pray that he went away rather justified than the other or justified and not the other according to a known Hebraism justified i. e. accepted approved by God in that particular Act of his Prayer to God as useth or ought to be done to him who is just and doth well The same is the Sense of the word Rom. 8. 33. 'T is God that justifieth who is he that condemneth We know the World doth condemn reproach hate us Christians for our Religion for our believing upon Jesus but that we despise because we know too that we have the favour and approbation of God for so doing Thus also it is recorded of Phinehas Psalm 106. 30 31. that he executed judgment slew Zimri and Cozbi in the Act of Uncleanness and it was counted to him for righteousness or for justification or the effect of it was justification for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 have often the same signification as Gal. 2. 21. i. e. he was and ought to be and ever shall be unto all Generations greatly approved and highly praised for that Action in so eminent a degree righteous and just done with so much Zeal and Courage for the Honour of his God and the good of his People And we read too how he was rewarded by God for it with the high Priest-hood in his Family Nay the justification of Abraham himself is said sometimes to be in the same sense for some one particular eminent Act of Obedience to God Rom. 3. 18. Heb. 11. 8 17. Jam. 2. 21. though at other times for his general Faith and Piety or obediential Temper to God And of this justification he is set forth as an eminent and extraordinary Example Rom. 4. So it is in like manner with all good men who walk in the steps of the Faith of Abraham as the Apostle phraseth it viz. who are religious obsequious to the Will of God in what manner and whensoever he shall sufficiently make it known to them and consequently men of sincere Probity of Spirit devoted to all that is good and just Of which hereafter This usage of a just man or justification may be distinguished into 1 negative or doing him no harm 2 positive doing good to him bestowing certain benefits and positive favours upon him But there are three more remarkable instances of both these and frequently mentioned in the Scripture The first is remission of sins upon repentance or an omission of punishment for them like as one that hath been just and never committed any sin useth to be treated He suffers no evil from God for sin and this is negative The second is the Holy Spirit 's influences operations in the Souls of Men. And the third is Eternal Salvation upon perseverance in a good and holy life All these are more particularly regarded by St. Paul in the Text As if he had said Therefore being by Faith of which presently restored to the Favour of God particularly expressed in the forgiveness of sins the gift of the Holy Spirit the promises and assurances of Eternal life we have peace with God We are in a state of Amity and Friendship with him and we have Peace and Tranquility in our own Consciences which do not now threaten us with God's Anger or Punishment and that through our Lord Jesus Christ Now if this be the true notion of justification when it is joined with Faith as I think it is Then first it is not the same with sanctification or making a man inherent holy and just Justifying the ungodly through Faith in the Scripture-style is not making an ungodly man godly as the Papists Socinians and Grotius would have it A mistake in that learned Man which hath led him into many other Misinterpretations of Scripture Nor 2 is it in a strict Sense an accounting or reckoning a Man perfectly just or more than he really and truly is for that were to say that God may be deceived and judge things otherwise than they are It is true the Church of England in one of her Articles hath used the words accounting righteous for the merits of Jesus Christ by faith and not for our works But there needs no force to make them signifie the treating or using as righteous for the Merit of Christ upon the condition of Faith without any Merit on our part which is the true Christian Doctrine of Justification as we shall presently see Nor 3 is Justification to pronounce or declare a Man inherently just as it were in a solemn Sentence who is not so for this were to make God give a false sentence Nor 4 is it to cover or cloth a Man even a penitent sinner with the pure Robes of Christ's perfect Righteousness and then to appear to God pure and spotless as Jesus Christ himself For this were to suppose God to look no further than the outside and represent him like old Isaac deceived by Rebekah and Jacob. These are the notions of men who seem never to attend to the proper Nature of things but are content to talk only in Figures And in truth they might do much more harm if they were not antidoted by other plain Scripture Doctrines such as that of the necessity of Holiness of heart and life for the forgiveness of sins and everlasting Salvation Nor 5 is Justification God's imputing the Righteousness of Christ to Man who lives in any sinfull Breach or Neglect of God's Law There is indeed a comfortable and true notion under those phrases and that is That sinners fare the better for the compleat Righteousness or perfect Obedience of Christ Great and many indeed were the benefits God was pleased to afford sinfull mankind for the