PRECIOUS FAITH CONSIDERED In its Nature Working and Growth By Edward Polhill of Burwash in Sussex Esq LONDON Printed for Thomas Cockerill at the Atlas in Cornhil near the Royal-Exchange 1675. To the CHRISTIAN Reader HE that with serious eyes looks on that dreadful spectacle lapsed Angels lying in Chains of Darkness for ever and that for one Sin may very well stand and wonder at the Salvation of Men in which worms are as it were Angelized and little lumps of corrupted dust are first refined by Grace and then transfigured into Glory The pure Origine of this great Work is no other than the Divine Grace and Love which have so fairly pourtraied and limmed out themselves upon every piece of it that all the Saints above and below may read the Characters thereof and have reason to cry out Grace Grace Indeed Heaven and Earth too should ring with the Praises of it and Eternity it self will be short enough to behold and admire it in To compass this Glorious design the Son of God left his Fathers Bosom and appeared in our Flesh to make a Robe for us of his own Righteousness and a Laver for us in his own Blood Our Nature in him is now in Heaven and his Spirit is descended to impress his Image on us thereby to make us meet for that Blessed Region to secure all to us Heaven hath let down a great Charter in the precious Gospel in which we have a Map of Glory and Eternal Life set before us to elevate our Souls which are sparks of Immortality out of the dust and rubbish of the Fall and to set them aspiring after the true Pleasures and Beatitudes which are above That we may not mistake our way or faint in it the holy Spirit hath in the Gospel drawn many lines of Holiness and Comfort There are pure Precepts to chalk out the Way to Heaven and sweet Promises to cordial us therein and to give us some Tastes of Heaven before we come there The great condition of this Salvation which streams down out of the fountain of Grace through the Blood of Christ into the Evangelical Promises is no other than Faith This is the Aurora of Glory Heaven and Eternal Life dawn in it This is the Hypostasis of Things hoped for It presentiates the Celestial Paradise and in some sort sets the Believer by the rivers of Pleasures which are there This receives all from Grace and ascribes all to it prompting the Believer to confess touching his Spiritual Being and Working By the Grace of God I am what I am and by the Grace of God I do what I do This unites to Christ wraps up it self in his Righteousness feasts on his precious Body and Blood unto Life Eternal and surrenders up Heart and Life to the blessed duct of his Spirit and Word Walking on in holy Precepts it drinks Comfort out of Promises following hard after Holiness it meets with Peace such as passes understanding overcoming earth with all its Troops of vanity it ascends and takes Heaven by violence and renting off the dark veil of Time it looks into Eternity and aspires after that Bliss-making Vision which is the true Center of it Where this Grace is there the Gospel is not in word only but in power The Truth stands not meerly without in the letter but is entertained within and springs up in the Heart as a seed of Immortal Happiness The Divine Excellencies of this noble Grace have drawn out my Thoughts in the ensuing Discourse now offered to publick view The Errata's and Infirmities in it beg the Readers kind Indulgence And the holy Truths therein call for a Practical Improvement If but any Mite may get into the Treasury if any thing thereby may redound to the Glory of God or profit of Men it is enough and a sufficient recompence for him who is A Lover of Truth Edw. Polhill PRECIOUS FAITH CHAP. I. Some general acceptions of the word Faith in Scripture premised Precious Faith described and considered in the general nature of it as it is a grace of the Holy Spirit THE word Faith hath many acceptions in Scripture among which I shall touch upon some Sometimes it imports the Gospel or object of Faith thus St. Paul preached the faith Gal. 1.23 that is the Gospel which is worthy to be so called because it is the great Engine which lets down Gods faith to men and catches up mens faith to God Sometimes it imports a dogmatical or historical Faith which is an assent to the word of God as true and infallible thus the very devils believe a God and which is more then many sinful worms do they tremble Jam. 2.19 Sometimes it imports a temporary Faith which is but a dogmatical faith budding and blossoming with some tasts and joys in the things of God thus the stony ground received the word with joy Mat. 13.20 Sometimes it imports a miraculous Faith which by a special instinct gives such a touch upon the power of God as to produce wonderful effects in nature a grain of this is enough to remove mountains Mat. 17.20 Sometimes it imports saving Faith called by the Apostle precious Faith 2 Pet. 1.1 Omitting the rest I shall fix my Discourse upon this and that upon a double account First This precious faith virtually includes the rest In Faith in the first notion there is only the Gospel or object standing alone by it self but in this faith the act and the object are in sweet conjunction the soul is Gospellized and the Gospel which outwardly runs in the letter is inwardly glorified in the believers heart In dogmatical faith there is an assent to the truths of God and so there is in precious faith but in a more eminent manner the first embracing the Gospel only in its naked truth and history is but a dead and a cold notion but the second embracing the same in its goodness and spiritual mystery carries life and warmth in it temporary faith hath some joys in the things of God but precious faith hath the same in a more excellent way the former is but a flash and away a flower without a root the Gospel is not radicated in him but lies as it were upon the surface of his heart Jesus Christ is not entirely received by him but by parcels only hence a little storm of persecution blows off all the blossoms of his joy but the latter is a thing of a higher excellency and permanency In the true believer the Gospel is intimately rooted and Christ impartially received even cross and all Hence such an one can joy in tribultions and under afflictions wait for consolations Miraculous faith can work wonders and so can precious too the first works wonders in the body of nature by a touch upon Almighty power and the second works wonders in the souls of men by a touch upon Almighty grace A grain of this can remove spiritual mountains mountains of guiltiness off from the Conscience mountains of hardness
preamble of faith Nay in the Apostle it is the first fundamental faith He that cometh to God must believe that he is Heb. 11.6 But you will say What need supernatural light for this Nature and Reason make this known and indeed they do so but so weakly as not to raise up any one faculty in fallen man unto God his Creator Never did natural light so shew a God as to raise up his love out of this vain world nor as to raise up his faith out of creature-confidences unto God Wherefore this first principle must be seen by a supernatural light which is indeed a middle kind of light between the light of glory above and the light of nature below It sees the invisible one not as the blessed Saints see him in the heavenly vision nor as the meer Naturalists see him by the glimmerings of reason but in a middle way of gracious illumination This our Saviour calls eternal life Joh. 17.3 heaven dawns in it and nature is illustrated by it Secondly As the first step of knowledge in order to faith is Deus est so the second is Deus verax God is true yea truth it self and the first archetypal truth his testimony is infallible and all his words Yea and Amen Unless this be known a man cannot believe him as a God the believer sets to his seal that God is true And if he did not know it his seal would be to a blank and though natural light reveal the truth and veracity of God yet as I said before weakly and therefore supernatural is required Thirdly The third step of knowledge in orâ—â—r to faith is Deus dixit seu revelavit God hath spoken or revealed himself in the Scriptures These are the very words and testimony of God himself If a man do know that God is and is true yet unless he know that God hath spoken in the word that there is his very testimony he cannot believe Should we ask a man why do you believe that Jesus Christ is the Redeemer of the world it would be no rational answer for him to say I believe it because God is true No though God be the first infinite truth yet unless he speak and testifie so much it cannot be believed upon his testimony or authority the only satisfactory answer is this I believe it because God who is true hath spoken and revealed it It is necessary to faith to know the holy Scriptures to be the word and testimony of God that God speaks and reveals himself in them and this cannot be known without supernatural light To explain which I shall lay down two things First There are in the holy Scriptures certain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or internal marks whereby it may be known that the Scriptures are the word and testimony of God Secondly These 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or internal marks cannot be known without supernatural light First There are in the holy Scriptures certain marks or characters whereby they reveal themselves to be the very word of God even as the Sun manifests it self by its own light There is a Majesty in the stile what book or writing ever run in such a strain as thus saith the Lord where before it was there ever any universal Law made unto all mankind Kings and beggars without distinction who ever before commanded obedience upon pain of eternal torments in another world or allured obedience with promises of everlasting glory there The fiery Law carries an awe with it as if the thunders and lightnings of Sinai were not yet over And in the Gospel the kingdom of heaven approaches and opens it self to believers as it were in sparkles of glory Again there is a treasure of Divine mysteries touching the sacred Trinity Nature is mute but Scripture speaks out Reason is but a little child and cannot pass this infinite Abyss unless Faith in the word take him upon his back and carry him over Touching that Incarnation of the Son of God never any natural man dreamed or so much as started a thought of it but in Scripture this and all the train of mysteries in our Redemption break forth in their glory That book which hath such and the like mysteries infinitely transcending all the thoughts and reasons of man doth by them shew that it came out of the bosom of God himself Again there is an unparallel'd purity in it such as is no where else to be found This Sun hath no spots in it this Diamond hath no flaws in it there is nothing terrene or carnal in this heavenly piece as long as it hath stood in the world not a dust or a dreg can be found therein neither ever did or will it licence the least of erratas in man In its pure spiritualness it casts a chain upon the very thoughts and first motions of sin and traces up sin to the black nest of corruption in lapsed nature it calls for a pure heart made from heaven in regeneration and new-creation and the noblest births of Reason and Morality will not serve the turn Such things as these are not so much as named in the writings of the worlds Sophies Plato and Aristotle never arrived at such notions Moreover it hath a wonderful efficacy on the hearts of men it looks into the inmost closet and retiring room of the heart and like Christ it comes and stands in the midst of it when all the doors are shut by obstinacy and unbelief it awakens and alarums the sleeping sinner and makes such impressions and deep wounds in the conscience that it plainly appears no less then the arm of God was in it It Evangelizes the heart and turns it into its own nature that it may be a Temple for that spirit which breaths in the Gospel It comforts the heart and fills it with joy unspeakable and full of glory That place Rom. 1.17 was to Luther porta Paradisi the door of Paradice and that 1 Tim. 1.15 was a sea of sweetness to holy Bilney such activities as these are above the sphear of nature and speak no less then the divine extraction thereof Lastly to name no more the very plot and design of the Scriptures is transcendently divine all the holy lines run into that central divinity that God is to be exalted and man debased Oh! what manner of self-denial doth it call for how doth it labour to un-selve and as it were un-man us that God may be all in all There Reason as fair a Jewel as it is must vail its beauty in an acknowledgment of its own folly and yield up it self to be new lighted from heaven The Will as free an Empress as it is must lay by its Crown in a confession of its spiritual slavery and yield up it self to be made free by grace The Man must be no longer a man in himself but a man in Christ clothed in a better righteousness and acted by a higher spirit then his own And how doth it open the glory and blazon
the arms of God how admirably doth it set him forth in all his Attributes his eternity is the rock of ages his immutability an invariable and inconvertible Sun his righteousness like the great mountains his decrees and judgments a mighty deep his mercy a glory a mass of riches never to be told over his holiness as the pure unmixed light his justice as the devouring unquenchable fire In a word there all the glory of his Attributes pass before the believers eye such a book as this must needs be divine Secondly These marks or characters in Scripture cannot be known without supernatural light Meer reason receiveth them not like the child Samuel it hears a voice a sound of words but it knows not that it is the Lord insomuch that some have slighted the Scriptures Politianus said that he never spent time to less purpose then in reading them and Julian that there was as good stuff in Pindars Odes as in Davids Psalms Had they known the word or testimony of God in them they would not have crucified them by their wretched blasphemies But when the light of Faith comes the Scripture appears not in letters and words only but in the divine and heavenly characters and by these it bears witness to it self that it is the word of God There is a double cause of Faith an effective cause and an objective the effective cause is the holy spirit inlightning the understanding and moving the will and the objective is the Scripture it self by its own innate light and Majesty revealing its divinity to the inlightned soul Tertullian having this holy light in him adored the fullness of Scripture St. Austin seemeth to be taken to admiration with the purity of it as not admitting so much as an officious lyc Wheresoever the supernatural light comes the Scripture manifests it self to be divine Fourthly The fourth step of knowledge in order to Faith is Deus revelavit Evangelium God hath revealed a Gospel a way of salvation and eternal happiness Faith as I shall shew hereafter is not a meer belief of the divine testimony but a dependant resignation to God and Christ and to this resignation no man arrives unless he first see an overtopping superlative excellency in the Gospel outbidding the world and all the lusts thereof and verily believe that there and there only is the way of life and happiness And thus to see and believe is beyond the line of reason and all it s acquired notions The natural man in the midst of all his notions carries a false ballance in his heart which makes as if every trifling vanity did out-weigh God and Christ and heavenly things and whilest the ballance is thus he cannot resign and thus it will be till supernatural light come then and not till then doth the ballance turn by a right estimate of the Gospel and the promises thereof The spirit inlightning and not humane reason takes the things of Christ and shews them forth in their glory Joh. 16.14 And in this way God works the heart to resignation CHAP. III. Of the second part of Precious Faith the belief of the Testimony of God in the Scriptures What manner of belief it is and the consequents of it in order to an holy self-resignation THUS far of the first thing in Faith supernatural illumination I now proceed to the second A belief of the testimony of God in the Scriptures and here I need use no words to prove this belief an ingredient in Faith for faith in the Grammatical notion of it is nothing else but a belief of a Testimony and being applied to God it is a belief of his Testimony in Scripture Only I shall open two things first what manner of belief of the divine testimony in Scriptures this is and then what the consequents of it are in order to resignation First What manner of belief this is And this I shall explain in these particulars First This belief is divine and congruous to the divine testimony Such as the testimony is such must be the ratio credendi the Scriptures being a divine testimony must be believed for themselves because of the divine authority stamped upon them Thus the Thessalonians received the word not as the word of man but as it is in truth the word of God 1 Thess 2.13 they lodged the divine truth in a divine faith which was a suitable entertainment Humana omnia dicta testibus egent Dei autem sermo ipse sibi test is est saith Salvian humane words want witness but divine carry their own testimony in themselves To believe the Scriptures because God speaks in them is a divine faith but to believe them upon any other account is below their divine authority and but an humane faith For example to believe the Scriptures for the saying of the woman for the Churches testimony is but an humane faith for it stands on no higher fulciment then an humane testimony and therefore can be but an humane faith Here the subtile Jesuite would help out the Papist at a dead lift that faith saith he which is resolved into the Churches authority is neque purè divina neque purè humana sed quasi media inferioris cujusdam ordinis but what saith the learned Pemble to him Just so men use to speak when they cannot tell what to say It is Quasi and Aliquomodo and Alicujus generis it is somewhat if they could tell what thus he 'T is undoubtedly clear that that faith which calls any man Master on earth and centers on an humane testimony such as that of the Church made up of men must needs be can be no other then humane Indeed the Churches testimony may be inter motiva fidei but if the faith be divine it cannot be inter formales rationes sidei A man in the dark labyrinth of nature may be led out by the Churches lamp but when he is out he sees the Sun by its own light he believes the Scriptures for their own divinity though per ministerium Ecclesiae yet not propter authoritatem Ecclesiae Divine faith hath its Master in heaven and its record on high Secondly Which follows on the other this belief is a firm and stable thing because built on the divine authority of Scripture we believe and are sure saith Peter Joh. 6.69 Nothing on earth can so ascertain things unto us as faith in the divine testimony Julian the Apostate glorying in the Pagan learning jeered at the Christians because all their wisdom was but in that one word Credo I believe but divine faith for all his prophane taunt hath more firmness and real certainty in it then all the Sciences in the world for it sees things in lumine veritatis primae in the light of the first truth and sits even in the infallible chair so that non potest subesse falsum a lye cannot sit under it and glues the heart to the truth in that manner Eonav l. 3 disi 23. quest 4. that
as the Schoolman hath it true believers nec per argumenta nec per tormenta nec per blandimenta inclinari possunt ut veritatem saltem ore tenus negent nothing could turn them away from the truth So strong a thing is faith when it is set upon the rock the testimony of God but if it have an humane bottom only such as the Churches authority it is weak and wavering more like a fluctuating opinion then a faith Durandus asserts that Science is more certain than faith and to that strong objection that the divine authority by which we believe is more certain then any humane reason by which we know he answers thus Divina autoritas propter quam credimus licet sit certissima in se non tamen nobis qualitèr enim certi simus L. 3. dist 23. quest 7. quod Deus dicat ea quae credimus non nisi quia sic tenet Ecclesia Observe how this great Scholar abates the certainty of faith because he takes up the divinity of Scriptures upon trust from the saying of the Church those who build their faith purely on the divine word speak after another rate Junius reading the first chapter of St. John cried out in a kind of amazement Divinitatem argumenti authoritatem sentio and Reverend Calvin putting the question how we shall be perswaded that the Scriptures did flow forth from God answers as roundly as a man doth touching that which is obvious and before his senses Instit l. 1. c. 7. perinde est saith he ac si quis roget unde discemus lucem discernere à tenebris the Scripture reveals it self as the light doth and to the pure eye of faith it appears divine from its own innate excellency and so establishes the heart in its holy truth To conclude this point faith is a stable and firm thing but by the estimates and lives of men there seems to be but a very little of it in the world Did men as they profess firmly believe the Scriptures could they vilifie the commands of the great God as they do The injunctions of earthly Princes are not served so Would they slight that wonderful charter of grace and glory in the Gospel a Patent of petty dignities and possessions here below will be highly valued by them durst they sin as they do in the face of hell and wrath flashing out of the divine threatnings a Princes sword or Gibbet would cast them into a fit of trembling O how soon would the things of God cast the ballance in the heart and outweigh all the world if the Scriptures were indeed believed but there being in men only levis opinatio a light opinion rather then a solid faith touching the same there necessarily ensues a monstrous disproportion between their faith and their life Thirdly This belief must be explicite as to the fundamentals of Religion A meer implicite faith as to believe in the lump that all things contained in the holy Scriptures are true will not serve the turn In Coloss 2. v. 2. Non est divina sed belluina fides quae nuliam habet conceptionem five comprehensionem illarum rerum quae creduntur saith the excellent Davenant A meer implicite faith without understanding is a bruitish thing an explicite faith as to fundamentals is required this will appear by these ensuing considerations First A meer implicite faith if at any time might have passed for currant in the days before Christs Incarnation whilest religion was wrapt up in vails and shadows but even then faith in holy men was explicite according to the measure of divine light imparted unto them all along they looked to the Messiah the promised seed and probably in an obscure manner to his future sufferings Whilest Adam was in Innocency there was no promise of a Messiah no footstep of a sacrifice but as soon as man was fallen out came that first Gospel the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpents head Gen. 3.15 and sacrifices were set up without doubt not without Gods appointment for God had respect to Abels sacrifice which had it been a piece of will-worship could not have been and Abol offered it up by faith Heb. 11.4 which without a divine word moves not in the least measure These sacrifices were as it were visible Commentaries on that first Gospel and types of a suffering Messiah And if so and so by Gods own institution it is not at all probable that God should hide the sacred meaning thereof totally from the faith of the first believers Adam then as I conceive by the eyes of Faith saw the Messiah in that first Gospel and withall some glimmering of his sufferings in the sacrifices And if he saw it no doubt he did preach and reveal it to others Schola saerif Disp. 4 and probably as Franzius conceives in a solemn manner at the sacrifices Abel saith the Apostle by faith offered up a sacrifice to God not only by such a faith as did it in obedience to Gods command but by such a faith as through his own sacrifice did pierce to the antitype the great sacrifice of the Messiah De satisfact Christi l. 1. sect 5. Thus the learned Essenius cum sacrificia Veteris Testamenti fuerint typi sacrificii Christi ea sides intelligenda est quâ sacrificium illud refertur ad suum antitypum such a faith was proper to his sacrifice In Noahs sacrifice the Lord smelled a sweet savour or a savour of rest such as did saith one of the Rabbins make him ab irâ suâ quiescere rest from his anger Gen. 8.21 and therefore surely there was more in it then meer beasts and fowls Noahs faith fetched in him who was to give himself an offering and sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour Abraham saw Christs day that is his coming and suffering in the flesh John 8.56 a very great sight at that distance and no doubt the faithful Seer did not conceal it but tell his children and servants thereof for the glory of the Messiah his joy was too great to hold it in privately to himself and his zeal too hot to hide so much of heavenly glory Under the Levitical Law the Israelites were to lay their hands on the head of the sacrifice as it were to disburden themselves of sin and lay it off upon the sacrifice and by the offering up thereof they were to make an atonement or expiation The unbelievers among them understood the outward rite of the sacrifice and did the faithful ones see no more in it Could or did they imagine that a poor silly beast could stand under the weight of sin or that the blood of bulls or goats could take it away No surely their faith looked through the outward sacrifice to the Messiah for atonement and reconciliation In David the Evangelical day broke out more clearly O how much of Christ is there in the 110th Psalm there 's his kingdom and eternal priesthood there 's
irrationality Secondly Let us compare the fallibility of Reason with the infallibility of Scripture When the Papists lift up the Pope as supream judge in matters of Religion it is a sufficient answer to tell them the first Clement held the Platonical community of all things even of wives Marcellinus sacrificed to Idols Liberius subscribed to Arianism Innocent the first taught that little ones could not be saved without the Eucharist Vigilius was an Eutychian Honorius a Monothelite Hildebrand a brand of hell and impiously diabolical John the 23th was accused in the Council of Constance of this opinion That the souls of men dye with their bodies even as the souls of brutes and should such be judges in matters of Religion When the Socinian by subjecting articles of Faith unto Reason makes not one but as many Popes as men we need say no more to him but humanum est errare reason is a fallible thing The Philosophers were the Patriarchs of heretiques Platonical Philosophy in the Fathers and Aristotelical in the Schoolmen hath much debased the truths of God saith a great Divine All the errors and heresies which have swarmed abroad in all ages have been the progeny of corrupt Reason upon this the devil begets all the black monstrous opinions which crawl within doors in the Church or without in the Pagan world And should such a thing as this come and sit in judgment on the pure words of God which are surer then the voice of Angels and stand faster then the pillars of heaven and earth which in so many successions of Ages never contracted the least speck of falshood or shed a leaf in the fall of the least tittle or iota thereof Surely when reason thus forgets it self and its own fallibility it degrades it self and becomes unreasonable Thus far of the irrationality of the Socinian faith But Secondly The nullity of it is considerable it is a nullity in its foundation and at last it proves a nullity in the consequence It is a nullity in its foundation the Socinian believes the Scriptures not as a divine testimony but as congruous to reason and so trusts not in God but in himself and his own heart Thus Socinus expresses himself Non generalem comprobandi rationem quaerimus quod eam qui dixit ejusmodi esse appareat ut nullâ in re mentiri posset sed singularem quandam quâ id nominatim quod comprobandum est per causas effecia propria ita se babere demonstratur adeò ut non modò quia Deum ipsum dixisse appareat id verum esse constet sed etiam quia verum esse appareat id Deum dixisse nobis certò persuadeamus Qaomodo poterat clariùs prodere 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 suam saith a Learned man how could he more clearly betray his infidelity he would not have us only believe a thing true because God says so but believe also that God says so because it appears true to our own reason where this is the foundation faith is a meer nullity and that which is a nullity in the foundation at last proves a nullity in the consequence Reason corrupting it self in its own pride casts away the found principles of the Gospel and these being gone putrifies in abominable errors like Herod assuming a Deity to himself it is spiritually smitten of God and eaten up of worms I mean those errors which are but the putrefactions of reason How do the Socinians Paganize in worshipping a creature a Christ whom they deny to be God Mahometize in denying the sacred Trinity Judaize in standing for an interpreting Messiah only and not a satisfying one Manicheize in undervaluing the old Testament Arianize in denying the Deity of Christ Pelagianize in denying original sin Anabaptize in denying baptism to infants how do some of them Divelaze in horrid blasphemies calling the sacred Trinity tricipitem Cerberum and to those who assert Jesus Christ to be Gods son asking An Deus habuit uxorem Whether God had a wise and such like hellish stuff in which much of the devil appears After all this fearful shipwiack of faith what remains too too little to denominate them Christians Ignatius called the Ebionites because they denied Christs Deity men-worshippers the antiont Church styled the Samosatenians upon the same account God-killers and a great Divine passed this censure on the Socinians that they were a company of baptized Turks indeed their corrupted reason dissolves their faith into little or nothing Fifthly This belief must be such as owns the holy Scriptures for the rule of faith To the Law and to the testimony saith the Prophet If they speak not according to this word it is because here is no light in them Isa 8.20 As soon as the morning of faith breaks in the heart the word is owned as the rule Enthusiasts going oft from the Scriptures take the spirit for their rule Swenckfield was altogether for the spirit and the internal word and little or nothing at all for the external Henry Nicholas boasting of the holy anointing looked on the Scripture as a literal fleshly elementish thing John Valdesso saith that Christians may at first serve themselves with Scripture as an Alphabet but afterwards leaving it to beginners they attend to their proper Master the spirit of God Others say the Scripture is but a dead letter a thing of paper and ink and we must not try the living by the dead the holy spirit by the Scripture Such as these bragging of their own revelations call all other Christians Vocalists and Literalists because of their adherence to the Scriptures Mr. Saltmarsh makes three sphears of administration the Law or meer letter the Gospel which hath duty and grace in it and the spirit the pure spirit which is the third heaven higher then Scriptures and ordinances The Weigelians talk of a seculum Spiritus Sancti in which there shall be higher dispensations then before and we shall be wiser then Apostles The Quakers make the light within that is as I take it natural conscience the standard of all their actings All these though clothed in various words agree together to crucifie the Scriptures as if they had somewhat more noble Unto them I shall offer some considerations First The Apostles direction is Try the spirits whether they are of God 1 Joh. 4.1 in the original 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 try them as Goldsmiths try metals by the touchstone or by the fire or as Magistrates question offenders or examine those that stand for an office use all manner of ways to find out whether the spirits be right or not upon this as a sufficient warrant I shall put some interrogatories to the Enthusiast Thou sayest the spirit of God is in thy heart and is it not in the Scriptures too and where-ever it is is it not congruous and harmonious to it self And what doth it say in the Scripture doth it not say that the Scripture is the rule To the Law and to the testimony
