occur in common speech If we advise a man to trust his Physician or his Lawyer our meaning is not barely that he should give credit to them but together with that that he shew the effect of such credit in following and observing them If we are earnest with any man to hearken to some advice that is given him we intend not by hearkning to express barely his giving ear to it but besides that his suffering the effects of such attention in practising and obeying it And thus we commonly say that we have got a Cold when we mean a Disease upon cold or a Surfeit when we understand a sickness upon Surfeiting In these and many other instances which might be mentioned we daily find that in the speech and usage of men the cause alone is oft times named when the effect is withal intended and accordingly understood to be expressed and that both are meant when barely one is spoken The effect doth so hang upon its cause and so naturally and evidently follow after it that we look upon it as a needless thing to express its coming after when once we have named its cause which goes before but we ordinarily judge it to be sufficiently mentioned when we have expressed that cause which as is evident to us all produces and infers it And as it is thus in the speech of men so is it in the language of God too He talks to us in our own way and uses such forms of speech and figurative expressions as are in common use among our selves And to seek no further for instances of this than these that lye before us he expresses our works and obedience by our knowledge our repentance our love and such other causes and principles as effect and produce it For we must take notice of this also that our outward works and actions depend upon a train of powers within us which as springs and causes of them order and effect them For our passions excite to them our understandings consider of them and direct them our wills command and choose them and then afterwards in pursuance of all these our bodily powers execute and exert them The actions of a man flow from all the ingredients of the humane nature each principle contributes its share and bears a part towards it For from the constitution of our natural frame our actions are placed wholly in the power of our own wills and our wills are set in a middle station to be moved by our appetites and passions and guided and directed by our minds or intellects We do and perform nothing but what we will neither do we will any thing but what we know and desire what our reason and passion inclines and directs to And because these three inward faculties our minds and wills and passions give being and beginning to our outward works and practice therefore are they by the Masters of moral Philosophy and Divinity ordinarily called the Causes and Principles of Humane Actions But these three principles of humane actions in genecal lye not more open to produce good than evil They are all under the unrestrain'd power of our own free will it is that which determines them either for God or against him but in themselves they are indifferently fitted and serve equally to bring forth acts of Obedience or of disobedience and sin To make these principles therefore of works or actions in general to become principles of good works and obedience there are other nearer tempers and qualifications required which may determine them that in themselves are free to both to effect one and be Authours of such actions only whereby we serve and obey God And this is done by the nearer and more immediate efficiency of Faith Repentance Love and the like For he who knows Gods Laws and believes his Gospel with his understanding who in his heart loves God and hates Sin whose will is utterly resolved for good and against evil he it is whose faculties in themselves indifferent are thus determinately disposed who is ready and prepared to perform his duty His Faith directs him to those Laws which he is to obey and to all the powerful motives to Obedience it shews him how it is bound upon him by all the Joys of Heaven and by all the Pains of Hell and this quickens his passions and confirms all good resolutions and makes him in his will and heart to purpose and desire it And when both his mind his will and passions which were before indifferent are thus gained over and determinately fixed for it in the efficiency of inward principles there is no more to be done but he is in the ready way to work and perform it in outward operation So that as our minds wills and passions are principles of humane actions in general whether good or evil these nearer dispositions our Faith Repentance c. are principles particularly of good works and obedience And since our obedient actions proceed in this manner from the power and efficiency of these principles God according to our own way of expressing things is wont many times only to name them when he intends withal to express our obedience it self which results from them Although he barely mention one yet he understands both and in speaking of the cause he would be taken to imply the effect likewise Thus when he promises Pardon and Salvation to our knowledge and belief of his Gospel to our Repentance from our Sins to our Love and Fear of God which with several others are those preparatory dispositions that fix and determine our minds wills and passions indifferent in themselves to effect Obedient actions he doth not in any wise intend that these shall Save us and procure Pardon for us without Obedience but only by signifying and implying it Wheresoever Mercy and Salvation at the last day are promised and this condition of our working and obeying is not mentioned it is always meant and understood That which such mercy was promised to is either the cause of our Obedience or the effect and sign of it the speech is metonymical and more was meant by it than was expressed Though the word was not named yet the thing was intended for obedience is ever requisite to pardon and nothing has Mercy promised to it in the last Judgment but what some way or other is a sign of it or produces and effects it This I might well take for granted upon the strength of that proof which has been already urged for our Obedience being the sole condition of our being acquitted at that day But because the interest of souls is so much concerned in it I will be yet more particular and proceed to show further that this sence and explication of all such places is the very same that God himself has expressly put upon them For concerning all those things whereto he has promised a favourable sentence at the last Judgment he assures us that they are of no account with him nor will be owned
take up with their leavings Nay what is yet more by such a partial and squeamish belief as this we do not only give or take at our own liking from that attribute of his which in believing we would be thought to honour viz. his Truth but even where we seem to submit to it we wrong and pervert it For we wrest his sense and spoil his meaning and undermine all that he intends So that even that which we do believe is not his mind but our own For the true meaning of his Promises which run all upon condition of our Obedience we pervert the force of all his threatnings which denounce woes to every sin and transgression we cancel We do as much as in us lies to corrupt his Word and to belie his very Gospel We make his whole Religion signifie another thing than what he intended For we make it allow what he forbids and encourage such as he threatens and save those whom at the day of Judgment he will condemn And since this perverse faith and knowledge which believes what it likes and is infidel to all the rest which sets up one part of his Word against another by making his Promises to undermine his Precepts and the Truth of his Doctrines to render all his threatnings false and useless I say since such an untowardly partial and gainsaying knowledge and belief as this is in very deed so plain a Libel to his Person so hateful a violence to his Truth and such a contradicting piece of Infidelity to his Gospel it can never be thought to be that Obedience which he commands and encourages but such a piece of contumelious flattery and fawning disobedience as he will most severely punish and condemn But if we believe his whole Gospel and besides the faith of his Doctrines and Promises take moreover all his Precepts to be such as he injoyns and all his threatnings in their true meaning to be such as he will execute and yet for all that in our works and practice despise and sin against them then is such our faith and knowledge so far from rendring our condition safe and comfortable that in very deed it makes it quite desperate and utterly bereft of all colour and excuse For it takes from us all plea for disobedience and leaves us not so much as the common refuge of all misdoing the pretence that we did offend but did not know it It makes every sin which we commit to be acted with a high hand and all our offences to become contempt our disobedience rebellion and our transgressions presumptuous For we sin then with open eyes we know Gods Commands but refuse to practise them we discern our duty but despise it It makes us not only to renounce his Authority but also to defie his Power For we know his Almighty Strength but we will not fear it we see his dreadfull threatnings but yet dare to commit the things which he has threatned in despite of them We see and believe that our Death is entailed upon our disobedience but for all that we choose and run upon it We contemn all his Commands and set light by all his Promises and despise all his Threatnings We see and believe them all but prefer the pleasure of our sins before them and transgress in open affront to them And such a state as this every man must needs see is so far from gaining his favour and ascertaining his acceptance that in reality it is a continued heightning of every provocation an habitual hostility and state of crying sin But if ever our Orthodox Faith and Professions avail us unto Life and Pardon they must end in our Obedient Works and Actions We must do that which we know God requires and practise that Pure Religion which we profess If ye know these things sayes our Saviour happy are ye if ye do them Joh. 13.17 It is not every verbal Professor every one that saith unto me or calls me Lord Lord that shall enter into the kingdom of heaven but he only that doth the will of my Father which is in Heaven Mat. 7.21 We are condemn'd out of our own mouths if we commend Christs Religion whilst we contemn and disobey it Every word which we speak in its behalf is a charge against our own selves and every Plea which we make for it is to us an accusation For if it be a Religion so pure so good so worthy of God and so beneficial to men as we profess it is the more unpardonable wretches we that transgress and act against it All the praises which we heap upon our Duty are a most bitter invective upon our own practice and the more we commend Christs Religion and Laws the more we condemn our own transgressions so that now God in exacting the punishment be it as severe as it well can only executes our own sentence We are made the worse for our knowledge if our Actions are not ruled by it for it shews plainly that our Lusts are most obstinate and our wills most wicked when for all we are clearly shewed the Laws the Promises and the threats of God we can yet despise them all and for the short pleasure of a silly sin transgress and act against them And since it doth thus enhanse our Sin we may be sure that it will proportionably encrease our punishment For he that knows his masters will and doth it not shall be beaten with many stripes Luk. 12.47 And thus we see that this thinking to be saved by the labour of our minds without any works of our lives and practice and coming to Heaven barely by a True Belief and Orthodox Opinions and Right Professions without ever obeying in our works and actions is one of those false and delusive grounds whereupon men shift off the necessity of this service with all their strength the service of their Actions And another false ground of shifting off the same service is 2. The delusive confidence which wicked men have of being saved at the last Day for an obedience of idle desires and ineffective wishes It is a strange conceit which some people have been taught viz. that the desire of Grace is Grace and that God will at the last Day judge men to have obeyed although they have not wrought but only desired it There is a complaisant sort of Casuistry and a much easier than ever God made that has been brought into the World which bids men to hope well though they do nothing so long as they find in themselves a desire that they could do it They wish they were what God expects and that they performed what he commands but they do no more but wish it They sit still and work no more now they have wished it than they did before Theirs is a weakly infant-desire it just lives but that is all it can effect nothing For the smallest lust is too strong for it and the least temptation over-bears it the desire of the Vertue is hush'd when
