the vertue and glory of them still remains they are a lasting demonstration of Gods peculiar presence with his Church in all Ages as they are of the truth of the Christian Religion for the Christian Church in all Ages since Christ and his Apostles is but one and therefore still inherits the glory as well as the Religion of former Ages In allusion to this the Christian Church is called Gods Building 1 Cor. 3. 9. and Eph. 2. 20 21 22. and are built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets Iesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone in whom all the building fitly framed together groweth into an holy Temple in the Lord in whom ye are also built together for an habitation of God through the Spirit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is a Spiritual Temple in opposition to the material Temple at Ierusalem which S. Peter calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a spiritual House or Temple 1 Pet. 2. 5. all which refers to this notion that the Christian Church is Gods Temple wherein he dwells Now though all this do most properly belong to the Christian Church as a spiritual Society that they are the Temple of the living God yet it is accommodated in Scripture to particular Christians and Philo also alludes to it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the mind of a wise and good man is in truth and reality the Palace and Temple of God every devout Soul is Gods Temple wherein he dwells an enlightned mind which is stored with all the treasures of divine wisdom and knowledge is his Debir or Oracle a pure heart is his Altar and devout prayers are spiritual incense and sweet perfumes the body it self is a consecrated place and is also called the Temple of God which must therefore be preserved pure and undefiled 1 Cor. 6. 19. nay our bodies are Sacrifices too which we must offer up to God by devoting them to his service Rom. 12. 1. for the Scripture loves to allude to the Temple and Aliar and Sacrifices of the Law which in a moral sense may very well be accommodated to the Christian Worship and Service as in their Typical signification they prefigured Christ whose Body was the true Temple where the Divine Glory dwelt who was both Priest and Sacrifice and by his death put an end to that Typical Dispensation only we may observe that when the Scripture mentions Gods or Christs dwelling with particular Christians it uses a more familiar style and seems rather to allude to a private house than a publick Temple Thus in Ioh 14. 23. If any man love me he will keep my words and my Father will love him and we will come unto him and make our abode with him and Rev. 3. 20. Behold I stand at the door and knock if any man hear my voice and open the door I will come in to him and sup with him and he with me This is all I can find in Scripture concerning the Union betwixt Christ and Christians and that this is the true account of it besides what hath been already urged will evidently appear from those Institutions of our Saviour which are the Instruments and Symbols of our Union to him which we commonly call Sacraments Baptism and the Lords Supper which represent and signifie both our external and real Union with him First our external Union Thus Baptism is a publick profession of the Christian Religion that we believe the Gospel of Christ owne his Authority and submit to his Government We are baptized in the Name of Christ that is we publickly owne him for our Instructor and Governour to believe whatever he hath taught and to do whatever he hath commanded And the Lords Supper is a foederal Rite which answers to the Feasts on Sacrifices under the Law whereby we renew our Covenant with our Lord and vow obedience and subjection to him hence these Institutions were by the Ancients called Sacraments in allusion to that Oath which Souldiers took to be true and faithful to their Prince when they were listed into his Army which was called Sacramentum Militiae or the Military Oath of this nature are Baptism and the Lords Supper a Vow and Covenant to be subject to Christ as our Head and Husband wherein our external and visible Union consists Secondly They signifie also our real Union to Christ thus Baptism signifies our profession of becoming new men our profession of conformity to Christ in his Death and Resurrection We are buried with Christ by Baptism into death that like as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father even so we also should walk in newness of life Rom. 6. 4. that is Baptism or our immersion under water according to the ancient Rite of administring it is a figure of our burial with Christ and of our conformity to his death and so signifies our dying to sin and walking in newness of life for the death of Christ must be considered not barely as a natural death a separation of soul and body but as a Sacrifice for sin to destroy the power and dominion of it and so our dying to sin that is ceasing from the practice of it is the truest conformity to the death of Christ and we must consider his Resurrection not only as his returning to life again but as his living to God his advancement into his spiritual Kingdom the design of which is to promote the interest of Religion and a divine life and so our walking in newness of life a vertuous and religious life is our conformity to his Resurrection makes us the true Subjects of his spiritual Kingdom which the Apostle tells us gives us an abundant assurance of a glorious resurrection that we shall in a proper sense rise with him because this new life wherein our spiritual Conformity to the resurrection of Christ consists is an immortal principle of life which can no more die than Christ can die again now he is risen from the dead Thus Baptism is called putting on Christ Gal. 3. 