Chron. 20.12 we know not but thou knowest how to deliver there is nothing but confusion below but all is clear and serene in thy wise counsels there is no one way or method of deliverance in our reason but there are insinite millions of ways and methods with thee Such a faith as this made Luther in the troubles of the Church cry out That it was far otherwise concluded in heaven then at Norimberg and in the blackest tempest inspirits the believer to do as the Mariners in the Acts cast anchor and wish for the day roll himself on the wise God and wait for the dawning of comfort from him Thirdly Faith yields up the soul for instruction unto the word And here are three things considerable First Faith resigns to the word as a warrant for both the former resignations If you ask a believer why he presumes so far as to go to Christ and God for the teachings of the spirit his answer will be this I find in the word divers promises that we shall be taught of God that the spirit shall lead us into all truth that there is an holy annointing dropping from Christ which teacheth all things And all these promises are very true the counterpanes of Gods heart and exactly congruous to the grace there God speaks in them and without complement he speaks as he means therefore I resign up my soul unto Christ and God for instruction teach me good judgment and knowledge for I have believed thy commandements saith David Psal 119.66 where by commandements some Divines understand all the word including in it Promises as well as Commands however the believer hath a warrant to pray teach me good judgment and knowledge for I have believed thy promises of instruction Secondly Faith resigns to the word as a rich mine and treasury of knowledge there are pretious ous mysteries such as have the divine wisdom flowing in them Them Hungarians have a tradition that their golden Crown dropt down from heaven to be sure the mysteries in Scripture did so they are pure Revelations come down from God to be as golden Crowns on the head of Faith The window of the Ark was as some Rabbins say a pretious stone which gave light to all the creatures and indeed the Original which we translate window Gen. 6.16 imports a splendor or clear light Understanding is our window but the Scripture mysteries make it a window of pearl Humane learning is but painted glass but these make windows of agates such as are in the taught of God Isa 54.12 13. These are riches of understanding pearls and intellectual rubies fit to be laid up in the very middle and Center of the heart There the holy precepts and precious promises beauties of holiness and glories of grace lye open to the embraces of Faith There the invisible God whose dwelling is in light unapproachable and whose pure glory our eyes cannot look on may be seen in the reflex in the Scripture image and condescension In a word so rich are the veins of knowledge there that faith as a day-labourer is ever digging therein to draw out a stock of holy understanding from it Thirdly Faith resigns to the word as the only way in which a man may be taught of God All men are ambitïous of so grand a priviledge The very Gentiles in the puddle of their filthy Idolatries thought themselves taught of God in their Oracles The Mahometans think themselves more sure of it in their Alcoran at which say they the devils themselves rejoyced and turned to God no question they rejoyed at such a bundle of lies and blasphemies but that they turned to God is a wild delusion The Jews boast themselves no less in their Oral Law which say they God delivered over to Moses and Moses to Joshua and Joshua to the Elders and they to the Prophets and they to the Sanhedrim and they at last to writing in the Talmud calling it lux illa magna that great light which yet is but a dark labyrinth of errors and horrible falsities The Papists run to their traditions and unwritten verities as Divine and so bring in a load of fopperies and vain superstitions The Enthusiasts cry up the spirit in an extra-scriptural way and so turn aside from the main principles of Religion In such false ways do men lose themselves and the Divine teaching whilest the believer knows where to sind it even in the Scriptures in reading them he sits at Christs feet and every where looks for Maschil instruction from God In them is the Oracle the Vrim and Thummim by which God answers him here he opens his heart and spreads abroad all his sails to take in the gales of the holy spirit and be filled in all the will of God Col. 4.12 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 filled with it as the sails are with the wind Whilest the Eunuch was reading the Prophet Esaias the spirit joined Philip to his chariot Act. 8.29 Whilest the believer hath his being in the Scriptures the spirit joyns himself to his heart and by the infusion of holy light makes him go on rejoycing in the way of knowledge Here and only here doth he wait to be taught of God such is and since the sealing up of the Canon ever hath been the way of knowledge And what of extraordinary dispensation hath been since hath either directly turned men to their Bibles Confess l. 8. c. 12. Melch. Adam in vità Zuinglii as the voice to St. Austin tolle lege tolle lege pointing him to the Scripture or else hath quoted or ratified some Scripture-truth Thus when it was objected to Zuinglius that the word est in Scripture-parables may be taken for significat but not in verbis coenae in the Sacramental phrases and his thoughts were busie about it an answer was suggested to him in a dream a monitor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 telling him Quin ignare respondes ei quod in Exodo legitur est enim phase hoc est transitus Domini in which there is nothing extra-scriptural but a Scripture-instance given for that which before was a Scripture-truth the Scripture is the only place where we can look for Divine teaching To conclude that of the Father is remarkable qui sacrâ non utitur Scripturâ sed ascendit aliunde non concessâ viâ fur est he that goes not into knowledge by Scripture is a thief the believer keeps the divine road Thus far of the first thing resignation for instruction in the ways of God Secondly Faith resigns up the soul to be pardoned and justisied before God unto justification and pardon there are three things prae-required First An act of free grace in God All men are naturally sinners and as such Gods holiness cannot but hate them Gods justice cannot but punish them wherefore free-grace stepped in and found out a way how God who cannot justifie the ungodliness might yet justifie the ungodly Rom. 4.5 and that in a way of compliance both with his
divided Christ as this is is not the Christ of God but a Christ of his own fancy one that will save him in his sins and justifie him in his ungodliness he that believes in such a Christ doth at once miserably cheat his own soul and as much as in him lieth profanely trample on the blood of Christ as if it were shed on purpose that sinful men might have the reins laid down on their necks to riot in their cursed lusts with all impunity Moreover as to the word of God the believer is for all of it he is not only for cordials and pots of Manna and distillations of grace in the promises but for precepts also his meat and his drink is to do the will of his Father in heaven whilest his eyes are on the Land of promise his feet are in the Land of uprightness Antinomians boast themselves to be above the Law and as free as if they were in heaven and that their sins are but seeming sins sins to sense and to the world outwardly but no sins to faith and before God who seeth no sin in them But alass these are but swelling words of vanity to be above the Law is Antichrist-like to be above God himself whose Majesty and holiness break forth in it and if sins be but seeming sins the Law is but a seeming Law and God whose authority and sanctity shine forth in it is but a seeming God Promises and Precepts run together in the Scripture and must be taken together into the heart by faith Promises are effluxes out of Gods grace and faith takes them in by recumbency Precepts are effluxes out of Gods holiness and faith takes them in by obediential subjection both must continue and be owned by faith as long as there are grace and holiness in God The true believer neither with the Antinomian picks out the promises from the precepts nor yet with the Hypocrite doth he pick out only such commands as do not cross his beloved lusts as the Papists have razed out the second Commandement in some of their Catechisms because of their outward images so the Hypocrite razes out the displeasing Commandements in his practice because of the Idol-lusts in his heart but the true believer as David is for all the wills of God without any salvoes because without any indulged lusts Thirdly This resignation is made purely upon a Scriptural warrant There may be hay and stubble in the believer but there is none in his faith which so far as it is faith stands only upon holy ground All faiths assents stand upon Scripture-propositions all its affiances upon Scripture-promises and all its obedience upon Scripture-precepts What Balaam said by an over-ruling providence that saith the believer by the instinct of faith I cannot go beyond the word of the Lord to do less or more Num. 22.18 he would not as to doctrinals be wise above what is written nor as to worship be religious above what is written nor as to mercies and comforts be an expectant above what is written He would not as to doctrinals be wise above what is written when the Lutherans and Papists met at Ratisbon the Papists would first dispute about the Canon of Faith the Lutherans replyed that the Scriptures were the only rule at which the Papists cried out that it was very unequal to tye them to one kind of weapon only but faith is content with Scriptural doctrines only There is one Mediator in Scripture and faith dares not multiply them there is one Scripture purgatory in Christs blood and faith will not invent another there is one propitiatory sacrifice offered up once for all upon the Cross and faith will not seek after any more All the points in Popery are but so many additions to the word and upon that account insignificant to faith The first error in the first sin was an addition to the word the woman saying ye shall not touch it Gen. 3.3 whereas Gods word only was ye shall not eat of it Gen. 2.17 and the first and primordial error which hath ushered in all the Romish doctrines into the Church hath been the very same thing and because they are additions faith cannot own them no not faith in a Papist opinion may own them but faith cannot for it is but the souls Eccho to the voice of God in Scripture and where there is no voice there can be no return humane doctrines found not at all to faith Scripture is all Bishop Fisher a little before his suffering lighting on that one sweet passage this is life eternal to know thee and Jesus Christ Joh. 17.3 brake out into these words here 's learning enough for me the believer who hath the whole Scripture before him may well say here 's doctrine enough for me faith will not turn vagrant and lye about at humane doors for doctrines there is enough in the word Again the believer would not as to worship be religious above what is written that of the Schoolmen cultus est à naturâ modus à lege virtus à gratiâ worship is from nature the manner from the Law the power from grace is very excellent The very light of nature saith God is to be worshipped but faith goes to the word for the manner and to free-grace for the power God in the second Commandement forbids graven Images not as false objects of worship which are forbidden in the first Commadement but as false means and manner of worship and under graven Images as being the chiefest and groffest kind of false worship God doth forbid all other false worship humanely devised such as these were hence true faith looks on all humanely devised worships as so many graven Images a kind of Teraphim expressing though not as they did an humane shape yet an humane devise and invention things void of God without institution and without benediction That of the Prophet who hath required this at your hand Isa 1.12 falls like thunder on all the imagery of humane inventions dashing them to pieces in a moment Quintinus the Libertine being present at a solemn Mass with a Cardinal boasted that he saw the glory of God I suppose according to his loose principles of being under no outward Law he would have said as much if he had been among Pagans at their Idolatrous worship but the true believer looks for that glory only in the Sanctuary of Divine Institutions there and there only God records his Name and commands the blessing even life for evermore Moreover the believer as to mercies and comforts would not be an expectant above what is written 'T is said of Moses that he died according to the word of the Lord Deut. 38.5 or as the Original may be read he died upon the mouth of the Lord the believer loves to live and dye upon Gods mouth in the promises there watching for the sweet words of grace dropping from him he walks among the Promises as the Physitian among his herbs and by a divine
imprisoned in unrighteousness then there is precious faith indeed the heart which before was shut up now opens it self to the truth as we see in Lydia Acts 16.14 When the Genoese vanquished the Venetians in a sea-sight and took the Island of Chioggia the Venetian Senate sent them a blank Charter bidding them write down their own conditions and they would accept thereof when God by his word and spirit makes a conquest on the heart and it yields up it self as a blank for him to write all his wills and pleasures in then there is true faith wrought in the soul Thirdly That faith stands in resignation will appear from the titles given unto faith in Scripture 'T is a leaning or rolling upon God Cant. 8.5 Psal 37.5 which are postures of resignation the believer doth not stand upon his own bottom nor bear up his own weight but layes all upon God 'T is a committing ones self to God 2 Tim. 1.12 which is an act of resignation a believer pawns his soul to God and as a pawn he leaves it upon God as the expression is Psal 10.14 well knowing that it cannot be in a surer hand as it were going out of the possession of himself that he may be altogether in the custody of God 'T is a submitting to the righteousness of God Rom. 10.3 which is the resignation of a subject to his Prince a believer casts off his own righteousness as rags and will be under no other righteousness but Christs 'T is a casting our burden on the Lord Psal 55. a believer finds sins and wants too weighty for him to bear and he throws off all upon God who is able to pardon and supply him In the Old Testament we have it called a trusting in God and in the New a believing in Christ a believer is not as Adam his own trustee he hath not his estate in his own hands but all in a way of dependance upon God Moreover it is called a giving ones self unto the Lord 2 Cor. 8.5 a resigning up the property a man hath in himself that Christ may be all in all A believer as to his being is not a man in himself but a man in Christ as to his living it is not he that liveth but Christ in him and as to his working it is not he that labours but the grace of God with him and to name but one more it is a resting on God 2 Chron. 14.11 a believer is not at rest in himself or the creature but under perpetual tossings and fluctuations till he come to lay himself stedfastly upon God as the Center of souls and Sabbath of eternal rest Fourthly That faith stands in resignation may appear from the obstacles of faith Look what of sin is an obstacle to resignation is also an obstacle to faith and what of sin may consist with resignation may also consist with faith For the clear understanding whereof I must first premise some distinctions there is original sin and actual there is actual sin known and unknown there is actual sin of meer infirmity and incursion and actual sin which hath will and deliberation in it there is actual sin in one single act and actual sin in a series and succession of acts These distinctions premised I shall lay down this point in divers propositions First The meer in-being of original sin doth not impede resignation and consequently it doth not impede faith whatever the actual outflowings of it may do while the orisice of lust is open the meer in-being of it doth not impede is is an inmate in the heart when the first work of faith is wrought there only God by his Almighty grace doth suspend and bridle it that it doth not put forth but lye hid in its own root Thus say our famous Divines in the Synod of Dort touching conversion Divina haec actio non laedit voluntatis libertatem neque tamen extirpat radicitùs vitiosam resistendi possibilitatem quamvis enim Deus in ipso regenerationis opere adeo potenter in voluntatem agat ut actualiter resistendi potentia proxima pro illo tempore suspendatur remotam tamen in actu prima positam resistendi potentiam ne tum funditus extirpat sed in suâ amarâ radice delitescere permittit God layes the precious foundation of faith and the new-creature as it were in mighty waters in the very same heart in which there is a fountain of sin only he doth as those that build upon great Rivers do put back the fountain to make room for the heavenly structure which is set up in the heart in a very wonderful way as the stones were in Jordan corruptions as the waters of that river standing on an heap on this side and as it were cut off on that whilest free-grace is a doing the great work On the other side the indulgence of original sin doth impede resignation and by consequence faith A man that foothes up the old man and earthly members and upon the view of his heart returns omnia benè all is well as it is the heart is good enough cannot whilest such believe and why to believe is to resign and why or how should he resign to Christ for grace who feels no want such an one really poor but opinionatively rich turns off all the rich offers of grace as Esau did Jacobs present I have enough and goes away empty from all the treasures of Christ Secondly All unknown actual sins are not obstacles to resignation and so are not obstacles to faith Who can understand his errors Psal 19.12 who so knowing as to know his intellectual errors It hath been observed by some Papists that there are above 200 errors in the Commentaries of Cardinal Cajetan Dr. Reynolds de libr. Apoc. in the Master of the sentences whom the Papists extol as more worth then one hundred Luthers two hundred Melanctons three hundred Bullingers four hundred Martyrs five hundred Calvins they have yet noted more then twenty erroneous Articles unto which they add this hic Magister non tenetur who so holy as to understand his practical errors no man ever searched the gulf of corruption in his own heart to the bottom no man ever fully measured the breadth of the pure Law there are in the best reliques of self-love which cover a multitude of sins blinds of custom which hinder the sight of sin what with carnal profits which blow dust into our eyes and what with carnal pleasures which because brutish and bestial hinder reflection there is a great deal of sin unseen to us which is plain to the pure eyes of God On the other side where unknown sins are obstacles to resignation they are also obstacles to faith of which I shall give some instances Some unknown sins are therefore unknown because they arise out of an Abyss of darkness out of a gross ignorance of fundamentals in the heart and so in respect of their origine are inconsistent with faith
vivimus si totum Deo damus Gotteschalcus preaching up the Doctrine of Grace according to St. Austin and Prosper suffered a close Imprisonment for above twenty years together for that Truth and no question he experimented the power of Grace whilest he suffered for it Bonaventura hath a notable passage Hoc piarum mentium est ut nihil sibi tribuant sed totum Dei gratiae It is the true genius of Believers to attribute nothing to themselves but all to Grace And in the same place he saith That holy Men know the influences of Grace Potius experiendo quam ratiocinando rather by experience than argument The profound Bradwardine confesses That at first Pelagius seemed to be in the right it was more grateful to him to hear of Mans power in the Schools of Philosophers than of Gods Grace in the Church But afterwards Gratiae radio visitatus being visited by a beam of Grace from Heaven What a second Austin and Champion for Grace did he prove His Book de Causâ Dei against Pelagius is a sufficient witness thereof After all the great Luther saith in plain terms That Liberum arbitrium est merum mendacium Mans Free-will is but a lie And if any of the Fathers have predicated it certè ex carne ut fuerunt homines non ex Spiritu Dei sunt locuti they spoke according to the flesh as Men not from the Spirit of God and saith of himself That he would not have any thing of Salvation left in his own hand and glories in this Deus salutem meam extra meum arbitrium tollens in suum receperit All is in the hand of Free-grace And a little after concludes Hec est gloriatio omnium Sanctorum in Deo suo After this manner do all the Saints glory in their God crying out over every good thing in themselves Grace Grace Many Books have been wrote touching Will and Grace But were the experiences of Saints written and visible there would appear such Magnalia or wonderful works of Grace that every unbyassed person would say Conclusum est contra Pelagianos There is no doubt but the efficacy of Grace is very great and glorious in the Hearts of men Thus much for a taste may sussice touching the experience of Scriptural Truths Supernatural Truths may be experimented much more such as fall in with the Light of Nature CHAP. XII The Divine Experiments of Faith in Scripture-Ordinances Baptism Preaching of the Word Prayer and the Lords Supper and lastly in the great Works of Power recorded in Scripture IN the next place I proceed to the Divine Ordinances in Scripture These the Believer may experience to be Divine God bare such a Testimony to the Typical Ordinances under the Law that his People experimentally knew that they were from him In Circumcision God set his Seal and Love-mark on his ancient People and at the doing of it they blessed him that a Child was brought into Covenant In their Burnt-offerings fire from Heaven consumed them as a witness of their acceptation Hence the Psalmist prays The Lord accept thy Burnt-sacrisice Psal 20.3 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in cinerem vertat let him turn it to ashes thereby testifying his acceptance thereof In their first Temple they had many Symbols of Gods Presence as the Ark with the Tables in it and Propitiatory or Mercy-seat by the Vrim and Thummin they could ask Counsel of God the Shechinab the Glory or Majesty of God dwelt between the Cherubims and acceptance in their Services and Sacrifices offered unto God But pretermitting these as being but Shadows and by Christians experimented in Jesus Christ the substance of them I shall instance in the four great standing Ordinances in the Christian Church and shew how the Believer may experience them to be from God and in that experience prove the Scripture which appoints them to be from him also The first Ordinance I shall instance in is that of Baptism This by the Ancients was stiled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Illumination as ushering in the Evangelical light St. Basil calls it Vestimentum candidum signaculum sancium the white garment and holy sign It is by St. Austin named Porta Gratiae the door of Grace and first entrance into the Church And by St. Bernard Christianismi investitura the first putting on Christianity In Luther it is Aqua non Creatoris sed Dei salvatoris the water not of the Creator but of God the Saviour Among the Jews the Proselyte of the Gates was only tyed to the seven Precepts of Noah but the Proselyte of Righteousness was bound to all the Mosaical Ordinances and was initiated into Judaisin by Circumcision and Baptism and the blood of Oblation The Jewish Rabbins built this Baptism of Proselytes on that Command of God Exod. 19.10 That the people should sanctifie themselves and wash their clothes in order to the reception of the Law Such as were Baptized they called Renati new-born or regenerate and reputed them to be Subalis Divinae Majestatis under the wings of the Divine Majesty But as yet Baptism was no Divine Ordinance but only a Jewish custom Afterwards this custom was turned into a sacred Ordinance in John's Baptism which was not of Men but from Heaven He saith of himself That he was sent to Baptize Joh. 1.33 And by whom St. Luke tells us The word of the Lord came 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 upon John Luk. 3.2 as a Divine Warrant for the Work His Baptism is called The Counsel of God Luk. 7.30 And was sealed from Heaven by a wonderful Theophany the whole Sacred Trinity manifesting themselves at Christs Baptism by him Afterwards Christ gave a solemn charge about it Go teach all Nations Baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost Mat. 28.19 and adds a sweet Promise thereunto Lo I am with you alway even to the end of the world ver 20. Thus Baptism is firmly established in Scripture and the Believer may experience it to be of God He though Baptized an Infant wanting the use of Reason and uncapable in himself to make any formal Vow or Covenant yet finds a secret bond or obligation lying upon his Conscience which remembers him of his Baptism in some such words as those of an Ancient Abrenunciasti Diabolo operibus suis abrenunciasti seculo voluptatibus ejus Thou hast renounced the Devil and his works the World and its pleasures forget not thy Baptism And the reason of this bond is because Baptism is an Ordinance of Stipulation called by St. Peter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the stipulation or interrogation of a good Conscience towards God 1 Pet. 3.21 It is an entry into Covenant with God and binds the Conscience Were it no Ordinance of God there would be no Stipulation and so no Obligation upon Conscience But when the Believer finds his Baptismal Vow pressing there he knows that Baptism is of God Again he knows it by the inward strength
him count the whole World dross and dung for him espouse him in the dearest and sweetest affections Again set thy heart upon Heaven call back thy Affections from this vain World where they have been scattered a-gathering up stubble unto Heaven thy native Country that thou maist have a pregnant proof in thy self that thou art born from thence and a-going thither Follow those attractions which Heaven the great Center of Grace and Holiness put upon thy Faith and Love to draw thee up to it self Long to be up in that pure region of Bliss where God is All in All There are sinless Perfections and tearless Comforts rivers of Pleasures and plenitudes of Joy for ever Thou maist there read all Truths in the Original and satiate thy self at the fountain of Goodness Have thy Conversation above drive on a constant trade there by Prayers and good Works that thou maist have rich returns of Grace and Love from thence This is the true way to Assurance A notable instance we have in the Psalmist O God thou art my God early will I seek thee my soul thirsteth for thee my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land where no water is Psal 63.1 and what is the issue of it his Soul which had so emptied out it self in holy Pantings and Anhelations after God was soon satisfied with the marrow and fatness of his love ver 5. No sooner was the Spouse sick of love to Christ Cant. 2.5 but his left hand is under her head in Supports and his right hand embraces her in the sweet manifestations of his Love to her ver 6. The more Heavenly the Believer is the sitter he is for Assurance which serves as a lesser Heaven for him till he come to the great one which is above Thus much touching the second thing the ways in which Assurance is attained To conclude all the Believer having arrived at Assurance which is the highest step on this side Heaven may sit down with joy upon his head and begin that Song of Free-grace and the Lamb which is sung above though in an higher tune in the Heavenly quire of Angels and glorified Saints for ever and ever Well may he say Oh! what hath God wrought what was he a lump of dust and sin to be brought hither How did he lie in blood and death till Grace came by and put in the breath of Spiritual life into him Was not his Reason the lightest part in him veiled and covered over with gross darkness when the rosie morn and day-spring of Grace first broke out upon him in Spiritual illuminations Was not his Will though a free Principle fast shut up in Hardness and Unbelief when Grace opened the Iron-gate and made him free to his own Happiness What a poor broken Man and under what innumerable debts was he when Grace came and paid off all by the Blood of the Covenant How much of Earth and Hell was upon him before Grace made him a Son and limmed out the Divine Image upon his Heart What swarms and legions of Lusts kept possession in his Heart when Grace set up its standard and drove them out to make room for the holy seed there And after he became a Saint what an hand had Grace with him to cure his many weaknesses and nurse up his infant-Graces What a vast charge was it at in fresh anointings and supplies of the Spirit to keep the holy lamp and fire from going out And at last how rich and glorious is Grace towards him when it carries him up into the mount of Assurance and there shews him the great things which it hath done and will do for him the true Graces and blossoms of Glory in his Heart and a fair Heaven that lies beyond them where Crowns and Robes of Happiness wait for his coming Oh! Grace infinite Grace thou art the Origine of all Graces and Center of all Praises All the Saints owe their birth and safe conduct to Heaven to thee and to every step of thine from the first beams and drops of Mercy to the Bliss-making Vision and rivers of Pleasures above Hosannabs and Halielujahs must be sung for ever and ever FINIS The TABLE A ADam Preacht of Christ Pag. 376 Adoption a fruit of Faith 241. It s Priviledg 242 to 249 hereby a greater Glory than in Adam Pag. 244 Adriatick Sea a Popish Fable about the calming of it Pag. 104 105. Albertus Magnus his Statue speaking articulately Pag. 164 Ambrose's saying of Cain and Abel Pag. 367 Armas Burgus his Prayer at his Martyrdom 176 His Patience Pag. 318 Andelots brave answer when questioned to Henry 2d of France Pag. 315 Anselm's Interrogatory and Counsel to a Man at the point of death Pag. 80 Antinomians Error about Sin the Law Pag. 121 Assurance and Faith how differ 137 to 149 That it is attainable 397. Of our good estate is attainable 387. Names given to Faith shew it 399 410. Another ground 404. Examples of it 403 Popish errour about it 388. Like the Sceptick Philosophers herein 389. It puffs not up 395 396 Assurance of Pardon 397. Of Perseverance 412. Ways by which it is attained 424. It begins the Song of Free-Grace here Pag. 460 Athanasius his saying when Banished by the Emperour Pag. 198 Augustin's mistake about Faith retracted 6 Strugling against Sin in his own strength he heard a voice 279. His Spiritual application of Christs raising up three from the dead Pag. 385 386 B Baptism several Names given it by the Ancients 371. How a Jewish Custom then a Divine Ordinance 372. Though received in Infancy yet hath a bond on Conscience ibid. 373. One confirmed in Martyrdom by it by his Mother ibid. Burgundians Baptism Pag. 374 Bellarmine died in doubt Pag. 426 427 Belief of the Divine Authority of the Scriptures of what kind 37 to 41. What the consequences of it in order to Resignation 69 to 75. A Believer keeps to the Written Word in all things 122 to 126. The only wise man 170. His knowledg of the Invisible God 171 172. The Presentiality of Things future 186. Vnderstands seeming Contradictions 187. It s spiritual extraction the best Chymist 192 to 201. What he desires to know of himself Pag. 381 Belial a son of Belial what it imports Pag. 160 Bernards reflection on himself when he saw another Sin Pag. 313 Bishop no non-preaching Bishops of old Pag. 377 378 Blessing of Jacob and Esan differ 344. Promise of Temporal Blessings not absolute Pag. 345 Blood a little drop given out to be the Blood of Jesus Christ Pag. 364 365 C Cardinal Cajetan's Commentaries on the Master of the Sentences extold by Papists above Luther yet 200 Errors in it Pag. 156 Christ earthly things often in competition 159 His Conception in the Womb and the Heart compared 288 361 362. He is the Samplar of our Graces 291. How he died in his person and in the Believer Pag. 373 Conditions of the Promises really in Believers Pag.
