to one that liveth like a man What did God ever forbid you that was not hurtful to you And what did he ever command you which was not for your benefit either for your present delight or for your future happiness for the healing of your diseases or the preventing them And if Reason can discern the goodness of Gods Laws to us Faith can acknowledge it with more advantage For we can see by Faith the goodness of their Author and the goodness of the reward and end more fully than by reason only And a Believer hath found by sad experience how bad and bitter the waies of sin are and by sweet experience how good and pleasant the waies of God are He hath found that it is the way to peace and hope and joy to deny his lusts and obey his Maker and Redeemer And it is the way to terrour and a troubled soul and a broken heart to sin and to gratifie his sensuality Prov. 3.17 All her waies are pleasantness and all her paths are peace Psal 119.165 Great peace have they which love thy Law and nothing can offend them Psal 37 37. Mark the upright man and behold the just for the end of that man is peace Rom. 14.17 Righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost are the Kingdom of God Grace Mercy and Peace are Gods entertainment of the faithful soul Titus 1.4 1 Tim. 1.2 2 Tim. 1.2 1 Cor. 1.3 c. But there is no peace to the wicked saith my God Isa 57.21 48.22 For the way of peace they have not known They have made them 〈◊〉 paths whosoever goeth therein shall not know peace Isa 54.8 Direct 3. Mark well how those Commands of God which seem not necessary for your selves are plainly necessary for the good of others and for the publick welfare which God must provide for as well as yours He is not your God only but the God of all the world And the welfare of many especially of Kingdoms and Societies is more to be regarded than the welfare much more than the humouring or pleasing of any one You may think that if you had leave to be fornicators and adulterers to be riotous and examples of evil to be covetous and to deceive and steal and lye that it would do you no harm But suppose it were so yet a little wit may serve to shew you how pernicious it would be to others and to societies And Faith can tell a true Believer what is like to be the end And that sin is a reproach to any people Prov. 14.34 You may think perhaps that if you were excused from many duties of Charity and Justice in Ministry Magistracy or a more private state it would be no harm to your selves But suppose it were so must not others be regarded If God should regard but one why should it fall to your lot rather than to anothers And why should any others be bound to use Justice or Charity to you any more than you to them There is no member of the body politick or ecclesiastick which will not receive more good to it self by the Laws of Communion if truly practised than it can do to others For you are but one who are bound to be charitable and do good to others and that but according to your own ability But it may be hundreds or thousands who may be all bound to do good to you You have the vital influences and assistances of all the parts you have the prayers of all the Christians in the world Suppose that the Laws were made to secure your selves of your estate and lives but to leave the estates and lives of your children to the will of any one that hath a will to wrong them would you be content with such kind of Laws as these And why should not others good be secured as well as your posterities 1 Cor. 12.12 14 20 c. Rom. 12.4 5 16.2 1 Cor. 10.17 33. Ephes 4.3 11 12 14 15 16. Diâ—ect 4. The chief work of Faith is to make the obedience of Gods Commands to be sweet and pleasant to us by seeing still that intrinsecal goodness and the extrinsecal motives and the eternal rewards which may cause the soul to imbrace them with the dearest love They are much mistaken who know no use for Faith but to comfort them and save them from Hell the great work of Faith is to bring up the soul to Obedience Thankfulness and Love Therefore iâ— hath to do with the Precepts as well as with the Promises and with the Promises to sweeten the Precepts to us Believers are not called to the obedience of slaves nor to be acted only by the fear of pain but to the obedience of redeemed ones and Sons that Faith may cause them to obey in Love and the essential act of Love is complacency Therefore it is the work of Faith to cause us to obey God with pleasure and delight Forced motives endure not long They are accompanied with unwillingness and weariness which at last will sit down when the fears do by distance delay or dulness abate Love is our Nature but Fear is only a servant to watch for us while we do the work of Love As many as are led by the Spirit of God are the Sons of God and therefore will obey as Sons For we have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear but we have received the Spirit of Adoption whereby we cry Abba Father Rom. 8.14 15. Christ suffâ—red death to overcome the Devil that had the power of death and to deliver us from the fears of it which was the bondage of our lives Heb. 2.14 15. That we might serve God without fâ—ar in holiness and righteousness all the daies of our lives Luke 1.74 There is no fear in love but perfect love casteth out fear because fear hath torment 1 John 4.18 The meaning is not only that the Love of God casteth out the fear of men and persecution but also that it maketh the fear of tormenting punishment to become unnecessary to drive us to obedience so far as the Love of God and of obedience doth prevail He that loveth more to feast than to fare hardly to be rich than to be poor and so to be obedient and holy than to be unholy need not so far any fear of punishment to drive him to it Even as the Love of the world as adverse to the Love of God is overcome by Faith 1 John 2.15 and yet the Love of the world as Gods creature and as representing him and sanctified to his service is but subordinate to the Love of the Father so also Fear as adverse to Love or as disjunct from it is cast out by it But as it subserveth it in watching against the enemies of Love and is truly filial it is a fruit of Faith and the beginning of wisdom Employ Faith therefore day by day in looking into the Love of God in Christ and the Kingdom of Glory the
not by Faith chosen and used by us under the notion of a Mâ—diatour or Means to our first act of love and consent but is a Means to that of the Fathers chusing only but is in that first consent chosen by us for the standing means of our Justification and Glory and of all our following exercise and increase of love to God and our sanctification so that it is only the assenting act of faith and not the electing act which is the efficient cause of oâ— very first act of Love to God and of our first degree of sanctification and thus it is that Faith is called the seed and mother grace But it is not that saving Faith which is our Christianity and the condition of Justification and of Glory till it come up to a covenant-consent of heart and take in the foresaid acts of Repentance and Love to God as our God and ultimate end The observation of many written mistakes about the order of the work of grace and the ill and contentious consequents that have followed them hath made me think that this true and accurate decision of this case is not unuseful or unnecessary Direct 12. The Holy Ghost so far concurred with the eternal Word in our Redemption that he was the perfecting Operator in the Conception the Holiness the Miracles the Resurrection of Jesus Christ Of his Conception it is said Mat. 1.20 For that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost And vers 18. She was found with child of the Holy Ghost And of his holy perfection as it is said Luke 2.52 that he increased in wisdom and stature and favour with God and men meaning those positive perfections of his humane nature which were to grow up with nature it self and not the supply of any culpable or privative defects so when he was baptized the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a Dove upon him Luke 3.22 And Luke 4.1 it is said Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost c. Isa 11.2 And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him the Spirit of wisdom and understanding the Spirit of counsel and might the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord and shall make him quick of understanding in the fear of the Lord c. Joh. 3.34 For God giveth not the Spirit by measure to him Acts 1.2 After that he through the Holy Ghost had given commandments to the Apostles whom he had chosen Rom. 1.4 And was declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of Holiness that is the Holy Spirit by the resurrection from the dead Mat. 12.28 If I cast out Devils by the Spirit of God c. Luke 4.18 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he hath anointed me to preach the Gospel to the poor he hath sent me to heal c. Isa 61.1 In all this you see how great the work of the Holy Spirit was upon Christ himself to fit his humane nature for the work of our redemption and actuate him in it though it was the Word only which was made flesh and dwelt among us John 1.3 Direct 13. Christ was thus filled with the Spirit to be the Head or quickening Spirit to his body and accordingly to fit each member for its peculiar office And therefore the Spirit now given is called the Spirit of Christ as communicated by him Rom. 8.9 If any man have not the Spirit of Christ the same is none of hiâ— Joh. 7.37 This spake he of the Spirit which they that believe should receive viz. it is the water of life which Christ will give them 1 Cor. 15.45 The last Adam was made a quickening Spirit Gal. 4.6 God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into our hearts whereby we cry Abba Father Phil. 1.19 Through the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ See also Ephes 1.22 23. 3.17 18 19. 2.18 22. 4.3 12 16. 1 Cor. 12 c. Direct 14. The greatest extraordinary measure of the Spirit was given by him to his Apostles and the Primitive Christians to be the seal of his own truth and power and to fit them to found the first Churches and to convince unbelievers and to deliver his will on record in the Scriptures infallibly to the Church for future times It would be tedious to cite the proofs of this they are so numerous take but a few Matth. 28.20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you that 's the commission Mark 16.17 And these signs shall follow them that believe c. Joh. 20.22 Receive ye the Holy Ghost c. 14.26 But the Comforter the Holy Ghost whom the Father will send in my name he will teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you Joh. 16.13 When the Spirit of Truth is come he will guide you into all Truth c. Heb. 2.4 God also bearing them witness both with signs and wâ—nders and with divers miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost according to his own will Direct 15. And as such gifts of the Spirit was given to the Apostles as their â—ffice required so thâ—se sanctifying graces or that spiritual Life Light and Love are given by it to all true Christians which their calling and salvation doth require John 3.5 6. Except a man be born of Water and of the Spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven That which is born of the flâ—sh is flesh and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit Heb. 12.14 Without holiness none shall see God Rom. 8.8 9 10 14. They that are in the flesh cannot please God But ye are not in the flesh but in the Spirit if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his See also v. 1 3 4 5 6 7 c. Titus 3.5 6 7. He saved us by the washing of Regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour that being justified by his grace we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life But the testimonies of thâ—s truth are more numerous than I may recite Direct 16. By all this it appeareth that the Holy Ghost is both Christs great witness objectively in the world by which it is that he is owned of God and proved to be true and also his Advocate or great Agent in the Church both to indite the Scriptures and to sanctifie souls So that no man can be a Christian indeed without these three 1. The objective witness of the Spirit to the truth of Christ 2. The Gospel taught by the Spirit in the Apostles 3. And the quickening illuminating and sanctifying work of the Spirit upon their souls Direct 17. It is therefore in these respects that we are baptizâ—d into the Name of the Holy Ghost as well as of the Father and the Son
him all that believe are justified from all things from which ye could not be justified by the Law of Moses Acts 26.18 To open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among them that are sanctified by faith that is in me 1 John 1.9 If we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness Heb. 8.12 I will be merciful to their unrighteousness and their sins and iniquities I will remember no more Acts 10.43 To him give all the Prophets witness that through his Name whoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins Luke 24.47 That repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his Name to all Nations 2. Promises of Salvation from Hell and possession of Heaven John 3.16 God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life v. 18. He that believeth on him is not condemned v. 36. He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life 1 John 5.11 12. And this is the record that God hath given us eternal life and this is in his Son He that hath the Son hath life Acts 26.18 before cited 1 Tim. 1.15 Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners Heb. 7.25 He is able to save to the utmost all that come to God by him Heb. 5.9 And being made perfect he became the Author of eternal salvation to all them that obey him Mark 16.16 He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved John 10.9 By me if any man enter in he shall be saved John 10.27 28. My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me and I will give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish Rom. 5.9 10. Being justified by his blood we shall be saved from wrath through him Much more being reconciled we shall be saved by his life See Luke 18 30. John 4.14 6.27 40 47. 12.50 Rom. 6.22 Gal. 6.8 1 Tim. 1.16 3. Promises of Reconciliation Adoption and acceptance with God through Christ 2 Cor. 5.18 19 20. God hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation to wit that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself not imputing their trespasses to them and hath committed to us the word of reconciliation Now then we are Ambassadours for Christ as though God did beseech you by us we pray you in Christs stead be ye reconciled unto God For he hath made him to be sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him Rom. 5.1 2 10. Being justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ by whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand and rejoyce in hope of the glory of God When we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son 2 Cor. 6.16 17 18. I will dwell in them and walk in them and I will be their God and they shall be my people I will receive you and be a Father unto you and ye shall be my Sons and Daughters saith the Lord Almighty Rom. 8.1 There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit John 1.12 As many as received him to them give he power to become the Sons of God even to them that believe on his Name which were born not of blood nor of the will of the flâ—sh nor of the will of man but of God Acts 10.35 In every Nation he that feareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted of him Ephes 1 6 He hath made us accepted in the Beloved Ephes 2.14 16. Col. 1.20 John 16.27 The Father himself loveth you because ye have loved me and believed that I came out from God 4. Promises of renewed Pardon of sins after conversion 1 John 2.12 If any man sin we have an Advocate with the Father Jesus Christ the righteous and he is the propitiation for our sins and not for ours only but for the sins of the whole world Matth. 6.14 Forgive us our trespasses For if we forgive men their trespasses your heavenly Father will forgive you James 5.15 If he have committed sins they shall be forgiven him Matth. 12.31 I say unto you All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men but the blasphemy against the Spirit Psal 103.3 Who forgiveth all thine iniquities 1 John 1.9 If we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins 5. Promises of the Spirit of Sanctification to Believers and of divine assistances of grace Luke 11.13 How much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him John 7.37 38 39. If any man thirst let him come to me and drink He that believeth on me as the Scripture hath said out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water This he spake of the Spirit which they that believe on him shall receive John 4.10 14. If thou knewest the gift of God and who it is thou wouldst have asked of him and he would have given thee living waters Ezek. 36.26 27. A new heart also will I give you and a new spirit will I put within you and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh and I will give you an heart of flesh and I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes Ezek. 11.19 And I will give them one heart and I will put a new spirit within you Acts 2.38 39 Repent and be baptized every one of you in the Name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost For the promise is to you and to your children and to all that are afar off even as many as the Lord our God shall call Gal. 4.6 And because you are Sons God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts crying Abba Father Prov. 1.23 Turn you at my reproof behold I will pour out my Spirit unto you I will make known my words unto you Rom. 8.26 Likewise the Spirit helpeth our infirmities for we know not what we should pray for as we ought but the Spirit it self maketh intecerssion for us with groanings which cannot be uttered 6. Promises of Gods giving his grace to all that truly desire and seek it Matth. 5 6. Blessed are they which hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be filled Isa 55.1 Ho every one that thirsteth come ye to the waters and he that hath no mony come ye buy and eat yea come buy wine and milk without mony and without price Hearken diligently to me and eat ye that which is good and let your soul delight it self in fatness Encline
