thou or Who hath resisted his Will God is Loose from doing or suffering any Evil. As by his Omnipotency he cannot die nor deny himself so by his Liberty he cannot do nor suffer Evil. These Impossibilities do perfect his Omnipotency and Liberty And God is Loose to do all Good and to have all good for all Good is from him and to him i. e. from his Grace and to his Glory and God enjoys all Happiness because he enjoys himself for he is all Happiness both to himself and others Seeing then God is naturally Loose Ergo he is naturally Free How stands God's Liberty with his Necessity or Obj. how can a Necessary Agent be Free Necessity is contrary to Contingency not to Liberty Sol. Necessity neither opposes nor diminishes Liberty but consists with it continues and advanceth it The Necessity that doth modifie God's Essence and his Attributes makes God the more excellent for God's Being is the greater and better by being necessary Our Liberty is contingent and therefore mutable we heretofore might have been or hereafter may be not free But God's Liberty is necessary ergo immutable he never could be nor shall be otherwise than free God is a necessary Agent in respect of our Actions because we cannot act without him but in respect of his own Actions he is though a necessary yet a most free Agent because both before and in and after his Action he is most loose from all restraint or constraint to enforce or invalid him or any thing he does but that still though loose yet he must and can do nothing but what is good everlastingly and because he is necessarily loose therefore he is necessarily free and so his freedom must be a necessary and everlasting Liberty the Liberty of a God properly and not of a Man Seeing then God's necessity doth advance all his Attributes to the full Perfection of God ergo his Liberty is also necessary according to the necessity of God to speak after the manner of men with reverence and fear of the most High God SECTION II. Christ II. Christ is the Son of Liberty The Church is the Kingdom of God and Christ is a King of that Kingdom the King of a free Kingdom is free If Subject be free much more the King who hath Supremacy in all things and therefore in freedom If therefore the faithful be free Christ is free much more The Church is the Family or House of God Christ is the Head or Lord of that House this Lord is free Moses was a Servant Christ is a Master in God's House and he built it ergo more free than Moses or the Church If he that buildeth the house hath more honour than the house then Christ that built the Church hath more Liberty than the Church The Reasons are 1. From the Office of Christ because Christ is the general Mediator of all Liberty which God vouchsafes to Man God is the Fountain and Christ the Conduit God the Granter and Christ the Preacher and Herald of it God hath sent him to preach Deliverance to the Captives and recovering of sight to the blind Luk. 4.18 to set at Liberty them that are bruised to open the Prison doors to them that are fast bound in misery and Iron and to preach the acceptable year of Jubilee of the Lord. Christ is the Liberator the Patron and Donor of Liberty that hath the State of it in himself and power to grant it to others 2. From the nature of Liberty 1. Because Christ was loose from all Evil impeccant and impeccable our High Priest ergo holy and harmless our High-Sacrifice ergo pure and spotless loose from all misery though he suffered much yet he suffered it freely he dyed but freely He laid down his life it was in his own power to take it up Joh. 10.18 and to lay it down No man gave it to him nor took it from him and he laid it down but for three days and then took it again 2. Because Christ was loose unto all good loose to his proper end Eternal Happiness Christ was not viator but comprehensor no Expectant but in Possession no Candidate for but actually installed in the Throne of Glory Christ was personally united unto God and the fulness of the Godhead dwelt in him bodily Christ is naturally free not made free but makes others free free by Nature born not by Grace given 3. Because Christ is the Son of God The immediate property of a Son is freedom Liberi signifie Children and Free-men Sons are Heirs and all Heirs are Free though Slaves before Christ is Heir to his Father Ergo to all his Father's Rights Ergo to Liberty If therefore Liberty be the Right of God the Father then God the Son stands in succession to the same Right SECTION III. III. The Faithful are the Members of Liberty Faithful The Faithful are all Free As the Unfaithful are slaves so the Faithful are free Whosoever committeth sin in the state of Infidelity is a servant of Sin under the Power of darkness and led captive by the Devil according to his will But whosoever doth Righteousness in the state of Faith is a servant of Righteousness and under the Power of light and translated into the Kingdom of the dear Son of God and the glorious Liberty of all his Children The Church is the free Kingdom and City of God Saints and Angels are fellow Citizens all partakers of the same Coelestial freedom As Isaac was the Son of the Promise which was free and the Son of the Free-woman so the Faithful are Children of the Promise which was free in Christ the Promised Seed and Children of the Free-woman and of the Heavenly Jerusalem which is free and the Mother of us all This Liberty of the Faithful is a most excellent Estate worth the standing for Gal. 5.1 Stand fast therefore in the Liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free Liberty is the Natural work of God Man's natural Birth-right a branch of Man's original Right a Copy of Divine Liberty to have Dominion under God over all inferiour Creatures Libertas est Res inestimabilis a Divine Favour a Condition supremely good much to be contended for SECTION IV. The Term of Recess from whence we are free is the state of Bondage to the Law i. e. to all the positive and statute Laws of God Term of Recess Bondage Gal. 2.16 21. called Ordinances ordained for matter of Policy or Ceremony To this state of Liberty from these follow two Rights 1. Of Immunity from the Precepts Services and burthens of those Laws as of Circumcision Sabbatisms Purifications Sacrifices Meats c. 2. Of Impunity from the Judgments Punishments and Curses of those Laws in case of Transgressions For where the obligation to the Precept ceaseth there ceaseth also all obligation to the Judgment of the Law because where there is no Law to be broken there is no sin to be imputed as saith the Apostle
deceive by some Instrument and that Instrument must be Good For Sin is ugly and therefore naturally to be abhorred It must therefore put on the fairest Visage and Shape of Good that is naturally desirable the better to deceive us 1. Sin deceives of it self without a Law 2. Sin deceives by another much more with a Law The CONTENTS Law of Nature Law Positive TITLE V. Of Deceit without a Law SIN deceives of it self without a Law Law of Nature Properly Man is not without a Law for the Law of Nature is in all Mankind And there are Laws Positive Divine or Humane given to all Nations upon several occasions at sundry times But though there be in my heart a Law of Nature written with visible Characters to the eye of the Mind yet except I see a Positive Law written with Characters visibly to the eye of my Body I think my self safe As for the eye of my mind I care not to open it nor whether there be such an eye at all and if it be open whether I will or no I do all I can to shut it and labour to forget what I know But so long as Sense knows no Law I sin the more boldly and comfortably 1. Because there is no plain outward Contradiction to what I do as for the inward I pass that by and no body knows it but my self 2. Because there is no punishment against what I do as for the inward pain of my Conscience I pass that by and no body can read it in my face and no body feels it but my self I owe a debt in Conscience Instance but because there is no express Law to force me to pay it by reason there are no Specialties nor Witnesses in the Case therefore I will not pay it I am bound in Conscience but not in Law for there is no Law to take hold of me By this an honest man is known from an Hypocrite For an honest man will do Righteous things whether there be a Law or no Law but an Hypocrite will do nothing without Law 1 Tim. 1.9 Therefore the Law is not made for a Righteous man but for the lawless and disobedient for ungodly and for Sinners Gal. 3.19 for unholy and profane for murtherers c. And Laws are added because of Transgressions Or if there be a Law yet if it watches not me or cannot find me out or the Officers of Justice be blinded and will not lay hold of me I am well enough I can do a thing in secret that it shall never be known or if it be I have a Trick in Law to come off or I can bribe and buy it out Any way to deceive my self Rom. 2.14 The Scriptures say They that have no Law are a Law unto themselves But this they can evade well enough My Conscience checks me and bids me hold Rom. 2.15 when my Lust urges me to do what my Spirit forbids This shews the work of the Law written in mens Hearts their Conscience also bearing witness and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another Rom. 5.13 For until the Law sin was in the world but sin is not imputed where there is no Law Tribulation and Anguish upon every Soul of Man that doth evil of the Jew first and also of the Gentile but glory and honour and peace to every man that worketh good to the Jew first also to the Gentile Rom. 2.9 c. For as many as have sinned without Law shall also perish without Law and as many as have sinned in the Law shall be judged by the Law When the Commandment came Rom. 7.9.5 sin revived and I died The Motions of sin which were by the Law did work in my members to bring forth fruit unto death and by the Law came the knowledg of Sin Law positive So the Law of Nature is in all and the Law Positive is given to all But Lust broke all these Laws and the long habits of sin and frequent and constant examples of evil Practicers obliterated the Law Natural in good part and caused an oblivion willful for the most part of all Positive Statutes The Law of Nature consists of general Principles and Common Notions So that the Collections and Consequences of Reason from them to be applied to particular cases and occurrences are difficult and the remembrance of those generals very faint Wherefore God renewed this General Law 1. By his own Revelation to the Patriarchs 2. By his own Writing to the Israelites 3. By the Writings of Lawgivers as of Solon Lycurgus Romulus c. to the Gentiles In the mean time before this extraordinary Revelation and Writing Sin was in the world sufficiently even until the Law was written by God and Moses but sin was not so strongly imputed by the bare writing in the heart as it was when over and above to make them without all excuse it was written upon Tables that he that runs may read it for then it confuted them with a witness of a high contempt of Natural and Positive Law both written Rom. 2.9 So all were concluded under sin and are without all excuse and shall be judged for sin as well those that are without Law as with Law Rom. 3.20 But by the Law written came the greater Knowledg of sin and the greater Conviction of sin and the greater Punishment for sin so that the Sinner that before went on rashly in pleasing his lust without much conviction or fear was by the coming of the Law in writing more strongly convinced and frighted and smarted too for it though all this while it raged and broke out more than before to the working of all manner of Concupiscence The CONTENTS By all good Law Lust a Law Law a restraint Law an equivocal Word Law of Mind Law of Flesh Law of God Law of Sin Grace a sole Remedy By all Bad law By one Law in the same law Words and Sense of Law Letter and Spirit By one Law in another By the Law of God in the law of Man By the law of Man in the Law of God By one Moral law in another By the law of Nature in a Positive law By a Pretended Law of God in a certain law of Man By a Private law in a Publick law By the Moral law in the Ceremonial law By the Ceremonial law in the Moral law By one law in all other Laws TITLE VI. Of Deceit with a Law SIN decieves with and by a Law Sin is a transgression of a Law Of deceit with a Law whether it be written or not written but especially written because of the express Precept and Penalty therein contained And by how much the more the Law is good by so much the more I set my self in opposition against it 1. Because it is a grievous contradiction of my will which I would fain fulfil 2. Because it is a sore punishment to my Soul and Body or
Spirit that worketh in the Children of Disobedience Satan is a warlike Prince fights daily against the Saints His Army consists of Principalities and Powers Rulers of darkness Spiritual wickednesses in high places i. e. several Regiments of Devils Eph. 6.12 We wrestle not with flesh and blood but with principalities and powers c. All these Spirits are enemies to the godly for he fights against them but they are Commanders over the Sinner for he serves under them As the poor Gadaren had a Legion of Devils that possest him so the poor Sinner hath a Legion of Lords that command him This makes the slavery out of measure slavish because the multitude of Lords doth multiply slavery For one Father to have many Children is an honour but for one Child to have many Fathers to be Filius populi is true Baseness and Bastardy So for one Lord to have many Slaves is a glory but for one Slave to have many Lords is extreme Baseness and Slavery The Use of all is to draw thee from Sin because sin is true slavery Thou detestest Slavery in the least degree when it bars thee of the propriety of thy Goods and wilt thou endure the slavery of Sin the basest-slavery that is Wilt thou fear the highest degree of it when it bars thee from the propriety of thy self and forces thee to vile and base acts Set thy Soul against this slavery by striving to oppose it and God give thee grace to be free from it for Jesus Christ his sake Amen The CONTENTS Grace cannot deceive TITLE XIV Of the Innocency of the Law Transition NOtwithstanding all that hath been said of the weakness and insufficiency of the Law and of the deceit and bondage thereby still the Law is holy just and good because God is so that made it That must needs be Spiritual because God is a Spirit A thing therefore may be the occasion of sin though in it self it be never so harmless As all the good Creatures of God which being abused groan again after their manner and long to be delivered from their servitude So the Law of God gives no occasion to Sin of it self but Lust takes occasion from the Law to stir up sin contrary to the Law And therefore the Law retorts upon Sin again to condemn it so much the more and to punish it so much the more So that the effect of the Law through the sinfulness of sin is to work sin and wrath deceit fear and bondage and to hold men down continually under this trembling condition all their life long through the horrour of death And the Law of Morality besides the penalty of scourging or Death without mercy annexed thereunto to keep men from Transgressions hath also a Ceremonial Yoke to put upon the Shoulders of such as otherwise would fall to Idolatry c. which altogether could not do but was a heavy Yoke too heavy for them to bear And therefore the Law it self for that part thereof which was Typical and Ritual fell of it self as altogether unprofitable and that small part thereof which was Moral fell not but longed for greater perfection and Grace to be added above the Justice and Rigour which was so ineffectual and accordingly the Law was delivered from the Insufficiency thereof as it was but the lowest part of Morality and was fulfilled to the highest pitch of Spiritual Perfection by Christ who came not to destroy the Law but to fulfil it And those that were under this Law either written or not written either Jew or Gentile were delivered from this State of Bondage and Fear into the glorious liberty of the Children of God So the Law of Justice must needs be a just Law to direct and a severe Law to punish and when it had directed and punished it did all it could do but reformed none from Sin at least inwardly nor saved none from Punishment so that still it left men sinful as it found them and more too and left men miserable as it sound them and more too So that there is an Impossibility that ever any man should be saved by the Law and an Impossibility that any man can be saved by any thing but Grace II. In all God's Dispensations he giveth us to understand 1. That the Law of nature was not sufficient to keep man in the Innocency in which he was created because he was deceived by his Lust a-against which that Law gave him no strength by the strength of his Will he might have stood but not by the strength of the Law So he was deceived in that 2. That when the Law of Nature came to be written for him to read with his bodily eyes as he might before with the eyes of his mind yet still it would not do And when Poenal Laws were added they might keep him in bondage and bodily fear of Death as they did but never secure him from offending nor spare him when he did offend and still it would not do So Justice still shews us every way and by the Law so much the more So the Law deceives us by shewing us the way into which it had no power to put us but left us to take that right way and threatned us if we should offer to leave it So still alas we are deceived by Law and Justice which both intended us good but our own Lust hindred it from coming upon us But as for Grace and Mercy they can no way deceive us Grace cannot deceive nor will they suffer our Lust to deceive us Law and Justice in themselves do not deceive us but Lust does properly deceive us by them Grace and Mercy in themselves do our Work for us and can no way deceive us directly nor indirectly Law and Justice though they did not directly deceive us yet Lust did for all them for they could not help it though they stood by all the while and looked on But Grace and Mercy they do no ways deceive us nor suffer us to deceived So that there is more power in Grace and Mercy than in Law and Justice For what the Law could not do in that it was weak through Lust that Grace did do in that it was strong through Faith And not only condemned Sin in the flesh as the Law did not but destroyed Sin in the flesh and out of the flesh as the Law could not do by Christ's taking in mercy our Flesh upon him See how God gives us wonderfully to understand the power of his Justice to humble us for sin so much condemned and punished in us and to know the greater power of his Mercy to raise us up from sin so much pardoned and unpunished in us 1. God put Mankind under the administration of the Law of Justice to convince him of his sin and of God's just wrath That he might see there was no help for him in himself nor from any Creature no not from God's Law it self that he might abhor himself and bewail his