sake of Jesus Christ No less than such as these his long suffering and forbearance all sorts of temporal Blessings all the inward and outward means of Vertue and Goodness All this even to sinners while sinners which some learned men have called degrees of remission of sins I should rather say instances of justification or dealing by men as useth to be done to the innocent and just who had never offended Then further upon true repentance entire pardon for all past sins All in the other life and all in this except what God in his fatherly Wisdom may think fit for our discipline and means of further improvement in Vertue and Holiness constant forgiveness upon constant repentance for the interfering faults of good Men and finally Everlasting life All this Men owe to the compleat Righteousness of Jesus Christ from the beginning to the End of his life It was for his sake God was pleased to have any regard to or compassion upon the degenerate Race of Mankind that God might by so eminently rewarding him shew the World how acceptable to him Holiness and Vertue were and encourage to the Attainment of the highest Degree of them possible All this is true and a reasonable Administration of God in the Government of the World But yet it is not
the spirit mortifie the deeds of the flesh Most plainly Phil. 2. 12. Work out your own salvation for it is God that worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure Nay the same Doctrine may seem fairly intimated in several places of the Old Testament as Deut. 30. 16. God promiseth to circumcise the hearts of the Israelites and their Posterity c. where we may observe a spiritual promise in the body of the Law And Jerem. 13. 23. Can an Aethiopian change his skin c. and David prays in his penitential Psalm that God would not take his holy Spirit from him as supposed necessary to his perseverance much more than to Repentance Although it is to be acknowledged that this Doctrine of the Necessity of Divine Grace Influence and Operation and especial Providence to make and keep Men inwardly holy and good was only reached by some of the Prophets or most eminent Saints or of a sublimer genius among the Jews the generality never thinking of any such thing and when by Christianity taught denied by them Nor was it scarce ever dreamt of among the Gentiles except here and there a Philosopher or Poet may have dropt something that looks that way But hardly any Doctrine more common and known in the Christian Church where every Child learns it before its Letters And certainly the Belief and frequent Attention to so near especially and constant Presence of the Deity to the Souls of Men as it is true so is it many ways a great Cherisher of Piety and Religion It were to be wished that the Fathers supposed by some to know best the mind of the Apostles as being nearest to them had enlightned us here in this obscurely to us delivered Doctrine But these next of all to the Apostles were content to speak simply and little varying from the Apostolical words Clem. Epist to the Cor. p. 41. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And we therefore being called by the Will of God in Jesus Christ are not justified by our own Wisdom or Understanding or Piety or Works which we have done in Sanctity of Heart but by Faith by which the Almighty hath ever justified all Men from the beginning which differs little in words nothing in sense from the Apostle Rom. 4. in the case of Abraham And the Author to the Hebrews Chap. 11. explain'd in the Discourse above But if we go further downward among the Fathers I do not know whether we shall learn much concerning this point Those who please may try themselves Just Martyr the Philosopher seems to me to have taken the Notion of it best and St. Augustine and St. Jerome in some places at least though worst with a prejudice and narrowness common to Persons of Wit Eloquence and Zeal in their own Religion especially when flourishing in Power and Reputation Such a zeal in so truly excellent Religion as the Christian even when mistaken is pardonable But more acceptable to the wiser sort of Men when attended with Judgment and a just regard to Truth St. Jerome seems to have been a greater Master in the Language of the Jews so far as Biblical Hebrew and Chaldee went than in their Opinions and their Books in which they are contained And though he may sometimes mention some-what he had learned in conversation with his Masters as in his Epistle to Algasia the Collection called Misna as I think against Morinus and a Custom or two of the Jews and their opinion concerning Melchisedeck in his Epistle to the Evangelists Yet I do not know perhaps others may know better whether he hath quoted any one Sentence out of any Jewish Book in its own Language But without doubt there were enough of them in his time to have quoted and which contained the same Opinions concerning Justification which we have cited in these Annotations and the Jews teach to this day Or if St. Jerome had read such Books it seems it was not in his thoughts to compare St. Paul's Doctrine in this matter with that of the Jews Let any one read St. Jerome on Gal. 3. St. Aug. quaest 80. quaest 73. and de spir litera ad Marcell and his Expos of the Epistle to the Gal. and his Book de fide operibus and others There may be some things very good now and then