enable men to do what it commanded is true still For the Law did not promise it although several both before and under the Law enjoyed it but they who had the benefit of it received it not from the Covenant of the Law but from the Covenant of Grace and the Gospel which has been more or less on foot through all times ever since the World began And in this Covenant since Christ has given us the last Edition and perfection of it both these great defects of the Mosaick Law which rendered it so unable to work this intire reformation and obedience are fully supplied For in every Page of Christ's Gospel what is so legible as the promise of eternal life The joys of Heaven are as much insisted on by Christ as the delights of Canaan were by Moses And then as for the other promise viz. that of the Spirit it is now as plainly revealed as words can make it For we need not to guess at it by signs or to presume it from probabilities or to believe it upon Syllogism and consequence but Christ has spoke out so as to be understood by every capacity God will give the holy Spirit to them that ask him Luke 11.13 Now because the Law of Moses laboured under these two great defects which are happily supplied by the Gospel of Christ by reason whereof it was very unable to effect that reformation of the World which was necessary therefore doth the Apostle in several places speak very meanly of it as of a weak and ineffective Instrument He affirms plainly and proves also That it neither could nor did make men throughly good and that therefore God was forced in the fulness of time to make known and in Christ's death to establish a better If there had been a Law given by Moses which could have given life then saith he verily righteousness should not have needed to be sought by another Covenant but have been by the Law But this we see it could not for the Scripture hath concluded all those who lived under it to be still under the dominion of sin that so since the Law of Moses could not do it the promise of eternal life of the Spirit and of other things which we have by the faith of Jesus Christ might be given to work and effect it to those that believe Gal. 3.21 22. Something indeed the Law did towards it for it armed their consciences against sin so that they could not take their full swing and transgress without all fear and remorse And this was some restraint and kept them from being so ill by far as otherwise they would have been although it was not able to make them so good as they should And to lay this hank upon sin and to check it in some measure till such time as the Gospel should be more clearly revealed to subdue it perfectly was that very end for which the Law was at first given and whereto so long as it was in force it served Wherefore saith he serveth the Law of Moses It was added to the rude draught of the Gospel-Covenant made with Abraham because of the transgressions of men which grew very high that it might in some degree restrain them till Jesus Christ the seed of Abraham should come to whom as to the head and in behalf of his Church the promise of such Grace as would restrain it fully was made And to fit it the more for imprinting an awe upon peoples Consciences whereby it might lay this restraint upon sin it was ordained at the first giving of it by terrible fire and thundrings made by the Angels which were so dreadful that the people desired of God that those formidable Angels might be no more employed in delivering it to them but that it might be put into the hands of another Mediator viz. Moses who was a man like unto themselves Gal. 3.19 But although this restraint upon Sin were something yet was it far from sufficient so that still it is true of the Law of Moses that notwithstanding it could begin yet it could finish and make nothing perfect but that it was the bringing in of a better hope than was warranted by the Law which should do that Heb. 7.19 And as for this imperfection and faultiness which the Apostle imputes to the first Covenant or Law of Moses in these and other places it is nothing more as he observes than God himself has charged upon it when he speaks of establishing a better instead of it For if the first Covenant by Moses had been faultless and void of imperfection then should no place have been sought for the introduction of the second which it is plain there was For finding fault with them for their breach of the first Covenant he saith in Jer. 31.31 the dayes come when I will make a New Covenant with the house of Israel such as shall make me to be for ever unto them a God and enable them to be unto me an obedient People Heb. 8.7 8 9 10. Now this Inability of the Law of Moses to work a compleat conquest over sin and a thorow reformation which the Apostle affirms so clearly in these other places he sets out more largely and particularly in that seventh Chapter to the Romans For from the beginning of this Discourse which I have taken at the 14 th Verse of the 6 th Chapter to the end of it at the 5 th vers of the 8 th this weakness and inability of the Law is that still which is every where endeavour'd to be made out and which returns upon us as the conclusion and inference from every argument Sin must not have dominion over you saith he because you are not under the Law where is the place of its reigning but under the Grace of Christ at the 14. verse of the 6 th Chapter And in the 7 th it is taken notice of at every turn When you were in the flesh or under the Law which from its consisting so much of Carnal Ordinances and giving the flesh so much advantage is called flesh Galat. 3.3 the motions of sin which were encouraged by the weakness of the Law brought forth fruit unto death but now being delivered from the weak Law you serve in newness of spirit not as you did then in the oldness of the letter vers 5 6. Sin taking occasion or advantage over the weak Commandment wrought in me all manner of concupiscence vers 8. When the weak Commandment came sin revived and I died vers 9. Sin taking occasion or advantage by the Commandment slew me vers 11. by which prevailing over the Commandment it appears to be exceeding sinfull vers 13. And at the end of the discourse at the 8 th Chapter we are told again of the Law of Moses being weak through the conquering power of the flesh which made it necessary for God to send his own Son with a better Law which was strong enough to rescue us not of the dominion of
of their offences through the deceitfulness of sin vers 13. And this effect is obvious and ordinary for not only the nature of things but even the just judgement of God concur to it Nothing being more common than for those men who hold the truth as S t Paul sayes in unrighteousness of living and even whil'st they know God do not glorifie him by their service and obedience which are due to him and are our way of glorifying him as God nor are thankfull in their hearts and actions to lose that knowledge and to become vain in their imaginations their foolish heart being darkned by Gods giving them over to a reprobate mind or a mind void of all true judgment to do those things which are not convenient not knowing they are so Rom. 1.18 21 28. But now as for these prejudices which get into our consciences and perswasions not through any force of reason which compells but through the witchcraft of lusts and vices which enveagle and make us willing and desirous to believe them they will not excuse us because they are themselves sinfull and deserve damnation For they enter at an ill door and win upon us through a reigning lust or a damning sin and therefore they are so far from excusing those transgressions which flow from them that in themselves they are instances and effects of a deadly offence and if repentance intervene not will certainly prove desperate and damning S t Paul in breathing out threatnings against all believers and in persecuting of the Church acted only according to the best of his own Judgment and Opinion For he verily thought with himself that he not only might but ought to do several things contrary to the Name of Jesus of Nazareth Acts 26.9 But as this Opinion was his sin so would his transgressions upon it have proved his condemnation had not God shewn pity on him in calling him to repentance and conversion whereby alone it was that he obtained mercy and pardon I was sayes he a persecutor and injurious but I obtained mercy by that Grace of God conferr'd upon me at my conversion which was exceeding abundant with these two fundamental Graces which are a most prolifick spring of all the rest viz. Faith and Love which is in Jesus Christ 1 Tim. 1.13 14. The Jews who blasphemed and crucified our Saviour did nothing against their own conscience for their Opinion bore them out in all that practice in regard they judged it to be no sinfull murther but a most necessary act of Justice upon a great impostor and a most laudable and legal execution I wot Brethren sayes S t Peter that through ignorance ye did it as did not you only but also your rulers Acts 3.14 15 17. But forasmuch as this Ignorance was their own fault and their prejudices were owing to their own vices in regard that for this reason alone their minds would not receive a true belief of Christ and his Laws because they plainly contradicted their sinfull lusts and practices therefore should it by no means excuse them but if their repentance did not prevent it it would most certainly in the end prove deadly and damning For their crucifixion of him he tells them was by wicked hands Acts 2.23 and it was only upon their repentance and conversion that their sins of blasphemy and murder should be blotted out Acts 3.19 Again the transgressions of the Pharisees were justified by their own Opinions for they looked upon themselves notwithstanding them to be holy men and favourites of Heaven But proceeding as we have seen they did from unmortified lusts and a wicked life they rendred them obnoxious to damnation How can you escape the damnation of hell Mat. 23.33 The sins of the Gnosticks notwithstanding they were warranted by their disobedient Principles were of a damnable nature for their heresies and disobedient Principles themselves being the effects of disobedient and wicked hearts deserved damnation and are called by S t Peter in that Chapter where he recounts them and with great zeal inveighs against them damnable heresies 2 Pet. 2.1 They are works of the flesh or the products of unmortified lusts and carnal practices and must therefore share in the same judgment with other fleshâ—â— works amongst whom they are reckon'd The works of the flesh sayes S t Paul are manifest seditions heresies envyings murders drunkenness of the which I tell you that they which do such things shall not inherit the Kingdom of God Gal. 5.19 20 21. If we will transgress our Duty by disbelieving it first and giving credit to such Opinions as destroy the obligation of it our disbelief of our Duty will by no means excuse our sin or rescue us from condemnation For to disbelieve the Laws and threatnings of Christ is the very worst part of unbelief and the most hatefull and deadly instance of infidelity And as for unbelievers sayes S t John or those men who will not believe Religion or the best part of it Laws and Duties but seek to evade its force after that God has plainly told them of it they shall have their part in the Lake which burns with fire and brimstone Rev. 21.8 Men without understanding who will not see their Duty because they are blinded by such lusts as fight against it in the judgment of God are worthy of death Rom. 1.31 32. The reason why their consciences adhere to such Opinions as utterly destroy their Duty is only because their lusts and vices have made them hate and turn away from it And as for every such prejudice against a Duty as proceeds from our aversation to it it is of a great guilt and liable to a very severe punishment For in this S t Paul is peremptory All they shall be damned who believe a lye and believe not the truth through the pleasure which they take in unrighteousness They shall perish because they receive not the LOVE of the Truth that they may be saved by it 2 Thess. 2.10 11 12. When our disobedient prejudices therefore enter upon this score and are begot in us through a wicked heart and through some reigning lusts and vices which are served by them but not by any weakness of understanding or such fallibility of means as may betray even an honest heart into them they are subject to a sad doom and a severe censure they will by no means plead our excuse but are an Article of our condemnation And as for some marks whereby to judge whether our disobedient prejudices proceed from this deadly Principle our unmortified lusts and vices and thereupon are of this dangerous and damning nature or no we may observe these Characters and judge according to these measures First If that Lust or Sin whereto our prejudice is subservient be strong and powerfull if it reign in us and in the ordinary course and custome of our lives gives laws to us the corruption and disobedience of our heart is plainly the cause of