Ro. 2.19 20. the Law written in their hearts but turned to Idolatry and all unnatural wickedness becoming still more and more vain in their Imaginations Gentiles feared God Yet during the time of all this first wilful Ignorance and then just obduration many of the Gentiles that used their Natural light well and therefore had more given them did truly fear God and were rewarded by him Law written When the Law of Nature was thus obscured partly by wilful neglect of the use of the Rational faculties and partly by heedless following after the multitude of evil Examples of such whose imaginations and deeds were only evil and that continually It pleased God after many Revelations to the ancient Patriarchs and more clearly by Promise to Abraham and to his Seed to write that Law of Nature which they also began to forget as to the first rudiments and elements thereof in Tables of Stone that they might read what they should have read in their own hearts because they were a very dull and carnal People Rites why commanded And to this Law Natural or Moral he added a Law Ceremonial to busie them with the use of such Rites to the Worship of the True God as others used in the worship of false Gods because he knew they were most prone to Idolatry out of fondness wantonness and novelty to be like unto other Nations And to encourage them he promised and performed real Rewards of a Land flowing with Milk and Hony And moreover Civil Law he gave them Civil Laws and Statutes proper for them at that time and in that place the better to keep them in their obedience unto him And engaged them over and above by many miraculous Deliverances And for the same purpose he Ruled them by men of Prophetical and Princely Spirits such as he chose on purpose Rule as Moses and the rest of the Judges to teach them rule them and fight for them till they began to shake off that divine Rule by God their King and to affect the Kingly Government after the manner of other Nations To which humour God also condescended still â—roving them and striving to win them to their duty to him who had done such great and signal things for them and promised to be their God as he had been the God of their Fathers setling them in the Promised Land But notwithstanding all these Endearments as of a tender Father cherishing his Children in his bosom and carrying them as a Nurse in his arms yet still they observed not his Laws Moral Ceremonial or Judicial but went a whoring after their own Inventions and did according to all the Abominations of the Heathens that were round about them And because when they abstained from actual Idolatry Outward Service trusted in they either murmured and snuffed at the Service which God enjoyned them or trusted only in the outward performances thereof though their deeds were never so wicked or if not so yet to the bare external Sacrifices and other Ceremonies enjoyned them thinking thereby to obtain God's favour though in their hearts they continued wicked and would have exprest it in their works if they durst for God shook his Rod over them I say because they thus degenerated from Abraham Isaac and Jacob Prophets sent and at the best trusted to a Carnal Ordinance therefore God was not wanting to send them Prophets rising up early and sending them to call upon them to keep his Laws outwardly and moreover to look to the inward sincerity of their hearts and thereupon to expect more than a Land of Milk and Hony and long Life or any other Temporal Reward Yet still they were dull of hearing and a crooked perverse and stiff-necked Generation At last Christ sent after all these Husbandmen and Servants slighted and abused by them Christ the Son of God comes and puts an end to the Carnal Services and Worship made but for a time and enjoyned them a Spiritual Worship and declared an Eternal Reward to them and to all other Nations upon their Faith and Repentance only The Jews notwithstanding Christ's own Presence Miracles Doctrine Jews Idolaters before Christ's time Death and Resurrection and the Preaching of the Apostles after his Ascension still lingred after Moses his Law and yet increased in all kind of wickedness except that one sin of Idolatry for which they had been so sorely swinged by a never to be forgotten Babylonish seventy years Captivity that they dreaded that Sin ever after and do to this day Jews destroyed And still they deny Christ to be the True Messiah though the Learned'st of them cannot deny but that all the Prophecies concerning him are fulfilled and dream of a Temporal Messiah to deliver them from the power of the Romans and now from all other Powers wherever they are scattered and for this their unbelief they were destroyed from being a Nation and are become Vagabonds unto this day Gentiles called Then did God call in the Gentiles to supply their places who accordingly did come in by the means of the preaching of the Gospel by the Apostles and their Disciples This is the last and fullest Dispensation that ever God did make by his Son whom he hath appointed Heir of all things Old Religion antiquated Thus the Old Religion of the Old Testament was antiquated and abolished and the New Religion of the New Testament established and confirmed among all People for ever The middle wall of Partition that was between the Jews and the Gentiles being broken down of twain making them one Eph. 2.14 having slain the Enmity thereby blotting out the hand-writing of Ordinances that was against us and was contrary unto us Tantae molis erat Divinam condere Gentem Such is that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so various and wonderful are God's Dispensations and his waies past finding out Thus Christ is the end of the Law continuing till John the last of the old Prophets and the first of the new So Aarons Priesthood is turned from the Altar So Aarons Priestly Law is vanished and gone and a New Priesthood and a New Law appears to endure for ever Here is a manifest and famous change of Law and of Priesthood Because Aarons Priesthood I. In Aaron's Priesthood all things are weak and imperfect As Heb. 7.28 1. A Priest weak a mortal man The Law maketh men high Priests which have infirmity One that was fain to offer for his own sins and stood trembling in the Holy place and sprinkling the Blood upon the Vessels and upon himself for fear the wrath of God should break forth upon him Heb. 9.24 2. A Tabernacle weak made with hands of wood and stone and skins of Beasts c. in which were Cherubins and Candlesticks c. Heb. 9.9 3. Sacrifices weak that could not purifie the Conscience and therefore reiterated Heb. 8.13 4. A Covenant weak old and decaying and ready to vanish away
perfect temper again Propension in Nature to its proper state 3. Because there is a great propension in Nature to return to its proper estate by casting of what is heterogeneal thereunto So Medicaments are subservient to Nature by removing obstructions but Nature it self and the inward Archeus being released and set at liberty works the Cure The whole Creation groaneth and longeth to be delivered Ro. 8.21 Bodies bent out of their natural place and violently forced from their proper position of their parts have a spring of their own and an inward strong tendency to return to their posture again This is Motus Restitutionis as if the Air be driven into a narrow compass it hath a spring or Conatus to come back to its proper state So a stone thrown upwards hastens to fall to its Center Sin is a violent and preternatural Estate Returning to God and Righteousness is Motus Restitutionis Liberationis a motion of Restitution and Liberation The Elater and spring in the Soul being quickned and enlivened by God's Grace hath a natural Conatus to return to its proper Estate I delight in the Law of God after the inward man but I see another Law in my Members Ro. 7.21 warring against the Law of my Mind and bringing me into captivity to the Law of Sin which is in my Members This is called Spirit the Mind of the Spirit Inward Man Law of Mind an Innate propension of the Soul awakened to return to its genuine condition as it is intellectual and free to its ancient Nature When the Spirit of God promised to Believers acts from the Spirit or Soul of the Faithful there is 1. An Assent to yield unto God 2. An Acceptation to receive his Promises 3. A Concurrence to work with him Here is no external force or violence offered to the Soul to free it from a state which it would alwaies continue under but a sweet and gentle Call to return to its proper state which the Soul it self longs for Where the Spirit of the Lord is 2 Cor. 3.17 there is Liberty The Freedom of the Spirit is the Soul 's acting from an inward principle and spring of its own Intellectual Nature Longing to be restored and endeavouring with God's Grace to return So that there is not a mere outward Impulse of the Spirit of God but an inward Concurrence of the Spirit of Man The Soul is not like a Boat tugged or driven by Oars or Winds but it goes on Secundo flumine according to the genuine Current of its own intellectual Nature with the help of the gentle gale of the Divine Spirit Genuine nature of the Spirit 4. Because it is the genuine Nature of the Spirit to do that which is agreeable to the Spirit and pleasing to God of whose Nature the Spirit doth partake Vertue and Honesty are homogeneous Vice and Wickedness are heterogeneous There is in the Spirit Cognatio quaedam cum Deo A certain kindred with God 5. Because it is natural to the superior Faculties to be predominate Superior Faculties predominate They are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of a Lordly nature and made to rule and the inferior Faculties are of a Servile disposition and made to obey It is then but Jus Postliminii for Equity Light and Reason to be re-inthroned in my Soul there to command and suppress the Exorbitant affections that rise up against it This is the design of God in the Gospel to restore us to the rectitude and perfection of our own Beings Wherefore he calls us off from the perishing vanities of this World so infinitely below us not to debase or pollute our Spirits by them not to gratifie our lower Faculties the Brute that is in us but the sublimer Angel above The outward objects are but Baits to the outward relishes and sensations of the Body The outward World is like an enchanted Palace seemingly ravishing but a mere Spectrum or shadow that which pleases is the Vital energies of our own Spirits to Vertue and Goodness 6. Because we are not merely Passive Active Cooperation but an active Co-operation is required in us The Spirit of God in Nature that Spiritus intus alens produceth Vegetables and Minerals beyond Art and Industry yet it doth not work absolutely unconditionally omnipotently and irresistibly but requireth certain preparations and dispositions of Plowing Sowing c So the Spirit of God requireth some preparations and dispositions in our Spirits forasmuch as it may be stirred up or excited in us or resisted and quenched by us Unless the Husbandman stirrs up and plows the ground the Spirit of God in Nature will not give any increase So we are bidden to plow up the Fallow-ground of our hearts that is to do our earnest endeavours to work out our own salvation to fight the good fight of Faith to run the Race and to enter in at the strait-Gate Be not therefore merely Passive but move and co-operate with God Fac quod in te est do what is in thy power to do and God that gave thee that power if thou use it will give thee more 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 do but breath a desire and long to come to God and God will meet thy desires and draw thee after him with the Cords of his Grace and Love It is a never-failing Rule He that hath shall have more full measure pressing down and running over shall God give into his bosom But he that hath not from him shall be taken away that which he seemeth to have For all Motions unto Sin and from God are unnatural retrograde excentrick unkindly forced cross unprofitable dishonourable SECTION III. Of Christ's Victory over Law Hitherto I have spoken of the Inward Victory over Sin by the Resurrection and Spirit of Christ Now in the second place of the Victory attainable by the same Power over the Law by Christ his Victory over the Law Where Sin is there is alwaies a Law and where there is no Law there is no Transgression The Law is considered two waies Outward Covenant of Works 1. As an outward Covenant of Works by which Death is to all that break it in Morals or Ceremonials And all men are naturally under the Law and are convinced thereby of Sin and Death and are therefore in bondage and fear of death all their life long without mercy This outward Letter or Covenant of Works is conquered by Christ's Death on the outward Cross Christ hath redeemed us from the Curse of the Law Gal. 3.13 being made a Curse for us as it is written Cursed is every one that hangeth on a Tree That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Christ that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through Faith That we might be free from the Obligation to the Commandements which were not good Exod. 20.25 Christ having broke down the middle-wall of Partition Eph. 2.14 15. that was between the Jew
with Penances and Reliques and Indulgences and Outward performances never regarding the Inward killing of Lusts nor expecting a Living Law written in the heart This is to forsake our Husband Christ and cleave to the bondage of the Law which is dead to us by Christ's Cross and might be dead in us by his Spirit if we would believe And the ground of all this Error is from a Novel Interpretation of that Paragraph of the latter part of the seventh of the Romans contrary to all Antiquity Sense or Reason SECTION IV. The Reasons for this Victory over the Law are these Because Grace is stronger than the Law Grace stronger than Law Mercy rejoyces and prevails over Justice The absolving power of the Gospel is stronger than the condemning power of the Law The Mercies of God are above all his Works Prerogative is above Law Custome overcomes Law Mercy much more The Sword of Justice is strong and sharp but Mercy keeps off the blow and holds the hand of Justice from striking If the Law calls aloud for Justice Christ's blood calls louder and pleads for pardon If any man sin we have an Advocate with the Father and the blood of Christ is the Propitiation for all sins God will have mercy because he will have mercy and what is that to the Law It is the will of God to pardon and pass by Iniquities Transgressions and Sins and to remember them no more When the strong man enters into the house he keeps it and all that is therein but when a stronger than he comes upon him he binds him hand and foot and casts him out So is the Gospel to the Law 2. Because the Spirit of Grace is stronger than the Spirit of the Law Spirit of Grace stronger than Spirit of Law The Spirit of Sin is strong in it self Lust hath a violent impulse and vehement motion The Spirit of Sin is stronger by the Law and rages and takes on much more for being opposed Like a Lion scorns to be kept in but breaks down all barrs and bounds to run abroad at randome But the Spirit of the Law is stronger for though it cannot curb sin from sinning yet it keeps it under the Curse that it cannot escape it But when the Spirit of Grace in Christ comes it preacheth deliverance to the Captives and recovery of sight to the blind and opens the prison doors to them that were fast bound in misery and iron and publishes the acceptable Year of the Lord. The Word of God is mighty in operation throegh the Spirit for the beating down of the strong holds of Sin and Satan As Light is stronger than Darkness to destroy sin so the Blessing of Grace is stronger than the Curse of the Law to take it quite away Though the Spirit of the Law be the Spirit of God's Justice yet the Spirit of the Gospel is the Spirit of God's Mercy which God will have to be more effectual than the other and Blesses whom the Law curses yea and they shall be Blessed 3. God delights more in Mercy than Vengeance Because God delights more in shewing Mercy than in executing Vengeance in sparing than in punishing As I live saith the Lord I delight not in the death of a sinner but rather that he should turn and live Judgment is his strange work Bowels of mercy tender pity and Compassion are his delightful properties 4. Because Man is made to be the object of God's Love not Wrath Man Object of God's Love his Blessing not a Curse Life not Death Heaven was prepared for Men and Angels till they sinned and then Hell was prepared for them and since that for all Hypocrites like unto them We cannot imagine in any reason that God made his poor Creatures for everlasting Destruction We may observe it in our selves though we be