27. He that is baptized into Christ hath put on Christ that is hath engaged himself to be conformed to his image and likeness to adorn his mind with all those vertues and Graces which appeared in our Saviours life Thus the Lords Supper is a spiritual feeding on Christ eating his flesh and drinking his blood which signifies the most intimate Union with him that we are flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone Eph. 5. 30. That as we are redeemed by his Death and sufferings are the purchase of his blood and so as it were taken out of his Crucifyed body as the Woman was taken out of the Man so by this spiritual feeding on Christ we are transformed into the same nature with him as much as if we were of his flesh and bones This is a Sacrament wherein we celebrate the love of our dying Lord and express our most passionate love and devotion to him The memory of what he hath done
Law of Moses the motions of sin which were by the Law which grew more boisterous and unruly by the prohibitions of the law v. 8. did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death i. e. did betray us to those wicked actions which end in Death but now we are delivered from the law that being dead in which we were held that we should serve in newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter So that the reason why the Law of Moses was abrogated was because it could not make men good It nursed them up in a ritual and external Religion taught them to serve God in the letter by Circumcision and Sacrifices or an external Conformity to the letter of the law But the Gospel of Christ alone teacheth us to worship God with the Spirit to offer a reasonable Sacrifice to him to fulfil the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all that internal Righteousness of which those legal Ceremonies were the Signs and Sacraments This is the plain meaning of the Apostle which can never be reconciled with an imputed Righteousness which would make his argument foolish and absurd and therefore in other places he tells us what little reason we have to be so zealous for the law of Moses since we have the perfection of it in the Gospel what need is there of the Circumcision of the flesh which the law required when in the Gospel we have that Circumcision made without hands in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the Circumcision of Christ which is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the perfection of that fleshly Circumcision What need is there of legal washings and purifications when they are all eminently fulfilled in the washing of Regeneration in the Gospel Baptism Thus we are compleat in Christ who hath perfectly instructed us in the will of God and instituted such a Religion as is the perfection of all external Ceremonies Col. 2. Ver. 10 11 12. We must now offer a nobler Sacrifice than the law of Moses commanded not the Sacrifices of dead Beasts but of a living and active Soul Rom. 12. 1. Hence Christ is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the end of the law i. e. the perfection and accomplishment of the law as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies for righteousness to them that believe Rom. 10. 4. That is the Gospel of Christ requires that righteousness of us which the law did only typifie and represent that holiness and purity of mind which is the perfection of all legal righteousness for that Christ should be made the end of the law for righteousness by the imputation of his righteousness to us hath no foundation in the Text. The Apostle explains what he means by this in the following Verses where he gives us a description of the righteousness of the law and the righteousness of Faith The righteousness of the law is an external Conformity to the letter of the Law The man that doth them shall live in them i. e. shall enjoy all those temporal blessings of the Land of Canaan which were promised to the observance of the Law but the righteousness of Faith is a firm and stedfast belief of the Divine Authority of Christ that he is the Lord and more particularly a belief of his Resurrection from the dead as the last and great confirmation which God gave to the Divinity of Christs Person and Doctrine This is that Faith that overcomes the World and purifies the heart and transforms us into the likeness of God which is the perfection of all the ritual righteousness of the Law Upon this account Christ is said to be made unto us righteousness 1 Cor. 1. 20. But of him are you in Christ who of God is made unto us Wisdom and Righteousness and Sanctification and Redemption i. e. he is the Author of all this to us He is our Wisdom as he is our great Prophet and Teacher who instructs us in true Wisdom Our Righteousness as we are justified by Faith in him by a sincere belief of his Gospel which is the only Righteousness acceptable to God Our Sanctification because the law of the spirit of life in Christ Iesus makes us free from the law of sin and death that Divine and Spiritual law of Faith conquers the Power and Dominion of sin which the law of Moses could not do and our Redemption as by these means he hath deliver'd us from the bondage and pedagogie of the Jewish Law from the Idolatrous Customs of the Heathens and the Tyranny of wicked Spirits and from the wrath of God which is the just merit and desert of sin Thus you see how the Apostle opposes the righteousness of the law to the righteousness of Faith not as an Inherent and Personal to an Imputed Righteousness but as an External and Ritual to an Inherent real and substantial Righteousness this is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the