And I beseech the Infinite Mercie to pardon these and all others as fully freely and upon the same termes I desire pardon for mine own I have but Two Things more to say and the One concernes the Vulgar Reader 1. That this Book seems no way lyable to the Objection of Obscurity which hath been sometimes made against some other parts of this Authors Writings the Style here being more easie and Popular as first prepared for His Charge at Newcastle Though to say the truth The Darkness was most-what in the Readers Eye and not in the Object or Authors Writings 2. That the longer the world lasts the more seasonable every day then other will this Book be yea so it must needs be the Essential parts thereof treating of and proving Christs Coming to Judgement The Resurrection and Life Everlasting If any One shall either by reading the Book or the Preface be any thing bettered I beseech him make his Return in Prayers for the Church of England once the Envie and Fear now by the folly of her own children made the scorn of her Aemula That the Lord would so build up her walls set up her Gates and erect her Towers That Her Militancie in his strength may be victorious for His Truth and at last changed into a Triumph in His Glory Which shall be the earnest Request of Her most Unworthy Son and the Readers Humble Servant in the Lord Jesus B. O. ERRATA In the Tenth Book Fol. 3137. lin 16. read some 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of R. In this Book Fol. 3327. lin 26. read Fifth Chapt. Fol. 3789. lin 16. read Cui à nobis reddenda A TABLE Of the Principal Arguments of the several Sections and Chapters contained in this BOOK SECT I. Of Christs Sitting at the Right Hand of God Of the Grammatical sense of the Words and of the Real Dignity answering thereto CHAP. I. Of the Grammatical sense of the words Heb. 10. 12. But this man after he had offered one Sacrifice c. and whether they be meerly Metaphorical pag. 3307 2. Of the Real Dignitie contained in this Article viz. The Exaltation of Christ That Christ was exalted both as the Son of God and the son of David p. 3311 3. In what sense Christs humane Nature may in what sense it may not be said to be infinitely exalted The Question concerning the Ubiquity of Christs Bodie handled p. 3317 4. A Paraphrase upon the sixth of S. John In what sense Christs flesh is said to be truly meat c. What it is To eat Christs Flesh and drink his Blood Of Eating and Drinking Spiritual and Sacramental and whether of them is meant John 6. 56. Of Communion in one kind and Receiving Christs Blood per Concomitantiam Tollets Exposition of Except ye Eat And Drink by disjunction turning And into Or confuted and Rules given for better expounding like Cases How Christ dwells in Us and We in Him The Application All which be seasonable Meditations upon the Lords Supper p. 3328 5. The Great Attribute of Christ His being the Chief Corner stone handled in the foregoing Chapter prosecuted more amply in this Christ is the Foundation of the Apostles and Prophets How Christians being built upon this Foundation do grow into an Holy Temple p. 3348 SECT II. Of Christs Lordship or Dominion Phil. 2. 11. That every tongue should confess c. p. 3358 CHAP. 6. What it is to be a Lord. Though there be many called Lords yet there is but One Absolute Lord. ibid. 7. In what Respects or upon what Grounds Christ by peculiar Title is called The Lord. And first of the Title it self Secondly of the Real Grounds unto this Title 3362 8. What our confession of Christ to be The Lord importeth and how it redoundeth to the glory of God the Father SECT III. Of Christs Coming to Judgment CHAP. 9. 2 Cor. 5. 10. insisted upon p. 3375 10. Of the Natural Notions which the Heathens had and the Internal Experiments which every true Christian may have answering to those Notions of a final Judgment 3377 11. By what Authority of Scripture this exercise of the final Judgment is appropriated unto our Lord Jesus Christ p 3390 12 The manner of Christs coming to Judgment which was the third General proposed in the ninth Chapter p. 3401 SECT IV. Of the Resurrection of the Dead CHAP. 13. The Belief of the Article of the Resurrection of high concernment malignantly impugned by Satan and his Agents needs and deserves our best Fortification The Heathens had Implicite notions of a Resurrection The obstacle of impossibility removed by proof of this Conclusion That though all things were annihilated yet God is able to retrieve or recover The Numerical same p. 3422 14. This Argument drawn from Seed sown 1 Cor. 15. 36. c. is a concludent proof of the resurrection of the Bodie p 3434 15. The Objections of the Atheist and the Exceptions of the Naturalist both put fully home and as fully answered The falsitie of the Supposals and Paradoxes rather then Principles of the Atheist discovered and made even palpable by ocular demonstration and by Instances in Bodies Vegetant and Sensitive A Scruple that might trouble some pious mind after all this satisfied A short Application of the Doctrin contained in the whole Chapter p 3444 16 The Apostles method 1 Cor. 15. 16 17 20. in proving the Resurrection peculiar and yet Artificial His way of Natural or reciprocal Infeference both Negative and Assertive justified and shewed That both these Inferences naturally arise and may concludently be gathered from the Text and from the Principles of Christian Belief Wherein the witness false upon supposition ver 14 15. should consist That Philosophical Principle Deus et Natura nihil faciunt frustra divinely improved Gods special and Admirable works have ever a Correspondent that is some extraordinary end How sin is taken away by Christs Death How by his Resurrection How we are justified by Christs Resurrection How we may try our selves and know whether we rightly believe this Article of the Resurrection or no. p 3455 SECT V. Of the Article of Everlasting Life CHAP. XVII Rom. 6. 21 22 23. What fruit had ye then of those things c. The Connexion of the fifth and sixth Chapters to the Romans A Paraphrase upon the sixth chapter The importance of the phrase Dead to sin No Christians in this life so dead to sin as to come up to the Resemblance of Death natural True Christians dead to sin in a proportion to civil death All Christians at least all the Romans to whom S. Paul writes did so in Baptism professe themselves dead to sin and vow death to sin by a true Mortification thereof All have in Baptism or may have a Talent of Grace as an Antidote or Medicine against the deadly Infection of sin as a strengthning to make us victorious over sin Three Motives to deter us from the service of sin 1. It is fruitless 2. It
Cause And we may safely Infer First That unless the Son of God had been incarnate Gods Goodness to us had not been so admirably manifested Secondly Unless the Son of God had become man man could not have been delivered from the fetters and chains of sin much less restored to his first dignitie And yet more in that the Son of God became man this is an Argument evident to us from the Effect that man by sin had become the Son of Satan Sin then was the cause of Christs Incarnation and Christs Incarnation is the cause or means of our deliverance or Redemption from sin Again Unless man by Sin had become the servant of sin and bond-man of Satan the Son of God had not taken upon him the Form of a Servant But in as much as the Son of God was found in the true Form of a Servant this is an Argument from the Effect evident to convince our consciences that we Sons of men were by nature the servants or bond-men of Satan Lastly Unless the wages of sin and of our service done to Satan by working the works of sin had been death the true and natural Son of God had not been put to death Our sins then and the wages due to our sins that was death were the Causes of his death And in that he truly dyed for us This is an Argument evident from the Effect Therefore we were dead in our sins Be it so Yet seeing the Son of God died for our sins before he was raised from the dead how saith our Apostle in the 17. verse If Christ be not raised ye are yet in your sins Could these Corinthians or any others be still in their sins after their sins were taken away Or will any man deny that their sins were taken away by Christ's death at the very instant of his souls departure from the bodie or when he said Consummatum est it is finished What was finished The work which he undertook and that was the Taking away of our sins or the work of our Redemption Now if this work were finished when our Saviour Christ said It is finished these Corinthians sins were taken away before Christs Resurrection And if sin by Christs death had been actually and utterly taken away our Apostles Inference in this place had been unsound none had remained in their sins albeit Christ had not risen again Sin then even the sins of the world were taken away by Christs death but not actually and utterly taken away If sin had been so taken away by Christs death there had been no such necessity of Christs Resurrection from the dead as our Apostle here presseth upon the Corinthians not as matter of Opinion but as a Fundamental Principle of Faith It remains then to be declared In what sense or how far sin was taken away by Christs death In what sense it hath been or how far it shall be taken away by his Resurrection 7. First then Christs death was a Ransome all-sufficient for the sins of the world the full price of redemption for all mankind throughout the world from the beginning to the end of it But did not many who died before Christ die in their sins They did yet He was promised to our first Parents To the end that even these might not die in their sins How these come to forfeit their Interest in the Promise made to Adam and to all that came after him That we leave to the Wisdom of God Of this we are sure That the Wisdom and Son of God did die for all men then living and for all that were to live after unto the worlds end And in as much as he dyed for all he is said to take away the sins of all that is he payed the full Ransome for the sins of all and purchased A General Pardon at his Fathers hands and he himself by dying became an universal inexhaustible soveraign Medicine for all sins that were then extant in the world or should be extant in man untill the worlds end So then by his death he took away the sins of the world in a Twofold Sense First In that he payed the full Ransome for the sins of all men Whatsoever sins were past could be no prejudice to any so they would imbrace Gods Pardon sealed by Christs death and proclaimed by his Apostles and Disciples after his death In this sense we may say The Kings General Pardon takes away all offences and misdemeanors against his Crown and Dignitie albeit many afterwards suffer for such Misdemeanors only because they do not sue out their Pardons or crave allowance of them Christ is said again to take away the sins of the world by his death in as much as by his death he became the universal and soveraign medicine for all mens sins But many dyed in Israel not because there was no Balm in Gilead as many do amongst us not so much for want of good Physick or soveraign Medicines as for want of will to seek for them in due time or for wilfulness in not using Medicines profered unto them So then it will not follow That no man dies in his sin since Christs Death Albeit we grant that the sins of all were taken away by his death For They were not so taken away as that men might not resume or take them again And the greatest condemnation which shall befal the world will be That when God had taken away their sins they would not part with their sins That when God would have healed them they would not be healed But had these Corinthians been any further from having their sins taken away by Christs death if Christ had truly died for them and yet but only died for them and not risen again Yes Though Christ had dyed for All yet all had died in their sins if He had only died and had not been raised again This Inference is expresly avouched by our Apostle in the 17 and 18 verses If Christ be not raised then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished and yet he supposeth that they believed in Christs Death But though the Inference be most true because avouched by our Apostle yet is it not Universally but Indefinitely true How far and in respect of what sins or in what degree of perishing it is true That is the Question 8. Christ was delivered saith the Apostle his meaning is He was delivered unto death for our sins and he was raised again for our Justification Rom. 4. 25. Are we then Otherwise Justified by His Resurrection then we are by His Death So our Apostles words import And if otherwise Justified by His Resurrection then by His Death Then are our sins Otherwise taken away by vertue of His Resurrection then by vertue of His Death they were taken away What shall we say then That Christs Death did not Merit all the benefits which God had to bestow upon us God forbid all this notwithstanding We do not receive