391 Conflict the Natural Spiritual differenced Pag. 261 262 263. Conscience its testimony of great repute among Pagans 405. Witnesseth integrity 406. Believers converse with Scripture Conscience Pag. 407 Conviction of Sin manifold 70 71 72. Several things ensue thereupon to Pag. 75 Creation the Philosophers misguess about it 17 18. New Creation in the Heart Pag. 383 384. Credere Deo in Deum Pag. 131 132 Cruciger his Death-bed Prayer and Faith Pag. 138 Covenant of Grace and Works difference of Men under them Pag. 278 D Dr. Dees impostures by Spirits Pag. 326 Delilah the import of the word in Hebr. Pag. 150 Dragon poysonous shut up by Sylvester the Bishops Prayers Pag. 266 E Election though from eternity yet buds in time Pag. 413 Evagrius his gift to the poor to be paid in another world Pag. 113 Evidences confirm Assurance Pag. 394 Experiments all learned men are for them 326 Experiments of Faith of Scripture-truth 325 to 370. Where of Scripture Ordinances and great Works to Pag. 386 Examination of our selves espied by the Philosophers Pag. 433 434 Faith the several acceptions of the word in Scripture 1 2. Considered in its measures and in its lowest measure described ibid. Wherein it exceeds Moral Virtues 8 9. The difference between that and Reason alone 12 19. And Reason with Scripture 19 30. Faith explicite required in Fundamentals 41 46. It disciples the Soul to Christ 86 87. Yields to be ruled by Christ in all actings 109. Aspires after Heaven and looks for pay there 113. Where the seat of Faith is disputed between Protestants and Papists 126. Though seems dead yet may be alive 129 130. More than a waked assent 131 to 136. Less than Assurance to 149. Why former Divines desine it by a full perswasion 136. Difference between Assurance and Faith justifying us 140. Hangs on God in all its actings 191. Fruits of Faith and several Conceptions of these 270 271. It is before all other Graces 283 to 288. Sets them all on work 289. It s foundation and infusion 328. It wars against all enticement to Sin 276. Steps by which Faith goes in mortifying it Pag. 280 Fall of man total Pag. 7 Father its efficacy in Prayer Pag. 245 Fear of God to be in all actions 303. Servile and Filial shewed Pag. 304 Mr. Fox never denied any that asked for Jesus sake Pag. 301 Free-Grace its presumption in unholy persons to expect it 119 120. Free-Will hath no Harmony with it 190. Abused by Pelagians Pag. 366 G God most glorious in his Word 12. Confest by all Nations 13. Cardinal Perron one day proved a God the next would have proved the contrary 171. Discovery of God in Grace and in the Creatures how differs Pag. 175 Good 288. Sets about the chief good Pag. 4 Graces spiritual are Creations 8. All act in union with Christ 295. All rooted in Christs Mines Pag. 380 H Happiness all desire it few hit it 3 4. What Aristotle makes it to be Pag. 253 Heart it includes Vnderstanding and Will Pag. 126 127 Hungarians Tradition Pag. 92 I Jews though they reject the Sacrifice of the Messiah yet offer a real one and why 97. Their answer to the Question where believe to be saved by Christs Righteousness with their pious saying over Bread Wine Herbs 344. Their saying of the seventy Souls that went down into Egypt 449. A vulgar rule among them 450. A custom of others about Alms. Pag. 454 455 Illumination Supernatural described 11. Wherein it excels Natural Reason 12 19. It 's requisite to Faith Pag. 30 31 32. Images how at first crept in 16. When cast out the people triumphed 309. Their return again Pag. 331 332 Ingrossers of Corn sore Judgments on them Pag. 184 Instruction the true false way of finding it Pag. 118 Intercession of Christ powerful Pag. 415 Johannes Seneca his Death-bed moan Pag. 210 Israelites the Men go not into Canaan but the little ones its misery Pag. 128 129 Justification three acts required to it 94 98. Bellarmines Conclusion about it 102. How the ungodly may and may not be justified 165. It s great importance 201. It 's not from eternity 202 206. It is double 207. How by Faith 213 to 219. Not compleat till the day of Judgment Pag. 227 to 231 K Kingdom the Primitive Christians talk so much of it that the Pagan Emperours were jealous of them though without cause Pag. 176 Kohathites the derivation of the word Pag. 5 L Law of God demands of us two things 209. Enough in Christ to answer both 210. It s writing in the heart by Nature and Grace differ 338. Impossible to be fulfilled but by the fiu't of man Pag. 401 Legio fulminatrix Pag. 373 Our life how tremendous every way Pag. 305 Light natural improved to the utmost engaged not God to give Grace Pag. 14 Love to God and our Neighbour hath but one root Pag. 301 Luthers Method in Reformation 274. An example of Faith in Mortification his saying of Free-Will 368 369. His answer to the menacing Law Pag. 428 M Mahalath a title of some Psalms interpreted Pag. 194 Mahomets Heart una child cut open Pag. 193 Meris Bishop of Chalcedons Discourse with Julian Pag. 308 Martyrs refusing Pardon Pag. 276 Meekness Natural Moral Spiritual 311. Examples ib. Pag. 312 Mortification a Believer yields to Christ for it in a threefold respect 103. Resemblance between it and Christs death 104. False ways of seeking it and the true pointed at 117 118. The fruit of Faith 250. Degrees of Mortification of Original Sin 260 267. And of actual ibid. Motions holy precious to a Believer Pag. 88 Musculus's Distich in straits Pag. 248 N Nazianzens saying about the difference between begotten and proceeding Pag. 352 O Obedience actuated by Faith 314 315 316. Obedience of the Law fulfilled in Christ and of the Gospel by the Spirit in a Believer Pag. 212 Ordination used by the Jews Pag. 377 Origens saying of some Scriptures that did affect him Pag. 144 P Papists and Hypocrites how they agree 122. All points in Popery additions to the Word 123. It s sandy foundation drawn from Bellarmine himself 147. Natural Popery in every mans heart Pag. 158 Paracelsus his proud boast of himself Pag. 192 Patience its excellency acted by Faith Pag. 318 Pelagians put Free-Will for Grace 6. Place Infants in the same state as Adam Pag. 257 Perfection sinless not attainable in this life Pag. 125 126 Perseverance no condition of it self Pag. 417 Philip Lantgrave's comfort in Imprisonment Pag. 321 322 Plague-sores lookt upon by Munster as Love-tokens Pag. 193 Plerophory of three things in Scripture Pag. 400 Pollio's dying-saying Pag. 115 Polemenia her wish to be cast into a Vessel of burning-Pitch Pag. 319 Providence Reasons mistake about it Pag. 18 19 Popes blasphemous speech about the loss of a Peacock Pag. 310 Promises of Grace and to Grace Pag. 346 Prayer its continuance 383. Its returns 372. How heard and not heard Pag. 374
off from the Will and mountains of earthiness off from the Affections outward miracles in the Churches infancy followed believers for a while Mark 16.17 but inward miracles are ever found in them and no wonder for the exceeding greatness of Gods power is unto them that believe Eph. 1.19 Secondly This precious faith doth compleat the noblest instinct in man I mean that natural pulse which he hath after happiness All men would be happy but none ever hit upon it till faith came The Pagans by natural light have some knowledge of God the supream good but the only access to him is by faith The Philosophers whose profession was the study of wisdom and whose lamp of reason burned brighter then others were no better then the blind Sodomites unable to find the door of happiness De civitat Dei l. 19. c. 1. Hence as St. Austin relates out of Varro the Philosophers might be divided into two hundred eighty eight Sects about the chief good which faith can indubitably immediately point at Some Philosophers placed mans happiness in pleasures which yet are but the sad transformations of men into bruits Some in honours which yet are but great servitudes which made the Noble Charles the fift weep over his Son upon whose shoulders at his retire out of the world he left the burden of a Crown Some in riches which yet are but thorns choaking that precious seed of the word which would grow up if embraced into life eternal Others which were better marks-men in moral virtues yet even these as a learned man observes are but circa res humanas their sphear is but humane converse and they do not as faith elevate the soul into a conjunction with God which is the only true happiness When the Apostle in his Catalogue of graces which minister an entrance into the everlasting kingdom puts in temperance and patience 2 Pet. 1.6 he speaks of them as Graces not as meer moral virtues but as Christianized by Faith which in that place is set in the van But waving the Pagan world let us come to the Christian There the way of life is clearly manifested yet none void of faith ever trod a right step in it nay nor spiritually discerned it unto them that are without all things are in parables Mark 4.11 to the unbeliever though never so great a Scholar Christ and grace and heaven are but as it were in parables The Kohathites whose name as a learned man observes is derived from stupidity carried the holy things covered and so do all the unregenerate Rabbies in the Church till faith waken them out of the stupor of the fall they discern not spiritually the beatitude objectively exposed to view in the Gospel till faith draw off the vail from their hearts but as soon as that is done the way into the holy of Holies is manifest and passable and so the 〈◊〉 instinct after happiness receives a compleature Now this precious faith being precious in the least minim of it may be considered either in its first and lowest measure or in its fruits and glorious progresses In its first and lowest measure it is the very condition of the Gospel and puts a man by virtue thereof into a state of salvation whosoever believeth even with the least degree of precious faith shall be saved I shall therefore first treat of it according to the lowest measure which hath salvation entailed on it and then proceed to the progresses and fruits thereof and according to the lowest measure it may be thus described Precious Faith is a grace of the holy Spirit whereby the heart supernaturally illuminated doth so believe the testimony of God in the sacred Scriptures as in a way of trust or dependance to resign and yield up it self unto Jesus Christ as Mediator and in and through him unto God according to his word In general it is a grace of the holy Spirit in special there is in it first a supernatural illumination which is as the womb of the morning in which this child of light is conceived and then which is the first-born of that light there is a belief of the testimony of God and lastly which makes up the total sum of this grace there is a dependant yielding or resignation of the soul unto the Mediator and through him to God according to the word I shall in order treat of all these and so unsold the description at large The first thing is in generall faith is a grace of the holy Spirit The famous St. Austin once let drop a strange word It is said saith he God worketh all in all but not he believeth all in all therefore that we believe is our own but that we work good it is Gods who giveth the holy Spirit to believers but the good man soon called it back again Aug. Retract l. 1. c. 23. Profecâ—o non dicerem truly I should not have said it if I had then known faith to be the gift of God The Pelagians of old understood by grace only their own free-will and the Gospel-doctrine hence that impious saying of theirs refuted by St. Austin à Deo habemus quòd homines sumus à nobis ipsis quòd justi sumus faith with them was but the issue of their own free-will and it is no other with the Socinians Peccatum originis saith the Racovian Catechism nullum pâ—orsus est quare nec liberum arbitrium vitiare potuit there was not so much as a bruise of free-will in the fall we have a free power of our own to believe but what saith the Scripture Vnto you 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is gratuitously given to believe Phil. 1.29 and faith is called the Spirit of Faith 2 Cor. 4.13 because it is not from our own spirit and in express terms the grace of God Acts 11.23 it lodges in mans heart as a beam of that eternal grace which is in Gods and to make this clear I shall offer three things First This precious faith is a thing above the natural faculty of man There is in man a natural faith or believing faculty and the very Phiosophers would call for it from their Scholars but as it is in the fall of a house not this or that beam falls but all comes down at once so it was in the fall of man not this or that natural faculty fell but all together and among the rest the believing faculty fell also hence as it lyes in the dust and rubbish of the fall it centers in the creature and without the elevation of grace it can in no wise lift up it self to God and Christ We are begotten again to a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ saith the Apostle 1 Pet. 1.3 Observe there must be a touch from Christ in glory or else there will be no elevation Christ must first apprehend us Phil. 3.12 or else our believing faculty is but as a dead hand unable to apprehend him Secondly This precious faith is
reason with the Gospel before him arrive at so great a notion of Divinity as is before admitted I answer the key to open this is in the Text the natural man cannot know the things of God because they are spiritually discerned A man by reason and its furniture of learning may in the perusal of the holy Scriptures gather up a world of notions and so know the things of God notionally but he knows them not spiritually and by consequence not congruously to their spiritual nature For the opening of this we must consider that there is in the holy Scriptures something humane or which may be inventoried among the things of man as the letters and words made up of them and sentences made up of words not as if these were not dictated exactly by God himself but that they are common to humane and profane Authors I mean not for the divineness of the matter but for the phrases and forms of speech And there is in them something Divine or which must be computed among the things of God as the mysteries and spiritual things themselves which are represented by those words and phrases I may illustrate this distinction farther by that of our Saviour If I have told you earthly things and you believe them not how shall you believe if I tell you of heavenly things Joh. 3.12 I pray what earthly things did our Saviour tell them was not he there preaching on that divine Theme of Regeneration Very true but Christ spake to them of Regeneration under the shadow of a birth and a wind and not according to the heavenly and spiritual nature thereof in it self Thus the words and phrases in Scripture being of common use are as it were humane types and shadows but the mysteries and spiritual things themselves are altogether divine Now to apply this distinction reason improved reaching to the things of man as its proper line may know the words and sentences in Scripture and so gather up a great notion of Divinity But unless inlightned by the holy Spirit which searcheth the things of God it goeth not beyond its own line it knows not spiritual things spiritually Reason without the light of faith Take it in a Jew at a Sacrifice and it saw the type only and not Christ in it Take it in a Christian at the holy Supper and it sees only the outward elements and discerns not the Lords body Take it in the greatest Rabbi sitting with the Scriptures before him and it sees them only in the shell or letter and not in the mystery And no wonder for even in common Sciences it may be so a man may construe and know the Grammar of a principle in Euclide and yet be ignorant of the Mathematical sense of it much more in divine truths may a man be spiritually ignorant who knows a great deal literally Therefore all Scholars may do well in their studies to do as Zuinglius did who having arrived at Arts and Tongues yet in the reading of the holy Scriptures looked up to heaven As for the great Doctor the holy Spirit when he comes in supernatural illumination then we know the things of God not by our own spirit but Gods the very same spirit which breaths in the Scriptures shines in the heart Hence spiritual things are discerned spiritually by a light congruous to their nature the spirit glorifies and shews forth Christ as the expression is John 16.14 Holy truths are as it were transfigured and shewn forth in glory which before were seen but in the flesh or weakness of the Letter the Deity sparkles out in the beauty and spiritual lustre of Scripture-mysteries which before only appeared in the humanity of words and phrases Now heaven opens and free-grace passes before us the secret of the Lord is with us and we are of his Privy Councel This is the first and fundadamental difference Reason with all it s acquired notions is not a light congruous to spiritual things but the light of Faith is Out of this all the other are derived Secondly Meer Reason digging in the Letter of Scripture arrives but at notions and shadows of knowledg and though these be as the sands on the sea shore they are but a form of knowledg Rom. 2.20 but when the light of faith comes there is sound wisdom Prov. 3.21 or as the original word is essence a thing which can no more be made up of meer notions then a body can of shadows Faith is the substance or subsistence of things hoped for Heb. 11.1 Without it notions and literal knowledge have no hypostasis in the heart the spiritual world is as it were lost God and Christ and Heaven are but notions But as soon as faith comes and makes the day-break in the heart the spiritual world subsists afresh God is God and Christ is Christ and Heaven is Heaven to the soul all of them are reallized by faith there is a good treasure in the heart far more substantial then Arts and Tongues and School-notions can make Thirdly Reason with its notions arrives but at a knowledge falsly so called for it knows not the things of God as they are proposed to be known those things are proposed to be known not as meer notions but as practical things to be in the first place chosen loved embraced and practised but it knows them only notionally and not practically That knowledge whilest materially true hath a secret lye in it thus the Apostle He that saith I know him and keepeth not his commandements is a lyar and the truth is not in him 1 Joh. 2.4 'T is not in him in a practical way so as to ballance the will and affections with the excellency of the things known but as soon as faith comes those things are known as they are proposed to be known as practical things to be improved in heart and life The supernatural light digests truths into blood and spirits and turns mysteries into godliness It knows Law and Gospel in their true tendency which is holiness not to be holy is to blast and prophane the meaning of both Fourthly The meer notional knowledge acquired by reason hath no spiritual life or sense in it it hath no life in it meer notions are but a dead faith but faith is a living notion In an unbeliever the notions are all dead affording no pulse of holy affections or motion of true obedience they are all buried in a grave of corruption and covered in the dust of earthly things But as soon as faith comes there is a resurrection in the soul the notions before dead now wake out of the dust and rise in life and power every truth lives in the heart and springs up into the new-creature This supernatural knowledge is a well-spring of life Prov. 16.22 and all the vital acts of grace stream from thence Nay as our Saviour tells us it is life eternal John 17.3 heaven doth dawn and appear in it Meer notional knowledg hath no spiritual sense in it
his passion in drinking of the brook in the way there 's his ascension in lifting up the head there 's his intercession in sitting at Gods right hand there 's his Church Catholick a willing people made so by the power of his grace This was Symbolum Davidicum Davids Creed as a learned man hath it reaching in a manner as far as ours Moreover the Saints of old by their faith kenned a resurrection and life eternal Jobs faith looked through worms and dust to the vision of God Job 19.26 Abrahams faith travelled beyond Canaan unto the heavenly city and country Heb. 11.10 David is in a rapture at the full joys and right-hand pleasures with God Psal 16.11 When Cain talked with Abel his brother Gen. 4.8 the Hebrew text sets not down what he said but it hath an extraordinary pawse implying further matter the Jerusalem Targum says Cain asserted that there was no judgment no judge no world to come no rewards of evil or good but believing Abel said there were all these and then his brother slew him It seems the first fall out was about the future world Wisdom causes her lovers to inherit substance Quid est 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nisi futurum saeculum or essence as the original word imports Prov. 8.21 and this substance or essence is as some Jews affirm no other then eternal life in the world to come Now to make my inference from all this If faith were in a measure explicite in those early Saints who had but the twilight of the holy types and cock-crowing of the Prophets how much more should it be so in us who live in the noon-day of the Gospel and as it were directly under the Sun of righteousness in such a Church-state wherein the least is greater then John Baptist we should expand and spread abroad the fails of our faith to take in the larger gales and effusions of the holy spirit Secondly Faith unless explicite cannot arrive at those ends for which it is ordained viz. to raise up the heart to a reliance on the free grace of God in Christ to inslame the heart with the love of God and holy things to sanctifie the heart through the truth and to overcome the world with its lusts A meer implicite faith cannot reach these it cannot raise the heart up to a reliance on Gods grace in Christ to that reliance is prerequired not only a belief that God is true in the Scriptures in general but also a belief that God is true in the precious promises in special We are like Jacob not believing in the mercies of God till we see the chariots the gracious promises which he hath sent down from heaven to carry up our faith to himself They that know thy name will put their trust in thee Psal 9.10 they and they only Neither can it inflame the heart with the love of God and holy things light and heat ever go together Implicite faith is a dark and cold thing affording no spiritual warmth at all he that hath no more is but a Nabal a fool in religion and his heart as dead and cold as a stone within him till the love of God in the explicite notion of it shine into the soul it will not like the disciples at Emmaus burn within us with love to God and his ways neither can it sanctifie the heart through the truth the word did not profit them not being mixed or tempered with faith saith the Apostle Heb. 4.2 Where there is only an implicite faith the word lies upon the heart all in a lump whole and undigested affording no blood or spirits of sanctity to the soul it is explicite faith only which breaks the truth in the heart and mixes and tempers every holy particle therewith from whence the soul comes to be changed and assimulated into the truth receiving a divine likeness from it according to the measure of its faith more or less digesting the same truth in the heart neither can it lastly overcome the world and the lusts thereof this is the victory that overcometh the world even our faith saith the Apostle 1 Joh. 5.4 And this Faith doth by putting a right estimate of things into the heart whereby it manifestly appears that heavenly things do infinitely outweigh earthly in themselves and should do so in the minds of men A man of a meer implicite faith is a man without a ballance or judgment he knows not how to estimate or weigh the excellent things of God and therefore is ever poized down by the world and the lusts thereof It is the explicite faith only which is in the soul as the ballance of the Sanctuary rightly determining the true weight of things and thereby giving heavenly things the victory above earthly in the heart Oh! where this is what a feather a vanity a nothing is the world what in it can weigh against God or Christ or the exceeding eternal weight of glory surely nothing wherefore the followers of faith become conquerors of the world Fourthly This belief must be total and absolute without any salvoes or limitations The Gospel must captivate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all the intellect or every thought to the obedience of Christ 2 Cor. 10.5 The Reason must not go at large or random but be kept in safe custody under the Gospel and the divine mysteries thereof it is not to be trusted to never since the fall put an enmity into it against God The Socinians believe the Scriptures only so far forth as they are congruous to reason thus Socinus professes that if this proposition that Jesus Christ satisfied God for our sins were once and again extant in the sacred monuments yet non ideirco he would not therefore believe the thing to be so as we ordinarily conceive of it And another laies down this for a rule Nihil credi potest quod à ratione capi intelligi nequeat that cannot be believed by faith which cannot be comprehended by reason It seems they will trust God no further then they can see him and depend more on their blear-eyed reason then the divine oracle Touching this Socinian faith I shall endeavour to shew first the inrationality of it and then the nullity First The Irrationality of it will evidently appear if we distinguish between the two states of reason before the fall of man and since Reason before the fall was a pure and virgin light without any spot in it afterwards it was destoured and overshadowed with the fall and by that means all that is in the mind of man in his lapsed estate is not reason the blinds and dark shades there are not so but only that which is the relique of the pure primitive light and congruous thereunto the blemish in the eye is not the light the rust in the gold is not the pure metal neither is all that is in lapsed reason to be reckoned reason If then in this case we would know what is rational we
saith the Prophet Isa 8.20 the Law of the Lord is perfect converting the soul the testimony of the Lord is sure making wise the simple saith the Psalmist Psal 19.7 The Scripture is able to make us wise to salvation and perfect throughly furnished unto all good works saith the Apostle 2 Tim. 3.15 17. Nay such a rule it is that nothing must be added to it nor diminished from it Dent. 4.2 no not by an Angel If an Angel from heaven preach any other Gospel to you let him be accursed Gal. 1.8 And can the spirit in the heart contradict the spirit in the Scripture can it be contrary to it self and depart from its own oracles no surely defectible creatures may be off and on yea and nay in their words but the holy spirit cannot be so The war between Constantius and Magnentius was looked upon as very portentous because therein first cross was carried against cross and Christians engaged against fellow-Christians but that the holy spirit should make war upon it self is a portentous contradiction which if allowed would leave no being to Gods veracity nor standing unto mans faith But as portentous as it is the Enthusiast must maintain it unless he will confess that the spirit in him which denies the Scripture to be the rule is not of God Again thou saiest thou hast the revelation of the holy spirit but how or in what manner doth it reveal it self in thee I suppose thou dost not pretend to a Revelation made by visions or dreams or audible voices as it was wont to be of old but to a revelation intellectual and that is double the one extraordinary in Prophets and Apostles the other ordinary in all true believers In the first revelation made to Prophets and Apostles the holy spirit did immediately infuse the species intelligibiles into their minds and thereby did internally speak and in a proper sense reveal things unto them What we translate the beginning of the word of the Lord by Hosea Hos 1.2 is in the original the beginning of the speech of Jehovah in Hosea pointing out an internal locution to the Prophet In the second revelation made to believers there is no such thing as in the first no immediate infusion of species no internal voice or locution saying this or that is so and therefore no revelation properly so called but the holy spirit doth enlighten their minds to make them capable and then they hear what the holy spirit in the Scriptures speaks unto them thus S. Paul on the behalf of the Ephesians prays for the spirit of wisdom and revelation not that they might have extraordinary inspirations but that the eyes of their understanding might be inlightned Eph. 1.17 18. To know the witness of God in the Gospel the holy spirit doth not speak to their inlightned understandings immediately but in and by the Scripture-medium which is as it were Epistola Dei Gods letter unto man In the first revelation to the Prophets and Apostles the holy spirit did so totally and in such an extraordinary way govern them in their speaking and writing that therein there was nibil suum nothing of their own not only the matter but quaevis vocula every little word was of God hence S. Peter saith that they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 moved or carried upon the wings of the spirit above humane frailty 2 Pet. 1.21 In the second revelation to believers the holy spirit is as an holy anointing to their minds and thereby puts them into a capacity to hear what God speaks in the Scripture but it doth not so totally carry and rule them as to make their words purely divine and free from all mixture of their own The first revelation to the Prophets and Apostles being purely immediate and extraordinary makes authentical Scripture The second revelation to believers being but ordinary doth not make Scripture but only capacitate their minds to take in the manifestations of the spirit therein These things premised I must renew my question Say O Enthusiast what is thy revelation is it a pure immediate internal locution is it extraordinary and carried by the spirit above all humane frailty may it be added to the Canon and become Scripture I suppose thou canst not darest not say so but if thou dost read and tremble at the sealing up of the Canon Rev. 22.18 If any man shall add unto these things God shall add unto him the plagues written in this book and if any man shall take away from them God shall take away his part out of the book of life and out of the holy city These words are as a flaming sword at the end of the Bible to keep thee from presuming to put any thing thereunto Say then modestly is not thy revelation ordinary did not the holy spirit come to thee in the chariot of the Scripture and why then doest thou slight and undervalue it why doest thou call it a dead letter a fleshly elementith thing and the like God hath spoken once yea twice if I may so allude once in the Old Testament and again in the New expect not to hear his voice or spirit any where else but there if thou doest thou puttest a cheat upon thy self and instead of a revelation embracest a meer fancy Again the spirit is in thy heart and the spirit is in the Scripture but where is the greatest measure of it say in good earnest is there a greater measure of the spirit in thy heart then in the Scripture then thou canst unriddle all the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the difficult knots in Scripture thou canst dive down into that divine abyss and fetch up all the holy mysteries there thy holiness can hold measure with the length and breadth of the pure spiritual Law thy faith runs parallel with all the promises and can tell over all that infinite Mass of free-grace which is couched therein the hellish root of bitterness once in thy nature is quite eradicated and not a string of concupiscence left behind thou canst say I have no sin and which is the wonder thy heart doth not deceive thee in saying so there are no shades or dark spots in thy mind no cracks or flaws at all in thy obedience no 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nothing lacking in thy faith or other graces All in thy heart and life is as right as the rule and as pure as the Christal streams in the Gospel If there be a greater measure of the spirit in thy heart then in the Scripture thus it is with thee but I hope thou art not so utterly void of the spirit and conscience as to fall into so proud a dream of thy estate If thou saiest thou art clean that very word pollutes thee quisquis se inculpatum dixerit aut superbus aut stultus est whosoever saith so is either a fool or a proud man Say then as the truth is there is a greater incomparably greater measure of the spirit in the Scripture
