Graces are amiable and attractive in the view of Men as easiness to pardon a readiness to oblige compassion to the afflicted liberality to the necessitous sweetness of conversation without gall and bitterness these are of universal esteem with mankind and soften the most savage tempers If there be any Vertue and if there be any Praise think on these things And St. Peter excites Believers to joyn to their Faith by which the Gospel of Christ is embrac't Intellectual and Moral vertues without which 't is but a vain picture of Christianity Add to your Faith Vertue and to Vertue Knowledge and to Knowledge Temperance and to Temperance Patience and to Patience Godliness and to Godliness Brotherly kindness and to Brotherly kindness Charity He enforces the command give all diligence that these things abound in you and ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the Knowledge of Christ. Now these Graces purifie and perfect refine and raâ—se the humane nature and without a Command their Goodness is a strong obligation I will take a more distinct view of the Precepts of Christ as they are set down in that excellent abridgement of them by the Apostle The Grace of God that bringeth Salvation hath appeared to all Men teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts we should live Soberly Righteously and Godly in this present world Here is a distribution of our duties with respect to their several Objects our selves others and God The first are regulated by Temperance the second by Justice the third by Godliness And from the accomplishment of these is formed that Holiness without which no man shall see God 1. In respect to our selves we must live soberly Temperance governs the sensual appetites and affections by sanctified reason The Gospel allows the sober and chast use of pleasures but absolutely and severely forbids all excess in those that are lawful and abstinence from all that are unlawful that stain vilify the Soul and alienate it from converse with God and mortifie its lust to spiritual delights By sensual complacency Man first lost his Innocence and Happiness and till the flesh is subdued to the spirit he can never recover them The carnal mind is enmity against God Fleshly lusts war against the Soul Therefore we are urged with the most affectionate earnestness to abstain from them by withdrawing their incentives and crucifying our corrupt inclinations In short the Law of Christ obliges us as to deal with the body as an enemy that is disposed to revolt against the Spirit by watching over all our senses lest they should betray us to temptations so to preserve it as a thing consecrated to God from all impurity that will render it unworthy the honour of being the Temple of the Holy Ghost 2. We are commanded to live Righteously in our relation to others Justice is the supreme Virtue of humane Life that renders to every one what is due The Gospel gives rules for Men in every state and place to do what Reason requires As no condition is excluded from its Blessedness so every one is obliged by its Precepts Subjects are commanded to obey all the lawful commands of Authority and not resist and that upon the strongest motive not onely for Wrath but for Conscience They must obey Man for Gods sake but never disobey God for Mans sake And Princes are obliged to be an encouragement to good Works and a terror to the evil that those who are under them may lead a quiet and a peaceable life in all Godliness and Honesty It injoynes all the respective duties of Husbands and Wives Parents and Children Masters and Servants And that in all contracts and commerce none defrauds his Brother accordingly in the esteem of Christians he is more religious who is more righteous than others Briefly Christian righteousness is not to be measured by the rigor of Laws but by that rule of universal Equity delivered by our Saviour Whatsoever ye would have others do to you do it to them 3. We are instructed by the Law of Christ to live Godly This part of our duty respects our apprehensions affections and demeanour to God which must be sutable to his Glorious perfections The Gospel hath revealed them clearly to us viz. the Unity Simplicity Eternity and Purity of the Divine Nature that it subsists in three Persons the Father Son and Spirit and his Wisdom Power and Goodness in the Work of our Redemption It requires that we pay the special Honour that is due to God in the esteem and veneration of our Minds in the subjection of our Wills in the assent of our Affections to him as their proper object That we have an intire Faith in his Word a firm Hope in his Promises a Holy Jealousie for his Honour a Religious care in his Service And that we express our reverence love and dependance on him in our Prayers and Praises That our Worshp of Him be in such a manner as becomes God who receives it and Man that presents it God is a pure Spirit and Man is a reasonable Creature therefore â—e must worship him in Spirit and Truth And since Man in his fallen State cannot approach the Holy and Just God without a Mediator he is directed by the Gospel to address himself to the Throne of Grace in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ who alone can reconcile our Persons and render our Services acceptable with his Father Besides the immediate service of the Deity Godliness includes the propension and tendency of the Soul to him in the whole conversation and it contains three things 1. That our Obedience proceeds from love to God as its vital Principle This must warm and animate the external action this alone makes Obedience as delightful to us so pleasing to God He shews Mercy to those who love him and keep his Commandments Faith works by Love and enclines the Soul to obey with the same Affection that God enjoins the Precept 2. That all our Conversation be regulated by his Will as the Rule He is our Father and Sovereign and the respect to his Law gives to every action the formality of Obedience We must choose our Duty because he commands it Whatsoever ye do in word or deed do all in the name of the Lord Jesus that is for his command and by his assistance 3. That the Glory of God be the supreme End of all our Actions This Qualification must adhere not only to necessary Duties but to our natural and civil Actions Our light must so shine before men that they may see our good works and glorifie our Father which is in Heaven Whether we eat or drink or whatsoever we do all must be done in a regular and due proportion to the Glory of God A general Designation of this is absolutely requisite and the renewing of our intentions actually in matters of moment For He being the sole Author of our Lives and
the account of a legal Temper that universally inclines them to seek for Justification by their own Works This is most suitable to the Law light of nature for the tenour of the first Covenant was Do and live So that the way of Gospel-Justification as 't is supernatural in its discovery so in its contrariety to Mans Principles Besides as Pride at first aspir'd to make Man as God so it tempts him to usurp the honour of Christ to be his own Saviour He is unwilling to stoop that he may drink of the Waters of Life Till the Heart by the weight of its guilt is broken in pieces and looses its former fashion and figure it will not humbly comply with the offer of Salvation for the Merits of another And 't is very remarkable that upon the first opening of the Gospel no Evangelical Doctrine was more disrelisht by the Jews than Justification by imputed Righteousness The Apostle gives this account of their opposition that being ignorant of God's Righteousness and going about to establish their own Righteousness they submitted not to the Righteousness of God They were prepossest with this Principle that Life was to be obtained by their works because the express condition of the Law was so And mistaking the end of its Institution by Moses they set the Law against the Promises For since the Fall the Law was given not absolutely to be a Covenant of Life but with a design to prepare Men for the Gospel that upon the sight of their Guilt and the Curse they might have recourse to the Redeemer and by Faith embrace that Satisfaction he hath made for them Christ is the end of the Law for Righteousness to every one that believeth From the example of the Jews we may see how Men are naturally affected And 't is worthy of observation that the reformation of Religion took its rise by the same controversie with the Papists by which the Gospel was first introduced into the World For besides innumerable abuses crept into the Church the People were perswaded that by purchasing Indulgences they should be saved from the Wrath of God And when this darkness covered the face of the Earth the zeal of the first Reformers broke forth who to undeceive the world clearly demonstrated from Scriptures that Justification is alone obtained by a lively and purifying Faith in the Blood of Christ. A strong proof that the same Gospel which was first revealed by the Apostles was revived by those excellent Men and the same Church which was first built by the Apostles was raised out of its ruines by them Now the Gospel to eradicate this disposition which is so natural and strong in faln Man is in nothing more clear and express than in declaring that by the deeds of the Law there shall no flesh be justified in Gods sight The Apostle asserts without distinction that by the Works of the Law Justification cannot be obtained whether they proceed from the power of Nature or the Grace of the Spirit For he argues against the merit of Works to Justification not against the principle from whence they proceed And where he most affectionately declares his esteem of Christ and his Righteousness as the sole meritorious cause of his Justification he expresly rejects his own Righteousness which is of the Law By his own Righteousness he comprehends all the works of the renewed as well as natural state for they are performed by Man and are acts of Obedience to the Law which commands perfect Love to God These are withering leaves that cannot conceal our shame when we appear before God in Judgment Not but that good works are most pleasing to him but not for this end to expiate Sin We must distinguish between their substance and the quality that errour giveth them The opinion of merit changes their nature and turns Gold into Dross And if our real Righteousness how exact soever cannot absolve us from the least guilt much less can the performance of some external actions though specious in appearance yet not commanded by God and that have no moral value All the Disciplines and Severities whereby men think to make Satisfaction to the Law are like a Crown of Straw that dishonours the Head instead of adorning it But that Righteousness which was acquired by the Meritorious Sufferings of Christ and is embraced by Faith is alsufficient for our Justification This is as pure as Innocence to all the effects of Pardon and Reconciliation this alone secures us from the charge of the Law and the chalenge of Justice Being clothed with this we may enter Heaven and converse with the pure society of Angels without blushing The Saints who now reign in Glory were not Men who lived in the perfection of Holiness here below but Repenting Believing Sinners who are washed white in the Blood of the Lamb. 2. The most universal hinderance of Mens complying with the conditions of Pardon by Christ is the predominant love of some Lust. Although Men would entertain him as a Saviour to redeem them from Hell yet they reject him as their Lord. Those in the Parable who said We will not have this Man to reign over us exprest the inward sense and silent thoughts of all carnal Men. Many would depend on his Sacrifice yet will not submit to his Scepter they would have Christ to pacifie their Consciences and the world to please their Affections Thus they divide between the Offices of Christ his Priestly and his Regal They would have Christ to die for them but not to live in them They divide the acts of the same Office they lean on his Cross to support them from falling to Hell but Crucifie not one Lust on it They are desirous he should reconcile them to God by his Sacrifice but not to bless them in turning them from their Iniquities And thus in effect they absolutely refuse him and render his Death unavailable For the receiving of Christ as Mediator in all his Offices is the Condition indispensably requisite to partake of the Benefits of his Sufferings The Resigning up of our selves to him as our Prince is as necessary an act of justifying Faith as the Apprehending the Crucified Saviour So that in every real Christian Faith is the Principle of Obedience and Peace and is as inseparable from Holiness as from Salvation To conclude this Argument From hence we may see How desperate the state is of impenitent Unbelievers They are cut off from any claim to the Benefits of Christs Death The Law of Faith like that of the Medes and Persians is unalterable He that believeth not the Son shall not see life Christ died not to expiate final Infidelity This is the mortal Sin that actually damns It charges all their guilt upon Sinners It renders the Sufferings of Christ fruitless and ineffectual to them For 't is not the Preparation of a Sovereign Remedy that cures the Disease but the applying it As our Sins
THE HARMONY OF THE Divine Attributes IN THE Contrivance and Accomplishment of Man's Redemption by the Lord JESUS CHRIST OR DISCOURSES Wherein is Shewed How the Wisdom Mercy Justice Holiness Power and Truth of God are glorified in that Great and Blessed Work By William Bates D. D. Which things the Angels desire to look into 1 Pet. 1.12 Nihil tam dignum Deo quam salus Hominis Tertul. LONDON Printed by J. Darby for Nathaniel Ranew and Jonathan Robinson at the Kings Arms and Golden Lyon in St. Pauls Church-Yard and Brabazon Aylmer the at three Pigeons in Cornhil 1674. THE PREFACE THe Subject of the ensuing Discourses is of that inestimable excellency and importance that it deserves our deepest reflections and care to consider and apply it 'T is the great Mystery of Godliness the design of Eternal Wisdom the chiefest of all Gods Works that contains the Glorious Wonders of his Mercy and Power wherein he renders himself most worthy of our Supreme Veneration and Affection Our most raised Thoughts are infinitely beneath its Dignity Although the Light of the Gospel hath clearly reveal'd so much of it as is requisit to be known in our earthly state yet the sublimer parts are still secret and reserv'd for a full discovery by the brightness of our Saviour's Appearance Now if the Excellency of things excites our Spirits to be attentive in searching into their nature this Divine Object should awaken all our Powers and arrest our Minds in the serious steady contemplation of it being alone capable to satisfy their immortal appetite The Importance of it is correspondent to its excellency for 't is no less than the recovery of us from extream and eternal misery and the Restoring of us to the enjoyment of the Blessed God a felicity without comparison or end If we have any regard to Salvation and who would be so unhappy as to neglect it for unconcerning frivolous Vanities it will be delightful to know the means by which we may obtain it and to employ the flying moments of our short time in those things that are profitable for our last End that we may not lose Temporal and Eternal Life together Many of the Ancient and Modern Divines have written of this noble Argument from whom I have received benefit in the following composure But none as I know hath considered all the parts together and presented them in one view There still remains a rich abundance for the perpetuall exercise of our Spirits The Eternal Word alone was able to perfect all things by once speaking Humane words are but an Eccho that answers the Voice of God and cannot fully express its Power nor pass so immediately through the sence to the Heart but they must be repeated May these Discourses be effectual to inflame us with the most ardent Love to our Saviour who ransom'd us with the unvaluable price of his own blood and to perswade us to live for Heaven the purchase of that Sacred Treasure I shall for ever acknowledge the Divine Grace and obtain my utmost aim W. B. CHAP. I. The Introduction A short view of Mans primitive State His Conformity to God natural moral and in Happiness and Dominion over the Creatures The moral resemblance as it refers to all the faculties The happiness of Man with respect to his sensitive and spiritual Nature Of all sublunary Creatures he is onely capable of a Law What the Law of Nature contains God entred into a Covenant with Man The Reasons of that Dispensation The Terms of the Covenant were becoming God and Man The special clause in The Covenant concerning the Tree of Knowledg of Good and Evil. The Reasons of the Prohibition THe felicity which the Lord Jesus procured for Believers includes a perfect freedom from Sin and all afflictive evils the just consequents of it and the fruition of Righteousness Peace and Joy wherein the Kingdom of God consists In this the second Covenant excels the first the Law supposes Man upright and the happiness it promises to exact Obedience is called Life it rewards Innocence with Immortality but the Blessedness of the Gospel is stil'd Salvation which signifies the rescuing of lapsed Man from a state of misery and the investing of him with unperishing Glory In order to the Discovery of the excellency of this Benefit and the endearing Obligations laid on us by our Redeemer 't is necessary to take a view of that dreadful and desperate Calamity which seiz'd upon Mankind the wretchedness of our Captivity illustrates the Glory of our Redemption And since the misery of Man was not the original condition of his nature but the effect of his guilty choice 't is requisite to make some reflection upon his first state as he came out of the pure hands of God that comparing our present misery with our lost happiness we may revive in our breasts the affections of Sorrow Shame and Indignation against our selves and considering that the Heavenly Adam hath purchased for us a title to a better Inheritance than was forfeited by the Earthly one we may with the more affectionate gratitude extol the Favour Power of our Redeemer God who is the living Fountain of all Perfections spent an intire Eternity in the Contemplation of his own Excellencies before any creature was made In the moment appointed by his Wisdom he gave the first Being to the 〈◊〉 Three distinct orders of Natures He form'd the 〈◊〉 purely Spiritual the other purely Materiall and between both one mixt which unites the 〈…〉 in it self This is Man the abridgment of the 〈◊〉 verse ally'd to the Angels in his Soul and to material things in his Body and capable of the Happiness of both By his internal Faculties enjoying the felicity of the Intellectual and by his external tasting the Pleasures of the Sensitive World Man's greatest excellency was a perfect Conformity to the Divine Patern God created Man in his own Likeness in the Image of God created he him This includes First The Natural Similitude of God in the substance of the Soul as it is an intelligent free spiritual and Immortal Being This is assigned to be the Reason of the Law That Whoso sheds Mans Blood by Man shall his Blood be shed for in the Image of God made he Man Secondly A moral Resemblance in its Qualities and Perfections Thirdly That Happiness and Dignity of Mans state which was the consequent and accession to his Holiness The Natural resemblance I shall not insist on for the distinct Illustration of the other we must consider God in a threefold respect 1. In respect of his absolute Holiness unspotted Purity infinite Goodness incorruptible Justice and whatever we conceive under the notion of moral Perfections 2. With respect to his compleat Blessedness the result of his infinite Excellencies as he is perfectly exempt from all evils which might allay and lessen his felicity and enjoys those pleasures which are worthy of his pure Nature and glorious State 3. In regard of