evil yet we are not so unnatural as to beget children to starve them or beat out their brains or leave them to the wide World or send them to the Hangman to be tormented to death And if we that are evil know well enough notwithstanding to give good things to our children not a Scorpion for a Fish nor a Stone for an Egg how much more then shall our Heavenly Father give his Holy Spirit to them that ask him and how infinitely more pitiful and compassionate is he than we can imagine or express Christs Pleading undeniable to God 5. Because the Pleading of Christ for Mercy purchased by his own Blood is undeniable to God above all the Pleading of the Law or the Devil that lays the Law against the Brethren whose malicious accuser he is God will not cannot deny his own Son and whatsoever we shall ask the Father in his Name he will deny us nothing SECTION V. Victory procured meritoriously by Christs death 1. This Victory is meritoriously procured for us by Christ's Death O Death I will be thy death O Grave I will be thy destruction And his Resurrection was the pledg to assure us thereof 2. This Victory is really effected and performed in us by the Spirit of Christ raising our Souls from the death of sin to the life of righteousness and our Bodies from the Grave to the life of glory If the Spirit that raised up Christ from the dead dwell in you Rom. 8.11 he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal Bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you As if he should have said If the Spirit of Christ dwell in you regenerating your Souls to a New Creature which is the first Resurrection from the first death then the very same Spirit shall also immortalize your Bodies which is the second resurrection from the second death that upon them the second death shall have no Power Thus abundantly hath God provided for us by Jesus Christ both in respect of our Souls and of our Bodies Our Souls raised from the death of sin and the curse of the Law Our Bodies raised from the Grave The Natural Body is raised a Spiritual Body the Corruptible puts on Incorruption Dishonour turn'd into Glory Weakness into Power a Change to be as the Angels in Heaven Rom. 8.23 2 Cor. 5.2 We Groan within our selves waiting for the Adoption to wit the Redemption of our Bodies In this we groan earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from Heaven Victory obtained by the Spirit of Faith 2. But no obtaining this Victory over death purchased for us till by the Spirit of Faith we obtain a Victory over Sin which is also procured for us by Christ who hath received the Promise of the Spirit for all that believe This is that Crown of Life that Christ the first born of God and first begotten from the dead shall set upon the heads of all those that have fought the good fight of faith and have been more than Conquerours For as death proceeds only from Sin for sin is mortal so life
there have been that have made it a Substance and there have not been wanting those that made it nothing at all It is my Choler saith the Revenger It is my Melancholy saith the Desperate one It is my Blood saith the Wanton It is my Appetite saith the Glutton It is it is not what every one pleaseth Well be these darknesses in the Understanding and these perversnesses and slaveries of the Will and these pollutions of the whole Man what they may be yet for all them nor for all the Devils in her that are about them we shall not sin nor die unless we will our destruction is from our selves 1 Cor. 6.12 And if such we were all yet now we are washed now we are sanctified now we are justified in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ And the Leper who is cleansed complaineth no more of his scab but returneth to give thanks and strives to keep himself sweet and clean None but dogs will return to their vomit and none but swine when they are washed will wallow in the mire The Blind Man who is cured will not return into the ditch and impute it to his former blindness but rejoyceth in the light and walketh therein And we cannot without soul ingratitude deny but what we lost in Adam we have recover'd in Christ with manifold improvements for not as is the offence Rom. 5.15 19. so is also the free-gift For as by the offence of one many were made sinners so by the obedience of one many shall be made righteous Made so not only by imputation for that would please us well have sins removed and be Sinners still but made so that is supply'd with all helps and strengths necessary to perfect that Holiness which is required of them that are justified by Faith in Christ Jesus For is not the Gospel above the Law Grace above Works God above the Devil the Second Adam stronger than the first the Spirit above the Flesh Mighty for the casting down of the strong holds of Sin and Satan and for the translating us from the power of darkness into the Kingdom of the dear Son of God To conclude If in Adam we were all lost and crowded into Hell in Christ we are all saved and advanced into Heaven And if we are weak yet in God is our strength And therefore why will ye die O ye house of Israel Take we heed of sowing pillows under our own elbows and if they be not soft and easy enough to sleep on beware of bringing in a good meaning and honest intention to stuff them up least on these we sleep so securely as Sampson did on the lap of Dalilah till our strength go from us indeed and be fit for nothing but to grind in his prison and to do him service who put out our eyes able to die and perish but not able to live and be saved strong to do evil but feeble and lost to all good And as we pretend Original Sin to be our driver into all other evils and calamities so we pretend the want and insufficiency of Grace to save us and as we know not what that monster of Sin is so we understand not the Beauty of God's Grace Grace as Sin is in every Man's mouth the sound of it hath gone through the Earth Ebrius ad phialam mendicus ad januam The drunkard speaketh of it in his cups and vows 't is better than Wine and by the Grace of God he will be drunk no more The Beggar maketh it his Topick and hopeth that God's Grace will melt the hearts of the Rich to relieve his wants and he will promise to fall to work for his living but the one adds drunkenness to his thirst and the other hath no power to unfold his idle hands for all this Even they that are Giants for Learning leading Men of the first rank and file that say they know it and have it have kept it to themselves or but slightly discovered it to the People in that simplicity and nakedness that upon the first sight they may say This is it Sometimes they represent it to be an infused Habit sometimes a Motion or operation sometimes they know not how to distinguish it from Faith and Charity it is one and the same and yet it is manifold it exciteth and stirreth us up it worketh in us and it worketh with us it goeth before us and it follows us Thus they handle Grace as the Philosophers do the Soul they tell us what wonders it worketh but not its Essence they tell us what it doth but not what it is In all that I have written I profess not to slight or jeer at that original Weakness or attainder of Sin and Death which all of us have cause to bemoan but my scope is to attest the Justice and Mercy of God who hath been made too much the author of Sin and Death And to satisfie the ignorant that Sin is not entailed upon us by fate or Blood nor Grace neither whether we will or no. They have been too long made to believe that Sin and Grace have been real infusions and Physical operations from the evil and the Good Spirit working sensible alterations in the Flesh and Spirit without any concurrence or operation of the Will of either Upon this inevitable necessity of sinning and damnation on the one hand and of Grace and Salvation on the other hand they are moved to lie still under the one which they cannot help and wait for the other if ever it be decreed to come which they cannot call nor invite unto them The People are astonished when they are told of their blindness and lameness and deadness to all good and of the necessity of a real descension of the Spirit into the Heart which being stark blind and stone dead is not able to know what is done unto it in the Reviving thereof no not so much as to consent to receive what shall be given it If Sin were inevitably decreed and accordingly infused by the Devil into all Souls beginning at Adam it should be non-sense to define Sin to be a transgression of the Law and a covenant with Satan And if Grace were inevitably decreed and accordingly poured by God into all Souls beginning at Adam it should be non-sense to define Grace to be an obedience to the Gospel and a covenant with God There was never yet any Covenant made without consent of Wills between both parties The Devil and the Sinner are agreed and God and the Godly are agreed also And this Agreement must be free on both sides for a forc'd will is no will nor can the will be forc'd either by God or Man Nullum pertinaciae remedium posuit Deus aut homo There is no remedy against the obstinacy of will either from God or Man God hath made in Man a Free-will to work freely neither can it work otherwise neither will God destroy the work of his own hands nor is there any reason
still very shy to be kept they can hardly be lookt upon or handled they are desultorious and slippery and long to be gone from us But God sticks by us and delights to dwell with us A Servant abideth not in the house Joh. 8.35 but the Son abideth for ever Wisdom invites and courts all to her embraces O ye simple how long will ye love simplicity and ye fools delight in scorning Get wisdom get understanding wisdom shall preserve you understanding shall keep you Put her on as a Robe as a Crown as ornaments of gold and pretious stones and keep her as thy life God is not lapt up in the Ephod for the Priest alone nor wrapped up in the Diadem for the Prince alone All are equally concerned to enjoy God as well he that groveleth on the dunghil as he that sits on the Throne as well the dweller in the smoky Cottage as the Lord of stately Palaces The Gospel is preached to every Creature his Messengers are equally sent to the Captains and Scribes as to the common Souldiers that sit on the Wall God is no respecter of persons but in every Nation he that feareth him and worketh righteousness is accepted of him Christ disdained not the society of Publicans and Sinners and the Kingdom of Heaven is pressed into by all sorts and the violent take it by force SECT XIII Good lovely 3. Because Good is lovely and amiable to all and praised by the worst because Nature teacheth all Men to reverence Virtue though they choose the contrary It striketh an awe into those that scorn it A Man of God a Magistrate carries such gravity in his Countenance and habit and Majesty in his life and Calling that his presence will daunt the stoutest Atheists and Ranters and stop their oathes and lewdness till Cato be gone they start at him and beg of him to depart out of their coast and pray him not to come among them to torment them The preaching of Paul of Justice and Judgment made Felix tremble Bonum tunc vincit cum laeditur tunc intelligitur cum arguitur When good is most opposed she conquers most and is then understood when she is reproved so hard a thing it is to loose the Instinct of Nature which when put by will come on with the greater force to our greater conviction and shame in refusing that good which is so obvious and easie to be practised and hunt after that evil which is more remote and painful to be performed Herod was troubled to cut of John Baptist's head because it was unjust and dishonorable yet for his Oath 's sake and those that were with him and to please a wanton Damsel in Point of Honour falsely so called he commanded it to be done contrary to his conscience and was troubled after he had done it when hearing of the famous works of Christ he cryed out it was John the Baptist that was risen from the dead Christ's innocency evicted Pilate's heart while his tongue condemned him saying to the People Be it as you require And yet he could not but say I find no fault in this Man The malice of Tyrants raged against the Martyrs to kill them while their innocency acquitted them even in the Judgments of their murtherers fain would they have spar'd their lives if they would but conform to their idolatrous courses so contrary to nature for an Idol is nothing there is no reason in Nature for it nor in many other things which unreasonable and unnatural Men presume to do Wicked Men are glad when they can get companions in their sins and glory most when for fear of torments they can bring godly Men over to their ungodly courses thinking thereby to strengthen themselves in their sin and to salve their own sores and lull the loud cries of their conscience condemning them for what they do What Traitor ever praised Rebellion and what Devil will not commend a Saint Let me die the death of the Righteous saith the most profane and let my last end be like unto his yet they will not give themselves leave to do that which in reason they allow to be good and just so strongly are Men confuted by themselves and so powerful is the Law of Nature in all Men. Besides what satisfaction ever had any wicked Man in his wicked courses Eat drink and be merry take thine ease let loose the reins to all licentiousness beat at every bush crown thy head with Rose-buds before they be withered taste of all the delights of the Sons of Men will this do in the midst of laughter the heart is sorrowful Vanity of vanities saith even Nature it self all is vanity and vexation of Spirit Nothing can fill the heart but God nothing can comfort but a good conscience Lastly to make all sure remember that undeniable principle of Reason mentioned in the first Book and first Title of the first Volume to be written with Letters of Gold and to be engraven in the Rock with the point of a Diamond for ever which is this That every Action that is in our Power to do or not to do is imputable to us and may justly be imputed to us by God or Man But on the contrary every Action that is not in our power to do or not to do is not imputable unto us nor can be justly imputed to us by God or Man That is not of debt to the hurt of any but of Grace it may be imputed for their good For favours may be imputed where they are not due But sins and plagues can never be imputed but only where they are due The Rule is unquestionable It is impossible rightly to lay the guilt of sin upon any Man unless he by his own individual Act of will hath made himself guilty of the transgression of a known Law If this be true then consider what rightly follows Vide l. 7. T. 3. of Christ's feudal Kingdom Sect. A publick person c. SECT XIV Argumenta Laciniata Aculeata 1. God pardoned Adam's sin upon his repentance Ergo he suffered not for it any more than a temporal death which was threatned him how then shall his Children be unpardoned and suffer any more than a temporal death threatned in Adam to all his posterity 2. Our Birth is involuntary and without our knowledg how then born in sin involuntary and unknown except God by decree included our knowledg and wills by interpretation How can these things be No being no life no Action no Understanding no Will. Then we must charge God who makes us consent before we were or could consent 3. Our will was fast asleep in its causes The cause of our will is God's will not Adam's will The Soul is immediately created and infused by God Ergo was not in Adam's Soul 4. God did not punish the Devils but for their own most perfect choice why are Men punished for no choice 5. If Adam had notice of the Law what notice had we
