Justification or Salvation but to renounce all such expectations Nor will the Law of Works it self ever justifie us as some affirm as having perfectly fulfilled it by another But we are justified against its charge and not by it by the Covenant of Grace and not of Works But perfect obedience to all the Law of Nature and all the Commands of Christ is still our duty and sincere obedience is necessary to our salvation All our duty is not supererrogation Errour 56. When a man doubteth whether he be a Believer or penitent he must believe that Christ repented and believed for him Contr. Christ never had sin to repent of and it is not proper to say one repenteth of anothers sin Christ believed his Father but had no use for that faith in a Mediatour which we must have He that repenteth not and believeth not himself shall be damned Therefore you may see how Christ repented and believed for us Errour 57. A man that trusteth to be justified at the day of Judgement against the charge of unbelief impenitency and hypocrisie by his own faith repentance and sincerity as his particular subordinate Righteousness and not by Christs Righteousness imputed only sinneth against free grace Contr. Christs Righteousness is imputed or given to none nor shall justifie any that are true Vnbelievers Impenitent or Hypocrites Therefore if any such person trust to be justified by Christ he deceiveth him If the 〈◊〉 be Thou art an Infidel or impenitent it is frivolous to say But Christ obeyed suffered or believed or repented for me But he that will then be justified against that charge must say and say truly I truly believed repented and obeyed Errour 58. There is no use for a Justification against any such false accusation before God who knoweth all mens hearts Contr. 1. You might as well say There is no use of judging men according to what they have done when God knoweth what they have done already 2. We are to be justified by God before men and Angels that Christ may be glorified in his Saints and admired in all them that believe because the Gospel was believed by them 2 Thes 1.10 11. And not only the mouth of iniquity may be stopped and open false accusations confuted but that the prejudices and heart-slanders of the wicked may be refelled and our righteousness be brought forth as the light and our judgement as the noon day That all the false judgements and reproaches of the wicked against the just may be confounded and they may answer for all their ungodly sayings and hard speeches as Henoch prophesied against the godly and that they that speak evil of us because we run not with them to all excess of riot may give an account to him who is ready to judge the quick and the dead 1 Pet. 4.4 5. And that all may be set straight which men made crooked and hidden things be all brought to light 3. And we must be better acquainted with the ingenuity of the great accuser of the Brethren before we can be sure that he who belyed God to man will not bely man to God seeing he is the Father of lyes and did so by Job c. 4. But we mâ—st not think of the day of Judgement as a day of talk between God and Satan and Man but as a day of DECISIVE LIGHT or manifestation And so the case is out of doubt The Faith Repentance and Sincerity of the just will be there manifest against all former or latter real or vertual calumnies of men or devils to the contrary 5. But above all let it be marked that nothing else can be matter of controversie to be decided That Christ hath obeyed and suffered and satisfied for Believers sins and made a testament or covenant to paâ—â—â—n all true Believers will be known to the accuser and past all doubt The day of Judgement is not to try Christs obedience and sufferings nor to decide the case whether he fulfilled the Law and satisfied for sin or made a pardoning Covenant to Believers But whether we have part in him or not and so are to be justified by the Gospel-Covenant through his merits against the Legal Covenant And whether we have fulfilled the conditions of the pardoning Covenant or not This is all that can be then made a Controversie this is the secrets of mens heart and case that must be opened before the world by God However we doubt not but the glory of all will redound to Christ whose merits are unquestioned 6. Note also that Christ will be the Judge on supposition of his merits and not the party to be tryed and judged 7. Note also that we are to be judged by the New Covenant or Law of Liberty and therefore it is the condition of that Covenant as made with us which is to be enquired after 8. Note also that Christ himself in Matth. 25. and every where when he describeth the day of Judgement doth not at all speak of any decision of such a controversie as whether he was the Lamb of God who took away the sins of the world or whether he did his part or not but only whether men did their parts or not and shewed the sincerity of their love to God and him by venturing all for him and owning him in his servants to their cost and hazard And the fruit of Christs part is only mentioned as a presupposed thing Come ye blessed of my Father inherit the Kingdom prepared for you For I was hungry c. The Preparation in Gods Decree and Christs merits is unquestioned and so is the donation to all true Believers therefore it is the case of their Title to this gift and of the condition or evidence of their title which is here tryed and decided Lastly Note that upon the decision in respect of both together Christs Merits and Covenant as supposed and their own true Faith and Love as manifested decisively they are called Righteous v. 46. The Righteous into life eternal So much to take the stumbling-blocks out of the way of Faith about Free-Grace and Justification which the weakness of many well meaning erroneous men hath laid there of late times to the great danger or impediment of weak Believers Isa 57.14 Take up the stumbling-block out of the way of my people Levit. 19.14 Thou shalt not put a stumbling-block before the blind but shalt fear thy God CHAP. IX How to live by Faith in order to the exercise of other graces and duties of Sanctification and Obedience to God And first of the Doctrinal Directions WE cannot by Faith promote Sanctification unless we understand the nature and reasons of Sanctification This therefore must be our first endeavour The word Sanctified doth signifie that which is separated to God from common uses And this separation is either by God himself as he hath sanctified the Lords day c. or by mans dedication either of persons to a holy office and so the Ministers of Christ are sanctified
consenteth not to when his sinful pleasure is revived by the next temptation 3. But the true penitent Christian is both willing to be changed and had rather have his lusts to be killed than pleased and also willing to use Gods means both to mortifie the inward lust and to overcome the outward sin And this in sincerity is his habitual state Direct 3. Never forget that 1. The gracious nature of God 2. The sufficiency of Christs Sacrifice and Merit And 3. The truth of the universal â—ffer or promise of pardon to all if they will accept the offer are the foundation of all our faith and comforts and are that universal grace which is before our special grace or faith and is presupposed to it On this foundation all our faith and peace is to be built Direct 4. The particular application of this to our selves is 1. By Believing and then by knowing that we do believe and then by discerning our priviledges upon believing 1. Our believing it self is 1. Our Ascent to the truth of the Gospel 2. Our Acceptance of the good even Christ and life which is offered in it and consent to the Baptismal Covenant with God the Father Son and Holy Spirit And 3. Our Affiance in Christ and his Covenant 2. To know that we do believe somehow is easie when we do it But to be sure that this belief is sincere and saving is more difficult because of the deceitfulness of the heart of man and the mixtures of unbelief and other sins and the weakness of grace where it is true and the counterfeits of it and the insufficient degrees which are in Hypocrites so that it is not easie to discern whether the faith which we have be sincere and predominant above our sense and our unbelief as it must be But yet it may be known by such means as these 1. By labouring to strengthen and increase our faith and grace that it may not by the smalness be next to undiscernable 2. By subduing all contrary inward corruptions which obscure it 3. By frequent exercising it seeing habits are discerned only in their acts 4. By resisting and conquering temptations and doing all the good we can in the world and living as wholly devoted to God above all worldly fleshly interest that so 1 Faith may be evidenced by its fruits 2. And God may reward the faithful soul with his assuring seal and light and comfort 5. By escaping all those lapses into heinous and wilful sin which cause wounds and sears and hinder assurance peace and joy 6. By a wise and constant examination of the heart and observation of it in the time of tryal and finding the habits and strength of faith and of unbelief in their several actings and prevalencies in their conflicts 7. And withall escaping those ignorances and errours about the nature means causes and signs of grace and assurance which keep many from it who have justifying faith These seven are the true and necessary means to get assurance of your own sincerity and that indeed you have the true seal and earnest and witness of the Spirit of Christ 3. When you have first truly believed or consented to the Baptismal Covenant of Grace and next got assurance that you do this in sincerity the last part is the easiest which is to gather up the priviledges or comfortable conclusions which follow hereupon Which are your pardon and justification your adoption and right to life eternal and to all the benefits promised by God in that Covenant to which you do consent which are all comprehended in the three great Relations established by the Covenant viz. that God is your Reconciled God and Father Christ in your Head and Saviour and the Holy Spirit is your Life and Sanctifier These three works which make up assurance are contained in the three parts of this syllogism 1. He that truly believeth is justified and adopted and an heir of life But I do truly believe Therefore I am justified adopted and am an heir of life Or thus to the same sense Every one who truly consenteth to the Baptismal Covenant hath right to the blessings of the Covenant God is his Father Christ is his Saviour and the holy Spirit is his Sanctifier But I do truly consent to the Baptismal Covenant Therefore I have right to all the benefits of it God is my Father c. Direct 5. Remember that when you have got assurance and have truly gathered this conclusion the continual and lively exercise of faith is still necessary to your actual joy For it is possible for a man to have no notable doubtings of his own sincerity or salvation and yet to have such dulness of soul and such diversions of his thoughts as that he shall enjoy but little of the comforts of his own assurance Therefore true joy requireth much more than bare self examination and discerning of our evidences and right to life Direct 6. When doubts and troubles are caused by ignorance or errour about the true nature and signs of grace and the way of assurance which is very common nothing then is more necessary than a sound and skilful Teacher to work out those mistakes and to help the ignorant Christian to a clearer understanding of the terms of the Covenant and the sense of the Promise and the true methods of Christ in his gifts and operations Otherwise the erring soul will be distracted and lost in a wilderness of doubts and either sit down at last presumptuously on false grounds or turn to one errour to cure the troubles of another or languish in despair so lamentable a thing is it to be possessed with false principles and to attempt so great a work in the dark Direct 7. And here there are these two extreams to be carefully avoided 1. That of the Infidel and Justiciary who trusteth and teacheth others to trust to his own vertues and works without a Saviour or ascribeth the part of a Saviour to them 2. The Antinomian and Libertine who teach men not to look at any thing in themselves at all no not as an evidence or condition or means much less as any cause of life but to trust to Christs blood to be to you instead of Faith and Repentance and Obedience and all your use of means and do ascribe the part of these duties of man to the blood of Christ as if it did belong only to Christ to do that same thing which belongeth unto them Therefore here you must be sure to be well acquainted what is truly the office and part of Christ and what is truly the office and part of Faith of Repentance of Confession of Prayer c. And to be sure that you wholly trust Christ for his part and joyn not Faith nor any of your own works or duties in the least degree of that trust or honour which belongeth to Christ and his office and work And that you faithfully use yea I will say Trust too though ignorance snarl at
grace and therefore he is an heir of Hâ—ll and belongs to me I ruled him and I must have him What would you think of a life of sin if once you had heard such accusations as these How would you deal by the next temptation if you had heard what use the tempter will hereafter make of all your sins 7. What if you had seen the damned in their misery and heard them cry out of the folly of their â—mpenitent careless lives and wishing as Dives Luke 16. that their friends on earth might have one sent from the dead to warn them that they come not to that place of torment I speak to men that say they are believers what would you do upon such a fight If you had heard them there torment themselves in the remembrance of the time they lost the mercy they neglected the grace resisted and wish it were all to do again and that they might once more be tried with another life If you saw how the world is altered with those that once were as proud and confident as others what do you think such a sight would do with you And why then doth the believing of it do no more when the â—hâ—ng is certain 8. Once more suppose that in your temptations you saw the tempter appearing to you and pleading with you as he doth by his inward suggestions or by the mouths of his instruments If you saw him and heard him hâ—ssing you on to sin perswading you to gluttony drunkenness or uncleanâ—ess If the Devil appeared to you and led you to the place of lust and offered you the harlot or the cup of excess and urged you to swear or curse or raâ—l or scorn at a holy life would not the sight of the Angler maâ— his gâ—me and 〈◊〉 your courage and spoil your sport and turn your stomâ—chs would you be drunk or filthy if you saw him stand by you Think on it the next tâ—me you are tempted Stout men have been apaled by such a sight And do you not believe that it 's he indeed that tempteth you As sure as if your eyes behâ—ld hâ—m â—t's he that prompteth men to â—â—er at godâ—iness and puts your wanton ribbald speeches and oaths and curses into yoâ—r mouths He is the Tutor of the enemies of grace that teacheth them docâ—è delâ—rare ingeniosè insanire ingeniously to quarrel with the way of life and learnedly to confute the arguments that would have saved them and subtilly to dispute themselves out of the hands of mercy and gallantly to scorn to stoop to Christ till there be no remedy and with plausible eloquence to commend the plague and sickness of their souls and irrefragâ—bly maintain it that the way to Hell will lead to Heaven and to justifie the sins that will condemn them and honourably and triumphantly to overcome their friends and to serve the Devil in mood and figâ—â—re and valiantly to cast themselves into Hell in despite of all the laws and reproofs of God or man that would have hindered them It being most certain that this is the Dâ—vils work and you durst not do it if he moved you to it with open face how dare you do it when faith would assure you that it 's as veriâ—y he as if you saw him More distinctly answâ—r these following Questions upon the foregoing suppositions Qâ—est 1. If you saw but what you say you do believe would you not be convinced that the most pleasant gainful sin is worse than madness and would you not spit at the very name of it and openly cry out of your open folly and beg for prayers and love reprovers and resolve to turn without delay Quest 2. What would you think of the most serious holy life if you had seen the things that you say you do believe would you ever again reproach it as preciseness or count it more ado than needs and think your time were better spent in playing than in praying in drinking and sports and filthy lusts than in the holy services of the Lord would you think then that one day in seven were too much for the work for which you live and that an hour on this holy day were enough to be spent in instructing you for eternity Or would you not believe that he is the blessed man whose delight is in the Law of God and meditateth in it day and night Could you plead for sensuality or ungodly negligence or open your mouths against the most serious holiness of life if Heaven and Hell stood open to your view Quest 3. If you saw but what you say you do believe would you ever again be offended with the Ministers of Christ for the plainest reproofs and closest exhortations and strictest precepts and discipline that now are disrelished so much Or rather would you not desire them to help you presently to try your states and to search you to the quick and to be more solicitous to save you than to please you The patient that will take no bitter medicine in time when he sees he must die would then take any thing When you see the things that now you hear of then you would do any thing O then might you have these daies again Sermons would not be too plain or long In season and out of season would then be allowed of Then you would understand what moved Ministers to be so importunate with you for conversion and whether trifling or serious preaching was the best Quest 4. Had you seen the things that you say you do believe what effect would Sermons have upon you after such a sight â—s this O what a change it would make upon our preaching and your hearing if we saw the things that we speak and hear of How fervently should we importune you in the name of Christ How attentively would you hear and carefully consider and obey we should then have no such sleepy preaching and hearing as now we have Could I but shew to all this Congregation while I am preaching the invisible world of which we preach and did you hear with Heaven and Hell in your eye sight how confident should I be though not of the saving change of all that I should this hour teach you to plead for sin and against a holy life no more and send you home another people than you came hither I durst then ask the worst that heareth me Dare you now be drunk or gluttonous or worldly dare you be voluptuous proud or fornicators any more Dare you go home and make a jest at piety and neglect your souls as you have done And why then should not the believed truth prevail if indeed you did believe it when the thing is as sure as if you saw it Quest 5. If you had seen what you say you do believe would you hunt as eagerly for wealth or honour and regard the thoughts or words of men as you did before Though it 's only the Believer that truly honoureth his Rulers for none else honour
agreed whether its acts should be called physical properly or not Nay they cannot tell what doth individuate an act of sense whether when my eye doth at once see many words and letters of my Book every word or letter doth make as many individual acts by being so many objects And if so whether the parts of every letter also do not constitute an individual act and where we shall here stop And must all these trifles be considered in our Faith Assenting to the truths is not one Faith unless when separated from the rest and consenting to the good another act Nor is it one Faith to believe the promise and another to believe the pardon of sin and another to believe salvation and another to believe in God and another to believe in Jesus Christ nor one to believe in Christ as our Ransom and another as our Intercessor and another as our Teacher and another as our King and another to believe in the Holy Ghost c. I deny not but some one of these may be separated from the rest and being so separated may be called Faith but not the Christian Faith but only a material parcel of it which is like the limb of a man or of a tree which cut off from the rest is dead and ceaseth when separated to be a part any otherwise than Logical a part of the description The Faith which hath the promise of salvation and which you must live by hath 1. God for the Principal Revealer and his Veracity for its formal object 2. It hath Christ and Angels and Prophets and Apostles for the sub-revealers 3. It hath the Holy Ghost by the divine attesting operations before described to be the seal and the confirmer 4. It hath the same Holy Ghost for the internal exciter of it 5. It hath all truths of known divine revelation and all good of known divine donation by his Covenant to be the material general object 6. It hath the Covenant of Grace and the holy Scriptures and formerly the voice of Christ and his Apostles or any such sign of the mind of God for the instrumental efficient cause of the object in esse cognito And also the instrumental efficient of the act 7. It hath the pure Deity God himself as he is to be known and loved inceptively here and perfectly in Heaven for the final and most necessary material object 8. It hath the Lord Jesus Christ entirely in all essential to him as God and Man and as our Redeemer or Saviour as our Ransome Intercessor Teacher and Ruler for the most necessary mediate material object 9. It hath the gifts of Pardon Justification the Spirit of Sanctification or Love and all the necessary gifts of the Covenant for the material never-final objects And all this is essential to the Christian Faith even to that Fath which hath the promise of pardon and salvation And no one of these must be totally left out in the definition of it if you would not be deceived It is Heresie and not the Christian Faith if it exclude any one essential part And if it include it not it is Infidelity And indeed there is such a connexion of the objects that there is no part in truth where there is not the whole And it is impiety if any one part of the offered good that is necessary be refused It is no true Faith if it be not a true composition of all these Direct 8. There is no nearer way to know what true Faith is than truly to understand what your Baptismal Covenanting did contain In Scripture phrase to be a Disciple a Believer and a Christian is all one Acts 11.26 Acts 5.14 1 Tim. 4.12 Matth. 10.42 27.57 Luke 14.26 27 33. Acts 21.16 Joh. 9.28 And to be a Believer and to have Belief or Faith is all one and therefore to be a Christian and to have Faith is all one Christianity signifieth either our first entrance into the Christian State or our progress in it As Marriage signifieth either Matrimony or the Conjugal State continued in In the latter sense Christianity signifieth more than Faith for more than Faith is necessary to a Christian But in the former sense as Christianity signifieth but our becoming Christians by our covenanting with God so to have Faith or to be a Believer and internally to become a Christian in Scripture sense is all one and the outward covenanting is but the profession of Faith or Christianity Not that the word Faith is never taken in a narrower sense or that Christianity as it is our heart-covenant or consent containeth nothing but Faith as Faith is so taken in the narrowest sense But when Faith is taken as ordinarily in Scripture for that which is made the condition of Justification and Salvation and opposed to Heathenism Infidelity Judaism or the works of the Law it is commonly taken in this larger sense Faith is well enough described to them that understand what is implyed by the usual shorter description as that it is a believing acceptance of Christ and relying on him as our Saviour or for salvation Or a belief of pardon and the heavenly Glory as procured by the Redemption wrought by Christ and given by God in the Covenant of Grace But the reason is because all the rest is connoted and so to be understood by us as if it were exprest in words But the true and full definition of it is this The Christian Faith which is required at Baptism and then professed and hath the promise of Justification and Glorification is a true Belief of the Gospel and an acceptance of and consent unto the Covenant of Grace Particularly a believing that God is our Creatour our Owner our Ruler and our Chief Good and that Jesus Christ is God and man our Saviour our Ransoms our Teacher and our King and that the Holy Ghost is the Sanctifier of the Church of Christ And it is an understanding serious consent that this God the Father Son and Holy Ghost be my God and reconciled Father in Christ my Saviour and my Sanctifier to justifie me sanctifie me and glorifie me in the perfect knowledge of God and mutual complacence in Heaven which belief and consent wrought in me by the Word and Spirit of Christ is grounded upon the Veracity of God as the chief Revealer and upon his Love and Mercy as the Donor and upon Christ and his Apostles as the Messengers of God and upon the Gospel and specially the Covenant of Grace as the instrumental Revelation and Donation it self And upon the many signal operations of the Holy Ghost as the divine infallible attestation of their truth Learn this definition and understand it throughly and it may prove a more solid useful knowledge to have the true nature of Faith or Christianity thus methodically printed on your minds than to read over a thousand volumes in a rambling and confused way of knowledge If any quarrel at this definition because the foundation is not first
the term from which and the former from the respect to part of the term to which the soul is moving And Faith is oft taken as containing somewhat of Love and Desire in it and he that will without any prejudice and partiality study Paul where he opposeth Faith and Works as to our Justification shall find by his almost constant naming the Works of the Law or by the context and analysis that indeed his chief meaning is to prove that we are justified by the Christian Religion and must be sâ—ved by it and not by the Jewish which the adversaries of Christianity then pleaded for and trusted to Direct 12. Set not the helps of Faith as if they were against Faith but understand their several places and offices and use them accordingly Do not like those ignorant self-conceited Hereticks who cry out It is by Believing and not by Repenting or Reading or Hearing Sermons or by Praying or by forbearing sin or by doing good that we are justified and therefore it is by Faith only that we are saved the same which is sufficient for our Justification being sufficient for our salvation seeing the Justified cannot be condemned and Justification and Salvation are both equally ascribed to Faith without the works of the Law by the Apostle For we are justified only by such a Faith as is caused by Gods Word and maintained and actuated by Hearing Reading Meditation Prayer and Sacraments and as is accompanied by Repentance and worketh by Love and is indeed the beholding of those invisible and glorious motives which may incite our Love and set us on good works and obedience to our Redeemer And he that by negligence omitteth or by errour excludeth any one of these in the Life of Faith will find that he hath erred against his own interest peace and comfort if not against his own salvation And that he might as wisely have disputed that it is his eyes only that must see his way and therefore he may travel without his legs Direct 13. Take heed left a misconceit of the certainty of some common Philosophical Opinions should make you stagger in those Articles of Faith which seem to contradict them Not that indeed any truths can be contrary one to another For that which is true in Philosophy is contrary to no one truth in Theology But Philosophers have deceived themselves and the world with a multitude of uncertainties and falsities and by straining them to subtil niceties and locking them up in uncouth terms have kept the common people from trying them and understanding them and thereby have made it their own prerogative explicitely to erre and the peoples duty not to contradict them but to admire that errour as profound parts of learning which they cannot understand And then their conclusions oft go for principles which must not be gainsayed when they are perhaps either false or non-sense And then when they meet with any thing in Scripture which crosseth their opinions the reputation of humane folly maketh them despise the wisdom of God I have given you elsewhere some instances about the immortality of the soul They know not what Generation is they do not know it nor what are the true principles and elements of mixt bodies nor what is the true dâ—fference between immaterial and material substances with an hundred such like And yet some expect that we should sacrifice the most certain useful truths to their false or uncertain useless suppositions which is the true reason why Paul saith Col. 2.8 9 10. Beware lest any man spoil you through Philosophy and vain deceit not true Philosophy which is the true knowledge of the works of God but the vain models which every Sect of them cryed up after the tradition of men that is the opinions of the Masters of their Sects after the rudiments of the world and not after Christ For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily and ye are compleat in him See Act. 17.18 It is Christ who is the kernel and summary of the Christian Philosophy who is therefore called The Wisdom of God 1 Cor. 1.24 30. both because he is the heavenly Teacher of true Wisdom and because that true Wisdom consisteth in knowing him And indeed even in those times the several Sects of Philosophers accounted much of each others principles to be erroneous and the Philosophers of these times begin to vilifie them all and withall to confess that they have yet little of certainty to substitute in the room of the demolished Idols but they are about their experiments to try if any thing in time may be found out Direct 14. Especially take heed lest you be cheated into Infidelity by the Dominicans Metaphysical Doctrine of the necessity of Gods Physical predetermining promotion as the first total cause to the being of every action natural and free not only in genere actionis but also as respectively and comparatively exercised on this object rather than on that I add this only for the learned who are as much in danger of Infidelity as others and will use it to the greater injury of the truth I will meddle now with no other reasons of my advice but what the subject in hand requireth If God can and do thus premove and predetermine the mind will and tongue of every lyar in the world to every lye or material falshood which ever they did conceive or speak there will be no certainty of the Gospel nor of any Divine Revelation at all Seeing all such certainty is resolved into Gods Veracity that God cannot lye And God speaketh not to us by any but a created voice and if he can thus predetermine others to those words which are a lye rather than to the contrary which are true there would be no certainty but he may do so by Prophets and Apostles and let them tell you what they will of the greater certainty of Inspirations and Miracles than of Predeterminations it will be found upon tryal that no man can prove or make it so much as probable that any inspiration hath more of a Divine Causation than such a premoving predetermination as aforesaid doth amount to much less so much more as will prove that one is more certain than the other This Doctrine therefore which undeniably whatever may be wrangled taketh down Christianity and all belief of God or man is not to be believed meerly upon such a Philosophical conceit that every Action is a Being and therefore must in all its circumstances be caused by God As if God were not able to make a faculty which can determine its own comparative act to this rather than to that by his sustentation and universal precausation and concourse without the said predetermining premotion When as an Action as such is but a modus entis and the comparative exercise of it on this rather than on that is but a modus vel circumstantia modi And they leave no work for gracious determination because that natural determination doth