your ear and come unto me hear and your soul shall live and I will make an everlasting covenant with you v. 6. Seek ye the Lord while he may be found call upon him while he is near Rev. 22.17 Let him that is athirst come and whosoever will let him take the water of life freely 7. Promises of Gods giving us all that we pray for according to his promises and will Mat. 7.7 8 11. Ask and it shall be given you seek and ye shall find knock and it shall be opened to you for every one that asketh receiveth and he that seeketh findeth and to him that knocketh it shall be opened If ye being evil know how to give good gifts unto your children how much more shall your Father which is in Heaven give good things to them that ask him Matth. 6.6 Pray to thy Father which is in secret and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly John 14.13 14. 15.16 16.23 John 15.7 If ye abide in me and my words abide in you ye shall ask what ye will and it shall be done unto you 1 John 5.14 15. And this is the confidence which we have in him that if we ask any thing according to his will he heareth us And if we know that he heareth us whatsoever we ask we know that we have the petitions which we desired of him 1 John 3.22 And whatsoever we ask we receive of him because we keep his Commandments and do those things which are pleasing in his sight Prov. 15.8 29. The prayer of the upright is his delight He heareth the prayer of the righteous 1 Pet. 3.12 The eyes of the Lord are over the righteous and his ears are open to their prayers 8. That God will accept weak prayers and groans which want expressions if they be sincere Rom. 8.26 27. The Spirit helpeth our infirmities The Spirit it self maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the spirit Gal. 4.6 Crying Abba Father Psal 77.3 I remembred God and was troubled and my spirit was overwhelmed Psal 38.9 Lord all my desire is before thee and my groaning is not hid from thee Luke 18.14 God be merciful to me a sinner 9. Promises of all things in general which we want and which are truly for our good Psal 84.11 For the Lord God is a Sun and Shield the Lord will give grace and glory no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly Psal 34.9 10. O fear the Lord ye his Saints for there is no want to them that fear him They that seek the Lord shall not want any good thing Rom. 8 28 32 All things work together for good to them that love God He that spared not his own Son but gave him up for us all how shall he not with him also freely give us all things Matth. 6.33 Seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added to you 2 Pet. 1.3 According as his divine power hath given us all things that pertain to life and godliness 1 Tim. 4.8 But godliness is profitable to all things having the promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come 10 Promises of a blâ—ssing on them that sincerely hear and read Gods Word and use his Sacraments and other means Isa 55.3 Encline your ear and come unto me hear and your souls shall live Read the Eunuchs conversion in Acts 8. who was reading the Scripture in his Chariot 1 Pet. 2.1 Laying aside all malice and all guile and hypocrisie and envies and evil speakings as new born babes desire the sincere milk of the word that ye may grow thereby Rev. 1.3 Blessed is he that readeth and they that hear the words of this Prophecy and keep those things that are written therein Psal 1.1 2. Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly But his delight is in the Law of the Lord and in his Law doth he meditate day and night Matth. 7.24 25. Whosoever heareth these sayings of mine and doth them I will liken him to a wise man that built his house upon a rock c. Luke 8.21 Rather blessed are they that hear the Word of God and do it Luke 10.42 Mary hath chosen that good part which shall not be taken from her Mark 4.23 24. If any man have ears to hear let him hear And unto you that hear shall more be given Acts 11.14 Who shall tell thee words whereby thou and all thy houshold shall be saved 1 Tim. 4.16 Take heed to thy self and unto the doctrine and continue therein for in doing this thou shalt both save thy self and them that hear thee Psal 89.15 Blessed is the people that know the joyful sound they shall walk O Lord in the light of thy countenance in thy Name shall they rejoyce all the day Heb. 4.12 The Word of God is quick and powerful c. 1 Cor. 10.16 The cup of blessing which we bless is it not the communion of the blood of Christ The bread which we break is it not the communion of the body of Christ Matth. 18.20 For where two or three are gathered together in my Name there am I in the midst of them Isa 4.5 And the Lord will create upon every dwelling place of Mount Zion and upon her Assemblies a cloud and smoke by day and the shining of a flaming fire by night for upon all the glory shall be a defence 11. Promises to the humble meek and lowly Matth. 5.3 4 5. Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven Blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth Matth. 11.28 29. Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest Take my yoak upon you and learn of me for I am meek and lowly in heart and ye shall find rest unto your souls for my yoak is easie and my burden is light Psal 34.18 The Lord is nigh to them that are of a broken heart and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit Psal 51.17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit a broken and a contrite heart O God thou wilt not despise Isa 57.15 For thus faith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity whose Name is holy I dwell in height and holiness or in the high and holy place with him also that is of a contrite spirit to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite ones Isa 66.2 To this man will I look even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit and trembleth at my Word Luke 4.18 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me he hath anointed me to preach the Gospel to the poor he hath sent me to heal the broken hearted to preach deliverance to the captives and recovering
in their Ordination which is a Consecration and their self-dedication to God And it is high sacriledge in themselves or any other that shall alienate them unjustly from their sacred calling and work Or of things to holy uses as places and utensils may be sanctified Or it may be a dedication of persons to a holy state relation and use as is that of every Christian in his Baptism and this is either an external dedication and so all the baptized are sanctified and holy or an internal Dedication which if it be sincere it is both actual and habitual when we both give up our selves to God in Covenant and are also disposed and inclined to him and our hearts are set upon him yea and the life also consisteth of the exercise of this disposition and performance of this covenant This is the Sanctification which here I speak of And so much for the name The doctrinal Propositions necessary to be understood about it are these more largely and plainly laid down in my Confession Chap. 3. Prop. 1. So much of the appearance or Image of God as there is upon any creature so much it is good and amiable to God and man Object God loveth us from eternity and when we were his enemies not because we were good but to make us better than we were Answ Gods Love and all Love consisteth formally in complacency God hath no complacency in any thing but in good or according to the measure of its goodness From eternity God foreseeing the good which would be in us loved us as good in esse cognito and not as actually good when we were not When we were his enemies he had a double love to us or complacency the one was for that natural good which remained in us as we were men and repairable and capable of being made Saints The other was for that foreseen goodes in esse cognito which he purposed in time to come to put upon us This complacency exceeded not at all the good which was the object of it But with it was joyned a will and purpose to give us grace and glory hereafter and thence it is called A Love of Benevolence Not but that complacency is the true action of Love and Benevolence or a purpose to give benefits is but the fruit of it But if any will needs call the Benevolence alone by the name of Love we deny not in that sense that God loveth Saul a persecutor as well as Paul an Apostle in that his purpose to do him good is the same Object God loveth us in Christ and for his righteousness and not only for our own inherent holiness Answ 1. The Benevolence of God is exercised towards us in and by Christ and the fruits of his Love are Christ himself and the mercies given us with Christ and by Christ And our Pardon and Justification and Adoption and Acceptance is by his meritorious righteousness And it is by him that we are possessed with Gods Spirit and renewed according to his Image in Wisdom and Righteousness and Holiness And all this relative and inherent mercy we have as in Christ related to him without whom we have nothing And thus it is that we are accepted and beloved in him and for his righteousness But Christ did not die or merit to change Gods Nature and make him more indifferent in his Love to the holy and the unholy or equally to the more holy and to the less holy But his complacency is still in no man further than he is made truly amiable in his real holiness and his relation to Christ and to the Father The Doctrine of Imputation is opened before John 16.27 The Father himself loveth you because ye have loved me and believed c. And 14.21 He that loveth me shall be loved of my Father As God loved us with the love of benevolence and so much complacence as is before described before we loved him 1 John 4.10 Ephes 2.4 so he now loveth us complacentially for his Image upon us and so much of his grace as is found in us and also for our relation to his Son and to himself which we stand in by this grace But as he loveth not Saul a persecutor under the notion of a fulfiller of his Law in Christ so neither doth he love David in his sin under the notion of one that is without sin and perfect as having fulfilled the Law in Christ But so loveth him in Christ as to pardon his sin and make him more lovely in himself by creating a clean heart and renewing a right spirit within him for the sake of the satisfaction and merits of Christ Prop. 2. Holiness is Gods Image upon us and that which was our primitive amiableness Col. 3.10 Prop. 3. The loss of Holiness was the loss of our amiableness and our state of enmity to God Prop. 4. Holiness consisteth in 1. Our resignation of our selves to God as our Owner and submission to his Providence 2. And our subjection to God as our Ruler and obedience to his Teaching and his Laws 3. And in Thankfulness and Love to God as our Chief Good efficiently and finally Prop. 5. Love is that final perfective act which implyeth and comprehendeth all the rest and so is the fulfilling of the Law and the true state of sanctification Rom. 13.10 Matth. 22.37 Mark 12.33 1 John 7.16 Prop. 6. Heaven it self as it is our ultimate end and perfection is but our perfect Love to God maintained by perfect vision of him with the perfect reception of his Love to us Prop. 7. Therefore it was Christs great business in the world to destroy the works of the Devil and to bring us to this perfect Love of God Prop. 8. Accordingly the greatest use of Faith in Christ is to subserve and kindle our Love to God Prop. 9. This it doth two special waies 1. By procuring the pardon of sin which forfeited the grace of the Spirit that so the Spirit may kindle the Love of God in us 2. By actual beholding the Love of God which shineth to us most gloriously in Christ by which our Love must be excited as the most suitable and effectual means John 3.1 4.10 Prop. 10. Our whole Religion therefore consisteth of two parts 1. Primitive Holiness restored and perfected 2. The restoring and perfecting means Or 1. Love to God the final and morâ— excellent part 2. Faith in Christ the mediate part Faith causing Love and Love caused by Faith 1 Cor. 12. last 13. Rom. 8.35 Ephes 6.23 1 Tim. 1.5 2 Thes 3.5 1 Cor. 2.9 8.3 Rom. 8.28 James 1.12 2.5 1 Pet. 1.8 Prop. 11. Repentance towards God is the souls return to God in Love and Regeneration by the Spirit is the Spirits begetting us to the Image and Nature of God our heavenly Father in a heavenly Love to him So that the Holy Ghost is given us to work in us a Love to God which is our sanctification Rom. 5.5 Titus 3.4 5 6
those things that are not seen Or you may take the sense in this Proposition which I am next to open further and apply viz. That the nature and use of faith is to be as it were instead of presence possession and sight or to make the things that will be as if they were already in existence and the things unseen which God revealeth as if our bodily eyes beheld them 1. Not that faith doth really change its object 2. Nor doth it give the same degree of apprehensions and affections as the sight of present things would do But 1. Things invisible are the objects of our faith 2. And Faith is effectual instead of sight to all these uses 1. The apprehension is as infallible because of the objective certainty though not so satisfactory to our imperfect souls as if the things themselves were seen 2. The will is determined by it in its necessary consent and choice 3. The affections are moved in the necessary dâ—gree 4. It ruleth in our lives and bringeth us through duty and suffering for the sake of the happiness which we believe 3. This Faith is a grounded wise and justifiable act an infallible knowlâ—dge and often called so in Scripture John 6.69 1 Cor. 15.58 Rom. 8.28 c. And the constitutive and efficient causes will justifie the Name We know and are infallibly sure of the truth of God which we believe As it 's said John 6.69 We believe and are sure that thou art that Christ the Son of the living God 2 Cor. 5.1 We know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved we have a building of God an house not made with hands eternal in the Hâ—avens Rom. 8.28 We know that all things work together for good to them that love God 1 Cor. 15.58 You know that your labour is nâ—t in vain in the Lord Joh. 9.29 We knâ—w God spake to Moses c. 31. We know God heareth not sinners John 3.2 We know thou art a Teacher come from God So 1 John 3.5 15. 1 Pet. 3.17 and many other Scriptures tell you that Believing God is a certain infallible sort of knowledge I shall in justification of the work of Faith acquaint you briefly with 1. That in the Nature of it 2. And that in the causing of it which advanceth it to be an infallible knowledge 1. The Believer knows as sure as he knows there is a God that God is true and his Word is true it being impossible for God to lie Hâ—b 6.18 God that cannot lie hath promised Titus 1.2 2. He knows that the holy Scripture is the Word of God by his Image which it beareth and the many evidences of Divinity which it containeth and the many Miracles certainly proved which Christ and his Spirit in his servants wrought to confirm the truth 3. And therefore he knoweth assuredly the conclusion that all this Word of God is true And for the surer effecting of this knowledge God doth not only set before us the ascertaining Evidence of his own veracity and the Scriptures Divinity but moreover 1. He giveth us to believe Phil. 1.29 2 Pet. 1.3 For it is not of our selves but is the gift of God Ephes 2.8 Faith is one of the fruits of the Spirit Gal. 5.22 By the drawing of the Father we come to the Son And he that hath knowledge given from Heaven will certainly know and he that hath Faith given him from Heaven will certainly believe The heavenly Light will dissipate our darkness and infallibly illuminate Whilest God sets before us the glass of the Gospel in which the things invisible are revealed and also gives us eye sight to behold them Believers must needs be a heavenly people as walking in that light which proceedeth from and leadeth to the celestial everlasting Light 2. And that Faith may be so powerful as to serve instead of sight and presence Believers have the Spirit of Christ within them to excite and actuate it and help them against all temptations to unbelief and to work in them all other graces that concur to promote the works of Faith and to mortifie those sins that hinder our believing and are contrary to a heavenly life So that as the exercise of our sight and taste and hearing and feeling is caused by our natural life so the exercise of Faith and Hope and Love upon things unseen is caused by the holy Spirit which is the principle of our new life 1 Cor. 2.12 We have received the Spirit that we might know the things that are given us of God This Spirit of God acquainteth us with God with his veracity and his Word Heb. 10.30 We know him that hath said I will never fail thee nor forsake thee This Spirit of Christ acquainteth us with Christ and with his grace and will 1 Cor. 2.10 11 12. This heavenly Spirit acquainteth us with Heaven so that We know that when Christ appeareth we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is 1 Joh. 3.2 And we know that he was manifested to take away sin 1 Joh. 3.5 And will perfect his work and present us spotless to his Father Eph. 5.26 27. This heavenly Spirit possesseth the Saints with such heavenly dispositions and desires as much facilitate the work of Faith It bringeth us to a heavenly conversation and maketh us live as fellow-citizens of the Saints and in the houshold of God Phil. 3.20 Eph. 2.19 It is within us a Spirit of supplication breathing heaven-ward with sighs and groans which cannot be expressed and as God knoweth the meaning of the Spirit so the Spirit knows the mind of God Rom. 8.37 1 Cor. 2.11 3. And the work of Faith is much promoted by the spiritual experiences of Believers When they find a considerable part of the holy Scriptures verified on themselves it much confirmeth their Faith as to the whole They are really possessed of that heavenly disposition called The Divine Nature and have felt the power of the Word upon their hearts renewing them to the Image of God mortifying their most dear and strong corruptions shewing them a greater beauty and desirableness in the Objects of Faith than is to be found in sensible things They have found many of the Promises made good upon themselves in the answers of prayers and in great deliverances which strongly perswadeth them to believe the rest that are yet to be accomplished And experience is a very powerful and satisfying way of conviction He that feeleth as it were the first fruits the earnest and the beginnings of Heaven already in his soul will more easily and assuredly believe that there is a Heaven hereafter We know that the Son of God iâ— come and hath given us an understanding that we may know him that is true and we are in him that is true even in his Son Jesus Christ This is the true God and eternal life 1 Joh. 5.20 He that believeth on the Son hath the witness in himself Vers 10. There is so
