after the Spirit Rom. 8.3 4. Observe here that though Christ died that we might be justified by the Righteousness of God and of Faith not by our own Righteousness which is of the Law Rom. 10.4 5 6. Phil. 3.9 yet he died also that the Righteousness of the Law might be fulfilled in us and that by walking after his Spirit as those that are in Christ Rom. ibid. He is resembled in his Death to a Corn of Wheat dying in the Earth that it may propagate its own nature by bringing forth much Fruit Joh. 12.24 to the Passover that was slain that a Feast might be kept upon it and to Bread broken that it may be Nourishment to those that eat it 1 Cor. 5.7 8. and 11.24 To the Rock smitten that Water may gush out of it for us to drink 1 Cor. 10.4 He died that he might make of Jew and Gentile one New Man in himself Ephes 2.15 and that he might see his seed i. e. such as derive their holy Nature from him Is 53.10 Let these Scriptures be well observed and they will sufficiently evidence that Christ died not that we might be able to form an holy Nature in our selves but that we might receive one ready prepared and formed in Christ for us by Union and Fellowship with him By his Resurrection he took Possession of Spiritual life for us as now fully procured for us and made to be our Right and Property by the Merit of his Death and therefore we are said to be quickned together with Christ even when we were dead in sins and to be raised up together yea and to be made to sit together in heavenly Places in Christ Jesus as our Head while we continue upon Earth in our own Persons Ephes 2.5 6. His Resurrection was our Resurrection to the Life of Holiness as Adam's Fall was our Fall into spiritual Death and we are not our selves the first makers and formers of our new holy Nature any more than of our Original Corruption but both are formed ready for us to partake of them And by Union with Christ we partake of that spiritual Life that he took Possession of for us at his Resurrection and thereby we are enabled to bring forth the Fruits of it as the Scripture sheweth by the Similitude of a Marriage Union Rom. 7.4 We are married to him that is risen from the Dead that we might bring forth Fruit unto God Baptism signifieth the Application of Christ's Resurrection to us as well as his Death we are raised up with him in it to newness of Life as well as buried with him and we are taught thereby that because he died unto sin once and liveth unto God we should likewise reckon our selves to be dead indeed unto Sin and alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord Rom. 6.4 5 10 11. Fourthly Our Sanctification is by the Holy Ghost by whom we live and walk holily Rom. 15.16 Gal. 5.25 Now the Holy Ghost first rested on Christ in all fulness that he might be communicated from him to us as was signified to John the Baptist by the Similitude of the descending of a Dove from the opened Heavens resting on Christ at his Baptism Joh. 1.32.33 And when he sanctifieth us he baptizeth us into Christ and joyneth us to Christ by himself as the great Bond of Union 1 Cor. 12.13 So that according to the Scriptural Phrase it is all one to have Christ himself and to have the Spirit of Christ in us Rom. 8.9 10. He glorifieth Christ for he receiveth those things that are Christ's and sheweth them to us Joh. 16.14 15. He giveth us an experimental Knowledge of those spiritual Blessings which he himself prepared for us by the Incarnation Death and Resurrection of Christ Fifthly The effectual Causes of those four principal Endowments which in the foregoing Direction were asserted necessary to furnish us for the immediate Practice of Holiness are comprehended in the fulness of Christ and treasured up for us in him and the Endowment themselves together with their Causes are attained richly by Union and Fellowship with Christ If we be joyned to Christ our Hearts will be no longer left under the Power of sinful Inclinations or in a meer indifferency of Inclination to good or evil but they will be powerfully endued with a Power Bent and Propensity to the Practice of Holiness by the Spirit of Christ dwelling in us and inclining us to mind spiritual things and to lust against the Flesh Rom. 8.1 4 5. Gal. 5.17 And we have in Christ a full Reconciliation with God and an Advancement into higher Favour with him than the first Adam had in the State of Innocency because the Righteousness that Christ wrought out for us by his Obedience unto Death is imputed to us for our Justification which is called the Righteousness of God because it was wrought by one that is God as well as Man and therefore it is of an infinite value to satisfie the Justice of God for all our sins and to procure his Pardon and highest Favour for us 2 Cor. 5.21 Rom. 1.19 And that we may be perswaded of this Reconciliation we receive the Spirit of Adoption through Christ whereby we cry Abba Father Rom. 8.15 Hereby also we are perswaded of our future Enjoyment of the everlasting heavenly Happiness and of sufficient Strength both to will and to perform our Duty acceptably until we come to that Enjoyment For the Spirit of Adoption teacheth us to conclude that if we be the Children of God then we are heirs of God joynt-heirs with Christ And that the Law of the Spirit of Life that is in Christ Jesus maketh us free from the Law of Sin and Death and that nothing shall be against us nothing shall separate us from the Love of God in Christ but in all opposition and difficulties that we meet with we shall be at last more than conquerours through him that loved us Rom. 8.17.23 35 37 39. Furthermore this comfortable Perswasion of our Justification and future Happiness and all saving Priviledges cannot tend to licentiousness as it is given only in this way of Union with Christ because it is joyned inseparably with the Gift of Sanctification by the Spirit of Christ so that we cannot have Justication or any saving Priviledge in Christ except we receive Christ himself and his Holiness as well as any other Benefit as the Scripture testifieth that there is no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit Rom. 8.1 Sixthly Whereas it may be doubted whether the Saints that lived before the coming of Christ in the Flesh could possibly be one Flesh with him and receive a new Nature by Union and Fellowship with him as prepared for them in his fulness we are to know that the same Christ that took our Flesh was before Abraham Joh. 8.58 and was fore-ordained before the Foundation of the World to be sacrificed as a Lamb
are as unfit for the glorious Presence as Swine for the Presence-Chamber of an Earthly Prince I confess some may be converted when they are so near the point of Death that they may have little time to practice Holiness in this World but the Grace of the Spirit is active like fire Mat. 3.11 And as soon as it is given it will immediately produce good inward Workings of Love to God and Christ and his People which will be sufficient to manifest the righteous Judgment of God in saving them at the great Day when he shall judge every Man according to his Work though some possibly may not have so much Time to discover their inward Grace in any outward good Works as the Thief upon the Cross Luke 23.40.43 The third and last thing to be noted in this Direction is that Holiness of heart and life is to be sought for earnestly by Faith as a very necessary part of our Salvation Great multitudes of ignorant People that live under the Gospel harden their hearts in sin and ruine their Souls for ever by trusting on Christ for such an imaginary Salvation as consisteth not at all in Holiness but only in Forgiveness of Sin and Deliverance from everlasting Torments They would be free from the Punishments due to Sin but they love their Lusts so well that they hate Holiness and would not be saved from the Service of Sin The way to oppose this pernicious Delusion is not to deny as some do That trusting on Christ for Salvation is a saving Act of Faith but rather to shew that none do or can trust on Christ for true Salvation except they trust on him for Holiness neither do they heartily desire true Salvation if they do not desire to be made holy and righteous in their Hearts and Lives if ever God and Christ give you Salvation Holiness will be one part of it if Christ wash you not from the filth of your Sins you have no part in him Joh. 13.8 What a strange kind of Salvation do they desire that care not for Holiness They would be saved and yet be altogether dead in Sin Aliens from the Life of God bereft of the Image of God deformed by the Image of Satan his Slaves and Vassals to their own filthy Lusts utterly unmeet for the Enjoyment of God in Glory Such a Salvation as that was never purchased by the Blood of Christ and those that seek it abuse the Grace of God in Christ and turn it into Lasciviousness They would be saved by Christ and yet out of Christ in a fleshly state whereas God doth free none from Condemnation but those that are in Christ that walk not after the Flesh but after the Spirit or else they would divide Christ and take a part of his Salvation and leave out the rest but Christ is not divided 1 Cor. 1.13 They would have their Sins forgiven not that they may walk with God in Love in time to come but that they may practice their Enmity against him without any Fear of Punishment but let them not be deceived God is not mocked they understand not what true Salvation is neither were they ever yet throughly sensible of their lost Estate and of the great evil of Sin and that which they trust on Christ for is but an Imagination of their own Brains and therefore their Trusting is gross Presumption True Gospel Faith maketh us to come to Christ with a thirsty Appetite that we may drink of living Water even of his sanctifying Spirit John 7.37 38. And to cry out earnestly to save us not only from Hell but from Sin saying Teach us to do thy will thy spirit is good Psal 143.10 Turn thou me and I shall be turned Jer. 31.18 Create in me a clean heart O God and renew a right spirit within me Psal 51.10 This is the way whereby the Doctrine of Salvation by Grace doth necessitate us to Holiness of Life by constraining us to seek for it by Faith in Christ as a substantial part of that Salvation which is freely given to us through Christ DIRECT IX We must first receive the Comforts of the Gospel that we may be able to perform sincerely the Duties of the Law EXPLICATION SInce Man fell from Obedience to God which he was enabled and engaged to perform by the Comforts of his first happy state in Paradice God might have justly refused ever to give Man again any Comforts before-hand to encourage him to his Duty that the way to Holiness being hedged up against him with the Thorns and Briars of Fear Grief and Despair he might never be able to escape the Sentence of Death which was denounced against his first Transgression This Justice of God is manifest in the Method of the Legal Covenant wherein God promiseth us no Life Comfort or Happiness until we have throughly performed his Law and may be seen in the Mount Sinai Promulgation explicated Levit. 26. throughout and we are by Nature so strongly addicted to this Legal Method of Salvation that it is a hard matter to disswade those that live under the Light of the Gospel from placing the Duties of the Law before the Comforts of the Gospel if they cannot make Salvation it self yet they will be sure to make all the Comforts of it to depend upon their own Works They think it as unreasonable to expect Comfort before Duty as Wages before Work or the Fruits of the Earth before the Husband Man's Labour 2 Tim. 2.6 They account the only effectual way to secure the Obedience we owe to the Law of God is to ground all our Comforts on the Performance of it and that the contrary Doctrine strengthens the Hands of the Wicked by prophesying Peace to them where there is no Peace Ezek. 13.16 22. And openeth the Flood-gates to all Licentiousness therefore some Preachers will advise Men not to be sollicitous and hasty of getting of Comfort but that they should rather exercise themselves diligently in the Performance of their Duty and they tell them that in so doing their Condition will be safe and happy at last though they never enjoy any Comfort of their Salvation as long as they live in this World That you may rightly understand what I have asserted in the Direction against such vulgar Errors take notice That I do not make the only place of Gospel-comfort to be before the Duties of the Law I acknowledge that God comforteth his People on every side Psal 71.21 both before and after the Performance of their Duty and that the greatest Consolations do follow after Duty yet some Comforts God giveth to his People before hand as Advance-money to furnish them for his Service though most of the Pay comes in afterward Neither do I hereby speak any Peace to those that continue in their sinful natural state for the Comforts that I speak of cannot be received without rejecting those false Confidences whereby natural Men harden themselves in Sin and without that effectual working of
within themselves waiting for more full enjoyment of Adoption Rom. 8.23 Now seeing the degree and measure of our Reception and Enjoyment of Christ with all the Blessings of our new state in him in this Life is imperfect it followeth clearly that our contrary natural state with its Properties remaineth still in us in some degree and is not perfectly abolished so that all Believers in this World do in some degree partake of these two contrary states Believers have indeed put off the old man and put on the new man where Christ is all and in all Col. 3.10 11. yet they are to put the old Man off and the new Man on more and more because the old Man remaineth still in a measure They are said to be not in the flesh but in the spirit because their being in the Spirit is their best and lasting state as denominations are usually taken from the better part but yet the Flesh is in them and they find work enough to mortify the deeds of it Rom. 8.9.13 Therefore several things which are contrary to each other are frequently attributed to Believers in the Scripture with respect to these two contrary States wherein one place seems to contradict another and yet both are true in divers respects Thus holy Paul saith truly of himself I live yet not I Gal. 2.20 because he did live to God by Christ living in him and yet in another respect according to his natural State he did not live to God Again he professeth that he was carnal sold under Sin and yet on the contrary that he allowed not Sin but hated it he sheweth how both these were true concerning himself In diverse respects he saith in me that is in my Flesh dwelleth no good thing And I delight to do the Will of God according to the Inner-Man With my Mind I my self serve the Law of God but with my Flesh the Law of Sin Rom. 7.14.15 John saith He that saith he hath no sin deceiveth himself and is a Lyar 1 Joh. 1. and also that it 's true that whosoever is born of God doth not commit Sin for his Seed i. e. Christ's the new spiritual Nature remaineth in him and he can't sin because he is born of God 1 Joh. 3.9 It is true that we are weak and nothing and yet strong and able to do all things 2. Cor. 12.10 11. Phil. 4.13 It 's true that Believers are dead because of Sin but alive because of Righteousness Rom. 8.10 and that when they dye by a natural Death they shall never dye Joh. 11.25 26. They are Sons that have the Inheritance by their Birth-right and yet in some respects may differ nothing from Servants and so they may be under the Law in a sense and yet under Grace and Heirs according to the free Promise at the same time Gal 4.1 2. They are redeemed from the Curse of the Law and have forgiveness of Sins and a Promise that God will never be wroth with them nor rebuke them any more Gal. 3.13 Eph. 1.7 Isa 54.9 And yet on the contrary the Curse written in the Law is sometimes poured out upon them Dan. 9 11. and they have need still to pray that God would deliver them from their Guiltiness and forgive their Debts Psal 51.14 Mat. 6.12 and they may expect that God will punish them for all ther Iniquities Amos 3.2 These contrary things asserted concerning Believers in Scripture do sufficiently manifest that they partake of two contrary States in this Life and this is a plain and easie and ready way to reconcile these seeming Contradictions whatever other ways may be used to reconcile some of them And what reason is there to question that the old Sate remaineth in Believers in some degrees seeing all sound Protestants acknowledge that the sinful Depravation and Pollution of our Natures commonly called Original Sin which is one principal part of this old State doth remain in all as long as they live in this World Now though some penal Evils may be said to remain in us yet we can't suppose that this original Pollution is continued in us and considered in Christ But as considered in our old State derived from the first Adam therefore the first sin of Adam is imputed in some respect even to those that are justifyed by Faith and they remain in a measure as aforesaid under the Punishment and Curse denounced Gen. 2.17 in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely dye and on this account the same original Guilt and Pollution is propagated to the Children of believing Parents as well as others by natural Generation and if such a great and fundamental part of the natural State continue in Believers as subjection to the Guilt of the first Sin and original Corruption which is one great part of the Punishment and Death threatned and by which we are prone and inclined to all actual Sins why should we not judge that other parts of the same State do likewise continue in them as well as the guilt of their own actual Sins and subjection to the Wrath of God and the Curses and Punishments denounced against them in the Law and why should we not judge that all the Miseries of this Life and Death it self are inslicted upon Believers at least in some respect as Punishments of Sin It may be objected that this Doctrin of a twofold State of Believers in this Life doth much derogate from the Perfection of our Justification by Christ and from the fulness of all the Grace and spiritual Blessings of Christ and from the Merits of his Death and the power of his Spirit and that it greatly diminisheth the Consolation of Believers in Christ But it may be easily vindicated from this Objection if we understand it rightly for notwithstanding this twofold State it still holdeth true that Believers while they are on Earth have all Perfection of spiritual Blessings Justification Adoption the Gift of the Spirit Holiness Eternal Life and Glory in and with Christ Eph. 1.3 in the person of Christ who is now in Heaven the Old Man is perfectly crucifyed they are dead to Sin and to the Law and its Curse and they are quickned together with him and raised up with him and made to sit in heavenly Places in Christ Jesus Eph. 2.6 7. and Believers do in their own persons receive and enjoy by Faith all these perfect spiritual Blessings of Christ as far as they receive and enjoy Christ himself dwelling in them and no further Thus far they are in a new State free from the Guilt Pollution and Punishment of Sin and so from the Wrath of God and all Miseries and Death it self while they are in this World Yea all the Guilt Pollution and Punishments of Sin and all Evils whatsoever which they are subject to according to their natural State do them no harm according to this new State but work for their good and are no Evils but rather Advantages to them tending to the Destruction only
