may be taken these ways 1. The immediate Communication of the Holy Spirit wherewith Christ himself was indued for as in respect of the Union of the Divine Nature there was an Essential Union between the Son and the Spirit so by that Union of both Natures in one Person there was a Communion of the same Spirit unto Christ The Spirit descended upon him like a Dove Matth. 3.16 God gave him not the Spirit by measure John 3.34 Now as Aaron's Ointment that was poured first upon his Head descended upon the Hem of his Garment so by virtue of our Union with him that Spirit that was without measure poured upon our Head was in some measure diffused upon all that are united to him and as the same Soul that actuates the Heart and the Head in a more plentiful and eminent manner doth inactuate the most inconsiderable part of the same Body so the same Spirit that is in Christ is in every one that is united unto him though in a different degree of operation Rom. 8.9 If any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his 2 Cor. 6.17 He that is joyned unto the Lord is one Spirit And by this Spirit of Christ which he giveth and communicateth unto those that are united unto him they are said to be sealed by the Spirit of Promise Ephes 1.13 2 Cor. 1.22 viz. It is by this Spirit of Christ that we have access unto God Ephes 2.18 We have access by one Spirit unto the Father and it is this Spirit that forms our Desires in us and by this means our Desires are not only discovered unto God that knows the mind of his own Spirit but they are also conformable unto the Will of God Rom. 8.27 He that searcheth the heart knoweth what is in the mind of the Spirit because be maketh intercession for the Saints according to the will of God. And as the Father did hear the Son always because his Desires were conformable to the Will of his Father John 11.42 I know that thou hearest me always so John 16.23 Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name he shall give it you for it is a Petition framed by that Spirit which is the Spirit of Christ and of God and what his own Spirit desires it is his own Will to grant And for this cause it is called the Spirit of Adoption Rom. 8.15 God is pleased to accept the Prayers and Services of the Members of Christ in him even as the obedience of his own Sons because they are moved and actuated by the very same Spirit which is the Spirit of his Son. And as the intrinsecal form of things is that which instrumentally conforms the qualities and proportions of the thing which it informs unto that intrinsecal form and suits it with Qualities and Conditions suitable to its Operations so this Spirit of Christ doth by degrees conform the Soul the Affections the whole Man unto the Image of Christ changing it into the same Image 2 Cor. 3.18 And this Spirit of Christ doth lead them into all Truth John 16.13 And from hence it is that he that is the true Member of Christ cannot continue in a constant course of sin 1 John 3.9 For his seed remaineth in him viz. That Spirit of Christ by which he is actuated and by which he is born of God John 3.6 That which is born of the Spirit is Spirit That abideth in him and will be degrees like a living Spring work out that mudd that our own flesh and corruption cast into us 2. Which is a fruit of the former The mind of Christ For this Spirit of God works a Conformity in the Heart and Life to Christ whose Spirit it is This Spirit of Christ makes an impression of the Image of Christ upon the Soul and Life The like Effect with this we find in all things In matters Natural the vicinity of two things together works a Conformity of the weaker to the stronger either Element or Form In matters Moral Conversation between two breed a Conformity in Manners even different from their otherwise natural Constitution much more where the Spirit of Christ lays hold on the Soul and unites a Man unto Christ there is not only new Company but a new Form and consequently of necessity a new frame and temper of Heart and Life conformable to such Company and to such a Form. And in order to this Conformity unto Christ the Old Conversation the Old Man which is corrupt according to the deceitful Lusts Ephes 4.22 must be put off the Affections and Lusts must be crucified Galat. 5.25 the Body will be dead because of sin Rom. 8.10 Ungodliness and Worldly Lusts will be denied Tit. 2.12 For these make a deformity from Christ such a Spirit as the Spirit of Christ cannot long endure to inform or inhabit such a Soul but if it come into him it will change him And in stead thereof the Man shall be born again by the Spirit John 3.5 the Spirit will be Life Rom. 8.10 Christ will be new formed in them Galat. 4.19 the walking will be in the Spirit Galat. 5.25 the New Man will be put on even the Image of Christ Righteousness and true Holiness Ephes 4.24 Christ will be put on Galat. 3.27 Rom. 13.14 the Life will be the Life of Christ Galat. 2.20 the Heart will be the Habitation of Christ Ephes 3.17 of God Ephes 2.22 of the Holy Ghost 1 Cor. 6.19 the mind the mind of Christ 1 Cor. 2.16 the temper of the Soul the same with his humble as he was humble Phil. 2.5 holy as he is holy 1 Pet. 1.16 long-suffering and indulgent as he was John 13.15 Behold have I not given you an example Patient under the Will of God c. And by Conformity unto Christ Man is put into a right state and in that order towards God himself and others as he was in his creation and thereby in some measure restored to that Happiness which he had by reason of that order The Happiness and Peace of every thing consisting in the due observance of that station and Rule which God hath given it And this Conformity unto Christ is our Sanctification which is nothing else but a restoring of Man in some measure to that Conformity unto the Will of God in which he was created Man by sin lost that impression of God's Image God was pleased to give us his Son who is the express Image of his Father and by this Spirit of his to re-imprint that Image again upon as many as behold him and come unto him by Faith 1. Thes 4.3 This is the will of God even your Sanctification so that the Sanctification or Obedience which is wrought in us and required of us is the Conformity of the Will of Man to the Will of God. The Obedience performed unto God by the Faithful ariseth from a double Principle 1. This whereof we now speak an intrinsecal Change of the Nature Conforming the Heart
Happiness viz. That no temporal thing no carnal pleasure no contemplation of the Creature is commensurate to the Nature and duration of the Soul which is the best part of Man and consequently is not nor can be his End. Yet this though it take him off from the wrong ways it sets him not in the right way but leaves him at a stand Therefore 2. The second Impediment is the Ignorance of the Object of this Happiness the want of the Knowledge of God which is the only Object of all our Happiness the proof and demonstration whereof ensues By what hath been before said it is evident 1. That by the Wise appointment of God every thing is ordained to an End to which it moves 2. That this End is such a Good as is answerable to the perfection of the Creature which moves to it a meer Natural Agent moves to a Natural End a Sensitive to a Sensible Good. 3. That the highest Perfection of the reasonable Creature consists in his reasonable Soul by which he is a large degree above the Sensitives Therefore to find out Wherein that Good consists that is the End of Man we must take measure of the Soul wherein consists Man's Perfection and When or Where we can find a Good commensurate to the Soul there and there only can we fix Man's Happiness 1. The Soul of Man is Immaterial and consequently that wherein consists Happiness cannot be Material This takes off all Sensible Objects as Pleasures Wealth Outward Pomp nay all the visible Creatures from being the Object of Man's Felicity It is as impossible to satisfie a Spirit with these things as it is to feed a Body with a Spirit they hold not a proportion or conformity one to another And from hence it is that in that small slender use that the Soul makes of the Creature as it cannot enter into the Soul till it be spiritualized in the species which are refined more and more the nearer they come to the Soul first in the Organ then in the Phantasie so neither can the Soul make use of them to any purpose being received till by abstraction it hath made them of the same nature with her self And from this disproportion between the Soul and those external Enjoyments do arise that Unsatisfactoriness that comes by them to the Soul for though they are useful to the Body and the outward Man and therefore they are desirable by the Soul it self in order to that End yet they reach not so far as the Soul their End falls short of it and hence it is that the Soul rests not in the enjoyment of them nay though it see not its proper End yet it finds a nauseum in the excess of these and therefore is restless and moves from one Pleasure to another And this is likewise the reason why every outward Pleasure is greater in the Expectation than in the Fruition because the Imagination of the Soul which is the Creature that the Soul forms can bring it nearer to the Soul than the Creature when it is enjoyed can come and this Imagination as it doth delude the Soul so it likewise takes off much of that Content which may be lawfully found and used in the Creature it makes the Pursuit too eager and Fruition flat in that it was over expected 2. The Soul of Man is consequently Immortal and its Felicity cannot therefore consist in that which cannot be co-extended with it Were there a Good imaginable that in its own nature held proportion with the value of the Soul and yet were perishable it were impossible that in the enjoyment of this Good could the Felicity of the Soul consist and that upon these Reasons 1. Because the Duration of the Soul is not divisible and successive taking it apart from the Body A temporary Felicity would be no Felicity It is true we measure out our time by parcels as years and weeks and days and hours and minutes but the Soul doth not so for though the duration thereof is not simply indivisible as in the Duration of Eternity yet it is far more swift than ours and so would be almost insensible of a temporary Good though of long continuance 2. Because the determination of that Good would consequently determine its Felicity so it can be no perfect Happiness 3. The very enjoyment of a most perfect Good that the Soul looks upon as determinable is in that very enjoyment mingled with a discontent grief and fear which are abundantly sufficient to rob the Soul of Felicity in that very enjoyment when the Soul shall be taken up with such sad preapprehensions and preexpectations as these I now enjoy a good answerable to my desires and that fills up every the least vacuity and craving of my Will yet I foresee that it is not lasting a time must come when I must lose it and it will die under my hand and yet my Immortal Being shall have continuance to all Eternity when my present Enjoyment shall serve but to increase my emptiness and misery with the sense of what I had and lost This Hand-writing upon the Wall is enough to turn the highest Enjoyment that is but temporary into bitterness in the very enjoyment much more those vain and thin Pleasures of this World that never came near the Soul but in a deceitful Imagination So then to the constitution of true Happiness for an immortal Substance there is re-required an immortal Good. 3. It must be a Good divided in its own Nature from the Soul. There can nothing be the End and Supream Good to it self but the First Cause which alone is self-sufficient And that is manifest in the Motions of the Soul for if it self were the End of it self it hath its End and consequently would cease to move but it is evident that the Soul is not a Pure Act but receptive of something distinct from it self to which it moves as to its End and Perfection 4. It must be a True and Real Good for since the Perfection of the Soul consists in these two active Faculties the Understanding whose Object is Truth and the Will and the principal use of every Faculty is in order to the Supream End of the Soul which is his Summum Bonum it is necessary that that which is pursued by the Will as Good should likewise be entertained by the Understanding as True and the highest Perfection of the Understanding is about the Truth of that which is the Supream Good because that Truth is the Supream Truth The Truth of this Goodness stands in opposition 1 to that which seems to be Good and is not at all such are meerly imaginary and phantastical Goods when the Soul works an imaginary Good and then works it self into the belief of it 2. to that which having a being seems to be good and is not 3. to that which though it be good seems to be the Supream Good but is not It must therefore be an Intellectual Real Good. 5. It must
Deut. 8.3 is due to this Word of Command and Benediction that the Lord at first spoke to the Creature Now concerning the particular Creation of Man not to enter into the consideration of the manner of his Creation his Essentials the Body the Soul or the nature of either but we shall enquire What is meant by the Likeness or Image of God There was a twofold Image of God 1. Essential viz. A participation in his very Essence of a Conformity to the Divine Nature which consisted in three particulars 1. That he had an Immortal Soul this is that which Wisdom 2.23 is called the Image of his Eternity 2. That he was an Intellectual Being 3. That he was a Free Agent These being essential to Man were not lost by him and for this reason God required the same severity against Murder as if Man had never fallen Gen. 9.6 For in the Image of God made he Man. 2. An Accidental Image which consisted in an adventitious Perfection which God added to Man. 1. Dominion Gen. 1.26 And let them have Dominion c. So God created Man in his own Image The Dominion which he gave to him made him resemble God and hence it is that those that have power of Command are called Gods Exod. 4.17 And thou shalt be to him instead of God. Psal 82.6 I have said ye are gods Vid. Gen. 9.2 This Dominion consisted not only in his Power to inforce his Commands by the advantages of Wit and Strength above other Creatures but likewise in a Subjection in the Creatures to his Dominion 2. An incorruptible Union between the Body and the Soul Gen. 2.17 The day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die Hence Rom. 5. the Apostle concludes Death the fruit of Sin. This might have been either by reason of the excellence of his natural Constitution or by supplying it with special Assistance by which means the Lives of the Fathers before the Flood had so long a duration or by assuming of him into Heaven without any dissolution of Soul and Body as was Enoch Gen. 5.24 3. A filling of the Intellectual Faculty with the Light and Knowledge of all things especially of his Maker And herein consisted his high degree of Happiness But as the Object or the Union of the Object to the Faculty is not of the Essence of that Intellectual Nature wherein that Faculty resides but may be removed without any essential change so was this and that herein consisted the Image of God appears by Colos 3.10 The Renovation by Christ which is renewed in knowledge after the Image of him that created him 4. Holiness or Conformity of the Will to the Will of God. This appears likewise by the state of Renovation Epes 4.24 Put on the New Man which after God is created in Righteousness and true Holiness which as it presupposeth a true Knowledge of the Will of God so it was a free choice of Obedience to it This was not essential to the Will because the Will was essentially Free but had been necessary to the Will in case the Understanding had not been abused CHAP. IV. Of the Providence of God in special concerning Man in order to his supream End. THUS much shortly touching the Creation and Man's Constitution in it the second part of the Dispensation of this Counsel is God's Providence and herein we shall pass over that part which is the General Providence of God and consider of that Special Providence or Dispensation of Divine Counsel which concerneth Man and that not meerly as a Creature but in order to his everlasting End. We shall consider therefore the course of this Providence of God in order to the Eternal End of Man under those three Conditions or Times wherein we find Man Before the Fall After the Fall In Christ Concerning the estate of Man before the Fall or sin of Adam we have already examined certain Generals that are conducible to this point viz. 1. That God did appoint Man to some End or Good answerable to the constitution and value of his Nature and this is his Happiness 2. That this Good must therefore be an Infinite Immortal Intelligible Good otherwise it could not be answerable to the Nature of Man. 3. That there is not nor can be any such Good but only God. 4. That the Actual Enjoyment of this Good is by the Union of the Soul to God and the Communion of God to the Soul. 5. That the only Means of attaining this Union and Communion must needs be such and such only as the Will of God pleaseth to appoint We shall now descend to these two particular Inquiries viz. 1. What was that great End or Happiness which Man did or might enjoy in his created condition 2. What was the Means whereby to attain and keep that Happiness 1. Concerning the former viz. What was Man's Happiness in his Creation we shall consider him in those three degrees of Living which he had 1. As a Vegetable Creature an exact Constitution and temper of Body which though naturally corruptible yet by the interposition of the Divine Power not subject to corruption those things that were for his use and sustentation the Air the Water the Fruits of the Earth most exactly conducible to the perpetuating of his Life without Pain or Sickness 2. As a Sensible Creature Exquisiteness of Sense and receptive of whatsoever the Creature could afford conducing to his Use or Delight and the Creature likewise fitted for the supply of those Senses every Herb given him for Food all the Creatures came to him to receive their Names he had Dominion over them a most pleasant Garden planted by God himself for his Habitation with a Tree of Immortality in it 3. As a Rational Creature 1. A most just and sweet Subordination of the inferiour Faculties to the superiour the sensitive Appetite the Passions and Motions of the Spirits 2. A most exact fitness and perfection of those Organs of the Body which are necessary for the operations of the Faculties of the Soul and a perfect and just Union of the Body and Soul whereby the Soul might clearly and perfectly exercise all her Faculties 3. Which is the height of all the rest fitting of those Faculties with the most perfect and suitable Object even God himself for all Faculties or Powers receive their perfection by their Objects to have an Understanding as comprehensive as Heaven to have a Will of as vast Desires as infinitude it self and not to have an Object suitable to either were a greater Unhappiness than to want the Faculties In the Creation therefore God filled the Understanding with the sight and knowledge of Himself of his Majesty Glory Bounty Goodness with the knowledge of his Will and Mind concerning Man with the knowledge of his Works and of his Workings This could not chuse but work in the Mind of Man answerable returns to the nature of this Object He is fully conceived to be the highest and most supream Good and
