or have all the force of a law in his members vers 23. That he sins against his own conscience For what he doth that he allows not but what in his own mind he hates and disapproves that he doth vers 15.19 That to do good although he might wish or approve it he found not v. 18. That he stands in need to cry out O wretched man that I am who will deliver me from this body of death being as yet not rescued from it but labouring under it vers 25. Of the regenerate elsewhere That as for their members they yield them not to be instruments unto sin but unto righteousness because now since their regeneration into true Christians Sin is not to reign in their mortal bodies that they should obey it in the lusts thereof Rom. 6.12 13. In becoming Christians they are dead and crucified with Christ that the body of sin might not be maintained to live and rule in them but destroyed that thenceforward they should not serve sin For he that is dead is freed from sin vers 6 7. The Gospel of Christ or the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath not enslaved but freed them from the law of sin and death Rom. 8.2 So that sin now shall not have dominion over them because they are not under the law through the weakness whereof it tyrannized but under Grace Rom. 6.14 That their body is dead because of sin Rom. 8.10 And that they make no provision for the flesh to fulfill and accomplish the lusts or concupiscence thereof Rom. 13.14 Because if they should they would cease to be sons of God and heirs of happiness and be rendred obnoxious to misery and death For the plain declaration of Christs Gospel concerning the heirs of life and death is this If you live after the flesh in accomplishing its lusts you shall die and 't is only if you through the spirit instead of acting and compleating do kill and mortifie the deeds of the body that you shall live Rom. 8.13 That against them there is no condemning force of any law Galat. 5.23 For the law of the spirit of life hath not left them still enslaved but made them free from the law of sin and death too Rom. 8.2 And being become the servants of God they have their fruit not to sin and death but to holiness at present and the end thereof at length everlasting life Rom. 6.22 That their bodies or fleshly members are temples of the Holy Ghost and sacred places wherein it inhabits and that they glorifie God in their bodies as well as in their spirits seeing both are Gods 1 Cor. 6.19 20. That they hold faith and a good conscience without which of faith in dangerous times they would soon make shipwrack 1 Tim. 1.19 And that they are saved by the answer of a good conscience which comforts and applauds but cannot accuse them 1 Pet. 3.21 That he only who doth good is of God 3 Joh. 11. and that there is no condemnation to them who do and walk after the spirit Rom. 8.1 And that without these new fruits it is in vain to lay any claim to a new nature because as our Saviour sayes if men were the children of Abraham they would do the works of Abraham Joh. 8.39 That the body of sin is already destroyed in them that henceforth they should not serve sin which the other complains so much of Rom. 6.6 For they are delivered from the law upon occasion of the weakness whereof sin brought forth in them fruits unto death to serve now in newness of Spirit Rom. 7.5 So that what the weak ineffective law could not do for them that the Grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord hath done in an effectual deliverance of them v. 25. So that if we will take the word of S t Paul and of the rest of the Apostles in this matter we must needs believe that regenerate men and heirs of heaven are not in any wise such persons as are described in that seventh Chapter to the Romans there being no agreement or resemblance at all between them Their tempers and behaviour are utterly inconsistent and as far distant as Heaven and Hell For one serves and fulfills the lusts of his flesh the other crucifies and subdues them one yields his members servants unto sin the other unto righteousness one is made a perfect captive and sold under sin the other is made free from it one is forced to act against his conscience the other alwayes acts according to it one complains of being oppressed by the body of death the other rejoyceth in being deliver'd from it one can perform and do no good the other doth all good one brings forth fruit unto death the other to eternal life These with others that might be mention'd are the lines of difference and the contrary characters of the person represented in the seventh Chapter to the Romans and the regenerate man described by S t Paul himself in all his other Epistles and in the following and foregoing Chapters of this By all which it appears that they are descriptions contradictory and incompatible which cannot at the same time be affirmed of the same man And that to give such an account of a regenerate man as is there set down would not in all appearance be the way to describe but rather slanderously to libel and revile him If any therefore enquire now how I know that S t Paul doth not speak of himself in that Chapter nor of any other regenerate person but of an unregenerate man who is yet in the state of death and sin he has his Answer full and undeniable already I know he doth not mean so because he cannot mean so the things which he sayes not bearing to be so understood For that meaning would make his speech to be no Apostolical Truth but an open falsehood it would make S t Paul inconsistent with himself and to unsay at one time what he had said most peremptorily at another It would make him flatly to gainsay all that he has taught elsewhere yea even what he had affirm'd almost in the same breath in the foregoing and the following Chapters So that he cannot be understood of himself or of any other regenerate person but must be allow'd according to his usual custome in such odious topicks as this was to speak all in a borrowed disguise and in the person of a sinfull and a lost man For indeed to be yet more particular all that discourse in that seventh Chapter is not meant either of S t Paul or of any other regenerate Christian but of a struggling and contending although yet unconquering and unregenerate Jew For the Apostle is there describing the state not of a perfect debauch nor of a perfect Saint but of a middle man He is one whose Conscience is awaken'd for he delights in the Law of God after the inner man of his mind and reason vers 22. and when he
than as it effects obedience nor can we any otherwise confide in it Hereby alone says S t John we know that we know him in that sence of knowledge whereto God has promised life and pardon if we keep his Commandments But he that saith I know him and for all that keepeth not his Commandments he is a lyar and the truth is not in him 1 Joh. 2.3 4. And then as for Faith no man is interpreted to have that Faith which is made the condition of our pardon and acceptance but he who is acted by it and in his works is obedient to it The Faith says S t Paul which in Christ Jesus or the Christian Religion availeth any thing to that Righteousness which all Christians hope for is that only which worketh by Love Gal. 5.5 6. It begins the change within by purifying of our hearts and desires Acts 15.9 and thence goes on to perfect it in our outward works and actions And unless it proceed to this it will never be able to bear us out and to justifie us at Gods Bar for there as S t James tells us by our works we must all be justifyed and not by a Faith only which works nothing Jam. 2.24 Such alas will be wholly useless and of no consideration in that Court it will not any way profit and then certainly it cannot save us For what doth it profit my Brethren though a man be able to say either here or hereafter he hath Faith and hath not works will that be allow'd a sufficient plea in Gods Judgment shall that Faith save him no surely it never will Jam. 2.14 This unworking Faith is not that effectual Faith which the Gospel encourages but its worthless shell and liveless carkass For wilt thou know O vain man that faith without works is dead Even as the body without the spirit is dead so faith without works is dead also vers 20 26. It is Faith only in an imperfect degree and a weak unprofitable measure for it is not arrived to a perfect pitch to that compleat state whereto the Gospel doth at present promise Life and Christ will at the last Day award it till it shows it self in action and our lives express the power of it Our Father Abraham says S t James was justified by works produced by Faith when in an unstagger'd belief that God would make good his promise of a numerous issue by his Son Isaac though it were by raising him up again from the dead he would obey his command which seemed quite to overthrow it and offered up his Son upon the Altar Seest thou how his Faith in Gods Power and Promise wrought prevalently over all opposition to the production of that his strange work and by this justifying work upon it was his Faith made perfect vers 21 22. So that when all is done we see that there is no Life or Pardon promised to any Faith or knowledge which are separate from Obedience but to such only as cooperate to them and imply them There is no belief wherewith our Judge at the last day will be satisfyed or wherein we are safe which either he will accept or we may trust to if our dutiful works are wanting So that this is and ever will be as S t Paul says a faithful saying and such as every good Christian man ought constantly to receive or affirm that they who have Faith or have believed in God be careful to maintain obedience and good works because it is they which at the last day must do all men good are good and profitable unto men Tit. 3.8 Secondly This condition of our acceptance whereto the Gospel promises a happy sentence of Life and Pardon in the last judgment is sometimes called Being in Christ. There is no condemnation says S t Paul to them who are in Christ Jesus Rom. 8.1 The word Christ we must know many times in Scripture signifies the Religion of Christ. Thus the Law is said to be a Schoolmaster to bring us to Christ i. e. the imperfect rule of the Mosaick Religion was fitted for the minority of the world and intended to train men up as Children are by School Discipline for the more perfect and manly institution of the Christian Gal. 3.24 And thus we read of Preaching Christ that is the Christian Religion Phil. 1.15 And S t Paul tells the Ephesians of their learning Christ and hearing him i. e. his Gospel and Doctrine Ye have not so learned Christ if so be ye have heard him and been taught by him or in him Eph. 4.20 21. Heard him and been taught by him i. e. not by his person for he never went beyond Judea being sent as he said to none but the lost sheep of the house of Israel Mat. 15.24 and therefore never travelled so far as Ephesus but by and in his Doctrine or Religion And this is a most usual form of speech to call any institution or profession by the name of its first Author The Doctrine and Religion which was delivered to the Jews by Moses is called by his Name For S t Paul speaks of Moses being read i. e. the Law of Moses 2 Cor. 3.15 and of the Israelites being baptized into Moses i. e. the Mosaick Religion 1 Cor. 10.2 And our Lord himself tells the Jews in the Parable of the Rich Man that they have Moses and the Prophets and bids them hear them Luk. 6.29 where he cannot mean their persons in regard they were dead long before and got without the reach of their hearing but their Writings and Religion And as Christ many times signifies the Christian Religion so is being in Christ the very same with being of his Religion or being a Christian. Thus S t Paul tells us of Andronicus and Junia who embraced the Christian Doctrine whilst he persecuted and opposed it that they were in Christ i. e. in Christs Religion before him Rom. 16.7 They who dyed in the profession of the Christian Faith are said to be fallen asleep in Christ 1 Cor. 15.18 The veil of Moses is done away in Christ 2 Cor. 3.14 The veil of Moses i. e. the types and obscure shadows of the Mosaical Religion are done away in Christ i. e. by the plain clearness of the Christian. Thus I knew a man in Christ is no more than I knew a Christian man 2 Cor. 12.2 and the Churches of Judea in Christ are the very same as the Christian Churches among the Jews Gal. 1.22 So when we read that in Christ Jesus neither Circumcision availeth any thing nor Vncircumcision but a new Creature Gal. 6.15 the meaning is only this that what price soever the Religion of Moses put upon this outward Rite of Circumsion and those other Jewish observances whereof it was the federal undertaking yet the Religion of Christ doth not regard them at all but that all which can avail us in it is only a new Creature And to the same sence S t Peter speaks
the strength of our own sinfull lusts that gives such an irresistible strength to the outward temptation A great offer of gain indeed cannot be withstood by a covetous heart and an inviting beauty and a fair opportunity are irresistible to a slave of lust and a lascivious reigning inclination But if the man is above the world and his heart is chaste they are of no force nor can they offer any violence at all It is the wickedness of our own hearts lusts therefore which are so deeply in love with them and so unbridledly bend after them that gives all the prevailing force and overpowering strength to the outward temptation But now this is our Sin and so can by no means plead our excuse it is our damnable disease and therefore it can never prove our saving remedy For this is that reigning power of Sin which the Gospel has indispensably required us to mortifie but not to submit to It is only if you through the spirit do mortifie the deeds of the body says S t Paul that you shall live Rom. 8.13 Col. 3.5 But if we are not under this damnable servitude to Sin there are no temptations so strong but that God has given us sufficient defensatives against them For the present offer of a Gibbet would fright away the most endearing temptation the near expectation of a great Estate or of a Crown would make us prevail over it And what are these to hell fire and an eternal Crown of Glory Heaven therefore and Hell when they can be considered of are an answer to all temptations in the world they will engage our hearts more than all the endearments of a lust and infinitely out do all the baits and allurements of sin If we commit sin then it is no sufficient excuse to us that the temptation was strong because it was only the strength of our own unmortified lusts that made it so For we loved the sinfull pleasure too well and that was the reason why it overpower'd us And since the strength of temptation is owing only to the strength of sin it can never excuse us from undergoing punishment So that this must needs be a false hope to think of being excused for our sin because we acted it through the violence of a great temptation Fourthly Another ground of false confidence whereupon men hope to be saved although they do not obey in their works and actions but are workers of sin and disobedience is because when they do transgress it is with reluctance and unwillingness Albeit in their actions they do serve sin yet in their minds they do not approve of it their service of it is an unwilling and a slavish service They cannot sin freely and at their own ease but with fearfulness and regret For the Conviction of their duty abides in their Consciences the fear of hell torments sticks fast in their souls they cannot shake off either their sense of duty or their fears of punishment So that even when they do sin against God it is with remorse of mind and fearfulness of apprehension They cannot embrace their sin with a full choice because they know that it is not an unmixed pleasure They believe and know it to be of a compound and mixt nature to have some present pleasure which will delight but withall much future punishment which will torment them And since they know it to be a composition of good and ill they do not perfectly either love or hate choose or refuse it Their will is distracted by different motives in the same choice for the future pains would draw them to reject but the present joyes invite them to embrace it So that in a different degree they both will and nill the same thing they would have it and yet they would avoid it For they would enjoy what they desire but withall they would keep off from what they fear they have a mind to commit the sin because it will please them for the present and yet they are afraid of it because of that wrath which it treasures up for them against the time to come But notwithstanding all this conflict in their own choice yet at last their sin prevails and they obey it For they had rather hazard all its torments than miss of its delights they are unwilling to venture upon those dangers which it brings but yet they had rather venture on them than go without it They sin unwillingly just as a labourer works or as a soldier fights unwillingly that is they do not will it for it self they would not do it unless they were hired to it For considering all things they will to act and not to omit it their will is against it indeed at the first sight but upon better consideration it resolves upon it and all things laid together they choose to commit the sin rather than to forbear it But now this is such a State as will never bring any man to Heaven For whether he transgress willingly or with reluctancy is not the question but if he choose at last to disobey when God comes to judgment he shall be sure to pronounce upon him that death which he has established for the punishment of disobedience Because for all he fears and mistrusts grumbles and repines yet he serves and obeys his lusts all the while notwithstanding He works at their will and doth what they command him He serves not with a full heart or a fearless mind but yet he is their servant still 'T is true indeed it is some mitigation of his sin that he doth it with regret and the transgression is something the less for being acted not without reluctance and aversion It shews that his sense of duty is not quite lost his Conscience wholly fear'd or his fear of God utterly extinguished It is some extenuation that he startles at the offence for it argues that his soul is not wholly depraved or his heart harden'd in disobedience But although his sins be not of the highest rate yet he is a lost sinner still For so long as his lusts prevail and he chooses at last to act and commit them he serves and obeys them It is his works and actions that must determine his service and obedience so that if he commit sin he is the servant of sin Willing or unwilling may extenuate or heighten his disobedience but not utterly destroy or alter the nature of it For indeed something of struggling and regret is to be found in the obedience and disobedience of the greatest part of the world There being few so good as to obey without all reluctance and few so wicked as to sin without all remorse For as long as we are in this life we are a mixt and compound substance of Soul and Body Flesh and Spirit Our carnal appetite draws us on to forbidden things to transgress those restraints which Gods Law has set to it and to sin And our Conscience being enlightned with the knowledge of Gods Laws and
allured by his Promises and affrighted with his threatnings would perswade us to keep within his bounds and to act obedience Now these two contrary and gainsaying Principles distract our choice and divide our wills so that when we close with one of them it is not without the grudging and reluctance of the other We would and we would not one inclines us for a thing and the other against it The flesh says S t Paul lusteth against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh and these are contrary one to the other so that you cannot fulfill both their desires and do each of the things that you would Gal. 5.17 If we obey it is through the repining of our appetites and if we transgress it is with the remorse and lashings of our Consciences On both sides there is something that is evil whereof we are afraid and which we would not our will is imperfect and with reluctance and we will and choose in some measure unwillingly whether it be to work obedience or sin As for the Saints in Heaven indeed after the Resurrection 't is true that they shall have no gainsaying appetites For their flesh will be in perfect subjection to the spirit their will shall have nothing to seduce it but shall stand alwayes firm and entire for God so that they shall obey without any thing of reluctance or regret And as for some of the profligate and prophane sinners here on earth they have now already so quite benum'd their Consciences that they neither allure nor threaten admonish nor accuse them And they sin without all contention they transgress and do not dispute their lusts hurry them without any opposition so that they disobey most willingly and free from all remorse But as for all the good and the generality of the wicked here on earth they are of a middle rate They both of them act through strife and conquest their consent is courted on both sides and when they comply with one they must refuse the other Both Flesh and Spirit struggle in them although at last but one prevails For in the Regenerate good man the flesh stirs but it cannot conquer they have bodies and bodily appetites but they subdue them and as S t Paul says keep them under 1 Cor. 9.27 So that all the while the Spirit rules in them when the flesh doth but in vain solicite this may tempt but it cannot govern for the spirit gives them Laws its pleasure they perform and what it commands that in their actions they obey But in the wicked and disobedient the case is quite opposite For in them although their Conscience smite them yet can it not prevail with them it suggests but they will not hearken it shews the way but they will not follow it in all things their Lusts are the governours of their lives and actions so that although the lashes of their consciences may sharpen and embitter yet are they not able to disappoint the service of their sin In all the obedience therefore and in the greatest part of the transgressions here on Earth there is still something of strugling and reluctance Men act not by a will that is void of all restraint or by a desire and choice that is free from all unwillingness but there is a mixture of love and hatred an unwilling will that carries them on either to act obedience or to disobey But notwithstanding their ineffective wishes and imperfect wouldings to the contrary it is their peremptory will and last choice which shall determine their condition For if they will and chuse to do what God commands in spight of all the gainsaying wishes raised by their fleshly Appetites they shall be pardoned and acquitted When the good man overcomes the temptation and prevails over his unwillingness and triumphing over it goes on to practise and obey he shall receive the reward of his obedience But if they will and chuse to do what God forbids in spight of all the contrary Admonitions and Threatnings of their Consciences they shall dye in their disobedience The Sinner who is carried on to do what he disallows to work what he fears and to commit what at first sight his will is averse to he shall undergo the smart and punishment of his transgression And the reason is plain for he serves his sin and fulfils his lust and his thraldome to it is so absolute that no aids of the Spirit nor any suggestions of his Conscience can deliver him from it He that committeth sin saith our Saviour is the servant of sin John 8.34 So long as it conquers it doth indeed inslave him For of whom a man is overcome of the same says S t Peter he is brought in bondage 2 Pet. 2.19 If we yield our selves up to serve it we do indeed obey it and must expect that death which is denounced upon such obedience Know you not saith another Apostle that to whom you yield your selves servants to obey his servants you are to whom you obey whether of sin unto death or of obedience unto righteousness Rom. 6.16 If we are at the beck of our Lusts and go where they send and do what they command us and acknowledge their pleasure in all things to be a Law to us we are perfect Slaves to them and liable to all that misery which is denounced upon them We serve and obey them and that shall surely bring us to suffer for them For it is the fulfilling of our lusts the doing or walking after them and the obeying of our sin which Christs Gospel threatens so severely whatever mind we do it with If you live after the Flesh saith the Apostle you shall dye and it is only if you through the Spirit do mortifie the deeds of the Body that you shall live Rom. 8.13 When Christ comes to Judgment the enquiry will not be Whether we sinned with a full delight or with fear and reluctance but whether in very deed without repenting of it afterwards we sinned wilfully or transgressed at all For we have what shall be his Sentence at that Day from his own mouth already Depart from me ye that work iniquity Matth. 7.23 So that it will be no sufficient Plea for any man at the last Day who has disobeyed in deed and wrought wickedness to say That he did it with backwardness and remorse For that which God indispensably requires is that hâ— should not do it at all and he will only deceive himself if he ever expect to be accepted otherwise For as the hopes of salvation upon mere orthodox opinions or ineffective desires of obedience or sinning through a strong temptation are utterly delusive and sure to fail them that trust to them so is this fourth ground likewise viz. our hopes of being accepted notwithstanding our sins because we transgressed with reluctance and unwillingness CHAP. IV. A further pursuit of this last ground of shifting off the Obedience of our actions in an Exposition of the seventh Chapter to the
it vers 3 4. So that upon the whole matter it plainly appears that all that is said in that seventh Chapter of willing but not doing of sinning against conscience and transgressing with regret doth not at all set forth the savable state of a true Christian under the Gospel of Christ but only the state of a midling sinner of a lost Jew who only struggles but cannot conquer being yet under the weakness and imperfections of the Mosaick Law Nay I add further So far is any man who continues to work and act his sin from having any real grounds of hope and encouragement from this place in so doing that in very deed if he rightly consider it it will possess him with the quite contrary It holds out to him a sentence of death and shews him plainly the absolute necessity not only of a willing but also of a working obedience For the man who disobeys thus unwillingly and sins with regret is so far from being in a state of Life and Salvation notwithstanding his sins that he is here expresly said to be undone and slain by them The motions of sin under the law bring forth fruit unto death vers 5. when sin revived by the coming of the Commandment I died vers 9. The Commandment which was ordained unto life I on the contrary found to be unto death vers 10. Sin taking occasion and advantage by the Commandment slew me vers 11. Sin wrought death in me by that Law which is good vers 13. O! wretched man that I am by reason of this subjection unto sin who shall deliver me from this body of Sin and Death vers 24. But on the other side if we would belong to Christ and appear such Servants as he will own and reward at last we are taught in this very place that we must not be worsted by sin but overcome it that we must not work evil but righteousness that we must not walk after those sinfull lusts which are seated in the flesh but after the Law of God which is enthroned in the Spirit Sin shall not have dominion over you if you are under Grace Chapter 6.14 Now yield your members servants unto righteousness vers 19. you are become subject and as it were married to Christ that you should bring forth fruit to God Chap. 7. vers 4. Now being delivered from the Law we must serve not sin as we did under it but God in newness of spirit vers 6. The Grace of God through Jesus Christ hath delivered me from this body of death vers 24 25. The Law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus when I became truly and acceptably Christian hath made me free from the law of Sin and Death Chap. 8. vers 2. So that the righteousness of the Law which it was not able to work in me is now by means of the Gospel wrought and fulfilled in me for since I came under it I am one who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit vers 4. So that all the while we see this is a Truth most sure and stedfast which S t Paul is so far from opposing in this seventh Chapter to the Romans that in reality he avers and confirms it viz. that if we do commit sin and work iniquity it will not excuse us to say that we did it unwillingly The regret in sinning may be allowed as was shewn in the last Chapter to lessen our crime and thereby to abate our punishment but that is all which it can do for it cannot quite exempt us from it And thus at last we see that this fourth ground of shifting off the necessity of this service with our actions viz. our hope of being saved at the last day although we have not obeyed in our works but have wrought disobedience because when we did so it was with reluctance and unwillingness is no less delusive than are all the former It will certainly fail any man who trusts to it and if he will not see it before make him know the falseness of it when it is too late to rectifie and amend it As for all those foundations therefore whereupon men build their hopes of a happy sentence without ever obeying with their strength or bodily powers viz. the conceit of being saved for Orthodox Opinions for ineffective desires for never transgressing but through a strong temptation or with an unwilling mind they are all false grounds snares of death and inlets to damnation But as ever we expect that our obedience should avail us unto Pardon and Life we must obey with our strength or bodily powers as well as with our wills our passions and our understandings If we would have God at the last day to approve our service and to reward and justifie our obedience this and nothing less than this must be done towards it We must not only desire but do it is not enough to will and approve but we must work and practise what is commanded us We must not barely think right in our minds or desire with our affections or choose with our wills but as the Perfection and Crown of all we must put to our strength and executive powers and work the will of God in our lives and actions Without this if we have life and opportunity all other things will signifie nothing For it is he who doth good saith S t John who will be looked upon to be of God 3 Joh. 11. Little children saith the same Apostle let no man deceive you for it is only he who doth righteousness who in Gods judgement is righteous 1 Joh. 3.7 It is this service of our strength or bodily powers in our outward works and operations which makes up our duty and secures our reward Blessed are they that do his Commandments for they only have right to the great reward the Tree of Life Revel 22.14 But on the other side if we do evil and work iniquity no service of our other faculties can stand us in any stead but in Gods account we shall be esteemed wicked wretches children of wrath and heirs of destruction For the words of our Saviour Christ himself who is to judge of it are vehement and plain Verily verily I say unto you whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin Joh. 8.34 He who commits sin is of the devil for whosoever doth not righteousness is not of God but a child of the devil 1 Joh. 3.8 10. And as this working wickedness howsoever we are against it in our thoughts and desires makes us in Gods account sons of sin and disobedience so will it be sure to render us withall children of wrath and destruction If you live after the flesh saith S t Paul you shall die Rom. 8.13 And whatever men think in their minds or desire in their hearts or profess in their words to the contrary if for all that they have sinned impenitently in their actions Christ has told them plainly that he will pronounce when he comes to