temptations or to lusts and desires of evil This Point summed up 63â— CHAP. V. Of two other causes of groundless Scruple to good Souls The Contents A second cause of scruple is their uâ—affectedness or distraction sometimes in their prayers Of the necessity of fixedness and fervency in Devotion when we can and of Gods readiness to dispense with them when we cannot enjoy them Attention disturbed often whether we will or no. A particular cause of it in fervent prayers Fervency and affection not depending so much upon the command of our wills as upon the temper of our Bodies Fervency is unconstant in them whose temper is fit for it God measures us not by the fixedness of our thoughts or the warmth of our tempers but by the choice of our wills and the obedience of our lives Other qualifications in prayer are sufficient to have our prayers heard when these are wanting Yea those Vertues which make our prayers acceptable are more eminently shown in our Obedience so that it would bring down to us the blessings of prayer should it prove in those respects defective A third cause of scruple is the danger of idle or impertinent words mentioned Mat. 12.36 The scruples upon this represented The practical errour of a morose behaviour incurred upon it This discountenanced by the light of Nature and by Christianity The benefits and place of serious Discourse Pleasurable conversation a great Field of Vertue The idle words Mat. 12 not every vain and useless but false slanderous and reproachful words this proved from the place 664 CHAP. VI. Of the sin against the Holy Ghost which is a fourth cause of scruple The Contents Some good mens fear upon this account What is meant in Scripture by the Holy Ghost Holy Ghost or Spirit is taken for the gifts or effects of it whether they be first ordinary either in our minds or understandings or in our wills and tempers or secondly extraordinary and miraculous Extraordinary gifts of all sorts proceed from one and the same Spirit or Holy Ghost upon which account any of them indifferently are sometimes called Spirit sometimes Holy Ghost Holy Ghost and Spirit are frequently distinguished and then by Holy Ghost is meant extraordinary gifts respecting the understanding by Spirit extraordinary gifts respecting the executive powers The summ of the explication of this Holy Ghost What sin against it is unpardonable To sin against the Holy Ghost is to dishonour him This is done in every act of sin but these are not unpardonable What the unpardonable sin is Of sin against the ordinary endowments of the Holy Ghost whether of mind or will the several degrees in this all of them are pardonable Of sin against the Spirit Blaspheming of this comes very near it and was the sin of the Pharisees Mat. 12 but it was pardonable Of sinning against the Holy Ghost The Holy Ghost the last means of reducing men to believe the Gospel that Covenant of Repentance The sin against it is unpardonable because such Sinners are irreclamable All dishonour of this is not unpardonable for Simon Magus dishonoured it in actions who was yet capable of pardon but only a blaspheming of it in words No man is guilty of it whilst he continues Christian. 681 CHAP. VII The Conclusion The Contents Some other causless scruples The Point of growth in Grace more largely stated A summary repetition of this whole Discourse They may dye with courage whose Conscience doth not accuse them This accusation must not be for idle words distractions in Prayer c. but for a wilful transgression of some Law of Pieey Sobriety c. above mentioned It must further be particular and express not general and roving If an honest mans heart condemn him not for some such unrepented sins God never will 700 THE INTRODUCTION ROM viij 1 There is no Condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the Flesh but after the Spirit The Contents Religious men inquisitive after their future State Three Articles of Christian belief cause such inquisitiveness The Articles of Eternal Life and the Resurrection make men desire satisfaction The Article of the last Judgment encourages the search and points out a way towards it A proposal of the present design and the matters treated of in the ensuing Discourse AMong all those things which employ the minds of Religious and Considerate men there is none that is so much a matter of their thoughtful care and solicitous enquiries as their Eternal happiness or Misery in the next World For in Christs Religion there are three great Articles which being believed and seriously considered by a nature restlessly desirous of its own happiness and such ours is must needs render it very inquisitive after some security of its future good estate and they are these The Immortality of the Soul the Resurrection of the Body and the great Day of Doom or last Judgment Whosoever is firmly perswaded of these three as every man is or at least pretends to be who professes himself a Christian he assuredly believes that when this Life is over both his Body and Soul shall live again and be endlessly Delighted or Tormented Comforted or Distressed in the next world according as their condition is when they leave this For by the Doctrine of Eternal Life he is assured that his Soul shall live and be adjudged to an Eternal bliss or misery By the Article of the Resurrection he is perswaded that his Body with all its powers shall spring out of the dust and be again enlivened with its ancient Soul to be a sharer of its state and joyntly to undergo an endless train of most exquisite woes or pleasures And since it is the very frame and fundamental principle of our Natures studiously to pursue Pleasure and to fly as fast from Pain to seek good and to avoid evil These states of future Happiness and Misery are such as no man who sees and believes them can possibly be unaffected with or unconcern'd in But whosoever in his own thoughts views and beholds them must needs find all his faculties awake and through an innate care and natural instinct solicitously inquisitive after that lot which shall fall to their own share Now if this endless happiness and misery both of Soul and Body in the next world were only casual and contingent the gift of blind chance or partial and arbitrary favour then would the belief of it perplex us indeed with fears and misgiving thoughts but never encourage us on to any exact care or diligent enquiry It would be in vain for us to seek what we could never find and downright folly to endeavour after satisfaction and certainty in things which are utterly casual and Arbitrary For what comes by chance is neither foreseen by us nor subject to us And what is given arbitrarily without all rule or reason is as fickle and unconstant as Arbitrary will it self is It cannot be prevented by any endeavours because it doth not
God had spoken to them than by his Testimony and upon his Authority therefore are they said in believing and embracing that Divine Law which was delivered to them by Moses to believe not the Lord alone but also his Servant Moses Exod. 14.31 Joh. 5.46 to be Baptized into Moses 1 Cor. 10.2 to be Moses's Disciples Joh. 9.28 to trust or place their hope in Moses Joh. 5.45 to obey or hearken unto Moses Luk. 16.31 But the most clear and full Revelation that God ever made of his will to men was by the message and mediation of his own Son Jesus Christ. For God who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in times past to the Jews by Moses and to the Fathers by the Prophets hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son Heb. 1.1 And the belief of his Gospel or taking for certain Truths upon his Authority all those things which he has declared to us in Gods Name is call'd the Christian as the other was the Mosaick Faith For he being the great Author and deriver of this last and greatest Revelation of God down to us and our belief of it being upon his immediate Authority he being as S t Paul says the Authour and finisher of our Faith Heb. 12.2 Our belief of it is called not only Faith towards God Heb. 6.1 but also Faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ Acts 20.21 And because the knowledge of our whole Religion got into our minds this way upon our submission to Christs Authority and our Faith or belief of his Testimony therefore is our Religion it self most commonly in the Scriptures called our Faith The Preaching of it is called Preaching the Faith Gal. 1.23 the hearing of it hearing of Faith Gal. 3.2 the profession of it a profession of Faith Heb. 10.23 the contending for it a striving for the Faith Phil. 1.27 the erring in it an erring from the Faith 1 Tim. 6.10 the falling from it a making shipwrack of the Faith 1 Tim. 1.19 obedience to it the obedience of Faith Rom. 1.5 and the Righteousness required in it and effected by it the Righteousness of Faith Rom. 4.11.13 So that in like manner as the Mosaick Faith was a belief of the Divinity of the Mosaick Law and Religion upon the Authority of Moses the Christian Faith is a belief of the Divine institution of our Christian Religion upon the Authority of Christ. It is a taking upon his word all those things for truths of God which he has declared to us in Gods Name A belief begot in us by vertue of his Testimony that all his Doctrines are Gods Truths that all his Laws are Gods Precepts that all his promises are Gods Promises and that all his threats are Gods threatnings in sum that that whole Religion and Gospel which Christ has delivered to us in Gods Name is the very Religion and Word of God The belief of all this upon the Authority of Christ makes our Faith Christian and the good effects of it upon our hearts and lives make it justifying and saving For when by vertue of this Faith we truly Repent and sincerely obey which is the great condition as we have seen whereupon at the last day we must all be pardoned and justified Eternally it is a justifying as when by vertue of it we are saved and delivered from the dominion and service of our Sins which as the Angel hath assured us are those principal evils that Christ came to save us from it is a saving Faith This is the nature of our Christian knowledge and our Christian Faith And as for it now it is the very fundamental cause and natural spring of all our Christian service and obedience For it is because we believe Jesus to be the Lord because we know those Laws which he has given us and give credit to him when he tells us of the insupportable punishments which he will one day inflict for sin and of the glorious rewards which he will confer upon obedience It is by means of our knowledge and belief of all these in our minds I say that we serve and obey him in our outward actions It is our knowledge and belief that lets us see the reasonableness of his Precepts the power of his Assistances the glory of his Rewards and the terror of his Punishments and in all respects convinces us of the beauty and profit of Obedience And this sight and conviction in our minds cannot well miss of gaining our hearts and resolutions For the belief of his endless judgments will raise our fears the belief of his infinite rewards will quicken our hopes the belief of his inexpressible kindness will kindle our love and by all these our souls will be led Captive into eager desires and firm resolutions and be fully purposed to keep Gods Laws that so they may avoid that terrible Death which he threatens and attain those matchless joys which he promises to our Obedience And when once by means of this faith and knowledge Gods Laws have gain'd both our wills and passions which are the inward springs and causes of them they cannot fail of being obeyed in our works and actions which are produced by them But we shall quickly go on to perform what we resolve and to do what we desire and so in very deed fulfill and obey them Upon which account of our Christian Faith having so mighty an influence upon our Christian and obedient practice our obedience it self as being the effect of it and produced by it is call'd the obedience of Faith Rom. 16.26 The Righteousness which it exacts of us and cooperates to work in us the Righteousness of Faith Gal 5.5 Our Christian warfar or striving against Sin is called the good sight of Faith 1 Tim 6.12 And because in this contest our great succors which protect us and keep us from fainting and at last make us victorious are some points or promises of our Religious belief therefore it is stiled a shield and a breast-plate of Faith 1 Thess. 