all the Benefits which God for his Deaths sake bestows upon us by believing only in his death But even This benefit of our Iustification we receive more immediately by our Belief of his Resurrection from the dead This is the doctrine of our Apostle even in that place wherein he handles the doctrine of Justification by Faith alone or by the Imputation of Christs Righteousness Ex Professe as Rom. 4. 23 24. Now it was not written for his sake to wit Abrahams alone that it was imputed to him but for us also to whom it shall be imputed if we beleive on him that raised up Iesus from the dead And he gives the Reason why our Belief of this Article should be imputed unto us in the next words Seeing he was delivered to death for our offences and raised again for our Justification Howbeit even This Belief of His Resurrection is a Grace or Blessing of God which Christ did merit by His Death yet a Grace conveihed unto us by the vertue of His Resurrection or by Christ himself by his Resurrection exalted unto glory in his human nature We were Justified by his Death in as much as The Pardon for our sins was by it purchased and the hand writing or obligation against us cancelled If Christ then had only dyed for us and not risen again we might by Belief in his Death have escaped the Second Death or everlasting pains of hell We should notwithstanding as our Apostle here supposeth have been detained perpetual prisoners in the grave Our bodily or corporal being should have been utterly consumed by the first Death without hope of recovery or restitution And so far as the first Death had dominion over men so far had these Corinthians remained in their sins So long as the first Death remains unconquered sin remains Now if Christ had not been raised from the dead the first Death or death of the body had remained unconquered Belief in Christs death could not utterly have freed them from all the wages of sin For death of the body is in us part of the wages of sin and it was to Christ part of the burden of our sin But in as much as Christ is risen from the dead and raised to an immortal life over which bodily death hath no Rule or dominion but must be put in absolute subjection to Him all that truly believe such a Resurrection are justified not only from the eternal guilt of sin nor only freed from everlasting death but are made heirs by adoption unto a life over which death shall have no power So then by Christs Death we are freed from the everlasting Curse by his Resurrection we are made free Denisons of the heavenly Jerusalem heirs by promise of an everlasting and most blessed life And thus far all that are partakers of the Word and Sacraments are said to be justified by his Resurrection that is they are bound to believe that as He died for their Sins to redeem them from the second death so he rose again for their further Justification to free them from the death of the bodie He therefore rose from the dead that we by believing this Article might receive the Adoption of the Sons of God But yet there is a further degree of Justification that is an Actual Absolution from the Reign or Dominion of sin in our Bodies which is never obtained without some measure of Faith or Sanctifying Grace inherent albeit the true use and end of such Grace and Faith inherent be to sue out the Pardon for our sins in particular not by our works or merits which are none but meerly and solely by the Free-Grace and Favour of God in Christ True it is that even This Gift of Faith by which we must sue out our Pardon in particular and supplicate for the Adoption of the Sons of God was purchased by Christs death nor may we sue for it under any other Stile or Form then propter merita Christi for the merits of Christ Yet after this plea made we may not expect to receive this blessing otherwise then per Jesum Christum through or by Jesus Christ who was raised from the dead This Grace this Faith and whatsoever other blessing of God which Christ by his death hath merited for us whatsoever is any way conducent to our full and final Redemption descends immediately from the Son of God exalted in his human nature as from its proper Fountain He was consecrated by his death and his Consecration was accomplished by his Resurrection to be an inexhaustible fountain of life and salvation to all that truly believe in his death and Resurrection from the dead Thus we are fallen into the Affirmative Inference If Christ be risen from the dead then such as die in Christ shall be raised from death to immortal Glory The same Almighty Power by which Christ was raised unto glorie shall be manifested even in these our mortal bodies But now is Christ risen from the dead and is become the first fruits of them that slept 9. The Inference or implication is That seeing Christ whose mortalitie was clearly testified by his death was raised up to an endless and immortal life Therefore such as die in Christ whatsoever in the mean time become of their bodies shall be raised up to the like life against which death shall never be able to make any attempt or approach For as the Apostle saith Rom. 11. 16. If the first fruit be holy the lump is also holy and if the root be holy so are the branches But we are to remember that there were Two sorts of First fruits appointed by the Law the One of the first corn that was reaped being ground and made up into loaves which were offered at the feast of Pentecost And unto this sort of First fruits the Apostle Rom. 11. 16. hath Reference The other was the offering of green corn when it first begun to bud or ear And unto this sort of First fruits our Apostle here in the twentieth verse hath Reference Christ then is the root and we are the branches he is the First fruits and we are the after-crop and harvest Now as the offering of the First fruits that is of the green corn was the hallowing of the whole crop So the Resurrection of Christ from the grave was the hallowing or consecration of these our mortal bodies unto that glory and immortalitie which shall be at the finall Resurrection If God did accept the offering of the First fruits it was a pledge unto his people that he would extraordinarily bless the after-crop with large increase his people might with confidence expect a joyfull harvest To manifest the meaning or fulfilling of this Type or legal Ceremonie in our Saviour He was raised up from the dead upon that very day in the morning wherein the first fruits of green corn were by the priests of the Law offered unto God His resurrection as was said before was the accomplishment of his
wrath malice blasphemie silthy communication out of your mouth Lie not one to another seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds All of us have put off the old man by profession and Solemn Vow at our Baptism and a double Wo or Curse shall befal us unless we put him off in practise and resolution and labour to put on the new man which is renewed in knowledge after the Image of him that created him The particular Limbs of this New man are set forth unto us by our Apostle verse 13 14. Forbearing one another and forgiving one another if any man have a quarel against any even as Christ forgave you so also do ye And above all these things put on Charity which is the bond of perfectnesse The particular Duties required of men and women according to their several conditions or states of life as of Wives to Husbands and of Husbands to Wives as of Children to Parents and of Parents to Children of Servants to Masters and of Masters to Servants are set down by the same Apostle in the verses following unto the end of the Chapter Now we must be altogether as certain that we do truely sincerely and constantly perform these duties which are by our Apostle in this place required whether as General to all Christians or such as concern particular estates of life as we are of This general That whosoever doth truly mortifie the deeds of the body and perform the other duties here required shall be undoubted partaker of the Resurrection unto Glory before we can be certain certitudine fidei by certaintie of faith of our salvation or Resurrection unto glory in particular 12. Doth any amongst us upon the examination required before the receiving of the Sacrament find himself extreamly negligent or generally defective in performance of these duties Let not such a one take his negligence past as any sign or undoubted mark of reprobation yet would I withall advise him not to approach the Lords Table without a wedding garment without a sincere and hearty sorrow for his negligences past without a sincere hearty desire of doing better hereafter If consciousness of former negligence in these duties or of practises contrary unto them be seasoned with sorrow and hearty desire of amendment the point whereon I would advise such a man for the present to pitch his faith shall not be his own Election nor the Certaintie of his present and future estate in Grace or Real and infallible Interest in Christ his Resurrection But upon that Character or description of our Saviour given by the Evangelical Prophet Esay 42. 3. and experienced upon Record by the Evangelist St. Matthew Matth. 12. 