they know at what time and by what Text of Scripture they were converted and can make large Discourses of the workings of God upon their Hearts and are prone to talk unseasonably with Vain-glorying of their own Experiences when at last all their Experiences are not sufficient to evidence that they ever attained to the least measure of true saving Faith Therefore that we may not unjustly condemn or justify our Faith by proceeding on in-sufficient Evidences in its Tryal our best way is to examine it by the inseparable Properties of a true saving Faith by putting to our selves such Questions as these Are we made throughly sensible of our Sinfulness and of the Deadness and Misery of our natural State so as to despair absolutely of ever attaining to any Righteousness Holyness or true Happiness while we continue in it Are the Eyes of our Understandings enlightned to see the Excellency of Christ and the alone Sufficiency and All-sufficiency of his Grace for our Salvation Do we prefer the Enjoyment of him above all things and desire it with our whole Heart as our only Happiness whatsoever we may suffer for his sake Do we desire with our whole Heart to be delivered from the Power and Practice of Sin as well as from the Wrath of God and the Pains of Hell Do our Hearts come to Christ and lay hold on him for Salvation by trusting him only and endeavouring to trust on him confidently notwithstanding all Fears and Doubts that assault us If you find in your self a Faith that hath these Properties though as small as a Grain of Mustard-Seed and opposed with much Unbelief and manifold Corruptions in your Soul you may conclude that you are in a state of Salvation at present and that your remaining work is to continue and grow in it more and more and to walk worthy of it you should also examine the Fruits of your Faith and try whether you can shew your Faith by your works as you are taught Jam. 2.18 that you may be sure not to be deceived in your Judgment concerning it And though it be true as I have noted that Doubts concerning your Faith will breed doubting concerning the Sincerity of other Qualifications that are Fruits thereof yet possibly you may get such clear Evidences of your Sincerity as may overcome and expell all your Doubts And here you are not only to enquire whether your Inclinations Purposes Affections and Actions be materially good and holy but also by what Principles they are bred and influenced Whether it be by slavish fears of Hell and mercenary hopes of getting Heaven by your Works which are legal and carnal Principles that can never breed true Holiness or by Gospel Principles as by love to God because God hath loved you first and to Christ because he hath dyed and by the hope of eternal Life as the free Gift of God through Christ and dependance on God to sanctify you by his Spirit according to his Promises Remember that the New Testament is the ministration of the Spirit 2 Cor. 3.6 and the Spirit will sanctify us not by legal but by Gospel Principles Take notice further that you need not trouble your self to find out a multitude of Marks and Signs of true Grace if you can find a few good ones Particularly you may know That you are passed from death to life if you love the brethren 1 Joh. 3.14 i. e. if you love all whom you can in Charity judge to be true Believers and that because they are true Believers and for the Truth Sake that dwelleth in them As Solomon discerned the true Mother of the Child by her Affection towards her Child so the Mother Grace of Faith may be discerned by the Love that it breeds in us toward all true Believers To conclude this Point Happy are you if you can find so much Evidence of the Fruits of your Faith as may enable you to express your Sincerity in these moderate Terms Pray for us for we trust we have a good conscience in all things willing to live honestly Heb. 13.18 3. Meditation on the Word of God is of very great use and advantage for the attainment and practice of Holiness through Faith in Christ It is a Duty whereby the Soul doth Feed and Ruminate upon the Word as its Spiritual Food and digesteth it and turneth it into Nourishment whereby we are strengthned for every good Work Our Souls are satisfied therewith as with marrow and fatness When we remember God upon our Beds and meditate on him in the Night-watches Psal 68.5 6. The new Nature may well be called the Mind Rom. 7.25 because it liveth and acteth by minding of and meditating on spiritual things Therefore it is a Duty to be practised not only at some limited times but all the day Psal 119.97 yea day and night Psal 1.2 even in our ordinary Employments at home and abroad An habitual knowledge of the Word will not profit us without an active minding it by frequent Meditation Some think that much Preaching of the Word is not needful where a People are already brought to the knowledge of those things that are necessary to Salvation But they that are regenerated by the Word find by Experience that their Spiritual Life is maintained and encreased by often minding the same Word And therefore as new born Babes they desire the sincere milk of the Word that they may grow thereby 1 Pet. 2.2 and would by the Preachers be put often in remembrance of the same things that they may feed upon them by Meditation