5.8 and S t John affirms plainly that this is the victory over the world even our Faith 1 Joh. 5.4 And for this reason it is because our Faith and knowledge are so powerful a cause and principle of our Obedience that God speaks so great things of them and has made such valuable promises to them He never intends to reward the Faith and knowledge of our minds further than they effect the obedience of our actions It is only when they are carryed on to this effect when they become an obedient knowledge and a working Faith that they confer a right to the promised reward and are available to our Salvation For when in the places mentioned or in any other God promises that he who knows Christ or believes in Christ shall live he speaks metonymically and means Faith and knowledge with this effect of a working service and obedience As for knowledge 't is plain that God accepts it no otherwise
repeat them A Confession of the mouth that is accompanied with a turn and change of the heart which is now set as much against them as formerly it was inclined to them And such was that Confession which Wise Solomon durst recommend to Gods mercy and beg him to accept of for mens Pardon and Forgiveness If they Repent saith he and say we have done perversly we have committed wickedness and so RETVRN unto thee with all their hearts and all their soul then hear their prayer and forgive thy people that have sinned against thee and all their transgressions wherein they have transgressed 1 Kings 8.47 48 49 50. It is such an acknowledgment of our Sins lastly as undoes so far as is possible all that which we had done wickedly and makes all just and sufficient recompence and satisfaction for them And this is that acknowledgment of all Sins of injustice which God himself prescribes When a Man or Woman saith he shall commit any sin of injury and wrong that men commit one against another to do a trespass thereby against the Lord and that person be guilty then shall they confess their Sin that they have done and shall RECOMPENCE their Trespass with the principle thereof or the thing it self which they took away wrongfully and shall add moreover unto it a fifth part more thereof and give it unto him against whom they trespassed Numb 5.6 7. Now a Confession of our Sins thus qualified viz. a Confession of them with blushing and being ashamed of them with an implacable hatred and loathing indignation of them with bitter sorrow for them with firm purpose and resolution against them and with all possible endeavours to undo them by making just recompence and satisfaction A Confession I say thus attended is a most natural cause and powerful principle of our leaving and forsaking them The four first concomitant tempers are all most effectual causes of better obedience and reformation and the last viz. making of satisfaction is an instance and effect of it Shame and sorrow and hatred are the great rules and measures of what we shall forsake the prime springs and directors of all aversation and avoidance Nothing is more natural for us than to be slow to do that we are ashamed of to avoid what we hate to turn away from that which grieves and torments us So that if once disobedience fall under these passions it has lost all its interest and will surely be excluded from the service of our works and actions Our passions oppose it and our wills are set against it and when both these are not only got loose from it but also most resolutely contend with it it is wholly bereft of all its power and can do nothing in us We have no temptation to pursue it further we are weary of it and offended at it and so are sure to leave and forsake it And because this Confession thus qualified and attended as we have seen is so genuine a cause of better obedience and reformation therefore alone it is that so great things are spoken of it When God says he that confesses his sin shall find mercy he means he that confesses and forsakes it that acknowledges his offences in such sort as to renounce them and become obedient His speech is mâ—tonymical he implies Obedience although he doth not mention it For no Confession of sin will serve any mans turn at the last day except he leave it and in his life and actions bid adieu to it The world indeed abounds with another sort of Confession which costs less and effects nothing They confess their sins without shame and relate them without sorrow and name them without hatred they recite them to God without resolving against them and acknowledge them daily without any amends or making any recompence and satisfaction for them For they cannot but be hardned against shame who day by day if not several times every day have the face to tell God that they have rebell'd against him and yet never endeavour to come with another story by disavowing and forsaking their Rebellion They must needs be void of sorrow for sin who will never keep back from it it cannot but please them so long as they continue to pursue it For they would not continually repeat their pain and at every turn act over again their own torment and vexation It is beyond all doubt that they do not hate but entirely love disobedience so long as they slip no opportunities of acting it They are plainly resolved upon it whilst they are most firmly fixt and forward to embrace it And since notwithstanding all their hideous Confessions they stand ready still to close with their Sin upon the first meeting and to repeat what they confessed upon the next occasion it is plain that their hearts were never against it whatever their words were They only shewed their wit but not their passions or perswasion they declaimed against it but all the while they meant no hurt to it For even whilst they inveighed against the baseness the loathsomness the destructiveness of their Sin their own heart did not believe it They did no more but spare God their tongues and speak what he pleased but for their souls and actions they reserved them for their Lusts and would like and do what they pleased themselves But can any man be so blind as to think that such a Confession of Sins as this can in any wise please God and procure his Pardon Has he any kindness for our Sins that he should take delight to hear them spoken of Are they so acceptable a service that we may hope to gain his favour barely by reciting them in his presence No he hates them as things that are most loathsome to him and will not endure to have them mentioned without real detestation Is any man so weak as to think that he honours God merely by reckoning up his own offences That he gives glory unto him by declaring to his face how vilely he has affronted and despised him To Confess thus is to reproach him to his face and boldly to defie him It is a telling of him that we have disobeyed and are resolved to go on in it an open profession and avowing of our Rebellion without any real signs or approach to amendment and due subjection It is a transgressing bare-faced an addition of impudence to sin a continuing daily to Rebel against him and yet coming as daily into his very presence to declare and own our continued Rebellions And this now is not to supplicate but to defie not to beg peace but to declare enmity it is by no means the way to soften and appease but a most effectual course to exasperate and implacably to provoke him But then to go on still further and to pretend to him that we are sorry at our heart and loath our selves for having sinned against him and are resolved to do so no more when really as our after-actions which are
upon them They have trampled already upon all spiritual aids and benummed and silenced their own Consciences and quite hardened themselves in their wickedness so that now they have nothing to hinder them but advance to work all manner of sin with greediness and wantonness and thereby fall under the severest curse that can be met with in Hell and damnation And as for this progress of all Renegado Saints and revolting Sinners both in sin and also in suffering the Scripture is express and plain When the unclean Spirit which is once gone out of a man returns into him again says our Saviour he taketh unto himself seven other Spirits which are more wicked than he himself is and they enter in and dwell there and the last state of that man is made worse in all respects by this means than the first Matth. 12.43 44 45. The man becomes a greater Sinner and a greater Sufferer than otherwise he ever would have been For if after men have once escaped the pollution of the world through the knowledg of Christ's Gospel they are again entangled therein and overcome by it then is the latter end worse with them than the beginning For it had really been by much the better for them not to have known the way of righteousness at all than after they have known and walked in it to put such a slur upon it and to revolt and turn from the holy Commandment which was delivered unto them and for some time embraced by them 2 Pet. 2.20 21. As for an obedience then which goes but half way and breaks off before it has got to the end so far is it from availing us unto pardon and life that in very deed it renders our present case more desperate and our future punishment more insupportable But that obedience which God will accept and in which alone we may safely place our confidence must be as of our whole man so of our whole time likewise We must persevere in it through all Seasons and take care both to live and dye in it For our reward will be dispensed out to us according to the nature of our service at the time of payment and he only as our Saviour says that endureth to the end shall be saved Matth. 