Essence or that which streameth further to other creatures And this last is either that which it sendeth to us before its own appearing or rising or that which accompanieth its appearing or that which leaveth behind it as it setteth or passeth away so must we distinguish in the present case But all this is but One Light and One Spirit So then I should in order speak 1. Of that Spirit in the words and works of Christ himself which constituteth the Christian Religion 2. That Spirit in the Prophets and Fathers before Christ which was the antecedent light 3. That Spirit in Christs followers which was the concomitant and subsequent Light or witness And 1. In those next his abode on earth And 2. Of those that are more remote CHAP. IV. The Image of Gods Wisdom 1. AND first observe the three parts of Gods Image or impress upon the Christian Religion in it self as containing the whole work of mans Redemption as it is found in the works and doctrine of Christ 1. The WISDOM of it appeareth in these particular observations which yet shew it to us but very defectively for want of the clearness and the integrality and the order of our knowledge For to see but here and there a parcel of one entire frame or work and to see those few parcels as dislocated and not in their proper places and order and all this but with a dark imperfect sight is far from that full and open view of the manifold Wisdom of God in Christ which Angels and superiour intellects have 1. Mark how wisely God hath ordered it that the three Essentialitieâ— in the Divine Nature Power Intellection and Will Omnipotency Wisdom and Goodness and the three persons in the Trinity the Father the Word and the Spirit and the three Causalities of God as the Efficient Directive and final Cause of whom and through whom and to whom are all things should have three most eminent specimina or impressions in the world or three most conspicuous works to declare and glorifie them viz. Nature Grace and Glory And that God should accordingly stand related to man in three answerable Relations viz. as our Creatour our Redeemer and our Perfecter by Holiness initially and Glory finally 2. How wisely it is ordered that seeing Mans Love to God is both his greatest duty and his perfection and felicity there should be some standing emâ—nent means for the attraction and excitation of our Love And this should be the most eminent manifestation of the Love of God to us and withall of his own most perfect Holiness and Goodness And that as we have as much need of the sense of his Goodness as of his Power Loving him being our chief work that there should be as observable a demonstration of his Goodness extant as the world is of his Power 3. Especially when man had fallen by sin from the Love of God to the Love of his carnal self and of the creature and when he was fallen under vindictive Justice and was conscious of the displeasure of his Maker and had made himself an heir of Hell And when mans nature can so hardly love one that in Justice standeth engaged or resolved to damn him forsake him and hate him How wisely is it ordered that he that would recover him to his Love should first declare his Love to the offender in the fullest sort and should reconcile himself unto him and shew his readiness to forgive him and to save him yea to be his felicity and his chiefest good That so the Remedy may be answerable to the disease and to the duty 4. How wisely is it thus contrived that the frame and course of mans obedience should be appointed to consist in Love and Gratitude and to run out in such praise and chearful duty as is animated throughout by Love that so sweet a spring may bring forth answerable streams That so the Goodness of our Master may appear in the sweetness of our work and we may not serve the God of Love and Glory like slaves with a grudging weary mind but like children with delight and quietness And our work and way may be to us a foretaste of our reward and end 5. And yet how meet was it that while we live in such a dark material world in a body of corruptible flesh among enemies and snares our duty should have somewhat of caution and vigilancy and therefore of fear and godly sorrow to teach us to rellish grace the more And that our condition should have in it much of necessity and trouble to drive us homeward to God who is our rest And how aptly doth the very permission of sin it self subserve this end 6. How wisely is it thus contrived that Glory at last should be better rellished and that man who hath the Joy should give God the Glory and be bound to this by a double obligation 7. How aptly is this remedying design and all the work of mans Redemption and all the Precepts of the Gospel built upon or planted into the Law of natural perfection Faith being but the means to recover Love and Grace being to Nature but as Medicine is to the Body and being to Glory as Medicine is to Health So that as a man that was never taught to speak or to go or to do any work or to know any science or trade or business which must be known acquisitively is a miserable man as wanting all that which should help him to use his natural powers to their proper ends so it is much more with him that hath Nature without Grace which must heal it and use it to its proper ends 8. So that it appeareth that as the Love of Perfection is fitly called the Law of Nature because it is agreeable to man in his Natural state of Innocency so the Law of Grace may be now called the Law of depraved Nature because it is as suitable to lapsed man And when our pravity is undeniable how credible should it be that we have such a Law 9. And there is nothing in the Gospel either unsuitable to the first Law of Nature or contradictory to it or yet of any alien nature but only that which hath the most excellent aptitude to subserve it Giving the Glory to God in the highest by restoring Peace unto the Earth and Goodness towards men 10. And when the Divine Monarchy is apt in the order of Government to communicate some Image of it self to the Creature as well as the Divine Perfections have communicated their Image to the Creatures in their Natures or Beings how wisely it is ordered that mankind should have one universal Vicarious Head or Monarch There is great reason to believe that there is Monarchy among Angels And in the world it most apparently excelleth all other forms of Government in order to Vnity and Strength and Glory and if it be apter than some others to degenerate into oppressing Tyranny that is only caused by the great corruption of humane
work on earth And that some should do the extraordinary work in laying the foundation and leaving a certain Rule and Order to the rest and that the rest should proceed to build hereupon and that the wisest and the best of men should be the Teachers and Guides of the rest unto the end 24. And how necessary was it that our Sun in glory should continually send down his beams and influence on the earth even the Spirit of the Father to be his constant Agent here below and to plead his cause and do his work on the hearts of men and that the Apostles who were to found the Church should have that Spirit in so conspicuous a degree and for such various works of Wonder and Power as might suffice to confirm their testimony to the world And that all others as well as they to the end should have the Spirit for those works of Love and Renovation which are necessary to their own obedience and salvation 25. How wisely it is ordered that he who is our King is Lord of all and able to defend his Church and to repress his proudest enemies 26. And also that he should be our final Judge who was our Saviour and Law-giver and made and sealed that Covenant of Grace by which we must be judged That Judgement may not be over dreadful but rather desirable to his faithful servants who shall openly be justified by him before all 27. How wisely hath God ordered it that when death is naturally so terrible to man we should have a Saviour that went that way before us and was once dead but now liveth and is where we must be and hath the keyes of death and Heaven that we may boldly go forth as to his presence and to the innumerable perfected spirits of the just and may commend our souls to the hands of our Redeemer and our Head 28. As also that this should be plainly revealed and that the Scriptures are written in a method and manner fit for all even for the meanest and that Ministers be commanded to open it and apply it by translation exposition and earnest exhortation that the remedy may be suited to the nature and extent of the disease And yet that there be some depths to keep presumptuous daring wits at a distance and to humble them and to exercise our diligence 29. As also that the life of faith and holiness should have much opposition in the world that its glory and excellency might the more appear partly by the presence of its contraries and partly by its exercise and victories in its tryals and that the godly may have use for patience and fortitude and every grace and may be kept the easilier from loving the world and taught the more to desire the presence of their Lord. 30. Lastly And how wisely is it ordered that God in Heaven from whom all cometh should be the end of all his graces and our duties and that himself alone should be our home and happiness and that as we are made by him and for him so we should live with him to his praise and in his love for ever And that there as we shall have both glorified souls and bodies so both might have a suitable glory and that our glorified Redeemer might there be in part the Mediatour of our fruition as here he was the Mediatour of acquisition I have recited hastily a few of the parts of this wondrous frame to shew you that if you saw them all and that in theâ—r true order and method you might not think strange that Now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places is made known by the Church the manifold wisdom of God Ephes 2.11 which was the first part of Gods Image upon the Christian Religion which I was to shew you But besides all this the WISDOM of God is expressed in the holy Scriptures thesâ— several waies 1. In the Revelation of things past which could not be known by any mortal man As the Creation of the world and what was therein done before man himself was made Which experience it self doth help us to believe because we see exceeding great probabilities that the world was not eternal nor of any longer duration than the Scriptures mention in that no place on earth hath any true monument of ancienter original and in that humane Sciences and Arts are yet so imperfect and such important additions are made but of late 2. In the Revelation of things distant out of the reach of mans discovery So Scripture History and Prophecy do frequently speak of preparations and actions of Princes and people afar of 3. In the Revelation of the secrets of mens hearts As Elisha told Gebeâ—i what he did at a distance Christ told Nathaniel what he said and where So frequently Christ told the Jews and his Disciples what they thought and shewed that he knew the heart of man To which we may add the searching power of the Word of God which doth so notably rip up the secrets of mens corruptions and may shew all mens hearts unto themselves 4. In the Revelation of contingent things to come which is most frequent in the Prophecies and Promises of the Scripture not only in the Old Testament as Daniel c. but also in the Gospel When Christ foretelleth his death and resurrection and the usage and successes of his Apostles and promiseth them the miraculous gifts of the Spirit and foretold Peters thrice denying him and foretold the grievous destrâ—ction of Jerusalem with other such like clear predictions 5. But nothing of all these predictions doth shine so clearly to our selves as those great Promises of Christ which are fulfilled to our selves in all generations Even the Promises and Prophetical descriptions of the great work of Conversion Regeneration or Sanctification upon mens souls which is wrought in all Ages just according to the delineations of it in the world All the humblings the repentings the desires the faith the joyes the prayers and the answers of them which were foretold and was found in the first Believers are performed and given to all true Christians to this day To which may be added all the Prophecies of the extent of the Church of the conversion of the Kingdoms of the world to Christ and of the oppositions of the ungodly fort thereto and of the persecutions of the followers of Christ which are all fulfilled 6. The WISDOM of God also is clearly manifested in the concatenation or harmony of all these Revelations Not only that there is no real contradiction between them but that they all conjunctly compose one entire frame As the age of man goeth on from infancy to maturity and nature fitteth her endowments and provisions accordingly to each degree so hath the Church proceeded from its infancy and so have the Revelations of God been suited to its several times Christ who was promised to Adam and the Fathers before Moses for the first two thousand years and signified by their Sacrifices was
multitude of ceremonies being but the pictures and alphabet of that truth which Jesus Christ hath brought to light and which hath evidence which to us is more convincing than that of the Jewish Law 3. The Mahometane delusion is so gross that it seemeth vain to say any more against it than it saith it self unless it be to those who are bred up in such darkness as to hear of nothing else and never to see the Sun which shineth on the Christian world and withall are under the terrour of the sword which is the strongest reason of that barbarous Sect. 4. And to think that the Atheisme of Infidels is the way who hold only the five Articles of the Vnity of God the duty of obedience the immortality of the soul the life of retributior and the necessity of Repentance is but to go against the light For 1. It is a denyal of that abundant evidence of the truth of the Christian Faith which cannot by any sound reason be confuted 2. It is evidently too narrow for mans necessities and leaveth our misery without a sufficient remedy 3. Its inclusions and exclusions are contradictory It asserteth the necessity of Obedience and Repentance and yet excludeth the necessary means the revealed Light and Love and Power by which both Obedience and Repentance must be had It excludeth Christ and his Spirit and yet requireth that which none but Christ and his Spirit can effect 4. It proposeth a way as the only Religion which few ever went from the beginning as to the exclusions As if that were Gods only way to Heaven which scarce any visible societies of men can be proved to have practised to this day Which of all these Religions have the most wise and holy and heavenly and mortified and righteous and sober persons to profess it and the greatest numbers of such If you will judge of the medicine by the effects and take him for the best Physician who doth the greatest cures upon the souls you will soon conclude that Christ is the way the truth and the life and no man cometh to the Father but by him John 14.6 Direct 3. Think how impossible it is that any but God should be the Author of the Christian Religion 1. No good man could be guilty of so horrid a crime as to forge a volume of delusions and put Gods Name to it to cheat the world so blasphemously and hypocritically and to draw them into a life of trouble to promote it Much less could so great a number of good men do this as the success of such a cheat were it possible would require There is no man that can believe it to be a deceit but must needs believe as we do of Mahomet that the Author was one of the worst men that ever lived in the world 2. No bad man could lay so excellent a design and frame a Doctrine and Law so holy so self denying so merciful so just so spiritual so heavenly and so concordant in it self nor carry on so high and divine an undertaking for so divine and excellent an end No bad man could so universally condemn all badness and prescribe such powerful remedies against it and so effectually cure and conquer it in so considerable a part of the world 3. If it be below any good man to be guilty of such a forgery as aforesaid we can much less suspect that any good Angel could be guilty of it 4. And if no bad man could do so much good we can much less imagine that any Devil or bad spirit could be the author of it The Devil who is the worst in evil could never so much contradict his nature and overthrow his own Kingdom and say so much evil of himself and do so much against himself and do so much for the sanctifying and saving of the world He that doth so much to draw men to sin and misery would never do so much to destroy their sin And we plainly feel within our selves that the spirit or party which draweth us to sin doth resist the Spirit which draweth us to believe and obey the Gospel and that these two maintain a war within us 5. And if you should say that the good which is in Christianity is caused by God and the evil of it by the Father of sin I answer either it is true or false If it be true it is so good that the Devil can never possibly be a contributor to it Nay it cannot then be suspected justly of any evil But if it be false it is then so bad that God cannot be any otherwise the Author of it than as he is the Author of any common natural Verity which it may take in and abuse or as his general concourse extendeth to the whole Creation But it is somewhat in Christianity which it hath more than other Religions have which must make it more pure and more powerful and successful than any other Religions have been Therefore it must be more than common natural truths even the contexture of those natural truths with the supernatural revelations of it and the addition of a spirit of power and light and love to procure the success And God cannot be the Author of any such contexture or additions if it be false 6. If it be said that men that had some good and some bad in them did contrive it such as those Fanaticks or Enthusiasts who have pious notions and words with pride and self-exalting minds I answer The good is so great which is found in Christianity that it is not possible that a bad man much less an extreamly bad man could be the Author of it And the wickedness of the plot would be so great if it were false that it is not possible that any but an extreamly bad man could be guilty of it Much less that a multitude should be sound at once so extreamly good as to promote it even with their greatest labour and suffering and also so extreamly bad as to joyn together in the plot to cheat the world in a matter of such high importance Such exceeding good and evil cannot consist in any one person much less in so many as must do such a thing And if such a heated brain sick person as Hacket Nailer David George or John of Leyden should cry up themselves upon prophetical and pious pretences their madness hath still appeared in the mixture of their impious doctrines and practices And if any would and could be so wicked God never would or did assist them by an age of numerous open miracles nor lend them his Omnipotency to deceive the world but left them to the shame of their proud attempts and made their folly known to all Direct 4. Study all the Evidences of the Christian Verity till their sense and weight and order be throughly digested understood and remembred by you and be as plain and familiar to you as the lesson which you have most thoroughly learned It is not once or twice reading