tho they know them already and are established in the present Truth 2 Pet. 1.12 But here our greatest Skill and chiefest Concernment lies in practising this Duty in such a manner as that it may be subservient and not at all opposite to the Life of Faith We must not rely upon the performance of a daily task of Meditation as a work of Righteousness for the procurement of the Favour of God instead of relying on the Righteousness of Christ as indeed we are prone to do to catch at any Straw rather than to trust only on the Free Grace of God in Christ for our Salvation And the end of our Meditation must not be meer Speculation and Knowledge of the Truth but rather the vigorous pressing it upon our Consciences and the stirring up our Hearts and Affections to the Practice of it And in stirring up our selves to holy Practice we must warily observe how far the several parts of the Truth of God are powerful and effectual for the attainment of this End that we may make use of them accordingly We must not imagine as too many do yea and some great Masters in the Art of Meditation that we can bring our Hearts effectually to the Love of God and Holiness and can work strange Metamorphoses and work or frame in our Hearts any holy Qualifications or Vertue meerly by working in our selves strong Apprehensions of God's eternal Power and God-head his
therefore we have directed to seeking of Holiness by the Spirit of Christ and willing good freely by a spiritual Power as new Creatures partakers of a divine Nature in Christ Yea it s necessary to know the first Adam that we may know the second Rom. 5.12 To believe the fall and original Sin that we may be stirred up to fly to Christ by Faith for Holiness by free Gift knowing that we cannot attain it by our own Power and Free Will 2 Cor. 1.9 Mat. 9.12 13. Rom. 7.24 25. 2 Cor. 3.5 Eph. 5.14 There were no need of a new Man or a new Creation if the old were not without strength and Life Joh 3.5 6 Eph. 2.8 But original Deadness cannot hinder Gods working Faith and Hungrings and Thirstings after Christ by the Spirit through the Gospel in those that God chooseth to walk holily and blamelessly before him in Love 1 Thes 1.4 5. Act. 26.18 And so we are made alive in a new Head and become Branches of another Vine living to God by the Spirit not by Nature 2. It confirms us in the Doctrin of Predestination which many deny because they say it takes Men off from Endeavours as fruitless by telling Men that all Events are predetermined This Argument would be more forcible against Endeavours by the power of our own Free Will but not at all against Endeavours for Holiness by the Operation of God giving us Faith and all Holiness by his own Spirit working in us through Christ we are to trust on Christ for the Grace of the Elect and Gods good Will towards Men Matt. 3.17 Luke 2.14 Psal 106.4 5. Election by Grace destroys seeking by Works but not by Grace Rom. 11.5 6. And we are here taught to seek for Salvation only in the way of the Elect and we may conclude that Holiness is to be had by Gods Will and not by our own and it may move us to desire Holiness by the Will of God Rom. 9.16 Psal 109.32 And seeing it appears by this Doctrin of Sanctification through Christ that we are Gods Workmanship as to all the good wrought in us Phil. 2.12 13. Eph. 2.10 We may well admit that he hath appointed his Pleasure from Eternity without infringing the Natural Liberty of our corrupt Wills which reacheth not unto good Works Acts 15.18 compare with 30. Mans Natural Free Will may well consist with Gods Decree as in Paradise Decretum radii contingentia 3. It confirms us in the true Doctrin of Justification and Reconciliation with God by Faith relying on the Merits of Christs Blood without any Works of our own and without considering Faith as a Work to procure Favour by the Righteousness of the Act but only as a Hand to receive the Gift or rather as the very Eating and Drinking of Christ actually than any kind of Condition intitling us to him as our Food This great Doctrin of the Gospel many hate as breaking the strongest Bonds of Holiness and opening a way to all Licentiousness for they reckon that the Conditionality of Works to attain Gods Favour and avoid his Wrath and the necessity of them to Salvation are the most necessary and effectual Impulsives to all Holiness and they account that the other Doctrin opens the Flood-gates to Licentiousness And truly this Consideration would be of some weight if People were to be brought to Holiness by Moral Suasion and their natural Endeavours stirred up by the Terms of the Law and by slavish Fears and Mercenary Hopes for the Force of these Motives would be altogether enervated by the Doctrin of Justification by Free Grace but I have already shewed that a Man being a guilty dead Creature cannot be brought to serve God out of love by force of any of these Motives and that we are not sanctified by any of our own Endeavours to work Holiness in our selves but rather by Faith in Christ's Death and Resurrection even the same whereby we are justified and that the urging of the Law stirs up Sin and that Freedom from it is necessary to all Holiness as the Apostle teacheth Rom. 6.11 14. and 7.4 5. And this way of Sanctification confirms the Doctrin of Justification by