kind Mother and Mistress This Ishmael was born after the flesh of Hagar a young Woman and Abraham able to beget by her Isaak born after the Spirit of Sarah an old Woman and Abraham an old Man not able to beget but Abraham was supernaturally enabled Heb. 11.12 especially Sarah who was both old and barren 1. Ishmael typifies those that seek Justification by the Law or works 2. Isaak typifies those that seeks Justification by Grace or Faith They that seek Justification by works depend upon themselves and their own natural goodness or strength or the works of Law They who seek Justification by Faith depend upon God's Grace and free Promise ☞ Note here by the way that Isaak was a Type not of personal Election from all Eternity but of such as shall be justified by Faith in the Promise For the scope of the Epistle is in opposition to the Jewish confidence to prove that Justification is not by the Law So that the conceit of Election and Reprobation from this place is quite and clear Eccentrical from the scope and business which the Apostle aims at in this place 1. From whence I observe That the Mysteries of Salvation are declared not by words only but by Providences and Dispensations 2. That God without acceptation of persons may advance one above another in temporal benefits Acceptation of Persons hath place only in Judiciary rewards not in Dispensations of Grace and Mercy to eternal Rewards SECT XXXII Gen. 25.3 Jacob and Esau Besides that Allegory of Jacob and Esau denotes two Nations for the Text saith Two Nations are in thy womb and is by the Apostle applied to the Freedom of God preferring the younger Brother the Gentiles before the Elder the Jews Ro. 9.11 c. not upon any account of works For the children being yet unborn neither having done good or evil that the purpose of God according to Election might stand not of works but of him that calleth it was said unto her The elder shall serve the younger As it is written Jacob have I loved and Esau have I hated But the Preferring of the Gentiles before the Jews was only upon the account of Faith by the which they were justified and the Jews could not be justified because they stood upon their works So Jacob and Esau were not Types of a Personal Election and Reprobation but of a specifical National Election and Reprobation whosoever how many or how few soever not to an Eternal but to a Temporal Inheritance 2 Sam. 8.14 For the Elder shall serve the Younger and so the Edomite did serve the Israelite v. 2 Sam. 8.14 Je. 60. 1 Chron. 18.11 13. And the Idumaeans revolted Psal 137.7 Ez. 35.5 10. yet were they subjects 1660 years Jacob signifies the People of the New Testament by Faith Esau signifies the People of the Old Testament by Works Object Gal. 3.17 The Covenant that was confirmed of God before in Christ the Law that was four hundred and thirty years after cannot disannull that it should make the promise of God of no effect Solut. These words prove not that the Gospel or Covenant of Grace was before the Law or Covenant of works but before that solemn repetition or new Delivery thereof upon Mount Sinai When there was a Brief Transcript of it written and delivered unto Moses in Tables of Stone by God Rom. 5.20 Gal. 3 19 c. The Law entred that the offence might abound The Law was added because of transgressions till the Seed should come to whom the promise was made c. And that the Law or Covenant of Works was in being yea in force in the World before the publication of it from Mount Sion appears For untill Law sin was in the world Rom. 5.13 that is from the beginning of the World until the giving of the Law in words and writing from Mount Sinai And Consequently a necessity of the Law because where no Law is there is no transgression Rom. 4.15 but sin is not imputed where there is no Law that is Ro. 5.13 sin is not charged upon Men or punished nevertheless death reigned from Adam inclusivè unto Moses even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression and consequently there must needs have been a Law without the breach whereof Men had not been obnoxious unto death Yea not only the Moral Law properly so called was extant in Men's hearts and delivered by Tradition but some particulars of the Ritual Law practised in the World before the delivery of the same Law much disused and forgotten to Moses in Writing upon Tables of Stone upon Mount Sinai As appears by the offering of Sacrifices of old and of the Sabbath and of Circumcision commanded to Abraham and his Seed and by the Marriage of the Widow of a Kinsman dying without Issue before the Law Yea the Law or Covenant of Works was as ancient as Adam and by transgression thereof he and all his Posterity incurred the guilt and punishment of Death Therefore the Law or Covenant of Works was the first born Testament or Covenant of Works made by God with Mankind And upon this account they who are of the Law i. e. who seek for Justification by the Law of works are resembled by Esau the Elder Son and they who expect Justification by the New Testament or Law of Grace i. e. by Faith are properly typified by Jacob the Younger Brother When God said to Rebecca Two Nations are in thy Womb ☜ and the Elder shall serve the Younger he mystically signified that his absolute will and purpose was never to own for Sons and Heirs of Heaven the People of the Elder Covenent i. e. those that should seek for Justification by the Law but to assign over those for Servants or Bondmen to his Children i. e. those of the later or younger Covenant who should seek the Adoption of Sons or Justification by Faith Thus God was pleased to declare to the World that his purpose according to Election might stand firme and unchanged and that he meant not to elect or make choice of those whom he should or would adopt by the rule of Works or by any rule that Men should commend to him or desire to impose or obtrude upon him but only by the Rule of his own most free gracious and wise pleasure which he hath declared to be the Rule of Faith Inasmuch as in equitable Right the making his own choice in this kind accrueth unto him as he is the sole Magnificent Founder of this Blessed Feast of Justification calling and inviting the World from all Quarters to come unto it For a Clench to keep this Interpretation from stirring The Prophet Malachi brings in God thus Saying Was not Esau Jacob's Brother Mal. 1.2 c. yet I loved Jacob and hated Esau and laid his Mountains and Heritage waste for the Dragons of the wilderness He gave Esau a lesser portion of an earthly
thereunto that is temporal 10. The rewards of a Spiritual Life are adequate and homogeneal thereunto that is Eternal SECT I. Thus there are two Minds or Understandings Transition Mind and Will of Flesh and Spirit that I may so speak and two Wills or Appetites in Man The first is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Mind of the Flesh 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Will of the Flesh the other is the Mind of the Spirit and the Will of the Spirit Or which is all one there is in every Man Sense and Reason and the Sensitive and Rational appetite a part Terrestrial and a part Celestial a Brute and an Angel According to these Principles and essential parts constituting the Persons of Men so they do and must live both the Life of sense and of reason But if the sensitive powers are predominate then the Rational faculties lye still and the life is just like the life of a Beast and no more purely sensual But if the Rational faculties prevail then the sensitive powers are kept in compass and the life is the true life of a Man and no more purely Rational But if the Spirit of Faith come upon the Soul it advanceth the Judgment and directs the Will to the greater mortification of the Flesh and suppression of the unjust desires thereof and the life is the true exact life of a Christian purely Spiritual So there is a threefold life in Man of sense of Reason and of Faith Life in Man threefold Natural Animal Spiritual 1. The Life of Sense is unregenerate for that which is born of the Flesh is Flesh and no more as it came from its principles So the Flesh acteth and satisfies it self in Hearing Seeing Tasting Feeling and Smelling as do the Brutes 2. The Life of Reason is the Embryo tending to Regeneration and almost Christian for that which is the off spring of Reason is Reason and no more as it came from its principles So the Soul acteth and satisfies it self in understanding willing and choosing and reflecting as do Angels and Men with themselves and with one another 3. The Life of the Spirit by Faith is the consummation of Regeneration and a new Creation and altogether Christian for that which is the off-spring of the Spirit is Spirit and all true Sense and Reason as it flow'd from its principles So the Soul acteth and satisfies it self in more sublime Judgment Love and Choice and rare Recognitions and Contemplations as do Saints and Blessed Spirits with God and their own Souls So there is the Life of Natural Sense the Life of Natural Reason the Life of Supernatural Faith and Reason 1. The Life of Nature is good quà Nature or Sense till it exceed the bounds of Natural Reason and positive Law for sin is only a transgression of Law 2. The Life of Reason is better till it opposes unreasonably the Reason of Grace and Faith 3. The Life of Grace is best of all which regulates the Sense and Reason and perfects both SECT II. The Soul hath her Spiritual Senses of Seing Hearing Tasting c. as well as the Body Spiritual Senses and Passions The Soul hath her Spiritual Food and Raiment as well as the Body meat and drink indeed and clothing indeed which the Body knows not of nourishing and cherishing and adorning her unto everlasting Life The Soul hath her Passions of Love Joy Hope c. which reason and Faith and the Spirit of God moderate and refine into perfect Holiness and Sanctification till it arrives unto Glory The Soul hath joy indeed when she rejoyces in the Lord and is ravished and sick of love labouring to know and feel the height and the length and the bredth and depth of the Love of God which passeth all knowledg to enjoy the Peace of God and a good Conscience which passeth all understanding to have fellowship and communion with God to relish Heaven and to taste of the powers of the World to come There are Riches for the Soul as well as for the Body which are the true Riches the treasure layd up in Heaven where neither rust nor moth doth corrupt and where thieves do not break through nor steal There are Honours for the Soul as well as for the Body to be the Servant and Friend of God the Spouse of Christ the Son and Heir of God and Co-heir with Christ There is the Wisedom of the Soul as well as of the Body to be wise to Salvation to know God and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent The fear of the Lord is true wisedom all other wisedom is but foolishness Scientia contristans scientia sine capite A sorrowful and imperfect knowledg and altogether unsatisfactory See a most lively description of a Carnal Life in the second chapter of Wisedom Life of Faith You have seen the Life of Sense and Reason but oh the life of Faith how sublime and lofty is the state thereof above them both 1. It is above all Prosperity whatsoever it knows how to use this World as though it used it not is treads the Moon under her feet and counts all things but loss and dung to gain Christ it is not ravished nor transported by letting out the stream of affections upon the World even the stupidity and madness but looks higher and hath an eye to the recompense of the Reward and to the price of the High Calling is the more humble and thankful and fruitful in good works in an advanced Estate abounding therein in all piety and love 2. It is above all Adversity whatsoever it knows how to want as well as to abound in the midst of apparent dangers it stands still to see the Salvation of God not knowing when nor how Believes above hope and contrary unto hope retains her integrity when tempted to curse God and die Though he kill that Soul yet will she put her trust in him though she stick fast in the deep mire and clay though she be gone down to the sides of the works and to the roots of the everlasting Mountains and the weeds of despair be wrapped about the dying head in the Judgment of weak Flesh and Bloud yet will she look up once more toward the Holy Temple of God and never leave hoping and trusting in him who she knows will never leave nor forsake her This Ship can tell how to live in all storms amongst all rocks and quick-sands this House can stand all the blustering winds and roaring waves because it is built upon a Rock In a word the Life that the Soul lives she lives by the Faith of the Son of God and her life is hid with Christ in God who is all in all unto her abundantly above all that she is ever able to ask or think and she can do and suffer any thing through Christ that strengtheneth her SECT III. 1. Thus the Life of the Flesh is a poor obscure Corollaries low and inconsiderable Life 2. The Life of
the Flesh is a base fordid and slavish Life 3. The Life of the Flesh is a dull stupid and sottish Life 4. The Life of the Flesh is a vexatious toilsom and uncomfortable Life But on the contrary 1. The Life of the Spirit or of Faith is an high towring and Stately Life 2. The Life of the Spirit is a free generous and noble Life 3. The Life of the Spirit is a clear brisk and most ingenious Life 4. The Life of the Spirit is a pleasant and fully contented Life 5. The Life of the Spirit is an everlasting Life 6. The Mind and Will of Sense and the Mind and Will of Reason were the Gift of God by Creation passing to Mankind by the means of Generation without sin and before sin and Law that made sin to be known 7. The Mind and Will of the Spirit perfecting and sanctifying the Mind and Will of Sense and the Mind and Will of Reason were the Gift of God by Promise or Covenant and Faith of God and Man convey'd to Mankind by the means of Regeneration without sin and after sin and Law that made sin to be known by Grace and Pardon through Jesus Christ 1. Thus the Life of Sense is natural and good till it exceed in its operations the rules and limits of a law put upon it For sin is the transgression of a law and where there is no law there is no transgression but still the sense is unregenerate 2. The Life of Reason is natural and better in a tendency to Regeneration while it acts like it self by rules of right Reason and the Law of Nature till it be debauched by the carnal Mind and Will and drawn down to unreasonable notions and appetites 3. The Life of Faith is Supernatural good and best of all which is the state of Regeneration and a new Creation of a new and perfect Man in Christ Jesus SECT IV. 1. Therefore we are to do all in Faith Corollaries 1. Acts of Sense and Passions of love joy fear c. 2. Acts of Reason Arts Sciences and Mysteries Speculative and Practick So we live above all these 2. Therefore we are to suffer all in Faith 2. Sense pain sickness scorn shame c. 2. Reason ignorance errour and all failings So we live above all these 3. Therefore we keep integrity in all Conditions 1. Peace health honour wealth favour and all prosperity 2. War sickness shame poverty and all adversity 4. Thus we may try and judg of both estates the Old Man and the New the Flesh and the Spirit the Old Creature and the New the unregenerate and the Regenerate the Child of the Devil and the Child of God 1. Consider a Man that leads a Carnal Life He is very busie about what pleaseth his sense and carnal reason he takes care for his health and pleasure he hunts after gain honour and pride he studies for Learning Arts and Sciences Well what will all this do Ask him when he comes to die Where 's his pleasure profit Learning c. all is gone and he is going from all and what comfort have they left behind Now he must die and all 's left behind He enjoy'd his worldly wealth as long as he could and now some body will sing O be joyful and throw it away as fast as he raked it together and faster too 2. Consider a Man that leads a Spiritual Life He is very busie about what pleases his Soul he takes care for his Soul's health he searches for the true gain he studies for the true Wisdom Well what will all this do ask him when he comes to die Where 's his pleasure profit Learning c. all is present with him and go along with him his end is Peace and he enters into Peace He dies a wise and holy Man and he is happy and gone to God and his memory is precious 5. Thus by Faith I am justified to the promise By Faith I enter into the Promise by Faith I receive the Spirit of Promise the Adoption Sanctification Hope Comfort Love and Glory by Faith I labour in the works of Love and work out my Salvation with fear and trembling by Faith I hold out in prosperity from being translated ravished or overcome by peace wealth c. By Faith I hold out in adversity and live in all storms from being overwhelmed by pain grief c. into despair By Faith I resist and overcome the Devil by Faith I live by Faith I die and rest in hope to enjoy the end of my hope Everlasting Life Conclusion Therefore without Holiness there can be no happiness for to be carnally minded is Death but to be Spiritually minded is Life and Peace for if we live after the Flesh we shall die but if we through the Spirit do mortifie the deeds of the Flesh we shall live Ergo 1. In Feudation is Adoption Justification and engrafting into Christ By Faith 2. Homage is Regeneration Re-creation and Sanctification by works Quod erat demonstrandum The Fifth BOOK OF ASSURANCE The CONTENTS Transition Promises Publick Faith Spirit Waiting TITLE I. Of the Nature of Assurance OUR Justification doth create unto us a present right to the future possession of Heavenly Blessedness Transition The matter whereunto the Right claimeth is the Heavenly Blessedness it self the Title whereby this Right is acquired or had is Faith by the higher Title of Free-Grace the Tenure whereby it is continued or held is Sanctification or Works and the Services of Love and the Assurance whereby it is witnessed or proved is the Spirit by Faith For where a Right is imparted convey'd or settled upon me Reason it is good reason that besides my Title and my Tenure I should have some good Assurance from the Donor or Granter whereby the truth of such conveyance may be witnessed and proved in case the Donor or Granter should fail or deny or recal such conveyance But especially this Assurance is to be made where the Gift or Grant is imperfect as alwaies it is in all Promises For by force of a Promise there is convey'd unto me only a bare right or interest to a thing and not any possession of the thing it self but the actual delivery of it is suspended until some time future And therefore in the mean time some Assurance is most necessary for me that thereby I may know how to witness the Promise formerly passed unto me for my future possession of the thing promised when the time thereto assigned shall be expired 1. In the Old Testament God promised unto Abraham the inheritance of the Land of Canaan and Abraham believing God or accepting the Promise had by virtue of such his Faith a present right thereto But because he had not the present possession of it he requested some Assurance whereby he might know that he should inherit it Gen. 15.8 And he said Lord whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it And God gave him an Assurance by