foundation of all other mistakes in this matter that by the righteousness of the law and the righteousness of works most men understand an internal holiness the Conformity of our hearts and lives to all moral Precepts and Rules of a good life and then conclude that if this Righteousness will not please God nothing but an Imputed Righteousness can though I should rather have concluded that nothing can but the truth is the Righteousness of the Law and of Works in the New Testament signifies only an external Righteousness which cannot please God and that internal holiness which they call the righteousness of the Law is that very Righteousness of Faith which the Gospel commands and which God approves and rewards and this Imputed Righteousness is no where to be found that I know of but in their own fancies Let us now consider in what sense the Apostle opposes his own Righteousness to the Righteousness of God not having mine own Righteousness but the Righteousness which is of God by Faith and there is no great difficulty in this for the Apostle himself tells us that by his own righteousness he means the righteousness of the law and by the Righteousness of God the Righteousness of Faith And be found in him not having mine own righteousness which is of the law but that which is through the Faith of Christ the Righteousness which is of God by Faith and what that is you have already heard thus in Rom. 10. 3. For they being ignorant of Gods Righteousness and going about to establish their own righteousness have not submitted to the Righteousness of God where their own righteousness which the Jews so obstinately adhered to was the righteousness of the law and the Righteousness of God which they were ignorant of and would not submit to was the Righteousness of Faith for this was the great controversie between the Jews and Apostles which is the subject of this Epistle whether men were to be justified by the law of Moses or by the Gospel of Christ by a legal or Evangelical Righteousness as
Christ and coming to him and applying his merits and satisfaction and righteousness to our selves for pardon and justification and in those duties which are consequent upon such an Union and closure with Christ. For Christ having satisfied for our sins and fulfilled the righteousness of the law for us it is a plain and necessary consequence that we have nothing to do but to get an interest in the satisfaction and righteousness of Christ that they may be imputed to us for he is very ignorant of Christ who hopes that any thing else will avail him to Salvation Now that we may thus come to Christ and close with him it is absolutely necessary that we be sensible of our lost and undone condition out of Christ. How impossible it is for us to atone the wrath of God or to have any righteousness of our own which can bear the severe scrutiny of his justice and in a sence of this we must work our imagination and fancy into great terrours and agonies and a dismal fear of the unsupportable wrath of God and his natural and inexorable justice this is the spirit of bondage which we must lie under before we can attain to the Spirit of Adoption for we shall never value and prize Christ and go to him for Salvation till we are convinc't of our necessity of him and driven to him by the threatnings and terrours of the Law and the promise of ease and rest is made only to the weary and heavy laden and these only shall be satisfied who hunger and thirst after the imputed righteousness of Christ. And now being thus stung with sin it is time for us to look up to Christ as the Israelites did on the brazen Serpent that we may be healed now we must begin to see his fulness and perfection and suitableness to the wants and necessities of our Souls that he is our atonement and expiation our wisdom and righteousness all that we can desire or need And if it should so happen that the sense of our sins and unworthiness makes us afraid to come to Christ and apply him to our Souls we must then have recourse to our acquaintance with the Person of Christ to answer all our doubts and quiet our Consciences As for instance Dost thou object I am a great Sinner and will Christ save me the Answer is easie whom did Christ come to save whom doth God justifie but the ungodly did he take our flesh upon him and not our sins ballance all things together your sins and Christs merits together and the greatness of your sins should not so much discourage you from coming to Christ as the greatness of his merits should encourage you to come to him For where sin abounded Grace did much more abound Compare your distress and Christ's compassion together your wants and Christ's fulness together your unworthiness and Christ's freeness together your desires and Christ's invitations together your own weakness and Christ's strength together Satan's objections and Christ's answers together and now if Christ do not prevail above all thy fears thou art not worthy to be acquainted with him Nay further if thou objectest what have I to do with Christ why should he have to do with me who have such an unholy vile hard blind and most wicked heart the objection you see is full and home to the purpose but mark the answer O! for the Lord's sake dishonour not the Grace of Christ it is true thou canst not come to Christ till thou art laden humble and separated from thy sins yet remember for ever that no more sorrow for sin no more separation from sin is necessary to thy closing with Christ than so much as makes thee willing or rather not unwilling that the Lord should take it away and know if thou seekest for a greater measure of humiliation antecedent to thy closing with Christ than this thou showest the more pride