers it was not only such as S t Clement the Companion and Fellow-Labourer of S t Paul approved but such moreover as the Apostle Paul himself who had planted Christianity amongst them had left with them This therefore is one great remedy for our involuntary slips They shall he forgiven us upon our prayers for pardon and forgiveness And so shall they 2. Upon our Charity and forgiveness of the offences of others As God himself delights in mercy so doth he require that we should and to oblige us to it the more he has made our kind dealing towards our Brethren the Condition of his kindness towards us Above all things says S t Peter have fervent Charity
be mortified in every good man because under this strength and empire of them he cannot go to Heaven And that no good man may call in question the safety of his state from any needless fears about this mortification this we must know every man has done in his conversion to become a good Christian. For before he can be such he has killed the reigning power of lust so as not to be acted any longer by its instigation He feels some small stirrings of it afterwards indeed but they do not win upon him or prevail over him for he is always ready to deny the satisfaction of his lust before he will displease his God and makes all the desires of his flesh to give way to the dictates of his Conscience Ye that are Christs saith S t Paul have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts Gal. 5.24 And when this is once done there is no great trouble in it afterwards for the more any man is accustomed to obey the less difficulty doth he find in mortification and self-denial and in restraining of all those lusts which tempt to disobedience He is not now in every temptation put to the pain and trouble of cutting off a right hand or of plucking out a right eye the self-denial and mortification went so near him at first 't is true but since he has been used to it and his flesh is accustomed to bear the yoke and to be under subjection there are no such pangs and uneasiness attending it So that if he is not now still upon the severe task of painful mortification it is because he doth not need it since it is done already to his hand His lusts are so far mortified as it is absolutely necessary they should they are crucified to that degree as to be disabled from gaining his consent to them his contrivance for them or his fulfilling and performance of them and that is as much mortification as God will exact of him But yet when this is done and our lusts are mortified to this degree there is still need of a watchful care over them and of a continual strife against them lest they should rebel again and go further For the objects of sense and the allurements of our flesh are still before us and our bodies naturally are still as capable to be delighted in them and thereupon to lust and long after them as ever they were before It is only the over-powering strength of the Law in the mind or conscience which maintains the resolution of our wills against them and by that means keeps them under And therefore if once we begin to slacken our care and to keep no hank upon them but allow them to go where and how far they please they will quickly grow upon us and prove too hard for us and bring us first to consent to them and after that to compleat and fulfil them Let no man therefore indulge to the thoughts of unlawful pleasures and by the delights of his fancy foment and cherish the lusts and desires of his Flesh presuming that all is safe whilst he doth not consent to them nor yields to fulfil them For admitting that all things else are innocent and uncondemning yet however by this means he lays a snare for his own soul. For he throws himself into temptation and so cannot expect that God should deliver him out of it God has promised to relieve us indeed in all necessities of his own making if his Providence throws us upon trial his Grace shall support us under it and make a way for our escape out of it He will not suffer you to be tempted above what you are able saith the Apostle but together with the temptation he will make a way to escape that ye may be able to bear so much of it as befalls you 1 Cor. 10.13 But what is this to us if we bring our selves into snares and prove our own tempters For there is no reason at all to presume that God if he will deliver us from other enemies should deliver us also from our own selves and that he should secure us by his Spirit from those very snares which we lay for our own Vertue No if we will entertain Serpents in our bosoms he has no where engaged nor is there any reason why he should that we shall not be stung by them But on the contrary he warns us against them and bids us be careful to keep off from them Yea so far must we be from bringing temptations upon our selves that if we will observe his orders we must pray daily even against those whereto his Providence might expose us This being one of those Petitions which according to our Lords appointment we are to put up to God as often as we do that for our daily bread viz. That he would not lead us into temptation Matth. 