what our case is and then hath taught him what he himself is as to his person and his office and what he hath done to reconcile us to God and how far God is reconciled hereupon and what a common conditional pardoning Covenant he hath made and offereth to all and what he will be and do to those that do come in the belief of all this serioâ—sly by the assenting act of the understanding is the first part of saving Faith going in nature before both the Love of God and the consenting act of the Will to the Redeemer And yet perhaps the same acts of faith in an uneffectual superficial measure may go long before this in many 6. In this assent our belief in God and in the Mediatour are conjunct in time and nature they being Relatives here as the objects of our faith It is not possible to believe in Christ as the Mediatour who hath propitiated God to us before we believe that God is propitiated by the Mediatour nor vice versâ Indeed there is a difference in order of dignity and desirableness God as propitiated being represented to us as the End and the Propitiator but as the Means But as to the order of our apprehension or believing there can be no difference at all no more than in the order of knowing the Father and the Son the Husband and Wife the King and subjects These Relatives are simul naturá tempore 7. This assenting act of Faith by which at once we believe Christ to be the Propitiator and God to be propitiated by him is not the belief that my sins are actually pardoned and my soul actually reconciled and justified but it includeth the belief of the history of Christs satisfaction and of the common conditional Covenant of Promise and Offer from God viz. that God is so far reconciled by the Mediatour as that he will forgive and justifie and glorifie all that Repent and Believe that is that return to God by faith in Christ and offereth this mercy to all and intreateth them to accept it and will condemn none of them but those that finally reject i◠〈◊〉 things are of God who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ and hath given to us the Ministry of reconciliation to wit that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himsâ—lf not imputing their trespasses to them and hath committed to us the word of reconciliation Now then we are Embassadors for Christ as though God did beseech you by us we pray you in Christs stead be ye reconciled unto God 2 Cor. 5.18 19 20. So that it is at once the belief of the Father as reconciled and the Son as the Reconcilâ—r and that according to the tenour of the common conditional Covenant which is the first assenting part of saving Faith 8. This same Covenant which revealeth God as thus far reconciled by Christ doth offer him to be further actualy and fully reconciled and to justifie and glorifie us that is to forgive accept and love us perfectly for ever And it offereth us Christ to be our actual Head and Mediatour to procure and give us all this mercy by communicating the benefits which he hath purchased according to his Covenant-terms so that as before the Father and the Son were revealed to our assent together so here they are offered to the Will together 9. In this offer God is offered as the End and Christ as Mediatour is offered as the Means therefore the act of the Will to God which is here required is simple Love of complacency with subjection which is a consent to obey but the act of the Will to Christ is called choice or consent though there be in it Amor Medii the Love of that Means for its aptitude as to the end 10. This Love of God as the End and Consent to Christ as the Means being not acts of the Intellect but of the Will cannot be the first acts of Faith but do presuppose the first assenting acts 11. But the assenting act of Faith doth cause these acts of the Will to God and the Mediatour Because we believe the Truth and Goodness we Consent and Love 12. Both these acts of the Will are caused by assent at one time without the least distance 13. But here is a difference in order of Nature because we will God as the End and for himself and therefore first in the natural order of intention and we will Christ as the Means for that End and therefore but secondarily Though in the Intellects apprehension and assent there be no such difference because in the Truth which is the Vnderstandings object there is no dâ—fference but only in the Goodness which is the Wills object And as Goodness it self is apprehended by the Vnderstanding ut verè bonum there is only an objective dâ—fference of dignity 14. Therefore as the Gospel revelation cometh to us in a way of offer promise and covenant so our Faith must act in a way of Acceptance Covenanting with God and the Redeemer and Sanctifier And the Sacrament of Baptism is the solemnizing of this Covenant on both parts And till our hearts do consent to the Baptismal Covenant of Grace we are not Believers in a saving sense 15. There is no distance of time between the Assent of Faith and the first true degree of Love and Consent Though an unsound Assent may go long before yet sound Assent doth immediately produce Love and Consent and though a clear and full resolved degree of consent may be some time afterward And therefore the soul may not at the first degree so well understand it self as to be ready for an open covenanting 16. This being the true order of the work of Faith and Love the case now lyeth plain before those that can observe things distinctly and take not up with confused knowledge And no other are fit to meddle with such cases viz that the knowing or assenting acts of faith in God as reconciled so far and in Christ as the reconciler so far as to give out the offer or Covenant of Grace are both at once and both go before the acts of the will as the cause before the immediate effect and that this assent first in order of nature but at once in time causeth the will to love God as our End and to consent to and chuse Christ in heart-covenant as the means and so in our covenant we give up our selves to both And that this Repentance and Love to God which are both one work called conversion of turning from the creature to God the one as denominated from the terminus à quo viz. Repentance the other from the terminus ad quem viz. Love are twisted at once with true saving Faith And that Christ as the means used by God is our first Teacher and bringeth us to assent And then that assent bringeth us to take God for our End and Christ for the Means of our actual Justification and Glory so that Christ is
satisfaction forgive all our sins and adopt us for his Sons and give us his holy Spirit and glorifie us for ever so that Christs Righteousness both obediential and satisfactory is ours in the effects of it in themselves and ours relatively for those effects so far as to be purposely given for us to that end but not ours in it self simply or as if we were reputed the legal performers our selves or might be said in Law sense or by divine estimation or imputation to have our selves in and by Christ fulfilled the Law and suffered for our not fulfilling it which is a contradiction As he that both by a price and by some meritorious act doth redeem a captive or purchase pardon for a traitor doth give the money and merit in it self to the Prince and not to the Captive or Traitor himself He never saw it nor ever had propriety in the thing it self But the deliverance is the Prisâ—ners and not the Princes and therefore it is given to the Prisoner as to the effects though not in it self in that it was given for him And because Christ suffered what we should have suffered as to the value to save us from suffering and our sins were the cause of our guilt of punishment and so the remote cause of the sufferings of Christ his own sponsion being the nearer cause therefore it may be said truly that Christ did not only suffer for our benefit but in our stead or place and in a larger and less strict and proper sense that he suffered in the person of a sinner and as one to whom our sins were imputed meaning no more but that he suffered as one that by his own consent undertook to suffer for the persons of sinners and that as such an undertaker only he suffered and that thus our sins were imputed to him not in themselves as if he were in Law sense the committer of them or polluted by them or by God esteemed so to have been but as to the effects that is his suffering in that they were the occasion and the remote or assumed cause of his sufferings as his Righteousness is imputed to us as the meritorious cause of our Pardon and Justification But he could not be said no not in so large a sense as this to have obeyed in our stead considering it as obedience or holiness but only as merit because he did it not that we might not obey but that we might not suffer for disobeying More of this will follow in the next Chapter Direct 4. Vnderstand well what guilt it is that Christ doth remit in our Justification not the guilt of the fact nor of the fault in it self but the guilt of punishment and of the fault only so far as it is the cause of wrath and punishment 1. The guilt of fact is in the reality or truth of this charge that such a fact we did or omitted so far it is but Physically considered and would not come into legal consideration were it not for the following relation of it 2. The guilt of fault reatus culpae is the reality of this charge or the foundation of it in us that we are the committers or omitters of such an action contrary to the Law or that our act or omission was really a crime or fault 3. The guilt of punishment reatus poenae vel ad poenam is the foundation of this charge that we are by that Law which must judge us condemnable or obliged to punishment or it is our right for the sins so committed Now Christ doth not by justifying us or pardoning us make us either to be such as really did not do the fact or such as did not a culpable fact no nor such as did not deserve damnation or to whom it was not due by the first Law alone but to be such who are not now at all condemnable for it because the new Law which we must be judged by doth absolve us by forgiving us not making the fault no fault nor causing God to think that Christ committed it and not we or to esteem us to be such as never did commit it but remitting the punishment and that dueness of punishment and obligation to it which did before result from the fault and Law together and so the fault it self is remitted as it is the foundation from whence that obligation to punishment resulteth respectively but not simply nor as a fault in it self at all When I say the punishment and the dueness of it to us is forgiven I mean not only the punishment of sense but of loss also nor only the outward part which is executed by creatures but especially the first and great penalty of Gods own displeasure with the person and the withdrawing of his Spirit and complacential love and that which we may improperly call his obligation in Justice to condemn the sinner There was upon God before Christs satisfaction and our title to him that which we may so call a legal or relative obligation on God to punish us because else he should have done contrary to the due ends of Government and so contrary to the Wisdom and Justice of a Governour which is not consistent with his perfection But now the ends of Government are so answered and provided for that there is no such obligation on God to punish us but he may remit it without any dishonour at all nay with the honour of his Wisdom and Justice We are now non condemnandi not condemnable though we are sinners In Judgement we must confess the latter and deny the former only Direct 5. Vnderstand well what sins Christ justifieth men from or forgiveth to them and what not All sins which consist with true faith and repentance or true conversion to God in love by faith in Christ and all that went before But he forgiveth no man in a state of impenitency and unbelief nor any mans final impenitency and unbelief at all nor any other sins when those are final except it be with the common conditional forgiveness before mentioned or that absolute particular forgiveness of some present penalties which saveth no man from damnation Matth. 12.31 Acts 26.18 Rom. 8.1 30. Acts 5.31 Acts 2.38 39. Mark 16.16 John 3.16 18 36. 1 John 5.11 12. Mark 4 1â— Matth. 18.27 32. Direct 6. Vnderstand well the true nature of that Faith and Repentance which God hath made the condition of our Justification This is sufficiently opened before and the consulation of all the cavils against it would be tedious and unsavoury here Direct 7. Vnderstand well the Covenant and Promise of Justification and measure your belief and expectations by that Promise Expect no other pardon nor on any other conditions or terms than the Promise doth contain For it is Gods pardoning act or instrument and by it we must be justified or condemned And we know not but by it whom God will justifie Direct 8. Keep alwaies the assuring grounds of faith before your eyes when you look
true Believer should come very near such a state of death common reason and the due care of his own soul obligeth him to be suspicious of himself and to fear the worst till he have made sure of better Heb. 6. 3.10 Heb. 4.1 12 13 14. 1 Cor. 10. John 15.2 7 8 c. Direct 14. Let not the perswasion that you are justified make you more secure and bold infinning but more to hate it as contrary to the ends of Justification and to the love which freely justified you It is a great mark of difference between true assurance and blind presumption that the one maketh men hate sin more and more carefully to avoid it and the other causeth men to sin with less reluctancy and remorse because with less feat Direct 15. When the abuse of the Doctrine of Justification by Faith alone and not by Works doth pervert your minds and lives remember that all confess that we shall be judged according to our works as the Covenant of Grace is the Law by which we shall be judged And to be judged is to be justified or condemned I need not recite all those Scriptures to you that say that we shall be judged and shall receive according to what we have done in the body whether it be good or evil And this is all that we desire you to believe and live accordingly Direct 16. Remember still that Faith in Christ is but a means to raise us to the Love of God and that perfect Holiness is higher and more excellent than the pardon of sin And therefore desire faith and use it for the kindling of love and pardon of sin to endear you to God and that you may do so no more And do not sin that you may have the more to be pardoned The end of the Commandment is Charity out of a pure heart and a good conscience and faith unfeigned Rom. 6.1 2. Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound God forbid How shall they that are dead to sin live any longer therein See Titus 3.5 6 7. Rom. 5.1 4 5 6. Rom. 8.1 4 9 Gal. 4.6 5.24 26. So much for those practical Directions which are needfull for them that love not Controversie CHAP. VIII The pernicious or dangerous Errours detected which hinder the work of Faith about our Justification and the contrary Truths asserted THere is so much dust and controversie raised here to blind the eyes of the weak and to hinder the life of Faith and so much poison served up under the name of Justification and Free Grace that I should be unfaithful if I should not discover it either through fear of offending the guilty or of wearying them that had rather venture upon deceit than upon controversie And we are now so fortified against the Popish and Secinian extreams and those whom I am now directing to live by Faith are so settled against them that I think it more necessary having not leisure for both and having done it heretofore in my Confession to open at this time the method of false doctrine on the other extream which for the most part is it which constituteth Antinomianism though some of them are maintained by others And I will first name each errour and then with it the contrary truth Errour 1. Christs suffering was caused by the sins of none as the assumed meritorious cause or as they usually say as imputed to him or lying on him save only of the Elect that shall be saved Contr. The sins of fallen mankind in general except those rejections of Grace whose pardon is not offered in the conditional Covenant did lye on Christ as the assumed cause of his sufferings See John 1.29 2 Cor. 5.18 19 20. John 3.16 17 18 19. Heb. 2.9 1 Tim. 2.4 5 6. 1 John 2.2 1 Tim. 4.10 2 Pet. 2.2 See Paraeus in his Irenicon Twisse vind alibi passim saying as much and Amyrald Davenant Dallaeus Testarduâ—Vsher c. proving it Errour 2. Christ did both perfectly obey and also make satisfaction for sin by suffering in the person of all the Elect in the sense of the Law or Gods account so that his Righteousness of obedience and perfect holiness and his satisfaction is so imputed to us as the proprietaries as if we our selves had done it and suffered it not by an after donation in the effects but by this strict imputation in it self Contr. The contrary Truth is at large opened before and in my confession Christs satisfaction and the merit of his whole obedience is as effectual for our pardon justification and salvation as if Believers thâ—mselves had performed it and it is imputed to them in that it was done for their sakes and suffered in their stead and the fruits of it by a free Covenant or donation given them But 1. God is not mistaken to judge that we obeyed or suffered when we did not 2. God is no lyar to say we did it when he knoweth that we did it not 3. If we were not the actors and sufferers it is not possible that we should be made the natural subjects of the Accidents of anothers body by any putation estimation or mis-judging whatsoever no nor by any donation neither It is a contradiction and therefore an impossibility that the same individual Actions and Passions of which Christs humane nature was the agent and subject so many hundred years ago and have themselves now no existence should in themselves I say in themselves be made yours now and you be the subject of the same accidents 4. Therefore they can no otherwise be given to us but 1. By a true estimation of the reasons why Christ underwent them viz. for our sakes as aforesaid 2. And by a donation of the effects or fruits of them viz. pardoning and justifying and saving us by them on the terms chosen by the Donor himself and put into his Testament or Covenant as certainly but not in the same manner as if we had done and suffered them our selves 5. If Christ had suffered in our person reputatively in all respects his sufferings would not have redeemed us Because we are finite worms and our suffering for so short a time would not have been accepted instead of Hell sufferings But the person of the Mediator made them valuable 6. God never made any such Covenant with us that he will justifie us and use us just as he would have done if we had our selves perfectly obeyed and satisfied They that take on them to shew such a Promise must see that no wise man examine it 7. God hath both by his Covenant and his Works ever since confuted that opinion and hath not dealt with us as he would have done if we had been the reputed doers and sufferers of it all our selves For he hath made conveyance of the Benefits by a pardoning and justifying Law or Promise and he giveth us additional pardon of renewed sins as we act them and he addeth threatnings in his Law or
for us Errour 6. That the Elect are justified from eternity say some or from Christs death before they were born say others or before they believed say others Against this I have said enough in many Volumes heretofore Errour 7. That Faith justifieth only in the Court of our own Consciences by making us to know that we were justified before Against this also I have said enough elsewhere Errour 8. That sins to come not yet committed are pardoned in our first Justification Contr. Sins to come are no sins and no sins have no actual pardon but only the certain remedy is provided which will pardon their sins as soon as they are capable Errour 9. Justification is not a making us just but a sentence pronouncing us just Contr. Justification is a word of so many significations that he that doth not first tell what he meaneth by it will not be capable of giving or receiving satisfaction And here once for all I must intreat the Reader that loveth not confusion and errour to distinguish of these several sorts of Justification as the chief which we are to note Justification is either publick by a Governour or private by an equal or meer Discerner Justification is by God or by Man Justification by God is either as he is Law-giver and above Laws or as he is Judge according to his Laws In the first way God maketh us just by his Act of Oblivion or pardoning Law or Covenant of Grace In the second respect God doth two waies justifie and forgive 1. As a determining Judge 2. As the Executioner of his Judgement In the former respect God doth two waies justifie us 1. By esteeming us just 2. By publick sentencing us just As Executioner he useth us as just and as so judged I pass by here purposely all Christs Justification of us by way of apology or plea and all Justification by witnesses and evidences c. and all the constitutive causes of our Righteousness lest I hinder them whom I would help by using more distinctions than they are willing to learn But these few are necessary 1. It is one thing for God to make us Righteous by forgiving all our sins of commission and omission for the sake of Christs satisfaction and obedience 2. It is another thing for God to esteem us to be so Righteous when he hath first made us so 3. It is another for God to sentence us Righteous as the Publick Judge by Jesus Christ 4. And it is another thing for God to take off all penalties and evils and to give us all the good which belong to the Righteous and so to execute his own Laws and Sentence And he that will not distinguish of these senses or sorts of Justification shall not dispute with me And while I am upon this I will give the Reader these two remarks and counsels 1. That he will not in disputing about Justification with any sect begin the dispute of the Thing till he hath first determined and agreed of their sense of the Word And that he will not confound the Controversies de nomine about the word with those de re about the matter And that he will remember in citing texts of Scripture that Beza and many of our best Expositors do grant to the Papists as I heard Bishop Vsher also do that some texts of Scripture do take the word Justifie as they do for Pardon and Sanctification conjunctly As Titus 3.7 1 Cor. 6.11 Rom. 8.30 three famous texts of which see Le Blank at large in his Thes de nom Justific If the controversie be only of the sense of a Text handle it accordingly If of the matter turn it not to words 2. Note this Observation that Sanctification it self or the giving us the Spirit is a great act though I say not the only of executive Justification The with-holding of the Spirit is the greatest punishment inflicted in this life and therefore the giving of the Spirit is the removal or executive remiting of the greatest penalty So that if pardon were only as Dr. Twisse thought a non-punire a not punishing then this were the most proper as well as plenary pardon in this life But the truth is that our Pardon and Justification in Right goeth first which God effecteth by his Covenant-gift And then God esteemeth us just or pardoned when by pardon he hath made us just and if there be any sentence or any thing equivalent before the day of Judgement or death he next sentenceth us Just and lastly he useth us as just that is as pardoned all sins of omission and commission which is by taking off all punishment both of pain or sense and loss of which part the giving of his Spirit is the chief act on this side our Glorification Note therefore that thus far no Protestant can deny to the Papists nor will do that Sanctification and Justification are all one that is that God having pardoned us de jure doth pardon us executively by giving us his forfeited Spirit and Grace and by all the communion which we have after with him and the comfort which we have from him And further let it be well noted that the nature of this executive Pardon or Justification of which read Mr. Hotchkis at large is far better known to us than the nature of Gods sentential Pardon and Justification and therefore there is less controversie about it For what it is to forbear or take off a punishment is easily understood But though most Protestants say that Justification is a sentence of God they are not agreed what that sentence is Some think truly that our first Justification by Faith is but a virtual sentence of the Law of Grace by which we must be judged Others say that by a sentence is meant Gods secret mental estimation Others say that as Angels are his executioners so it is before them where joy is said to be for a sinners conversion Luke 15. that doth declare and sentence us pardoned and just Others think that there is no sentence but Gods notification of pardon to our consciences or giving us the sense or knowledge of it Others think that there is no sentence till death or publick Judgment Others say that God doth sentence us just though we know not where nor how And Mr. Lawson noteth that as all confess that God hath no voice but a created voice and therefore useth not words as we unless what Christ as man may do in that we know not so his sentence is nothing but his declaration that he esteemeth us pardoned and just in title which is principally if not only by his execution and taking off all penalties of sense and loss and using us as pardoned in title and so that the giving of his Spirit is his very sentence of Justification in this life as it is his declaration as aforesaid And doubtless executive pardon is the most perfect and compleat as being the end and perfection of all the rest Therefore God maketh
general in the wars against his enemies shall have pardon and lands and honours and further rewards after this service here the Prince himself doth deliver them by his ransom and enrich them by his lands and honour them by his honour or power c. But their act of giving up themselves to him under the notion of a Ransomer doth no more to their deliverance than their giving up themselves to him under the notion of a General or Ruler c. Because it doth not free them as it is such an act but as it is an act made the condition of his gift And note that I have before proved that even as to the object Christ justifieth us in all the parts of his office Errour 27. That believing in God as God and our Father in Christ is not an act of Justifying Faith but only a consequent or concomitant of it Contr. 1. No doubt but God must some way be believed in in order of nature before Christ can be believed in as is proved who can believe that Christ is the Son and Messenger of God who believeth not that there is a God Or that Christ reconcileth us to God before he believe that he is our offended God and Governour 2. But to believe in God as the end of our Redemption to whose love and savour we must be restored by Faith in Christ and who pardoneth by the Son is as essential an act of Justifying Faith as our belief in Christ Object But not quatenus justificantis not of Faith as justifying Answ If by as justifying you mean not as effecting Justification it is a false supposition There is no such Faith If you mean not as the condition of Justification it is false It is as essential a part of it as the condition If you mean not as Faith is denominated Justifying from the consequent benefit it s true but impertinent For the same may be said of Faith in Christ it is not called Faith in Christ as it is called by you Justifying And yet I may add that in the very physical nature of it Belief in God as our God and End is essential to it As consenting to be healed is essential to consenting to the Physician and consenting to be reconciled is essential to our consenting to a Mediation for that end Because the respect to the end is essential to the Relation consented to All the Faith described Heb. 11. in all those instances hath special essential respect to God So hath Abrahams faith Rom. 4.3 Abraham believed God and it was imputed to him for righteousness v. 5. To him that worketh not but believeth on him on God that justifieth the ungodly his Faith is counted for righteousness v. 8. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin v. 17. Before him whom he believed even God who quickeneth the dead v. 20. He staggered not at the Promise of God Being fuly perswaded that what he had promised he was also able to perform v. 21 22. And therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness Now it was not written for his sake alone that it was imputed to him but for us also to whom it shall be imputed if we believe on him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead Abundance such testimonies are obvious in Scripture but this being as plain as can be spoken he maketh his own Faith who refuseth to believe it Our Faith in God as God hath as much hand in our Justification as our Faith in Christ as Mediatour But the form of the Baptismal Covenant which the Church ever used fully proveth it as is aforesaid though to answer all ignorant cavils against it as an unnecessary tediousness I pass by Errour 28. The belief of Heaven or the life to come is no essential part of Justifying Faith as such Contr. The last answer to this Errour is sufficient Heaven is the everlasting vision and love of God and therefore we are justified by believing it though not it alone It is essential to our Saviour to save and bring us to the fruition of God Errour 29. That Justifying Faith is a believing that I am justified or elect and shall be saved by Christ Errour 30. That this Faith is a full assurance or perswasion at least excluding doubting Contr. 1. We are justified by believing and accepting God for our God and Christ for our Saviour that we may be justified and not by believing that we are justified 2. It is false and ever will be that any of the praesciti as Austin and Prosper call them or the Non-Elect are elect or justified or will be saved But the Non-Elect are commanded and bound to believe with that same kind of Faith by which we are justified Therefore to believe that they themselves are elect justified and shall be saved is not that kind of Faith by which we are justified No men are bound by God on pain of damnation to believe a lye nor damned for not believing it 3. Assurance of personal pardon is the happiness but of few true Christians in this life And where it is it is only an effect or consequent participating of Faith See Mr. Hickman on this subject Errour 31. The meaning of that Article of our Creed I believe the remission of sins is I believe that my own sins are forgiven to me personally Contr. Though worthy Mr. Perkins and other ancient Divines have too much countenanced this exposition it is false The meaning of that Article is but this I believe that a sufficient provision for pardon is made by Christ both for sins before regeneration and after-fault which shall be repented of and that a pardoning Covenant is made to all if they will repent and believe and to me as well as others and I accept of that gracious offer and trust in that Covenant in Christ It s dangerous misexpounding Articles of the Creed Errour 32. At least it is an act of Divine Belief to believe that I am elect and justified and shall be saved Contr. Many have been a great scandal or snare to harden the Papists by asserting this But the truth is it is but a rational conclusion from two premises the one of which is of Divine Revelation and the other of inward experience and all that is capable of being a controversie to the judicious is only de nomine whether logically the conclusion be to be denominated from the more debile of the premises or from both by participation as being both an act of Faith and of Reason secundum quid and of neither simpliciter But it is commonly concluded that the more debile of the premises must denominate the conclusion And it is certain de re that the conclusion can be no more certain than it Object But when the Scripture saith He that believeth shall be saved it is equipollent to this I John believe and therefore I shall be saved Answ A gross deceit That I believe is no where in the Scripture If it