20. That he quencheth not smoaking flax that he will not shake the bruised Reed Remember that as the Second Resurrection unto glorie must be wrought by vertue of Christs Resurrection from the dead so the first Resurrection from the dead works of sin unto newness of life must be wrought by the participation of his Body which was given and of his Blood which was shed for us Remember that by his death and passion he became not only the Ransom but the Soveraign Medicine for all our sins A Medicine for our sins of wilfulness and commission to make us more wary not to offend A Medicine for our sins of negligence and omission to make us more diligent in the works of pietie And the time and place appointed for the receiving of the body and blood of Christ is the time and place appointed by Him for our cure Heal us then O Lord and we shall be healed Thou O Lord who hast abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel Enliven and enlighten our hearts by thy Spirit and in them thus enlightned kindle a love of doing thy Will bring good intentions to good desires and good desires to firm resolutions and confirm our Resolutions with constancie and perseverance in thy service Amen ALmighty God which hast given thine only Son to die for our Sins and to rise again for our Justification mercifully grant that we both follow the example of his patience and be made partakers of his Resurrection through the same Jesus Christ our Lord Amen Almighty God give us Grace so to cast away the works of Darknesse and put on the Armour of light now in the Time of this mortal life in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humilitie that at the last day when he shall come again in his Glorious Majestie to judge both the Quick and the Dead we may rise to the life immortal through him who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holie Ghost now and ever Amen The End of the fourth Section SECTION V. Of the Article of Everlasting life A Transition of the Publishers VVE are now by the Good hand of God upon the Work arrived at The fifth Section A very Considerable Part of this Eleventh Book The Subject matter of this Section according to what was cut out by the Method proposed in the oft mentioned Ninth Chapter is The Final Doom Award or Sentence of Life and Death which The King of Glorie our most worthy Judge Eternal shall respectively pronounce and pass upon all at that Dreadful and yet Ioyful Day of Iudgment when he shall deal and distribute Palms and Prizes Crowns and a Kingdom to the little or in Comparison the less Flock or Sheep set at his Right hand for whom such good things were prepared from the Foundation of the world But utter Extermination to the goats on the Left hand whom he will send accursed into Everlasting Prisons there to be tormented in that fire which was first prepared not for them but for their Tempter and tormentors the Divel and his Angels I confess our Great Author closes not with the Point of Everlasting life till he come to the Twentieth Chapter But I thought my self bound here to insert the Three next Chapters viz. the 17 18 and 19 for these reasons following 1. Because they be Three and the First Three of Thirteen Excellent and most Elaborate Tracts all in order composed upon The sixth Chapter to the Romans and pity it was to sever them from the Other with which they so well consort and sure 2. If I had left out These Three I should not onely have done prejudice to the Author and his work but to the Reader and his Content or benefit who will find that these Three Chapters are as comely and as useful Introductions to his Rich Discourses about the Domus Aeternitatis the two several long Homes of all mankind as any Propylaea or Areae can possibly be to any two Houses of this Worlds Building 3. The Doctrine delivered in these Three Next Chapters is so promotive and incentive of Christian Pietie and some of it so Homogeneal to the ensuing Tracts that they could not be more fitly placed then before the Discourses about the Final Award or Sentence 4.
It is my Iudgement That had this learned Author left none other These Thirteen Treatises put together would make a very Excellent Compend of Christian Instruction CHAP. XVII ROMANS 6. Ver. 21 22 23. 21. What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed for the end of those things is Death 22. But now being made free from sin and become servants to God ye have your fruit unto holiness and the end everlasting life 23. For the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life Through Jesus Christ our Lord. The Connexion of the fifth and sixth Chapters A Paraphrase upon this Sixth The Importance of the Phrase Dead to Sin No Christians in this life so dead to sin as to come up to the Resemblance of Death Natural True Christians Dead to Sin in a proportion to Civil Death All Christians at least all the Romans to whom St. Paul writes did so in Baptism profess themselves Dead to Sin and vow Death to Sin by a true Mortification thereof All have in Baptism or may have a Talent of Grace as an Antidote and Medicine against the deadly infection of Sin as a strengthening to make us victorious over sin Three Motives to deter us from the Service of Sin 1. It is fruitless 2. It is Shameful 3. It is Mortiferous Two Motives to engage us in Gods Service 1. Present and sweet Fruit unto Holiness 2. Future Happiness THese three verses being the Close or binding of all the rest in this Chapter or as the Solid Angle in which there is a punctual and full Coincidence of all the former Lines I must be inforced to exhibit unto the Reader A Model or Abstract of the Whole before I can shew him the true Connexion or References between these later and the foregoing verses And the Model or Abstract of the whole Chapter is This. Our Apostle had given up this Conclusion as the main Aphorism or Resultance of the fifth Chapter verse 20 21. Where sin abounded Grace did much more abound That as sin had raigned unto death even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. Now whether it were to check that preposterous Inference which some had alreadie made of this Doctrine when first it was delivered unto them for it was delivered before he wrote this Epistle or whether it were to prevent the making of it upon the reading of the former Chapter our Apostle propounds that Objection which either had been or might be made against the former Doctrine in the begining of this Sixth Chapter and he propounds it by way of Interrogation What shall we say then Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound And he gives the Answer unto it in the second verse by an Absit God forbid That is far be it from us far be it from every Christian thus to resolve thus to infer say or think And to shew the absurditie of that inference he adds this Reason How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein But this Refutation may seem to participate more of Rhetorical Passion or indignation then of sound and Logical Reason an artificial Evasion rather then a concludent Proof For these Romans might have demanded of him what just fear is there that we shall what possibilitie that we can live any longer in sin if as you suppose we be already dead unto it Only prove what you suppose or take as granted that we are already dead to sin or that sin is dead in us and we shall make just proof that we neither do nor can live any longer in it that it doth not neither shall it live in us 2. All the Question then is and a Great Question it is upon whose true resolution the resolution of all the questions or difficulties which are emergent out of this and other Chapters depends In what sense every true Christian is said to be dead to sin as St. Paul supposeth all these Romans were which were true members of the true visible Church Of death there be but two sorts or kinds usually known or acknowledged The one a Natural the other a Civil Death He that is dead according to a Natural Death is utterly deprived of all sense or motion he cannot feel he cannot taste he cannot smell see or hear his heart pants not his lungs cease to send forth any breath And according to this kind of death Saint Paul himself could not be accompted dead to sin Sin was not so fully mortified or put to death in him but that it had its Motions in his inward parts and these Motions he by experience felt But there is a civil as well as a natural death and many are said to be civilly dead whose natural life is yet sound and entire Thus men which are condemned or sentenced to die are said to be dead in Law albeit the execution or taking away of their natural life be a long time deferred The like we say of men which have been free born but afterwards fall into slaverie or bondage Both these sorts of men are said to be dead in Law or to be subject to civil death because they cannot do or make any legal act either to the benefit of their friends or posteritie or to the prejudice of their enemies Of any civil contract or legal deed they are as uncapable as he that is naturally dead is of breathing sense or motion And according to this acception or importance of death Every one in whom the reign or dominion of sin is broken in whom the flesh is made subject to the spirit is truely said to be dead to sin that is in every man thus qualified sin is put unto a civil though not unto a natural death But neither is this civil death the death here punctually meant by Saint Paul when he saith How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein For he speaks not of such a death to sin as was peculiar to himself or to some few but of such a death as was common to all these Romans and to every true member of the visible Church He doth not suppose nor was it imaginable that all of them to whom he wrote were thus actually dead to sin or that sin did not or could not raign in some of them at least it may and doth to this day raign in many which have by baptisme been admitted into the visible Church whereas Our Apostles Reason equally concerns all that are baptized All and every one of them are in his sense and meaning in this place dead to sin and yet are not all of them dead to sin or sin dead to them or in them either by a natural or civil death In all of them sin retains some life or being in many of them it still retains its Soveraigntie or Dominion how then are all of them how are all of us that have been baptized dead to sin Thus
the world and the flesh had been greater than the meer natural man had any the just Lord would not punish them more severely than he doth the heathen or meer natural men for suffering themselves to be vanquished by his enemies They which deny any grace or talent to be always given in baptisme or affirm this Talent to be given onely to some few which are of the number of the Elect either do not understand or do not call to minde what baptisme is Now Baptisme on our part is an Astipulation or promise 1 Peter 3. ver 21. And it is no lesse on Gods part It is a mutual Covenant or Astipulation between God and us And in every Covenant or Astipulation there is Ratio dati et accepti somewhat given and and somewhat taken The giving is properly on Gods part the taking on ours For in true and proper terms we cannot give any thing to God because all we have even we our selves are his by double right by right of creation and redemption Yet it is his pleasure that we in baptisme should sincerely and heartily surrender that unto him which is his own even our selves our souls and bodies And he upon this surrender or vow if it be sincerely made doth give to us that which was not ours even his only son with all the benefits of his death and passion All of us put him on in baptism though not all in the same degree and we may rest assured that God would never presse us in baptisme to fight under the banner of his Son unless he were ready to furnish us with strength with weapons and skill to fight his battails So we will as our Apostle exhorts us yeeld our members unto his service he will teach our hands to War and our fingers to fight and every facultie of our body and soul to do their part 6. The Abstract or Briefe of our Apostles discourse in this chapter is to stir up that Gift of God in these Romans which they had received in baptism or which is all one to animate or incourage them to imploy that talent which God in that Sacrament had concredited unto them unto his glory And this his Exhortation is grounded upon their Profession of dying to sin which they had made in baptisme or upon the assurance of Gods spirit in the sacred War so we will take heart and courage to undertake the fight There is not one branch of this Exhortation from the second verse of this chap. to this one and twentieth but is rooted in one of these two considerations or joyntly in both That all of us in baptisme are dead to sin in that sense which we have shewed before that is by solemn vow or by Professing our death unto it our Apostle infers ver 3. and not onely dead but buried And both this Death and Burial unto sin was solemnly professed not by Word or Vow only but by matter of fact or visible Ceremony then usuall in Baptisme for every one that was baptized seeing all that were baptized were of good years and strength of body to undergo this Ceremony were ter demersi in aquis their whole bodies were plunged thrice in the water to represent their vowed death and buriall unto sin This Ternal demersion of their Bodies as some collect was not only to represent The Holy and blessed Trinitie of the Divine Persons in whose names they were baptized but withall to represent the three several dayes wherein Christ lay buried in the grave Therefore saith the Apostle we are buried with him by Baptisme unto death that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father even so we also should walk in newnesse of life ver 4. 