authority of the word take away that and conscience is no more conscience the inward Eccleiastes is silenced and hath nothing to say My conscience beareth witness in the holy Ghost saith the Apostle Rom. 9.1 Observe it beareth witness in the holy Ghost Spiritu Sancto duce ac moderatore saith Beza on the place Conscience is no supream thing the holy Spirit must command and moderate in it if not in an immediate way as in Prophets and Apostles yet in and by the sacred Scriptures as in ordinary Christians To conclude with that of an ancient Scripturis non loquentibus quis loquetur the Scripture being silent none can speak no not conscience it self in a regular way wherefore our supream rule must be sought no wher else but there Thus far I have treated touching what manner of belief of Scripture this must be But to proceed on Secondly What are the consequents of this belief in order to that resignation which is the last thing in faith I answer the holy spirit having lodged such a belief of Scripture in the heart doth reflect and turn the Scriptural light inwards and manage it in order to resignation by so me such steps as these following First It strikes in the holy light in that manner as to work a clear conviction of sin and this conviction is manifold First There is a conviction of sin in its kinds Actual and Original I name Actual first as being most obvious and first in the discovery There is a conviction of Actual sin the believed Law comes home to the heart and gives it a charge as Nathan to David thou art the man these and those things are sins against the great God saith the holy Law and so and so thou hast done saith the awakened conscience God who before had sowed and sealed up his iniquities in a bag as the phrase is Job 14.17 now opens the bag and pours out a vast sum of guilts and exactly tells over all the smothered light and abused love and spirit-quenchings and sorfeited creatures and buried talents and broken promises and horrible presumptions in all amounting to wonderful arrearages and at last enforcing the poor sinner to cry out Guilty Guilty And after this follows a conviction of Original sin The sinner traces up his sins to the impure fountain and follows every lust home to the black nest in the heart there there is the root of bitterness the seed-plot and spawn of all iniquity Indeed in every actual sin we may if we have our spiritual senses about us hear the sound of its Masters feet even of the reigning corruption within in every act of rebellion we may cry out of the Pharaoh within which saith who is the Lord in every act of unbelief we may complain of the Jew in the heart which will not receive Christ we may tast Adams apple in every sensual sin and perceive his imaginary Godhead in every spiritual self-excellency in our lives we have many sins but all in our heart there is a stench in vitious actions but the filthy sink of all is within After some such way as this doth God fill our faces with shame that we may seek him and resign Secondly There is a conviction of sin in its guilt The sinner comes to see that whilest he is in his sin he is but a condemned man and sin unless pardoned will chain him to hell and eternal wrath God seems to speak to him as once to Abimelech behold thou art but a dead man thou catest and drinkest and sleepest but all the while under wrath thou art jolly abroad among the creatures but fire and brimstone and an horrible tempest hangs over thy head God makes the sinner know where he is as the Syrians when their eyes were opened saw themselves in the midst of Samaria so he when his mind is inlightned sees himself at the brink of hell and death without such a sense of wrath man is too proud to resign he is naturally a Manasseh a forgetter of God and will not turn till he be in chains Laish-like he sits quiet and secure till Dan the judgment come hell must drive him to heaven or else he will never come there the fiery Law must melt him or else he will never run into the Gospel-mould Thirdly There is a conviction of the filthiness of sin the soul in every turn from God loses its light and in every turn to the creature gathers soil and pollution the sinner will never resign up himself to be washed in the Evangelical laver unless he first seo sin as it is mire and dirt and superfluity of naughtiness and find his pretious soul lying in a sordid manner in a sink of pleasure or a cave of covetousness or some other lust which is as an unclean place miserably defiling it whilest it abides therein Fourthly There is a conviction of the power of sin sin is a Baal a Lording tyrant and the sinner a vassal to it in sensual sins he drudges in Sodom and Egypt and in spiritual he is carried away to Babylon the sinner is as a captive in his chains and which is the great wonder a willing captive the iron is entred into his soul the chain is in his very will the Principle of freedom a vassal he is and loves to be so The more freely he sins the more is his slavery the more imperiously he sins the more is his weakness thus the Prophet how weak is thy heart seeing thou doest the work of an imperiou whorish woman Ezek. 16.30 unless God make men in some measure feel the power of sin and go as David over Olivet weeping because of the Absoloms the rebellious lusts which come out of their own bowels and make war upon heaven they will not resign and take up the yoke of Christ as they ought Secondly Upon such a conviction of sin ensue great straits and humiliations of soul When the poor sinner sees things as they are an host of sins round about the soul nay and within it an hell flashing out of the guilt thereof a defiling filthiness in it such as makes him ashamed to lift up his soul to God and withall such bonds and fetters therein as he cannot break by his own power then he becomes a Magor-missabib terror round about his heart more or less bleeds in tears travels in pangs of conscience breaks under a damning Law and droops and swoons away in fits of self-confusion and self-desparation and at last is ready to cry out Oh sin Oh wrath what shall I do whither go can I fly from the Omnipresent grapple with the Almighty or stand before the holy One all 's impossible can I endure an hell abide a never-dying worm or dwell with consuming fire 't is intolerable May my time be unravelled my sins undone or my self unborn it cannot be Oh! sinful forlorn creature that I am wo wo unto me for ever Such straits as these make way for resignation all the sons of
lay by his proud plumes and sensibly feel a carnal mind and a spiritual Law a weak heart and strong corruptions let him groan and cry out of the blind eyes which cannot unscale the iron sinewed Will which cannot bow the false heart which cannot go true and the fallen nature which cannot reach so high as an holy thought Let him be weak in his impotency till God set up Jachin and Boaz in his heart poor in his poverty till he have a share in Christs riches a captive in his chains till God break them off and bid him go free and nothing in his nothingness that creating grace may pass upon him and God be all in all This is the way to resignation such is Gods method to bring light out of darkness perfect power in weakness and call things that are not as if they were Fifthly There is a denial of a mans own righteousness Every man naturally would be a self-justifier as the Apostle saith Rom. 10.3 he would 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 establish or make to stand his own righteousness though it be but a dead carcass he would set it upon its legs though but a breathless image he would have it stand alone and the reason is because he would be justified by somewhat within he would not go out for a righteousness But alass all this while he doth not cannot resign thus the Apostle in that place going about to establish their own righteousness they submitted not themselves to the righteousness of God A man whilest upon his own bottom will not surrender but take him up into Moriah into the vision of God and shew him the purity of Gods nature and the sinfulness of his own carry him to Sinai and let him see the necessity of a perfect righteousness and the impossibility of an inherent one in himself pluck away his fig-leaves of false righteousness and open his eyes upon his own nakedness and poverty this is the true way to resignation Thus far of the second thing in faith what manner of belief of Scripture this is and how in the consequents of it the holy spirit strikes in the holy light upon the heart and by certain steps brings it to the very borders of resignation which is the third and last thing in faith now to be opened CHAP. IV. Of the third and last thing in Faith an holy thorough dependant Self-resignation to the terms of the Gospel What it is to whom and to what it is made and for what purposes with the adjuncts and properties of it THE third and last thing in Precious Faith is a dependant yielding or resignation of the soul unto Jesus Christ the Mediator and through him unto God according to his word This is the vital and essential act of faith as faith is the condition of the Gospel Touching it I shall first explain what this resignation is and then offer my reasons why the vitality and essential nature of Faith doth consist therein First I must explain what this resignation is in general It is no other then a surrender of the soul to God according to theterms of the Covenant God hath chalked out in the word a method of salvation and man resigns up his soul to God in his own way God says to man if ever thou art saved it must be through the Mediator Jesus Christ his blood must wash out thy sins his righteousness must answer the Law for thee Content saith the soul I resign up my self to the Mediator I lean my self upon his blood and righteousness for pardon and acceptance with thee Among Anselms interrogatories to be proposed unto men lying in extremis at the point of death one which the Minister offers to the sick man is doest thou believe that thou canst not be saved but by Christs death unto which when the sick man answers yea I so believe the Minister is appointed to speak to him thus Age dum superest in te anima in hâc solâ morte siduciam tuam constitue in nullâ aliâ re siduciam babe buic morti te totum committe bâc solâ te totum contege totum immisee totum involve Whilest there is any breath in thee place all thy considence in his death and in nothing else commit thy whole self to it cover and intermingle and involve thy whole self in it this conference I have set down because it doth emphatically express this act of resignation God says further my Christ must not cannot be divided if he save thee as a Priest he must teach thee as a Prophet and rule over thee as a King for I have made him all these Content saith the soul his blood is not cannot be spiritless I give up my self to his holy spirit to be taught and ruled I desire to say with Baldassar the German Divine Veniat veniat verbum Domini submittemus illi sexcenta si nobis essent colla Let the word of the Lord Christ come let it come teaching and ruling and I desire to submit to it even six hundred necks if he had so many God says further my Christ is a crucified one and you cannot must not divide him from the cross No saith the soul I will take him cross and all I would fain say as the noble Ignatius veniant crux ignis ossium confractiones modò Christum habeam let the cross and the fire and the broken bones come so I may but have Christ I hope nothing shall separate me from his love God says again through this Christ thou must in all thy wants cast thy self upon me for a supply I cannot saith the soul bear up my own weight in this respect I would fain lay all upon thee my guilt upon thy mercy my unworthiness upon thy free-grace my folly upon thy wisdom and my weakness upon thy almighty power if thou doest not help me the barn-floor and wine-press of the creature cannot do it if thou fail me I am confounded and expect to be miserable Moreover says God in all thy addresses unto me thou must look to thy warrant and see whether Scripture will bear thee out in it or not The Scripture saith the soul is the Great Charter above sealed by infinite veracity and below by faith this this is the sacred rule I desire to go by in all my resignations After some such manner as this doth the believing soul surrender up it self But for the more clear opening of this resignation I shall consider three things First Unto whom or what this resignation is made Secondly For what things or purposes it is made Thirdly What are the Adjuncts and properties thereof First Vnto whom or what this resignation is made I answer it is made unto Jesus Christ the Mediator unto God the whole sacred Trinity and unto the Word unto Christ as the Mediator and grand medium of salvation unto God as the Center and ultimate object of Faith and unto the Word as the warrant rule and way in by and according
to which faith must proceed First This resignation is made to Christ as the Mediator and grand medium of salvation I begin with this first because Faith cannot go to God immediately but to the Mediator first and so to God Thus the Scripture saith through him we have access to the Father Eph. 2.18 by him we come unto God Heb. 7.25 and which is more express by him we believe in God 1 Pet. 1.21 If we will go to our heavenly Father we must first put on our elder brothers robes we must cloath our faith and resignation in the resignations of Christ and so appear before God we must put our faith into the hand of a Mediator and from thence it will ascend up before the divine Majesty Take away the Mediator and God is a consuming sire no saith no prayer can approach unto him If the cloud of incense do not cover the Mercy-seat Aaron will dye before it Lev. 16.13 unless the Mediators merits had been as a cloud of incense about God the sinner though in the lowest posture of resignation must have died before the Father of mercies First then there is a resignation unto Christ as the Mediator and grand medium of salvation For the understanding whereof two things are considerable First That Jesus Christ is by Gods ordination sealed to be a Mediator There is one Mediator between God and man the man Christ Jesus saith the Apostle 1 Tim. 2.5 Christ as God-man stood up between an offended God and offending man and acts as a Mediator in all his offices As a Priest he acts with God to pacifie his wrath and purchase grace and glory for men and as a Prophet and a King he acts with men to declare unto them the Will of God and rule over them by his spirit and word Thus the livine days-man lays his hand upon both God above and man below to bring them together in a mutual reconciliation Secondly That this resignation to Christ as Mediator is in a way congruous to all his offices Look as God above sealed him to be a Mediator by his ordination so man below seals as it were the counter-part by his resignation The believer yields up himself to Christ as a Priest by a recumbency on his merits and sweet-smelling sacrifice This in Scripture is called saith in his blood Rom. 3.25 he yields up himself to Christ as a Prophet by an humble teachableness this is called a hearing of the Prophet Act. 3.22 and he yields up himself to Christ as a King by an holy subjection and this is called receiving Christ Jesus the Lord Col. 2.6 Thus this resignation as a key to the wards of the lock suits and hits Christ in every office What is merit in Christ is fiducialness in faith What is instruction in Christ is docibleness in faith What is royalty in Christ is obedientialness in faith Secondly This resignation is made unto God even the whole sacred Trinity as the center and ultimate object of faith I say the whole sacred Trinity For though Christ as God-man the Mediator be only the grand medium by and through which faith makes its approaches to God yet Christ as God is not the ultimate object of faith I say the whole sacred Trinity as the center and ultimate object of faith For nothing is or can be the formal reason or terminating object of faith but the Deity or divine nature only whose infinit excellency and perfection doth naturally merit the same whose infallible truth rich mercy matchless power and unsearchable wisdom calls for faith to come and repose in its bosom there and there only can it ultimately rest and keep Sabbath this the Scripture expresses emphatically by trusting in Jehovah the rock of ages and center of faith Thus then it is faith first goes to Christ the Mediator and then in and through him it advances unto God The Apostle is express in it who by him do believe in God that raised him up from the dead and gave him glory that your faith and hope might be in God 1 Pet. 1.21 Faith in Christs blood is saith in the way the new and living way consecrated through the vail of his flesh but faith in God is faith in the ultimate end and center Moreover that faith may arrive at him he comes as it were out of his unapproachable light and manifests himself in Attributes he lets down his veracity grace wisdom power holiness and soveraignty as so many beams of his glory for our faith to lean upon and as it were to climb up by unto himself They that know thy name will trust in thee saith the Psalmist Psal 9.10 the knowledge of Attributes is a staff to our weak faith in its walk to him Thirdly This resignation is made unto the werd as the warrant rule and way in by and according to which faith doth proceed These things are written that you might believe Joh. 20.31 As for the choice blessings which faith waits for from God and Christ the promises are the warrant As for the obediential subjection to God and Christ the commands are the rule As for the teachings of the Spirit the whole word is the way in which believers looks for the same If faith look up the word is the perspective if it work the word is the line and plummet if it consult here 's the oracle if it weigh things here 's the ballance Faith is never warrantless There is transgressing without cause but never believing Faith resigns to the Mediator and through him to God but the commission for both is in the word Thus far of the first thing unto whom or what this resignation is made But to go on Secondly For what things or purposes is it made I answer It is made for very great things and ends In opening of which I shall to each of them accommodate the former distinction of resignation as to the Mediator as to God and as to the Word That the nature of this resignation may the more fully appear the precious things and ends for which it is made are as followeth First The soul is resigned to be instructed in all the ways of God And this resignation that I may keep to the prae-appointed method is made First To Jesus Christ the Mediator and as to him first faith Disciples the soul to him and then yields it up to him to be taught First It Disciples the soul to Christ before faith a man is as a Wolf or a Lion for brutish untractableness but after it a little child may lead him even the least truth in the word and he will not break from it his ear is opened and his mind in a readiness for instruction Now this Faith doth two ways First It doth it by revealing the excellency of Christ as a Prophet Oh! says faith this is the only Rabbie the Angel of Gods face the wonderful counseliar lying in his bosome and knowing all his secrets his mouth is most sweet he speaks hony-combs
of grace and breaths beams of light and utters sparkles of glory nothing but mysteries and rectitudes and words of eternal life ever came from him and to make these come home to thee he is an inward Ecclesiastes one who can unlock thy secrets and come into the midst of thee and there express himself in words of life and power and all the while his Majesty shall not swallow thee up He speaks through an humane nature and vail of flesh in rare condescension and compassion towards thy weakness Whilest faith is in the high praises of this great Prophet the heart cannot chuse but be upon the wheels ready to run to him and say speak Lord for thy servant heareth Secondly It doth it by humbling and softning the heart Before faith a man is in the ruff of pride and there 's no speaking to him his heart is as a stone or Adamant and beats off holy truths but after it the man becomes as a little child and Christ may say any thing to him his stony heart is turned into flesh and so made ready for God to be manifested in it Faith doth so meeken the heart that it will sit down at Christs feet and hear him even in his hardest Lectures Let Christ talk of racks and bloody persecutions for the Gospel and the believer will be ready to get up the cross on his back Let Christ preach of high and transcendent mysteries such as reason cannot fathom and the believer will subscribe in silence what ever reason mutter against it Secondly Faith having discipled the soul yields it up to Christ to be taught And because now he doth not teach in person as once in the days of his flesh faith yields up the soul to him to be taught by his spirit The discipled believer loves to stand as Adam in the wind of the day in the gales of the holy spirit And this will appear in two-things First Faith waits upon the Spirit in the Means and when the spirit comes in holy motions it welcomes him into the soul Faith waits upon the Spirit in the Means there it cries out as Elisha at Jordan where is the God of Elijah here 's the mantle but where 's the God here are the Scriptures but where 's the Spirit that endited them to make holy impressions and seal divine truths upon the heart here are the ordinances but oh for the moving of the waters awake O North wind and come thou South blow upon the garden that the spices may flow out And when the spirit comes in holy motions faith opens the everlasting doors and welcoms him in as Laban did Abrahams servant come in thou blessed of the Lord stand not only without in the Scripture-letter come in thou that comest in the name of the Lord. Take the throne of my heart and bid the world go down and sit at thy footstool Take the keys of the soul and unlock every faculty set up thy lamps in every dark corner and discover the accursed things there Speak O heavenly Rabbi speak in words of life and power and shew me the path of life and righteousness Secondly Faith is very chary and loth to lose the teaching spirit Like the Spouse in the Canticles it holds him and and will not let him go Cant. 3.4 This is to the believer as the apple of his eye he would not have a dust of earth fall into to lest it grieve and weep out some of the holy light and as the fire in the Temple it must not go out if there be but a live coal or single spark it must be brown up into a flame Holy motions are very precious to the believer as it were beams of heaven better in Faiths account then the great Sun which quickens the animal world and like so many good Angels sent from God to give the soul a visit rather then these should be violated and abused faith will offer all its worldly comforts as Lot his daughters to be defloured If the holy spirit depart faith writes scabbed upon all other things and the believer becomes as a dead man unable to breath in prayer or walk in holiness or live or have a being in the spiritual world The Sun is down and it is night with him the dew is off and his fleece dry the gales are wanting and he is at a stand in his voyage to heaven Thus faith yields up the soul to be taught by the spirit Secondly In and through Christ the Mediator faith yields up the soul to God to be taught by the spirit I say in and through Christ the Mediator Without a Mediator God will not speak to a sinful creature unless out of the fire in words of wrath like those at the last day Go thou cursed one If he speak and commune with us in words of peace and salvation it must be from the mercy-seat that is through Christ who is called Gods 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or propitiatory Rom. 3.25 Hence Christ is called the wisdom of God because through him that wisdom doth manifest it self and as God speaks so faith hears and resigns both are in and through the Mediator I say in and through the Mediator faith yields up the soul to God to be taught by the spirit the very same teaching spirit as it was procured by the Mediator so it is given out by God Therefore faith for the teaching thereof resigns up the soul as to the Mediator the procurer so to God the donor of it And in this resignation faith climbs up to him by that noble Attribute of his infinite wisdom Are there transcendent mysteries in Scripture Faith will resign and cry out with Zophar Oh! that God would speak and shew me the secrets of wisdom Whilest the Scripture is in its hands it sighs and looks up for the key to unlock and shew forth this and that truth in its spiritual glory or at least in some such beams of it as it is capable of the Original Languages will not serve its turn without the Original Author nor the Learned Commentators without the great Interpreter that only wise God who endited the Scripture can illustrate the heart and whilest the believer reads the one he waits for the other Is there a practical case dubious and perplexed like an intricate Labyrinth or way-less wilderness and when the believer goes about to put all circumstances into the ballance doth he tremble and demurr like Origen at the Idol-incense and cannot be satisfied In such a case Faith runs and Esra-like hangs upon God for a right way the All-wise can make a way in the wilderness and guide thee with his eye saith Faith one cast or glance from his wisdom will disintricate thy doubts and make thy way plain before thee Doth the outward world grow stormy and tempestuous is the sky of the times overclouded with troubles and dangers faith stands in the posture of Jehoshaphat we know not what to do but our eyes are upon thee 2
instinct knows this is good for such a condition and that for another and when he comes to that promise I will be thy God he saith this is the universal Medicine and good for all things as infinite a sea as Gods grace is as vast a treasure as Christs merits the believer cannot tell how to climb up to these unless he have somewhat of a promise to set his faith upon if there be but an half-promise faith will ascend up by it when God saith seek righteousness seek meekness it may be you shall be hid in the day of the Lords anger Zeph. 2.3 faith will hang upon a may be but where there is nothing at all of a promise faith does not cannot tell how to approach for the unpromised thing The Perfectionists fay that sinless perfection is attainable in this life Joseph is yet alive perfection of life figured by Joseph may be found so thinks a Learned Doctor My yoke is easie said Christ and from thence Bellarmine concludes Legem Dei possibilem esse renatis imo facilem observatu but alass these are but dreams and not acts of faith It s true the believer groaning under the burden of sin wishes nothing more then sinless perfection he works he walks he prays he weeps he runs he strives but after all he may not believe sinless perfection attainable here not but that the grace of God in Christ is sufficient to effect it but there is no channel for such a grace to run in no promise in all the word to bottom such a persuasion upon there is a promise for the subduing of iniquity but not for the annihilating it a promise that sin shall not reign in us but none that it shall not be therefore the believer would not seek for that in himself which is only found in Christ nor for that on earth which is reserved for heaven that mercy or comfort which is not let down in the promise faith doth not expect or look for Trubern a German Divine on his deathbed seeking comfort spake thus textum textum volo let me have the text the text well knowing that comfort streams out in the promises the believer is ever for one promise or other to give advantage to his faith in its ascension to God for mercy and comfort Fourthly This resignation is a voluntary act It hath been disputed between Romanists and Protestants where the seat of faith is whether in the Vnderstanding only or in the Will also the Apostle clearly determines it with the heart man believeth Rom. 10.10 the heart includeth both faculties ad esse fidei virtutis concurrit actus rationis simul voluntatis quod benè innuit Apostolus in ipsâ notifieatione fidei cum dicit fidem esse substantiam rerum sperandarum argumentum non apparentium tangens quod est in eâ cognitionis quod est assectionis saith Bonaventure the assent of faith is in the Understanding but the resignation is in the Will credere est consentire consensio autem volentis est saith St. Austin We read in Scripture of faith unfeigned and sincerity is in the Will of the obedience of faith and obedience is in the Will of leaning rolling resting casting our selves upon God and all these are in the Will all the resignations which the believer makes are acts of his Will if he resign to the Promises and through them to the meriting Mediator and through him to the free-grace of God this recumbency or fiducialness is in his Will if he resign to the commands and through them to the kingdom of the Mediator and through him to the holiness of God this obediential frame is in his Will if he resign for instruction to the Word and through it to the great Prophet and through him to the wisdom of God this docibleness this tender holy flesh is in his Will he would have salvation coming in a way of grace and grace flowing through the Mediator Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ for a teacher and ruler as well as for a Saviour and all this is his choice 'T is not a meer velleity or effluvium of a light desire like that of Balaam let me dye the death of the righteous but an act of his Will 't is not a mood or hot sit of devotion such as falls on men under warming and awakening ordinances but a deliberate act 't is not a constraint or piece of servility such as men usually have in sick and dying hours when they are rolling off from this world and upon the brink of eternity with a prospect of heaven and hell before them but it is a true and a free-will cordially and freely offering up the soul to the terms and methods of salvation in the Gospel Fifthly This resignation is made in Humility The believer like his father Abraham is called to Gods foot there to lye in the lowest posture of a sinful creature in an humble docibleness he lyes at the foot of Gods wisdom waiting as they that watch for the morning till the holy irradiations make the day dawn and the day-star arise in the heart in an obediential frame he lyes at the foot of Gods holiness crying out like Paul struck down to the earth Lord what wilt thou have me to do and in a fiducial recumbency he lies at the foot of Gods grace as a forlorn beggar full of fores and extremities waiting if free-grace will take him in and like the good Samaritane bind up his wounds pouring in the oyl and wine of mercy into his heart The men among the Israelites could not enter into the Land of promise but the little ones did so the mystery is the Christians though the history be theirs the men among us such as can few sig-leaves together and cloath themselves such as can feed themselves at home and keep house upon their own reason such as are Lords of their own actions coming and going ad placitum these do not believe nor enter into the promises of the Gospel but the little ones who cannot dress themselves but as free-grace swadles and wraps them up in Christs righteousness nor feed themselves unless free-grace pluck out the breast and milk out instruction nor rule themselves or go alone but as free-grace takes them by the hand and leads them in holy ways these are they that believe and enter into rest hence our Saviour saith Except ye become as little children ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven Mat. 18.3 The proud man will not suffer grace to reign in or over him but the believer is as a little child ruleable by all the will of God humbly submitting to all the methods of salvation in the Gospel To shut up this discourse about the Adjuncts of faith I shall only add a caution or two When I say that all true believers do thus resign I mean not that all have the same formal notions or expressions but the same faith and resignation for the substance of
it the root of the matter is in the weakest of them though not the same verdure of notions or expressions the substance or holy seed of true resignation may be latent in a bruised reed or smoaking flax in a poor spirit or the pulse of a desire I have read of a Noble person in Spain who being as was supposed absolutely dead Melch Adanum 〈◊〉 Vesalâ—â— was diffected and upon the opening of his breast they found to their great amazement his heart beating some weak believers may seem totally dead in whom yet before God to whom all things are naked and open as in an Anatomy there is found a vital pulse of faith secretly working God saith a Reverend Divine brings not scales to weigh but a touch-stone to try our graces If there be but the least dram of gold but the least smoke or weik in the socket as the expression is Matth. 12.20 God accepts it neither do I mean that this resignation is acted perpetually but with many sad pauses and interruptions which happen partly by the blasts of Satans temptations making the believer walk like Peter upon the water now a good step and then ready to sink when the wind grows boisterous till his faith buoy him up again with a Lord save me partly by the allurements and entanglements of the world which are to him as the stone and the string were to Anselms bird now up in ascensions of soul to God and Christ and then down again to the earth and earthly things and partly from the indwelling sin which make him live as his Saviour did on earth a meer conflicting life Christ endured the contradiction of sinners and he the contradiction of sins the indwelling corruption makes his soul like a palsey hand with contrary motions Lord I believe help my unbelief whilest faith moves forward unbelief draws back after he hath in a princely manner wrestled with God he goes off Jacob-like halting in one infirmity or other CHAP. V. Reasons proving the Essential nature of Faith as the condition of the Gospel to consist in an holy thorough dependant Self-resignation THUS far of the nature of this Resignation as to its Objects Ends and Adjuncts It remains that I lay down my reasons why I place the vitality and essential nature of faith as it is the condition of the Gospel in such a resignation as is before described And for this First That precious faith which is the Evangelical condition is more then a bare naked assent to the Gospel-truth and less then an assurance of love and pardon from God wherefore it must needs be some middle thing between both such as Resignation is I shall endeavour to make good both propositions First Pretious faith is more then a bare naked assent to the Gospel-truth This will be clear by the ensuing considerations First A naked assent is but credere Deo a believing Scriptural axiomes to be true but pretious faith is a far nobler thing and therefore very emphatically painted out in Scripture in the Old Testament 't is credere in Deum a believing in Jehovah Gen. 15.6 importing a fiducial act 't is a trusting in the Lord Psal 2.12 where the Hebrew word imports a flying for refuge a running under the wings of free-grace as chickens do under the hen 't is a leaning upon God Isa 50.10 as not able to stand alone without a recumbency on mercy 't is a rolling our selves upon God Psal 37.5 as weary and without rest till we come to lodg in goodness in the New Testament 't is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a believing into Christ very frequent in the Gospel of St. John a phrase wholly the holy spirits never found in any Greek Author a bare assenter may believe about Christ but the true believer believes into Christ so as to be in neer union with him 't is a putting on of Christ Rom. 13.14 the believer strips himself of his lusts nay and of his own righteousness to be invested with Christ 't is a receiving of Christ Joh. 1.12 all Christ merit and spirit cross and crown together 't is a faith which hath its being in God as its ultimate center 1 Pet. 1.21 Scripture is but a medium the ultimate object is God himself All which imports of precious faith are much above the sphear of a meer assent Secondly Precious faith is the very condition of the Gospel God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life Joh. 3.16 but a naked assent is not such that is required not only in the Gospel but in the moral Law too and found not only in godly but wicked men nay and in devils themselves who believe and tremble It is true some Scriptures seem to lay much upon assent thus we find If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shalt believe in thy heart that God hath raised him from the dead thou shalt be saved Rom. 10.9 And whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God 1 Joh. 5.1 And these things are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God and that believing you might have life through his name Joh. 20.31 But these places import not as if a naked assent were the sull condition of Gospel-grace for then a man might be saved in his sins a man in arms against his maker might stand Gods grace might embrace him whom his holiness abhors and Christ might sive him who will not have him reign over him light might be in communion with darkness and Christ might have concord with Belial all which are impossibles in themselves and incompossibles with the design of the Gospel but they intend such an assent as is in conjunction with a true resignation of the heart to the terms of the Gospel Corde credere quad Deus eum excitaverit est non mode assentiri historiae de excitato Jesu sed certâ—â— cordis siducist beneficial mortis resurrectionis Christi amplecti saith Reverend Parent on Rom. 10.9 whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ namely with such a faith as is accompanied with all that which belongeth to a true faith is born of God so the Dutch Annotators on 1 Joh. 5.1 intelligendum est de side non qualicunque sed actuosa saith Grotius on Joh. 20.31 The Learned Bishop Downame saith Covenant of Grace P. 91. that assent is the very condition required in the promise of the Gospel but what an one is it a true willing lively effectual assent such an one as by which we receive Christ not only in our judgments but in our hearts and wills acknowledging him for our Saviour and resting on him for salvation Such an assent as this is no other then precious faith but a naked assent is much below it Thirdly Precious faith doth unite us unto Christ and gives us a being in him A believer from the first