agreed whether its acts should be called physical properly or not Nay they cannot tell what doth individuate an act of sense whether when my eye doth at once see many words and letters of my Book every word or letter doth make as many individual acts by being so many objects And if so whether the parts of every letter also do not constitute an individual act and where we shall here stop And must all these trifles be considered in our Faith Assenting to the truths is not one Faith unless when separated from the rest and consenting to the good another act Nor is it one Faith to believe the promise and another to believe the pardon of sin and another to believe salvation and another to believe in God and another to believe in Jesus Christ nor one to believe in Christ as our Ransom and another as our Intercessor and another as our Teacher and another as our King and another to believe in the Holy Ghost c. I deny not but some one of these may be separated from the rest and being so separated may be called Faith but not the Christian Faith but only a material parcel of it which is like the limb of a man or of a tree which cut off from the rest is dead and ceaseth when separated to be a part any otherwise than Logical a part of the description The Faith which hath the promise of salvation and which you must live by hath 1. God for the Principal Revealer and his Veracity for its formal object 2. It hath Christ and Angels and Prophets and Apostles for the sub-revealers 3. It hath the Holy Ghost by the divine attesting operations before described to be the seal and the confirmer 4. It hath the same Holy Ghost for the internal exciter of it 5. It hath all truths of known divine revelation and all good of known divine donation by his Covenant to be the material general object 6. It hath the Covenant of Grace and the holy Scriptures and formerly the voice of Christ and his Apostles or any such sign of the mind of God for the instrumental efficient cause of the object in esse cognito And also the instrumental efficient of the act 7. It hath the pure Deity God himself as he is to be known and loved inceptively here and perfectly in Heaven for the final and most necessary material object 8. It hath the Lord Jesus Christ entirely in all essential to him as God and Man and as our Redeemer or Saviour as our Ransome Intercessor Teacher and Ruler for the most necessary mediate material object 9. It hath the gifts of Pardon Justification the Spirit of Sanctification or Love and all the necessary gifts of the Covenant for the material never-final objects And all this is essential to the Christian Faith even to that Fath which hath the promise of pardon and salvation And no one of these must be totally left out in the definition of it if you would not be deceived It is Heresie and not the Christian Faith if it exclude any one essential part And if it include it not it is Infidelity And indeed there is such a connexion of the objects that there is no part in truth where there is not the whole And it is impiety if any one part of the offered good that is necessary be refused It is no true Faith if it be not a true composition of all these Direct 8. There is no nearer way to know what true Faith is than truly to understand what your Baptismal Covenanting did contain In Scripture phrase to be a Disciple a Believer and a Christian is all one Acts 11.26 Acts 5.14 1 Tim. 4.12 Matth. 10.42 27.57 Luke 14.26 27 33. Acts 21.16 Joh. 9.28 And to be a Believer and to have Belief or Faith is all one and therefore to be a Christian and to have Faith is all one Christianity signifieth either our first entrance into the Christian State or our progress in it As Marriage signifieth either Matrimony or the Conjugal State continued in In the latter sense Christianity signifieth more than Faith for more than Faith is necessary to a Christian But in the former sense as Christianity signifieth but our becoming Christians by our covenanting with God so to have Faith or to be a Believer and internally to become a Christian in Scripture sense is all one and the outward covenanting is but the profession of Faith or Christianity Not that the word Faith is never taken in a narrower sense or that Christianity as it is our heart-covenant or consent containeth nothing but Faith as Faith is so taken in the narrowest sense But when Faith is taken as ordinarily in Scripture for that which is made the condition of Justification and Salvation and opposed to Heathenism Infidelity Judaism or the works of the Law it is commonly taken in this larger sense Faith is well enough described to them that understand what is implyed by the usual shorter description as that it is a believing acceptance of Christ and relying on him as our Saviour or for salvation Or a belief of pardon and the heavenly Glory as procured by the Redemption wrought by Christ and given by God in the Covenant of Grace But the reason is because all the rest is connoted and so to be understood by us as if it were exprest in words But the true and full definition of it is this The Christian Faith which is required at Baptism and then professed and hath the promise of Justification and Glorification is a true Belief of the Gospel and an acceptance of and consent unto the Covenant of Grace Particularly a believing that God is our Creatour our Owner our Ruler and our Chief Good and that Jesus Christ is God and man our Saviour our Ransoms our Teacher and our King and that the Holy Ghost is the Sanctifier of the Church of Christ And it is an understanding serious consent that this God the Father Son and Holy Ghost be my God and reconciled Father in Christ my Saviour and my Sanctifier to justifie me sanctifie me and glorifie me in the perfect knowledge of God and mutual complacence in Heaven which belief and consent wrought in me by the Word and Spirit of Christ is grounded upon the Veracity of God as the chief Revealer and upon his Love and Mercy as the Donor and upon Christ and his Apostles as the Messengers of God and upon the Gospel and specially the Covenant of Grace as the instrumental Revelation and Donation it self And upon the many signal operations of the Holy Ghost as the divine infallible attestation of their truth Learn this definition and understand it throughly and it may prove a more solid useful knowledge to have the true nature of Faith or Christianity thus methodically printed on your minds than to read over a thousand volumes in a rambling and confused way of knowledge If any quarrel at this definition because the foundation is not first
7.21 22. Acts 1.17 24. Direct 19. Faith must not look at God now and then and leave the soul in ordinary forgetfulness of him but remember that he is alwaies present and must make us rather forget them that are talking to us or conversing with us than to forget the Lord. Nothing is more the work of Faith than to see him who is invisible Heb. 11.27 And to live as one that still remembereth that God standeth by To think as one that knoweth that our thoughts are alwaies in his sight and to speak and do as one that forgetteth not that he is the constant and most reverend witness of all To hear and pray and live and labour as if we saw the God who employeth us and will reward us Matth. 6.4 6. Isa 59.18 Rev. 20.12 Matth. 16.27 Rom. 2.6 Direct 20. Faith must lay the heart of man to rest in the Will of God and to make it our chief delight to please him and quietly to trust him whatever cometh to pass And to make nothing of all that would rise up against him or entice us from him or would be to us as in his stead Faith seeth that it is the pleasing of the will of God which is all our work and all our reward And that we should be fully pleased in the pleasing of him And that there is no other rest for the soul to be thought on but the will of God And it must content the soul in him alone 2 Thes 1.11 Col. 3.20 1 Cor. 7.32 1 Thes 4.1 2 Tim. 2.4 Heb. 11.6 Mat. 3.17 17.5 Heb. 13.16 Psal 16.5 73.26 119.57 142.5 As God is often called Jealous especially over the heart of man so faith must make us jealous of our selves and very watchful against every creature which wâ—uld become any part of the felicity or ultimate object of our souls God is so great to a believing soul that ease and honour and wealth and pleasure and all men high and low must be as dead and nothing to us when they speak against him or would be loved or feared or trusted or obeyed before him or above him It is as natural to a true life of Faith on God to make nothing of the incroaching creature as for our beholding the Sun to make nothing of a Candle And thus is faith our victory over the world 1 John 5.4 Jer. 17.5 Isa 2.22 1 Cor. 15.28 Ephes 4.6 Col. 3.11 CHAP. II. Directions how to live by Faith on Jesus Christ SO much is said already towards this in opening the grounds of Faith as will excuse me from being prolix in the rest And the following parts of the Life of Faith are still supposed as subordinate to these two which go before Direct 1. Keep still the true Reasons of Christs Incarnation and Mediation upon your mind as they are before expressed else Christ will not be known by you as Christ Therefore the Scriptures are much in declaring the reasons of Christs coming into the world as to be a sacrifice for sin to declare Gods love and mercy to sinners to seek and to save that which was lost to destroy the works of the Devil c. 1 Tim. 1.15 1 John 3.8 Heb. 2.14 Luke 19.10 Rom. 5.10 1 John 3.1 Gal. 4.4 6 c. Let this name or description of Christ be engraven as in capital Letters upon your minds THE ETERNAL WISDOM OF GOD INCARNATE TO REVEAL AND COMMVNICATE HIS WILL HIS LOVE HIS SPIRIT TO SINFVL MISERABLE MAN Direct 2. See therefore that you joyn no conceit of Christ which dishonoureth God and is contrary to this character and to Gods design Many by mistaking the doctrine of Christs Intercession do think of God the Father as one that is all wrath and justice and unwilling of himself to be reconciled unto man and of the second person in the Trinity as more gracious and mercâ—ful whose mediation abateth the wrath of the Father and with much ado maketh him willing to have mercy on us Whereas it is the Love of God which is the original of our Redemption and it was Gods loving the world which provoked him to give his Son to be their Redeemer John 3.16 Rom. 8.32 And God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself not imputing to them their trespasses 2 Cor. 5.19 And therefore we still read of Christs reconciling man to God and not the phrase of his reconciling God to man Not but that both are truly wrought by Christs mediation For the Scripture frequently speaketh of Gods hating the workers of iniquity and of his vindictive Justice and of that propitiating and attonement which signifieth the same thing But the reason is because the enmity began on mans part and not on Gods by mans forsaking God and turning his love from him to the creature and not by Gods forsaking man and the change of mans state and heart towards God by true reconciliation will make him again capable of peace with God and as soon as man is made an object fit for the complacency of God it cannot be but that God will again take complacency in him so that the real change must be only on man and then that relative or denominative change which must be on God will thence immediately result Some also there be who gather from Christs death that God desired the sufferings of Christ as pleasing to him in it self as if he made a bargain with Christ to sell so much mercy to man for so much blood and pains of Christ and as if he so delighted in the blood of the innocent that he would the willinglyer do good to us if he might first forsake and crucifie Christ But this is to contradict Christs business in the world as if he who came from Heaven to declare Gods Love had come to declare him to delight in doing hurt and as if he who came to demonstrate Gods Justice had come to shew that he had rather punish the innocent than the guilty But the case is quite otherwise God doth not delight in mans sufferings as such no not of the guilty much less of the innocent He desired not Christs suffering for it self But as it was a convenient means to demonstrate his Justice and his Holiness and to vindicate the honour of his Government and Law and to be a warning to sinners not to sin presumptuously and yet to declare to them the greatness of his Love And some are ready to gather from Christs propitiation that God is now more reconcileable to sin and so they blaspheme him as if he were unholy As if he made a smaller matter of our mis-doings since he is satisfied for them by a Mediator And they are ready to gather that God can now take complacency in man though he have no inherent holiness at all because of the righteousness of Christ imputed to him And some take Gods imputation of Christs righteousness to us to be a reputing us to be the persons who our selves fulfilled the Law
to despise the Idol of the ungodly and to lay that under our feet which is nearest to their heart and to be able without impatiency to be scorned spit upon buffeted and abused to be poor and of no reputation among men and though not to enslave our selves to any but if we can be free to use it rather 1 Cor. 7.21 yet to be the loving and voluntary servants of as many as we can to do them good and not to desire to have a great retinue and to be such voluntary burdens to the world as to be served by many while we serve none as if we who are taught by Christ and Nature that it is more honourable to give than to receive and to be helpful unto many than to need the help of many would declare our impotency to be so great that when every poor man can serve himself and others we are and had rather be so indigent as not to live and help our selves without the help of many servants yea scarce to undress and dress our selves or to do any thing which another can do for us Only such persons are willing to eat and drink and sleep for themselves and to play and laugh and to sin for themselves but as to any thing that 's good and usefull without their present sensitive delight they are not only unserviceable to the world but would live like the lame or dead that must be moved and carryed about by others Among Christs servants he that is the chief must be the chief in service even as a servant unto all Luke 22.26 Matth. 23.11 And all by love must serve one another Gal. 5.13 4. His submission unto death and conquest of the natural love of life for a greater good even the pleasing of God and the Crown of Glory and the good of many in their salvation To teach us that not only the pleasures of life but life it self must be willingly laid down when any of these three ends require it Matth. 20.28 John 10 11. 15.13 1 John 3.16 Joh. 10.17 Acts 20.24 Matth. 10.39 16.25 Mark 14.26 Phil. 2.30 1 John 3.16 Rev. 12.11 Direct 16. Let Faith behold Christ in his relation to his universal Church and not unto your selves alone 1. Because else you overlook his most honourable relation It is more his glory to be the Churches Head and Saviour than yours Ephes 5.23 1.21 22. And 2. You else overlook his chief design and work which is for the perfecting and saving of his body Ephes 1.23 Col. 1.24.18 And 3. Else you overlook the chief part of your own duty and of your conformity to Christ which is in loving and edifying the body Ephes 4.12 16 Whereas if you see Christ as the undivided and impartial Head of all Saints you will see also all Saints as dear to him and as united in him and you will have communion by faith with them in him and you will love them all and pray for all and desire a part in the prayers of all instead of carping at their different indifferent manner and forms and words of prayer and running away from them to shew that you disown them And you will have a tender care of the unity and honour and prosperity of the Church and regard the welfare of particular Brethren as your own 1 Cor. 12. throughout John 13.14 34. 15.12 17. Rom. 13.8 stooping to the lowest service to one another if it were the washing of the feet and in honour preferring one another Rom. 12.10 Not judging nor despising nor persecuting but receiving and forbearing one another Rom. 14. throughout 15.1 2 3 4 7 8. Gal. 5.13 6.1 2 3. Ephes 4.2 32. Col. 3.13 Edifying exhorting and seeking the saving of one other 1 Thes 5.11 4.9 18. Heb. 3.13 10.24 Not speaking evil one of another James 4.11 Much less biting and devouring one another Gal. 5.15 But having compassion one of another as those that are members one of another 1 Pet. 3.8 Rom. 12.5 Direct 17. Make all your opposition to the temptations of Satan the world and the flesh by the exercise of Faith in Christ From him you must have your weapons skill and strength It is the great work of Faith to militate under him as the Captain of our salvation and by vertue of his precepts example and Spirit to overcome as he hath overcome Of which more anon Direct 18. Death also must be entertained and conquered by Faith in Christ We must see it as already conquered by him and entertain it as the passage to him This also will be after spoken to Direct 19. Faith must believe in Christ as our Judge to give us our final Justification and sentence us to endless life Rom. 14.9 10. John 5.22 24 25. Direct 20. Lastly Faith must see Christ as preparing us a place in Heaven and possessing it for us and ready to receive us to himself But all this I only name because it will fall in in the last Chapters CHAP. III. Directions to live by Faith on the Holy Ghost THis is not the least part of the life of Faith If the Spirit give us Faith it self then Faith hath certainly its proper work to do towards that Spirit which giveth it And if the Spirit be the worker of all other grace and Faith be the means on our part then Faith hath somewhat to do with the Holy Ghost herein The best way that I can take in helping you to believe aright in the Holy Ghost will be by opening the true sense of this great Article of our Faith to you that by understanding the matter aright you may know what you are here both to do and to expect Direct 1. The name of the Holy Ghost or Spirit of God is used in Scripture for the third person in the Trinity as constitutive and as the third perfective principle of operation and most usually as operating ad extra by communication And therefore many Fathers and ancient Divines and Schoolmen say That the Holy Ghost the third person and principle is THE LOVE OF GOD which as it is Gods Love of himself is a constitutive person or principle in the Trinity but as it is pregnant and productive it is the third principle of operation ad extra and so that it is taken usually for the pregnant operative Love of God And thus they suppose that the Divine POWER INTELLECT and WILL or Wisdom and Love are the three constitutive persons in themselves and the three principles of operation ad extra To this purpose writeth Origen Ambrose and Richardus the Schoolman but plainlier and fullier Damascene and Bernard and Edmundus Cantuariensis and Potho Prumensis cited by me in my Reasons of the Christian Religion page 372 373 374. Augustine only putteth Memory for Power by which yet Campanella thinketh he meant Power Metaphys par 2. l. 6. c. 12. art 4. pag. 88. what Caesarius and many other say de triplici lumine I pass by The Lux