was so fram'd as to make a visible discovery of the Prerogatives of his Creation And when he reflected upon his Soul that animated his dust its excellent endowments wherein 't is comparable to the Angels its capacity of enjoying God himself for ever he had an internal and most clear testimony of the glorious perfections of his Creator For Man who alone admires the works of God is the most admirable of all 2. The Image of God was resplendent in mans Conscience the seat of practical Knowledg and Treasury of moral Principles The directive faculty was sincere and incorrupt not infected with any disguising tincture 't was clear from all prejudices which might render it an incompetent Judg of good and evil It instructed Man in all the parts of his relative Obligations to God and the Creatures 'T was not fetter'd and confin'd fearfully restraining from what is Lawful nor licentious and indulgent in what is forbidden Briefly Conscience in Adam upright was a subordinate God that gave Laws and exacted obedience to that glorious Being who is its Superior 3. There was a Divine Impression on the Will Spiritual Reason kept the Throne and the inferiour Faculties observed an easy and regular subordination to its dictates The Affections were exercis'd with proportion to the quality of their Objects Reason was their inviolable Rule Love the most noble and Master-affection which gives being and goodness to all the rest even to hatred it self for so much we hate an object as it hinders our enjoyment of the good we love this precious Incense was offer'd up to the excellent and supreme Being which was the Author of his Life Adam fully obeyed the first and great Command of loving the Lord with all his heart soul and strength His love to other things was regulated by his love to God There was a perfect accord between flesh and spirit in him They both joyn'd in the service of God and were naturally mov'd to their happiness In short the image of God in Adam was a living powerful Principle and had the same relation to the Soul which the Soul hath to the Body to animate and order all its Faculties in their Offices and Operations according to the Will of his Creator 2. The Image of God consisted though in an inferiour degree in the happy state of man Herein he resembled that infinitly Blessed Being This happiness had relation to the two Natures which enter into Mans Composition 1. To the Animal and Sensitive and this consisted in two things 1. In the excellent disposition of his Organs 2. In the enjoyment of convenient Objects 1. In the excellent disposition of the Organs His body was form'd immediately by God and so not liable to those defects which proceed from the weakness of second causes No blemish or disease which are the effects and footsteps of sin were to be found in him His health was not a frail inconstant disposition easily ruin'd by the jarring elements but firm and stable The humours were in a just temperament to prevent any destemper which might tend to the dissolution of that excellent frame Briefly all rhe senses were quick and lively able to perform with facility vigour and delight their operations 2. There were convenient Objects to entertain his sensitive faculties He enjoyed Nature in its original Purity crown'd with the benediction of God before 't was blasted with the curse The World was all Harmony and Beauty becoming the goodness of the Creator and not as 't is since the Fall disorder'd and deform'd in many parts the effect of his Justice The Earth was liberal to Adam of all its Treasures the Heavens of their Light and sweetest Influences He was seated in Eden a place of so great beauty and delight that it represented the Celestial Paradise which is refresht with Rivers of Pleasure And as the ultimate End of the Creatures was to raise his mind and inflame his heart with the love of his great Benefactor So their first and natural use was the satisfaction of the Senses from whence the felicity of the Animal Life did proceed 2. His supreme Happiness consisted in the exercise of his most noble Faculties on their proper Objects This will appear by considering that as the spiritual Faculties have objects which infinitely excel those of the sensitive So their capacity is more inlarged their union with objects is more intimate and their perception is with more quickness and vivacity and thereby are the greatest instruments of pleasure to the rational being Now the highest Faculties in Man are the Understanding and Will and their happiness consists in union with God by Knowledg and Love 1. In the Knowledg of God As the desire of Knowledg is the most natural to the humane Soul so the obtaining of it produces the most noble and sweetest pleasure And proportionably to the degrees of excellency that are in objects so much of rational Perfection and Satisfaction accrues to the mind by the knowledg of them The discovery of the Works of God greatly affected Man yet the excellencies scatter'd among them are but an imperfect and mutable shadow of God's infinite and unchangable Perfections How much more delightful was it to his pure understanding tracing the footsteps and impressions of God in Natural things to ascend to him who is the glorious Original of all Perfections And although his finite understanding could not comprehend the Divine excellencies yet his knowledg was answerable to the degrees of Revelation wherein God was manifested He saw the admirable Beauty of the Creator through the transparent vail of the creatures And from hence there arose in the Soul a pleasure pure solid and satisfying a pleasure divine for God takes infinit contentment in the contemplation of Himself 2. The Happiness of Man consisted in the Love of God 'T was not the naked speculation of the Deity that made him happy but such a knowledg as ravisht his Affections For happiness results from the fruitions of all the Faculties 'T is true that by the mediation of the understanding the other Faculties have access to an object the Will and Affections can't be enclin'd to any thing but by vertue of an act of the mind which propounds it as worthy of them It follows therefore that when by the discovery of the transcendent excellencies in God the Soul is excited to love and to delight in Him as its Supreme Good 't is then really and perfectly happy Now as Adam had a perfect knowledg of God so the height of his love was answerable to his knowledg and the compleatness of his enjoyment was according to his Love All the Divine Excellencies were amiable to him The Majesty Purity Justice and Power of God which are the terrour of guilty creatures secur'd his happiness whilst he continued in his Obedience His Conscience was clear and calm no unquiet fears discompos'd its Tranquillity 't was the seat of Innocence and Peace Briefly His love to God was perfect without any
difficult unpleasant quality annexed upon which account the Will may reject it so any particular evil may be so disguised by the false lustre of goodness as to encline the Will to receive it This is clearly verified in Adam's Fall For a specious Object was conveighed through the unguarded Sence to his Fancy and from that to his Understanding which by a vicious carelesness neglecting to consider the danger or judging that the excellency of the end did out-weigh the evil of the means commended it to the Will and that resolved to embrace it It is evident therefore that the action which resulted from the direction of the Mind and the choice of the Will was absolutely free Besides As the regret that is mixt with an action is a certain Character that the person is under constraint So the delight that attends it is a clear Evidence that he is free When the Appetite is drawn by the lure of Pleasure the more violent the more voluntary is its motion Now the representations of the forbidden fruit were under the notion of Pleasure The Woman saw the fruit was good for food that is pleasurable to the Palate and pleasant to the Eyes and to be desired to make one wise that is to increase Knowledg which is the pleasure of the Mind and these Allectives drew her into a snare Adam with complacency receiv'd the temptation and by the enticement of Satan committed adultery with the Creature from whence the cursed race of Sin and Miseries proceed Suppose the Devil had so disguis'd the Temptation that notwithstanding all his circumspection and care Adam could not have discovered its evil his invincible Ignorance had rendered the action involuntary But Adam was conscious of his own action there was light in his mind to discern the evil and strength in his will to decline it For the manner of the defection whether it was from affected Ignorance or secure Neglect or transport of Passion it doth not excuse The action it self was of that moment and the supreme Law-giver so worthy of Reverence that it should have awakened all the powers of his Soul to beware of that which was Rebellion against God and ruin to himself Or suppose he had been tried by Torments whose extremity and continuance had vehemently opprest his nature this had only lessen'd the guilt the action had still been voluntary for no external force can compel the Will to choose any thing but under the notion of comparative goodness Now to choose Sin rather than pains and to prefer ease before obedience is highly dishonourable to God whose Glory ought to be infinitely more valuable to us than Life and all its endearments And although sharp Pains by discomposing the Body make the Soul unfit for its highest and noblest Operations so that it cannot perform the acts of Vertue with delight and freedom yet then it may abstain from evil But this was not Adam's case The Devil had no Power over him as over Job who felt the extremity of his rage and yet came off more than conqueror to disturb his felicity he prevailed by a simple suasion Briefly Though Man had strength sufficient to repel all the Powers of Darkness yet he was vanquisht by the assault of a single Temptation These are the circumstances which derive a crimson guilt to Man's rebellious Sin and render it above measure sinful This will more fully appear by the convincing declaration of God's displeasure against it in the dreadful effects that ensued The punishment of Man was of the same date with his Sin Immediatly after his Treason against Heaven he made a deadly forfeiture of his Original Righteousness and Felicity 1. He lost his Original Righteousness which we may consider under the notion of the purity and beauty of the Soul or of its dominion and liberty in opposition to which Sin is represented in the Scripture by loathsom Deformity and Servitude 1. His Soul degenerated from its purity the Faculties remain'd but the moral perfections were lost wherein the brightness of God's Image was most conspicuous How is Man disfigur'd by his Fall How is he transform'd in an instant from the Image of God into the Image of the Devil He is defiled with the filthiness of flesh and spirit he is asham'd at the sight of his own nakedness that reproach'd him for his crime but the most shameful was that of the Soul The one might be cover'd with leaves the other nothing could conceal To see a Face of exquisite Beauty devour'd by a Cancer how doth it move compassion but were the Natural Eye heightned to that clearness and perspicacity as to discover the deformity which Sin hath brought upon the Soul how would it strike with grief horrour and aversation 2. He was deprived of his Dominion and Liberty The Understanding was so wounded by the violence of the fall that not onely its light is much impaired but its Power is so weakned as to the lower faculties that those which according to the order of nature should obey have cast off its just authority and usurp the Goverment The will hath lost its true Freedom whereby 't was enlarg'd to the extent and amplitude of the Divine Will in loving whasoever was pleasing to God and is contracted to mean and base Objects What a furious disorder is in the Affections The restraint of Reason to check their violent course provokes them to swell higher and to be more impetuous and the more they are gratified the more insolent and outragious they grow The Senses whose office is to be the Intelligencers of the Soul to make discovery and to give a naked report without disturbing the higher Faculties they sometimes mistake disguised enemies for friends and sometimes by a false alarm move the lower Appetites and fill the Soul with disorder and confusion that the voice of Reason can't be heard By the irritation of Grief the insinuation of Pleasure or some other Perturbation the Soul is captivated and wounded through the Senses In short when Man turn'd Rebel to God he became a slave to all the Creatures By their primitive Institution they were appointed to be subservient to the Glory of God and the use of Man to be motives of Love and Obedience to the Creator but Sin hath corrupted and changed them into so many instruments of vice they are made subject unto vanity And Man is so far sunk into the dregs of Servitude that he is subject to them For by forsaking God the Supreme Object of Love with as much injustice as folly and choosing the Creature in his stead he becomes a Servant to the meanest thing upon which he places an inordinate affection Briefly Man who by his Creation was the son of God is made a slave to Satan that damned spirit and most cursed creature Deplorable Degradation and worthy of the deepest shame and sorrow 2. Man lost his Felicity Besides the trouble that Sin hath in its own nature which I have toucht
the Soul yet to the bringing of it forth the concurrence of the external Faculties is requisite Thus a Voluptuary who is restrain'd from the gross acts of Sensuality by a Disease or Age may be as vicious in his Desires as another who follows the pernicious swing of his Appetite having a vigorous Complexion Briefly The variety of circumstances by which the inward corruption is excited and drawn forth makes a great difference as to the open and visible acts of it Thus an ambitious person who uses Clemency to accomplish his design would exercise Cruelty if 't were necessary to his end 'T is true some are really more temperate and exempted from the tyranny of the flesh than others Cicero was more vertuous than Catiline and Socrates than Aristophanes But these are priviledged persons in whom the efficacy of Divine Providence either by forming them in the Womb or in their Education or by conducting them in their maturer Age hath corrected the malignity of Nature All men have sinn'd and come short of the glory of God's image And that Sin breaks not forth so outragiously in some as in others the restraint is from an higher Principle than common and corrupt Nature 4. This Corruption although natural yet 't is Voluntary and Culpable 1. Voluntary All Habits receive their character from those acts by which they are produced and as the Disobedience of Adam was voluntary so is the Depravation that sprung from it 2. 'T is inherent in the Will If Adam had derived a Leprosie to all Men it were an involuntary evil Because the Diseases of the Body are forreign to the Soul But when the Corruption invades the internal Faculties 't is denominated from the subject wherein 't is seated 3. 'T is the voluntary cause of actual Sins and if the acts proceeding from this corruption are voluntary the principle must be of the same nature 2. 'T is Culpable The formality of Sin consists in its opposition to the Law according to the definition of the Apostle Sin is a transgression of the Law Now the Law requires an entire rectitude in all the Faculties It condemns corrupt inclinations the originals as well as the acts of Sin Besides Concupiscence was not inherent in the humane Nature in its Creation but was contracted by the Fall The Soul is stript of its native Righteousness and Holiness and is invested with contrary qualities There is as great a difference between the corruption of the Soul in its degenerate state and its primitive purity as between the loathsomness of a Carcass and the beauty of a living Body Sad change and to be lamented with tears of confusion That the Sin of Adam should be so fatal to all his Posterity is the most difficult part in the whole order of Divine Providence Nothing more offends carnal Reason which forms many specious Objections against it I will briefly consider them Since God saw that Adam would not resist the Temptation and that upon his Fall the whole race of Mankind which he supported as the foundation would sink into ruine Why did he not confirm him against it was it not within his Power and more suitable to his Wisdome Holiness and Goodness To this I answer 1. The Divine Power could have preserved Man in his Integrity either by laying a restraint on the apostate Angels that they should never have made an attempt upon him or by keeping the Understanding waking and vigilant to discover the danger of the Temptation and by fortifying the Will and rendring it impenetrable to the fiery darts of Satan without any prejudice to its freedom For that doth not consist in an absolute Indifference but in a judicious and deliberate choice so that when the Soul is not led by a blind instinct nor forc'd by a forreign power but embraces what it knows and approves it then enjoyes the most true Liberty Thus in the glorified Spirits above by the full and constant Light of the Mind the Will is indeclinably fixt upon its supreme Good and this is its Crown and Perfection 2. It was most suitable to the Divine Wisdom to leave Man to stand or fall by his own choice 1. To discover the necessary dependance of all Second Causes upon the first No Creature is absolutely impeccable but the most perfect is liable to imperfection He that is essentially is only unchangeably Good Infinite Goodness alone excludes all possibility of receiving Corruption The Fall of Angels and Man convince us that there is one sole Beeing immutably Pure and Holy on whom all depend and without whose Influence they cannot be or must be eternally miserable 2. 'T was very fit that Adam should be first in a state of trial before he was confirm'd in his Happiness The reason of it is clear he was left to his own judgment and election that Obedience might be his choice and in the performance of it he might acquire a title to the reward A determining vertue over him had crost the end of his Creation which was to glorifie God in a free manner Therefore in Paradise there were amiable objects to allure the lower Faculties before they were disordered by Sin The forbidden Fruit had beauty to invite the Eye and sweetness to delight the Palate And if upon the competition of the Sensual with the Intellectual Good he had reâ—ected the one and chose the other he had been rais'd to an unchangeable state his Innocence had been crown'd with Perseverance As the Angels who continued in their Duty when the rest revolted are finally establisht in their Integrity and Felicity And the Apostle gives us an account of this order when he tells us That was first which was natural then that which is spiritual and supernatural Man was created in a state of perfection but 't was natural therefore mutable the confirming of him immediatly had been Grace which belongs to a more excellent Dispensation Now to bring Man from not being to a supernatural state without trial of the middle state of Nature was not so congruous to the Divine Wisdome 3. The permission of the Fall doth not reflect on the Divine Purity For 1. Man was made Upright He had no inward Corruption to betray him There was Antidote enough in his Nature to expel the strongest Temptation 2. God was not bound to hinder the commission of Sin 'T is a true Maxime that in debitis causa dâ—ficiens efficit moraliter But God is not only free from subjection to a Law as having no Superiour but was under no voluntary Obligation by Promise to prevent the Fall 3. Neither doth that first Act of Sin reflect on Gods unspotted Providence which suffer'd it as if Sin were in any degree allowed by Him The Holy Law which God gave to direct Man the terrible Threatning annext to warn him declare his irreconcileable Hatred against Sin He permits innumerable Sins every day yeâ— He is as jealous of the Honour of his Holiness now as in the beginning