10.22 CHAP. VI. Of the third sort of integrity viz. that of the Object or of obedience to all the particular Laws and parts of Duty The CONTENTS Of the partiality of mens obedience from their love of some particular sins Three pretences whereby they justifie the allowed practice of some sins whilst they are obedient in some other instances The first pretence is the preservation of their Religion and themselves in times of persecution A particular account of mens disobedience under this pretence The vanity of it shown from the following considerations Religion needs not to be rescued from persecution The freedom of outward means of Religion is restrained by it but the substance of Religion it self is not It is extended in some parts and ennobled in all by sufferings Where it needs to be defended disobedience is no fit means to preserve it because God cannot be honoured nor Religion served by it Religion and the love of God is only the colour but the true and real cause of such disobedience is a want of Religion and too great a love of mens own selves Men are liable to be deceived by this pretence from a wrong Notion of Religion for religious opinions and professions A true Notion of Religion for religious practice upon a religious belief as it implies both faith and obedience The danger of disobedience upon this pretence The practice of all religious men in this case Of Religion in the narrow acceptation for religious professions and opinions The commendable way of mens preserving it First By acting within their own sphere Secondly By the use only of lawful means Thirdly By a zeal in the first place for the practice of religious Laws and next to that for the free profession of religious opinions BUT to render our service perfectly intire and compleatly upright it is not enough that there be an integrity of the Subject by our obeying with all our powers or an integrity of time by our obeying in all Seasons of which two I have discoursed hitherto but it is further necessary that there be an integrity of the Object also or that what we do thus obey with our whole man and our whole time be nothing less than all the particular Laws of Duty and instances of Obedience nothing under the whole will of God We must not pick and chuse in the doing of our Duty for if we do not obey all we obey not right in any Because all the Laws of God are bound upon us by the same power and enjoyned by the same Authority so that if we fulfil any one upon this account of his having required it the same reason holds for our fulfilling all the rest This indeed is very hardly believed because it is so hard to practise For almost every man has some sin or other which he can as well dye as part with It has got his heart and is become the Master of his affections and since he loves it so dearly he hopes that God will bear with it too He will part with any thing else for Gods sake he will not stick at any other service nor repine at any other imposition all that he craves is only to be tolerated in his Darling Lust and to be allowed to serve him without cutting off what is as useful as his right hand or pulling out what is as dear to him as his own right eye to please him And when men are thus desirous of reconciling the service of God with the service of their lusts when they are resolved to hope and yet resolved to sin they have no other way but to perswade themselves that the keeping of some Precepts shall attone for the transgression of others and to bear up themselves with the delusive hopes and false confidences of a partial and a half obedience They presently forge new terms of life and pardon which God never made and which he will never stand to for finding that they do not perform all his Laws and yet resolving that what they do perform shall be sufficient for them they straightway fansie that if they do keep some for the rest they shall have a Dispensation It shall be enough for them to part with such lusts for Gods sake as they can best spare but some they will keep and them he must allow and so instead of a perfect and intire they put him off with a partial and a maimed service Now this partiality of obedience is in so many kinds as men have sins that are endeared to them which they will not leave for God's sake but join with him For every beloved sin can make an interest and Party and if it reign in us so far as to make us fulfil it and
fallibility of the means of knowledge and these do not destroy but consist with a state of Grace and Salvation They get not into mens understandings by means of an evil and disobedient heart For it is not any love which they have for the damning sins of pride ambition sensuality covetousness unpeaceableness faction or the like which makes them willing to believe those Opinions true that are in favour of them When they take up their prejudice they do not see so far as these ill effects nor discern how any of these sins is served by it and therefore they cannot be thought to admit it with this design to serve them in it Nay further what is the best sign of all that lust or disobedience which the prejudice happens to minister to in some instance is mortified and subdued in them and so cannot have any such influence upon them For sometimes those very men who in such instances as their prejudice avows it are irreverent and disrespectful pragmatical and disobedient to their Governours or the like in all other cases wherein their Opinion is unconcerned are most respectfull quiet and obedient Humility and modesty peaceableness and quietness submission and obedience are both their temper and their practice For they love and approve and in the ordinary course and constant tenour of their lives conscientiously observe them and nothing under such prejudicate Opinion as makes them believe them to be unlawfull in some cases could over-rule that love and obedience which they have for them and prevail upon them so far as to act against them So that with these men it is not the disobedient temper of their hearts which makes their conscience err but the errour and prejudice of their conscience which makes their practice disobedient In such men therefore as are thus qualified who do not see those sins which their prejudice ministers to when they admit it and in all the other actions of their lives except where by this prejudice they are over-ruled shew plainly that they have mortified and overcome it 't is clear that the prejudice did not get into their consciences by any influence of an evil and disobedient heart But that which made way for it was only their natural weakness of understanding or the fallibility of the means of knowledge They are not of an understanding sufficient to examine things exactly when they embrace their prejudice for their Reason then is dim and short-sighted weak and unexperienced unable throughly to search into the natures of things and to judge of the various weight and just force of reasons to sift and ransack separate and distinguish between solidity and show truth and falsehood But those arguments whereupon they believe and upon the credit whereof they take up Opinions are education and converse the instruction of spiritual guides the short reasonings of their neighbours and acquaintance or the authority of such books or persons as they are ordered to read and directed to submit to These are the motives to their belief and the arguments whereupon they are induced to think one Opinion right and another wrong and the only means which they have of discerning between truth and falsehood But now all these means are in no wise certain they are an argument of belief indeed and the best that such men have but yet they are far from being infallibly conclusive Sometimes they lead men right but at other times they lead them wrong for they are not at all determined one way but in several men and at several times according as it happens they minister both to truth and falsehood In matters that are primarily of belief and speculation in Religion they lead a hundred men to errour where they lead one to Truth For there are an hundred Religions in the world whereof one alone is true and every one has this to plead in its own behalf that it is the Religion of the Place and Party where it is believed The Professors of it are drawn to assent to it upon these Arguments viz. because they have been Bred up to it by the care of their Parents and Teachers and confirmed in it by long Vse and Converse It was Education and Custome the Authority of their Spiritual Guides and the common Perswasion of their Countrey which made them both at first to believe and still to adhere to it And every one in these points having these Arguments to plead for his own belief against the belief of every other man who differs from him since of all these different Beliefs one alone is true these Arguments must be allow'd indeed to minister to Truth in that but in all the rest to serve the Interest of Falsehood In matters of Duty and Practice 't is true there is infinitely more accord and good agreement For almost all the laws of nature w ch make up by far the greatest part of every Christians Duty are the Catholick Religion of all sober Sects and Parties in the world So that these Arguments of Custome and Education are tolerably good and right guides to mens Consciences how ill soever they are to their speculative Opinions because although they carry them into a wrong belief yet will they lead them into a righteous practice But although in these practical Notions and Opinions they are commonly a right yet sometimes and to several persons they prove a wrong instrument For even in matters of Duty and Practice men are no more secure from errour than they are from disobedience nor more certain that they shall have no mistakes about them than that they shall not go beyond them They have and till they come to Heaven ever will have erroneous Opinions as well as practices so that these motives Education and Custome and Authority will never be wanting in the world to instill into weak and undiscerning minds such Opinions as will in some instances and degrees evacuate and undermine some duties And since there will never be wanting in the world such fallible Arguments and means of knowing nor such weak and unexperienced understandings as must of necessity make use of them 't is plain that several disobedient prejudices will in all times get into mens minds not through any wickedness or disobedience of their hearts but only through the natural weakness of their minds and the fallibility of the means of knowledge And when any prejudices which lead to disobedience enter this way they do not put us out of Gods favour or destroy a state of Grace and Salvation but consist with it For in our whole action of disobedience upon them there is nothing that should provoke Gods wrath and punitive displeasure against us He will not be at enmity with us either for acting according to our erroneous Conscience or if the errour was thus innocent for having an erroneous conscience for our rule of action He will not be offended at us I say for acting according to our erroneous conscience for whether our conscience be true or
much of the sinfulness of that action which we commit as to scruple its lawfulness and to be enlightned so far as really to doubt of it then is the case quite alter'd and we cannot plead that we did it ignorantly because we knew so much by it at least as should have made us forbear it For if indeed we doubted of it we knew it was as likely to be a Sin as to be an innocent Action because that is properly Doubting when we suspend our Assent and cannot tell which way to determine when we judge one to be as likely as the other and do not positively and determinately believe the truth of either And when this is our case concerning any Action if we venture on it whilst the doubt remains we are guilty of sin and must expect to suffer punishment For by so doing we shew plainly that we will do more for sin than we will for God and that it has a greater interest with us than he because even whilst we apprehend it as likely to be our sin as our liberty yet for the sins sake we chuse to venture on it rather than for Gods sake to abstain from it This Contempt of God there is in it in the Nature of the very thing it self although God had no ways expressed himself concerning it But we must know further that whensoever we are in this estate of doubt and unresolvedness God has given us a peremptory Command that we should not act what we fear is sinful but omit it Abstain saith he from all appearance of evil 1 Thess. 