of the Flesh and to the Perfection of the New Man in Christ Yet it holdeth true also that our reception and enjoyment of Christ himself and all his Perfections is but in an imperfect measure and degree until Faith be turned into heavenly Vision and Fruition of Christ and therefore our old sinful State with the Evils thereof is not perfectly abolished during this Life The Kingdom of Heaven or the Grace of Christ within us is like leaven in Meal and doth not unite it self perfectly to the Meal in an Instant but by degrees until the whole be leavened Mat. 13.35 or like the morning Light that expelleth Darkness by degrees shining more and more unto a perfect day Prov. 4.18 This cannot be justly accounted any derogation to the Merits of Christ's Death or to the power of his Spirit seeing Christ never intended to bring to pass by his Death or by the power of his Spirit that we should enjoy his spiritual Blessings any further than we are in him and enjoy him by Faith or that we should be made holy or happy according to the Flesh by a Reformation of our natural State as hath been shewed Neither doth this diminish the Consolation of Believers in Christ for thereby they may know that they have the Perfection of Grace and Happiness in Christ and that they enjoy it in this World as far as they enjoy Christ himself by Faith and that they shall enjoy it in a perfect measure and be fully freed from their old Sins and miserable State when that frame of Nature which they received from the first Adam is dissolved by Death This Instruction is very useful to frame our Souls aright for the practising of Holiness only by those Gospel Principles and Means that belong to our new State which we are Partakers of by Faith in Christ And thus it is easily vindicated from another great Objection wherein the Papists and Quakers do much Triumph They appeal to Mens Conscience to answer this Question which Doctrin is most likely to bring People to the practice of true Godliness theirs which teacheth That perfect Holiness may be attained in this Life or ours which teacheth That it is impossible for us to keep the Law perfectly and to purge our selves from all Sin as long as we live in this World though we use our best Endeavours They think that common Reason will make the Verdict pass for them against our Doctrin as that which discourageth all Endeavours for Perfection and hardneth the Hearts of People to allow themselves in Sin because they cannot avoid it But on the contrary the Doctrine of Perfection hardens People to allow themselves in Sin and to call Evil Good as the Papists account That the Concupiscence of the Flesh against the Spirit is no Sin but rather good matter for the Exercise of their Vertues because the most perfect in this Life are not without it It also discourageth those that labour to get Holiness in the right way by Faith in Christ and maketh them to think that they labour in vain because they find themselves still sinful and far from Perfection when they have done their best to attain it It hindereth our Diligence in seeking Holiness by these Principles and Means whereby only it can be found For who will be Diligent and Watchful to avoid walking according to his own carnal Principles if he think that his own carnal State with it's Principles is quite abolished and is out of him so that at present he is in no danger of walking according to them Whatsoever good works the Doctrin of the Perfectionists may serve to promote I am sure it hindereth a great part of that work which Christ would have us to be employed in as long as we live in this World we must know that our old State with its evil Principles continueth still in a measure or else we shall not be sit for the great Duties of confesing of Sins loathing our selves for them praying earnestly for the Pardon of them a just sorrowing for them with a Godly Sorrow accepting the Punishment of our Sins and giving God the glory of his Justice and offering to him the Sacrifice of a broken and contrite Spirit being poor in Spirit working out our Salvation with fear and trembling Some have doubted how it can consist with our Justification by Christ that we should be still lyable to be punished for our Sins and obliged to pray for the Pardon of them because they have not well considered the twofold State of Believers in this Life and except we know this and keep it in Mind we shall never be sit to practise continually the great Duties that tend to the putting off the Old Man and putting on the New Man and mortifying the Deeds of the Body by the Spirit praying continually that God would renew a right Spirit in us and sanctify us throughout pressing forward to Perfection desiring the sincere Milk of the Word and the Enjoyment of other Ordinances Christ hath appointed that his Church on Earth should be employed in such works and Perfectionists either do or sain would account them needless for them and that they have no longer need of Christ himself to be their spiritual Physician and Advocate with the Father and Propitiation for their Sins Therefore they are not fit to be Members of the Church on Earth and are never likely to be Members of the Church in Heaven except they can make a Ladder and climb up thither before their time 2. Despair of purging the Flesh or Natural Man of its sinful Lusts and Inclinations and of practising Holiness by your willing and resolving to do the best that lyeth in your own Power and trusting on the Grace of God and Christ to help you in such Resolutions and Endeavours rather resolve to trust on Christ to work in you to will and to do by his own power according to his own good Pleasure They that are convinced of their own Sin and Misery do commonly first think to tame the Flesh and to subdue and root out its Lusts and to make their corrupt Nature to be better natured and inclined to Holiness by their strugling and wrestling with it And if they can but bring their Hearts to a full purpose and resolution to do the best that lyeth in them they hope that by such a Resolution they shall be able to atchieve great Enterprizes in the Conquest of their Lusts and performance of the most difficult Duties It is the great work of some zealous Divines in their Preaching and Writings to stir up People to this Resolution wherein they place the chiefest turning Point from Sin to Godliness And they think that this is not contrary to the life of Faith because they trust on the Grace of God through Christ to help them in all such Resolutions and Endeavours Thus they endeavour to reform their old State and to be made perfect in the Flesh instead of putting it off and walking according to
Rom. 8.7 8. Therefore that they may be encouraged and rationally enclined to Holiness they must hope that God will work savingly in them Now I leave it to considerate Men to judge whether such an Hope can be well grounded without a good Perswasion of such a Reconciliation and Saving-love of God to us as dependeth not upon any precedent goodness of our Works but is a cause sufficient to produce them effectually in us Yea we know further if we know our selves sufficiently that our Death in Sin proceeded from the Guilt of the first Sin of Adam and the Sentence denounced against it Gen. 2.17 And that it is still maintain'd in us by the Guilt of Sin and the Curse of the Law and that Spiritual Life will never be given us to free us from that Dominion except this Guilt and Curse be removed from us which is done by actual Justification Gal. 3.13 14. Rom. 6.14 And this is sufficient to make us despair of living to God in Holiness while we apprehend our selves to be under the Curse and Wrath of God by reason of our Transgressions and Sins still lying upon us Ezek. 33.10 Thirdly The nature of Duties of the Law is such as requireth an Apprehention of our Reconciliation with God and his hearty Love and Favour towards us for the doing of them The great Duty is Love to God with our whole Heart and not such a contemplative Love as Philosophers may have to the Object of Sciences which they are concern'd in no further than to please their Fancies in the knowledge of them but a practical Love whereby we are willing that God should be absolute Lord and Governour of us and all the World to dispose of us and all others according to his Will as to our temporal and everlasting Condition and that he should be the only Portion and Happiness of all those that are happy a Love whereby we like every thing in him as he is our Lord his Justice as well as any other Attribute without wishing or desiring that he were better than he is and whereby we desire that his Will may be done upon us and all others whether for Prosperity or Adversity Life or Death and whereby we can heartily praise him for all things and delight in our Obedience to him in doing his Will though we suffer that which is never so grievous to us even present Death Consider these things well and you may easily perceive that our Spirits are not in a fit frame for the doing of them while we apprehend our selves under the Curse and Wrath of God or while we are under prevailing Suspitions that God will prove an Enemy to us at last Slavish Fear may extort some slavish hypocritical Performances from us such as that of Pharaoh in letting the Israelites go sore against his Will but the Duty of Love cannot be extorted and forced by Fear but it must be won and sweetly allured by an Apprehension of God's Love and Goodness towards us as that eminent loving and beloved Disciple testifieth 1 Job 4.18 19. There is no fear in love but perfect love casteth out fear because fear hath torment He that feareth is not made perfect in love we love him because he first loved us Observe here that we cannot be before hand with God in loving him before we apprehend his Love to us And consult your own Experience if you have any true Love to God whether it were not wrought in you by a sense of God's Love first toward you All the goodness and excellency of God cannot render him an amiable Object to us except we apprehend him an agreeable good to us I question not but the Devils know the excellency of Gods Nature as well as our greatest Metaphysical Speculators and this doth but fill them the more with tormenting horror and trembling that is contrary to Love Ja. 2.19 The greater God's Excellency and Perfection is the greater Evil he is to us if he hate us and curse us and therefore the Principle of Self-preservation deeply rooted in our natures hindreth us from loving that which we apprehend as our own Destruction if a Man be an Enemy to us we can love him for the sake of our loving reconciled God because his Love will make Man's Hatred to work for our good but if God himself be our Enemy for whose sake can we love him Who is there that can free us from the evil of his Enemity and turn it to our Advantage until he be pleased to reconcile himself to us Fourthly Our Conscience must of necessity be first purged from dead works that we may serve the living God and this is done by actual Remission of Sin procured by the Blood of Christ and manifested to our Consciences as appeareth by Christ's dying for this end Heb. 9.14 15. and 10.1 2. 4. 14 17 22. That Conscience whereby we judge our selves to be under the guilt of sin and wrath of God is accounted an evil Conscience in Scripture though it perform its Office truly because it is caused by the evil of sin and will it self be a cause of our committing more sin until it can judge us to be justified from all sin and received into the Favour of God Love which is the end of the Law must proceed from a good Conscience as well as from any other cleanness of Heart 1 Tim. 1.5 David's Mouth could not be opened to shew forth the Praise of God until he was delivered from Blood-guiltiness Psal 51.14 15. This evil guilty Conscience whereby we judge that God is our Enemy and that his Justice is against us to our everlasting Condemnation by reason of our sins doth strongly maintain and increase the Dominion of Sin and Satan in us and worketh most mischievous effects in the Soul against Godliness even to bring the Soul to hate God and to wish there were no God no Heaven no Hell so we might escape the Punishment due to us It so disaffecteth People toward God that they cannot endure to think or speak or hear of him and his Law but strive either to put him out of their minds by fleshly Pleasures and worldly Imployments and thus they are alienated from all true Religion only blinding it and stopping the mouth of it It produceth Zeal in many outside religious Performances and also false Religion Idolatry and the most inhumane Superstitions in the World I have often considered by what manner of working any Sin could effectually destroy the whole Image of God in the first Adam and I conclude it was by working first an evil guilty Conscience in him whereby he judged that the just God was against him and cursed him for that one Sin and this was enough to work a shameful Nakedness by disorderly Lusts a turning his Love wholly from God to the Creature and a desire to be hidden from the Presence of God Gen. 3.8 10. which was a total Destruction of the Image of God's Holiness And we have cause to
without blemish that he might redeem us from all iniquity by his precious Blood 1 Pet. 1.18 19 20. and he had the same Spirit then which filled his humane Nature with all its fulness afterwards and raised it from the dead and he gave that Spirit then to the Church 1 Pet. 1.11 3.18 19. Now this Spirit was able and effectual to unite those Saints to that Flesh which Christ was to take to himself in the fulness of Time because he was the same in both and to give out to them that Grace with which Christ would afterwards fill his Flesh for their Salvation as well as ours Therefore David accounted Christ's Flesh to be his and spake of Christ's Death and Resurrection as his own before hand as fully as any of us can do since their Accomplishment Psal 16.9 10 11. My flesh also shall rest in hope for thou wilt not leave my soul in hell neither wilt thou suffer thine holy one to see corruption thou wilt shew me the path of life Yea and Saints before Davids time did all eat of the same spiritual meat and drink of the same spiritual drink even of the same Christ as we do and therefore were Partakers of the same Priviledge of Union and Fellowship with Christ 1 Cor. 10.3 4. And when Christ was manifested in the Flesh in the fulness of time all things in Heaven and on Earth all the Saints departed whose Spirits were then made perfect in Heaven as well as the Saints that then were or should afterward be on Earth were gathered together in one and comprehended in Christ as their Head Ephes 1.10 And he was the chief corner-stone in whom the building of the whole Church upon the foundation of the Prophets before and the Apostles after his comming being fitly fromed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord Ephes 2.20 21. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and to day and for ever Heb. 13.8 His incarnation death and resurrection were the cause of all the Holiness that ever was or shall be given to Man from the Fall of Adam to the end of the World and that by the mighty Power of his Spirit whereby all Saints that ever were or shall be are joyned together to be Members of that one mystical Body whereof he is the Head DIRECT IV. The Means or Instruments whereby the Spirit of God accomplisheth our Vnion with Christ and our Fellowship with him in all Holiness are the Gospel whereby Christ entereth into our Hearts to work Faith in us and Faith whereby we actually receive Christ himself with all his Fulness into our Hearts And this Faith is a Grace of the Spirit whereby we heartily believe the Gospel and also believe on Christ as he is revealed and freely promised to us therein for all his Salvation EXPLICATION THAT which I asserted in the foregoing Direction concerning the necessity of our being in Christ and having Christ in us by a mystical Union to enable us for an holy Practice might put us to a stand in our Endeavours for Holiness because we cannot imagine how we should be able to raise our selves above our natural Sphere to his glorious Union and Fellowship until God be pleased to make known to us by supernatural revelation the means whereby his Spirit maketh us Partakers of so high a Privilege But God is pleased to help us at a stand to go on forward by revealing two Means or Instruments whereby his Spirit accomplisheth the mystical Union and Fellowship betwixt Christ and us and whereby rational Creatures are capable of attaining thereunto by his Spirit working in them One of these Means is the Gospel of the Grace of God wherein God doth make known to us the unsearchable Riches of Christ and Christ in us the hope of Glory Eph. 3.8 Col. 1.27 and doth also invite us and command us to believe on Christ for his Salvation and doth encourage us by a free Promise of that Salvation to all that believe on him Acts 16.31 Rom. 10.9 11. This is God's own Instrument of Conveyance wherein he sendeth Christ to us to bless us with his Salvation Acts 3.26 It is the ministration of the spirit and of righteousness 2 Cor. 3.6 8 9. Faith cometh by the hearing of it and therefore it is a great instrument whereby we are begotten in Christ and Christ is formed in us Rom. 10.16 17. 1 Cor. 4.15 Gal. 4.19 There is no need for us to say in our Hearts Who shall ascend into Heaven to bring Christ down from above Or who shall descend into the deep to bring up Christ from the dead that we may be united and have fellowship with him in his death and resurrection For the word is nigh to us the Gospel the word of Faith in which Christ himself graciously condescendeth to be nigh to us so that we may come at him there without going any further if we desire to be joyned to him Rom. 10.6 7 8. The other of these means is Faith that is wrought in us by the Gospel This is our Instrument of Reception whereby the Union betwixt Christ and us is accomplished on our part by our actual receiving of Christ himself with all his Fulness into our Hearts which is the principal Subject of the present Explanation The Faith which Philosophers commonly treat of is only an Habit of the Understanding whereby we assent to a Testimony upon the Authority of the Testifier Accordingly some would have Faith in Christ to be no more than a believing the truth of things in Religion upon the authority of Christ testifying them but the Apostle sheweth that the Faith whereby we are justified is Faith in Christ's Blood Rom. 3.24 25. not only in his Authority as a Testifier And tho' a meer assent to a Testimony were sufficient Faith for knowledge of things which the Philosophers aimed at yet we are to consider that the Design of Saving Faith is not only to know the Truth of Christ and his Salvation testified and promised in the Gospel but also to apprehend and receive Christ and his Salvation as given by and with the Promise Therefore Saving Faith must necessarily contain two Acts believing the Truth of the Gospel and believing on Christ as promised freely to us in the Gospel for all Salvation By the one it receiveth the Means wherein Christ is conveyed to us by the other it receiveth Christ himself and his Salvation in the Means As it 's one act to receive the Breast or Cup wherein Milk or Wine are conveyed and another act to suck the Milk in the Breast and to drink the Wine in the Cup and both these acts must be perform'd heartily with an unfeigned love to the Truth and a desire of Christ and his Salvation above all things this is our spiritual Appetite which is necessary for our eating and drinking Christ the Food of Life as a natural Appetite is for Bodily Nourishment Our assenting unto or believing the Gospel must not be forced
by meer conviction of the Truth such as wicked Men and Devils may be brought to when they had rather it were false Neither must our believing on Christ be only constrained for fear of Damnation without any hearty Love and Desire towards the enjoyment of him but we must receive the Love of the Truth by relishing the Goodness and Excellency of it and we must account all things loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus our Lord and count them but dung that we may win Christ and be found in him 2 Thess 2.10 Phil. 3.8 9. esteeming Christ to be all our Salvation and Happiness Col. 3.11 in whom all fulness doth dwell Col. 1.19 And this Love must be to every part of Christ's Salvation to Holiness as well as Forgiveness of Sins We must desire earnestly that God would create in us a clean Heart and right Spirit as well as hide his face from our sins Psal 51.9 10. not like many that care for nothing in Christ but only Deliverance from Hell Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be filled Mat. 5.6 The former of these Acts doth not immediately unite us to Christ because it is terminated only on the means of Conveyance the Gospel yet it is a saving Act if it be rightly performed because it enclineth and disposeth the Soul to the latter Act whereby Christ himself is immediately received into the Heart He that believeth the Gospel with hearty love and liking as the most Excellent Truth will certainly with the like heartiness believe on Christ for his Salvation They that know the name of the Lord will certainly put their trust in him Psal 9.10 Therefore in Scripture Saving-Faith is sometimes described by the former of these Acts as if it were a meer believing the Gospel sometimes by the latter as a believing on Christ or in Christ Rom. 10.9 If thou believe in thine heart that God raised him from the dead thou shalt be saved 11 the Scripture saith Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed 1 John 5.1 Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God 13 These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God that you may know ye have eternal life and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God For the better understanding of the nature of Faith let it be further observed that the Second and Principal of it believing on Christ includeth believing on God the Father Son and Holy Ghost because they are one and the same infinite God and they all concurr in our Salvation by Christ as the only Mediator betwixt God and us in whom all the promises of God are yea and amen 2 Cor. 1.20 By him as mediator we believe on God that raised him from the dead and gave him glory that our faith and hope might be in God 1 Pet. 1.21 And it is the same thing with trusting on God or on the Lord which is so highly commended in the whole Scripture especially in the Old Testament as may easily appear by considering that it hath the same Causes Effects Objects Adjuncts Opposites and all the same Circumstances excepting only that it had a respect to Christ as promised before his Coming and now it respecteth him as already come in the Flesh Believing in the Lord and trusting on his Salvation are equivalent terms that explain one another Psal 78.22 I confess that trusting on things seen or known by the meer Light of Reason as on our own Wisdom Power Riches on Princes or any Arm of Flesh may not so properly be called believing on them but trusting on a Saviour as discovered by a Testimony is properly believing on him It is also the same thing that is expressed by the terms of resting relying leaning staying our selves on the Lord because it is the Ground of that Expectation that is the proper Act of Hope though our Believing and Trusting be for the present as well as future benefit of this Salvation The reason why it is so commonly expressed in the Scriptures of the New Testament by the terms of believing on Christ might be probably because when that part of Scripture was written there was cause in a special manner to urge believing the Testimony that was then newly revealed by the Gospel Having thus explained the nature of Faith I come now to assert its proper Use and Office in our Salvation That it is the Means and Instrument whereby we receive Christ and all his Fulness actually into our Hearts This excellent Use and Office of Faith is encountered by a multitude of Errors men naturally esteem that it is too small and slight a thing to produce so great effects as Naaman thought washing in Jordan too small a matter for the cure of his Leprosie They contemn the true means of entring in at the streight Gate because they seem too easie for such purpose and thereby they make the Entrance not only difficult but impossible to themselves Some will allow that Faith is the sole Condition of our Justification and the Instrument to receive it according to the Doctrine maintained formerly by the Protestants against the Papists but they account that it is not sufficient or effectual to Sanctification but that it rather tendeth to Licentiousness if it be not joyned with some other means that may be powerful and effectual to procure an holy Practice They commend this great Doctrine of Protestants as a comfortable Cordial for Persons upon their Death-beds or in Agonies under Terrors of Conscience but they account that it is not good for ordinary Food and that it is Wisdom in Ministers to preach it seldom and sparingly and not without some Antidote or Corrective to prevent the licentiousness to which it tendeth Their common Antidote or Corrective is That Sanctification is necessary to Salvation as well as Justification and that though we be justified by Faith yet we are sanctified by our own performance of the Law and so they set up Salvation by works and make the Grace of Justification to be of none effect and not at all comfortable If it had indeed such a malignant influence upon Practice it could not be owned as a Doctrine proceeding from the most holy God and all the Comfort that it affords must needs be ungrounded and deceitful This Consequence is well understood by some late Refiners of the Protestant Religion and therefore they have thought fit to new-model this Doctrine and to make Saving-Faith to be only a Condition to procure a Right and Title to our Justification by the Righteousness of Christ which must be performed before we can lay any good claim to the enjoyment of it and before we have any right to the actual receiving of it and this they call an accepting of or receiving Christ And that they may the better secure the practice of Holiness by their Conditional Faith they will not have trusting on God