Nos quoque floruimus sed flos fuit ille caducus Flammaque de stipula nostra brevisque fuit Ov. VERA EFFIGIES RICHARDI BAXTERI MIN IES CH IN OP ET PATA FIDEI SPEI ET CHARITATIS An. 1670. AETAT SUAE 55º Farewell vaine World as thou hast been to me Dust and a Shadow those I leave with thee The vnseen Vitall Substance I committ The Leaves Fruit are dropt for soyle and Seed Heaven's heirs to generate to heale and feed Them also thou wilt flatter and molest But shalt not keep from Everlasting Rest THE LIFE OF FAITH THE Life of Faith In Three PARTS The First is a Sermon on Heb. 11.1 formerly preached before His Majesty and published by his Command with another added for the fuller Application The Second is Instructions for confirming Believers in the Christian Faith The Third is Directions how to live by Faith or how to exercise it upon all occasions By RICHARD BAXTER 2 Cor. 5.7 For we walk by faith not by sight 2 Cor. 4.16 17 18. For which cause we faint not but though our outward man parish yet the inward man is renewed day by day For our light affliction which is but for a moment worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory While we look not at the things which are seen but at the things which are not seen For the things which are seen are temporal but the things which are not seen are eternal Heb. 12.27 By faith he forsook Egypt not fearing the wrath of the King for he endured as seeing him that is invisible LONDON Printed by R. W. for Nevill Simmons at the three Crowns over against Holbern Conduit 1670. To the Worshipfull my much honoured Friend Richard Hampden of Hampden Esquire and the Lady Laetitia his Wife Grace and Peace be multiplied SIR YOur Names stand here in the front of this Treatise on a double account First that the custom of Writers having given me such an advantage I may tell the present and future Ages how much I love and honour your Piety Sobriety Integrity and Moderation in an Age when such Vertues grow into contempt or into lifeless Images and Names And how much I am my self your debter for the manifold expressions of your love and that in an Age when 〈…〉 the superioâ—â—â—â—culties is ouâ— of fâ—shion and towards such as I is grown â— crime Sincerity and 〈◊〉 are things that shall be honourable when Hypocrisie and Malice have done their worst But they are most conspicuous and refulgent in times of â—â—rity and when the shame of their contraries seâ— them off Secondly To signifie my Love and Gratitude by the best 〈◊〉 which I can make which is by tendering to you and to your family the surest Directions for the most noble manly life on earth in order to a blessed life in Heaven Though you have proceeded well you 〈…〉 need of help so great a 〈…〉 for skilfull counsel and 〈…〉 and industrious and unweaâ—â—◠〈…〉 And your hopeful children may 〈…〉 to learn this excellenâ— Life from these Directions for the love of your prefixed Names And how happy will they bâ— if they converse with God 〈…〉 are wallowing in the 〈◊〉 of 〈…〉 When the dead heaâ—ted sinner thinketh not of 〈…〉 be dragg'd out of 〈◊〉 paâ—pered corruptible flesh to divinie 〈◊〉 and â—â—â—with the beginnings of endless 〈◊〉 to the world where they might have found everlasting rest what joy will then be the portion of mortified and patient Believers whosâ— Treasâ—â—â—s and Hearts and Conversatiâ—â— in Heâ—ven are now the foretaste of their possession as the Spirit of Christ which causeth this iâ— the seâ—â— of God and the pledge and earnest of their inheritance If a 〈◊〉 pleasing life in a dark distracted 〈◊〉 world were better than a life with God and Angels methinks yet they that know they cannot have what they 〈◊〉 should make sue of what they may haâ—â— And they that cannot keep what they 〈◊〉 should learn to 〈◊〉 what 〈◊〉 may keep Wonderfull stupidity â—hâ—t they 〈…〉 dead bodies 〈…〉 grave is as common a work 〈…〉 children into the world and that this life is but the road to another and that all men are posting on to their 〈…〉 should think no more considerately whither so many thousand souls do go that daily shoot the gulf of death and return no more to the world which one they called their home That men will have no house or home but the ship which carryeth them so swiftly to eternity and spend their time in furnishing a dwelling on such a tempestuous Sea where winds and tide are hasting them to the shore and even to the end are contriving to live where they are daily dying and care for no â—â—bitation but on horse-back That almost all men die much wiser than they lived and yet the certain foreknowledge of death will not serve to make them more seasonably and more safely wiâ—e Wonderful that it should be possible for a man awake to believe that he must shortly be gone from earth and enter into an unchangeable endless life and yet not bend the thoughts of his soul and the labours of his life to secure his true and 〈…〉 Adam hath given sin the 〈…〉 grace and madness the priority to wisdom and our wisdom health and safety must now come after by the way of recovery and cure The first born of lapsed man was a malignant persecuting Cain The first born of believing Abraham was a persecutor of him that was born after the Spirit 1 John 3.12 Gal. 4.29 And the first born of this Isaac himself was a profane Esau that for one morsel sold his birth-right Heb. 12.16 And naturally we are all the off-spring of this profaneness and have not acquaintance enough with God and with healthful holiness and with the everlasting heavenly Glory to make us cordially preferr it before a forbidden cup or morsel or a game at foolery or a filthy lust or before the wind of a gilded fools acclamation and applause or the cap and counterfeit subjection of the multitude But the fortunae non tua turba ut Ov. quos sportula fecit amici ut Juv. who will serve mens lusts and be their servants and humble attendants to damnation are regarded more than the God the Saviour the Sanctifier to whom these perfidious rebels were once devoted That you and yours may live that more wise and delightful life which consisteth in the daily sight of Heaven by a Living Faith which worketh by Love in constant Obedience is the principal end of this publick appellation That what is here written for the use of all may be first and specially useful to you and yours whom I am so much bound to love and honour even to your safe and comfortable life and death and to your future joy and glory which is the great desire of Your obliged Servant RICH. BAXTER Feb. 4. 1669. THE PREFACE Reader 1. IF it offend thee that the Parts of
worldly judgement He seeth by faith a greater ugliness in sin than in any the most deformed monster When the unbeliever saith what harm is it to please my flesh in ease or pride or meat and drink or lustful wantonness the believer takes it as the question of a fool that should ask what harm is it to take a dram of Mercury or Arsenick He seeth the vicious evil and foreseeth the consequent penal evil by the eye of faith And therefore it is that he pittieth the ungodly when they pitty not themselves and speaks to them oft with a tender heart in compassion of their misery and perhaps weeps over them as Paul Phil. 3.18 19. when he cannot prevail when they weep not for themselves but hate his love and scorn his pitty and bid him keep his lamentations for himself because they see not what he sees He seetâ— also the inward beauty of the Saints as it shineth forth in the holiness of their lives and through all their sordid poverty and contempt beholdeth the image of God upon them For he judgeth not of sin or holiness as they now appear to the dâ—stracted world but as they will be judged of at the day which he foreseeth when sin will be the shame and holiness the honoured and dâ—sired state He can see Christ in his poor despised members and love God in those that are made as the scorn and off-scouâ—ing of all things by the malignant unbelieving world He admireth the excellency and happiness of those that are made the laughing-stock of the ungodly and accounteth the Saints the most excellent on earth Psal 16.2 and had rather be one of their communion in raggs than sit with Princes that are naked within and void of the true and durable glory He judgeth of men as he perceiveth them to have more or less of Christ The worth of a man is not obvious to the sense You see his stature complexion and his cloths but as you see not his learning or skill in any Art whatsoever so you see not his grace and heavenly mind As the soul it self so the sinful deformity and the holy beauty of it are to us invisible and perceived only by their fruits and by the eye of faith which seeth things as God reveals them And therefore in the eyes of a true Believer a vile person is contemned but he honoureth those that fear the Lord Psal 15.4 4. A true Believer doth seek a happiness which he never saw and that with greater estimation and resolution than he seeks the most excellent things that he hath seen In all his prayers his labours and his sufferings it is an unseen Glory that he seeks he seeth not the Glory of God nor the glorified Redeemer nor the world of Angels and perfected spirits of the just but he knoweth by faith that such a God such a Glory such a world as this there is as certain as if his eyes had seen it And therefore he provides he lives he hopes he waits for this unseen state of spiritual bliss contemning all the wealth and glory that sight can reach in comparison thereof He believeth what he shall see and therefore strives that he may see it It 's something above the Sun and all that mortal eyes can see which is the end the hope the portion of a believer without which all is nothing to him and for which he trades and travels here as worldlings do for worldly things Matth. 6.20 21. Col. 3.1 Phil. 3.20 5. A true Believer doth all his life prepare for a day that is yet to come and for an account of all the passages of his life though he hath noâ—hing but the Word of God to assure him of it And therefore he lives as one that is hasting to the presence of his Judge and he contriveth his affairs and disposeth of his worldly riches as one that looks to hear of it again and as one that remembreth the Judge is at the door James 5.9 He rather asketh what life what words what actions what way of using my estate and interest will be sweetest to me in the review and will be best at last when I must accordingly receive my doom than what is most pleasant to my flesh and what will ingratiate me most with men and what will accommodate me best at present and set me highest in the world And therefore it is that he pittieth the ungodly even in the height of their prosperity and is so earnest though it offend them to procure their recovery as knowing that how secure soever they are now they must give an account to him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead 1 Pet. 4.5 and that then the case will be altered with the presumptuous world 6. Lastly A true believer is careful to prevent a threatned misery which he never felt and is awakened by holy fear to flye from the wrath to come and is industrious to escape that place of torment which he never saw as if he had seen it with his eyes When he heareth but the sound of the trumpet he takes warning that he may save his soul Ezek. 33.4 The evils that are here felt and seen are not so dreadful to him as those that he never saw or felt He is not so careful and resolute to avoid the ruine of his estate or name or to avoid the plague or sword or famine or the scorching flames or death or torments as he is to avoid the endless torments which are threatned by the righteous God It is a greater misery in his esteem to be really undone for ever than seemingly only for a time and to be cast off by God than by all the world and to lie in Hell than to suffer any temporal calamity And therefore he fears it more and doth more to avoid it and is more cast down by the fears of Gods displeasure than by the feelings of these present sufferings As Noah did for his preservation from the threatned deluge so doth the true Believer for his preservation from everlasting wrath Heb. 11.7 By faith Noah being warned of God of things not seen as yet moved with fear prepared an Ark to the saving of his house by the which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith God first giveth warning of the flood Noah believeth it not with a lifeless but a working faith that first moved in him a self-preserving fear This fear moveth Noah to obey the Lord in the use of means and to prepare the Ark and all this was to save himself and his house from a flood that was as yet unseen and of which in nature there was no appearance Thus doth God warn the sinful world of the day of judgement and the fire that is unquenchable and true believers take his warning and believing that which they cannot see by fear they are moved to flye to Christ and use his means to scape the threatned calamity By this
you saw the everlasting Glory which Christ hath purchased and prepared for his Saints That you had been once with Paul rapt up into the third Heavens and seen the things that are unutterable would you not after that have rather lived like Paul and undergone his sufferings and contempt than to have lived like the brain-sick brutish world If you had seen what Stephen saw before his death Acts 7.55 56. the Glory of God and Christ standing at his right hand If you had seen the thousands and millions of holy glorious spirits that are continually attending the Majesty of the Lord If you had seen the glorified spirits of the just that were once in flesh despised by the blind ungodly world while they waited on God in faith and holiness and hope for that blessed Crown which now they were If you had felt one moment of their joyes if you had seen them shine as the Sun in glory and made like unto the Angels of God if you had heard them sing the song of the Lamb and the joyful Hallelujahs and praise to their eternal King what would you be and what would you resolve on after such a sight as this If the rich man Luke 16. had seen Lazarus in Abrahams bosom in the midst of his bravery and honour and feasting and other sensual delights as afterwards he saw it when he was tormented in the flames of Hell do you think such a sight would not have cooled his mirth and jollity and helpt him to understand the nature and value of his earthly felicity and have proved a more effectual argument than a despised Preachers words at least to have brought him to a freer exercise of his Reason in a sober consideration of his state and waies Had you seen one hour what Abraham David Paul and all the Saints now see while sin and flesh doth keep us here in the dark what work do you think your selves it would make upon your hearts and lives 4 Suppose you saw the face of Death and that you were now lying under the power of some mortal sickness Physicians having forsaken you and said There is no hope Your friends weeping over you and preparing your winding sheet and coffin digging your graves and casting up the skulls and bones and earth that must again be cast in to be your covering and company Suppose you saw a Messenger from God to tell you that you must die to morrow or heard but what one of your predecessors heard Luke 12.20 Thou fool this night shall thy soul be required of thee then whose shall these things be that thou hast provided How would such a Message work with you would it leave you as you are If you heard a voice from God this night in your chamber in the dark telling you that this iâ— the last night that you shall live on earth and before to morrow your souls must be in another world and come before the dreadful God what would be the effect of such a Message And do you not verily believe that all this will very shortly be Nay do you not know without believing that you must die and leave your worldly glory and that all your pleasures and contents on earth will be as if they had never been and much worse O wonderful that a change so sure so great so near should no more affect you and no more be fore-thought on and no more prepared for and that you be not awakened by so full and certain a fore-knowledge to be in good sadness for eternal life as you seem to be when death is at hand 5. Suppose you saw the great and dreadful day of Judgement as it iâ— described by Christ himself in Matth. 25. When the Son of man shall come in his glory and all his holy Angels with him and shall sit upon his glorious Throne and all Nations shall be gathered before him and he shall separate them one from another as a Shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats and shall set the sheep on his right hand and the goats on his left v. 31 32 33. and shall sentence the righteous to eternal life and the rest into everlasting punishment If you did now behold the glory and terrour of that great appearance how the Saints will be magnified and rejoyce and be justified against all the accusations of Satan and calumnies of wicked men and how the ungodly then would fain deny the words and deeds that now they glory in and what horrour and confusion will then overwhelm those wretched souls that now out-face the Messengers of the Lord Had you seen them trembling before the Lord that now are braving it out in the pride and arrogancy of their hearts Had you heard how then they will change their tune and wish they had never known their sins and wish they had lived in greater holiness than those whom they derided for it What would you say and do and be after such an amazing fight as this Would you sport it out in sin as you have done Would you take no better care for your salvation If you had seen those sayings out of the holy Ghost fulfilled Jude 14 15.2 Thes 1.7 8 9. When the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from Heaven with his mighty Angels in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God and that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power What mind do you think you should be of What course would you take if you had but seen this dreadful day Could you go on to think and speak and live as sensually stupidly and negligently as now you do 2 Pet. 3.10 11 12. The day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night in the which the bravens shall pass away with a great noise and the elements shall melt with fervent beat the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burnt up Is it possible soundly to believe such a day so sure so near and no more regard it nor make ready for it than the carelâ—ss and ungodly do 6. Suppose at that day you had heard the Devil accusing you of all the sins that you have committed and set them out in the most odious aggravations and call for justice against you to your Judge If you heard him pleading all those sins against you that now he daily tempts you to commit and now maketh you believe are harmless or small inconsiderable things If you heard him saying At such a time this sinner refused grace neglected Christ despised Heaven and preferred Earth at such a time he derided godliness and made a mock of the holy Word and Counsels of the Lord at such a time he prophaned the name of God he coveted his neighbours wealth he cherished thoughts of envy or of lust he was drunk or gluttonous or committed fornication and he was never thorowly converted by renewing
your honours and attendance Is a day that is spent or a life that is â—xtinct any thing or nothing Is there any sweetness in a feast that was eaten or drink that was drunk or time that was spent in sports and mirth a year ago Certainly a known vanity should not be preferred before a probable endless joy But when we have certainty as well as excellency and eternity to set against certain transitory vanity what room is left for further deliberation whether we should prefer the Sun before a squib or a flash of lightening that suddenly leaves us in the dark one would think should be an easie question to resolve Up then and work while it is day and let us run and strive with all our might Heaven is at hand as sure as if you saw it You are certain you can be no losers by the choice You part with nothing for all things you escape the tearing of your heart by submitting to the scratching of a bryer You that will bear the opening of a vein for the cure of a Feaver and will not forbear a necessary Journey for the barking of a Dog or the blowing of the wind O leap not into Hell to scape the stinking breath of a scorner Part not with God with Conscience and with Heaven to save your purses or your flesh Chuse not a merry way to misery before a prudent sober preparation for a perfect everlasting joy You would not prefer a merry cup before a Kingdom You would let go a lâ—sser delight or commodity for a greater here Thus a greater sin can forbid the exercise of a less And shall not endless joy weigh down a brutish lust or pleasure If you love pleasure take that which is true and full and durable For all that he calleth you to Repentance and Mortification and necessary strictness there is none that 's more for your pleasure and delight than God or else he would not offer you the rivers of pleasure that are at his right hand nor himself to be your perpetual delight If you come into a room where are variety of pictures and one is gravely reading or meditating and another with a cup or harlot in his hand is profusely laughing with a gaping grining mouth would you take the latter or the former to be the picture of a wise and happy man Do you approve of the state of those in Heaven and do you like the way that brought them thither If not why speak you of them so honourably and why would you keep holy-daies in remembrance of them If you do examine the sacred records and see whether the Apostles and others that are now honoured as glorified Saints did live as you do or rather as those that you think are too precise Did they spend the day in feasting and sports and idle talk Did they swagger it out in pride and wealth hate their brethren that were not in all things of their conceits Did they come to Heaven by a worldly formal hypocritical ceremonious Religion or by faith and love and self-denial and unwearied labouring for their own and other mens salvation while they became the wonder and the scorn of the ungodly and as the off-scouring and refuse of the world Do you like holiness when it is for from you in a dead man that never troubled you with his presence or reproofs or in a Saint in Heaven that comes not near you Why then do you not like it for your selves If it be good the nearer the better Your own health and your own wealth do comfort you more than another mans And so would your own holiness if you had it If you would speed as they that are now beholding the face of God believe and live and wait as they did And as the righteous God did not forget their work and labour of love for his Name so he will remember you with the same reward if you shew the same diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the end and be not slothful but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the Promises Heb. 6.10 11 12. O did you but see what they now enjoy and what they see and what they are and what they do you would never sure scorn or persecute a Saint more If you believe you see though not as they with open face If you believe not yet it is not your unbelief that shall make Gods Word of none effect Rom. 3.3 God will be God if you be Atheists Christ will be Christ if you be Infidels Heaven will be Heaven if you by despising it go to Hell Judgement sleepeth not when you sleep I'ts coming as fast when you laugh at it or question it as if your eyes were open to foresee it If you would not believe that you must die do you think that this would delay your death one year or hour If ten or twenty years time more be allotted you it passeth as swiftly and death and judgement come as surely if you spend it in voluptuousness and unbelief as if you watcht and waited for your change We preach not to you Ifs and And 's It is not perhaps there is a Heaven and Hell But as sure as you are here and must anon go hence you must as shortly quit this world and take up your abode in the world that 's now to us invisible And no tongue can express how sensible you will then be of the things that you will not now be made sensible of O then with what a dreadful view will you look before you and behind you Behind you upon Time and say It is gone and never will return and hear conscience ask you How you spent it and what you did with it Before you upon Eternâ—ty and say It is come and to the ungodly will be an Eternity of woe What a peal will conscience then ring in the unbelievers ears Now the day is come that I was forewarned of the day and change which I would not believe whither must I now go what must I now do what shall I say before the Lord for all the sin that I have wilfully committed for all the time of mercy which I lost How shall I answer my contempt of Christ my neglect of means and enmity to a holy serious life What a distracted wretch was I to condemn and dislike them that spent their lives in preparation for this day when now I would give a thousand worlds to be but one of the meanest of them O that the Church doors and the door of grace were open to me now as once they were when I refused to enter Many a time did I hear of this day and would not believe or soberly consider of it Many a time was I intreated to prepare and I thought an hypocritical trifling shew would have been taken for a sufficient prepâ—â—â—tion Now who must be my companions How long must I dwell with woe and horrour God by his Ministers was wont to call to
it And this is it which we call Sanctification or Holiness to the Lord. And our cohabitation and relation to men will tell us that Justice and Charity are our duty as to them And when a man is fully satisfied that Holiness Justice and Charity are our duty he hath a great advantage for his progress towards the Christian Faith To which let me add that as to our selves also it is undeniably our duty to take more care for our souls than for our bodies and to rule our senses and passions by our Reason and to subject our lower faculties to the higher and so to use all sensible and present things as conduceth to the publick good and to the advancement of our nobler part and to our greatest benefit though it cross our sensual appetites All this being unquestionably our natural duty we see that man was made to live in Holiness Justice Charity Temperance and rational regularity in the world 5. When you have gone thus far consider next how far men are generally from the performance of this duty And how backward humane nature is to it even while they cannot deny it to be their duty And you will soon perceive that God who made it their duty did never put in them this enmity thereto nor ever made them without some aptitude to perform it And if any would infer that their indisposednâ—ss proveth it to be none of their duty the nature of man will fully confute him and the conscience and confession of all the sober part of the world What wretch so blind if he believe a Deity who will not confess that he should love God with all his heart and that Justice Charity and Sobriety are his duty and that his sense should be ruled by his reason c The evidence before given is not to be denyed And therefore something is marr'd in nature Some enemy hath seduced man And some deplorable change hath befallen him 6. Yea if you had no great backwardness to this duty your self consider what it must cost you faithfully to perform it in such a malignant world as we now live in what envy and wrath what malice and persecution what opposition and discouragements on every side we must expect Universal experience is too full a proof of this Besides what it costeth our restrained flesh 7. Proceed then to think further that certainly God hath never appointed us so much duty without convenient Motives to perform it It cannot be that he should make us more noble than the brutes to be more miserable Or that he should make Holiness our duty that it might be our loss or our calamity If there were no other life but this and men had no hopes of future happiness nor any fears of punishment what a Hell would this world be Heart-wickedness would be but little feared nor heart-duty regarded Secret sin against Princes States and all degrees would be boldly committed and go unpunished for the most part The sins of Princes and of all that have power to defeat the Law would have little or no restraint Every mans interest would oblige him rather to offend God who so seldom punisheth here than to offend a Prince or any man in power who seldom lets offences against himself go unrevenged And so man more than God would be the Ruler of the world that is our God Nay actually the hopes and fears of another life among most Heaâ—hens Infidels and Hereticks is the principle of Divine Government by which God keepeth up most of the order and virtue which is in the world Yea think what you should be and do your self as to enemies and as to secret faults and as to sensual vices if you thought there were no life but this And is it possible that the infinitely powerful wise and good Creatour can be put to govern all mankind by meer deceit and a course of lyes as if he wanted better means By how much the better any man is by so much the more regardful is he of the life to come and the hopes and fears of another life are so much the more prevalent with him And is it possible that God should make men good to make them the most deceived and most miserable Hath he commanded all these cares to be our needless torments which brutes and fools and sottish sinners do all scape Is the greatest obedience to God become a sign of the greatest folly or the way to the greatest loss or disappointment We are all sure that this life is short and vain No Infidel can say that he is sure that there is no other life for us And if this be so reason commandeth us to prefer the pâ—ssibilities of such a life to come before the certain vanities of this life So that even the Infidels uncertainty will unavoidably infer that the preferring of the world to come is our duty And if it be our duty then the thing in it self is true For God will not make it all mens duties in the frame of their nature to seek an Vtopia and pursue a shadow and to spend their daies and chiefest cares for that which is not Godliness is not such a dreaming night-walk Conscience will not suffer dying men to believe that they have more cause to repent of their Godliness than of their sin and of their seeking Heaven than of wallowing in their lusts Nay then these hâ—avenly desires would be themselves our sins as being the following of a lye the aspiring after a state which is above us and the abuse and loss of our faculties and time And sensuality would be liker to be our virtue as being natural to us and a seeking of our most real felicity The common conscience of mankind doth justifie the wisdom and virtue of a temperate holy heavenly person and acknowledgeth that our heavenly desires are of God And doth God give men both natural faculties which shall never come to the perfection which is their End and also gracious desires which shall but deceive us and never be satisfied If God had made us for the enjoyments of brutes he would have given us but the knowledge and desires of brutes Every King and mortal Judge can punish faults against Man with death And hath God no greater or further punishment for sins as committed against himself And are his rewards no greater than a mans These and many more such Evidences may assure you that there is another life of Rewards and punishments and that this life is not our final state but only a â—ime of preparation thereunto Settle this deeply and fixedly in your minds 8. And look up to the heavenly Regions and think Is this world so replenished with inhabitants both Sea and Land and Air it self And can I dream that the vast and glorious Orbs and Regions are all uninhabited Oâ— that they have not more numerous and glorious possessors than this small opacous spot of earth And then think that those higher creatures are intellectual spirits This is
many waies apparent and also of the communion which they have with man And when we find also an intellectual nature in our selves why should we not believe that our likeness of nature doth infer our likeness in our future duration and abode 9. And mark well but the inward and outward temptations which solicite all the world to sin and what notable Evidences there be in many of them of an invisible power and you will easily believe that man hath a soul to save or lose which is of longer duration than the body 10. Lastly If yet there be any doubt consider but of the sensible Evidences of Apparitions Witchcraft and Possessions and it cannot chuse but much confirm you Though much be feigned in histories of such things yet the world hath abundant evidence of that which was certainly unfeigned See the Devil of Mascon Mr. Mompessons story lately acted and published Remigius Bodins Danaeus c. of Witches Lavater de Spectris and what I have written elsewhere CHAP. II. The true Method of enquiry into the supernatural Evidences of Faith and Rules therein to be offered WHen you have thus seen what evidence there is of GOD and his Government and of a life of reward and punishment hereafter and of the natural obligations which lie on man to a holy just and sober life and of the depraved state of the world which goeth so contrary to such undoubted duty and how certain all this is even by natural revelation proceed next to consider what supernatural revelation God hath added both to confirm you in the same Truths and to make known such other as were necessary for mankind to know Where I must first direct you in the true Method of Enquiry and then set before you the things themselves which you are to know 1. Think not that every unprepared mind is immediately capable of the Truth either this or any other except the first principles which are nota per se or are next to sense All truth requireth a capacity and due preparation of the recipient The plainest principles of any Art or Science are not understood by novices at the first fight or hearing And therefore it were vain to imagine that things of the greatest distance in history or profundity in doctrine can be comprehended at the first attempt by a disused and unfurnished understanding There must be at least as much time and study and help supposed and used to the full discerning of the evidences of faith as are allowed to the attainment of common Sciences Though grace in less time may give men so much light as is necessary to salvation yet he that will be able to defend the Truth and answer Objections and attain establishing satisfaction in his own mind must ordinarily have proportionable helps and time and studyes unless he look to be taught by miracles 2. Remember that it is a practical and heavenly doctrine which you are to learn It is the Art of loving God and being happy in his love And therefore a worldly sensual vicious soul must needs be under very great disadvantage for the receiving of such a kind of Truths Do not therefore impute that to the doubtfulness of the Doctrine which is but the effect of the enmity and incapacity of your minds How can he presently rellish the spiritual and heavenly doctrine of the Gospel who is drowned in the love and care of contrary things Such men receive not the things of the Spirit They seem to them both foolishness and undesirable 3. Think not that the history of things done so long ago and so far off should have no more obscurities nor be liable to any more Objections than of that which was done in the time and Country where you live Nor yet that things done in the presence of others and words spoken in their hearing only should be known to you otherwise than by historical evidence unless every Revelation to others must have a new Revelation to bring it to each individual person in the world And think not that he who is a stranger to all other helps of Church-history should be as well able to understand the Scripture-history as those that have those other helps 4. Think not that the narrativt of things done in a Country and Age so remote and to us unknown should not have many difficulties arising from our ignorance of the persons places manners customs and many circumstances which if we had known would easily have resolved all such doubts 5. Think not that a Book which was written so long ago in so remote a Country in a language which few do fully understand and which may since then have several changes as to phrases and proverbial and occasional speeches should have no more difficulties in it than a Book that were written at home in the present Ages in our Country language and the most usual dialect To say nothing of our own language what changes are made in all other tongues since the times that the Gospel was recorded Many proverbial speeches and phrases may be now disused and unknown which were then most easie to be understood And the transcribing and preserving of the Copies require us to allow for some defects of humane skill and industry therein 6. Vnderstand the different sorts of Evidence which are requisite to the different matters in the holy Scriptures The matters of fact require historical evidence which yet is made infallible by additional miracles The miracles which were wrought to confirm our history are brought to our knowledge only by other history The Doctrines which are evident in nature have further evidence of supernatural revelation only to help us whose natural fight is much obscured But it is the supernatural Doctrines Precepts and Promises which of themselves require supernatural revelation to make them credible to man 7. Mistake not the true Vse and End of the holy Scriptures 1. Think not that the Gospel as written was the first Constitutive or Governing Law of Christ for the Christian Churches The Churches were constituted and the Orders and Offices and Government of it settled and exercised very many years together before any part of the New Testament was written to them much more before the writing of the whole The Apostles had long before taught them what was commanded them by Christ and had settled them in the order appointed by the Holy Ghost And therefore you are not to look for the first determination of such doctrines or orders in the Scripture as made thereby but only for the Records of what was done and established before For the Apostles being to leave the world did know the slipperiness of the memory of man and the danger of changing and corrupting the Christian Doctrine and Orders if there were not left a sure record of it And therefore they did that for the sake of posterity 2. You must not think that all is essential to the Christian Religion which is contained in the holy Scriptures Nor that