6.13 So that if by indulging to delightsome fancies and growing lusts of evil we throw our selves into a great temptation we have just reason to fear that God for our punishment should leave us in it and suffer us damnably to fall by it Such indulgence is apt of it self to inflame our lusts and to weaken our resolutions and God is also prone to withdraw his Grace and to leave us to our own strength upon it and since at the same time it increases our necessities and withdraws our aids it must needâ— put us into a dangerous condition If then we would secure our souls and keep off from damning sins we must resist temptations at the beginning and not give way to them we must not cherish and indulge but timely check and heedfully suppress them And thus at last we see what is the just force of this first cause of fear to honest minds their ineffective lusts and impotent desires of evil The first beginnings of lust cannot be avoided and the longer entertainment of it shall not finally be punished if it is soon checked by us nay if it stays longer and contends much with us so long as it doth not prevail upon us to consent to and fulfil the sin whereto it is a temptation But when once it has gained our consent and choice of that sin whereto it would engage us then is it of a damning stain and all its following effects are mortal All which S t James insinuates to us in that account which he gives us of the progress and production of sin which he sets down from the motive or first temptation to the perfect birth or compleat production in this order Then says he every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lusts and inticed to evil by them This lust or desire of evil is only the first step being as yet not grown up to the stature of sin but only to that of temptation But when it advances and draws in our other faculties then sin begins and ripens it is first conceived and then finished and after the finishing of it it is a
cozen'd of his Father Isaacs blessing and he sought to have them reverst with bitter crys and importunate desires and much unfeigned intreaties which clearly show that Esaus own mind was changed abundantly But that repentance or change of mind in reversing of the blessing for which he laboured hard but without effect was in his Father Isaac The good Old man had already pronounced the blessing upon Jacob and when Esau most earnestly intreated him to reverse it he told him flatly he would not I have blessed him saith he yea and he shall be blessed Gen. 27.33 For the story as it is there recited is plainly this When Isaac bid his Son Esau provide him some Venison that he might eat thereof and bless him before he died Jacob by the counsel and assistance of his Mother Rebecca counterfeited both the person and the Venison of Esau and going in therewith to his Father before Esau returned craftily stole away the blessing from him And when Esau came in afterwards to receive the blessing which Isaac his Father had promised him he tells him that Jacob his Brother had come with subtilty before him and under a crafty disguise had taken it away from him For I have made him thy Lord saith he and all his brethren have I given to him for servants And although Esau intreated his Father to reverse it and cryed as it is there said with a great and exceeding bitter cry yet Isaac would not change his mind or alter what he had pronounced I have blessed him saith he yea and he shall be blessed This reversion of the blessing and repentance or change of mind in his Father Isaac was that which Esau endeavoured after and which as St. Paul here says he sought carefully with tears But as he observes out of this story all was in vain for it would not be granted him When he sought to inherit the blessing his suit was not granted but rejected for Isaacs Decree was past and he found no place of repentance or way to make him change his mind although he sought that change carefully with tears In this place then the Apostle says not at all that it was impossible for Esau to repent of his sins against God or that God would not forgive him upon his repentance but only that Isaac would not repent of his decree or reverse that blessing which he had pronounced upon Jacob. Which inflexibleness of Isaac he doth indeed make use of in these verses to illustrate Gods inexorableness towards some sinners but then those are not all wilful sinners indifferently but only Apostates who have wilfully renounced their Christianity which as we have seen before is a sin that God will afford no more grace or place of repentance to And this as I take it appears plainly from the foregoing verses Take care says he lest that which is lame or the weak Christian be turned out of the way of his Christian profession through fears of Persecution v. 13 Look diligently lest any man fail or fall from the Grace or Gospel of God v. 15 which I exhort you the more earnestly to do because if any man doth reject all those Gospel-blessings and priviledges which in that Religion which you have received are now offered to him and apostatize from them God will never afford him the tender of them again but will be as unalterable in his Decree against him as Isaac was in his against Esau who as you know from the story after once he had mist of the blessing found no place of repentance though he sought it carefully with tears v. 17. Others again are troubled in mind and are afraid lest their Souls are yet in danger because they do not perceive themselves to grow in grace and