therein who wilt rather go into thy self to make thy self holy and humble that thou maist be worthy of Christ than go out of thy self unto the Lord Iesus to take away thy sin In a word who thinkest Christ cannot love thee until thou makest thy self fair and when thou thinkest thy self so which is pride wilt thou think otherwise of Christ. And now the reason of all this is very plain from our acquaintance with Christ for he is our Physician and therefore we must not think of healing our selves but must go to him with all our Diseases and Sores about us that he alone may have the honour of healing us He is a Fountain set open for sin and for uncleanness and therefore we must go to him with all our filthiness to be cleansed and washed for if we be first clean there is no need of a Fountain He is all fulness and therefore it is not fit we should carry any thing to him as if he needed any thing from us He is our Righteousness and therefore if we have any we must leave all our righteousness behind us when we go to him He is all beauty and loveliness and therefore we must not carry any beauty to him but receive it all from him So that all we have to do in this great work is to go to Christ weary and sick and filthy and naked stript of every thing but our sins and impurities to receive ease and health and fulness and beauty from him Christ is the gift of God and therefore we must only receive him by the hand of Faith and apply him to our Souls and then what a blessed change and Metamorphosis is there presently made in us for though we continue as we were yet we have all in Christ. We are now united to him and made his Members and Spouse and so have an interest in all his merits and fulness Christ saith to a believer with my body yea with my blood I endowe thee and a Believer saith to Christ with my Soul I thee worship as if Christ and a Believer were marryed by the Liturgy And now a Sinner may with the greatest confidence look Justice in the face as being out of its reach A Soul in Christ is actually united to him and One with him and being so no sentence of condemnation can fall on him but the same must light upon Christ himself and who would desire to be more secure than Christ is as a Woman in marriage though she owe never so many debts yet the arrest doth not light upon her but upon her Husband O blessed priviledge and who would be afraid of running into debt with God when he hath such a Husband to discharge all And then how vile and impure soever men are here is their comfort when they are marryed to Christ this is their glorious priviledge Christ's beauty and loveliness shall be put upon them his lilly whiteness shall be put upon the Saints And to Crown all when they are once thus engrafted into Christ and made his Spouse and Members
of his body they are secure to Eternity For nothing that ever was a Member can be lost to Eternity for is Christ divided can he lose a Member of his body then his body is not perfect No no fear not O ye Saints neither sin nor Satan can dissolve your Union with Christ but what if sin should make them no Saints would not that endanger the dissolveing of this Union For as the same Author sweetly reasons if any branch be pluckt away from Christ it is either because Christ is not able to keep it or because he is willing to lose it and why not because it will not stay he is able surely to keep it for he is strengthned with the Godhead and he is not willing to lose it for why then should he shed his bloud for it And as another great acquaintance of Christs speaks Weakness that is no strength no Grace no nor so much as sense of poverty do not debar us from God's mercy and the reason is very precious and convincing for the Husband is bound to bear with the Wife as the weaker Vessel and shall we think God will exempt himself from his own Rules and not bear with his weak Spouse Christ hath taken upon him to purge his Spouse and make her fit for himself so that if she be not purged and cleansed and made fair and lovely whose fault can it be but his own and surely that can be no just reason for a divorce Thus you see what it is to come to Christ and accept of him and close with him the result of which is so far as I can understand it to be content to be saved by Christ without being either humble or holy fair or beautiful any otherwise than as he is pleased to make us so by his satisfaction for our sins and the imputation of his righteousness to us Let us now consider what duties are consequent upon such a union and closure of the Soul with Christ and they are consequential conjugal affections As first a mighty love for her Saviour and head and Husband the Soul must be enamoured with the beauty and loveliness and preciousness of Christ must form pleasant and charming ideas of him and feel great ravishments and transports of passion for him You must be sick of love to Christ O ye Saints and let him lye as a bundle of Myrrhe always between your Breasts Christ is maximè diligibilis as the Schoolmen speak he is the very abstract and Quintessence of beauty he is a whole Paradise of delight he is the flower of Sharon enriched with orient Colours and perfumed with the sweetest savour O wear this flower not in your bosoms but in your hearts and be always smelling to it and show your love to this lovely Saviour You must delight in his embraces and thirst after a more intimate acquaintance with him you must never be satisfied one moment without him but must follow him from one Ordinance to another and never be satisfied unless you meet with Christ and enjoy Communion with him in Ordinances this is the Foundation of the Saints love to Ordinances that there they meet with the beloved of their Souls and enjoy