If it did not support him when he stood how can it raise him when he is fallen If there were a power in lapsed Man to restore himself it would exceed the original Power he had to will and obey It being infinitely more difficult for a dead man to rise than for a living man to put forth vital Actions For the clearer opening of this Poinâ— concerning Mans absolute Disability to recover his Primitive State I will distinctly consider it with respect to the Image and Favour of God upon which his Blessedness depends 1. He cannot recover his Primitive Holiness This will appear by considering that whatsoever is corrupted in its noble parts can never restore it self the power of an external agent is requisite for the recovering of its Integrity This is verified by innumerable instances in things artificial and natural If a Clock be disorder'd by a fall the Workman must mend it before it can be useful If Wine that is rich and generous declines by the loss of spirits it can never be revived without a new supply In the humane Body where there is a more noblâ— form and more powerful to redress any evil that may happen to the parts if a Gangrene seize on any Member nothing can resist its course but the application of outward means it cannot be cured by the internal principles of its constitution And proportionably in moral Agents when the Faculties which are the principles of action are corrupted it is impossible without the virtue of a Divine cause they should ever be restor'd to their original Rectitude As the Image of God was at first imprinted on the Humane Nature by Creation so the renewed Image is wrought in him by the same creating Power This will be more evident by considering that inward and deep depravation of the Understanding and Will the two Superiour Faculties which command the rest 1. The Understanding hath lost the right apprehension of things As Sin began in the darkness of the Mind so one of its worst effects is the encreasing that Darkness which can only be dispell'd by a supernatural Light Now what the Eye is to the Body that is the Mind for the directing the Will and conducting the Life And if the light that is in us be darkness how great is that darkness How irregular and dangerous must our motions be Not only the lower part of the Soul is under a dreadful disorder but the Spirit of the mind the divinest part is depraved with Ignorance and Error The Light of Reason is not pure But as the Sun when with its beams it sends down pestilential Influences and corrupts the Air in the enlightning it so the carnal Mind corrupts the whole Man by representing good as evil and evil as good The Wisdome of the flesh is enmity against God And the Apostle describes the state of the Gentile World That their understandings were darkened being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness of their hearts The corruption of their Manners proceeded from their Minds For all Vertues are directed by Reason in their Exercise so that if the Understanding be darken'd all vertuous Operations cease Besides corrupt Man being without Light and Life can neither discern nor feel his Misery The carnal Mind is insensible of its Infirmity ignorant of its Ignorance and suffers under the incurable extremes of being blind and imagining that 't is very clear-sighted More particularly the Reasons why the carnal Mind hath not a due sense of sinful Corruption are 1. Because 't is natural and cleaves to the principles of our being from the Birth and Conception and natural things do not affect us 2. 'T is confirm'd by Custome which is a second Nature and hath a strange power to stupifie Conscience and render it insensible As the Historian observed concerning the Roman Soldiers that by constant use their Arms were no more a burthen to them than their natural Members 3. In the transition from the Infant state 〈◊〉 the age of discerning Man is incapable of observing his native Corruption since at first he acts evilly and is in constant conversation with Sinners who bring Vice into his acquaintance and by making it familiar lessen the horrour and aversation from it Besides those corrupt and numerous examples wherewith he is encompast call forth his sinful inclinations which as they are heightened by repeated acts and become more strong and obstinate so less sensible to him And by this we may understand how irrecoverable Man is by his own Reason The first step to our Cure is begun in the knowledge of our Disease and this discovery is made by the Understanding when 't is seeing and vigilant not when 't is blind A Disease in the Body is perceived by the Mind but when the Soul is the affected part and the rectitude of Reason is lost there is no remaining principle to give notice of it And as that Disease is most dangerous which strikes at the Life and is without Pain for Pain is not the chief evil but supposes it 't is the spur of Nature urging us to seek for Cure So the corruption of the Understanding is very fatal to Man for although he labours under many pernicious Lusts which in the issue will prove deadly yet he is insensible of them and from thence folâ—â—â—s a Carelesness and Contempt of the means for his Recovery 2. The Corruption of the Will is more incurable than that of the Mind For 't is full not only of Impotence but contrariety to what is spiritually good There are some weak strictures of Truth in lapsed Man but they dye in the Brain and are powerless and ineffectual as to the Will which rushes into the embraces of worldly Objects This the universal Experience of Mankind since the Fall doth evidently prove and the account of it is in the following Considerations 1. There is a strong inclination in Man to Happiness This desire is born and brought up with him and is common to all that partake of the reasonable Nature From the Prince to the poorest wretch from the most knowing to the meanest in understanding every one desires to be happy As the great flames and the little sparks of fire all naturally ascend to their sphere 2. The constituting of any thing to be our Happiness is the first and universal Maxime from whence all moral consequences are deriv'd 'T is the rule of our Desires and the end of our actions As in natural things the principles of their production operate according to their quality so in moral things the end is as powerful to form the Soul for its Operations in order to it Therefore as all desire to be happy so they apply themselves to those means which appear to be convenient for the obtaining of it 3. Every one frames a Happiness according to his temper The apprehensions of it are answerable to the dispositions of the
teeth of a Worm can destroy it The pleasures of Sin under which Secular Greatness and Wealth are comprehended are but for a season They are so short liv'd that they expire in the birth and die whilst they are tasted Again they bring only a slight pleasure being disproportionable to the desires of the Soul They are confin'd to the Senses wherein the Beasts are more accurate than Man but can't reach to the upper and more comprehensive Faculties Nay they cannot satisfie the greedy Senses much less quiet the spiritual and immortal Appetite What the Poet speaks with astonishment of Alexander's insatiable Ambition Aestuat infelix angusto limite mundi That the whole World seem'd to him as a narrow Prison wherein he was miserable and as it were suffocated is true of every one If the World was seated in the Heart of Man it can no more satisfie it than the Picture of a Feast can fill the Stomach Besides vexation is added to the vanity of worldly things And that either because the vehement delights of Sense corrupt the temperament of the Body in which the vital complexion consists and expose it to those sharp Diseases that it may be said without an Hyperbole That a thousand Pleasures are not equal to one Hours pain that attends them or because of the inward torture of the Mind arising from the sence of Guilt and Folly which is the anticipation of Hell it self the beginning of eternal Sorrows Now these things are not obscure Articles of Faith nor abstracted Doctrines to be consider'd only by refined Reason but are manifest and clear as the Light and verified by continual Experience 'T is therefore strange to amazement that Man should search after Happiness in these things where he knows 't is not to be found and court real Infelicity under a deceitful appearance when the Fallacy is transparent Who from a principle of Reason would choose for his Happiness a real Good which after a little time he should be depriv'd of for ever or a slight good for ever as the sight of a Picture or the hearing of Musick Yet thus unreasonable is Man in his lapsed state whose Soul is truely immortal and capable of infinite Blessedness yet he chooses those delights which are neither satisfying nor lasting And because the Humane Understanding from time to time is convinc'd of the vanity of all sublunary things therefore to lessen the vexation which arises from Disappointment and that the Appetite may not be taken off from them corrupted Man tries 1. By variety of objects to preserve uniformity in Delight The most pleasing if confin'd to them grow nauseous and insipid after the expiring of a few moments there remains nothing but satiety and sickly resentments and then changes are the remedies to take off the weariness of one pleasure by another The Humane Soul is under a perpetual instability of restless desires it despises what it enjoyes and values what is new as if Novelty and Goodness were the same in all temporal things And as the Birds remain in the Air by constant motion without which they would quickly fall to the Earth as other heavy bodies there being nothing solid to support them so the Spirit of Man by many unquiet agitations and continual changes subsists for a time till at last it falls into Discontent and Despair the center of corrupt Nature 2. When present things are unsatisfactory he entertains himself with Hope for that being terminated on a future Object which is of a doubtful nature the Mind attends to those Arguments which produce a pleasant belief to find that in several objects which it cannot in any single one and to make up in number what is wanting in measure whereas the present is manifest and takes away all liberty of thinking Upon this ground Sensual Pleasure is more in expectation than fruition For Hope by a marvellous enchantment not only makes that which is future present but representing in one view that which cannot be enjoyed but in the intervals of time it unites all the successive parts in one point so that what is divided and lessen'd in the fruition which is alwaies gradual is offer'd at once and entire Thus Man carnal deceived by the imperfect light of Fancy and the false glass of Hope chooses a fictitious felicity Man walks in a vain shew His original Errour hath produced this in its own image And although the complacency he takes in sensual objects is like the joy of a distracted Person the issue of folly and illusion and Experience discovers the deceit that is in them as smelling to an artificial Rose undeceives the Eye yet he will embrace his Error Man is in a voluntary Dream which represents to him the World as his Happiness and when he is awakened he dreams again choosing to be deceiv'd with delight rather than to discover the truth without it This is set forth by the Prophet Thou art wearied in the greatness of thy way yet saidst thou not there is no hope that is Thou art tired in the chase of satisfaction from one thing to another yet thou wouldst not give over but still pursuest those shadows which can never be brought nearer to thee And the true reason of it is that in the humane Nature there is an intense and continual desire of Pleasure without which Life itself hath no satisfaction For Life consisting in the operations of the Soul either the external of the Senses or the internal of the Mind 't is sweetned by those delights which are suitable to them So that if all pleasant operations cease without possibility of returning Death is more desireable than Life And in the corrupt state there is so strict an alliance between the Flesh and Spirit that there is but one appetite between them and that is of the flesh All the Designs and Endeavors of the carnal Man are by fit means to obtain satisfaction to his Senses as if the Contentment of the Flesh and the Happiness of the Soul were the same thing or as if the Soul were to die with the Body and with both all Hopes and Fears all Joys and Sorrows were at an end The Flesh is now grown absolute and hath acquir'd a perfect Empire and taken a full possession of all the Faculties For this reason the Apostle tells us They that are in the Flesh cannot please God And the carnal will is enmity against God 't is not subject neither can it be 'T is insnar'd in the cords of Concupiscence and cannot recover it self from its foolish bondage But that doth not lessen the guilt which will appear by considering there is a twofold Impotence 1. There is a natural Impotence which protects from the severity of Justice No Man is bound to stop the Sun in its course or to remove Mountains For the humane Nature was never endued with Faculties to do those things They are inculpably without our power Now the Law enjoins nothing but what Man
the Eternal Son who was in the form of God who was equal to Him in Majesty and Authority without Sacriledg or Usurpation he emptied himself by assuming the Humane Nature in its servile state The Word was made Flesh the meanest part is specified to signifie the greatness of his abasement There is such an infinite distance between God and flesh that the condescension is as admirable as the contrivance So great was the malignity of our Pride for the cure of which such a profound Humility was requisite By this he destroyed the first work of the Devil 6. The Wisdom of God appears in ordaining such contemptible and in appearance opposite means to accomplish such glorious effects The Way is as wonderful as the Work That Christ by dying on the Cross a reputed Malefactor should be made our eternal Righteousness that descending to the grave He should bring up the lost World to Life and Immortality is so incredible to our narrow Understandings that He saves us and astonishes us at once And in nothing 'tis more visible That the Thoughts of God are as far above our thoughts and his ways above our ways as Heaven is above the Earth 'T is a secret in Physick to compound the most noble Remedies of things destructive to Nature and thereby make one Death victorious over another But that Eternal Life should spring from Death Glory from Ignominy Blessedness from a Curse is so repugnant to Humane Sense that to render the belief of it easie 't was foretold by many Prophesies that when it came to pass it might be lookt on as the effect of God's eternal Counsel The Apostle tels us that Christ crucified was to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Gentiles foolishness The grand Sophies of the world esteemed it absurd and unreasonable to believe that He who was exposed to Sufferings could save others but those who are Called discover that the Doctrine of Salvation by the Cross of Christ which the world counted folly is the great Wisdome of God and most convenient for his end A double reason is given of this method 1. Because the Heathen world did not find and own God in the way of Nature For after That in the Wisdome of God the World by Wisdome knew not God it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe The frame of the World is called the Wisdom of God the name of the Cause is given to the Effect in regard the Divine Wisdom is so clearly discovered there as if it had taken a visible form and had presented it self to the view of Men. But those who professed themselves wise did not acknowledg the Creator For some conceited the World to be eternal others that it was the product of chance and became guilty of the most absolute contradiction to Reason For who can believe that one who is blind from his birth and by consequence perfectly ignorant of all Colours and of the Art of Painting should take a bundle of Pencils into his Hand and dipping them in Colours mixt and corrupted paint a great Battel with that perfection in the design propriety in the colours distinction in the habits and countenances as if it were not represented but present to the Spectators Who ever saw a Temple or Pallace or any regular Building spring from the stony bowels of a Mountain Yet some famous Philosophers became thus vain in their imaginations fancying that the World proceeded from the casual concourse of Atomes And the rest of them neglected to know God so far as they might and to honour him so far as they knew They debased the Deity by unworthy conceptions of his Nature and by performing such acts of Worship as were not fit for a rational Spirit to offer nor for the pure Majesty of Heaven to receive Besides they ascribed his Name Attributes and Honour to Creatures not only the Lights of Heaven and the secret Powers which they supposed did govern them not only Kings and Great Men who were by their Authority raised above others but the most despicable things in nature Beasts and Birds were the objects of their Adoration They changed the Glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to a corruptible man and to birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things A Sin so foul that it betrayed them to brutish Blindness and to the most infamous Lusts natural and unnatural Now since the most clear and open discovery of Gods Wisdom was ineffectual to reclaim the World He was pleased to change his method They neglected Him appearing in his Majesty and he now comes cloathed with Infirmities And since by natural light they would not see God the Creator He is imperceptible to the light of Nature as Redeemer The discovery of Him depends on revelation The Wisdom of God in making the World is evident to every Eye but in the Gospel 't is Wisdome in a Mystery The Deity was conspicuous in the Creation but conceal'd under a vail of Flesh when he wrought our Redemption He was more easily discoverd when invisible than when visible He created the World by Power but restor'd it by Sufferings 2. That the Honour of all might solely redound to him God hath chosen the foolish things of the World to confound the wise and the weak things of the World to confound the things that are mighty and base things of the World and things which are despised God hath chosen yea and things that are not to bring to nought things that are that no flesh should glory in his presence Thus Moses the Redeemer of Israel was an Infant exposed to the mercy of the Waters drawn forth from an Ark of Bul-rushes and not employed whilst he lived in the splendour of the Court but when Banisht as a Criminal and depriv'd of all power And our Redeemer took not on him the Nature of Angels equal to Satan in power but took part of flesh and blood the more signally to triumph over that proud Spirit in the Humane Nature which was inferiour to his and had been vanquisht by him in Paradise Therefore he did not immediately exercise Omnipotent power to destroy him but manag'd our weakness and infirmity to foil the roaring Lyon He did not enter into the Combat in the glory of his Deity but disguis'd under the Humane Nature which was subject to Mortality And thus the Devil is overcome in the same manner as he first got the Victory for as the whole race of Man was Captivated by him in Adam their Representative so Believers are victorious over him as the Tempter and Tormentor by the Conquest that Christ their Representative obtain'd in the Wilderness and on the Cross. And as our ruine was effected by the subtilty of Satan so our recovery is wrought by the wisdom of God who takes the wise in their own craftiness The Devil excited Judas by avarice the Jews by malice and
Heritage to receive the Promise of the Messiah and left the rest in thick and disconsolate darkness there was no apparent cause of this inequality for they all sprang from the same corrupt root and equally deserv'd a final rejection There was no singular good in them nor transcendent evil in others The unaccountable Pleasure of God was the sole motive of the different Dispensation Our Saviour breaks forth in an extasie of Joy I thank thee O Father Lord of Heaven and Earth that thou hast hid these things from the wise prudent and revealed them unto babes even so Father for so it seemed good in thy sight 'T is the Prerogative of God to reveal the secrets of the Kingdom to whom he pleases 'T is an act of pure Grace putting a difference between one Nation and another with the same liberty as in the Creation of the same indigested matter He form'd the Earth the dregs of the Universe and the Sun and Stars the ornaments of the Heavens and the glory of the visible World How can we reflect on our Spiritual Obligations to Divine Grace without a rapture of Soul The corruption of Nature was universal our Ignorance as perverse and our Manners as profane as of other Nations and we had been condemn'd to an eternal Night if the Light of Life had not graciously shin'd upon us This should warm our hearts in affectionate acknowledgments to God Who hath made known to us the riches of the glory of this mystery amongst the Gentiles and with that revelation the concomitant power of the Spirit to translate us from the kingdom of darkness into the Kingdom of his dear Son If the Publication of the Law by the Ministry of Angels to the Israelites were such a Priviledg that 't is reckon'd their peculiar Treasure He hath shewed his Statutes unto Israel He hath not dealt so with any Nation What is the revelation of the Gospel by the Son of God Himself For although the Law is obscured and defaced since the Fall yet there are some ingrafted Notions of it in the humane Nature but there is not the least suspition of the Gospel The Law discovers our Misery but the Gospel alone shews the way to be delivered from it If an Advantage so great and so precious doth not touch our hearts and in possessing it with joy we are not sensible of the engagements the Father of Mercies hath laid upon us we shall be the ungratefullest wretches in the world 2. This incomprehensible Mystery is worthy of our most serious thoughts and study that we may arrive to a fuller knowledge of it And to incite us it will be fit to consider those excellencies which will render it most desirable Knowledge is a quality so eminent that it truly enobles one Spirit above another As Reason is the singular Ornament of the humane Nature whereby it excels the Bruits so in proportion Knowledge which is the perfection of the Understanding raises those who are possessors of it above others that want it The Testimony of Solomon confirms this Then I saw that Wisdom excells Folly as far as Light excelleth Darkness And according to the nature and quality of the Knowledge such is the advantage it brings to us Now the Doctrine of the Gospel excels the most noble Sciences as well contemplative as practick it excels the contemplative in the sublimity of the object and in the certainty of its Principle 1. In the sublimity and greatness of the Object and it is no less then the highest design of the eternal Wisdom the most glorious work of the great God In the Creation his foot-steps appear in our Redemption his Image In the Law his Justice and Holiness but in the Gospel all his Perfections shine forth in their brightest luster The bare theory of this inriches the mind and the contemplation of it affects the Soul that is conversant about it with the highest admiration and the most sincere and lasting delight 1. It affects the Soul with the highest admiration The strongest Spirits cannot comprehend its just greatness the understanding sinks under the weight of Glory The Apostle who had seen the light of Heaven and had such knowledg as never any man before yet upon considering one part of the Divine Wisdom breaks forth in astonishment Oh the depth of the riches of the Wisdom and Knowledg of God! how unsearchable are his Decrees and his waies past finding out 'T is fit when we have spent the strength of our minds in the consideration of this excelling object and are at the end of our subtilty to supply the defects of our Understandings with Admiration As the Psalmist expresses himself Lord how wonderful are thy thoughts to us-ward The Angels adore this glorious Mystery with an humble Reverence The admiration that is caused by it is a principal delight of the Mind 'T is true the wonder that proceeds from Ignorance when the cause of some visible effect is not known is the imperfection and torment of the spirit but that which ariseth from the knowledg of those things which are most above our conception and our hope is the highest advancement of our Minds and brings the greatest satisfaction to the Soul Now the contrivance of our Redemption was infinitely above the â—light of Reason and our expectation When the Lord turned the captivity of Sion they were as in a dream The way of accomplishing it was so incredible that it seem'd rather the picture of Fancy than a real Deliverance And there is far greater reason that the rescuing of us from the Powers of Hell and the restoring us to Liberty and Glory by Christ should raise our wonder The Gospel is called a marvellous Light upon the account of the objects it discovers But such a perverse judgment is in men that they neglect those things which deserve the highest admiration and spend their wonder on meaner things Art is more admir'd than Nature a counterfeit Eye of Christal which hath neither sight nor motion than the living Eye the Sun of the little world that directs the whole Man And the effects of Nature are more admir'd than the sublime and supernatural works of Grace Yet these infinitely exceed the other The World is the work of Gods hand but the Gospel is his plot and the chiefest of all his waies What a combination of Wonders is there in the great Mystery of Godliness That He who fills Heaven and Earth should be confin'd to the Virgins Womb that Life should die and being dead revive that Mercy should triumph without any disparagement to Justice these are Miracles that transcend all that is done in Nature And this appears by the judgment of God himself who best knows the excellency of his own works For whereas upon the finishing the first Creation he ordain'd the Seventh Day that reasonable Creatures might more solemnly ascribe to him the Glory of his Attributes which are visible in the things