to be increased in goodness They complain that their spiritual life is at a stand and that they are not more devout and piously affected more vertuous and better Christians than they were for some considerable time before And this makes them jealous lest they should pass for idle servants who have not used and improved their Talents and who shall be dealt with at the last Day as if they had abused them To speak clearly to this business and yet to be as brief as conveniently I can it is first observable that to grow in grace is the same thing as to grow in vertue and goodness or to go on to higher measures of life and perfection in any or in all the instances of duty and obedience For an obedient life as I have largely shewn is that sole instance and proof of grace which can render any of us acceptable in Gods sight and whereupon the Gospel encourages us to hope for pardon and a happy Sentence at the last Judgment So that if any mans life is more perfect than it was if he grows in doing good and keeping back from evil and goes on higher still in performing all Gods Commandments if he begins to have a greater honour for God to be more careful to please and more afraid to offend him if he is more forward to depend upon his Providence to trust in his Promises to resign himself up to his Will and to submit to his pleasure to praise him for all his Excellencies and Disposals and to perform all his Precepts if he is more humble and heavenly-minded chast and temperate just and charitable if he is more meek and gentle courteous and affable quiet and peaceable more ready to repair wrongs and to forgive injuries than formerly if he thus advances to higher measures to greater ease or to more constancy and evenness of obedience in any or in all instances of Duty towards God and men and that in all relations his vertue is in its spring and is still going on he grows in grace and God will accordingly reward him One particular Vertue there is which men are wont to look at more especially in this matter and that is Prayer They measure their growth in grace by their improvement in this and think their spiritual life is then most perfect when their Devotions are most inlarged Which they conclude they are not when they are put up with the greatest trust and dependance submission and resignedness to God Almighty or with any other of those obedient tempers implied in Prayer which are apt to influence our whole lives but when they are accompanied with the most sensible joys and ravishing transports and unusual height of fervency and affection So that if at any time they can pray more passionately and put forth more intense desires and work themselves up to more heavenly raptures than ordinarily they have been able to attain to they fancy that they do indeed grow in grace and are become higher in Gods favour and acceptance But if ever this service happens to be more irksom to them and they discharge it with much backwardness and weariness dulness and indifference they think God frowns upon them and has deserted them and
or other sins whether against Justice or Charity As on the other side our fears and aversations from want or pain or other bodily evils must not induce us to neglect a Commandment that we may please our Flesh or to deny our Religion for the securing of a bodily enjoyment These restraints God has laid upon our bodily appetites having given us these Commands with several others mentioned above which we are oft-times tempted to transgress in order to the fulfilling of them For our bodily appetites themselves do not distinguish either of objects or of degrees A mans palate or his stomach in any delicious meat or drink which yields a pleasure to it doth not tell him when they have enough or cease desiring before they are gone on to be intemperate Our eyes lust after money but they consider not whose it is but so they may have it they matter not to whom it belongs or how they come by it and so it is in our fleshly appetites of other things For it is the natural pleasure of those things which we lust after that moves our bodies and therefore they lust after them so long as they are pleased with them They never stop at a fixt measure or turn away from a forbidden object so that if we will be ruled by them they will carry us on to any thing that agrees with them whether it be lawful or unlawful and so are sure to insnare us into sin And here indeed God has set a strict restraint upon them and will punish them severely if they go beyond it For Then as I said our lusts are deadly to us and articles of our condemnation when they have damning effects and ensnare us into deadly and damning sins To any good man the bare lusts and desires of evil are not so truly a damning sin as a dangerous temptation they are not in themselves an Article of Death to him but they are apt to carry him on to that which is For that which puts any sin into a capacity to tempt us is our lust or desire of something which is annexed to it and which we hope to obtain by it There is always something that goes along with it which is naturally fitted to please our flesh and to excite a carnal appetite and by this we are tempted and allured into the practice and commission of it For bare sin could never tempt any man nor could any one in his wits ever chuse to disobey for