Faith as the Apostle informeth Rom. 8.1 For if we are Sanctified and so restored to the Image of God and Life by the Spirit through Faith it is evident that God hath taken us into his Favour and pardoned our Sins by the same Faith without the Law or else we should not have the Fruits and Effects of his Favour thereby to our eternal Salvation Rom. 8.2 Yea his Justice would not admit his giving Life without Works if we were not made Righteous in Christ by the same Faith And we cannot trust to have Holiness freely given us by Christ upon any rational Ground except we can also trust on the same Christ for free Reconciliation and Forgiveness of Sins for our Justification Neither can guilty cursed Creatures that cannot work by reason of their Deadness under the Curse be brought to a rational love of God except they apprehend his loving them first freely without Works 1 John 4.19 The great Objection and Reason of so many Controversies and Books written about it is because they think that Men will trust to be saved however they live But Sanctification is an Effect of Justification and floweth from the same Grace and we trust for them both by the same Faith and for the former in order to the latter And such a Faith be it never so confident tendeth not to Licentiousness but Holiness And we grant that Justification by Grace destroys Holiness by legal Endeavours but not by Grace So that there is no need to live a Papist and die an Antinomian 4. It confirms us in the Doctrin of Real Union with Christ so plentifully held forth in Scripture which Doctrin some count a vain Notion and cannot endure it because they think it worketh not Holiness but Presumption whereas I have shewed that it is absolutely necessary for the Enjoyment of Spiritual Life and Holiness which is treasured up in Christ and that so inseparably that we cannot have it without a real Union with him 2 Cor. 13.5 1 John 5.12 John 6.53 ch 15.5 1 Cor. 1.30 Col. 3.11 The Members and Branches cannot live without Union with the Vine and Head nor the Stones be part of the living Temple except they be really joyned mediately or immediately to the Corner-stone 5. In the Doctrin of certain final Perseverance of the Saints John 3.36 c. 6.37 5.24 1 John 3.9 1 Thess 5.24 Phil. 1.6 John 10.23 29. c. 4.14 They think this Doctrin maketh People careless of good Works I answer It maketh People careless of seeking them by their own Natural Strength and in a way of slavish Fear but careful and couragious in trusting on the Grace of God for them when they are brought by Regeneration heartily to desire them Rom. 6.14 Numb 13.30 setting upon the doing of them in that Grace 1 Thess 5.8
THE Gospel-Mystery OF SANCTIFICATION Opened in Sundry Practical Directions Suited especially to the Case of those who labour under the guilt and power of Indwelling Sin To which is added a Sermon of Justification 1 Cor. 1.27 28 29 30 31. God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty And base things of the world and things which are despised hath God chosen yea and things which are not to bring to nought things that are That no flesh should glory in his presence But of him are ye in Christ Jesus who of God is made unto us wisdom righteousness sanctification and redemption That according as it is written He that glorieth let him glory in the Lord. By Mr. WALTER MARSHAL late Preacher of the Gospel LONDON Printed for T. Parkhurst at the Bible and Three Crowns in Cheapside near Mercers Chappel 1692. THE PREFACE READER MR. Walter Marshal Composer of these Directions how to attain to that practice and manner of Life which we call Holiness Righteousness or Godliness was Educated in New Colledge in Oxford and was a Fellow of the said Colledge and afterwards he was chosen a Fellow of the Colledge at Winchester but was put under the Bartholomew Bushel with nigh two Thousand more Lights a Sin not yet repented of whose illuminations made the Land a Goshen He was esteemed a Presbyterian and was called to be Pastor to a People at Gospert in Hampshire where he shined though he had not the Publick Oile the substance of these Meditations were there Spun out of his own Experiences he having been much exercised with troubled Thoughts and that for many Years and had by many Mortifying Methods sought Peace of Conscience but notwithstanding all his Troubles still increased Whereupon he consulted others particularly Mr. Baxter whose Writings he had been much conversant with who thereupon told Mr. Marshal he took them too Legally He afterwards consulted an Eminent Divine giving him an Account of the State of his Soul and particularizing his Sins that lay heavy on his Conscience who in his Reply told him He had forgot to mention the greatest Sin of all the Sin of Unbelief in not believing on the Lord Jesus for the Remission of his Sins and Sanctifying his Nature Hereupon he set himself to the studying and preaching of Christ and attained to eminent Holiness great peace of Conscience and joy in the Holy Ghost Mr. Marshal's dying Words were these The wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord having but just before said to those about him that he now dyed in the full perswasion of the Truth and in the comfort of that Doctrine which he had Preached the sum whereof is contained