and for everlasting Heb. 13.8 When St. Peter saies That the Prophets who foretold the Gospel searched against what time the Spirit of Christ that was in them declared and testified before hand the sufferings of Christ and the glorious things that followed 1 Pet. 1.10 When St. Paul saith That all Gods Promises are Yea and Amen in Christ 2 Cor. 1.20 Methinks it is strange that a Christian should imagine that there was not consideration of Christ in these promises under which they ran the race of Christians Nor could St. Paul say As by Adam all die so by Christ shall all be made alive 1 Cor. 15.22 Nor could the comparison hold between the first and second Adam Ro. 5.12 19. if that life which I have shewed Christ restores Christians to were given to the Fathers before Christ without consideration of Christ Nor could the Apostle otherwise say That Christ is the Mediatour of the New Covenant that death coming for the ransom of those transgressions that were under the old they that are called may receive the promise of an everlasting Inheritance Heb. 9.15 But because those sins which were redeemed only to a temporal effect by the sacrifices of the old Law as also those which were not redeemed at all by any were by the sacrifice of Christ redeemed to the purchase of the World to come Which is that which St. Paul tells the Jews Act. 13.29 That through Christ every one that believeth is justified from all things which they could not be justified of by the Law of Moses For as the Law did not expiate capital offences so it expiated none but to the effect of a civil promise And though we construe the words of St. John Apoc. 13.8 Whose names are not written in the book of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the World out of the same sense repeated Ap. 13.8 Not that the Lamb was slain from the foundation of the world but that their names were written in his book from the foundation of the world yet inasmuch as it is called the book of the Lamb that was foreknown from the foundation of the World 1 Pet. 19. When Moses demands not to be written in Gods book when mention is made of it in the New Testament it must be the book of Christ in the mystical sense And when St. Paul saith that Christ gaeve himself a ransom for all A testimony for due time what can he mean but that though he gave himself for all yet this was not to be testified till the proper time of the preaching of the Gospel And what is this but that though this is testified only by the preaching of the Gospel yet he was a ransom for all Which reason suffers not the same term All Heb. 2.9 Ro. 3.23 to be restrained from that generality which it naturally signifies Lastly when the Apostle argues that if Christ should offer himself more than once that he might more than once enter into the Holy of Holies he must have suffered oft from the foundation of the World that is before the end of the World in which he came indeed Heb. 9.25 26. he must needs suppose that he suffered for all that were saved before the Gospel For what pretence can there be that he should suffer for sins under the Gospel before the Gospel more than that the High Priest before the Law should expiate those sins which were committed against the Law by entring in to the Holie of Holies And here you may see that I intend not to affirm that all that were saved under the Law though in consideration of Christ did know in what consideration Christ should be their salvation as Christians under the Gospel do But to refer my self to the determination of St. Augustine and other Fathers and Doctors of the Church that they understood it in their Elders and Superiors the Prophets of God and their Disciples the Judges of Israel who were also Prophets and the Fathers of several ages of whom you read Heb. 11. Who being acquainted with the secret of Gods purpose were to acquaint the people with it so sparingly and by such degrees as the secret wisdom of God had appointed These things thus premised I do acknowledge and challenge the act of God in dispensing in the execution of his original Law and bringing the Gospel into effect instead of it not to be the act of a private person remitting this particular interest in the punishment of those sins whereby his Law was transgressed But the Act of a Master of a houshold or the Prince and Soveraign of a Commonwealth which you please disposing of Mankind as his Subjects or Houshold Servants c. Dr. Taylor Rule of Consc 2 Book p. 319. I do not here intend a Dispute whether Christ hath given us Laws of which neither before Moses or since there are no foot-steps in the Old Testament for I think there are none such but in the letter or Analogy they were taught and recommended as before But this I say that some excellencies and perfections of Morality were by Christ superadded in the very instances of the Decalogue These also were bound upon us with greater severity are indeared to us by special promises and we by proper aids are enabled to their performance And the Old Commandments are explicated by new Commentaries and are made to be Laws in new instances to which by Moses they were not obliged And some of those excellent saying which are respersed in the Old Testament and which are the dawnings of the Evangelical light are now part of the body of light which derives from the Sun of Righteousness In so much that a commandment which was given of old was given again in a new manner and to new purposes and to more eminent degrees and therefore is also called a New Commandments c. v. 3. Book c. 3. p. 555. Idem 2. B. c. 3. p. 469. In the Religion of the old World the Religion of Sacrifices and consumptive oblations it is certain themselves did not choose by natural reason but they were taught and enjoyn'd by God For that it is no part of a natural Religion to kill Sacrifices and offer to God Wine and Fat is evident by the Nature of the things themselves the cause of their institution and the Matter of Fact that is the evidence that they came in by positive Constitution For Blood was anciently the sanction of Laws and Covenants Sanctio à Sanguine say the Grammarians because the Sanction or establishment of Laws was that which bound the life of Man to the law and therefore when the Law was broken the Life or Blood was forfeited But then as in Covenants in which sometime the wilder people did drink Blood the gentler and more civil did drink Wine the blood of the Grape So in the forfeiture of Lands they also gave the blood of Beasts in exchange for their own Now that this was less than what was done is certain and therefore it
the Name from the Law it self and all others and is truly and really the everlasting Testament and Covenant of God Of this New Testament the Scriptures of the Old Testament do frequently prophesie Jer. 31.32 Behold the days come saith the Lord That I will make a New Covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah not according to the Covenant which I made with their Fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the Land of Egypt which my Covenant they brake although I was a Husband unto them saith the Lord. And in divers other places hereafter to be noted And these are the two distinct Testaments set forth by the Allegory of Abrahams two Sons the one by a Bond-woman and the other by a Free-woman For these are the Two Testaments Covenants the one from Mount Sinai which gendreth to Bondage Gal. 4.24 which is Agar the other from Mount Sion in Jerusalem which is Free-born which is the Mother of us all And therefore we that are under the second Covenant are not Children of the Bond-woman but of the Free-woman Proofs for the title of Testament But the prime places in the Gospel and writings of the Apostles do most fully demonstrate this Notion of a Testament as in the first place those dying words of the Mediatour himself This is my Blood of the New Testament Matt. 26.28 which is shed for many for the remission of sins Where no man dares translate it Covenant or by any other word than Testament which makes the Opposers sweat to make good the rendring of the same word in other places a Covenant as in the eight of the Hebrews they do Heb 9.16 17. whereas in the next Chapter they cannot do it For this cause he is the Mediatour of the New Testament that by the means of death for the redemption of the Transgressours that were under the first Testament they which are called might receive the promise of eternal Inheritance For where a Testament is there must also of necessity be the death of the Testatour for a Testament is of force when men are dead otherwise it is of no strength at all while the Testatour liveth Wherefore neither the first Testament was dedicated without Blood c. So the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gal. 4.24 relate to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 v. 7. If a Son then an Heir of God through Christ and v. 30. The Son of the Bond-woman shall not be Heir with the Son of the Free-woman Gal. 3.15 As also Gal. 3.15 though 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be there translated Covenant yet it strongly soundeth a Testament because if it be confirmed first by death no man can disannul it No man can disannul his own Testament because he is dead and hath no will whereas we see daily that Covenants though never so much confirmed by hands and Seals c. are broken every day at the wills and pleasures of them that made them So 1 Cor. 11.25 This Cup is the New Testament in my Blood 2 Cor. 3.6 God hath made us able Ministers of the New Testament and v. 14. The Old Testament is done away in Christ And in many other places But more particularly let us take a view of Gal. 3.17 Gal. 3.17 This I say that the Covenant which was confirmed before of God in Christ the Law which was four hundred and thirty years after cannot disannul that it should make the Promise of none effect The Argument of the Apostle in the Paragraph v. 15 16 17. is thus Though it be but a Mans Covenant yet if it be once confirmed no such Testatour can disannul it or superadd thereunto by any after-Act much less will the most holy and righteous God of heaven disannul his own Testament when once it is confirmed But I say that Gods Testament was confirmed before the giving of the Law and therefore the Law which was four hundred and thirty years after the Institution of the Testament could not disannul or defeat the Promise therein conteined There are two Acts of a Testament Acts of a Testament Institution or Faction when a Testator declares this to be his last Will and Testament by Word or Writing or both Confirmation or Establishing when he silently declareth it to be unalterable and irrevocable by dying or taking his death upon it These two are different Acts done at different times and by different means the one in Life the other in death Now the Old Testament of God for the Promisory Part of it was first instituted or ordained when Abraham lived in Mesopotamia before he dwelt in Charran for there the Lord had said unto him Gen. 12.2 I will make of thee a great Nation and I will bless thee and make thy Name great and thou shalt be a Blessing c. This Institution was again declared to Abraham when he lived at Sichem for there the Lord appeared unto him and said Gen. 13.4 Lift up now thine eyes and look from the place where thou art Northward and Southward for all the Land which thou seest to thee will I give it and to thy seed for ever The Sum of this Institution was yet again renewed unto Abraham when he dwelt in the Plain of Mamre which is Hebron where the Lord said unto him Gen. 15.7 I am the Lord that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees to give thee this Land to inherit it Thus Gods Ordination Institution or Faction of his Testament was sufficiently declared to Abraham immediately after this last Intimation the same Testament was confirmed by God For when Abraham desired some farther Assurance whereby he might know that he should inherit the Land promised Gen. 15.18 God thereupon confirmed or established his Testament by doing a solemn Act which added such Authority and force unto his Testament that by vertue of that Act God deprived himself as a dead man of all power of recalling it Therefore by Gods appointment certain Beasts were slain and divided into half and the pieces laid severally one against another and the Lord as a Burning Lamp passed between those dead pieces and by that passage his Testament was confirmed Gen. 15.18 In that same day Gen. 15.18 the Lord made a Covenant with Abraham In the Hebrew the Lord cut or dispatched his Testament or Promise to Abraham In the Greek he disposed his Disposition to Abraham i. e. he assured it to him saying to thy Seed have I given this Land c. Neither can the Hebrew Word Berith here signifie a Covenant for two Reasons 1. Because the Hebrew Text saith he made a Deed Constitution or Reason 1 Disposition unto Abraham not a Condition or Covenant with Abraham And so the LXX read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2. Because as to the Act of God Abraham was not the Counterparty Reason 2 with whom it was done but the Beneficiary unto whom it was done God
the World are blessed The CONTENTS What the Old Testament contains What the New Testament contains Gospel a Testament rather than a Covenant TITLE III. Of the Gospel a Testament FOR contemplation of this New Estate leaving the Wisdom of the Gentiles take but a short view of the Glories of the Old Testament so far out-shined by the lustre and brightness of the New The Old Testament held forth these things What the Old Testament contains 1. Legacies or Gifts devised thereby which were earthly and temporal as Canaan's Land with plenty peace honour and long life therein 2. Conditions Precepts or Laws such as were the Rites or Moralities therein 3. A Mediator or Executor who was Moses who dying before he had finished his office Joshuah succeeded him and gave the People possession of the Promised Land the People being first subdued by the Sword 4. Legataries Abraham and his Seed the Israelites 5. Publishing by Angels God's Representatives declaring his Will Act. 7.53 Gal. 3.19 6. Proof by Thunderings and Lightnings and the sound of a Trumpet with many Terrours upon the burning smoaking and trembling Mount Sinai to the heart-aking of all the Spectators and Hearers Exod. 19.16 Heb. 12.18 7. Writing of the Moralities of that Testament upon Tables of Stone by God Ex. 32.16 The Ceremonies and Penalties in a Book by Moses Ex. 24.4 8. Confirmation to be of force by the death of Calves and Goats Exod. 24.5 Heb. 9.19 For all Testaments are of force by the death of the Testator or some body for them if men should make such a Law as God did by the substitution of the blood of Beasts for that purpose The New Testament comprehends these things 1. Predestination or Purpose or good Pleasure of Will in God What the New Testament contains before the World to make a just Disposition of things to be or done in time and to be had and enjoyed to all Eternity 2. Declaration or Nuncupation to Jesus Christ the Son of God and Heir apparent of all things and sole Executor to his Father This Will I say was first Nuncupative or by Word of mouth declaring the full mind of the Testatour as a Will Parol made to Christ the Word and Wisdom of God that came from the bosom of the Father and revealed him Afterwards it was written by some of Christ's Apostles and other Divine Persons to whom he taught it on earth and from heaven as he had received it and they also preached what was revealed unto them to all the World 3. Legacy or Inheritance which is Blessedness and in order thereunto Forgiveness of sins the Gift of the Spirit and the Resurrection of the Body Which said Blessedness is a firm Estate in Heaven free from all Evil and full of all Good incorruptible reserved for us in the Heavens 4. Condition Resipiscence or Holiness possible and accepted though not perfect yet made perfect through Christ I say possible so made by God or else if the Condition had been impossible the Disposition had been void and unjust as all Impossible Conditions are and therefore such Testaments are null and void 5. Executor Jesus Christ who is a Mediatour between God and Man For every Executor mediates between the Testatour and the Legataries because the Legacies came from the Testatour first to the Heir or Executor as we now speak and by the means of the Executor they are conveyed to the Legataries who may not take them of their own accord with their own hands but must demand or sue for them from the hands of the Executor or otherwise they have no power no right to receive or enjoy them 6. Legataries instituted of God are All Believers In all Testaments for Pious causes the Legataries are instituted by appellative or common and not by their proper Names for then no Testament was able to contain them As when a Benefactour bequeaths such or such gifts to all the honest and laborious Poor in such a Town all that are honest and laborious Poor in that place may challenge their Legacies by virtue of that Devise neither can any of them so qualified be excluded or denied their dues It is therefore to be noted that this VVill of God is such a Will and that therein there is no Dereliction or Praeterition at all but that it is like an Universal Pardon proclaimed to all that will come in and accept thereof upon the Condition expressed Math. 12.18 Gal. 3.15 7. Proof by a Voice from heaven saying This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased Hear ye him Besides many and great Miracles 8. Confirmation by the Death of Christ substituted to take Flesh and die for God who could not die This is my Blood of the New Testament Math. 26.8 v. Heb. 9.15 All which Dispensations afford just matter of wonder adoration and praise of the manifold Wisdom and Grace of God Gospel a Testament rather than a Covenant The Gospel therefore appears to be a Testament to all intents and purposes much rather than a Covenant or any other Deed as may be demonstrated by these Testimonies and Reasons The very words used by Christ himself are a sufficient proof if there were no more which he uttered a little before his death Math. 26 28. This is my Blood of the New Testament which was shed for many for the Remission of sins And the repetition of the sense of them by St. Paul 1 Cor. 11.25 This Cup is the New Testament in my Blood David in the Spirit Then said I Loe I come In the volume of the Book it is written of me that I should fulfil thy will O God I am content to do it Sacrifice and Burnt offering thou wouldest not have but a Body hast thou prepared me Then said I Loe I come to do thy will O God Heb. 10.5 7 c. he taketh away the First Covenant that he may establish the second v. 29. That great Shepheard of the sheep through the Blood of the Everlasting Covenant 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is used all along and the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 never in the Old or New Testament These are the two Covenants the one from the Mount Sinai which gendreth to bondage Gal. 44. c. This is the Covenant which I will make with the house of Israel I will put my Law c. In that he saith a New Covenant Heb. 8.10 c. he hath made the first Old now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away By so much was Jesus made Surety of a better Covenant Heb. 7.22 established upon better Promises Heb. 9.15 The Mediatour of the New Testament that by the means of Death for the redemption of the Transgressions that were under the first Testament they which are called might receive the Promise of Eternal Inheritance For where a Testament is there must also of necessity be the Death of the Testatour For a Testament