sufferings Where it needs to be defended disobedience is no fit means to preserve it because God cannot be honoured nor Religion served by it Religion and the love of God is only the colour but the true and real cause of such disobedience is a want of Religion and too great a love of mens own selves Men are liable to be deceived by this pretence from a wrong Notion of Religion for religious opinions and professions A true Notion of Religion for religious practice upon a religious belief as it implies both faith and obedience The danger of disobedience upon this pretence The practice of all religious men in this case Of Religion in the narrow acceptation for religious professions and opinions The commendable way of mens preserving it First By acting within their own sphere Secondly By the use only of lawful means Thirdly By a zeal in the first place for the practice of religious Laws and next to that for the free profession of religious opinions 330 CHAP. VII Of the two remaining pretences for a partial obedience The Contents The second pretence for the allowed practice of some sins whilst men obey in others is the serving of their necessities by sinful arts in times of indigence An account of mens disobedience upon this pretence The vanity of it and the danger of disobeying through it A third pretence is bodily temper and complexion age and way of life A representation of mens disobedience upon this pretence The vanity of it and the danger of sinning through it No justifying Plea for disobedience from our age Nor from our way of life Nor from our natural temper and complexion So that this integrity of the Object is excusable upon no pretence It was always required to mens acceptance 355 CHAP. VIII Of obeying with all the heart and all the soul c. The Contents Of obeying God with all the heart and with all the strength c. It includes not all desire and endeavour after other things but it implies First Sincerity Secondly Fervency Thirdly Integrity or obeying not some but all the Laws of God These three include all that is contained in it which is shown from their obedience who are said in Scripture to have fulfilled it Integrity implies sincerity and fervency and love with all the heart is explained in the places where it is mentioned by loving him entirely Sincerity and uprightness the Conditions of an acceptable Obedience This a hard Condition in the degeneracy of our manners but that is our own fault It was easie and universally performed by the primitive Christians This shown from the Characters of the Apostles and of the primitive Writers Hence it was that they could despise Death and even provoke Martyrdom Some Pleas from our impotence against the strictness of this Obedience which are considered in the next Book 370 BOOK IV. Shewing what defects are consistent with a regenerate state and dispensed with in the Gospel CHAP. I. Shewing in general that some sins are consistent with a state of Grace The Contents SOme failings consistent with a state of Grace This shewn in the general First From the necessity of humane Nature which cannot live without them Secondly From sundry examples of pious men who had right to life whilst they lived in them 385 CHAP. II. Of the nature of these consistent slips more particularly The Contents Our unchosen sins are consistent with a state of Grace but our wilful and chosen ones destroy it All things are made good or evil a matter of reward or punishment by a Law Laws are given for the guidance and reward only of our voluntary and chosen actions This proved first from the clear reason of the thing Where it is inferred from the nature of Laws which is to oblige from that way that all Laws have of obliging which is not by forcing but perswading men from the dueness of rewards and punishments commendations and reproofs from the applause or accusations of mens own Consciences upon their obedience or transgressions Secondly From the express declarations of Scripture 396 CHAP. III. Of the nature and danger of voluntary sins The Contents The nature of a wilful and a deliberate sin Why it is called a despising of Gods Law a sinning presumptuously and with a high hand Wilful sins of two sorts viz. some chosen directly and expresly others only indirectly and by interpretation Of direct and interpretative volition Things chosen in the latter way justly imputable Of the voluntary causes of inconsideration in sins of commission which are drunkenness an indulged passion or a habit of sin Of the power of these to make men inconsiderate The cause of inconsideration in sins of omission viz. Neglect of the means of acquiring Vertue Of the voluntariness of all these causes Of the voluntariness of drunkenness when it mâ—y be looked upon as involuntary Of the voluntariness of an indulged passion mens great errour lies in indulging the beginnings of sin Of the voluntariness and crying guilt of a habit of sin Of the voluntariness of mens neglect of the means of Vertue No wilful sin is consistent with a state of Grace but all are damning A distinct account of the effect of wilful sins viz. when they only destroy our acceptance for the present and when moreover they greatly wound and endanger that habitual Vertue which is the foundation of it and which should again restore us to it for the time to come These last are particularly taken notice of in the accounts of God 409 CHAP. IV. Of the nature of involuntary sins and of their consistence with a state of salvation The Contents Of involuntary actions Of what account the forced actions of the Body are in Morals Two causes of involuntariness First The violence of mens passions It doth not excuse Secondly The ignorance of their understandings This is the cause of all our consistent failings and the sins that are involuntary upon this account are consistent with a state of salvation This proved 1. From their unavoidableness The causes of it in what sense any particular sin among them is said to be avoidable 2. From the nature of God A representation of God's nature from his own Word and mens experience The Argument drawn from it for the consistence of such failings 3. From the nature and declarations of the Gospel It is fitted to beget a cheerful and filial confidence and therefore is called the Spirit of Adoption The Argument from this The Scripture Declarations and Examples in this matter These Arguments summed up 440 CHAP. V. Of these involuntary and consistent sins particularly and of the first cause of innocent involuntariness viz. ignorance The Contents A twofold knowledg necessary to choice viz. a general understanding and particular consideration Consistent sins are either sins of ignorance or of inconsideration Of sins involuntary through ignorance of the general Law which makes a Duty How there is still room for it in the World Of crying sins which are against natural
temptations or to lusts and desires of evil This Point summed up 63â— CHAP. V. Of two other causes of groundless Scruple to good Souls The Contents A second cause of scruple is their uâ—affectedness or distraction sometimes in their prayers Of the necessity of fixedness and fervency in Devotion when we can and of Gods readiness to dispense with them when we cannot enjoy them Attention disturbed often whether we will or no. A particular cause of it in fervent prayers Fervency and affection not depending so much upon the command of our wills as upon the temper of our Bodies Fervency is unconstant in them whose temper is fit for it God measures us not by the fixedness of our thoughts or the warmth of our tempers but by the choice of our wills and the obedience of our lives Other qualifications in prayer are sufficient to have our prayers heard when these are wanting Yea those Vertues which make our prayers acceptable are more eminently shown in our Obedience so that it would bring down to us the blessings of prayer should it prove in those respects defective A third cause of scruple is the danger of idle or impertinent words mentioned Mat. 12.36 The scruples upon this represented The practical errour of a morose behaviour incurred upon it This discountenanced by the light of Nature and by Christianity The benefits and place of serious Discourse Pleasurable conversation a great Field of Vertue The idle words Mat. 12 not every vain and useless but false slanderous and reproachful words this proved from the place 664 CHAP. VI. Of the sin against the Holy Ghost which is a fourth cause of scruple The Contents Some good mens fear upon this account What is meant in Scripture by the Holy Ghost Holy Ghost or Spirit is taken for the gifts or effects of it whether they be first ordinary either in our minds or understandings or in our wills and tempers or secondly extraordinary and miraculous Extraordinary gifts of all sorts proceed from one and the same Spirit or Holy Ghost upon which account any of them indifferently are sometimes called Spirit sometimes Holy Ghost Holy Ghost and Spirit are frequently distinguished and then by Holy Ghost is meant extraordinary gifts respecting the understanding by Spirit extraordinary gifts respecting the executive powers The summ of the explication of this Holy Ghost What sin against it is unpardonable To sin against the Holy Ghost is to dishonour him This is done in every act of sin but these are not unpardonable What the unpardonable sin is Of sin against the ordinary endowments of the Holy Ghost whether of mind or will the several degrees in this all of them are pardonable Of sin against the Spirit Blaspheming of this comes very near it and was the sin of the Pharisees Mat. 12 but it was pardonable Of sinning against the Holy Ghost The Holy Ghost the last means of reducing men to believe the Gospel that Covenant of Repentance The sin against it is unpardonable because such Sinners are irreclamable All dishonour of this is not unpardonable for Simon Magus dishonoured it in actions who was yet capable of pardon but only a blaspheming of it in words No man is guilty of it whilst he continues Christian. 681 CHAP. VII The Conclusion The Contents Some other causless scruples The Point of growth in Grace more largely stated A summary repetition of this whole Discourse They may dye with courage whose Conscience doth not accuse them This accusation must not be for idle words distractions in Prayer c. but for a wilful transgression of some Law of Pieey Sobriety c. above mentioned It must further be particular and express not general and roving If an honest mans heart condemn him not for some such unrepented sins God never will 700 THE INTRODUCTION ROM viij 1 There is no Condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the Flesh but after the Spirit The Contents Religious men inquisitive after their future State Three Articles of Christian belief cause such inquisitiveness The Articles of Eternal Life and the Resurrection make men desire satisfaction The Article of the last Judgment encourages the search and points out a way towards it A proposal of the present design and the matters treated of in the ensuing Discourse AMong all those things which employ the minds of Religious and Considerate men there is none that is so much a matter of their thoughtful care and solicitous enquiries as their Eternal happiness or Misery in the next World For in Christs Religion there are three great Articles which being believed and seriously considered by a nature restlessly desirous of its own happiness and such ours is must needs render it very inquisitive after some security of its future good estate and they are these The Immortality of the Soul the Resurrection of the Body and the great Day of Doom or last Judgment Whosoever is firmly perswaded of these three as every man is or at least pretends to be who professes himself a Christian he assuredly believes that when this Life is over both his Body and Soul shall live again and be endlessly Delighted or Tormented Comforted or Distressed in the next world according as their condition is when they leave this For by the Doctrine of Eternal Life he is assured that his Soul shall live and be adjudged to an Eternal bliss or misery By the Article of the Resurrection he is perswaded that his Body with all its powers shall spring out of the dust and be again enlivened with its ancient Soul to be a sharer of its state and joyntly to undergo an endless train of most exquisite woes or pleasures And since it is the very frame and fundamental principle of our Natures studiously to pursue Pleasure and to fly as fast from Pain to seek good and to avoid evil These states of future Happiness and Misery are such as no man who sees and believes them can possibly be unaffected with or unconcern'd in But whosoever in his own thoughts views and beholds them must needs find all his faculties awake and through an innate care and natural instinct solicitously inquisitive after that lot which shall fall to their own share Now if this endless happiness and misery both of Soul and Body in the next world were only casual and contingent the gift of blind chance or partial and arbitrary favour then would the belief of it perplex us indeed with fears and misgiving thoughts but never encourage us on to any exact care or diligent enquiry It would be in vain for us to seek what we could never find and downright folly to endeavour after satisfaction and certainty in things which are utterly casual and Arbitrary For what comes by chance is neither foreseen by us nor subject to us And what is given arbitrarily without all rule or reason is as fickle and unconstant as Arbitrary will it self is It cannot be prevented by any endeavours because it doth not
Of Pardon promised to Repentance Regeneration a New Nature a New Creature The Nature of Repentance it includes amendment and Obedience The Nature of Regeneration and a New Creature It s fitness to produce Obedience Some mens Repentance ineffectual The folly of it Pardon promised to Repentance and Regeneration no further than they effect Obedience In the case of dying Penitents a change of mind accepted without a change of practice That only where God sees a change of Practice would ensue upon it This would seldom happen upon death-bed resolutions and Repentance The general ineffectiveness of this shown by experience Two reasons of it 1. Because it proceeds ordinarily upon an inconstant temporary principle viz. nearness of Death and present fears of it Though it always begins there yet sometimes it grows up upon a principle that is more lasting viz. a conviction of the absolute necessity of Heaven and a Holy Life 2. Because it is ordinarily in a weak and incompetent degree All TRVE resolution is not able to reform Men. Sick-bed resolutions generally unable Such ineffective resolutions unavailing to mens Pardon THirdly That condition which the Gospel exacts of us as the terms whereupon we must hope to find Life and Pardon at the last day is oft-times called Repentance Regeneration a New Creature or a New Nature Christs fore-runner John the Baptist came preaching Repentance for the remission of sins Luk. 3.3 And when Christ himself commissions his Apostles to publish his Gospel over all the world their instructions are to preach Repentance and remission of Sins in his Name to all Nations beginning at Jerusalem Luk. 24.47 And according to this order they practised Repent says S t Peter in his first Sermon and be baptized for the remission of sins Acts 2.38 And again Repent that your sins may be blotted out Acts 3.19 And then as for Regeneration a New Creature and a New Nature they are such qualifications as fit us for Eternal Life and without which we shall never be admitted to it It is says our Saviour to Nicodemus a mans being born again that must capacitate him to enter into the Kingdom of God Joh. 3.3 In Christ Jesus or the Christian Religion saith S t Paul neither Circumcision availeth any thing nor Vncircumcision but a NEW CREATVRE Gal. 6.15 The condition required of all men to Life and Pardon as the truth is in Jesus is this that they put off the OLD MAN and be RENEWED in the spirit of their mind and that they put on the NEW MAN which after the similitude of God is Created in righteousness and true holiness Eph. 4.21 22 23 24. Repentance in the constant and plain notion of the Scriptures is such a vertuous alteration of the mind and purpose as begets a like vertuous change in the life and practice It begins in our thoughts and resolutions and is made perfect in our works and actions It first casts all false principles and foolish judgments of the desireableness of sin and the dreadfulness of vertue all opinions that hinder a good life and encourage wickedness all inveagling thoughts and bewitching imaginations all firm purposes and studied contrivances of evil out of our minds and thereby purges all wickedness and disobedience out of our lives and actions It implies a change of mind as is well noted by the Greek name for Repentance which is very expressive of its nature For it signifies an alteration of the mind a transformation of our thoughts and counsels and is the same that S t Paul calls a being renewed in the spirit of our mind Eph. 4.23 And this God expressly calls for when he summons the wicked to repentance Isa. 55. Let the wicked man forsake his thoughts and turn them from his sin unto the Lord and then he will have mercy upon him vers 7. It includes also an alteration of the life and practice a forbearing to repeat the sin which we repent of And this is a natural effect of the former in as much as our works and actions will still go along with our studies and contrivances our purposes and resolutions Now this part of repentance from sin viz. a leaving or forsaking of it is its prime ingredient and the chief thing which the Scriptures express by it it is the main end whereto the former serves only as the principle and instrument Godly sorrow or the grief and trouble of our minds for having offended God working as S t Paul says that Repentance which will never fail us nor ever need to be repented of 2 Cor. 7.10 And that Repentance includes this alteration of our lives as well as that other of our minds the Scriptures plainly express to us when they stile it a Repentance FROM dead works Heb. 6.1 a TVRNING away from all transgressions and doing that which is lawful and right Ezek. 18.27 30. A CONVERSION FROM darkness unto light Acts 26.18 a putting AWAY the evil of our DOINGS by ceasing to DO evil and learning to DO well Isa. 1.16 17. These two changes a change of mind and a change of practice make up the essence and integrate the nature of a saving Repentance It implies first a change in our minds and tempers and upon that a correspondent change in our lives and actions Now as for the former of these this change of our minds and tempers in new thoughts new counsels new desires and resolutions this vertuous alteration both in our wills and understandings which are those two powers that make up our rational nature is that which the Scriptures call our new nature the begetting of which in us is called our regeneration or our being born again For the tempers and inclinations of our souls are usually in our common discourse called our nature A man of a loving condescensive disposition is called a man of a good nature and one of a sowr revengeful temper is called a man of an ill nature And the change from one to the other is called a change of Nature a making of him a new Creature and a new man And thus we are daily wont to say of any person who from wicked and sinful inclinations is changed to a disposition which is vertuous and holy that he is become a new man And as this is our language so is it the Scriptures too For our putting on the tempers and habitual inclinations of righteousness and true holiness is called our putting on the new man Eph. 4.24 The alteration from an unbelieving and uncharitable to a believing loving temper to a Faith that worketh by love S t Paul calls a New Creature Gal. 5.6 compared with Chap. 6. vers 15. And as for the renovation it self it is called a regeneration or new birth the Author of it a Father and the persons so renewed his Sons or Children All which are expressed to us by S t John when he tells us of all those which have received such vertuous and holy dispositions from God as make them resemble him
worldly lusts we should LIVE SOBERLY GODLY and RIGHTEOVSLY in this present world Tit. 2.11 12. I begin with that which contains all our Duty towards our selves viz. Sobriety Sobriety is in the general Such a regulation of all our actions whether they concern our Bodies or our Souls as makes it appear that they are guided by a sound mind presiding in Flesh and that the animal Body which they flow from is under the Command of a spiritual Reason It is a doing what is becoming and fit for such Creatures as are Soul as well as Body that have a wise and discerning Spirit which should govern and give Laws in this lump of Flesh. So that Sobriety is a taking care and giving what is due and becoming to both the Parts of our Natures viz. our Bodies and our Souls As for our Bodies all the things in the world which affect them are of a limited goodness or illness but yet in their desires and aversations of them they do not of themselves know any Limits So that in their desires and actions that dueness and decency which Sobriety prescribes is keeping within due bounds or moderation And this Moderation is either 1. Of their desires and use of such things as gratifie and delight them whether that inveigling delight which causes such excess of use and desire be 1. In Meats and our desire and use of them both as to their quantity and quality is moderated by Temperance 2. In Drinks and the like moderation there is by Sobriety more particularly so called 3. In other bodily pleasures which are particularly called Lust and our bodily desires and use of them are moderated by Chastity And the ability to contain our selves and to restrain the violence of our desires herein is called Continence 4. In Riches and Honours and the desire and use of these are moderated by contempt of the world and contentedness In our bodily desires and use of all these things by reason of the unbridled temper of our bodily Appetites which stop at no bounds nor ever know when they have enough we are in great danger to exceed and therefore our desires and use of them stand in need to be moderated and retrenched by these Vertues that it may appear we understand and act not as brute Beasts who have nothing else but bodily appetite to guide them but as men who have wise Souls presiding in Flesh to keep within decency and due bounds the exorbitant inclinations of our Bodies Which Souls moreover as we shew by such actions are of an immortal and invaluable nature whose interest therefore is infinitely dearer to us and calls incomparably more for our care and pains than our Bodies either do or in reason ought to call for 2. Of their aversation and avoidance of such things as grieve and trouble them Whether that matter of our bodily avoidance be 1. The troubles and losses that are laid in the way of our Duty and our avoidance of these is moderated by the Duty of taking up the Cross. 2. The irksome pains which we take in going through it and performing it and our avoidance of this is moderated by the Vertues of diligence and watchfulness 3. The great evils which we have already fallen under and are suffering for it and our avoidance and flight of these is moderated and restrained by patience Our hatred and avoidance of all these evils which in themselves are naturally prone to be excessive are so to be moderated and over-ruled by these Vertues that all the world may see we are not acted as the brute Beast by mere sense and appetite which know no Rules of decency nor stop at any limits but know and do as becomes men who are endowed with spiritual and discerning Souls which understand how to give Laws and prescribe Rules of decency to our fleshly Appetites and whose sins are far worse evils than any or all the sufferings which can befal our Bodies So that to keep back from them we will not avoid and fly from these but willingly embrace and undergo them And to enable us the better thus to moderate all the desires and aversations and to keep perfectly under Command and within just bounds these naturally extravagant tendencies and propensions of our Flesh we must curb and keep it in and dead in great degrees not only its immoderate and excessive but also its innocent eagerness and inclinations lest they become a Snare to us and acquire so much strength by our indulgence of them as will carry us on to gratifie them at other times when they are not innocent but sinful which but for such curbing and conquest of them they would be sure to do And this is done by the general Vertues of mortification and self-denial The great matter indeed and principle Object of mortification and self-denial is our sinful appetites and such disobedient actions as we are tempted and drawn into by the untamed inclinations of our Bodies And this S t Paul affirms is an indispensable Duty and a Vertue of absolute necessity unto life If ye live after the Flesh saith he you shall dye but if you through the Spirit do mortifie the DEEDS of the Body you shall live Rom. 8.13 But as our sinful and disobedient appetites are the prime Object of all religious self-denial and mortification and that which is absolutely necessary as the end so likewise are our innocent appetites an inferior object of it and our mortification of them is a necessary means and instrument without which we shall never be able to mortifie the other For a free allowance of our bodily desires in all things lawful and an unlimited gratification of them in all instances whatsoever where they are innocent would certainly prove a Snare to us and betray us into a like indulgence and satisfaction of them in some Cases where they are sinful and disobedient And the reason of this is plain because if we should gratifie them in all things where we may lawfully and never deny them any thing but what is sinful they must needs come by long use and indulgence to rule in us and to have a great Power and Empire over us We shall find it a matter of great difficulty to put them by and a very painful task to deny them any thing so that whithersoever they lead us it is odds but we shall follow them But now as for their Parts they make no difference between an innocent and a sinful enjoyment they do not distinguish things into good and evil they are not moved by Law and decency but pleasure and desire what is delightsom and agrees with them whether it happen to be allow'd to them or forbidden If by a customary gratification therefore and indulgence of them in any thing even in instances that are innocent and lawful we suffer our bodily appetites to grow strong in us and to get the guidance and management of us they will over-rule us in instances that are prohibited as