that are made he hath upon the compleating our Redemtion by the rising of Christ from the Dead made the First-Day Sacred for his Service and Praise there being the clearest illustration of his Perfections in that Blessed Work God is more pleased in the contemplation of the new World than of the old The latter by its extraordinary Magnificence hath lessen'd the dignity of the former as the greater Light obscures the less Therefore the Sabbath is changed into the Lords-Day And what a just reproach is it to Man that he should be inobservant and unaffected with this glorious Mercy wherein he may alwaies find new cause of Admiration O Lord how great are thy Works and thy Thoughts how deep a brutish man knoweth not neither doth a fool understand this The admiring of any other thing in comparison of this Mystery is the effect of Inconsideration or Infidelity 2. It produces the most sincere and lasting pleasure As the taste is to meat to allure us to feed for the support of our bodies that is delight to Knowledge to excite the mind to seek after it But it s vast capacity can never be satisfied with the knowledge of inferior things The pleasure is more in the acquisition than in the possession of it For the mind is diverted in the search but having attained to that knowledge which cannot fill the rational appetite 't is disgusted with the fruits of its travel and seeks some other object to relieve its langour From hence it is that variety is the spring of delight and pleasure is the product of novelty We find the pleasure of the first taste in learning something new is alwayes most sensible The most elegant compositions and excellent discourses which ravisht at the first reading yet repeated often are nauseous and irksome The exercise of the mind on an object fully known is unprofitable and therefore tedious whereas by turning the thoughts on something else it may acquire new knowledge But the Apostle tells us that the Mystery of our Redemption contains all the Treasures of Wisdom and Knowledge to intimate their excellence and abundance the unsearchable riches of Grace are laid up in it There is infinite variety and perpetual matter for the inquiry of the most excellent understanding no created reason is able to reach its height or sound its depths by the continual study and increase in the knowledge of it the mind enjoys a persevering pleasure that far exceeds the short vehemence of sensual delights 2. It excels other Sciences in the certainty of its Principle which is divine Revelation Humane Sciences are built upon uncertain maximes which being admitted with precipitation and not confirm'd by sufficient Experiments the Mind can never fully acquiesce in them Those Doctrines which were esteemed in one Age the vanity of them is discovered in another Modern Philosophy discards the Antient. But the Doctrine of Salvation is the Word of Truth its original is from Heaven it bears the characters and marks of its Divine descent 'T is confirmed by the Demonstration of the Spirit and of Power 'T is alwaies the same unchangeable as God the Author and Christ the Object of it who is the same yesterday to day and for ever And the knowledg which the sincere and enlightned Mind hath of it is not uncertain opinion but a clear solid and firm apprehension 'T is a Contemplation of the Glory of God with open face This appears by the effects it produces in those that have received the true tincture of it in their Souls they despise all things which carnal Men admire in comparison of this inestimable Treasure 2. The Doctrine of the Gospel exceeds all practic Sciences in the excellency of its end and the efficacy of the means to obtain it The end of it is The Supreme Happiness of Man the restoring of him to the Innocence and Excellency of his first state And the means are appointed by infinite Wisdom so that the most insuperable obstacles are removed and these are the Justice of God that condemns the guilty and that strong and obstinate aversion which is in corrupted man from true Felicity Here is a Mediator reveal'd who is able to save to the uttermost who hath quencht the Wrath of God by the Blood of his Divine Sacrifice who hath expiated Sin by the value of his Death and purifies the Soul by the vertue of his Life that it may consent to its own Salvation No less than a Divine Power could perform this work From hence the superlative excellency of Evangelical Knowledg doth arise all other Knowledg is unprofitable without it and that alone can make us perfectly blessed This is Life eternal to know thee and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent I will briefly consider how ineffectual all other Knowledge is whether Natural Political or Moral to recover us from our Misery The most exact insight into Natural things leaves the Mind blind and poor ignorant of Happiness and the way to it Solomon who had an extraordinary measure of Natural Knowledg and was able to set a just price upon it tels us that the increase of knowledg was attended with proportionable degrees of sorrow For the more a man knows the more he discerns the insufficiency of that knowledg to supply his defects and satisfie his desires He was therefore weary of his Wisdom as well as of his Folly The Devils know more than the profoundest Philosophers yet their Knowledge doth not alleviate their Torments 'T is so far from directing how to escape misery that it will more expose to it by enlarging the Faculties and making them more capable of Torment 'T is the observation of St. Ambrose that when God discovered the Creation of the World to Moses He did not inform him of the greatness of the Heavens the number of the Stars their Aspects and Influences whether they derive their light from the Sun or have it inherent in their own bodies from whence Eclipses are caused how the Rainbow is painted how the Winds fly in the Air or the causes of the ebbing and flowing of the Sea but so much as might be a foundation of Faith and Obedience and left the rest Quasi marcescentis sapientiae vanitates as the vanities of perishing wisdom The most knowing Philosopher though encompast with these sparks yet if ignorant of the Redeemer shall lie down in sorrow for ever And as natural so political Knowledge in order to the governing of Kingdoms and States hath no power to confer happiness upon man It concerns not his main interest 't is terminated within the compass of this short life and provides not for Death and Eternity The Wisdom of the World is folly in a disguise a specious Ignorance which although it may secure the temporal state yet it leaves us naked and exposed to Spiritual enemies which war against the Soul And all the moral knowledg which is treasur'd up in the Books of the Heathens
infinitly above the ordinary course of Nature The Maxims of Philosophy are not to be extended to Him We must adore what we cannot fully understand But those things are against Reason and utterly inconceivable that involve a contradiction and have a natural repugnancy to our Understandings which cannot conceive any thing that is formally impossible And there is no such Doctrine in the Christian Religion 2. We must distinguish between Reason corrupted and right Reason Since the Fall the clearness of the Humane Understanding is lost and the light that remains is eclipsed by the interposition of sensual lusts The carnal Mind cannot out of Ignorance and will not from Pride and other malignant habits receive things spiritual And from hence ariseth many suspicions and doubts concerning supernatural Verities the shadows of darkned Reason and of dying Faith If any Divine Mystery seems incredible 't is from the corruption of our Reason not from Reason it self from its darkness not its light And as Reason is obliged to correct the Errors of Sense when 't is deceived either by some vicious quality in the organ or by the distance of the object or by the falsness of the medium that corrupts the image in conveying of it So 't is the office of Faith to reform the judgment of Reason when either from its own weakness or the height of things Spiritual 't is mistaken about them For this end supernatural Revelation was given not to extinguish Reason but to redress it and enrich it with the discovery of Heavenly things Faith is called Wisdom and Knowledg it doth not quench the vigour of the Faculty wherein 't is seated but elevates it and gives it a spiritual preception of those things that are most distant from its commerce It doth not lead us through a mist to the inheritance of the Saints in light Faith is a rational Light For 1. It arises from the consideration of those Arguments which convince the Mind that the Scripture is a Divine Revelation I know saith the Apostle whom I have believed And we are commanded Alwaies to be ready to give an account of the hope that is in us Those that owe their Christianity meerly to the Felicity of their Birth without a sight of that transcendent excellency in our Religion which evidences that it came from Heaven do not believe aright As the Eye that is clouded with a Suffusion so that all things appear yellow to it when it judges things to be yellow that are so its judgment is vitious Because it proceeds not from the quality of the object but from its own indisposition So those that believe the Gospel upon a false Principle because 't is the Religion of their Country though in its self the word of Truth yet they are not right Believers 'T is not Judgment but Chance that enclines them to embrace it The Turks upon the same reason are zealous votaries of Mahomet as they are Disciples of Christ. 2. Faith makes use of Reason to consider what Doctrines are revealed in the Scripture and to deduce those Consequences which have a clear connexion with supernatural Principles Thus Reason is an excellent instrument to distinguish those things which are of a Divine Original from what is spurious and counterfeit For sometimes that is pretended to be a Mystery of Religion which is only the fruit of Fancy and that is defended by the sacred respect of Faith that Reason ought not to violate which is but a groundless imagination so that we remain in an Error by the sole apprehensions of falling into one as those that die for fear of Death The Bereans are commended for their searching the Scriptures whether the Doctrines they heard were consentaneous to them But 't is a necessary Duty that Reason how stiff soever should fully comply with God where it appears reasonable that He hath spoken Briefly The richest Ornament of the Creature is Humility and the most excellent effect of it is the sense of the weakness of our Understanding This is the temper of Soul that prepares it for Faith partly as it puts us on a serious consideration of those things which are reveal'd to us in the Word Infidelity proceeds from the want of consideration and nothing hinders that so much as Pride Partly as it stops all curious enquiries into those things which are unsearchable and principally as it entitles to the Promise God will instruct and give Grace to the humble The knowledg of Heaven as well as the Kingdom of Heaven is the inheritance of the poor in spirit A greater progress is made in the knowledg and belief of these Mysteries by humble Prayer than by the most anxious study As at Court an hour of Favour is worth a years attendance Man cannot acquire so much as God can give And as Humility so Holiness prepares the Soul for the receiving of Supernatural Truths The Understanding is clarified by the purification of the Heart 'T is not the difficulty and obscurity of things reveal'd that is the real cause of Infidelity since men believe other things upon far less Evidence but 't is the prejudice of the lower Faculties that hinders them When all Affections to sin are mortified the Soul is in the best disposition to receive Divine Revelation He that doth the will of God shall know whether the Doctrine of the Gospel came from Heaven The Spirit of God is the alone Instructer of the Spirit of Man in these Mysteries so as to produce a Saving Belief of them That Knowledg is more clear and satisfying that we have by his Teaching than by our own Learning The Rational Mind may discern the Literal Sense of the Propositions in the Gospel and may yield a naked assent to the truth of them but without supernatural irradiation by the Spirit of Life there can be no transforming and saving Knowledg and Belief of them And as the vast expansion of Air that is about us doth not preserve Life but that part which we breath in so 't is not the compass of our Knowledg and Belief though it were equal to the whole revealed Will of God that is vital to the Soul but that which is practised by us The Apostle saith Though he had the understanding of all Mysteries and all Knowledg and all Faith yet if it were not joyned with Love the Principle of Obedience it were unprofitable There is the same difference between the Speculative Knowledg of these Mysteries and that which is Affectionate and Operative as between the wearing of Pearls for Ornament and the taking of them as a Cordial to revive the fainting spirits In short Such a Belief is required as prevails upon the Will and draws the Affections and 〈◊〉 the whole Man obsequious to the Gospel For 〈◊〉 a Faith is alone answerable to the quality of the Revelation The Gospel is not a meer Narrative but a Promise Christ is not represented only as an innocent Person dying but as the Son
ye his Servants and there was aâ— it were the voice of mighty thundrings saying Hallelujah for the Lord God Omnipotent reigns They are now the most eminent examples of revenging wrath Their present misery is insupportable and they expect worse When our Saviour cast some of them out of the possest persons they cried out Art thou come to torment us before our time Miserimum est timere cum sâ—eres nihil 't is the height of misery to have nothing to Hope and something to Fear Their guilt is attended with despair they are in everlasting Chains He that carries the Keys of Hell and Death will never open their Prisoâ— If the sentence did admit a Revocation after a million of years their torment would be nothing in comparison of what it is for the longest measure of time bears no proportion to Eternity and hope would allay the sense of the present sufferings with the prospect of future ease But their Judgment is irreversible they are under the blackness of darkness for ever There is not the least glimps of hope to allay their sorrows no Star-light to sweeten the horrours of their Eternal night They are serâ—i poenae that can never be redeemed It were a kind of pardon to them to be capable of Death but God will never be so far reconciled as to annihilate them His Anger shall be accomplished and his Fury rest upon them Immortality the priviledge of their nature infinitly increases their torment for when the Understanding by a strong and active apprehension hath a terrible and unbounded prospect of the continuance of their Sufferings that what is intolerable must be Eternal this inexpressibly exasperates their Misery There wants a word beyond Death to set it forth This is the condition of the sinning Angels and God might have dealt in as strict Justice with rebellious Man 'T is true there are many Reasons may be assigned why the Wisdom of God made no provision for their Recovery 1. It was most decent that the first Breach of the Divine Law should be punisht to secure Obedience for the future Prudent Lawgivers are severe against the first Transgressors the Leaders in Disobedience He that first presumed to break the Sabbath was by Godâ—s command put to Death And Solomon the King of Peace punisht the first attempt upon his Royalty with Death though in the person of his Brother 2. The Malignity of their Sin was in the highest degree For such was the clearness of the Angelical Understanding that there was nothing of Ignorance and Deceit to lessen the voluntariness of their Sin 't was no mistake but Malice They fell in the light of Heaven and rendered themselves incapable of Mercy As under the Law those who sinned with a high hand that is not out of Ignorance or Imbecillity to please their Passions but knowingly and proudly despised the Command their Presupmtion was inexpiable no Sacrifice was appointed for it And the Gospel though the Declaration of Mercy yet excepts those who sin the great Transgression against the Holy Ghost Now of such a nature was the Sin of the Rebellious Angels it being a contemptuous violation of Gods Majesty and therefore unpardonable Besides they are wholly spiritual Beings without any allay of flesh and so fell to the utmost in evil there being nothing to suspend the intireness of their Will whereas the Humane Spirit is more slow by its union with the Body And that which extremely aggravates their sin is that it was committed in the state of perfect Happiness They despised the full fruition of God 't was therefore congruous to the Divine Wisdom that their final Sentence should depend upon their first Election whereas Mans Rebellion though inconceivably great was against a lower Light and less Grace dispensed to him 3. They finn'd without a Tempter and were not in the same capacity with Man to be restor'd by a Saviour The Devil is an original Proprietor in Sin 't is of his own Man was beguiled by the Serpents subtilty as he fell by anothers Malice so he is recovered by anothers Merit 4. The Angelical Nature was not entirely lost Myriads of blessed Spirits still continue in the place of their Innocency and Glory and for ever ascribe to the Great Creator that incommunicable Honour which is due to Him and perfectly do his Commandments But all Mankind was lost in Adam and no Religion was left in the lower world Now although in these and other respects it was most consistent with the Wisdom and Justice of God to conclude them under an irrevocable Doom yet the principal cause that enclin'd him to save Man was meer and perfect Grace The Law madâ— no distinction but awarded the same Punishment Mercy alone made the difference and the reason of that is in Himself Millions of them fell Sacrifices to Justice and guilty Man was spared 'T is not for the excellency of our Natures for Man in his Creation was lower than the Angels nor upon the account of Service for they having more eminent Endowments of Wisdom and Power might have brought greater honour to God nor for our Innocence for though not equally yet we had highly offended Him But it must be resolved into that Love which passeth Knowledg 'T was the unaccountable Pleasure of God that preferr'd babes before the wise and prudent and herein Grace is most glorious He in no wise took the nature of Angels though immortal Spirits He did not put forth his hand to help them and break the force of their Fall He did nothing for their relief they are under unallayed wrath but He took the Seâ—d of Abraham and plants a new Colony of those who sprung from the Earth in the Heavenly Country to fill up the vacant places of those Apostate Spirits This is just matter of our highest admiration why the milder Attribute is exercised towards Man and the severer on them Why the vessels of clay are chosen and the vessels of Gold neglected How can we reflect upon it without the warmest Affections to our Redeemer We shall never fully understand the Riches of distinguishing Grace till our Saviour shall be their Judg and receive us into the Kingdom of Joy and Glory and condemn them to an Eternal Separation from his Presence CHAP. IX The Greatness of Redeeming Love discovered by considering the Evils from which we are freed The Servitude of Sin the Tyranny of Satan the Bondage of the Law the Empire of Death The measure of Love is proportionable to the degrees of our Misery No possible Remedy for us in Nature Our Deliverance is compleat The Divine Love is magnified in the Means by which our Redeemer is accomplishâ—d They are the Incarnation and Sufferings of the Son of God Love is manifested in the Incarnation upon the account of the essential Condition of the Nature assumed and its Servile state Christ took our Nature after it had lost its Innocency The most evident Proof