and consequently the Life to the Will of God the Mind of Christ for the same Spirit of Christ which dwells in Christ our Head dwells likewise in those that are the Members of the same Body and as the oneness of the Soul in Man makes that oneness of motion in all the Body and that Conformity that is in all its motions to the mind of the Soul so that oneness of the Spirit in Christ and his Members makes that Conformity of the Members of Christ unto the Mind and Will of Christ which is the uncreated Image of God This is Regeneration the birth of the Spirit the forming of Christ in us the Sanctification of the Spirit 2 Thes 2.13 2. That whereof before is spoken Love unto God which is always the Soul of all true Obedience The Soul finds the Goodness and Rectitude and Beauty of God and of all his Commands and therefore out of a Judicial Love it is sensible of the ingagement that it ows to God and therefore out of Gratitude it will as far as the strength of the Soul can reach obey the Commands which are so Righteous of her God that is so Gracious It finds that it was the Purpose of God he created us unto good Works Ephes 2.10 that as many as are in Christ ought to walk as he walked 1 John 2.5 That the Son of God died to destroy the works of the Devil 1 John 3.8 to purifie unto himself a People zealous of Good Works Tit. 2.14 That Christ hath ordained that his Disciples should bring forth Fruit John 15.16 That for this cause Christ died c. that from thenceforth they that live should not live unto themselves c. 2 Cor. 5.15 Now the true Love of God makes the Will of God to be his Will and the Glory of God his End if there were no Beauty in the thing commanded yet shall I dispute his Will that hath redeemed me shall I go about to disappoint him in the End of his Death for me ordinary Reason teacheth me to subscribe and yield Obedience to the Commands of God for they are all most Wise and most Just Commands and though I see not the Wisdom Usefulness and Justice of them yet the same Truth that tells me his ways are unsearchable and past finding out teacheth me to obey when I discern the Authority though not the Reason of the Command But if it were not so suppose I could be a loser by my Obedience I cannot lose so much as I have freely received from him that commands me When Abraham received a Son from the Goodness of God and God required him again Abraham obeys though his Obedience had left him as Childless as the Promise found him But the greatest Command that I can receive from my Saviour cannot return me to so bad a Condition as his Pity and Mercy found me in If he require my Riches my Liberty my Life yet he leaves me somewhat which without his Goodness I had lost and doth more than countervail all my other Losses even my Everlasting Soul When he requires these of me he pays me interest for them Matth. 19.29 But if he did not yet the Price of my Soul in ordinary Gratitude may deserve the life of my Body for what can a Man give in Exchange for his Soul Matth. 16 26. CHAP. XIII Concerning the putting off the Old Man and 1. What it is NOW concerning the putting off the Old Man two things are considerable 1. What this Old Man is 2. How we must put him off For the former it is nothing but that Ataxy Disorder and Corruption which by sin did fall upon our Nature It is not our Nature in its essentials for that is still good but the absence of the Goodness and Perfection of the reasonable Soul which consisted in the Conformity to the Will of God which is the Beauty and Perfection of every thing And from this disorder in the Soul proceeds the disorder in the Life and Actions And this Old Man hath a double strength and advantage uâ—on us 1. In it self the Corruption and Disorder is so universal that the whole Soul is bound under it it hath no supplies of its own to rescue it self for they are all corrupted it is therefore called a Dominion of Sin Rom. 6.12 a body of death Rom. 7.24 a Law of Sin bringing the Soul into captivity Rom. 7.23 2. Accidentally the Prince of the Power of the Air taking advantage of this confusion and disorder of the Soul gets as it were into it and so worketh in the children of disobedience Ephes 2.2 inhabits it as his Castle and useth the Faculties of the Soul as the Weapons wherein he trusteth became a Ruler of Darkness in the Soul Eph. 6.12 Is Judas covetous the Devil gets into that covetousness and acts it even unto the betraying of the Lord of Life Luke 22.3 Is Peter lifted up upon his Master's atâ—estation of his Confession the Devil gets into that Pride and he becomes a tempter of our Redeemer Matth. 6.23 Is a Man immoderately angry the Devil gets into that Anger and will turn it into Malice Ephes 4.27 The Prince of the World could get no advantage upon our Redeemer he had nothing in him John 14.30 but so much of the Old Man as remains in us such a party hath the Devil in us to entertain nourish and actuate his temptations We shall therefore consider wherein this Corruptition or Deficiency in our Soul consists It is in every part and faculty of the whole Man as may evidently appear by tne enumeration of particulars 1. In the Vnderstanding there wants Light Rom. 1.21 Their foolish heart was darkened Ephes 4.18 And from hence the imaginations become vain Rom. 1.21 and not only vain but evil and continually evil Gen. 6.5 pursues unprofitable Curiosities Acts 19.19 Lusts of the Mind Ephes 2.3 Fables and impertinent Questions Tit. 3.9 1 Tim. 1.4 vain deceit Colos 2.8 It wants a capacity to discern things of greatest concernment 1 Cor. 2.14 the best habits of the Understanding are corrupt The Wisdom of the World is not only Foolishness 1 Cor. 3.19 but Enmity to God is earthly sensual devilish James 3.15 These and the like are the Old Man in the Understanding for the Light being either out or dim the actings of the Understanding are irregular and it is one of the great works of Christ in our renovation to give us the Spirit of a sound Mind 2 Tim. 1.17 2. In the Conscience This is the tenderest part of the Soul the receptacle of that Light and Authority of God which he hath left in us to be our Monitor and his Vicegerent Rom. 2.15 And yet the Old Man hath mastered and corrupted this also puts it awry or out 1 Tim. 1.19 defiles the Mind and Conscience Tit. 1.15 sears the Conscience so that it is insensible and past feeling Ephes 4.19 And if the Conscience be so vigorous as not to be stifled by means of this
is bitterness in the end fit to implore a Pardon and fit to receive it because it now knows how truly to value it And though thy greater sin deserve thy greater Sorrow yet thy very failings sins of daily incursion Erroâ— in Circumstances of Actions defects and wants of intention in Duties do all deserve as true Sorrow though not so great and therefore cherish and encourage thy Conscience to be vigilant in this by observing her rebukes even concerning these and let not the reflection of these pass without as particular an Humiliation of thy Soul before God for them for they are sins against the Duty and Gratitude thou owest to thy Creator and it will make thy future Conversation more exact and more comfortable sorrow of Heart for those smaller offences as it will make presumptuous sins the more hideous and the more abhorred so it will waste the number and measure of those smaller offences which like swarms of flyes cover our daily Actions of all kinds 3. To seek out for that which can only pacifie thy Conscience and remove thy Sorrow which cannot be but by removing the Guilt And now let thy Soul search the whole Compass of Heaven and Earth and where canst thou find any thing that can remove thy Guilt of the smallest sin imaginable but him alone against whom thou hast committed it and where canst thou find any means for obtaining remission from sins but by that means which he himself hath prescribed and where hath he prescribed any such means but in his Word and where in his Word but in his Son Matth. 11.28 Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest If then I stay at home I find nothing within me but a troubled and chiding Conscience and it will be impossible for me to remove this Guilt I will therefore venture my Soul upon the free Promise of God in Christ and with the Lepers in the Famine conclude If he save me I shall live and if he kill me I can but die 4. To fall upon thy knees before the great God and to beg for thy Life and for thy Peace O Lord my sin hath brought a Guilt upon my Soul and that Guilt hath raised a Storm in my Conscience but if thou who art only offended and therefore canst only forgive speak the Word to thy Servant Be thou clean and to my Conscience Peace be still my Guilt and with it that Tempest that is within me will be removed Do it I beseech thee for thy Truth and Promise sake thou canst not owe Remission to thy Creature but thou hast been pleased to ingage thy self to thy Creature upon Repentance to have mercy and forgive and upon that Promise of thine will I hang though thou seem to reject me Do it for thy Mercy sake thou that hast commanded me to forgive my Brother till seventy times seven times if as often he turn and repent hast infinitely more Mercy towards thy Creature than thou requirest from it Do it for thy Glories sake thou hast said it is the Glory of a Man to pass by a Transgression and what can be glorious in thy Creature that hath not a resemblance of thy own mind and Image nay do it for thy Justice sake thou hast been pleased to give a publick Sacrifice for all our sins against thee even thy Son by an eternal Covenant with a Proclamation That whosoever will may come and take of the water of Life freely and thou hast been pleased as it were to deposite a Pardon in thy Sons hand for as many as come unto thee by him and to lay upon him that Chastisement of our Peace and though I like a Man have gone aside yet thy Gifts are without Repentance That satisfaction therefore which thou out of thy abundant Love wert pleased to give unto thy self I beseech thee accept and as it will be the Glory of thy Mercy so it will be the Honour of thine own Justice for if we confess our sins thou art Just as well as Faithful to forgive us our sins in him that was the price of our Peace Set a Watch upon thy Spirit As the Soul is the Life of the Body so the Spirit is the Life of the Soul that active Principle which works by the Will the Affections and Conscience This appears by the frequent Denomination of the Spirit and by its contradistinction to the very Soul Ephes 4.23 Spirit of the mind Prov. 18.14 The Spirit of a Man will sustain his infirmities but a wounded Spirit who can bear Prov. 20.27 The Spirit of a Man is the Candle of the Lord. Prov. 16.2 The Lord weigheth the Spirits Eccl. 7.8 The patient in Spirit is better than the proud in Spirit Isaiah 57.15 to revive the Spirit of the humble 16. The Spirit should fall before me and the Souls which I have made James 4.5 The Spirit that is in us luâ—â—eth to liuâ—â—y Heb. 12 23. The Spirits of Just men made perfect 1 Thes â— 23 I pray God your whole Spirit and Soul and Body c. Heb. 4.12 dividing between the Soul and the Spirit Rom. 8.16 The Spirit beareth witness with our Spirit And here we take not Spirit physically for those Instruments whereby the Soul works but for that Principle of activity which works in the Soul these Disorders that sit upon the Spirit principally are two 1. In the Defect Deadness and Depression in the Spirit The Spirit is that which only can hold Communion with God he that will worship him as he must worship him in Spirit and Truth so with his Spirit and without that mingled with thy Prayers they are dead and cannot come at him and without thy Spirit brought to his Word and to his Ordinances they cannot come at thy Soul. As the Spirits of thy Blood are those that unite sensible Objects to thy Soul so the Spirit of thy Soul is that which can only bring home Divine impressions from God to thy Soul or expressions from thy Soul acceptably to God. Upon such occasions awake thy Spirit and mingle it with thy Services and shake off that Dulness and Heaviness of Spirit it will make thy Prayers uneffectual and thy Services unprofitable 2. In the Excess Elation and Pride of Spirit And from this Capital disease in the Spirit proceed those others of Envy the Spirit that is in us lusteth after eâ—y The Spirit of Revenge Luke 9.55 Ye 〈◊〉 not 〈◊〉 what Spirit you are The Spirit of Murmuring and Discontent These are but the productions of the Spirit of Pride when it meets with any thing that crosseth it If it meet with any Person that sensibly exceedeth the Person in whom it is in worth esteem or other Accessions then it is turned into Envy and that Envy into Revenge And this was the very Original of the Devils immediate action upon our first Parents his Pride though it made him lower by his fall it made him not more humble And from hence
special and peculiar way and is that very Power whereby their Acts and Motions to eternity are acted and was not communicated in that perfection till after Christ's Ascension John 16.7 If I go not away the Comforter will not come This Spirit of Christ is a Spirit of Illumination and Instruction John 14.26 The Comforter which is the Holy Ghost whom the Father will send in my Name he shall teach you all things 1 Joh. 2.27 The anointing which is from above teacheth you all things a Spirit of Conviction and Redargution John 16.8 a Spirit of Renovation and Cleansing Tit. 3.5 a Spirit of Strength Ephes 3.16 Strengthned with his might by his Spirit a Spirit of Assurance Ephes 1.13 Sealed with the Holy Spirit of Promise a Spirit of quickening Rom. 8.11 quickned by his Spirit that dwelleth in you a Spirit of Adoption and Attestation Rom. 18.15 16. We nave received the Spirit of Adoption a Spirit of Supplication and Intercession Rom. 8.26 27. The Spirit it self maketh Intercession for us The Spirit of defence against Temptation Ephes 6.17 The Sword of the Spirit which is the word of God A Spirit of Union There is a double and reciprocal means of Union between Christ and his people 1. By Faith whereby Christ is united unto them Ephes 3.17 That Christ might dwell in your Hearts by Faith. 2. By the Spirit whereby we are united unto him Rom. 8.9 If any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his Ephes 2.20 In whom also ye are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit 1 John 4.13 Hereby we know that we dwell in him and he in us because he hath given us of his Spirit 1 Cor. 6.17 He that is joyned to the Lord is one Spirit And this Union with Christ was that which he so much desired of his Father for his Church John 17.22 23. And as by Faith all that Satisfaction and Righteousness which was in him was made ours so all our Actions proceeding from this Spirit are in truth his both in virtue and acception with the Father Ephes 2.18 Through him we have access by one Spirit to the Father Gal. 2.20 I live yet not I but Christ liveth in me And by reason of this Union with Christ as he is a Son so are we Sons Rom. 8.17 Joynt Heirs with him and Galat. 4.7 an Heir of God through Christ thus we apprehend Christ and are apprehended of him Phil. 3.12 3. The third effect and end of Christ's Ascension is his perpetual Intercession in the Presence of the Glory of God for his People Christ in his humane Nature was our Sacrifice and that was but one Sacrifice and but once offered Heb. 9.28.10.14 And Christ who in both Natures was the Priest that offered that Sacrifice Heb. 9 14 25. Who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without Spot to God though he finished that part of his Priestly Office while he was with us yet as the Priesthood of Christ was for ever according to the order of Melchisedec so the exercise of that Priesthood still continues Heb. 9.24 Christ is entred into Heaven it self now to appear in the Presence of God for us And as by his Spirit which he hath given to his people he makes Intercession in them for we have Access to the Father by his Spirit so by himself he makes Intercession for us Heb. ◠25 Wherefore he is able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him seeing he ever liveth to make Intercession for them 1 John 2.1 And if any man sin we have an advocate with the Father Jesus Christ the righteous And it is the strength of this Intercession of Christ that makes the Prayers of his People effectual John 16.23 Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my Name he will grant it That Incense that was mingled with the Prayers of the Saints Revel 8.3 And here let 〈◊〉 ever admire the endless goodness of God Man is dead in trespasses and sins God sends his Son into the World with a Ransom and with Life John 1.4 In him was life and the life was the light of men But for all this the World still continues in death and darkness John 1.10 The world knew him not He therefore by his Providence conveys Truth to their Ears and by his Spirit carries Life and Light into their Souls and conquers the darkness and death that is in us And when he hath rescued us from ruine he still leaves that Spirit of his to contest with our Corruptions to discover his Mind to form us every day more and more to our lost Image to supplicate and communicate our wants and fears and though those supplications of ours are mingled with imperfections distrusts doubtings and distractions yet he that knows the mind of his own Spirit takes these Prayers of ours and cleanseth them from the dross that hangs about them mingles his own Merit with them presents them to his Father in the strength of his own Intercession and so bears the iniquity of their holy things Nay when we vex and grieve that Agent of his that he hath left in us to perfect our Blessedness and oftentimes stifle his motions and have scarce the sign of Life left in us he nevertheless makes Intercession for us Isa 53.12 He made intercession for the transgressours 3. The next inquiry is for whom the Satisfaction of Christ was 1. Christ did Intentionally lay down his Life for the sins of the Elect of God John 10.15 I lay down my life for my sheep And these Sheep of Christ as they were not confined to one time or age of the World so neither to one Nation or company of People John 10.16 Other sheep I have which are not of this fold viz. of the Nation of the Jews And thus some understand 1 John 22. And not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world using us the world as a contradistinction of the Gentiles from the Jews to whom it seems he wrote 2. As Christ died Intentionally for the Redemption of the Elect so he died Effectually for them and God hath so ordered his Counsels that those that he hath appointed to eternal Life shall use that means which he hath appointed to be instrumental for the partaking of the Efficacy of his Death John 6.37 All that the Father giveth me shall come unto me and him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out 3. Whatsoever were the Intention or Efficacy of the Death of Christ yet we are sure that all Men shall not partake of the full and compleat Effect of Christ's Satisfaction viz. Eternal Life This is a clear Truth yet all the lost Sons of Adam shall be left wholly unexcusable and condemned by the most Righteous and Natural Justice that is imaginable There have been three great Promulgations of Laws in the World. 1. The Law written in the Hearts of Men Rom 1.19 That which may be