sensible for God and his Laws as it uses to be for the things of the world neither can we reasonably expect it should For our affections are bodily powers and it is their very nature as Philosophy instructs us to be a vehement sensation upon some certain commotions of our bodily spirits so that God and his Laws which are things immaterial and insensible are no proper and proportionate object for them For it is only matter that is able of it self to affect matter and material and sensible objects which can excite our material and sensitive passions and appetites One bodily faculty is no more fit in its own nature to be moved by a spiritual object than another and we may as well expect that our eye should see or our fingers handle it as that our affections should of themselves issue out upon it either to love or desire or delight in it So that considering things barely in themselves I say and the natural agreeableness that is betwixt them which is the ground of their natural operations it is only bodily pain or pleasure that is of it self fit to move our bodily passions But as for spiritual and insensible objects such as God and Virtue are whatever fitness to work upon our affections they may have upon other accounts yet in themselves they have none Virtue and Obedience which are spiritual things may gain upon our wills and understandings which are spiritual and rational faculties but upon our bodily appetites and affections for their own sakes barely they never can But that which makes our affections to issue out upon God and Virtue is not the spiritual nature of God and Virtue themselves but those sensible and bodily things which flow from them and are annexed to them For although God be immaterial in himself yet infinite are those material and bodily delights which we receive from him And although Virtue and Obedience are in their own natures spiritual and insensible yet exceeding great and exceeding many are the sensible goods and pleasures that are annexed to them For Heaven and eternal life which are promised to our obedience will give a full delight not only to our souls and spirits but even to all our senses likewise It will endlesly entertain our eyes with most splendid sights and glorious objects it will feast our ears with melodious songs and most ravishing halelujahs and refresh our whole bodies with a most exalted and everlasting ease and pleasure As on the other side hell and eternal misery which are the established punishment of all sin and disobedience will bring not only upon our spirits but upon our bodies too as full a scene of most exquisite pain and sorrow For so violent and intolerable will the torments of our bodies there be that God could find nothing too high to set them out by but has expressed them by one of the most raging and tormenting things in nature eternal fire Now as for Heaven and Hell they indeed are such things as can of themselves stir our affections and bodily passions with a witness When they are set before us they are able to make us love God and our Duty above all things else and to hate nothing so much as Sin and Disobedience For no Sin can promise us so much bodily delight as is to be injoyed in Heaven neither can Obedience in any possible instance expose us to so great bodily pains as the damn'd for ever undergo in Hell So that when once Heaven and Hell are proposed to our affections and act upon them they will prevail with them more than any thing else can and make nothing so dear to them as the performance of their duty nor any thing so hatefull as the transgression of it And thus may God and Virtue become a fit object even of our bodily passions and a most cogent matter of love desire and joy as on the contrary sin and wickedness are of sorrow slight and hatred They are most powerfull to excite all these affections although not in their bare spiritual selves yet in their bodily dependants and annexed consequences For the greatest bodily joys shall one day crown our Obedience and the acutest bodily torments will certainly befall us if we disobey And these although as yet they are at a distance and future to us are most fit to work upon us and most strongly to affect us For we are Creatures endowed with understanding and have Reason given to us to set future things before us and to think our selves into passions and affections and not to be idle and altogether passive like the brute and unreasonable Creatures and suffer the bare force of outward and present objects to excite them in us So that with our bodily affections we may love and delight in God and Religion which are spiritual things because of their bodily joys and attendancies and sensibly hate and grieve at our sins and disobedience which are moral and immaterial evils because of their sensible pains and punishment And we may love the one and hate the other above all things else because no bodily joys are in any the least comparison so great as those which are laid up for the good in heaven nor any bodily pains so tormenting as those which are prepared for the damn'd in hell And since God has given to our bodily affections even in their own way the greatest motives to love him above all and above all things to hate sin it is the highest Reason that he should require it of us and demand the preeminent service not only of our spirits but also of our lower soul or affections also But although our bodily affections when they are employed about Vice and Virtue which are spiritual things by reason of this supereminence of sensitive rewards in the one and punishments in the other be more strong and powerfull yet are they not as I said so warm and sensible as they use to be when they issue out upon sensible and bodily objects We feel one in our own souls and are affected in them much more violently than we are in the other And that it must needs be so is plain For our affections for worldly things are raised in us by the things themselves and by those impressions which they make upon us and they act to the highest and according to the utmost of their power But our affections for spiritual things are to be raised in us by our own Reason we are to argue and think our selves up to them and our thoughts are free and go no further than we please to suffer them And indeed we find so much difficulty in fixing them upon any thing and there are so many other things obtruding daily upon them to divert and call them off from these that we seldom stay so long upon them or are so well acquainted with them as to be wrought up into a very warm and inflamed affection for them Besides what is the chief Reason of all that Good and Evil
in reprehending and exposing the faults of others is most usual among our selves Nothing being more common in our ordinary Discourse than when we would be sharp in reproving and inveighing against any thing by a most courteous Fiction to put it in our own Case and to suppose that we our selves should do this or that Whenas in the mean time we are no further concerned in it than to be able under this disguise with more success and less offence to disparage and chastise it And this way of transferring odious things to our selves when we would describe and reprove them which is so usual with all the world and with S t Paul in other Cases is particularly used by him in his Character of the ineffective Striver in this seventh Chapter of the Epistle to the Romans He speaks not those things above recited of willing but not performing c. in his own person or in the person of any regenerated man as will plainly appear from this reason Because in that Chapter such things are said of the person there spoken of as can by no means agree to S t Paul or to any regenerate person so that the Apostle must be made to falsifie if he should be understood to speak so of them Such things I say are there spoken as can by no means agree to S t Paul himself For we read Of the person there spoken of That he lived and was alive without the Law of the ten Commandments once ver 7.9 That the Law of his members wars against the Law of his mind and brings him into captivity to the Law of sin which is seated and rules in his members ver 23. That how to do or perform what is good he finds not ver 18. That sin works in him all manner of lust or concupiscence ver 8. That he is captivated and conquered and as a vanquished Slave sold under sin ver 14.23 That he sinned against his Conscience For what I do says he in my practice that I allow not in my mind or Conscience but what I hate and disapprove that I do ver 15.19 That he is in a state of death For sin revived and he died vers 9. and by deceiving him it had slain him v. 11. The good law he had found to be unto him the occasion of death by his falling into that disobedience whereto it had threatned it vers 10. For the motions of sin which were not and could not be restrained by the law wrought in his members to bring forth damning sins or fruit unto death vers 5. Of Saint Paul himself elsewhere That he was both born and bred up under the Law being circumcised the eighth Day of the Stock of Israel an Hebrew of the Hebrews or an Hebrew both by his Fathers and his Mothers side Phil. 3.5 That he keeps under his Body and is not led captive by it but on the contrary brings it into subjection and captivity 1 Cor. 9.27 That he can do all things which are good through Christ that strengthens him Phil. 4.13 That it works none but that instead of lusting and coveting worldly things the world is crucified to him and he unto the world Gal. 6.14 That he has fought a good fight against it 2 Tim. 4.7 And that by the Grace of God through Christ he is delivered from it Rom. 7.25 That he knew or was conscious of nothing by himself 1 Cor. 4.4 but that he trusted he had a good Conscience and that in all things being willing to live honestly Heb. 13.18 Acts 23.1 For this had all along been his care he hahaving made it his business and exercised himself to have not now and then but alwayes a conscience void of offence or not wounded and smitten with the sense of any offences either towards God or men Acts 24.16 That the law of the spirit of life hath made him free from the law of sin and death Rom. 8.2 That he has finished his course to his advantage so as there is laid up for him not a painfull death as the punishment of his disobedience but a Crown of Glory as a reward of his righteousness which the righteous judge will give him at the last day 2 Tim. 4.8 If therefore we will believe S t Paul and let those accounts which he gives of himself explain his own meaning he cannot be that very person who is there spoken of For they are persons altogether of a different stamp and a contrary character they are as opposite as a servant of God and a slave of sin as a spiritual and a carnal man as one whose conscience approves and another whose conscience condemns him as a child of God and a child of darkness as an heir of Heaven and a subject of Hell So that he cannot speak of himself in that seventh Chapter and in the other places too because then he would appear inconsistent with himself and be found false in his own story And therefore as sure as S t Paul is true he sayes all that is spoken there in an inoffensive disguise not intending to give a character of his own person but to personate another man Nay I add further that the person whom he represents in that Chapter is not only another from himself but also one of a quite opposite and contrary character He is not only no Apostle but even no good Christian or regenerate man For such things are there said of him as if S t Paul and the other Apostles say true are inconsistent with a regenerate state and destructive of salvation As will plainly appear by considering those things which are said Of the person described there That with his flesh or fleshly members he obeys the law of sin vers 25. And this he is forced to do and cannot help it For the law of his members wars against the law of his mind and brings him into captivity to the law of sin and death ver 23. He is as absolutely enslaved to it as ever any servant was to his master who was sold in the market For says he I am carnal and sold under sin vers 14. That sin works or accomplishes and brings on to outward act and perfection in him all manner of concupiscence vers 8. For taking occasion by the nakedness of the tenth Commandment whereto no punishment was expresly threatned it deceived him into the customary commission of it by that wile and thereby slew him vers 11. That the law he found to be unto death in discerning himself to be fallen under the curse and condemnation of it vers 10. For the motions of sin which were incouraged and emboldened by means of the fancied impunity of the law wrought in his members which are the seat of their Empire so far as to bring forth damning sins or fruit unto death vers 5. That in his flesh dwells no good thing vers 18. For sin dwells and inhabits in him vers 17. and that so as to rule and govern
my mind which strives against it and prevails over it and makes me practise contrary to what my mind approves So that when being enclined by Gods Law I would do good then being over-ruled by the law of sin I cannot but evil is laid before me and present with me Gods Law I say I serve with the mind For I delight in the Law of God after the inner man of my mind and conscience But all this while I only approve of it but no more For all the effect which it has upon me is only to create a liking of it in my mind But as for my practice and Outward performance it is under anothers power For I see another opposite Law viz. that of Lust and Sin which is seated in my bodily members not only warring against the Law of God in my mind but conquering also and prevailing over it bringing me into captivity that absolute sort of subjection and slavery to practise the Law of Sin which is seated in my members And since I am so far enslaved to the Law of Lust and Sin when the Law of God undertakes me that even that Law it self which God has appointed for my remedy is not able to rescue and deliver me I have too great reason to cry out O! wretched man that I am who shall deliver me since this Law given me by Moses is not able to do it from the slavery and misery of this body of death This indeed was our condition under the Law which shews at once the Laws holiness and goodness and withall its inability and weakness because notwithstanding it offer'd some Grace yet was not that enough but that during our subjection under it we commonly served sin still But now as for that slavish service of sin which a bare Jew who has no other help against it but Moses's Law complains of and longs to be delivered from that as I told you at first we Christians through the surpassing Grace of Christs Gospel are delivered from already So that to such a complaining Jew as I have here personated I Paul an Apostle of Jesus Christ can readily make answer Alter your subjection and you shall alter your service too for in becoming subject unto Christ instead of the Law you shall become servants of God instead of serving sin I thank God there is a way now in Christ for such deliverance or as it is read by some copies the Grace of God which comes through Jesus Christ our Lord shall deliver you although the Law could not which came by Moses But without this Grace I must still tell you that the Law it self will not generally have any such effect upon you seeing as I said it will only awaken your conscience but not reform your practice So then to shut up this discourse this you must still conclude upon that whilst you continue subject to the Law you will serve sin in your practice however you may disapprove it in your minds For I my self or the same I under the Law who with the mind as has been often observed serve in approving the Law of God do yet with the flesh so long as it has nothing else but the Law to restrain it serve in practising the Law of Sin But to return to what I said vers 5 6. of the last Chapter from whence we have hitherto diverted to answer this objection I say having by this passage from subjection to the Law to subjection unto Christ upon the Laws being abolished changed our service together with our subjection and become servants now not unto Sin but unto Christ All we Christians are safe from that Death which the Law of the members brought forth fruit to Chap. 7. vers 5. and have right to that Eternal Life which as I said is the gift of God to all his servants Chap. 6. vers 22 23. So that what reason soever a poor Jew under the Law who serves and obeys Sin may have to cry out of the body of Death yet we Christians who began to serve God upon our becoming subject unto Christ may comfort our selves to see that we are delivered from it And therefore whatever there be to a striving but yet unconquering Jew there is now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus's Religion because they are such who have changed their service together with their subjection and walk not now after the Flesh as they did formerly whilst the Law held them in subjection but after the Spirit This change of service I say is wrought in all true Christians by the Law of Christ although it could not generally be wrought in the Jews by the bare Law of Moses For the Law and power of the Spirit of life which is given to us in Christ Jesus and is expresly promised in his Religion though it were not in the Law of Moses that enabling Spirit I say hath made me Christian free from the so often mentioned Law of sin and from the punishment of it Death For what the Law of Moses could not do towards our deliverance from the service of sin in that it was too weak through the overpowering wickedness of the Law of lust in the Flesh even that hath God done in sending his own Son Jesus Christ in the likeness of sinful Flesh and in making him a Sacrifice for sin that in his death he might found his own Religion whereby he hath condemned and destroyed what the Law of Moses was overcome by viz. the Law of sin seated in the Flesh. So that by the help of Christs Law perfecting what the Law of Moses wanted the righteousness which was shown to us and required of us in the Book of the Law of Moses might be performed and fulfilled in us Christians although it was not ordinarily in the bare Jews because we are such who being Christs Subjects must be his Servants likewise and in our works and practice walk not after the lusts of the Flesh but after the motions of the Spirit Thus have I given a Paraphrase upon this involved and so much mistaken Chapter Wherein I have largely and as I hope truly represented the Apostles meaning his design and manner of arguing in this place In all which we see he intends not at all to give a Character of himself or of any other regenerate man but only of a midling Sinner who sins against his Conscience and transgresses with reluctance Which Transgressor of a middle rank he particularly represents under the person of an awaked but as yet unregenerate Jew who was one on whom the Law of Moses had wrought some change but could not work enough being able only to awaken his Conscience but not to reform his practice So that all that is there said in that seventh Chapter of willing but not performing c. only sets off the weakness and imperfection of the Law of Moses as to the making men compleatly obedient
and the perfection as to this particular of the Law of Christ. The Law of Moses was unable to work a general reformation by reason of several defects two whereof I shall particularly mention which in the Religion of Christ are fully supplied and they are the great motive to all obedience eternal life and the great encouragement of all endeavour the promise of the Spirit Eternal life are words that are never heard of in all Moses's Law Indeed the good people under it had all some rude thoughts and confused expectations of it but the Law it self did no where clearly and expresly propose it Whereof this may serve for a probable proof because a whole Sect among them the Sadducees I mean did flatly deny it and this for an undeniable Argument because those very places of the Law which are brought to confirm it by those Jewish Doctors that are most for it are in all appearance so remote from it Nay even our Saviour himself when he goes to prove it against the Sadducees out of the Books of Moses can find no other Testimonies for it than such as are fetched about to speak it by art and brought to it by consequence Luke 20.37 38. So that well might S t Paul say in triumph over all other Religions in the World That life and immortality were brought to light by the Gospel 2 Tim. 1.10 And in the comparison of that Covenant which came by Moses with that other which came by Christ to affirm that the Covenant which came by Christ was the bringing in of a better hope Heb. 7.19 and a better Covenant for this reason because it was established upon better promises Heb. 8.6 And then as for the promise of the Spirit to enable men to do what was required of them of that Moses made no mention By this Law as S t Paul says was the knowledge of sin Rom. 3.20 It shewed men what they should do and denounced a Curse upon them if they failed to do it but it stopt there and went not on to promise any inward Grace and help that might enable them to be as good as it required them No the promise of that was reserved to another dispensation and to be the hope of a better Covenant it was not to come by Moses but by Christ nor to be an express Article of the Law but of the Gospel Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the Law saith the Apostle that now being under the Gospel we might receive the promise of the Spirit which comes not by the Law of Moses but through the Faith of Christ Gal. 3.13 14. The Law by its prohibition made several actions to be sinful it shewed us what was sin and it threatned the curse to it but that was all that it did towards the extirpation of it for as for any inward strength and ability to overcome it it offered none but left us there to our own selves And because sin was too strong for us and had got possession of our Bodies and executive Powers insomuch that we were quite enslaved to it and as it were sold under it therefore the Law by making more things sinful through its prohibition and not strengthening us against sin through spiritual assistance instead of lessening the Empire of sin proved in the end to encrease it For our lusts not being restrained by it and more of them becoming sinful by being prohibited when the Law entred as S t Paul says the offence did more abound Rom. 5.20 and the Law became not the bane and overthrow of sin but by making its services more numerous it was rather as the same Apostle says the strength of it 1 Cor. 15.56 And forasmuch as the Law did only thus outwardly shew and reveal sin to our eyes but brought along with it nothing of inward Grace and assistance to help us against it therefore is it called a Letter without us opposite to the Grace of the Gospel which is an enlivening Spirit within And since it did nothing more but outwardly shew and threaten sin but did not inwardly assist and rescue us from it it served only to condemn us for what we did from the doing whereof it brought no inward Grace to hinder us and so proved the ministration of death and condemnation not of life and pardon All which is plainly affirmed of it in the third Chapter of the second Epistle to the Corinthians God says S t Paul hath made us Apostles ministers of the New Testament or Covenant not of the external Letter only as Moses and the Ministers of the Law were but of the internal Spirit also For the Letter or old Law shews sin and curses men upon the breach of that which they cannot keep and thereby kills them but the Spirit or new Law enables them to do what it commands and thereby giveth right to life which is the mercy that it promises That was the ministration of condemnation for it shewed men the curse which it did not enable them to shun this is the ministration of justification and righteousness which it both promises and enables them to attain to ver 6 7 8 9. 'T is very true indeed that several of the Jews themselves under the Law of Moses had really such assistances of Gods Spirit as enabled them to do as well as to know what was required of them For David in all his life and behaviour was a man after Gods own heart 1 Sam. 13.14 Zacharias and Elizabeth as to their walking in all the Commandments of the Lord were blameless Luke 1.6 And the Case was the same with a number of other honest and godly Jews But then this assistance which they enjoyed was no Article of their Law although God afforded it yet had their Law no where promised it nor was he bound to it by the Mosaical Covenant For in very truth all this inward Spirit which was vouchsafed to them was reached out not by virtue of the Covenant of the Law but of the Covenant of Grace For the Covenant of Grace was not first made with the World when Christ came into it but was established long before with Adam Gen. 3.15 and after that confirmed again with Abraham and all his Seed after him Gen. 12.3 Gal. 3.8 17. So that under it as well as under Moses all the Jews lived and by the gracious terms and assisting Spirit of it all the righteous people that have been since the beginning of the World were justified It being as S t Paul says by faith which is the righteousness of the second Covenant that the Elders who lived before the Law obtained a good report Heb. 11.2 and that the Jews who lived under it were delivered and justified from all things from which they could not be justified by any virtue of the Law of Moses Acts 13.39 And therefore that which the Apostle affirms of the defectiveness of the Mosaick Law viz. it s having no promise of the Spirit to
enable men to do what it commanded is true still For the Law did not promise it although several both before and under the Law enjoyed it but they who had the benefit of it received it not from the Covenant of the Law but from the Covenant of Grace and the Gospel which has been more or less on foot through all times ever since the World began And in this Covenant since Christ has given us the last Edition and perfection of it both these great defects of the Mosaick Law which rendered it so unable to work this intire reformation and obedience are fully supplied For in every Page of Christ's Gospel what is so legible as the promise of eternal life The joys of Heaven are as much insisted on by Christ as the delights of Canaan were by Moses And then as for the other promise viz. that of the Spirit it is now as plainly revealed as words can make it For we need not to guess at it by signs or to presume it from probabilities or to believe it upon Syllogism and consequence but Christ has spoke out so as to be understood by every capacity God will give the holy Spirit to them that ask him Luke 11.13 Now because the Law of Moses laboured under these two great defects which are happily supplied by the Gospel of Christ by reason whereof it was very unable to effect that reformation of the World which was necessary therefore doth the Apostle in several places speak very meanly of it as of a weak and ineffective Instrument He affirms plainly and proves also That it neither could nor did make men throughly good and that therefore God was forced in the fulness of time to make known and in Christ's death to establish a better If there had been a Law given by Moses which could have given life then saith he verily righteousness should not have needed to be sought by another Covenant but have been by the Law But this we see it could not for the Scripture hath concluded all those who lived under it to be still under the dominion of sin that so since the Law of Moses could not do it the promise of eternal life of the Spirit and of other things which we have by the faith of Jesus Christ might be given to work and effect it to those that believe Gal. 3.21 22. Something indeed the Law did towards it for it armed their consciences against sin so that they could not take their full swing and transgress without all fear and remorse And this was some restraint and kept them from being so ill by far as otherwise they would have been although it was not able to make them so good as they should And to lay this hank upon sin and to check it in some measure till such time as the Gospel should be more clearly revealed to subdue it perfectly was that very end for which the Law was at first given and whereto so long as it was in force it served Wherefore saith he serveth the Law of Moses It was added to the rude draught of the Gospel-Covenant made with Abraham because of the transgressions of men which grew very high that it might in some degree restrain them till Jesus Christ the seed of Abraham should come to whom as to the head and in behalf of his Church the promise of such Grace as would restrain it fully was made And to fit it the more for imprinting an awe upon peoples Consciences whereby it might lay this restraint upon sin it was ordained at the first giving of it by terrible fire and thundrings made by the Angels which were so dreadful that the people desired of God that those formidable Angels might be no more employed in delivering it to them but that it might be put into the hands of another Mediator viz. Moses who was a man like unto themselves Gal. 3.19 But although this restraint upon Sin were something yet was it far from sufficient so that still it is true of the Law of Moses that notwithstanding it could begin yet it could finish and make nothing perfect but that it was the bringing in of a better hope than was warranted by the Law which should do that Heb. 7.19 And as for this imperfection and faultiness which the Apostle imputes to the first Covenant or Law of Moses in these and other places it is nothing more as he observes than God himself has charged upon it when he speaks of establishing a better instead of it For if the first Covenant by Moses had been faultless and void of imperfection then should no place have been sought for the introduction of the second which it is plain there was For finding fault with them for their breach of the first Covenant he saith in Jer. 31.31 the dayes come when I will make a New Covenant with the house of Israel such as shall make me to be for ever unto them a God and enable them to be unto me an obedient People Heb. 8.7 8 9 10. Now this Inability of the Law of Moses to work a compleat conquest over sin and a thorow reformation which the Apostle affirms so clearly in these other places he sets out more largely and particularly in that seventh Chapter to the Romans For from the beginning of this Discourse which I have taken at the 14 th Verse of the 6 th Chapter to the end of it at the 5 th vers of the 8 th this weakness and inability of the Law is that still which is every where endeavour'd to be made out and which returns upon us as the conclusion and inference from every argument Sin must not have dominion over you saith he because you are not under the Law where is the place of its reigning but under the Grace of Christ at the 14. verse of the 6 th Chapter And in the 7 th it is taken notice of at every turn When you were in the flesh or under the Law which from its consisting so much of Carnal Ordinances and giving the flesh so much advantage is called flesh Galat. 3.3 the motions of sin which were encouraged by the weakness of the Law brought forth fruit unto death but now being delivered from the weak Law you serve in newness of spirit not as you did then in the oldness of the letter vers 5 6. Sin taking occasion or advantage over the weak Commandment wrought in me all manner of concupiscence vers 8. When the weak Commandment came sin revived and I died vers 9. Sin taking occasion or advantage by the Commandment slew me vers 11. by which prevailing over the Commandment it appears to be exceeding sinfull vers 13. And at the end of the discourse at the 8 th Chapter we are told again of the Law of Moses being weak through the conquering power of the flesh which made it necessary for God to send his own Son with a better Law which was strong enough to rescue us not of the dominion of