disobedience sake without any thing further because there is no good in transgression nakedly considered which should move any mans will to chuse and embrace it but on the contrary much evil that will disswade and affright him from it For it deprives us of Gods favour and subjects us to his vengeance and fills us with sad hearts and anxious thoughts and terrible expectations But that which wins us over to a liking and approbation of it is the appearance of some pleasure profit honour or other annexed allurement which we expect to reap by it It is one or other of these that overcomes all our fears and inveagles us into the commission of it for they strike in with our natural appetites and raise in us desires after it and those prove the bait which draws us in and the insnaring temptation For herein lies all the force of any temptation The satisfaction of a lust is joyned with the acting of a sin which is an invitation to us for the sake of the one to commit the other also The transgression has something annexed which is agreeable to our fleshly Natures and raises in us desires of it and cravings after it and when it has got this hold of us it draws us as much as we can be drawn by our love of our own lusts and the gratification of our bodily appetites which is indeed a great step to our choice and commission of it and a strong temptation For this is the natural order of our actions either our Consciences or our Passions move and excite us to them and then our Wills chuse and intend them and upon that choice and intention our Vnderstandings contrive and direct and last of all our bodily and executive Powers fulfil and perform them All our bodily actions are at the choice and under the command of our wills and all our choice is upon the appearance of some good or other which either our consciences or our fleshly lusts and appetites propose to us For our wills we must remember are placed in a middle state and are canvased and beset on both sides our lusts being urgent with us to consent to one thing and our consciences to another And this is that strife betwixt the flesh and spirit which is mentioned in the Scriptures and that contention which S t Paul describes in the 7 th Chapter to the Romans between the Law of lust in the members and the Law of God in the mind These two Principles our Body and Spirit or our Lusts and our Consciences are those great Interests that vie and struggle in us and emulously contend which shall obtain the consent and choice of the will of man And whensoever either of them has got that our actions follow in course For our bodily members move at our own choice and therefore if our lusts after the pleasures of sin have once prevailed upon our wills to consent to it they have gained their point and their work is done and we shall go on without more ado to act and commit it In this then lies all the force of a temptation that the sin which we are tempted to has something annexed to it wherein our flesh is delighted and which it lusts after and desires for the sake of that pleasure which it finds in it And when by this means any sin has got our fleshly love and desire it has got a powerful friend in our own bosoms For our lusts are strong and violent and where they set upon a thing they will not easily be denied but are urgent and importunate with our wills to consent to their gratification and yield to the fulfilling of them So that if once any sin has struck in with them it is able to try its strength and contend with the Law of God in the mind being furnished now with a powerful bait and a strong temptation Thus are our lusts and desires of forbidden things not the forbidden sin it self but the temptation to it so that in bare lusting or desiring of them we do not commit the damning sins themselves but are tempted only to their commission And in this S t James is most express for then says he every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lusts and enticed to evil by them Jam. 1.14 And as for meer temptation to a damning sin it is not deadly and damning For our being tempted to sin is not a renouncing of our Lord but an exercise of our service and obedience to him and a
tryal whether or no we will renounce him It is the great proof and argument how dearly we love him and how closely and faithfully our wills adhere to him It shews how obedience is uppermost in our hearts and that we will rather deny our dearest lusts and importunate desires than venture for their sakes to offend him So that to be tempted is no instance of damning disobedience but a plain proof how much we will lose and suffer rather than we will disobey It is a tryal of us how we prefer God and our Duty before other things even those that are most dear to us of all things in the world besides We do not sin damnably then in being tempted so long as we consent not to it but manfully resist and overcome the temptation And this is evident from hence because those very men who have lived most free from sin have not for all that lived free from temptation Even Adam himself before he knew what sin was and during his state of Innocence was liable to be tempted For the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil whereof God had forbidden him to eat was alluring to his eyes and an incentive to his lust as well as any other