5.22 So that if after all our Disputes and Demurs we venture at last to commit the Action which we doubted of we do not only slight God by running the hazard of Disobedience to one Law whereof we are uncertain but we wilfully disobey him in transgressing of this other Law whereof we all either are or may be certain if we will And if in this estate we presume thus to disobey we shall be sure to suffer for our Disobedience And in this case St. Paul is plain For if there be any thing whose lawfulness our Consciences are unresolved and unperswaded of whilst that unresolvedness remains he tells us plainly that our commission of it is utterly unlawful Whatsoever says he is not of Faith or proceeding from a belief and perswasion of its lawfulness is sin So that if it be about the eating of meats for Instance he that doubts is damn'd both of God and of himself if he eat because he eateth not of Faith Rom. 14.23 If our minds therefore are so far enlightned concerning any sinful Action as that we are come to doubt of it we are no longer innocently and excusably ignorant For we see enough by it to make us chuse to abstain from it and if for all this we presume still to venture on it sin lyes at the door and we must answer for it We are no longer within the excuse of Ignorance but we are guilty of a wilful sin and are got within the bounds of Death and Damnation But if in any Action we know nothing at all of the Law which forbids it or after we have known that if we are still ignorant of its being contain'd under it if we are not come to doubt but are either in Ignorance or Errour concerning it our Ignorance shall excuse our Fault and deliver us from Condemnation We do not chuse the sin which we do thus ignorantly commit and therefore we shall not suffer that Punishment which is threatned to it but our unknown offence is a pardonable slip such as according to the gracious Terms of Christs Gospel shall surely go uncondemned And this is true not only of simple Ignorance but likewise of the two particular Modes of Ignorance viz. First Forgetfulness Secondly Errour 1. Our sins of Ignorance will be born with if we venture upon the sinful Action through Ignorance of its sinfulness which we knew formerly but at the time of acting have forgotten For a slip of Forgetfulness is no more than befel an Apostle who was for all that a blessed Saint and an Heir of Life still St. Paul himself reviles the High-Priest forgetting both his Duty and that that man was he whom he spoke to I wist not Brethren says he that he was the High-Priest for had I bethought my self I should not have spoke so disrespectfully to him it being thus written Thou shalt not speak evil of the Ruler of thy People Act. 23.5 2. Our sins of Ignorance shall be dispensed with if we are led to commit them through a mistake of their innocence when indeed they are sinful which is an acting of them through errour For no less a man than Peter was drawn into a sinful dissimulation through an erroneous conceit that his giving no offence but keeping in with the Jews which was the thing that he aimed at by it would justifie and bear him out in it For which S t Paul tells us when he came to Antioch he withstood him to the face because he was to be blamed Gal. 2.11 12 13. But yet for all this S t Peter was at that time a true good Saint and if it had pleased God then to call for him he had been undoubtedly an Heir of salvation And to mention no more upon this Point as there were constant atonements for the errours of the people under the Law so is there provision made for them under the Gospel For Christ who is our High Priest as S t Paul assures us can have compassion on the ignorant and erroneous or them who are out of the way Heb. 5.2 So long therefore we see as our ignorance of any kind whether of the Law it self or of our present actions being comprehended by it is involuntary and innocent so long shall we be born with for all such slips as we incur under it For God will never be severe upon us for weakness of understanding or for want of parts whilst there is nothing in us of a wicked heart and therefore if our ignorance it self is innocent our offences under it shall go unpunished But here we must observe that all this allowance for our ignorance is so far only as it is involuntary and faultless but if we chuse to be ignorant our ignorance is in it self our sin and will make all our following offences damnable For we must answer for any thing of our own choice and therefore if we chuse the ignorance we shall be interpreted to chuse and so put to answer for all those ill effects which it produces Those sins which are voluntary in their cause are interpreted to us as we have seen and put upon our score so that if we chuse the ignorance which brings them we shall be adjudged to suffer for them Now as for the ignorance and errour of many men which is the cause of their sins and transgressions it is plainly of their own chusing They have a mind to
our selves together as the manner of some is but exhorting one another to the open owning and frequenting of them and this we ought to do so much the more forasmuch as ye see the day of Gods righteous Judgment approaching For if we sin wilfully in this backsliding from the publick Assemblies and from the profession of the Christian Faith after that we have once received the knowledge or professed belief and acknowledgment of the truth of it there remains no more benefit to us from Christs sacrifice for sins but a certain fearful looking for of that judgment I say which shall devour the adversaries And this all you Hebrews have reason to expect from Christ from what you very well know of the manner of proceeding in such cases under Moses For he that despised or rejected the whole yea or even any one particular instance of Moses's Law whereto death was threatned dyed without mercy if the thing was proved against him under the testimony of two or three witnesses And then of how much sorer punishment suppose ye shall this wilful sinner be thought worthy who hath by such wilful rejecting of all Christs Laws and Religion trodden under foot the Son of God as if he were not raised up again from the dead but were yet in his grave and hath accounted that blood of his which confirmed the New Covenant and wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing making it to have been justly shed as the blood of a Malefactor and hath done despite unto the Spirit of Grace and all its evidence by rejecting it as insufficient I have set down the place at large that the very Text it self may afford us an accumulated proof of the ensuing Explication But now as for this sin which being wilfully committed after the belief and acknowledgment of Christs Gospel is here said to have no help from Christs Sacrifice nor any benefit of his Propitiation it is not the sinful transgression of every Law of Christ no nor of any one but a total Apostasie and abrenunciation of them all The sin I say which being wilfully committed after the belief of Christs Gospel is here said to exclude us from all benefit of Christs Sacrifice is not the transgression of any of Christs Laws whatsoever nay nor of any one For the Corinthians were guilty of the wilful transgression of several Laws and that too after they had embraced the Faith of Christ. They were guilty of an indulged Lasciviousness Vncleanness and Fornication 2 Cor. 12.21 Nay one of them was guilty of it in such an instance as was not so much as named and much less practised among the Gentiles themselves viz. in a most incestuous marrying of his Step-mother or his Fathers wife 1 Cor. 5.1 And St. Peter a great Apostle after three years converse with his Lord and Master denies him three times and that not suddenly e're he could bethink himself but after a due space of time between one denial and another Luk. 22.57 58 59. All which he did in the most aggravated manner by accumulating perjuries and prophaneness upon the sin of disowning his Master for when his bare word would not be believed he began to curse and to swear that he knew him not Mar. 14.71 All these were sins wilful in their commission and some of them most highly criminal in their nature but yet none of them was excluded from the benefit of Christs Sacrifice for they all enjoyed it So that it is not any one transgression of a particular Law after men have embraced the Faith of Christ which is the un-atoned sin here mentioned But it is an utter rejecting of all the Laws of Christ and a total Apostasie from his whole Religion It is the renouncing of Christs Authority the disowning of his Gospel and falling quite off from him to Judaism or Paganism or something directly Antichristian which is the sin here intended And whosoever doth this wilfully after he has once acknowledged it and been convinced by it as most men if not every man must do who is guilty of it at all for him there remains no more sacrifice for sin but a fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation which shall devour him and all other Antichristian adversaries That the word which is here translated sin signifies sometimes not all sin in general but particularly this superlative height and aggregation of all sin an utter revolt from Gods service and Apostasie from his whole Religion appears plainly from 2 Pet. 2 where the Apostate Angels are called the Angels that sinned v. 4. And that this particular way of sinning by an universal Apostasie and falling quite off from the profession of the Christian Faith is that very sin which is here intended will appear from all those things which are spoken of it in this place 'T is plain from the Apostles exhortation against it Let us hold fast says he the profession of our faith and not revolt from it v. 23. From his further disswasion from it in the verse next but one not forsaking the Christian Assemblies which is a great step towards the disowning of Christ himself as the manner of some is v. 25. From his Character of it in the verses that follow it being a sin that includes in it all these instances of aggravation By it we become utterly Antichristian and Adversaries to Christ and his Religion the fiery indignation that is kindled by this sin shall devour all them who by reason of it are become Adversaries ver 27. By it we deny Christ to be risen and look upon the Son of God as yet in the Grave and under our feet we count his blood which was spilt for the confirmation of the New Covenant to have been the impure and unholy blood of a Malefactor justly executed we despise all the clear proof and convictive evidence of the Spirit of Grace which we once thought a sufficient Argument for his Religion and whereby we were moved to the acknowledgment of that truth of his which now we contumeliously reject Whosoever hath committed this sin saith the Apostle I will show him what he hath done he hath trodden under foot the Son of God and hath counted the blood of the Covenant wherewith he was sanctified an holy thing and hath done despite unto the Spirit of Grace ver 29. As for the sin then which is here spoken of it is plainly this viz. a sin that is contrary to the holding fast of our Christian profession that implies a forsaking of the Christian Assemblies that makes us open enemies and adversaries to Christ and his cause seeing thereby we deny Christ to be risen and affirm him to have been an Impostor and his blood to have been like that of the Thieves which were crucified with him unholy and impure as the blood of a Malefactor and set at nought all the miraculous proofs and despise all the convictive evidence of the Holy Ghost that Spirit of Grace which