indulged passion we daily find that when it is permitted to grow high it has the same effect in making a man act inconsiderately as Wine it self has For a man may be drunk and infatuated with a violent anger an impetuous lust an overpowering fear as well as with wine It shall make him quite forget all Rules of decency and Vertue and attend no more to them at that time than if he had never known them Of anger it is affirmed to a Proverb that it is a short fit of madness And the Case is the same in other passions when they are suffered to go on to amazing and stupifying degrees How many things are acted in the heat of lust of fear of anger c. which the men in their sober wits condemn so perfectly that they would account themselves to be very much injured if any man should say that they might be insnared into them and fall under them Of so great power are mens passions in clouding nay for a time quite overwhelming their reason and understanding For such is the condition of the reasonable soul that during its being here united to the body it is subject to all its alterations and liable even in its most proper and spiritual operations of reason and knowledg to be either improved or hindred or quite taken away by those changes which befal it In a sound body it is free and active but if the bodily Spirits which are those great instruments that it makes use of are ruffled and disordered if they are either confused and overcharged by strong drink or a strong passion blended and displaced by a phrensie blasted by an apoplexy or otherwise mixed and disordered quenched or oppressed by any other violent Disease all use of reason and consideration is strangely hindred if not for a while perfectly eclipsed And this all men are so sensible of that every one is apt to plead this in his own behalf for those faults which he commits in the height of passion and others are as ready to admit of it For their great excuse is That their passion made them almost mad and spurr'd them on to act they knew not what without all sober thought and consideration Thirdly As for the habit or custom of chusing sinful actions it brings our wills to such an acquaintance with them and to such an unstudied forwardness in embracing of them that when an opportunity is offered for them we cannot refrain from them if we would or stand to deliberate whether we should chuse them or no. For custome as we daily see in all sorts of actions begets such a promptness and easiness in performing those things which we are accustomed to that we readily act them upon the next occasion without staying to think and consider of them Vse as was observed above is a second Nature and what we have been wont to do by long practice we do as easily as quickly and as indeliberately as we do those things which flow from the necessity of our very Nature it self And as it is in all our other actions so it is likewise in our works of sin and disobedience By a long acquaintance with them and practice of them we learn at last to chuse them whensoever we meet with them without all thought and examination For all the little doubts and exceptions of our minds against them all tormenting fears and checks of Conscience have been so often silenced that now they are heard no more to make any delay in our embracing of them And our wills have been so accustomed to strike in with them and to chuse the sinful action upon every return of the temptation that now they do not need to pause but act of hand and sin without enquiry And our bodily powers are so naturally disposed to spring out into the commission of them upon occasion that they hardly stay for a Command but are as quick and hasty in the dispatch as our wills were in their indeliberate chusing of them So that our willing of them after a long use is not a matter of arguing and discourse of weighing and considering but a sudden inconsiderate motion It is rather turned into an act of nature than of choice and has more in it of indeliberate necessity than of considerate liberty And as such the Scripture is wont to represent it For when sin is once grown into a confirmed habit we are told that it is not so truly an inviting temptation as a binding Law Rom. 7.25 It doth not then so truly perswade as rule and command us For we are led Captives by it ver 23 and sold under it ver 14. We submit to it out of necessity and not out of choice because we do not chuse where we cannot refuse and here we must be under it and cannot help it For it is now become our very nature and it is almost as much out of our power to alter it as it is for a thing to cast off what is most natural to it Can the Ethiopian Blackamore change his skin or the Leopard his spots When they can do that then saith Jeremy may you also do good who are accustomed to do evil Jer. 1â— 23 If men are so pleased they may chuse to sin themselves out of their liberty till they can no longer chuse whether they shall sin any more or no. A compleat habit and a perfect custome shall make them sin beyond all liberty because they will sin without all deliberation and then they are got up to that pitch whereof S t Peter speaks Of them who cannot cease from sin 2 Pet. 2 14. In sins of commission then or doing those things which are forbidden the causes of indeliberateness and inconsideration are most usually these three viz. A drunken fit a high passion or a confirmed habit And then 2. As for the other Branch of sins viz. those of omission or neglecting to do what we are commanded Besides these three already mentioned which have their evil influence upon sins of that kind also there is one great and particular Cause which takes away our liberty of choice in them and that is a neglect of those means which are necessary to the performance of the omitted Duty For as it is in all our other actions so is it also in those of obedience they hang in a chain of dependance and are helped on or hindred by several others which further than they influence them are not religious themselves nor make up any part of obedience There is a Religion of the means as well as of the end and some actions are helps and preparatives to a religious Duty but otherwise they are no Duty in themselves Thus the not staying to look upon a woman or to gaze upon her beauty is one means whereto our Saviour directs a man that he may be preserved from coveting and lusting after her Matth. 5.28 So fasting is a furtherance to prayer and repentance and several other instances of obedience
And the Case is the same in several other things For meekness and patience and contentedness and forgiveness and every other Vertue has some particular helps and furtherances some things that promote it and dispose us for it and others that obstruct and hinder it Now as there is this order in the things themselves so must there be likewise in our endeavours after them We must take them as they lye and use the means that we may attain the Vertue For meekness humility contentedness and the like are not so perfectly under the power of our wills as that they can be exerted through their bare Decree and peremptory Commandment But if we would attain them besides this imperiousness of Command we must further use all those means and helps which fit and prepare for them In habits of the mind men are sufficiently convinced of this For it is not every one that wills prudence who is a wise or that wills learning who is presently a learned man But he who would be so besides his willing and desiring it must read and study and observe and seek instruction he must use all those means which lye in the way to knowledge and those instruments which prepare for it and are necessary to introduce it before he can attain to it And the Case is the same in all vertuous and moral habits which are seated in the will likewise For we must use those instruments which facilitate and dispose us for the Vertue before the Vertue will become our own and we must put in practice all the means and preservatives against any Vice before we can in reason hope to conquer and avoid it If we would not be proud or peevish we must abstain from all the inlets to pride and peevishness And if we would be meek and humble we must not neglect the helps and instruments promoting meekness and humility For the helps and the vertue must both go together so that if we neglect the one we shall certainly miss of the other also When once we have neglected the means of any Vertue therefore we have parted with our power of obtaining it We have thrown away our liberty in losing of our opportunity so that now our missing of it is not so much a matter of choice as of necessity We omit it and cannot help it because we neglected to use those means whereby we should have attain'd it And in sins of omission this is the great and special Cause which puts them without our power for we neglect the means of doing what we should and after that it is not so truly our free choice as our necessity that we omit it These then are the causes of our want of choice in the particular instances of sins whether of commission or of omission We do not chuse that evil which we commit for want of considerateness and deliberation the freedom whereof is taken away from us by drunkenness passionateness and a habit or custome of committing it And we do not chuse the omission of some Duty which we neglect for want of power whereof we have deprived our selves through the neglect of those means which are necessary to the performance of it So that both in doing what is forbidden and in neglecting what is commanded upon these Causes we do what for that present we cannot help For we do not chuse because we cannot refuse it and therefore it is not so much through choice as through necessity that we are involved in the transgression But although these sins are thus undeliberated in themselves and thus unchosen in their own Particulars yet shall we be punish'd for them as surely as if we had expresly chosen them because they were all chosen in their Causes For we freely and deliberately chose that which made them necessary and that is enough to make us answer for all those things which we acted under that necessity For as for drunkenness which is one of those Causes that deprives us of all liberty by taking away all considerateness and deliberation 't is plain that it either is or may be deliberately considered of and chosen For drunkenness is a sin which requires time in the very acting of it It is not entred on in a moment or dispatched before a man can have time to bethink himself for he may pause and deliberate at every Glass and is free all along to chuse the sin before the Wine inflames him It has nothing in it of suddenness or surprize and therefore nothing of indeliberation Because where a man has time he may deliberate if he will and if he will not that is his own fault and he must answer for it and is punishable in all reason as if he did 'T is true indeed to a man who has never tried and is ignorant of the force of Wine or of any other intoxicating Liquor and of its sudden way of discomposing his Spirits and dethroning his Reason Drunkenness at the first time may be a sin of surprize and an indeliberate action Because he suspects not that a free Draught which he takes down now should a while hence work so great an alteration he is unacquainted yet with the strength of it and knows not that it will have such effects upon him And so long as he doth not see that intoxication is at the end of his present draught he cannot be said to deliberate of or considerately to chuse it It happens to him besides his expectation and is not an effect of choice but of surprize And thus it was with righteous Noah Gen. 9.20 21. And this being unforeseen and indeliberate what a man commits under it is the more excusable as was the incest of Lot Gen. 19.33 But after a man has felt by himself or learned from others what the power of Wine or other intoxicating Drink is it is generally after his own fault and his own choice if he be overcome by it For either he doth or may see the ill effects of it and if for all that he chuse to go on in it it is at his own peril because if he chuses drunkenness he shall be interpreted to chuse all those sinful effects whereto he may see if he will that Drunkenness exposes men So that as for this Cause of indeliberate sins viz. drunkenness it we see is in it self deliberated of and freely chosen And as for the second cause of indeliberate sins viz. some indulged passions which grow to such a height as to drive us on furiously into the fulfilling of them without suffering us to deliberate about them they also are a Cause of our own free choice and deliberation For it is in our power at first either to give way to a beginning passion or to repress it We can check it as we please whilst it is low because then its strength is very weak and our own consideration and command is the greatest But if we slacken the Reins and give it liberty then it knows no bounds but proves
himself Hebr. 10.28 29. His punishment indeed shall be most dreadfull being nothing less than all those woes which are denounced in the Gospel For the Law with all its threats and penalties is particularly made and designed as S t Paul sayes for the lawless which is that very word whereby S t John describes sin and the wilfully disobedient who when they see the Law will not be subject to it 1 Tim. 1.9 As for our voluntary and chosen sins then whether they are chosen directly or only by interpretation we see plainly that they are not consistent with a state of Grace and Salvation For they subject us to all that death which the Law threatens and deprive us of all that life and happiness which it proposes to us which beside all the evidence which the Scripture gives us of it is plainly demonstrable from the very reason of the thing it self For certainly if Christs Laws will condemn us for any actions whatsoever it must be for those which being voluntary may justly be charged upon us and looked upon to be our own It must be our willing what sin enjoyns which can make us Servants of it and subject us to that death which God has appointed for its wages So that both from Reason and Scripture it evidently appears that every wilfull sin is certainly a deadly one and puts the sinner out of a state of Gods favour and salvation 'T is true indeed that every wilfull sin doth not rob us of Gods favour in such measure as to incapacitate us for regaining of it ever after But its effect is this before such time as we have repented of it and amended it we are under all the threatnings of the Law and subject if we die in that instant to that death which is ordained for the wages of it We are out of Gods favour for the present and the state of friendship betwixt him and us is interruped and till we repent we shall not be again restored to it As for the state of acceptance and salvation it is broken and destroyed for the present for we are put under the punishing part of Gods Government and are made subject to his vengeance by being sinners against his Law But as for the foundation of that acceptance viz. that habit of virtue and obedience which in the wilfull action we sinn'd against it is not quite destroyed but only wounded and impaired in us For habits are neither won nor lost by one action but by many It is frequency and repetition that must either produce or destroy them If therefore a good man is careless in some instance and loses his innocence and is vanquished into a wilfull sin yet is not the habitual inclination of his soul towards that instance of obedience against which he offended quite extinguished in him but only somewhat weakned and abated Thus for instance a sober man if he consent once to be drunk doth not thereby wholly lose his sober inclination But when the temptation is past his habitual temper which was foil'd and over-born revives again and he abhors his sin and confirms his resolution and so is ready at the next return of the temptation to wash off the stain of his former offence by an opposite instance of new obedience And the case is the same in the wilfull commissions of any other sin For although any one wilfull act be a damnable transgression and put the sinner into a damnable condition for the present yet doth it not destroy but only wound and weaken that habitual temper of virtue which if God spare him life may enable him with ease to act otherwise for the time to come Although indeed some wilfull sins have such a complication of evil in them and are carried on against so many suggestions of the spirit and checks of conscience and are brought to effect through so many thoughts and so long contrivance that they destroy not only that innocence which is the condition of our state of Grace but also that habitual temper and inclination which is the principle and foundation of it too They unravel all and set us to begin again the work of reformation anew Of which sort are Idolatry Witchcraft Perjury Sacriledge Murder Adultery Robbery Oppression entring into the fields of the fatherless and widow and such like For these sins do not only destroy a mans acceptance with God for the present but moreover they lay waste his conscience and spoil all his virtuous temper and inclination whereby he should recover himself afterwards whence they are call'd wounding and wasting sins And this effect they have because in the very acting of them there is usually so much time and deliberation and a succession of so many desires and aversations hopes and fears chusings and refusals that the sin has had a great many imperfect consents before it come to have that which is last and prevailing Our wills by a number of imperfect wouldings are in great part accustomed and have almost wholly learned to unwill all that good which they willed before so that there is an imperfect habit contained in the very action Besides what is most of all considerable these being such sins as are made up of several combined together before we can bring our selves to act them our conscience of their guiltiness must be in great part extinguished and the good spirit of God exceedingly grieved if not wholly quenched For Adultery implies fornication and injustice Sacriledge contains theft and impiety Perjury includes lying and prophaneness and so for all the rest Now these being complicated sins and crimes of an accumulated wickedness mens Consciences are more than ordinarily afraid of them and the good spirit of God extraordinarily concerned to keep them from them They suggest and represent the greatness of the sin and the greatness of the danger Which they do with such constancy and importunity that before men have silenced the one and extreamly grieved if not wholly quenched the other they cannot overcome their own fears and venture upon the commission of them And here now is the danger lest their own Conscience be laid asleep and Gods holy spirit leave them For he will not alwayes strive with man Gen. 6 3â— and from him that hath not that is hath not used that talent of Grace which was granted to him as the wicked Servant had not done who had hid it vers 25 shall be taken even that sayes our Saviour which he hath Mat. 25.29 And when men resist the motions of the Holy Ghost to such a degree as this and after all the repeated suggestions and obedient inclinations which he threw into their souls during all that time wherein the sin was under deliberation resolve still to venture on it no wonder if being thus grieved and rejected he withdraw himself for some time at least if not for altogether And of all this we have a clear instance in holy David upon that wasting sin of his in murdering
Vriah and adulterating his wife For upon that he felt both these losses which I have mention'd viz. the laying waste of the virtuous temper of his own spirit and the deprivation of the good spirit of God For this sin being so long in acting as it must needs be since it required such a train of wicked plots and contrivances to the consummation of it he must needs feel all the opposition that could be made from the checks of his own Conscience and from the restraints of the Spirit of God And when he had born down both for the satisfaction of his lust and trampled them under foot for the consummation of his sin then doth he begin to feel the want and to be all in fear of losing the habitual rectitude of his own spirit which by so many contrary actions implyed in that one great one he had almost quite destroyed and of suffering the desertion of Gods spirit which by his continued provocations contained in it likewise he had well nigh abandon'd For to this purpose we find him complaining and crying out in his Psalm of repentance for that great transgression whereof at the 14 th verse he makes express mention Create or new make in me a clean heart O God sayes he and renew a right spirit within me And besides that cast me not away neither from thy presence nor take thy holy spirit from me Psal. 51.10 11. So that as for the effect of wilfull sins it is plainly this All wilfull sins whatsoever destroy our state of acceptance with God and put us into a state of enmity and death for the present But as for those among them which lay waste the Conscience they effect not that only but moreover they destroy that virtuous habit and grieve nay sometimes drive away that good spirit whereby we should restore our selves to it for the time to come And because this latter sort have the mischievous effect in making our return thus dubious and difficult they are particularly taken notice of in the accounts of God Thus for instance David had committed several deadly sins for some whereof he had undergone severe punishment as particularly for that proud presumptuous offence of his in numbring of the people 2 Sam. 24.1 10 13 c. But these made no notable decay or devastation in the virtuous temper of his soul for his own heart admonished him of the evil which he had done and he repented quickly and rose again without delay and so was presently restored to what he was before But as for his sin in the matter of Vriah it was a lasting work and took up a long deliberation and contrivance It made his Conscience hard and insensible for his own heart did not smite him into a change nor enable him to repent without a monitor So that his stay in this crying sin was long and his return both difficult and dangerous And therefore in that character which is given of him by the Holy Ghost when all the rest are buried in silence this sin particularly is expresly specified David did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord and turned not from any thing that he commanded him all the days of his life save only in the matter of Vriah the Hittite 1 Kings 15.5 Thus then as for this first part of our enquiry we see plainly of all our wilful sins that they are not consistent with a state of Grace and salvation but that they are all deadly and damning for the present if we dye under them without repenting of them and as for the future that they do all of them wound and weaken but some almost quite destroy that habitual inherent Grace whereby we should recover our selves to the state of pardon for the time to come CHAP. IV. Of the nature of involuntary sins and of their consistence with a state of salvation The CONTENTS Of involuntary actions Of what account the forced actions of the Body are in morals Two causes of involuntariness First The violence of mens passions It doth not excuse Secondly The ignorance of their understandings This is the cause of all our consistent failings and the sins that are involuntary upon this account are consistent with a state of salvation This proved 1. From their unavoidableness The Causes of it in what sense any particular sin among them is said to be avoidable 2. From the nature of God A representation of God's nature from his own Word and mens experience The Argument drawn from it for the consistence of such failings 3. From the nature and declarations of the Gospel It is fitted to beget a cheerful and filial confidence and therefore is called the Spirit of Adoption The Argument from this The Scripture-Declarations and Examples in this matter These Arguments summed up THE second sort of sins are such as are involuntary and unchosen and these are consistent with a state of salvation and such as Christ's Gospel doth not eternally threaten but graciously bears and in great mercy dispenseth with As for the involuntariness of mens actions that which produces and effects it is not any force from without upon our will it self All the things in the material world can never bind and compel the will of man seeing it is no physical bodily thing so as that any bodily force might act upon it Nothing in the world can make us will and like that which we do not like the will of man is liable to no compulsion it has this priviledge above all other things on the Earth that nothing about it can force or constrain it but that still it wills and chuses as it self pleaseth As for the actions of men indeed they are mixt things Because they flow from the whole man both Body and Soul and beginning in the mind or will within are consummate in our outward and bodily operation And as for the last of these viz. our bodily operation it may be forced forasmuch as one Body is liable to the force and compulsion of another Thus for instance a chast Matrons Body may be violently ravished A peaceable mans hand may by the overpowering strength of another man be made the forced instrument of anothers murther The bodily work and operation can be forced seeing other Bodies more powerful than it self can compel it And in this sence the Schools understand the word action viz. only for the action of the Body when they make one kind of involuntary actions to be involuntary by violence or compulsion that being a thing whereto not the will it self but the body only can be liable But now these forced actions of the Body although in Nature they be looked upon as actions yet in morality they are esteemed as none at all That is Laws which are the Rules of good and evil and the measure of mens manners take no notice of them nor look upon themselves to be either broken or kept by them because it is not the Body and Carkass