favour Now the Angels are sent forth to minister for them who are Heirs of Salvation Besides in two other things the peculiar affection of the Prince would be most evident to that Nation 1. If he put on their habit and attire himself according to their fashion 2. If he fixt his residence among them Now the Son of God was cloathed with our flesh and found in fashion as a man and for ever appears in it in Heaven and will at the last day invest our bodies with glory like to his own He now dwells in us by his Spirit and when our warfare is accomplisht he shall in a special manner be present with us in the eternal Mansions As God incarnate he converst with Men on Earth and as such he will converse with them in heaven There he raigns as the first-born in the midst of many Brethren Now all these Prerogatives are the fruits of our Redemption And how great is that Mercy which hath raised Mankind more glorious out of its ruines The Apostle breaks out with a Heavenly astonishment Behold what manner of Love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the Sons of God! that we who are Strangers and Enemies Children of Wrath by nature should be dignified with the honorable and amiable title of his Sons 'T was a rare and most merciful condescension in Pharaoh's Daughter to rescue an innocent and forsaken Infant from perishing by the waters and adopt him to be her Son but how much greater kindness was it for God to save guilty and wretched Man from Eternal Flames and to take him into his Family The Ambition of the Prodigal rose no higher than to be a Servant whaâ— an inestimable favour is it to make us Children When God would express the most dear and peculiar affection to Solomon he saith I will be his Father and he shall be my Son this was the highest honour he could promise and all believers are dignified with it 'T is the same relation that Christ hath when he was going to Heaven he comforted his Disciples with these words I ascend to my Father and your Father to my God and your God There is indeed a diversity in the foundation of it Christ is a Son by Nature we are by meer Favour he is by Generation we are by Adoption Briefly Jesus Christ hath made us Kings Priests unto God his Father These are the highest Offices upon Earth and were attended with the most conspicuous Honour and the Holy Spirit chose those bright Images to convey a clearer notice of the glory to which our Redeemer hath raised us Not only all the Crowns and Scepters in this perishing World are infinitely beneath this dignity but the honour of our innocent state was not equal to it Secondly The Gospel is a better Covenant than that which was establisht with Man in his Creation and the excellency of it will appear by considering 1. 'T is more beneficial in that it admits of Repentance and Reconciliation after sin and accepts of Sincerity instead of perfection The Apostle magnifies the Office of Christ By how much he is a Mediator of a better Covenant which was established upon better promises The comparison there is between the Ministry of the Gospel and the Mosaical oeconomy And the excellency of the Gospel is specified in respect of those infinitely better promisses that are in it The ceremonial Law appointed Sacrifices for sins of ignorance and error and to obtain only legal impunity but the Gospel upon the account of Christ's all-sufficient Sacrifice offers full Pardon for all Sins that are repented of and forsaken Now with greater reason the Covenant of Grace is to be preferr'd before the Covenant of Works For the Law considered Man as holy and endued with perfection of Grace equal to whatsoever was commanded 'T was the measure of his Ability as well as Duty and requir'd exact Obedience or threatned extreme Misery The least breach of it is fatal A single Offence as certainly exposes to the curse as if the whole were violated And in our lapsed state we are utterly disabled to comply with its Purity and Perfection But the Gospel contains the Promises of Mercy and is in the hands of a Mediator The tenor of it is That Repentance and Remission of Sins be preached in the Name of Christ. And if we judge our selves we shall not be judged 'T is not if we are innocent for then none could be exempt from Condemnation But if the convinced Sinner erect a Tribunal in Conscience and strips Sin of its disguise to view it in its native deformity if he pronounce the Sentence of the Law against himself and glorifie the Justice of God which he cannot satisfie and forsake the Sins which are the causes of his sorrow he is qualified for pardoning Mercy Besides The Gospel doth not only apply Pardon to us for all forsaken Sins but provides a Remedy for those Infirmities to which the best are incident Whilst we are in this mortal state we are exposed to Temptations from without and have Corruptions within that often betray us Now to support our drooping Spirits our Redeemer sits in Heaven to plead for us and perpetually renews the Pardon that was once purchased to every contrite spirit for those unavoidable frailties which cleave to us here The promise of Grace is not made void by the sudden surprizes of Passions If any man sin we have an Advocate with the Father Jesus Christ the Righteous The rigour of the Law is mollified by his Mediation with the Father A title of Love and Tenderness God deals not with the Severity of a Judg but He spares us as a man spares his own son that serves him And as He pardons us upon our Repentance so He accepts our hearty though mean services Now the Legal that is unsinning and compleat Obedience cannot be performed the Evangelical that is the sincere though imperfect is graciously received God doth not require the duties of a Man by the measures of an Angel Unfeigned Endeavours to please Him unreserved Respects to all his Commands single and holy aims at his Glory are rewarded Briefly Although the Law is continued as a Rule of living yet not as the Covenant of Life And what an admirable exaltation of Mercy is there in this new Treaty of God with Sinners 'T is true the first Covenant was holy just and good but it made no abatements of favour and 't is now weak through the flesh that is The carnal corrupt Nature is so strong and impetuous that the restraints of the Law are ineffectual to stop its desires and therefore cannot bring Man to that Life that is promised by the performance of the Condition required But the Gospel provides an Indulgence for relenting and returning Sinners This is the language of God in that Covenant I will be merciful to their unrighteousness and their sins and their Iniquities
will I remember no more 2. The excellency of the Evangelical Covenant above the Legal is in that supernatural Assistance which is conveyed by it to Believers whereby they shall be certainly victorious over all opposition in their way to Heaven 'T is true Adam was endued with perfect holiness and freedom but he might intangle himself in the snares of Sin and Death The Grace of the Creator given to him was alwaies present but it depended on the natural use of his Faculties without the interposing any extraordinary operation of God's Spirit The Principle of Holiness was in himself and 't was subjected to his Will He had a power to obey if he would but not that actually determined his will for then he had persevered But the Grace of the Redeemer that flows from Christ as our quickening Head and is conveyed to all his Members enclines the Will so powerfully that 't is made subject to it God works in us to will and to do of his good pleasure The use of our Faculties and the exercise of Grace depends on the good pleasure of God who is unchangeable and the operations of the Spirit which are prevailing and effectual And upon these two the stability of the New Covenant is founded 1. On the Love of God who is as unchangable in his Will as in his Nature This Love is the cause of Election from whence there can be no separation This gives Christ to Believers and Believers to Him Thine they were saith our Saviour and thou gavest them me Which words signifie not the common title God hath to all by Creation for Men thus universally consider'd compose the world and our Saviour distinguishes those that are given him from the world but that special right God hath in them by election And all those are given by the Father to Christ in their effectual Calling which is exprest by his drawing them to the Son and are committed to his care to lead them through a course of Obedience to Glory For them Christ absolutely praies as Mediator Father I will that those whom thou hast given me be with me where I am and see my Glory And he is alwaies heard in his requests 'T is from hence that the Apostle challenges all Creatures in Heaven and Earâ—h with that full and strong persuasion that nothing could separate between Believers and their Happiness For I am persuaded that neither Death nor Life nor Angels nor Principalities nor Powers nor things present nor things to come nor heigth nor depth nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the Love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. His assurance is not built on the special Prerogatives he had as an Apostle not on his rapture to Paradise nor Revelations nor the Apparition of Angels for of these he makes no mention but on that which is common to all Believers the Love of God declar'd in the Word and shed abroad in their hearts And 't is observable that the Apostle having spoken in his own person changes the number I am persuaded that nothing shall separate us to associate with himself in the partaking of that blessed Priviledg all true Believers who have an interest in the same Love of God the same Promises of Salvation and had felt the sanctifying work of the Spirit the certain proof of their Election For how is it possible that God should retract his merciful purpose to save his People He that chose them from Eternity before they could know Him and from pure Love there being nothing in the Creature to induce Him gave his Son to suffer Death for them will He stop there without bestowing that Grace which may render it effectual What can change his Affections He that prevented them in his Mercy when they were in their pollutions will He leave them after his Image is engraven upon them He that loved them so as to unite them to Christ when they were strangers will He hate them when they are his Members No His loving kindness is everlasting and the Covenant that is built on it is more firm than the Pillars of Heaven and the Foundations of the Earth This supported David in his dying hours that God had made with him an everlasting Covenant ordered in all things and sure for that was all his Salvation 2. The New Covenant is secur'd by the efficacy of Divine and Supernatural Grace This is the Covenant that I will make with the house of Israel saith the Lord I will put my Laws into their minds and write them in their hearts and I will be to them a God and they shall be to me a People The Elect are enabled to perform the conditions of the Gospel to which Eternal Life is promised Our Redeemer blesses us in turning us from our Iniquities And although the instability of the humane Spirit by reason of remanent Corruptions and those various Temptations to which we are liable may excite our fear lest we should fall short of the high prize of our Calling yet the Grace of the Gospel secures true Believers against both 1. Whilst we are in the present state our Corruptions are not perfectly healed but there are some remains which like a Gangrene threaten to seize on the vital parts wherein the spiritual Life is seated But the divine Nature which is conveyed to all that are spiritually descended from Christ is active and powerful to resist all carnal desires and will prevail in the end For if sin in its full vigor could not controul the efficacy of converting Grace how can the reliques of it after Grace hath taken possession be strong enough to spoil it of its conquest There is a greater distance from Death to Life than from Life to Action That Omnipotent Grace that visited us in the Grave and restored life to the dead can much more perpetuate it in the living That which was so powerful as to pluck the heart of stone out of the Breast can preserve the Heart of Flesh. 'T is true the Grace that is given to Believers in its own nature is a perishing quality as that which was bestowed on Adam Non only the slight superficial tincture in hypocrites will wear off but that deep impression of sanctifying Grace in true Believers if it be not renewed would soon be defaced But God hath promised to put his Spirit into their hearts and to cause them to walk in his Statutes and they shall keep his Commandments He is a living reigning Principle in them to which all their faculties are subordinate The Spirit infused Grace at first and enlivens it daily he confirms their Faith inflames their Love encourages their Obedience and refreshes in their minds the Idea's of that glory which is invisible and future In short his influence cherishes the blessed beginnings of the spiritual Life So that sincere Grace though weak in its degree yet 't is in a state of progress til it come
Compleatness of Christ's Satisfaction proved from the Causes and Effects of it The Causes are the Quality of his Person and Degrees of his Sufferings The Effects are His Resurrection Ascension Intercession at Gods right hand and his exercising the Supreme Power in Heaven and Earth The excellent Benefits which God reconciled bestows on Men are the Effects and Evidences of his compleat Satisfaction They are Pardon of Sin Grace and Glory That Repentance and Faith are required in order to the partaking of the Benefits purchased by Christ's Death doth not lessen the Merit of his Sufferings That Afflictions and Dâ—ath are inflicted on Believers doth not derogate from their All-sufficiency THe Third thing to be considered is the Compleatness of the Satisfaction that Christ hath made by which it will appear that Gods Justice as well as Mercy is fully glorified in his Sufferings For the proof of this I will first consider the Causes from whence the compleatness of his Satisfaction arises Secondly The Effects that proceed from it which are convincing Evidences that God is fully appeas'd The Causes of his compleat Satisfaction are two 1. The Quality of his Person derives an infinite value to his obedient Sufferings Our Surety was equally God and as truely Infinite in His Perfections as the Father who was provoked by our Sins therefore he was able to make Satisfaction for them He is the Son of God not meerly in respect of the honour of his Office or the special Favour of God for on these accounts that Title is communicated to others but his only Son by Nature The sole preheminence in Gifts and Dignity would give Him the title of the first-born but not deprive them of the quality of Brethren Now the wisdom and justice of all Nations agree that Punishments receive their estimate from the quality of the Persons that suffer The Poet observes that the Death of a vertuous Person is more precious than of Legions Of what inestimable value then is the death of Christ and how worthy a Ransom for lost mankind For although the Deity is impassible yet he that was a Divine Person he suffered A King suffers more than a private person although the strokes he endures in his body cannot immediatly reach his honour And 't is specially to be observed that the Efficacy of Christs Blood is ascribed to his Divine Nature This the Apostle declares In whom we have Redemption through his Blood even the forgiveness of Sins who is the image of the invisible God Not an artificial Image which imperfectly represents the Original As a Picture that sets forth the Colour and Figure of a Man but not his Life and Nature But the essential and exact Image of his Father that expresses all his glorious Perfections in their immensity and eternity This is testified expresly in Hebr. 1.3 The Son of God the brightness of his Glory and the express Image of his Person having purged by himself our sins is set down on the right hand of Majesty on High From hence arises the infinite difference between the Sacrifices of the Law and Christs in their value and vertue This with admirable Emphasis is set down in Hebr. 9.13 14. For if the blood of Bulls and of Goats and the ashes of an Heifer sprinkling the unclean sanctifieth to the purification of the flesh How much more shall the Blood of Christ who through the Eternal Spirit offer'd himself without spot to God purge your Consciences from dead works to serve the living God Wherein the Apostle makes a double Hypothesis 1. That the Legal Sacrifices were ineffectual to purifie from real guilt 2. That by their Typical Cleansing they signified the washing away of moral guilt by the Blood of Christ. 1. Their insufficiency to expiate Sin appears if we consider the subject Sin is to be expiated in the same nature wherein 't was committed now the Beasts are of an inferiour rank and have no communion with Man in his nature Or if we consider the object God was provoked by Sin and He is a Spirit and not to be appeased by gross material things His Wisdom requires that a rational Sacrifice should expiate the guilt of a rational Creature And Justice is not satisfied without a proportion between the Guilt and the Punishment This weakness and insufficiency of the Legal Sacrifices to expiate Sin is evident from their variety and repetition For if full Remission had been obtained The worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sin 'T is the sense of Guilt and the fear of Condemnation that required the renewing of the Sacrifice Now under the Law the Ministry of the Priests never came to a period or perfection The Millions of Sacrifices in all Ages from the erecting the Tabernacle to the coming of Christ had not vertue to expiate one Sin They were only shadows which could give no refreshment to the inflamed Conscience but as they depended on Christ the body and substance of them But the Son of God who offered himself up by the Eternal Spirit to the Father is a Sacrifice not only Intelligent and Reasonable but incomparably more precious than the most noble Creatures in Earth or in Heaven it self He was Priest and Sacrifice in respect of both His Natures His entire Person was the Offerer and Offering Therefore the Apostle from the excellency of his Sacrifice infers the unity of its Oblation and from thence concludes its Efficacy Christ did not by the Blood of Bulls and Goats but by his own Blood He entred in once to the Holy Place having obtained eternal Redemption for us and by one Offering He hath for ever perfected them who are sanctified Upon this account God promised in the New-Covenant That their Sins and Iniquities He would remember no more having received compleat satisfaction by the Sufferings of his Son 'T is now said that once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away Sin by the Sacrifice of himself And as it is appointed for all men once to die and after Death comes Judgment So Christ was once offered to bear the Sins of many and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin As there is no other natural death to suffer between Death and Judgment so there is no other propitiatory Sacrifice between his all-sufficient Death on the Cross and the last coming of our Redeemer There is one Consideration I shall adde to shew the great difference between Legal Sacrifices and the Death of Christ as to its saving vertue The Law absolutely forbids the eating of Blood and the peoples tasting of the Sin-offerings to signifie the imperfection of those Sacrifices For since they were consumed in their Consecration to Gods Justice and nothing was left for the nourishment of the Offerers 't was a sign they could not appease God The Offerers had communion with them when they brought them to the Altar and in a manner