the sweet caresses and endearments of his love there they hear of his beauty and loveliness and riches and fulness and alsufficiency and though Evangelical truths will not down with a natural heart such an one had rather hear some quaint point of some vertue or vice stood upon than any thing in Christ yet when the Grace of God hath altered him than of all truths the truths of Christ savour best those truths that come out of the mouth of Christ and out of the Ministry concerning Christ they are most sweet of all Such sanctified Souls and Ears loath all dull insipid moral discourses which are perpetually inculcating their duty on them and troubling them with a great many rules and directions for a good life which he is pleas'd to call the quaint Points of Vertue and Vice for this is not to enjoy Christ in Ordinances they go away from such entertainment without having met with the beloved of their Soul without hearing any news from him or having the least glympse of his beauty and perfections which is a plain contradiction to the nature and design of Ordinances which are only for our enjoyment of Communion with Jesus Christ. That is to unload our Consciences and disburden our sins on him in our Confessions and to beg of him the imputation of his righteousness to make us lovely and to put our Souls into some raptures and amorous passions to him and to hear some good news from him by his Ministers how much he loves us and longs after us how pittiful he is to us ready to overlook all our miscarriages and cover all our deformities with his own beauty and loveliness and to take us to the enjoyment of himself that where he is we also may be perpetually to behold his glory and solace our selves in his love Secondly another consequential conjugal Act is obedience to our spiritual Husband a duty which few Wives care for and the truth is though the Gospel of Christ be very plain and express in exacting this from them and inculcates it so much that it savours too strong of a legal spirit and dispensation yet it is very hard to find a proper place for it in this new Religion or to deduce it from an acquaintance with Christs Person For this is not necessary at all to our coming to Christ and closing with him nay it is a great hindrance to it for we must bring nothing to Christ with us the marriage is consummated without it and then we have less need of it than before for then we are adorned with the beauty of Christ are holy with his holiness we are delivered from the guilt of sin by his expiation he must look to it to see the debt discharged which he hath now taken upon himself and we are righteous with his righteousness which gives us an actual right to glory and we need no righteousness of our own to save us which were to suppose a defect in the righteousness of Christ so that how obedience should come in is hard to say It is concluded on all hands by those who are most intimately acquainted with the Person of Christ that it is but a consequential duty that which ought to follow our Espousals with Christ and Justification by him as a fruit and effect of it but yet the reason of it is not evident Some tell us that it is due upon account of gratitude and thankfulness to our Saviour which I cannot so well understand unless our righteousness and obedience be due to Christ in thankfulness to him for saving us without obedience and righteousness which is just as broad as long and we get nothing by the bargain Especially considering that this is hardly reconcileable with that essential condition of accepting Christ
was all the Righteousness he had while he was a Pharisee and this he accounts dung and loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Iesus Christ our Lord i. e. for the sake of the Gospel which is the knowledge of Christ as you hear'd above which contains a more excellent and perfect Righteousness than the Law did and that he might win Christ i. e. that he might attain to an Evangelical Righteousness such as Christ was the Preacher and example of and that he might be found in him not having his own Righteousness which is of the law that at the last day he might appear to be a sound and sincere Christian whose righteousness does not consist only in some external observances or an external Conformity to Gods Law but that which is through the Faith of Christ the Righteousness which is of God by Faith i. e. that inward and vital principle of holiness that new nature which the Gospel of Christ requires of us and which this Christian Faith will work in us which is a Righteousness of Gods own chusing which he commands and which he will reward To confirm all this we must observe a double Antithesis in the words the Righteousness of the law is opposed to the Righteousness which is by the Faith of Christ and my own Righteousness opposed to the Righteousness of God now the surest way to understand the meaning of this is to consider how these phrases are used in Scripture The Righteousness of the law as you have already hear'd is an external Righteousness which consists in washings and purifications and Sacrifices or an external Conformity to the moral Law the Righteousness which is by the Faith of Christ is an Internal Righteousness which consists in the renovation of our minds and Spirits in the government of our thoughts and passions which is therefore called being born again and becoming new Creatures and rising again with Christ and putting off the old man and being renewed in the spirit of our minds and putting on the new man which after God is created in Righteousness and true Holiness The meaning of all which phrases is that that Righteousness which God requires of us under the Gospel must be an inward principle of love and obedience which changes our natures and transforms us into the image of God as much as if we were born again and made new Creatures Hence St. Paul tells us that the reason why God sent Christ into the World in our nature to die as a Sacrifice for our sins and to confirm and seal the new Covenant with his blood was that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit Rom. 8. 