stay beyond that time which we are to act in if we do act at all Besides our powers of action especially where there is any strong temptation of pleasure or profit to act for are forward of themselves and ready to spring out upon the first occasion As soon as the temptation is offered to our thoughts our wills indeliberately approve and all our bodily and active powers by an unconsidered emanation start up to pursue and endeavour after it whence thinking and considering is necessary not to raise but to stop and restrain them And then if either our thoughts have been otherwise engaged and so cannot readily withdraw themselves to consider of a new object or if our thinking powers themselves are dull and heavy and thereby unfit to consider of it we presently and indeliberately go on to act the thing without all pausing and due consideration For this other reason of inconsideration also viz. the want of power or indisposition of our thinking faculty it self is not a thing wholly subject to our own will to chuse whether or when we shall fall under it Because in this state of our souls during their being here united to our Bodies they make use of our bodily powers in their use of reason and in the very exercise of thought and consideration and therefore even in them they are liable to be changed and altered just as our Bodies are For in a brisk and healthy Body our thoughts are free and quick and easie but if our Bodies are dull and indisposed our minds are so too A heaviness in our heads will make us heavy in our apprehensions and a discomposure in our Spirits whether through the strength of Wine or of a violent passion will make us discomposed and incoherent in our thoughts also And if there be an utter perverting or blasting of our bodily powers as is often seen in the bodily Diseases of Epilepsies Phrensies Apoplexies and the like there will be the same perversion or utter extinction of our conceptions likewise But now these indispositions of our Bodies which thus unfit our very souls for thought and due consideration are not in our power to order when and where they shall seize upon us For our Bodies are liable to be thus acted upon by any other Bodies of the world whether we will or no. A heavy air or an indisposing accident will work a change in our bodily temper without our leave and when once that is indisposed we cannot hinder our thoughts themselves from being indisposed too And since it is not in our power at all times to chuse whether or no we will pause and consider although we can avoid offending in those Cases wherein we can consider of it yet is it manifest that we cannot avoid offence in all Indeed if we take any particular action and in our own thoughts separate it from any particular time and from the Chain of other particular actions amongst which it lyes we shall be apt to affirm that it is such whereof we can think and consider For take any action by it self and being aware of it we can let other things alone and watch for it particularly and when we do so we are sure to find one time or other when our understandings are disposed for a due deliberation and fit and able to consider of it But then we must take notice that this supposed state of an action as separate from the Crowd of other actions and determined to no time is only imaginary and in speculation For when we come to practise them though in some we have time and power enough yet in others we find that we have not Because either they come in the throng of other business and then our thoughts being hotly employed upon other things cannot so easily be drawn from them upon the sudden to consider of them or if they call upon us when we have time to consider in yet it happens that our faculties are heavy and indisposed and so we exert them still without due consideration When we think of any particular action by it self therefore we take it out of the throng of business wherein it is involved and out of that time wherein we are indisposed and then we are bold to conclude that we can consider of it But when we come to practise it we find that our former speculation supposed false and that it comes mixt with a crowd of other things or in a time when we have troubled and discomposed thoughts So that how subject soever it was to our consideration in that separate state wherein we imagined it yet have we no power to consider of it in that throng of business or indisposition of faculties wherein we find it And this is verily the Case of several of our slips and transgressions For look upon any of the particulars by it self and take it asunder from the rest and then we shall be confident that we may bethink our selves and consider of it But take it as indeed it lyes among the mixt Crowd of other actions or as offered to our indisposed understandings and then we shall find that it slips from us without all consideration And this as I take it is intended by a great man when he tells us of sins of pardonable infirmitie that the liberty which they seem to have when we consider them in special and asunder they indeed have not when we consider them in the general viz. as involved in the crowd of other actions amongst whom they lye and altogether Upon which account of their having in them no choice and consideration he questions whether they contain that which can in strictness and propriety of speech be called sin And indeed if we understand the same by sin which S t John doth when he gives the explication of it 1 John 3.4 viz. a rejecting or contemning of the Law in which sence only a state of Grace is destroyed by it and he who is born of God cannot commit it they have not For men cannot be said to reject and despise a Law when they do not see and consider of it The liberty then which we have about those slips and transgressions which we do not know and consider of is in effect no liberty at all For we neither chuse the disobedient action it self nor the cause of it We do not chuse the sinful action it self because we do not know or consider of it Nor do we chuse the inconsideration because it is not left to our liberty whether in some of our actions we should be inconsiderate or no. And since our slips and failings which are thus involuntary by ignorance cannot be chosen or refused 't is plain that they cannot be avoided And as for all those things which we cannot avoid it is clear from what has been said above that the Gospel doth not eternally threaten us nor will God ever condemn us for them But that these slips and transgressions which being thus unknown
that in what proportion it increases in the same must this increase likewise Charity sayes S t Paul suffereth long and is kind charity is not easily provoked charity thinketh no evil charity beareth all things and endureth all things 1 Cor. 13.4 5 7. The more therefore that any man has of charity the more will he be sure to show of sufferance of pity of endurance of such slips and oversights as are consistent with an honest and otherwise obedient heart And now since those imperfect measures and degrees of Love which are found in the hearts of all good men are of force more than sufficient to make them pity and bear with these slips of honest ignorance and inconsideration that infinite height of Love which dwells in God Almighty must needs make him bear with them much rather For the most loving man upon earth hath not the thousandth part of his affection the more loving any men are indeed the more still they are like him but when they are arrived to the highest pitch of what humanity can bear it is not possible that they should in any measure equal him And since Gods Love is infinitely more his pity and forbearance towards such pitiable oversights which is a most natural and necessary effect of it cannot possibly be less than ours is No if no kind-hearted loving man would it must needs be the greatest injury to an infinitely loving God to suspect that ever he should be severe in punishing us for them If we ask Gods Pardon then for all our ignorant and inconsiderate slips and failings he is as ready to give as we are to desire it And this we are assured of because it is no more than we daily experience at the hands of every loving and good natured man For since God cannot be equalled and much less out-done by the very best of us in kindness what the weak Love of a man doth every day effect that certainly the infinite Love of God will effect more abundantly And as for this way of arguing it is no more than our Saviour himself uses in another case when he shows that God will give good gifts unto his children at their request because all earthly Parents do it unto theirs daily whenas yet their Love which makes them grant the good things asked so readily is infinitely exceeded by the Love of God Luk. 11.13 Thus from the consideration of Gods Nature it plainly appears that those slips and transgressions which are committed involuntarily and unavoidably because ignorantly and inconsiderately do not put us out of a state of Grace but consist with it Which will appear yet further if we consider Secondly The Nature and plain declarations of the Gospel As for the Nature of the Gospel S t Paul affirms plainly that it is of such a temper and genius as tends to ingenerate in the professors of it not a spirit of fear and slavery which they are possessed with who serve a rigorous and austere Lord but a spirit of chearfulness and free confidence such as they enjoy who serve a gracious and a loving Father For he tells the Jews at Rome that in embracing of Christs Gospel they had not received again the spirit of bondage unto the possessing of their hearts with fears and scruples but the spirit of adoption whereby they were emboldened with the chearfulness and confidence of sons to cry unto God Abba Father Rom. 8.15 But now if the condition of the Gospel it self were so severe as that according to the tenour of it these unavoidable slips of inconsideration and ignorance should set God and us at enmity no Christian man could ever look upon God as upon his tender Father with this spirit of filial freedom but must needs fear and dread him as his angry and avenging Lord. And the Gospel requiring more of us under the forfeiture of Gods favour than any man among us is able to perform it could not minister to ingenerate in us a spirit of chearfull confidence towards him but quite contrary to that to fill us with inextricable doubts and fears of him As for these slips of ignorance then which cannot be avoided we may be assured that according to the Gospel they never can be punish'd for the New Covenant must bear with them because it cannot ingender in us this spirit of adoption and filial confidence without such forbearance And then as for the Declarations of the Gospel in this matter they are very clear also For besides those places that are mentioned above which show clearly that no involuntary sins are damning and then certainly that our slips of ignorance are not seeing they have the greatest plea to involuntariness of any I say besides those this consistence of our unknown and unconsidered slips will be evident from other places also And for this to seek no further S t James's Rule is full and plain To him that knoweth or which comes to the same thing if he will may know how to do good and doth it not to him it is sin Jam. 4.17 If then we have no other sins to answer for but only these of inconsideration and ignorance we are guilty of none wherefore we shall be condemned these unknown sins not being of that number And indeed S t James's Rule is verified by Scripture instances For holy David fell through inconsideration and unadvisedness in sundry things as particularly in an inconsiderate despairing of Gods mercy Psal. 31.22 and in an excessive sorrow for his Son Absolom 2 Sam. 18.33 and ch 19.4 But notwithstanding these and all other his unadvised slips he was all the while a man after Gods own heart a person upright and acceptably obedient still Zacharias and Elizabeth were surprized no question as well as other people are into several slips and inconsiderate follies For one we have mention'd even in that short account which the Scriptures have given us of them and that is this viz. that at the first hearing of the joyful message of the Angel he is incredulous and is punished with dumbness for his unbelief Luk. 1.18 20. But yet this and his other involuntary failings of like nature come not into the account of his sins and disobedience when God speaks of him for notwithstanding these their infirmities of both of them we are told that they were righteous and that before God walking in all the Commandments of the Lord blameless Luk. 1.6 As for this sort of slips and transgressions therefore viz. our sins of ignorance and inconsideration we see plainly that they never will be charged upon us to our condemnation They do not destroy a Saint or put us out of a state of Grace and Salvation but consist with it This must needs be true for they must be pardoned because they cannot be avoided Besides the love and pitifulness of Gods Nature infers and the very temper and genius of his Gospel supposes it the Apostle plainly and fully declares it and from Gods own mouth we are told
at the beginning and for some time yet after he had laboured long under his affliction he breaks out at last in the discomposure of his soul into these repining thoughts and distrustful expostulations Will the Lord cast off for ever and will he be favourable no more Is his mercy clean gone for ever and doth his promise fail for evermore Hath God forgotten to be gracious and hath he in anger shut up his tender mercies Psal. 77.7 8 9. But when once he had got liberty to recollect his thoughts and to recover again his former guard he doth not any longer give way to these distrustful surmises but immediately suppresses and corrects them Then I said as he goes on this is mine own infirmity v. 10 3. A third innocent Cause of inconsideration in our Actions is the discomposure and disturbance of our thinking powers which should consider of them Our souls as I said are united to our bodies and make use of their powers in their most spiritual actions of Knowledge and Apprehension And therefore upon any ruffling discomposure in our bodily spirits our thoughts are ruffled and discomposed likewise They see nothing clearly at such times nor have any distinct notices of things but are blunder'd and confused even as our bodily powers themselves are Now that which thus discomposes our bodily spirits so as that our souls can see and consider of nothing through their disorder is either strong Drink or a strong Passion For so much is all exercise of reason and consideration disturbed and hindred by these that of men in drink or in a high passion it is usually said that they are not themselves and that they have not their wits about them But although either Wine or any violent passion are sufficient causes of disturbance in our spirits and of discomposure in our thinking powers which unfit us to consider of what we do during such time as we are disturbed by them yet are not both of them innocent and able to excuse those inconsiderate slips which we commit by reason of them For drunkenness is always our own fault and if we sin unadvisedly through its discomposure we shall certainly suffer punishment because that is a discomposure of our own seeking As for our passions indeed they are causes of ambiguous quality For sometimes they grow strong in us by our own fault Either we feed them or we indulge them we suggest such things to them as will foment them or we permit them to grow unruly of themselves without checking and repressing of them as we might and should were we so minded And when our passions are thus indulged and the violence of them is of our own chusing they are themselves our sin and so cannot plead our excuse and vindication But then at other times they are forced upon us by the power and suddenness of outward objects whether we will or no. For we hate them and are afraid of them and if we were aware we would stand upon our guard and call in against them all the Aids of Reason and Religion to preserve us from being too much disturbed by them But God's Providence casts them upon us on the sudden so that we do not see them before they come nor can consider aforehand to prevent and avoid them And when once they are come by their very natural force in disturbing of our Spirits they take away from us all power of consideration So that they are unconsidered in themselves and unconsidered in their effects and therefore they are involuntary all the way And when our passions are made violent this way viz. by being raised in us not by any thing of our own search or indulgence but by the timing of God's Providence and by the suddenness and greatness of outward objects they are pardonable in themselves and will excuse our inconsiderate transgressions Those slips which we incur under them are prepared for pardon because we did not seek nor could avoid them Thus then our innocent Discomposures which unfit us for consideration are those only which are caused in us by strong passions not of our own indulging The passion which begets them must enter against our wills through the greatness and suddenness of outward objects it must be forced upon us suddenly and by surprize and then we cannot refuse it or the discomposure which ensues upon it because we have no time beforehand wherein to consider how to prevent it Now it is not every passion which the power of outward objects can force upon us on such a sudden For love desire and all those passions which have good for their object are more under our own Command and spring up in us more gradually They arrive not to such a discomposing pitch in a moment but they require more time and go on more leisurely and in all the intermedial steps they are subject to our own power so that we may arrest them if we please before they have got so far And therefore all the inconsideration which they effect in us is more or less wilful and a matter of our own choice because it proceeds from our own permission and indulgence But then as for other passions of grief anger and fear especially which have evil for their object if the opportunity be sudden and the object great enough they may be raised in us to such a degree as to amaze and confound us in a moment A man may be in such a fright upon the sudden as not to know what he doth as we see by daily experience and the case is the same in the others likewise And the reason of this difference between these passions and the former is this because the suffering of evil is far more repugnant to self-preservation and self-love which are the fundamental principle of all our passions than the absence of good For if we sit without that good which would move our love and desire we are still where we were but if we fall under that evil which excites our fear we are made miserable and much the worse that is only a denial of a farther delight but this is a real deprivation and a step towards destruction And since our self-love and self-preservation are so much more nearly concerned in the suffering of evil than in the absence of good our passions which are only their several aspects and expressions must needs be more quick and violent in that than they are in this and the discomposure upon them will be so likewise This difference there is betwixt our inconsiderateness upon the violent fears of evil and upon our violent desires and pursuit of good Which is observed by our Saviour in an instance where both were criminal in which notwithstanding the discomposure upon the fears of evil being fit to plead the more excuse made the transgression that ensued upon it to be a lesser sin For both the Jews and Pilate concurred in the grievous sin of shedding innocent blood when they crucified and murthered him
himself so doth he instruct Timothy that he should do likewise For he tells him that the way whereby the man of God ought to deal with sinners even those of the worst sort who are not only subject but enslaved to it is not peremptorily to damn and seal them up fast unto destruction but in great meekness to endeavour to reclaim them that by recovering them to repentance he may restore them again to life and pardon The man of God says he must in meekness instruct even the refractory and contumacious or those that oppose themselves against him if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledgment of the truth and that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the Devil who are taken captive by him at his will 2 Tim. 2.25 26. And to name no more instances of this nature but to summ up all in one even those great and enormous wilful sinners whose offences are so hainous as to make them fit to be expelled the society of Christians are not yet in their very Excommunication shut up irrecoverably under the pains of Hell but quite contrary are endeavoured by this very means to be reduced to repentance and thereby to pardon and acceptance Excommunication it self being as St. Paul says for the destruction of the flesh that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus 1 Cor. 5.5 And the Power of the Keys in remitting or retaining sins that is in the excommunicating or absolving of offenders is intrusted with the Ministers of Christs Church for the edification of the excommunicated sinners themselves and not for their destruction 2 Cor. 10.8 and chap. 13.10 And by all this we see that the Grace of Christs Gospel is a grace of repentance and remission of sins all the way both before Baptism and also after it In all periods from the beginning to the end it is an instrument of pardon and a means of peace or a word and ministry as St. Paul says of reconciliation 2 Cor. 5.19 If we break our Baptismal vows which are the condition of the Covenant once and thereby forfeit all our Right to Happiness it gives us liberty to repeat them For we have the freedom both in our private and our publick prayers to renew all our good resolutions and to make God new promises and to undertake for the performance of that wherein we have wilfully failed by new engagements Nay it doth not only allow that we may thus renew the Covenant but it requires that we should it has appointed an Ordinance the Eucharist or Lords Supper I mean for this very purpose For the Bread and Wine which we eat and drink there our Saviour tells us is a Federal form the New Covenant or according to the manner of the Eastern Nations who ratified their Covenants by eating and drinking together the re-entring or confirming of that Covenant which was at first sealed and confirmed in his Blood This says he is the New Testament or Covenant in my blood drink ye all of it and so according to the known Rite confirm this Covenant with God by it Luk. 22.20 Mat. 22.27 And this he has not only allowed but injoyned to all his Disciples Do this says he in remembrance of me And that not only at one time as it is with Baptism but at all times during your whole lives for in this manner of a Federal eating and drinking of this Bread and Wine you must shew forth the Lords death always even till he come again the second time i. e. unto the worlds end 1 Cor. 11.24 25 26. Forgiveness of sins then upon repentance is a Grace which is begun in Baptism and ever after continued being repeated in every Prayer and sealed in every Sacrament to the end of our lives So that no wilful sin can damn us if we repent of it but the damned accursed sinner is only he who lives and dyes impenitent Insomuch as that very sin for which St. Paul says there is no benefit from Christs Death nor any help of Sacrifice under the Gospel is therefore excluded from all Grace of pardon because it is from all possibility of repentance For therein it is that the irrecoverableness of those lost sinners consists It is impossible says he to renew them to repentance Heb. 6.6 Thus then we see that Christs Gospel has afforded us a remedy even for our wilful sins whether they be committed before Baptism or after it at one time or at another at all without exception so that although sometimes we do fall under them yet we shall not be eternally condemned for them Let us but repent particularly therefore and amend it and whatever sin we have wilfully been guilty of our work is done For our repentance shall set us straight and our reformation will make us innocent and if we are careful to do so no more our offence will be looked upon as if it never had been done at all But against this pardonableness of our wilful sins after our belief of the Gospel and Baptism into the Christian Faith some perhaps may be ready to object two places from St. Pauls Epistle to the Hebrews wherein he may seem to teach us a more rigorous and severe Lesson In the 10 th Chapter he lays down this as a great Truth If we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge or open belief and acknowledgment of the truth of Christs Gospel there remains no more benefit to us from Christs sacrifice for sins but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation which shall consume the adversaries v. 26 27. And in the 6 th Chapter to the eternal Terror of all willing and wilful Back-sliders he speaks thus to the same purpose It is impossible for those who were once enlightned and have tasted of the heavenly gift and were made partakers of the holy Ghost and have tasted the good word of God if after all this they shall fall away to be again recovered or for any of us to renew them to repentance seeing they crucifie to themselves the Son of God afresh and put him to an open shame v. 4 5 6. But now if our wilful sins after Baptism and belief of the Gospel be thus desperate and utterly excluded from all hopes of cure and benefit of Expiation by Christs Sacrifice as the Apostle in these places seems to intimate how can the Gospel be truly called a Ministration of Reconciliation Grace and Pardon towards all sorts of wilful sins To take off all this difficulty I will answer to the places severally that all those good minds which are wont to be perplexed by them may be more perfectly relieved by a particular and distinct understanding of them First then to begin with that the words of St. Paul in the 10 th Chapter of his Epistle to the Hebrews are these Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering Not forsaking the assembling of
our selves together as the manner of some is but exhorting one another to the open owning and frequenting of them and this we ought to do so much the more forasmuch as ye see the day of Gods righteous Judgment approaching For if we sin wilfully in this backsliding from the publick Assemblies and from the profession of the Christian Faith after that we have once received the knowledge or professed belief and acknowledgment of the truth of it there remains no more benefit to us from Christs sacrifice for sins but a certain fearful looking for of that judgment I say which shall devour the adversaries And this all you Hebrews have reason to expect from Christ from what you very well know of the manner of proceeding in such cases under Moses For he that despised or rejected the whole yea or even any one particular instance of Moses's Law whereto death was threatned dyed without mercy if the thing was proved against him under the testimony of two or three witnesses And then of how much sorer punishment suppose ye shall this wilful sinner be thought worthy who hath by such wilful rejecting of all Christs Laws and Religion trodden under foot the Son of God as if he were not raised up again from the dead but were yet in his grave and hath accounted that blood of his which confirmed the New Covenant and wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing making it to have been justly shed as the blood of a Malefactor and hath done despite unto the Spirit of Grace and all its evidence by rejecting it as insufficient I have set down the place at large that the very Text it self may afford us an accumulated proof of the ensuing Explication But now as for this sin which being wilfully committed after the belief and acknowledgment of Christs Gospel is here said to have no help from Christs Sacrifice nor any benefit of his Propitiation it is not the sinful transgression of every Law of Christ no nor of any one but a total Apostasie and abrenunciation of them all The sin I say which being wilfully committed after the belief of Christs Gospel is here said to exclude us from all benefit of Christs Sacrifice is not the transgression of any of Christs Laws whatsoever nay nor of any one For the Corinthians were guilty of the wilful transgression of several Laws and that too after they had embraced the Faith of Christ. They were guilty of an indulged Lasciviousness Vncleanness and Fornication 2 Cor. 12.21 Nay one of them was guilty of it in such an instance as was not so much as named and much less practised among the Gentiles themselves viz. in a most incestuous marrying of his Step-mother or his Fathers wife 1 Cor. 5.1 And St. Peter a great Apostle after three years converse with his Lord and Master denies him three times and that not suddenly e're he could bethink himself but after a due space of time between one denial and another Luk. 22.57 58 59. All which he did in the most aggravated manner by accumulating perjuries and prophaneness upon the sin of disowning his Master for when his bare word would not be believed he began to curse and to swear that he knew him not Mar. 14.71 All these were sins wilful in their commission and some of them most highly criminal in their nature but yet none of them was excluded from the benefit of Christs Sacrifice for they all enjoyed it So that it is not any one transgression of a particular Law after men have embraced the Faith of Christ which is the un-atoned sin here mentioned But it is an utter rejecting of all the Laws of Christ and a total Apostasie from his whole Religion It is the renouncing of Christs Authority the disowning of his Gospel and falling quite off from him to Judaism or Paganism or something directly Antichristian which is the sin here intended And whosoever doth this wilfully after he has once acknowledged it and been convinced by it as most men if not every man must do who is guilty of it at all for him there remains no more sacrifice for sin but a fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation which shall devour him and all other Antichristian adversaries That the word which is here translated sin signifies sometimes not all sin in general but particularly this superlative height and aggregation of all sin an utter revolt from Gods service and Apostasie from his whole Religion appears plainly from 2 Pet. 2 where the Apostate Angels are called the Angels that sinned v. 4. And that this particular way of sinning by an universal Apostasie and falling quite off from the profession of the Christian Faith is that very sin which is here intended will appear from all those things which are spoken of it in this place 'T is plain from the Apostles exhortation against it Let us hold fast says he the profession of our faith and not revolt from it v. 23. From his further disswasion from it in the verse next but one not forsaking the Christian Assemblies which is a great step towards the disowning of Christ himself as the manner of some is v. 25. From his Character of it in the verses that follow it being a sin that includes in it all these instances of aggravation By it we become utterly Antichristian and Adversaries to Christ and his Religion the fiery indignation that is kindled by this sin shall devour all them who by reason of it are become Adversaries ver 27. By it we deny Christ to be risen and look upon the Son of God as yet in the Grave and under our feet we count his blood which was spilt for the confirmation of the New Covenant to have been the impure and unholy blood of a Malefactor justly executed we despise all the clear proof and convictive evidence of the Spirit of Grace which we once thought a sufficient Argument for his Religion and whereby we were moved to the acknowledgment of that truth of his which now we contumeliously reject Whosoever hath committed this sin saith the Apostle I will show him what he hath done he hath trodden under foot the Son of God and hath counted the blood of the Covenant wherewith he was sanctified an holy thing and hath done despite unto the Spirit of Grace ver 29. As for the sin then which is here spoken of it is plainly this viz. a sin that is contrary to the holding fast of our Christian profession that implies a forsaking of the Christian Assemblies that makes us open enemies and adversaries to Christ and his cause seeing thereby we deny Christ to be risen and affirm him to have been an Impostor and his blood to have been like that of the Thieves which were crucified with him unholy and impure as the blood of a Malefactor and set at nought all the miraculous proofs and despise all the convictive evidence of the Holy Ghost that Spirit of Grace which