instant of faith is no longer in himself or the old Adam but a man in Christ hence the same royal robe of righteousness which Christ hath upon himself covers him also which renders faith exceeding precious George Prince of Anhalt was upon this account much delighted with this similitude As the ring is highly prized for the diamond in it so faith justifies us for the pearl of price the Son of God whom it apprehends the believer is found in Christ not having his own righteousness which is of the Law but that which is through the faith of Christ Phil. 3.9 Hence also the very same spirit of holiness which is upon Christ in heaven above measure falls down upon the believer according to measure a piece of bread is a poor imnimate thing in it salt but when by digestion it comes into the body and is transubstantiated into flesh there is an humane spirit in it a man before faith is an earthly carnal thing but as soon as by faith he becomes a member of Christ a piece as it were of his flesh and of his bones he hath another spirit in him even the same with Christ Christ above and he below and the same spirit in both a great mystery such as a naked assent cannot reach unto he that hath no more is but a glass eye or wooden leg in the body of Christ or rather he is not at all in it but outwardly tied to it by a name and form of knowledge without any part in the righteousness or spirit of Christ Fourthly By virtue of its union with Christ Precious faith bears many excellent fruits it ushers in a spiritual life into the soul that of the Prophet the just shall live by his faith thrice quoted by St. Paul in the New Testament is exemplisied in every believer but he that hath but a naked assent though with a goodly structure of Evangclical truths standing upon it is but a dead man and his notions like the Egyptian Pyramides are but monuments for the dead Again it brings down pardon of sin into the soul whosoever believeth in him that is in Christ shall receive remission of sins Acts 10.43 but a naked assent leaves a man as fast in the 〈◊〉 of guilt as ever before Moreover it purifies the heart and quenches the fiery darts of Satan it carries out the dust and rubbish out of the heart and makes it a sanctuary or holy place for God and if Satan come and let fly his temptations it beats them off from the soul Thus Bucer when in his sickness he was admonished to arm himself against Satan answered in Christo sum nihil habeo cum diabolo commune I am in Christ and have nothing in common with Satan but where there is only a naked assent the holy truths going no further then the Understanding the Will is left in the mire and pollution of its lusts and is ready as soon as the tempter comes to join with his seducing proffers Thus far of the first proposition that faith is more then a naked assent Secondly The second proposition is That faith is less then an assurance of love and pardon from God only we must first distinguish between faith in the root and faith in the flower between faith in the lowest stature and faith in its full-grown perfections That assurance which the infant faith cannot reach the full-grown faith may arrive at which I suppose was the reason that those prime Reformers Luther and Calvin and after them Beza and Zanchy with many others did define faith by a plerophory or full perswasion of Gods love they being themselves in the joys of faith drew its picture not according to the infant model but the perfect lineaments thereof as they found them in themselves so they held them out to the world Again we must distinguish between seminal assurance and actual an infant faith hath seminal assurance light is sown for the righteous Psal 97.11 but the crop of comfort doth not immediately spring up the weakest believer is heir to all the joys of heaven only he doth not presently know his title he hath not ordinarily actual assurance at the very first I say not ordinarily for we must not limit the holy one who by his royal prerogative may let in the sweet sense of his love in the first instant of believing These distinctions premised the meaning of the proposition is That faith in its lowest measure which is the condition of the Gospel doth not essentially include assurance And this I shall manifest by the ensuing considerations First All true believers have not assurance Scripture and experience manifest it there are Lambs which are gathered into the arms and laid in the bosome of free-grace yet know not where they are There are little ones babes in Christ which can only hang upon the breast and are not grown up into the reflections and joys of faith the poor in spirit the mourners the hungry and thirsty after righteousness mentioned in the fifth chapter of Matthew are all of them true believers blessed ones and heirs of the promises and yet all of them are without any glimpse of assurance the poor in spirit all in rags of unworthiness and self-nothingness as if he had no title to the kingdom the mourners weeping and desolate like Hagar in the wilderness with her bottle spent as if there were no Well of comfort near them the hungry and thirsty like men in a famine drooping and fainting away in fits of soul-emptiness as if there were no such thing as hidden Manna for them It is very observable in the Canticles that Christ takes notice of the tender grape just at its first appearing the very first opening or budding forth of faith is welcom to him if the wine be but in the cluster if there be but faith in desire Christ saith destroy it not the blessing of Abraham is in it out of this little grain of mustard-seed heaven will grow in this smoking slax there 's a divine spark though the smoak of doubts and temptations muffle it up in obscurity it will break out at last into slames of love and joy in the infant-believers assurance is not to be expected because of their primordial weakness and in well-grown believers it may be suspended because of Gods infinite soveraignty in the dispensing thereof as he pleaseth Cruciger on his death-bed prayed thus Invoco te Domine languidâ imbecillâ side sed side tamen Lord I call upon thee with a weak and languishing faith but yet with a faith Pious Justus Jonas who was present with Luther at his death and took as it were his last breath into his bosome was in his own sickness sainting and cold-hearted till a servant of his rubbed him up with some comforts out of the Gospel Holy Bayn saith of himself I thank God sustentation in Christ I have and some little strength suavities spiritual I tast not any even the choice servants of God may walk in
darkness and see little or no light their light may be like that in the Prophet Zach. 14.6 neither clear nor dark they may live in crepusculo in a kind of twilight in a mixture of light and darkness Secondly Faith goeth before justification but assurance followeth after it Faith goeth before justification Scripture is express in it by him all that believe are justified Acts 13.39 with the heart man believeth unto righteousness Rom. 10.10 the righteousness of God is upon all them that believe Rom. 3.22 we have believed in Jesus Christ that we might be justified Galat. 2.16 might justification go before faith it were possible that a man might be saved in his sins a child of wrath might be in the arms of divine love a captive of Satan might be a son of God a man out of Christ might be justified in him all which are impossible but assurance follows after justification justification is necessarily presupposed to assurance for to believe my sins forgiven that they may be forgiven is absurd to believe my sins forgiven before they be forgiven is false to believe my sins forgiven because I believe so is vain and foolish Remission must first he before it can be manifested to be it must first be granted out of the Court of heaven before there can be any true Copy of it in conscience unless we allow a distinction between a faith of resignation before and a faith of assurance after justification we cannot possibly deal with the Romanists Bellarmine speaking of that special faith whereby a man believes himself just before God in and through Christ puts this Quaere De notis Ecclesiae l. 4. c. 11. Cum incipio credere me esse justum vel sum justus vel injustus si justus non justificor per fidem banc quia ista fides posterior meâ justitiâ si injustus ista fides est falsa when I begin to believe my self just am I just or unjust if just I am not justified by this faith which is after my righteousness if unjust this faith is false neither is there any imaginable way to dissolve this knot regularly without such a distinction between faith as antecedent to justification and faith as consequent Thirdly Faith justifieth us in foro Dei before God assurance justifieth us in foro conscientiae in our feeling and declaratively only Faith justifies us before God all those expressions in St. Paul touching justification by faith are meant of a justification before God I shall name but one or two that no man is justified by the Law in the sight of God is evident for the just shall live by faith Gal. 3.11 the justification before God here denied to the Law is attributed to faith And again a man is not justified by the works of the Law but by the faith of Jesus Christ Gal. 2.16 He doth not say faith declares a man justified for that even the excluded works may do but saith justifies Faith uts on Christ and his righteousness assurance only bears witness that the wedding garment is on Faith waits at the footstool of free-grace to have a pardon sealed in heaven assurance copies it out and proclaims it in conscience unless we admit this distinction we open the flood-gates to Antinomianism Fourthly Faith is a permanent thing an immortal seed which never dies it is built upon the rock of ages and cannot be moved it hangs upon an infallible word the least jot or tittle thereof cannot fall to the ground it is fed with an everlasting spring the holy spirit being in the believer as a well of water springing up to eternal life but assurance is transient now the believer hath nothing but wine and honycombs of grace and a little after he hath a cup of gall and wormwood now a sheet full of celestial joys and comforts is let down to him and then all is taken up into heaven again he is much like Joseph sometimes in the coat of many colours in the visible badges of his fathers love and anon stript and cast into the pit like poor Heman free among the dead and laid in darkness he is a spiritual Heliotrope who is all day in heavenly amours wheeling and turning about to the light of Gods countenance and anon when night approaches contracts his leaves and hangs down his head till there be another Sun it the effence of faith be in assurance the believer stands as it were upon a sea of glass in a very lubricous condition 't is well with him whilest he hath the light of Gods countenance whilest Gods spirit bears witness to his that he is a child of God but what if God withdraw and retire as it were into his unapproachable light what if the crannies of the heart be all shut up so that neither the sunny beams of Gods favour nor yet the starry graces in the heart can appear what if the arch-enemy Satan come with those instruments of death the threatnings and rake in the old wounds of sin and join the darkness of temptation to the darkness of corruption in the believer to cause if it were possible utter darkness must he be an Apostate a cast-away a man fallen from grace God forbid St. Bernard speaking of the manifestation of Gods love cries out Rara hora brovis mora O si durâsset it is a rare hour but a short stay Oh that it would continue with me the believers standing is not in it but in his union with Christ this was notably exemplified to us in Christ when he cried out My God My God why hast thou forsaken me Math. 27.46 the hypostatical union was not dissolved but the present vision substracted in like manner the believer the man in Christ when in desertions and temptations hath a sure conjunction with Christ even whilest there is a suspension of comforts unless we own this distinction we cannot maintain the doctrine of perseverance against the Remonstrants Fifthly Faith is the first-born of all graces and leads the van to all the rest it is the mother-grace and as it were teems out all other graces and no wonder for it unites us to Christ out of whose fulness we receive grace for grace and into whose image we are changed from glory to glory as by the spirit of the Lord but assurance follows after faith and all other graces This will be evident if we consider the manner how assurance is produced it is not an Enthusiasm a voice an internal locution speaking to the heart some such words as these thou art in Gods favour or thy sins are forgiven or thou art a son of God no it is in another way the holy spirit doth so irradiate the heart in its reflections and all the pretious graces lodging there that it plainly appears that the grace of God is there of a truth as it was with the blind man in the Gospel when his eyes were opened he could look abroad in the world and say here 's the earth
and there 's the sea and yonder 's the Sun Moon and Stars sensibly pointing from one creature to another so it is with the believer when he is irradiated by the holy spirit he can look into his own heart and experimentally say this is the pretious faith and that is the love in incorruption and the other is the meekness of wisdom and so go over all the parts of the new creature formed within him or at least over such or so many of them as may assure him that he is in a state of grace This is the way of assurance first there is a constellation of faith and other graces in the heart then these graces irradiated by the holy spirit send forth a kind of splendor which the soul reflecting on it self taking up it comes to attain assurance well knowing that such and such things accompany salvation and import no less then a Divine favour notable is that of St. Paul in whom after ye believed ye were sealed with the holy spirit of promise Eph. 1.13 Mark after ye believed first there must be faith and the train of graces attend thereon and then comes the seal of the spirit of promise the same spirit which endited the promises in the word comes and seals them on the heart whereas in the word there are such promises made to faith and love and holiness the irradiating spirit plainly discovers that faith and that love and that holiness to be indeed in the heart and so seals up the promises to the believer in particular as if it had expresly said this or that promise belongs to thee Hence the believer so sealed may say of the promises as Origen did of those Scriptures which did much affect him haec est Scriptura mea this promise is mine and that promise is mine nay all the Land of promise as much as I can set my foot on is mine own There are three seals to the promises first God seals them for true in the blood of his own Son in whom all of them are Yea and Amen then man seals them for true by faith he that believeth sets to his seal that God is true and then again God seals them for true to the believer in particular by his irradiating spirit Faith then goes before all other graces but assurance comes after them as being no other then the clear evidence of their true existence in the soul Unless we allow this distinction we gratifie the Enthusiasts who declaim against all marks of grace as legal things and sandy foundations Sixthly Faith stands upon the word of God purely totally and entirely In point of expectation it will not look without a word of promise in point of obedience it will not stir a foot without a word of command in point of doctrine it will not lend an ear without a word of instruction Hence Reverend Calvin saith Inst l. 3. c. 2. Perpetuam esse fidei revelationem cum verbo nec magis ab eo posse divelli quà m radios à Sole unde oriuntur Faith hath a perpetual relation to the word and can no more be sundred from it then the beams from the Sun from whom they arise should it be sundred from it it would lose its nature and cease to be faith but assurance doth not stand so purely totally and entirely upon the word this is also manifest by the manner of attaining assurance that is not made axiomatically in an Enthusiastical way as if there were an inward voice saying thou art justified but discoursively and after some such manner as in this practical Syllogism Whosoever believeth his sins are forgiven but I believe Ergo my sins are forgiven Here the conclusion which imports assurance in it stands upon two propositions the Major is meerly grounded upon the word but the Minor stands upon spiritual sense and experience caused by the holy spirit irradiating the soul in its reflections upon its own estate therefore assurance which is comprized in the conclusion doth not stand so meerly upon the word as faith doth Thus the Learned Pemble speaking of that Syllogism saith the major is of faith the minor of sense and experience And the conclusion of both but chiefly of faith as it follows on the premises by infallible argumentation and partly of sense as it is founded on the inward experience of Gods grace working upon our souls What the doctrine of Faith is is to be sought in Bibles but whether there be a particular act of faith or not such as is comprized in the minor Com. R m. 8. cap. must be looked for in the heart Fides non creditur sed habetur sentitur in corde saith Learned Pareus Faith is not believed but had and felt in the heart Actus reflexivus in ipsam fidem quo credo me credere non est ipsa fides sed potiùs sensus fidei Loc. Com. 689. saith Maccovius The reflexive act whereby I know that I believe is not properly faith but the sense of it But you will say if the minor stands upon sense and experience how can the conclusion which imports assurance be de fide And Bellarmine argues thus D. justificat l. 3. c. 8. Nothing can be certain with a certainty of faith unless it be conteined in the word of God upon which if it lean not it is not faith but that such or such a man is justified in particular is not conteined in the word neither can it be deduced from thence for then I must argue thus the word saith All that truly turn to God shall find mercy but I do truly turn to him therefore I am sure of mercy in which the minor is not in the word By the way we may observe what an excellent foundation the Jesuite layes for his disputation Fides non est nisi verbi divini auctoritate nitatur that is not faith which is not bottomed on the authority of the divine word Oh rare if this were believed what would become of Popery What of all the hay and stubble of their vain Traditions Why do they play the wily Gibeonites with their old bottles and clowted shoes obtruding their unwritten verities and mouldy customs upon the Church of God I can be assured of no Religion which is not founded on Scripture But for answer The certainty of the Doctrine of Faith which respects the whole Church is to be found in the Scripture but the certainty of an act of Faith which is in a particular man is to be found in the heart by spiritual sense and experience and so in Bellarmines minor the certainty of my turning to God stands not upon the word but upon spiritual sense and experience yet nevertheless the conclusion which imports assurance is de fide for every conclusion is so which stands upon one proposition contained in Scripture and upon another gathered from sense or experience as the case is in all such practical Syllogisms yet withall as I said at first the
conclusion doth not stand so entirely on Scripture as a direct act of faith doth Seventhly Faith is more purely faith then assurance is In faith we look off from our selves thus the Apostle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 looking off from our selves unto Jesus Christ Hebr. 12.2 but in assurance we look into our selves by reflecting on our own estate Whilest faith goes out of self and hangs upon free-grace in one promise or other assurance is at home telling over its riches and faring delitiously every day in the love of God in faith there is nothing but meer dependance but in assurance there is a mixture of sense If a poor man in his rags and extremities leave himself upon God for daily bread as having nothing and yet possessing all things in the promise his faith is more purely faith then the rich mans is who hath creature-comforts flowing about him and running in at every sense If one poor in spirit in the midst of his wants and spiritual necessitles cast himself upon free-grace it is more meer faith then for one to sit under assurance with pots of Manna and spiritual flagons round about him When Jacob heard the report of a living Joseph and put himself upon the chariots sent for him it was nothing but meer belief but when he saw Josephs face his eyes were witnesses of the thing when a man that walketh in darkness and seeth no light will yet hang on the report of a Jesus and put himself upon the chariot of the promises it is nothing else but pure faith but when he comes to see the light of Gods face and in it a piece of the heavenly vision it is not all faith but faith and sight together Thus far of the second proposition that faith is less then assurance In which phrase I intend not a comparison between them in point of dignity but only that pretious faith such as is the condition of the Gospel may really be where the garland of assurance is not superadded as a King is really a King before his Coronation so faith is really faith before it be crowned with the sense of Gods love These two propositions made good I come at last to gather up my first reason Faith is more then a naked assent to the Gospel and less then an assurance of love and pardon from God therefore it must needs be some middle thing between both such as resignation is Let us put another practical Syllogism Whosoever believeth shall be saved But I believe Ergo I shall be saved the major proposition is the object of assent the conclusion is an act of assurance but the minor or middle proposition is an act of faith or resignation Resignation includes assent and which is more it yields up the soul to the terms of the Gospel but it doth not immediately arrive at assurance as it was with Jacob when he heard his mothers counsel touching the blessing between his assent to the counsel and his audible hearing the blessing pronounced on him there was a putting on the garments of his elder brother so it is with the believer when his heavenly Father offers him the Evangelical blessing between his assent and his assurance of the blessing there is a putting on the robe of Christs rightcousness a meer assentor hath as it were but the sight of his eyes in looking on the rich treasures of the Gospel a young believer hath a real title thereunto and a man of assmance over and above his title is able to bring his evidences and read them to his comfort Secondly That faith consists in resignation will appear from the way which God uses in the working of faith God works it in a way of perswasion God shall perswade Japheth and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem Gen. 9.27 that is in the Church of God where the true Shem the name of Godis When God comes with his Almighty Oratory and speaks to the heart perswading dwell not O man any lorger at home in thy will or righteousness come into Shem into my Name into my mercy by a true recumbence into my holiness by a cordial obedientialness and by the sweet strains of free-grace the man is charmed into a surrender of himself unto the Divine call then there is saith indeed Hence believers in Scripture are called perswaded ones And some of them believed Act. 17.4 in the Original it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And some of them were perswaded and on the contrary unbelievers are called the unperswadeable ones ver 5. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 such as will not suffer themselves to be perswaded Faith is called perswasion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a yielding to the true Suada the spirit and wisdom of God none ever spake or taught like him and unbelief is called an unperswadethleness or contumacy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it contradicts and blasphemes at the sweet compellations of free-grace if not outwardly as those wretches Act. 18. 6. yet inwardly for it gives God the lye 1 Joh. 5.10 Again God works it in the evidence and demonstration of the spirit thus the Apostle saith His preaching was in the demonstration of the spirit and power 1 Cor. 2.4 and then as a sweet fruit thereof follows faith standing in the power of God in the very next verse when the spirit comes in its divine Logick and demonstratively points out this is the true Jesus that is the very Gospel and here is the only way of salvation and the pure light and evidence presses in so far upon the man that like one under a clear demonstration he is out-reasoned and cannot say nay to it but yields and delivers up himself to the Gospel to be moulded and cast into the holy figure thereof then there is true faith wrought in him Hence faith is sometimes set out by silence in Scripture truly my soul waiteth on God Psal 62.1 or as it is in the Hebrew my soul is silent to God when the truth comes in the clear evidence and demonstration of the spirit the soul is silent let God say what he will the soul contradicts not but keeps an holy silence scaling and subscribing to the truth and goodness of God in every thing Moreover God works it in the power of spiritual arms casting down strong holds and captivating thoughts to the obedience of Christ 2 Cor. 10.4 5. when God comes to the heart which naturally is as a strong City full of forts and towers of pride and by unbelief barred and fast locked up against all holy truths and layes a close spiritual siege to it and shuts it up under sin and wrath and makes inward batteries upon the forts and towers thereof and the trumpet of the word sounds louder and louder in conscience till the cursed walls fall down and the everlasting gates be opened to the Lord of glory and the heart surrender up it self with all its thoughts as a willing prisoner to those Gospel-truths which before it
the presentiality of all these Job looks through the worms and dust upon a resurrection my Redeemer liveth saith he Job 19.25 though I dye my Redeemer liveth and will fetch me up again if there were an Engine made which could pull away all the intermediate bodies between us and the heaven of heavens we might look into Paradise faith doth the same thing spiritually it puts by the world and time and lies at the door of heaven and eternity Thus the Apostle we look not at the things temporal but at the eternal 2 Cor. 4.18 he puts by all temporal things which as the lower heavens hold back the face of Gods throne and so he looks into eternity There is a story of an Oxford Monk who by his skill in Magick conveyed himself into the Northern Regions and there took a view of the Pole the believer by the art of faith doth much more in conveying himself out of this world and taking a view of eternity in the promises he sees heaven opening and letting down some sparkles of glory in the threatnings he sees hell flaming and some of the fire unquenchable breaking out heaven and hell are no longer notions but sensations in the raptures and joyes of faith he hath been caught up into Paradise and there drunk of the wine of Angels in convictions and deep humiliations he hath been as it were at Gods barr and hanging over the bottomless pit As to seeming contradictions the believer hath a rare dexterity to enucleate them Touching which I shall give some instances God commanded Abraham offer up thy son thine only son Isaac to offer up a son was a seeming contradiction to nature to offer up an Isaac a son of promise was a seeming contradiction to Gods truth who before had said in Isaac shall thy seed be called but faith unlocks all these difficulties God is able to raise him up from the dead saith Abraham and from thence he received him in a figure Heb. 11.19 a parallel to this we may find in all true believers the children of Abraham God calls upon them mortifie the deeds of the body and ye shall live mortifie and live is a seeming contradiction to offer up our only ones our wills our loves our joys to be slain looks like a piece of unnaturalness but what saith faith it is no such matter offer up your only ones your wills your loves your joys unto God and you shall receive them again from the dead raised up in the incorruption of the new-creature that which was sown a natural will natural love and natural joy shall be raised up a spiritual will spiritual love and spiritual joy your souls before dead in sins shall have the life of God in them this is the first resurrection such things as these nature laughs at as strange paradoxes but faith embraces as rare mysteries Again Christ saith take my yoke upon you for my yoke is easie and my burden is light Math. 11.29 30. what is Christs yoke but the Commandements and are these portable by any meer man so say the Romanists from this very place but the mistake is so gross that the communis sensus of Christians runs against it faith can unriddle it another way the impossibles of the Law the sinless perfection unattainable by us were fulfilled by Christ the heavy end of the Law the dreadful curse unavoidable by us was born by Christ the Covenant of grace is satisfied with uprightness in the wayes of God which is easie to a renewed man its true while there is only the pressure of a Law without and nothing but a natural heart of enmity within the wayes of God are irksom and tedious which occasioned a Divine to say that a man might take a carnal man tye him to a table and kill him with praying and preaching but it is far otherwise with the believer who serves God not in the oldness of the letter but in the newness of the spirit who hath a Law within answering to the Law without and a spirit within prompting the same in the heart which the spirit in the command doth outwardly dictate Prayer is but the breathing of the new-creature holy desires its pulse holiness its element obedience its common walk alms but the opening of its hands contemplation but the lifting up of its eyes all natural and easie because from inward principles of life and grace My yoke is easie is durus sermo an hard saying to every man but to the believer who does all sweetly and in the easiness of the new-creature Moreover to give another instance work out your salvation with fear and trembling for it is God who worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure saith the Apostle Phil. 2.12 13. what strange language is here work and yet God worketh all and all of his meer pleasure how can these things be if God work all there seems to be no place left for virtue or vice rewards or punishments because man can do nothing of himself O what sweats have Learned brains been thrown into whilest they have laboured to tune free-grace and free-will into harmony what craggy thorny Volumes of meer speculation have they put forth de concordiâ liberi arbitrii gratiae and after all is done the believer understands it best of any man his life of faith is a plain practical solution thereof for he acts and moves but under the first Agent and Mover he works but under the Master-workman he is free but under the free-making spirit he spreads his sails and withall looks up for the holy gales he labours and sows precious seed and at the same time waits for the spiritual dews and sun-beams he hath graces in him but layes all under that spirit that created them that that spirit may touch upon his charity and draw out his soul in alms and touch upon his devotion and pour out his soul in prayer and touch upon every grace and make the spices thereof flow out still he waits for the touches of the spirit Moral virtues like the fabled cymbal of St. Telian may seem to ring alone by their own self-power and self-confidence but spiritual graces like Davids harp must be awakened by divine influences as it was in Christ on earth the Humanity alwayes ministred to the Divinity so it is with the believer so far as his faith acts all his faculties and graccs are but as it were so many gardens aery rooms and working-houses for the holy spirit to walk breath and work its pleasure in Hence the believer is said in Scripture to walk in the spirit pray in the spirit live in the spirit doing all under the conduct thereof after some such sort as this doth the believer work out his salvation with fear and trembling in a way of humility and holy dependance upon God who worketh to will and to do of his own good pleasure We have an eminent instance of this in holy David see how he hangs