multitude of ceremonies being but the pictures and alphabet of that truth which Jesus Christ hath brought to light and which hath evidence which to us is more convincing than that of the Jewish Law 3. The Mahometane delusion is so gross that it seemeth vain to say any more against it than it saith it self unless it be to those who are bred up in such darkness as to hear of nothing else and never to see the Sun which shineth on the Christian world and withall are under the terrour of the sword which is the strongest reason of that barbarous Sect. 4. And to think that the Atheisme of Infidels is the way who hold only the five Articles of the Vnity of God the duty of obedience the immortality of the soul the life of retributior and the necessity of Repentance is but to go against the light For 1. It is a denyal of that abundant evidence of the truth of the Christian Faith which cannot by any sound reason be confuted 2. It is evidently too narrow for mans necessities and leaveth our misery without a sufficient remedy 3. Its inclusions and exclusions are contradictory It asserteth the necessity of Obedience and Repentance and yet excludeth the necessary means the revealed Light and Love and Power by which both Obedience and Repentance must be had It excludeth Christ and his Spirit and yet requireth that which none but Christ and his Spirit can effect 4. It proposeth a way as the only Religion which few ever went from the beginning as to the exclusions As if that were Gods only way to Heaven which scarce any visible societies of men can be proved to have practised to this day Which of all these Religions have the most wise and holy and heavenly and mortified and righteous and sober persons to profess it and the greatest numbers of such If you will judge of the medicine by the effects and take him for the best Physician who doth the greatest cures upon the souls you will soon conclude that Christ is the way the truth and the life and no man cometh to the Father but by him John 14.6 Direct 3. Think how impossible it is that any but God should be the Author of the Christian Religion 1. No good man could be guilty of so horrid a crime as to forge a volume of delusions and put Gods Name to it to cheat the world so blasphemously and hypocritically and to draw them into a life of trouble to promote it Much less could so great a number of good men do this as the success of such a cheat were it possible would require There is no man that can believe it to be a deceit but must needs believe as we do of Mahomet that the Author was one of the worst men that ever lived in the world 2. No bad man could lay so excellent a design and frame a Doctrine and Law so holy so self denying so merciful so just so spiritual so heavenly and so concordant in it self nor carry on so high and divine an undertaking for so divine and excellent an end No bad man could so universally condemn all badness and prescribe such powerful remedies against it and so effectually cure and conquer it in so considerable a part of the world 3. If it be below any good man to be guilty of such a forgery as aforesaid we can much less suspect that any good Angel could be guilty of it 4. And if no bad man could do so much good we can much less imagine that any Devil or bad spirit could be the author of it The Devil who is the worst in evil could never so much contradict his nature and overthrow his own Kingdom and say so much evil of himself and do so much against himself and do so much for the sanctifying and saving of the world He that doth so much to draw men to sin and misery would never do so much to destroy their sin And we plainly feel within our selves that the spirit or party which draweth us to sin doth resist the Spirit which draweth us to believe and obey the Gospel and that these two maintain a war within us 5. And if you should say that the good which is in Christianity is caused by God and the evil of it by the Father of sin I answer either it is true or false If it be true it is so good that the Devil can never possibly be a contributor to it Nay it cannot then be suspected justly of any evil But if it be false it is then so bad that God cannot be any otherwise the Author of it than as he is the Author of any common natural Verity which it may take in and abuse or as his general concourse extendeth to the whole Creation But it is somewhat in Christianity which it hath more than other Religions have which must make it more pure and more powerful and successful than any other Religions have been Therefore it must be more than common natural truths even the contexture of those natural truths with the supernatural revelations of it and the addition of a spirit of power and light and love to procure the success And God cannot be the Author of any such contexture or additions if it be false 6. If it be said that men that had some good and some bad in them did contrive it such as those Fanaticks or Enthusiasts who have pious notions and words with pride and self-exalting minds I answer The good is so great which is found in Christianity that it is not possible that a bad man much less an extreamly bad man could be the Author of it And the wickedness of the plot would be so great if it were false that it is not possible that any but an extreamly bad man could be guilty of it Much less that a multitude should be sound at once so extreamly good as to promote it even with their greatest labour and suffering and also so extreamly bad as to joyn together in the plot to cheat the world in a matter of such high importance Such exceeding good and evil cannot consist in any one person much less in so many as must do such a thing And if such a heated brain sick person as Hacket Nailer David George or John of Leyden should cry up themselves upon prophetical and pious pretences their madness hath still appeared in the mixture of their impious doctrines and practices And if any would and could be so wicked God never would or did assist them by an age of numerous open miracles nor lend them his Omnipotency to deceive the world but left them to the shame of their proud attempts and made their folly known to all Direct 4. Study all the Evidences of the Christian Verity till their sense and weight and order be throughly digested understood and remembred by you and be as plain and familiar to you as the lesson which you have most thoroughly learned It is not once or twice reading
though we must not with Fanatical persons put first our own interpretation upon Gods works and then expound his Word by them but use his works as the fulfilling of his Word and expound his Providences by his Precepts and his Promises and Threats Direct 7. Mark well Gods inward works of Government upon the soul and you shall find it very agreeable to the Gospel There is a very great evidence of a certain Kingdom of God within us And as he is himself a Spirit so it is with the Spirit that he doth most apparently converse in the work of his moral Government in the world 1. There you shall find a Law of duty or an inward conviction of much of that obedience which you owe to God 2. There you shall find an inward mover striving with you to draw you to perform this duty 3. There you shall find the inward suggestions of an enemy labouring to draw you away from this duty and to make a godly life seem grievous to you and also to draw you to all the sins which Christ forbiddeth 4. There you shall find an inward conviction that God is your Judge and that he will call you to account for your wilful violations of the Laws of Christ 5. There you shall find an inward sentence past upon you according as you do good or evil 6. And there you may find the sorest Judgements of God inflicted which any short of Hell endure You may there find how God for sin doth first afflict the soul that is not quite forsaken with troubles and affrightments and some of the feeling of his displeasure And where that is long despised and men sin on still he useth to with hold his gracious motions and leave the sinner dull and senseless so that he can sin with sinful remorse having no heart or life to any thing that is spiritually good And if yet the sinner think not of his condition to repent he is usually so far forsaken as to be given up to the power of his most bruitish lust and to glory impudently in his shame and to hate and persecute the servants of Christ who would recover him till he hath filled up the measure of his sin and wrath be come upon him to the uttermost Ephes 4.18 19. 1 Thes 2.15 16. being abominable and disobedient and to every good work reprobate Titus 1.15 16. Besides the lesser penal withdrawings of the Spirit which Gods own servants find in themselves after some sins or neglects of grace 7. And there also you may find the Rewards of Love and faithful duty by many tastes of Gods acceptance and many comforts of his Spirit and by his owning the soul and giving out larger assistance of his Spirit and peace of conscience and entertainment in prayer and all approaches of the soul to God and sweeter forecasts of life eternal In a word if we did but note Gods dreadful Judgements on the souls of the ungodly in this age as well as we have noted our plagues and flames and if Gods servants kept as exact observations of their inward rewards and punishments and that in particulars as suited to their particular sins and duties you will see that Christ is King indeed and that there is a real Government according to his Gospel kept up in the consciences or souls of men though not so observable as the rewards and punishments at the last day Direct 8. Dwell not too much on sensual objects and let them not come too near your hearts Three things I here perswade you carefully to avoid 1. That you keep your hearts at a meet distance from all things in this world that they grow not too sweet to you nor too great in your esteem 2. That you gratifie not sense it self too much and live not in the pleasing of your taste or lust 3. That you suffer not your imaginations to run out greedily after things sensitive nor make them the too frequent objects of your thoughts You may ask perhaps what is all this to our faith why the life of faith is exercised upon things that are not seen And if you live upon the things that are seen and imprison your soul in the fetters of your concupiscence and fill your fancies with things of another nature how can you be acquainted with the life of faith Can a bird flye that hath a stone tyed to her foot Can you have a mind full of lust and of God at once Or can that mind that is used to these inordinate sensualities be fit to rellish the things that are spiritual And can it be a lover of earth and fleshly pleasures and also a Believer and lover of Heaven Direct 9. Vse your selves much to think and speak of Heaven and the invisible things of Faith Speaking of Heaven is needful both to express your thoughts and to actuate and preserve them And the often thoughts of Heaven will make the mind familiar there And familiarity will assist and encourage faith For it will much acquaint us with those reasons and inducements of faith which a few strange and distant thoughts will never reach to As he that converseth much with a learned wise or godly man will easilier believe that he is learned wise or godly than he that is a stranger to him and only now and then seeth him afar off So he that thinketh so frequently of God and Heaven till his mind hath contracted a humble acquaintance and familiarity must needs believe the truth of all that excellency which before he doubted of For doubting is the effect of ignorance And he that knoweth most here believeth best Falshood and evil cannot bear the light but the more you think of them and know them the more they are detected and ashamed But truth and goodness love the light and the better you are acquainted with them the more will your belief and love be increased Direct 10. Live not in the guilt of wilful sin For that will many waies hinder your belief 1. It will breed fear and horrour in your minds and make you wish that it were not true that there is a day of Judgement and a Hell for the ungodly and such a God such a Christ and such a life to come as the Gospel doth describe And when you take it for your interest to be an unbeliever you will hearken with desire to all that the Devil and Infidels can say And you will the more easily make your selves believe that the Gospel is not true by how much the more you desire that it should not be true 2. And you will forfeit the grace which should help you to believe both by your wilfull sin and by your unwillingness to believe For who can expect that Christ should give his grace to them who wilfully despise him and abuse it Or that he should make men believe who had rather not believe Indeed he may possibly do both these but these are not the way nor is it a thing which we can expect
set down I only tell him that no Logicians do judge of the Logical order of words by the meer priority and posteriority of place And if any think that here is more than every true Christian doth understand and remember I answer that here is no more than every true Christian hath a true knowledge of though perhaps every one have not a knowledge so methodical explicite and distinct as to define Faith thus or to think so distinctly and clearly of it as others do or to be able by words to express to another what he hath a real conception of in himself There is first in the mind of man a conception of the Object or Matter by those words or means which introduce it and next that verbum mentis or inward word which is a distincter conception of the matter in the mould of such notions as may be exprest and next the verbum oris the word of mouth expresseth it Now many have the conception of the matter long before they have the verbum mentis or logical notions of it And many have the verbum mentis who by a hesitant tongue are hindered from oral expressions and in both there are divers degrees of distinctness and clearness Direct 9. Turn not plain Gospel Doctrine into the Philosophical fooleries of wrangling and ill-moulded wits nor feign to your selves any new notions or offices of Faith or any new terms as necessary which are not in the holy Scriptures I do not say use no terms which are not in the Scriptures for the Scriptures were not written in English Nor do I perswade you to use no other notions than the Scriptures use but only that you use them not as necessary and lay not too great a stress upon them I confess new Heresies may give occasion for new words as the Bishops in the first Councel of Nice thought And yet as Hilary vehemently enveigheth against making new Creeds on such pretences and wisheth no such practice had been known not excepting theirs at Nice because it taught the Hereticks and contenders to imitate them and they that made the third Creed might have the like arguments for it as those that made the second and he knew not when there would be any end so I could wish that there had been no new notions in the Doctrine of Faith so much as used for the same reasons And especially because that while the first inventers do but use them the next Age which followeth them will hold them necessary and lay the Churches communion and peace upon them For instance I think the word satisfaction as used by the Orthodox is of a very sound sense in our Controversies against the Socinians And yet I will never account it necessary as long as it is not in the Scriptures and as long as the words Sacrifice Ransome Price Propitiation Attonement c. which the Scripture useth are full as good So I think that imputing Christs Righteousness to us is a phrase which the Orthodox use in a very sound sense And yet as long as it is not used by the Spirit of God in the Scriptures and there are other phrases enough which as well or better express the true sense I will never hold it necessary So also the notions and phrases of Faith being the instrument of our Justification and Faith justifieth only objâ—ctively and that Faith justifieth only as it receiveth Christs blood or Christs Righteousness or Christ as a Priest that Faith is only one physical act that it is only in the understanding or only in the will that its only Justifying act is Recumbency or resting on Christ for Justification that it is not an action but a passion that all acts of Faith save one and that one as an act are the works which Paul excludeth from our Justification and that to expect Justification by believing in Christ for Sanctification or Glorification or by believing in him as our Teacher or King or Justifying Judge or by Repenting or Loving God or Christ as our Redeemer or by confessing our sins and praying for Pardon and Justification c. is to expâ—ct Justification by Works and so to fall from Grace or true Justification that he that will escape this pernicious expectance of Justification by Works must know what that one act of Faith is by which only we are justified and must expect Justification by it only relatively that is not by it at all but by Christ say some or as an Instrument say others c. Many of these Assertions are pernicious errours most of them false and the best of them are the unnecâ—ssary inventions of mens dark yet busie wits who condemn their own Doctrine by their practice and their practice by their Doctrine whilst they cry up the sufficiency of the Scriptures and cry down other mens additions and yet so largely add themselves Direct 10. Take heed lest parties and contendings tempt you to lay so much upon the right notion or doctrines of Faith as to take up with these alone as true Christianity and to take a dead Opinion instead of the life of Faith This dogmatical Christianity cheateth many thousands into Hell who would scarce be led so quietly thither if they knew that they are indeed no Christians It is ordinary by the advantages of education and converse and teachers and books and studies and the custome of the times and the countenance of Christian Rulers and for reputation and worldly advantage c. to fall into right opinions about Christ and Faith and Godliness and Heaven and tenaciously to defend these in disputings and perhaps to make a trade of preaching of it And what is all this to the saving of the soul if there be no more And yet the case of many Learned Orthodox men is greatly to be pittied who make that a means to cheat and undo themselves which should be the only wisdom and way to life and know but little more of Christianity than to hold and defend and teach sound Doctrine and to practise it so far as the interest of the flesh will give them leave I had almost said so far as the flesh it self will command them to do well and sin it self forbiddeth sin that it may not disgrace them in the world nor bring some hurt or punishment upon them Direct 11. Set not any other Graces against Faith as raising a jealousie left the honouring of one be a diminution of the honour of the other But labour to see the necessary and harmonious consent of all and how all contribute to the common end Though other graces are not Faith and have not the office proper to Faith yet every one is conjunct in the work of our salvation and in our pleasing and glorifying God Some of them being the concomitants of Faith and some of them its end to which it is a means Yea oft-times the words Faith and Repentance are used as signifying much of the same works the latter named from the respect to
all the same thing equally to duty and sin without it Direct 15. Consider well how much all humane converse is maintained by the necessary belief of one another and what the world would be without it and how much you expect your selves to be believed And then think how much more belief is due to God Though sin hath made the world so bad that we may say that all men are lyars that is deceitful vanity and little to be trusted yet the honesty of those that are more vertuous doth help so far to keep up the honour of veracity and the shamefulness of lying that throughout the world a lye is in disgrace and truth in speech and dealing is well spoken of And the remnants of natural honesty in the worst do so far second the true honesty of the best that no man is so well spoken of commonly in the world as a man of truth and trustiness whose Word is his Law and Master and never speaketh deceitfully to any Nor no man is so commonly ill spoken of as a knave as he that will lye and is not to be trusted In so much that even those debauched Ruffians who live as if they said in their hearts There is no God will yet venture their lives in revenge against him that shall give them the lye Perhaps you will say that this is not from any vertue or natural Law or honesty but from common interest there being nothing more the interest of mankind than that men be trusty to each other To which I answer that you oppose things which are conjunct It is both For all Gods natural Laws are for the interest of mankind and that which is truly most for our good is made most our duty and that which is most our duty is most for our good And that which is so much for the interest of mankind must needs be good If it were not for credibility and trustiness in men there were no living in families but Masters and Servants Parents and Children Husbands and Wives would live together as enemies And neigbours would be as so many thieves to one another There could be no Society or Common-wealth when Prince and people could put no trust in one another Nay thieves themselves that are not to be trusted by any others do yet strengthen themselves by confederacies and oaths of secrecy and gather into troops and armies and there put trust in one another And can we think that GOD is not much more to be trusted and is not a greater hater of a lye and is not the fountain of all fidelity and hath not a greater care of the interest of his creatures Surely he that thinketh that God is a lyar and not to be trusted will think no better of any mortal man or Angel and therefore trusteth no one and is very censorious and would be thought no better of himself and therefore would have none believe or trust him For who would be better than his God Direct 16. Consider also that Veracity in God is his nature or essence and cannot be denyed without denying him to be God For it is nothing but his three Essentialities or Principles Power Wisdom and Goodness as they are expressed in his Word or Revelations as congruous to his mind and to the matter expressed He that neither wanteth knowledge to know what to say and do nor Goodness to love truth and hate all evil nor Power to do what he please and to make good his word cannot possibly lye because every lye is for want of one or more of these Heb. 6.18 Titus 1.12 And there as it is said that he cannot lye and that it is impossible so it is called a denying of himself if he could be unfaithfull 2 Tim. 2.13 If we believe not yet be abideth faithful and cannot deny himself Direct 17. Exercise Faith much in those proper works in which self and sense are most denyed and overcome Bodily motions and labours which we are not used to are done both unskilfully and with pain If Faith be not much exercised in its warfare and victorious acts you will neither know its strength nor find it to be strong when you come to use it It is not the easie and common acts of Faith which will serve turn to try and strengthen it As the life of sense is the adversary which Faith must conquer so use it much in such conflicts and conquests if you would find it strong and usefull Use it in such acts of mortification and self-denyal as will plainly shew that it over ruleth sense Use it in patience and rejoycing in such sufferings and in contentment in so low and cross a state where you are sure that sight and sense do not contribute to your peace and joy Use it not only in giving some little of your superfluities but in giving your whole two mites even all your substance and selling all and giving to the poor when indeed God maketh it your duty At least in forsaking all for his sake in a day of tryal Faith never doth work so like it self so clearly so powerfully and so comfortably as in these self-denying and overcoming acts when it doth not work alone without the help of sense to comfort us but also against sense which would discourage us Luke 18.22 23. 14.26 33. 2 Cor. 5.7 Direct 18. Keep a constant observation of Gods converse with your hearts and workings on them For as I said before there are within us such demonstrations of a Kingdom of God in precepts mercies rewards and punishments that he which well worketh them will have much help in the maintaining and exercising his belief of the everlasting Kingdom Especially the godly who have that Spirit there working which is indeed the very seal and pledge and earnest of life eternal 2 Cor. 1.22 5.5 Ephes 1.13 14. Gal. 4.5 6. Rom. 8.16 17. There is so much of God and Heaven in a true Believers heart that as we see the Moon and Stars when we look down into the water so we may see much of God and Heaven within us if the heart it self be throughly studied And I must add that Experiences here must be carefully recorded and when God fulfilleth promises to us it must not be forgotten Direct 19. Converse much with them that live by Faith and fetch their motives and comforts from the things unseen Converse hath a transforming power To converse with them that live all by sense and shew no other desires or joyes or sorrows but what are fetched from fleshly sensible things is a great means to draw us downwards with them And to converse with them who converse in Heaven and speak of nothing else so comfortably or so seriously who shew us that Heaven is the place they travel to and the state that all their life doth aim and who make little of all the wants or plenty pains or pleasures of the flesh this much conduceth to make us heavenly As men are apt to learn
Psal 139.14 Direct 15. But let the chief study of Faith for the knowledge of God be of the face of Jesus Christ and the most wonderful mystery of his Incarnation and our Redemption For God is no where else so fully manifested to man in that Goodness Love and Mercy which it most concerneth us to know and the knowledge of which will be most healing and sanctifying to the soul But of this I must speak more in the chapter next following Direct 16. Let Faith make use of every mercy not only to acknowledge God therein but to have a pleasant taste and rellish of his Love For thus it is that they are all sanctified to Believers and this is the holy use of mercies Remember that as in order to Vnderstanding your eyes and ears are but the passages or inlets to your minds and if sights and sounds went no further than the senses you would be no better if not worse than beasts So also in order to Affection the taste and sense of sweetness or any other pleasure is to pass by the sense unto the heart and what should it do there but affect the heart with the Love and Goodness of the giver A beast tasteth as much of the sensitive sweetness of his food and ease as you do But it is the Believer who heartily saith How good is the Author and end of all this mercy whence is it that this cometh and whether dâ—th it tend I love the Lord because he hath heard the voice of my supplication Psal 116.1 O that men would praise the Lord for his goodness Psal 145.15 16. The eyes of all things wait on thee thou givest them their meat in due season Thou openest thy hand and satisfiest the desires of every living thing He leaveth not himself without witness in that he doth good and giveth us Rain from Heaven and fruitful seasons filling our hearts with food and gladness Acts 14.17 The near conjunction of soul and body and the near relation of God and his mercies do tell us plainly that every pleasure which toucheth the sense should touch the heart and reach unto the soul it self and that as the creature is fitted to the sense and God is suitable to the soul so the creature should be but Gods servant to knock and cause us to open the door to himself and the way of his communication and accession to the heart Therefore so great a judgement is threatned against the Israelites in their prosperity if they did not serve God with jâ—yfulness and gladness of heart for the abundance of all things Deut. 28.47 And therefore the daies in which men were to rejoyce in God with the greatest love and thankfulness were appointed to be daies of feasting that the pleasure of the bodily senses might promote the spiritual pleasure and gratitude of the mind 2 Chron. 19.21 29.30 Neh. 8.17 12.27 Esth 9 17 18 19. Numb 10.10 Direct 17. Let Faith feel Gods displeasure in every chastisement and judgement For we must be equally careful that we despise them not and that we faint not under them Heb. 12.5 They that pretend that it is the work of faith to see nothing in any affliction but the love and benefit do but set one act of faith against another For the same word which telleth us that it shall turn to a true believers good doth tell us that it is of it self a natural evil and that as the good is from Gods Love so the evil is from our sins and his displeasure and that he would give us the good without the evil if man were without sin He therefore that believeth not that it is a castigatory punishment for sin is an unbeliever as well as he that believeth not the promise of the benefit Rom. 5.12 14 16 17 18. 1 Cor. 11.30 32. Jer. 5.25 Micah 1.5 Amos 3.2 Yea this opinion directly frustrateth the first end and use of all chastisements which is to further mens Repentance for the evil of sin by the sense of the evil of punishment and the notice of Gods displeasure manifested thereby And next to make us warnings to others that they incur not the same correction and displeasure as we have done For he that saith there is no penalty or evil in the suffering nor no displeasure of God exprest thereby doth contradict all this But as it is a great benefit which we are to reap by our corrections even the furtherance of our Repentance and amendment so it is a great work of faith to perceive the bitterness of sin and the displeasure of God in these corrections of which more anon Direct 18. Faith must hear the voice of God in all his Word and in all the counsel which by any one he shall send us When sense taketh notice of nothing but a book or of none but a man faith must perceive the mind and message of God Not only in Preachers 2 Cor. 5.19 20. 1 Thes 2.13 Titus 2.5 Heb. 13.7 but also in the mouth of wicked enemies when it is indeed the will of God which they reveal And so David heard the curse of Shimei speaking to him the rebukes of God for his sin in the matter of Vâ—iah 2 Sam. 16.10 11. And Paul rejoyced that Christ was preached by men of envy and strife who did it to add affliction to his bonds Phil. 1.18 Moses perceived the will of God in the counsel of Jethro even in as great a matter as the governing and judging of the people Exod. 18.19 The counsel of the ancients which Rehoboam forsook was the counsel of God which be rejected 1 King 12.8 David blessed God for the counsel of a woman Abigail Whoever be the Messenger a Believer should be acquainted with the voice of God and know the true significations of his will The true sheep of Christ do know his voice and follow him because they are acquainted with his Word and though the Preacher be himself of a sinful life he can distinguish betwixt God and the Preacher and will not say it is not the Word of God because it cometh from a wicked mouth For he hath read Psal 50.16 where God saith to the wicked What hast thou to do to take my Covenant in thy mouth seeing thou hatest instruction and hast cast my words behind thee But he never read to the godly saith God Why didst thou hear a wicked Preacher He hath read The Scribes and Pharisees fit in Moses chair hear them but do not as they do But he never read Hear none that live not according to their doctrine An unbeliever will not know Christs Word if a Judas be the Preacher of it but a Believer can read the commission of Judas or at least can understand whose counsel he delivereth and though he would be loth to chuse a Judas or to prefer him before a holy man yet if workers of iniquity do preach in Christs Name he leaveth it to Christ to say at Judgement I know you not Mat.