Radii Lumen are thought a fit similitude by many But the Motion Light and Heat is a plain impression of the Trinity on that noble element of fire That holy man Ephraem Syrus in his Testament useth the phrase in his adjuration of his Disciples and the protestation of his own stedfastness in the doctrine of the Trinity against all Heresies By that three-named fire of the most holy Trinity or Divine Majesty as another Copy hath it And by that infinite and sole one Power of God and by those three subsistences of the intelligible or intellectual fire And as it is a most great and certain truth that this sacred Trinity of Divine Principles have made their impress communicatively upon the frame of nature and most evidently on the noblest parts which are in excellency nearest their Creatour so it is evident that in the creatures LOVE is the pregnant communicative principle So is Natural Love in Generation and friendly Love in benefiting others and spiritual Love in propagating knowledge and grace for the winning of souls What I said of the Scripture use of the word is found in 1 John 5.5 6 7 8. Heb. 9.14 1 Cor. 12.2 3 4. Rom. 1.4 John 1.32 33. 3.5 34. 6.63 Gen. 1.2 Job 33.4 2 Cor. 3.17 18. Luke 4.18 Micah 3.8 Isa 11.2 61.1 Direct 2. The more excellent measure of the Spirit given by Christ after his ascension to the Gospel Church is to be distinguished from that which was before communicated and this Spirit of Christ is it which our Christian Faith hath special respect to Without the Spirit of God as the perfective principle nature would not have been nature Gen. 1.2 All things would not have been good and very good but by the communication of goodness And without somewhat of that Spirit there would be no Moral Goodness in any of mankind And without some special operations of that Spirit the godly before Christs coming in the flesh would not have been godly nor in any present capacity of glory Therefore there was some gift of the Spirit before But yet there was an eminent gift of the Spirit proper to the Gospel times which the former ages did not know which is so much above the former gift that it is sufficient to prove the Verity of Christ For 1. There was use for the speciall attestation of the Father by way of Power by Miracles and his Resurrection to own his Son 2. The Wisdom and Word of God incarnate must needs bring a special measure of Wisdom to his Disciples and therefore give a greater measure of the Spirit for illumination 3. The design of Redemption being the revelation of the Love of God and the recovery of our Love to him there must needs be a special measure of the Spirit of Love shed abroad upon our hearts And in all these three respects the Spirit was accordingly communicated Quest Was it not the Spirit of Christ which was in the Prophets and in all the godly before Christs coming Answ The Spirit of Christ is either that measure of the Spirit which was given after the first Covenant of Grace as it differeth from the state of man in innocency and from the state of man in his Apostacy and condemnation And thus it was the Spirit of Christ which was then given so far as it was the Covenant and Grace of Christ by which men were then saved But there was a fuller Covenant to be made after his coming and a fuller measure of Grace to be given and a full attestation of God for the establishment and promulgation of this Covenant And accordingly a fuller and special gift of the Spirit And this is called The Spirit of Christ in the peculiar Gospel sense Quest How is it said Joh. 7.37 that the Holy Ghost was not yet given because Christ was not yet glorified Answ It is meant of this special measure of the Spirit which was to be Christs special witness and agent in the world They had before that measure of true grace which was necessary to the salvation of Believers before the Incarnation and Resurrection of Christ which was the Spirit of Christ as the Light before Sun-rising is the Light of the Sun and if they died in that case they would have been saved But they had not the signal Spirit of the Gospel settled and resident with them but only some little taste of it for casting out Devils and for Cures at that time when Christ sent them by a special mission to preach and gave them a sudden special gift Luke 9.1 10.17 Quest How is it said of those baptized Believers Acts 19. that they had not heard that there was a Holy Ghost Answ It is meant of this eminent Gospel gift of the Holy Ghost as he is the great Witness and Agent of Christ and not of all the graces of the Holy Ghost Quest Was it before necessary to have an explicite belief in the Holy Ghost as the third person in the blessed Trinity and as the third principle of the divine operations and were the faithful then in Covenant with him Answ Distinguish between the Person and the Name No Name is necessary to salvation else none could be saved but men of one language To believe in the Holy Ghost under that Name was not necessary to salvation nor yet is for he that speaketh and heareth of him in Greek or Latine or Sclavonian c. may be saved though he never learnt the English tongue But to believe in the Energetical or operative or communicative Love of God was alwaies necessary to salvation considered in the thing and not only in the Name As it was to believe in his Power and his Wisdom And to believe which is the first and which the second and which the third is not yet of absolute necessity to salvation while they are coequal and coessential and it was necessary to the Jews to believe that this Love of God did operate and was communicated to the faithful not upon the terms of innocency according to the first Covenant but to sinners that deserved death and upon terms of mercy through the Covenant of Grace which was made with lapsed man in order to his recovery through a Redeemer Direct 3. All that is efficiently necessary to our salvation in or of God is not objectively necessary to be known And such a measure of the knowledge of the Son and of the Holy Ghost is necessary to save us as is necessary objectively to sanctifie us under the efficiency of the said Spirit And all the rest is not of such necessity And therefore as under the Gospel the Spirit is Christs great Witness as well as Agent in the world it is more necessary now to believe distinctly in the Holy Ghost in that relation than it was before Christs coming in the flesh There is a great deal of the Divine Perfection which causeth our salvation unknown to us As the Sun will shine upon us and the
wind will blow and the rain will fall and the earth will bear fruits whether we know it or not so our knowledge of it is not at all necessary to any Divine Efficiency as such The Spirit by which we are regenerate is like the wind that bloweth whose sound we hear but know not whence it cometh nor whither it goeth no nor what it is John 3.6 7 8 9. But all those things which are necessary to work objectively and morally on the soul do work in esse cognito and the knowledge of them is as necessary as the operation is It was of absolute necessity to the salvation of all before Christs coming and among the Gentiles as well as the Jews that the Spirit should sanctifie them to God by possessing them with a predominant Love of him in his Goodness and that this Spirit proceed from the Son or Wisdom of God But it was not so necessary to them as it is now to us to have a distinct knowledge of the personality and operations of the Spirit and of the Son And though now it is certain that Christ is the Way the Truth and the Life and no man cometh to the Father but by the Son Joh. 14.6 Yet that knowledge of him which is necessary to them that hear the Gospel is not all necessary to them that never hear it though the same efficiency on his part be necessary And so it is about the knowledge of the Holy Ghost without which Christ cannot be sufficiently now known and rightly believed in Direct 4. The presence or operation of the Spirit of God is casually the spiritual Life of man in his holiness As there is no natural Being but by influence from his Being so no Life but by communication from his Life and no Light but from his Light and no Love or Goodness but from his Spirit of Love It is therefore a vain conceit of them that think man in innocency had not the Spirit of God They that say his natural rectitude was instead of the Spirit do but say and unsay for his natural rectitude was the effect of the influx or communication of Gods Spirit And he could have no moral rectitude without it as there can be no effect without the chief cause The nature of Love and Holiness cannot subsist but in dependance on the Love and Holiness of God And those Papists who talk of mans state first in pure naturals and an after donation of the Spirit must mean by pure naturals man in his meer essentials not really but notionally by abstraction distinguished from the same man at the same instant as a Saint or else they speak unsoundly For God made man in moral dispositive goodness at the first and the same Love or Spirit which did first make him so was necessary after to continue him so It was never his nature to be a prime good or to be good independently without the influence of the prime good Isa 44.3 Ezek. 36.27 Job 26.13 Psal 51.10 12. 143.10 Prov. 20.27 Mal. 2.15 John 3.5 6. 6.63 7.39 Rom. 8.1 5 6 9 13 16. 1 Cor. 6.11 2.11 12. 6.17 12.11 13. 15.45 2 Cor. 3.3 17. Ephes 2.18 22. 3.16 5.9 Col. 1.8 Jude 19. Direct 5. The Spirit of God and the Holiness of the soul may be lost without the destruction of our essence or species of humane nature and may be restored without making us specifically other things That influence of the Spirit which giveth us the faculty of a Rational Appetite or Will inclined to good as good cannot cease but our humanity or Being would cease But that influence of the Spirit which causeth our adherence to God by Love may cease without the cessation of our Beings as our health may be lost while our life continueth Psal 51.10 1 Thes 5.19 Direct 6. The greatest mercy in this world is the gift of the Spirit and the greatest misery is to be deprived of the Spirit and both these are done to man by God as a Governour by way of reward and punishment oft-times Therefore the greatest reward to be observed in this world is the increase of the Spirit upon us and the greatest punishment in this world is the denying or with-holding of the Spirit It is therefore a great part of a Christians wisdom and work to observe the accesses and assistances of the Spirit and its withdrawings and to take more notice to God in his thankfulness of the gift of the Spirit than of all other benefits in this world And to lament more the retiring or withholding of Gods Spirit than all the calamities in the world And to fear this more as a punishment of his sin Lest God should say as Psal 81.11 12. But my people would not hearken to my voice Israel would none of me so I gave them up to their own hearts lusts to walk in their own counsels And we must obey God through the motive of this promise and reward Prov. 1.23 Turn you at my reproof behold I will powre out my Spirit unto you I will make known my words to you Joh. 7.39 He spake this of the Spirit which they that believe on him should receive Luke 11.13 God will give his holy Spirit to them that ask it And we have great cause when we have sinned to pray with David Cast me not away from thy presence and take not thy holy Spirit from me Create in me a clean heart O God and renew a right spirit in me Restore to me the joy of thy salvation and stablish me with thy free Spirit Psal 51.10 11 12. And as the sin to be feared is the grieving of the holy Spirit Ephes 4.30 so the judgement to be feared is accordingly the withdrawing of it Isaiah 63.10 11. But they rebelled and vexed his holy Spirit therefore he was turned to be their enemy and fought against them Then he remembred the daies of old Moses and his people saying Where is he that brought them up Where is he that put his holy Spirit within them The great thing to be dreaded is lest those that were once enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost should fall away and be no more renewed by repentance Heb. 6.4 6. Direct 7. Therefore executive pardon or justification cannot possibly be any perfecter than sanctification is Because no sin is further forgiven or the person justified executively than the punishment is taken off and the privation of the Spirit being the great punishment the giving of it is the great executive remission in this life But of this more in the Chapter of Justification following Direct 8. The three great operations in mâ—n which each of the three persons in the Trinity eminently perform are Natura Medicina salus the first by the Creator the second by the Redeemer the third by the Sanctifier Commonly it is called Nature Grace and Glory But either the terms Grace and Glory must
be plainlier expounded or that distribution is not sound If by Grace be meant all the extrinsick medicinal preparations made by Christ and if by Glory be meant only the Holiness of the soul the sense is good But in common use those words are otherwise understood Sanctification is usually ascribed to the Holy Ghost but Glorification in Heaven is the perfective effect of all the three persons in our state of perfect union with God Rom. 15.16 Titus 3.5 6. But yet in the work of Sanctification it self the Trinity undividedly concur And so in the sanctifying and raising the Church the Apostle distinctly calleth the act of the Father by the name of Operation and the work of the Son by the name of Administration and the part of the Holy Ghost by the name of Gifts 1 Cor. 12.4 5 6. And in respect to these sanctifying Operations of God ad extra the same Apostle distributeth them thus 2 Cor. 13.14 The Grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the Love of God and the Communion of the Holy Ghost be with you all Where by God seemeth to be meant all the persons in the Trinity in their perfection but especially the Father as the Fountain of Love and as expressing Love by the Son and the Spirit and by the Grace of Christ is meant all that gracious provision he hath made for mans salvation and the Relative application of it by his intercession together with his mission of the holy Spirit And by the Communion of the Spirit is meant that actual communication of Life Light and Love to the soul it self which is eminently ascribed to the Spirit Direct 9. The Spirit it self is given to true Believers and not only grace from the Spirit Not that the Essence of God or the person of the Holy Ghost is capable of being contained in any place or removing to or from a place by local motion But 1. The Holy Ghost is given to us Relatively as our Covenanting Sanctifier in the Baptismal Covenant We have a Covenant-right to him that is to his operations 2. And the Spirit it self is present as the immediate Operator not so immediate as to be without Means but so immediately as to be no distant Agent but by proximate attingency not only ratione virtutis but also ratione suppositi performeth his operations If you say so he is present every where I answer but he is not a present Operator every where alike We are called the Temples of the Holy Ghost both because he buildeth us up for so holy a use and because he also dwelleth in us 1 Cor. 6.19 Direct 10. By the sanctification commonly ascribed to the Holy Ghost is meant that recovery of the soul to God from whom it is fallen which consisteth in our primitive Holiness or devotedness to God but summarily in the Love of God as God Direct 11. And Faith in Christ is oft placed as before it not as if the Spirit were no cause of Faith nor as if Faith were no part of our saving special grace nor as if any had saving Faith before they had Love to God but because as Christ is the Mediatour and way to the Father so Faith in him is but a mediate grace to bring us up to the Love of God which is the final perfective grace And because though they are inseparably complicate yet some acts of Faith go before our special Love to God in order of nature though some others follow after it or go with it It is a question which seemeth very difficult to many whether Love to God or Faith in Christ must go first whether in time or order of nature For if we say that Faith in Christ must go first then it seemeth that we take not Faith or Christ as a Means to bring us to God as our End for our End is Deus amatus God as beloved and to make God our End and to love him are inseparable We first love the good which appeareth to us and then we chuse and use the Means to attain it and in so doing we make that our End which we did love so that it is the first loved for it self and then made our End Now if Christ be not used as a Means to God or as our Vltimate End then he is not believed in or used as Christ and therefore it is no true Faith And that which hath not the true End is not the true act or grace in question nor can that be any special grace at all which hath not God for his Vltimate End On both which accounts it can be no true Faith The intentio finis being before the choice or use of means though the assecution be after And yet on the other side if God be loved as our End before we believe in Christ as the means then we are sanctified before we believe And then faith in Christ is not the Means of our first special Love to God And the consequents on both parts are intollerable and how are they to be avoided Consider here 1. You must distinguish betwixt the assenting or knowing act of faith and the consenting or chusing act of it in the will 2. And between Christ as he is a Means of Gods chusing and using and as he is a means of our chusing and using And so I answer the case in these Propositions 1. The knowledge of a Deity is supposed before the knowledge of Christ as a Mediator For no man can believe that he is a Teacher sent of God nor a Mediator between us and God nor a Sacrifice to appease Gods wrath who doth not believe first that there is a God 2. In this belief or knowledge of God is contained the knowledge of his Essential Power Wisdom and Goodness and that he is our Creator and Governour and that we have broken his Laws and that we are obnoxious to his Justice and deserve punishment for our sins All this is to be known before we believe in Christ as the Mediatour 3. Yet where Christianity is the Religion of the Country it is Christ himself by his Word and Ministers who teacheth us these things concerning God But it is not Christ as a Means chosen or used by us to bring us to the Love of God for no man can chuse or use a Means for an End not yet known or intended but it is Christ as a Means chosen and used by God to bring home sinners to himself even as his dying for us on the Cross was 4. The soul that knoweth all this concerning God cannot yet love him savingly both because he wanteth the Spirit to effect it and because a holy sin-hating God engaged in Justice to damn the sinner is not such an object as a guilty soul can love but it must be a loving and reconciled God that is willing to forgive 5. When Christ by his Word and Ministers hath taught a sinner both what God is in himself and what he is to us and what we have deserved and