or Christ for Salvation to be accounted the principal Saving-act of it because as it seemeth to them many loose wicked People trust on God and Christ for their Salvation as much as others and are by their Confidence hardened the more in their Wickedness But they had rather it should be Obedience to all Christ's Laws at least in their Resolution or a Consent that Christ should be their Lord accepting of his terms of Salvation and a resignation of themselves to his Government in all things It is a sign that the Scripture-form of Teaching is grown into disesteem with our great Masters of Reason when trusting in the Lord so much commended in Scripture is accounted a mean and ordinary thing They endeavour to affright us from owning Faith to be an Instrument of Justification by telling us that thereby we that use the Instrument are made our own principal Justifiers to the dishonour of God though it might be easily answered that we are made thereby only the principal receivers of our own Justification from God the Giver of it to whom all the Glory doth belong All these Errors will fall if it can be proved that such a Faith as I have described is an Instrument whereby we actually receive Christ himself into our Hearts and Holiness of Heart and Life as well as Justification by Union and Fellowship with him For the proof of it I shall offer the following Arguments First By Faith we have the actual enjoyment and possession of Christ himself and not only of Remission of Sins but of Life and so of Holiness Christ dwelleth in our hearts by faith Ephes 3.17 We live to God and yet not we but Christ liveth in us by the Faith of the Son of God Gal. 2.19 20. He that believeth on the Son of God hath the Son and everlasting life that is in him 1 John 5.12 13. John 3.36 He that heareth Christ's word and believeth on him that sent Christ hath everlasting life and is passed from death unto life These Texts express clearly such a Faith as I have described therefore the efficiency or operation of Faith in order to the enjoyment of Christ and his Fulness cannot be the procurement of a bare Right or Title to this Enjoyment but rather it must be an entrance into it and taking possession of it We have our accâ—ss and entrance by faith into that Grace of Christ wherein we stand Rom. 5.2 Secondly The Scripture plainly ascribeth this effect to Faith that by it we receive Christ put him on are rooted and grounded in him and also that we receive the Spirit remission of sins and an inheritance among them which are sanctified John 1.2 Gal. 3.26 27. Col. 2.6 7. Gal. 3.14 Acts 26.18 And the Scripture illustrateth this Receiving by the Similitude of Eating and Drinking He that believeth on Christ drinketh the living water of his spirit John 7.37 38 39. Christ is the bread of life his flesh is meat indeed and his blood drink indeed and the way to eat and drink it is to believe in Christ and by so doing we dwell in Christ and Christ in us and have everlasting Life John 6.35 47 48 54 55 56. How can it be taught more clearly that we receive Christ himself properly into our Souls by Faith as we do receive Food into our Bodies by eating and drinking and that Christ is as truly united to us thereby as our Food when we eat or drink it So that Faith cannot be a Condition to procure a meer Right or Title to Christ no more than Eating or Drinking procureth a meer Right or Title to our Food but it is rather an Instrument to receive it as the Mouth that eateth and drinketh the Food Thirdly Christ with all his Salvation is freely given by the Grace of God to all that believe on him for we are saved by Grace through Faith and that not of our selves it is the Gist of God Eph. 2.8 9. We are justified freely by his Grace through Faith in his blood Rom. 8.24 The Holy Ghost who is the Bond of Union betwixt Christ and us is a Gift Acts 2.38 Now that which is a Gift of Grace must not be at all earned purchased or procured by any Work or Works performed as a Condition to get a right Title to it and therefore Faith it self must not be accounted such a Condition If it be by Grace it is no more of Works otherwise Grace is no more Grace Rom. 11.1 The Condition of a free Gift is only take and have and in this sence we will readily acknowledge Faith to be a Condition allowing a Liberty in Terms where we agree in the thing but if you give a Pepper-corn to purchase a Title to it then you spoil the freeness of the Gift The free Offer of Christ to you is sufficient to conferr upon you a Right yea to make it your Duty to receive Christ and his Salvation as yours and because we receive Christ by Faith as a free Gift therefore we may account Faith to be the Instrument and as it were the Hand whereby we receive him Fourthly It hath been already proved that all spiritual Life and Holiness is treasured up in the Fulness of Christ and communicated to us by Union with him therefore the accomplishing of Union with Christ is the first work of Saving Grace in our Hearts and Faith itself being an holy Grace and part of spiritual Life cannot be in us before the beginning of it but rather it is given to us and wrought in the very working of the Union And the way wherein it conduceth to the Union cannot be by procuring a meer Title to Christ as a Condition because then it should be performed before the uniting Work beginneth but rather by being an Instrument whereby we may actively receive and embrace Christ who is already come into the Soul to take possession of it his own Habitation True Saving-Faith such as I have described hath in its nature and manner of Operation a peculiar aptitude or fitness to receive Christ and his Salvation and to unite our Souls unto him and to furnish the Soul with a new holy Nature and to bring forth an holy Practice by Union and Fellowship with him God hath fitted natural Instruments for their Office as the Hands Feet c. so that we may know by their nature and natural manner of operation for what use they are designed In like manner we may know that Faith is an Instrument formed on purpose for our Union with Christ and Sanctification if we consider what a peculiar fitness it hath for the Work The discovery of this is of great use for the understanding of the mysterious manner of our receiving and practising all Holiness by Union and Fellowship with Christ By this precions Grace of Faith and to make you as it were to see with your Eyes that it is such an Instrument as I have asserted it to be I shall present it to your view
in three particulars 1st The Grace of Faith is as well fitted for the Souls receiving of Christ and Union with him as any Instrument of the Body is for receiving and closing with things needful for it By the very act of hearty trusting or believing on Christ for all Salvation and Happiness the Soul heaveth and putteth away from itself every thing that keepeth it at a distance from Christ as all confidence in our own Strength Endeavours Works Privileges or in any Worldly Pleasures Profits Honours or in any humane Helps and Succours for our Happiness and Salvation Because such Confidences are inconsistent with our Confidence in Christ for all Salvation Paul by his Confidence in Christ was taken off from all Considence in the Flesh he suffer'd the loss of glorying in his Privileges legal Righteousness and counted all other Enjoyments in matters of the World or of Religion to be but Dung that he might win Christ and be found in him Phil. 3.3 6 7 8 9. the voice of Faith is Ashur shall not save us neither will we ride upon Horses neither will we say any more to the work of our hands ye are our God for in thee the Fatherless find mercy Hos 14.3 We have no might against this great company of our spiritual Enemies neither know we what to do but our eyes are upon thee 2 Chron. 20.12 I might multiply places of Scripture to shew what a self emptying Grace Faith is and how it casteth other Considences out of the Soul by getting above them to Christ as the only Happiness and Salvation The same act of trusting or believing on Christ or on God is the very manner of our Souls coming to Christ Joh. 6.35 drawing near to the Lord Psal 73.28 fleeing unto the Lord to hide us Psal 143.9 making our resuge in the shadow of his wings Psal 57.1 staying our selves and our minds upon the Lord Isa 50.10 26.3 laying hold of eternal life 1 Tim. 6.12 lifting up our selves to the Lord Psal 51.1 2. rolling our way and casting our burden upon the Lord Psal 37.5 55.22 and of our eating and drinking Christ as hath already appeared Let us consider that Christ and his Salvation cannot be seen or handled or attained to by any bodily motion but are revealed and promised to us in the Word Now let any invent if they can any way for the Soul to exercise any motion or activeness in receiving of this unseen promised Salvation besides believing the Word and trusting on Christ for the Benefit promised If Christ were to be earned by Works or any other kind of Conditional Faith than this yet a Faith must be instrumental to receive him Some think Love as sit to be the uniting Grace but I have shewed that Love to Christ's Salvation is an Ingredient into Faith And though Love be an Appetite unto Union yet we have no other likely way to fill this Appetite while we are in this World besides trust on Christ for all his Benefits as he is promised in the Gospel 2dly There is in this Saving-Faith a natural Tendency to furnish the Soul with an holy Frame and Nature and all Endowments necessary thereunto out of the Fulness of Christ An hearty affectionate trussing on Christ for all his Salvation as freely promised to us hath naturally enough to work in our Souls a rational bent and inclination to and ability for the Practise of all Holiness because it comprehendeth in it a trusting that through Christ we are dead to sin and alive to God and that our old man is crucified Rom. 6.2 6 4. and that we live by the spirit Gal. 5.25 and that we have forgiveness of sin and that God is our God Psal 31.14 and that we have in the Lord righteousness and strength whereby we are able to do all things Isa 45.24 Phil. 4.13 and that we shall be glortensly happy in the anjoyment of Christ to all eternity Phil. 3.20 21. When the Saints in Scripture speak so highly of such glorious spiritual Privileges as I have here named they acquaint us with the familiar fence and language of their Faith trusting on God and Christ and they give us but an Explication of the nature and contents of it and they speak of nothing more than what they receive out of the Fulness of Christ And how can we otherwise judge but that those that have an hearty Love to Christ and can upon a good ground think and speak such high things concerning themselves must needs be heartily disposed and mightily strengthened for the practice of Holiness 3dly Because Faith hath such a natural tendency to dispose and strengthen the Soul for the practise of Holiness we have cause to judge it a meet Instrument to accomplish every part of that Practice in an acceptable manner Those that with a due affection believe stedfastly on Christ for the free Gift of all his Salvation may find by experience that they are carried forth by that Faith according to the measure of its Strength or Weakness to love God heartily because God hath loved them first 1 Joh. 4.19 to praise him to pray unto him in the name of Christ Ephes 5.26 John 16.26 27. to be patient with cheerfulness under all afflictions giving thanks to the Father that hath called them to his heavenly inheritance Col. 1.11 12. to love all the children of God out of love to their heavenly Father 1 John 5.1 to walk as Christ walked 1 John 2.6 and to give themselves up to live to Christ in all things as constrained by his love in dying for them 2 Cor. 5.14 We have a Cloud of Witnesses concerning the excellent works that were produced by Faith Heb. 11. And though trusting on Christ be accounted such a slight and contemptible thing yet I know no Work of Obedience which it is not able to produce And note the excellent manner of working by Faith by it we live and act in all good Works as People in Christ as raised above our selves and our natural state by partaking of him and his Salvation and we do all in his name and on his account This is the Practice of that mysterious manner of living to God in Holiness which is peculiar to the Christian Religion wherein we live and yet not we but Christ liveth in us Gal. 2.20 And who can imagine any other way but this for such a Practice while Christ and his Salvation is known to us only by the Gospel The explanation that I have made of the Nature and Office of true Faith and of its Aptitude for its Office is sufficient to evidence that it is a most holy Faith as it is called Jude 20. and that such a trusting on Christ as I have described in its own nature cannot have any tendency to Licentiousness but only to Holiness and that it rooteth and groundeth us in Holiness more than the meer accepting of any terms of Salvation and consenting to have Christ for our Lord can do
continue without it for some considerable time Ephes 2.12 And though some may have the Spirit of Faith given to them from their Mothers Womb as John the Baptist Luke 1.15.44 yet even in them there is a natural Being by Generation before there can be a Spiritual Being by Regeneration 1 Cor. 15.46 Hence ariseth the Consideration of two States or Conditions of the Children of Men in Matters that appertain to God and Godliness the one of which is vastly different from the other Those that have the Happiness of a New-birth and Creation in Christ by Faith are thereby placed in a very excellent State consisting in the Enjoyment of the Righteousness of Christ for their Justification and of the Spirit of Christ to live by in Holiness here and Glory for ever as hath already appeared Those that are not in Christ by Faith cannot be in a better State than that which they received together with their Nature from the first Adam by being once born and created in him or than they can attain to by the Power of that Nature with any such help as God is pleased to afford to it This latter I call a Natural State because it consisteth in such things as we have either received by natural Generation or can attain to by natural Power through Divine Assistance as the Scripture calleth Man in this State the natural Man 1. Cor. 2.14 The former I call a new State because we enter into it by a new Birth in Christ and I may call it a Spiritual State according to the Scripture because it received from Christ the quickening Spirit and the Natural and Spiritual Man are opposed 1 Cor. 2.14 15. though some call both these States Spiritual because the everlasting Weal or Woe of the Soul or Spirit of Man is chiefly concerned in them It is a common Error of those that are in a corrupt natural State that they seek to reform their Lives according to the Law without any thoughts that their State must be changed before their Lives can be changed from Sin to Righteousness The Heathen that knew nothing of a new State in Christ were urged by their own Consciences to practice several Duties of the Law according to the Knowledge they had by the Light of Nature Rom. 2.14 15. Israel according to the Flesh had a Zeal of God and Godliness and endeavoured to practice the written Law at least in external Performances while they were Enemies to the Faith of Christ and Paul attainted so far that he was blameless in these external Performances of the Righteousness of the Law while he persecuted the Church of Christ Phil. 3.6 Some are so near the Kingdom of God while they continue in a Natural State that they are convinced of the Spirituality of the Law that it bindeth us principally to love God with all our Heart Soul Mind and Strength and to love our Neighbour as our selves and to perform universal Obedience to God in all our inward Thoughts and Affections as well as in all our outward Actions and to do all the Duties that we owe to our Neighbour out of this hearty Love Mark 12 33 34 And they struggle and labour with great earnestness to subdue their inward Thoughts and Affections to the Law of God and to abstain not only from some Sins but from all known Sins and to perform every known Duty of the Law with their whole Heart and Soul as they think and are so active and intent in their devout Practice that they overwork their natural Strength and so servent in their Zeal that they are ready even to kill their Bodies with Fastings and other Macerations that they may kill their sinful Lusts They are strongly convinced that Holiness is absolutely necessary to Salvation and deeply affected with the Terrours of Damnation and yet they were never so much enlightened in the Mystery of the Gospel as to know that a new State in Christ is necessary to a new Life therefore they labour in vain to reform their natural State instead of getting above it in Christ And some of these when they have mispent many Years in striving against the Stream of their Lusts without any Success do at last fall miserably into Despair of ever attaining to Holiness and turn to wallowing in the mire of their Lusts or are fearfully swallowed up with horrour of Conscience There are several false Opinions whereby such ignorant Zealots encourage themselves in their fruitless Endeavours Some of them judge that they are able to practice Holiness because they are not compelled to sin and may abstain from it if they will To this they add That Christ by the Merit of his Death hath restored that Freedom of Will to good which was lost by the Fall and hath set Nature upon its Legs again and that if they endeavour to do what lieth in them Christ will do the rest by assisting them with the Supplies of his saving Grace so they trust upon the Grace of Christ to help them in their Endeavours They plead further That it would not consist with the Justice of God to punish them for Sin if they could not avoid it and that it would be in vain for the Ministers of the Gospel to preach to them and exhort them to any saving Duty if they cannot perform it They produce Examples of I leathens and of such as had the name of Christians without any acquaintance with the Faith that I have described who have attained to a great Excellency in religious Words and Works My Work at present is to deliver those ignorant Zealots from their fruitless tormenting Labours by bringing them to despair of the Attainment of Holiness in a natural State that they may seek it only in a new State by Faith in Christ where they may certainly find it without such tormenting Labour and Anxiety of Spirit For this end I shall confirm the Truth asserted in the Direction and fortifie it against the forementioned false Opinions by the ensuing Considerations First The Foundation of this Assertion is firmly laid in the Directions already explained and confirmed by many Places of Scripture For if all Endowments necessary to enable us for an holy Practice be to be had only in a State of Union and Fellowship with Christ by Faith and Faith it self not by the natural Power of Free-will but by the Power of Christ coming into the Soul by his Spirit to unite us with himself who seeeth not that the Attainment of true Holiness by any of our most vigorous Endeavours while we continue in our natural Condition is altogether hopeless I need add no more were it not to shew more sully what abundance of Light the Scripture affordeth to guide us aright in this part of our way that those that wander out of it by following any false light of their own or others corrupted Judgments may find themselves the more inexcusable Secondly It is evident that we cannot practice true Holiness while we continue in