which Christ hath made for our pardon is in it self sufficient yea and effectual as to that end which he would have it attain before our believing But our actual pardon is no such end Nor can sin be forgiven before it be committed because it is no sin Christ never intended to justifie or sanctifie us perfectly at the first whatsoever many say to the contrary because they understand not what they say but to carry on both proportionably and by degrees that we may have daily use for his daily mediation and may daily pray Forgive us our trespasses There is no guilt on them that are in Christ so far as they walk not after the flesh but after the spirit nor no proper condemnation by sentence or execution at all because their pardon is renewed by Christ as they renew their sins of infirmity but not because he preventeth their need of any further pardon Therefore as God made advantage of the sins of the world for the honouring of his grace in Christ that grace might abound where sin abounded Rom. 5.12 16 17. So do you make advantage of your renewed sins for a renewed use of faith in Christ and let it drive you to him with renewed desires and expectations of pardon by his intercession That Satan may be a loser and Christ may have more honour by every sin that we commit Not that we should sin that grace may abound but that we may make use of abounding grace when we have sinned It is the true nature and use of Faith and Repentance to draw good out of sin it self or to make the remembrance of it to be a means of our hatred and mortification of it and of our love and gratitude to our Redeemer Not that sin it self doth formally or efficiently ever do any good But sin objectively is turned into good For so sin is no sin because to remember sin is not sin When David saith Psal 51.3 that his sin was ever before him he meaneth not only involuntarily to his grief but voluntarily as a meditation useful to his future duty and to stir him up to all that which afterward he promiseth Direct 13. In all the weaknesses and languishings of the new creature let Faith look up to Christ for strength For God hath put our life into his hand and he is our root and hath promised that we shall live because he liveth John 14.19 Do not think only of using Christ as you do a friend when you have need of him or as I do my pen to write and lay it down when I have done But as the branches use the Vine and as the members use the Head which they live by and from which when they are separated they die and wither John 15.1 2 3 c. Ephes 1.22 5.27 30. 4.4 5 12 15 16. Christ must even dwell in our hearts by Faith Ephes 3.17 that is 1. Faith must be the means of Christs dwelling in us by his Spirit and 2. Faith must so habituate the heart to a dependance upon Christ and to an improvement of him that objectively he must dwell in our hearts as our friend doth whom we most dearly love as that which we cannot chuse but alwaies think on Remember therefore that we live in Christ and that the life which we now live is by the faith of the Son of God who hath loved us and given himself for us Gal. 2.20 And his grace is sufficient for us and his strength most manifested in our weakness 2 Cor. 12.9 And that when Satan desireth to sift us he prayeth for us that our faith may not fail Luke 22.32 And that our life is hid with Christ in God even with Christ who is our life Col. 3.3 4. That he is the Head in whom all the members live by the communication of his appointed ligaments and joynts Ephes 4.14 15 16. Therefore when any grace is weak go to your Head for life and strength If faith be weak pray Lord increase our faith Luke 17.5 If you are ignorant pray him to open your understandings Luk. 24.45 If your hearts grow cold go to him by faith till he shed abroad the love of God upon your hearts Rom. 5.3 4. For oâ— his fulness it is that we must receive grace for grace Jâ—hn 1.16 Direct 14. Let the â—hief and most diligent work of your faith in Christ be to inflame your hearts with love to God as his Goodness and Love is revealed to us in Christ Faith kindling Love and working by it is the whole summ of Christianity of which before Direct 15. Let Faith keep the example of Christ continually before your eyes especially in those parts of it which he intended for the contradicting and healing of our greatest sins Above all others these things seem purposely and specially chosen in the life of Christ for the condemning and curing of our sins and therefore are principally to be observed by faith 1. His wonderful Love to God to his Elect and to his enemies expressed in so strange an undertaking and in his sufferings and in his abundant grace which must teach us what fervours of love to God and man to friends and enemies must dwell and have dominion in us 1 John 4.10 Rev. 1.5 Rom. 5.8 10. John 13.34 35. 15.13 1 John 3.14.23.17 4.7 8 20 21. 2. His full obedience to his Fathers will upon the dearest rates or terms To teach us that no labour or cost should seem too great to us in our obeying the will of God nor any thing seem to us of so much value as to be a price great enough to hire us to commit any wilful sin Rom. 5.19 Heb. 5 8. Phil. 2 8. 1 Sam. 15.22 2 Cor. 10.5 6. Heb. 5 9. John 14.15 15.10 1 John 2.3 3.22 5.2 3. Rev. 22.14 3. His wonderful contempt of all the Riches and Greatness of the world and all the pleasures of the flesh and all the honour which is of man which he shewed in his taking the form of a servant and making himself of no reputation and living a mean inferiour life He came not to be served or ministred to but to serve Not to live in state with abundance of attendants with provisions for every turn and use which pride curiosity or carnal imagination taketh for a conveniency or a decency no nor a necessity But he came to be as a servant unto others not as despising his liberty but as exercising his voluntary humility and love He that was Lord of all for our sakes became poor to make us rich He lived in lowliness and meekness He submitted to the greatest scorn of sinners and even to the false accusations and imputations of most odious sin in it self Phil. 2.6 7 8 9. Heb. 12.1 2 3. Matth. 26.55 60 61 63 66. 27 28 29 30 31. Matth. 11.29 30. 20.28 2 Cor. 8.9 which was to teach us to see the vanity of the wealth and honours of the world and
this Trust or Affiance is placed respectively on all the objects mentioned in the beginning on God as the first â—fficient foundation and on God as the ultimate end as the certain full felicity and final object of the soul On Christ as the Mediatour and as the secondary foundation and the guide and the finisher of our faith and salvation the chief sub revealer and performer On the Holy Ghost as the third foundation both revealing and attesting the doctrine by his gâ—â—ts And on the Apostles and Prophets as his Instruments and Christs chief entrusted Messengers And on the Promise or Covenant of Christ as his Instrumental Revelation it self And on the Scriptures as the authentick Record of this Revelation and Promise And the benefit for which all these are trusted is recovery to God or Redemption and Salvation viz. pardon of sin and Justification Adoption Sanctification and Glorification and all things necessary hereunto This Trust is an act of all the three faculties for three understanding are even of the whole man Of the vital power the understanding and the will and is most properly called A practical Trust such as trusting a Physician with your life and health or a Tutor to teach you or a Master to govern and reward you or a Ship and Pilot as aforesaid to carry you safe through the dangers of the Sea As in this similitude Affiance as in the understanding is its Assent to the sufficiency and fidelity of the Pilot and Ship or Physician that I trust Affiance in the will is the chusing of this Ship Pilot Physician to venture my life with and refusing all others which is called consent when it followeth the motion and offer of him whom we trust Affiance in the vital power of the soul is the fortitude and venturing all upon this chosen Trustee which is the quieting in some measure disturbing fears and the exitus or conatus or first egress of the soul towards execution And whereas the quarrelling pievish ignorance of this age hath caused a great deal of bitter reproachful uncharitable contention on both sides about the question How far obedience belongeth to faith whether as a part or end or fruit or consequent In all this it is easily discerned that as allâ—giance or subjection differ from obedience and hiring my self to a Master differeth from obeying him and taking a man for my Tutor differeth from learning of him and Marriage differeth from conjugal duty and giving up my self to a Physician differeth from taking his counsel and medicines and taking a man for my Pilot differeth from being conducted by him so doth our first Faith or Christianity differ from actual obedience to the healing precepts of our Saviour It is the covenant of obedience and consent to it immediately entering us into the practice It is the seed of obedience or the soul or life of it which will immediately bring it forth and act it It is virtual but not actual obedience to Christ because it is but the first consent to his Kingly Relation to us unless you will call it that Inception from whence all obedience followeth But it may be actual common obedience to God where he is believed in and acknowledged before Christ And all following acts of Faith after the first are both the root of all other obedience and a part of it as our continued Allegiance to the King is And as the Heart when it is the first formed Organ in nature is no part of the man but the Organ to make all the parts because it is solitary and there is yet no man of whom it can be called a part but when the man is formed the heart is both his chief part and the Organ to actuate and maintain the rest Object But Faith as Faith is not obedience Answ Nor Learning as Learning is not obedience to your Tutor Nor plowing as plowing is not obedience to your Master Or to speak more aptly the continuance of your consent that this man be your Tutor as such is not obedience to him but it is materially part of your obedience to your Father who commandeth it and your continued Allegiance or subjection as such is not obedience to your King but as primarily it was the foundation or heart of future obedience so afterward it is also materially a part of your obedience being commanded by him to whom you are now subject And so it is in the case of Faith and therefore true Faith and Obedience are as nearly conjoyned as Life and Motion and the one is ever 〈◊〉 in the other Faith is for Obedience to Christs healing means as trusting and taking a Physician is for the using of his counsel and Faith is for love and holy obedience to God which is called our Sanctification as trusting a Physician is for health Faith is implicite virtual obedience to a Saviour and obedience to a Saviour is explicite operating Faith or trust I. In the understanding Faith in Gods Promises hath all these acts contained in it 1. A belief that God is and that he is perfectly powerful wise and good 2. A belief that he is our Maker and so our Owner our Ruler and our chief Good initially and finally delighting to do good and the perfect felicitating end and object of the soul 3. A belief that God hath expressed the benignity of his nature by a Covenant or Promise of life to man 4. To believe that Jesus Christ God and Man is the Mediator of this Covenant Heb. 8 6. 9.15 1â— 24 procuring it and entrusted to administer or communicate the blessings of it Heb. 5.9 5. To believe that the Holy Ghost is the seal and witness of this Covenant 6 To believe that this Covenant giveth pardon of sin and Justification and Adoption and further grace to penitent Belâ—evers and Glorification to those that persevere in true Faith Love and Oâ—edience to the end 7. To believe that the Holy Scriptures or Word delivered by the Aâ—ostles is the sure Record of this Covenant and of the history and doctrine on which it is grounded 8. To believe that God is most perfectly regardful and faithful to fulfil this Covenant and that he cannot lye or break it Titus 1.2 Heb. 6.17 18. 9. To believe that you in particular are included in this Covenant as well as others it being universal as conditional to all if they will repent and believe and no exception put in against you to exclude you John 3.16 Mark 16.15 16. 10. To believe or know that there is nothing else to be trusted to as our felicity and end instead of God nor as our way instead of the Mediator and the foresaid means appointed by him II. In the Will Faith or Trust hath 1. A simple complacency in God as believed to be most perfectly good as fore-described 2. It hath an actual intending and desiring of him as our end and whole felicity to be enjoyed in Heaven Gal. 5.6 7. Ephes 3.17 18 19. Col. 3.1
Jesus Acts 21.13 3. In so strong a fortitude of soul as to venture and give up our selves our lives and all our comforts and hopes into the hand of Christ without any trouble or sinful fears and to pass through all difficulties and tryals in the way without any distrust or anxiety of mind These be the characters of a strong and great degree of faith And you may note how Heb. 11. describeth Faith commonly by this venturing and forsaking all upon the belief of God As in Noah's case verse 7. And in Abraham's leaving his Countrey v. 8. And in his sacrificing Isaac v. 17. And in Moses forsaking Pharaoh's Court and chusing the reproach of Christ rather than the pleasures of sin for a season v. 24 25 26. And in the Israelites venturing into the Red Sea v. 29. And in Rebab's hiding the spies which must needs be her danger in her own Countrey And in all those who by faith subdued Kingdoms wrought Righteousness obtained Promises stopped the mouths of Lions quenched the violence of fire escaped the edge of the sword out of weakness were made strong O hers were tortured not accepting deliverance that they might obtain a better resurrection and others had tryal of cruel mockings and scourgings yea moreover of bonds and imprisonments they were stoned they were sawn asunder were tempted were slain with the sword they wandered about in Sheep skins and Goat skins being destitute afflicted tormented of whom the world was not worthy They wandered in Desarts and Mountains and in Deus and Caves of the earth And in Heb. 10.32 33 c. They endured a great fight of affliction partly whilst they were made a gazing flock both by reproaches and afflictions and partly whilst they became companions of them that were so used And took joyfully the spoiling of their goods knowing in themselves that they had in Heaven a better and an enduring substance And thus the just do live by faith but if any man draw back my soul shall have no pleasure in him saith the Lord. See also Rom. 8.33 36 37 c. These are the Spirits descriptions of faith but if you will rather take a whimsical ignorant mans description who can only toss in his mouth the name of FREE GRACE and knoweth not of what he speaketh or what he affirmeth or what that name signifieth which he cheateth his own soul with instead of true Free Grace it self you must suffer the bitter fruits of your own delusion For my part I shall say thus much more to tell you why I say so much to help you to a right understanding of the nature of true Christian Faith 1. If you understand not truly what Faith is you understand not what Religion it is that you profess And so you call your selves Christians and know not what it is It seems those that said Lord we have eaten and drunken in thy presence and prophesied in thy Name did think they had been true Believers Matth. 7.21 22. 2. To erre about the nature of true Faith will engage you in abundance of other errours which will necessarily arise from that as it did them against whom James disputeth James 2.14 15 c. about Justification by Faith and by Works 3. It will damnably delude your souls about your own state and draw you to think that you have saving Faith because you have that fancy which you thought was it One comes boldly to Christ Mat. 8.19 Master I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest But when he heard The Foxes have holes and the Birds have nests but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head we hear no more of him And another came with a Good Master what shall I do to inherit eternal life Luke 18.18 as if he would have been one of Christs Disciples and have done any thing for Heaven And it 's like that he would have been a Christian if Free Grace had been as large and as little grace as some now imagine But when he heard Yet lackest thou one thing sell all that thou hast and distribute to the poor and thou shalt have treasure in Heaven Come follow me he was then very sorrowful for he was very rich Luke 18.21 22 23. Thousands cheat their souls with a conceit that they are Believers because they believe that they shall be saved by Free Grace without the faith and grace which Christ hath made necessary to salvation 4. And this will take off all those needful thoughts and means which should help you to the faith which yet you have not 5. And it will engage you in perverse disputes against that true faith which you understand not And you will think that you are contending for Free Grace and for the Faith when you are proud knowing nothing but sick or doting about questions which engender no better birth than strifes railings evil surmisings perverse disputings c. 1 Tim. 6.4 5. 6. Lastly You can scarce more dishonour the Christian Religion nor injure God and our Mediatour or harden men in Infidelity than by fathering your ill-shapen fictions on Christ and calling them the Christian or Justifying Faith Direct 29. Take not all doubts and fears of your salvation to be the proper effects and signs of unbelief Seeing that in many they arise from the misunderstanding of the meaning of Gods Promise and in more from the doubtfulness of their own qualifications rather than from any unbelief of the Promise or distrust of Christ It is ordinary with ignorant Christians to say that they cannot believe because they doubt of their own sincerity and salvation as thinking that it is the nature of true faith to believe that they themselves are justified and shall be saved and that to doubt of this is to doubt of the Promises because they doubtingly apply it Such distresses have false principles bought many to But there are two other things besides the weakness of faith which are usually the causes of all this 1. Many mistake the meaning of Christs Covenant and think that it hath no universality in it and that he died only for the Elect and promiseth pardon to none but the Elect no not on the condition of believing And therefore thinking that they can have no assurance that they are Elect they doubt of the conclusion And many of them think that the Promise extendeth not to such as they because of some sin or great unworthiness which they are guilty of And others think that they have not that Faith and Repentance which are the condition of the promise of pardon and salvation And in some of these the thing it self may be so obscure as to be indeed the matter of rational doubtfulness And in others of them the cause may be either a mistake about the true nature and signs of Faith and Repentance or else a timerous melancholy causeless suspition of themselves But which of all these soever be the cause it is something different from proper unbelief or distrust of God
For he that mistaketh the extent of the Promise and thinketh that it belongeth not to such as he would believe and trust it if he understood it that it extends to him as well as others And he that doubteth of his own Repentance and Faith may yet be confident of the truth of Gods Promise to all true penitent Believers I mention this for the cure of two mischiefs The first is that of the presumptuous Opinionist who goeth to Hell presuming that he hath true saving faith because he confidently believeth that he himself is pardoned and shall be saved The second is that of the perplexed fearful Christian who thinks that all his uncertainty of his own sincerity and so of his salvation is properly unbelief and so concludeth that he cannot believe and shall not be saved Because he knoweth not that faith is such a belief and trust in Christ as will bring us absolutely and unreservedly to venture our all upon him alone And yet I must tell all these persons that all this while it is ten to one but there is really a great deal of unbelief in them which they know not and that their belief of the truth of the immortality of the soul and the life to come and of the Gospel it self is not so strong and firm as their never-doubting of it would intimate or as some of their definitions of Faith and their Book-opinions and Disputes import And it had been well for some of them that they had doubted more that they might have believed and been settled better Direct 30. Think often of the excellencies of the life of faith that the Motives may be still inducing you thereto As 1. It is but reasonable that God should be trusted or else indeed we deny him to be God Psal 20 7. 2. What else shall we trust to shall we deifie creatures and say to a stock Thou art my Father Jer. 2.27 Lam. 1.19 Shall we distrust God and trust a lyar and a worm 3. Trying times will shortly come and then woe to the soul that cannot trust in God! Then nothing else will serve our turns Then cursed be the man that trusteth in man and maketh flesh his arm and withdraweth his heart from the Lord he shall be like the barren wilderness c. Then none that trusted in him shall be ashamed Jer. 17.5 6. Psal 25.3 4. Psal 73.26 27 28. 4. Gods Alsufficiency leaveth no reason for the least distrust There is the most absolute certainty that God cannot fail us because his veracity is grounded on his essential perfections 5. No witness could ever stand up against the life of faith and say that he lost by trusting God or that ever God deceived any 6. The life of faith is a conquest of all that would distress the soul and it is a life of constant peace and quietness Yea it feasteth the soul upon the everlasting Joyes Though the mountains be removed though this world be turned upside down and be dissolved whether poverty or wealth sickness or health evil report or good persecution or prosperity befall us how little are we concerned in all this and how little should they do to disturb the peace and comfort of that soul who believeth that he shall live with God for ever Many such considerations should make us more willing to live by faith upon Gods Promises than to live by sense on transitory things Direct 31. Renew your Covenant with Christ in his holy Sacrament frequently understandingly and seriously For 1. when we renew our Covenant with Christ then Christ reneweth his Covenant with us and that with great advantage to our faith 1. In an appointed Ordinance which he will bless 2. By a special Minister appointed to seal and deliver it to us as in his Name 3. By a solemn Sacramental Investiture 2. And our own renewing our Covenant with him is the renewed exercise of faith which will tend to strengthen it and to shew us that we are indeed Believers And there is much in that Sacrament to help the strengthening of faith Therefore the frequent and right using of it is one of Gods appointed means to feed and maintain our spiritual life which if we neglect we wilfully starve our faith 1 Cor. 11.26 28 c. Direct 32. Keep all your own promises to God and man For 1. Lyars alwaies suspect others 2. Guilt breedeth suspiciousness 3. God in justice may leave you to your distrust of him when you will be perfidious your selves You can never be confident in God while you deal falsly with him or with others The end of the Commandment is Charity out of a pure heart a good conscience and faith unfeigned 1 Tim. 1.5 Direct 33. Labour to improve your belief of every promise for the increase of holiness and obedience And to get more upon your souls that true Image of God in his Power Wisdom and Goodness which will make it easie to you to believe him 1. The more the hypocrite seemeth to believe the promise the more he boldly ventureth upon sin and disobeyeth the precept because it was but fear that restrained him and his belief is but presumption abating fear But the more a true Christian believeth the more he flyeth from sin and useth Gods means and studieth more exact obedience and having these promises laboureth to cleanse himself from all filthiness of flesh and Spirit perfecting holiness in the fear of God 2 Cor. 7.1 And receiving a Kingdom whih cannot be moved me must serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear Heb. 12.28 29. 2. The liker the soul is to God the easier it will believe and trust him As faith causeth holiness so every part of holiness befriendeth faith Now the three great impressions of the Trinity upon us are expressed distinctly by the Apostle 2 Tim. 1.7 For God hath not given us the Spirit of fear but of Power of Love and of a sound mind 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Power Love and a sound mind or understanding do answer Gods nature as the face in the glass doth answer our face and therefore cannot chuse but trust him Direct 34. Lay up in your memory particular pertinent and clear Promises for every particular use of faith The number is not so much but be sure that they be plain and well understood that you may have no cause to doubt whether they mean any such thing indeed or not Here some will expect that I should do this for them and gather them such promises Two things disswade me from doing it at large 1. So many Books have done it already 2. It will swell this Book too big But take these few 1. For forgiveness of all sins and Justification to penitent Believers Acts 5.31 Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins Acts 13.38 39. Be it known unto you that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins and by
him all that believe are justified from all things from which ye could not be justified by the Law of Moses Acts 26.18 To open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among them that are sanctified by faith that is in me 1 John 1.9 If we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness Heb. 8.12 I will be merciful to their unrighteousness and their sins and iniquities I will remember no more Acts 10.43 To him give all the Prophets witness that through his Name whoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins Luke 24.47 That repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his Name to all Nations 2. Promises of Salvation from Hell and possession of Heaven John 3.16 God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life v. 18. He that believeth on him is not condemned v. 36. He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life 1 John 5.11 12. And this is the record that God hath given us eternal life and this is in his Son He that hath the Son hath life Acts 26.18 before cited 1 Tim. 1.15 Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners Heb. 7.25 He is able to save to the utmost all that come to God by him Heb. 5.9 And being made perfect he became the Author of eternal salvation to all them that obey him Mark 16.16 He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved John 10.9 By me if any man enter in he shall be saved John 10.27 28. My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me and I will give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish Rom. 5.9 10. Being justified by his blood we shall be saved from wrath through him Much more being reconciled we shall be saved by his life See Luke 18 30. John 4.14 6.27 40 47. 12.50 Rom. 6.22 Gal. 6.8 1 Tim. 1.16 3. Promises of Reconciliation Adoption and acceptance with God through Christ 2 Cor. 5.18 19 20. God hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation to wit that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself not imputing their trespasses to them and hath committed to us the word of reconciliation Now then we are Ambassadours for Christ as though God did beseech you by us we pray you in Christs stead be ye reconciled unto God For he hath made him to be sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him Rom. 5.1 2 10. Being justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ by whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand and rejoyce in hope of the glory of God When we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son 2 Cor. 6.16 17 18. I will dwell in them and walk in them and I will be their God and they shall be my people I will receive you and be a Father unto you and ye shall be my Sons and Daughters saith the Lord Almighty Rom. 8.1 There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit John 1.12 As many as received him to them give he power to become the Sons of God even to them that believe on his Name which were born not of blood nor of the will of the flâ—sh nor of the will of man but of God Acts 10.35 In every Nation he that feareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted of him Ephes 1 6 He hath made us accepted in the Beloved Ephes 2.14 16. Col. 1.20 John 16.27 The Father himself loveth you because ye have loved me and believed that I came out from God 4. Promises of renewed Pardon of sins after conversion 1 John 2.12 If any man sin we have an Advocate with the Father Jesus Christ the righteous and he is the propitiation for our sins and not for ours only but for the sins of the whole world Matth. 6.14 Forgive us our trespasses For if we forgive men their trespasses your heavenly Father will forgive you James 5.15 If he have committed sins they shall be forgiven him Matth. 12.31 I say unto you All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men but the blasphemy against the Spirit Psal 103.3 Who forgiveth all thine iniquities 1 John 1.9 If we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins 5. Promises of the Spirit of Sanctification to Believers and of divine assistances of grace Luke 11.13 How much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him John 7.37 38 39. If any man thirst let him come to me and drink He that believeth on me as the Scripture hath said out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water This he spake of the Spirit which they that believe on him shall receive John 4.10 14. If thou knewest the gift of God and who it is thou wouldst have asked of him and he would have given thee living waters Ezek. 36.26 27. A new heart also will I give you and a new spirit will I put within you and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh and I will give you an heart of flesh and I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes Ezek. 11.19 And I will give them one heart and I will put a new spirit within you Acts 2.38 39 Repent and be baptized every one of you in the Name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost For the promise is to you and to your children and to all that are afar off even as many as the Lord our God shall call Gal. 4.6 And because you are Sons God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts crying Abba Father Prov. 1.23 Turn you at my reproof behold I will pour out my Spirit unto you I will make known my words unto you Rom. 8.26 Likewise the Spirit helpeth our infirmities for we know not what we should pray for as we ought but the Spirit it self maketh intecerssion for us with groanings which cannot be uttered 6. Promises of Gods giving his grace to all that truly desire and seek it Matth. 5 6. Blessed are they which hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be filled Isa 55.1 Ho every one that thirsteth come ye to the waters and he that hath no mony come ye buy and eat yea come buy wine and milk without mony and without price Hearken diligently to me and eat ye that which is good and let your soul delight it self in fatness Encline