then of Earthly holy things Christ's Blood dedicates the Holy of Holies the Sacrifices of Beasts were sufficient but for the purging of Heavenly things with better Sacrifices than these that is the blood of Beasts might and did suffice to Consecrate the Earthly Tabernacle but no Blood but that of Christ's could Dedicate the Heavenly Sanctuary for the reception of Souls and Bodies made holy for into that place no unclean thing could enter Heb. 9.23 But Christ being entred into Heaven and appearing there in the presence of God as a Priest to consecrate the place and those that should enter into it he is become a Priestly Advocate with the Father to make propitiation for our sins and not for ours only 1 Joh. 2.1 2. but for the sins of the whole World And all this was done at Once and by one offering Dying but once One Offering and entring into the Holy place to offer but once to put away sin and from Heaven he shall appear the second time without blood to offer for Sin because all is done away Heb. 9.28 to give his people the full benefit of that Offering by vindicating them from Death and enstating them in eternal Life who look for this Salvation and wait for the Time of the Restitution of all things when at his Coming they shall lift up their heads because their Redemption draweth nigh and they love his Appearing 2 Tim. 4.8 All the Legal Sacrifices were imperfect 1. Because shadows of perfect good things to come 2. Because they were offered year by year The same Sacrifice recurring year by year made by the same persons and so for many Ages could never be perfect nor make the Comers thereunto perfect for if they had been perfect or could have made the Comers thereunto perfect they would have ceased to be offered because the Worshippers being once purged should have had no more Conscience of sins Where Health is fully recovered and settled the Medicine needs not to be iterated till Relapses come Heb. 10.3 But in those Sacrifices is a Remembrance again made of sins every year i. e. When the Solemn Fast-day came about wherein those Sacrifices were to be offered the High-priest did lay both his hands upon the head of the Scape-goat and confess over him all the Iniquities of the Children of Israel Lev. 16.21 And when the year before all their Sins were laid upon the head of the Scape-goat and banished into the Wilderness yet in the next year and so successively every year after another Goat must be banished because the People contracted new sins to be forgiven But in this great Sacrifice of Christ all Sins of all People being laid upon his head and shoulders who only was able to bear them are fully remitted for ever so that there needs no more Sacrifice for sins For he shall finish the Transgression and make an end of sins Dan. 9.24 and make Reconciliation for Iniquity and bring in Everlasting Righteousness SECTION IV. Christ offers his self in Heaven Heb. 10.5 And because it is impossible that the blood of Bulls and Goats should take away Sins therefore Christ cometh into the World to do it Psal 40.6 saying Lo I come to do thy will O God He had a Body therefore fitly prepared for that Heavenly Sanctuary wherein he offered up himself to God As if he had said unto his Father Seeing the Legal Sacrifices please thee not therefore Lo I come to do thy Will i. e. to offer thee such a Sacrifice that is wholly according to thy good will and pleasure that every one might be freed from the guilt and punishment of all his sins and in the end have Everlasting life And to this end I have offered my Body so perfected to Immortality as the Septuagint read it and I have addicted my self wholly and for ever to the Service of the Heavenly Tabernacle as the Servant addicted him to his Master by having his Ears opened and bored to the Door as the Hebrew reads it that I might do thy Will for ever Because in Burnt offerings and Sacrifices for Sin thou hast no pleasure nay because thou wouldst endure them no longer therefore I come into this thy Heavenly Sanctuary to do thy Will and please thee with the oblation of that Body which thou hast prepared me wherewith to serve thee in thy Sanctuary for ever in whom thou art well pleased Heb 9.13 Heb. 10.8 By the which Will we are sanctified by the offering of the Body of Christ For that was God's will and not the Legal Sacrifices Christ reigns in Heaven After Christ the High-priest had offered this Great Sacrifice of Himself in the Temple of Heaven he did not stand daily ministring nor offering the same Service Heb. 10.12 but after he had offered this one Sacrifice for Sins for ever sate down at the Right hand of God from henceforth expecting till his Enemies be made his Foot-stool He hath offered so sufficiently that he needs never offer more he hath done his work of Conquest and sits down to triumph over his Enemies and to expect their subjection to him For God saith unto Christ Sit thou on my Right hand until I make thine Enemies thy Foot-stool Psal 110.1 It appears therefore that CHRIST is our great High-Priest mediating our Salvation 1. By Dying to confirm God's Testament a Sacrifice slain on the Cross 2. By offering the Blood of that Sacrifice being quickned through the Spirit unto God in Heaven A Man therefore he must be that his blood might be shed and a God that by the power of his Divine Spirit his blood might be offered for the sins of the World For every High-Priest is taken from amongst Men and ordained for Men in things pertaining unto God Heb. 5.1 2 c. that he might offer both Gifts and Sacrifices for Sins who can have compassion on the Ignorant and them that are out of the way for that he himself is compassed with Infirmities And by reason hereof he ought as for the People so also for himself to offer for sins and no man taketh this honour to himself but he that is called of God as was Aaron So Christ glorified not himself to be made an High-Priest but he that said unto him Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee Heb. 2.17 18. Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his Brethren that he might be a merciful and faithful High-Priest to make Reconciliation for the sins of the People for in that he himself suffered he is able to succour them that are tempted And forasmuch as the Children are partakers of Flesh and Blood he also himself likewise took part of the same that through Death he might destroy him that had the power of Death Heb. 2.14 that is the Devil The Order of this Priesthood of Christ was according to that of Melchisedec who was a Type of
Correction Work Payment Church Elders Bishops Priests Deacons High Priest Altar Sacrifice Tithes Oblations First fruits Dedication Consecration Expiation Propitiation Excommunication Idol Faith Vow Covenant Contract Promise Oath Stipulation Sacrament Seal Intercession Hand-writing Mediator Obligation Assurance Evidence Conveyance Alliance Affinity Consanguinity Tribe Stock Familie Degrees Line Birthright Succession Dominion Lordship These and other learned Titles of the Law with the profound judgments of renowned Antecessors upon each of them serve more to the enrichment of the treasury of wisdom for the furnishing of apt Interpretations and Glosses upon the Laws divine than all the Arts or Learning of the World Besides the aptitude of resolving cases and doing business with prudence honesty and gallantry is created by them after the rellish of those equitable and brave Souls that made them The CONTENTS Of the Laitie's Calling AND as to the Laity I say consider your Calling we may not speak the mind of God in learned and unknown Tongues to the high ones only that Pearch on the Towers but in Vulgar language to the meanest that sit on the wall Quod omnes tangit ab omnibus tractari debet That which concerns all ought to be understood by all We will not hoodwink you to make your Ignorance the Mother of your as blind devotion we will not captivate your minds by Magisterial dictates of us men and hide from you the Royal Commandments of your God TITLE VI. Of the Laitie's Doctrine I. I Say then boldly Consider your Calling For Doctrine 1. From beyond the lowest Law of Nature 2. From beyond any Laws written upon Tables 1. To the Law of the Spirit and of Grace 2. To the Law written upon the Heart To the best of Precepts of Evangelical perfection taught by Christ in his famous Sermon upon the Mount and other occasional Discourses and by the Apostles and other holy Men of God that had the same treasure in earthen vessels To the best of Promises Viz. Forgiveness of sins Liberty Adoption Spirit Resurrection eternal life These are the Laws that are so high and yet so easie few favourable and pleasant for the wayes of Wisdom are wayes of pleasantness and all her paths are peace I exhort them therefore to a high belief and full assurance of Heaven by the seal and earnest of the Spirit to be partakers of the holy Unction of Wisdom and Perfection to be a Royal Priesthood and a peculiar people by vertue of the promises that belong to you and to your Children of high exemptions and priviledges of great honour and estate TITLE VII Of the Laitie's Persons II. FOR your Persons Look therefore to your selves that ye walk worthy of so great Salvation and having such an hope in you so full of a glorious and blessed Immortality see that ye purifie your selves even as God is pure and become a people altogether zealous of good Works perfecting Holiness in the fear of the Lord that at last you may obtain an inheritance among them that are sanctified by faith which is in Christ Jesus Fear not therefore little Flock for it is your Father's good Will and pleasure to give you a kingdom Your hope is laid up for you in heaven And neither eye hath seen nor ear hath heard neither can it enter into the heart of man to conceive what things God hath laid up for those that fear him When Christ the favourable Mediatour and Executor of God's Testament shall put the Faithful into actual possession of Eternal Glory saying Come ye Blessed Children of my Father receive the kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the World Aim therefore at a Gospel-Spirit 1. Care not for unnecessary Disputes God's Testament is a plain Testament of Grace Mercy and Peace from God the Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ As Men's Testaments are to be seen and read by all that are concerned so is God's Will to be seen and read by all Col. 2.6 c. As ye have received Christ Jesus the Lord so walk ye in him rooted and built up in him and stablished in the faith as ye have been taught abounding therein with thanksgiving Beware lest any man spoil you through Philosophy and vain deceit after the traditions of men after the rudiments of the world and not after Christ 2 Tim. 2.23 But foolish and unlearned questions avoid knowing that they do gender strifes also Genealogies and contentions and strivings about the Law for they are unprofitable and vain 1 Tim. 1.4 Neither give heed to Fables and endless Genealogies which minister questions rather than godly edifying which is in Faith If any man teach otherwise 1 Tim 6.3 c. and consent not to wholsome words even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ and to the doctrine which is according to Godliness he is proud knowing nothing but doating about questions and strifes of words whereof cometh envy strife railings evil surmisings perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds and destitute of the truth supposing that gain is godliness Jude 27 c. from such turn away Remember ye the words which were spoken before of the Apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ how that they told you there should be mockers in the last time who should walk after their own ungodly Lusts these be they who separate themselves sensual having not the Spirit But ye Beloved building up your selves in your most holy Faith praying in the Holy Ghost keep your selves in the love of God looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal Life and of some have compassion making a difference and others save with fear pulling them out of the fire hating even the garments spotted by the flesh Let the Clergy exhort and teach these things and whatsoever else belongeth unto sound doctrine with all long suffering and patience as the stout Soldiers of Jesus Christ 1 Tim. 6.20 And let them be sure to keep that which is committed to their Trust avoiding profane and vain bablings and oppositions of Sciences falsly so called which some professing have erred concerning the Faith Tit. 1.14 Let them not give heed to Jewish fables and commandments of men that turn from the truth nor yet to endless genealogies which minister questions rather than godly edification 1 Cor. 2.4 Let not your speech nor your preaching be with the entising words of mans wisdom but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power Speak Wisdom among them that are perfect the wisdom of God in a mystery even the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the world unto our Glory For other Foundation can no man lay than that is laid 1 Cor. 3.11 c which is Jesus Christ Now if any man build upon this foundation Gold Silver Pretious stones Wood Hay Stubble every man's work shall be made manifest for the day shall declare it because it shall be revealed by fire and the fire shall trie every man's work whatsoever it is If any
Law his right of assembly to him and his heirs for ever Deut. 23.2 who stand excommunicated For A Bastard shall not enter into the Congregation of the Lord. As an Alien Forreigner or Stranger is disabled and debarred from the rights and priviledges of inheritances freedoms votes and other common benefits of the Laws Municipal which the Natives do enjoy So the Romans Greeks and other Nations inhabiting Judaea were by the Jews accounted and called sinners We are Jews by Nature and not sinners of the Gentiles Gal. 2.15 Because they were Strangers and Aliens who had no right equal with the Native Jews and Proselytes that were made free of their Nation As a villain or Bastard-born who is no actual transgressor against any Law yet by the Law of Nations is made a quasi Transgressor being wholly depersonated and degraded from the common Condition of a Man and depressed into the state of a Beast dead in Law having no Will nor Action nor Possession of any thing but is at the will and in the possession of his Lord subjected to all wrongs and excluded from all Rights having no Estate Office nor Suffrage must be no Witness can have no power to make a Testament Such was the state of Servitude a state of death not life Thus by the Law of God the Gibeonites were accursed Now therefore ye are cursed Jos 9.23 and ye shall none of you be freed from being bond-men and hewers of wood and drawers of water SECT VI. 3. The Distressed who justly according to the secret will of God Distressed for reasons best known to himself are afflicted with some notable and lasting misery such as the Blind and the Lame the Deformed the Lepers the Monster the Deaf and Dumb Innocents Fools and Frantick persons the proper objects of pity and compassion that neither sinned they nor their Parents but that the power of God might be seen and his Name glorified These are generally censured for sinners upon whom God hath layd such extraordinary calamities And so are such as suffer loss of Children Friends Honour Estate by storms and tempests by wars famines or any other fatal changes or chances in this world Such a one was Job yet a perfect and upright Man one that feared God and eschew'd evil yet Job's Friends erroneously condemned him for an hypocrite because so fearfully handled in his Person Children and Estate not considering That though sin be the cause of affliction yet it is neither the perpetual nor total nor sole cause thereof but that there are other good causes and considerations that flow from the secret and good will of God though they be hid from our eyes Thus those upon whom the Tower of Siloam fell were counted greater sinners than others because they suffered such things Thus those Galileans whose blood Pilate mingled with their Sacrifices were counted greater sinners than others because they suffered such grievous things Thus Lazarus a beggar and lying at the Rich Man's gate and desiring to be fed with the crumbs that fell from the Rich Man's Table Luc. 16.20 and was deny'd and the dogs came and licked his sores yet was he carried by the Angels into Abraham's bosom Thus the Man Blind from his birth and sate and begg'd was judged either for his own sins or for the sins of his Parents to be made so miserable but it was that the work of God might be manifest SECT VII 4. The Tainted or stained in Blood Tainted who justly according to the will of God are made heirs to their Fathers misery either natural by hereditary diseases or ill conditions or legal by Confiscation of Goods Infamy Bastardy Slavery or other attainder or corruption of blood but especially for crimes