such Adam had such Power and such necessary grace or help to have forborn his first sin which he did not forbear And no man can prove that no final unbelievers have had such power and help to have belâ—eved aâ— Adam had to have stood But it is certain that we 〈…〉 such powers and necessary grace to have perfectly 〈◊〉 all the Law Errour 20. That Faith justifieth as an instrument and only so Of this I have written at large heretofore An instrument properly so called is an efficient cause Faith is no efficient cause of our Justification neither Gods instrument nor ours for we justifie not our selves instrumentally The known undoubted instrument of our Justification is Gods Covenant or deed of gift which is his pardoning act They that say it is not a Physical but a Moral instrument either mean that its morally called an instrument that is reputatively and not really or that it is indeed a moral instrument that is effecteth our Justification morally But the latter is false for it effecteth it not at all and the former is false for as there is no reason so there is no Scripture to prove that God reputeth it to be what it is not All that remaineth to be said is that indeed Faith in Christ is an act whose nature partly that is one act of it consisteth in the Acceptance of Christ himself who is given to us for our Justification and Salvation by a Covenant which maketh this believing-acceptance its condition And so this accepting-act in the very essence of it is such as some call a receiving instrument or a passive which is indeed no instrument but an act metaphorically called an instrument And in disputes metaphors must not be used without necessity and to understand them properly is to erre So that such an improper instrument of Justification Faith is as my trusting my Physician and taking him for my Physician is the instrument of my cure And as my trusting my self to the conduct of such a Pilot is the instrument of my safe voyage or as my trusting my Tutor is the instrument of my learning or rather as a womans marriage-consent is the instrument of all the wealth and honour which she hath by her husband Indeed marriage may be better called the instrument of it that is not her own consent which is properly the receiving condition but the consent and actual marriage by her husband For he is the giver And so the Covenant is Gods justifying instrument as signifying his donative consent and Baptism is the instrument of it by solemn investiture or tradition as the delivering of a Key is the instrumental delivery of the house The case then is very plain to him that is but willing to understand viz. that Faith in its essence is bâ—sides the assenting acts an accepting of an offered Saviour for our Justification Sanctification and Salvation and a trusting in him That this act of Faith being its essence is the most apt for the use that God in his Covenant hath appointed it unto because he will give us a Saviour freely but yet not to be refused and neglected but to be thankfully and honourably received and used That this special aptitude of Faith or its very essence is the reason why it is chosen to be the condition of the Testament or Gift That this same essence and aptitude is that which some call its Receptive or Passive Instrumentality That this essence and aptitude is not the neerest reason why we are justified by it for then Faith as Faith and as such an act or wâ—rk of ours should justifie and that ex opere operato and that without or against Gods will For if Gods will have interposed the signifier of that will must needs be the chief and nearest reason Therefore this act so apt bâ—ing by God made the condition of the Gift or Covenant iâ—s nearest and chief interest I will not call it causaliâ—y in our Justification iâ— this office of a condition Therefore in a word we are justified by Faith directly as or because it is the conditio praestita the performance of the condition of the Justifying act and it was by God made the condition bâ—cause it was in its nature mâ—st apt thereto which aptitude may be metaphorically called its Receptive Instrumentality And that thus as it accepteth Christ for Justification Adoption Sanctification and Glorification so it is first the metaphorical instrument of our part in Christ and but consequently the metaphorical instrument of our title to pardon the Spirit and Heaven and in no tollerable sense at all how figurative soever is it any instrument of Gods sentence of Justification which yet is all the Justification acknowledged by the usual defenders of Instrumentality saving as it may be said to give us a right to it by giving us constitutive Justification in the pardon of our sins And the Scripture never saith that Faith justifieth us nor calleth it Justifying Faith but that we are justified by Faith and most commonly of Faith for the usuallest phrase is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ex fide as it is ex operibus when Justification by works is denyed which is not the meer Instrumentality of works So that here is a double errour 1. That Faith justifieth as a true and proper instrument 2. And no oâ—her way Errour 21. That Faith causeth Justification as it causeth Sanctification as much and as properly Contr. Faith causeth not Justification at all but only is the condition of it But Faith causeth the acts of other graces by a proper efficiency believing is a proper efficient cause of the wills volition complacency consent though but a moral efficient because the liberty of the will forbiddeth the Intellect to move it per modum naturae And the wills consent produceth other acts and physically exciteth other graces Because to love and desire and fear and seek and obey are acts of our own souls where one may properly cause another But to justifie or pardon is an act of God and therefore Faith equally procureth our right or title to Justification and to Sanctification and Glorification but it doth not equally effect them 2 Cor. 7.1 Let us cleanse our selves from all filthiness of flesh and Spirit perfecting holiness c. Not let us pardon and justifie our selves James 4.8 Cleanse your hearts you sinners c. Isa 1. Wash you make you clean put away the evil of your doings not your guilt and punishment So only Christ cleanseth us from all sin and unrighteousness 1 John 1.7 9. Jude 21. Keep your selves in the Love of God John 15. Abide in me c. 1 John 5.18 He that is begotten of God keepeth himself c. Errour 22. That the Faith by which we are justified is not many physical acts of the soul only but one Errour 23. That it is only an act of one faculty of the soul Contr. The contrary is fully opened before and proved at large elsewhere and through the Scripture Faith
7. 2 Cor. 13.14 1 John 4.16 Prop. 12. When Sanctification is mentioned as a gift consequent to Faith it is the Love of God as our Father in Christ and the Spirit of Love that is principally meant by that Sanctification Prop. 13. The pardon of sin consisteth more in forgiving the poenam damni the forfeiture and loss of Love and the Spirit of Love than in remitting any corporal pain of sense And the restoring of Love and the Spirit of Love and the perfecting hereof in Heaven is the most eminent part of our executive Pardon Justification and Adoption Thus far Sanctification is Pardon it self Rom. 8.15 16 17. Gal. 4 6. 1 Cor. 6.10 11. Titus 3.6 7. Titus 2.13 14. Rom. 6. Rom. 8.4 10 13. Prop. 14. The pardon of the pain of sense is given us as a means to the executive pardon of the pain of loss that is to put us in a capacity with doubled obligations and advantages to Love God Luke 7.47 Prop. 15. Sanctification therefore being better than all other pardon of sin as being its end we must value it more and must make it our first desire to be as holy as may be that we may need as little forgiveness as may be and in the second place only desire the pardon of that which we had rather not have committed and not make pardon our chief desire Rom. 6 7 8. throughout Gal. 5.17 to the end Prop. 16. Holiness is the true Morality and they that prefer the preaching and practice of Faith in Christ bâ—fore the preaching and practice of Holiness and sleight this as meer morality do prefer the means before the end and their physick before their health And they that preach or think to practise Holiness without Faith in Christ do dream of a cure without the only Physician of souls And they that preach up Morality as consisting in meer justice charity to men and temperance without the Love of God in Christ do take a branch cut off and withered for the tree Some ignorant Sectaries cry down all Preaching as meer morality which doth not frequently toss the name of Christ and Free Grace And some ungodly Preachers who never felt the work of Faith or Love to God in their own souls for want of holy experience savour not and understand not holy Preaching and therefore spend almost all their time in declaiming against some particular vices and speaking what they have learned of some vertues of sobriety justice or mercy And when they have done cover over their ungodly unbelieving course by reproaching the weaknesses of the former sort who cry down Preaching meer morality But let such know that those Ministers and Christians who justly lament their lifeless kind of Preaching do mean by morality that which you commonly call Ethicks in the Schools which leaveth out not only Faith in Christ but the Love of God and the Sanctification of the Spirit and the heavenly Glory And they do not cry down true morality but these dead branches of it which are all your morality It is not morality it self inclusively that they blame but meer morality that is so much only as Aristotles Ethicks teach as exclusive to the Christian Faith and Love And do you think with any wise men or with your own consciences long to find it a cloak to your Infidel or unholy hearts and doctrine to mistake them that blame you or to take advantage of that ignorance of others The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Love of God the Father and the Communion of the Holy Ghost do shut up your Liturgy by way of Benediction but it is almost all shut out of your Sermons unless a few heartless customary passages And when there is nothing less in your preaching than that which is the substance of your Baptismal Covenant and Christianity and your customary Benediction you do but tell the people what kind of Christianity you have and what Benediction that is that you are neither truly Christians nor Blessed True Morality or the Christian Ethicks is the Love of God and man stirred up by the Spirit of Christ through Faith and exercised in works of Piety Justice Charity and Temperance in order to the attainment of everlasting happiness in the perfect vision and fruition of God And none but ignorant or brain-sick Sectaries will be offended for the Preaching of any of this Morality Luke 11.42 Wâ— to you Pharisees for ye tythe Mint and Rue and pass over Judgment and the Love of God These ought ye to have done and not to leave the other undone CHAP. X. The Practical Directions to live by Faith a life of Holiness or Love Direct 1. TAke Jesus Christ as a Teacher sent from Heaven the best and surest revealer of God and his Will unto mankind All the Books of Philosophers are sapless and empty in comparison of the teaching of Jesus Christ they are but enquiries into the nature of the creatures and the lowest things most impertinent to our happiness or duty Or if they rise up to God it is but with dark and unpractical conjectures for the most part of them and the rest do but grope and fumble in obscurity And their learning is mostly but useless speculations and striving about words and sciences falsly so called which little tend to godly edifying It is Christ who is made wisdom to us as being himself the wisdom of God If you knew but where to hear an Angel you would all prefer him before Aristotle or Plato or Cartesius or Gassendus how much more the Son himself He is the true Light to lighten every man that will not serve the Prince of darkness Christians were first called Christs Disciples and therefore to learn of him the true knowledge of God is the work of every true Believer John 17. â— Acts 3.23 John 8.43 47. 10.3 27. 12.47 14.24 Matth. 17.5 Direct 2. Remember that Christs way of Teaching is 1 By his Word 2. His Ministers 3. And his Spirit conjunct and the place for his Disciples is in his Church 1. His Gospel written is his Book which must be taught us 2. His Ministers office is to teach it us 3. His Spirit is inwardly to illuminate us that we may understand it And he that will despise or neglect either the Scripture Ministry or Spirit is never like to learn of Christ Direct 3. Look on the Lord Jesus and the work of mans Redemption by him as the great designed Revelation of the Fathers Love and Goodness even as the fabrick of the world is set up to be the Glass or Revelation eminently of his Greatness Therefore as you chuse your Book for the sake of the Science or subject which you would learn so let this be the designed studied constant use which you make of Christ to see and admire in him the Fathers Love When you read your Grammar if one ask you why you will say it is to learn the language which it teacheth and
11. Exod. 12.29 Deut. 26.22 Josh 4.6 21 22. 22 24 27. Therefore the writing of Church-history is the duty of all ages because Gods Works are to be known as well as his Word And as it is your forefathers duty to write it it is the childrens duty to learn it or else the writing it would be vain He that knoweth not what state the Church and world is in and hath been in in former ages and what God hath been doing in the world and how errour and sin have been resisting him and with what success doth want much to the compleating of his knowledge 5. And he must have prudence to discern particular cases and to consider of all circumstances and to compare things with things that he may discern his duty and the seasons and manner of it and may know among inconsistent seeming duties which is to be preferred and when and what circumstances or accidents do make any thing a duty which else would be no duty or a sin and what accidents make that a sin which without them would be a duty This is the knowledge which must make a Christian entire or compleat 2. And in his Will there must be 1. A full resignation and submission to the Will of God his Owner and a full subjection and obedience to the Will of God his Governour yielding readily and constantly and resolutâ—ly to the commands of God as the Scholar obeyeth his Master and as the second wheel in the clock is moved by the first And a close adhering to God as his chief Good by a Thankful Reception of his Benefits and a desirous seeking to enjoy and glorifie him and please his Will In a word loving him as God and taking our chiefest complacency in pleasing him in loving him and being loved of him 2. And in the same will there must be a well regulated Love to all Gods works according as he is manifested or glorified in them To the humanity of our Redeemer to the glory of Heaven as it is a created thing to the blessed Angels and perfected spirits of the just to the Scripture to the Church on earth to the Saints the Pastors the Rulers the holy Ordinances to all mankind even to our enemies to our selves our souls our bodies our relations our estates and mercies of every rank 3. And herewithall must be a hatred of every sin in our selves and others Of former sin and present corruption with a penitential displicence and grief and of possible sin with a vigilancy and resistance to avoid it 3. And in the Affections there must be a vivacity and sober fervency answering to all these motions of the Will in Love Delight Desire Hope Hatred Sorrow Aversation and Anger the complexion of all which is godly Zeal 4. In the vital and executive Power of the soul there must be a holy activity promptitude and fortitude to be up and doing and to set the sluggish faculties on work and to bring all knowledge and volitions into practice and to assault and conquer enemies and difficulties There must be the Spirit of Power though I know that word did chiefly then denote the Spirit of Miracles yet not only and of Love and of a sound mind 5. In the outward members there must be by use a habit of ready obedient execution of the souls commands As in the tongue a readiness to pray and praise God and declare his Word and edifie others and so in the rest 6. In the senses and appetite there must by use be a habit of yielding obedience to Reason that the senses do not rebel and rage and bear down the commands of the mind and will 7. Lastly In the Imagination there must be a clearness or purity from filthiness malice covetousness pride and vanity and there must be the impressions of things that are good and useful and a ready obedience to the superiour faculties that it may be the instrument of holiness and not the shop of temptations and sin nor a wild unruly disordered thing And the harmony of all these must be as well observed as the matter As 1. There must be a just Order among them every duty must keep its proper place and season 2. There must be a just proportion and degree some graces must not wither whilst others alone are cherished nor some duties take up all our heart and time whilst others are almost laid by 3. There must be a just activity and exercise of every grace 4. And a just conjunction and respect to one another that every one be used so as to be a help to all the rest I. The Order 1. Of Intellectual graces and duties must be this 1. In order of Time the things which are sensible are known before the things which are beyond our sight and other senses 2. Beyond these the first thing known both for certainly and for excellency is that there is a God 3. This God is to be known as one Being in his three Essential Principles Vital Power Intellect and Will 4. And these as in their Essential Perfections Omnipotency Wisdom and Goodness or Love 5. And also in his perfections called Modal and Negative c. as Immensity Eternity Independancy Immutability c. 6. God must be next known in his Three Personalities as the Father the Word or Son and the Spirit 7. And these in their three Causalities efficient dirigent and final 8. And in their three great works Creation Redemption Sanctification or Perfection producing Nature Grace and Glory or our Persons Medicine and Health 9. And God who created the world is thereupon to be known in his Relations to it as our Creator in Unity and as our Owner Ruler and Chief Good efficient dirigent and final in a Trinity of Relations You must know how the Infinite Vital Power of the Father created all things by the Infinite Wisdom of the Word or Son and by the Infinite Goodness and Love of the holy Spirit As the Son redeemed us as the eternal Wisdom and Word Incarnate sent by the eternal Vital-Power of the Father to reveal and communicate the eternal Love in the Holy Ghost And as the Holy Ghost doth sanctifie and perfect us as proceeding and sent from the Power of the Father and the Wisdom of the Son to shed abroad the Love of God upon our hearts c. 10. Next to the knowledge of God as Creator is to be considered the World which he created and especially the Intectellual Creatures Angels or heavenly Spirits and Men. Man is to be known in his person or constitution first and afterward in his appointed course and in his end and perfection 11. In his constitution is to be considered 1. His Being or essential parts 2. His Rectitude or Qualities 3. His Relations 1. To his Creatour And 2. To his fellow-creatures 12. His essential parts are his soul and body His soul is to be known in the Vnity of its Essence and Trinity of essential faculties which is its natural