28.19 20. Go and Disciple all Nations baptizing them c. Rom. 4.16 That the promise might be sure to all the seed And 9.8 The children of the Promise are counted for the seed Matth. 19.13 14. Jesus said suffer little children and forbid them not to come unto me for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven 27. Promises to the Church of its increase and preservation and perfection Rev. 11.15 The Kingdoms of the world are become the Kingdoms of the Lord and of his Christ Luke 1.33 He shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever and of his Kingdom there shall be no end Matth. 13.31 33. The Kingdom of Heaven is like to a grain of Mustard-seed which a man took and sowed in his field which is indeed the least of all seeds but when it is grown it is the greatest among herbs and becometh a tree so that the birds of the air lodge in the branches of it The Kingdom of Heaven is like unto leven which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal till the whole was levened John 12.32 And I if I be lifted up will draw all men unto me Dan. 2.44 In the daies of these Kings shall the God of Heaven set up a Kingdom which shall never be destroyed and the Kingdom shall not be left to other people but it shall break in pieces and consume all these Kingdoms and it shall stand for ever Matth. 16.18 Upon this Rock will I build my Church and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it Ephes 4.12 16. For the perfecting of the Saints for the work of the Ministry for the edifying of the body of Christ till we all come in the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ that henceforth we may be no more children tossed to and fro and carryed about with every wind of Doctrine by the sleight of men and cunning craftiness whereby they lye in wait to deceive but speaking the truth in love may grow up into him in all things who is the head Christ from whom the whole body fitly joyned together and compacted by that which every joynt supplieth according to the effectual working in the measure of every part maketh increase of the body to the edifying of it self in Love Ephes 5.25 26 27. Christ loved the Church and gave himself for it that he might sanctifie and cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word that he might present it to himself a glorious Church not having spot or wrinckle or any such thing but that it should be holy and without blemish Read Rev. 21 22. Matth. 28.20 Lo I am with you to the end of the world Matth. 24.14 And this Gospel of the Kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness to all Nations and then shall the end come Matth. 21.44 Whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken but on whomsoever it shall fall it will grind him to powder The obscure Prophetick passages I pass by So much for living by Faith on the Promises of God CHAP. VI. How Faith must be exercised on Gods Threatnings and Judgments THE exercise of Faith upon Gods Threatnings and Judgments must be guided by such rules and helps as these Direct 1. Think not either that Christ hath no Threatning penal Laws or that there are none which are made for the use of Believers If there were no penalties or penal Laws there were no distinguishing Government of the world This Antinomian fancy destroyeth Religion And if there be threats or penal Laws none can be expected to make so much use of them as true Believers 1. Because he that most believeth them must needs be most affected with them 2. Because all things are for them and for their benefit and it is they that must be moved by them to the fear of God and an escaping of the punishment And therefore they that object that Believers are passed already from death to life and there is no condemnation to them and they are already justified and therefore have no use of threats or fears do contradâ—ct themselves For it wâ—ll rather follow Therefore they and they only do and will faithfully use the threatnings in godly fears For 1. Though they are justified and passed from death to life they have ever faith in order of nature before their Justification and he that believeth not Gods threatnings with fear hath no true Faith And 2. They have ever inherent Righteousness or Sanctification with their Justification And this Faith is part of that holiness and of the life of grace which they are passed into For this is life eternal to know the only true God and Jesus Christ John 17.3 And he knoweth not God who knoweth him not to be true And this is part of our knowledge of Christ also to know him as the infallible Author of our Faith that is of the Gospel which saith not only He that believeth and is baptiz'd shall be saved but also He that believeth not shall be damned Mark 16.16 And this is the record which God gave of his Son which he that believeth not maketh him a lyar that God hath given us eternal life and this life is in his Son He that hath the Son hath life and he that hath not the Son hath not life 1 John 5.12 Yea as he that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life so he that believeth not the Son shall not see life but the wrath of God abideth on him John 3.36 And therefore 3. The reason why there is no condemnation to us is because believing not part only but all this Word of Christ we fly from sin and wrath and are in Christ Jesus as giving up our selves to him and walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit being moved so to do both by the promises and threats of God This is plain English and plain and necessary truth the greater is the pitty that many honest well-meaning Antinomians should fight against it on an ignorant conceit of vindicating Free Grace If the plain Word of God were not through partiality over-lookt by them they might see enough to end the controversie in many and full expressions of Scripture I will cite but three more Matth. 10.28 and Luke 12.5 But fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in Hell or when he hath killed hath power to cast into Hell yea I say unto you fear him Doth Christ thus iterate that it is he that saith it and saith it to his Disciples and yet shall a Christian say it must not be preached to Disciples as the Word of Christ to them Hâ—b 4.1 Let us therefore fear lest a promise being left us of entering into his rest any of you should seem to come short of it Heb. 11.7 By Faith Noah being warned of God of things not seen as yet that is of the deluge
Covenant and he inflicteth penalties yea some that are very grievous even the with-holding of much of his Spirits help and grace all which are inconsistent with that conceit nor would he so have used us if we had been perfectly innocent and had fully satisfied for our sins our selves 8. All men would have had present possession of Glory if God had so reputed us the perfect meriters of it For his Justice would no more have delayed our reward than denyed it 9. All that are saved would have equal degrees of holiness and happiness as well as of righteousness because all would equally be reputed the perfect fulfillers of the Law And as no penalty could ever be justly inflicted on them here so no degree of glory could be denyed them hereafter for their sin or for want of perfect righteousness 10. The opinion of this kind of imputation is a most evident contradiction in it self For he that is imputatively a satisfier for all his own sin is therein supposed to be a sinner And he that is imputatively a perfect innocent fulfiller of the Law is thereby supposed to need no satisfaction to Justice for his sin as being imputatively no sinner 11. By this all Christs sacrifice and satisfaction is made a work of needless supererrogation yea unjust or rather impossible For if we perfectly obeyed in him he could not suffer for our disobedience 12. Hereby pardon of sin is utterly denyed for he that is reputatively no sinner hath no sin to pardon If they say that God did first impute the satisfaction for sin then there was no room after for the imputation of perfect obedience We cannot feign God to receive all the debt or inflict all the penalty and then to say now I will esteem thee one that never didst deserve it If they say that he doth neither impute the obedience or the suffering to us simply and to all effects but in tantum ad hoc or secundum quid only so that we shall be pardoned for his suffering and then judged worthy of Heaven for his obedience this is but to come up towards the truth before you are aware and to confess that neither of them is given us in it self but in the effects as being it self paid to God to procure those effects But withall the matter must be vindicated from their unfound inventions and it must be said that Christ dyed not only for our sins of commission but of omission also and that he that is pardoned both his sins of commission and omission is free from the punishment both of sense and loss yea and is reputed as one that never culpably omitted any duty and consequently fell short of no reward by such omission so that there remaineth no more necessity of Righteousness in order to a reward where the pardon is perfect save only N. B. to procure us that degree of reward which must be superadded to what we forfeited by our sin and which we never by any culpable omission deserved to be denyed And thus much we do not deny that somewhat even Adoption which is more than meer Pardon and Justification must confer on us But withall as we hold not that the Sun must bring light and somewhat else must first banish darkness that one thing must cure death and another cause life that satisfaction must procure the pardon of sins of omission and commission as to the poenae damni sensus and make us esteemed and used as no sinners and then imputed obedience must give us right to that reward which the poenae damni deprived us of so N. B. we maintain that Christs sufferings have merited our eternal salvation and our Justification and Adoption and that his obedience hath merited our forgiveness of sin And that both go together the merit of the one and of the other to procure all that we receive and that the effects are not parcelled out as they have devised Though yet we believe that Christs sufferings were paid to God as for our sins to satisfie Justice and that in the Passive Obedience it is first satisfactory and then and therefore meritorious and in the active it is meerly meritorious 13. And the maintainers of the contrary opinion besides all the forementioned evils could never agree how much of Christs Righteousness must be in their sense imputed some holding only the passive a second sort the active and passive a third sort the habitual active and passive a fourth sort the divine the habitual the active and the passive But of all these things there is so much written against them by Cargius Vrsinus Olevian Piscator Paraeus Scultetus Alstedius Wendeline Camero Bradshaw Gataker and many more that I need not to add any more for confutation Errour 3. That no one shall suffer whose sins lay on Christ and were suffered for by him Contr. Many such shall suffer the sorer punishment for sinning against the Lord that bought them and treading under foot the blood of the Covenant wherewith they were so far sanctified as to be a people by their own Covenant separated to God Heb. 10.25 26. Heb. 6.4 5 6. 2 Pet. 2.2 Heb. 4.1 2.3 12.29 Errour 4. That no godly man say some or Elect person though ungodly say others is ever punished by God because Christ suffered all their punishment himself Contr. Every godly man is chastened of God and all chastisement is a fatherly correcting punishment And many justified persons are punished to their final loss by the denyal of forfeited degrees of grace and consequently of glory Heb. 12.7 8 9 10. 1 Cor. 11.32 1 Thes 5.19 Ephes 4.30 But sad experience is too full a proof See my Confession Errour 5. That God were unjust if he laid any degree of punishment on those that Christ died for or say others on the justified because he should punish one sin twice Contr. It is certain that God punisheth the Justified in some degree much more the Elect before conversion and it is certain that God is not unjust Therefore it is certain that the ground of this accusation is false for it was not our deserved punishment it self or the same which was due in the true sense of the Law which Christ endured but it was the punishment of a voluntary sponsor which was the equivalens and not the idem that was due and did answer the ends of the Law but not fulfill the meaning of the threatning which threatned the sinner himself and not another for him seeing then it was a satisfaction or sacrifice for sin which God received for an attonement and propitiation and not a solution or suffering of the sinner himself in the sense of the Law the charge of injustice on God is groundless And no man can have more right to Christs sufferings or benefits than he himself is willing to give And it is not his own will into whose hands all power and judgement is committed that we should be subject to no punishment because he suffered
denyal of its truth And a true Exposition is better than either The same God who hath given us a Saviour to satisfie legal Justice and to merit our Justification against the charge that we are condemnable by the Law of Works hath thought meet to convey our title to this Christ and Justification by the Instrumentality of a new Covenant Testament or pardoning Act in which though he absolutely give many antecedent mercies yet he giveth these and other Rights by a conditional gift that as the Reward of Glory should have invited man to keep the Law of Nature and his Innocency so the Reward should be a moving means to draw men to believe So that there is a condition to be performed by our selves through grace before we can have the Covenant right to Justification Now when that is performed Christ then is our only Righteousness as aforesaid by which we must answer the charge of breaking the first Law and being condemnable by it But we can lay no claim to this Righteousness of Christ till we first prove that we are our selves inherently righteous against the charge of being impenitent Vnbelievers This false accusation we must be justâ—fied against by our own Faith and Repentance that we may be justified by Christ against the true accusation of sinning against the Law and thereby being condemnable by it Now as to our Legal Righteousness or Pro-legal rather by which this last must be avoided it is only the merits of Christ given to us in its fruits in the New Covenant even the merits of his obedience and sacrifice But our Faith it self is the other Righteousness which must be found in our persons to entitle us to this first And this being it and being all in the sense aforesaid that is made the condition of our pardon by the New Covenant therefore God is said to impute it it self to us for a Righteousness because that condition makeeth it so and to impute it to us for our Righteousness that is as all that now by this Covenant he requireth to be personally done by us who had formerly been under a harder condition even the fulfilling of the Law by innocency or suffering for sin because he that doth not fulfil nor satisfie as is said yet if he believe hath a right to the Justification merited by Christ who did fulfil and satisfie This is easie to be understood as undoubted truth by the willing and the rest will be most contentious where they are most erroneous Errour 37. That sincere obedience and all acts of Love Repentance and Faith save one do justifie us only before men and of that speaketh St. James ch 2. Contr. I must refer the Reader to other Books in which I have fuly confuted this How can men judge of the acts of Repentance Faith Love c. which are in the heart And James plainly speaketh of Gods imputing Righteousness to Abraham James 2.21 23. And how should men justifie Abraham for kâ—lling his only Son And how small a matter is Justification by man when we may be saved without it 2. Sincere Obedience to God in Christ is the condition of the continuance or not losing our Justification here and the secondary part of the condition of our final sentential and executive Justification Errour 38. That our inherent Righteousness before described hath no place of a condition in our Justification in the day of Judgement Contr. The Scriptures fully confuting this I have elsewhere cited All those that say we shall be judged according to our works c. speak against it For to be judged is only to be justified or condemned So Rev. 22.14 Matth. 25 c. Errour 39 That there is no Justification at Judgement to be expected but only a declaration of it Contr. The Decisive sentence and declaration of the Judge is the most proper sense or sort of Justification and the perfection of all that went before If we shall not be then justified then there is no such thing as Justification by Sentence Nay there is no such thing as a day of Judgement or else all men must be condemned For it is most certain that we must be justified or condemned or not-judged Errour 40. That no man ought to believe that the conditional Covenant Act or Gift of Justification belongeth to him as a member of the lost world or as a sinner in Adam because God hath made no such gift or promise to any but to the Elect. Contr. This is confuted on the by before Errour 41. That though it be false that the non-elect are elect and that Christ dyed for them yet they are bound to believe it every man of himself to prove that they are elect Contr. This is confuted on the by before God bindeth or biddeth no man to believe a lye Errour 42. That we must believe Gods Election and our Justification and the special Love of God to us before we can love him with a special Love Because it will not cause in us a special love to believe only a common love of God and such as he hath to the wicked and his enemies Contr. No man can groundedly believe the special Love of God to him nor his own Election or Justification before he hath yea before he find in himself a special love to God Because he that hath no special love to God must believe a lye if he believe that he is justified or that ever God revealed to him that he is elect or specially beloved of God and no man hath any evidence or proof at all of his election and Gods special love till he have this evidence of his special love to God Till he know this he cannot know that any other is sincere 2. They that deny or blâ—spheme Gods common love to fallen man and his universal pardoning Covenant do their worst to keep men from being moved to the special Love of God by his common Love But when they have done their worst it shall stand as a sure obligation Is there not reason enough to bind men to love God above all even as one that yet may be their happiness in his own infinite Goodness and all the revelations of it by Christ and in his so loving the world as to give his only Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life And in his giving a free pardon of all sin to mankind and offering life eternal to them so that none but the final refusers shall lose it and intreating them to accept it c Is not all this sufficient in reason to move men to that love of God if the Spirit help them to make use of Reason as he must do what Reasons soever are presented to them unless men think that God doth not oblige them by any kindness which they can possibly reject or by any thing which many others do partake of Yet here note that Gods common love to man I do not mean any which he hath to Reprobates under
the consideration of final despisers of his Antecedent Love But of that Antecedent Love it self which he hath shewed to lost mankind in Christ And note also that I do not deny but that Love of God in some men may be true where their own presumption that God hath elected them and loved them above others before they had any proof of it was an additional motive But this is mans way and not Gods Errour 43. That trusting to any thing save God and Jesus Christ for our salvation is sin and damnable Contr. Confusion cheateth and choaketh mens understanding In a word to trust to any thing but God and Christ and the holy Spirit for any of that which is the proper part of God of Christ of the Spirit is sin and damnable But to trust to any thing or person for that which is but his own part is but our duty And he that prayeth and readeth and heareth and endeavoureth and looketh to be never the better by them nor trusteth them for their proper part will be both heartless and formal in his work And I have shewed before that the Scripture the Promise the Apostles the Minister and every Christian and honest man hath a certain trust due to them for that which is their part even in order to our salvation I may trust only to the skill of the Physician and yet trust his Apothecary and the Boy that carryeth the Medicine for their part Errour 44. That it is sinful and contrary to free grace to look at any thing in our selves or our own inherent righteousness as the evidence of our Justification Contr. Then no man can know his Justification at all The Spirit of Holiness and Adoption in our selves is our earnest of salvation and the witness that we are Gods children and the pledge of Gods love as is proved before This is Gods seal as God knoweth who are his so he that will know it himself must depart from iniquity when he nameth Christ If God sanctifie none but those whom he justifieth then may the sanctified know that they are justified Hath God delivered in Scripture so many signs or characters of the justified in vain Object The witness of the Spirit only can assure us Ans You know not what the witness of the Spirit is or else you would know that it is the Spirit making us holy and possessing us with a filial love of God and with a desire to please him and a dependance on him c. which is the witness even by way of an inherent evidence and helping us to perceive that evidence and take comfort in it As a childlike love and a pleasing obedience and dependance with a likeness to the Fâ—ther is a witness that is an evidence which is your child Errour 45. That it is sinful to perswade wicked men to pray for Justification or any grace or to do any thing for it seeing their prayers and doings are abominable to God and cannot please him Contr. Then it is sinful to perswade a wicked man from his wickedness Praying and obeying is departing from wickedness He that prayeth to be sanctified indeed is repenting and turning from his sin to God We never exhort wicked men to pray with the tongue without the desire of the heart Desire is the soul of prayer and words are but the body We perswade them not to dissemble But as Peter did Simon Acts 8. Repent and pray for forgiveness And if we may not exhort them to good desires and to excite and express the best desires they have we may not exhort them to conversion Isa 55.6 10. Seek the Lord while he may be found and call upon him while he is neer Let the wicked forsake his way c. You see there that praying is a repenting act and when we exhort them to pray we exhort them to repent and seek God Object But they have no ability to do it Ans Thus the Devil would excuse sinners and accuse God Thus you may put by all Gods commands and say God should not have commanded them to repent believe love him obey him nor love one another nor forbear their sins for they have no ability to do it But they have their natural faculties or powers and they have common grace and Gods way of giving them special grace is by meeting them in the use of his appointed means and not by meeting them in an Ale-house or in sinful courses However a soul may be met with in his persecuting and God may be found of them that sought him not yet that is not his usual nor his appointed way Can any man of reason dream that it is not the duty of a wicked man to use any means for the obtaining of grace or to be better nor to do any thing towards his own recovery and salvation Nature and Scripture teach men as soon as they see their sin and misery to say What must I do to be saved As the reâ—â—nting Jews and Paul and the Jaylor 〈◊〉 Acts 2.37 Acts 8. 16. The prayers of a wicked man as wicked are abominable that 〈◊〉 â—oth his wicked prayers and his praying to quiet and sâ—rengthen himself in his wickedness or praying with the tongue without the heart The prayers which come from a common faith and common good desires are better than none but have no promise of Justification But the wicked must be exhorted both to this and more even to repent desire and pray sincerely Errour 46. It is sinful and against free grace to think that any works or actions of our own are rewardable or to say that they are meritorious though it be nothing but rewardableness that is meant by it Contr. The Papists have so much abused the word merit by many dangerous opâ—nions about it that it is now become more unmeet to be used by us than it was in ancient times when the Doctors and Churches even Austin himself did commonly use it But if nothing be meant by it but rewardableness or the relation of a duty to the reward as freely promised by God as many Papists themselves understand it and the ancient Fathers generally did he that will charge a man with errour in doctrine for the use of an inconvenient word is uncharitable and perverse especially when it is other mens abuse which hath done most to make it inconvenient The merit of the cause is a common phrase among all Lawyers when there is commutative meriting intended I have fully shewed in my Confession that the Scripture frequently useth the word worthy which is the same or full as much And a subject may be said to merit protection of his Prince and a scholar to merit praise of his Master and a child to deserve love and respect from his Parents and all this in no respect to commutative Justice wherein the Rewarder is supposed to be a gainer at all but only in governing distributive Justice which giveth every one that which by gift or any way is
his due And that every good man and every good action deserveth praise that is to be esteemed such as it is And that there is also a comparative merit and a not meriting evil As a Believer may be said not to deserve damnation by the Covenant of Grace but only by or according to the Law of Nature or Works But to pass from the word merit which I had rather were quite disused because the danger is greater than the benefit the thing signified thus by it is past all dispute viz. that whatever duty God hath promised a Reward to that duty or work is Rewardable according to the tenour of that promise And they that deny this deny Gods Laws and Government and Judgement and his Covenant of Grace and leave not themselves one promise for faith to rest upon So certainly would all these persons be damned if God in mercy did not keep them from digesting their own errours and bringing them into practice Errour 47. God is pleased with us only for the righteousness of Christ and not for any thing in our selves Contr. This is sufficiently answered before He blasphemeth God who thinketh that he is no better pleased with holiness than with wickedness with well doing than with ill doing They that are in the flesh cannot please God Rom. 8.6 7. but the spiritual and obedient may Without faith it is impossible to please him because unbelievers think not that he is a Rewarder and therefore will not seek his reward aright But they that will please him must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him Heb. 11.6 They forget not to do good and distribute because with such sacrifices God is well pleased Heb. 13. And in a word it is the work of all their lives to labour that whether living or dying they may be accepted of him 2 Cor. 5.8 9. and to 〈◊〉 â—uch and to do those things as are pleasing in his sight Nay 〈◊〉 add that as the glory of God that is the glorious demonstâ—â—â—ion or appearance of himself in his works is materially the ultimate end of man so the pleasing of himself in this his glory shining in his Image and Works is the very apex or highest formal notion of this ultimate end of God and of man as far as is within our reach No mans works please God out of Christ both because they are unsound and bad in the spring and end and because their faultiness is not pardoned But in Christ the persons and duties of the godly are pleasing to God because they have his Image and are sincerely good and because their former sins and present imperfections are forgiven for the sake of Christ who never reconciled God to wickedness Errour 48. It is mâ—rcenary to work for a reward and legal to set men on doing for salvation Contr. It is legal or foolish to think of working for any reward by such meritorious works as make the reward to be not of grace but of debt Rom. 4.4 But he that maketh God himself and his everlasting love to be his reward and trusteth in Christ the only reconciler as knowing his guilt and enmity by sin and laboureth for the food which perisheth not but endureth to everlasting life and layeth up a treasure in Heaven and maketh himself friends of the Mammon of unrighteousness and layeth up a good foundation for the time to come laying hold upon eternal life and striverh to enter in at the strait gate and fighteth a good fight and finisheth his course for the Crown of Righteousness and suffereth persecution for a reward in Heaven and prayeth in secret that God may reward him and alwaies aboundeth in the work of the Lord because his labour is not in vain in the Lord and endureth to the end that he may be saved and is faithful to the death and overcometh that he may receive the Crown of Life this man taketh Gods way and the only way to Heaven and they that thus seek not the reward being at the use of reason are never like to have it Errour 49. It is not lawful for the justified to pray for the pardon of any penalties but temporal Contr. The ground of this is before overthrown Errour 50. It is not lawful to pray twice for the pardon of the same sin because it implieth unbelief as if it were not pardoned already Contr. It is a duty to pray oft and continuedly for the pardon of former sins 1. Because pardon once granted must be continued and therefore the continuance must be prayed for If you say It is certain to be continued I answer then it is as certain that you will continue to pray for it and to live a holy life 2. Because the evils deserved are such as we are not perfectly delivered from and are in danger of more daily And therefore we must pray for daily executive pardon that is impunity and that God will give us more of his Spirit and save us from the fruit of former sin Because our right to future impunity is given before all the impunity it self 3 And the compleat Justification from all past sins is yet to come at the day of Judgement And all this besides that some that have pardon know it not may and must be daily prayed for Errour 51. The Justified must not pray again for the pardon of the sins before conversion Contr. What was last said confuteth this Errour 52. No man at all may pray for pardon but only for assurance For the sins of the Elect are all pardoned before they were born and the non-elect have no satisfaction made for their sins and therefore their pardon is impossible Contr. Matth. 6. Forgive us our trespasses c. These consequences do but shew the falshood of the antecedents Errour 53. No man can know that he is under the guilt of any sin because no man can know but that he is elect and consequently justified already Contr. No infidel or impenitent person is justified Errour 54. Christ only is covenanted with by the Father and he is the only Promiser as for us and not we for our selves Contr. Christ only hath undertaken to do the work of Christ but man must undertake and promise and covenant even to Christ himself that by the help of his grace he will do his own part Or else no man should be baptized What a Baptism and Sacramental Communion do these men make He that doth not covenant with the Father Son and Holy Spirit hath no right to the benefits of Gods part of the Covenant And no man at age can be saved that doth not both promise and perform Errour 55. We are not only freed from the condemning sentence of the Law but freed also from its commands Contr. We are not under Moses Judaical Law which was proper to their Nation and their Proselites Nor are we under a necessity or duty of labouring after perfect obedience in our selves as the condition of our