here specified which is nothing less than a renouncing of the Baptismal Covenant of the preaching of the Word of the administration of the Sacraments of all the Gospel-promises nay of all those miraculous gifts and powers of the Holy Ghost whereof in the first times they were ordinarily made partakers and what can any man take this to be but an utter renouncing of the whole Gospel and Religion of Christ And that it is so is still further manifest from those things which are said to be implied in their falling For hereby they are said to condemn Christ as an Impostor to justifie his murderers to say he was crucified justly and that were he now alive they should be ready to crucifie him over again which is a publishing again to all the world his reproach and a putting him anew to an open shame By this falling away saith the Apostle they crucifie to themselves the Son of God afresh and put him to an open shame v. 6. But now thus to renounce our Baptism and all our Christian Priviledges to condemn Christ as a cheat and Impostor to justifie his Murderers and to defame his Religion what is it less than a renouncing of his Gospel and a falling off to persecute the Christian Faith and Profession And as for this indeed the Apostle says expresly that it is desperate and that it is impossible for him by any endeavours or arguings which he can use to renew-again those who are guilty of it to that Gospel-Covenant which they thus abjure and which is the only gracious means of repentance and reconciliation And since it is to no purpose says he I will not attempt it but go on in speaking to those who still retain the Faith without concerning my self to prove again the foundation to those who have apostatized from it v. 1 3. These wilful Apostates therefore are in a most deplorable case for they have sinned themselves out of all capacity of mercy and transgressed beyond all recovery For there is no pardon to any wilful sinner whatsoever without he repent but as for Apostates it is impossible for any man to renew them again unto repentance Their renewal I say is impossible For as for all humane means which any men even the Apostles of our Lord themselves could use for their recovery they have defeated them already They know all the evidence of Miracles and the demonstrations of the Spirit nay they have not only seen them but they themselves have been partakers of them and impower'd to work them but yet after all they have renounced that belief which all these perswade to they are Armour of proof against all these demonstrations of the Holy Ghost and Infidels to Christ notwithstanding them So that let an Apostle himself urge any thing to them in behalf of Christs Religion his Argument has been overcome before he offers it He tells them nothing new nor shews them any thing but what they have seen nay what they themselves were formerly impower'd to shew to others but all that was not strong enough to keep them in the Faith for when they saw it all they turned Infidels and Apostates still As for any humane means then they are of no force with them they cannot reclaim them or bring them anew to the acknowledgment of the Gospel which is the only gracious Ministry of Repentance and Reconciliation So that if ever they be restored again it must be by a Divine Power for nothing now can possibly prevail with them but a special Providence and a special Grace But now here is the desperateness of their state these will never be afforded them For when men have wilfully sinned up to this height and fallen off against so great means and so clear conviction God in the ordinary methods of his Grace is resolved to concern himself no further with them nor to trouble himself any more for their recovery They have had all the care and cultivation of his Grace which they are like to have and now like barren ground which after all that has been laid out upon it brings forth nothing but thorns and bryers that are not only useless but prickling and offensive they are nigh unto cursing And this is the very instance which the Apostle himself uses and the reason which he gives of that impossibility which he had affirmed to be in that undertaking It is impossible says he for any man to renew them because God will no longer help on his endeavours with his Grace nor look any further after them For with those men who are Infidels after all his care he will deal just as he doth with ground whose fruit is evil and offensive after all his labour and as for his dealing with that 't is plainly this That earth indeed which drinketh up the rain that cometh oft upon it and bringeth forth herbs meet for them by whom it was dressed receiveth more blessing still from God But that which after it has been thus water'd bears thorns and bryars is rejected and nigh unto cursing whose end is not to be water'd any more but burnt up v. 7 8. As for these two places of the Apostle therefore in his Epistle to the Hebrews we see indeed that they speak of wilful sins beyond pardon and of transgressions which are irremissible but these sins are not the wilful transgressions of any Christian man but a wilful Apostasie from Christianity it self So that after all it is true still that every man who owns the Religion and professes the Faith of Christ is provided of a remedy for all his wilful sins whensoever they are committed for let him but particularly repent of them and amend them and he never shall be condemned for them Nay so fast is the tye and so inseparable is the connexion under the Gospel of Christ betwixt Repentance and Remission that as I observed this irremissible sin of wilful Apostasie it self is therefore alone declared impossible to be forgiven because it is impossible to bring men to repent of it Heb. 6.6 If a man doth but repent then let his sin be wilfully committed whether before or after Baptism it matters not for his repentance shall set him straight in both and his offence shall be quite forgotten as if it had never been Indeed if a man goes on in a constant trade of sin silencing continually his own conscience and grieving Gods holy Spirit and despising all the means and offers of his Grace he may sin himself beyond his time of mercy and so his sins will prove irremissible because he is gone too far ever to repent of them which is their only remedy and means of pardon For there is a set period of Grace and a certain season and space of time wherein God will still make the offers of his help and of the guidance of his Spirit to reclaim and reform men But if after all they slight all his offers and reject his aid and prove utterly incorrigible he grows weary at
last and will trouble himself no more about them but leave them wholly to themselves And this God plainly intimates concerning incorrigible Ephraim who was just then about to be abandoned and to be given up to the unmasterable wickedness of his own heart How shall I give thee up says he O Ephraim how shall I deliver thee O Israel Hos. 11.8 And our Saviour says the same over intractable Jerusalem O! if thou hadst but known at least in this thy day the things that belong unto thy peace with God but now it is too late for they are hid from thine eyes Luk. 19.42 This I confess is a state of sin which is desperate and irrecoverable not for that repentance is no sure means of remission but because when once men are come thus far God deserts them so that they never can repent of them But as for the time when any man is come up to this unpardonable pitch that only God in Heaven knows No man can say I am beyond my time of repentance because without a special Revelation no man can understand it And therefore let a man have sinned never so long yet cannot that discourage him from repenting because if he set himself seriously about it for ought he knows God will pity him and afford him his Grace and Spirit which is never wanting to such as heartily desire it to aid and strengthen him in his repentance Nay indeed if a man be come so far as to bethink himself and to be apprehensive of his danger and to be convinced of the destructiveness of his sinful courses there is no question to be made but that he will For the tide is turned and the change is begun already and that is a thing which needed God's Grace as much as any thing that is yet remaining For a cariere in wickedness is like running down hill the great difficulty is to make the first stop but when once that is done to return again is much more easie And therefore if a man has received so much Grace as makes him break off his evil courses for the present and stand and deliberate with himself whether or no he shall proceed in it he need not doubt if he will go on to endeavour as he has begun but that he shall have more till at last he is fully enabled to perfect and compleat it He has an experimental evidence that his time of Grace is not past he may be sure it is still with him because it helps and works in him For it is Grace that brings him on to what he is and if he be but as willing to be aided by it as it is ready to assist him it will not fail to carry him on further Gods Grace will still grow upon him as his own endeavours do so that if he make good use of this he shall have more For this is laid down by our Lord as a certain Rule of Divine dispensations To him that hath that is maketh a right use of that Grace which he hath shall more be given even in abundance Mat. 25.29 Whatsoever irreconcileableness therefore there may be and truly is in some states of sin when men have gone on beyond their time of Grace yet he who has so much Grace as to doubt and question to fear and scruple has great reason to think that as for his part he is not past Grace but under it For an irrecoverable sinner is commonly one that is hardned he transgresses without sense and goes on without fear he is infatuated with his lusts and lull'd asleep in his sin and scarce ever comes to himself till he awakes in Damnation But if once he begins especially in the time of health either through a severe reproof or a severe providence to interrupt his sin for the present and to apprehend the evil of it and if from thence he goes on to good desires and holy purposes of well-doing then he feels that Grace which he is afraid he wants and that good Spirit works in him which he suspects to have deserted him He is not in this irrecoverable state but is going on towards a good recovery Indeed if his Conscience is awakned in the height of horror and extremity of despair so that he is obstinate against all good advice and dead to all endeavour and continues to be so this is not an effect of Grace and a step towards repentance but a terror of Judgment and a fore-taste of Hell If it deads all industry by excluding all hope if he complain of his estate without seeking to get out of it and despair without all amendment this fear of heart and terror of soul 't is true doth not bring him nearer unto life and pardon but by secuing him faster in his sin it shuts him up a closer Prisoner of Condemnation But if he be so apprehensive of his danger as to run from it if he has so much hope as will put him upon trying all means and using his best endeavours if upon his apprehensions of his present evil state he fears and desires and resolves and strives to get quit of it he is not deprived of a good Providence or of a gracious Spirit but enjoys the benefit of them and is conducted by them He is in the way to Life and under the recovering methods of Grace Gods holy Spirit has not for ever abandoned him but has begun again to work in him And thus at last it appears that as for all the wilful sins of any Christian man they are in no wise desperate and helpless but the Gospel has reached out a remedy for them to all who are willing to make use of it For let them but particularly repent of them and amend them and then they are safe from them So long as they continue in the profession of the Christian Faith and do not apostatize from it there is no sin whatsoever which they wilfully commit but is pardonable upon their repentance If once they honestly undo the fault and conscientiously forsake it their work is done for their penitent reformation shall make them innocent and whatever punishment the Law may threaten to any sins when God comes to Judgment he will not exact it of any man who has been thus reclaimed from them Do we find our selves guilty then of any unretracted wilful sins and thereby subject to a dreadful sentence according to those measures that have in great largeness been hitherto discoursed of Let us particularly repent of them and begin to amend them and then we are safe from it and shall most certainly prevent it Have any voluntary faults put us out of a state of favour and made us obnoxious to the severities of Judgment let us reform them and do so no more and repair the breach which ensued upon them and we are surely pardoned For the Gospel of Christ doth not in any wise intend to amaze and astonish us or to affright us from amendment by putting us into a despair
For we shall always live subject to them more or less and although we may labour and strive against them yet shall we never be able as long as we are in this world to get entirely free from them We have no power and choice to avoid what we cannot see and consider of and all these sins come in upon the account of our unwill'd ignorance or inconsideration and since we cannot see and consider of them we cannot particularly prevent them which is effectually to repent of them A particular Repentance and Reformation then is not the Gospel-remedy for our involuntary sins It cannot be the cure assigned for them because it is impossible to them their pardon must not depend upon it because then they were wholly impardonable and desperate since in them no man on earth can use it But that remedy which Christ has appointed for them and that repentance whereupon he will graciously pardon and forgive them is in the general an hearty repentance and reformation of all wilful sins and an entire obedience in all such actions as are voluntary and chosen If we serve God faithfully and truly in all our other actions where we do see our duty and can chuse to practise it he will connive at these slips which after an honest care and industry are involuntary and unchosen For any kind master would do so to his honest servant and more especially every tender father would to his obedient child And God who is Love it self being the first Fountain and the compleatest Pattern of all kindness in the world will never be out-done in any love that is excellent and praise-worthy by his own creatures But if their kindness would bear with such infirmities and oversights of an honest mind his will dispense with them much rather The faithful servants therefore and obedient children of God who repent particularly of all their other sins that are known and wilful and effectually amend them shall be sure to find this favour at the hands of their heavenly Lord and Father for all these failings which are involuntary and unchosen Their obedience in other things shall plead their excuse and make their unwill'd slips in these to be uncondemning But to be yet more particular these involuntary transgressions of men that are obedient in all their voluntary actions shall certainly be pardoned through the means of these particular duties 1. Their Prayers 2. Their Charity and forgiveness towards the offences of others 1. Their involuntary failings of ignorance and inconsideration shall be forgiven them upon their prayers if they beg Gods pardon for them he is as ready to grant as they are to desire it And this we are sure of because that no earthly Parent who is wise and good would refuse to bestow it in such Cases at the request of his Children whereas they have nothing near that pity and tenderness for their Children which God has for his And this is an Argument which Christ himself has taught us to rely upon in this matter If you says he being evil will yet for all that at their request give good gifts to your Children how much more shall your heavenly Father who has not the least taint of your illness give the best of gifts even the Holy Spirit to them that ask him Luke 11.13 And indeed that we may never want this remedy Christ has put a Prayer for this purpose daily into our mouths that since our involuntary sins are of daily incursion we may as daily beg pardon for them For he has made it a part of our daily prayers to ask pardon among others for our daily trespasses this being one of those Petitions which he has taught us to put up as often as we do that for our daily bread that he would forgive us our trespasses Matth. 6.11 12. And this S t Austin observes of it for those small sins saith he which no man can avoid was this Petition in the Lord Prayer inserted Nay long before him S t Clement teaches the same Doctrine of our prayers being a most sure expiation for all our involuntary sins For in his first Epistle to the Corinthians relating that truly Christian state wherein their great Apostle Paul had very lately left them among several other parts of their Character he gives this for one Being filled with holy desires and a vertuous will with a good and commendable forwardness of mind and with a pious assurance of being heard you lifted up your hands to Almighty God beseeching him to be merciful and propitious to you if in any thing you had sinned INVOLVNTARILY Having first as says the good Father a vertuous heart and a holily disposed will so that in nothing their heart was disobedient by sinning wilfully they were forward to ask God forgiveness for all those sins which they had committed involuntarily And this forwardness says he was good and commendable and their confidence of obtaining pardon upon their prayer was pious it was a godly and a pious confidence This is a plain and full testimony and withal it is authentick and such as we may rely upon as much in a manner as if an Apostle himself had told us so For this Clement as we may observe was one who was sent out by the Apostles themselves to preach Christ's will and intrusted by them to declare unto the World what are the terms of remission of sins and the condition of pardon so that what we hear from his mouth we may look upon as Gospel S t Paul himself makes honourable mention of him calling him his Fellow-Labourer Help Clement my Fellow-Labourer whose name is in the Book of Life Phil. 4.3 And the thing it self which he testifies is not so much a matter of saith and 〈◊〉 wherein an honest man may sometimes erre and be mistaken as an historical relation of a matter of fact For he is recounting what a brave and gallant Church they were in that state wherein the great Apostle left them and as one of the Particulars of that relation this comes in That as for their involuntary sins they begged Gods pardon and that too with a pious assurance of obtaining it So that as for this practice of a confident hope of pardon for their involuntary sins upon their prayers it was not only such as S t Clement the Companion and Fellow-Labourer of S t Paul approved but such moreover as the Apostle Paul himself who had planted Christianity amongst them had left with them This therefore is one great remedy for our involuntary slips They shall he forgiven us upon our prayers for pardon and forgiveness And so shall they 2. Upon our Charity and forgiveness of the offences of others As God himself delights in mercy so doth he require that we should and to oblige us to it the more he has made our kind dealing towards our Brethren the Condition of his kindness towards us Above all things says S t Peter have fervent Charity
is no avoiding of it For the Laws of God which are impositions superinduced upon our Natures by their prohibitions make several of our most natural appetites and desires themselves to be sinful the lusts of the Flesh making up a good part of the prohibitions of the Gospel But although God by his after-prohibition has made them sinful yet from that natural necessity which he had laid upon us before we cannot live intirely free from them For our Flesh will lust and make offers after such things as are naturally fitted to its liking and we cannot help it because our Bodies so long as they are conversant among the things of this World from their natural frame and constitution will still be delighted with some things to crave and desire and pained by others to hate and abhor them This I say is natural whilst there is any life and sense in our Bodies the good and evil things of the world must of necessity thus sensibly affect them and where they are affected with pleasure there 't is natural for them to desire as where they feel pain 't is natural for them to abhor the thing which occasions and produces it These first lustings then and cravings after forbidden things are natural and were made necessary before the prohibition came to make them sinful And if by an after-Law men shall be condemned for being sensibly affected with outward things or for having a sudden lust and inclination after them upon their being so sensibly affected with them then shall they be condemned for what they could not help and dye for not performing impossibilities But God neither can nor doth make any Laws which exact things so rigorous He punishes nothing in us but what proceeded from our own will nor exacts an account of us for our natural lusts and inclinations further than they are subject to our own choice and free disposal If a sudden fear or an unclean desire arise up in the heart of an holy man from the presence of outward objects or inward imaginations and the natural temper of his Blood and Spirits he shall not be put to answer for it because he could not prevent it He could no more hinder it than he can hinder the beating of his heart or the motion of his blood seeing it was no free work of his will but a natural effect of his temper And to be condemned for that is to suffer for having flesh and blood as well as Reason and Spirit and to undergo punishment for being made up of Body as well as Soul for being a man and not an Angel As for several things indeed which follow upon the first suggestion of a prohibited object and upon the first lusting after it they are not the effects of nature but of our own choice For though a fancy of evil and a sudden lusting after it from its fansied agreeableness may obtrude it self upon us whether we will or no either by chance or by occasion of a temptation yet a continued entertainment of it and a stay upon it in our imaginations to cherish lust and inflame desire cannot come upon us but by our own liking and connivence For as soon as ever we can observe them our thoughts are our own to dispose of how and upon what we please The first thought 't is true is not always in our power to hinder because many times it comes upon us e're we can observe it For our souls as I have sometimes said are souls in flesh and make use of our bodily powers in their most spiritual operations being linked so fast to them as that they cannot but communicate and be affected with them But then the stay upon it and the continued attention to it in after-entertainment is a thing that cannot be so suddenly forced upon us but we give way to it only when and how long we our selves please So that whatsoever the first fancy and desire of evil was the after-entertainment is our own seeing it came not from any necessity of nature but from the free determination or connivence of our own will But yet even these after-thoughts and inclinations after forbidden things are not always an Article of our condemnation but then only when we consent to them or practise and fulfil them For if the forbidden thing is only fansied in our minds and craved by our appetites but has got no consent of our hearts nor any endeavours of our lives and actions according to the gracious terms of that Gospel whereby we must stand or fall it is not yet come within the terrours of Judgment nor has made us liable to Death and Hell For the evil and danger of our bodily desires we must know is the evil and danger of a temptation When our appetites desire what the prohibition has made evil and our Spirits on the other side declare what the Commandment has made good then is the time of temptation or tryal whether our wills are resolved to stick to our lusts or to our Duty and whether they will prefer God or sin And herein lyes the great danger of our natural appetites for although in themselves they are not deadly and damning to any man otherwise good yet are they traps and snares to deadly and damning sins In themselves I say to any Christian man who is otherwise good and vertuous our natural appetites are not deadly and damning The lusting and inclination of our Flesh after Meats and Drinks and after ease and pleasures and the lusting of the eye after gain and riches are not absolutely and directly forbidden or in themselves and before they have got any further an Article of our condemnation No all the desires of the Flesh are naturally necessary some to preserve our own persons and some to the preservation and propagation of Mankind This God himself has made and he allows of it It is no mans sin to have a stomach to his meat or to have desires after ease and a fleshly inclination after bodily pleasures because God has so framed our Bodies that they should and therefore he cannot be angry with us if we do desire them Indeed he has not left these desires to their own swing but has put several restraints upon them he has bound them up from some objects and in some degrees For we are forbid to desire and lust after meat and drink ease and pleasure riches and plenty when either we are injurious to other men in procuring that which we lust after or when we are excessive and intemperate in the use of it or for its sake transgress any other Commandment Our desires of meat and drink for instance must not carry us on to excessive measures in gluttony and drunkenness our carnal lusts must not draw us on to act them with undue objects in fornication adultery rapes or other prohibited uncleannesses and our desire of money must not betray us into thefts or robberies fraud and circumvention extortion and oppression niggardliness uncharitableness