were a Miracle of Mercy if such a God so offended and by his Creature should have accepted a Reconciliation upon the highest importunity of his Creature But for him thus injured that could not receive a grain of advantage by our Conversion unto him to change as it were conditions with his Creature and to importune a Reconciliation from it There wants conception in us to understand it it is a Love passing knowledge But yet like the waters of the Sanctuary still riseth higher It is true we made our selves miserable and if thou O Lord hadst never looked after us nor pitied us we could never have complained of thy Justice But if thou hadst pitied and done no more or if thy pity had gone so far as to have given us a deliverance if we could have found it we must for ever in our misery have magnified thy Mercy though we had been Non-plus'd in the inquiry But here is Love not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the Propitiation for our Sins a Propitiation and a Propitiation prepared by our offended injured Maker and such a Propitiation But it rests not here We had incurred Guilt enough to make us wretched and a delivery from wretchedness by such a means had been an unspeakable Mercy But this mercy rested not there he doth not only of miserable Men make us not miserable by pardoning our Guilt but of Enemies makes us Children by a Righteousness that he himself had prepared 1 John 1.3 Behold what manner of Love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the Sons of God. 4. Now a Man would think that ordinary Prudence and Ingenuity would engage the heart to entertain this Message of Happiness and Peace with Love and Acceptation and that a greater approach from God to his Creature as it could not be expected so it need not be required The Chiefest Good commands our Entertainment how much more when it offers it self with such a condescension as well to our Necessities as to our conditions Moral perswasions have wrought upon the Tempers of wise Men without any propositions of any thing beyond this Life how much more perswasions bottomed upon such sound Reason and propounding an end sutable to the highest Comprehension of our Souls But all this will not serve the turn unless the Mercy of God had gone farther We are dead in Trespasses and Sins and we can no more receive these Truths and this Love of God than a dead Man can receive a rational Impression Now Christ is our Life Colos 3.4 When Christ who is our Life shall appear 1 John 5.12 He that hath the Son hath Life he that hath not the Son hath not Life Now this Life is wrought in us and conveyed unto us by the very work of the Spirit of God and Christ in and upon our Souls John 6.63 It is the Spirit that quickens the same Spirit that raised up Christ from the Dead Rom. 8.11 If the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the Dead dwell in you he that raised up Christ from the Dead shall also quicken your Mortal Body by his Spirit that dwelleth in you Ephes 2.5 Even when we were dead in Sins he hath quickned us together with Christ Therefore he is called the Spirit of Life Rom. 8.2 This Life called the renewing of the Holy Ghost Tit. 2.5 a Birth of the Spirit John 3.5 Except a Man be born of Water and the Spirit Verse 6. that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit The first Resurrection Ephes 5.14 Awake thou that sleepest stand up from the Dead and Christ shall give thee Life And though it may seem a vain Command to a dead Man to stand up from the Dead yet we must remember whose Command it was even his that spake to dead Lazarus Come forth and he arose because a Spirit of Life and a word of Power went along with the Command John 6.63 The words that I speak unto you they are Spirit and they are Life They have not only Life in them for him that receives them but I can send a Spirit with them to enable him to receive them And now the Soul is put into a condition to entertain his Happiness It was the Happiness of Adam's Soul and it is the Happiness of Angelical Natures to be receptive of the knowledge and Love of God And here was Mans misery by his Sin that as he lost the actual Enjoyment of God so he had made his Soul as it were irreceptive of it again and as God hath offered himself to us again in Christ so by his Spirit he enables us to receive him by Faith which is the first motion of the Creature to Union with God. So then the work of the Spirit upon the Soul comes under a threefold Consideration though the same act produceth all three and therefore they are three put together 2 Tim. 1.7 The Spirit of Power of Love and of a sound Mind 1. Of Power or Life whereby Life is conveyed into the Soul which like the dry bones in Ezekiel was void of Life till this Spirit comes into them de quae supra and the two following are but the manifestation of this Life according to the Faculties wherein it appears 2. Of a sound Mind Light not only in the Medium but in the Organ John 1.4 In him was Life and the Life was the light of Men. Hence it is called a convincing Spirit John 16.8 a Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation in the knowledge of Christ Ephes 1.17 a Spirit of understanding He hath given us understanding that we may know him that is true 1 John 5.20 a Spirit of Demonstration and of Power 1 Cor. 2.4 a Spirit of discerning and Judication 1 Cor. 2.15 16. Man's Understanding by his Fall lost his Object and lost his Sight Ephes 5.8 ye were sometimes darkness And this was not only a darkness by the Absence but by the exclusion of light the Understanding was sealed against it so that though light did shine in the darkness yet the darkness comprehended it not John 1.5 Now here was the work of the Spirit of God in opening the heart Acts 16.14 enabling our understanding to receive and subduing of it to believe the truth of God. And this is certain not only in those truths which are farthest removed from our Reason and so most properly the Object of our Faith John 6.65 No man can come unto me except the Father draw him 1 Cor. 12.3 No man can say that Jesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost But even in those points of truth wherein even natural reason may guide us Even the belief of the Creation though it is deducible by natural reason to know it yet it is the work of Faith to believe it Heb. 11.3 By Faith we understand that the Worlds were framed c. The conviction of the same truth by the work of the Spirit of God creating Faith and the
work of Natural Reason working Opinion or at most knowledge differs as much as knowledge and Opinion Those things of God that are discoverable by natural Reason receive another kind of impression upon the Soul by the work of God as is evident by the Effects and Operations each have upon the Soul Rom. 1.21 When they knew God yet they glorified him not as God. 3. Of Love therefore so called because the Principal part of the Message that the Soul is acquainted with is a Message of Love and Goodness and so the Will inclined and ingaged to love that Goodness And this is the fruit of the work of God's Spirit 1. Mediately and naturally presupposing the former work of Illumination for some Objects are of so light a nature that when they are known all the work of the Soul is done so they are only known that they may be known But these objects of our Faith they do include a Goodness and Conveniency for the Soul and therefore being known they are desired so that in natural Consequence the Spirit of God if it demonstrates these Truths to the Soul it doth by consequence engage the Love of the Soul to them It is true that Education Instruction and Discipline may make us know these Truths speculatively and yet our Soul not affected with them but the Conviction which is wrought by the Power of God's Spirit is not so thin or jejune a union of these Truths to the understanding but deeper and more radicated and consequently doth more effectually work upon the Will and therefore it is the Logick of the Apostle 1 John 2.4 He that saith he knoweth God and keepeth not his Commandments is a liar and the truth is not in him 2 Pet. 1.9 He that lacketh these things is blind and cannot see The Argument is from the Negation of the necessary Effect or Consequent to the Negation of the Cause or Antecedent as if he should have said Wheresoever there is no true Obedience to the Will and Command of God there is certainly no Love of God. It is the conclusion of Truth and Reason Joh. 14.23 If a man love me he will keep my words And wheresoever there is a true knowledge of God there must of necessity be a true Love unto God because it doth represent God as the chiefest only and most suitable Good to the Soul. It is true that notional and speculative knowledge of God that is wrought by natural discourse cannot or at least seldom doth arrive to that full apprehension of the Goodness of God and consequently doth not raise up the Heart to that height of Love and Obedience for our Reason is weak and the disproportion between Him and our Understanding is infinite and therefore he hath chosen to reveal it unto us in his Word and Son and by his own Power working Knowledge in us And by this we see why the renovation and conversion unto God is sometimes expressed under the name of Knowledge John 17.3 This is life eternal that they might know thee the only true God c. Colos 3.10 Having put on the new man which is renewed in knowledge 2 Cor. 4.6 For God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ c. Sometimes under the name of Trusting and depending upon God Galat. 3.6 Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for Righteousness sometimes under the name of Love Jud. 21. Keep your selves in the Love of God 1 Tim. 1.14 with faith and love which is in Christ 2 Tim. 1.13 2 Thes 2.10 Receiving the Love of the Truth sometimes under the name of Obedience James 1.27 Pure religion and undefiled c. James 2. per tot 1 John 2.29 Every one that doth righteousness is born of him so sometimes under the name of Repentance Fear of God c. For all this is but one work of this Spirit of Grace and but the several Emanations of the same work of the Spirit of God upon the Soul diversified only in the faculties or objects the first act in Nature is Light and when it convinceth the heart of the sinfulness of sin that works Repentance when of the Promises of God that breeds Dependence and Confidence when of the Goodness and Love of God in Christ that breeds Love unto him Watchfulness over our selves Obedience to his Will when of the Majesty and Justice of God it breeds Fear and Reverence when of our own vileness it breeds Humility so that all these are but the bringing home and joyning of those Convictions wrought in our Understanding unto the Will and Affections and thereupon these Effects do as naturally follow upon this work of Illumination and Conviction wrought by the Spirit of God as the like Effects do arise upon natural convictions of Objects of inferiour kinds and goodness 2. But this is not all there is a work of strength and power upon the Will Phil. 2.13 It is God that worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure As the death and disability was in both Faculties so the Life is conveyed into both universally And this Power of God's Spirit is not only in the first acts of our Conversion to him but it goes along with us All those actions which are pleasing to God are wrought by the same Spirit of Christ by which they were at first animated It is a Spirit of Supplication in our Prayers Rom. 8.26 The Spirit maketh intercession c. A Spirit of Access for our Prayers Eph. 2.18 A Spirit of Assurance and Sonship Gal. 3.6 Eph. 1.16 A Spirit of Wisdom to direct us in our difficulties Ephes 1.17 A Spirit of Comfort and Joy in our Distresses Rom. 14.17 A Spirit of Fruitfulness in our Conversation Galat. 5.22 25. A Spirit of Perseverance 1 Pet. 1.5 Ye are preserved by the power of God through faith unto salvation CHAP. X. How our Vnion with Christ is wrought on Man's part viz. By Faith Hope and Love. HITHERTO we have seen the motion of the Love of God to his Creature by which it may appear the whole Business of Man's Salvation is the work of God and Man appears in a manner passive in all the parts of it In the sending Light into his Understanding he is passive In the enabling the Understanding to receive this Light he is still passive In the subduing the Will to the entertainment of it he is still passive Yet there is some kind of motion in us which though it be the Work of our Creator in the first giving of it and againâ— his Work in reviving quickening and enabling it yet he is pleased to require it from us and to expect it of us Mori movemus And that are principally these three Faith Hope and Love we find them oftentimes joyned together 1 Tim. 1.14 The Grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant with faith and love which is
in Christ Jesus 2 Tim. 1.13 Hold fast the form of sound words which thou hast heard of me in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus Gal. 5.5 For we through the Spirit wait for the Hope of Righteousness by Faith for in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing noâ— uncircumcision but Faith which worketh by Love 1 Cor. 13.13 Now abideth Faith Hope and Love c. But of these distinctly and how any or all of these do either unite or move us unto Union with our Saviour 1. Faith which is taken in a double sense 1. For that firm and sound Assent of the Mind to Divine Truths wrote by the Spirit of God and so differs little or nothing from supernatural Knowledge and thus Heb. 11.1 Faith is the evidence of things not seen and hath for its Objects all Divine Truths And as Christ dwells in our Hearts by Faith thus taken Ephes 3.17 so other Truths dwell in the Heart by this Faith viz. objectively so that Faith thus taken is more properly an act upon the Soul than an act of it for in our Assent to any Truth our Soul is in truth passive the strength of the Conviction conquers the Soul. 2. For that motion of the Soul whereby it rests casts and adventures it self upon the Promises of God in Christ for Remission and Salvation and so differs from the former in these three respects 1. In the Latitude of its Object it is more restrained than the former 2. In the Order of its Being it is subsequent in the Order of Nature to the former and produced by it 3. In the Manner of its working In the work of supernatural Knowledge or Assent the Soul is passive in this though it be the work of God yet the Soul is more active As the Sun when it shines upon a solid Body doth cause a reflection of his own beaâ—s so when the Light of Grace falls upon the Heart in this special act of Faith as in that or Love there is a reflection from the Soul back to God. And therefore those Expressions of Faith in the Scripture import a motion in the Soul Christ comes into the Soul by his Light and Spirit and the Soul again comes to Christ Joh. 6.45 He that hath learned of the Father cometh unto me As Christ abides in the Heart by the former act of Faith so by this latter the Soul abides and incorporates into him and both these we have joyned together John 15.4 Abide in me and I in you Now this act of the Soul is the most natural result upon the true discovery of a Man 's own Condition God's promise and Christ's mediation unto the Soul. When a Man finds that the Sentence of Death is passed upon him that nevertheless God in infinite Love and Mercy hath sent his Son to be his Satisfaction and Righteousness and hath promised and proclaimed by him and in him and only by him Peace and Reconciliation and that without exception of any person though laden with never so much guilt and sin and without any difficult Conditions Whosoever believeth on him should not perish but have everlasting life John 3.16 John 6.40 That he is appointed a Sacrifice by him whom we offended John 3.16 God so loved the world c. The Son of God and able to save to the uttermost them that come unto God by him Heb. 7.25 The most genuine and natural motion of the Soul in such a condition and thus convinced is Trust Affiance and Divolution of the Soul upon this Promise of God in Christ And it is an observable thing how the Wise and Merciful Providence of God hath ordered all things so that we might be even necessitated to the right way of our Salvation and to cast our selves upon it All were concluded under a common guilt by the voluntary offence of Adam Rom. 5.12 And if we could derive our Being from another then we might escape the Guilt and that Guilt brought with it Death in the World both eternal and temporal bound upon us by irreversible Sentence of an omnipotent God. But cannot I by my future obedience emerit this guilt No. What thou doest for the future is but thy Duty and thou canst not out-act it But grant thy future obedience might satisfie for the guilt under which thou liest thou shalt have the Copy of that Rule which I required from thee and once enabled thee to perform Do this and live But be sure thou do it without turning to the right hand or the left with thy whole Might and Mind and Soul without the least aversion and that out of the meer Principle of Love and Duty and Obedience and thy future observance may expiate that original guilt yet our Condition had been still dâ—sperate because as the Obedience was impossible so the least miscarriage had been fatal for cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the Law to do them Gal. 3.10 So we find an universal Guilt and Curse gone over all and all this discovered to drive us to a Saviour Galat. 3.22 The Scripture hath concluded all under a sin that the promise by the â—aith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe We find a righteous Law given to our Nature but as the Obedience is unsatisfactory for a past Guilt so the Observance is become impossible by reason of our Corruption whereby our disobedience is rather excited than abated Rom. 7.8 When the commandment came sin revived and I died And all this still to drive us to the necessity of a Saviour Rom. 8.12 What the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin condemned sin in the flesh Thus in the midst of all those difficulties a Saviour presents himself with the suffrage of God the attestation of Types and Prophecies with reconciliation of all the difficulties which perplexed our Inquiries with Ability to save to the uttermost with Mercy and Acceptation and Pardon and Righteousness and Happiness offered and proclaimed to all and that upon most unhazardable and easie terms only believe him and trust on him So then Faith is nothing else but that result of dependance upon and confidence in and adherence unto Christ which follows upon the sound Conviction of the Truth of God concerning him It is true the Faith of the Ancients differed much in the distinctness of its acting and object from the Faith which is now required as Abraham's Faith Caleb's Faith c. But in this they both agreed 1. That it was a Confidence and Trusting upon God in that which was revealed unto them by God. The Promises of a Son was made to Abraham and he rested upon God for the performance The Promise of Canaan to the Jews and Caleb and the believing Jews rested upon the Power and Truth of God to perform it So with us God hath promised Mercy