dropt But generally what they say is of such confused and uncertain Sense and sometimes not true that a man is little the better but only to know that such men have said so I would not be here thought by this to desire the Abatement of the just Esteem of so great a Name as the Fathers For I believe them to have been generally of exceeding Piety and the greatest men of their Ages for knowledge some in one thing some in another some in all but it cannot be allowed that they were equal either in Philosophy the true knowledge and distance of the Natures of things or in the skill of expounding and interpreting the Holy Scriptures which this present Age by the good Providence of Almighty God doth enjoy We shall I think be very unjust to it if we do not acknowledge so much May the effect of this our advantage in knowledge be also our improvement in a substantially religious and vertuous Temper and Practice without which it is but diversion not business that which may please the Speculators but profit no body and nothing mend the State of the World ADVERTISEMENT BY reason of the Affinity of the Subjects of Justification and Satisfaction I had thoughts of adding a Discourse of this last and that under these general Heads I. What was the Doctrine of the Scriptures concerning that which is so called viz. Satisfaction by the death and merits of Jesus Christ II. What was the distinct Nature Ends and Uses of a Sacrifice and particularly of an Hylastick or Expiatory one III. How they operated or what they contributed toward the procuring securing or recovering the Favour of God in general and particularly that instance of his Favour Remission of Sins upon Repentance and how IV. Whether Jesus Christ dying was not a proper Expiatory Sacrifice V. Whether he was not in many respects a more excellent Expiatory Sacrifice than the Patriarchal or Mosaical VI. What is the true and distinct Notion of a Merit and how the Merits of Jesus Christ might obtain in general the Favour of God to sinfull Mankind and particularly Remission of Sins to Penitents and the reasonableness thereof VII Whether the Act of God's forgiving Sins to penitent Sinners in Consideration of the Sacrifice and Merits of Christ Jesus instead of the Act of punishing them might not be called properly and according to the Original and received use of the word Satisfaction i. e. of as much value of equal or more good Effects to the Community or rather in the World which God governs In all which I think much would be said which hath not been said before or not so clearly and distinctly But
any in sincerity and reality but only for by-ends and in outward appearance But this is certainly false and there are those in the World who after impartial Enquiry and mature Deliberation of what is really true and good nor do they affect to be mistaken as wilfully vicious Men do are convinced that Vertue and Holiness are the Perfections of their Nature and the only Source of Felicity of Life which leaves not there but intirely possesseth them with the most inward inclinations of their heart to it and with the most ardent Aspires to the utmost perfection of it their Nature can receive and are so uneasie under the Delays Hindrances and Oppositions they meet withall in this State that they have oft-times much ado to secure their patience and dutifull Behaviour to God Almighty That against the pretended impossibility 2. For the great difficulty pain and pain we say that it is not so great and frightfull as is usually imagined For 1. We are not alone and helpless far from it There is in this design and resolution of rescuing our selves from the Dominion and Slavery of that evil One of blind Concupiscence contemptible Appetites and pernicious Lusts and of returning to our just Obedience to God and Reason there is I say one greater for us than all that are against us The Grace of God is always ready to assist us Nay it is that which prevents us all in some degree or other with good Counsels and Desires and causeth us to begin to look the right-way to bethink our selves to be serious and not to play the children all our lives This if we cherish them is more at hand still and if conscious or suspicious of our own weakness we by earnest Prayers implore it and by our Endeavours concur with it we shall not fail of such a supply which together with the Divine Providence disposing the circumstances of our lives will render the Work much easier than was at first thought and in some time delightfull The Heathens themselves were not ignorant of Divine Operations and Influence upon the Souls of Men but it makes a considerable and in my Opinion a very august part of the Doctrine of Revealed Religion But 2 It is truly said that this difficulty of change from bad to good of withdrawing from old but evil company and practice is principally at the beginning 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Things are indeed by the Divine Disposition come to that pass that Vertue is to be sweat for at the beginning the way to it at first is steep and rough but when the Ascent is mounted there opens a spacious and smooth plain which makes abundant recompence by its ease and delight The suite the progress of a virtuous and holy state of Soul perpetually exercising itself in Acts of Godliness Righteousness and Sobriety is full of pleasures the most