or other sins whether against Justice or Charity As on the other side our fears and aversations from want or pain or other bodily evils must not induce us to neglect a Commandment that we may please our Flesh or to deny our Religion for the securing of a bodily enjoyment These restraints God has laid upon our bodily appetites having given us these Commands with several others mentioned above which we are oft-times tempted to transgress in order to the fulfilling of them For our bodily appetites themselves do not distinguish either of objects or of degrees A mans palate or his stomach in any delicious meat or drink which yields a pleasure to it doth not tell him when they have enough or cease desiring before they are gone on to be intemperate Our eyes lust after money but they consider not whose it is but so they may have it they matter not to whom it belongs or how they come by it and so it is in our fleshly appetites of other things For it is the natural pleasure of those things which we lust after that moves our bodies and therefore they lust after them so long as they are pleased with them They never stop at a fixt measure or turn away from a forbidden object so that if we will be ruled by them they will carry us on to any thing that agrees with them whether it be lawful or unlawful and so are sure to insnare us into sin And here indeed God has set a strict restraint upon them and will punish them severely if they go beyond it For Then as I said our lusts are deadly to us and articles of our condemnation when they have damning effects and ensnare us into deadly and damning sins To any good man the bare lusts and desires of evil are not so truly a damning sin as a dangerous temptation they are not in themselves an Article of Death to him but they are apt to carry him on to that which is For that which puts any sin into a capacity to tempt us is our lust or desire of something which is annexed to it and which we hope to obtain by it There is always something that goes along with it which is naturally fitted to please our flesh and to excite a carnal appetite and by this we are tempted and allured into the practice and commission of it For bare sin could never tempt any man nor could any one in his wits ever chuse to disobey for disobedience sake without any thing further because there is no good in transgression nakedly considered which should move any mans will to chuse and embrace it but on the contrary much evil that will disswade and affright him from it For it deprives us of Gods favour and subjects us to his vengeance and fills us with sad hearts and anxious thoughts and terrible expectations But that which wins us over to a liking and approbation of it is the appearance of some pleasure profit honour or other annexed allurement which we expect to reap by it It is one or other of these that overcomes all our fears and inveagles us into the commission of it for they strike in with our natural appetites and raise in us desires after it and those prove the bait which draws us in and the insnaring temptation For herein lies all the force of any temptation The satisfaction of a lust is joyned with the acting of a sin which is an invitation to us for the sake of the one to commit the other also The transgression has something annexed which is agreeable to our fleshly Natures and raises in us desires of it and cravings after it and when it has got this hold of us it draws us as much as we can be drawn by our love of our own lusts and the gratification of our bodily appetites which is indeed a great step to our choice and commission of it and a strong temptation For this is the natural order of our actions either our Consciences or our Passions move and excite us to them and then our Wills chuse and intend them and upon that choice and intention our Vnderstandings contrive and direct and last of all our bodily and executive Powers fulfil and perform them All our bodily actions are at the choice and under the command of our wills and all our choice is upon the appearance of some good or other which either our consciences or our fleshly lusts and appetites propose to us For our wills we must remember are placed in a middle state and are canvased and beset on both sides our lusts being urgent with us to consent to one thing and our consciences to another And this is that strife betwixt the flesh and spirit which is mentioned in the Scriptures and that contention which S t Paul describes in the 7 th Chapter to the Romans between the Law of lust in the members and the Law of God in the mind These two Principles our Body and Spirit or our Lusts and our Consciences are those great Interests that vie and struggle in us and emulously contend which shall obtain the consent and choice of the will of man And whensoever either of them has got that our actions follow in course For our bodily members move at our own choice and therefore if our lusts after the pleasures of sin have once prevailed upon our wills to consent to it they have gained their point and their work is done and we shall go on without more ado to act and commit it In this then lies all the force of a temptation that the sin which we are tempted to has something annexed to it wherein our flesh is delighted and which it lusts after and desires for the sake of that pleasure which it finds in it And when by this means any sin has got our fleshly love and desire it has got a powerful friend in our own bosoms For our lusts are strong and violent and where they set upon a thing they will not easily be denied but are urgent and importunate with our wills to consent to their gratification and yield to the fulfilling of them So that if once any sin has struck in with them it is able to try its strength and contend with the Law of God in the mind being furnished now with a powerful bait and a strong temptation Thus are our lusts and desires of forbidden things not the forbidden sin it self but the temptation to it so that in bare lusting or desiring of them we do not commit the damning sins themselves but are tempted only to their commission And in this S t James is most express for then says he every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lusts and enticed to evil by them Jam. 1.14 And as for meer temptation to a damning sin it is not deadly and damning For our being tempted to sin is not a renouncing of our Lord but an exercise of our service and obedience to him and a
tryal whether or no we will renounce him It is the great proof and argument how dearly we love him and how closely and faithfully our wills adhere to him It shews how obedience is uppermost in our hearts and that we will rather deny our dearest lusts and importunate desires than venture for their sakes to offend him So that to be tempted is no instance of damning disobedience but a plain proof how much we will lose and suffer rather than we will disobey It is a tryal of us how we prefer God and our Duty before other things even those that are most dear to us of all things in the world besides We do not sin damnably then in being tempted so long as we consent not to it but manfully resist and overcome the temptation And this is evident from hence because those very men who have lived most free from sin have not for all that lived free from temptation Even Adam himself before he knew what sin was and during his state of Innocence was liable to be tempted For the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil whereof God had forbidden him to eat was alluring to his eyes and an incentive to his lust as well as any other Tree of the Garden And because it was so the Woman was won to eat of it through the strength of such desire after it notwithstanding God had commanded her to abstain from it The woman saw that the Tree was good for food and pleasant to the eye and she took of the fruit thereof and did eat and by the same inducement she drew in her Husband and gave it unto him and he did eat also Gen. 3.6 And the second Adam who was most entirely innocent and guilty of no sort of sin was yet liable to temptation like as we are being in all points tempted like as we are yet without sin Heb. 4.15 Nay says the Apostle it was necessary that he should be so that by what he felt in himself he might the better know how to shew mercy and have compassion upon us In all things says he it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren that he might be a merciful as well as a faithful High Priest for in that he himself hath suffer'd being tempted he is able to succour them that are tempted Heb. 2.17 18. As for our being tempted then or invited to any sin by our bare lusts and inclinations after it in it self and before it has got any further it is no deadly sin or damnable transgression It is the scene of good endeavour the tryal of obedience a test of our great love and preference of God and his Law before all the world besides yea even before our own dearest lusts and our own selves It is nothing more than befel Adam before he had sinned or than befel Christ who never knew sin and therefore in it self bare lust and desire or being tempted and invited to sin cannot be damnably sinful As for our Lusts or Temptations 't is true they differ in degrees according as our desires of that evil which we are tempted to are indulged and have advanced more or less For sometimes a lust may stir but as soon as ever it is observed it is again extinguished The pleasure of the sin whether by being seen or fansied raises in us a sudden thought or desire after it but the lust is expelled as soon as it is discovered it is not suffered to remain and dwell in us but is presently thrown out with indignation For we turn away our fancy from the evil thing and will not endure to think upon it or to continue craving and lusting after it And this is a power over our own desires and a way of breaking the strength of temptation which is incident only to grown men and to perfect Christians and that not in all instances of temptation but only in such as are not extraordinary in themselves and which have been often vanquished and triumphed over It is in such cases where use has made the conquest easie and long custom of ceasing and turning away from the inveigling desire has taken off all the difficulty so that now we are able to silence and subdue the lust as soon as we discern it And as for these feeble desires and impotent temptations there is no question but that a good Christian may be under them and yet be in no danger of being condemned for them But then at other times our lusts live longer and advance higher they grow up to good degrees till they are able to contend and strive against our mind and conscience so that even when at last they are denied and our wills chuse to do what God commands in spite of them yet is it after much struggling and opposition The flesh lusteth against the spirit as well as the spirit lusteth against the flesh and although at last the fleshly lusts are overpower'd and cannot prevail with our wills to chuse on their side yet do they strive hard and contend for it And here a lust is not presently subdued as soon as it is discerned but it strives and struggles it can make head against the Law in the mind although it cannot overcome it it has some interest in the will although it have not an interest sufficient for the will hearkens to it for some time and considers of what it offers notwithstanding at last it reject its suit and through the sollicitations of a more powerful Favourite resolves against it And this power our lusts have in us whilst we are young Converts and of a more imperfect goodness nay in some very great temptations indeed such as are the fear of death and bodily torments especially they will struggle thus in those who are the most perfect Christians of all But now when our lusts are in this dâ—gree so as to stay upon our Souls for some time and to strive against our spirits for the consent of our wills before they are â—inally denied it yet if they go no further than bare lust and our wills do not after all their struggling consent to them or chuse the evil thing which is craved by them they are still uncondemning and incident to an Heir of Salvation And this as I take it is clear from what S t Paul himself says of the truly regenerate or of those who in his words walk in the spirit For in them he says plainly that the flesh lusteth against the spirit albeit it is not able to prevail over it so that even in doing what the spirit commands them they do against the contrary will and lusting of the flesh which gainsays it The flesh lusteth against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh so that even in fulfilling the will of the spirit you contradict another will of your lusts and cannot do or do not the things that you would Gal. 5.16 17. Nay even Christ himself who knew no sin nor ever committed any thing which
and pains in fixing of our thoughts and raising of our desires through some bodily indisposition or unforeseen accidents which we cannot help our minds run sometimes still astray and our desires are cold and languid this unwill'd dulness and distraction shall not influence our main state it is a thing which we cannot help and no man living is perfectly free from it and therefore God will not be severe upon it but in great mercy he will pity and connive at it For as for the attention of our minds and the fixedness of our thoughts either in prayer or in any other business it is a thing which is not always in our own power but may be hindred and interrupted by many accidents whether we will or no. For any thing that makes our bodily spirits tumultuary and restless renders our attention small and interrupted Any high motion of our blood any former impression upon our spirits either by our precedent studies or our crowd of business will make great variety of thoughts and roving fancies obtrude themselves upon us and this is our natural frame and constitution which we must submit to and cannot remedy We can no more prevent it than we can prevent our dreams but our fancies will be struck and diverting thoughts will be thrown into us whether we will or no. For from the natural union of our souls and bodies our minds in their most spiritual operations of thinking and understanding go along with our bodily spirits and apprehend after their impressions and we can as well refuse to see when our eyes are open or to taste what is put into our mouths as we can refuse to have a thought of those things which are impressed upon our bodily fancy or imagination The connexion betwixt these is necessary and natural and there is no breaking or avoiding it So that let us be either at our prayers or at any other exercise if any temper of our bodies any accidental motion of our blood any former impressions of foregoing studies or other business stir in our fancies our thoughts must needs be diverted and our attention disturbed by them Nay in our prayers we are more apt to find it thus than in any other thing For there men oft-times use violence and screw up the fixedness of their minds and the fervency of their hearts to the highest pitch and then their bodily spirits being overstrained are liable not only to be discomposed by outward accidents but also to give back and fall of themselves and when in this manner they withdraw there is room made till they can be again recollected for other thoughts to arise instead of them All this I say happens from the very nature and frame of our bodies and from that dependance which our minds and thoughts themselves have upon them so that we cannot prevent or overcome it wholly We may and ought indeed to strive against these distractions as much as we can and to compose our thoughts as much as our natural temper or our present circumstances will suffer us when they wander in our prayers as soon as we discern it we may recollect them and when other thoughts intrude as soon as they are observed we may reject them but then this is all that we can do or that God requires we should do for we cannot pray perfectly and continuedly without them And then as for the zeal and fervency of our affections whether in our prayers or in any thing else they are fickle and very changeable and do not depend so much upon the choice of our wills as upon the temper of our bodies Some upon every occasion are more warm and eager in their passions either of love or hatred hopes or fears joy or sorrow than other men either are or can be For there is a difference in tempers as well as in palates and mens passions do no more issue out upon the same things in the same eagerness than their stomachs do after the same food with the same degrees of appetite So that as for a great fervency and a vehement affection every man cannot work himself up to it because all tempers do not admit of it For zeal and affectionateness in Devotion as in other things is more a mans temper than his choice and therefore it is not to be expected that all people should be able to raise themselves up to a transporting pitch in it but only that they should who are born to it Nay even they whose natural temper fits them for a great fervency and a high affection are not able to work themselves up to it at all times For no mans temper is constant and unchangeable seeing our very bodies are subject to a thousand alterations either from things within or from others that are without us If a mans blood is put into an irregular ferment either by a cold air or an inward distemper or any discomposing accident it spoils not only the fixedness of his thoughts but the zeal of his affections likewise Let there be any damp or disorder any dulness or indisposition either upon a mans blood or spirits and the discomposure of his body is presently felt in his soul for his thoughts flag and his passions run low and all his powers are under a cloud and suffer an abatement And this every man finds in himself when he labours under a sickly and crazy temper an aking head or any other bodily indisposition For our passions are bodily powers and are performed altogether by bodily instruments they live and dye with them and are subject to all their coolings and abatements their changes and alterations And therefore as long as our bodily tempers and dispositions alter and by reason of a number of accidents whether from without or from within themselves are still changeable and unconstant the zeal and fervency of our affections must needs be so too Thus is some distraction of mind and chilness of affection either in our prayers or in pursuit of any other thing most necessarily incident to all men We cannot wholly prevent them or live altogether free from them but sometimes they will break in and seize upon us do what we can And since we cannot help them God will not be always angry or eternally torment us for them No he knows that we are flesh and blood and his love and favour to us doth not alter as our unsetled thoughts or bodily tempers do He measures us not by the fixedness of our thoughts or by the fervency of our affections which are not always in our own power but by our wills and actions which are So that if we are careful to will and chuse what is pleasing to him and from our hearts entirely to obey him we need not doubt but that whatever involuntary distractions there may be sometimes in our thoughts or abatements in our bodily tempers whilst we are at our prayers we shall still be accepted by him We shall be accepted I say and the blessings
and unprofitable were noted by the word it self which we translate idle yet is it no unusual thing in the Scriptures by several words to mean and intend more than in their literal sense they do express Thus are the abominable works of darkness mentioned Eph. 5 called unfruitful works where the meaning surely is not only that they bring in no profit or advantage but also that they are most deadly and mischievous v. 11 and the wicked servant spoken of Mat. 25 is called the unprofitable servant v. 30. And after the same use of speech our words which do not only tend to none but to very ill fruit may be called idle or unprofitable words And so they are in this place For the idle words whereof our Saviour speaks v. 36 are such words as are not only idle and unprofitable but positively wicked and evil being indeed false slanderous and reviling words as will appear from the consideration of these particulars For the words which are threatned in that 36. ver are such as are a sign not of a trifling but of an evil heart How can ye says he being evil speak good things for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh So that as a good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth or speaketh good things an evil man likewise out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth evil things v. 34 35. And being the fruits of an evil heart they are the signs not of an impertinent but of an evil man The tree is corrupt says he if the fruit be corrupt for the tree is known by its fruits v. 33. And since they are such words as are thus sinful in themselves and an argument of so much sin in us they shall in the last Judgment be charged upon us to condemn us For by thy words says he as well as actions thou shalt be justified and by thy words if they be such idle words as I mean thou shalt be condemned v. 37. The words then which are spoken of in this place from the 33. to the 38. ver are such as are a sign of a wicked heart as make a wicked man and render us in the last Judgment liable to condemnation But now words of this black dye and of these mischievous effects are not every idle and impertinent but false slanderous railing or otherwise sinful and forbidden words But false and slanderous words are especially struck at in this place such as were those lying and contumelious ones that occasioned all this discourse when the Jews most reproachfully charged his Miracles upon the Devil telling him that he cast out Devils through Beelzebub the Prince of the Devils v. 24. Upon occasion of which black calumny he proceeds in all the following verses to warn them against such blasphemous speeches demonstrating clearly the unreasonableness of them v. 25 to 31 the sinfulness of them ver 33 34 35 and the mischievous effects of them in the two next verses Such reproachful words as these let me tell you says he you shall be called to an account for as well as for your works and actions I say unto you and you may believe me for you will find it true that every idle or slanderous and reproachful word such as now you have spoken against me that men shall speak they shall give an account thereof in the day of judgment For when that day comes think you of it as you please now mens words as well as their actions shall be called to an account by thy words thou shalt be justified and if they have been such as yours now are by thy words thou shalt be condemned ver 36 37. And thus by all this it appears that the idle word here threatned by our Lord is not every word that is vain and useless but only such as are railing false or slanderous And in this sense some Manuscripts read the place For in the Book of Steph. it is not every idle but every wicked word that men shall speak they shall give an account thereof in the day of judgment So that as for this third scruple it is as groundless as was the former no good man need to be disquieted by it since they shall never be condemned for it CHAP. VI. Of the Sin against the Holy Ghost which is a fourth cause of scruple The CONTENTS Some good mens fear upon this account What is meaâ—â— in Scripture by the Holy Ghost Holy Ghost or Spirit is taken for the gifts or effects of it whether they be first ordinary either in our minds and understandings or in our wills and tempers or secondly extraordinary and miraculous Extraordinary gifts of all sorts proceed from one and the same Spirit or Holy Ghost upon which account any of them indifferently are sometimes called Spirit sometimes Holy Ghost Holy Ghost and Spirit are frequently distinguished and then by Holy Ghost is meant extraordinary gifts respecting the understanding by Spirit extraordinary gifts respecting the executive powers The summ of this Explication of the Holy Ghost What sin against it is unpardonable To sin against the Holy Ghost is to dishonour him This is done in every act of sin but these are not unpardonable What the unpardonable sin is Of sin against the ordinary endowments of the Holy Ghost whether of mind or will the several degrees in this all of them are pardonable Of sin against the Spirit Blaspheming of this comes very near it and was the sin of the Pharisees Mat. 12 but it was pardonable Of sinning against the Holy Ghost The Holy Ghost the last means of reducing men to believe the Gospel that Covenant of Repentance The sin against it is unpardonable because such sinners are irreclamable All dishonour of this is not unpardonable for Simon Magus dishonoured it in actions who was yet capable of pardon but only a blaspheming of it in words No man is guilty of it whilst he continues Christian. ANother causless ground of fear which disquiets the minds and affrights the hearts of good Christian people is the sin against the Holy Ghost They hear very dreadful things spoken of it for our Saviour Christ who knew it best and who at the last Day is to judge of it has told us plainly before-hand that he who blasphemeth the Holy Ghost shall never be forgiven neither in this world nor in the world to come Mat. 12.32 or as S t Mark expresses it he shall never have forgiveness but is liable to eternal damnation Mark 3.29 This is a fearful Sentence upon a desperate sin and seeing they are in darkness about it and do not well understand it they know not but that they themselves may be guilty of it nay some of a timorous temper and abused minds go further and think that they really are But to cure their fears and to quiet their minds in this matter there needs nothing more be done than to give them right apprehensions and a clear
indifferently by either name being sometimes called the Spirit and sometimes the Holy Ghost But although as I say for this reason the words Spirit and Holy Ghost are sometimes used promiscuously to signifie all or any of these extraordinary gifts indifferently yet what is very material to our purpose sometimes nay very frequently they are distinguished And then by the Holy Ghost is meant not all extraordinary gifts indifferently but particularly those which respect our understandings not executive powers consisting rather in illumination than in power and action of which sort are the gift of tongues of prophecy of discerning Spirits of knowledg of revelation and such like Thus the lying against that part of the gift of discerning Spirits which consisted in understanding the thoughts and purposes of the heart is called lying to the Holy Ghost For so S t Peter who was endowed with this gift tells Ananias when he would have imposed upon him Why hath Satan filled thine heart saith he to lye to the Holy Ghost Acts 5.3 And S t Stephen's being filled with an extraordinary revelation of Christ's sitting at God's right hand in Heaven is called his being filled with the Holy Ghost Acts 7.55 But more especially the gift of Tongues and Prophecy is dignified with that name Thus in the 10 th Chapter of the Acts when the Gentiles in Cornelius's house begun to speak with Tongues upon S t Peters preaching it is said that the Holy Ghost fell on all them that heard the word and that on the Gentiles was poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost v. 44 45 46. The Disciples at Ephesus who being baptized with the Baptism of John cannot be supposed ignorant of the many miraculous Cures so much talked of among the Jews and of the strange effects of the Spirit in Jesus whom John preached did yet tell Paul that they had not so much as heard of the Holy Ghost Act. 19.2 which might very well be because the Holy Ghost or gift of Tongues and Prophecy were not given till after Jesus was glorified Joh. 7.39 But upon the preaching of S t Paul they were made partakers of it for when Paul laid his hands on them the Holy Ghost came upon them and they spake with tongues and prophesied Act. 19.6 And to name no more instances in this matter that place which I now hinted in the 7 th Chapter of S t John is a full proof of this restrained acceptation For there after all the instances of curing diseases casting out Devils and other effects of the Spirit in miraculous operations which Christ shewed wheresoever he came it is yet expresly affirmed that the Holy Ghost was not yet given because Jesus was not yet glorified by his Exaltation to the right hand of God v. 39. The Holy Ghost i. e. these gifts of Tongues of Prophecy and the like which are all that remained still to be shed abroad and which came upon the Apostles at the descent of the Holy Ghost at Pentecost Act. 2. Thus is the Holy Ghost set to denote not all the miraculous and extraordinary gifts of the Spirit promiscuously but particularly those which respect the mind or understanding such as the gift of Tongues of Prophecy of deep Knowledge and the like And on the other side as for the word Spirit it is set to express not all extraordinary gifts and effects of the Spirit in general but those by name which respect our executive not knowing powers and which consist not in illumination but in action Of which sort are the gift of healing diseases of casting out Devils of raising the dead and other miraculous operations Thus the miraculous courage and valour which was given to Othoniel is called the Spirit of the Lord Judg. 3.10 as is that likewise which was given to Gideon Judg. 6.34 and the miraculous strength of Samson is called the Spirit of the Lord upon Samson Judg. 14.6 And upon Christs working the miraculous cure upon the man with the withered hand S t Matthew applies to him that saying of the Prophet the Spirit of the Lord came upon him Mat. 12.18 and his casting out Devils he himself attributes to the Spirit of God I says he by the spirit of God cast out devils v. 28. As by the Holy Ghost therefore are meant particularly the gifts of illumination in Tongues and Prophecy so by the Spirit are signified the gifts of Power in healing diseases casting out Devils and doing mighty and miraculous works And both these together take up the full compass of the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit and are both distinctly expressed by S t Peter when he says that Jesus was anointed with the holy Ghost and with Power Act. 10.38 These then are the several meanings of the words Holy Ghost and holy Spirit They denote as the third Person in the Trinity the Holy Ghost himself so also those gifts and effects which proceed from him Whether those gifts are ordinary either in the endowments of our minds or the vertuous tempers and dispositions of our wills and hearts or extraordinary and miraculous Wherein yet we must observe this difference that the gifts of the executive powers in healing diseases casting out Devils working Miracles are by a peculiar name called the Spirit and the gifts of the knowing or understanding Faculties in Prophecies Revelations speaking with divers sorts of Tongues are by a contradistinct name called the Holy Ghost And thus having shewn what is meant by the Holy Ghost I proceed now to show 2. What is meant by sinning against it and which of all those which are committed against it is the unpardonable sin The only way whereby any men are capable to sin against God as was observed is by affront and dishonour for God is out of our reach for any other sort of injury and we cannot otherwise hurt him than by shewing our contempt and disrepect of him And in regard the Holy Ghost in his own person is very and essential God this must needs be the only way whereby we can sin against him likewise We cannot injure him in his Nature but only in his Honour but then we sin against him when we walk cross to him and oppose him or any way slight and contemn undervalue or reproach him or any of those excellent and Divine gifts which proceed from him Now this we do more or less in every sin For this Spirit of God is an universal instrument of faith and good life it has taken the utmost care by miracles and other its convictive evidences to evince the truth of Christs Doctrine and doth now still by his daily suggestions and sollicitations excite men to the observance of it And seeing the Spirit of God has shown it self so much concerned for our faith and obedience every act of unbelief and disobedience is a direct opposition to it and reproach of it and therefore is a sin against it But every such sin is not the unpardonable fault here mentioned For our very