7. The meaning of the former Ceremony was and so of Baptisme to this day is That as Christ did leave the burthen of our sins and put off the form of a servant which for our sakes he undertook in the grave so we by baptisme and buriall into his death should put off the old man or body of sin and be raised unto newness of life and become partakers of his Resurrection unto glory This raising unto newnesse of life by the Sacrament of Baptisme was represented by the safe Ascension of their Bodies out of the water in the which they had been thrice plunged And of our Resurrection unto glory we receive the pledge or earnest when we receive the Grace of Regeneration that is the Grace which enables us to walk in newnesse of life And this is called the First Resurrection without which no man shall be partaker of the second unto Glory Now that all such as are truly buried with him by baptisme into death that is all such as observe and perform their vow made in baptisme shall undoubtedly be partakers of his Resurrection unto Glory the Apostle inferres ver 5. For if we have been planted together in the likenesse of his death we shall be also in the likenesse of his Resurrection and vers the sixth Knowing this that our old man is crucified with Him that the body of sin might be destroyed that henceforth we should not serve sin For he that is dead is free from sin ver 7. that is He that is dead to sin in this life is freed from the life or reign of sin For it is observable that he doth not say if we have been planted together in his death but if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death It is not required that we should die the death of the body as Christ did but to die as Isaac did in the similitude and figure of his death that is we should die to sin or crucifie that sin in us for which Christ was crucified And as it is not required that we should die the death of the body in baptisme so is it not to be expected that we should forthwith be raised unto that glory whereunto he rose but to be raised unto A similitude or likeness of it that is unto newness of life which is the First Resurrection And of this Resurrection we shall not fail to be actual partakers by vertue of baptisme if we be rightly implanted into the similitude of his death for so the Apostles words are If we have been planted together in the likeness of his death we shall be also in the likeness of his Resurrection But what is it to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 planted together or with whom are we planted we Gentiles together with the Jews So some conjecture But the more ancient and better exposition is that we are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with Christ planted together with Him yet not so planted together with him as one tree is planted together by another Arbor inter or juxta Arbores each having its several root But as Christ was planted by his death and burial and consecrated to be the root of life So we likewise should be planted by Baptisme in Him to die
to sin and being so planted in his death to be partakers of his Resurrection unto life As the implanted graft which loseth leaf and sap and to outward view life also in winter with the Branch or stock into which it was planted doth recover all again when the root sends back the sap at the Spring or the Resurrection of the year 8. This is that which our Saviour himself had said John 15. 4 5. As the branch cannot bear fruit in it self except it abide in the vine no more can ye except ye abide in me I am the Vine ye are the branches he that abideth in me and I in him the same bringeth forth much fruit for without me ye can do nothing That is ye have no root in your selves and therefore no life but as you are planted in me the Vine Now this Vine was opened in his death upon the Crosse and planted in his burial and from him so planted That of the Psalmist Ps 85. 11. was fulfilled Righteousness did grow out of the earth and we being ingrafted or inoculated into him thus planted become true branches of the same Vine Branches we are but without root in our selves all the life we can hope for must be derived from His root And the very sum and proper effect of our beleif in his death and Resurrection is set down by our Apostle ver 8. 9 10 11. Now if we be dead with Christ we beleive that we shall also live with him Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more death hath no more dominion over him For in that he died he died unto sin once but in that he liveth he liveth unto God Likewise reckon your selves also to be dead indeed unto sin but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then if all which are baptized are dead to sin by solemn vow every one must know it to be his duty to mortifie his earthly members but none are bound to beleive that they are already actually dead to sin because they are baptized The sum of our Apostles exhortation in the twelfth verse is Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal bodie that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof neither yeild ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin but yeild your selves unto God as those that are alive from the dead and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God The height of our hopes in this life is to put sin unto a civil death that is to bring the flesh in subjection to the spirit And this we may and ought to hope for So saith the Apostle v. 14. Sin shall not have dominion over you for ye are not under the Law but under grace And Grace is able to give us that victory over sin which the Law could not if we will submit our selves unto the regiment of Grace and not presume of Gods favour in consciousness of sin This is that which the Apostle rejects with the like indignation v. 15. as he had done the former imagination of continuing in sin that grace might abound What then shall we sin because we are not under the Law but under grace God forbid Know ye not that unto whom ye yeild your selves servants to obey his servants ye are to whom ye obey whether of sin unto death or of obedience unto righteousness His meaning is that albeit they were by baptism translated from the regiment of the Law unto the regiment of grace yet if by presuming upon Gods Grace or favour they continue in sin they shall cease to be Gods servants and become again the servants of sin 9. It is the Observation of Prosper an Ancient writer upon this place That as no man can serve two masters So every man must serve one of these two either sin or righteousness God or Satan and he that is a servant to the one is exempted from the service of the other He that is a servant of righteousness is freed from sin and he that is a servant unto sin is rather exempted then freed from the service of righteousness Both are avouched by our Apostle but with this difference that being made free from sin they were made the servants of righteousness but when they were the servants of sin they were free not from righteousness but to righteousness that is they did righteousness no service de facto but used their freedom rather to wrong it But God be thanked saith our Apostle ver 17. that ye were the servants of sin A strange kinde of speech The Pharisee indeed did thank God that he was no extortioner no covetous person nor tainted with such sins as he thought the Publican was but we never read that any Pharisee Publican or other did thank God that he was an extortioner or that he was a grievous sinner nor would God questionless accept of such thanks For he expects no thanks but for the good which he doth unto the Children of men Now to be a covetous person to be an extortioner to be a servant to sin are things which have no goodness in them therefore no works of God no part of his doings How then doth the Apostle so solemnly thank God on these Romanes behalf that they were the servants of sin or is this his thanksgiving to be referred onely to the later part of that 17. verse But ye have obeyed from the heart that Form of doctrine which was delivered you This indeed was worthy of thanks yet not this alone The form of thanksgiving refers as properly and punctually to the first part of the verse God be thanked that you were the servants of sin as it doth to the later part But you have obeyed the form of doctrine which was delivered unto you And in the first place it refers to their former servitude unto sin For though God were not the Author of their servitude to sin as he was of their obedience to the Doctrine of life Yet his goodness did turn their former servitude to sin the very worst deed which they had done unto their good For take them as now they were it was better for them that they had been the servants of sin than not to have been so God you must consider at this time required the service of righteousness at their hands And he that hath been a diligent servant to an hard and cruel master from whom he could not in reason expect any recompence worth his toil is thereby well enapted and trained to be diligent and faithful in the service of a gentle loving and bountiful Master Such was the case and state of these Romans They had don extraordinary kindness for a long time unto sin and this their service was not only lost in respect of times past but very dangerous in the future Upon this known case or experiment among men doth our Apostle ground those forcible exhortations in the verses precedent which he most strongly concludes with the words of the