it is great Psal 25.11 a strange argument for pardon for it is great such as no malefactor would use to an earthly Prince but the holy man knows that it will pass with God who loves to make grace superabound there where sin hath abounded Again he extracts hope out of despair When he is ready to faint and swoon away in cold fits of spiritual deadness faith revives and points him to the fountain of life which runs over in quickning graces upon the whole Church and if he scruple his access to that fountain faith tells him that the Well is open to all comers whosoever will may take of the water of life freely whosoever hath the bucket of faith may draw out of it and if he yet reply true whosoever will may do so but oh I want a will I want an heart for God and Christ and heavenly things faith is able if awakened both to tell him that these are living groans and withall to drop some Scripture cordial into his heart such as that is Prov. 9. where Christ the wisdom of God builds his house the Church kills his beasts mingles his wine furnishes his table that is provides all heavenly blessings sends out his virgins his holy ministers and after all invites the simple and him that wanteth understanding to eat of his bread and drink of his wine in the Original it is him that wanteth heart Oh! if thou sensibly wantest an heart for spiritual things here thou art particularly called to the Gospel seast where Christs flesh is meat indeed and his blood wine indeed able to make thee live for ever Again he extracts joy out of sorrow The Apostle Paul rejoyced over the godly sorrow of the Corinthians because they received no damage in it 2 Cor. 7.9 when faith looks over all the tears and groans of the believer it saith there is no damage in these these tears are bottled in heaven the holy spirit breaths in those groans he that goeth forth and weepeth bearing precious seed shall doubtless come again with rejoycing bringing his sheaves with him Psal 126.6 Oh! saith faith observe the word doubtless tears and sorrows in a godly sort are a sure sign that the harvest of joy and comfort is nigh at hand one may see the crop in the seed sown When the Emperor Julian banished Athanasius he said Nubecula est citò transibit it is but a little cloud and will soon be over when the night of darkness and discomfort is upon the soul faith is able to say 't is but a short night of sorrow joyes come in the morning Psal 30.5 and for that morning I will trust the sun of righteousness O how soon can he make it day in the soul Moreover he extracts wisdome out of folly There is not there cannot be any thing in all the world so foolish as sin and yet out of this he picks up wisdom hereby he comes to know more of his own heart There is a Mahometan fable that the heart of Mahomet being a child was cut open and a black grain called the devils portion taken out of the midst thereof A believers sins make rents and holes in his heart and through these the inward core and blackness thereof becomes visible Good Hezekiah by his fall comes to know what was in his heart Peter denying his Master comes to understand the desperate deceitfulness of his own heart which cheated him against his own resolutions into so horrible an iniquity every actual sin is to the believer a sad Commentary on his inward corruption Again hereby he comes to understand free-grace better then before that God should melt as man hardens heal as man falls and bruises himself afiesh drop pardons as man doth sins return the holy spirit as man grieves it away lengthen out patience as man abuses it use lavers as fast as man runs into pollutions evidently argues riches of immense superabounding grace towards sinners Moreover hereby he comes to know the necessity of a continual dependance on God considering the heats and colds of his heart the ups and downs of his life and the interchangeable actings of Hetis and spirit he plainly perceives that he falls of himself and stands from God dies of his own spirit and lives from Gods sins of his own and repents believes obeyes of meer grace and so understands the necessity of depending on God praying continually with the devout Psalmist Hold up my gomgs in thy paths that my footsteps slip not Psal 17.5 Lastly to name no more he extracts all out of nothing Thus the Apostle as having nothing and yet possessing all things 2 Cor. 6.10 all things in God who is all in all Zuichemus gave Erasmus a ring which when it was unfolded represented a mundane sphear with Astrological notes engraven upon it telling him withall that now he might wear the whole world on his finger the conjugal ring whereby the soul is married to God in Christ by faith hath this posie I will be thy God which if it be unfolded is a sphear of all things the believer need not ask with Peter what shall we have Math. 19.27 for he hath all in God It is storied of the Laudanum of Paracelsus that it was almost good in all cases but however that might fail faith well understands that all things may be made out of an interest in God the universal good hence it can rationally part with all for him because it knows that there be fathers and mothers and brothers and sisters and children and houses and lands and infinitely more in God CHAP. VII Of the second holy fruit of Faith in Justification its growth upon Faith as a fruit thereof with the manner continuance perfection and various excellencies of the same THUS much for the first fruit of faith being the spiritual sagacities thereof whereby it appears that the believer is the only wise man who hath eyes in his head whilest all the rest of the world be they what they will in notional knowledge walk on in darkness The second holy fruit of faith is Justification which is a very great blessing so great that in Luthers phrase it is articulus stantis cadentis Ecclesiae and in Chemnitius arx propugnaculum religionis Christianae a blessing that is pregnant with many more which occasioned a good Divine to say sin committed is every judgment radically and pardon of sin is every mercy radically you may cut out any blessing or comfort out of it particular mercies are but pardon of sin specificated and individuated brought into this or that mercy of all blessings you may say this is pardon of sin and that is pardon of sin Touching this precious fruit of faith I shall endeavour to shew these things First That it grows upon faith as a fruit Secondly The manner how it grows there Thirdly The continuance of it Fourthly The perfection of it Fifthly The various excellencies of it First This holy fruit grows upon faith in the
his grace through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ Rom 3.24 The Believer is as I may say a part or portion of Christ wrapped up in his Righteousness and washed in his Blood an Object all-fair and lovely in the eyes of God and accepted in the Beloved Thirdly Justification relates to the Law which is norma judicii the rule of Judgment A Believer hath wherewithal to answer both Laws as to the law of Works he hath Christs Righteousness answering the demands of it as to the law of Grace he hath Faith answering the terms of it Do this and live is answered by Christs Righteousness Believe and be saved is answered by Faith Christus est impletio legis spiritus est impletio Evangelii Christ by his pure Obedience fulfilled the Law the Spirit by working Faith fulfils the Gospel If the Believer be charged before God that he is a finner he can plead the Righteousness of Christ as a full discharge to the Law If he be charged that he is an Unbeliever he can plead his faith as the condition of the Gospel If he be further charged that his very Faith is imperfect he can again plead the Righteousness of Christ against those imperfections His imperfect Faith intitles him to the perfect Righteousness of Christ and that perfect righteousness removes the imperfections of his saith Oh! happy Believer whom God himself may search once and again by either Law and find nothing of condemnation in him If the Law come to him it finds Christ the end and perfection of all holiness there If the Gospel come it finds Faith it s own demand and condition there wherefore less than righteous he cannot be Thus much touching the first thing that this holy fruit grows upon Faith Secondly The next thing is the manner how it grows there How we are said to be justified by Faith unto which I shall Answer first Negatively and then Affirmatively First Negatively Faith doth not justifie by its own intrinsecal value and and dignity There is nothing in it commensurate to so great a blessing nothing in it to measure with the pure Law nothing in it to pay off divine Justice nothing in it to weigh against the guilt of Sin nothing in it to purchase the favour of God nothing in it to cover a Soul withal no nor the nakedness of its own imperfections It is a poor self-emptying self-annihilating thing which lives upon Alms and goes up and down in the Gospel from one door of the Promises to another to beg a Spiritual livelyhood all that it hath is in a way of Receiving It receives the atonement receives the gift of righteousness receives the spirit of Grace receives remission of sins but gives none of them out of its own Hence it is well observed by Divines that the Scripture never saith Faith justifieth in an active sense but alwaies we are justified by Faith in a passive sense because it receives all from Christ This humble Grace whose posture is to fall down and worship before the thrones of Free-grace and of the Lamb will not turn Free-grace off the throne nor like Zimri slay its Master Jesus Christ in his merits and imputed righteousness that it may reign in his room Again Faith doth not justifie as coming in the room of that perfect righteousness which we owe unto the Law for God is true and judgeth according to truth he doth not cannot do as the unjust Steward who for an hundred measures of oil bid write fifty but he accounts of things as they are Faith which is but a piece of righteousness and that very imperfect will not go with him for a compleat universal righteousness but only for what it is neither will it salve the matter to say as the Socinians use to do That Faith though it be not in it self a perfect righteousness is yet reckoned as such per gratiosam Dei acceptilationem by the condescending grace of God for in God in whom there is perfect Unity one Attribute doth not interfere with another Free-grace will not justle out truth by accepting a partial righteousness for a total which indeed it is not neither doth a divine Attribute ever clash against its own design Free-grace will not so accept faith as to frustrate its own design in the Mediatour Jesus Christ which as appears in Scripture was that Christ should be made our righteousness 1 Cor. 1.30 that we might be the righteousness of God in him 2 Cor. 5.21 that his blood may cleanse us from all sin 1 Joh. 1.7 that his obedience might make many righteous Kom 5.19 but what need all this if Faith be accepted for a compleat righteousness what room for Christs righteousness as long as Faiths will suffice You will say perhaps that Christ by his merits hath purchased this of God that faith should be accepted for a perfect righteousness but if that be so then Christ died not properly for Persons but for Graces Christs righteousness was not to cloath poor souls in but to advance faith above it self Faith is become our immediate material righteousness and Christ only a remote cause of it The Lord Christ walks a foot as a meer servant to Faith and the servant Faith rides in his Masters robes as if it were the very matter of our righteousness all which is to subvert the Gospel True Faith will confess as John did I am not the Christ I never was crucified for you I never fulfilled all righteousnes for you I am but the Eccho to the Gospel-grace I do but prepare a way in the heart for Christ and his righteousness to receive all praise and glory there Secondly Affirmatively And here Divines generally express themselves thus That we are justified by faith as an instrument receiving Christ and his righteousness Thus Reverend Calvin calls faith Just 1.3 cap. 11. Instrumentum justitiae percipiendae The instrument of receiving the righteousness of Christ offered in the Gospel Exam. Conc. Trident 163. Chemnitius stiles it Manus nostra quâ recipimus ea quae in Evangelio offeruntur Our hand whereby we take the alms offered in the Promise Musculus calls it Loci Com. de Justificut Medium quo gratiam justificationis in Christo apprehendimus a Medium by which we lay hold on the grace of Justification in Christ Faith is the eye which looks up to the Mercy-seat the hand which puts on the robe of Christs obedience the ring which hath the Pearl of infinite price in it Hence we are said in Scripture to be justified by faith and through faith as it is the means whereby we receive Christ and his righteousness And a late Divine speaks of a double instrument in Justification on Gods part the Gospel is an instrument and on mans Faith the Gospel is manus offerentis the hand offering and Faith manus accipientis the hand receiving Christ and his righteousness And before him Calvin hath this passage Comment on Rom. ch 3. Vt
justificemur causa efficiens est misericordia Dei Christus materia verbum cum side instrumentum In Justification the efficient cause is Gods mercy Christ the matter the Word with Faith the instrument Thus the generality of Divines conclude that we are justified by faith as an instrument nevertheless some others express themselves thus That we are justified by faith as 〈◊〉 condition of the Gospel Thus the profestors of Saumiar in France Fide justificamu non tanquam parte aliquâ justitiae Thes Salm. de Justif sed tanquam conditione foederis gratiae We are justified by faith not as it is a part of righteousness but as it is the condition of the Covenant of Grace Thus Learned Mr. Woodbridge Method of Grace 101. To believe is a formal vital act of the Soul in genere physico but the use of it in justification is to qualifie us passively that we may be morally and orderly capable of being justified by God Or though physically it be an act yet morally it is but a passive condition by which we are made capable of being justified according to the order and constitution of God Thus worthy Mr. Baxter Right to Christ and life being a moral effect Confess of faith 295. and conveyed by a moral cause and way that is by a law of Grace or conditional promise or gift therefore the formal reason of faiths interest in our justification is as it is the condition of that promise by us performed and its essence or physical act the acceptance of Christ and Life commonly called its instrumentality though it be the reason why it was chosen and preferred to this office of being the condition of the promise yet is it but its aptitude to the office and so the remote and as it were material reason of its interest in our justification and not the formal Reason Touching this matter I shall offer my thoughts in these Propositions First Faith is not strictly and properly the instrument of Justification were it so a man might justifie and forgive himself For as Dr. Ames well observes as Sacraments are properly Gods instruments Bellarm. Enter Tom. 4. lib. 5. so Faith is properly mans Deus nos baptizat pascit non nosmetipsi nos credimus in Christum non Deus God baptizes and feeds us not we our selves we believe in Christ not God If then Faith which is properly mans instrument be properly the instrument of Justification a Believer doth no less than justifie himself which is harsh doctrine to me Again When we are said to be justified by Faith I suppose the Scripture doth not intend the transient act but the permanent habit and if so I cannot conceive how that can be properly strictly an Instrument Instrumenti causalitas est in usu applicatione when it is not in use and act it ceases to be an instrument The habit of faith is an habit still even when its act ceases but when its act ceases what hath it of instrumentality Secondly Faith though not properly may yet in some sense be called an Instrument because it hath a peculiar aptitude and receptivity to accept of the free-gift made in the Gospel Hence we are said by it to receive Jesus Christ Col. 2.6 to receive the atonement Rom. 5.11 to receive the gift of righteousness Rom. 5.17 to receive forgiveness of sins Acts 26.18 It hath a choice capacity to take in Christ with all his benefits Thirdly The proper formal reason why we are justified by Faith is because it is the condition of the Gospel on which God the Great Donor gives out Christ with all his blessings We are not justified by faith as for any reason intrinsecal or in the nature of it but as it doth inright and instate us into Christ and his righteousness and how is that done the old Law-rule must be remembred Voluntas donatoris observetur the Donors Will is the best guide and what is that in this case Clearly in the Gospel Christ and his righteousness are given upon the condition of faith Bellarmine asserting that it did not please God to give justification upon the condition of faith alone Dr. Ames answers him Bell. Everum Tom. 4. lib. 5. Vel maximè placuit boc Deo It pleased him altogether We must take as God gives God in the great charter gives out Christ and his righteousness upon the condition of faith Faith therefore instates and inrights us into these as it is the condition of that grant And by consequence we are justified by it as such as when a Prince grants a pardon upon condition the Traitor take it from him with his own hands his taking it gives impunity not because of the organical apprehensiveness in the hand but because it is the modus donationis the pardon runs upon those terms So when God grants justification upon condition of believing we are justified by faith not because of its intrinsecal receptivity or apprehensiveness but because that faith which stands in the Gospel as the condition of justification is found in the heart Thus much touching the manner how this holy fruit grows upon Faith Thirdly The next thing considerable is the continuance of this holy fruit Justification is a flower of Paradice which never dies once justified and ever justified The righteousness of God which is put upon the Believer is never taken off again The pardon which is sealed in the Court of heaven is never reversed The cloud of Guiltiness once scattered never gathers together The sins cast into the depth of Sea never come up more Camb. Eliz p. 384. When the Jesuite Chreicion taken at Sea tore and threw over-board certain papers of dangerous consequence the torn pieces were by the wind blown back again into the Ship and afterwards artificially put together discovered the Popish design then on foot but when God casts our sins into the depth of the Sea all the breath of the infernal Spirits can never blow them up again they shall be remembred no more All things in Justification concur to make this good Free-grace which is the first mover in it is a fountain ever flowing and a Sun which knows no going down The Righteousness of Christ which is the matter of it is a robe which can never wear out The Gospel which is the Charter of it is a grant never out of date Faith which is the Medium to it will under the divine influences stirring up the nest of gracious principles bud and blossom forth in fresh acts and when the acts cease it abides in the root kept alive by the eternal Spirit breathed from the endless life of Merit in Christ All which make the righteous man an everlasting foundation only here is a Quaere to be resolved Do not Believers fall into sin and doth not sin make a breach upon Justification and if so how doth it continue I Answer The sins of Believers are either sins of meer infirmity and daily incursion or sins
Soul by Faith doth by little and little work out and extirpate Sin as the day breaks upon the Heart darkness goes off as Holiness flows in Corruption departs the more of Heaven is there the less of Earth Thirdly Faith discovers the great evil of Original Sin and so raises up an hatred against it and hatred is a murderer and would if it could annihilate its opposite Faith shews it to be an All-evil a Mother of abominations Some particular Sins are such monsters in Morality that when viewed only in the light of Nature they appear very odious such was the cruelty of Nero Effeminacy of Sardanapalus and the like much more odious when inspected by the light of Faith must that appear which is All-sin in one a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or universal Seminary of iniquity Anthony holding Caesars bloody Coat up to the People moved them against the Conspirators Faith holding up the Murders Adulteries Blasphemies Villanies in the World unto the Believers eyes stirs his Heart against the venemous root of all these Faith shews it to be an universal evil all over the Soul breaking forth like the boyls of Egypt upon man and upon beast upon the intellective and sensitive faculties and all over the Believers duties lying as the locusts there upon every herb and green thing upon the verdure and glory of every good work it is a blemish in the Believers eye a plague in his Heart an ataxy in his Affections a damp on his Prayers a cooler to his Charity and Zeal and a dead fly in all the precious Oyntment of his duties and good works Faith shews it to be an utter enemy to God Antichrist-like opposing every appearance of him in the Heart quenching every good motion trampling on every holy beam slighting at the two great periods of Mankind Heaven and Hell and jeering at that holiness and iniquity which lead thither Faith shews it to be an evil always present the Believer shakes himself and it adhers flys and it encompasses mortifies and it lives prays weeps sweats and fights and yet the Canaanite is in the land like a living man chained to a dead he carries about his own loathsomness a body of death all his days this cleaves to him as the blackness to the Ethiopian and as the fretting spreading Leprofie to the house after all his washing and scraping of himself it will yet be in him till death dissolve him into dust Such representations as these made by Faith fill the Believer with shame and self-abhorrency and raise up in him an irreconcileable hatred against it Fourthly Faith so far as it is acted though it make not a total riddance of it doth yet imprison it that it cannot go at large and riot in scandalous Sins No nor steal out in an evil thought but it will be arrested in its passage to the Will for a consent as it was Gods caution beware that there be not a thought in thy Belial-heart against Charity Deut. 15.9 So it is Faiths endeavour to stop corruption even in a thought the flesh is still a lusting and would have one piece of forbidden fruit or other in its mouth but Faith opposes and would if it could leave nothing of it to breath in the Believer This is that the Scripture calls The crucifying of the old man Faith arraigns the old man as the Arch-malefactor in the World condemns him as worthy to die strips him of his veils and false coverings and by holy restraints nails him to the Cross that unless in a slumber of Faith he cannot move or stir himself but dies away by little and little As the light of Nature being imprisoned in unrighteousness as the Apostle speaks Rom. 1.18 is every day exhausted and weakned so the corruption of Nature being thus restrained by Faith gradually loses its life and vigor Martinus Polonus tels of a terrible Dragon at Rome who killed many daily with his poysonous breath but was at last shut up with Brasen gates through the Prayers of Sylvester Bishop there Were this Fable true Faith doth a nobler work in restraining the inward Serpent of corruption whose deadly poyson hath spread it self over all Men and is eternally fatal to all but Believers To conclude In all this Faith applies it self to a Crucified Christ from thence it fetches its pattern As the pure flesh of Christ upon which as an expiatory Sacrifice the Sin of the World was laid suffered on the Cross so the corrupt flesh of Man unto which as the universal Seminary the Sin of the World may be justly imputed must suffer also Hence Saint Peter 1 Pet. 4.1 From the suffering of Christ in the flesh exhorts Believers to suffer in their corrupt flesh ceasing from Sin and from thence it derives a spirit for the work Christ offered himself through the eternal Spirit on the Cross and the Believer through the Spirit of Christ offers up his corrupt self to be crucified Hence St. Paul Rom. 6.6 saith Our old man is crucified with him that is by a secret virtue drawn from his Cross Thus far of this Fundamental Mortification I now come to particular Sins which are but the foul issues of Original breaking forth in this or that as temper education place custom or other accidents give vent thereunto these also doth Faith mortifie and that in some such way as this First Faith doth restrain the outward acts of Sin there may be many restraints in which yet there is nothing of Mortification one Sin may restrain another Vitia inter se contraria pugnant in which case Satan casts out Satan a predominant lust its opposite The fiery Law with its threats may meet a man in his perverse way as the Angel with his drawn Sword did Balaam and turn him back from committing the act nevertheless the unchanged Heart hankers and inwardly mourns after it as Phaltiel did after Michal when she was forced away from him and which is a better restraint because meerly from an in ward principle Moral Virtue may hold him back from it as it did Abimelech from Sarah yet this restraint is but partial only from outward Sins of shame and withal selfish aiming at no higher thing than repute and self-excellency But Faith restrains upon higher and nobler Motives speaking to the temptation as Joseph to his Mistress How can I do this great wickedness and sin against God May I break his Law which is more than the Interdicts of all the Princes and Potentates of the World or stain his glory which is more precious than the light of the Sun Moon and Stars or trample on that precious Blood which paid my ransom from Hell and Death or grieve away that Spirit which is the life of all my Graces and Comforts or pollute this Heart which may be a Temple or Tabernacle for the Holy One to dwell in or run my self again into the pangs of the New Birth and forget the wormwood and gall of my old Sins and eclypse the light
able to drive out Corruption especially when that Grace is acted which besides its purifying strengthening nature in common with other Graces is contrary to the Sin which is to be mortified and so proper and apt to expel it as one contrary doth another Hence Daniel counsels Nebuchadnezzar to break off his sins by righteousness and mercy Dan. 4.27 his Sins being Oppression and Cruelty nothing was apter than Righteousness Mercy to break them off And our Saviour when his Disciples were fainting in the storm calls for their Faith And when aspiring after the Primacy sets a little child before them as an emblem of Humility Dying Sardis he puts upon strengthening the things which remain and Nentral Laodicea upon Zeal to give her a fresh warmth in Religion Still the advice runs upon the contrary Grace the more that is actuated the more it roots and spreads in the Soul and the less room and place is left there for the contrary Sin Which I suppose was the reason why the Presbyter Sulpitius Severus being guilty of too much Loquacity ever after kept silence Spondan Annal. Vt peccatum quod loquendo contraxerat tacendo emendaret as the Historian expresses it 'T is a Precept of the Philosophers Arist Eth. lib. 2. c. 9. To observe what Vice we are most propense to and then to bend our selves to the contrary extream that we might come to the Virtue in the middle Faith though it dares not touch upon one contrary Sin to cure another would cast them both out by acting the contrary Grace Lastly Faith mortifies Sin in a way of dependence upon the Power and Spirit of God in and through Jesus Christ In the Covenant of Works in which there was no Mediator Man stood on his own bottom and had all his stock in his own hands But in the Covenant of Grace the Believer stands in the Power of God and though he have a little Grace in himself the main stock is above in a surer hand his life is hid with Christ in God there 's the great treasure out of which Faith fetches supplies of the Spirit for every good work hence in Scripture he is said To love live pray walk mortifie in the spirit If ye through the spirit do mortifie the deeds of the body ye shall live Rom. 8.13 He saith through the Spirit because there is no other way of mortifying Sin he that goes about this work in his own Power is but in a dream he knows nothing of the life of Faith as appears by that Antithesis which the Prophet makes between the Soul lifted up and the life of Faith Hab. 2.4 Such an one holds not the head Jesus Christ no more than the worshippers of Angels spoken of Col. 2.18 19. Whatever he may do theoretically he doth it not practically whilest his fleshly mind presumes that he can move about such a work though the Head in Heaven stir not his Mortification must needs be weak and powerless because without Christ the wisdom and power of God he goes out against his lusts as Samson did against the Philistines with his hair off or as the Israelites did against the Canaanites when the Lord was not among them Numb 14.32 instead of success he meets with that curse and blast which lights upon all Christlless persons and actions The most charitable Prayer that can be made for him is that of the Psalmist Fill their faces with shame that they may seek thy name O Lord Psal 83.16 St. Austin long struggled in his own strength against his Corruptions and all in vain at last a voice told him In te stas non stas Thou fallest O Austin by standing in thy self True Faith goes about this work in the Power and Spirit of Christ as under the Old Testament when Faith subdued outward Kingdoms as the Apostle speaks Heb. 11.33 it was by the Spirit the Spirit clothed upon Gideon and he smote a mighty Host of Midianites The Spirit came upon Samson and he slew heaps upon heaps of the Philistines So under the New when Faith subdues the inward Kingdom of Sin it is by the Spirit strengthening the Believer to overcome it the reign of Sin is broken because he is under Grace Here we see how old strong customary Sins such as are a second nature in Men come to be subdued it would be an hard nay almost impossible thing for a Moralist to unravel such a Sin meerly by contrary acts and those acts done by his own power and that power emasculated by a long tract of Sin But Faith draws down an Almighty Power and Spirit to the work that hyperbole of Power which raised up Christ from the dead is towards the Believer Ephes 1.19 That Spirit of life which is in Christ makes him free from the law of sin and death Rom. 8.2 The bands of Sin can no more hold him than those of Death could Christ when the glory of the Father came to raise him up In doing this great work Faith goes by these steps first Faith lays down this as a foundation That there is Power enough in God to subdue Sin or else he should not be an Infinite God and that Sin is capable of being subdued or else it would be an Infinite Monster That Power which can dry up the Sea or shake the Earth out of her place or raise up the Dead out of the dust or annihilate the World in a moment must be able to subdue Sin In the Prophet it is but the turn of his hand I will turn my hand upon thee and purely purge away they dross saith God Isa 1.25 And which comes nearer to us Faith is sure that this Power doth not stand off at a distance in the unapproachable Deity but is made over to Christ coming in the flesh He was anointed with the Holy Ghost and Power The fulness of the Godhead dwelt in him bodily And going up to Heaven he sate down at the right hand of Power all things being put under his feet And which yet is nearer this Power is made over to Christ as trustee and treaurer for his Church his Unction is to run down upon all Believers The fulness of the Godhead dwelt in him that they might be filled with it He sits at the right hand of Power that his enemies among which Sin is a chief one may be made his footstool All things are put under him that he might be Head over all to the Church letting down his vital influences and motions to it his great design is to make an end of Sin and to dissolve the works of the Devil And now nothing remains to draw down this Power to the Believer but the acting of Faith as Faith goes up Power comes down all things are possible to the Believer he can do all through Christ strengthening him It is but to look and be saved believe and be established wait and renew strength hand upon Jesus Christ and he who was Immanuel God