that is the Condition upon which God absolves Man from his guilt And this Grace of Faith as it respects entire Christ in all his Offices so it contains the Seed and first Life of Evangelical Obedience It crucifies our Lusts overcomes the World works by Love as well as justifies the person by relying on the Merits of Christ for Salvation 2 Adoption into Gods Family the purchase of Christ's Meritorious Sufferings who Redeemed us from the Servitude of Sin and Death is conferr'd upon us in Regeneration For this Prerogative consists not meerly in an Extrinsick Relation to God and a title to the Eternal Inheritance but in our participation of the Divine Nature whereby we are the living Images of Gods Holiness Civil Adoption gives the title but not the reality of a Son But the Divine is efficacious and changes us into the real likeness of our Heavenly Father We cannot enter into this state of Favour but upon our cleansing from all Impurity Be separate from the pollutions of the profane world and I will receive you and will be a Father unto you and ye shall be my Sons and Daughters saith the Lord Almighty These are the indispensable terms upon which we are received into that honourable Alliance None can enjoy the Priviledge but those that yield the Obedience of Children 3. Holiness is the Condition on which our future Blessedness depends Electing Mercy doth not produce our Glorification immediately but begins in our Vocation and Justification which are the intermediate Links in the Chain of Salvation As Natural Causes work on a distant object by passing through the medium God first gives Grace then Glory The everlasting Covenant that is sealed by the Blood of Christ establishes the connexion between them Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God The exclusion of all others is peremptory and universal Without Holiness no Man shall see the Lord. The Righteousness of the Kingdom is the only way of entring into it A few good actions scattered in our lives are not availeable but a course of Obedience brings to Happiness Those who by patient continuance in well-doing seek for Glory and Honour and Immortality shall inherit eternal life This is not a mere positive Appointment but grounded on the unchangeable respect of things There is a rational convenience between Holiness and Happiness according to the Wisdom and Goodness of God and 't is exprest in Scripture by the natural relation of the Seed to the Harvest both as to the quality and measure What a man sows that shall he reap We must be like God in purity before we can be in felicity Indeed 't would be a disparagement to Gods Holiness and pollute Heaven it self to receive unsanctified Persons as impure as those in Hell 'T is equally impossible for the Creature to be happy without the favour of the Holy God and for God to communicate His favour to the sinful Creature Briefly according to the Law of Faith no wicked Person hath any right to the Satisfaction Christ made nor to the Inheritance he purchased for Believers 3. Man in his corrupt state is deprived of Spiritual Life so that till he is revived by special Grace he can neither obey nor enjoy God Now the Redeemer is made a quickning Principle to inspire us with new life In order to our Sanctification he hath done four things First He hath given to us the most perfect Laws as the Rule of Holiness Secondly He exhibited the most compleat Patern of Holiness in his Life upon the Earth Thirdly He purchas'd and conveyes the Spirit of Holiness to renew and to enable us for the performance of our Duties Fourthly He hath presented the strongest inducements and motives to perswade us to be Holy First He hath given to Men the most perfect Laws as the rule of Holiness The principal parts of the Holy Life are ceasing from evil and the doing well Now the Commands of Christ refer to the purifying of us from sin and the adorning us with all Graces for the discharge of our universal Duty 1. They enjoyn a real and absolute separation from all filthiness of the Flesh and Spirit The outward and inward Man must be cleansed not only from Pollutions of a deeper dy but from all Carnality and Hypocrisie The Grace of God that brings Salvation hath appeared to all Men teaching them to deny ungodliness and worldly Lusts. All those irregular and impetuous desires which are raised by worldly Objects Honours Riches and Pleasures and reign in worldly Men Pride Covetousness and Voluptuousness The Gospel is most clear full and vehement for the true and inward Mortification of the whole body of corruption of every particular darling sin It commands us to pluck out the right eye and to cut off the right hand That is to part with every grateful and gainful lust It obliges us to crucifie the Flesh with the affections and lusts Humane Laws regard External actions as prejudicial to Societies but thoughts and resolutions that break not forth into act are not within the Jurisdiction of the Magistrate But the Law of Christ reforms the powers of the Soul and all the most secret and inward motions that depend upon them It forbids the first irregular desires of the carnal appetite We must hate sin in all its degrees strangle it in the birth destroy it in the conception We are enjoyned to fly the appearances and accesses of evil what ever is of a suspitious nature and not fully consistent with the purity of the Gospel and what ever invites to sin and exposes us to the power of it becomes vicious and must be avoided That glorious purity that shall adorn the Church when our Redeemer presents it without spot or wrinkle or any such thing every Christian must aspire to in this Life In short the Gospel commands us to be Holy as God is Holy who is infinitely distant from the least conceivable pollution 2. The Precepts of Christ contain all solid substantial goodness that is essentially necessary in order to our supreme Happiness and prepares us for the Life of Heaven In his Sermon on the Mount He commends to us Humility Meekness and Mercy Peaceableness and Patience and doing good for evil which are so many beams of Gods Image the reflections of his Goodness upon intelligent Creatures And that comprehensive precept of the Apostle describes the Duties of all Christians whatsoever things are true Truth is the principal character of our profession and is to be exprest in our Words and Actions whatsoever things are honest or venerable that is answer the dignity of our High-calling and agree with the gravity and comeliness of the Christian profession whatsoever things are just according to Divine and Humane Laws whatsoever things are pure we must preserve the Heart the Hand the Tongue the Eye from impurity whatsoever things are lovely and of good report some
their Vertue and Happiness Philosophy doth not propound the Glory of God for the Supream End of all Humane Actions Philosophy is defective as to the Duties respecting our selves and others It allowes the first sinful motions of the lower Appetites The Stoicks renounce the Passions Philosophy insufficient to form the Soul to Patience and Content under Afflictions and to support in the hour of Death A Reflection upon some Immoral Maxims of the several Sects of Philosophers THe Perfection of the Laws of Christ will further appear by comparing them with the Precepts of Moses and with the Rules which the highest Masters of Morality in the School of Nature have prescribed for the directing our lives The Gospel exceeds the Mosaical Institution 1. In ordaining a Service that is Pure Spiritual and Divine consisting in the Contemplation Love and Praises of God such as the holy Angels perform above The Temple-Service was managed with Pomp and external Magnificence suitable to the disposition of that People and the dispensation of the Law The Church was then in its Infant-state as St. Paul expresses it and that Age is more wrought on by Sense than Reason For such is the subordination of our Faculties that the vegetative first acts then the sensitive then the rational as the organs appointed for its use acquire perfection The knowledg of the Jews was obscure and imperfect and the external part of their Religion was ordered in such a manner that the senses were much affected Their Lights Perfumes Musick and Sacrifices were the proper entertainment of their external Faculties Besides being encompast with Nations whose Service to their Idols was full of Ceremonies to render the temptation ineffectual and take off from the efficacy of those allurements which might seduce them to the imitation of Idolatry God ordain'd his Service to be performed with great splendour Add further The Dispensation of the Law was typical and mysterious representing by visible material objects and their power to ravish the Senses Spiritual things and their efficacy to work upon the Soul But our Redeemer hath rent the Vail and brought forth Heavenly things into a full Day and the clearest Evidence Whereas Moses was very exact in describing the numerous Ceremonies of the Jewish Religion the quality of their Sacrifices the Place the Persons by whom they must be prepared and presented to the Lord We are now commanded to draw near to God with cleansed hands and purified hearts and that Men Pray every where lifting up holy hands without wrath and doubting Every place is a Temple and every Christian a Priest to offer up Spiritual Incense to God The most of the Levitical Ceremonies and Ornaments are excluded from the Christian Service not only as unnecessary but inconsistent with its Spiritualness As Paint they corrupt the native beauty of Religion The Apostle tells us that humane Eloquence was not used in the first preaching of the Gospel lest it should render the truth of it uncertain and rob the Cross of Christ of its Glory in converting the World for 〈◊〉 would be apt to imagine that 't was not the supernatural vertue of the Doctrine and the efficacy of its Reasons but the artifice of Orators that overcame the spirits of Men So if the Service of the Gospel were made so pompous the Worshippers would be enclin'd to believe that the external part was the most principal and to content themselves in that without the aims and affections of the Soul which are the life of all our Services Besides upon another account outward Pomp in Religion is apter to quench than enâ—â—ame Devotion For we are so compounded of Flesh and Spirit that when the corporeal Faculties are vehemently affected with their objects 't is very hard for the Spiritual to act with equal vigour there being such commerce between the fancy and the outward Senses that they are never exercised in the reception of their objects but the Imagination is drawn that way and cannot present to the mind distinctly and with the calmness that is requisit those things on which our thoughts should be fixt But when those diverting objects are removed the Soul directly ascends to God and looks on him as the Searcher and Judge of the Heart and worships him proportionally to his perfections That this was the design of Christ appears particularly in the Institution of the Sacraments which he ordained in a merciful condescension to our present state for there is a natural desirâ— in us to have pledges of things promis'd therefore he was pleased to add to the Declaration of his Will in the Gospel the Sacraments as confirming seals of his Love by which the application of his Benefits is more special and the representation more lively than that which is meerlâ— by the Word But they are few in number on Baptism and the Lords Supper simple in their nature and easy in their signification most fit to relieve our infirmity and to raise our Souls to Heavenly things Briefly the Service of the Gospel is answerable to the excellent light of knowledge shed abroad in the hearts of Christians 2. Our Redeemer hath abolisht all obligation to the other Rituals of Moses to introduce that real Righteousness which was signified by them The carnal Commandments given to the Jews are called Statutes that were not good either in respect of their matter not being perfective of the humane nature or their effect for they brought Death to the disobedient not Life to the Obedient the most strict observation of them did not make the performers either better or more happy But Christians are dead to these Elements that is perfectly freed from subjection to them The Kingdom of God consists not in Meat and Drink but Righteousness and Peace and Joy in the Holy Ghost for he that in these things serves Christ is acceptable to God and approved of Men. We are commanded to purge out the old leaven of Malice and Wickedness that sowers and swells the mind and to keep the feast with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth We are obliged to be free from the moral imperfections the vices and passions which were represented by the natural qualities of those Creatures which were forbidden to the Jews and to purify the Heart instead of the frequent washings under the Law But the Gospel frees us from the intolerable yoke of the legal abstinencies observations and disciplines the amusements of low and servile Spirits wherewith they would compensate their defects in real Holiness and exchange the substance of Religion for the shadow and colours of it For this reason the Apostle is severe against those who would joyn the fringes of Moses to the robe of Christ. 3. The indulgence of Polygamy and Divorce that was granted to the Jews is taken away by Christ and Marriage restored to the purity of its first Institution The permission of these was by a political Law and the effect was temporal Impunity For God is to be considered
Persecutors he had certainly obtained it He tells his Disciples that upon his request his Father would send twelve Legions of Angels for his rescue But he resigned the whole Power of his Will to his Fathers not my will but thy will be done was his Voice at his privat Passion in the Garden He submitted the act and exercise of his will not what I will but what thou wilt he saith in another Evangelist he yielded not only the faculty and exercise of his will to do what God enjoyned but in that manner which was pleasing to Him Not as I will but as thou wilt he expresses in the words of a third Now what is there in Heaven or Earth that can move our Wills to entire Obedience if this marvellous Pattern doth not affect us Let the same Mind be in you that was in Christ saith the Apostle How glorious is it to do what he did and what a reproach to decline what he suffer'd who had the Holiness of God to give excellency to the Action and the infirmity of Man to endure the sharpness of the Passion 3. Love to Mankind is exprest by our Saviour in a peculiar manner For although God is Infinitely Good to us yet he doth not prefer the happiness of Man before his own Blessedness The Salvation of the whole World were not to be purchas'd with the least diminution of the Divine Felicity But the Son of God suffer'd the extremest Evil to procure the most sovereign Good for us who were in Rebellion against his Laws and Empire Briefly The Life of Christ contains all our Duties towards God and Man exprest in the most perfect manner or Motives to perform them We may clearly see in his deportment innocent Wisdom prudent Simplicity compassionate Zeal perfect Patience the courage of Faith the joy of Hope the tenderness and care of Love incomparable Meekness Modesty Humility and Purity He spent the night in Communion with God and the day in Charity to Men. He perfectly hated Sin and equally loved Souls The nearest and readiest way to Perfection is a serious regard to his Precedent For the causes of all Sin are either the desire of what he despised or the fear of what He suffer'd He voluntarily deprived himself to Riches Honours Pleasures to render them contemptible and endured outrages of all sorts the contradiction of Sinners and the sharpest Sufferings to make them tolerable He ascended Mount Calvary to his Cross before he ascended from Mount Olivet to his Throne He was naked before He was cloathed with Light and crowned with thorns before with Glory And thus he powerfully teaches us to follow his steps who suffered for us If a Physician of great esteem in a Disease takes a bitter Potion it would perswade those who are in the same danger to use the same Remedy Since the Son of God to purchase our Happiness denied himself the enjoyment of worldly delights and endured the worst of temporal Evils nothing can be more effectual to convince us that the Pleasures of the world are not considerable as to our last end and that present Afflictions are so far from being inconsistent with our supreme Blessedness that they prepare us for it In short His excellent Example not only enlightens our Minds to discover our Duty but inables and excites to perform it As the Eye in beholding visible objects receives their Image so by contemplating the Graces that are conspicuous in our Redeemer we derive a similitude from them We all saith the Apostle with open face beholding as in a glass the Glory of the Lord that is by viewing in the Gospel the Life of Christ which was glorious in Holiness We are changed into the same Image from â—lory to Glory even as by the Spirit of the Lord that is gradually fashioned in Grace according to his likeness And what can more powerfully move and perswade us to Holiness than to consider the President that Christ hath set before us For how honourable is it to be like the Son of God By conformity to Christ we partake of the Divine Perfections The King of Heaven will acknowledge us for his Children when we bear the resemblance of our elder Brother Besides the motive of Honour Love doth strongly incline to follow Holiness in imitation of our Redeemer This is one difference between Knowledge and Love the understanding draws the object to it self and transforms it into its own likeness Thus material objects have an immaterial existence in the mind when it contemplates them But Love goes forth to the object loved the Soul is more where it loves than where it lives that is there is more of its intellectual presence its thoughts and desires and it always affects a resemblance to it Thus Love humbled God and made him like to us in Nature and Love exalts Man by making him like to God in Holiness for it excites us to imitate and express in our actions the Vertues of him who hath called us to his Kingdom and Glory 3. In order to the restoring of Holiness to lapsed Man the Lord Christ purchas'd and conveys the Spirit to them A state of Sin includes a total privation of Holiness and an active contrariety against it The Sinner is dead as to the Spiritual Life and aâ—â—â—nable to revive himself as a carcase is to break the gates of Death and return to the light of the world but he lives to the Sensual Life and expresses a constant opposition to the Law of God He is without strength as to his Duty not able to conceive an holy thought or to excite a sincere and ardent desire towards Divine things but hath strong inclinations of Will and great Power for that which is evil Now to restore Spiritual Life to the dead Soul and to conquer the living enmity that is in it against Holiness no less than the Divine Power was requisite And the effecting this is peculiarly attributed to the Spirit Our Saviour tells Nicodemus Except a man be born of water and of the Holy Ghost he cannot see the Kingdom of God And the Apostle saith That according to his Mercy He saves us by the washing of Regeneration and by the renewing of the Holy Ghost As in the Creation where all the Persons concurr'd 't was the motion of the Spirit that conveyed the Life of Nature So in the Renovation of the World where they all cooperate 't is the powerful working of the Spirit that produces the Life of Grace He visits us in the grave and inspires the breath and flame of Heaven to animate and warm our dead hearts 'T was requisite not only that the Word should take Flesh but that Flesh should receive the Spirit to quicken and enable it to perform the acts of the Divine Life 'T is for this reason the third Person is frequently stiled in Scripture the Holy Spirit That Title hath not an immediate respect to his Nature but to the Operations which are assign'd to