greater than heart duties only because in the outward duty it is to be supposed that both parts concur both soul and body And the operations of both is more than of one alone and also because the nobler ends are attained by both together more than by one only For God is loved and man is benefited by them As when the Sun shineth upon a tree or on the earth it is a more noble effect to have a return of its influences in ripe and pleasant fruits than in a meer sudden reflexion of the heat alone 18. All outward duties must begin at the heart and it must animate them all and they are valued in the sight of God no further than they come from a rectified will even from the Love of God and Goodness However without this they are good works materially in respect to the Receiver He may do good to the Church or Common-wealth or Poor who doth none to himself thereby 19. As the motion is circular from God to man and from man to God again Mercies received and Duties and Love returned so is the motion circular between the heart and the outward man The heart moving the tongue and hand c. and these moving the heart again partly of their own nature and partly by divine reward The Love of God and Goodness produceth holy thoughts and words and actions and these again increase the Love which did produce them Gal. 5.6.13 Heb. 6.10 Heb. 10.24 2 John 6. Jude 21. 20. The Judgment must be well informed before the Will resolve 21. Yet when God hath given us plain instruction it is a sin to cherish causless doubts and scruples 22. And when we see our duty before us it is not every scruple that will excuse us from doing it But when we have more conviction that it is a duty then that it is none or that it is a sin we must do it notwithstanding those mistaking doubts As if in Prayer or Alms-deeds you should scruple the lawfulness of them you ought not to forbear till your scruples be resolved because you so long neglect a duty Else folly might justifie men in ungodliness and disobedience 23. But in things meerly indifferent it is a sin to do them doubtingly because you may be sure it is no sin to forbear them Rom. 14.23 1 Cor. 8.13 14. 24. An erring Judgment intangleth a man in a necessity of sinning till it be reformed whether he act or not according to it Therefore if an erring person ask What am I bound to the true answer is to lay by your errour or reform your Judgment first and then to do accordingly and if he ask an hundred times over But what must I do in case I cannot change my Judgment the same answer must be given him God still bindeth you to change your Judgment and hath given you the necessary means of information and therefore he will not take up with your supposition that you cannot His Law is a fixed Rule which telleth you what you must believe and chuse and do And this Rule will not change though you be blind and say I cannot change my mind Your mind must come to the Rule for the Rule will not come to your perverted mind Say what you will the Law of God will be still the same and will still bind you to believe according to its meaning 25. Yet supposing that a mans errour so entangleth him in a necessity of sinning it is a double sin to prefer a greater sin before a lesser For though no sin is an object of our choice yet the greater sin is the object of our greater hatred and refusal and must be with the greater fear and care avoided 26. An erring Conscience then is never the voice or messenger of God nor are we ever bound to follow it because it is neither our God nor his Law but only our own Judgment which should discern his Law And mis-reading or misunderstanding the Law will not make a bad cause good though it may excuse it from a greater degree of evil 27. The judicious fixing of the Wills Resolutions and especially the increasing of its Love or complacency and delight in good is the chief thing to be done in all our duties as being the heart and life of all Prov. 23.26.12 4.23 7.3 22.17 3.1 2 3. 4.4 21. Deut. 30.6 Psal 37.4 40.8 119.16 35 70 47. 1.2 Isa 58.14 28. The grand motives to duty must ever be before our eyes and set upon our hearts as the poise of all our motions and endeavours As the travelers home and business is deepest in his mind as the cause of every step which he goeth 29. No price imaginable must seem great enough to hire us to commit the least known sin Luke 12.4 14.26 28 33. Mat. 10.39 16.26 30. The second great means next to the right forming of the heart for the avoiding of sin is to get away from the temptations baits and occasions of it And he that hath most grace must take himself to be still in great danger while he is under strong temptations and allurements and when sin is brought to his hands and alluring objects are close to the appetite and senses 31. The keeping clean our Imaginations and commanding our Thoughts is the next great means for the avoiding sin and a polluted fantasie and ungoverned thoughts are the nest where all iniquity is hatched and the instruments that bring it forth into act 32. The governing of the senses is the first means to keep clean the Imagination When Achaâ— seeth the wedge of gold he desireth it and then he taketh it When men wilfully fill their eyes with the objects which entice them to lust to covetousness to wrath the impression is presently made upon the fantasie and then the Devil hath abundance more power to renew such imaginations a thousand times than if such impressions had been never made And it is a very hard thing to cleanse the fantasie which is once polluted 33. And the next notable means of keeping out all evil Imaginations and curing lust and vanity of mind is constant laborious diligence in a lawful calling which shall allow the mind no leisure for vain and sinful thoughts as the great nourisher of all foul and wicked thoughts is Idleness and Vacancy which inviteth the tempter and giveth him time and opportunity 34. Watchfulness over our selves and thankful accepting the watchfulness fault-findings and reproofs of others is a great part of the safety of our souls Mat. 26.41 25 13. Mark 13.37 Luke 21.36 1 Cor. 16.13 1 Thes 5.6.2 Tim. 4.5 Heb. 12.17 1 Pet. 4.7 35. Affirmative Precepts bind not to all times that is no positive duty is a duty at all times As to preach to pray to speak of God to think of holy things c. it is not alwaies a sin to intermit them 36. All that God commandeth us to do is both a Duty and a Means it
us if we seem not to be some what better than we are If we should not hide or extenuate our faults and set out our graces and parts to the full we should be a dishonour to Christ and to his servants and his cause But remember 1. That the way by which God hath appointed you to honour him is by being good and living well and not by seeming to be good when you are not or seeming better than you are The God of Truth who hateth Hypocrisie hath not chosen lying and hypocrisie to be the means by which we must seek his honour It is damnable to seek to glorifie him by a lye Rom. 3.7.8 We must indeed cause our light so to shine before men that they may see our good works and glorifie our heavenly Father Mat. 5.16 But it is the light of Sincerity and good Works and not of a dissembled Profession that must so shine 2. And the Goodness of the pretended end doth greatly aggravate the crime As if the honour of God and our Religion must be upheld by so devilish a means as proud Hypocrisie 3. And though it be true that a man is not imprudently without just cause to open his sins before the world when it is like to tend to the injury of Religion and any way to do more hurt than good yet it is as true that when there is no such impediment true repentance is forward to confess and when the fault is discovered defending and extenuating it is then the greatest dishonour to Religion As if you would father all on Christ and make men believe that he will justifie or extenuate sin as you do And then it is a free self-abasing confession and taking all the shame to your selves with future reformation which is the reparation which you must make of the honour of Religion For what greater dishonour can be cast upon Religion than to make it seem a friend to sin Or what greater honour can be given it than to represent it as it is as an enemy to all evil and to take the blame as is due unto your selves 3. Another cloak for Pride is the Reputation of our offices dignities and places We must live according to our rank and quality All men must not live alike The grandeur of Rulers must be maintained or else the Magistracy will fall into contempt The Pastors Office must not by a mean estate and low deportment be exposed to the peoples scorn And so abundance of the most ambitious practices and hateful enormities of the proud must be vailed by these fair pretences Answ 1. We grant you that the honour of Magistrates must be kept up by a convenient grandeur and that a competent distance is necessary to a due reverence But Goodness is as necessary an ingredient in Government as Greatness is and to be great in Wisdom and Goodness is the principal Greatness And Goodness is Loving and humble and condescending and suiteth all deportments to the common good which is the end of Government See then that you keep up no other height but that which really tendeth to the success of your endeavours in order to the common good 2. And look also to your hearts lest it be your own exaltation which you indeed intend while you thus pretend the honour of your office For this is an ordinary trick of pride To discover this will you ask your selves these Questions following Quest 1. How you came into your offices and honours did they seek you or did you seek them did the place need you or did you need the place If pride brought you in you have cause to fear lest it govern you when you are there Quest 2. What do you in the place of honour that you are in Do you study to do all the good you can and to make men happy by your Government and is this the labour of your lives if it be we may hope that the means is suited to this end But if you do no such thing you have no such end And if you have no such end you do but dissemble in pretending that your grandeur is used but as a means to that end which really you never seek It is then your own exaltation that you aim at and it is your pride that playeth all your game Quest 3. Are you more offended and grieved when you are crost and hindered in doing good or when you are crost and hindered from your personal honour Quest 4. Are you well contented that another should have your honour and preferment if God and the Soveraign Power so dispose of it so be it it be one that is like to do more good than you By these Qâ—estions you may quickly see if you are willing whether your grandeur be desired by your pride for self-advancement or by Christian prudence to do good 3. And I must tell you that there is abundance of difference betwixt the case of the Civil Magistrates and the Pastors of the Church in this Magistracy must have more fear and pomp But Pastors must govern by Light and Love When his Apostles strove for superiority Christ left a decision of the controversie for the use of all following ages It is the contempt of the world and the mortifying of the flesh and self-denyal that Pastors have to teach the people and withall to seek a heavenly treasure And will not their own example further the success of their Doctrine The reverence that a Pastor must expect is not to be feared as one that can do hurt For all coertion or corporal force is proper to the Magistrate but it is to be thought one that is above all the riches and pleasures of the world and hath set his heart on higher things Such a one therefore he must both be and seem A Pastor will be but the sooner despised if he look after that riches and worldly pomp which is seemly for a Magistrate If he have a sword in his hand it 's the way to be hated If he have teeth that are bloody or claws that can tear he will be accounted a wolf though he have the cloathing of a sheep When our Divines give the reason of Christs humiliation they say that if he had preached up heavenly-mindedness self-denyal and mortification and had himself lived in pomp and fulness the people would not have regarded his words And surely the same reason holdeth in some measure as to all his Ministers Again I say that if ever the Church be universally reformed the Pastoral office must be only encouraged with necessary support to keep the Pastors from despondency and distracting cares but it must not be made a bait of ambition covetousness or sloth but must be stript of that which makes it thus desirable to a carnal mind Otherwise we must expect that except when Princes are very holy the Churches be ordinarily guided by carnal and ungodly men who will do it according to their minds and interest All the world cannot answer the
reason of this which is Honours and wealth will be certainly sought with greatest industry by the worldly that is the worst of men and not by the heavenly mortified persons And they that seek shall usually find And so while the humble holy person stayeth till he is called and the proud and worldly who have the keenest appetite use all their art and friends to rise the conclusion is as sure as sad and hath been so proved by woful experience almost 1300 years 4. Another of Prides pretences is Decency and the avoiding of reproach and scorn If we live not as high as others we shall be derided or contemned or thought to be sordid beggarly or base Answ 1. This is one of the signs and effects of Pride that it maketh a greater matter of other mens thoughts of you than you ought to make It cannot bear contempt and scorn so easily as Humility can do Too careful avoiding of contempt is the proper work of Pride 2. It is granted that you should not be contemptuous of your just reputation and also that you must not by any causless affected singularity or by any practice which is indeed uncomely make your selves the scorn of others But it is as true that you must not desire a higher estimation than is really your due nor yet be over solicitous for that which is your due indeed nor must you follow the proud in any thing which is contrary to true humility for the keeping of their good report nor go above your rank to avoid contempt 3. And forget not whose good word it is that you should especially regard Your truest honour is in the esteem of God and all good men and not in the opinion or praises of the proud They that are addicted to this vice themselves perhaps may deride those that go below them and yet they will more envy those that go above them But the humble will think much better of you for being humble and nothing can make you viler in their eyes than Pride If you were humble your selves you would prefer your honour with humble wise and sober persons above the opinions of the proud who know not good from evil 5. Another cloak of Pride is opinionative and doctrinal Humility When we have heard and read much against Pride and can speak or preach against it as freely and fluently and vehemently and movingly as any others and in all company and conference signifie our dislike of it when we are much in disswading others from it and in extolling humility and lowliness of mind this doth not only deceive others but very often the speaker himself and makes him think that he hath no great degree of Pride But speculation and opinion and talk are one thing and a renewed truly humble soul is another thing If all this while you are as great and wise and good in your own esteem and make as great a matter of mens opinion of you as others do that speak less against Pride your speeches and preachings serve but to condemn your selves It is as easie to talk against covetousness gluttony and other sins whilest he that condemneth them continueth in them and condemneth himself Talking against an enemy obtaineth no victory and talking against sin may signifie what you have learned to say or perhaps what dislike you have to that sin at a distance or in specie or in another when yet you may damnably love it in your selves It were well for Preachers if it were as easie or common to conquer sin as to preach against it But alas it is not so 6. Another cloak of Pride is The presence of a real partial humility together with an outward humble garb A man may be really humble in some yea in many respects and yet be exceeding proud in others He may be vile in his own eyes because he is conscious of many great and odious sins and because he knoweth that sin is a thing odious to God and all that will be saved must be humbled for it and because he knoweth that his body is earth and must return by death to filth and dust And he may go in sordid poor apparel and such may have a humble tone and manner of speech and perhaps speak so self-abasingly as if there were none so lowly as they And yet they may be exceeding proud of their supposed wisdom or spiritual understanding and of a supposed extraordinary measure of holiness or revelations or interest in God or of this humility it self Yea their common natural pride may not be taken down though there be frequent expressions of great humiliation And if the proudest Gallants can with their hat at your foot profess themselves your humble servants why may not Religious Bride go as far And note here that this Religious Pride is of a higher and more aggravated strein than the other 1. Because it is committed against more humbling means 2. Because it is a sin against more knowledge 3. Because it is accompanied with the profession of Humility and so is aggravated by more hypocrisie 4. Because it is an abuse of more excellent things It is more odious to turn the pretence of wisdom revelations humility godliness good works c. into pride than to be proud as children are of their fine cloaths or as addle-brained women are of their precedencies 5. Because it most odiously fathereth it self on God as if it were but the grateful magnifying of his graces To put Gods Name into the boasts of Pride and say I thank thee Lord that I am not as other men nor as this Publican Luke 18.11 To say God hath revealed more to me than to you or hath made me more holy and spiritual than you Isa 65.5 Stand by thy self come not neer me for I am holier than thou This is when Pride speaketh it most odious blasphemy to father the first-born of the Devil upon God There are two sad instances of this kind of Pride which are now too familiarly seen among us The one is in the case of many convinced Hypocrites yea and many passionate feeble Christians who are afrighted with the terrours of the Lord and partly disturbed by their guilt or passions and partly take it to be an honourable sign of humility to condemn themselves and therefore will fill the ears of Ministers with sad complaints of their fears and doubts and sins and wants as if they would hardly be kept from desperation And yet if they know that another doth believe them and think and speak as bad of them as they speak of themselves yea if he do but slâ—ght them and prefer others before them or plainly reprove them for any disgraceful sin they swell with the wrath of Pride against him and will not easily think or speak well of such a one And they love him best that thinketh best of them and praiseth them most even when they most dispraise themselves which sheweth that a man may be really humbled in some respects and seem
it your Faith Repentance Prayer c. in and for its own office and part and do not foolishly blaspheme Christ by ascribing the part and office of your duty unto him and his office under pretence of giving him the honour of them It is Christs office and honour to be a sacrifice for sin and a propitiation for us and a perfect Saviour and Intercessor and to give us the Spirit by which we believe repent pray obey hope love c. But not to be a penitent believing sinner nor to accept of an offered Saviour nor to be a consenting Covenanter with God the Father Son and Holy Spirit nor to be washed from sin in his blood reconciled adopted nor to pray for pardon in the name of another nor to trust upon a Saviour nor to be a Disciple a Subject a Member of a Saviour c. Nor yet that his blood or merits or righteousness should be to you instead of these No these are to be done by you Direct 8. In this case also take heed of those ignorant guides who know not the errours of fancy melancholy or disturbed passions from the proper works of the Spirit of God For they wrong the Spirit when they ascribe mens sinful weaknesses to him And they greatly wrong the troubled sinner many waies 1. They puff up men with conceits that they are under some great and excellent workings of the Spirit when they are the works of Satan and their own infirmity or sin 2. They teach them hereby to magnifie and cherish those distempers and passions and thoughts which they should resist and lament and cast away 3. And they set them in an Enthusiastick or truly Fanatical way of Religion to look for Revelations or live still upon their own fancies and passions and distempers and Satans temptations conceiting that they live upon the incomes of God and are actuated in all this by the Holy Ghost And of what mischievous importance and consequence all this is and how much hurt such zealous ignorance doth both in the Teachers and the people the thing it self doth plainly shew and the sad experience of this age doth shew it more plainly in Ranters Quakers and other true Fanaticks and in many women and other weak persons of better principles than theirs And it is an unsafe course which many such weak persons use to think in their troubles that every text of Scripture which cometh into their mind or every conceit of their own is a special suggestion of the Spirit of God You shall ordinarily hear them say Such a text was brought to me or was set upon my heart and such a thing was set upon my mind when two to one it was no otherwise brought unto them nor set upon them than any other ordinary thoughts are and had no special or extraordinary operation of God in it at all Though it is certain that every good thought which cometh into our minds is some effect of the working of Gods Spirit as every good word and every good work is and it is certain that sometimes Gods Spirit doth guide and comfort Christians as a remembrancer by bringing informing and comforting texts and doctrines to their remembrance yet it is a dangerous thing to think that all such suggestions or thoughts are from some special or extraordinary work of the Spirit or that every text that cometh into our minds is brought thither by the Spirit of God at all The reasons are these 1. Satan can bring a text or truth to our remembrance for his own ends as he did to Christ Matth. 4. in his temptations 2. Our own passions or running thoughts may light upon some text or truth accidentally as they do on other things which so come in 3. When the Spirit doth in an ordinary way help us in remembring or meditating on any text or holy doctrine he doth it according to our capacity and disposition and not in the way of infallible inspiration and therefore there is much of our weakness and errour usually mixt with the Spirits help in the product As when you hold the hand of a child in writing you write not so well by his hand as by your own alone but your skill and his weakness and unskilfulness do both appear in the letters which are made so is it in the ordinary assistance of the Spirit in our studies meditations prayers c. otherwise all that we do would be perfect in which we have the Spirits help which Scripture and all Christians experience do contradict 4. And to ascribe that to the Spirit which is not at all his work or that which is partly our own work so far as it is our own and savoureth of our weaknesses and errour is a heinous injury to the Spirit 5. And it tosseth such mistaken Christians up and down in uncertainties while they think all such thoughts are the suggestions of the Spirit they meet with many contrary thoughts and so are carryed like the waves of the Sea sometimes up and sometimes down and they have sometimes a humbling terrible text and the next day perhaps a comforting text cometh into their minds and so are between terrours and comforts distracted by their own fantasies and think it is all done by the Spirit of God 6. And it is a perverse abusing of the holy Scripture to make such remembrances the Rule of your application of it to your selves that text which you remember had the same sense before you remembred it and your spiritual state was the same before If that text agree with your state and either the terrour or the comfort of it belong to you this must be proved by solid reason drawn from the true meaning of the text and the true state of your souls and not supposed meerly because it cometh into your thoughts or because it is set upon your hearts Do you think that your remembring it will prove that it specially belongs to you Do not many comfortable texts come into the minds of Hypocrites who are unfit for comfort And many terrible texts come into the minds of humble souls that have right to comfort and should not be more terrified You may as well think that your money or estate is another mans because he thinketh on it Or that another mans dangers and miseries are yours because you think of them Or that you are either Kings or Lords or beggars or thieves or whatever cometh into your minds Or that another mans Leases or Deeds by which he holdeth his Lands are all yours because they are put into your hands to read 7. And if you go this way to work you are in danger to be carryed into many other errours and sins and think that all is of the Spirit of God because you feel it set upon your hearts And so you will feign the sanctifying Spirit to be the author of sin and the lying Spirit shall be honoured and called by his name Mark well these following texts of Scripture 2 Thes 2.1 2