be our High-Priest unless we suffer him whilst it is called to day to cleanse and purifie our Consciences If our heart condemn us not saith S. John 1. Joh. 3. 22. then have we confidence towards God To shut up all with that of the Prophet Malachi chap. 3. 2 3. which is fully Parallel to the former place of S. Paul Heb. 12. 12 13. He shall sit as a refiner and parifier of silver and he shall purifie the Sons of Levi and purge them as gold and silver that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness So then they must be Sons of Levi that is men consecrated unto the service of the Lord and even in this life as gold and silver though mingled with dross which hope to escape that last and Fiery Tryal And such as hope to be made Kings and Priestes unto our God for ever must in this life be careful and diligent to practise upon themselves daily presenting unto Him First The Sacrifices of God a troubled and broken spirit breathing out Prayers and sending forth Tears and then Their Bodies a Living Sacrifice holie and acceptable And Lastly The Sacrifice of Praise that is the calves or fruit of the lips withall not forgetting to do good and to communicate for with such sacrifices God is well pleased 19. The Use of all that is said in this whole third Section concerning Christs coming to Judgment is most flagrantly set down in Powerful and moving Expressions by S. Peter 2. Epist 3 Chap. And the short of his Three Inferences is this Beloved I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance knowing that there shall come in the last daies scoffers walking after their own lusts and saying where is the promise of his coming But the Lord is not slack concerning his promise but is long suffering to us-ward not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance And the day of the Lord will come as a Thief in the night Seeing then that all these things must be What manner of persons ought we to be in all holy conversation and godliness looking for and hasting to the coming of the day of God Seeing that ye look for these things be diligent that ye may be found of him in Peace without spot and blemish and account that the long suffering of the Lord is Salvation Ye therefore Seeing ye know all these Things before beware lest ye also being led away with the Error of the wicked fall from your own stedfastnesse But grow in Grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour JESUS CHRIST To Him be Glorie both now and for ever AMEN S. Ambrose's Creed Lord Jesus We believe that Thou shalt come to be our Judge We therefore pray Thee help thy servants whom thou hast redeemed with thy most precious blood Make them to be Numbred with thy Saints in Glorie Everlasting SECTION IV. Of the Resurrection of the Dead OF The Five General Heades Proposed in the so oft mentioned ninth Chapter wee have after a sort dispatched The First Three The Fourth was The Parties to be judged viz. The Quick and the Dead Of Those that shall be found alive at the Coming of our Lord I shall say no more then This Till I come to the fift Head touching the Final Award The One Distinction shall stand with great Boldness and with joy lift up their heads that they being caught up in the Clouds may meet the Lord in the air and so be ever with the Lord. The Other Retchless and most wretched part of mankinde shall but all in vain cry to the Hills to fall upon them and to the Rocks to cover them from His eys to whom night and Hell are manifest Of those that sleep in the Dust The Dead in Christ shall rise first and having happily passed the Judgement of Discussion shall be amazed at the strangeness of their own salvation so far beyond all they looked for Then shall The Dead in Sin be raised also to receive the Dreadfull sentence of Our most worthie Iudge Eternal and to put on such immortalitie as shall onely make them Capable of The Wages of Sin which is eternall Death or Endless vivacitie unto Torments The proof of the Resurrection of Both these is our next Design CHAP. XIII 1. Cor. 15. 12 13. Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the Dead How say some among you that there is no resurrection of the Dead But if there be no resurrection of the Dead then is Christ not risen Job 19. vers 25. I know that My Redeemer Liveth and that he shall stand at the later day upon the earth And though after my skin wormes destroy this body yet in my flesh I shall see God Whom I shall see for my self and mine eyes shall behold and not another though my Reines be consumed within mee Ezekiel 37. 4. O ye drie Bones hear the word of the Lord. Behold I will cause breath to enter into you and ye shall live c. John 5. 28. Marvel not at This for the hour is coming in which all that are in the Graves shall hear His voice And shall come forth They that have done Good to the resurrection of life and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of Damnation John 9. 24. Martha said I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last Day Iesus said I am the resurrection and the life c. The Beleif of This Article of the Resurrection of High concernment malignantly oppugned by Satan and his agents needs and deserves our best Fortification The Heathen had implicit Notions of A Resurrection The Obstacle of impossibilitie removed by Proof of This Conclusion That though all things were annihilated yet God is able to retreive or recover The numerical same 1. SO Admirable is the Constancie of the Celestial Bodies in their courses that every unusuall Spectacle in the heavens be it but the appearance of a Comet in the air or of 2 Sunnes whereof the one is in the air not in the heaven doth alwaies imprint a Terror or amazement in the inhabitants of the earth Whence if wee could out of a serious apprehension of both rightly compare the face of the heavens as now it is with that strange alteration described by St. John Rev. 6. 12 13. as that the pale moon shall be turned into blood that the Sun which now dazles our eyes with its brightnes shall becom as black as a sackcloth of hair or that the fixed stars which have continued their March from East to West without check or controll for almost 6000 yeares and yet have kept their ranks without any declination to the right hand or to the left shall then begin to reel and stagger like so many drunken men and fall to the earth like as when a figtree casteth her green figs being shaken of a mighty wind The very cogitation of this sudden change or confusion would make death
wherein thou shalt not be yet shalt thou be made again All times are alike to God His power to make thee again cannot be restrained by thy weakness or not Being it cannot be shortened by any length of time All of us that now are all the Generations that hereafter shall be must appear before the Judgment Seat of Christ that all may receive in the body according to the things done in the body whether they be good or bad For he shall recompence every man according to all his works Yea so recompence That both those which now deny it and those that now believe and confess it shall from experience then say Verily there is a Reward for the Righteous Doubtlesse there is a God that judgeth the earth CHAP. XVI 1. COR. 15 16 17 20. 16. For if the dead Rise not then is not Christ raised 17. And if Christ be not raised your faith is vain you are yet in your sins c. 20. But now is Christ risen from the dead and become the First-Fruits of them that slept The Apostles Method in proving The Resurrection peculiar and yet artificial His way of mutual or reciprocal Inference both Negative and Assertive justified and shewed That both these Inferences naturally arise and may concludently be gathered from the Text and from the Principles of Christian Belief Wherein the witness false upon supposition verse 14 15. should consist That Philosophical Principle Deus natura nihil faciunt frustrà divinely improved Gods special and admirable works have ever A Correspondent That is some extraordinarie rare End How sin is taken away by Christ's death How by His Resurrection How we are justified by Christ's Resurrection How we may try our selves and know Whether we rightly believe this Article Of the Resurrection of the Dead or No. 1. THat the Resurrection from death to life is in nature possible as implying no Contradiction though unto nature or any natural Agent most impossible hath been discussed at large before That there shall De Facto be a Resurrection unto Glorie meerly depends upon the Will and Pleasure or powerful Ordinance of God who as we believe is able to effect whatsoever His Will or Pleasure is should be wrought And our Belief of this Resurrection unto Glorie must be grounded upon His Will and pleasure revealed in Scriptures How Gods Will and Pleasure to raise up the Dead in Christ to an endless immortal and most happy Life hath been clearly revealed by his Prophets in The Old Testament I have shewed other-where and any one of ordinary observation in Reading the Scriptures and Commentators may Collect. Especially taking Example and light from our blessed Saviour his managing that Text Exod. 3. 6. I am the God of Abraham c. in his Argument with the Sadduces who both denied the Resurrection and disputed as they thought subtilly and irrefragably against it And observing the great dexteritie of St. Peter in the second and of St. Paul in the thirteenth of the Acts in proving the Resurrection of Christ out of the Psalms and out of the Prophet Isaiah and how fitly St. Paul in the 54. and 55. verses of this Chapter makes application of the Prophecie of Hosea Chap. 13. v. 14. unto the proper matter and season wherein it shall Consummativè be fulfilled I shall here make such observations as naturally arise from the verses before recited and from other verses in that Chapter wherein The Apostle useth such a method or manner of Argument to prove the Resurrection from the Dead as neither Moses nor any Prophet had used before They indeed foretold and fore-signified respectively that Christ should die and rise again and that all which believe in him should be raised to a life immortal with him But the Connexion betwixt these two Assertions which we are bound severally to believe from the authoritie of Moses and the Prophets as That Christs Resurrection from the grave should be the necessarie Cause of our Resurrection or That our future Resurrection should necessarily infer Christs Resurrection from the dead or that the denial or doubt of our Resurrection should infer a denial or doubt of his Resurrection is more then can easily be gathered out of Moses or the Prophets This mutual Inference of the ones Resurrection by the other whether Negatively or Assertively was first made by our Apostle in this place at least in expresse Terms though implicitely made by our Saviour before Our Apostle in making this mutual Inference seems in the Judgment of some to transgress or violate the Laws of Argumentation generally agreed upon in the School of nature which notwithstanding he elsewhere and usually more exquisitely observes then any Naturalist doth The Inferences made by our Apostle are radically and generally Two The One Negative Per Reductionem ad impossibile aut absurdum The other Affirmative by Positive Proof The Negative hath many branches The First is ver 13. If there be no Resurrection of the dead then is Christ not risen The Second springs out of this in the 14. verse And if Christ be not risen then is our preaching vain and your faith is also vain And yet of this their Faith One Branch was Their Belief in Christs death and passion The Third Branch seems to spring out of both these verse 15. Yea and we are found false witnesses of God because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ whom he raised not up if so be that the dead rise not The First Branch is resumed again by our Apostle in the sixteenth verse and the Second likewise in the seventeenth with this Addition that If Christ be not raised then such as believe in Christ are yet in their sins And ver 18. Then they which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished not only frustrated of their hopes of the life to come but deprived or couzened of such pleasures or contentments of this life as the unbelievers injoy and without loss or detriment might injoy if the dead were not to be raised up or if Christ were not already raised from the dead For he saith ver 19. If in this life only we have hope in Christ we are of all men most miserable The affirmative inference is contained in ver 12. 20. Now if Christ be Preached that he rose from the dead how say some among you that there is no Resurrection from the dead This interrogation resolved into an Affirmative imports thus much If we truly Preach and you truly believe that Christ was raised from the dead then we must of necessity Preach and you of necessity believe that there shall be a general Resurrection of the dead and that such as die in Christ shall be raised up to immortal Glory And this affirmative is expressly assumed by our Apostle ver 20. But now is Christ risen from the dead and become the first fruits of them that slept And afterward by him powerfully re-inforced as may be seen in the 21 22