a natural State because we must be born again of water and of the Spirit or else we cannot enter into the kingdom of God Joh. 3.3 5. And we are created in Christ Jesus unto good Works which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them If we could love God and our Neighbour as the Law requireth without a New-birth and Creation we might live without them for Christ hath said This do and thou shalt live Luke 10.28 Now a New-birth and Creation is more than a meer reforming and repairing our Natural State If we were put into a certain State and Condition by the first Birth and Greation much more by the second For the first produceth the Substance of a Man as well as a State the second hath nothing to produce but a new State of the same Person And note that we were first created and born in Adam the Natural Man but our New-birth and Creation is in Christ the Spiritual Man and if any man be in Christ he is in a new-state far different from the State of Adam before the Fall he is wholly a new creature as it is written old things are past away behold all things are become new 2. Cor. 5.17 Thirdly It is positively asserted by the Apostle Paul that those that are in the flesh cannot please God Rom. 8.8 Many are too overly and negligent in considering the Sense of this Gospel-phrase what it is to be in the flesh They understand no more by it than to be sinful or to be addicted inordinately to please the sensitive Appetite They should consider that the Apostle speaketh here of being in the flesh as the cause of Sinfulness as in the next verse he speaketh of being in the Spirit as the cause of Holiness and whatever cause it be it must needs be distinct from its Effect Sin is a Property of the Flesh or something that dwelleth in the Flesh Rom. 7.18 and therefore it is not the Flesh it self The Flesh is that which lusteth against the Spirit Gal. 5.17 and therefore it is not meerly sinful Lust The true Interpretation is That by flesh is meant the Nature of Man as it is corrupted by the Fall of Adam and propagated from him to us in that corrupt State by natural Generation and to be in the flesh is to be in a Natural State as to be in the Spirit is to be in a new State by the Spirit of Christ dwelling in us Rom. 8.9 The corrupt Nature is called Flesh because it is received by carnal Generation and the new Nature is called Spirit because it is received by Spiritual Regeneration That which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the spirit is spirit John 3.6 So the Apostle if he be rightly understood hath said enough to make us despair utterly of attaining to true Holiness while we continue in a Natural Sate Fourthly The Apostle testifieth that those that have been taught as the truth is in Jesus have learned to avoid the former sinful Conversation by putting off the old-man which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts and by putting on the new-man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness Ephes 4.21.22 24. Putting on the Old-man and putting on the New-man is the same thing with not being in the Flesh but in the Spirit in the foregoing Testimony that is putting off our natural State and putting on a new State by Union and Fellowship with Christ The Apostle himself sheweth that by the new Man is meant that excellent State where Christ is all and in all Col. 3.11 Therefore by the old Man must needs be meant the natural State of Man wherein he is without the saving Enjoyment of Christ which is called Old because of the new State to which Believers are brought by their Regeneration in Christ This is a manner of Expression peculiar to the Gospel as well as the former and as slightly considered by those that think that the Apostles Meaning is only that they should put off Sinfulness and put on Holiness in their Conversation and so they think to become new Men by turning a new Leaf in their Practice and leading a new Life Let them learn here that the old and new Man are two contrary States containing in them not only Sin and Holiness but all other things that dispose and incline us to the Practice of them and that the old Man must be put off as orucified with Christ before we can be freed from the Practice of Sin Rom. 6.6 7. And therefore we cannot lead a new Life until we have first gotten a new State by Faith in Christ Let me add here that the meaning of the Apostle is the same Rom. 13.12 13 14. where he directeth us to put on the Lord Jesus Christ as the means whereby we may cast off the deeds of darkness and walk honestly as in the day time not fulfilling the lusts of the flesh Fifthly Our natural State hath several Properties that wholly disable us for the Practice of Holiness and inslaves us to the Practice of Sin while we continue in it Here I shall shew that the old Man the Flesh or natural State is not only Sin as some would have it but it containeth in it several things which I shall name that make it to be sinful besides several other things that make it miserable I have shewed that in Christ we have all Endowments necessary to frame us for Godliness so in our fleshly State we have all things contrary to that holy Frame One thing belonging to our natural State is the Guilt of Sin even of Adam's first Sin and of the sinful Depravation of our Nature and of all our own actual Transgressions and therefore we are by nature the children of wrath Ephes 2.3 Under the Curse of God the Benefit of Remission of our Sins and Freedom from Condemnation is not given to us in the Flesh or in a natural State but only in Christ Rom. 8.1 Ephes 1.7 And can we imagine that a Man should be able to prevail against Sin while God is against him and curseth him Another Property inseparable from the former is an evil Conscience which denounceth the Wrath of God against us for Sin and inclineth us to abhor him as our Enemy rather than to love him as hath been shewed or if it be a blind Conscience it hardeneth us the more in our Sins A third Property is an evil Inclination tending only to Sin which therefore is called Sin that dwelleth in us and the law of sin in our members that powerfully subdueth and captivateth us to the service of sin Rom 7.20 23. It hath a fixed Propensity to lust against the Law without any Deliberation and therefore its Lustings are not to be prevented by any Diligence or Watchfulness The Mind of the Flesh is enmity against the Law of God or it is not subject to the Law of God neither indeed can it be How vain
then is it to plead that they can do good if they will when their Minds and Will it self is enslaved to Sin A fourth Property is Subjection to the power of the Devil who is the God of this world that hath blinded the minds of all that believe not 2. Cor. 4.4 And will certainly conquer all that he sighteth with upon his own Dunghill that is in a natural State And from all these Properties we may well conclude that it hath the Property never to be good to be stark dead in Sin Ephes 2.1 according to the Sentence denounced against the first Sin of Mankind in Adam in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die Gen. 2.17 For you can no more bring it to Holiness by any the most vehement Motives and Endeavours then you can bring a dead Carcase to Life by chafing and rubbing it You can stir up no strength or fortifying Grace in the natural Man by such Motives and Endeavours because there is no Strength in him to be stirred up Rom. 5.6 Tho' you do all that lieth in you to the utmost while you are in this Flesh you can do nothing but sin for there is no good lying in you as the Apostle Paul sheweth by his own Experience I know that in me that is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing Rom. 7.18 Sixthly We have no good ground to trust on Christ to help us to will or to do that which is acceptable to him while we continue in our natural State or to imagine that Freedom of Will to Holiness is restored to us by the Merit of his Death For as it hath been already shewed Christ aimed at an higher end in his Incarnation Death and Resurrection than the restoring the Decay and Ruins of our natural State He aimed to advance us to a new State more excellent than the State of Nature ever was by Union and Fellowship with himself that we might live to God not by the Power of a natural Free-will but by the Power of his Spirit living and acting in us So we may conclude that our natural State is irrecoverable and desperate because Christ the only Saviour did not aim at the Recovery of it It is neither holy nor happy but subject to Sin and to all Miseries as long as it remaineth Even those that are in a new State in Christ and do serve the Law of God with their Mind do yet with their Flesh serve the Law of Sin Rom. 7.25 As far as it remaineth in them it lusteth against the spirit Gal. 5.17 And it remaineth dead because of sin even when the spirit is life to them because of righteousness Rom. 8.10 And must be wholly abolished by Death before we can be perfected in that Holiness and Happiness that is by Faith in Christ After God had promised Salvation by Christ the Seed of the Woman he placed Cherubims and a flaming Sword to keep Man out of Paradice thereby teaching him that his first State was lost without Hope and that the Happiness intended for him was wholly new Our old natural Man was not revived and reformed by the Death of Christ but crucified together with him and therefore to be abolished and destroyed out of us by virtue of his Death Rom. 6.6 It is like the part of a Garment infected with the Plague of Leprosie which was to be rent off as incurable that the Garment might be clean Levit. 13.56 If Christ be not in us we are reprobates 2 Cor. 13.5 i. e. we are in a State which God hath rejected from partaking of his Salvation so that we are not to expect any Assistance from God to make us holy in it but rather to deliver us from it Seventhly This doth not at all discharge those that are in a natural State from Obligation to Holiness of Life nor render them excusable for their Sins at the Tribunal of God's Justice For God hath made man upright but they sought many inventions Eccles 7.29 Observe well the Words of this Text and you will find that all they who have sought out many Inventions rather than upright walking are comprehended in Man that was at first made upright And Man in the Text signifieth all Mankind the first Adam was all Mankind as Jacob and Esau were two nations in the womb of Rebecca Gen. 25.23 God made us all in our first Parents according to his own Image able and inclined to do his Law and in that pure Nature our Obligation to Obedience was first laid upon us and the first wilful Transgression whereby our first Parents bereaved themselves of the Image of God and brought upon themselves the Sentence of Death was our Sin as well as theirs For in one man Adam all have sinned and so death is passed upon all Rom. 5.12 Because all Mankind were in Adam's Loins when the first Sin was committed even as Levi may be said to have paid Tithes in Abraham before he was born because when his Father Abraham paid Tithes to Melchizedeck he was yet in his Loins Heb. 7.9 10. That Promise of God that he will not charge the Iniquities of Parents upon their Children is a Promise belonging to the New Covenant confirmed in the Blood of Christ and it is Yea and Amen to us only in Christ in whom we have another Nature than that which our Parents conveyed to us so that we cannot justly claim the Benefit of it in our old natural State Jer. 31.29 30 31. 2 Cor. 1.20 Those that account their Impotency a sufficient Plea to excuse them or others shew that they were never truly humbled for that great wilful Transgression of all Mankind in the Loins of Adam Inability to pay Debts excuseth not a Debtor that hath lavished away his Estate neither doth Drunkenness excuse the mad Actings of a Drunkard but rather aggravates his Sin And our Impotency consisteth not in a meer want of an executive Power but in the want of a willing Mind to practice true Holiness and Righteousness Naturally we love it not we like it not but lust against it Gal. 5.17 and hate the light John 3.20 If Men in a natural State had an hearty Love and Likeing to true Holiness and a desire and serious endeavour to practice it out of hearty Love and yet failed in the event then they might under some pretence plead for their Excuse as some do for them that they were compelled to sin by an inevitable Fate But none have just cause to plead any such thing for their excuse because none endeavour to practice true Holiness out of hearty Love to it until the good Work be begun in their Souls and when God hath begun he will perfect it Phil. 1.6 And will in the mean time accept their ready Mind though they fall short in Performance 2 Cor. 8.12 How abominable then and filthy is man that drinketh up iniquity us water Job 15.16 That cannot practise Holiness because he will not This is their just Condemnation that
hath been one occasion of the prevailing of Heathenish Jewish and Popish Superslitions in the World We find by experience how Popery fell in several Nations in late years when the great Pillar of it the Doctrine of Justification by Works was overthrown by the Protestant Doctrine of Justification by Faith alone If these Legal Zealots be forced by strong Conviction to endeavour the Practice of spiritual Duties for the quieting of their guilty Consciences they may be brought to strive and labour earnestly and even to macerate their Bodies with Fasting that they may kill their Lusts but still their Lusts are alive and as strong as ever they were and do shew forth their Enmity against the Law of God by inward fretting repining and grudging at it as a grievous Task-mastertho ' a slavish Fear restrain their gross outward actings And if once these Zealots be enlightned with the Knowledge of the Spiritual nature of the Law to discern that God rejecteth all their slavish Service and will not own it for sincere Obedience then they fall into Despair of their Salvation because they see they have failed in their highest attempts to perform the Condition and then they can easily discover themselves that their Hearts swell in Anger and manifest Hatred against the Law yea and against God and Christ for prescribing such hard Conditions of Salvation which they cannot keep and yet expect to be damned eternally for breaking of them This filleth them with blasphemous thoughts against God and Christ and they can hardly refrain from blaspheming with their tongues and when they are brought to this horrible Condition if God doth not in mercy discover to them the way of Salvation by Free-grace through Faith alone they will endeavour if they can to sear their Consciences past feeling of Sin and fully to abandon all Religion which have proved such an unsufferable Torment to them or if they cannot sear their Consciences some of them are easily prevailed over by Satan rather to murder themselves than to live longer in the Hatred of God the Spirit of Blasphemy and continual horror of Conscience This is the pestilent effect of Legal-Doctrine upon a carnal heart that doth but rouse up and terribly enrage the sleeping Lion our sinful Gorruption instead of killing of it as is too evident by the sad Experience of many that have endeavoured with all their might to practice it and by the Scripture that sheweth a sufficient cause why it cannot be otherwise Therefore the Doctrine of Salvation by sincere Obedience that was invented against Antinomianism may well be ranked amongst the worst Antinomian Errors For my part I hate it with perfect Hatred and count it mine Enemy as I have found it to be and I have found by some good Experience the Truth of the Lesson taught by the Apostle that the way to be freed from the Mastery and Dominion of Sin is not to be under the law but under grace Rom. 6.15 6thly The way of Salvation by works was blasted by the Curse denounced against the first Adam's Sin so that now it cannot work Life in us or Holiness but only Death For the Law which requireth both sincere and perfect Obedience to God in all things was made known to Adam at his first Creation as the means of continuing the happy Life that was then bestowed upon him and it would have been effectual for this end if he had not transgressed in the forbidden fruit but when he had once brought himself and his Posterity under the terrible Sentence Thou shalt surely die Gen. 2.17 all that Knowledge of God or his Law that before wrought for continuance of Life was turned by that cursing Sentence the contrary way to work for his death even for the death of his Soul in sin as well as for the death of his Body and therefore it quickly moved him to hide himself from God as an enemy It was as if God should say All the light and knowledge that thou hast shall not be able to continue thy life or restore it but it shall rather tend to thy death Therefore while we continue in our Natural state under the first Adam's Guilt and Curse the knowledge of the Law yea and all such knowledge of God and his Attributes as natural Men may attain to must needs be in like manner accursed to us and seeing Man did not use his natural Knowledge and Wisdom aright God is resolved to revenge the abuse of it by giving us Salvation in a way contrary to it that seemeth foolishness to the Natural man and wholly to abolish the way of living by any of our works or by any Wisdom or Knowledge that the Natural-man can attain unto for it is written I will destrey the wisdom of the wise and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of the world For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe 1 Cor. 1.19 20 21. Hence we may conclude that no Truth known by the light of Nature can be an effectual Principle or Motive to work Holiness in us and Gospel-principles and Motives are but abused when they are applied to a Legal-way of Salvation 7thly The end which God aimed at in giving the Law by Moses was not that any should ever attain to Holiness or Salvation by the condition of perfect or sincere Obedience to it tho' if there had been any such way of Salvation at that time it must have consisted in the Performance of that Law which was then given to the Church to be a Rule of Life as well as a Covenant There was another Covenant made before that time with Abraham Isaac and Jacob a Covenant of Grace promising all Blessings freely through Christ the promised Seed by which only they were to be saved and the Covenant of the Law was added that they might-see their sinfulness and subjection to death and wrath and the impossibility of attaining to life or holiness by their works and be forced to trust on the free Promise only for all their Salvation and that Sin might be restrained by the Spirit of Bondage until the coming of that promised Seed Jesus Christ and the more plentiful pouring out of the sanctifying Spirit by him This the Apostle Paul sheweth largely Gal. 3.15 to 24. Rom. 5.20 21. Rom. 10.3 4. None of the Israelites under the Old Testament were ever saved by the Sinai-Covenant neither did any of them ever attain to Holiness by the terms of it Some of them did indeed perform the Commandments of it sincerely tho' imperfectly but those were first justified and made Partakers of Life and Holiness by virtue of that better Covenant made with Abraham Isaac and Jacob which was the same in substance with the New-covenant or Testament establish'd by the Blood of Christ Had it not been for that better Covenant the