and unprofitable were noted by the word it self which we translate idle yet is it no unusual thing in the Scriptures by several words to mean and intend more than in their literal sense they do express Thus are the abominable works of darkness mentioned Eph. 5 called unfruitful works where the meaning surely is not only that they bring in no profit or advantage but also that they are most deadly and mischievous v. 11 and the wicked servant spoken of Mat. 25 is called the unprofitable servant v. 30. And after the same use of speech our words which do not only tend to none but to very ill fruit may be called idle or unprofitable words And so they are in this place For the idle words whereof our Saviour speaks v. 36 are such words as are not only idle and unprofitable but positively wicked and evil being indeed false slanderous and reviling words as will appear from the consideration of these particulars For the words which are threatned in that 36. ver are such as are a sign not of a trifling but of an evil heart How can ye says he being evil speak good things for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh So that as a good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth or speaketh good things an evil man likewise out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth evil things v. 34 35. And being the fruits of an evil heart they are the signs not of an impertinent but of an evil man The tree is corrupt says he if the fruit be corrupt for the tree is known by its fruits v. 33. And since they are such words as are thus sinful in themselves and an argument of so much sin in us they shall in the last Judgment be charged upon us to condemn us For by thy words says he as well as actions thou shalt be justified and by thy words if they be such idle words as I mean thou shalt be condemned v. 37. The words then which are spoken of in this place from the 33. to the 38. ver are such as are a sign of a wicked heart as make a wicked man and render us in the last Judgment liable to condemnation But now words of this black dye and of these mischievous effects are not every idle and impertinent but false slanderous railing or otherwise sinful and forbidden words But false and slanderous words are especially struck at in this place such as were those lying and contumelious ones that occasioned all this discourse when the Jews most reproachfully charged his Miracles upon the Devil telling him that he cast out Devils through Beelzebub the Prince of the Devils v. 24. Upon occasion of which black calumny he proceeds in all the following verses to warn them against such blasphemous speeches demonstrating clearly the unreasonableness of them v. 25 to 31 the sinfulness of them ver 33 34 35 and the mischievous effects of them in the two next verses Such reproachful words as these let me tell you says he you shall be called to an account for as well as for your works and actions I say unto you and you may believe me for you will find it true that every idle or slanderous and reproachful word such as now you have spoken against me that men shall speak they shall give an account thereof in the day of judgment For when that day comes think you of it as you please now mens words as well as their actions shall be called to an account by thy words thou shalt be justified and if they have been such as yours now are by thy words thou shalt be condemned ver 36 37. And thus by all this it appears that the idle word here threatned by our Lord is not every word that is vain and useless but only such as are railing false or slanderous And in this sense some Manuscripts read the place For in the Book of Steph. it is not every idle but every wicked word that men shall speak they shall give an account thereof in the day of judgment So that as for this third scruple it is as groundless as was the former no good man need to be disquieted by it since they shall never be condemned for it CHAP. VI. Of the Sin against the Holy Ghost which is a fourth cause of scruple The CONTENTS Some good mens fear upon this account What is meaâ—â— in Scripture by the Holy Ghost Holy Ghost or Spirit is taken for the gifts or effects of it whether they be first ordinary either in our minds and understandings or in our wills and tempers or secondly extraordinary and miraculous Extraordinary gifts of all sorts proceed from one and the same Spirit or Holy Ghost upon which account any of them indifferently are sometimes called Spirit sometimes Holy Ghost Holy Ghost and Spirit are frequently distinguished and then by Holy Ghost is meant extraordinary gifts respecting the understanding by Spirit extraordinary gifts respecting the executive powers The summ of this Explication of the Holy Ghost What sin against it is unpardonable To sin against the Holy Ghost is to dishonour him This is done in every act of sin but these are not unpardonable What the unpardonable sin is Of sin against the ordinary endowments of the Holy Ghost whether of mind or will the several degrees in this all of them are pardonable Of sin against the Spirit Blaspheming of this comes very near it and was the sin of the Pharisees Mat. 12 but it was pardonable Of sinning against the Holy Ghost The Holy Ghost the last means of reducing men to believe the Gospel that Covenant of Repentance The sin against it is unpardonable because such sinners are irreclamable All dishonour of this is not unpardonable for Simon Magus dishonoured it in actions who was yet capable of pardon but only a blaspheming of it in words No man is guilty of it whilst he continues Christian. ANother causless ground of fear which disquiets the minds and affrights the hearts of good Christian people is the sin against the Holy Ghost They hear very dreadful things spoken of it for our Saviour Christ who knew it best and who at the last Day is to judge of it has told us plainly before-hand that he who blasphemeth the Holy Ghost shall never be forgiven neither in this world nor in the world to come Mat. 12.32 or as S t Mark expresses it he shall never have forgiveness but is liable to eternal damnation Mark 3.29 This is a fearful Sentence upon a desperate sin and seeing they are in darkness about it and do not well understand it they know not but that they themselves may be guilty of it nay some of a timorous temper and abused minds go further and think that they really are But to cure their fears and to quiet their minds in this matter there needs nothing more be done than to give them right apprehensions and a clear
utterly unpardonable and hopeless For our Lord himself in this very Chapter encourages their hopes by giving them a promise that some further means should still be used to cure their Infidelity after that they had blasphemed this telling these very men that the sign of his Death and Resurrection with the other evidences of the Holy Ghost which were to ensue upon it should be a further argument to satisfie them in what they inquired after viz. his being the Messiah or the Son of God For when certain of the Pharisees presently upon his finishing this Discourse of their Blaspheming of the Holy Spirit v. 37 made Answer to him saying Master we would see a sign from thee to confirm to us the truth of that pretension he answered as S t Matthew goes on an evil and an Adulterous Generation seeketh a sign and there shall no further sign be given it but only the sign of the Prophet Jonas and that indeed shall For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the Whales Belly and was afterwards deliver'd out of it to go and preach to the Ninevites so shall the son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth and after that rise again to preach by his Apostles to you and all the world sending to you for a further evidence still the Holy Ghost v. 38 39 40. So that as for this blasphemy of the spirit wherewith the Pharisees reviled it it was not utterly unpardonable but was still within the possibility of pardon For after they had committed it Christ promised them a further Argument in his Resurrection after the Example of Jonas which should be a new sign added to all that they had already seen to gain them over to faith or belief and thereby to pardon and forgiveness every sin being pardonable to him that believeth And this pardonableness of blaspheming of the spirit our Lord further intimates in that very place by a wary change of the phrase when he comes to speak of the unpardonableness of it calling the unpardonable blasphemy not a blasphemy against the spirit although it was the spirit which was indeed blasphemed v. 24 and whereof he had just made mention v. 28 but a blasphemy against the Holy Ghost which being as S t John says not yet given could not yet be blasphemed v. 31 32. But Thirdly The desperate and unpardonable sin here mentioned which shall never be forgiven neither in this world nor in that which is to come is a sin against the last and greatest evidence of all viz. the gift of tongues of prophecy and of other things called the Holy Ghost In all the other evidence that came before to win men to a belief of Christ's Religion which is the only means of pardon to the World God had still a reserve and resolved upon some further course if they proved ineffectual If the testimony of John Baptist to Christ's being the Lamb of God if the message of an Angel at his conception the Star at his birth and the Quire of Angels at his entrance into the World if the innocency of his life the wisdom of his words and the mightiness of his wonders in commanding the winds and seas in curing diseases in casting out Devils in restoring the weak to strength and the dead to life if all these prove unsuccessful and unable to perswade an Infidel and perverse Generation yet still God resolves to try one means more which before that time the World never saw nor heard of and that is the ample and most full effusion of the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles at Pentecost and upon others at the imposition of their hands for a long time after This further evidence shall still be given to subdue the stubbornness of mens unbelief which had proved too hard for all the former When I am departed from you says our Saviour to his Apostles I will send the Holy Ghost who is the Comforter or Advocate unto you And when he is come he shall plead my Cause more convincingly than the operations of the Spirit have done hitherto For he shall reprove and convince the world and those who remained Infidels after they had seen all the evidence of the Spirit of their own sin in not believing on me and of my righteousness and truth in saying I am the Messiah because he shall shew that I am owned above and am gone to my Father whence I have sent him down so plentifully upon you John 16.8 9 10. But when once God had given this proof he had done all that he designed for this is the last remedy which he had decreed to make use of to cure the infidelity of an unbelieving Age. So that if men shall use it as they have done all that went before and if instead of being perswaded by it they shall proceed not only to sleight and despise but what is more to revile and blaspheme it as they have already done with the Spirit then is the irreversible Decree gone out against them and God is unalterably resolved to strive no more with them but to let them dye in their unbelief If they should be won by it indeed and believe upon it be their former offences what they will no less than a blaspheming of the Spirit yet may they justly expect to be pardoned For the offer of Grace is universal Whosoever believes and is baptized shall be saved Mark 16.16 and nothing is impossible to him that believeth Mark 9.23 But when once men have gone so far as to be guilty of it their sin is unpardonable because their Faith is impossible For they have rejected all the evidence which any man can urge for their conviction seeing they have despised all that which God has offered Their infidelity is stronger than can be cured by any Argument that Christ either has or will afford to prevail over it so that they must dye in their sin and there is no hope for them Indeed if God so please there is no question but that after they have once blasphemed it he can still so melt and soften fashion and prepare their minds that afterwards they shall hearken to the incomparable evidence of the Spirit and the Holy Ghost which to any honest mind are irresistible But this sin is of so provoking a nature that when once they are guilty of it he will not He has past an irreversible Decree upon them never more to meddle with them so that they never will be pardoned because as things stand they never will be reclaimed Which is the very reason which the Apostle himself gives of the desperate state of Apostate Christians For by renouncing of that faith which upon the evidence both of the spirit and the Holy Ghost they had been before convinced of they despite says he the Spirit of Grace as it implies both the Spirit and the Holy Ghost too so that as for them it is impossible to renew them again unto