Him in the admirable Oeconomy of our Redemption 'T is not upon the account of his essential and eternal Purity which is common to all the Persons but in regard of his Office to infuse Holiness into the depraved Soul and renew the Divine Image that he is so call'd Now Jesus Christ purchased the Spirit by his Humiliation and Sufferings and conveys Him to us in his Exaltation and Glory 1. He purchas'd the Spirit by his Sufferings For since Man fell from his original Innocence he is justly depriv'd of special Grace that is necessary to heal and recover him And till by a perfect Sacrifice Divine Justice was appeased that had shut the Treasury of Heaven and the Forfeiture taken off he could not obtain the eternal Riches God must be reconciled before He will bestow the Holy Spirit a Gift so great and so precious the earnest of his peculiar Love and special Favour to us Therefore our Saviour tells his Disciples who were extremely afflicted for his departure from them That it was expedient he should go away for otherwise the Spirit would not come whose Office was to convince and convert the World The departure of Christ implied his Death and Ascension both which were requisite in order to the sending of Him If the Blood of Christ had not been shed on the Cross the Spirit had not been poured forth from Heaven The effusion of the one was the cause of the effusion of the other The Rock that refreshed the Israelites in the Desert did not powre forth its miraculous waters till it was struck by the Rod of Moses to instruct us That Christ our Spiritual Rock must be struck with the Curse of the Law the mystical Rod of Moses to communicate the Waters of Life to us that is the Spirit who is represented in Scripture under that element 2. Our Redeemer confers the Spirit after his glorious Exaltation When he ascended on high he led Captivity captive and gave gifts unto men After his triumph over Principalities and Powers He dispenc'd his Bounty in this rich Donative For the Holy Spirit was first given to Christ as the reward of his excellent Obedience in dying that was infinitely pleasing to God to be communicated from him to Men. And he received the Spirit in the quality of Mediator upon his entrance into Heaven The Psalmist declares this Prophetically Thou hast ascended on high thou hast led captivity captive thou hast received gifts for Men yea for the rebellious also that the Lord God might dwell among them He acquired a right to those Treasures by dying but he takes possession of them after his Ascension Now He is Crown'd He holds forth the Scepter of his Royalty Therefore 't is said that when Christ was upon the Earth the Holy Spirit was not given because Jesus was not Glorified If it be objected that Believers before the Ascension of Christ were partakers of the Spirit the answer is clear 1. It was upon Christ's interposing in the beginning as Mediator and with respect to his future Death and Ascension that the Spirit was given to them 2. The degrees of communicating the Spirit before and after the Ascension of Christ are very different whether we consider the gifts of the Spirit those extraordinary abilities with which the Apostles were endued or the fruits of the Spirit the Sanctifying Graces that are bestowed on Believers the measure of them far exceeds what-ever was conveyed before The Spirit Descended as in a dew upon the Jewish Nation but 't is now powred forth in showers upon all flesh Now in the stile of Scripture things are said to be when apparently and eminently they discover their being So that comparatively to the Power and Virtue of the Spirit discovered in the Church since the Glorification of Christ he was not given before All the former manifestations are obscured by the excess and excellency of the later And not only the Decree of God which is sufficient to connect those things that have no natural dependence but there are special reasons for the order of this Dispensation for the great end of the Spirit 's coming was to reveal fully to the World the way of Salvation to discover the unsearchable riches of Grace to assure Men of happiness after this Life that they might be reduced from a state of Rebellion to Obedience and their affections be refined and purified from all Earthliness and made Angelical and Heavenly Now the Principal demonstrations which he used to perswade Men of these things are the Death and Resurrection of Christ without which these Mysteries had been under a cloud That the Instruction therefore of the Spirit might be clear and effectual it was necessary Christ should Suffer and enter into Heaven and accomplish those things he was to teach And from hence we may observe that the Sanctifying Grace of the Spirit is only the concomitant of the Evangelical Mercy The Gospel and the Spirit are the Wings by which the Sun of Righteousness brings healing and life to the World The declaration of the Law from Mount Sinai was Divine but not accompanied with the efficacy of Grace Therefore 't is called the ministration of Death It conveyed no Spiritual strength as delivered by the hands of Moses considering him precisely in the quality of the legal Mediator but threatned a Curse to the breakers of it All the promises of Mercy scattered in the Books of Moses belong to the Covenant of Grace The Gospel is called the Law of the Spirit of Life and the Ministration of the Spirit that is the Spirit of Holiness and Comfort from whom true and Eternal Life proceeds 〈◊〉 is solely communicated by it The discovery of the Divine Goodness in the Works of Creation and Providence is natural and without the renewing power of the Spirit There is a correspondence between the external Revelation of Mercy and the internal Grace of the Spirit in their Original as the one is supernatural so is the other Not but that the Heathens had some fainter beams of the Sun of Righteousness for he inlightens every man that comes into the World and some lower operations of the Spirit whereby they were reduced from Intemperance Incontinency and other gross Vices to the practice of several Vertues that respect the Civil Life And of this we have an eminent instance recorded by Diogenes Laertius That Polemo half-drunk crown'd with Roses and in the dress of a Harlot rather than of a Man coming into the School of the severe Zenocrates hearing him discourse of Temperance as by a Charm was so perfectly changed that casting away the Garland from his Head and the lascivious Ornaments that were about him and which was more considerable his vicious Habits from his Soul he that entered in a Reveller come forth a Philosopher so corrected and composed in his manners that he was called the Dorick tone which of all others was the most solemn and majestical in the Musick of
some temptations wherein the Flesh assaults the Spirit with that violence that Love it self is obliged to call in Fear to its assistance as being more proper to repress its inordinate motions 'T is only in Heaven that perfect Love will consume all concupiscence and cast out fear of Judgment but whilst we are encompast with temptations we must not think under the pretext of a more raised Spirituality that the fear of Hell is either unbecoming or unnecessary 'T is not unworthy a Child of God to employ all the Motives of the Gospel We are commanded to work out our own Salvation with fear and trembling But the opening of Hell to our view is not sufficient alone to make us Holy For the strongest terrors although they restrain from the outward forbidden act yet they do not change the Heart According to that of St. Austin Inaniter se victorem putat esse peccati qui poenae timore non peccat quia etsi non impletur foris negotium malae cupiditatis ipsa tamen cupiditas intus est hostis That is the fear of Punishment can never make us truly victorious over sin because although we do not actually accomplish the desires of the corrupt Will yet the corrupt Will is still an enemy that lives within and is only destroyed by the love of Holiness which allures us by the excellent Reward that is promised to it Besides Fear is a violent Passion to which Nature is repugnant so that although its power is great yet not constant how strong soever the force is by which a stone is thrown upwards yet 't is weakned by degrees and overcome by the natural weight of the Stone whereby it falls to the Centre So the Humane Nature resists Fear and lessens its impetuousness so far that frequently it returns to sensual Lusts. Therefore that the Law of the Spirit may be perfect and stable it must be confirmed by the hopes of Heaven As the Natural so the Spiritual Life must be nourisht by grateful food 't is not preserv'd with Aloes or Worm-wood For this reason our Saviour 2. To encourage and raise our Hopes offers to us a Reward infinitely valuable for as God is Infinite such is the Happiness he bestows on his favourites 'T is described to us in Scripture under the most enamouring representations as a state of Peace and Love of Joy and Glory The Prince of Peace reigns in the Holy Jerusalem that is above and preserves an everlasting serenity and calmness The mutinous Spirits that rebell'd were presently chased from thence into this lower Region where they brought trouble and disorder He maketh Peace in his high Places The Peace of Heaven is like the Chrystal Sea before the Throne of the Lamb which no unquiet agitation ever troubles or disturbs An inviolable Love unites all his Subjects no division or jealousie discomposes their Concord They enjoy without envy for infinite Blessedness is not diminished by the number of the possessours The Inheritance in light is communicated to all Although the Angels are distinguish'd by their several Orders and Ministrations as Seraphims and Cherubims Thrones and Powers yet a Chain of Holy Love binds all their affections together And the Saints although they shine with different degrees of Glory yet as in a Chorus of Musick although the voices are different they make but one intire harmony So Love that ever continues unites their wills in a delightful harmonious Agreement Although there are millions of the Celestial Inhabitants yet they all make but one Society Love mixing in one mass of Light and Glory all their understandings and wills And since all true Joy and Sweetness springs from Love 't is impossible but they must feel unspeakable complacency in the reciprocal exercise of so Holy and Pure an Affection But principally their Joy arises from the possession of God himself by the clearest Knowledg and purest Love of his Excellencies They see him as he is Sight is the most Spiritual and noble Sense that gives the most distinct and evident discovery of its objects The Soul in its exalted state sees the King in his Beauty all the perfections of that infinitely Glorious and Blessed Nature in their brightness and purity And this Sight causes the most ardent Love by which there is an intimate and vital union between the soul and its happiness and from hence springs perfect delight In thy presence is fulness of Joy It expels all evil that would imbitter and lessen our felicity And this is an admirable priviledge for the Humane Nature that is so sensible of trouble All complaints and cries all sighings and sorrows are for ever banisht from Heaven If the Light of the Sun be so pleasant that every morning revives the World and renders it new to us which was buried in the darkness of the night how infinitely pleasant will the Light of Glory be that discovers the absolute and universal Excellency of the Deity the beauty of his Holiness the perfection of his Wisdom the greatness of his Power and the riches of his Mercy How inexpressibly great is the Happiness that proceeds from the illumination of a purified Soul when such is the amiableness of God that his infinite and eternal Felicity arises from the fruition of himself The Joy of Heaven is so full and satisfying that a thousand years there are but as one day Inferiour earthly goods presently lose the flower of novelty and languish in our enjoyment of them Variety is necessary to put an edge upon our appetites and quicken our delights because they are imperfect and fall short of our expectation But the object of our Blessedness is infinitely great and produces the same pure and perfect Joy for ever After the longest fruition it never cloys or satiates but is as fresh and new as the first moment And that which is the peculiar Pleasure of the Redeemed is that they shall be with Christ and see his Glory What a marvellous joy will fill our hearts to see our Blessed Saviour who suffer'd so much for us on Earth to reign in Heaven Here He was in his enemies hands there he hath them under his feet Here He was in the form of a Servant there He appears in the form of God adorn'd with all the marks of Majesty Here He was under the cloud of his Fathers displeasure there He appears as the Brightness of his Glory Here He was ignominiously Crucified there He is crown'd with Immortal Honour Now considering the ardent Affections which the Saints have to their Redeemer the contemplation of him in this glorious state must infinitely ravish their hearts Especially if we consider that the exaltation of Christ is theirs The Members triumph when the Head is crown'd His excellent Glory reflects a lustre upon them and by the sight of it they are chang'd into his Likeness If the imperfect and dim sight of his Divine Vertues in the Gospel hath a power to change Believers into his
ever to Glorifie him will proportionably to our state in this life cause us to observe his Commands with delight and constancy A true Christian is moved by Fear more by Hope most by Love CHAP. XIX The Compleatness of our Recovery by Jesus Cist He frees us from the Power as well as Guilt of Sin Sin is the Disease and Wound of the Soul the meer Pardon of it cannot make us happy Sanctification equals if not excels Justification It qualifies us for the enjoyment of God Saving Grace doth not encourage the Practice of sin The Promise of Pardon and Heaven are conditional To abuse the Mercy of the Gospel is dishonourable to God and pernicious to Man The excellency of the Christian Religion discovered from its design and effect The design is to purge Men from Sin and conform them to God's Holiness according to their capacity This gives it the most visible preheminence above other Religions The admirable effect of the Gospel in the primitive Christians An earnest Exhortation to live according to the purity of the Gospel and the great Obligations our Saviour hath laid on us 1. FRom hence we may discover the Perfection and Compleatness of the Redemption that our Saviour purchased for us He fully repairs what was ruin'd by the Fall He was called Jesus because He should save his People from their Sins He reconciles them to God and redeems them from their vain conversation He came by Water and Blood to signifie the accomplishment of what was represented by the Ceremonial Purification and the Blood of the Sacrifices Satisfaction and Sanctification are found in Him And this was not a needless Compassion but absolutely requisite ingorder to our Felicity Man in his guilty corrupt state may be compar'd to a condemn'd Malefactor infected with noisom and painful wounds and diseases and wants the Grace of the Prince to pardon him and Sovereign Remedies to heal him Supposing the Sentence were reverst yet he cannot enjoy his Life till he is restor'd to health Thus the Sinner is under the condemnation of the Law and under many spiritual powerful Distempers that make him truly miserable His irregular Passions are so many sorts of Diseases not only contrary to Health but to one another that continually torment him He feels all the effects of Sickness He is inflam'd by his Lusts and made restless being without power to accomplish or to restrain them All his Faculties are disabled for the Spiritual Life that is only worthy of his Nature and whose operations are mixt with sincere and lasting Pleasure Sin as 't is the Disease so 't is the Wound of the Soul and attended with all the evils of those that are most terrible The whole head is sick the whole heart is faint from the sole of the foot even to the head there is no soundess in it but wounds and bruises and putrifying sores Now our Redeemer as he hath obtain'd a full Remission of our Sins so he restores Holiness to us the true health and vigour of the Soul He hath made a Plaister of his living Flesh mixt with his Tears and Blood those divine and powerful Ingredients to heal our Wounds By the Holy Spirit 't is applied to us that we may partake of its vertue and influence His Grace that pardons us doth also purifie the Conscience from dead works that we may serve the Living God Without this the bare exemption from Punishment were not sufficient to make us happy For although the guilty Conscience were secure from Wrath to come yet those fierce unruly Passions the generation of Vipers that lodg in the breast of the Sinner would cause a real Hell Till these are mortified there can be no ease nor rest Besides Sin is the true dishonour of Mans Nature that degrades him from his excellency and changes him into a Beast or a Devil So that to have a licence to wallow in the mire to live in the practice of Sin that defiles and debases him were a miserable Priviledg The Scripture therefore represents the curing of our corrupt Inclinations and the cleansing of us from our Pollutions to be the eminent effect and blessed work of Saving Mercy Accordingly St. Peter tells the Jews that God having raised up his Son Jesus sent him to bless you in turning away every one of you from his Iniquities that is Christ in his glorified state gives the Spirit of Holiness to work a sincere thorough Change in men from all presumptuous reigning Sins to universal Holiness An unvaluable benefit that equals if not excels our Justification For as the evil of Sin is in its own nature worse than the evil of Punishment so the freeing us from its dominion is a greater Blessing than meer impunity The Son of God for a time was made subject to our Miseries not to our Sins He devested himself of his Glory not of Holiness And the Apostle in the extasie of his affection desired to be made unhappy for the Salvation of the Jews not to be unholy Besides the end is more noble than the means Now Jesus Christ purchased our Pardon that we might be restored to our forfeited Holiness He ransomed us by his Death that he might bless us by his Resurrection He gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and to purifie to himself a peculiar people zealous of good works Sanctification is the last end of all he did and suffered for us Holiness is the chiefest excellency of Man his highest advantage above inferiour Beings 'T is the Supream Beauty of the Soul the resemblance of Angels the Image of God Himself In this the perfection of the reasonable Nature truly consists and Glory naturally results from it As a Diamond when its earthy and colourless parts are taken away shines forth in its lustre so when the Soul is freed from its Impurities and all terrene Affections it will appear with a Divine Brightness The Church shall then be glorious when cleansed from every spot and made compleat in Holiness To this I will only add that without Holiness we cannot see God that is delightfully enjoy Him Suppose the Law were dispenst with that forbids any unclean person to enter into the Holy Jerusalem the place cannot make him happy For Happiness consists in the Fruition of an object that is suitable satisfying to our desires The Holy God cannot be our Felicity without our partaking of his Nature Imputed Righteousness frees us from Hell inherent makes us fit for Heaven The sum is Jesus Christ that he might be a perfect Saviour sanctifies all whom He justifies for otherwise we could not be totally exempted from suffering evil nor capable of enjoying the supreme Good we could not be happy here nor hereafter 2. From hence it appears that Saving Grace gives no encouragement to the practice of Sin For the principal aim of our Redeemers Love in dying for us was to sanctifie and cleanse us by the washing of water and
the Word And accordingly all the Promises of Pardon and Salvation are conditional The holy Mercy of the Gospel offers Forgiveness only to Penitent Believers that return from Sin to Obedience We are commanded to repent and be converted that our sins may be blotted out in the time of refreshment from the presence of the Lord. And Heaven is the reward of persevering Obedience To them who by patient continuance in well-doing seek for glory and honour and immortality eternal life There cannot be the least ground of a rational just Hope in any person without Holiness Whoever hath this hope in him purifies himself even as he is pure By which it appears that the genuine and proper use we are to make of the exceeding great and precious Promises is That by them we may be partakers of the Divine Nature and escape the pollution that is in the world through lust Yet the corrupt hearts of men are so strongly enclined to their lusts that they turn the Grace of God into wantonness and make an advantage of Mercy to assist their Security presuming to sin with less fear and more licence upon the account of the glorious Revelation of it by our Redeemer The most live as if they might be saved without being Saints and enjoy the Paradise of the Flesh here and not be excluded from that of the Spirit hereafter But Grace doth not in the least degree authorize and favour their Lusts nor relax the Sinews of Obedience 't is perfectly innocent of their unnatural abuse of it The Poison is not in the Flower but the Spider Therefore the Apostle propounds it with indignation Shall we sin that Grace may abound God forbid He uses this form of Speech to express an extreme abhorrency of a thing that is either impious and dishonourable to God or pernicious and destructive to Men. As when he puts the question Is God unjust who taketh vengeance God forbid And is there iniquity in God God forbid He rejects the mention of it with infinite aversation Indeed what greater disparagement can there be of the Divine Purity than to indulge our selves in Sin upon confidence of an easie Forgiveness As if the Son of God had been consecrated by such terrible Sufferings to purchase and prepare a Pardon for those who sin securely What an unexpressible indignity is it to make a monstrous alliance between Christ and Belial And this abuse of Grace is pernicious to men if the Antidote be turn'd into Poison and the Remedy cherish the Disease the cause is desperate The Apostle tells us Those that do evil that good may come thereby their damnation is just Suppose a presuming Sinner were assured that after he had gratified his carnal vile desires he should repent and be pardon'd yet 't were an unreasonable defect of Self-love to do so What Israelite was so fool-hardy as to provoke a fiery Serpent to bite him though he knew he should be healed by the brazen Serpent But 't is a degree beyond madness for Men to live in a course of Sin upon the hopes of Salvation making the Mercy of God to be his bondage as if he could not be happy without them An unrenewed Sinner may be the object of Gods Compassion but while he remains so he is uncapable of Communion with him here much less hereafter Under the Law the Lepers were excluded the Camp of Israel where the presence of God was in a special manner much more shall those who are cover'd with moral Pollutions be kept out from the habitation of his Holiness 'T is a mortal Delusion for any to pretend that electing Mercy will bring them to Glory or that the all-sufficient Sacrifice of Christ will atone God's displeasure towards them although they indulge themselves in a course of Sin The Book of Life is secret only the Lamb with whose Blood the names of the Elect are written there can open the seals of it But the Gospel that is a lower Book of Life tells us the qualifications of those who are vessels of Mercy they are by Grace prepar'd for Glory and that there can be no benefit by the Death of Christ without conformity to his Life Those who abuse Mercy now shall have Justice for ever 3. From hence we may discover the peculiar excellency of the Christian Religion above all other Institutions and that in respect of its Design and effect The whole Design of the Gospel is exprest in the words of Christ from Heaven to Paul when he sent him to the Gentiles To open their eyes and to turn them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God that they may receive forgiveness of sins and inheritance among them that are sanctified by Faith in Christ. One great End of it is to take away all the filthiness and malignity wherewith Sin hath infected the world and to cause in men a real conformity to Gods Holiness according to their capacity As the Reward it promises is not an earthly Happiness such as we enjoy here but Celestial so the Holiness it requires is not an ordinary natural Perfection which Men honour with the title of Vertue but an Angelical Divine quality that sanctifies us throughout in Spirit Soul and Body that cleanses the Thoughts and Affections and expresses itself in a course of universal Obedience to Gods Will. Indeed there are other things that commend the Gospel to any that with judgment compares it with other Religions The heigth of its Mysteries which are so sacred and venerable that upon the discovery they affect with reverence and admiration Whereas the Religion of the Gentiles was built on Follies and Fables Their most solemn Mysteries to which they were admitted after so long a circuit of Ceremonies and great preparations contain'd nothing but a prodigious mixture of Vanity and Impiety worthy to be conceal'd in everlasting darkness Besides the confirmation of the Gospel by Miracles doth authorize it above all humane Institutions And the glorious eternal Reward of it infinitely exceeds whatever is propounded by them But that which gives it the most visible preheminence is That it is a Doctrine according to godliness The End is the character of its nature The whole contexture and harmony of its Doctrines Precepts Promises Threatnings is for the exaltation of Godliness The objects of Faith revealed are not meerly speculative to be conceived and believed only as true or to be gaz'd on in an Extasie of Wonder but are Mysteries of Godliness that have a powerful influence upon practice The Design of God in the publication of them is not only to enlighten the Mind but to warm the Heart and purifie the Affections God discovers his Nature that we may imitate Him and his Works that we may glorifie Him All the Precepts of the Gospel are to embrace Christ by a lively Faith to seek for Righteousness and Holiness in Him to live Godly Righteously and Soberly in this present