and Happiness to them that believe on Christ the Soul resteth and trusteth in the Truth and Power of God in Christ for it 2. In that the Faith of both had a termination in Christ though theirs more indistinctly and confusedly in respect that the same was not so clearly revealed unto them In that Promise to Abraham In thee shall all nations of the earth be blessed wherein the Gospel was preached to Abraham Galat. 3.8 Abraham did see Christ and rejoyced John 8.56 And so for the rest of those ancient Fathers Rom. 10.4 They drank of that spiritual rock that followed them and that rock was Christ Now the Effects of Faith are of two kinds 1. In reference to God our Justification God having of his free Goodness exhibited the Righteousness of Christ and his Satisfaction to be theirs that shall truly know it and rest upon it Rom. Chap. 3 4 5 c. Galat. 2.16 2. In reference to us Peace with God Rom. 5.1 In him that is our Peace-maker Humility because the Righteousness whereby we are justified is none of ours Rom. 3.27 Where then is boasting worketh by Love Galat. 5.6 2. Hope is but modally or objectively distinguished from Faith for the same spiritual Life which is wrought in the Soul and brings Light with it when it looks upon Christ with Dependance and Recumbency is called Faith when it looks upon the fulfilling of these Promises yet unfulfilled with Expectation and Assurance is called Hope They are but the actings of the same spiritual Life with diversity only 〈◊〉 to the diversity of Objects Hence they are many times taken for the same thing Heb. 11. 〈◊〉 the substance of things hoped for Ephes 4.4 One Hâ—pe of your calling Galat. 5.5 We through the Spirit wait for the Hope of righteousness by Faith Rom. 8.24 We are saved by Hope 1 Pet. 1.4 Begotten again unto a lively Hope And the Fruit of this Hope must of necessity be Joy Reâ—â—ycing in Hope Rom. 12.12 And such a Joy as at once takes off the vexation sorrow and anxiety that the greatest Affliction in this world can afford and likewise the fixing of the Soul with over much Delight upon any thing that it here enjoys because it looks beyond both upon a Recompence of Reward that allays the bitterness of the greatest Affliction 2 Cor. 4.17 18. Heb. 11. and allays the Delight of the greatest temporal Enjoyment Heb. 11.26 Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt Purifies the Heart John 3.3 He that hath this hope purgeth himself even as he is pure that is winds up his Heart to such a Condition as is suitable to his Expectation 3. Love This is that first and great Commandment Deut. 6.5 Matth. 22.37 And therefore is the fulfilling of the whole Law Galat. 5.14 Rom. 13.8 Because it puts the only true and active Principle in the Heart which carries him to all true Obedience It is the highest Grace 1 Cor. 13.13 And that wherein consisâ—ed the Perfection of Humane and Angelical Nature because it was not only his Duty but his Happiness It was his Duty because the chiefest Good deserved his chiefest Love even out of a Principle of Nature and his Happiness because in this regular motion of the Creature to his Creator God was pleased to exibit himself to his Creature and according to the measure of his Love was the measure of his Fruition And in the Restitution of his Creature God is pleased to restore this quality to the Soul Gal. 5.22 The first fruit of the Spirit is Love 2 Tim. 1.7 The Spirit of Love 1 Tim. 1.14 with Faith and Love 2 Thes 2.10 receiving the Love of the Truth Ephes 4.15 speaking the truth in Love Jude 21. keep your selves in the Love of God now this Love is wrought by a double means 1. By the Knowledge of God as he is the Best and Universal Good and therefore it is impossible that there can be the true Knowledge of God but there must be the true Love of God 1 John 4.8 He that loveth not knoweth not God And this is an Act grounded upon a rational Judgment which even by the very Law and Rule of Nature teacheth us to value and esteem that most which is the greatest Good. 2. By the Knowledge of the Love of God to us The absolute Goodness of God deserves our Love but the communication of his Goodness to his Creature commands it The former doth most immediately work upon our Judgment and so is a love of Apprehension the latter upon our Wills and so is a love of Affection and yet both upon right Reason for as the Law of Nature teacheth us to love the Chiefest Good so the same Law of Nature teacheth us to love those most that do us most Good and consequently love us most Now when God by his Spirit sheds abroad his Love into the Heart and we once come to know the Love of Christ passing Knowledge Ephes 3.19 The Soul even out of a natural ingenuity being rescued by the Spirit of God from that malignity that sin and corruption had wrought in it cannot chuse but return to God again that hath done so much for so undeserving a Creature And therefore this was the great Wisdom and Goodness of God in sending Christ in the Flesh to die for us when we were Enemies and in revealing that Goodness of his therein that in a way proportionable to the conception and operation of our Souls we might understand the greatness of his Love to us 1 John 3.16 Hereby perceive we the love of God 1 John 4.9 In this was manifested the love of God Ephes 2.4 But God who is rich in mercy for his great love wherewith he loved us even when we were dead c. God commandeth his love to us c. All which being brought to a Soul that hath life in him must needs work Love to God again 1 John 4.19 We love him becâ—use he loved us first As it is the Love of God that gives us Power to love him for it is the first cause of our Happiness and consequently of our Love to God wherein consists our Happiness so it is the immediate cause of our Love to him When the Soul is convinced of so much Love from so great a God to so poor a Creature in very Ingenuity and Gratitude it cannot chuse but return an humble and hearty Love to his Creator again Methinks the Soul in the contemplation of the Goodness and Love of God might bespeak it self to this effect So immense and infinite is the Goodness and Beauty of thy God that were thy Being possible to be independent upon him he would deserve the most boundless and infinite motion of thy Love unto him But here is yet farther infinitude added to an infinitude he gave thee thy Being from nothing which was an infinite act of his Goodness and Power unto thee and doth and may justly challenge the highest tribute of Love
and Heirship Galat. 4.7 Heirs of God through Christ Now all these three Graces of God wrought in our 〈◊〉 by the Spirit of God are motions unto Union 〈…〉 is the first act of the Soul and there◠〈…〉 this Union is formally maâ—e 〈…〉 to be justified by Faith Rom. 3.28 To partake of of the Righteousness of God by Faith Rom. 3.22 Phil. 3.9 viz. That by the Eternal Counsel and Goodness of God Christ is put in the place of him that believes in respect of his sins and he that believes is in the sight of God put in place or stead of Christ and by that means is judged righteous in the sight of God even by that very Righteousness which was the Righteousness of Christ the Mediator And when we speak of Faith we must not intend that work of the Spirit of God in our Souls whereby we believe for by the very same work is wrought belief love of God and hope in him But it is that act of that Life so wrought which doth believe Now we shall consider Why or by what reason the act of Faith worketh our Vnion with Christ and so our Justification in the sight of God 1. Because it is the Will of God John 6.40 This is the will of him that sent me that every one which seeth the Son and believeth on him may have everlasting life He that is the great dispenser of his own Goodness is pleased that this shall be the means of that Dispensation In ancient times before the coming of Christ he was pleased to use other immediate Instruments such were Circumcision Obedience to those Laws which he gave these had not their Efficacy of themselves for they were indifferent things but they had their Efficacy upon these grounds 1. The Divine Institution to that End 2. The mingling of the Efficacy of the Sacrifice and Satisfaction of Christ with 3. A performance of them with an Obediential and believing Heart which though it was not always accompanied with an explicite and actual belief of Christ yet it was not without thus much Faith viz. That it was a thing injoined by God for some special Purpose for the good of his Creature And thus likewise in Infants who are not capable of an actual exercise of Faith God hath questionless some secret efficacious means of the application of Christ's Sacrifice unto them Thus proportionable to the Condition of his Elect in all times and Conditions God is pleased to proportion a means to make this Sacrifice effectual To the ancient Fathers that had not the same opportunity of believing in respect Christ was not revealed to them so clearly as to us it was his Will to appoint at least a more implicite and obscure act of Faith They were shut up unto the Faith that should afterwards be revealed Galat. 3.23 2. Because Faith is the first act of the New Life wrought in the Heart by the Spirit of God tending to Union It is true that Knowledge is that which precedes all the works of Grace in the Soul but in this the Soul is not so much active as passive and Knowledge doth not of it self unite the Soul to the Object viz. Christ as it doth unite the Object to the Soul But the first motion of the Soul to Union is not that Faith of Assent which differs not from Knowledge but the Faith of Recumbency or Adherence And this priority of the act of Faith is not in time for Life is wrought all at once in the Soul but in Nature and actual operation And this priority of Faith in this sense is upon three grounds 1. In respect of the nature of the Act. 2. In respect of the nature of that Truth upon which it fixeth 3. In respect of the Condition of the Creature 1. In respect of the nature of the Act The Creature is created essentially depending upon God and Dependance is the first relative act of the Creature unto the Creator as it is the first relation so the first motion of a rational Creature unto God is by an act of Dependance and Recumbence upon his Truth and Goodness And herein consisted as the first act of Union in our uncorrupted Nature unto God so herein was the first breach that was made upon Man Gen. 3.1 Yea hath God said c. Man's Duty was Recumbency and Trust and Reliance upon the Goodness of his Creator and the Devil weakens his Faith or Dependance upon his God and deceives him His first Fall was Distrust in the Word and Goodness of God and his first Recovery must be by Recumbency upon him his Truth and Goodness 2. In respect of the nature of the Message It is a Message that as it requires so it concerns our Faith and Recumbency It is a Promise of Mercy and Peace unto as many as believe the Message According to the nature of the thing known is the motion of the Heart towards it This is a Message of Deliverance and Peace with a Command to rest upon it therefore of necessity the first act must be Recumbence John 11.40 Said I not if thou wouldest believe thou shouldest see the Glory of God Exod. 14.13 Fear not stand still and see the salvation of the Lord. The first act that a Message of Deliverance from God worketh upon the Heart that entertains it is Recumbency and Resting upon the Truth and Power of God. 3. In respect of the Condition that this Message of Deliverance finds us in We are incompassed every where with Guilt and the avenger of blood pursues that guilt and we cannot by any means find any Power in our selves or in any other Creature to escape it The Soul being seriously convinced of this God presents unto it the Satisfaction and Righteousness of Christ his Promise of Acceptation of it and our deliverance from his wrath by it And now the Soul like a Man ready to be drowned first lays hold of the Cable that is thrown out to him even before it hath leisure to contemplate the Goodness of him that did it So the condition of our Misery teacheth us first to clasp the Promise of Mercy and Salvation in Christ and then to consider and contemplate the great Mercy and Goodness of God and to entertain it with Love and Thankfulness An extream Exigence will give a Man some confidence to adventure upon a difficult and unlikely occasion of deliverance because it is possible his Condition may be bettered it cannot be made worse 2 Kings 8.4 Why sit we here until we die if we enter into the City the Famine is in the City and we shall die there if we sit still here we die also Now therefore let us fâ—ll into the Host of the Assyrians if they save us alive 〈…〉 live and if they kill us we shall but die Even so even in a way of Reason may the Soul debate with it seâ—f I find my Condition miserable and I know not how to avoid it when I look into my self I find
Corruption and the concurrence of the Prince of the Air it becomes our Misleader being filled with Errors and mistakings or our Tormentor being filled with horror and desperation and it is the great work of God in our renovation to restore the Conscience to his primitive office and place by taking away the guilt of sin which kept the Conscience in a continual storm Heb. 10.2.22 and by purging the Conscience from the pollutions and corruptions of sin Heb. 9.14 purging the Conscience from dead works to serve the living God. 3 In the Will there is irregularity upon a double ground 1. By reason of that Corruption that is in the Understanding for the prosecution or aversation of the Will are much qualified and ruled according to the Light that is in the Understanding and if that Light be Darkness and Error then there must necessarily follow a miscarriage in the Will. 2. By reason of that Captivity that is in the Will unto the Law of Sin and of the Flesh God gave unto Man a righteous Law which was to be the Law and Rule of his Mind and Will and while it was conformable to this it was conformable to the Will of God and so beautiful and regular But in stead thereof there is a Law of Sin and Death Rom. 8.2 Rom. 7.21 and this Law subdues the Law of the Mind and brings the Soul into captivity to the Law of Sin Rom. 7.23 And the Will being thus captivated is made carnal and filled with enmity against God and that Law which he once planted in us to be the Rule of our Will so that it is not subject to the Law of God neither indeed can be Rom. 8.7 nay the Will is so much mastered and possessed by this Old Man and his Law that when it meets with the Law of God coming into the Soul it takes occasion thereby to work in the Soul all manner of Concupiscence Rom. 7.6 out of malice and policy to make that Law which comes to rescue the Soul more odious to the Soul and the Soul to it as Conquerours use to introduce Laws Customs and Languages of their own the more to estrange the conquered from any memory of their former duty or freedoms And when Christ comes into the Soul he rescues the Will from this Captivity and from the Dominion of Sin though not from the Inherence and Residence of it and doth by degrees waste and diminish that very inherence of sin Rom. 6.14 Sin shall not have Dominion over you for you are not under the Law but under Grace and plants and supports another Law in us even the Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ which maketh us free from the Law of Sin and of Death Rom. 8.2 4. In the Affections The great and master Affection of our Soul is our Love and all other Affections are derived from it and in order to it Our Hatred of any thing is because it is contrary and destructive to what we love our Fear of any thing is because it would rob us of what we love our Grief for any thing is because it hath deprived us of what we love And according to the measure of our Love is the measure of our other Affections an intense Love unto any thing makes our Hatred of its contrary equally intense and so for the other Affections In our original Creation our Love was rightly placed upon God the only deserver of our Love and our Love was rightly qualified it was a most intense Love The Law and Command of God Deut. 6.5 Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy Soul and with all thy might was but the Copy of that Law that was written in our Nature And our Love thus rightly placed and rightly qualified did tutor all the rest of our Passions and Affections both in their objects and degrees It taught us to hate Sin and that with a perfect hatred because contrary to the Mind of that God whom we did perfectly love and it taught us to hate nothing else but Sin because nothing but that had a contrariety unto God. But when we fell our Love lost its object and all the Affections thereby became misplaced and disordered And though we lost the object of this Affection yet we lost not the Affection it self our Love therefore having lost his guide wanders after something else and takes up our selves and makes that the object of our Love. But as our Love is misplaced in respect of its object so it mistakes in its pursuit of that object no Man can truly love himself that doth not truly love God because the true effect of Love is to do all the Good it can to the thing it loves Now the chiefest Good to our selves is only our Conformity unto God's Will and consequently our Love to him wherein consists our Happiness But it is no marvel that having forsaken the true object of our Love and chosen our selves to be that object we are likewise mistaken in the seeking of our own Good Rom. 1.26 Who changed the truth of God into a lie and worshipped and served the Creature more than the Creator For this cause God gave them up to vile affections Now every man that terminates his Love upon himself serves and worships himself And now that order which God planted being broken it is no wonder that all confusion and disorder falls among our Affections And now our Love being misplaced all the rest of our Affections are likewise misplaced and out of order Now the right frame of our Love and consequently the corruption of it consists in three things 1. In the ultimate Object of our Love it ought to be settled upon God and upon him only 2. In the Order of our Love it ought to be set upon God and upon him first and all other things may be loved but yet in him and after him 3. In the Degree of our Love our chiefest and most intense Love must be set upon God and upon him only And these are most rational and natural Conclusions as appears before Now the Old Man in our Affections consists in the absence and deprivation of this Order that God hath set 1. The deprivation of the first when either we love not God at all or which is all one when we make him not the Ultimate Object of our Love but love him meerly in reference to our selves the consequence whereof is that if God be not in all things subservient to those things we conceive most conducible to our own good we disobey him we murmure against him we blaspheme him we hate him If the basest Lust Pleasure Content come in competition with his Command it shall conquer it because we have made our selves our Ultimate and Chief End and therefore shall certainly prefer any thing that we think most conducible to this End. And certainly he that makes himself his Ultimate End and the chief object of his Love cannot chuse but fail in