themselves for the Lords Supper that so they may make their Peace with God and trust securely on Christ for his Salvation but all Resolutions of that kind are vain and hypocritical sooner broken than made Those that know the Plague of their own hearts do find that their mind is enmity unto the Law of God and Christ and cannot be subject unto it Rom. 8.7 and that they can as soon remove a mountain as give up themselves sincerely to Obedience before they trust on Christ for his Salvation and for the gift of a new heart whereby they may be enabled both to will and to do any thing that is acceptable to God We should have been sufficiently obliged to all obedient purposes resolutions and resignations if Christ had never come into the World to save us but he knew that we could perform nothing holily except he made us first Partakers of Salvation and that we shall never obey him as Law-giver until we receive him as Saviour He is a saving Lord trust on him first to save you from the guilt and power of sinâ— and dominion of Satan and to give you a new spiritual Disposition then and not till then the Love of Christ will constrain you to resign up your self heartily to live to him that died for you 2 Cor. 5.14 and you will be able to say with an unfeigned Resolution O Lord truly I am thy servant I am thy servant and the son of thy handmaid thou hast loosed my bonds Psal 116.16 4thly It seemeth to them evident that some good works are necessary before we can trust on Christ safely for the forgiveness of sins because our Saviour teacheth us that if we forgive not men their Trespasses neither will our heavenly Father forgive our Trespasses and directeth us to pray Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors Mat. 6.12 15. Restitution also was to be made of things wrongfully gotten from others before the Sacramental Atonement was made by the Trespass offering Lev. 6.5 7. This is sufficient to prove that forgiving others and Restitution according to our ability or at least a sincere desire and purpose so to do are very closely joyned with the forgiveness of our sins and are very necessary to fit us for Prayer and for Sacramental Applications of pardoning Grace to our selves A lively Faith cannot be without these Fruits and therefore we cannot pray or partake of Sacraments in Faith without them but yet if we strive to do either of these before we trust on Christ for our Pardon and Salvation we shall do them slavishly and hypocritically not in any holy acceptable manner Our forgiving others will not be accompanied with any hearty Love to them as to our selves for the sake of God and our Restitution will be but a forced act like Pharaoh's letting the Children of Israel go or like Judas restoring the thirty pieces of Silver being compelled thereunto by terror of Spirit and when the terror that forced us is removed we shall be as ready to recal our Forgiveness and to wrong others again as Pharaoh was to bring the Israelites again into bondage after he had let them go Exod. 14.5 If you would forgive others heartily so as to love them again you must first apprehend the love and mercy of God towards your selves by Faith in Christ and then you will be able according to the Apostle's Instruction to be kind tender hearted forgiving one another even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you Ephes 4.32 The readiness of Zaccheus to make Restitution followed upon a discovery of Christ's love to him and his joyful receiving Christ into his house was fruit whereby he did evidence the Truth of that Faith that was already wrought in his heart 5thly I shall reckon up together several other Qualifications that distressed Souls would find in themselves that they may be duly prepared to trust on Christ for their Salvation and when they have laboured anxiously a long time and cannot get them at last they lie down in sorrowful Despondence not daring to apply the Consolations of the grace of God in Christ to their wounded Consciences Let perplexed Souls mark the particulars and observe whether the condition of their own Souls be reached in any of them O thou afflicted tossed with tempests and not comforted what good Qualifications is it that thou wouldest have that thou mayest be encouraged to lay hold on Christ for Salvation It is likely thou wilt answer in the bitterness of thy Soul O let me have first some love to God and Godliness in mine heart and freedom from mine hateful heart-risings against him and his Service Let me have some good thoughts of God his Justice Mercy Holiness that I may be able to justifie him tho' he damn me and that I may not be filled with murmuring and hellish Blasphemies in my mind against him let the raging of my lusts be abated and the stinking kennel of my wicked heart a little cleansed let me have some holy reverential Fear of God and not only a pannick tormenting horror I would be more affected with the wrath of God and not be of a slighting heedless Spirit I would be more humbled for Sin loath it and be ashamed of it and be sorry for it with a godly Sorrow not meerly because of the Punishment but because it grieveth and vexeth the holy Spirit of God I would be able to make a willing and ingenious Confession of sin and to pour out my Soul to the Lord in lively affectionate Prayer for Forgiveness and to praise and glorifie him heartily and not to be like a lifeless stone in the duty of Prayer as I am Are these the things thou desirest O poor distressed Soul The best Reply I can make for thy speedy comfort is to inform thee that the things are good but thy desires are not well timed it is unreasonable for thee to expect these holy Qualifications whilst thou art in thy natural State under the guilt of Sin and the apprehension of the Wrath of God before thou hast received the Atonement and the new Spiritual Life that is by Christ through Faith in his Name thou dost but exasperate thy Corruptions and harden thy Heart and make thy wounds to stink the more because of thy foolishness such good Qualifications are included in the Nature of Faith and for the most part they follow after it so that they cannot possibly be obtained before thou trustest in Christ for thy Salvation as I shall shew concerning them particularly in their Order A love to the Salvation of God and to the free Gift of Holiness is included in the Nature of Faith so that it cannot be hearty without it Act Faith first with this kind of Love and the Apprehension of God's Love to thy Soul will sweetly allure and constrain thee to love God and his Service universally We love him because he loved us first 1 Joh. 4.19 We cannot be before-hand with God in love and
the Spirit whereby we are made good Trees that we may bring forth good Fruit. Though they are given before the sincere Practice of the Law yet they are not given to us in our corrupt sinful Nature but in and with the new holy Nature which immediately produceth a holy Practice though it must necessarily go before as the Cause before the Effect and they are no other than Comforts of those spiritual Benefits by which our new Estate and Nature is produced and of which it is constituted and made up as the Comforts of Redemption Justification Adoption the Gift of the Spirit and the like Neither do I intend here any Transport or Ravishment of Joy and Delight but only such manner of Comfort as rationally strengthens in some measure against the Oppression of Fear Grief and Despair which we are liable unto by reason of our natural Sinfulness and Misery This Explanation of the Sense of my Assertion is sufficient to answer some common Objections against it and I hope the Truth of it will be fully evidenced by the following Arguments First This Truth is a clear Consectary from those Principles of Holiness that have been already confirmed I have shewed that we must have a good Perswasion of our Reconciliation with God and of our Happiness in Heaven and of our sufficient Strength both to will and to do that which is acceptable to God through Jesus Christ that we may be rationally inclined and bent to the Practice of Holiness and that these Endowments must be had by receiving of Christ himself with his Spirit and all his Fulness by trusting on him for all his Salvation as he is freely promised to us in the Gospel and that by this Faith we do as really receive Christ as our Food by eating and drinking Now let right Reason judge can we be perswaded of the Love of God of our everlasting Happiness and our Strength to serve God and yet be without any Comforts Can the glad Tidings of the Gospel of Peace be believed and Christ and his Spirit actually believed into the Heart without any Relief to the Soul from oppressing Fear Grief Despair Can the Salvation of Christ be comfortless or the Bread and Water of Life without any sweet Relish to those that feed on him with hungring and thirsting Appetites God will not give such Benefits as these to those that do not desire and esteem them above the World and certainly the very receiving of them will be comfortable to such except they receive them blindfold which they cannot do when the very giving and bestowing of them openeth the Eyes of a Sinner and turns him from Darkness to Light whereby he doth at least in some measure see and perceive Spiritually the things that concern his present and future Peace and reap some encouraging and strengthning Comfort thereby to the Practice of Holiness Secondly Peace Joy Hope are recommended to us in Scripture as the Spring of other holy Duties and Fear and oppressing Grief forbidden as Hinderances to true Religion The peace of God keepeth our hearts and minds through Christ Jesus Phil. 4.7 Be ye not sorry for the joy of the Lord is your strength Nehem. 8.10 Every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself even as he is pure 1 John 3.3 Fear hath torment he that feareth is not made perfect in Love 1 John 4.18 This is the Reason why the Apostle doubleth his Exhortation to rejoyce in the Lord always as a Duty of exceeding weight and necessity Phil. 4.4 What are such Duties but Comfort it self and can we think that these Duties are necessary to our continuance in an holy Practice and yet not to the beginning of it where the Work is most difficult and Encouragement most needful Therefore we must make haste in the first place to get a comfortable Frame of Spirit if we would make hastâ— and not delay to keep Gods holy Commandments Thirdly The usual Method of Gospel-Doctrine as it is delivered to us in the holy Scriptures is first to comfort our Hearts and thereby to establish us in every good Word and Work 2 Thess 2.17 And it appears how clearly this method is adjusted in several Epistles written by the Apostles wherein they first acquaint the Churches with the rich Grace of God toward them in Christ and the spiritual Blessings which they are made Partakers of for their strong Consolation and then they exhort them to an holy Conversation answerable to such Priviledges and it is not only the Method of whole Epistles but of many particular Exhortations to Duty wherein the comfortable Benefits of the Grace of God in Christ are made use of as Arguments and Motives to stir up the Saints to a holy Practice which comfortable Benefits must be first believed and the Comfort of them applyed to our own Souls or else they will not be forcible to engage us to the Practice for which they are intended To give you a few Instances out of a Multitude that might be alledged we are exhorted to practice holy Duties because we are dead to sin and alive to God through Jesus Christ our Lord Rom. 6.11 And because sin shall not have dominion over us for we are not under the law but under grace Rom. 6.14 Because we are not in the flesh but in the spirit and God will quicken our mortal bodies by his spirit dwelling in us Rom. 8.9.11 12. Because our bodies are the members of Christ and the temples of the Holy Ghost 1 Cor. 6.15 19. Because God hath made him sin for us who knew no sin that we might be the righteousness of God in him 2 Cor. 5.20 21. And hath promised that he will dwell in us and walk in us and be to us a Father and we shall be to him sons and daughters 2 Cor. 7.1 Because God hath forgiven us for Ghrist's sake and accounteth us his dear children and Christ hath loved us and given himself for us and we that were sometimes darkned are now lightened in the Lord Ephes 4.32 5.1 2 8. Because we are risen with Christ and when Christ who is our Life shall appear then we shall also appear with him in glory Col. 3.1.4 Because God hath said I will never leave thee nor forsake thee Heb. 13.5 Because of the many promises made to us 2 Cor. 7.1 Search the Scriptures and you may with delight see that is this the Vein that runneth through Gospel Exhortations and you may find the like Vein of Comfort running through the Prophetical Exhortations in the Old Testament Some may object that the Apostles used this Method in their Writings to Saints that had practised Holiness already that so they might continue and increase therein But to that I may easily reply If it be a Method needful for grown Saints much more then for Beginners that find the Work of Obedience most difficult and have most need of strong Consolation and I hope to shew how we may be able to lay hold
our Salvation Therefore I conclude that we must necessarily have some Assurance of our Salvation in the direct Act of Faith whereby we are justified sanctified and saved before we can upon any good ground assure our selves that we are already in a state of Salvation by that which they call the Reflect Act. Give me such a saving Faith as will produce such Fruits as these No other Faith will work by Love and therefore will not avail to Salvation in Christ Gal. 5.6 The Apostle James putteth thee upon shewing thy Faith by thy Works James 2.18 And in this Trial this Faith of Assurance cometh off with high Praise and Honour When God calleth his People to work outward Miracles by it all things have been possible to them and it hath frequently brought forth such Works of Righteousness as may be deservedly esteemed great Spiritual Miracles from hence hath proceeded that Heroick Fortitude of the People of God whereby their absolute Obedience to God hath shined forth in doing and suffering those great things which are recorded in the holy Scriptures and in the Histories of the Church And if we be ever called to the fiery Trial as Protestants formerly were we shall find their Doctrine of Assurance to encourage us in suffering for the sake of Christ Seventhly The contrary Doctrine which excludeth Assurance out of the Nature of Saving Faith bringeth forth many evil Fruits it tendeth to bereave our Souls of all Assurance of our Salvation and solid Comfort which is the Life of Religion by placing it after sincere universal Obedience whereas if we have them not first we can never attain to this Obedience and to any Assurance that dependeth on it as hath been proved and this as far as it prevails makes us subject to continual Doubtings concerning our Salvation and to tormenting Fears of Wrath which casteth out true Love to God and can produce no better than slavish hypocritical Service It is one of the principal Pillars whereby manifold Superstitions in Popery are supported as their Monkish Orders their Satisfactions for Sin by Works of Penance Bodily Macerations Whippings Pilgrimages Indulgences trusting on the Merits of Saints c. When once Men have lost the Knowledge of the right way to assure themselves of Salvation they will catch at any Straw to avoid Drowning in the Gulph of Despair There is no way to administer any solid Comfort to the wounded Spirits of those that see themselves void of all Holiness under the Wrath and Curse of God dead in Sin not able so much as to think a good Thought you do but increase their Terror and Anguish if you tell them they must first get Faith and Obedience and when they find they have done that they may perswade themselves that God will receive them into his Grace and Favour Alass they know that they cannot believe nor obey except God prevent them with his Grace and Favour and what if they be even at the Point of Death strugling with Death's Pangs so that they have no time or leisure to get good Qualifications and examine the Goodness of them you must have a more speedy way to comfort such by discovering to them the Free-Promises of Salvation to the worst of Sinners by Faith in Christ and by exhorting them to apply those Promises and trust on Christ confidently for Remission of Sins Holiness and Glory assuring them also that God will help them to believe sincerely on Christ if they desire it with all their Hearts and that it is their Duty to believe because God commands it Several other Evils are occasioned by the same Doctrine Men are unwilling to know the worst of themselves and prone to think their Qualifications better than they are that they may avoid Despair others please and content themselves without any Assurance of their Interest in Christ because they think that is not necessary to Salvation and that but few attain to it and in this they shew little Love to Christ or to their own Souls some foster Doubtings of Salvation as Signs of Humility though they will hypocritically complain of them many mispend their time in poring upon their own Hearts to find out some Evidence of their Interest in Christ when they should rather be imployed in receiving Christ and walking in him by a confident Faith Some are troubled with Doubts whether they should call God Father and what Apprehensions they should have of him in Prayer and are offended at Ministers that in their Publick Prayers use any Expressions that the People cannot joyn in as if they do own God as their God and Father and Christ as their Saviour and upon the same Account they are offended at the Publick singing of many of David's Psalms and avoid partaking of the Lord's Supper because they are not satisfied about their Interest in Christ Though true Believers have some Assurance of Salvation in Saving Faith it self yet it is much weakned in many by this contrary Doctrine and assaulted with many Doubtings and then other good Qualifications must needs be low and weak together with it and so obscure that it is very hard to discern them how hard a thing then will it be for true Believers to assure themselves by the certain Knowledge of their own Sincerity that they are in a state of Grace already which is the only Assurance of Faith Some prescribe Marks and Signs to distinguish Sincerity from Hypocrisie that Believers cannot sufficiently try themselves by them except they have more Knowledge and Experience than Ordinary Thus many Believers walk heavily in the Bitterness of their Souls conflicting with Fears and Doubtings all their Days and this is the Cause that they have so little Courage and Fervency of Spirit in the ways of God and that they so much mind earthly things and are so afraid of Sufferings and Death And if they get some Assurance by the Reflect Act of Faith they often soon lose it again by Sins and Temptations The way to avoid these Evils is to get your Assurance and to maintain it and renew it upon all Occasions by the direct Act of Faith by trusting assuredly on the Name of the Lord and staying your self upon your God when you walk in Darkness and see no light in any of your own Qualifications Isa 50.10 I doubt not but the Experience of many choice Christians will bear witness to this Truth DIRECT XI Endeavour diligently to perform the great work of believing on Christ in a right manner without any delay and then also to continue and increase in your most holy Faith that so your enjoyment of Christ Vnion and Fellowship with him and all holiness by him may be begun continued and increased in you EXPLICATION HAving already discovered to you the powerful and effectual means of an holy practice my remaining work is to lead you to the actual Exercise and Improvement of them for the immediate attainment of the End and I think it may be clearly perceived by the
us God hath promised that the wayfaring Men tho Fools shall not err in the way of Holiness and that he will teach sinners in the way the Meek will he guide in Judgment and the Meek will he teach his way Psal 25.8 9. and he commandeth them that lack Wisdom to ask it of God in Faith nothing doubting Jam. 1.5 6. But however we are to know that God guideth us only according to the rule of his Word and we must endeavour to learn the right way of Believing out of the Word or else we are not able so much as to trust rightly on God for guidance and direction in this great Work To help you herein I have given you before in this Treatise a Description of saving Faith and have shewed that it containeth two Acts in it the one is Believing the Truth of the Gospel the other is Believing on Christ as revealed and freely promised to us in the Gospel for all his Salvation Now your great endeavour must be to perform both these Acts in a right manner as I shall shew concerning each of them in particular In the first place you are highly concerned to endeavour for a right belief of the Truth of the Gospel of Christ that so you may be well furnished disposed and encouraged to Believe on Christ as revealed and promised in the Gospel hereby you are to remove all discomfortable thoughts and objections of Satan and your own Conscience and to overcome all corrupt Inclinations that hinder a chearful embracing of Christ and his Salvation It is found by experience that when any fail in the second Act of Faith the reason of the failing is commonly some defect in this first Act. There is some false imagination or other in them contrary to the belief of the Truth of the Gospel which is a strong hold of Sin and Satan that must be pulled down before they can receive Christ into their Hearts by Believing on him If they knew the Name of Christ as he is discovered in the Gospel and judged aright of the Truth and Excellency of it they would not fail to put their Trust in him And we are in great danger of entertaining such false Imaginations and to account many Truths of the Gospel strange Paradoxes yea foolish and pernicious because of our Ignorance Self-conceitedness guilty Consciences corrupt Affections and manifold Errors wherewith our Judgments are prepossessed in matters of Salvation and because Satan laboureth to beguil us as he did Eve through his subtilty to corrupt our minds from the simplicity of the Gospel that is in Christ 2 Cor. 11.3 I shall therefore give you some particular Instructions that are of greatest moment to prevent such defects as we are most lyable to in the first Act of our Faith 1. You must Believe with a full perswasion that you are a Child of Wrath by Nature as well as others fallen from God by the sin of the first Adam dead in Trespasses and Sins subject to the Curse of the Law of God and to the power of Satan and to insupportable misery to all Eternity And that you cannot possibly procure your reconciliation with God or any spiritual Life and Strength to do any good work by any endeavouring to get Salvation according to the terms of the Legal Covenant and that you cannot find any way to escape out of this sinful and miserable Condition by your own Reason and Understanding without supernatural Revelation nor be freed from it except by that infinite power that raiseth the Dead We must not be afraid as some are to know our own vileness and sinfulness neither must we be willing to think our selves better than we are but must be heartily desirous and glad to know the worst of our own Condition yea when we have found out the worst that we can of our selves Yea we must be willing to believe that our Hearts are deceitful and desperately wicked beyond all that we can know and find out Jer. 17.9 This is all necessary to work in us true Humiliation Self-despair and Self-loathing that we may highly esteem and earnestly seek the Salvation of Christ as the one thing necessary It maketh us sick of sin and sensible of our need of the great Physician and willing to be ordered according to any of his prescriptions whatsoever we suffer rather than to follow our own Wisdom Mat. 9.12 It was for want of this Humiliation that the Scribes and Pharisees were not so forward to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven as the Publicans and Harlots Mat. 21.31 2. You are to believe assuredly That there is no way to be saved without receiving all the saving benesits of Christ his Spirit as well as his Merits Sanctification as well as remission of sins by Faith It is the ruin of many Souls that they trust on Christ for remission of sins without any regard to Holiness whenas these two Benefits are inseparably joyned in Christ So that none are freed from Condemnation by Christ but those that are enabled to walk holily i. e. not after the flesh but after the spirit Rom. 8.1 It is also the ruin of Souls to seek only remission of sins by Faith in Christ and Holiness by our endeavours according to the terms of the Law whereas we can never live to God in Holiness except we be dead to the Law and live only by Christ living in us by Faith That Faith that receiveth not holiness as well as remission of sins from Christ will never sanctifie us and therefore it will never bring us to heavenly Glory Heb. 12.14 3. You are to be fully persuaded of the All-sufficiency of Christ for the Salvation of your self and of all that believe on him that his blood cleanseth from all sin 1 Joh. 1.7 tho our sins be never so great and horrible and continued in never so long yet he is able to deliver us from the body of Death and mortifie our Corruptions be they never so strong We find in Scripture that abominable wicked persons have bin saved by him Idolaters Adulterers Effeminate Covetous Drunkards Extortioners c. 1 Cor. 6.9 10. Such as have sinned against the Light of Nature as the Heathen and the Light of Scripture as the Jews such as have denied Christ as Peter and persecuted and blasphamed him as Paul many that have fallen into great sins are ruined for ever because they do not account the Grace of Christ sufficient for their Pardon and Sanctification when they think they are gone and past all hope of recovery that their sins are upon them and they pine away in them and how shall they live Ezek. 33.10 This despair works secretly in many Souls without much trouble and horror and maketh them careless of their Souls and true Religion The Devil sills some with horrid filthy blasphemous thoughts on purpose that they may think their sins too great to be forgiven tho commonly such thoughts are the least of the sins of those that are pestered