sincere penetrating constant and durable without any mixture remorse uncomfortable reflexions suspicions or forebodings nay multiplied by remembrances and hopes which Vice never dared to pretend to When the first brunt is over and the Inclinations of the mind set right and restored to their primitive just and natural order and constitution for Virtue was first Vice super-induced the great pain and difficulty then will be to commit a sin to do a foolish or ill thing and continue in it the ease the pleasure will be to acknowledge condemn and forsake it Then the scales will be turned not gratifying obeying submitting to a malapert Appetite an insolent Lust a blind Passion but the denial command suppression steady Government of all these by Religion and Reason will be our glory peace and intimate satisfaction They have been the Heathens too who have said such things as these of which sure many of these very Wanderers could not be ignorant Semita certè tranquillae per virtutem patet unica vitae Much like that of the Divine Poet Great peace have all they that keep thy Law Now if it be thus as most certainly it is bad Men are mistaken in their plea and much out in their reckoning when they fright themselves and others from a good and virtuous life by the painfulness of it For the tediousness and pleasure of an whole journey such as our life is would be very childishly estimated by the first mile or two And yet further 3 I think it most certain that we may not shrink at the first onset that the very first steps of change and conversion from bad manners to good some of the first Acts of Repentance Such as are self-condemnation indignation sorrow and contrition of heart for our most beloved sins firm resolution utterly to forsake them followed with watchfulness and endeavour earnest prayers to God for forgiveness I say even these have that secret pleasure and satisfaction attending them which out-weighs their trouble and difficulty 'T is true to be disordered ashamed confounded and vexed at our wickedness and folly to despise and reproach our selves to pull from our hearts with a violent hand that which hath had so long and kind an abode there and still makes great resistance for all cannot be done at once this certainly by it self is no desirable condition But then it is blended with or immediately followed by a strange secret joy and satisfaction diffused through the intimate recesses of the Spirit from a sense of the beginning recovery and reconvalescency of our Souls of their restitution to their natural constitution at the first birth of Souls of the assured reconciliation and favour of Almighty God our Heavenly Father and finally of an hopeful nay safe condition to Eternity So that take all together a Man may with great assurance affirm that there is or may be more of joy than sadness more of ease and comfort than pain and sorrow in Repentance the sowrest diet a good Man tasts of and this proportion is still the greater by how much the grief for sin is more penetrating and pressing as being an evidence of its sincerity A Penitent upon his knees sipping in his briny Tears as they trickle may take down a more delicious draught than he who quaffs off his full Bowls filled with the choicest Liquors Sincere Repentance is like relief under a heavy burden or the setting a disjoynted limb or the recovering of good appetite clear health and vigorous sense by a bitter Potion or two So is it I say even now found by experience as unhappy as our nature now is and those who are at present very hard to believe it will never I am sure employ their time better than to make tryal of it themselves All this I doubt not was most remarkably verified in holy David one of the greatest Souls that ever dwelt in an earthly Body of which he himself be witness in several Psalms and it may be often observed in other good Men after such a performance who without any design never appear more easie and pleased in themselves and more innocently
words read and see what instruction they will afford us to discourse upon By the term Fool it is well known that in the Scripture generally is not meant only an ignorant or erroneous Person but also one who is wicked and of ill-manners because he knows not or mistakes his own interest as well as departs from his Duty The Hebrew word is here 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies him that doth foul as well as foolish Actions So Nabal is said to have done according to his Name when he was so ungratefull and churlish to David as well as so foolish and imprudent that had it not been for Abigail by sparing a little he had lost all 1 Sam. 25. 