lost in those Pursuits that have left no footsteps of Content in my Soulâ— but instead thereof a bruised and wounded Conscience a displeased and an angry God an infinite Happiness offered and sold for a few unprofitable and perished Pleasures and Lusts when I shall find an infinite Guilt contracted a Soul clogged with a custom of sin a Body now ready to drop into dissolution a great work to do to make the Peace of my Soul a God by whose only strength I can do it hiding himself and his influence from me and Death by his hasty and churlish Officers still ready to seize me to carry me off without regard to the importunity and concernment of a little longer time such thoughts as these will work upon a Man to keep a hand over himself over his Flesh over his Lust while it is called to day not to harden the Heart to give all diligence to make our Calling and Election sure to get Oyl in the Lamp to break off the course of sin to cleanse our hearts to improve this little portion of time to our best advantage for Death will come and after that Judgement Lord so teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom CHAP. XVI Meditation of the Vnreasonableness of the Dominion of Lust 6. A SAD and deep Consideration of the Vnreasonableness and Vnbecomingness of the Power and Dominion of any Lust upon a Man. And this though it be a moral Consideration is of good use for the mortifying of our Lusts S. Paul divides our Lusts into the Lusts of the Flesh and the Lusts of the Mind Ephes 2.3 S. John tells us that all that is in the World is the Lust of the Flesh the Lust of the Eyes and the Pride of Life 1 John 2.16 Out of both these we may divide the Enemies of our Soul within us into these Divisions 1. Lust which is nothing else but the immoderate and inordinate actings of the Appetite either beyond that measure it ought to be or upon those Objects it ought not to be And this either 1. In the Rational Appetite those are the Lusts of the Mind 2. In the Sensitive Appetite those again 1. In the Lusts of the Flesh 2. The Lust of the Eyes 2. Pride in an overvaluing of our selves in the fruition of those things we have thus pursued Now we shall a little consider how far forth any of these do hold a disproportion even with right Reason 1. The Lusts of the Mind The great Desire of the Mind is that of Knowledge an Appetite that God hath put into the Soul of Man and so a thing beautiful and good But this very Desire of Knowledge becomes a Lust of the Mind when either it is misplaced in respect of his Object thus Adam's desire of Knowledge of Good and Evil became a Lust or when acted beyond its proportion The chiefest Object of our Love ought to be the chiefest object of our Knowledge and consequently of our desire of Knowledge and that is only God and he is to be known and consequently we ought to desire to know him as he hath revealed himself in his Word in his Works and by his Spirit When either therefore we desire to know even in things pertaining to God beyond what we ought to know as the Counsels of his Will looking into the Ark or when we desire to know things of an inferiour nature with an over-intensive desire which is only due to God our want of Sobriety in the former and our want of Moderation in the latter turns our desire of Knowledge into a Lust of the Mind or when acted without his due End Good and the fruition of it is the great and final object of the Soul and as the Acts of the Understanding are preparatory to the Will so Knowledge and the desire of it is or should be preparatory to the fruition of some Good farther and beyond the bare speculative Knowledge of it If it were possible for a Man truly to know God without the Love of him and the sense of his Love to the Soul a desire of such a Knowledge though I dare not term it a Lust of the Mind yet it is such a desire as is not rightly qualified To desire to know a thing fit to be known meerly because I would know it It is but a Lust of the Mind and such a Knowledge as only puffeth up Now any Man may rationally conclude that such desires of the Mind as these are even condemned of Reason it self as irregular and useless It is true that whatsoever is an object of our Knowledge may be an object of our desire of Knowledge if not forbidden by him that gave the Power if acted with Moderation and Sobriety if subordinated to that desire which I have or should have to that great object of my Knowledge But for a Man to spend his choicest hours and thoughts and inquiries upon unnecessary perishing useless objects Reason it self will conclude as the Preacher would have the covetous Man Eccles 4.8 For what do I labour and bereave my soul of good And as thus in the Intellectual Faculty there are Lusts of the Mind so are there in the Rational Appetite the Will and Affections The Passions in the Soul are natural to it and therefore naturally good therefore want of natural Affection is a thing condemned in the old World Rom. 1.31 But when these Affections are acted beyond their natural end and use they become corrupt and putrified and so Lusts of the Mind And this is seen in either Faculty Irascible and Concupiscible and by how much the more spiritual they are by so much the more devilish and hurtful and yet condemned by sound Reason The Passion of Anger was planted in the Mind and is good when acted upon a right object and in a due measure Ephes 4.26 But this Passion being over-acted it becomes putrified and a Lust of the Mind it then turns into Malice to Envy The Spirit that is in us lusteth after Envy Jam. 4.5 into desire of Revenge and thus Lust conceiveth upon this Passion of the Soul and bringeth forth Sin. Now all these are evidently against right Reason Because even sound Reason teacheth us to love all that is good Every Being hath in it self a goodness and doth naturally challenge our Love and therefore to desire the destruction of any Being is against the Law and Rule of Reason or to desire a less or more low degree of Being to it than it hath It is true there may be some irregularity in it which I may and must hate But when my hatred is in the concrete and takes in the Being of any thing which is good as well as that which I conceive an irregularity within the compass of it as is in all Malice and Revenge then is my Passion mis-acted corrupted and proves a lust of the Mind Suppose a Man hath done me an extream injury and intends to continue it right Reason
will discriminate between the Man and his Fault and whiles it is angry with the Man yet it hates him not it will hate the Injustice of the Man and destroy that but not the Man it may be he hates me without a cause his Fault cannot justifie mine God hath given him a Being and is the only Lord of it and that Being of his is good and deserves my Love to preserve it his offence is the only object of my hatred and cannot give me a Commission to destroy the Subject It is true that in order to my preservation I may do such a thing as may be prejudicial to him that hates me with such moderation that the evil I do him must not exceed the evil that otherwise I might suffer by him for this is agreeable to right Reason But this must be without the least grain of Revenge so much as in my thought For all Revenge hath in it somewhat of Irregularity The great God to whom Vengeance alone belongs Rom 12.19 that is absolute Lord of his Creature and therefore can owe him nothing yet punisheth not by way of Revenge as a party injured but by way of Justice as the supream Judge that inflicted that Penalty that was annexed to his righteous Law when he gave it Nothing that one Creature could do to another could be said to be Unjust were it not that it is against the Law of this supream Law-giver and Judge and therefore Retribution in me that am injured is an act of Revenge in God an act of his Justice and when he inflicts his Punishment though in respect of me that suffered it is his Revenge yet in respect of his Law that is broken it is but his own Justice The Lusts of the Flesh There are certain Natural Propensions in us for the preservation of our temporal being and kind those are planted in our Nature by the God of Nature as well as in the nature of sensitive Creatures and are in themselves good when acted according to that Rule which God hath given unto us Those Rules are such as either are adequate to the Sensitive Nature viz. That they should be acted with due proportion and to the end for which they are so implanted in our Nature or such as are applicable to them in respect of that higher degree of Being that is in our Nature viz. that they should be acted with subordination to the dictate of right Reason And when either of these fail even these natural Propensions do become Lusts of the Flesh and fight against the Soul for they are not in their place and consequently breed a disorder in the Soul. This is easie to be seen in the consideration of both of these defects The Appetite of Eating and Drinking is no Lust but a Propension incident to our Nature for the Preservation of the Compositum But when a Man shall act it beyond its due proportion eat or drink to Excess or when a Man shall use it to a wrong End to eat or drink because he will eat and drink placing the end of his Appetite in the use of it now he transgresseth the first Rule he makes his Belly his God and his Appetite becomes a Lust Again if a Man shall give way to his Appetite though in a due proportion or to a due end yet if upon rational Circumstances a greater Good shall be thereby lost or a greater Evil thereby incurred then this Appetite becomes a Lust because it is out of its place and wants its due subordination to right Reason as when my eating or drinking shall scandalize my weak Brother for whom Christ died 1 Cor. 10.28 and thereby bring a greater loss to him than good to my self Again if either the Providential Dispensation of God or his Command be against it it makes the exercise of that Appetite to become a Lust because it wants that subordination to right Reason for it is the most uncontrollable Principle of Reason to bear an universal subjection to the Command and Will of God Thus when God by the course of his Providence called to fasting then to find slaying of Oxen and killing of Sheep the Appetite becomes a Lust Again when God forbad the eating of the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil then Adam's eating becomes a Lust and consequently a snare unto him for his sensitive Appetite was out of its place it should have been subordinate to his Reason but it was above it And these Excesses of the fleshly Appetite are expressed by several Expressions in the Word of Truth sowing to the Flesh Galat. 6.8 making provision for the Flesh Rom. 13. ult warring after the Flesh 2 â—or 10.3 walking after the Flesh Rom. 8.2 2 Pet. 2.10 viz. when a Man makes it his Business to study the desires of his fleshly Appetite and to fulfil it And the disorder that is wrought in the Soul by this misplacing of the sensual Appetite Ephes 4.19 Who being past feeling have given themselveâ— over to lasâ—iviousness to work all uncleanness with greediness Galat. 5.17 The Flesh lusting against the Spirit 1 Pet. 2.11 Fleshly Lusts warring against the Soul Rom. 1.24 given over to vile Affections Rom. 6.19 yielding your members servants to uncleanness Rom. 7.23 A Law in the Members â—arring against the Law of the Mind and bringing it into captivity It is a sad thing for any Man to think that such a disorder should be in the Soul that the nobler part born to rule should be a Captive and a Slave to the inferiour part of Man much more when that noble part shall become a willing Vassal and Prostitute to that part of Man which is no higher than a Beast and not only so but improve its own Ability Wit Skill and Power to make that part of our Nature below a sensitive Creature The Beasts as hath been observed before though their sensual Appetite be their highest Faculty and so moves not in a subordination to any higher Power yet they move conformable to the End for which those Propensions were implanted in them But when the sensual Appetite in Man hath captivated his Reason which should be her guide and ruler it is made the worse by her Prisoner and now its motions are not only absolute and without controll of Reason excentrick to that very natural Rule given to the motions of the same sensitive Appetite in the very Sensitives themselves And the reason is partly because the Wisdom of God hath given a kind of natural Law or Boundary to those Propensions in the Sensitives because they have no higher Power in them to regulate them but to Man he gave a higher Power to order and manage this sensual Appetite which Power having lost his sovereignty the sensual Appetite doth not only want his Bounds but also having corrupted and displaced that higher Faculty is again corrupted by it and made by her captive and at length by Custom the reasonable Soul becomes only an Instrument to contrive
thou shalt glorifie me When Man begins to forget his Dependance upon God he leaves him to himself and being out of his way some trouble or other meets him and then he sees he was out of his way and returns to his Dependance again prays to God. Our Prayers are not of themselves effectual but it was the bounty and good pleasure of God to give unto his Creature all suitable good whiles he is in such a Station and Condition as he requires of him That Station for a Man is a continual actual Dependance upon God which can never be without a suitable Conformity of the whole Soul to his Will. Now when the Heart is in such a frame of Dependency it actually exerciseth it in Prayer he strengthens as well as evidenceth his Dependance and draweth himself nearer to God thereby and so nearer to Blessing Now in reference to this particular viz. How Prayer becomes a means of our Mortification of those irregularities in our Soul and Affections it is upon a double ground 1. Because thereby the Soul draws near unto God and so is lifted in some degree into that frame and temper and place and station which is proper for it and so gets above those Lusts and Distempers which hang about him The very vicinity to that pure fire and light cannot consist with the fellowship of those impure Angels of darkness and impurity and so either dissolves them or at least scatters and affrights them Hence Prayer is expressed by lifting up the Soul unto God Psal 25.1 by coming into his presence Psal 95.2 by drawing near unto God James 4.8 an access to the throne of Grace As when Adam had first departed from God by sin he after hid himself from the presence of God Gen. 3.8 and thereby as much as in him was put himself out of a possibility of recovery so when a Man again brings his Soul into the presence of God as an access and power is now given by Christ by that very approaching unto God he gets mastery of those Lusts that did formerly drive him and as much as they could keep him from God. And this was the very way of Perfection that God himself taught Abraham Gen. 17.1 Walk before me and be thou perfect And though the whole Conversation of a Christian Man ought to be in the presence of God and to measure all his thoughts and actions by their comeliness or uncomeliness in his sight yet Prayer is a more special purposed concentring of the Soul to that Business And though God knows when we come down from the Mount again oftentimes those Lusts meet with us and renew acquaintance with us which we left behind when we went about this serious Business so that though we have ended the Solemnity we have yet a continual use of the Duty yet a frequent a solemn and serious use of this Duty interrupts a custom of sin by degrees weakens the Old Man and will in time make a strangeness between our Lusts and our Souls And let a Man be sure of these two truths That as he that comes upon his Knees with a secret Purpose to hold confederacy with any sin he shall be the worse the more hardned the more neglected by that God which searcheth the Heart If I regard iniquity in my Heart thou wilt not hear my Prayer so whosoever he be that comes to his Maker in the integrity of his Heart though sin adhere as close to that Heart of his as his Skin doth to his Flesh shall find that imployment will make those Lusts that were most dear unto him by degrees to become strange and loose unto his Soul. 2. But there is not only an active and natural efficacy in the Duty it self but which is more when a Man draws near to God God draws near to him James 4.8 As the Grace and Spirit of God that sets thy Heart to Prayer gives out more of his strength and Grace unto thee when thou hast prayed Thus the Goodness of the infinite and eternal God moves in a Circle to the Soul 2 Cor. 12.9 My Grace is sufficient for thee There is not only a strength gotten against our Corruptions by our Approximation to him but an Emanation of Virtue Power and Spirit from him whereby to master and consume them How much more will your heavenly Father give your Spirit to them that ask it Luke 11.13 Vphold me with thy free Spirit Psal 51.12 This is that Spirit by which the deeds of the Flesh are mortified Rom. 8.13 the Spirit of Life that gives freedom from the Law of Sin and Death Rom. 8.2 It is the Scepter of the Kingdom of God in the Soul whereby he rules in the midst of his Enemies Psal 110.2 And where this Spirit is there is Liberty 2 Cor. 3.17 CHAP. XVIII Of Watchfulness and first in respect of God. 3. WATCHFVLNESS And the Object of our Watchfulness is 1. God. 2. Our own selves 3. Temptations 1. For the first our watching concerning God 1. Watch for the Coming of thy Saviour either in the general or thy own particular Judgement for ye know not when the master of the house comes lest coming suddenly he find thee sleeping Mark 13.35 Consider what a terrible thing it will be if Death or Judgement should find thee in a practice of any purposed Sin and thou knowest not whether thy time of Death shall be in the Evening Midnight or at Cock-crow or in the Morning for it comes like a Thief in the Night 2. Watch the Word of God It is that Lanthorn to our Feet that Pillar of Fire which is to go before us in our Voyage through this Wilderness Take heed thou lose not this Light or leave it for then thou shalt wander in darkness 2 Pet. 1.19 This Light will shew thee the mind of thy Creator it will instruct thee what to do in points of difficulty and danger it will shew thee thy self and the constitution and temper of thy Soul and how the greatest matter of concernment to thee in the World stands even the condition of thy own Soul with God it will interpret and unriddle unto thee those various Dispensations and Administrations of things in the World it hath Principles of so high and powerful a Conviction that it will master the disorders of thy Soul beyond the most rigid Dictates Contemplations and Disciplines of the most sublimated Philosophy 2 Tim. 3.17 A Doctrine of Perfection 3. Watch the Presence of God and see that thy Thoughts Words and Actions are beseeming his Presence for all things are naked and manifest before him with whom we have to do Heb. 4.13 and remember we cannot flie or hide our selves from his Presence Psal 139.7 that the Hearts of the Children of Men are before him Prov. 15.11 that he weighs the Spirits Prov. 16.2 That his Eyes are in every place beholding the Evil and the Good Prov. 15.3 that he pondereth Man's goings Prov. 5.21 Job 34.21 Jer. 32.19 Jer. 16.17 that