consecration to the priesthood after the order of Melchisedec His presentation of himself to his Father as our High-Priest and as the First fruits from the dead was the most acceptable offering or sacrifice that ever was offered unto God a matter of greater joy and triumph to all the inhabitants of Heaven then Isaac's safe return from the intended sacrifice was to Abrahams familie or then Josephs advancement in Egypt was to old Jacob. Now if the First fruits from the dead were thus acceptable unto God we cannot distrust but that the after-crop shall prosper and shall be gathered by the Angels of God when the the time of ripeness shall come into everlasting habitations However in the mean time it be sown it shall be reaped in Glory and possesse its glory in immortalitie This Article then of Christs Resurrection from the dead and of his becoming the First fruits of them that sleep is the ground or root of all our Apostles Inferences from vers 35 to the end of this chapter concerning the Resurrection or the estate of their bodies that shall be raised to life but of these we have spoken at large before The sum of all is intimated by our Saviour himself John 12. 23 24. The hour is come that the Son of man should be glorified Verily I say unto you except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die it abideth alone but if it die it bringeth forth muh fruit Thus much likewise was foretold by the Prophet Esay in that Evangelical Prophecie Esay 53. 10. When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin he shall see his Seed he shall prolong his dayes and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand Now this pleasure of the Lord was our full Redemption 10. To conclude this point Albeit our Sins were taken away by Christs death in both the Senses before mentioned and albeit in this life we be Actually Justified that is actually acquitted from the guilt of sins past by Belief in Christs Death and Resurrection and freed likewise from the rage and tyrannie of sin by Participation of his Grace and Inhabitation of his Spirit in us yet shall we not be Absolutely and Finally Justified that is freed from all Reliques of sin inherent until we be made partakers of his Glorie This must be the Accomplishment of our Justification by Faith in this life And it is no Paradox or strange opinion to say that We sinful men shall be finally Justified by utter extirpation of sin out of our nature at our last Resurrection When as Christ himself in whom sin never took any root much less bore any branch into whom no seed of sin did ever fall is said to be Justified by His Resurrection from the Dead that is acquitted from all burthen of our sins But where is Christ said in this sense to be Justified In the 1 Tim. 3. 16 Without controversie Great is the mysterie of godlinesse God was manifested in the flesh and Justified in the Spirit To omit all other interpretation of this phrase St. Paul means the very self same thing by saying Christ is Justified in the Spirit that St. Peter means when he saith He was quickened in the Spirit 1 Pet. 3. 18. Both mean That he was Justified or freed by the Spirit or Power of the Godhead from death or any other further burthen of our sins Christ saith St. Paul Heb. 9. 28. was once offered to bear the sins of many and unto them that look for him he shall appear the second time without sin unto salvation that is to free us from the power of death and all burthen of sin from which he himself was freed at His Resurrection So then it is in its time and place most true which the Romish Church doth most untruly teach that there is a Justification by inherent righteousnesse But this Justification cannot be had may not be expected in this life it cannot be accomplished in us until that Change be wrought whereof our Apostle speaks verse 51. of this Chapter This Final Justification by this blessed Change is the full Effect or final issue of Christs Resurrection from the dead he that doth not believe this future change or final issue of Christs Resurrection doth bear false Testimonie of God or against him even whilst he saith that he believeth that Christ was raised from the dead For to grant Christs Resurrection from the dead and to deny or doubt of this Final Justification or Absolution of all true believers in his Resurrection from the reliques of sin is to cast an Aspersion upon God himself as if he had wrought this great work of Christs Resurrection frustra that is to no Use or End correspondent to such a mighty Ground-work or Foundation 11. Every man then is bound to believe That all true Beleivers of Christs Resurrection from the dead shall be undoubted partakers of that endlesse and immortal glory unto which Christ hath been raised But no man is bound to beleive his own Resurrection in particular unto such glory any further or upon more certain terms then he can upon just and deliberate Examination find that he himself doth truly and stedfastly believe this Fundamental Article of Christs Resurrection from the dead Now if it were certainly determined and agreed upon by all what it were truly and stedfastly to believe this Article all the controversies concerning the Certaintie of Salvation or Irrevocable Justification in this life by Faith would determine themselves and be at an end But of the Examination of our Faith or of its truth sincerity or strength we shall have fitter occasion and more full time to speak in unfolding of the last part of the Article of Christs coming to Judgment that is the manner of the Process in the Award of final Sentence In the mean time it shall suffice to admonish the Reader That he rate not the truth or measure the strength of his Belief in this main Article of Christs Resurrection only by the strength of his perswasions of its Speculative and General Truth specially in the absence of temptations to the contrarie or whiles it is opposed to the exceptions of Atheists or Insidels which deny or oppugn it How then must the truth or strength of our Belief or Faith in this Article be measured Only by our stedfast and constant practise of the Special Duties whereunto the belief of it doth bind all professors of it Now the Special Duties whereunto the Belief of it doth bind us are succinctly and pithily set down by our Apostle Col. 3. 1 2. If then ye be risen with Christ seek those things which are above where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God set your affections on things above not on things on earth c. And verse the 5. Mortifie therefore your members which are upon earth fornication uncleannesse inordinate affection evil concupiscence and covetousness which is Idolatry And verse 8. Put off all these anger
in the first place 3. All of them did solemnly promise and vow to mortifie the deeds of the body as we now do But so may others do which never meant to be baptized It is true and therefore the full and onely Reason why these Romans one and other were reckoned as dead to sin was not because they had promised or vowed to mortifie the deeds of the flesh or to put sin unto a civil death that is to break the Raign or Dominion of it For thus to promise or thus to vow without sufficient means or probable hopes such hopes and means as by nature they could not have to perform what they thus vow were presumption a tempting of God and provocation of Satan to take that opportunitie which they themselves offer to assault them To compell all that come unto the Sacred Laver to undertake that treble vow which is and hath been alwayes solemnly made and undertaken either by the parties themselves which are to be baptized in case they be of years or by their sureties were the part rather of a cruel Stepdame than the office of a loving Mother unlesse the Church our Mother which exacts this vow of all and every one could give full assurance to all and every one of her sons that God in baptisme for his part never failes to give means sufficient for quelling the reign of sin for mortifying the deeds of the body Means I mean sufficient not in themselves only but sufficient to every one of us unlesse we will be defective unto our selves Now adde this Reason unto the former and you have the true and full meaning of our Apostle when he saith that all that are Baptized are dead to sin that is First they are dead unto it by solemn vow or profession Secondly they are said to be dead unto sin or sin to be dead in them in as much as they in Baptism receive an Antidote from God by which the rage and poison of it might easily be asswaged or expelled so they would not either receive that grace or means which God in Baptisme exhibits unto them in vain or use it amisse So we may say that any popular disease is quelled or taken away after a soveraign remedie be found against it which never fails so men will seek for it seasonably apply it and observe that Dyet which the Physitian upon the taking of it prescribes unto them 4. Some in our times there be and more I think than have been in all the former which deny all Baptismal Grace Others there be which grant some Grace to be conferred by Baptisme even unto infants but yet these restrain it onely to infants Elect. And This they take to be the meaning of our Churches Catechisme wherein Children are taught to believe That as Christ the second Person in the Trinitie did Redeem them and all mankind So the Holy Ghost the third Person doth sanctifie them and all the Elect People of God But can any man be perswaded that it was any part of Our Churches meaning to teach Children when they first make profession of their Faith to believe that they are of the number of the Elect that is of such as cannot finally perish This were to teach them their Faith backwards and to seek the Kingdom of Heaven not Ascendendo by ascending but Descendendo by descending from it For higher then thus Saint Paul himself in his greatest perfection could not possibly reach no nor the blessed Angels which have kept their First station almost these 6000 years Yet certain it is that Our Church would have every one at the very first profession of his Faith to believe that he is One of the Elect People of God But those Reverend Fathers which did compose that Catechisme and the Church our Mother which did approve and authorize it did in charity presume that every one which would take upon him to expound this Catechisme or other principles of Faith should first know the Distinction between the Elect that is such persons as cannot perish and the Elect People of God or between Election unto Gods ordinarie Grace or means of salvation and Election unto eternal glory Every People or Nation every company of men when they are first converted from Gentilism to Christianitie become an Elect People a chosen generation or company of men that is they and their seed after them are made capable of Baptism receive an Interest in Gods promises made unto us in Christ which the heathens whilst they continue heathens cannot have And all of Us are in Baptism thus far sanctified that we are made true members of the visible Church qualified for hearing the word for receiving the Sacrament of Christs Body and Blood and whatsoever Benefits of Christs Priestly Function are committed to the dispensation of his Ministers And thus far sanctified by Baptisme no man can be but by the Holy Ghost Our Apostle saith 1 Cor. 7. 