this Trinity also of Relations towards Man 1. Their Owner 2. Their Ruler 3. Their Benefactor The Father also as the first principle of Redemption acquiring a second title besides the first by Creation to all these and towards God Christ continueth the Relation of a heavenly Priest 30. In order to the works of these Relations for the future we must consider of Christs exaltation 1. Of his Justification and Resurrection 2. Of his Ascension and Glorification And 3. Of the delivering of All Power and All Things into his hands 31. The work of Redemption thus fundamentally wrought doth not of it self renew mans nature and therefore putteth no Law of Nature into us of it self as the Creation did And therefore we must next proceed to Christs Administration of this office according to these Relations which is 1. By Legislation or Donation enacting the New Covenant where this last and perfect edition of it is to be explained the Preceptive the Promisory and the Penal parts with its effects and its differences from the former Edition and from the Law of Nature and of Works 32. And 2. By the promulgation or publication of this Covenant or Gospel to the world by calling special Officers for that work and giving them their commission and promising them his Spirit his Protection and their Reward 33. And here we come to the special work of the Holy Ghost who is 1. To be known in his Essence and Person as the third in Trinity and the eternal Love of God 2. And as he is the grand Advocate or Agent of Christ in the world where his works are to be considered 1. Preparatory on and by Christ himself 2. Administratory 1. Extraordinary on the Apostles and their helpers 1. Being in them a spirit of extraordinary Power by gifts and miracles 2. Of extraordinary Wisdom and Infallibility as far as their commission-work required 3. And of extraordinary Love and Holiness 2. By the Apostles 1. Extraordinarily convincing and bringing in the world 2. Settling all Church-Doctrines Officers and Orders which Christ had left unsettled bringing all things to their remembrance which Christ had taught and commanded them and guiding them in the rest 3. Recording all this for posterity in the holy Scriptures 2. His Ordinary Agency 1. On Ministers 2. By sanctification on all true Believers is after to be opened 34. And here is to be considered the Nature of Christianity in fieri Faith and Repentance in our three great Relations to our Redeemer as we are his Own his Disciples and Subjects and his Beneficiaries with all the special benefits of these Relations as antecedent to our duty and then all our duty in them as commanded And then the benefits after to be expected as in promise only 35. Next must distinctly be considered the preaching and converting and baptizing part of the ministerial Office 1. As in the Apostles 2. And in their successors to the end with the nature of Baptism and the part of Christ and of the Minister and of the baptized in that Covenant 36. And then the description of the universal Church which the baptized constitute 37. Next is to be described the state of Christians after Baptism 1. Relative 1. In Pardon Reconciliation Justification 2. Adoption 2. Physical in the Spirit of Sanctification 38. Where is to be opened 1. The first sanctifying work of the Spirit 2. It s after-helps and their conditions 3. All the duties of Holiness primitive and medicinal towards God our selves and others 39. Our special duties in secret reading meditation prayer c. 40. Our duties in Family Relations and Callings 41. Our duties in Church Relations where is to be described the nature of particular Churches their work and worship their ministry and their members with the duties of each 42. Our duties in our Civil Relations 43. What temptations are against us as be to be overcome 44. Next is to be considered the state of Christians and Societies in the world How far all these duties are performed and what are their weaknesses and sins 45. And what are the punishments which God useth in this life 46. And what Christians must do for pardon and reparation after falls and to be delivered from those punishments 47. Of Death and the change which it maketh and of our special preparation for it 48. Of the coming of Christ and the Judgement of the great day 49. Of the punishment of the wicked impenitent in Hell 50. And of the blessedness of the Saints in Heaven and the everlasting Kingdom These are the Heads and this is the Method of true Divinity and the order in which it should lye in the understanding of him that will be compleat in knowledge II. And as this is the Intellectual Order of knowledge so the order which all things must lye in at our hearts and wills is much more necessary to be observed 1. That nothing but GOD be loved as the infinite simple good totally with all the heart and finally for himself And that nothing at all be loved with any Love which is not purely subordinate to the Love of God or which causeth us to love him ever the less 2. That the blessed person of our Mediatour as in the Humane Nature glorified be loved above all creatures next to God Because there is most of the Divines Perfections appearing in him 3. That the heavenly Church or Society of Angels and Saints be loved next to Jesus Christ as being next in excellence 4. That the Vniversal Church on earth be loved next to the perfect Church in Heaven 5. That particular Churches and Kingdoms be next loved and where ever there is more of Gods Interest and Image than in our selves that our Love be more there than on our selves 6. That we next love our selves with that peculiar kind of love which God hath made necessary to our duty and our happiness and end with a self-preserving watchful diligent love preferring our souls before our bodies and spiritual mercies before temporal and greater before less 7. That we love our Christian Relations with that double Love which is due to them as Christians and Relations and love all Relations according to their places with that kind of Love which is proper for them as fitting us to all the duties which we must perform to them 8. That we love all good Christians as the sanctified members of Christ with a special Love according to the measure of Gods Image appearing on them 9. That we love every visible Christian that we cannot prove hath unchristened himself by apostacy or ungodliness with the special Love also belonging to true Christians because he appeareth such to us But yet according to the measure of that appearance as being more confident of some and more doubtful of others 10. That we love our intimate suitable friends that are godly with a double Love as godly and as friends 11. That we love Neighbours and civil Relations with a Love which is suitable to
consenteth not to when his sinful pleasure is revived by the next temptation 3. But the true penitent Christian is both willing to be changed and had rather have his lusts to be killed than pleased and also willing to use Gods means both to mortifie the inward lust and to overcome the outward sin And this in sincerity is his habitual state Direct 3. Never forget that 1. The gracious nature of God 2. The sufficiency of Christs Sacrifice and Merit And 3. The truth of the universal â—ffer or promise of pardon to all if they will accept the offer are the foundation of all our faith and comforts and are that universal grace which is before our special grace or faith and is presupposed to it On this foundation all our faith and peace is to be built Direct 4. The particular application of this to our selves is 1. By Believing and then by knowing that we do believe and then by discerning our priviledges upon believing 1. Our believing it self is 1. Our Ascent to the truth of the Gospel 2. Our Acceptance of the good even Christ and life which is offered in it and consent to the Baptismal Covenant with God the Father Son and Holy Spirit And 3. Our Affiance in Christ and his Covenant 2. To know that we do believe somehow is easie when we do it But to be sure that this belief is sincere and saving is more difficult because of the deceitfulness of the heart of man and the mixtures of unbelief and other sins and the weakness of grace where it is true and the counterfeits of it and the insufficient degrees which are in Hypocrites so that it is not easie to discern whether the faith which we have be sincere and predominant above our sense and our unbelief as it must be But yet it may be known by such means as these 1. By labouring to strengthen and increase our faith and grace that it may not by the smalness be next to undiscernable 2. By subduing all contrary inward corruptions which obscure it 3. By frequent exercising it seeing habits are discerned only in their acts 4. By resisting and conquering temptations and doing all the good we can in the world and living as wholly devoted to God above all worldly fleshly interest that so 1 Faith may be evidenced by its fruits 2. And God may reward the faithful soul with his assuring seal and light and comfort 5. By escaping all those lapses into heinous and wilful sin which cause wounds and sears and hinder assurance peace and joy 6. By a wise and constant examination of the heart and observation of it in the time of tryal and finding the habits and strength of faith and of unbelief in their several actings and prevalencies in their conflicts 7. And withall escaping those ignorances and errours about the nature means causes and signs of grace and assurance which keep many from it who have justifying faith These seven are the true and necessary means to get assurance of your own sincerity and that indeed you have the true seal and earnest and witness of the Spirit of Christ 3. When you have first truly believed or consented to the Baptismal Covenant of Grace and next got assurance that you do this in sincerity the last part is the easiest which is to gather up the priviledges or comfortable conclusions which follow hereupon Which are your pardon and justification your adoption and right to life eternal and to all the benefits promised by God in that Covenant to which you do consent which are all comprehended in the three great Relations established by the Covenant viz. that God is your Reconciled God and Father Christ in your Head and Saviour and the Holy Spirit is your Life and Sanctifier These three works which make up assurance are contained in the three parts of this syllogism 1. He that truly believeth is justified and adopted and an heir of life But I do truly believe Therefore I am justified adopted and am an heir of life Or thus to the same sense Every one who truly consenteth to the Baptismal Covenant hath right to the blessings of the Covenant God is his Father Christ is his Saviour and the holy Spirit is his Sanctifier But I do truly consent to the Baptismal Covenant Therefore I have right to all the benefits of it God is my Father c. Direct 5. Remember that when you have got assurance and have truly gathered this conclusion the continual and lively exercise of faith is still necessary to your actual joy For it is possible for a man to have no notable doubtings of his own sincerity or salvation and yet to have such dulness of soul and such diversions of his thoughts as that he shall enjoy but little of the comforts of his own assurance Therefore true joy requireth much more than bare self examination and discerning of our evidences and right to life Direct 6. When doubts and troubles are caused by ignorance or errour about the true nature and signs of grace and the way of assurance which is very common nothing then is more necessary than a sound and skilful Teacher to work out those mistakes and to help the ignorant Christian to a clearer understanding of the terms of the Covenant and the sense of the Promise and the true methods of Christ in his gifts and operations Otherwise the erring soul will be distracted and lost in a wilderness of doubts and either sit down at last presumptuously on false grounds or turn to one errour to cure the troubles of another or languish in despair so lamentable a thing is it to be possessed with false principles and to attempt so great a work in the dark Direct 7. And here there are these two extreams to be carefully avoided 1. That of the Infidel and Justiciary who trusteth and teacheth others to trust to his own vertues and works without a Saviour or ascribeth the part of a Saviour to them 2. The Antinomian and Libertine who teach men not to look at any thing in themselves at all no not as an evidence or condition or means much less as any cause of life but to trust to Christs blood to be to you instead of Faith and Repentance and Obedience and all your use of means and do ascribe the part of these duties of man to the blood of Christ as if it did belong only to Christ to do that same thing which belongeth unto them Therefore here you must be sure to be well acquainted what is truly the office and part of Christ and what is truly the office and part of Faith of Repentance of Confession of Prayer c. And to be sure that you wholly trust Christ for his part and joyn not Faith nor any of your own works or duties in the least degree of that trust or honour which belongeth to Christ and his office and work And that you faithfully use yea I will say Trust too though ignorance snarl at
it your Faith Repentance Prayer c. in and for its own office and part and do not foolishly blaspheme Christ by ascribing the part and office of your duty unto him and his office under pretence of giving him the honour of them It is Christs office and honour to be a sacrifice for sin and a propitiation for us and a perfect Saviour and Intercessor and to give us the Spirit by which we believe repent pray obey hope love c. But not to be a penitent believing sinner nor to accept of an offered Saviour nor to be a consenting Covenanter with God the Father Son and Holy Spirit nor to be washed from sin in his blood reconciled adopted nor to pray for pardon in the name of another nor to trust upon a Saviour nor to be a Disciple a Subject a Member of a Saviour c. Nor yet that his blood or merits or righteousness should be to you instead of these No these are to be done by you Direct 8. In this case also take heed of those ignorant guides who know not the errours of fancy melancholy or disturbed passions from the proper works of the Spirit of God For they wrong the Spirit when they ascribe mens sinful weaknesses to him And they greatly wrong the troubled sinner many waies 1. They puff up men with conceits that they are under some great and excellent workings of the Spirit when they are the works of Satan and their own infirmity or sin 2. They teach them hereby to magnifie and cherish those distempers and passions and thoughts which they should resist and lament and cast away 3. And they set them in an Enthusiastick or truly Fanatical way of Religion to look for Revelations or live still upon their own fancies and passions and distempers and Satans temptations conceiting that they live upon the incomes of God and are actuated in all this by the Holy Ghost And of what mischievous importance and consequence all this is and how much hurt such zealous ignorance doth both in the Teachers and the people the thing it self doth plainly shew and the sad experience of this age doth shew it more plainly in Ranters Quakers and other true Fanaticks and in many women and other weak persons of better principles than theirs And it is an unsafe course which many such weak persons use to think in their troubles that every text of Scripture which cometh into their mind or every conceit of their own is a special suggestion of the Spirit of God You shall ordinarily hear them say Such a text was brought to me or was set upon my heart and such a thing was set upon my mind when two to one it was no otherwise brought unto them nor set upon them than any other ordinary thoughts are and had no special or extraordinary operation of God in it at all Though it is certain that every good thought which cometh into our minds is some effect of the working of Gods Spirit as every good word and every good work is and it is certain that sometimes Gods Spirit doth guide and comfort Christians as a remembrancer by bringing informing and comforting texts and doctrines to their remembrance yet it is a dangerous thing to think that all such suggestions or thoughts are from some special or extraordinary work of the Spirit or that every text that cometh into our minds is brought thither by the Spirit of God at all The reasons are these 1. Satan can bring a text or truth to our remembrance for his own ends as he did to Christ Matth. 4. in his temptations 2. Our own passions or running thoughts may light upon some text or truth accidentally as they do on other things which so come in 3. When the Spirit doth in an ordinary way help us in remembring or meditating on any text or holy doctrine he doth it according to our capacity and disposition and not in the way of infallible inspiration and therefore there is much of our weakness and errour usually mixt with the Spirits help in the product As when you hold the hand of a child in writing you write not so well by his hand as by your own alone but your skill and his weakness and unskilfulness do both appear in the letters which are made so is it in the ordinary assistance of the Spirit in our studies meditations prayers c. otherwise all that we do would be perfect in which we have the Spirits help which Scripture and all Christians experience do contradict 4. And to ascribe that to the Spirit which is not at all his work or that which is partly our own work so far as it is our own and savoureth of our weaknesses and errour is a heinous injury to the Spirit 5. And it tosseth such mistaken Christians up and down in uncertainties while they think all such thoughts are the suggestions of the Spirit they meet with many contrary thoughts and so are carryed like the waves of the Sea sometimes up and sometimes down and they have sometimes a humbling terrible text and the next day perhaps a comforting text cometh into their minds and so are between terrours and comforts distracted by their own fantasies and think it is all done by the Spirit of God 6. And it is a perverse abusing of the holy Scripture to make such remembrances the Rule of your application of it to your selves that text which you remember had the same sense before you remembred it and your spiritual state was the same before If that text agree with your state and either the terrour or the comfort of it belong to you this must be proved by solid reason drawn from the true meaning of the text and the true state of your souls and not supposed meerly because it cometh into your thoughts or because it is set upon your hearts Do you think that your remembring it will prove that it specially belongs to you Do not many comfortable texts come into the minds of Hypocrites who are unfit for comfort And many terrible texts come into the minds of humble souls that have right to comfort and should not be more terrified You may as well think that your money or estate is another mans because he thinketh on it Or that another mans dangers and miseries are yours because you think of them Or that you are either Kings or Lords or beggars or thieves or whatever cometh into your minds Or that another mans Leases or Deeds by which he holdeth his Lands are all yours because they are put into your hands to read 7. And if you go this way to work you are in danger to be carryed into many other errours and sins and think that all is of the Spirit of God because you feel it set upon your hearts And so you will feign the sanctifying Spirit to be the author of sin and the lying Spirit shall be honoured and called by his name Mark well these following texts of Scripture 2 Thes 2.1 2