with them and rather the Devils sin than theirs because they are hurried into them sore against their wills but if their Hearts be somewhat polluted with them Christ testifieth that all manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven besides blasphemy against the Holy Ghost Mat. 10.31 And as for those that are guilty of Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost the reason why they are never forgiven is not because of any want of sufficiency in the Blood of Christ or in the pardoning mercy of God but because they never repent of that sin and never seek to God for mercy through Christ but continue obstinate until Death for the Scripture testifieth that it is impossible to renew them again by Repentance Heb. 6.5 6. So that the Merits of Christ are sufficient for all that seek to him for mercy by Believing There are others that despair of ever getting any Victory over their Lusts because they have formerly made many Vows and Resolutions and have used many vigorous Endeavours against them in vain such are to persuade themselves that the Grace of Christ is sufficient for them when all other means have failed as the Woman that had the Issue of Blood and was nothing bettered but rather grew worse by any Remedies that Physicians could prescribe yet persuadeth her self that if she might but touch the Cloths of Christ she should be whole Mar. 5.25 28. Those that despair by reason of the greatness of their Guilt and Corruption do greatly dishonour and undervalue the Grace of God his infinite mercy and the infinite merits of Christ's Blood and power of his Spirit and deserve to perish with Cain and Judas Abundance of People that give up themselves to all Licentiousness in this wicked Generation lye under secret Despair which maketh them so desperate in Swearing Blaspheming Whoring Drunkenness and all manner of Wickedness How horrid and hainous soever our sins and corruptions have bin we should learn to account them a small matter in comparison to the Grace of Christ who is God as well as Man and offered himself by the Eternal Spirit as a Sacrifice of an infinite Value for our Salvation and can create anew as easily as he created the World by a word speaking 4. You are to be fully perswaded of the Truth of the General Free Promise in your own particular case that if you believe on Christ sincerely you shall have everlasting Life as well as any other in the World without performing any condition of Works to procure an Interest in Christ For the Promise is Universal Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashanted Rom. 9.32 without any Exception and if God exclude you not you must not exclude your selves but rather conclude peremptorily that how Vile Wicked and Unworthy soever you be yet if you come you shall be accepted as well as any other in the World you are to believe the great Article of the Creed the Remission of Sins in your own case when you are principally concerned or else it will little profit you to believe it in the case of others This is that which hinders many broken wounded Spirits from coming to the great Physician when they are convinced of the abominable Filthiness of their Hearts that they are dead in Sin without the least spark of true Grace and Holiness in them they think that it is in vain for such as they are to trust on Christ for Salvation and that Christ will never save such as they are why so They can be but lost Creatures at worst and Christ came to seek and save those that are lost If they that are Dead in Sin cannot be saved then all must Despair and Perish for none have any Spiritual Life until they receive it by Believing on Christ Some think themselves to be worse than any others and that none have such wicked Hearts as they and tho others be accepted yet they shall be rejected but they should know that Christ came to save the Chiefest of Sinners 1 Tim. 1.15 and that the design of God is to shew the exceeding Riches of his Grace in our Salvation Eph. 2.7 which is most glorified by pardoning the greatest Sinners and it is but our ignorance to think our selves like no Body for all others as well as we are naturally Dead in Trespasses and Sins their Mind is Enmity to God and is not subject to his Law nor can be Rom. 8.8 and every Imagination of the Thoughts of their Hearts are only evil and continually so Gen. 6.5 they have all the same corrupt Fountain of all Abominations in their Hearts tho we may have exceeded many others in several actual Sins Others think that they have out-staid their time and therefore now they should find no place for Repentance tho they should seek it carefully with Tears Heb. 12. but Behold now is 〈◊〉 accepted time now the day of Salvation 2 Cor. 6. ◠even as long as God calleth upon you by the Gospel And altho Esau was rejected that sought rather the Earthly than Spiritual Blessings of the Birth-right yet they shall not be rejected that seek the Enjoyment of Christ and his Salvation as their only Happiness If you come into Christ's Vinyard at the eleventh Hour of the day you shall have your Penny as well as those that come early in the Morning because the Reward is of Grace and not of Merit Matt. 20.9 10. and here you must be sure to believe stedfastly that Christ and all his Salvation is bestowed as a Free Gift upon those that do not work to procure any Right or Title to him or meetness or worthiness to receive him but only believe on him that justifieth the ungodly Rom. 4.5 if you put any condition of Works or good Qualifications betwixt your selves and Christ it will be a Partition wall that you can never climb over 5. You are to believe assuredly that it is the Will of God that you should Believe in Christ and have Eternal Life by him as well as any other and that your Believing is a Duty very acceptable to God and that he will help you as well as any other in this work because he calleth and commandeth you by the Gospel to Believe in Christ This maketh us to set carefully upon the work of Believing as when Jesus commanded the blind Man to be called they said unto him Be of good comfort and rise he calleth thee Mat. 10.29 A Command of Christ made Peter to walk upon the Water Mat. 14.29 And here we are not to meddle with Gods secret of Predestination or the purpose of his Will to give the Grace of Faith to some rather than others but only with his revealed Will in his gracious Invitations and Commands by which we are required to Believe on Christ This Will of God is confirmed by his Oath As I live saith the Lord God I have no pleasure in the death of a sinner but that the wicked turn from his way and live Turn ye turn ye
from your evil ways for why will ye die O house of Israel Ezek. 33.11 Christ testifieth that he would often have gathered the Children of Jerusalem as a hen c. and they would not Mat. 23.37 And the Apostle Paul testifieth that God will have all men to be saved c. 1 Tim. 1.4 you are to reject and abandon all thoughts that are contrary to this persuasion What if few be saved Thy Salvation will not make the number too great for few will follow thee in the Duty of Believing What if the Wrath of God be revealed from Heaven against thee in many terrible Judgments and the Word and thine own Conscience condemn thee and Christ seem to reckon thee no better than a Dog as he did the Woman of Canaan Mat. 15.26 Thou art to make a good interpretation of all these things that the end of them is to drive thee to Christ as this was the End of the Curses of the Law and all the terrible Dispensations of them Rom. 10.4 If a Prophet or Angel from Heaven sent of God on purpose to declare that the Sentence of Everlasting Damnation is declared against thee it would be thy Duty to believe that God sent him to give thee timely warning for this very end that thou mightest Believe and turn to God by Faith and Repentance Jeremiah prophesied against the Jews that God would pluck them up pull them down and destroy them for their sins yet he himself taught them If they turned from their evil ways God would repent of the evil Jer. 18.7 8 11. Jonah preached nothing but certain Destruction of Nineveh to be executed upon them within 40 days Chap. 3.4 yet the intent of that terrible message was that those Heathenish People might escape Destruction by Repentance The most absolute and peremptory denunciations of Divine Vengeance against us while we are in this World must be always understood with a secret reserve of Salvation for us upon our Faith and Repentance And we are to account that the reason why God doth so terribly denounce his Judgments against us by his Word is that we may escape them by flying for Refuge to his free Mercy in Christ Take heed of fostering any thoughts that God hath absolutely decreed to shew no saving Mercy to you or that you have already committed the unpardonable sin or that it is in vain for you to attempt the work of Believing because God will not help you in it If such thoughts prevail in your hearts they will do you more hurt than the worst blasphemous thoughts that terrifie you or any of the grossest Abominations that ever you were guilty of because they obstruct your Believing on Christ for Salvation The Spirit and the Bride say Come Christ saith Whosoever will let him take of the water of Life freely Rev. 22.17 Therefore we are to abandon all thoughts that hinder our coming to Christ as very sinful and pernicious arising in us from our own Corruptions and Satan's Delusions and utterly opposite to the mind of Christ and teachings of the Spirit and what ground can we have to entertain such unbelieving thoughts Hath God made us of his Privy-Council that we should be able to know that God hath decreed us to Damnation before it be manifest by our final unbelief and impenitence As for the unpardonable sin it consisteth in renouncing the way of Salvation by Christ with the whole heart after we have attained to the knowledge of it and are convinced of the Truth of it by the Gospel It s the sin that the Christian Hebrews would have bin guilty of if they had revolted from Christianity to the Religion of the unbelieving Jews that accounted Christ to be an Impostor and were most rancorous persecutors of him and his ways Heb. 6.4 5. They that have committed that sin continue implacable malicious Enemies to Christ and his ways to the end without any repentance Therefore if you can but find that you desire seriously to get an interest in Christ and to be better Christians than you are if you be troubled and grieved that your Hearts and Lives are so wicked and that you want Faith Love and true Obedience yea if your Hearts be not maliciously bent to persecute the Gospel and prefer Atheism Licentiousness or any false Religion before it you have no cause to suspect your selves to be guilty of this unpardonable sin 6. Add to all these a full persuasion of the incomparable glorious Excellency of Christ and of the way of Salvation by him You are to esteem the enjoyment of Christ as the only Salvation and true happiness and such an happiness as hath in it unsearchable Riches of Glory and will make our Cup to run over with exceeding abundance of Peace and Joy and full of Glory to all Eternity We must account all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus our Lord c. Phil. 3.8 Incline your Wills and Affections to choose and embrace Christ as the Chief Good and never to rest satisfied without the Enjoyment of him and to reject every thing that stands in Competition with him or the Enjoyment of him Christ is precious in the esteem of all true Believers 1 Pet. 2.7 Their high esteem of his incomparable preciousness and excellency induceth them to sell all that they may buy this Pearl of great price Mat. 13.46 this maketh them to say Lord evermore give us of this Bread that cometh down from Heaven and giveth Life to the World Lord to whom shall we go thou hast the Words of Eternal Life Joh. 6.32 33 68. because of the savour of his good Ointments his Name is as Ointment poured forth therefore do the Virgins love him Cant. 1.3 They are sick of love to him because he is in their Eyes the chiefest of ten thousand Cant. 5.8 10. As the Glory of God that appeared in the wonderful Beauty of the Temple and in the Wisdom and Glory of Solomon drew Worshipers to God from the utmost parts of the Earth so the unparallel'd excellency of Christ which was prefigured by the Glory of Solomon and the Temple doth more powerfully draw Believers in these Gospel-days The Devil who is the God of this World knows how necessary it is for our Salvation to discern all the Glory and Excellency of Christ and therefore where the Gospel is preached he maketh it his great work to Eclypse the Glory of Christ in the Ministry and to blind the minds of the People lest the Light of the glorious Gospel of Christ should shine into them 2 Cor. 4.4 One that is convinced of the truth of the Gospel may be averse to the embracing of it until he see also the goodness of it that Christ is altogether lovely and excellent I come now to the second principal Act of Faith whereby Christ himself and his Spirit and all his saving Benefits are actually received into the Heart which is Believing on Christ as revealed and freely
Conversation in the World not with fleshly Wisdom but by the Grace of God 2 Cor. 1.12 having or holding fast Grace that we may serve God acceptably labouring abundantly in such a manner as that the whole work is not performed by us but by the Grace of God that is with us 1 Cor. 15.10 By Grace therefore we may well understand the priviledges of our new state given to us in Christ whereby we ought to be influenced and guided in the performance of holy Duties 4. It is also signified when we are to put off the old and put on the new Man yea to continue in so doing tho we have done it in a measure already and that we avoid our former sinful Conversation Ephes 4.21 22 24. and to avoid sin because we have put off the old and put on the new Man Col. 3.9 10 11. I have already shewed that by this twofold man is not meant merely sin and holiness but by the former meant our natural Estate with all its Endowments whereby we are furnished only to the practice of sin and by the later or new Estate in Christ that whereby we are furnished with all means necessary for the practice of Holiness 5. We are to understand the same thing when we are taught not to walk after the Flesh but after the Spirit that we may be free from the Law of sin and that the righteousness of the Law may be fulfilled in us Rom. 8.1 2 3. and through the Spirit to mortifie the deeds of the body and to be led by the Spirit because we live by the Spirit and have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts Gal. 5.24 The Apostle doth shew by these expressions not only that we are to practise holiness but also by what means we may do it effectually By the Flesh is meant our old Nature derived from the first Adam And by the Spirit is meant the Spirit of Christ and that new Nature which we have by him dwelling in us We are said to walk after either of these Natures when we make the Properties or Qualifications of either of them to be the principles of our Practice So when we are taught to serve in newness of the spirit and not in the oldness of the Letter that so we may bring forth fruits unto God The meaning is that we must endeavour to bring forth the fruits of holiness not by vertue of the Law that killing Letter to which the Flesh is married and by which the motions of sin are in us but by vertue of the Spirit and his manifold Riches which we partake of in our new state by a mystical marriage with Christ Rom. 7.4 5 6. and by vertue of such Principles as belong to the New State declared in the Gospel whereby the holy spirit is ministred to us 6. This is the manner of walking which the Apostle Paul directeth us unto when he teacheth us by his own Example That the continual work of our lives should be to know Christ and the power of his Resurrection and the fellowship of his Sufferings being made conformable to his Death if by any means we may attain to the Resurrection of the dead and to encrease and press forward in this kind of knowledge Phil. 3.10 11 12 15. Certainly he meaneth such an experimental knowledge of Christ and his Death and Resurrection as effectually makes us conformable thereunto in dying to sin and living to God And he would hereby guide us to make use of Christ and his Death and Resurrection by Faith as the powerful means of all Holiness in Heart and Life and to encrease in this manner of walking until we attain unto perfection in Christ 2. The second thing proposed was to lay before you some necessary Instructions that your steps may be guided aright to continue and go forward in this way of Holiness until you be made perfect in Christ And seeing we are naturally prone to mistake this way and are utterly unable to find it out or discern it by our own Reason and Understanding we should the more diligently attend to these Instructions taken out of the Holy Scriptures And we should pray earnestly that God would give unto us the Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation that we may discern the way of Holiness thereby and walk aright in it according to that gracious promise The wayfaring men tho Fools shall not err therein Isa 35.8 1. Observe and consider diligently in our whole Conversation That tho you are partakers of a new holy state by Faith in Christ yet our natural state doth remain in a measure with all its corrupt Principles and Properties as long as we live in this present World our apprehension of Christ and his perfection in this Life is only by Faith whereas by Sense and Reason we may apprehend much in our selves contrary to Christ and this Faith is imperfect So that true Believers have cause to pray to God to help their Unbelief Mar. 9.24 Therefore tho we receive perfect Christ by Faith yet the measure and degree of enjoying him is imperfect and we hope still so long as we are in this World to enjoy him in a higher degree of perfection than we have done we are yet but weak in Christ 2 Cor. 13.4 Children in comparison to the perfection we expect in another World 1 Cor. 13.10 11. and we must grow still till we come to the perfect man Eph. 4.13 and some are less Babes than others and have received Christ in so small a measure that they may be accounted carnal rather than spiritual 1 Cor. 3.1 And because all the Blessings and Perfections of our new state as Justification the gift of the Spirit and of the holy Nature and the Adoption of Children are seated and treasured up in Christ and joyned with him inseparably we can receive them no further than we receive Christ himself by Faith which we do in an imperfect measure and degree in this Life The Apostle Paul proposeth himself as a pattern for all those that are perfect in the truth of Grace to imitate And yet he professeth That he was not yet made so perfect in the degree or measure of saving Endowments but that he did still press forward towards the mark of the prize of the high-calling of God in Christ Jesus labouring still to apprehend and win Christ more perfectly and to be found in him not having his own Righteousness but that which is of God by Faith and to gain more experimental knowledge of Christ and of the fellowship of his sufferings and the power of his Resurrection being made conformable thereunto Phil 3.8 10. Believers are Justified already yet wait for the hope of Righteousness by Faith i. e. for the full enjoyment of the Righteousness of Christ Gal. 5.5 They have received but the first-fruits of the spirit and must wait for a more full enjoyment of it The Spirit witnesseth now to them that they are the Children of God and yet they groan