14. That the unbelieving Husband is sanctified by the believing wife and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the believing Husband else were your children unclean but now they are holy So that he attributes an holiness unto the children of believing Parents by which they are more capable of Baptisme then the children of unbelieving Parents are And of this holiness by which they are capable of Baptisme all children are partakers although but one of their Parents whether Father or Mother do believe much more are the children of believing Parents to be reputed holy or sanctified after baptisme by which alwayes some Gift of the Holy Ghost is conferred upon them For even that holiness which was communicated or derived unto them from their Parents before they were baptized or by which they became capable of Baptisme was conferred upon their Parents by Baptisme 5. Whether This gift or Qualification wherewith The Holy Ghost is said to sanctifie all the Elect people of God be or include in it the Grace of Regeneration I will not dispute That infants are by Baptisme regenerated we may not deny unlesse we will take upon us to put another sense upon the Articles of our Church than they will naturally bear But whether such as were baptized when they came to years of discretion as most of these Romanes were did in Baptisme receive the Grace of Regeneration or were forthwith regenerated That I leave unto the Schools It sufficeth us to know the true meaning of our Apostle in this place And this it is All of us in baptisme receive A gift or Talent which by nature we had not we could not have For the use of this talent we shall be called unto a strict accompt And when this accompt shall be taken it shall go harder with those which either have abused it misimployed it or not used it than with the Gentiles Heathens or Infidels which never received the like For to whom more is given of them more shall be required And unlesse their means to vanquish Satan
true members of Christ suffer that flock which he hath purchased with his precious blood to starve for want of spiritual Food That flock from which they have reap't carnal Commodities in greatest plenty But here I will not dispute whether Non-Residence or Pluralitie be simply unlawful suppose in former times both had been lawful both necessary when the greatest scarcitie was of Scholars sufficiently qualified for the ministry Is it therefore Now as expedient It had been once more lawful for Baruch to have sought the Ease of a retired life then ever it was for any man to trouble himself with joyning house to house Land to Land or Church to Church But now it is unlawful seekest thou great things for thy self Yet what was his seeking to theirs or what are many of their deserts to his Theirs especially who have scarce been so much as scribes to a learned Prophet scarce ever brought up in Jerusalem at any Gamaliels feet but only came to this our Sion as so many spies to find out the weakness of the place to discover by what devices good Statutes might be frustrate and means made for conferring degrees upon Drones And Drones having once gotten A degree or place in this Bee-hive by others perjury will make shift to get spiritual preferment by their own After unto their Titles in the Schools they have gotten an Ite Praedicate from the Generals of our spiritual warfare they make their entrance into the Church of Christ just so as if it were into the Enemies soyl once inabled to compass a convenient Seat they never think they were placed there as labourers in Christs harvest to gather and break the bread of life to his people they only use it as a Fort or Sconce to gather strength in till they can watch an opportunity for expugning a better And advancements into highest Offices in this spiritual Charge go oft not so much by virtues as the golden mean Experiments are so rife and frequent that not the meanest Arcadian Creature but lives in hope to make himself Lord of the greatest dignitie the Land affords if he be once furnished sufficiently for practise of the Macedonian Stratagem This seeking after great things especially in men of so little worth is at all times odious in the sight of God and injurious to men But in these present times fraught either with examples or fearful threatnings of Gods heavie Judgments in these times wherein superstition increaseth as a Plague growing up to quell hypocrisie and licentiousness farre less desires even all unnecessary seekings are preposterous and abominable and yet in all States through the Land very usual and being so They are Ominous Which was the Corollary proposed I must omit discourse and fall to instance 12. One Age may afford sufficient store of Examples A curious Searcher shall not be able to find any disease either more Dangerous or more Genoral then this late specified disease of Baruch in the Christian world at that time when the Lord did so grievously lance the whole body of it with the swords and spears of the Vandals Gothes Hunnes and other Barbarians scarce known before by name The approach of all or most of them was so sudden and unexpected that a man could scarce imagine what other Errand they had to visit these parts of Europe save only to be Gods Chirurgions in cutting of the dead and unrecoverable members of the Church Of what sort or kind soever the sins of any Age or People be when sinners once come to such height or progress in them as the sight of Gods Judgments or experience of his displeasure cannot perswade men to forsake them It is a true Crisis of General plagues or desolations approaching No sign more deadly then intemperate longing after unseasonable mirth or pleasures of what kind soever especially of such as are contrary to that course of life whereunto God for the present cals men For they that seek after such things plainly declare That they say in their hearts VVe shall have Peace albeit we walk according to the stubbornness of our own hearts Deut. 29. 19. At cum dicant Pax tuta omnia tunc repentinum eis imminet Exitium That the General constitution of the Christian World when the Barbarians over-ran it was altogether such as we have said such as this people for the most part is at this day Salvianus A Reverend Bishop of those times hath left recorded The disease of Carthage he thus discribeth Captivus corde sensu nonne er at populus iste qui inter suorum supplicia ridebat qui jugulari se in suorum jugulis non intelligebat qui se in suorum mori mortibus non putabat Fragor ut it a dixerim extra muros intra muros Proeliorum Ludicrorum Confundebatur c. The like stupiditie and intemperance the same Author out of his experience attributes unto one of the Chief Cities of the Galles whose Inhabitants were so besotted with drunkenness that they could not shake it of when they were beset with death Ad hoc postremo rabida vini aviditate Perventum est ut Principes urbis istius ne tunc quidem de conviviis Surgerent cum jam urbem hostis intraret He that made the Sword then to them hath also made the Plague of Pestilence his Messenger unto us both their Commissions are of equal authority both their Summons should be alike dreadful and yet what day did any die in this City by the Arrow of God but as many or more were dead drunk or had surfeited of their beastly banquets Again in Trevers one of the most flourishing Cities of the Galles and as I take it the Reverend Bishops native soyl so intemperately were the Inhabitants set on their wonted delights and vanitites that after their Citie had been three or four times sacked and did not retain so much as the likeness of what it had been yet they are still the same And as if they had never sowen unto the spirit but altogether unto the flesh as if their sportings and pastimes had been the only harvest they cared to reap No sooner was this storm of War and blood broken up And the beams of peace restored again but they errected their stages even in the fresh Sent of deadly vapors exhaling from their murthered Citizens buried in their Cities ashes Pauci nobiles qui excidio super-fuerant quasi pro summo deletae urbis remedio Circenses ab Imperatoribus postulabant And may not we think unless our Magistrates Religious care had been the greater to have prohibited Stage-playes in these dangerous times of visitation that a great many in this City would have adventured to have been in Circo though death had been appointed to keep the Play-house door Should the Stage-player or other instrument of vanitie have visited our Suburbs within two monethes after our fourth or fifth visitation past more of better rank amongst us would have been more
greater part of men we do necessarily breed a greater scruple or nurse a more dangerous Doubt of salvation in all men as yet not effectually called then the Romish Church doth For Gods Intention or purpose to save men is without all question more Essential to the Efficacie of the Word preached or of the Sacraments administred then the Romish Church can conceive the Intention of her Priests to be Besides all this If their Doctrine were true who teach That all such men as in the issue prove Goats or Reprobates were such from their birth or irreversibly destinated to death before they were born God should with-hold or withdraw his Purpose or Intention of Salvation from farre more hearers of the Word and partakers of the Sacraments then the Romish Priests usually do 8. But many you will say which hear the Word are already assured of their Estate in Grace or of their salvation And this Doctrine cannot occasion any doubt or distrust in them It cannot indeed whilst they are thus perswaded But even this Perswasion it self if it be immature or conceived before its time doth secretly nurse A Presumption which is far worse then Doubt or distrust of salvation And sometimes occasions a worse kinde of distrust or Doubt then the former doctrine of the Romish Church doth For suppose A man which is to day strongly perswaded of his present Estate in saving Grace and certain of his salvation should to morrow or the next day fall into some grosse or grievous sin and continue in it or the like for many dayes together If his former assurance remain the same it was it is No Assurance of Faith No true Confidence but Presumption Or if his former Confidence or Assurance upon consciousness of new sins fail or abate The Former Division of All Mankinde into Goates and sheep into Elect and Reprobates will thrust him into Despere For the Consciousnesse of freedom from grosser sins or of practise of good works cannot be a surer token of