Uncertainties in the midst of any external Trouble without a Refuge and so full of Despair As we cannot have Confidence to go to our offended God by our Prayers so it makes him withdraw and hide himself from them a continual disquietness and heaviness of Spirit mingles and winds it self into all our thoughts even in our pursuits of diversions from it the same aspect that is between God and us is between our own Conscience and us The Light of his Countenance is able to give Life and Comfort and Serenity to the Soul in the midst of all the Losses and Pains and Deaths in the World and the want of that Light makes the most happy external Condition to be dark and disconsolate And all this Good I lose by a transient unprofitable Sin a Sin that I might have avoided and therefore a Loss that I might have avoided a Loss that comes not to me by my necessity but by my foolish choice I will therefore sit down and mourn in secret for that Comfort and Light that I have thus foolishly sinned away and measure out my sorrows and tears proportionable in some degree to that Loss I have sustained The time was when it pleased the great God to let his Presence and the Light of his Countenance to shine into my Soul and when I could with Comfort and Confidence upon any occasion go to him and present my wants my desires my acknowledgements unto him and he that sits in Heaven was pleased to accept and entertain them at the hands of his Creature But now that Influence of his hath met with a filthy and backsliding Heart and is weary of it and hath withdrawn it self as justly it may and my Prayers are laden with my Guilt and cannot get up to him and he hides himself I have regarded Iniquity in my Heart and as he hath said so I find he will not hear my Prayers But though he will not hear my Prayers yet he will not neglect my Tears A broken and contrite heart O Lord thou wilt not despise O Lord though I have thus trifled away my Peace and my Comfort and have destroyed my self yet in thee is my help As I will not rest in my Sin so neither will I rest in my Grief but will never give my self nor thee rest till thou hast been pleased in the Blood of thy Son to wash away my Guilt and restore unto me thy Presence and Peace again And when I have recovered this Loss I will by the assistance of that good Spirit of thine learn by this my sin to revenge my self upon my sin to value the Mercy and Goodness of my Creator that hath yet once more intrusted into my hands the Life and Comfort which I had so lately lost to value the necessity as well as the Love of my Saviour that hath been pleased by a reapplication of his own Blood to wash me again after my late Relapse to value the kindness of the Pure and Blessed Spirit that though by my sin I made him weary and forsake that polluted chamber of my Heart yet is pleased to return and cleanse and take up again that Room from which I had so unworthily excluded him I will learn to prise that Peace and Comfort which once I had and valued not but lost it for an unprofitable perishing Sin I will strive to sence my Heart with renewed Covenants and Resolutions of more watchfulness over my self that I return not again to Folly I will sit down and bless the Mercy Goodness Patience Bounty of God that hath not left me in that Condition which I could neither endure nor remove and study to return a Heart and Life in some measure answerable to so great Love and Goodness And when I have done all O Lord Jesus let that Eternal Covenant between thee and the Father that thou shouldest give Eternal Life to as many as he hath given thee John 17.2 that Power and Promise of thine that none shall pluck me out of thy hands John 10.28 that Union with thee that thou art pleased to give to as many as believe on thee John 15.4 5. that Spirit of thine which by that Union with thee conveys Life and Influence to the smallest branch in thee preserve and support me in all my Purposes and Resolutions in all my Frailties and Temptations For without thee I can do nothing 2. In reference to outward Objects and occasions of Sorrow as loss of Friends Wealth Reputation Health Life it self have a guard upon this Passion 1. Look upon them as the Fruits and Effects of thy Sin and so let them carry thy Grief beyond the immediate object to the meritorious cause of them This is the sting of all Affliction the Plague in thy Heart is the Core and Fountain of the Plague of thy Externals And when thou hast humbled thy Soul before thy Creator and gotten the Blood of thy Saviour to wash thy Conscience thy Affliction shall be removed or thy Soul enabled with chearfulness and comfort to bear it 2. Labour to find out the Voice of the Rod the Mind of thy Creator for if thou diligently observe it there is not a dispensation of Divine Providence but it brings a message with it to thy Soul. Look into thy Heart it may be there is an accursed thing in the midst of thee Joshua 7.13 and this Affliction bids thee be up and removing it It may be thy Heart was leaning too much upon that very Blessing wherein thou findest thy Cross or Affliction which robbed thy Maker of some of the Love and Duty thou owest to him It may be thy Heart was grown dead and careless in thy applications to thy Creator secure and resting in thy temporal Enjoyment and he hath sent his Messenger to awake thee It may be thou hast had a dull and heavy Ear that would not listen or could not perceive God speaking once yea twice unto thee in a still voice Job 33.14 and now he hath sent an instruction with a louder voice It may be thou begannest too much to set up thy rest here to place thy Confidence in the things of this World to be overtaken with the delight in them to overâ—expect them and he hath sent a disappointment into thy Counsels a Worm into thy Gourd a Moth into thy Store a Canker into thy Bag a Distemper into thy Body to shew thee the vanity of thy Dependances to make thee let go thy hold of that which may fall upon and hurt thee but cannot secure thee to make the look upward to quicken thy Life of Faith by shaking thy Life of Sense It may be thou wert growing presumptuous in the Goodness of God Saucy in thy Carriage towards him insolent towards him opinionative of thy self And he hath sent this searching Medicine to fallow and purge these disorderly and dangerous Humours But gâ—ant that upon all thy search thou findest that for a long time thou hast kept a Watch over thy Heart that thou
hast endeavoured to walk humbly and perfectly before God that thou canst not find any thing upon the most faithful search thou canst make that might be the Spring of this affliction yet is not thy Labour lost the Clearness of thy Conscience will be thy support in thy Affliction and make thy Burden the easier But yet for all this know thy Affliction hath a Voice still if it look not backward yet it looks forward if it be not a Medicine to cure thee yet it may be an Antidote to preserve thee a Cordial to strengthen thee it bids thee improve thy Patience thy Faith thy Dependance upon God thy Experience of his Presence thy earnestness in Prayer thy neglect of the World thy Denyal of thy self Learn therefore before thou pourest out thy sorrow upon any Affliction to examine thy Heart to search out the meaning of God in it it will regulate thy Grief and instruct thy mind both how to bear it and how to use it 3. Beware thou put not on a Resolution not to be grieved or troubled at all upon any occasion of Grief The putting on of such a Stoical Resolution is to arm a Mans self against God to harden the Heart not to receive Correction and as much as in a Man is to disappoint the purpose of God He that put these Passions in the Heart of Man now sends this Messenger to stir up this Passion though thereby he intends a farther End And for a Man to fence his Soul against any object of Sorrow so as not to be moved thereby shall be sure to find either an absolute Ruine or that God will so plant his Batteries against that Resolution that at length he will master him and melt his Soul into a more pliable Disposition 4. When God sends an occasion of Sorrow entertain it with an Affection answerable to the Object both in kind and measure Let thy Grief be an humble Grief not mingled with murmuring or discontent If thou couldst imagine thou hadst not deserved it yet remember who it is that inflicts it even he that is absolute Lord of his Creature and owes him not his Being When thou goest and treadest upon a Worm or a Snail thou doest an injury to thy fellow Creature yet thou passest away and takest no notice of it But thy Creator can owe thee nothing Take up that incomparable Resolution and temper of Mind with old Eli 1 Sam. 3.18 It is the Lord let him do what seemeth him good And this same Consideration as it will teach thee to mingle Humility with thy Grief so it will teach thee Patience and Quietness in thy Sorrow because the occasion comes from the hand of a most Just and Wise and Merciful God. Impatience under any Affliction ariseth from the termination of the motion of our Souls upon the immediate Object he that knows and fears and loves his Creator and sees his hand dispensing the Afflictions will learn Patience and Moderation though he cannot forget Sorrow and Grief under it 4. Let thy Grief be moderate in Extent Measure and Duration Nothing but sin and the displeasure of God can deserve thy intensest Grief Learn to put a true value upon thy Loss and measure out Sorrow answerable to it Consider 1. Thy Loss is not of thy chiefest Good and therefore deserveth not thy intensest Sorrow Thy Peace with thy Creator thy Everlasting Hope as long as they are safe thou hast enough left to over-weigh the greatest Loss thou canst suffer What are light Afflictions and but for a Moment when put in the Balance with an Eternal Weight of Glory 2. Consider thy Loss is not of thy own Good. Cannot the Almighty lend thee a Blessing but thou must call it thine and deny the absolute Lord of it the Property of it It is his Corn and his Wine and his Oyl and all our Blessings are his and as they are his so they are taken away by him Learn to make the Will of thy Lord the measure of thine and then though Nature teach thee to grieve Grace will teach thee not to exceed in thy Grief CHAP. XXIII Of Watchfulness over our Will Conscience and Spirit AND as thus thou must carry a Watch over thy Affections so learn to carry a Watch over thy Will 1. Learn to Principle it aright the great Lord that hath put this power or faculty in the Soul hath therefore placed it there that it should have a Conformity to his Will and when thou crossest his Will it is thy sin and Deformity and it will be thy Misery Learn therefore to make his Will the Rule of thine 1. â—n what thou dost and herein God hath not left thee without a line to guide thee He hath shewed thee O man what to do and what doth the Lord require at thy hands c. he hath given thee a Rule or Law which is to be the guide of thy Obedience 1. The Rule of his written Word traduced unto thee by a wonder of Mercy and Providence a word that is nigh unto thee Deut. 30.14 a light that shineth in a dark place 2. The Rule secretly conveyed into thy Conscience by the Power and Wisdom of God Rom. 2.15 a Law written in thy Heart and Conscience 3. The Rule manifested in the Dispensation of Divine Providence asserting and confirming the two former if exactly observed in the measuring out of Rewards and Punishments 2. In what thou sufferest the great Lord is absolute Lord over all his Creatures and can owe them nothing but what he pleaseth only to confirm our Faith and encourage our Obedience he hath been pleased to give a Covenant that he will be our God if we remain his people yet in the Dispensation of outward things he hath not absolutely bound himself though such is his Goodness that even in those he observes a measure of Justice which he doth not owe us Learn therefore to make the Will of thy Maker in all things the measure of thine 2. Observe it in the first Motions of it while they are green and flexible and before they be hardened into Resolutions and so grow Masterless bring them to their Rule and examine them by it and accordingly entertain or reject them Clog them with Deliberation and by that means thou shalt be able to take off the Violence and Eagerness of them and likewise the Errours of them Dispense not with thy self in the first Motions of thy Will to any evil in Presumption that thou shalt be able to master them before they come to ripeness for thou sinnest even in those imperfect issues of thy Will and indulgence towards them will make them grow hardy and too strong for thy Mastery consider that in the first Motion of thy Heart thy Will which is the Mistress of thy Soul is the Party against whom thou must strive and thou hast nothing to reclaim the Current of those Motions but the Grace of God which may justly withdraw it self if it finds a Compliance with
that which is her Enemy 3. Stablish thy mind in the knowledge of God and of his Goodness and this being laid in the bottom will keep thy Ship from uncertain giddy floating The knowledge and Sense of the chiefest Good will carry the chiefest Motions of thy Will towards it and against all that is contrary to it and by this means the Motions of thy Will will be certain steddy uniform and regular the inclination of thy Will to any thing else will be measured by this and subordinate unto it if the Good propounded consist not with the Fruition of thy chiefest Good thy Will will reject that Good propounded and if it consist with it it will measure a Motion of the Will towards that Good proportionable to it and the want of the Knowledge or Sence of this Good sends the Motions of thy Will on gadding after every Vanity stedfast in nothing willing what it hath not and weary of what it hath pursuing a Butter-fly or a Glow-worm with the same eagerness and intention of Soul as it would do a substantial and satisfactory Good when thou seest a Child fixing the intention of his mind upon a Rattle or a Hobby-horse more than upon a goodly Mannour or upon a Feather or a Riband more than upon a Title of Honour conjoyned with Power and when he hath these Toys to be weary of them and pursue something else thou canst easily see the ground of this Errour in his Valuation to arise from his Ignorance of the true difference between them and this unstability in his content in them doth arise from the emptiness and unusefulness of them and that disproportion which he finds in them to his expectation his infant reason being yet better able to value in Fruition than in expectation And yet thou dost not consider that the disproportion of those things which thy riper Will pursues as Good as to the chiefest Good is infinitely greater than that of the most Childish enjoyment to those things wherein the most and wisest of Men place their chief expectation and that the Errour of the most childish Judgment laid in the Ballance with the Judgment of the wise Men of the World wants fewer Grains to make it equal than that of the wisest Man in the World not having his Soul ballasted with the Love and Knowledge of God laid in the Scales with one that makes his Creator his chiefest hope and expectation Keep a Guard upon thy Conscience The chief work of Conscience in the Soul consists in these things 1. The reception of sound practical Principles this is the Foundation of all its subsequent working the Major proposition 2. The discovery of those Actions or purposes which are in the Soul 3. The comparing of those Actions or purposes with those former practical grounds 4. The Conclusion or Judgment upon those Actions and Principles thus compared of Absolution or Approbation or of Condemnation and Rejection 5. The Motion of the Conscience towards the Soul upon this conviction viz. Perswasion or Dissuasion to or from the Act in question if future stirring or comforting the Soul in reference to the Act if past Thy Conscience is that Cart by which thou dost or shouldest steer thy Course in this World towards the other and therefore it is of highest Concernment to have an eye upon it and therefore 1. Learn to furnish it with practical Principles of Truth and Soundness These Principles are for any thing that appears to me extrinsecal to the Soul the Dictates of the Divine Law and Will conveyed into the Conscience either by the immediate Revelation and Demonstration of God unto the Soul thus to Adam in a perfect measure and to those Holy men of God the Patriarchs Prophets and Apostles or by the Course and way of his Providence either by unwritten Tradition Rom. 2.15 and this was a more uncertain Dispensation because more easie to be corrupted by the Practices and teachings of Men which were so mingled with it that it was very hard to discover the Wheat from the Chaff so that if we should now go to gather up Principles for the Conscience out of the Practices of Men or Nations or the Collections of humane Laws or Authors we should gather up Principles full of uncertainty contrarieties and inconsistencies among themselves and such of them as had any sound Conformity to truth were so general that several Men or the same Man at several times or upon several occasions would deduce from them a justification of contrary Practices as we see is done among divers Men that admit the same general Principles of Practice and yet upon the same Principles their Consciences when they come to particular Actions act quite contrary one to the other the great and merciful God hath therefore by a wonderful Course of his Providence conveyed unto us a Collection of practical Principles made by himself even the Word of his Truth admirably adequated to our use especially in two things 1. Of their Truth and Infallibility we cannot mistake them for they are the very Revelations of the God of Truth unmingled with the Sophistications and Corruptions of Men Gold seven times tryed 2. Their Particularity and Certainty there is scarce an Action in a Mans whole life but a Man shall find a Rule fitted for it David that had but a part of it and a small and a dark part of it in Comparison of what we have câ—lls it a Perfect Law converting the Soul a sure Testimony making wise the Simple Psal 19.7 a Commandment exceeding all other perfection Psal 119.95 that made him wiser than his Enemies and Teachers Ibid 98. a Word able to make the Man of God peâ—fect throughly furnished to all good Works 2 Tim. 3.17 and though the very words of the Book are full of admirable Truth and Conviction infinitely out-going all the writings of Men yet there is more in it than this even a Promise of a Blessing of it to as many as seriously make it their study and Rule of Life and Faith and a fulfilling of that Promise the Son of God sending his own Spirit along with the use of that Word Life with the Letter into the Soul And this was that which made this Law of God though comprised in a little Volume to be so exceeding wide and precious to David there went along with it and with his Meditation of it a Spirit of Life and Light that shewed him larger Dimensions of it than could be found by the bare strength of his natural Understanding 2. Take leisure upon all thy Actions and purposes to acquaint thy Conscience with them that so thy Conscience may have time to deliberate and to compare it with its Principle the Word of God. Precipitancy and Hastiness in Actions robs the Conscience of that employment which God hath given to it and as it is the Mother of all sin so it brings a double inconvenience to a Man even from his Conscience viz. 1. A deadness and