walk according to the Principles and Practices of your old natural state and you will be moved thereby to yield to the Dominion of Sin and Satan to withdraw your selves from God and Godliness as Adam was moved from the sight of his own Nakedness to hide himself from God Gen. 3.10 Therefore your way to a holy practice is first to conquer and spoil such unbelieving thoughts by trusting confidently on Christ and persuading your selves by Faith that his Righteousness Spirit Glory and all his spiritual Benefits are yours and he dwelleth in you and you in him In the might of this Confidence you should go forth to the performance of the Law and you will be strong against Sin and Satan and able to do all things through Christ that strengthens you This consident perswasion is of great necessity to the right framing and disposing our Hearts to walk according to our new state in Christ The Life of Faith principally consisteth in it And herein it eminently appeareth that Faith is an Hand not only to receive Christ but also to work by him and that it cannot be effectual for our Sanctification except it contain in it some Assurance of our Interest in Christ as hath bin shewed Thus we act as those that are above the Sphear of Nature advanced to Union and Fellowship with Christ The Apostle maintained in his Heart a perswasion that Christ had loved him and given himself for him and hereby he was enabled to live to God in Holiness through Christ living in him by Faith He teacheth us also that we must maintain the like perswasion if we would walk holily in Christ We must know that our old man is crucified with him and we must reckon our selves dead indeed unto sin and alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord Rom. 6.6 This is the means whereby we may be filled with the Spirit strong in the Lord and the power of his might which God would not require of us if he had not appointed the means Eph. 6. Christ himself walked in a constant perswasion of his excellent state he set the Lord always before him and was perswaded that because God was at his right hand he should not he moved Psal 16.8 How should it be rationally expected that a Man should Act according to this new state without Assurance that he is in it It s a rule of Common Prudence in all worldly Callings and Conditions that every one must know and consider well his own State lest he should act proudly above it or sordidly below it and it is a hard thing to bring some to a right estimate of their own worldly Conditions If the same rule were observed in Spiritual things doubtless the knowledg and perswasion of the Glory and Excellency of our new state in Christ would more elevate the hearts of Believers above all sordid Salvery to their Lusts and enlarge them to run chearfully the ways of Gods Commandments If Christians knew their own Strength better they would enterprize greater things for the Glory of God This Knowledge is difficultly attained it is only by Faith and spiritual Illumination the best know but in part and hence it is that the Conversation of Believers falleth so much below their holy and heavenly Calling 6. Consider what Endowments Priviledges or Properties of your new State are most meet and forcible to incline and strengthen your Heart to love God above all and to renounce all Sin and to give up your self to Universal Obedience to his Commands and strive to walk in the persuasion of them that you may attain to the Practice of these great Dutiesâ— I may well joyn these together because to love the Lord with all our Hearts Might and Soul is the first and great Commandment which influenceth us to all Obedience with a hatred and detestation of all Sin as it 's contrary and hateful to God The same effectual means that produceth the one will also produce the other and Holiness chiefly consisteth in these So the chief Blessings of our holy State are most meet and forcible to enable us for the immediate performance of them and are to be made use of to this end by Faith Particularly you must believe stedfastly that all your Sins are blotted out and that you are reconciled to God and have access into his Favour by the Blood of Christ and that he is your God and Father and altogether Love to you and your all-sufficient everlasting Portion and Happiness through Christ Such Apprehensions as these do present God as a very lovely Object to our Hearts and do thereby allure and win our Affections that cannot be forced by Commands or Threatnings but must be sweetly won and drawn by Allurements We must not harbour any Suspicions that God will prove a terrible everlasting Enemy to us if we would love him for there is no fear in Love but perfect Love casteth out Fear because Fear hath Torment he that feareth is not made perfect in Love we love him because he first loved us 1 Joh. 4.18 19. David loved the Lord because he was persuaded that he was his Strength Rock Fortress his God and the horn of his salvation Psal 18.1 2. Love that causeth Obedience unto the Law must proceed from a good Conscience purged from sin and this good Conscience must proceed from Faith unfeigned whereby we apprehend the remission of our sins our Reconciliation with God by the merits of the blood of Christ 1 Tim. 1.5 with Heb. 9.14 For the same end that your Hearts may be rightly fitted and framed for the performance of these principal Duties the Holy Scripture directeth you to walk in the perswasion of other principal Endowments of your new state As that you have fellowship with the Father and the Son 1 Joh. 1.3 That you are the Temple of the living God 2 Cor. 6.16 That you live by the Spirit Gal. 5.25 That you are called to Holiness and created in Christ Jesus unto good works That God will sanctisie you wholly and make you perfect in holiness at the last 1 Thes 5.23 24. Eph. 2.10 That your old man is crucified with Christ and through him you are dead unto sin and alive unto God and being made free from sin you are become the Servants of Righteousness and have your Fruit unto Holiness and the End Everlasting Life Rom. 6.6 22. You are Dead and your Life is hid with Christ in God When Christ who is your Life shall appear then shall you also appear with him in Glory Col. 3.3 4. Such perswasions as these when they are deeply rooted and constantly maintained in our Hearts do strongly Arm and Encourage us to practise Universal Obedience in opposition to every sinful Lust Because we look upon it not only as our Duty but our great Priviledge to do all things through Christ strengthning of us and God doth certainly work in us both to will and to do by these Principles because they properly belong to the Gospel
therefore we have directed to seeking of Holiness by the Spirit of Christ and willing good freely by a spiritual Power as new Creatures partakers of a divine Nature in Christ Yea it s necessary to know the first Adam that we may know the second Rom. 5.12 To believe the fall and original Sin that we may be stirred up to fly to Christ by Faith for Holiness by free Gift knowing that we cannot attain it by our own Power and Free Will 2 Cor. 1.9 Mat. 9.12 13. Rom. 7.24 25. 2 Cor. 3.5 Eph. 5.14 There were no need of a new Man or a new Creation if the old were not without strength and Life Joh 3.5 6 Eph. 2.8 But original Deadness cannot hinder Gods working Faith and Hungrings and Thirstings after Christ by the Spirit through the Gospel in those that God chooseth to walk holily and blamelessly before him in Love 1 Thes 1.4 5. Act. 26.18 And so we are made alive in a new Head and become Branches of another Vine living to God by the Spirit not by Nature 2. It confirms us in the Doctrin of Predestination which many deny because they say it takes Men off from Endeavours as fruitless by telling Men that all Events are predetermined This Argument would be more forcible against Endeavours by the power of our own Free Will but not at all against Endeavours for Holiness by the Operation of God giving us Faith and all Holiness by his own Spirit working in us through Christ we are to trust on Christ for the Grace of the Elect and Gods good Will towards Men Matt. 3.17 Luke 2.14 Psal 106.4 5. Election by Grace destroys seeking by Works but not by Grace Rom. 11.5 6. And we are here taught to seek for Salvation only in the way of the Elect and we may conclude that Holiness is to be had by Gods Will and not by our own and it may move us to desire Holiness by the Will of God Rom. 9.16 Psal 109.32 And seeing it appears by this Doctrin of Sanctification through Christ that we are Gods Workmanship as to all the good wrought in us Phil. 2.12 13. Eph. 2.10 We may well admit that he hath appointed his Pleasure from Eternity without infringing the Natural Liberty of our corrupt Wills which reacheth not unto good Works Acts 15.18 compare with 30. Mans Natural Free Will may well consist with Gods Decree as in Paradise Decretum radii contingentia 3. It confirms us in the true Doctrin of Justification and Reconciliation with God by Faith relying on the Merits of Christs Blood without any Works of our own and without considering Faith as a Work to procure Favour by the Righteousness of the Act but only as a Hand to receive the Gift or rather as the very Eating and Drinking of Christ actually than any kind of Condition intitling us to him as our Food This great Doctrin of the Gospel many hate as breaking the strongest Bonds of Holiness and opening a way to all Licentiousness for they reckon that the Conditionality of Works to attain Gods Favour and avoid his Wrath and the necessity of them to Salvation are the most necessary and effectual Impulsives to all Holiness and they account that the other Doctrin opens the Flood-gates to Licentiousness And truly this Consideration would be of some weight if People were to be brought to Holiness by Moral Suasion and their natural Endeavours stirred up by the Terms of the Law and by slavish Fears and Mercenary Hopes for the Force of these Motives would be altogether enervated by the Doctrin of Justification by Free Grace but I have already shewed that a Man being a guilty dead Creature cannot be brought to serve God out of love by force of any of these Motives and that we are not sanctified by any of our own Endeavours to work Holiness in our selves but rather by Faith in Christ's Death and Resurrection even the same whereby we are justified and that the urging of the Law stirs up Sin and that Freedom from it is necessary to all Holiness as the Apostle teacheth Rom. 6.11 14. and 7.4 5. And this way of Sanctification confirms the Doctrin of Justification by Faith as the Apostle informeth Rom. 8.1 For if we are Sanctified and so restored to the Image of God and Life by the Spirit through Faith it is evident that God hath taken us into his Favour and pardoned our Sins by the same Faith without the Law or else we should not have the Fruits and Effects of his Favour thereby to our eternal Salvation Rom. 8.2 Yea his Justice would not admit his giving Life without Works if we were not made Righteous in Christ by the same Faith And we cannot trust to have Holiness freely given us by Christ upon any rational Ground except we can also trust on the same Christ for free Reconciliation and Forgiveness of Sins for our Justification Neither can guilty cursed Creatures that cannot work by reason of their Deadness under the Curse be brought to a rational love of God except they apprehend his loving them first freely without Works 1 John 4.19 The great Objection and Reason of so many Controversies and Books written about it is because they think that Men will trust to be saved however they live But Sanctification is an Effect of Justification and floweth from the same Grace and we trust for them both by the same Faith and for the former in order to the latter And such a Faith be it never so confident tendeth not to Licentiousness but Holiness And we grant that Justification by Grace destroys Holiness by legal Endeavours but not by Grace So that there is no need to live a Papist and die an Antinomian 4. It confirms us in the Doctrin of Real Union with Christ so plentifully held forth in Scripture which Doctrin some count a vain Notion and cannot endure it because they think it worketh not Holiness but Presumption whereas I have shewed that it is absolutely necessary for the Enjoyment of Spiritual Life and Holiness which is treasured up in Christ and that so inseparably that we cannot have it without a real Union with him 2 Cor. 13.5 1 John 5.12 John 6.53 ch 15.5 1 Cor. 1.30 Col. 3.11 The Members and Branches cannot live without Union with the Vine and Head nor the Stones be part of the living Temple except they be really joyned mediately or immediately to the Corner-stone 5. In the Doctrin of certain final Perseverance of the Saints John 3.36 c. 6.37 5.24 1 John 3.9 1 Thess 5.24 Phil. 1.6 John 10.23 29. c. 4.14 They think this Doctrin maketh People careless of good Works I answer It maketh People careless of seeking them by their own Natural Strength and in a way of slavish Fear but careful and couragious in trusting on the Grace of God for them when they are brought by Regeneration heartily to desire them Rom. 6.14 Numb 13.30 setting upon the doing of them in that Grace 1 Thess 5.8
11. And I have shewed that all fears of Damnation will never bring Persons to work out of love and that nothing will do it but a comfortable Doctrin 3ly It hath this excellent Property that it is a Never-failing effectually powerful alone Sufficient and sure way to attain to true Holiness They that have the Truth in them find it and the truly humbled find it People strive in vain when they seek it any other way therefore venture with the Lepers else you die 2 Kings 7. Isa 55.2 3 7. All other ways either stir up Sin or increase Despair in you as seeking Holiness by the Law and working under the Curse doth and breeds but Slavish and Hypocritical Obedience at best and restrains Sin only instead of mortifying it Gal. 4.25 The Jews sought another way and could not attain it Rom. 9. And all that seek it another way shall lye down in Sorrow Isa 50.11 And that 1. Because as we are under the Law in our Natural Estate we are Dead and Children of Wrath Eph. 2.1 3. And the Law curseth us instead of helping us Gal. 3.10 and giveth no Life by its Obligation Gal. 3.21 And we cannot work Holiness in our selves Rom. 5.6 So that an humbled Person finds it in vain to seek Holiness by the Law or his own Strength for the Law is weak through our Flesh seeking a pure Life without a pure Nature is building without a Foundation and no seeking a new Nature from the Law for it bids make Brick without Straw and saith to the Cripple Walk without giving any Strength 2. In this way only God is reconciled to us even in Christ 2 Cor. 5.19 Eph. 1.7 And so he loves us and is a fit Object of our Love 1 John 4.19 And so in this way only we have a new and Divine Nature by the Spirit of Christ in us effectually carrying us forth to Holiness with Life and Love Rom. 8.5 Gal. 5.17 2 Pet. 1.3 4 and have new Hearts according to the Law so that we serve God heartily according to the new Nature and cannot but serve him 1 John 3.9 So that here is a sure Foundation for Godliness and love to God with all our Heart Might and Soul and Sin is not only restrained but mortified and not only the outside made clean but the inside and the Image of God renewed and Holy Actings surely follow We Sin not according to the new Nature though we are not perfect in degree because of the old Nature 4ly It is a most pleasant way to those that are in it Prov. 3.17 and that in several respects 1. It is a most plain way easie to be found to one that seeth his own Deadness under the Law and is so renewed in the Spirit of his Mind as to know and be perswaded of the Truth of the Gospel though such may be troubled and pestered with many legal Thoughts and Workings yet when they seriously consider things the way is so plain that they think it Folly and Madness to go any other way So that the wayfaring Man though a Fool doth do not err therein Isa 35.8 Prov. 8.9 The enlightned Soul cannot think of another way when truly humbled Prov. 1.8 And when we are in Christ we have his Spirit to be our Guide in this way 1 John 2.27 John 16.13 So that we need not be filled with such distracting Thoughts about knowledge of our way as legal Spirits are about Thousands of Cases of Conscience which do so multiply upon them that they despair of finding out the way of Religion by reason of so various Doubts and manifold Intricacies Here we may be sure that God will so far teach us our Duties as that we shall not be misled with Error so as to continue in it to Destruction Psalm 25.8 9 14. What a trouble is it to a Traveller to be doubtful of his way and without a Guide when his Business is of great Importance upon Life and Death it is even an Heart-breaking But those that are in this way may be sure that though they sometime err yet they shall not err destructively but shall discern their way again Gal. 4.7 10. 2. It is easie to those that walk in it by the Spirit though it be difficult to get into it by reason of the Opposition of the Flesh or Devil scaring us or seducing us from it Here you have Holiness as a Free Gift received by Faith an Act of the Mind and Soul whosoever will may come take it and drink freely and nothing is required but a willing mind Joh. 7.38 Isa 55. 1. Rev. 22.17 But the Law is an intolerable Burden Mat. 23.4 Acts 15.10 if Duty be laid on by its Terms We are not left in this way to conquer Lusts by our Endeavours which is a successless Work but what is Duty is given and the Law is turned into Promises Heb. 8. Ezek. 36.25 26. Jer. 31.33 32.40 We have all now in Christ Col. 3.11 and 2.9 10 15.17 This is a Catholick Medicine instead of a Thousand How pleasant would this Free-gift Holiness be to us if we knew our own Wants and Inabilities and Sinfulness How ready are some to Toyle continually and macerate their Bodies in a melancholy legal way to get Holiness rather than perish for ever and therefore how ready should we be when it is only Take and Have Believe and be Sanctifyed and Saved 2 Kings 5.13 Christs burden is light by his Spirit bearing Mat. 11.30 No weariness but renewing of strength Isa 40 31. 3. It is a way of Peace Prov. 3.17 free from Fears and Terrors of Conscience that those meet with unavoidably that seek Salvation by Works for the Law worketh wrath Rom. 4.15 It is not the way of Mount Sinai but of Jerusalem Heb. 12.18 22. The Doubts of Salvation that People meet with arise from putting some condition of Works betwixt Christ and themselves as hath appeared in this Discourse but our walking in this way is by Ftith which rejects such Fears and Doubtings Joh. 14.1 Mar. 5.36 Heb. 10.19 22. It 's free from Fears of Satan or any Evil Rom. 8.31 32. And free from slavish Fears of perishing by our Sins 1 Joh. 2.1 2. Phil. 4.6 7. it laying hold on infinite Grace Mercy and Power to secure us The Lord is the Keeper and Shade on the right hand Psal 121.5 Free and powerful Grace answers all Objections 4. It is a way that is paved with Love like Solomons Chariot Cant. 3.10 We are to set Gods loving-kindness and all the gifts of his Love still before our eyes Psal 26.2 Christs Death Resurrection Intercession before our eyes which breed Peace Joy Hope Love Rom. 15.13 Isa 35.10 You must Believe for your Justification Adoption the Gift of the Spirit and a future Inheritance your Death and Resurrection with Christ In Believing for these things your whole way is adorned with Flowers and hath these Fruits growing on each side so that it 's through the Garden
God 3. They have no need to seek Salvation by Works of the Law and so are delivered from a Yoke that cannot be born from endless observances that Pharisees and Papists have heaped up from the continual frights doubts fears and terrors by the Law Act. 15.10 Rom. 8.15 from a Wrath-working Law Rom. 4.15 from a Sin irritating Law Rom. 7.5 from a killing Law a Ministration of Death and Condemnation 2 Cor. 3.6 7 9. Mount Sinai which gendreth to Bondage Gal 4.24 4. Hence they are delivered from a condemning Conscience which otherwise would still gnaw them as a Worm Heb. 9.14 If the Blood of Bulls and Goats sanctified to the purifying of the flesh how much more shall the blood of Christ who through the eternal spirit offered himself without spot to God purge your conscience from dead works c. A guilty conscience is a foul conscience and it will make all his services and duties dead works unfit for the service of the living God it s the blood of Christ applied by Faith that takes off this foulness of guilt from the conscience therefore the blood of Christ hath the only efficacy this way to take off the conscience of Sin Heb. 10.1 2 3 4 c. Hence they come to have a good conscience 1 Pet. 3.21 void of offence toward God Act. 24.16 5. It is an everlasting Righteousness by which their standing in Christ is secured Heb. 9.12 It s an eternal Redemption that is obtained So Dan 9.24 Whereas by the Law those that were justified to day typically might fall under condemnation so far as to need another sacrifice for Sin they had no real purgation of conscience from sin by those Sacrifices and therefore could not have a lasting delivery of their consciences from guilt by them here it is far otherwise here is an effectual compleat and perpetual Redemption reaching the conscience of the Sinner and for the purging away all sins past present and to come 1 Joh. 1.7 6. It 's a Righteousness of infinite value because it is the Righteousness of one that is God and his Name is Jehovah our Righteousness Jer. 23.6 Heb. 9.14 It is therefore more powerful to save than Adams sin was to destroy or condemn Rom. 5. Christ is here the power of God 1 Cor. 1.24 thence we are powerful and conquer by Faith likewise there 's a marvelous plenty of Mercy and Grace that is brought to us by Jehovah our Righteousness plenteous Redemption Psal 130.7 it must be most plentiful because infinite though no creature could satisfie for sin yet Jehovah could do it abundantly and therefore in Christ Gods merey prevails high above our sins Psal 103.11 12. 7. Gods Grace and Justice is both ingaged on our behalf in this Righteousness Justice is terrible and seems to be against mercy and dreadful to Natural people but it is otherwise to Believers it 's pacified and appeased through this Righteousness it 's satisfied in Christ for our sins Justice becomes our Friend joins in with Grace and instead of pleading against us it 's altogether for us and it speaks contrary to what it speaks to sinners out of Christ Josh 24.19 20. We may also plead Justice for forgiveness through mercy in Christ Rom. 3.26 8. We may be sure of Holiness and Glory of delivery from the power and dominion of sin as well as the charge of it before God and guilt in our own consciences for this was the end of Christs death Tit. 2.14 Rom. 6.6 Rom. 8.3 4. ch 6.14 c. 8.30 Whom he hath justified them hath he glorified The Law was the strength of Sin for sin had its title to rule in us by reason of the Curse and thence Satan also rules but here is our deliverance from Sin and Satan yea from Death too Heb. 2.14 15. Hos 13 14. And by the same reason we are raised by this excellent Righteousness to a better State than we had in Adam at first for Christ died that we might receive the Adoption of Sons and the Spirit that we might be brought under a new Covenant and be set in the right way of Holiness serving out of Love Gal. 3.14 1 Joh. 4.19 Gal. 4.4 Heb. 9.15 Rom. 5.11 Mat. 22.37 38. Col. 2.13 9. We may be sure hence of a concurrence of all things for our good all things shall work for good through Grace to bring us to Glory because God is for us who is the Creator and Governor of all things Rom 8.28 31 33. God will never be wroth with us nor rebuke us in anger any more Isa 54.9 Rom. 5.3 10. Hence we may come before God without confusion of face yea with boldness to the Throne of Grace in Christs Name Joh. 14.13 14. and expect all good things of him Eph. 3.12 in whom we have boldness of access with confidence by saith in him Heb. 10.22 23. Let us draw nigh with full assurance of faith Christs blood pleads for us in Heaven Heb. 12.14 and we may and are to plead boldly a satisfaction on his account 11. We live in those times when this righteousness is fully revealed and Sin made an end of Rom. 3.21 22. this is our happiness above those that lived before Christs coming who were under Types and Shadows of this righteousness when as we have the substance in its own light and so we are not under the Law which they were under as a School-master we are not Servants but Sons called to liberty Gal. 3.23 26. 4 7. 5 13. The preaching of the old Covenant as a Church Ordinance to be urged now is ceased the Law is not to be preached now in the same terms as Moses preached it for Justification Rom. 10.5 6 7 8. 2 Cor. 3.6 7. Gal. 3.12 21. its contrary in terms to saith though it were subservient Vse II. For Examination whether we be in Christ and have received this Justification by faith with all our hearts 1. Consider whether you be made really sensible of Sin and your Condemnation by the Law this is necessary to make us fly to Christ and for this as one great end was the Law given Gal. 3.22 23 24. Mat. 9.13 Act. 2.37 without sense of sin no prizing of Christ or desire of Holiness but rather abuse of Grace to carnal security and licentiousness those that were stung with the fiery Serpents looked up to the brazen Serpent 2. Dost thou trust only upon free mercy for Justification in Gods sight renouncing all thy works whatever in this point as not able to stand in them before Gods exact Justice crying mercy with the poor Publican Perfectionists and Self-righteous persons have no share in this matter Luk. 18.13 14. and Paul notwithstanding all that the World might think he had to plead for himself yet he counted all but dung that he might win Christ and be found in him not having his own righteousness which is of the Law but that which is of the faith of Christ the righteousness which is