3 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the righteousness of the law that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as St. Chrysostom expounds it that which the law was designed to work in them but was found too weak to effect it by reason of the greater power and prevalency of sin i. e. the inward holiness and purity of mind which was represented and signified by those external Ceremonies of Circumcision washing purifications and Sacrifices this was the design of the Gospel to work in us that internal holiness and purity which is the perfection and accomplishment of the Typical and Figurative Righteousness of the Law I know very well that this place is expounded of the imputation of Christs Righteousness that we fulfil the Righteousness of the Law not personally but imputatively but what reason can there be assigned for this besides that they will expound Scripture so which no man can help for is there any mention here of the Righteousness of Christ that he fulfilled all Righteousness for us and that his Righteousness is imputed to us and so we fulfil the Righteousness of the law in him And we ought to consider how consistent such an interpretation is with the Apostles design which is to show the great vertue and efficacy of the Gospel in delivering us from the power of sin which the law could not effect The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Iesus that divine and spiritual law which Christ hath given us which governs our minds and spirits and is the principal of a new spiritual life makes us free from the law of sin and death from the power and dominion of sin which is called a law and the law in our members warring against the law of our minds Rom. 7. 21 23. for what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh what the law could not do i. e. govern our minds and passions deliver us from the law of sin and death from the Power and Dominion of our lusts this God effected by sending Christ into the World to publish the Gospel to us and to confirm all those great promises and threatnings contained in it with his own blood That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit how can imputation come in here What pretty sense would this make of the Apostles Argument The Law was too weak to make men throughly good to conquer their love to sin and to reform their hearts and lives and therefore God sent his Son into the World What for To give them better laws and more excellent promises and more powerful assistances to do good No by no means but to fulfil all righteousness for them that they may fulfil the righteousness of the law not by doing any thing themselves but by having all done for them by having this perfect Righteousness of Christ imputed to them there was no reason surely to abrogate the law of Moses for this end it might have continued in full force still and have been as available to Salvation as the Gospel is with the supplemental Righteousness of Christ But the weakness of the law which the Apostle complains of was not the want of an imputed Righteousness which might have been had as well under the Law as under the Gospel if God had pleased but a want of strength and power to subdue the sinful appetites of men it was weak through the flesh by reason of the greater prevalency of sensual lusts which the law could not conquer and therefore the Gospel of our Saviour must supply this defect not by an imputed Righteousness but by an addition of greater power to enable men to do that which is good to fulfil the external righteousness of the law by a sincere and spiritual obedience Much to the same purpose the Apostle discourses in Rom. 7. Ver. 4 5 6. Wherefore my Brethren you also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ who put an end to that imperfect dispensation by his death that you should be marryed to another even to him who is raised from the dead that we should bring forth fruit unto God for when we were in the flesh under that carnal and fleshly dispensation of the
else but to come for Gods call is out of free Grace and therefore he calls for no more than only to come up and possess the Lords fulness But not to insist upon some particular sayings let us consider the whole progress of the Soul as they represent it to a closure with Christ the several steps and degrees whereby men are brought at last to an Union with the Lord Iesus and they are Conviction Compunction Humiliation and Faith which is the uniting Grace now if there be nothing of forsaking sin included in all this then men must be united to Christ before they forsake their sins it were easie to produce the concurrent judgments of many Authors for what I shall now say but that would be too tedious and therefore I shall confine my self to Mr. Shephards Sound Believer as Orthodox a Book as ever was writ and which to this day is in too many peoples hands Now Conviction of sin according to this Author is a great sense of the evil of sin and the evil after sin of its abominable and accursed nature and those just judgments which follow sin that the Sinner must die and that eternally for sin if it remain in this state it is now in and no man can deny but that this is as it ought to be men must be awakened into a serious consideration of the evil which they have done and of the punishment