ariseth Murmuring and Discontent because that which befalls him crosseth him in his self opinion of his own Merit or Desert And from hence proceeds the rejection of God and of his directions from an opinion of a self-sufficiency and fulness To cure this Distemper and the products of it labour for Poverty and Humility of Spirit upon these Considerations 1. That whatsoever thou hast of worth or good in thee it is not thy own it is a derived good the good that is most thy own even thy essential good is not thy own thou owest thy Being to somewhat without thee But grant it were thine own yet the Comfort and Life and Beauty of thy Being were nothing without a farther good that is not thy own thy Power thy Wealth thy Strength thy Knowledge these are not in thy Essence they are derived Goods and such as are not from thy self the most exact faculty of thy Soul is but empty till it be filled by an Object without thee In thy highest Fruition thou hast a just occasion to magnifie God from whom thou hast it not to magnifie thy self that dost only receive it Learn therefore the Original of that good whatever it be that thou enjoyest it will make thee thankful and keep thee humble 2. That in thy self thou hast nothing but emptiness and vanity Thou hadst a good it is true which was sent thee by the Lord of thy Being and that we have shewn was no occasion to exalt thy self because it was not thine own but even that thou hast lost now and thy Nature hath nothing left thee whereof to be Proud. 3. That it is impossible for thee to come to enjoy that which must make thee happy till thou art deeply sensible of thy own emptiness and nothingness and thy Spirit thereby brought down and laid in the dust As long as thy Soul is full of thy Honour or of thy Wealth or of the World or of thy own Righteousness or Worth there is no room for thy Saviour or his fulness thou wilt not receive him because thou findest not any want and thou canst not receive him because thou hast no room And as it indisposeth thee to receive good from God so it indisposeth as I may say God to give it for thy Pride assumeth that both from God which is his and applies it to thy self even that acknowledgment and Honour which is a Tribute wholly and only due to God and hence it is that he resists the Proud because they rob him of the Duty that by all the Laws and Reasons immaginable thou owest to him 4. That the Grace of God the Knowledge and Sense of his Love the Spirit of Christ is an humbling Spirit the more thou hast of it the more it will humble thee and it is a sign that either thou hast it not or that it is yet over-mastered by thy corruption if thy Heart be still haughty it shews thee thy self in thy true Dress and makes thee abhor thy self it shews thee the Purity and Majesty of the great God with whom thou hast to deal and teacheth thee Fear and Honour towards him it teacheth thee to live by thy Saviour's Life to be righteous by his Purity to be saved by his Sufferings to walk by his Rule and to aim at his Glory it shews thee that thou hast all from him and frames thy Heart to return all to him It restores thee to that Position and Constitution in which thou wast made and takes off that distemper of Spirit which at once hath put thee below what thou wast and yet exalteth thy foolish Spirit above it There was a third Object of our Watch proposed viz. Temptations which are either 1. For Tryal 2. To Sin of which see the Meditations upon the Lord's Prayer Afflictions c. CHAP. XXIV Of the new Life or Sanctification and the necessity of it HITHERTO we have considered the Duty and Means of Mortification the putting off of the Old Man those Distempers and Disorders of our Souls by which they become unconformable to the Image and Mind of God the Principle whereof is the Spirit and Grace of God given us in Christ and the Means of this work those which we have before mentioned Now we come to consider of that New Life which follows hereupon most necessarily 1. Because it proceeds most necessarily from the same Principle As in a natural Man fallen into some Distemper it is the same strength of Nature that conquers the Disease and it being conquered maintains the Body in its natural Operations which is Health so the same vital power of the Spirit of God is that which overmatched those Distempers in our Soul which are contrary to our spiritual Life and Motion and conserves that Constitution of Health in the Soul by which it moves regularly and according to the Will of God which is our New Life 2. Because the Motion of those Distempers which fit in our Soul doth necessarily conform our Souls to that condition in which we were created God at first created us in a Conformity unto himself our sin brought an impotency upon our Nature by which we contracted all those Corruptions and Distempers that have disordered our Souls and diverted us from God when God is pleased by the power of his own Spirit purchased for us by the Blood of Christ to put into us a Principle of life and strength to work out those Corruptions and Disorders of our Souls there must necessarily follow a life conformable to the Will of God and as there is no Medium between Life and Death so when this Death of our Souls is removed by that Principle of Life there necessarily follows a New Life and new Operations answerable to it 3. The End of the Motion of those disorders of the Soul is in order to our New Life 1 Pet. 2.24 That we being dead to sin should live to Righteousness Ephes 2.10 Created in Christ Jesus unto good works It was the end of the Death of Christ Tit. 2.14 the Tree that bore wild Figs and that which bore none were equally cursed John 15.2 Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away So then the work of Mortification and Sanctification differ only in their Relations not in themselves they are both effects of that same Life which by the Spirit of Christ and our Union to him is wrought in us they both drive to the same End even to our Conformity to our Head Christ Jesus which is our Conformity to the Will of God wherein consists the Perfection of every Creature For this is the Will of God even your Sanctification 1 Thes 4.3 The Honour and Glory of God is and ought to be the supream End of all actions and things in the World. And this is that which every Creature in his right station and condition doth drive at according to the measure and degree of its natural perfection for as the great End of God in all his actions is his own
Glory so every Creature having a conformity to the Will of God is moved by him towards that End. And as this is the greatest and chiefest End of all Creatures and Actions so the motion towards it must needs be the most perfect operation of the Creature And as this Truth is sounded in Nature and Reason so it is the good Pleasure of Almighty God to joyn the Perfection and Happiness of the Creature in this Conformity to his Mind and Will. When any thing therefore continues in an universal free subjection and subservience to the Will of God as that very subjection and subservience is an Honour to the Lord of his Being so by that subjection and subservience is the Creature moved and managed to the Glory of God even to the fulfilling of his Will and as a necessary Concomitant to it to its own Perfection and Happiness Christ that was in all things conformable to the Mind and Will of God for he came to do the Will of his Father came into this World to bring Honour to the great God by his Creature Man and as a concomitant and a necessary Consequent of it Happiness and Perfection to Man and to that End first he sets him free from that Guilt and Curse which he contracted by his Fall removes from him those Fetters of the Power and Reign of Sin whereby he was disabled to move conformably to the Will of God puts into him a Spirit of Life that may enable him to live to God and be conformable to his Will and move to his Glory and this is his Sanctification So then next to that great and ultimate End of the Glory of God the Sanctification of the Creature and rendering it conformable to the Will of God was the greatest End of Christ's work of Redemption Ephes 5.25 26 27. Even as Christ also loved the Church and gave himself for it that he might sanctifie and cleanse it c. Luke 1.74 that we being delivered c. might serve him without fear in Holiness and Righteousness Tit. 2.14 who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purifie unto himself a peculiar people c. So that even our Justification is in order to our Sanctification and that in order to the Glory of God viz. that his Creature might be conformable to his Will and might actively move to the Glory of the Creator wherein consists his End and with which is joyned the Creatures Happiness Touching this matter these things are considerable 1. The Necessity of it 2. The Means whereby it is effected 3. The Degrees of it 4. The Parts or Extent of it 1. That the Sanctification of the Heart and Life is absolutely Necessary to every Christian in some measure answerable to his natural Perfection upon these Considerations 1. It was the End of the coming of Christ into the World and the very End of thy Justification His End was not only to remove thy Guilt and thy Curse but to make thee conformable to the Will of thy Creator that thou mayest be actively subservient unto his Glory which thou canst not be unless thy Nature be changed as well as thy Sin pardoned The great End of the coming of Christ was to bring Glory to his Father If he only free thee from thy Guilt he brings Mercy to his Creature but unless he cleanse and change thy Nature thou remainest useless to thy Master 2 It is impossible that there can be Justification of any Man but that according to the measure of his natural ability there will be likewise a cleansing and changing of his Nature because the knowledge and belief of the Love of God in Christ cannot be in Heart without a return of Love from the Soul again to God. The very same act of the Spirit and Grace of God which discovers and unites the sense of the Love of God to thy Soul doth as naturally cause Love in thee to God as the union of the Species to the Glass reflects the Resemblance from the Glass again 1 John 4.19 We love him because he loved us first his was a Love of Pity Compassion a Love of Bounty and Goodness a Love that broke through Death and greater difficulties than Death even the uniting of the Divinity to our Flesh a Love passing Knowledge and thine cannot chuse but be a Love of Admiration and Astonishment a Love of Thankfulness and Gratitude When the Spirit of God works Faith in thee it worketh by Love even by presenting the Love of God to thy Soul in as full dimensions as thy Soul can receive it and when Faith is wrought in thy Soul that worketh again by Love to God. If thou hast not Love to God thou hast not Faith in him and if thou hast Love to him thou canst not chuse but conform thy self to his Mind and his Will John 14.23 If a man love me he will keep my words And for this cause the Apostle makes it not only an inconsistency but a kind of impossibility for one justified to continue in sin Rom. 6.2 How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein 1 John 3.9 he cannot sin because he is born of God In every act of known sin that thou committest and every omission of every known good that thou neglectest there is an actual intermission or suppression of the act of Faith and of thy Love to God. 3. It is a necessary consequent of our Vnion with Christ There is as hath been shewed a double act whereby our Union with Christ is wrought on our part an act of Faith to apprehend him on his part an act of his Spirit whereby he apprehends us Philip. 3.1 2. and this Union is so strict that it is resembled to those things that have the strictest Union the Vine and the Branches John 15.1 2. Rom. 11.18 Members of his Body of his Flesh and of his Bones Ephes 5.30 and as in the virtue of this Union we partake of all these Priviledges which were in him his Satisfaction his Righteousness his Sonship his Intercession his Resurrection so likewise of his Spirit as there is one Body so there is one Spirit Ephes 4.4 If any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his Rom. 8.9 It is his in Essence it is ours in Operation and Influence so that the inward Life of a Christian is not his own but he lives by the Life that is that living Spirit of the Son of God. Now as that Spirit or Life that is in the Root when it passeth into the Branch makes the Branch conformable in Nature and Fruit unto the Root So the Spirit of Christ transfused into a Christian doth conform his Nature and Operations unto Christ for that was the great End of God in sending his Son into the World who was in all things conformable unto him that we should be conformable to the Image of his Son Rom. 8.29 And thus that impression of the Image of God
which was lost in Adam is re-imprinted by him that was the express Image of his Father by the secret transmission of his own pure and operative Spirit into all those that are united unto him and thereby the Will of God is fulfilled Be ye holy for I am holy 1 Pet. 1.16 4. It is necessary as a Preparation or Pre-disposition of the Soul to that everlasting condition of Blessedness which it expects in Heaven the place a holy place Heb. 10.19 an immortal and undefiled Inheritance 1 Pet. 1.4 where nothing that defileth can enter Rev. 21.27 The company an holy company the company of pure Angels and the Spirits of just Men made perfect Heb. 12.22 23. The Business a pure and holy Employment Rev. 19.2 c. The Presence a glorious and holy Presence the Presence of that God that cannot behold any unclean thing whose Name is Holy the Presence of our Mediator who is holy harmless separate from sinners Heb. 7.26 And what congruity can such a Soul have to such a Hope who spends his whole Life in a way quite contrary unto it He therefore that hath this Hope purifieth himself even as he is pure 1 John 3.3 And since all these tâ—ings shall be dissolved what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holiness and godly conversation Couldest thou carry thy sinful and impure Heart into Heaven with thee yet thou couldest not see God which is the Heaven of Heaven Matth. 5. the pure in Heart shall see God Heb. 12.14 Follow peace with all men and holiness without which no man shall see the Lord. CHAP. XXV Of the Means of Sanctification and 1. On God's part his Word and his Spirit 2. THE Means whereby this is effected are either properly on God's part or on ours On God's part his Word and his Spirit 1. The Word of God He having to deal with Creatures which he hath endued with Sense and understanding hath been pleased in his Wisdom and Providence to preserve and deliver unto us his written Word whereby the Truths therein contained may be united to our Understanding And this Word as it contains the holy Counsels of the holy God so the Truths therein contained do naturally tend to our Sanctification though of it self as a bare Moral Cause it be not sufficient to effect it in respect of our indisposition and deadness which must have a Spirit of Life to quicken us and make that Word operative upon us Now in respect of the tendency of this Word to our Sanctification and in as much as God is pleased by it to work this work in us therefore often our Sanctification is attributed at least instrumentally to it John 17.17 Sanctifie them through thy truth thy word is truth Psal 19.7 the law of the Lord is perfect converting the soul John 15.3 Now are ye clean through the word that I have spoken All which tend to no more than this that this Word of God contains those Truths in it which being truly known and believed do conform the Soul to the Will of God that Image which he first cast consisting in Righteousness and true Holiness Now the general Truths which this Book Exhibits to us tending to this end are principally two 1. It discovers what that will of God concerning Man is and this it doth two ways 1. By Precepts of most excellent and sound Justice and Reason which are nothing else but the Repetitions of that Law which was at first in our Nature 2. By Examples especially that Example of our Saviour's who was the Image of the invisible God Colos 1.15 and therefore in our imitation of him we re-assume that impression of God's Image which we once lost Now Christ's Life as it was a Meritorious Righteousness so it was an Exemplary Righteousness Matth. 11.29 Learn of me for I am meek John 13.15 For I have given you an Example that ye should do as I have done Ephes 4.13 the measure of his statuâ—e Philip. 2.5 the mind of Christ 2. It discovers a great deal of convincing Reason why we should conform to this Will of God 1. In respect of the Commands themselves it shews their Righteousness Justice and Perfection and that in our conformity to them consists our Perfection 2. In respect of God that commands them 1. It is he requires it that is the Author and Lord of thy Being and thou canst not chuse but infinitely owe what he requires 2. It is he requires it that will not cannot be mocked he is infinitely able to avenge the rebellion of his Creature 3. It is he commands it that hath been a Bountiful Merciful God unto thee that when thou hast incurred his Curse hath provided a Sacrifice to expiate it when thou hast disabled thy self to obey provides a Spirit of his own to assist thee that when thou fallest pities pardons and restores thee and though he owes it not to thee rewards his own Grace and work in thee with an immortal Glory to thee And what natural ingenuity can chuse but ingage to the uttermost expression of his thankfulness to such a God by a most advantageous Obedience 3. In respect of thy self if thou disobey the loss is thy own if thou obey the benefit is thine Deut. 30.15 For I have set before thee Life and Good and Death and Evil. And herein among divers others is the Excellency of the Word of God as it contains Precepts of most singular Purity and evidencing their own Perfection so it inforceth the Obedience upon Reasons of greater strength and more powerful Perswasions than all the Writings of Men ever did or could by annexing Rewards and Punishments of a higher constitution than the divinest Philosophers ever thought of 2. The Spirit of God Hence this work is attributed to the Spirit of God 1 Pet. 1.2 Through Sanctification of the Spirit unto Obedience and this principally these three ways 1. In preparing and disposing the Heart 2. In accompanying and coming in with the Word 3. In following that Work with a continual assistance of direction and strength 1. As to the first viz. the Preparation of the Heart Since the defacing of the Image of God in the Soul our Hearts like the first Creation are without form and void and darkness is upon the face of it till the Spirit of God move upon the face of these Waters Gen. 1.2 a Heart filled with evil thoughts and that continually Gen. 6.5 till this Spirit strive with it Gen. 6.3 a Heart dammed and blocked up with Lusts and Earth and Disorders so that there is no â—ss for Christ till the Spirit of God open it Acts 〈◊〉 â—n obstinate and a hard Heart an iron sinew 〈…〉 of brass Isa 48.4 till the Spirit of the 〈…〉 and a Heart full of madness Eccles 9. 〈…〉 Spirit be chased away and the Heart 〈…〉 Spirit of God. There oftentimes goes a secret disposition and calming of Heart before whereby some external act of the Providence of God which is prepared and