25. And the Syriack Version here renders the Hebrew word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. an unjust wicked and perverse Man 2. It follows hath said in his heart i. e. he hath thought so though perhaps he never dared to say so for that was Blasphemy and therefore death by the Jewish Law 3. There is no God i. e. there is no such thing really existent 't is but a name or an imagination Or if he be any where yet he is not present upon this Earth he meddles not with humane Affairs Some foolish wicked Men in their thoughts deny either the Being or the Providence of God extending it self to this lower World Like the Ancient Sect of the Epicureans among the Greeks long after these Fools of the Psalmist and consequently the true and necessary Perfections and Attributes of his Nature his Omnipresence Omniscience Omnipotence his Universal Goodness whereby he governs and directs the whole Universe at once to the best Ends his Sanctity Justice and the like And further consequent to this they deny all distinction between Moral good and evil right and wrong vertue and vice other than the present gratification and fulfilling their own lusts of haughtiness pride violence covetousness voluptuousness c. which sort of Men the Psalmist here more particularly means by the Fool. Nay finally hence it must necessarily follow that they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Jews speak i. e. they denied their Religion despised even the Authority and Laws of Moses and were Judaical Infidels as ours now-a-days are Christian ones which is the more usual signification of the word and restrained to revealed Truths This last sense wants not Equal probability with the former For it is likely that from the beginning of Mankind there have been many more who have question'd the Providence and true Attributes than the Existence of a God for want of the true notion of his Nature and therefore the Chaldee Paraphrase seems not to have done amiss when it paraphraseth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the fool hath said in his heart that God hath no Dominion or Government in the Earth 4. The words they are corrupt they have done abominable works c. may be looked upon with the coherence either of a cause or an effect of the preceding Proposition The fool hath said in his heart c. As if they should be thus uttered Because they are corrupt c. therefore they have proceeded to that extremity of folly and impudence as to think there is no God at all and that he doth not see and know what they do or if he doth yet he cannot or will not concern himself to punish them Or we may read then to this sense Foolish and lewd Men have first perswaded themselves that there is no God or no Providence which reacheth humane Affairs and then have let loose the Reigns to their lusts which have carried them to the most wicked Works and abominable Practices From whence we may learn these Two things 1. That they who deny the Being or Providence of God over Mankind and the consequent Truths mentioned are both ignorant and wicked or infidelity is the quality of vicious Fools The fool c. 2. That the denying of those great Truths and such like is the cause of corrupt manners or infidelity is followed with still greater corruption of manners and wickedness of practice To take the first of these Among many heads of Discourse which have and may be handled in this great and most important Argument I shall choose but these Two 1st To observe some of the most frequent causes of this Disease And 2ly To propose some remedies to prevent or suppress their Efficacy And because those of both parts are many to be named I shall be as brief as I can in each of them and do little more than enumerate them 1st The first cause then of this infidelity is ignorance A charge which perhaps they may wonder or smile at who have so often been by themselves and others taken for more than ordinary Wits and so indeed they are but 't is in levity shallowness temerity self-conceit and boldness and some other as worthy qualities to be mentioned And we affirm still that one of the leading and first Causes of infidelity is great ignorance of the Nature of all Beings short of infinite Perfection and particularly of the material or corporeal World to believe it possible for any thing to exist without a God or a Being whose Essence is to be infinitely perfect and consequently necessarily to exist himself and to be the productive and conservative Cause of all other things whatsoever existent And then when there is such a Being it is to have lost the faculty of reasoning seriously to deny those Attributes of his Nature before mentioned and his Universal Providence For it would be to ungod him again It must be from a gross ignorance more particularly for any man to doubt his Universal Goodness whereby he disposeth and ordereth all things for the best State of the Universe of Beings in all its duration taken together and consequently his Justice so that it shall be better with the Good and Righteous than with the Evil and Wicked all Conditions or their whole Duration considered and comprehended It is from no better Cause that any man questions the Immortality of humane Souls in their own Nature and the unsuitableness of the Divine Attributes to annihilate them And it is far more incredible and further from all belief that God should make our Souls only for this point of time we live upon this Earth than that he should make all humane Race to come into this World only to cry and die 'T is I say it again from a contemptible ignorance of the Nature of Body and Spirit the Nature of God the true Ends of all Being Life and Action that these grand and fundamental Verities are seriously and ex animo disputed or denied by any It would be at present too tedious and impertinent to deduce at large the particular proofs of these most important Truths It hath been especially in this last Age excellently well performed to which in some things a further Addition may be made Let Infidels or Scepticks sufficiently