give them over to find abundance of Bedlam joy in the sudden change of their opinion And falshood may comfort that man whom the truth which he was false to would not comfort But if it be a weak sincere Believer if God shew him not so much mercy as to rescue him from the temptation he will do as the foresaid Country patient he will try one mans medicine and another womans medicines and hearken to every one that can speak confidently and promise him a cure till he hath tryed that their case and his were not the same and that they were all but ignorant deceived deceivers and when all fail him he will come back again to the faithful experienced directors of his soul Direct 11. If weakness of grace be the cause of doubting which is of all other the commonest cause in the world the way to comfort is that same which is the way to strengthen grace Such a one if ever he will have joy must be taught how to live the Life of Faith and to walk with God and to mortifie the flesh and get loose from the world and to live as entirely devoted to God and especially how to keep every grace in exercise and then grace will shew it self as the air doth in a windy season or as the fire when it is blown up and flameth There is no surer or readier way to comfort than to get Faith Repentance Love Hope and Obedience in a vigorous activity and great degree and then to keep them much in action Mountebanks and Sectaries have other waies but this is the constant certain way Direct 12. If you perceive that trouble is caused by misunderstanding the Covenant of Grace and looking at Legal Works of merit as the ground of peace and over-looking the sufficiency of the Sacrifice Merits or Intercâ—ssion of Christ the principal thing to be done with such a soul is to convince them of the impossibility of being justified by works on legal terms and to shew them the necessity of a Saviour and the design of God in mans redemption and that there is but one Mediatour between God and man and one Name by which we can be saved and that Christ is the way the truth and the life and no man cometh to the Father but by the Son and that he was made sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him and that of God he is made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption and that God hath given us eternal life and this life is in his Son and that he that hath the Son hath life and he that hath not the Son hath not life and that there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit but he that believeth not is condemned already Thus must Christ crucified the propitiation for the sins of all the world be preached to them who are troubled as for want of a Saviour or an attonement a sacrifice or ransome or propitiation for sin or because they are not instead of a Saviour to themselves But to tell a man only of the sacrifice and merits of Christ who doubteth only of his interest in him and of the truth of his own Faith Repentance and Sanctification is to prate impertinently and to delude the sinner and to deal injuriously with Christ Direct 12. If Melancholy be the cause of the trouble which is very ordinary it will be necessary 1. Well to understand it And 2. To know the cure Of which having spoken more largely elsewhere I shall now give you only this brief information 1. The signs of this Melancholy are overstretched confused ungovernable thoughts continual fear and inclination to despair and to cry out undone undone I am forsaken of God the day of grace is past I have sinned against the Holy Ghost never mans case was like mine And usually their sleep is gone or broken and they are enclined to be alone and to be alwaies musing with their confounded thoughts and at last are tempted to blasphemous thoughts against the Scriptures and the life to come and perhaps urged to utter some blasphemous words against God and if it go to the highest they are tempted to famish or make away themselves 2. The cure of it lyeth 1. In setting those truths before them which tend most to quiet and satisfie their minds 2. In engaging them in the constant labours of a calling in which both mind and body may be employed 3. In keeping them in fit and chearful company which they love and suffering them to be very little alone 4. In keeping them from musing and that meditation or thoughtfulness which to others is most profitable and a duty 5. Keeping them from over-long secret prayer because they are unable for it and it doth but confound them and disable them for other duties and let them be the more in other duties which they can bear 6. And if the state of their bodies require it Physick is necessary and hath done good to many if rightly chosen Direct 13. Take heed of foolish carnal hasty expectations of comfort from the bare words of any man but use mens advice only to direct you in that way where by patience and faithfulness you may meet with it in due season Nothing is more usual with silly souls than to go to this or that excellent Minister whom they deservedly admire and to look that with an hour or twos discourse he should comfort them and set all their bones in joynt And when they find that it is not done they either despair or turn to the next deceivers and say I tryed the best of them And if such a man cannot do it none of them can do it But silly soul do Physicians use to charm men into health Wilt thou go and talk an hour with the ablest Physician and say that because his talk doth not cure thee thou wilt never go to a Physician more but go to ignorant people that will kill thee Thou hast then thy own deserving even take the death which thou hast chosen and drink as thou hast brewed The work of a Minister is not to cure thee alwaies immediately by comfortable words What words can cure an ignorant melancholy or uncapable soul But to direct thee in thy duty and in the use of those means which if thou wilt faithfully and patiently practise thou shalt certainly be cured in due time If thou wilt use the Physick dyet and exercise which thy Physician doth prescribe thee it is that which must restore thy health and comfort and not the saying over a few words to thee If thou lazily look that other mens words or prayers should cure and comfort thee without thy own endeavours thou mayest thank thy self when thou art deceived Direct 14. The principal means of comfort is to live in the exercise of comfortable duties Faith Hope and especially the Love of God
fully shew so also shall the Saints And it is not likely that this is wholly deferred till the resurrection but as they have a Glory before that with Christ and his Angels so they have now their part in this Superintendency before though both will be greater at the Resurrection If any say what use will there be of our superiority after the world is destroyed I answer 1. The Apostle Peter plainly telleth us though some would force his words into the dark that we according to his promise expect a new Heaven and a new Earth in which dwelleth righteousness And the Creation groaneth to be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the Sons of God Rom. 8.21 And the Heavens must contain Christ till the times of Restitution of all things which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy Prophets since the world began Acts 3.21 2. And he that said the Saints shall judge the Angels seemeth so intimate that the Devils with the wicked will be in a state of subjection or servitude to them hereafter Certain it is that Michael and his Angels shall be the conquerours of the Dragon and his Angels Rev. 12.7 9. And that the Serpents head shall be bruised by all the womans seed though chiefly by the Captain of our salvation But this shall now suffice concerning their employment 3. Behold also by Faith what the departed Saints are now enjoying And what is said of their place and work will tell you that They enjoy the fight of their glorified Head Joh. 17.24 They are with him in Paradise and therefore also enjoy the sight of the Glory of God Being absent from the body they are present with the Lord 2 Cor. 5.8 They see not as in a glass as here they did but with open face They enjoy the pleasures of a more perfect knowledge of God and all his wondrous works than this world affords They are happy in their works in the perfect Love and Praises of God and they are filled with the pleasures of his Love to them This is their fruition 4. Let Faith also behold what evils they are delivered from 1. From a heavy drossy body which since the fall hath been an enemy a prison and fetters to the soul and therefore they here groaned to be better cloathed 2 Cor. 5.4 5. Rom. 8.21 2. From the worlds temptations 3. From wicked mens malice and persecutions 4. From sickness pain necessities labours weariness and all the troublesome effects of sin 5. From all troublesome passions desires anger discontent disappointments griefs and cares and fears of evil 6. Specially from the fears of Hell and the doubts of their own sincerity and salvation and from the desertions of God and the terrible sense of his displeasure 7. From the troubles and errours of ignorance and all our natural imperfection 8. From the fears of death which now is more painful than death it self 9. From the suggestions of Satan and his malicious vexing disquieting temptations and from his flattering allurements which are much worse 10. From the company and the tempting or grieving examples of ungodly men 11. From all sin it self and all our moral imperfections and defects 12. And finally from all danger and fear of ever losing the felicity they possess These are the immunities of the blessed 2. When Faith hath seen the Saints in Glory look back and think next what they were lately here on earth that it may help you to compare your state and theirs And here you will see 1. That they were lately in flesh as we now are They had bodies as drossie as vile as frail as burdensome as ours are It cost them as dear not as it doth the sensual but as it doth the temperate person now to keep them up a while for the service to which they were appointed 2. They had pains and sicknesses as we have The souls in Heaven have escaped thither from bodies which have lain as long tormented with the Stone with Stranguries Collicks Gripes Convulsions Consumptions Feavers and other the most tedious painful and lothsome diseases as sober men on earth now feel 3. Satan was as malicious to them as he is to us and to many of them as troublesome he haunted them with as ugly temptations to the greatest sins to unbelief and pride and despair and self-murder and horrid blasphemy as he doth any of us Yea he did so by Christ himself Matth. 4. 4. They met with as many allurements to worldliness sensuality pride and lust in the worlds deceiving baits and flatteries as now we do and were fain to proceed every step towards Heaven by conflict and conquest as we must do 5. They were in as many wants and straits in as poor and low and despised a state as we are now They were tempted to cares and murmurings and discontents through their wants and crosses as well as we 6. They have been in dangers and in fears and many a time at the brink of death before it came and put to cry to God for deliverance in the terrours and anguish of their hearts Their flesh and heart and friends have failed them and all the creatures cast them off 7. They have gone through far greater persecutions for the sake of Christ and righteousness than ever we did So persecuted they the Prophets before you Mat. 5.11 12. Which of the Prophets did not your Fathers kill and persecute even of them for whom their posterity erected Monuments Matth. 23.36 37 38. We have not resisted unto blood as many of them did Heb. 11. The same and greater afflictions which we have undergone were accomplished on our brethren in this world 1 Pet. 5.9 We go through the same conflict as they did Phil. 1.30 We are no more falsly nor odiously slandered in any of our sufferings than they were Mat. 5.11 12. 8. They were men of like passions as we are for so James saith even of Elias that was carryed to Heaven without our kind of death They had their ignorances uncertainties doubts mistakes their dark thoughts of God and that world where they now are Many of them knew as little of it till they saw it as we do now Many a fearful trembling hour many a thought that God had forsaken them and that the day of grace was past have many of them had as well as we 9. Yea they were imperfect in all their graces they had an imperfect faith an imperfect hope an imperfect Love to God and man and many an hour in such groans as ours now are O when shall we be saved from our darkness and unbelief when shall we better love the Lord 10. They had their actual sins also Though none that were regnant after conversion their obedience was imperfect as ours now is Many of their faults and falls are left on record for our warning There is not one humane soul in Heaven besides our Saviours that was not once a sinner They all came thither
made universally to mankind in Adam Those after the flood were under the same Covenant renewed universally to mankind in Noah The Israelites were under the same Covenant renewed to them specially in Abraham with special additions and after under that Covenant seconded with the Law which was given to Moses And all Christians after Christs Resurrection are under the perfected Covenant of Grace and have the same word of salvation for their rule even the Gospel of Christ which is the power of God to the salvation of every one that believeth Rom. 1.16 5. They had but the same Promises in this Covenant to believe and to assure them of the salvation which they now possess They had no other charter from God to shew nor any but this universal act of oblivion to trust to for the pardon of all their sins which we have to trust to for the pardon of ours John 3.16.18 Mark 16.16 The promise which was made to the Jews and to their children was made also to them that are afar off and to as many as the Lord shall call Acts 2.39 For the promise that he should be heir of the world was not to Abraham or his seed through the Law but through the righteousness of faith Rom. 4.13 And therefore it was of faith that it might be by grace to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed not only to that which is of the Law but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham who is the father of us all v. 16. That it might appear that God justified not Abraham for any peculiar carnal priviledge but as a Believer which is a reason common to him with all Believers To whom also their faith shall be imputed for righteousness v. 24. Godliness still is profitable to all things having the promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come 1 Tim. 4.8 Yea what difference there is in both these forementioned respects it is to our advantage we have the most perfected Rule and the fullest Promises and we have many Promises fulfilled to us which were not fulfilled to them in their daies Heb. 11. last And we are nearer the final accomplishment of all the promises 6. They had the same Motives to faith and patience and godliness as we have They could have no greater happiness offered them nor any greater punishment threatned to drive them from sin by fear They could have no higher ends than ours nor any nobler reasons to be religious The same reasons and ends did bring them through all temptations and difficulties to everlasting life which we have also to satisfie us and to carry us on 2 Tim. 4.8 7. The same spirit did illuminate sanctifie and quicken them which is illuminating sanctifying and quickening us All the most excellent and heavenly endowments and workings of their souls were wrought by the same operator who is still at work in all the Saints Rom. 8.9 There are diversities of gifts but the same Spirit 1 Cor. 12.4 We have the same Spirit of Faith 2 Cor. 4.13 All that are Sons have the same Spirit of the Son even the Spirit of Adoption Gal. 4.6 Rom. 8.16.26 which is the Spirit of Power of Love and of a sound mind 2 Tim. 1.7 We have the same Almighty Power within us to destroy our sins to raise up our sluggish hearts to God to keep us in his Love to overcome the flesh which did all these excellent works in them We are sealed with the same seal and are known by the same mark 1 John 3.24 and are actuated by the same heavenly principle as they were 8. We are members of the same universal Church which is the body of Christ For there is but one body whatever diversity of the members there be Ephes 4.4 5 6 7 12. 1 Cor. 12. We are members of the same City and Family of God Ephes 2.19 We are in the same Ship which conveyed them to the Haven We are Disciples in the same School where they learnt the way to life eternal We are workmen in the same Vineyard where they procured their reward 9. They had the same work to do as we have the same God to love and serve the same Christ to believe in the same Spirit to obey the same things to believe in the main the same things to desire and pray for the same things to love and the same to hate the same things in the main which are sin to us were sin to them and the same life of holiness temperance and righteousness which is commanded us was commanded them They had the same temptations to resist and the same fleshly mind to overcome and the same senses and appetites and passions to rule the same enemies to overcome and the same or greater sufferings to bear as is said before 10. They had but the same means and helps as we have except some Prophets and Apostles and extraordinary persons in one age And what they received of the Lord they have delivered unto us 1 Cor. 11.23 We have the same Gospel to to teach us the same Sacraments to initiate and confirm us the same Pastors and Teachers for office to instruct us Ephes 4.12 13 14 16. Matth. 28.20 Fasting and Prayer and Thanksgiving and Church-communion and mutual Exhortation which are our helps and means were theirs 11. The same method of Providence which carryed them on is still on foot for all the Saints Psal 145.9 18. 86.5 He broke them and bound them up he cast them down and raised them as he doth us now He made them contrite and then did comfort them He led them through as rude a wilderness and they had as many wild beasts to assault them and as many dangers round about them as we have They had seasons of adversity and seasons of prosperity their stormy and their sunshine daies their troubles which quickened their cryes to God and the gracious answer of those cryes and were led to Heaven in the same course of providence as we are 12. And to conclude the same Heaven is prepared for us and offered yea given to us which they possess It is ours in right though our title be not absolutely perfect till we have finally presevered and overcome We are heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ having his seal and earnest if so be that we suffer with him that we may be glorified with him Rom. 15.16.17 The Kingdom is prepared for all them that love him Christ prayed for all that the Father had given him and for all that should believe by his Word John 17.2 20 27. even that they may have eternal life and may be with him where he is to see his glory Whosoever believeth shall not perish but have everlasting life John 3.16 In all this you may see how like their condition in this world was unto ours and that our way is the same which all those have gone that are now past all these snares and dangers
low so dark to question the eternal God concerning the reason of his Laws and dispensations Do we not shamefully forget our ignorance and our distance 2. But if you must have a reason let this suffice you It is fit that the Government of God be suited to the nature of the reasonable subject And Reason is made to apprehend more than we see and by reaching beyond sense to carry us to seek things higher and better than sense can reach If you would have a man understand no more than he sees you would almost equalize a wise man and a fool and make a man too like a beast Even in worldly matters you will venture upon the greatest cost and pains for the things that you see not nor ever saw He that hath a journey to go to a place that he never saw will not think that a sufficient reason to stay at home The Merchant will sail 1000 miles to a Land and for a Commodity that he never saw Must the Husbandman see the Harvest before he plow his Land and sow his seed Must the sick man feel that he hath health before he use the means to get it Must the Souldier see that he hath the victory before he fight You would take such conceits in worldly matters to be the symptoms of distraction And will you cherish them where they are most pernicious Hath God made man for any end or for none If none he is made in vain If for any no reason can expect that he should see his end before he use the means and see his home before he begin to travel towards it When children first go to School they do not see or enjoy the learning and wisdom which by time and labour they must attain You will provide for the children which you are like to have before you see them To look that sight which is our fruition it self should go before a holy life is to expect the end before we will use the necessary means You see here in the government of the world that it is things unseen that are the instruments of rule and motives of obedience Shall no man be restrained from felony or murders but he that seeth the Assizes or the Gallows It is enough that he foreseeth them as being made known by the Laws It would be no discrimination of the good and bad the wise and foolish if the reward and punishment must be seen what thief so mad as to steal at the Gallows or before the Judge The basest habits would be restrained from acting if the reward and punishment were in fight The most beastly drunkard would not be drunk the filthy fornicator would forbear his lust the malicious enemy of godliness would forbear their calumnies and persecutions if Heaven and Hell were open to their sight No man will play the adulterer in the face of the Assembly The chast and unchast seem there alike And so they would do if they saw the face of the most dreadful God No thanks to any of you all to be godly if Heaven were to be presently seen or to forbear your sin if you saw Hell fire God will have a meeter way of tryal You shall believe his promises if ever you will have the benefit and believe his threatnings if ever you will escape the threatned evil CHAP. 2. Some Uses Vse 1. THis being the nature and use of Faith to apprehend things absent as if they were present and things unseen as if they were visible before our eyes you may hence understand the nature of Christianity and what it is to be a true Believer Verily it is another matter than the dreaming self-deceiving world imagineth Hypocrites think that they are Christians indeed because they have entertained a superficial opinion that there is a Christ an immortality of souls a Resurrection a Heaven and a Hell though their lives bear witness that this is not a living and effectual faith but it is their sensitive faculties and interest that are predominant and are the byas of their hearts Alas a little observation may tell them that notwithstanding their most confident pretentions to Christianity they are utterly unacquainted with the Christian life Would they live as they do in worldly cares and pampering of the flesh and neglect of God and the life to come if they saw the things which they say they do believe Could they be sensual ungodly and secure if they had a faith that serv'd instead of sight Would you know who it is that is the Christian indeed 1. He is one that liveth in some measure as if he saw the Lord Believing in that God that dwelleth in the inaccessible light that cannot be seen by mortal eyes he liveth as before his face He speaks he prayes he thinks he deals with men as if he saw the Lord stand by No wonder therefore if he do it with reverence and holy fear No wonder if he make lighter of the smiles or frowns of mortal man than others do that see none higher and if he observe not the lustre of worldly dignity or flâ—shly beauty wisdom or vain-glory before the transcendent incomprehensible light to which the Sun it self is darkness When he awaketh he is still with God Psal 134.8 He sets the Lord alwaies before him because he is at his right hand he is not moved Psal 16.8 And therefore the life of Believers is oft called a walking with God and a walking befâ—re God as Gen. 5.22 24. 6.9 17.1 in the case of Henoch Noah and Abraham All the day doth he wait on God Psal 25 5. Imagine your selves what manner of person he must be that sees the Lord and conclude that such in his measure is the true believer For by faith he seeth him that is invisible to the eye of sense and therefore can forsake the glory and pleasures of the world and feareth not the wrath of Princes as it 's said of Moses Heb. 11.27 2. The Believer is one that liveth on a Christ whom he never saw and trusteth in him adhereth to him acknowledgeth his benefits loveth him and râ—joyceth in him as if he had seen him with his eyes This is the faith which Peter calls more precious than perishing gold that maketh us love him whom we have not seen and in whom thâ—ugh now we see him not yet believing we rejoyce with unspeakable and glorious joy 1 Pet. 1.8 Christ dwelleth in hâ—s heart by faith not only by his Spirit but objectively as our dearest absent friend doth dwell in our estimation and affection Ephes 3.17 O that the miserable Infidels of the world had the eyes the hearts the experiences of the true believer Then they that with Thomas tell those that have seen him Except I may see and feel I will not believe will be forced to cry out My Lord and my God Joh. 20.25 c. 3. A Believer is one that judgeth of the man by his invisible inside and not by outward appearances with a fleshly
sins and miseries in the presence of their Lord. Direct 5. When you have made these comparisons think next what an excellent benefit it will be to you to look thus believingly and frequently to the Saints that are gone before you into glory All these unspeakable benefits will follow it 1. It will much quicken and confirm our faith As we do the more easily trust the boat and boat-man when we see many thousand passengers safely landed by him And we easily trust the Physician when we see many thousands cured by him who were once in our case so it will greatly satisfie the soul against the suspicions and fears of unbelief when faith seeth all the glorified Saints that are actually saved by Christ already and have obtained all that we believe and seek Methinks I hear Henoch Joshua Abraham Peter Paul John Cyprian Macarius Augustine Melancthon Calvin Zanchius Rogers Bradford Hooper Jewel Grindal Vsher Hildersham Ames Dod Baines Bolton Gataker with thousands such as men standing on the further side of the river and calling to us that must come after them Fear not the depths or storms or streams trust boldly that vessel and that faithful Pilot we trusted him and none of us have miscarried but all of us are here landed safe We were once in storms and doubts and fears as you now are but it is our diffidence and not our confidence which proved our infirmity and shame Who would not boldly follow such a multitude of excellent persons who have sped so well 2. It will also much confirm our hope that is our glad expectation of the Crown when our apprehensions of it grow dull and slack and our feare do grow upon us and we are ready to question whether ever such a happiness will be our lot the sight of these that are now triumphing in the actual possession will banish despair and much revive us We cannot but think they were once as low and bad as I and had as many difficulties to overcome and why may not I then be as holy and as happy as they 3. Such a sight will greatly quicken our desires to attain their happiness and to go their way As when worldlings see the grandeur and honours and power of Great men as they are yet called it maketh them think how brave a life is this And as the sensual when they see their companions in the Tavern or Gaming-house or Play-house or the merry fool-house as Solomon accounteth it Eccles 7.4 do long to be with them and to partake of their beloved pleasure so when by faith we see the departed Saints in glory and think where our old acquaintance are and the multitudes of wise and holy souls that are gone before it will greatly stir up our sluggish desires and make us long for the same felicity and to be as near to God as they are 4. And it will do much to direct us in the way For we must follow them as they followed Christ As the history of the Wars of Alexander Caesar Tamerlane c. will teach men how to fight for temporal tyrannical domination so the history of the Saints do teach us how to fight against spiritual wickednesses and powers and how to take the prospering way It is easie there to find whether laziness or labour whether sensuality or spirituality hath alwaies been the way to Heaven Whether Saints were gluttons drunkards whoremongers riotous licentious and proud or temporate chaste mortified and humble whether the Saints were the scorners or the scorned the oppressors or the oppressed the persecutors or the persecuted the burdens or the blessings of the times they lived in When the world is divided about matters of Religion and every Party hath a several way for the Unity and the Reformation and the Communion of the Churches and the right Government Discipline and Worshiping of God how easie and safe is it in the main and in all things of necessity to look back and see which way it was that Peter and Paul did go to Heaven by and what terms they were on which their Union Communion Government Discipline and Worship were performed 5. The sight of blessed souls by faith will also increase the Resolution and Fortitude of the mind Faintness and pusilanimity seize upon us when we look only on the difficulties and dangers But when we see the thousands that have overcome them all by the same means which we are called to use it steeleth our courage and maketh us resolve to break through all When we think only how mortal our diseases are our hearts do fail us But when all that were cured of the very same do call to us and say Never fear there is no disease too hard for your Physician he hath cured us of the very same and cureth all that ever trust him and use his remedies This will embolden a fainting mind Therefore in the fore-cited text Heb. 6.12 It is said Be not slothful which there meaneth such as faint with despondency despair or fears but followers of them who by faith and patience inherit the promises When we look on the Saints tribulations for the faith we are apt to faint as some do that stand by another that is under the Surgeons hands Ephes 3.13 But when we see them in triumph it cureth our cowardize and it is they only that labour and faint not that are crowned and that reap in due season c. Rev. 2.3 Gal. 6.9 that is who faint not into cessation or so as to be overcome Do you think when the Israelites passed through the Red Sea that the Leaders had not the greatest tryal and that it was not an exceeding increase of their courage who came after in the rear when they saw most of their brethren safely passed through Look believingly upon the souls in Heaven and you will do or suffer any thing to follow them 6. And it will greatly provoke us to diligence in well doing Look up to your Brethren and you will mend your pace If a horse be going towards his Pasture he will go chearfully especially when he seeth his companions there It will make us pray hard and meditate studiously and work laboriously and watch diligently that we may be with Christ where our Brethren are and receive the end of our faith and labour 7. And to see our Brethren in Heaven before us will greatly help us to suffer for Christ and to be patient in any tribulation which befalleth us When we see them in glory we shall source stay to complain of the soulness or narrowness of the way but look before us and go on through all Or if the flesh do repine and our hearts begin to fail us it will make us lift up the hands which hang down and the feeble knees and make strait paths for our feet Heb. 12.12 13. and to gird up the loins of our minds and be sober and hope to the end 1 Pet. 1.13 When we look forward to the end of former