with us in his Incarnation will be Immanuel God with us in such sufficient Grace as shall give us the victory over Sin the success is as sure as the Spirit and Power of God can make it When Christ was on Earth never any one came to him for bodily Cure with a Faith that he was able to do it but it was done for him Now that he is in Heaven at the right hand of Power such as go in Faith for Spiritual Cures cannot miscarry What though the bloody issue of Sin have been long a-running a touch upon Christ will heal What if thou hast lay'n rotting in thy Corruptions many years believe and thou shalt see the glory of God raising thee up a dependence on the Power and Spirit of Christ cannot fail of a victory over Sin So vast is the difference between the state of Adam in Innocency and the state of Believers in Christ in him one Sin drove out a great stock of pure immaculate Grace in a moment in them a little spark of Grace drives out a world of Sin because their Grace which Adams did not depends on the Power and Spirit of Christ for the victory This is a most noble and purely Evangelical act of Faith in which Man is abased in a continual dependence and God exalted in a continual supply of Grace However some Divines falsly so called have laughed at the dependence of Faith as an idle lolling upon Christ it is yet the only way in which the Spirit and Power of God communicates to our necessities and does far more in the Christians life than any thing else Only we must remember that this dependence is in the use of means the Believer hears reads meditates prays works and in all depends upon the Spirit to render them effectual CHAP. X. Of Spiritual Vivification the second Part. Of Sanctification the influence of Faith therein THus far of Mortification as a fruit of Faith I now proceed to Vivification being the other part of Sanctification In which the holy Spirit comes down with its Divine Graces into the Soul and quickens it to a Spiritual Life These Graces may be considered eitheir in their production into being or in their actual exercise and both ways they are fruits of Faith As to their production into being Divines differ about the order some Divines as Mr. Pemble conceive That all Graces are infused at once coming into us as light doth into the air or as the Soul did into the body of Lazarus not piece-meal or by degrees but all at once and together Other set down this order Vocation which worketh Faith and Repentance is in order of nature before Justification and Justification before Sanctification Bishop Downham distinguishes between our Spiritual conception of the incorruptible seed and our new-birth in which Christ is formed in us in all his Graces the former is done in our Vocation and the latter in our Sanctification I conceive that Faith at least in order of Nature is first and then all other Graces follow upon it The Ancient Fathers as Bishop Downham hath observed speak to the same purpose In Clemens Alexandrinus Faith is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the first inclination to Salvation In the so-called Ignatius Epistles it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the beginning of life as it were the Punctum Saliens in the New Creature in which the first motion and course of Spiritual life begins Vita sancta à fide sumit initium saith Fulgentius And Fides prima datur ex quá extera impotrantur saith St. Augustine All other Graces are the fruits of Faith not as if Faith did produce them radically or fontally out of it self or its own virtue but that it unites to Christ and so derives the Spirit with its Graces unto the Believer That Faith is at least in nature before other Graces will appear very probable upon divers Congruities First It is congruous to the Majesty of God He acts like himself dispences Grace to the Creature in its lowest posture of resignation Heaven is my throne Earth my footstool saith he but as over-looking all this World To this man will I look that is poor and of a contrite spirit Isa 66.1 2 To this man there he sets a nobler creation than this outward one When Faith makes a man poor and contrite sensibly lying in his own Nothingness and Unworthiness then creating Grace comes upon him We may see this as in a glass in the Homane Nature of Christ That which had no natural Subsistence of its own but subsisted in the Eternal Word that had the Spirit poured out upon it above measure When a man hath no Moral subsistence of his own his very Hypostasis being a resignation when his subsistence is in the Word of God according to that of the Apostle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Have thy being in these things 1 Tim. 4.15 Then the holy Spirit comes down and dwells in him Secondly It is congruous to Christ the Head Union goes before Communion first Faith unites us to Christ and then all Graces flow from him hence Faith is called the Churches neck Cant. 4.4 knitting to Christ the Head and from thence deriving all Spiritual life into the body of Believers This also is set before us in Christs Humane Nature which had first at least in nature the Grace of Union and then that of Unction He that is in Christ is a new Creature 2 Cor. 5.17 made so by his being in Christ He that hath the Son hath life 1 Joh. 5.12 Hath it by having the Son Indeed Faith and Repentance go before our Union with Christ as being of necessity thereunto but all other Graces follow after it as most naturally flowing from Christ the Head of whose fulness all Believers receive Grace for Grace Thirdly It is congruous to the way of the Spirit set forth in the Gospel The Spirit moves on the Soul to bring forth Faith and Repentance but it dwells no-where but in the Believer Christ dwells in our hearts by Faith Ephes 3.17 There he hath perpetuum domicilium 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vide Bez. Zanch. as the Greek word imports He that believeth on me saith our Saviour out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water Joh. 7.38 And what these rivers are the next verse tells us This he spake of the Spirit which they that believe on him should receive Faith brings in the very fountain of Grace with all its streams into the Heart The Holy Ghost is given to them that obey him Act. 5.32 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to them that hear him in the Gospel-command that is to them that believe so Beza and Calvin expound it and so the Syriack hath it The Holy Ghost works before to produce Faith and Repentance but it is not given to dwell in men until they believe Fourthly It is congruous to the order which is between Faith Justification and Sanctification Faith is in order before Justification the Scripture
is express in it The righteousness of God is upon them that believe Rom. 3.22 All that believe are justified Act. 13.39 And we have believed that we might be justified Gal. 2.16 And Justification is in order before Sanctification I suppose the Holy Spirit with its Graces will not dwell in an unreconciled Soul Under the Law in cleansing the Leper first the Priest put the blood on him and then the holy oyl upon the place where the blood was Levit. 14.14 17. The Believer first in order hath the atoning Blood put on him and then the holy Unction of the Spirit According to this order Faith is first of all But if Faith and all other Graces are infused at once and together then either they are infused before Justification and so Sanctification is before Justification or else after it and so Justification is before Faith Fifthly This way there will be a congruity between the old Creatiowand the new In the old Light was the first-born of the Creation and then the other parts of the World were made in the new the first thing is the light of Faith and then follow those Graces which make up the New Creature Beholding as in a glass the glory of God we are changed into his image 2 Cor. 3.16 First the eye of Faith is opened and then the Image of God drawn on the Soul this congruity is the rather to be minded because the Apostle speaking of the Creation of Faith doth it with an allusion to the Creation of Light God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledg of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ 2 Cor. 4.6 As if he had said Light in the old Creation and Faith in the new answer one to another Sixthly This way there will be a congruity between Christ formed in the womb and Christ formed in the bea rt The blessed Virgin first believed and then Christ was formed in her Womb Concetio Christi facta fuit simul ac Maria in verba Angeli consentiens dixit Ecce ancilla Domini De Incarnat lib. 2. Quest 7. siat mihi secundum verbum tuum Luk. 1.38 saith Zanchy No sooner did she say an Amen of Faith to the Promise but Christ was conceived in her therefore after her Faith the Angel immediately departed from her as having his errand already dispatched answerably the Christian first believes and then Christ is formed in him in all those sanctifying Graces which make up the holy Image of Christ The Apostles expressing those Graces under the notion of forming Christ in us Gal. 4.19 seems to hint out this Congruity Seventhly This way there will be a Congruity between the being of these Graces and the acting of them whilest both proceed from Faith depending upon Christ the head of Grace The Believers life is in Scripture called a life of Faith not as if there were not Love Meekness Obedience Patience with all the other Graces in him but because Faith is the grand principle which moves every one of them Faith worketh by love saith the Apostle Gal. 5.6 and so it worketh by Meekness Obedience Patience and all other Graces being as it were blood and spirits running in every part of the New Creature All Graces are set a working by Faith and if they also receive their being through it there is a Congruity between their being and working Upon these Congruities I take it that Faith is first in order and then other Graces As to the actual exercise of Graces It is Faith which sets them all a working To this purpose it is observable That all the worthy acts of Grace mentioned in the 11th Chapter to the Hebrews are there ascribed to Faith so is Abels excellent Sacrifice Enochs walking with God Noahs holy fear of the deluge Abrahams obedience in leaving his Country Moses 's self-denial as to the Egyptian Court The valour of some Worthies in subduing Kingdoms and the patience of others in suffering torments for the truth The reason of which is because Faith is the first mover which sets all other Graces a-moving the General under whose conduct all Graces come forth in their courses therfore the honour of all is devolved upon it Now how Faith sets other Graces a-working I shall first shew in a general way common to all of them and then more particularly with respect to some special Graces In general Faith sets other Graces in motion by such ways as these First It looks on the Command which in Scripture calls for these Graces as the very Will of God And so presses for Obedience many ways as first from the Divine Authority of it In the word of a King there is power much more in the word of a God when known to be such In the Council of Triburia a fancy touching an Episile come from Heaven made impression in some of them Had it been really known to be so indeed the impression would have been deeper At the sound of the Command Faith knows that it is the Lord that the voice is from the excellent glory and in that Authority presses to Obedience But this is not all besides Gods Authority it urges from his Love It is saith Faith the voice of thy beloved thy dear Father in Heaven who hath cast his cords and bands of Love round about thee to draw thee to himself and then the Heart must needs feel constraints and holy inflammations to Obedience and be like St. Peter who when he knew it was the Lord girt himself and made towards him Gods Love hath dropt sweetness into the Command and made all easie Moreover to make the stronger impulse on the Believer Faith demonstrates That the Command is just and right and good that holy Love and Patience and other Graces of the first Table are pure rectitudes wherein Man stands in his true posture towards God his Goodness or Providence or some other thing in him And also that Justice and Temperance and Charity are rectitudes wherein he stands in a true posture towards others or himself for Gods sake And a Command so known moves so strongly towards Obedience that a man who would pay his debts to God or his Neighbour or himself cannot must not repugn Secondly Faith looks not only upon the letter of the Command but upon the life of Christ Where all Graces are set forth in lively and orient colours really and practically exemplified to our view Precepts possibly may have more of notion in them but Examples have more of vivacity to attract the heart to imitation above all the Example of Christ must be cogent to Believers he went up and down doing of good every step one odour of Grace or other brake from him Subjection to Parents or Magistrates or Zeal towards God in purging the Temple or Humility in washing his Disciples feet or Meekness under malicious accusations and blasphemies or melting bowels upon all occasions dropping
dependence the Spirit comes down in auxiliary Grace and there is an effectual working in every part of the New Creature Love in the Spirit as it is called Col. 1.8 and Joy in Spirit and every other Grace in the Spirit badding and blossoming and filling the face of the life with holy fruits Only it must be remembred that this Dependence is in Gods way where Christ is experimentally Immanuel God with us to stir up all holy Graces into act Thus Faith actuates Graces in a general way common to them all I now proceed to shew how Faith actuates this or that Grace in particular And that I may not be too prolix in running over all Graces I shall single some choice ones out instead of all First I shall begin with the Grace of Love This is the great Command the sum of the Law a Divine Union with God a bond of perfection among Men a holy fire kindled by the Holy Ghost in the Heart and the sweetness and easiness of every good Duty This Grace whether it respect God or Christ or our Neighbour is actuated by Faith As touching our Love to God it is so actuated The very light of Nature reveals a God an excellent perfect Being or the Being of Beings whose Love as the Philosopher said is the principle and knot of the World and so cannot but raise up a kind of Love toward him the Will being necessarily in some sort affected with such an Excellency though seen but by a glimmering light Not that this Love is a Grace or a Love in sincerity or a Love sicut oportet as an ancient Council speaks or indeed in Scripture sense any love at all because it loves not God above all it must needs be inordinate there being the same ataxy in loving God below the Creature as in loving the Creature above God But that there is a kind of Love such as that dark light can raise up in faln man But when the light of Faith comes it raises up the Grace of Love towards God and ever after moves it into act by the pure discoveries of him which it lets into the Heart from Scripture He is saith Faith an immense infinite Goodness Creatures are but drops of Being lying in the shell of Time but he is the Ocean of all Perfections They may be good for this or that in particular according to their finite kinds and spheres but he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the All-things as the Aposile calls him 1 Cor. 15.28 And withal he is Love it self as another Apostle hath it 1 Joh. 4.16 Not shutting up his Allness in unapproachable Glory but letting it out to Believers His Love though he ever had perfect Blessedness in himself would yet pour out it self in making a world of good Creatures and after Mans fall in giving his only Son to take hold of our nature and in it to bring us back again to himself that he might be our God and make over his Allness to us and all this in pure Grace without any Money or Merit on our part and in rich Mercy towards worms and forlorn Sinners and to assure it to us a Gospel is let down from Heaven full of great and precious Promises such as are the very counterpanes of that Grace and Mercy which flow in his Heart towards Sinners Vnder such musings of Faith Oh how the holy fire of Love kindles What high rates and estimates are set upon him How is the Heart inflamed towards Union to be one spirit with him What Complacencies and Sabbaths of rest doth it find in him What little things are Worlds and Creatures What an All is He and an Heaven his Love What tastes are there of his Goodness and surrenders to his Will and Glory Our Love goes after him as his is by Faith let in upon the Heart Moreover Faith excites the Love of him by every act which it sets about in its recumbencies it enamours the Heart that he should give us leave to lean on his Grace and in so doing bear up our weakness with Promises and sweetly answer us in Pardons and suitable Graces in its Obedience it is very ravishing that he should chalk out such pure ways for us and take us by the hand and teach us to go and at last crown our faultring Obedience with Eternal Life Ordinances which to Unbelief are but dry things are to Faith the lovely Chariots of the Spirit Creatures which are Idols to carnal sense are to Faith fair mirrors of the infinite Goodness and Beauty in the Creator Which way soever Faith turns it self it meets with something or other inflammative of our Love towards him who is every-where and all in all As touching our Love to Christ it is actuated in the same manner A meer notion of Christ raises up some Love towards him as we see in those Temporaries who receive the word with joy Mat. 13.20 which though it be but fructus horarius hints out a kind of Love Such a story as that of Codrus the Athenian King 's dying for his Country could not but affect his Subjects much more must the History of Christ dying for a World do so Only this Love to Christ raised up by meer Evangelical notion as the Love to God raised up by natural is not right nor elevated to a Divine pitch till Faith come and shew him forth by a light more congruous than all literal knowledg and then there is as the Church after an elegant description concludes Totus desideria all loves or desires Cant. 5.16 Every thing in him is attractive What a person is the Eternal Word the brightness of the Fathers glory What an Union Immanuel God and Man in one Heaven and Earth admirably blended together as a pledg that God would be at one with us What a robe is his Righteousness made as broad as the Law and woven all of Love from the top to the bottom What a Laver his Blood able to expiate a world of Sins and save a world of Sinners What a treasure is his Fulness where the Spirit is in over-measure and all its Graces in redundance running over into the vessels of Faith and filling all its capacities Who that hath eyes of Faith would not love him To ask why we should love him is as the Philosopher told him who demanded Why Beauty was so taking 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a blind mans question nothing but blind unbelief can hold us from his Embraces Whatever posture Faith be in whether contemplating him in the Mount or leaning on the bosom of his Grace or hiding in his Wounds or sitting at his feet for Wisdom or lying under his Scepter for power against Sin still it stirs up an holy Love to him It finds his Blood in every Pardon his Spirit in every Grace his Wine-cellar in every Ordinance his Seal in every Promise and his Purchase in every Creature No wonder if St. Paul count all things dung and dross for him And St. Austin
God in Christ and that must needs in flame the Heart towards him Tamum amamus quantum credimus Hence Aquinas himself confesses That though Faith and Hope may be without Charity yet without Charity they are not properly Virtues And Durandus saith Credere in Deum non est praecise actus fidei sid actus fidei charitatis simul To believe in God is not precisely an act of Faith but of Faith and Charity together So Inseparable are these two Graces But leaving the Schoolmen I shall proceed Faith connects all Graces together in a triple way it connects them in the fontal cause the boly Spirit which it receives all Graces are from the Spirit and the Spirit is received by Faith hence rivers of living water flow in the Believers heart Joh. 7.38 that is All Graces flow there as waters from a fountain it connects them in the Rule the Command of God which it universally respects It is observed by Divines That the five last Commands in Deut. 5. run thus Thou shalt not kill and thou shalt not commit Adultery and thou shalt not Steal and thou shalt not bear false Witness and thou shalt not Govet The word And points out to us that all the Commands are coupled together by God like the Curtains of the Tabernacle all are as it were one body and Faith hath a respect to every one of them and in every one owns the same stamp of Divine Authority He that said Love thy God said also Love thy Neighbour He that said Be Zealous said also Be Meek and Patient and Obedient and abundant in all Grace It connects them also in the end the Glory of God which it looks at in all things all Graces tend to that Glory and Faith is the single eye which guides them all thither Bonum opus intentio facit Enarr in Psal 31. in Pras intentionem sides dirigis saith St. Austin Faith knows what that is wherein God would be glorisied All Graces being thus connected in Faith which is a kind of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or firmament as the word is Col. 2.5 to them all it comes to pass that Faith in actuating any one Grace gives a strength and further growth to every other Grace Thus it is in Graces respecting distinct Tables the more we act our Love to God the more will be our Love to our Neighbour this though belonging to the second Table flows ex fonte pietatis out of that fountain of Piety which respects the first Thus it is in those Graces which are seemingly contrary as in Zeal and Meekness the more we act our Zeal for God the more will be our Meekness towards Men. Hence in the Primitive Christians who were so hot for Christianity was found a very meek Spirit and the reason is because a Man cannot truly actuate one Grace but he will have more of that Spirit which is fontally all Grace and graciously multiplies Talents in the use of them Neither can he truly obey one Command but it will render his Heart more Obediential and ready to obey others also as being enjoined by the same Authority nor can he in one thing look at Gods Glory but it will in some measure encline him to seek it in other things also and so the New Creature grows in every part and his Path shines more and more to the perfect day in Heaven CHAP. XI Precious Faith considered in the Crowns and Statures thereof The Divine Experiences of Faith as it Experiments the Divinity of Scripture in the Precepts Promises Threatnings and Supernatural Truths thereof Concerning the Blessed Trinity of Persons in the Unity of the Divine Essence Jesus Christ the Mcdiator and the Efficacy of Grace HAVing treated of Justification Adoption and Sanctification which are Fruits of Faith and are more or less in all Believers I now proceed to some other which are The Crowns and Statures of Faith and to be found not in all Believers at least not at first but in such as have made a good progress in Grace Faith have made a good progress in Grace Faith having obtained the Holy Spirit with all its Graces doth now go on like The Baptized Eunuch rejoycing in the ways of God glorying in Free Grace triumphing in Jesus Christ warring against Corruptions actuating Holy Graces bowing down under the Commands of Heaven sucking the Sweet-Breasts of the Promises and waiting for the Heavenly Dews and Distillations of the Spirit and in this holy Progress gathers up many choice Experiments more worth than a World All learned Men are for Experiments and every one would cry 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I have found it the Sages of the Law are for tried Cases which have been sub judice the Physitian sets a probatum est on approved Medicines the Anatomists hunts after the arcana of Nature by Dissection of Bodies and the Chymist by Dissolution thereof Experience is procreatrix Artium the very Parent of Arts whose universal Precepts are collected by an induction of particulars but there are no Experiments like those of Faith Dr. Dees Spirits made as if they would reveal great Mysteries to him such as they called the Cabbala of Nature the Numbers of the World the linea Spiritus Sancti the Mirabilia Dei and the Nova terra bringing forth without Tillage but all these were but Dreams and Impostures and so I suppose are many things in Chymistry like Helmonts Alkahest wonderful if true But the Experiments of Faith are great Realities and withal Divine as much above those in the Sphear of Nature as Souls are above Bodies and Heaven is above Earth God in the Prophet calls on his People to baing in the Tythes for his House and so by their Obedience to prove him If he would not open the windows of Heaven and pour out a blessing that there should not be room enough to receive it Mal. 3.10 When Faith goes on in a Tract of Obedience proving of God Heaven opens in wonderful Experiences of him the Manna of holy Truth is then tasted the Hony-combs of Free-Grace drop upon the Heart Promises are realized exemplified in Providences Divine Helps and Salvations come down and call for Eben-Ezers to be set up for them and Discoveries of heavenly things in their certainty and excellency are in a manner made as if a Man could look into the Holy of Holies and see God Face to Face Some such Experiences I suppose the learned Rivet had in his last Sickness in which he said of himself In these ten days I have made a greater progress in Divinity than in all my Life but leaving Generals I shall come to Particulars One great Experiment of Faith is touching the Truths of God a Believer in his holy Progress comes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding as the Apostle speaks Cal. 2.2 At the first he hath a Stock of Divine Knowledg but after Experience Riches and all Riches of it at the first
he hath a true perswasion of the things of God but after Experience a Plerophory or full perswasion thereof Here I shall Instance in that one Fundamental Comprehensive Truth which is pregnant with all other viz. that the holy Scriptures are the very Word of God and so to be embraced by all Christians The Papists say That the Authority of the Scriptures depends at least quoad nos on the Definition of the Church and that upon that account chiefly it is to be beloved by us By the Church they mean the Church of Pastors and those gathered in a Council to desine the Canon of Scripture Saint Paul speaks of a Church which is The Pillar and Ground of the Truth 1 Tim. 3.15 But as our learned Whitaker hath observed That is not the Church of Pastors but of Believers and in truth the Word of Life is more purely held forth in the Lives and Experiences of Believers than in the Gifts of Pastors This Thesis some of their Grandees have prosecuted even to Blasphemy saying That without the Judgment of the Church they would give no more credit to Matthew than to Livy and value the Scriptures much as they do Esops Fables That this Opinion is false is as clear as the Light true Faith is a pure infusion which hangs on the irradiating Spirit as a Beam on the Sun and in Scripture sees with the credenda the reason of believing in the Divine Authority stamped thercon The Ministery used about it may be Mans but the Authority on which it leans must be Gods Theol. Nat. Tit. 209. Tota causa tota radix totum fundamentum credendi verbis Dei debet esse quia ipse dicit saith Raimundus De Sabunde Unless we believe God for himself our Faith is not Divine if the Fulciment of it be humane it is such it self Saint Paul would not have Our Faith stand in the wisdom of men Comment in Mich. 7. 1 Cor. 2.5 Saint Jerom saith In homine spes vana vera in Deo est and a little after Nolite credere in ducibus non in Episcopo non in Presbytero non in Diacono non in quâlibet hominum dignitate If Believers believe the Scriptures upon the Authority of Pastors Pastors believe them upon their own Or if they say that they have the Testimony of the Spirit all Believers may say the same and thereby believe as well as themselves and without their Authority The Thessalonians Received the Word as the Word of God without asking the Judgment of the Church 1 Thess 2.13 The Bercans Received it with all readiness and instead of consulting the Church Searched the Scriptures Acts 17.11 The true Church cannot be known but by the Scriptures De Uniâ—â—â— Feel caâ—â— 3. â—â— Thus Saint Austin writing against the Donatists saith Sunt certe libri Dominici quorum Autoritati utrique consentimus utrique credimus ibi queramus Eccl siam ibi discutiamus cansam And again Ecclesiam suam demonstrent si possunt non in sermonibus rumoribus Afrorum non in Conciliis Episcoporum non in literis disputatorum non in signis prodigiis fallacibus sed in preseriptâ— legis in Prophetarum praedactis in Psalmorum cantibus in ipsius Pastoris vocibus in Evangelistarum praedicationibus laboribus hoc est in omnibus Canonicis Sanctorum Librorum Autoritatibus And if I must know the Church by the Scripture I must in all reason own the Scripture before I own the Church or its Decisions The Church may bear witness to the Scripture but in a subordinate Ministerial way The supream adequate witness thereof is only that Spirit which outwardly indited it in the letter and inwardly imprints it on the Heart The Church may bear witness to the Scripture but it can add no Authority to it If the Church hath Authority to define the Canon it must have it from Scripture and then the Scripture must have Authority even quoad nos before that Definition unless they will absurdly distinguish and say That the Scripture-Authority before the Definition is only as to Pastors and not as to Believers till after it All the Churches Authority is from Scripture and How can the derivative Authority add to the Primitive The Scripture is Principium scientificum and therefore to be received by its light without a quare or reason why it is so the Scripture is a Foundation to the Church Eph. 2.20 and such a one that the Church is no further a Church than as it is built thereon and How can the Church be a Foundation to the Scripture The Scripture is a Law to the Church every Soul must be under it and How can the Subject-Church give Authority to the Law which it Self is under The Judgment of the Church hath been variable in the Council of Carthage under Cyprian it was Decreed that those which were baptized by Hereticks returning to the Church should be rebaptized the one Baptisin being only in the Church and none without it Vbi Ecclesia non est Baptisma non est Afterwards the first Council of Carthage called the First not as if it had been first in time but as omitting the first Cyprianical Council as antiquated enacted that Baptism made in the name of the Sacred Trinity should not be reiterated all crying out Absit against reiteration In the seventh General Council of Constantinople the 338 Bishops cried down Images might and main Quomodo Dei matrem quam obumbravit plenitudo Deitatis vulgaris Gentilium ars pingere audet non fas est Christianis qui spem Resurrectionis babent demonum culturae consuetudinibus uti flagitium est as Gregorius Theologus said Fidem habere in coloribus non in corde Quis gloriam splendorem Christi effigiare posset mortuis coloriius said Eusebius Pamphili in his Letter to the Empress Constantia One would have thought that the broken Images would never have been set together again but within less than half a Century comes the second Council of Nice and there the 350 Bishops bring in Images again under the wings of the old Cherubims and set them up upon Jacobs Pillar and back them with Fathers and Miracles They throw out Anathema's against the Iconoclasts and reject with a Curse the Books of Eusebius as a Man delivered over in reprobum sensum And are well perswaded that Angels are Corporeal and may be pictured A little after and within the same half-Century comes the Council of Francford halting between both the former speaking half in the Language of Ashdod and half in the pure Language allowing Images but denying any Worship to them And as touching the Canon it will afterwards appear how the Council of Laodicea differs about that from the third Council of Carthage and how the fixth Council of Constantinople in confirming them both varies from it self The Judgment of the Church hath been subject to Error the famous Council of Nice had two lapses in it in the twelfth
Canon it forbids Christians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to return to their Military Employment and in the Ninteenth it commands Rebaptization of such as were Baptized by Hereticks The Emperour Zeno being expulsed the Tyrant Basiliscus by the perswasion of Timotheus Aelurus wrote Letter in condemnation of the General Council of Chalcedon unto which as impious as they were no less than five hundred Bishops subscribed at the Tyrants Command And touching the Canon if the Council of Laodicea be right in it that of Carthage is not so and consequently that of Constantinople which takes in both must needs be in an Error These things premised Can the unvariable and infallible Scripture hang upon a variable and errable Authority such as Mans is May all the precious Promises of Life and Salvation be precarious and pendent on an Humane Arbitrium Tertullian in his Apology speaking of that old Decree among the Romans that no God should be consecrated without the approbation of the Senate saith Apud nos de humano arbitratu divinitas pensitatur nisi homini Deus placuerit Deus non erit If the Authority of Scripture depend on the Church then we may say Nisi homini Scriptura placuerit Scriptura non erit and by consequence all the Faith of the Saints must be pendulous and hanging on uncertainties If the Churches desinition be so momentous to Scripture let us see what the Church hath done in it Hath it collected the Canonical Books into a body 'T is probable Ezra collected the Books of the Old Testament into a body and so think many of the ancient Fathers And I suppose St. John collected the Books of the New Testament together for he lived after all the other Apostles even unto the time of Trajan that by his vigilancy the Canon of the New Testament might be kept pure and unadulterate When after St. Pauls death there was a Book called Periodus Pauls Teclae spread abroad under the Name and Title of Paul St. John discovered it to be spurious insomuch that the Author of it confessed that he did it amore Pauli And I believe what was done in this collection of the Canon was not done by an ordinary Spirit but by a Prophetical Spirit in Ezra and an Apostolical one in St. John In the mean time it appears not to have been done by an act of the Church but leaving this particular When and how did the Church define the Canon Such a momentous thing should have been done by the Primo-primitive Church in the first Century whilest the Church of Christ was a pure Virgin as Egesippus said Lib. 3. Dist 21. Quest 1. Thus the School-man Durandus lays it down Hoc quod dictum est de approbatione Scripturae per Ecclesiam intelligitur solum de Ecclesiâ que fuit tempore Apostolorum qui suerunt repleti Spiritu sancto No Church so fit to do it as that which had so much of the holy Spirit but nothing was done in it in that Age. The so called Canons of the Apostles which in the 85th Canon take in three Books of Macchabees into the old Canon and the Constitutions and Epistles of Clement into the new are clearly adulterate these condemn second Marriages deprive not a Clergy-man of communion for Fornication or Perjury or Thest and speak of Altars Oblations Vessels of Gold and Silver sanctified Cantors and Lectors and many other such-like altogether unknown in those Apostolical times About these Canons Mirè inter se digladiantur Pontisicii saith one Gelasius in a Roman Synod of seventy Bishops declares them Apocryphal in toto Bellarmine rejects all but the first fifty and I think all the Romanists cast away the 85th Canon touching the Scripture as Supposititious The first Virgin-Century doing nothing in this grand matter one might have lookt for it in the second or third but there is no foot-step of it In the fourth Century about the year 320 came the famous Council of Nice and then it might have been expected as the aptest foundation for their Orthodox Conclusions against Arrius and withal for a stated Rule against all future Heresies but there is a failure also nothing was done in it And into what Heart can it enter that in all those 320 years there was no Canon no Authority of Scripture no foundation for the Primitive Christians to fix their Faith upon In those days Paganism was strong and Persecutions hot and Divine Cordials necessary and yet the Scripture for want of the Churches Definition was not of Authority as to the Christians then living I say according to the Popish Thesis it was not But to go on Afterwards about the year of our Lord 368 came the Council of Laodicea which in the 59th Canon orders That no Books should be read in the Church but the Canonical ones of the Old and New Testament and enumerates as Canonical such as are received in the Reformed Church only omitting the Apocalypse And now had not that Omission been and had this Council been a General one the work had been done But afterwards in this very Century about the year 398 the third Council of Carthage in its 47th Canon reckons up as Canonical Tobit Judith two Books of Macchabees and five Books of Solomon accounting Wisdom and Ecclesiastious to be two of them In this Council St. Austin was present who yet in his Book de Civitate Dei Lib. 17. cap. 20 saith That Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus in the judgment of the more learned were not Solomens and were chiefly received in the Western Church it seems the Eastern received them not In the end of the next Century about the year 494. Gelasius Bishop of Rome with seventy Bishops enumerates the same Books as Canonical which are reckoned so in the Council of Carthage save only that he omits the Book of Nehemiah and names but one of the Macchabees These particular Provincial Councils being of incompetent Authority to desine the Canon for the Universal Church and withal variant nay repugnant among themselves Whither must we go but to a General Council but Oh how late very late doth that come How long will the Authority of Scripture and Faith of Christians be suspended and to how little satisfaction will this desinition be About the year 682 was the sixth General Council of Constantinople in Trullo and as to this Point what did it It consirmed the Canons of the Apostles the Council of Laodicea and the Council of Carthage which three in this Point being totally inconsistent each with other every one by the leave of these Fathers who confirmed them all may chuse what Canonical Books he will have whether those in the Canons of the Apostles or those in the Council of Laodicea or those in that of Carthage and what pitiful incertainties are here And now it is to little purpose to fly over many Centuries more till we come to the Councils of Florence and Trent these are late ones and as our Learned Whitaker