Tree of the Garden And because it was so the Woman was won to eat of it through the strength of such desire after it notwithstanding God had commanded her to abstain from it The woman saw that the Tree was good for food and pleasant to the eye and she took of the fruit thereof and did eat and by the same inducement she drew in her Husband and gave it unto him and he did eat also Gen. 3.6 And the second Adam who was most entirely innocent and guilty of no sort of sin was yet liable to temptation like as we are being in all points tempted like as we are yet without sin Heb. 4.15 Nay says the Apostle it was necessary that he should be so that by what he felt in himself he might the better know how to shew mercy and have compassion upon us In all things says he it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren that he might be a merciful as well as a faithful High Priest for in that he himself hath suffer'd being tempted he is able to succour them that are tempted Heb. 2.17 18. As for our being tempted then or invited to any sin by our bare lusts and inclinations after it in it self and before it has got any further it is no deadly sin or damnable transgression It is the scene of good endeavour the tryal of obedience a test of our great love and preference of God and his Law before all the world besides yea even before our own dearest lusts and our own selves It is nothing more than befel Adam before he had sinned or than befel Christ who never knew sin and therefore in it self bare lust and desire or being tempted and invited to sin cannot be damnably sinful As for our Lusts or Temptations 't is true they differ in degrees according as our desires of that evil which we are tempted to are indulged and have advanced more or less For sometimes a lust may stir but as soon as ever it is observed it is again extinguished The pleasure of the sin whether by being seen or fansied raises in us a sudden thought or desire after it but the lust is expelled as soon as it is discovered it is not suffered to remain and dwell in us but is presently thrown out with indignation For we turn away our fancy from the evil thing and will not endure to think upon it or to continue craving and lusting after it And this is a power over our own desires and a way of breaking the strength of temptation which is incident only to grown men and to perfect Christians and that not in all instances of temptation but only in such as are not extraordinary in themselves and which have been often vanquished and triumphed over It is in such cases where use has made the conquest easie and long custom of ceasing and turning away from the inveigling desire has taken off all the difficulty so that now we are able to silence and subdue the lust as soon as we discern it And as for these feeble desires and impotent temptations there is no question but that a good Christian may be under them and yet be in no danger of being condemned for them But then at other times our lusts live longer and advance higher they grow up to good degrees till they are able to contend and strive against our mind and conscience so that even when at last they are denied and our wills chuse to do what God commands in spite of them yet is it after much struggling and opposition The flesh lusteth against the spirit as well as the spirit lusteth against the flesh and although at last the fleshly lusts are overpower'd and cannot prevail with our wills to chuse on their side yet do they strive hard and contend for it And here a lust is not presently subdued as soon as it is discerned but it strives and struggles it can make head against the Law in the mind although it cannot overcome it it has some interest in the will although it have not an interest sufficient for the will hearkens to it for some time and considers of what it offers notwithstanding at last it reject its suit and through the sollicitations of a more powerful Favourite resolves against it And this power our lusts have in us whilst we are young Converts and of a more imperfect goodness nay in some very great temptations indeed such as are the fear of death and bodily torments especially they will struggle thus in those who are the most perfect Christians of all But now when our lusts are in this dâ—gree so as to stay upon our Souls for some time and to strive against our spirits for the consent of our wills before they are â—inally denied it yet if they go no further than bare lust and our wills do not after all their struggling consent to them or chuse the evil thing which is craved by them they are still uncondemning and incident to an Heir of Salvation And this as I take it is clear from what S t Paul himself says of the truly regenerate or of those who in his words walk in the spirit For in them he says plainly that the flesh lusteth against the spirit albeit it is not able to prevail over it so that even in doing what the spirit commands them they do against the contrary will and lusting of the flesh which gainsays it The flesh lusteth against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh so that even in fulfilling the will of the spirit you contradict another will of your lusts and cannot do or do not the things that you would Gal. 5.16 17. Nay even Christ himself who knew no sin nor ever committed any thing which