wilful sins themselves as has been shewn are not desperate under Christs Religion the Gospel being a Covenant that doth not damn men upon all voluntary sin but encourages their repentance with the promise of pardon so that although all our sins are against God and his Spirit they are not irremissible but will be remitted to every man who repents of them It is not every sin against the Spirit of God then which this place in S t Matthew threatens so severely But the unpardonable sin is a sin by it self it has something peculiar in it from all other sins which by shutting us out from all possibility of repentance excludes it from all hopes of being forgiven And indeed it is plainly this It is a sinning against the Holy Ghost in the last sense as it signifies not only the power of miracles but also the gift of tongues and other illuminations of the Holy Ghost which came down upon the Apostles at Pentecost and it is such a sinning against these as is particularly by reviling and blaspheming them This and none other I take to be the sin here mentioned For the clearer discerning whereof we will consider the sins against the Holy Ghost in all the acceptations before laid down and in all of them except the last we shall find room for pardon and remission First then to sin against the Holy Ghost as it signifies the ordinary endowments and vertuous tempers of our minds and wills is not the unpardonable sin that is here spoken of For every sin against any particular vertue is a sin against the Holy Ghost in that sense Every act of drunkenness for instance is against the gift of sobriety and every act of uncleanness is against the gift of continency and so it is in the several actions of all other sorts of sin But now as for all these the great offer and invitation of the Gospel is that men would accept of mercy upon repentance The Incestuous Corinthian sinned deeply against the grace of chastity and he repented and was forgiven S t Peter denied his Lord and upon his repentance he was also pardoned and the same Grace has been allowed as we have seen to all other wilful sinners Nay in this sort of sinning against the Holy Ghost viz. by sinning against those Christian gifts and graces which he works in us there is mercy to very great degrees For sometimes we do not hearken to his holy motions but fall into lesser sins and offensive indecencies notwithstanding all his vertuous suggestions and endeavours to the contrary and then he is troubled and grieved at us Eph. 4.30 And at other times we venture upon more hainous crimes which quite lay waste the conscience and undo all the vertuous temper and resolution of our souls so that we lie long in our impenitence as David did in the matter of Vriah and are almost hardned in our wicked way before we are able again to recover out of it and in these offences the Spirit has been so much affronted and his importunate suggestions so frequently thrown out that he is almost ready to forsake us and to leave us to our selves so that it may be called a quenching of him 1 Thess. 5.19 But although the last of these especially be very dangerous yet is neither of them desperate But after we have been guilty of them God continues still to make offers and invitations and by his long-sufferance and his gracious providences and the repeated calls of his Word and Ministers he still endeavours to recover us to pardon by recalling us to repentance Yea the holy Spirit it self makes fresh assaults upon us and tries again whether we will hearken to it and be relieved by it as it was with David after he had complained of his being deprived of Gods presence and of the holy Spirit 's being taken from him Psal. 51.11 and as it is with every other reclaimed back-slider The sinning against the Holy Ghost therefore in this sense as it signifies the ordinary gifts and graces of the Holy Ghost is far from being the unpardonable sin and is manifestly under the grace of pardon and repentance Secondly Nor is a sin against the extraordinary gifts of casting out Devils healing diseases working miracles or other things called the Spirit that unpardonable sin which is here intended To blaspheme the Spirit 't is true comes very near it and when men are once gone on to that God is very nigh giving of them up and using no more means about them to bring them either to Faith or Repentance which are the only way to pardon and forgiveness But although this pitch of sin be extreme dangerous yet in great likelihood it is not wholly desperate for after all the dirt that men had thrown upon this evidence viz. the miraculous operation wrought by Christ whilst he continued upon earth God was still pleased to use some means further to bring them to believe and that was the evidence of the Holy Ghost which came down to compleat all after that Jesus was glorified Act. 2. This great proof which was to be poured out upon the Disciples at Pentecost and upon other Christians at the Imposition of their hands for a good while after might effect that wherein the other had failed and be acknowledged by those very men who had blasphemed the former So that their case notwithstanding it were gone extreme far was not for all that quite hopeless because one remedy still remained which God resolved he would use to reclaim them though after that he would try no more The blaspheming of the Spirit then was very near the unpardonable because unamendable sin but yet it was not fully grown up to it it was in the next degree to unpardonable but yet if it went no further it might be pardoned still And of this I think we have a clear proof even in those blasphemous Pharisees whose reviling of the Spirit was the occasion of all this discourse For as for the Spirit they blasphemed it in this very Chapter when upon occasion of the miraculous cure of the man with the withered hand v. 13 and of Christs casting out of Devils v. 28 both which were so manifestly wrought before their eyes that none of them durst question or deny the working of them they go blasphemously to charge these evident effects of the Spirit upon the power of Magick and to say that these works of God were performed by the Devil For when these mighty effects of the Spirit were urged to them in behalf of Jesus they answered and said says S t Matthew this Fellow doth not cast out Devils but by Beelzebub the Prince of the Devils v. 24. Here is a reproach to these miraculous gifts of the Spirit as great as can be invented for it is nothing less than an attributing them to the most foul and loathsom Fiends in Nature even to the very Devils themselves But yet this Blasphemy as dangerous as it was is not
utterly unpardonable and hopeless For our Lord himself in this very Chapter encourages their hopes by giving them a promise that some further means should still be used to cure their Infidelity after that they had blasphemed this telling these very men that the sign of his Death and Resurrection with the other evidences of the Holy Ghost which were to ensue upon it should be a further argument to satisfie them in what they inquired after viz. his being the Messiah or the Son of God For when certain of the Pharisees presently upon his finishing this Discourse of their Blaspheming of the Holy Spirit v. 37 made Answer to him saying Master we would see a sign from thee to confirm to us the truth of that pretension he answered as S t Matthew goes on an evil and an Adulterous Generation seeketh a sign and there shall no further sign be given it but only the sign of the Prophet Jonas and that indeed shall For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the Whales Belly and was afterwards deliver'd out of it to go and preach to the Ninevites so shall the son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth and after that rise again to preach by his Apostles to you and all the world sending to you for a further evidence still the Holy Ghost v. 38 39 40. So that as for this blasphemy of the spirit wherewith the Pharisees reviled it it was not utterly unpardonable but was still within the possibility of pardon For after they had committed it Christ promised them a further Argument in his Resurrection after the Example of Jonas which should be a new sign added to all that they had already seen to gain them over to faith or belief and thereby to pardon and forgiveness every sin being pardonable to him that believeth And this pardonableness of blaspheming of the spirit our Lord further intimates in that very place by a wary change of the phrase when he comes to speak of the unpardonableness of it calling the unpardonable blasphemy not a blasphemy against the spirit although it was the spirit which was indeed blasphemed v. 24 and whereof he had just made mention v. 28 but a blasphemy against the Holy Ghost which being as S t John says not yet given could not yet be blasphemed v. 31 32. But Thirdly The desperate and unpardonable sin here mentioned which shall never be forgiven neither in this world nor in that which is to come is a sin against the last and greatest evidence of all viz. the gift of tongues of prophecy and of other things called the Holy Ghost In all the other evidence that came before to win men to a belief of Christ's Religion which is the only means of pardon to the World God had still a reserve and resolved upon some further course if they proved ineffectual If the testimony of John Baptist to Christ's being the Lamb of God if the message of an Angel at his conception the Star at his birth and the Quire of Angels at his entrance into the World if the innocency of his life the wisdom of his words and the mightiness of his wonders in commanding the winds and seas in curing diseases in casting out Devils in restoring the weak to strength and the dead to life if all these prove unsuccessful and unable to perswade an Infidel and perverse Generation yet still God resolves to try one means more which before that time the World never saw nor heard of and that is the ample and most full effusion of the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles at Pentecost and upon others at the imposition of their hands for a long time after This further evidence shall still be given to subdue the stubbornness of mens unbelief which had proved too hard for all the former When I am departed from you says our Saviour to his Apostles I will send the Holy Ghost who is the Comforter or Advocate unto you And when he is come he shall plead my Cause more convincingly than the operations of the Spirit have done hitherto For he shall reprove and convince the world and those who remained Infidels after they had seen all the evidence of the Spirit of their own sin in not believing on me and of my righteousness and truth in saying I am the Messiah because he shall shew that I am owned above and am gone to my Father whence I have sent him down so plentifully upon you John 16.8 9 10. But when once God had given this proof he had done all that he designed for this is the last remedy which he had decreed to make use of to cure the infidelity of an unbelieving Age. So that if men shall use it as they have done all that went before and if instead of being perswaded by it they shall proceed not only to sleight and despise but what is more to revile and blaspheme it as they have already done with the Spirit then is the irreversible Decree gone out against them and God is unalterably resolved to strive no more with them but to let them dye in their unbelief If they should be won by it indeed and believe upon it be their former offences what they will no less than a blaspheming of the Spirit yet may they justly expect to be pardoned For the offer of Grace is universal Whosoever believes and is baptized shall be saved Mark 16.16 and nothing is impossible to him that believeth Mark 9.23 But when once men have gone so far as to be guilty of it their sin is unpardonable because their Faith is impossible For they have rejected all the evidence which any man can urge for their conviction seeing they have despised all that which God has offered Their infidelity is stronger than can be cured by any Argument that Christ either has or will afford to prevail over it so that they must dye in their sin and there is no hope for them Indeed if God so please there is no question but that after they have once blasphemed it he can still so melt and soften fashion and prepare their minds that afterwards they shall hearken to the incomparable evidence of the Spirit and the Holy Ghost which to any honest mind are irresistible But this sin is of so provoking a nature that when once they are guilty of it he will not He has past an irreversible Decree upon them never more to meddle with them so that they never will be pardoned because as things stand they never will be reclaimed Which is the very reason which the Apostle himself gives of the desperate state of Apostate Christians For by renouncing of that faith which upon the evidence both of the spirit and the Holy Ghost they had been before convinced of they despite says he the Spirit of Grace as it implies both the Spirit and the Holy Ghost too so that as for them it is impossible to renew them again unto
repentance that being such a sin as God will never give repentance to Heb. 6.6 The sinning against the Holy Ghost in this sence then as it denotes the gift of tongues of prophecy c. which is the last evidence that God is resolved to make use of for the conversion of an unbelieving World is that unpardonable sin which shall never be forgiven And yet even here in this limited and contracted sence of the word Holy Ghost we must still proceed with some caution For it is not every affront and dishonour that is put upon these gifts which is the sin here styled irremissible Simon Magus cast a very high indignity and reproach upon them in his actions for he went about to purchase the gift of tongues and other sacred illuminations called the Holy Ghost which fell upon men at the imposition of the Apostles hands as if they had been only a trick to get money or a fit thing to drive a trade withal and make a gainful merchandise When Simon saw that through the laying on of the hands of the Apostles the Holy Ghost was given he offered them money says S t Luke saying Give me also this power that on whomsoever I lay hands he may receive the Holy Ghost Acts 8.18 19. This was a very great abuse and a most unworthy comparing of the heavenly and holy Spirit of God to a mercetable ware and vendible commodity thinking it fit to serve any ends and to minister to the basest purposes of filthy lucre and covetousness But yet this sin against the Holy Ghost in its strictest acceptation was not the unpardonable sin it came very near it indeed and would hardly be remitted but still in all likelihood it was remissible And therefore S t Peter although he be very severe upon this sordid man for the high affront doth not yet pronounce an irreversible doom of damnation upon him but on the contrary exhorts him to repent that the sin of his heart may be forgiven Repent says he of this thy wickedness and pray God if perhaps the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee ver 22. But that which is the desperately damning sin against the Holy Ghost which shall never be forgiven either in this world or in that which is to come is the sinning against it not by interpretation only in our actions but directly in our words and expressions It is our speaking reproachfully and slanderously of it as the Pharisees did of the spirit when they attributed it to Beelzebub And therefore it is expresly called the speaking blasphemously against the Holy Ghost Whosoever speaketh blasphemously against the Holy Ghost when he shall come it shall never be forgiven him neither in this world nor in the world to come Matth. 12.21 32. The great weight lyes in that for this heavy doom he denounced upon them says S t Mark because they said he hath an unclean spirit Mark 3 30. And thus at length we see what that sin against the Holy Ghost is whose doom is so dreadful and whose case is so desperate under the Gospel It is nothing less than a slandering and reviling instead of owning and assenting to that last evidence which God has given us of the truth of the Gospel in the gifts of tongues prophecy and other extraordinary illuminations called the Holy Ghost So that no man who ownes Christ's Religion and thinks he was no Impostor and believes that these miraculous gifts of the Holy Ghost were no magical shows or diabolical delusions can ever be guilty of it No before he arrive to that he must not only be an Infidel to the faith but also a Blasphemer of it he must not only disbelieve this last and greatest evidence but disparage and rail against it If then there be any man who ownes Christ's Authority and obeys his Laws and believes his Gospel and hopes in its promises and fears its threatnings and expects that every word of that Covenant which was confirmed to us by the infallible evidence of the Spirit and the Holy Ghost shall come to pass he is not more guiltless of any sin than of this against the Holy Ghost for he doth not so much as sleight and disparage but ownes and submits to it If good men therefore are afraid by reason of the irremissibleness of the sin against the Holy Ghost they fear where they need not and their scruple is utterly unreasonable and groundless For let it be as unpardonable as it will that shall not hurt them for they can never suffer by it since whilst they continue such as now they are they cannot possibly be guilty of it or of any thing that comes near it CHAP. VII The Conclusion The CONTENTS Some other causless scruples The point of growth in Grace more largely stated A summary repetition of this whole Discourse They may dye with courage whose Conscience doth not accuse them This accusation must not be for idle words distractions in Prayer c. but for a wilful transgression of some Law of Piety Sobriety c. above mentioned It must further be particular and express not general and roving If an honest mans heart condemn him not for some such unrepented sins God never will BEsides these scruples already mentioned some good minds may be put in fear and doubt of the safety of their present state because S t John says that whosoever is born of God sinneth not being no longer a child of God if he do 1 Joh. 3.6 9. But the sin here spoken of as was observed above is defined by S t John himself at the fourth verse of this Chapter to be not every deviation or going beside the Law but a wilful transgression and rejecting of the Law it self And this indeed is inconsistent with a regenerate state and puts us out of Gods favour making us liable to eternal destruction But then the case for these sins is not desperate seeing if once we forsake them and repent of them we are as safe again as ever we were before we committed them For our repentance will set us straight and if we transgress not wilfully again we are without the reach of condemnation Others doubt whether when once they have wilfully sinned they ever can repent or shall afterwards be pardoned because they read of Esau that after he had sold his birth-right with the blessing that attended it when he would have inherited it afterwards he was rejected and found no place of a change of mind or repentance though he sought it carefully with tears Heb. 12.17 In answer to this it will be sufficient to observe that this change of mind or repentance which Esau sought but could not find was not in himself but in his Father Isaac It was not in himself I say for there he did find a place for it being he was really possessed of it For he was heartily sorry for his former folly in parting with his birth-right and for his present unhappiness in being
hath proved to us abundantly that that Religion of his which we now renounce is a most certain truth of God All these marks are evidently attributed to that sin which the Apostle here speaks of and then what can any man think it to be less than an absolute Apostasie from the whole Religion and an utter abrenunciation of all the Laws of Christ Now whosoever wilfully falls under this I confess he is in a very deplorable and most desperate case Because for him as saith the Apostle there remains no more benefit from Christs Propitiation or Sacrifice for sin He has affronted that so enormously that God will never suffer him to be the better by it And this to a Jew ought to be no uncouth or surprizing Doctrine seeing he who thus renounced Moses could have no Sacrifice to atone for him For no propitiation was allowed for him who wilfully rejected any one particular Command of Moses but least of all if he had apostatized from the whole Law He that despised even any one particular threatning death in Moses's Law died without mercy under two or three Witnesses But now this Covenant and Law of Moses was sealed only in the blood of Bulls and Goats whereas this Covenant and Law of Christ which these men renounce that I am speaking of was confirmed in his own blood Moses the Authour of that Law was but a Servant whereas Christ the Authour of this was a Son If then the revolting from Moses was so unpardonable that it inevitably incurred death and put a man out of all hopes of propitiation and benefit of Sacrifice of how much sorer punishment as he most rationally argues must all Apostates from Christ be accounted worthy who by their falling away from his Religion tread under foot the Son of God himself a Person infinitely above Moses and count the blood not of Bulls and Goats but of the Christ of God wherewith this Covenant was sealed to be an unholy thing They are indeed irrevocably plunged in death and their apostatizing or drawing back from that Religion which upon so good evidence they had before acknowledged is to their own ruine and destruction ver 38. But although this total apostasie and abrenunciation of Christianity it self when 't is wilfully committed be thus remediless and desperate a sin yet is that nothing to the breach of any particular Law or to the wilful transgressions of any baptized man so long as he still continues Christian. For all his sins of one sort or other have the salvo of repentance provided for them and if he doth but once reform and amend them he shall not be condemned for them And thus having shewed that this place in the tenth Chapter to the Hebrews makes nothing against the pardonableness of any Christian mans sin upon repentance but only against the forgiveness of those who have apostatized from Christ and become unchristian I proceed now 2. To consider that other place in the sixth Chapter of the same Epistle where the Apostles words are these Therefore leaving the Principles of the Doctrine of Christ wherein we are wont to catechize even Children and Novices let us go on unto perfection and to treat of such things as are fit for grown men not laying again for such as are apostatized from it the first Foundations of the Christian Doctrine as are the Doctrine of repentance from dead works and of faith towards God of the Doctrine of Baptisms and of laying on of hands and of resurrection of the dead and of eternal Judgment And this will we do if God permit without returning as I say to prove again the foundations of the Faith to them who are fallen from it which indeed were a very vain and fruitless undertaking For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened or baptized and have tasted of the heavenly gift and were made Partakers of the Holy Ghost and have tasted of the good word of God and of the powers of Christs Kingdom or the World to come if after all this they shall wilfully fall away from this Faith it is impossible for them I say to be recovered or for us by any endeavours of ours to renew them again unto the Grace and Covenant of repentance because God is irreconcileably provoked by this revolt seeing thereby they crucifie to themselves the Son of God afresh and put him once again to an open shame Here indeed the Case is as desperate as it was before and 't is no wonder why it should because the sin is the very same For it is nothing less than an universal backsliding an apostasie both in faith and manners a renouncing of all the Religion and Laws of Christ whereof all these severe things are spoken As for the word which is here put to note this falling away it signifies for the most part a fall which admits of a rise again and is recoverable but sometimes it denotes a fall that is desperate and beyond all hopes of remedy Thus the Apostle speaking of the incredulous Jews to whom the Religion of Christ was a stumbling block and a rock of offence distinguishes betwixt these two stumbling and falling making the latter to be much more dangerous than the former and denying it when he affirms the other Have they stumbled says he that they should fall mortally and irrecoverably God forbid Rom. 11.11 And thus it signifies in this place For the falling away here spoken of is nothing less than a revolting from all Christ's Laws and Doctrines and an apostatizing from his whole Religion Which appears from several things that are here said of it some whereof they are said to fall from and others are said to be implied in their falling It appears I say from some things which they are said to apostatize or fall from They fall away from their Baptism which is expressed by the word enlightened the common name in the antient Church to signifie the baptized from the remission of sins the preaching of the Word and the administration of the Sacraments which are such priviledges and gifts of God as are afforded to persons baptized from the hopes of Heaven and all the promises and good word of God from the gift of tongues and other effects of the Holy Ghost whereof upon the imposition of the Apostles hands they had been made Partakers and from the power of working miracles that were so conspicuous under the appearance of Christ those times of Messiah which the Jews were wont to call the Age or world to come If those says the Apostle who were once baptized or enlightned and have tasted of the heavenly gift and were made partakers of the holy Ghost and have tasted of the good word or promise of God and the powers of the world to come if they shall fall away or apostatize from all these it is impossible to renew them v. 4 5 6. This as is evident is the Apostasie which is