of Treason or other high mis-demeanors against the Common-Wealth for which the Children of those Parents are debarred from being heirs to their Estate or Dignity Thus the seven Sons of Saul were hang'd in the Hill before the Lord for their Fathers cruelty against the Gibeonites 2 Sam. 21.9 Thus the Sons of Gehezi were made heirs to their Father's Leprosy which clave unto him and to his Seed for ever 2 Kings 5.27 Thus Eli's Sons were turned from the Altar for their Father's neglect besides their own enormities Thus for Achan's Sacriledg his Sons and his Daughters his Oxen and his Asses and his Sheep and all his Tent Jos 7.24 and all that he had were stoned with stones and afterward burnt with fire Thus the Children of Corah Dathan and Abiram and all theirs went down alive into the pit for the Rebellion of their Parents Thus the Children of the Ninevites should have been destroy'd whereof six score thousand could not discern their right hand from their left had not their Parents repented at the preaching of Jonah The CONTENTS Rom. 5.12 explained Recapitulation Accounting Adam's will not ours Levi's paying of tithes All mortal in Adam Righteous in Christ Immortal in Christ Every Individuum acts for it self Sinner legal Sinner moral Sinner jural Psal 51.6 explained Ephes 2.3 explained Soul a spirit Good most common Good lovely v. lib. 7. Tit. 3.2 Vol. Argumenta Laciniana TITLE II. Of Original Sin Rom. 5.12 Explained IN this rank are all the Sons of Adam who for his disobedience are made heirs of his mortality By one Man sin entred into the World and death by sin and so death passed upon all Men for that or in whom all have sinned not actively by transgressing in his transgression but passively by being prejudicated in his judgment 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In his doom all Men were condemned to the state of transgressors These words In whom all sinned signify the same thing with those Vers 15. Through the offence of one many be dead and with these Vers 16. The judgment was upon one to condemnation and with these Vers 19. By one Man's disobedience many were made sinners And with these 1 Cor. 15.22 In Adam all die All which sayings amount to no more but this That by the sin of Adam he and all his Children were made mortal As by the sin of the Gibeonites they and their Children were made bound-slaves and by the sin of Gehezi he and all his Children were made lepers By one Adam sinning sin entred upon all Mankind and for that one Man's sin death came upon him and all Mankind by diminution of strength which caused grief diseases and death For though Adam was made 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. was made a living Soul not a quickning Spirit yet if he had continued to obey God he had ever remained alive in paradise and whether any higher condition was appointed to him is uncertain to us and was not certain to him Some think after a most long life God would have delivered him from the Body without any grief or pain which the Jews do not call death but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Osculum Pacis the Kiss of peace others think he
should have been translated as Enoch or Elias were But of this let others judg while we hold with the wise Hebrew Wisd 2.24 Eccles 25.24 that by the envy of the Devil death came into the world and with the son of Sirach By a Woman was the beginning of sin and from thence we all die For God made not death neither hath he pleasure in the destruction of the living for he created all things that they might have their Being and the Generations of the World were healthfull and there is no poison of destruction in them Wisd 1.13 c. nor the kingdom of death upon the Earth for Righteousness is immortal and ungodly Men with their works and words have called it to them Thus death came upon all the posterity of Adam by the Law of his original by which the Bodies that were extracted from him could not but be obnoxius to the same evils to which his Body was subject from whence for their substance and qualities they were derived For the benefit that might come to the Bodies of Men from the Tree of Life being taken away they remained fading and frail as Potsheards made of earth just like the Bodies of other Creatures Thus say the Rabbies and St. Cyrill 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As for the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 if they yet stick I say farther it is no strange Metonymie among the Hebrews and those that do hebraize to use the word sin for Punishment and therefore by a Metalepsis they are said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to sin who suffer any evill though without their fault as Gen. 31.36 Jacob answer'd and said to Laban What is my trespass what is my sin that thou hast so hotly pursued after me And Job 6.24 Teach me and I will hold my tongue cause me to understand wherein I have erred where 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is interpreted by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is by whom as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is used Luke 5.5 Act. 3.16 1 Cor. 8.2 Heb. 9.17 Rightly therefore St. Chrysostome speakes upon this place 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 St. Paul in the next verse renders the reason of this assertion That all Men therefore die because they are all descended from Adam Because they had no Law given them which for the breach thereof did threaten the punishment of death upon the transgressors He denyeth not but that sin was in the world from Adam till the Law was given as the sin of Cain and of those before the Flood of Cham Noah Sodom the Brethren of Joseph Pharaoh and others after the Flood but never no death menaced till Moses by his Law did inflict death for the more hainous offences because sin is not imputed and consequently not punished where there is no Law that is sin was not therefore imputed to any that it should be to them the cause of death to wit to every particular Man For God then did not punish each particular Man with death for their sin but he punished all Mankind and amongst them Infants and Children that were never guilty of any sin But the Law speaks to every person that sins saying That Soul shall die the death that is God him-himself would cut him off by death if either the Judges were ignorant of his crime that had deserved it or if they neglected to do their duty Nevertheless death reigned all that while strongly even from Adam to Moses which was a long time even two thousand five hundred Years and spared none no not those that never sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression that is that had committed no sin like unto that which Adam committed such as Abel Noah Abraham Isaac Jacob Joseph And because the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is ambiguous and in some sense may be attributed to all therefore the Apostle distinctly explains himself concerning what kind of sin he speakes to wit of that sin which may be esteemed equal with that sin which Adam had committed for great sins use to be compared to the sin of Adam Hos 6.7 The judgment given upon Adam for his offence was Banishment from Paradise A curse upon the ground for his sake a miserable painful life and at last an everlasting death and this judgment was not personal only to determine with him but it was reall and hereditary to him and to his heirs for ever For as by his offence his innocency was corrupted so by his judgment his Posterity was tainted and his Blood stained For first none of his Children shall be heirs to that immortality and Blessedness which he once was to enjoy in Paradise Secondly all his Children shall be blemished and tainted to inherit the curse of Banishment misery and mortality which he incurred Thirdly this corruption shall not be remedied but by the extraordinary Mediation of Jesus Christ Recapitulation Thus the Jural or calamitous sinners are of four sorts The oppressed the blemished the distressed and the tainted And the word Sinner doth sometimes carry all these senses for sometimes one and the same person may be oppressed blemished distressed and tainted And the three first sort of sinners Legal Moral and Jural are not essentially different but that one and the same person may be a transgressor unkind and calamitous as the Gentiles were transgressors and improbous or unmerciful Rom. 1.29 being Filled with all unrighteousness fornication wickedness covetousness maliciousness Full of envy murder debate malignity wisperers back-biters haters of God despiteful proud boasters inventers of evill things disobedient to Parents without understanding Covenant-breakers without natural aflection implacable unmerciful And they were calamitous and blemished being aliens from the Common-wealth of Israel and strangers from the Covenant of Promise having no hope and without God in the world The Jews in the sight of God generally were as great sinners as the Gentiles but legally and morally What then are we better than they No in no wise for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles that they are all under sin Yet jurally they were not such sinners nor so calamitous as the Gentiles because they were not such aliens and strangers from God but had many reall rights and priviledges peculiar unto them as the Peculiar People of God Yet the right which the Jew had in God was but a puerile or servile right to be as Children in the condition of Servants under age in hardship under the Law From which state Christ came to emancipate and deliver them that he might advance them and invest them into a filial right of being the Sons of God In a plenage and fulness of years Gal. 4.2 3. Thus Men are sinners three several waies Most Men generally are transgressors and improbous or unkind and all Men universally are calamitous oppressed blemished distressed and tainted wherefore this last way Man as he is a Man is a sinner and over and above legally and morally sinful being actually transgressors
a word they say and unsay sometimes bring in remission of sins and sometimes their own satisfaction and so set St. Paul and their Church at such a distance that neither St. Peter himself nor all the Angels and Saints she prayeth to will be able to reconcile them and make his Gratis and their Merits meet in one It is true every good act doth justifie a man so far as it is good and God so far esteemeth them holy and good and taketh notice of his graces in his Children he registreth the patience of Job the zeal of Phineas and the devotion of David not a cup of cold water not a mite flung into the treasury but shall have its reward But yet all the works of the Saints in the world cannot satisfie for the breach of the Law for let it once be granted what cannot be denied that we are all 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 guilty and culpable before God that all have sinned and are come short of the glory of God then all that noise the Church of Rome hath filled the world with concerning Merits and Satisfaction and Inherent righteousness will vanish as a mist before the Sun and Justification and Remission of sins will appear in its brightness in that form and shape in which Christ first left it to his Church Bring in Abraham and Isaac and all the Patriarchs and Prophets and Apostles and deck them with all those vertues which made them glorious but yet they sinned Bring in the noble Army of Martyrs who shed their blood for Christ but yet they sinned They were stoned they were sawn asunder they were slain with the sword but yet they sinned and he that sinneth is presently the servant of sin obnoxious to it for ever and cannot be redeemed by his own blood because he sinned but by the blood of him in whom there was no sin to be found Justificatio Impii this one form of speech of Justifying a sinner doth plainly exclude the Law and the Works of it and may serve as an Axe or Hammer to beat down all their carved work and those Anticks which are fastned to the building which may perhaps take a wandring or gadding fancy but will never enter the heart of a man of understanding We do not find that beauty in their artificial and forced inventions that we do in the simple and native truth Neither are those effects which are as irradiations and resultances from forgiveness of sin so visible in their Justification by faith and works as in the free remission which is by faith alone The urging of our Merits is of no force to make our peace with God They may indeed make us gracious in his eyes after remission but have as much power to remove our sins as our breath hath to remove a mountain or put out the fire of hell For every sin is as Seneca speaketh of that of Alexander in killing Callisthenes Crimen aeternum an Eternal crime which no vertue of our own can redeem Let me add my passions to my actions my Imprisonment to my Alms let me suffer for Christ let me die for Christ But yet I have sinned We may observe those Justitiaries how their complexion altereth how their colour goeth and cometh how they are not the same Men in their Controversies and Commentaries that they are in their Devotions and Meditations Nothing but Merit in their ruff and jollity and nothing but Mercy on their Death-Beds nothing but the Bloud of Martyrs then and nothing but Christ's now nothing but their own satisfaction all their lives and nothing but Christ's at their last gaspe Before Magis honorificum it was more honourable to bring in something of our own towards the forgiveness of our sins but none for the uncertainty of our own Righteousness Because there is no harbour here Christ's Righteousness is called in with a Tutissimum est as the best shelter And here they will abide till the storm be overpast Id. ib S. 24. p. 870 c. Imputed Righteousness Some stand much upon imputed Righteousness and it is true which they say if they understood themselves And upon Christ's Righteousness imputed to us which might be true also if they did not interpret what they say For this in a pleasing phrase they call To appear in our Elder Brother's Robes and apparel that as Jacob did we may steal away the Blessing Thus the Adulterer may say I am chast with Christ's Chastity and if he please every wicked Person may say That with Christ he is crucified dead and buried And that though he did nothing yet he did it though he did ill yet he did well because Christ did it This Righteousness if they have no other doth but ill become them because it had no Artificer but the Fancy to make it For that Christ's Righteousness is thus imputed to any we do not read no not so much as that it is imputed though in some sense the phrase may be admitted Jerm For what is done cannot be undone no not by Omnipotency it self for it implyeth a contradiction Deo qui omnia potest hoc impossibile God who can do all things cannot restore a lost Virginity He may forgive it blot it out bury it not impute it account of it as if it had never been but a sin it was We read indeed that Faith was imputed to Abraham for Righteousness Ro. 4.3 And the Apostle interpreteth himself out of the 32. Psal Blessed is the Man unto whom God imputeth Righteousness without work Gal. 3.6 2 Cor. 5.21 That is as followeth whose sins are forgiven to whom the Lord imputeth no sin And Abraham believed in God and it was imputed to him for Righteousness And we are made the Righteousness of God in him That is we are counted righteous for his sake And it is more than evident that it is one thing to say That Christ's Righteousness is imputed to us another that Faith is imputed for Righteousness or which is the very same our sins are not imputed to us Which two imputations of Faith for Righteousness and not-imputation of sin make up that which we call the Justification of a Sinner For therefore are our sins blotted out by the hand of God because we believe in Christ and Christ in God That place where we are told that Christ of God is made unto us Wisdom and Righteousness and Sanctification is not such a Pillar of Christ's imputed Righteousness in that sense which they take it as they fancy'd when they first set it up For the sense of the Apostle is plain and can be no more than this That Christ by the will of God was the only cause of our Righteousness and Justification and that for his sake God will justifie and absolve us from all our sins will reckon or account us holy and just and wise Not that he who loved the error of his life is wise or he that hath been unjust is righteous in that wherein he was unjust or