which they have deserved before they will reform their lives reform nay now you are out this is not the end of Conviction to reform sin that is a legal way but compunction is the end of Conviction well then what is this Compunction why compunction is first a great fear of being damned when a man is thus convinced of sin he sees Death wrath Eternity near unto him and hence hath no hope to escape it as now he is and therefore does fear next to this succeeds a great sorrow and mourning for sin the Lord having smitten the Soul or shot the arrows of fear into the Soul it therefore grows exceeding sad and heavy and that which perfects this compunction is a separation from sin this is something like if they mean as they speak but if you would not mistake them by a separation from sin you must not understand a leaving and forsaking sin but such a separation from sin as is consistent with living in it for it is nothing else but a being willing or rather not unwilling that the Lord should take it away the Lord doth not wound the heart to this end that the Soul should first heal it self before it come to the Physician but that it might seek out or feeling its need be willing and desirous of a Physician the Lord Iesus to come and heal it it is the great fault of many Christians that either their wounds and sorrows are so little they desire not to be healed or if they do they labour to heal themselves first before they come to the Physician for it they will first make themselves holy and put on their Iewells and then believe in Christ so that all he means by a separation from sin is to be content that Christ by an irresistible power should take away our sins by this separation the Soul is cut off from the will to sin not from all no nor from any sin in the will for that must be mortified by a Spirit of Holiness after the Soul is implanted into Christ. Now this is down-right non-sense for he must be a very subtil man who can distinguish between a will to sin and sin in the will and all that can be made of it is this that this separation from sin is a willingness or rather a not unwillingness that Christ should take away our sins against our wills and therefore he does well to tell us that this separation from sin is no part of our sanctification as any man would easily have guest by his description of it the whole design of this compunction of this fear and sorrow and separation from sin is not that we might forsake sin but to work humiliation in us which is a third step towards an Union with Christ Now this humiliation is the work of the spirit whereby the Soul being broken off from self conceit and self-confidence in any good it hath or doth submitteth unto and lieth under God to be disposed of as he pleases this self confidence from which the Soul must be broke off is any hope of pleasing God by repentance or reformation or any thing he can do for when men feel this compunction of spirit for their sins the great danger is lest they should seek ease by repenting of their sins and reforming their lives that as their sins have provoked God to anger against them so now if they can reform and leave those sins or if they repent and be sorry for them if now they pray and hear and do as others do they have some hopes as well they may if they do all this that this will heal their wounds and pacifie the Lord towards them when they see there is no peace in a sinful course they will try if there be any to be found in a good course this indeed every man naturally would have thought to have been a very good way but it is a dangerous mistake for while it is thus with the Soul he is uncapable of Christ for he that trusts to other things to save him or makes himself his own Saviour or rests in his duties without a Saviour that is according to this Author all those who repent and reform upon the Convictions of their Consciences he can never have Christ to save him So that true humiliation is this when the Lord Christ hath made the Soul feel not only its inability to help it self but also it s own unworthiness that the Lord should help it that so it may lye down under God to be disposed of as he pleases that is to be contented to be saved or damned as shall best please God and when the Soul is brought to this pass then it is vas Capax a Vessel capable though unworthy of Grace and now they are made thus hollow and empty by compunction and humiliation they are capable of receiving and holding Christ as a hollow and empty Vessel is of receiving and holding any thing that is put into it this is a new notion of our Union to Christ that it is a receiving Christ into us as a hollow Vessel receives any liquor that is poured into it however this is a very Philosophical account of the nature of humiliation that it is to bring a man to such a thorough sense of his inability to please God that he shall never dare to be so prophane as to attempt it but must leave repentance and reformation of life to carnal and Christless men and then to make him so sensible of his own unworthiness and how just it is with