soveraign Authority Omniscience perfect Holiness exact Justice the equity of his Law and reasonableness of our Obedience to it the unspeakable Happiness prepared for the Godly and Misery for the Wicked to all Eternity Meditation on such things as these is indeed very useful to press upon our Consciences the Strictness of our Obligation to holy Duties and to move us to go by Faith to Christ for Life and Strength to perform them But that we may receive this Life and Strength whereby we are enabled for immediate performance we must meditate believingly on Christ's saving Benefits as they are discovered in the Gospel which is the only Doctrin which is the Power of God to our Salvation and whereby the quickning Spirit is ministred to us and that is able to build us up and give us an inheritance among all them which are sanctifyed Rom. 1.16 2 Cor. 3.6 Act. 20.32 You must take special care to act Faith in your Meditation mix the Word of God's Grace with it or else it will not profit you Heb. 4.2 and if you set the loving kindness of God frequently before your eyes by meditating on it believingly you will be strengthned to walk in the truth Psal 26.2 and by beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord you will be changed into the same image from glory to glory even as by the Spirit of the Lord 2 Cor. 3.18 This kind of Meditation is sweet and delightful to those that are guided to it by the Spirit of Faith and it needs not the help of such artificial-Methods as the Vulgar cannot easily learn You may let your Thoughts run in it at liberty without confining them to any rules of Method you will find your Souls much enlivened by it and enriched with the Grace of God which cannot be effected by any other kind of Meditation though it be never so methodical and curiously framed according to the Rules of Art 4. The Sacrament of Baptism must needs be of great use to promote the Life of Faith if it be made use of according to its Nature and Institution because it is a seal of the righteousness of faith as circumcision was formerly Rom. 4.11 But then we must take heed of making it a Seal of the contrary Righteousness of Works as the carnal Jews did that sought to be justified by the Law of Moses and as many Christians do that transform the New Covenant into a Covenant of Works requiring sincere Obedience to all the Laws of Christ as the condition of our Justification into which new devised Covenant they think themselves to be entred by their Baptism I may say of Baptism thus perverted and abused as the Apostle saith of Circumcision Baptism verily profiteth if thou keep the Law but if thou be a Breaker of the Law thy Baptism is made no Baptism Rom. 2.26 If thou be Baptised so long as thou continuest in the abuse of that holy Ordinance Christ shall profit you nothing Christ is become of no effect to you Ye are all fallen from grace Gal. 3.2.4 Beware also of making an Idol of Baptism and putting it in the place of Christ as the Papists do who hold that it conferreth Grace by the very work that is performed in the Administration of it And as many Ignorant People do that trust rather on their Baptism than on Christ like to the Pharisees who placed their Confidence on Circumcision and other external Privileges Phil. 3.4 5. We are to know that God is not well pleased with many that are Baptised 1 Cor. 10.2 5. and the time will come when he will punish the Baptised with the Unbaptised as well as the circumcised with the uncircumcised Jer. 9.25 Beware also of advancing Baptism to an equal Partnership with Faith in your Salvation as some do who account all Baptism null and void besides that which is administred to persons grown up to years of Discretion and they that refuse to be re-baptized at those years are to be accounted Aliens from the true Church from Christ and his Salvation notwithstanding all their Faith in Christ If the Baptism of Infants were null and void yet the want of true Baptism would be no Damning matter to those that are otherwise perswaded Circumcision was as necessary as Baptism in its time and yet the Israelites omitted it for the space of forty years in the Wilderness without fearing that any would fall short of Salvation for want of it John 5.6 7. Many precious Saints in the Primitive times of Persecution have gone to Heaven through a Baptism of Suffering for the Name of Christ before they had opportunity to be Baptized with Water And in those ancient Times when the Custom of deferring Baptism too much prevailed we are not to think that none were in a state of Salvation by Faith in Christ that deferred that Ordinance or neglected it Take notice further that it is not sufficient to avoid the pernicious Errors of those that pervert Baptism contrary to its Institution but you must be also diligent in the improving of it to the ends for which it was instituted And here let me desire you to put the Question seriously to your Souls What good use you do make of your Baptism How often or seldom do you think upon it The vulgar sort of Christians yea it may be feared many sincere Converts do so little think upon their own Baptism and study to make a due improvement of it that its of no more profit to their Souls than if they never had bin Baptized yea their sin is the more aggravated by rendring such an Ordinance of none effect to their Souls through their own gross neglect Tho Baptism be administred to us but once in our Lives yet we ought frequently to reflect upon it and upon all Occasions to put the Question to our selves Into what were we Baptized Acts 19.2 What this Ordinance Seals What did it engage us to And accordingly we must stir up and strengthen our selves by our Baptism to lay hold on the Grace which it seals to us and to fulfil its Engagements We should often remember that we are made Christs Disciples by Baptism and engaged to hear him rather than Moses and to Believe on him for our Salvation as John baptized with the Baptism of Repentance saying to the People That they should believe on him that should come after him i. e. on Christ Jesus We should remember that our Baptism sealed our putting on of Christ and our being the Children of God by Faith in Christ and our being no longer under the former Schoolmaster the Law Gal. 3.25 26 27. And that it sealed to us the putting off the body of sin and our Burial and Resurrection with Christ by Faith and the forgiving of our trespasses Col. 2.12 13. Our being made Members of one Body of Christ and to drink into one Spirit 1 Cor. 12.12 13. We may find by such things as these which are more fully discovered in the Gospel
that it is the proper nature and tendency of Baptism to guide us to Faith in Christ alone for remission of Sins Holiness and all Salvation by Union and Fellowship with him and that a diligent improvement of this Ordinance must needs be of great advantage to the Life of Faith 5. The Sacrament of the Lords Supper is as a spiritual Feast to nourish our Faith and to strengthen us to walk in all Holiness by Christ living and working in us if it be used according to the Patern which Christ gave us in its first Institution recorded by Three Evangelists Mat. 26.26 Mar. 14.22 24. Luk. 22.19 20. and was extrordinarily revealed from Heaven by Christ himself to the Apostle Paul 1 Cor. 11.23 25. that we might be the more obliged and stirred up to the exact Observation of it It s end is not only that we may remember Christs Death in the History but in the Mystery of it as that his Body was broken for us that his Blood is the Blood of the New Testament or Covenant shed for us and for many for the remission of Sins that so we may receive and enjoy all the Promises of the New Covenant which are recorded Heb. 8.12 It s end is to mind us that Christs Body and Blood are Bread and Drink even all-sufficient Food to nourish our Souls to everlasting Life and that we ought to take and eat and drink him by Faith and to assure us that when we truly believe on him he is as really and closely united to us by his Spirit as the Food which we eat and drink is united to our Bodies Christ himself Joh. 6. doth more fully explain this Mystery Furthermore this Sacrament doth not only put us in mind of the spiritual Blessings wherewith we are Blessed in Christ and our Enjoyment of them by Faith but also it is a Mean and Instrument whereby God doth really exhibit and give forth Christ and his Salvation to true Believers and whereby he doth stir up and strengthen Believers to receive and feed upon Christ by present actings of Faith while they partake of the outward Elements When Christ saith eat drink this is my body this is my blood no less can be meant than that Christ doth as truly give his Body and Blood to true Believers in that Ordinance as the Bread and Cup and they do as truly receive it by Faith As if a Prince invest a Subject in some Honourable Office by delivering to him a Staff Sword or Signet and say to him take this Staff Sword or Signet this is such an Office or Preferment or if a Father should deliver a Deed for Conveyance of Land to his Son and say take it as thine own this is such a Farm or Mannor how can such Expressions import any less in common Senfe and Reason than a Present Gift and Conveyance of the Offices Preferments and Lands by and with those outward Signs Therefore the Apostle Paul asserteth that the bread in the Lords supper is the communion of the body of Christ and the cup is the communion of his blood 1 Cor. 10.16 which sheweth that Christ's Body and Blood are really communicated to us and we do really partake of them as well as of the Bread and Cup. The chief Excellency and Advantage of this Ordinance is That it is not only a Figure and Resemblance of our living upon a crucified Saviour but also a precious Instrument whereby Christ the Bread and Drink of Life is really conveyed to us and received by us through Faith This makes it to be a Love-Token worthy of that ardent Affection toward us which filled Christ's Heart at the time when he instituted it when he was on the point of finishing of his greatest work of Love by laying down his Life for us 1 Cor. 11.23 And this is diligently to be observed that we may make a right improvement of this Ordinance and receive the saving Benesits of it One reason why many do little esteem and seldom or never partake of this Ordinance and do find little benefit by it is because they falsly imagine that God in it only holds forth naked signs and resemblances of Christ and his Salvation which they account to be held forth so plainly in Scripture that they need not the help of such a sign Whereas if they understood that God doth really give Christ himself to their Faith by and with those Signs and Resemblances they would prize it as the most delicious Feast and be desirous to partake of it on all opportunities Acts 2.42 and 20.7 Another reason why many partake seldom or never of this Ordinance and know little of the benefit of it is because they think themselves brought by it into great danger of eating and drinking their own Damnation according to those terrifying words of the Apostle 1 Cor. 11.29 therefore they account it the safest way wholly to abstain from such a dangerous Ordinance or at least that once a year is enough to run so great a Hazard And if they be brought to it sometimes by constraint of Conscience their slavish Fears bereave them of all comfortable Fruit of it So that instead of striving to receive Christ and his Salvation therein they account themselves to have succeeded well if they come off without the Sentence of Damnation As the Jewish Rabbies write that the High-Priests Life was so eminently hazarded by his entring once a year into the Holy of Holies that he stayed there as little time as he could lest the People should think him to be struck dead by the Hand of God And when he was come forth alive he usually made a Feast of Thanksgiving for Joy of so great a Deliverance But there is no reason why we should be so much terrified by those words of the Apostle for they were darted against such a gross prophanation of the Lords Supper amongst the Corinthians as we may easily avoid by observing the Institution of it which the Apostle proposeth to them as a sufficient remedy against the gross abuse in not discerning or differencing the Lords Body from other bodily Food and partaking of it as their own Supper with such disorder that one was Hungry and another Drunken Besides that terrifying word Damnation may be rendred more mildly Judgment as it is in the Margent yea the Apostle himself Ver. 32. doth interpret it of a merciful temporal Judgment whereby we are chastened of the Lord that we should not be condemned with the World We are indeed prone to sin in receiving this Ordinance unworthily and so we are also to pollute more or less all other holy things that we meddle with So that the consideration of our danger might sill us with slavish fear in the use of all other means of Grace as well as of this were it not that we have a great High-Priest to bear this Iniquity of our holy things Exod. 28.38 under the Covert of whose Righteousness we are to draw near unto God without
of Eden rather than the Wilderness of Sinai Act. 9.31 It is the Office of the Spirit our Guide to be our Comforter and not a Spirit of bondage Rom. 8.15 Peace and Joy are great Duties in this way Phil. 4.4 5 6. God doth not drive us on with Whips and Terrors and by the Rod of the Schoolmaster of the Law but leads us and wins us to walk in his ways by Allurements Cant. 1.3 Hos 11.4 See such Alurements 2 Cor. 5.14 15. c. 7.1 Rom. 12.1 5. Our very Moving Acting Walking in this way is a Pleasure and Delight every good Work is done with Pleasure the very Labour of the way is pleasant Carnal Men wish Duties were not necessary and they are burthensome to them but they are pleasant to us because we do not gain Holiness by our own carnal Wrestling with our Lusts and crossing them out of carnal Fear with Regret and Grief and setting Conscience and the Law against them to hinder their Actings but we act naturally according to the New Nature and perform our own New spiritual Desires and Lusts by walking in the ways of God through Christ And our Lusts and Pleasures in Sin are not only restrained but taken away in Christ and Pleasures in Holiness freely given us and implanted in us Rom. 8.5 Gal. 5.17 24. Joh. 4.34 Psal 40.8 Psal 119.14 16 20. We have a new Taste and Savour Love Lust and Liking by the Spirit of Christ and look on the Law not as a Burden but as our Priviledge in Christ 6. It is a high exalted way above all other ways Unto this way the Prophet Habbakuk is exalted when upon the Failure of all visible Helps and Supports he resolves to rejoyce in the Lord and joy in the God of his Salvation and making God his Strength by Faith his Feet should be as Hinds Feet and should walk upon his high places Hab. 3.18 19. These are the heavenly places in Christ Jesus that God hath set us in being quickned and raised up together with him Eph. 2.5 6. 1. We live high here for we live not by the flesh but by the Spirit and Christ in us with all his fullness Rom. 8.1 2. Gal. 2.20 c. 5.25 We walk in Fellowship with God dwelling in us and walking about in us 2 Cor. 6.18 And therefore our Works are of higher Price and Excellency than the Works of others because they are wrought in God Joh. 3.21 And are the Fruits of Gods Spirit Gal. 5. Phil. 1.11 And we may know that they are accepted and good by our Gospel Principles which others have not Rom. 7.6 2. We are inabled to the most difficult Duties Phil. 4.1 3. and nothing is too hard for us See the great Works done by Faith Heb. 11. Mar. 9.23 Works that carnal Men think Folly and Madness to venture upon they are so great and honourable Atchievements in doing and suffering for Christ 3. We walk in an honourable State with God and on honourable Terms not as guilty Creatures to get our Pardon by Works nor as Bond-Servants to earn our Meat and Drink but as Sons and Heirs walking towards the full Possession of that Happiness to which we have a Title and so we have much boldness in Gods Presence Gal. 4.6 7. We can approach nearer to God than others and walk before him considently without slavish Fear not as Strangers but as such who are of his own Family Eph. 2.19 20. And this prompts us to doing greater things than others walking as free Men Rom. 6.17 18. Joh. 8.35 36. It is a Kingly way the Law to us is a Royal Law a Law of Liberty and our Priviledge not a Bond and Yoak of Compulsion 4. It is the way only of those that are Honourable and Precious in the eyes of the Lord even his Elect and Redeemed ones whose special Priviledge it is to walk therein No unclean Beast goeth there Jer. 35.8 9. No carnal Man can walk in this way but only those that are taught of God Joh. 6.44 45 46. Nor would it have come into our Hearts without Divine Revelation 5. The preparing this way cost Christ very dear it is a costly way Heb. 10.19 20. 1 Pet. 3.18 6. It is a good old way wherein thou mayest follow the Footsteps of all the Flock 7. It 's the way to Perfection it leads to such Holiness which shall in a while be absolutely perfect It differs only in the degree and manner of Manifestation from the Holiness of Heaven there the Saints live by the same Spirit and the same God in all 1 Cor. 15.28 Joh. 4.14 And have the Image of the same spiritual Man 1 Cor. 15.49 Only here we have but the first fruits of the Spirit Rom. 8.23 And live by faith and not by sight 2 Cor. 5.7 And are not full grown in Christ Eph. 4.13 Sanctification in Christ is Glorification begun as Glorification is Sanctification perfected ERRATA PAge 6. l. 18. r. works p. 7. l. 5. Ã fine for not r. yet p. 23. l. 6. Ã fi for that r. there p. 27. l. 18. for either rather p. 33. l. 9. for an r. in p. 36. l. 5. Ã fi r. yet for that p. 41. l. 9. Ã fi r. receiving for recovering p. 42. after them r. it were better if p. 42. l. 2. for God r. Gods p. 46. l. 7. for hope r. Trope ibid. l. 11. for this r. the. p. 46. l. 17. for particulars r. particularly p. 48. l. 4. Ã fi r. for wisely c. r. wisdom by the knowledge of which c. p. 49. l. 19. r. from Christ p. 52. l. 3. Ã fi for has r. had p. 63. l. 19. r. principal act p. 64. l. 13. add after Lord. called hoping in the Lord because c. p. 65. l. 12. for procure r. secure p. 66. l. 5. after right r. to use any Instrument for the actual c. p. 68. l. 4. Ã fi for right title r. right or title Ib. l. 2. Ã fi for condition r. conditional work p. 69. l. 2. Ã fi r. 5ly true c. p. 73. l. 19. put that after first p. 80. l. 21. r. it is p. 85. l. 6. Ã fi for on r. off p. 87. l. 7. Ã fi for it hath r. it is p. 88. l. 22. for lying r. thing p. 95. l. 1. for do r. toyl more p. 97. l. 5. Ã fi r. for the worst p. 108. l. 12. Ã fi r. done away p. 114. l. 8. Ã fi for ways r. wages Ib. l. 16. for which r. what p. 122. l. 18. r. for it prescribeth c. p. 125. l. 6. these words without any farther practice of Holiness add them after the l. 14. p. 160. l. 6. r. this is p. 171. l. 10. de that p. 172. l. 3. Ã fi r. of it it c. p. 194. l. 7. r. to the life of c. p. 196. l. 12. r. by all the c. p. 197. l. 20. free Salvation p. 201.