in the ensuing Discourse Some time since he was translated by Death Elijah-like dropping these sheets as his Mantle for succeeding Elisha's to go forth with for the Conversion of Sinners and Comfort of drooping Souls These Papers are the profound Experiences of a studious Holy Soul Learned of the Father coming from his very Heart and smell of no Party or Design but for Holiness and Happiness yet it is to be feared they will scarcely go down with the heady Notionalists of this Age who are of the Tribe of Reuben wavering with every Wind of Modish Doctrine but in Judah it will be praised and we may hope that many Shrubs and Cedars hereby may advance in knowledge and comfort But not to detain thee longer read over all these Directions that you may fully understand the Author or read none if you do it with the serious humble spirit in which they were wrote it may be hop'd the matter being so weighty and from so able an Hand through the Grace of God they will sink into thy Conscience and make thee a solid Christian full of Faith Holiness and Consolation N. N. THE Author of these Directions was well known to me and was with me in my House a Month together above twenty years past and I esteem him a Person deserving the Character which this Preface giveth him T. Woodcock The GOSPEL MYSTERY OF SANCTIFICATION DIRECTION I. That we may acceptably perform the Duties of Holiness and Righteonsness required in the Law our first Work is to learn the powerful and effectual Means whereby we may attain to so Great an End EXPLICATION THIS Direction may serve instead of a Preface to prepare the Understanding and Attention of the Reader for those that follow And First It acquainteth you with the Great End for which all those Means are designed that are the principal Subject to be here treated of the Scope of all is To teach you how you may attain to that Practice and Manner of Life which we call Holiness Righteousness or Godliness Obedience True Religion and which God requireth of us in the Law particularly in the Moral Law Exod. 20. summed up in the Ten Commandments and more briefly in those Two great Commandments of Love to God and our Neighbour Mat. 22.37 39. and more largely explained throughout the Holy Scriptures My work is to shew how the Duties of this Law may be done when they are known therefore expect not that I should delay my intent to help you to the knowledge of them by any large Exposition of them which is a Work already performed in several Catechisms and Commentaries yet that you may not miss the Mark for want of discerning of it take notice in few words that the Holiness which I would bring you to is spiritual Rom. 7.14 It consists not only in external Works of Piety and Charity but in the Holy Thoughts Imaginations and Affections of the Soul and chiefly in Love from whence all other Good Works must flow or else they are not acceptable to God not only in refraining the execution of sinful Lusts but in lusting and delighting to do the Will of God and in a chearful Obedience to God without repining fretting grudging at any Duty as if it were a grievous Yoak and Burthen to you Take Notice further That the Law which is your Mark is exceeding broad Psal 119.96 and yet not the more easie to be hit because you must aim to hit it in every Duty of it with a performance of equal breadth or else you cannot hit it all Isai 2.10 The Lord is not at all loved with that Love that is due to him as Lord of all if he be not loved with all our Heart Spirit and Might We are to love every thing in him his Justice Holiness Sovereign Authority All-seeing Eye and all his Decrees Commands Judgments and all his Doings We are to love him not only better than other things but singly as Only Good the Fountain of all Goodness and to reject all fleshly and worldly Enjoyments even our own Lives as if we hated them when they stand in competition with our Enjoyment of him
themselves for the Lords Supper that so they may make their Peace with God and trust securely on Christ for his Salvation but all Resolutions of that kind are vain and hypocritical sooner broken than made Those that know the Plague of their own hearts do find that their mind is enmity unto the Law of God and Christ and cannot be subject unto it Rom. 8.7 and that they can as soon remove a mountain as give up themselves sincerely to Obedience before they trust on Christ for his Salvation and for the gift of a new heart whereby they may be enabled both to will and to do any thing that is acceptable to God We should have been sufficiently obliged to all obedient purposes resolutions and resignations if Christ had never come into the World to save us but he knew that we could perform nothing holily except he made us first Partakers of Salvation and that we shall never obey him as Law-giver until we receive him as Saviour He is a saving Lord trust on him first to save you from the guilt and power of sinâ— and dominion of Satan and to give you a new spiritual Disposition then and not till then the Love of Christ will constrain you to resign up your self heartily to live to him that died for you 2 Cor. 5.14 and you will be able to say with an unfeigned Resolution O Lord truly I am thy servant I am thy servant and the son of thy handmaid thou hast loosed my bonds