saith Non legitima Christianorum Concilia sed Tyrannica Antichristi Conventicula ad oppugnandam Evangehi veritatem instituta and thus it appears even Historically that the Authority of Scripture depends not on the Church But waving this Popish Thesis in which I have by the way made this long Digression I proceed to the matter in hand True Faith being a beam or irradiation from the holy Spirit discovers That the Scriptures in general are the Word of God and which is to the Point in hand in its holy progress it arrives at an experimental knowledg thereof Peter Martyr wishes men to read the Bible seriously and adds Male sit mihi ita enim in tantâ causâ jurare ausim nisi tandem capiantur sentient denique quantum divina haec ab humanis distent Erasmus saith Expertus sum in meipso That there is little good in cursory reading it do it duly and you shall find the Divine efficacy That a Progressive Faith may attain an Experimental knowledg that the Scriptures are of God will appear by the ensuing Considerations One noble piece of Scripture is the Moral Law upon every apex of it hangs a mountain of Sence say the Rabbins every jot or tittle of it stands faster than Heaven and Earth saith our Saviour Mat. 5.18 This is the Summary of all Duties all the Moral Precepts in Scripture are but as so many Commentaries on it That this is of God Faith experiments several ways First Faith experiments it by the impresses and holy inclinations in the Believers heart answering truly though not persectly to the Law A Progressive Believer finds by reflection That the Law is written in his heart That his Heart is the very Epistle of Christ written by the holy Spirit And withal he knows that it was not always so Time was when there were no such characters or holy inclinations there his Heart was worse than a meer empty Table And hence he surely gathers that those characters or imprinted propensities are the writing of God himself and so comes experimentally to know the Epistle of God in Scripture by that in his Heart and the outward literal Edition of the Law by the inward Spiritual one which is a counterpane thereof and answers thereunto as the stamp to the Seal or one Tally to another The mutual agreement between them once discerned is a practical proof that both are of God and written by one and the same holy hand But you will say there needs no Faith to make this experiment the very Gentiles have the Law written in their Heart their natural implanted Principles comprize both Tables the first in that they tell us that there is a God to be worshipped and reverenced The second in that they tell us That we must do as we would be done to which Alexander Severus much delighted in Unto which I answer That there is a vast disserence between the natural Writing the Law in the Heart and the gracious The first is a relique or broken fragment of the Divine Image its only or at least chief seat is in the Understanding and there it stands in the dark in an abyss of black Ignorance and in the mean while there is an hellish enmity in the carnal will against the Law of God But the other is a pure perfect thing which stands in both faculties being as an holy lamp in the Understanding and as a Divine inclination in the will to do the Commends of God Hence it appears That there is not that soundation for this experiment in the Natural Inscription of the Law as in the Gracious the Natural being to the Gracious but as a little glimmering is to splendor or as the broken pieces of a Picture are to the intire Image It is with a Believer in this case as it was with Bezalceel the Word of God came forth for making the Tabernacle but Bezaleel had a fractical proof of it in the spirit of Wisdom given him for the work Or as it was with Saul the Word came forth touching the Kingdom but Saul had a Practical proof of it in the spirit of Government vouchsafed unto him And so it is with the Believer The Divine Law is experimented in the spirit of obedience and each particular Command is proved by some inward aptness answering thereunto A notable instance of this Inscription we have in Maius the German Divine who in his extream sickness having Consolatory Scriptures recited to him bravely answered Tace tace omnia cordi meo insixa tenco hold your peace I have all in my heart Promises I suppose he meant and without dispute the Precepts were there also Secondly Faith experiments it by the Divine Presence helping and comforting the Believer in acts of Obedience The Rabbins say That if two sit together conserring of the Law the Shechimah is among them And without doubt if but one single Believer be not a talking meerly of the Law but a doing of it the Divine Presence is with him Thus the Prophet to Asa The Lord is with you whilest you be with him 2 Chron. 15.2 Thus our Saviour If a man love him and keep his words the Father and the Son will come and make their abode with such a one Joh. 14.23 Such an one hath a Temple and Shechinah in his Heart God will be there helping and comforting of him in his well-doing The Church prays for help from the Sanctuary Psal 20.2 because that was a Symbol of Gods Presence And the obeying Believer cannot want help because he hath a Sanctuary within him The way of the Lord is strength to him and waiting in it he renews strength and mounts up by Auxiliary Grace as upon Eagles-wings Whilest he is a doing the will of God strength comes in as it did to the Levites that bare the Ark 1 Chron. 15.26 and with strength holy comfort also in keeping the Commands he hath great reward inward peace and joy unspeakable some of the oyl of Joy which is upon Christ the great Doer of Gods Will drops down on the Believer in his sincere Obedience As all upright ones do he dwels in Gods Presence as if he were in the borders of Heaven already the light of Gods Countenance irradiates his Duties When therefore the Believer reflects on himself and considers what a dry Land rebellion dwells in and what rivers of Peace and Joy water Obedience how weak and foolish his heart was in doing his own will and how help and strength came upon him in doing Gods he comes experimentally to know the Command to be of God whose Presence gave him such comforts and assistances therein The good hand of God upon him is a proof that the way is right the Peace growing on his work shews the righteousness of it When in Elijahs time the question was whether God or Baal should be God the fire coming down from Heaven on the Sacrifice made the People fall down and confess The Lord he is the God the Lord he is the
for his good and hence God doth not fulfil Promises of Temporals as he doth those of Spirituals Promises of Spirituals he fulfils in specie because they cannot otherwise be made good a drop of Grace being more worth than a World but those of Temporals he fulfils disjunctively either in the Blessing it self or in that which is equivalent by inward contentation and supportation compensating the absence of the thing it self These things being so the Believer in what he hath may experience the Promise in the true proportion and meaning of it and not withstanding his wants may know That in Christ he is so far heir of all things that if he could want a world he should have it As touching Spiritual Promises these are either Promises of Grace or Promises to Grace As touching Promises of Grace Faith may know these experimentally The Believer reads in his Bible That God hath promised to give an heart of flesh to make a new heart and a new spirit to write his Law in the heart to give an heart to know him to circumcise the heart that it may love him and many more such-like and afterwards reading over his own Heart he may find these precious Graces all there and be able experimentally to say of these Promises as Joshua did of those made to Israel Not one thing hath failed of all the good things which the Lord hath spoken all are come to pass Josh 23.14 In every holy melting he finds the heart of flesh in every holy frame the new heart and spirit in every holy inclination the inward engraven Law in every holy beam the Divine Teaching in every holy affection the Spiritual Circumcision all the Promises are scaled and really exemplified in his Heart and what an admirable experiment is this To see a Work within answering to the Promise in the Word is a greater sight than if a Man could have stood by and seen the light start forth into Being upon the Almighty fiat spoken by God in the Creation unto which the Apostle alludeth in setting forth the Divine light shining into the Heart in the face of Christ 2 Cor. 4.6 The Magnalia of Grace are more wonderful than those of nature Hence St. Chrysostom upon those words of the Apostle We are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus Ephes 2.10 saith of Regeneration That it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 really a Creation and more noble than the old one as adding a benè vivere to that life which came from the old one The experienced Believer hath cause to say what hath God wrought how fearfully is the New Creature made all its Graces were written in the Promise and now are fashioned in the Heart where before there were none of them How precious are thy thoughts to me O God how great is the sum of them This Experiment was notably typed out in Isaac he was by Promise and as soon as he was born the Promise was experimented notwithstanding the dead body and dead womb The Believer the child of Promise is as Isaac was saith the Apostle Gal. 4.28 All the regenerating Graces are by Promise and when these are brought forth the Promise is made good maugre all the deadness of nature By the Promises we are made partakers of the Divine Nature saith St. Peter 2 Pet. 1.4 that is we have those Divine Graces which as the Creature-module will admit resemble the Holy One and so we have the Promises sealed up to us in Graces As touching Promises made to Grace such as are fulfilled in this life Faith also experiments them to be Divine In the Scripture the Believer meets with Promises of Pardon to such as repent and believe of comfort to the mourner of filling to the hungry and thirsty of the Divine secret to them that fear God of encrease of Grace to the improver and many more of the same nature To experiment these the Believer by perusing the Scripture and his own Heart doth two things first He clears it up to himself that the Graces in his Heart to which such Promises are made are true through the irradiating Spirit vouchsafed to him He may discover them to be such by Scriptural Marks he may find that his Faith purifies and works by Love That his Repentance and Mourning are chiefly for Sin That his Hunger and Thirst are humble and industrious in the use of means That his Fear is of God and his Goodness in a filial way That his improving of Talents is in a way of dependence and holy diligence and so certainly knows that these Graces in his Heart are real things This foundation being first laid then he proceeds to a second review of his Heart and there he may find how Pardons have sensibly broke in upon him in a way of Repenting and Believing or how the Sheaves of Joy and Comfort have followed his Tears or how Satisfactions Manna-like have dropped down on his hungry Soul or how Divine illuminations have come in and Crowned his Holy Fear or how Talents have multiplied in the faithful using and actuating of them And the Experiment thereupon will be compleat every Grace sooner or later being in some good measure answered by the Promises which let out their sweetness to it as God hath ordained them to do Thus the Believer sensibly enters the Land of Promise and eats of the Fruit thereof lifting up his Soul in The high Praises of him who gave the Promises in the Scripture and fulfils them in the Heart As touching Promises of eternal good things in Heaven where there are Plenitudes of Joy and Rivers of Pleasure in the Presence of Him who is All in All the completion of these is in another World nevertheless the Believer hath an experimental taste thereof here Whilest his Hope hangs upon them he finds strength and comfort come into his Heart whilst the weary World is tossing with troubles O what a refreshing is it to look into Eternity Hope Eatring within the vail is an Anchor to the Soul and so stablishes it that it doth not rowl about with the wheelings of this changeable World nor center its happiness in any or all the Creatures Let the World come in all its Fancies and glittering appearances of Good it cannot call off the Believers Heart from Heaven but it will be ready to point that way or let it come with storms of terror and troubles it cannot loosen the Anchor-hold the Believer will rather part with all the World and his Life too then let go his hold of Heaven Ye took with joy the spoiling of your goods knowing in your selves that ye have in Heaven a better and an enduring substance saith the Apostle Hebr. 10.34 Or as the Words are in the Original Knowing that ye have in your selves a better and abiding substance in Heaven He speaks as if they had carried Heaven in and about them and in part they did so for as Beza hath it on this place Fide possidemus quod est in
my Glory manifested For the right understanding of these we must note Christ did not come only or chiefly to cure the Bodies of Men no those Miracles which in transitu cured their Bodies Miracula christi corporaliter facta Spiritaliter intelligenda snut were ultimately levelled at their Souls that by Outward Cures they might be led to seek Inward ones from Christ Neither did he do all his Miracles on Earth no being Ascended and Sitting at the Right Hand of Majesty in Heaven he works 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those Spiritual Miracles on the Souls of Men which are incomparably greater than those on their Bodies How many blind Hearts and those worse than blind Eyes hath he cured by a Touch as he passed by them in the Ordinances causing them to see himself the True light and Sun of Righteousness together with all the Heavenly Mysteries which stream as so many Beams or Rayes from him How many deaf Souls have upon his Divine Ephatha been obedientially opened to the Commands of God and though lame before have Rose up walked holily and praised God what Spiritual Lepers hath he by a Touch of his Spirit and Word cleansed Quae enim immunditia quae incredulitas quae duritia quod peccatum ad hunc contactum Christi consistere poterit saith Ferus No uncleanness unbelief hardness sinfulness can stand against the Touch of Christ What Sinners of all forts dead in Sins and Trespasses hath he raised up to a Divine Life Saint Austin reciting that Christ had raised up three Persons viz. The Maid in her Fathers House the Young-Man carried out upon the Bier and Lazarus four days dead and stinking in the Grave adds Ista tria genera mortuorum sunt tria genera peccatorum quos suscitat Christus these three dead ones are three sorts of Sinners raised up by Christ As the Maid in the house so is the secret Sinner raised up intra latebras conscientiae within the doors of his own Heart As the young Man carried out upon the Bier so is the open Sinner raised up out of known Sins And as Lazarus dead and stinking in the grave so is the customary Sinner raised up out of his old putrified Sins At the voice of Christ the strongest bonds of custom are broken and the poor Sinner comes forth into an holy life These things being so it appears That the Believer may experiment the Spiritual Miracles of Christ and from thence gather a proof in his own Heart That the very same hand wrought the Corporal ones especially seeing these latter are but types and shadows of the other which he finds verified in himself Thus much touching this Fundamental Experiment of the Scriptures A Believer may experiment the Laws Promises Threatnings Supernatural Truths Sacred Ordinances and Great Works in Scripture to be Divine and so have a Practical proof that the Scripture is of God CHAP. XIII Of the top and highest stature of Faith the Believers Assurance of his good estate of Pardon and Salvation That this Assurance is attainable many ways demonstrated HAving passed over the Believers Experiment touching the Scripture I shall now proceed to another touching his own Estate He may certainly know 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Dionysius speaks That it is well with him That he is in a good state of Pardon and Salvation This is apex fidei the top and highest stature of Faith a Priviledg which transcends Earth and antedates Heaven to us Here are those three things Lumen Laetitia Pax Light Joy and Peace which as the Schoolman Halensis saith render the experiment of Grace in the Soul truly certain Here are Coelestial Beams unspeakable Joys admirable Serenities Sabbaths of Rest Seas of Sweetness and Beatitudes too great for the tongue of Men and Angels to express Before the Believer walked only with the single staff of Recumbency and Resignation but now he hath bands and troops of Comfort following after him from the Promises His darling Soul is now richly provided for to all Eternity Eternal Beanty is in his Eye Infinite Goodness at hand for his Embraces the lines are fallen in a kind of Paradise his Portion is no less than God himself all his Blessings are dipt in Love The World may brand him but the Spirit seals In the midst of sweeping Judgments he is still one of Gods Jewels and as soon as Death dissolves him Heaven receives him Touching this great Experiment I shall first prove That it is attainable by a Believer and then shew in what ways it is to be attained The Romanists hold That no Man without special Revelation can be certain of his Pardon and Salvation not with a certainty of Faith Bellar. de Juslif lib. 3. which is infallible but only with a certainty of Hope which is conjectural The Promises indeed are sure say they but our Dispositions are uncertain The Promises run Conditionally If they return to thee with all their heart 2 Chron. 6.38 and who can be sure that he doth so Who can say I have made my heart clean saith the Wise-man Prov. 20.9 Who can understand his errors saith David Psal 19.12 Some Scriptures put a peradventure upon Remission Who can tell if God will turn and repent Jon. 3.9 Repent if perhaps the thought of thy heart may be forgiven thee Act. 8.22 And the reason is because of the uncertainty of our Dispositions Faith is not Faith unless it lean on the Divine Word and no Word saith Such or such an one hath true Faith and Repentance or is truly pardoned Happy is the man that feareth always Prov. 28.14 The heart of man is deceitful above all things who can know it Jer. 17.9 Assurance if vouchsafed would but puss up Pride and open a door to Licentiousness Thus the Pontisicians Their Divinity in this great Point is much like the Philosophy of the old Scepticks those Patrons of all Uncertainty who used to say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Reason against Reason puts all Propositions in aequilibrio the Balance hangs even without Declension this or that way after all debates imaginable still 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 perhaps it is so perhaps not It may be they do see and hear it may be not at least they doubt whether they do it distinctly or no. After the same sort the Romanists do what they can to perswade Believers out of their Spiritual sense out of which Assurance ariseth It may be will they say thou repentest and believest it may be not or if thou dost them it may be not sicut oportet in such a manner as they ought to be done Hence the Council of Trent Can. 9â—â— calls the certainty of Remission vain and remote from all Piety This is that Doctrine of theirs which Luther calls Monstrum dubitationis the monster of doubting and withal asserts That if they erred only in this it were a just eause for us to separate from such an Infidel-Church Learned Pareus stiles it Desperationis ossicina the shop of
desperation Adding moreover That it is Antichrists proper work to weaken the Faith and Hope of Christians Indeed this Doctrine doth dispirit and emasculate Religion turn Faith and Hope into meer Meteors and set the Consciences of Men a-fluctuating in perpetual doubts and labyrinths But let us see what they say for it first distinguishing between the certainty of Faith and the certainty of Hope they allow the latter to Believers And what manner of Hope is this Is it a fallible conjectural Hope only such a Spiders web may be found in an Hypocrite who hath no lot or part in this matter Or is it a true Divine Hope sutable to a real Believer This even the School-man Durandus will confess to be such That non potest non evenire it cannot but come to pass this will not make ashamed Rom. 5.5 by disappointing the Soul where it lodgeth It is the Believers anchor pure and stedfast Heb. 6.19 Such as will never leave him to the courtesie of a wave or rock for it enters in within the Veil and is fastned in Heaven Faith and Hope which they here vainly distinguish are coupled so together in a Believer that Hope cannot fluctuate unless Faith do so neither is Faith certain without an Hope congruous thereunto Faith is the Hypostasis or Subsistence of things hoped for saith the Apostle Heb 11.1 And Hope as an Ancient hath it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The very Blood of Faith They say indeed That the Promises are sure and infallible but withal they put such an uncertainty upon our Dispositions as to evacuate the very drift and scope of the Promises which is That Believers might have strong consolation Heb. 6.18 Streaming out from those two immutable Things The Word and Oath of God who cannot lie But if the Believer must still be in doubt whether he have true Faith and Repentance O how weak must his Comforts be and how cold the Promises He doth as it were but Tantalize at the pure fountain of Joy and Consolation It 's true the Promises are Conditional But are not those Conditions found in true Believers May they not know that they turn unto God with all their heart that is seriously and sincerely Remission and Salvation hang not on the degree of Faith and Repentance but on the truth thereof They cannot say their Heart is clean with a sinless Sanctity but they may that it is so with a true Integrity such as hath all the Promises entailed on it A true Believer saith St. Austin may say Sanctus sum I am holy and to say so is not Pride but Gratitude They cannot understand all the errors lying in the deep of the Heart but they may the Graces brought in there by a new Creation That Jâ—m 3. Who can tell if God will turn Non tam dubitantis quam bene sperantis est It speaks not so much doubting as hoping that God would avert the imminent Judgment That Acts 8. Perhaps thy thoughts may be forgiven puts not a scruple on Gods Mercy towards Penitents but upon Simons Repentance whether he would truly repent or not Happy is the man that feareth always saith the Wiseman Not he that feareth with a servile Fear for the Spirit of Bondage makes not happy but with a filial And that well consists with Assurance for we may rejoice with trembling as the Psalmist hath it Psal 2.11 Nay it is advanced thereby For it fears the Lord and his Goodness The heart of man is deceitful even the Believer's so far as it is leavened with the reliques of Sin but as it is renewed with Principles of Grace it is a true heart as the Apostle calls it Heb. 10.22 and so may pass a true judgment on its own estate Though it cannot know all that is in its own abyss yet it may know the general frame and byas of it self and thereby discover its Sincerity Hence the Apostle saith If our hearts condemn us not then have we confidence towards God 1 John 3.21 If natural Conscience be a thousand witnesses inlightned is ten thousand Faith say the Romanists leans on the Word and there is no Word That such or such an one hath true Faith and Repentance or that his sins are pardoned and remitted Unto which I answer As to that That no Word saith that such an one hath true Faith and Repentance it is to be considered That when one Proposition stands upon the Word and another upon natural light or experience The Conclusion is de Fide When in the 6. General Council the Fathers proceeded against the Monothelites by this Argument Whosoever is true God and true Man bath two Wills But Christ is true God and true Man Ergo he hath two Wills The Major stood on the Light of Nature and the Minor only on the Word yet the Conclusion was de Fide And when the Believer thus communes with his own heart in a practical Syllogism Whosoever believs and repents bath his Sins pardoned But I believe and repent Ergo I have my Sins pardoned The Major stands on the Word and the Minor on Experience but the Conclusion is de Fide If a Conclusion drawn from two Propositions one standing on the Word and another on other Evidence be not de Fide What will the Romanists do for their darling the Popes Supremacy To prove that such or such a Pope suppose Gregory or Innocent were Supream in the Church They must argue thus Whoever is Peters Successor is Supream in the Church But Gregory or Innocent were Peters Successors Ergo They were Supream in the Church In which Argument though they would fain set up the Major upon Scripture yet the Minor stands only on Election No Scripture saith That Peters Successor must be a Gregory or an Innocent nevertheless they would have the Conclusion de fide But if a Conclusion drawn from such Propositions be de fide then may the Believer according to the practical Syllogism abovementioned conclude in Faith That his sins are pardoned though no Word tell him That he hath true Faith and Repentance It suffices that Experience tells him so But as a further answer Neither is the Word altogether wanting herein for it sets out Faith and Repentance by infallible marks and characters as common touchstones to try them by to the end of the World And where those marks and characters are it pronounces those Graces to be of the right stamp and virtually tells Believers as much and they being irradiated with the Holy Spirit which shines upon both Scriptures and Evidences may receive the saying and considently say as St. John doth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We know that we know him This is the Faith and this the Repentance marked out in Scripture Again as to that That no Word saith That such or such an one in particular hath his sins pardoned The answer is easie Universals include Particulars That 1 Joh. 4.3 Every spirit that confesseth not that Christ is come in the flesh is
is some great Trausgression which as an accursed thing causes the Lord to depart In such cases though there be no intercision of Justification yet there is an interruption of Consolation These Things premised I proceed to prove the Point viz. That a Believer may attain Assurance of Pardon and Salvation In the first Place the Names and Titles given unto Faith in Scripture are remarkable 'T is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The subsistence of things hoped for Glory and Salvation are hoped for by us but Faith maks them as certain as if they were present to us The Hebrews have a Van conversivum which turns the Future into the Preter-tense such a thing is Faith which presentiates future Things to the Believer That ye may know that ye have eternal life saith John It is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ye shall have it but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ye have it in praesenti it already subsists in your Faith 'T is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the evidence of things not seen Eternal Life cannot be seen by corruptible Eyes but Faith doth so point out and demonstrate it as if it were visible or sensible We know that we have passed from Death to Life 1 John 3.14 As if the Apostle had said We are indeed in the very Borders of Heaven and we know it as it were sensibly as we do our passage from one Place to another 'T is set out by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a strong perswasion or considence and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a liberty or holy boldness with God The Apostle mentions both In whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the Faith of him Ephes 3.12 Access to God imports that we are reconciled to him but access with boldness and confidence imports that we know it also Otherwise it would not be Faith as the Apostle stiles it but meer rashness and presumption if we should do so upon Peradventures Esther-like not knowing whether the golden Scepter would be held out to us or not Nay 't is stiled 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a full Assurance carrying out the Soul with full Sails to the good things in the Promise It is well observed by the acute Dr. Arrowsmith That in Scripture mention is made of a triple Plerophory a Plerophory of Knowledg Col. 2.2 a Plerophory of Faith Heb. 10.22 and a Plerophory of Hope Heb. 6.11 The Genius of each shews forth it self in the Believers Practical Syllogism Whosoever believeth shall be saved But I believe Ergo I shall be saved In the Major we have a Plerophory of Knowledg In the Minor a Plerophory of Faith And in the Conclusion flowing from the Premises a Plerophory of Hope In the next place some Commands in the Gospel clearly import that Assurance is attainable there God would have us To work out our Salvation Phil. 2.12 To make our calling and election sure 2 Pet. 1.10 To add to our Faith virtue one Grace upon another and one degree of Grace upon another That we may have an abundant entrance into the Kingdom of Jesus Christ 2 Pet. 1.5 11. To walk by the Rule of the New Creature that peace may be upon us Galat. 6.16 To prove our own state whether we be in the Faith whether Christ be in us or not 2 Corinth 13.5 To prove our own work that we may have rejoycing in our selves and not in another Gal. 6.4 If these things may be done Assurance is attainable if they cannot to what purpose are these Precepts how vain and impossible are they In that question Whether we may perfectly fulfil the Moral Law the Pontificians urge thus for the Affirmative If we cannot fulfil it the Law is impossible and void De Justif lib. 4. cap. 13. Si praecepta essent impossibilia neminem obligarent ac per hoc praecepta non essent praecepta saith Bellarmine If the Commands were impossible they would oblige none and so would become no Commands But in the Point of Assurance we may with much better reason say if we cannot fulfill the Commands concerning it they are then impossible and vain the Law is an exact Rule of Righteousness a Copy of the pure Law engraven on Mans Heart at first in the state of Innecency unto which it was attemperated It was not at all impossible and that it is so now is only from Mans Apostacy And withal the very 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the impossibility of the Law is admirably useful to drive us in a deep sence of our Impotence to Christ the Complement of it that through his holy Spirit we may in a way of sincere though imperfect Obedience at last arrive at perfect Sanctity in Heaven But if such Commands as are purely Evangelical be impossible what can be said to it what tolerable answer made Were these at all accommodated to a state of Innocency Was not their Original scope to raise up fallen Man to Salvation If the Commands of believing and repenting were impossible what room would there be for Salvation And if the Commands of proving and ensuring our state of Grace be impossible what room is left for the Joys of Faith or the Sealings of the holy Spirit or the Suavities of a good Conscience And there being no second Christ or Gospel to fly to whither doth this Impossibility drive but into the black gulf of Despair Wherefore as we would avoid such doleful consequences we must conclude those Precepts practicable and so Assurance possible And as a sure seal thereof we have the sweet experience of Saints in all Ages Holy Job though God multiplied his Wounds and his Friends raked in them by a very sharp charge of Hypocrisie knew his own Integrity and would not let it go Job 27.5 And which reacheth beyond his present state of Grace as sure of future Glory he breaks out I know that my Redeemer liveth and maugre all the destructive worms In my flesh and with these very eyes I shall see God Job 19.25 26. O how certain was his Faith I know How appropriative My Redeemer liveth and how sharp-sighted he could look through the dust to Immortality David knew the truth of his Grace and proved it to himself by infallible Marks I have kept the ways of the Lord I have not wickedly departed from my God I did not put away his statutes from me I kept my self from mine iniquity Psal 18.21 22 23. ver And for future Happiness he saith without scruple That at his waking in the Resurrection he should be satisfied with Gods likeness Psal 17.15 St. Paul speaks as one full sure of his present state and future hope I have fought a good sight I have finished my course I have kept the faith henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness 2 Tim. 4.7 8. The Martyr Agatha having her Breasts cruelly cut off for Religion told the Persecutor That yet she had two Breasts remaining such as he could not touch the one of Faith and the