3. We beseech you brethren by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ that ye be not soon shaken in mind or troubled neither by Spirit nor by word nor by letter as from us as that the day of Christ is at hand Let no man deceive you You see here that Spirit Word and Scripture may be pretended for an untruth Matth. 4. Satan often saith It is written 2 Cor. 11.12 13 14 15. False Apostles and deceitful workers may transform themselves into the Apostles of Christ and Ministers of Righteousness and no marvel for Satan himself is transformed into an Angel of light 1 John 4.1 Beloved believe not every Spirit but try the Spirits whether they be of God Gal. 1.7 8. If we or an Angel from Heaven preach any other Gospel to you let him be accursed Quest But how then shall I know when it is the Spirit which putteth any thing into my mind Answ 1. The matter it self must be tryed whether it agree with the sacred Scripture and must be proved true by the Word of God 2. The end to which that truth is brought must be proved to be just and good For Satan pleadeth truthâ— to sinful ends 3. The application of them to your own case must be such as will hold tryal and it must be proved by sound argument that indeed they do thus and thus belong to you For Gods Spirit will not belye you nor make you better or worse than you are no more than he will belye the Scriptures Object But is it not the same Spirit which spake to the Apostles which speaketh to us If they were to believe him immediately so must we and seeing the Spirit is above the Scripture we must try the Scriptures by the Spirit and not the Spirit by the Scriptures Answ Alas how pittifully ignorance beweildreth men 1. It is the same Spirit which was in the Apostles and is in the weakest Christian But he worketh not in the same degree He inspired them to infallibility being promised to lead them into all truth and to bring all things which Christ had spoken to their remembrance and he enabled them to prove this by manifold miracles Doth he do all this by you or had you the same promises 2. The same Spirit in them was given to one end and to you for another To them it was given to cause them by his inspiration to deliver all that Christ had taught them and to leave it on record to all generations as his infallible Word and Law to be the Rule of doctrine and practice to the end of the world But to you the same Spirit is given to cause you to understand and love and obey this Law which is already written and not to write or know another 3. The Spirit indited the Scriptures before you were born and we are sure that that is the Word of God and we are sure that Gods Spirit contradicteth not it self Therefore your after-pretended revelations must be tryed by the certain ancient Rule which had the seal of miracles which yours hath not Obj. But how shall I know what application to make of Scripture to my self but by the teaching of the Spirit of God Answ But you must not take every thought and suggestion or remembrance to be the Spirits application Gods Spirit teacheth men by the light of sound evidence which may be proved and wil hold good in tryal He teacheth you by exciteing you to rational studies and argumentation and by blessing you in such sober use of Gods means But he doth not teach you to know your state by the bare remembring of a text Direct 9. Take heed also of misunderstanding what is the witness of the Spirit that we are Gods children Many think it is like some voice or suggestion or inspiration within them saying Thou art the Child of God And so many Christians languish in terrours that feel no such perswading Spirit in them And many Hypocrites are deluded by the perswasions of their own imaginations But in Scripture the word witness is oft taken for evidence or an objective testimony And the Spirits being a witness and being a seal an earnest a pledge a white stone a new name c. are all of the like signification And the meaning is By this we know that we are the children of God or that he abideth in us by the Spirit which he hath given us 1 John 3.10.24 4.13 And if any one have not the Spirit of Christ the same is none of his Rom. 8.9 As if he should say have you the Spirit of Christ or have you not if you have that is a seal an earnest a pledge of Gods Love and of your heavenly inheritance and a certain evidence or witness that you are his children Gal. 4.6 He that loveth God as his Father in Christ and is sanctified to God hath the Spirit Shew this Love and this Sanctification and you produce the true witness that you are the heirs of life Holiness and Heavenliness and Love is the witness seal and earnest and not chiefly an inward perswasion that we are Gods children 2. Yet this much more the Spirit doth when it hath sanctified us and given us the witness or evidence in our selves 1 John 5.10 11. He also helpeth us to see and know that grace which he giveth and actuateth in us 3. And also to conclude from that evidence that we are Gods children And also to feel the inward comfort of that conclusion But all this he doth by these means in a discursive or rational way and by blessing such reasoning to our comfort 4. Also he comforteth the soul in another way distinct from the way of concluding from evidence and that is by exciting the Love of God and his praises in us which are of themselves delighting acts But of this anon Direct 10. Take heed of Heretical Seducers who use to fish in troubled waters and to fall in with such perplexed consciences to perswade them that all the cause of their trouble is their opinions and unsound Religion and not in them and that the only way to comfort is to change their Religion and to come over unto them No person fitter for a Quaker a Papist or any Sectary to work upon than a troubled mind For such are like the ignorant Country people in their sickness who will hearken to any one who putteth them in hope and promiseth them ease and most confidently tells them that he can cure them and saith I was just in your case and such or such a thing cured me so will the Formalist and the Fanatick the Papist and the Quaker say I was just in your condition I was troubled and could get no peace of conscience no joy in the Holy Ghost but was alwaies held in fears and doubting till I changed my Religion and ever since that I have been well and O what joyes I have to boast of And if it be an unsound Hypocrite that is thus tempted perhaps God may
made universally to mankind in Adam Those after the flood were under the same Covenant renewed universally to mankind in Noah The Israelites were under the same Covenant renewed to them specially in Abraham with special additions and after under that Covenant seconded with the Law which was given to Moses And all Christians after Christs Resurrection are under the perfected Covenant of Grace and have the same word of salvation for their rule even the Gospel of Christ which is the power of God to the salvation of every one that believeth Rom. 1.16 5. They had but the same Promises in this Covenant to believe and to assure them of the salvation which they now possess They had no other charter from God to shew nor any but this universal act of oblivion to trust to for the pardon of all their sins which we have to trust to for the pardon of ours John 3.16.18 Mark 16.16 The promise which was made to the Jews and to their children was made also to them that are afar off and to as many as the Lord shall call Acts 2.39 For the promise that he should be heir of the world was not to Abraham or his seed through the Law but through the righteousness of faith Rom. 4.13 And therefore it was of faith that it might be by grace to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed not only to that which is of the Law but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham who is the father of us all v. 16. That it might appear that God justified not Abraham for any peculiar carnal priviledge but as a Believer which is a reason common to him with all Believers To whom also their faith shall be imputed for righteousness v. 24. Godliness still is profitable to all things having the promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come 1 Tim. 4.8 Yea what difference there is in both these forementioned respects it is to our advantage we have the most perfected Rule and the fullest Promises and we have many Promises fulfilled to us which were not fulfilled to them in their daies Heb. 11. last And we are nearer the final accomplishment of all the promises 6. They had the same Motives to faith and patience and godliness as we have They could have no greater happiness offered them nor any greater punishment threatned to drive them from sin by fear They could have no higher ends than ours nor any nobler reasons to be religious The same reasons and ends did bring them through all temptations and difficulties to everlasting life which we have also to satisfie us and to carry us on 2 Tim. 4.8 7. The same spirit did illuminate sanctifie and quicken them which is illuminating sanctifying and quickening us All the most excellent and heavenly endowments and workings of their souls were wrought by the same operator who is still at work in all the Saints Rom. 8.9 There are diversities of gifts but the same Spirit 1 Cor. 12.4 We have the same Spirit of Faith 2 Cor. 4.13 All that are Sons have the same Spirit of the Son even the Spirit of Adoption Gal. 4.6 Rom. 8.16.26 which is the Spirit of Power of Love and of a sound mind 2 Tim. 1.7 We have the same Almighty Power within us to destroy our sins to raise up our sluggish hearts to God to keep us in his Love to overcome the flesh which did all these excellent works in them We are sealed with the same seal and are known by the same mark 1 John 3.24 and are actuated by the same heavenly principle as they were 8. We are members of the same universal Church which is the body of Christ For there is but one body whatever diversity of the members there be Ephes 4.4 5 6 7 12. 1 Cor. 12. We are members of the same City and Family of God Ephes 2.19 We are in the same Ship which conveyed them to the Haven We are Disciples in the same School where they learnt the way to life eternal We are workmen in the same Vineyard where they procured their reward 9. They had the same work to do as we have the same God to love and serve the same Christ to believe in the same Spirit to obey the same things to believe in the main the same things to desire and pray for the same things to love and the same to hate the same things in the main which are sin to us were sin to them and the same life of holiness temperance and righteousness which is commanded us was commanded them They had the same temptations to resist and the same fleshly mind to overcome and the same senses and appetites and passions to rule the same enemies to overcome and the same or greater sufferings to bear as is said before 10. They had but the same means and helps as we have except some Prophets and Apostles and extraordinary persons in one age And what they received of the Lord they have delivered unto us 1 Cor. 11.23 We have the same Gospel to to teach us the same Sacraments to initiate and confirm us the same Pastors and Teachers for office to instruct us Ephes 4.12 13 14 16. Matth. 28.20 Fasting and Prayer and Thanksgiving and Church-communion and mutual Exhortation which are our helps and means were theirs 11. The same method of Providence which carryed them on is still on foot for all the Saints Psal 145.9 18. 86.5 He broke them and bound them up he cast them down and raised them as he doth us now He made them contrite and then did comfort them He led them through as rude a wilderness and they had as many wild beasts to assault them and as many dangers round about them as we have They had seasons of adversity and seasons of prosperity their stormy and their sunshine daies their troubles which quickened their cryes to God and the gracious answer of those cryes and were led to Heaven in the same course of providence as we are 12. And to conclude the same Heaven is prepared for us and offered yea given to us which they possess It is ours in right though our title be not absolutely perfect till we have finally presevered and overcome We are heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ having his seal and earnest if so be that we suffer with him that we may be glorified with him Rom. 15.16.17 The Kingdom is prepared for all them that love him Christ prayed for all that the Father had given him and for all that should believe by his Word John 17.2 20 27. even that they may have eternal life and may be with him where he is to see his glory Whosoever believeth shall not perish but have everlasting life John 3.16 In all this you may see how like their condition in this world was unto ours and that our way is the same which all those have gone that are now past all these snares and dangers
with very tenderly and cautelously 1. Our Praises of them must be sober and wary and such as are in a plain tendency to the praises of God and godliness lest before we are aware we kindle superstition in the minds of the auditors Praise them we may but with a care of the manner measure and consequents and with a due respect to the praise of God 2. Our Prayers for the Resurrection of their bodies and their solemn Justification at the day of Judgment though lawful in it self yet must be done with very great caution And it is fitter that we pray together in general for the Resurrection of All the members of Christ both those that are dead and those that will be than to fix upon the dead distinctly because as we have no precept or example for it in the Scriptures so the minds of the hearers if it be publick may easily abuse our example to errour and excess 3. Our thankfulness to them for their love and benefits must be very cautelously expressed Not by a verbal thanksgiving to them of whom we are uncertain when they hear us Nor yet in any such language as tendeth to encroach upon the honour of our great Benefactor nor to acknowledge any more as from them than as the Ministers of Christ 4. And in our acknowledgements of their general prayers for the Church we must take heed of feigning them to be more particular than we can prove that they are 5. And we must take heed of all such Rhetorical Prosopopeia's as tend to delude the hearers or the readers as if we would draw them to believe the presence and audience of those spirits which we intend not to express 6. And our honouring of the memory of their Martyrdom or Holiness must be so cautelous that it tend not to Idolatry or Superstition It is lawful in it self to keep the relicks of a Saint or a Friend and to keep a solemn thankful memorial of Gods mercy to his Church in her most excellent helpers and successfullest instruments of her good But in a time when these are commonly abused to superstition the consequents may make that evil which in other circumstances might be good When the Primitive Pastors led their people sometimes to the places where their neighbours suffered Martyrdom for Christ and there praised God for their praised constancy to encourage the people and engage themselves to be true to Christ and die as constantly as others did this then had good effects and if it had been used more cautelously had been laudable But they did not foresee the great inconveniencies of relicks pilgrimages prayers to Saints c. which in after-ages it introduced And now it must be with very great caution indeed if we will imitate them 7. To pray to God to hear their general prayers for the Church such as those mentioned Rev. 6.9 10. doth intimate no false doctrine that I know of But it is a practice that hath danger and no Scripture precept or example to encourage it nor solid reason that I remember And if God would have had us used it it 's like he would have made it known II. Affirmatively Our converse with those in Heaven consisteth in all these parts 1. We must acknowledge our Relation to them and not think that they are nothing to us 2. We must not forget them but see them by faith and take it as part of our daily business to have some daily conversation with them 3. We must love them with a peculiar love even better than we love the godly upon earth because they are better and liker unto God and love him more and are more beloved by him 4. We must specially rejoyce that God is glorified in and by them and look often to them as the more illustrious representers of the Divine Perfections than any of the Saints on Earth 5. We must greatly rejoyce in their own felicity and glory even as if it were our own If we did see with our eyes our old dear friend as Lazarus in Abraham's bosome triumphing now in the glory of the blessed we could not chuse but be daily very glad on their behalf to see and think O what felicity do my friends enjoy And faith should make it in some measure to you as if you saw it 6. We must have a grateful sense in our minds of their love to us and must give God thanks for his Angels ministrations for us For doubtless as they are wiser and better than any of our friends on earth so they have a better a purer and diviner kind of Love to us than these below have And the Angels disdain not to be Christs servants for our good yea for our salvation Heb. 1.14 For are they not all ministring spirits sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation Matth. 18.10 Their Angels alwaies behold the face of my Father in Heaven Psal 34.7 The Angel of the Lord campeth round about them that fear him and delivereth them Psal 91.11 He shall give his Angels charge over thee to keep thee in all thy waies They shall bear thee up in their hands lest thou dash thy foot against a stone Luke 15.10 There is joy in the presence of the Angels of God over one sinner that repenteth Luke 16.22 The beggar dyed and was carryed by Angels into Abrahams bosome Though the great Love is that of God our Creator Redeemer and Sanctifier and our chiefest gratitude is due to him even for the benefit which we have by any of his creatures yet love and mental thankfulness is due to the rational creatures which are his voluntary instruments because they do what they do out of real love to us otherwise we should owe thankfulness to none either benefactor friend or parents 7. And our believing converse with the blessed spirits must make us earnestly desire to be like them even to be as like them here as possibly we may and to be with them that we may be perfect as they are perfect We must long to be near God as they are and to know him and love him as they do and this holy ambition is well pleasing to God Though we must not desire to be as God we must desire to know and love him perfectly 8. And hence we must proceed to a sober imitation of them as they are now employed in Heaven Not in those particulars wherein their case and ours differ as to thank God for that conquest which they have made and that glory which they do possess c. But in all those duties which in some degree belong to us as well as them For instance Ask what kind of Religion is likest to that which is in Heaven Is it studying bare words and disputing about things unprofitable or contending and quarrelling about precedency preheminence or domination Or is it not rather the clearest knowledge and the ferventest Love of God and all his holy ones and the fullest content delight and rest