he that was impure in that he was impure is holy because Christ was so but because God will for Christ's sake accept and receive and embrace us as if we were so Unless we shall say that as we are wise with Christ and holy and righteous so with Christ also we do redeem our selves For he who is said to be our Righteousness is said also to be our Redemption in the next words c. Id. ib. S. 44 p. 1074 c. It is true indeed the Gospel hath been preached these 1600 years and above many questions have been raised about Justification For though Men have been willing to go under the name of justified persons yet have they have been busie to enquire how Justification hath been wrought in them They are justified they know not how Many and divers opinions have been broach'd amongst the Canonists and Confessionists and others Osiander nameth twenty and there are many more at this day And yet all may consist well enough for ought I see and still that sense Justification which is deliver'd in Scripture as necessary remains entire For 1. it is necessary to believe That no Man can be justified by the works of Law precisely taken and in this all agree 2. It is necessary to believe that we are not justified by the Law of Moses either by it self or joyn'd with Faith in Christ and in this all agree 3. That Justification is not without remission of sins and imputation of Righteousness and in this all agree 4. That a dead Faith doth not justifie and here is no difference 5. That that is a dead Faith which is not accompanied with good works and a holy and serious purpose of good Life And in this all agree Lastly that Faith in Christ Jesus implyeth an advised and deliberate assent that Christ is our Prophet and Priest and King And in this all agree Da si quid ultra est And what is more is but a vapour But those interpretations which have been made upon this Nihil ampliùs quam sonant Nec animum faciunt quia non habent What matter is it whether I believe or not believe know or not know that our Justification doth consist in one or more acts so that I certainly know and believe that it is the greatest Blessing that God can let fall upon his Creature and believe that by it I am made acceptable in his sight and though I have broke the Law yet I shall be dealt with as if I had been just and righteous indeed whether it be done by pardoning all my sins or imputing universal obedience to me or the active or passive obedience of Christ c. Id. 1. Vol. S. 22. p. 427. Adam sinned and we die We were all in the loyns of that one Man Adam when that one Man slew us all And this we are too ready to confess that we are born in sin Nay Original Sin we fall so low as to damn our selves before we were born This some may do in humility but most are content it should be so well pleased in their Pedigree well pleased that they are brought into the World and in that filth and uncleanness that God doth hate and make the unhappiness of their Birth an Advocate to plead for those pollutions for those willful and beloved sins which they fall into in the remaining part of their life as being the proper and natural issues of the weakness and impotency with which we were sent into the World But this is not true in every part That weakness whatsoever it is can draw no such necessity upon us nor can be wrought into an Apology for sin or an excuse for dying For to conclude and wrap up all our actual sin in the folds of Original weakness is nothing else but to cancel our old obligations and to put all on our first Parents score and so make Adam guilty of the sins of the whole World Our natural and original weakness I will not now call into question since it hath had such Grandees in our Church Men of great learning and piety for its Nursing Fathers and that for many centuries of years but yet I cannot see why it should be made a cloak to cover our other transgressions or why we should miscarry so often with an eye cast back upon our first Fall which is made ours but in another man Nor any reason though it be a plant water'd by the best hands why men should be so delighted in it why they should lie down and repose themselves under its shadow why they should be so willing to be weak and so unwilling to hear the contrary why men should take so much pains to make the way to happiness narrower and the way to death broader than it is In a word why we should thus magnifie a temptation and disparage our selves why we should make each importunate object as powerful and irresistible as God himself Petrar and our selves as Idols even nothing in this world Magna pars humanarum querelarum non injusta modò materiâ sed stulta est for when our souls are pressed down and overcharged with sin when we feel the gripes and gnawings of our Conscience we commonly lay hold on those remedies which are worse than the disease suborn an unseasonable and ill applied conceit of our own natural weakness which is more dangerous than the temptation as an excuse and comfort of our overthrow We fall and plead we were weak and fall more than seven times a day and hold up the same plea still till we fall into that same place where we shall be muzled and speechless not able to say a word where our complaints will end in curses in weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth Omnes nostris vitiis favemus quod propriâ facimus voluntate ad naturae referimus necessitatem we are all tender and favourable to our own sins and because they pleased us when we committed them We are unwilling to revile them now but wipe off as much of their filth as we can because we resolve to commit them again And those transgressions which our lusts conceived and brought forth by the midwifry of our will we remove as far as we can and lay them at the door of necessity are ready to complain of God and Nature it self Now this complaint against Nature when we have sinned is most unjust for God and Nature have imprinted in our Souls those common principles of goodness That good is to be embraced and evil is to be abandoned that we must do to others as we would be done to Those practical notions those anticipations as the Stoicks call them of the mind preparations against sin death which if we did not willfully stifle and choak them might lift up our Souls far above those depressions of Self-love and Covetousness and those evils which destroy us quae ratio semel in universum vincit which Reason with the help of Grace overcometh at
from the first evil that ever was seen under the Sun But then in our old age which is a complication and collection of all sins as well as diseases how should a dim eye discover it in the midst of so many evil habits wreathed platted one within another Covetousness wrought in with luxury and with luxury cruelty each thwarting and yet friendlily complying one with the other Can we now say That these sins were thus multiplied and raised to such a height by the power and continued force of that fatal legacy which our first Parents left us Nor was this the last Crime wherewith our Mother crown'd us in the day of our conception Can we labour and toil can we affect and study sin can we make it our business our ambition to walk in our evil waies and say that we were put in them from the beginning and forced forward by the violent hand that first put us in Indeed the Old Man the old Sinner is glad to hear of another Old Man though he never intendeth to crucifie him nor well understandeth what it is no more than the vulgar do Antichrist which in their phrase is a Beast and hath horns Multitude of years though Age be talkative yet many times knows no more of this Primitive and famed evil than they do who are but of yesterday Even they who have been brought up in Nob in the City and University of Priests have not all agreed of their discovery of this evil but have presented it in so many shapes that it will be hard to chuse and say This is the right this this it is I am sure that their opinions are more than the sins can be which original sin doth necessarily bring into act The Anabaptists in the daies of our Fore-Fathers called it Somnium Augustini Some make it a sin and some a punishment only some make it both Some have made it nothing but the want and deprivation of original Righteousness or an habitual aversion and obliquity of the Will Others have made it the image of the Devil There be that conceive the whole essence of Man to be corrupted there be that make it an Accident and there have been that have made it a substance And there have not been wanting those who have made it nothing All agree in this That there is something in us which we must strive to subdue and keep under Some call it our Natural inclination which may be the matter of vertue as well as of vice Others Original sin which to yield to is to die but to curb and restrain to fight against and conquer it is the great work and business of a Christian I speak not this to take away our original weakness but to take it away from being an excuse For In the second place our Natural weakness is so far from excusing our sin or making of it less voluntary that we are bound by our very Profession to crucifie this old Adam in us to mortifie our earthly members and lusts non exercere quod nati sumus not to be what indeed we are to be in the body but out of the body to tame the wantonness of the flesh For did we not for this give up our names unto Christ Were we not baptized in this Faith It is my Melancholy saith the Envious It is my Choler saith the Revenger It is my Blood saith the Wanton It is my Appetite saith the Glutton and so every man runneth on his own ways because the wind that driveth him cometh from no other treasury but himself no other corner but his corrupt heart Fructu peccatorum utuntur ipsa subducunt They are content to reap the fruit and pleasure of sin but withdraw the sin it self and remove it out of the way But this is not the right use of our Natural weakness which may be left in us but as all agree to humble not disarm us to shew we are men weak and impotent in our selves not to make us proud and rebellious against our God but to set us upon our guard and to make us bestir our selves and cast up all our forces and send our Prayers and Ambassadours to heaven for help and succour against this Inmate and domestick enemy The Envious should purge his melancholy Ro. 12.15 and rejoyce with them that rejoyce and weep with them that weep The Cholerick bridle his Anger and make it set before the Sun The Wanton quench that fire in his blood and make himself an Eunuch for the kingdom of heaven The Glutton 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 wage war with his Appetite and set a knife to his throat If this care were general if we understood Christianity aright and did strive and struggle with our selves the best contention in the World if we did do an act of justice upon our selves perform that Judicatory part of the Gospel labour to bind this old Man in chains and crucifie the flesh with the lusts and affections we should not complain or rather speak so contentedly of Adam's fall not bemoan our selves and yet be pleased well enough in it not take that doctrine in the left hand which is offered to us with the right or as he spake in the Historian Sinistrâ dextram amputare and by a sinister and unnecessary conceit of our own weakness rob and deprive our selves of that strength which might have defended us from sin and death which now is voluntary because we cannot derive it from any other fountain than our own wills For Last of all the blemishes of our Understanding and Will which we are said to receive by Adam's fall what they may be either by certain knowledge or conjecture yet we shall not die unless we will And if such we were all yet now we are washed now we are sanctified 1 Cor. 6.12 now we are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ And the Leper who is cleansed complaineth no more of his disease but returneth to give thanks The Blind man who is cured doth not run into the ditch and impute it to his former blindness but rejoyceth that he can now see the light and walk by the light he seeth And we cannot without foul ingratitude deny but what we lost in Adam we recovered again in Christ and that improved and exalted many degrees For not as the offence so is also the free gift Ro. 5.15 c. saith the Apostle For as by the offence of one many were made sinners that is were under the wrath of God and so considered as if they had themselves committed that sin So by the obedience of one many shall be made righteous made so not only by imputation that we would have and nothing else have sin removed and be sinners still but made so that is supplied with all helps and with all strength that is necessary and sufficient to forward and perfect those duties of piety which are required at the hands of a justified person For do we not magnifie the Gospel from
Ro. 5.13 sin is not to be imputed where there is no Law In this Term of Recess there is some difference between the Jewish and the Gentile Christians Because the Jewish Christians are free from being Children and Servants under God's Law but the Gentile Christians are free from being Aliens and Strangers unto God's Kingdom for they never served under that written Law SECTION V. Term of Access Sonship The Term of Access whereto we are freed is a state of Son-hood unto God to be Filiifamilias Deo Free-men of the Heavenly Jerusalem Free in the Family and Policy of God To this state of Son-hood are consequent two Rights 1. Of Maintenance to be nourished and educated as the Sons of God by the Spirit of God called the Comforter 2. Of Inheritance to be Heirs of all Blessings promised in their mystical spiritual and divine intendment to Abraham For though God be free to Adopt whom he will to be his Sons yet after Adoption he is bound by the Law of Adoption to justifie them or give them a Right to Maintenance and then to a Right of Inheritance Because by the Law of Nature both these are due to the Native Son therefore by the Law of Adoption they are due also to the Adoptive Son But in this Term of Access there is no difference between the Jew and the Gentile Christian but both are equally the Sons of God in equal Right to Maintenance and Inheritance No difference of Persons with God Jew or Gentile Bond or Free Male or Female all are alike to him Because the Manumission of the Jew from being a Servant and the Denisation of the Gentile from being an Alien concur into one and the same state of Christian Liberty The Author whereof is God the Mediator and Collator Christ 1. In all this Christian Liberty it is to be noted that there is a Loosness from the Rigor Bondage and Curse of the Law but not from the Rule of the Law of God which is the Light of Nature and the Revealed Light of Grace in the Scripture and from the Laws of Men derived from them both it being the Nature of true Liberty alwaies to consist with true Obedience to Laws and the more obedient the more free for the Service of God is perfect freedom And when we are free only to good without Indifferency then are we in the true resemblance of God and Angels who will Good only without all reluctancy or inclination to Evil. 2. In this Christian Liberty also it is to be noted that God's free Grace and Man's free Will do very excellently well consist together And the more Man 's free Will follows God's free Grace the more free it is because God's free Grace doth free the Will by loosing it from all Evil and leading it into all Good In which condition when the Will is so fixed without hovering to and fro trembling as the Needle in the Compass but freely and undoubtingly pointing in its first motion to God and all Goodness then is our Absolute Perfection come upon us which we aspire unto in this life In the mean time till we attain to this full Freedom as they that search for the Philosopher's Stone which though they find not yet they discover excellent Rarities so we meet with admirable Experiences of breaking through the revocations of a sensitive Will in the tendencies of the Rational desire to the Coelestial Objects of Love Most things have their Counterfeits and whatsoever is in deed may be in outward shew As there is Christianity in deed and in shew so there is Liberty in truth and Liberty in appearance Slavery in truth and Slavery in appearance And these Counterfeits that would seem to be the same with the Real are quite Contraries As the Devil appears to be an Angel of Light but is the Prince of Darkness so Licentiousness would be called Christian Liberty but is Antichristian Bondage The True Freedom is from the Son of God and the True Slavery is from the Devil The CONTENTS Ismael Isaac But two Eminent Covenants State of Christian Liberty TITLE XIII Of the Allegory of the two Covenants THE Bondage of the Law and Liberty of the Gospel whereby the Two Covenants are exactly distinguished one from the other is accurately described by St. Paul by the Allegory of the Two Mothers Agar and Sarah the Bond-woman and the Free-woman and of their two Sons Ismael and Isaac For these saith he Gal. 4.24 are the Two Covenants By these two Women Abraham had two Sons principally named Ismael and Isaac For Abraham had took Keturah and by her had six Sons after Sarah's death when he was past ordinary Generation at one hundred and forty years of age for the abundant fulfilling of the Promise of a Numerous Off-spring Gen. 25. SECTION I. I. Ismael the Eldest Son was by a Bondmaid his Natural Son Ismael not Legitimate For Agar by Nation was an Egyptian by State and Condition Sarah's Bondmaid by Use and Service her Waiting-woman or Hand-maid probably bought by Sarah when she was in Egypt and by an Act of Priviledge given by Sarah her Mistress to be Abraham's Concubine or Wife quasily and usually Gen. 16.3 for she had neither the Dower nor Power from Abraham in his house as a True VVife but remained still a Bond-woman to her Master and Mistris and when she had served both and done her work was fairly turned out of doors SECTION II. Isaac II. Isaac the youngest Son was by a Free-woman his Legitimate Son by a lawful Wife For Sarah was Free-born and lived free a Matron had the true Right of Bed and Board of Dower and Power dignity of Rule under Abraham over the Family For Liber est qui Jus habet sui ipsius Servus qui nullum Jus habet sed est alterius He or she is free that hath Right but a Servant hath none but is another man's Right And as the two Mothers Conditions were contrary one to another so were their two Sons For Partus sequitur ventrem the one therefore was a Bond-man as his Mother was a Bond-woman and the other a Free-man as his Mother was a Free-woman The one therefore had no Right to the Inheritance because he was no Right Son but a Bastard and the other had Right because he was a True Son and Legitimate So the Law and the Gospel are contrary the one to another because their states and conditions are contrary The Law is a Bond-woman and the Gospel is a Free-woman and the Sons of the Law and of the Gospel follow the state and condition of their Mothers for the Sons of the Law are as Ismael who though a Son had neither the state of a Person nor the Right of a Son but was a Bastard and Bond-child because he came from a Woman who had not the state of a Woman nor the Right of a Wife but was a Bond-maid and a Concubine And the Sons of the Gospel