fitted for that occasion strikes effectually upon the Heart and works upon it whether it be an Affliction or a Blessing or a Deliverance or a Word of God. Thus when Nathaniel was under the Fig tree Christ saw him and prepared his Heart to entertain the call of Philip John 1.48 2. The concomitant act of the Spirit of God especially with the Word of God and some other extraordinary acts of his Providence And herein it hath a double work 1. Of Strength to drive on this Word and hence it is called the Sword of the Spirit The Spirit of God is that Arm that manageth this Sword Ephes 6.17 To the dividing asunder of Soul and Spirit Heb. 4.12 When thou seest therefore a tumultuous disorderly Heart filled with Pride and obstinacy yet brought upon his Knees by a seemingly weak Admonition Reproof or other passage of the Word of God wonder not at the change for the powerful and mighty Arm of the Spirit of God hath shaken this little dart between the joynts of his harness even into the midst of his Soul. What ailed thee O thou Sea that thou fleddest c. Tremble thou Earth at the presence of the Lord at the presence of the God of Jacob Psal 114.5.2 Of Life to go along with it into the Spirit of a Man John 6.63 The words that I speak unto you they are Spirit and they are Life The passage between the Sense and the Spirit of a Man is of a great distance and full of many turnings and hence the words of Men for the most part die and lose their efficacy before they come at the Spirit of a Man sometimes they die in the Ear sometimes they get into the Brain and die there in a Speculation sometimes they strike a little but yet live not long there for the words have no Life in them But with this Word there goes a Life which goes along with it even to the uttermost corner of thy Soul even thy Spirit and there it continues alive 1 John 3.9 His seed remaineth in him and he cannot sin and hence it is that the Commands of God even to us that are dead are not incongruous when God pleaseth that his Work shall be wrought in the Heart for a Spirit of Life goes along with the Command even to the penetralia animae John 5.25 The time is that the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God and they that hear shall live And as thus the Spirit of God carries the Word of God with Life and Vigour into the choicest parts of the Soul so doth it with all other Dispensations of Divine Providence If thou hast an outward Blessing given thee it will along with the Sense of thy Blessing carry in the Sense of the Goodness of God and teach thee Thankfulness and Moderation If an Affliction it will get along into thy Soul with that Affliction and teach thee to examine thy self and to search and try thy ways and having discovered thy sin it will teach thee Humiliation and Repentance and if upon thy search thou find thine Integrity yet it will teach thee Humility Thankfulness Contentedness Dependance upon God it will with every Dispensation of Providence go along with it into thy Soul and carry that message with it that God by this his Dispensation intends to send thee And thus it is a Sanctifying Spirit by way of concomitance with the Word and Providence 3. The Spirit of God sanctifies the Heart by its own immediate and Continual Assistance It contests with thy daily Temptations that are from without and conquers them and with thy hourly Corruptions that are within thee and wasts and subdues them In the midst of thy Difficulties it will be thy Counsellor a secret voice behind thee saying This is the way walk in it In the midst of thy Temptations it will be thy Strength and a Grace sufficient for thee In the midst of thy Troubles it will be thy Light and thy Comfort In the midst of thy Corruptions it will be thy Cleanser a Spirit of burning to consume those swarms of Lusts that cover and fill thy Heart In thy Failings and Falls it will be thy Remembrancer and teach thee to repent and humble thy self This was that Monitor that furnished Joseph with an answer to a most importunate and advantageous Temptation How shall I do this great wickedness and sin against God Gen. 39.9 that furnished Job with silencing Answers to all those temptations to Insolence Pride Self-confidence and Injustice Job 9.1 that after David's Sin smote David's Heart before David's Heart smote him and taught him Confession and Sorrow and to beg a Pardon 2 Sam. 24.10 Only beware thou neglect not the Voice of this Spirit of God It may be thy neglect may quench it and thou mayest never hear that Voice more or at least it will certainly grieve it and canst thou think of grieving that Spirit without a Tear which is content to descend into thy impure polluted Heart to make it a Heart fitted for Glory Thy folly is great and thy ingratitude greater When God speaks once and twice and Man perceives him not Job 33.14 it sometimes falls out that he never speaks to that Man more Ephraim is set upon Idols let him alone Hos 4.17 and that is the saddest Condition in the World but if he do his Mercy will be a severe Mercy he will speak louder Job 33.22 when the still Voice is not heard his Soul draweth near to the grave and his Life to the destroyers The observation of the secret Admonition and Reasonings of the Spirit of God in the Heart as it is an effectual means so it is a calm and a comfortable means to cleanse and sanctifie thy Heart and the â—oâ—eâ—itâ—i attended unto the more it will be conversant with thy Soul for thy Instruction Strength and Comfort Prov. 6.22 When thou goest it shall lead thee when thou sleepest it shall keep thee and when thou awakest it shall talk with thee CHAP. XXVI Of the Means of Sanctification 2. On Man's part viz. Faith Love Fear Hope ON our part the Instruments of our Sanctification are those supernatural acts or habits of the Soul wrought by the finger of God Faith Hope and Love. 1. Faith Acts 15.9 God also purifying their Hearts by Faith. And this it doth as it is an Act receiving into the Soul the Word of God and subscribing to the Truth and Goodness of it receving it not as the word of Man but as the Word of the just and true God. 1. It therein finds and believes the great Debt of Duty that the Creature owes to his Creator What can be unjust for God to require of that Being which he gave and made As the Gift of a Being is an infinite Gift because it is an infinite Motion there being no greater disproportion imaginable than between not being and being so the engagement of Obedience and Conformity from that Creature to the Will and good Pleasure of
operations and whose Gifts and Callings are without Repentance hath promised to be with us to the end of the World He cannot sin because his sâ—â—d abideth in him 1 John 3.9 It is true there may be intermissions of the acting of Grace in the Heart and there may be falls in the Life but to be given over to a course of sin without repentance to be brought under the power and dominion of Sin as a King or a Ruler the Honour and Truth of God is engaged in it it shall not be 2 Thes 3.3 The Lord is faithful who shall stablish you John â—0 28 Nâ—er shall any man pluck them out of my hand Rom. 6.14 Sin shall not have dominion over you for 〈…〉 under the Law but under Grace And these Promises of God cannot make the Heart of any one to whom they truly belong any whit the more careless or loose in his watch over himself for that very Spirit whereby those Promises are sealed to us is an active vigilant pure Spirit and puts the Heart and Life upon those Practices that do naturally and properly conduce to this very Perseverance viz. Assiduity in Duties Humble and Watchful walking before God Examination and search of the state of our Souls and Lives Jealousie over the Treachery of our own Hearts and the snares that are within us and without us a Guard upon our Affections and Senses a frequent Consideration of the Will of God of his Goodness to us in Christ of the Price wherewith we are bought of the Hope whereunto we are redeemed and all those other helps that conduce to the settling and stablishing of our Hearts and Lives in a Conformity to the Will of God and in avoiding of all those things which are contrary thereunto and consequently as contraries do would impair corrupt and destroy that Life of Grace which he hath begun in us And from hence ariseth 3. An Increase and Growth in a more exact Conformity to the Will of God than formerly This is that which is so often commended unto us by the Spirit of God Colos 2.7 Rooted and built up in him Colos 4.12 Compleat in all the will of God Phil. 1.9 that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and in all judgment 1 Cor. 15.58 abounding in the work of the Lord Heb. 13.21 make you perfect in good works to do his will Phil. 3.13 forgetting what is past and reaching forth to the things that are before Ephes 4.13 growing to a perfect man 2.16 increase of the body 2 Pet. 3.17 beware lest ye fall from your own stedfastness but grow in grace Jude 20. building up your selves in your most holy faith Prov. 4.18 Increasing more and more unto the perfect day John 15.2 Every branch that beareth fruit he purgeth it that it may bring forth more fruit And as this is the Will of God so it is as naturally the effect of this Life that is wrought in the Heart as it is the effect of natural Life in the Body for it is an active and operative Life If any quality have got the mastery in a mixt Body it doth ever more and more by degrees waste and consume the contrary qualities and assimulates the whole unto it self And although as long as our Flesh hangs about us it is impossible that a compleat and absolute conquest can be wrought of all that Sin that is in us because it is a spring of Corruption yet it is wasted weakned and decayed By this work of Grace Saul's House waxeth weaker and weaker Every habit though it be moral or natural only receiveth an augmentation and degrees by its continual actings And the Grace of God which is more operative and active in the Heart than any habit can be for it is accompanied with the immediate Power and Efficacy of the Divine Spirit never stands still but like the little Leven that was hid in the great quantity of Meal it never gives over till the whole be leavened 4. Renewed Repentance Thy corrupt Nature is a Body of Sin and Death a spring of Corruption that will ever cast up mire and dirt and Grace in thy Heart is a spring of living Waters that as often as that corrupts will be washing it again When thou hast made the chamber of thy Heart as clean as thou canst yet there will be leaks in it that will let in Corruptions enough quickly to make it as foul as ever Grace by the continual examination of thy self humbling of thy Heart before God renewing thy Covenant with him doth not only pump out the filth that would poyson and drown and dam thee but stops the decays and leaks of this thy infirm Vessel When the Grace of God at first found thee thou wast dead in trespasses and sins and it came into thee and by Repentance did exercise its own act of Life to quicken thee And that same Body of Death that did at first inclose thee is still about thee and takes all opportunities to get its old mastery of thee and by this means thou catchest many a fall and bruise but that same Life by which thou livest re-acts against those inroads of sin and death and doth conquer them so that though thy renewed sins are not thy ruine yet they ought to be thy burden though they must not make thee despair yet they cannot chuse but make thee mourn though thy Saviour hath born their Guilt yet it is but equal thou shouldest bear thy shame When thou hadst no Life in thee thou couldest not feel thy self dead But now thou hast Life in thee thou canst not chuse but be sensible of thy sickness and thy hurts which thy own folly have occasioned and judge and condemn and avoid that Folly of thine that occasioned it Though thou canst not be rid of thy sins that fight against thy Life yet thou wilt not entertain them with better Entertainment than Bread of Affliction and Water of Affliction Though thou canst not expiate for any of them yet thou canst not look upon them without indignation as Traytors against thy Life and thy Peace thou canst not look upon thy self without loathing and detestation thou canst not look unto Christ without shame and confusion that one that he hath redeemed from so great a Misery with so great a Price to so great a nearness as to be a member of himself a partaker of his Spirit a Co-heir of his Glory should so unworthily so unthankfully in his sight dishonour his Head and pollute himself Thou canst not look upon what is past without Repentance nor upon what is to come without a Resolution of more Vigilance and keeping a better Guard upon thy self And yet in the midst of all these thy perplexed thoughts thou canst not chuse but admire and bless that Mercy of Christ that when thou deniest him looks back upon thee as once on Peter and with that look sends in a Messenger that makes thee go by thy self and bewail thy Relapse that leaves
How then canst thou think to draw near to the Holy God when thy Heart and thy Lips and thy Life are clothed with Impurity and Filthiness when thy Thoughts the only Instruments whereby thou canst converse with him are busied in Considerations unworthy of a Spirit much more unworthy of the God of Spirits Canst thou think that this Holy God will accept of the productions of that Soul thy Prayers and Meditations who but now was imployed in base unclean earthy Thoughts and didst but now part with them with a resolution to resume them Every impure thought leaves a mark and blot upon thy Soul that remains when thy Thought is past and canst thou bring that spotted Soul into the presence of the Pure and Holy God without confusion and shame Thou art now going about with thy Lips to draw near unto God Remember how many vain and unprofitable words how many murmuring and unthankful words how many unclean and filthy words how many false and dissembling words how many proud and arrogant words how many malicious and vindictive words how many hypocritical and deceitful words how many seducing and misleading words how many ungodly and blasphemous words have stain'd and polluted those calves of thy Lips thou art now about to sacrifice to thy Creator Thou art about to undertake a Conversation and walking with God Can two walk together unless they are agreed Amos 3.3 How then canst thou a polluted Man in all thy actions even those of the best denomination expect to have a Conversation with the Holy Holy Holy Lord The stains of thy Life past stick upon thee and thou art not cleansed from them and the Sea of Corruption that is within thee will notwithstanding thy highest Resolutions never cease to cast out mire and dirt O Lord it is true I am a sinful Man and the whole frame of my Heart and Lips and Life hath been only evil and that continually and as I have been so still I must continue without thy Mercy to pardon and cleanse me My pollutions and impurities are such as may justly affright me from coming near thy Holiness lest I should be consumed such as may discourage my Prayers and Applications unto thee lest I should stain and infect them and it is no more in my power to change or cleanse my self from the stains of my sins past or from the growing evils of my Nature than in the Leopard to change his spots so that I may most justly conclude that it were extream presumption for me to draw near unto thee and rather cry out with the Disciple Depart from me O Lord for I am a sinful man Luk. 5.8 But if I sit where I am I shall perish and if I draw near unto thee I can but die That Purity that I behold in thee is the Purity of the great God and my sins are the sins of a finite Creature my sinfulness cannot defile thy Holiness but thy Holiness may cleanse my impurity That Fire which will consume an impure and a proud Heart will cleanse an impure and unhumble Heart O Lord I desire to abhor my self in dust and ashes Unless thou hadst shewn me my filthiness I could not have seen it and unless thy Grace had been with my Heart I could not have humbled my self before thee Unless thou hadst called me I could not have moved toward thee Thy Promises upon which my Soul shall ever fix till thou throw me off are full of bounty and tenderness even to the vilest of Sinners No sin of so deep a dye but thy Mercy can wash away No Corruption so hideous but thy Grace can cleanse And so far hast thou condescended to the weakness of thy Creature that thou hast given us a visible Sacrifice whose Blood is sufficient to cleanse us from all our Guilt a visible Fountain to wash for Sin and for Uncleanness even the Blood of the Son of God which cleanseth us from all Sin which cleanseth our Consciences from the guilt and stain of Sin and washeth our Bodies from the dominion and pollution of Sin and by that Blood hath opened a new and living way for us into the presence of God Hebr. 10.20 and given access thereby into the Holiest and given us a Commission to draw near with acceptation into his presence Hebr. 10.19 2. The Presence of God. Whither shall I fly from thy presence Psal 139.7 He seeth the secretest corners of the World and the secretest chambers of thy Heart and all the Guests that are there even thy closest Thoughts and Contrivances and Purposes much more thy most retired and deepest Actions are as legible to him as if they were graved in Brass And the deep and setled and frequent Consideration of this will be of excellent use upon all occasions Is thy Heart sollicited by thy self as our unhappy Hearts are our own tempters or by any Object or by the perswasions of others or by the suggestion of the Devil to impure Speculations or sinful Resolutions to atheistical Disputations to proud or arrogant Conceptions of thy self to revengeful or uncharitable or forbidden Wishes to vain and unprofitable thoughts Remember thou and all those thy Thoughts which even natural Modesty or Prudence would shame thee to publish before a mortal Man as thou art are all naked and manifest before the Great Holy and Immortal God whose Eyes walk through all the corners of thy Heart And darest thou in his presence to entertain such Guests as these in that place where thy Creator is present in that place which thou pretendest to make a Temple for him in that place which the Lord of Heaven is pleased most justly and most mercifully to claim as his own Consider what a Presence thou art in he is not only an Eye-witness of the impurities of thy Heart which yet if there were nothing else might justly shame thee but it is his Presence who hath forbidden thee to entertain such Vermin as these in thy Heart under pain of eternal Death it is thy Judge that sees thee it is the great Creator before whom the Angels of Heaven cover their Faces not being able to behold his Glory And which is more than all this to an ingenuous Nature it is he to whom thou owest thy self and all thou art he to whom thou hast given up thy name that hath purchased thy heart from Hell with the price of his Son's blood And how canst thou chuse but tremble and be confounded to think that thou shouldest contrary to all the bonds of duty and gratitude even in his presence and before his face let in again those abominations into thy heart from which it was cleansed by the Blood of Christ Again Hath a sinful thought through incogitancy of the presence of God entred into thy heart Yet remember the presence of God before it grow into a purpose or resolution or if it hath gone so far as a Resolution yet remember that presence and thou canst not dare to perfect this hideous