Psal 116.16 4thly It seemeth to them evident that some good works are necessary before we can trust on Christ safely for the forgiveness of sins because our Saviour teacheth us that if we forgive not men their Trespasses neither will our heavenly Father forgive our Trespasses and directeth us to pray Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors Mat. 6.12 15. Restitution also was to be made of things wrongfully gotten from others before the Sacramental Atonement was made by the Trespass offering Lev. 6.5 7. This is sufficient to prove that forgiving others and Restitution according to our ability or at least a sincere desire and purpose so to do are very closely joyned with the forgiveness of our sins and are very necessary to fit us for Prayer and for Sacramental Applications of pardoning Grace to our selves A lively Faith cannot be without these Fruits and therefore we cannot pray or partake of Sacraments in Faith without them but yet if we strive to do either of these before we trust on Christ for our Pardon and Salvation we shall do them slavishly and hypocritically not in any holy acceptable manner Our forgiving others will not be accompanied with any hearty Love to them as to our selves for the sake of God and our Restitution will be but a forced act like Pharaoh's letting the Children of Israel go or like Judas restoring the thirty pieces of Silver being compelled thereunto by terror of Spirit and when the terror that forced us is removed we shall be as ready to recal our Forgiveness and to wrong others again as Pharaoh was to bring the Israelites again into bondage after he had let them go Exod. 14.5 If you would forgive others heartily so as to love them again you must first apprehend the love and mercy of God towards your selves by Faith in Christ and then you will be able according to the Apostle's Instruction to be kind tender hearted forgiving one another even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you Ephes 4.32 The readiness of Zaccheus to make Restitution followed upon a discovery of Christ's love to him and his joyful receiving Christ into his house was fruit whereby he did evidence the Truth of that Faith that was already wrought in his heart 5thly I shall reckon up together several other Qualifications that distressed Souls would find in themselves that they may be duly prepared to trust on Christ for their Salvation and when they have laboured anxiously a long time and cannot get them at last they lie down in sorrowful Despondence not daring to apply the Consolations of the grace of God in Christ to their wounded Consciences Let perplexed Souls mark the particulars and observe whether the condition of their own Souls be reached in any of them O thou afflicted tossed with tempests and not comforted what good Qualifications is it that thou wouldest have that thou mayest be encouraged to lay hold on Christ for Salvation It is likely thou wilt answer in the bitterness of thy Soul O let me have first some love to God and Godliness in mine heart and freedom from mine hateful heart-risings against him and his Service Let me have some good thoughts of God his Justice Mercy Holiness that I may be able to justifie him tho' he damn me and that I may not be filled with murmuring and hellish Blasphemies in my mind against him let the raging of my lusts be abated and the stinking kennel of my wicked heart a little cleansed let me have some holy reverential Fear of God and not only a pannick tormenting horror I would be more affected with the wrath of God and not be of a slighting heedless Spirit I would be more humbled for Sin loath it and be ashamed of it and be sorry for it with a godly Sorrow not meerly because of the Punishment but because it grieveth and vexeth the holy Spirit of God I would be able to make a willing and ingenious Confession of sin and to pour out my Soul to the Lord in lively affectionate Prayer for Forgiveness and to praise and glorifie him heartily and not to be like a lifeless stone in the duty of Prayer as I am Are these the things thou desirest O poor distressed Soul The best Reply I can make for thy speedy comfort is to inform thee that the things are good but thy desires are not well timed it is unreasonable for thee to expect these holy Qualifications whilst thou art in thy natural State under the guilt of Sin and the apprehension of the Wrath of God before thou hast received the Atonement and the new Spiritual Life that is by Christ through Faith in his Name thou dost but exasperate thy Corruptions and harden thy Heart and make thy wounds to stink the more because of thy foolishness such good Qualifications are included in the Nature of Faith and for the most part they follow after it so that they cannot possibly be obtained before thou trustest in Christ for thy Salvation as I shall shew concerning them particularly in their Order A love to the Salvation of God and to the free Gift of Holiness is included in the Nature of Faith so that it cannot be hearty without it Act Faith first with this kind of Love and the Apprehension of God's Love to thy Soul will sweetly allure and constrain thee to love God and his Service universally We love him because he loved us first 1 Joh. 4.19 We cannot be before-hand with God in love and