argument that sin is his Master which rules and governs especially if this be often and such a man surely is none of Christs Freemen And therefore not to fail Thirdly When sin carries it in spight of all opposition then it is the Law of sin and the power of sin that is against all external discouragements all the threatnings of the Law of God the Scepter of the Gospel the love and mercy of God or his wrath and justice the Death Sufferings Agonies Wounds Blood of Iesus Christ the reproof of the Word Ministers Christians his own resolutions vows promises purposes c. So that it seems when sin carries it in despight of all external oppositions only it is the mark of an unregenerate man but when it carries it both against external and internal oppositions that is a sign of a regenerate man for a regenerate man has the same external oppositions to preserve him from sin that an unregenerate man hath and besides these he hath the internal oppositions the checks of his own Conscience c. which he says the unregenerate man has not And fourthly When it is sinning and no sense of sin no after repentance for it then it is the Law of sin now what bad man is there who does not at one time or other repent of his sins and complain of them and how many are there that repent of their sins and make large Confessions of them and yet return to them again so that there are no men but do at one time or other express some sorrow for their sins which he calls Repentance and there are a great many who pretend thus to be sorry for their sins who it is to be feared are never the better men for it and yet were there any such who sin without any sense of it they would be much better than these regenerate men who feel the gripings of their Consciences for sin and yet return to it The result is this That there is no great matter to chuse between the regenerate and the unregenerate man only as they order the matter the regenerate man hath the better name but is the worse man that if we come to external evidences the regenerate man hath all the reason in the World to fear that he is unregenerate and the unregenerate man hath some little reason to hope that he is regenerate and is not Sanctification an excellent mark now of our Union to Christ when a regenerate man may be full as bad or worse than the unregenerate Indeed it is wonderful to consider how little a matter will serve for an evidence of Grace after all their talk of Sanctification when they come to administer comfort to distressed Consciences Oh! saith the Soul I find sin prevail and how can I be comforted not by the mark of Sanctification sure Answ. I will subdue your iniquities and cast your sins into the midst of the Sea Obj. But the Devil will be busie with me where-ever I go Answ. God hath said it I will tread down Satan under your feet Obj. But I cannot go to God by prayer to fetch comfort Comfort what hast thou to do with comfort get quit of thy sins first and then it is time enough for comfort Answ. Though it be so yet believe and thou shalt have thy desire but I doubt the Soul that cannot pray cannot believe neither Obj. But I am afraid I shall fall away from God afraid of it thou art fallen away from God already if sin prevail so much for sin is the great Apostacy from God Answ. None can pluck thee out of Christs hands neither sin nor the Devil but how if they be not in Christs hands yet sin I doubt may keep them out and if God cut off barren branches from this spiritual Vine there is some danger that putrid and rotten branches will not escape And God hath said I have made an everlasting Covenant with thee that I will not turn away from thee to do thee good Obj. This is good news had I a right to the promise but alas I cannot believe and take a naked promise Answ. Dost thou desire to believe and to have Christ and say thus If it were possible Christ and Heaven should be separated I would rather desire Christ without Heaven than Heaven without Christ. Obj. But this is a hard matter and I cannot say I truly desire Christ on such terms as I should this saying is the best sign of Grace I have met with yet for it is an Argument he is an honest man who will not contradict the natural sense of his mind and say he can do that which is impossible to be done for it is a very odd proposal in order to comfort a poor Soul that he must be willing to be damned with Christ before he must take comfort in hopes of being saved by him Answ. But is it the grief of thy heart that thou canst not deny thy self and desirest thou rather than be separated from Christ to close with Christ upon any terms Obj. Alas I am so far from being grieved as I ought that I rather find a heart that will not grieve and mourn for sin c. certainly they are at cross purposes their Objections and Answers do so ill agree what is matter for mourning for sin man Canst thou desire to have Christ upon any terms though it be to be damned with him Answ. Hast thou any will to it mark the place and whosoever will let him take of the waters of life freely not that every one that will have Christ shall have him but art thou willing to part with thy sins But the poor Soul saith again I fear I shall never do this But art thou willing that Christ should make thee willing against thy will and pitch thee upon a promise and hold thee there for shame poor Soul refuse not this then comfort thy self thou hast a right to Gods promises Thus this evidence of Sanctification is dwindled away into a desire to be willing nay into a desire to be made willing and he is a strange man who cannot go so far But then fourthly I observe further That when they have a mind to take down the confidence of men who are apt to presume too soon that their condition is good they do so magnifie the attainments of Hypocrites who shall never go to Heaven that it is impossible for any sanctified man to do more than an Hypocrite may do so that notwithstanding any evidences of Sanctification which he can discover in himself for ought he or any body else can tell he may be a Hypocrite still which quite spoils the evidence of Sanctification because we cannot distinguish a sanctified man from a Hypocrite Thus for Example One may plead I have left my sins I once lived in and am now no Drunkard no Swearer no Lyar I answer Thou mayst be washed from the mire the pollution of the World and yet be a Swine in Gods account which