his Estate in Grace or salvation then the consciousness of foul and grievous sins is of Rejection or Reprobation if it were true that every man is at all times either in the state or condition of an Elect person or a Reprobate For The Rule of life and Faith is as plain and peremptory that no Adulterer no murtherer no foul or grievous offender shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven as it is That all such as live a godly and a sober life shall enter into it And yet our own consciences can give a surer Testimony that we have committed grosse and greivous sins then that they are cleansed from the guilt of former sins Seeing the heart of man is more deceitful or more deceivable in its perswasions or Judgement of its good deeds or resolutions then in its apprehension of grosser facts committed by us And for this Reason I cannot perswade my self That any man which hath any sense or feeling of True Religion or rightly understands himself in these or the like Points can in the consciousness of grosse and fouler sins rest perswaded that he is in the same Estate of Grace wherein he was or in the same way to life Howbeit even in the consciousness of foulest sins he may and ought to have hope that he may be renewed by repentance And yet to have such an hope were impossible unlesse he were perswaded that there is a Mean or middle Estate or condition between the estate and condition of the Elect and the Reprobates 9. But let us take a man that hath been long perswaded that he is and hath been in the irreversible state of salvation and is not conscious to himself of any grosse or palpable sin or at least of continuance in any such sins since this perswasion did possesse him Yet if he have embraced this opinion or perswasion before his soul were adorned with that golden chain of spiritual vertues which St. Peter requires 2 Pet. 1. whether for making our election sure in it self or for assuring it unto us This immature or misplaced perswasion may fill his soul with the self same presumption which the absolute infallibilitie of the present Romish Church doth breed or occasion in all such as beleeve it And that is A presumption worse then heathenish For though an Heathen or Infidel kill men uncondemned by law live in incest and fall down before stocks and stones or other dumb creatures Yet such a man being called in question for killing men uncondemned by Law will not justifie his Action If his incest be detected he will be ashamed of it or being challenged for worshipping stocks and stones he will not allege any sacred Authoritie for his warrant But if you challenge a Romanist with some like practises and tell him that he transgresseth the Law of God in those particulars as grossly as the Heathens do his Reply will be Though our facts be outwardly the same yet our practises are most dislike Our practises cannot be against the Law of God seeing they are warranted by the authoritie of the Church and Pope who is the faithful Interpreter of Gods Laws and cannot erre in matters of faith or practice authorized by him In the like case if you shall oppose a man that makes himself thus certain of his salvation before his time in this or the like manner Sir you are as covetous as great an oppressor of the poor as uncharitable as malitious as proud and envious as are the Heathen or others whom you condemn for Infidels and no good Christians And press him with such evident particulars in every kind as would amate or appall an ingenuous Heathen or other meer moral man that were conscious of the like yet you shall find him as surely locked up in his sins by this his immature perswasion of his own infallible estate in Grace as the Romanist is by his Implicit Belief or the Churches absolute Infallibilitie So long as this Perswasion lasts that he shall certainly enter into the Kingdom of Heaven no Messenger of God shall ever perswade him that he hath done or continues to do those things which whosoever continues to do shall never enter into the Kingdom of Heaven Grosse and palpable or open sins might happily shake or break this perswasion how stiffe soever it had been before but so will not secret or lurking sins It rather animates or quickens those secret sins of envy ambition pride or malice And of all other fruits of this preposterous perswasion or misplaced Truth this is the worst that it makes men mistake their malice towards men whose good parts or fame they envy to be zeal towards God or to his Truth 10. Unless Sathan had put this Fallacie upon some men in our times it were impossible that they could sleep upon the consciousness of such uncivil behaviour as they use or such unjust aspersions as they cast upon all others without respect of persons which dissent from them in Opinions often disputed between
of quick and dead But he that by vertue of his Commission as Son of man did freely forgive all other sins did as my Text imports remit all personal offences as they only concerned himself and did not suffer the fruits or effects of these later Jews malice to come upon Jerusalems score for shedding of righteous blood It was not his Will to have any more greivously punished for being malitiously bent against him then they should otherwise have been for the unrelenting habitual bent of their malice against whomsoever it had beene set Never was bitter enmitie practised against any so little desirous of revenge or so unwilling to accuse his enemies as he was for so he protests unto the Jews which sought his life Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father there is one that accuseth you even Moses in whom ye trust John 5. v. 45. Moses though till Christ came the meekest man that had been on earth had foretold and solemnly threatned those plagues whose execution most of the Prophets had sollicited But this Great Prophet beyond all measure of meekness and patience whereof humanity so but meer humanity is capable seeks by prayer by reproof by admonitions and exhortations by all means justly possible to prevent them he often fore-warns what would be the issue of their stubbornness which he never mentions but with greif and sorrow of heart he often intimates that the most malicious murtherer amongst this people was not so desirous of his death as he was of all their lives witness his affectionate prayers seasoned with sighs and tears even whiles they plotted the execution of their long-intended mischeif against him 4. That which first moved me to make and must justifie the interpretation of these words here made is a remarkable Opposition expresly recorded in Scripture betwixt our Saviours and his Disciples desires uttered at their death for this peoples good and the cry of Abels blood and Zachariah's dying voice both solliciting vengeance from Heaven against their persecutors When they were come to the place called Calvarie they crucified him Then said Iesus Father forgive them for they know not what they do Luke 23. ver 33. This Infinite Charity notwithstanding some alwayes jealous least God should shew any token of love towards such as they mislike or Christ manifest any desire of their salvation whom they have markt for Reprobates would have restrained unto the Garrison of Souldiers that conducted him to the Cross But Reasons we have many to think or rather firmly to believe that he uttered those Prayers Indefinitely for all that either were Actors in this business or Approvers of it whether Jews or Gentiles And if both his Doctrines and Miracles whiles he lived on earth as all must acknowledge did why should not his dying Prayers in the first place respect the lost sheep of Israel Roman Souldiers they were not but Jews of the most malignant stamp which martyred St. Stephen yet after he had commended his spirit unto Iesus in near the same terms that Jesus did his unto his Father he kneeled down and cried with a loud voice Lord lay not this sin to their charge And when he had said this he fell asleep Acts 7. 60. It is no sin I hope to suppose that the Master was every way as charitable at his death as his Disciple It is requisite that he which bids us bless our persecutors should set us a more exquisite patern then we are able to express His prayers for his greatest persecutors were more fervent and unfeigned then ours can be for our dearest friends St. Stephen in thus praying for his enemies did but imitate his Master and bear witness of his loving kindness towards all But when Cain had killed Abel the voice of his blood cried unto the Lord from the earth and the cry procured a curse upon him for the earth became barren unto him and he was a fugitive and vagabond from the Land wherein he lived before Herein as St. Augustine excellently observes a Type of the Jewish Nation who having the prerogative of birth-right amongst Gods People for the like sin became fugitives and vagabonds on the face of the earth whilest the good Land which God gave unto their fathers hath been curst with barrenness and desolation for their sakes And this Cry of Abels blood against his brother God would have registred in the beginning of his book as a Proclamation against all like impious and bloody Conspiracies until the worlds end Whereby the Iews to whom the manner of Gods process with Cain was sufficiently known were condemned Ipso Facto without any further folicitation of Gods judgments then their own attempts of like practises No marvel if his punishment foreshadow theirs when as never any did so manifestly and notoriously revive his sin as this Generation here spoken of did Cain saith St. Iohn was of that wicked one and slew his brother And wherefore slew he him Because his own works were evil and his brothers righteous 1 John 3. 12. Ye are of your father the divel saith our Saviour to these Iewes and the lusts of your father ye will do he was a murtherer from the beginning Iohn 8. v. 44. And why did they go about to murther him Because he had told them the truth which he had heard of God ver 40. And as he had taught before in the third of S. John They would not receive him although he came as a light into the world because their deeds were evil Moses had foretold That the Great Prophet was to be this peoples Brother and in that they would not hearken to him they stood condemned by Moses's Sentence Deut. 18. 18. Whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name I will require it of him v. 19. Abel as pleasing God by his sacrifice and as being slain by his ungratious brother was the live Type of Christ as man whose murther by his brethren though most displeasant yet his sacrifice was most acceptable unto his God The same God which in the fourth of Genesis admonisheth Cain partly by threatning partly by promises to desist from his wicked purposes doth here in my Text as lovingly and yet as severely dehort these Jews from following his foot-steps least his punishments fall heavier upon them And they not taking warning by Cain's example to repent them of their envie and grudging against their brother the Crie not of Christs blood which they shed but of Abel's overtakes them for Christ was consecrated as the Sanctuary or place of Refuge whereto they should have fled And Abel was the Revenger of blood which did pursue them So likewise doth the Cry of Zacharias's at his death for that was quite contrary to our Saviours and St. Stephen's When he died he said The Lord look upon it and require it 2 Chron. 24. 22 The present Effect of this his dying speech compared with St. Lukes narration of Our Saviours Admonition affords the