repentance that being such a sin as God will never give repentance to Heb. 6.6 The sinning against the Holy Ghost in this sence then as it denotes the gift of tongues of prophecy c. which is the last evidence that God is resolved to make use of for the conversion of an unbelieving World is that unpardonable sin which shall never be forgiven And yet even here in this limited and contracted sence of the word Holy Ghost we must still proceed with some caution For it is not every affront and dishonour that is put upon these gifts which is the sin here styled irremissible Simon Magus cast a very high indignity and reproach upon them in his actions for he went about to purchase the gift of tongues and other sacred illuminations called the Holy Ghost which fell upon men at the imposition of the Apostles hands as if they had been only a trick to get money or a fit thing to drive a trade withal and make a gainful merchandise When Simon saw that through the laying on of the hands of the Apostles the Holy Ghost was given he offered them money says S t Luke saying Give me also this power that on whomsoever I lay hands he may receive the Holy Ghost Acts 8.18 19. This was a very great abuse and a most unworthy comparing of the heavenly and holy Spirit of God to a mercetable ware and vendible commodity thinking it fit to serve any ends and to minister to the basest purposes of filthy lucre and covetousness But yet this sin against the Holy Ghost in its strictest acceptation was not the unpardonable sin it came very near it indeed and would hardly be remitted but still in all likelihood it was remissible And therefore S t Peter although he be very severe upon this sordid man for the high affront doth not yet pronounce an irreversible doom of damnation upon him but on the contrary exhorts him to repent that the sin of his heart may be forgiven Repent says he of this thy wickedness and pray God if perhaps the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee ver 22. But that which is the desperately damning sin against the Holy Ghost which shall never be forgiven either in this world or in that which is to come is the sinning against it not by interpretation only in our actions but directly in our words and expressions It is our speaking reproachfully and slanderously of it as the Pharisees did of the spirit when they attributed it to Beelzebub And therefore it is expresly called the speaking blasphemously against the Holy Ghost Whosoever speaketh blasphemously against the Holy Ghost when he shall come it shall never be forgiven him neither in this world nor in the world to come Matth. 12.21 32. The great weight lyes in that for this heavy doom he denounced upon them says S t Mark because they said he hath an unclean spirit Mark 3 30. And thus at length we see what that sin against the Holy Ghost is whose doom is so dreadful and whose case is so desperate under the Gospel It is nothing less than a slandering and reviling instead of owning and assenting to that last evidence which God has given us of the truth of the Gospel in the gifts of tongues prophecy and other extraordinary illuminations called the Holy Ghost So that no man who ownes Christ's Religion and thinks he was no Impostor and believes that these miraculous gifts of the Holy Ghost were no magical shows or diabolical delusions can ever be guilty of it No before he arrive to that he must not only be an Infidel to the faith but also a Blasphemer of it he must not only disbelieve this last and greatest evidence but disparage and rail against it If then there be any man who ownes Christ's Authority and obeys his Laws and believes his Gospel and hopes in its promises and fears its threatnings and expects that every word of that Covenant which was confirmed to us by the infallible evidence of the Spirit and the Holy Ghost shall come to pass he is not more guiltless of any sin than of this against the Holy Ghost for he doth not so much as sleight and disparage but ownes and submits to it If good men therefore are afraid by reason of the irremissibleness of the sin against the Holy Ghost they fear where they need not and their scruple is utterly unreasonable and groundless For let it be as unpardonable as it will that shall not hurt them for they can never suffer by it since whilst they continue such as now they are they cannot possibly be guilty of it or of any thing that comes near it CHAP. VII The Conclusion The CONTENTS Some other causless scruples The point of growth in Grace more largely stated A summary repetition of this whole Discourse They may dye with courage whose Conscience doth not accuse them This accusation must not be for idle words distractions in Prayer c. but for a wilful transgression of some Law of Piety Sobriety c. above mentioned It must further be particular and express not general and roving If an honest mans heart condemn him not for some such unrepented sins God never will BEsides these scruples already mentioned some good minds may be put in fear and doubt of the safety of their present state because S t John says that whosoever is born of God sinneth not being no longer a child of God if he do 1 Joh. 3.6 9. But the sin here spoken of as was observed above is defined by S t John himself at the fourth verse of this Chapter to be not every deviation or going beside the Law but a wilful transgression and rejecting of the Law it self And this indeed is inconsistent with a regenerate state and puts us out of Gods favour making us liable to eternal destruction But then the case for these sins is not desperate seeing if once we forsake them and repent of them we are as safe again as ever we were before we committed them For our repentance will set us straight and if we transgress not wilfully again we are without the reach of condemnation Others doubt whether when once they have wilfully sinned they ever can repent or shall afterwards be pardoned because they read of Esau that after he had sold his birth-right with the blessing that attended it when he would have inherited it afterwards he was rejected and found no place of a change of mind or repentance though he sought it carefully with tears Heb. 12.17 In answer to this it will be sufficient to observe that this change of mind or repentance which Esau sought but could not find was not in himself but in his Father Isaac It was not in himself I say for there he did find a place for it being he was really possessed of it For he was heartily sorry for his former folly in parting with his birth-right and for his present unhappiness in being
noble and excellent reward we are in a safe state and have no need to disquiet our Souls with fears and jealousies lest they should eternally miscarry If any person then has used Gods Grace and improved his Talents to this measure he has not been unprofitable and useless but has profited so far as is necessary to his happiness He is bound indeed still to advance higher and in every instance of Vertue to improve further but this he is not under the loss of Heaven but only under the danger of falling back into such a state of sin as would destroy the hopes of it again and the forfeiture of greater glory and rewards there when an intire obedience in all chosen instances and a particular reformation and repentance of all wilful sins is once secured there is so much growth in grace as is absolotely necessary an exalted pitch and compleat measures of this obedience with more ease and pleasure constancy and evenness with less mixture of voluntary sins which need particular repentance and with a greater freedom from innocent and unwilled infirmities is necessary to more absolute degrees and greater hights of glory but till that can be had this is sufficient to a mans salvation Several other scruples there are which are wont to disquiet and perplex the minds of good and honest people who are safe in Gods account although their Case seems never so hazardous in their own And of this sort are their fears that their obedience is unsincere because they have an eye at their own good and a respect to their own safety since they serve God in hopes to be better by him and out of a fear should they disobey of suffering evil from him They are afraid also that it is defective in a main Point for they cannot love and serve him in that comprehensive latitude which the Commandment requires viz. With all their heart and with all their soul and with all their mind They doubt they are past Grace and Pardon because they have sinned after that they have been enlightned and that wilfully and the Apostles affirms that for such there remains no more Sacrifice for sins Heb. 10.26 These doubts are still apt to disturb their peace and make sad their hearts and some others of like nature But of these and several others I have given sufficient Accounts above such as I hope may satisfie any reasonable man who is capable to read and to consider of them and thither I refer the Reader not thinking fit here to repeat them And thus at last we have seen when an honest and entire obedience is taken care for in the first place how plainly groundless those fears are which are wont to perplex the thoughts of good and safe yet ignorant and misguided people about their state of happiness and salvation And now I have done with all those points which I thought necessary to be enquired into to the end that I might shew every man now before-hand how he stands prepared for the next world and which at the beginning of this whole Discourse I proposed to treat of I have shown what that condition is of bliss or misery which the Gospel indispensably exacts of us and that as I take it so particularly that no man who will be at the pains to read and consider of it can overlook or mistake it what those defects are which it bears and dispenseth with what those remedies and means of reconciliation are which it has provided for us and when all these are taken care for how groundless all those other scruples are which are wont to disquiet honest minds about the goodness of their present state and their title to eternal salvation And upon the whole matter the sum of all amounts to this that when Christ shall come to sit in judgment at the last day and to pass sentence of life or death upon every man according to the direction of his Gospel he will pronounce upon every man according to his works If he has honestly and entirely obey'd the whole will of God in all the particular Laws before-mention'd never willfully and deliberately offending in any one instance nor indulging himself in the practice of any thing which he knows to be a sin he is safe in the Accounts of the last Judgment and shall never come into Condemnation Nay if he has been a damnable offender and has willfully transgressed either in one instance or in many in frequent repetitions of his sin or in few yet if he repent of it before death seize him and amend it ere he is haled away to Judgment he is safe still For he shall be judged according as his works then are when God comes to enquire of them so that if ever he be found in an honest obedience observing everything which he sees to be his duty and willfully venturing upon nothing which his Conscience tells him is sinful he is found in the state of Grace and Pardon and if he die in it he shall be saved All his unwill'd ignorances and innocent unadvisednesses upon his Prayers for pardon and his mercifulness and forgiveness of other men shall be abated all his other causes of fear and scruple shall be overlooked they shall not be brought against him to his Condemnation but in the honest and entire obedience which he hath performed in that shall he live If then we have an honest heart and walk so as our own Conscience has nothing whereof to accuse us we may meet Death with a good Courage and go out of the World with comfortable Expectations For if we have an honest and a tender heart whensoever we sin willfully and against our Consciences our own Souls will be our Remembrancers They will be a witness against us both whilst we are in this World and after we are taken out of it and brought to Judgment Mens Consciences says the Apostle shall accuse or excuse them in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men according to my Gospel Rom. 2.15 Indeed if men have harden'd their hearts in wickedness and sin'd themselves out of the belief of their duty having come to call evil good and good evil then their Consciences having no further sense of sin will have no accusations upon it But if they really believe the Gospel and study to know their duty and desire to observe it and are afraid to offend in any thing which they see is sinful whilst thus their heart is soft and their Conscience tender they cannot venture upon any sin with open Eyes but that their own hearts will both check them before and smite them afterwards They will have a witness against them in their own bosoms which will scourge and awake them so that they cannot approach death without a sense of their sin nor go out of the World without discerning themselves to be guilty If our own Conscience then cannot accuse us of the wilful and presumptuous breach of any of Gods Commandments and we know