world When our Saviour was on the Earth the End of his Sermons as appears in the Gospel was to regulate the lives of Men to correct their vicious Passions rather than to explicate the greatest Mysteries Other Religions oblige their Disciples either to some external actions that have no moral worth in them so that 't is impossible for any one that is guided by Reason to be taken with such vanities Or they require things incommodious and burthensome The Priests of Baal cut themselves And among the Chineses though in great reputation for wisdome their Penitents expose themselves half naked to the injuries of the sharpest Weather with a double cruelty pleasure of the Devil who makes them freez here and expects they should burn for ever 'T is not the most strict observance of serious Trifles nor submitting to rigorous Austerities that ennobles the humane nature and commends us to God The most zealous performers of things indifferent and that chastise themselves with a bloody Discipline labour for nothing and may pass to Hell through Purgatory But the Religion of Christ reforms the Understanding and Will and all the actions depending on them It chases away Errour and Vice and Hatred and sheds abroad Light and Love Purity and Peace and forms on Earth a lively representation of that pure Society that is in Heaven The End of it is to render men like the Angels in Holiness that they may be so in Blessedness This will render it amiable to all that consider it without Passion And 't is worthy of observation that although many Heathens and Hereticks have contradicted other parts of the Christian Religion yet none have dar'd openly to condemn the Moral part of it The Effect of the Gospel hath been answerable to the Design One main difference between the old and new Law is that the old gave the knowledg of Rules without power to observe them the new that is attended with the Grace of Christ enables us by a holy Love to perform that which the other made men only to understand Of this we have the most sensible Evidence in the Primitive Church that was produc'd by the first beams of the Sun of Righteousness had received the first fruits of the Spirit What is more wonderful and worthy of God than that perfect Love which made all the first Believers to have one Heart and one Soul What greater contempt of the World can be imagined than the voluntary parting with all their Goods in consecrating them to God for the relief of the Poor And the Churches of the Gentiles while the Blood of Christ was warm and His Actions fresh in the memories of men were exemplary in Holiness They were as Stars shining in a perverse generation There was such a brightness in their Conversations that it pierc'd through the darkness of Paganisme and made a visible difference between them and all others Their words and actions were so full of zeal for the Glory of God of Chastity Temperance Justice Charity that the Heathens from the Holiness of their lives concluded the Holiness of their Law and that the Doctrine that produc'd such fruits could not be evil The first light that discovered the Truth of the Christian Faith to many was from the Graces and Vertues that appear'd in the Faithful The Purity of their Lives their Courage in Death were as powerful to convert the World as their Sermons Disputations and Miracles And those who were under such strong prejudices that they would not examine the Doctrine of the Gospel yet they could not but admire the Integrity and Innocency that was visible in the conversation of Christians They esteemâ—d their persons from the good qualities that were visible in them when they hated the Christian name for the conceal'd evil they unreasonably suspected to be under it This Tertullian excellently represents in his Apology The most part are so prejudic'd against the Name and are possest with such a blind hatred to it that they make it a matter of reproach even to those whom they otherwise esteem'd Caius they say is a good man he hath no fault but that he is a Christian. Thus the excellent Holiness of the Professors of the Gospel forc'd a veneration from their Enemies But we are fallen from Heaven and mixt with the dust Our conversation hath nothing singular in Holiness to distinguish us from the World The same corrupt Passions reign in Professors of Christianity as in those who are strangers from the Sacred Covenant If we compare our selves with the Primitive Church we must confess our unworthiness to be call'd their successors Sixteen hundred years are run out since the Son of God came down to sanctifie and save the World which are so many degrees whereby we are descended from the first Perfection We are more distant from them in Holiness than in Time So universal and great is the Corruption that 't is almost as difficult to revive the dying Faith of Christians and to reform their Lives according to the purity of their Profession as the Conversion of the World was from Heathenism to Christianity 'T is true In every Age there are some Examples of the Vertue of the Gospel that reflect an honour upon it And this last Age which we may call the Winter of the World in which the Holy Spirit hath foretold That the love of many shall grow cold by a marvellous Antiperistasis hath inflam'd the hearts of some excellent Saints towards God and Religion But the great number of the wicked and the progress of Sin in their Lives there is no measure of Tears sufficient to lament Fourthly I shall press Christians to walk as becomes the Gospel of Christ answerably to the Holiness and Purity of that Divine Institution and to those great and strict Obligations it laies upon us The Gospel requires an entire Holiness in all our Faculties an equal respect to all our Duties We are commanded to cleanse our selves from all pollutions of flesh and spirit to be holy in all manner of conversation We are enjoin'd To be perfecting Holiness in the fear of God To be holy as He that hath called us is Holy A certain measure of Faith and Love and Obedience a mediocrity in Vertue we must not content our selves with 'T is not a counsel of Perfection given only to some Christians of a peculiar order and elevation But the command of a Law that without exception binds all Be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect The Gospel gives no Dispensation to any Person nor in any Duty The Doctrine that asserts there are some excellent works to which the lower sort of Christians is not obliged is equally pernicious both to those who do them by Presumption as if they were not due and were therefore meritorious and to those who neglect them by a blind Security as if they might be saved without striving to reach the highest degrees of Obedience 'T is a weak pretence that because the
consummate measure of Sanctification can only be attained in the next life therefore we should not endeavour after it here For by sincere and constant endeavours we make nearer approaches to it and according to the degrees of our progress such are those of our joy As Nature hath prescribed to all heavy Bodies their going to the Centre and although none comes to it and many are at a great distance from it yet the ordination of Nature is not in vain Because by virtue of it every heavy Body is alwaies tending thither in motion or inclination So although we cannot reach to compleat Holiness in this imperfect state yet 't is not in vain that the Gospel prescribes it and infuses into Christians those dispositions whereby they are gradually carried to the full accomplishment of it Not to arrive to Perfection is the weakness of the Flesh not to aspire after it is the fault of the Spirit To excite us it will be of moment to consider the great Obligations that the Gospel laies upon Christians to be holy By that Covenant the Holy God is pleased to take them into the Relation of his Children and as the nature of Sanctification so the motives of it are contained in that Title For so near an Alliance obliges them to a faithful observation of his Commands and to imitate him with the greatest care that the Vein of his Spirit and the Marks of his Blood may appear in all their actions Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin The allowed practice of it is inconsistent with the quality of a Son of God 't is contrary to the Grace of his Divine Birth Nay the omission of Good as well as the commission of Evil is inconsistent with that Relation 'T is for this reason that Holiness is so much the character of a true Christian that to be a Christian and a Saint are the same thing in the Writings of the Apostles That venerable Title obliges him to a higher practice of Vertue than ever the Pagans imagined He is far behind them if he do not surpass them and if he is surpassed by them he will be cloathed with shame Besides our Redeemer who hath a right to us by so many titles by his Divine and Humane Nature by his Life and Death by his Glory and Sufferings as He strictly commands us to be holy so he hath joyned Example to his Authority That we may walk as he walk'd and be as he was in the world St. Paul makes use of this consideration to restrain the Disciples of Christ from all Sin and to perswade them to universal Holiness After he had mentioned the disorders of the Gentiles to deter the Ephesians from the like he tells them But ye have not so learned Christ that is his rule and practice instructed them otherwise And when he commands the Romans To walk honestly as in the day not in rioting and drunkenness not in chambering and wantonness not in strife and envying he opposes to all these vices the pattern that Christ set before us But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ. The expression intimates the Duty that as the Garment is commensurate to the Body so we are to imitate all the parts of his Holy Conversation 'T is no wonder that the Heathens gratified the inclinations of Lust or Rage when their Gods were represented acting in such a manner as to authorise their Vices Semina pene omnium scelerum à Diis suis peccantium turba collegit as Julius Firmicius justly reproaches them There was no Villany how notorious soever but had some Deity for its Protector They found in Heaven a Justification of all their crimes and became vicious by imitation For 't is very congruous for men to follow those whom they esteem to be perfect and to whom they think themselves accountable If they attribute to their Supreme God the Judg of the World Vices as Vertues What Vertues will there be to reward or Vices to punish in Men But for those that name the Name of Christ to continue in iniquity is the most unbecoming thing in the world For they live in the perfect contradiction of their Profession An unholy Christian is a real Apostate from Christ that retracts by his wickedness the Dedication that was made of him in his Baptism Although he doth not abjure our Saviour in words he denies him in his works A proud person renounces his Humility the revengful his Mercy the luke-warm his Zeal the unclean his Purity the covetous his Bounty and Compassion the hypocrite his Sincerity And can there be any thing more indecent and absurd than to pretend the relation and respect of Disciples to such an holy Master and yet by Disobedience to deny him When the bloody Spectacles of the Gladiators were first brought to Athens a Wise man cried out to the Masters of the Prizes That they should remove the Statue and Altar of Mercy out of the City there being such an incongruity between the Goddess they pretended to worship and that cruel Sacrifice of Men for the sport of the People It were more suitable for those who are not afraid to violate the most Holy Laws and to contradict the Pattern of Christ to leave their Profession and to take some other more complying with their Lusts. 'T is not the Title of a Christian that sanctifies those who pollute and defame it 'T is not wearing the Livery of Christ that can honour those who stain it by their filthiness but 't is an aggravation of their guilt 'T is an unconceivable indignity to our Saviour and revives the old calumnies of the Heathens as if the Gospel were a Sanctuary for Criminals when those that call him Lord do not what he commands them I know saith Christ the blasphemy of them that say they are Jews and are not but are the Synagogue of Satan Those that own the Profession of Christianity and live in unchristian Practices are baptised Pagans and in effect revile our Blessed Redeemer as if He had proclaim'd a licentious impunity for Sinners Such Wretches may deceive themselves with a pretence they believe in Christ and that visibly they declare their dependence on him but this pretence will be as unprofitable as 't is vain 'T is not the calling him Lord that will give them admission into the kingdom of heaven The naked name of a Christian cannot protect them from the wrath of God Tertullian smartly upbraids some in his time who were careless of the Dignity Purity of the Christian Profession in their Lives imagining that they might reverence God in their hearts without regarding him in their actions that they might Salvo metu fide peccare Sin without losing their fear of God and their Faith To refute this gross contradiction he propounds it in a sensible example Hoc est salva castitate matrimonium violare salva pietate parenti venenum temperare Thâ—s is the same thing
the Lord. And immediately there was a general commotion among them they joyn'd together the sinews and flesh came upon them and the skin cover'd them And upon a second Prophesy they were all inspir'd with the Breath of Life and stood up an exceeding great Army Now whether this was really represented to his outward senses or only by the efficacy of the Spirit to his imagination no doubt so strange a Spectacle vehemently affected him as with Joy in hope of the miraculous Restoration of Israel which that Vision foretold so with admiration of the Divine Power But when the Trumpet of the Arch-Angel shall sound the Universal Jubilee and call forth the Dead from all their Receptacles when the Elements as Faithful Depositaries shall effectively restore what was committed to them How Admirable will the Power of God appear 2. No less than Infinite Power is able to change the raised Bodies into the likenesse of Christs The Apostle speaks with an exaggeration of it For our Conversation is in Heaven from whence also we look for the Saviour the Lord Jesus Christ who shall change our Vile Bodies that it may be fashioned like unto his Glorious Body according to the working whereby he is able to subdue all things to himself This resemblance will be only in the Person of Believers All Men shall rise to be judged but not all to be transform'd There is a Resurrection to Death as well as to Life Unhappy Resurrection Which only serves to make the Body the Food of Eternal Death But the Saints who endeavoured to be like to Christ in purity shall then have a perfect conformity to him in Glory and Immortality How Glorious the Body of Christ is we may conjecture in part by what the Apostle relates to Agrippa At mid-day O King I saw in the way a light from Heaven above the brightness of the Sun shining round about me Which was no other but the Light of the Face of Christ that struck him with Blindnesse One Ray of this reflecting upon the first Martyr Saint Stephen in his Sufferings gave an Angelical Glory to his countenance And Saint John tells us when he appears we shall be like him He alludes to the rising of the Sun but with this difference when the Sun appears in the Morning the Stars are made invisible but the Bodies of the Saints shall be cloathed with a Sun-like lustre and shine in the midst of Christs Glory Omnipotency alone that Subdues all things can raise and refine them from their Dross unto such an admirable Brightness The Angels will be surpris'd with wonder to see Millions of Stars spring out of the Dust. The Lord Jesus Christ will be admir'd in all them that Believe 2. Their Bodies shall be raised to a Glorious Immortality In this the General Resurrection is Different from that which was Particular as of Lazarus by the one Death was overcome and put to flight only for some time for his second life was no more exempt from Death than his first But by the other Death shall be swallowed in Victory and lose its force for ever Then shall our true Joshua be magnified in the sight of the whole World and the Glorious number of Saints shall cast their Crowns at his Feet and sing the Triumphant Song Thou hast Redeem'd us to God by thy Blood and rescued us by thy Power from all our Enemies and art worthy of Honour and Glory and Blessing for ever CHAP. XXII The extraordinary working of the Divine Power is a convincing proof of the Verity of the Christian Religion The internal Excellencies of it are clear marks of its Divinity to the purified Mind The external Operations of God's power were requisite to convince men in their corrupt state that the Doctrine the Gospel came from God The miraculous owning of Christ by the whole Divinity from Heaven The Resurrection of Christ the most important Article of of the Gospel and the demonstration of all the rest How valuable the Testimony of the Apostles is concerning it That 't was impossible they should deceive or be deceived The quality of the Witnesses considered There cannot be the least reasonable suspicion of them 'T is utterly incredible that any humane temporal respects mov'd them to feign the Resurrection of Christ. The nature of the Testimony considered It was of a matter of fact and verified to all their Senses The Uniformity of it secures us there was no corruption in the Witnesses and that it was no illusion They seal'd the truth of it with their Blood The Miracles the Apostles did in the Name of Christ a strong demonstration that he was rais'd to a glorious life That Power was continued in the Church for a time The Conclusion how reasonable it is to give an entire Assent to the truth of Christianity 'T is desperate Infidelity not to believe it and the highest Madness to pretend to believe it and to live in disobedience to it 1 FRom what hath been discours'd concerning the extraordinary working of the Divine Power we have a most convincing proof of the Verity of the Christian Religion For since God hath by so many miraculous Effects the infallible indications of His Favour to the Person of Jesus Christ justified his Doctrine no reasonable doubt can remain concerning it Indeed the internal excellencies of it which are visible to the purged Eye of the Soul are clear marks of its Divinity The Mystery of our Redemption is made up of various parts in the Union of which such an evident Wisdom appears that the rational Mind unless enslaved by prejudice must be ravisht into a compliance Even that which most offends Sense the Meanness of our Saviours condition in the world and the miseries to which He was expos'd do so perfectly correspond with his great design to make Men holy and heavenly that it appears to be the effect of most wise Counsel And such a Beauty of Holiness shines in the Moral part as clearly proves God to be its Authour It denounces war against all Vices and commands every Vertue All that is excellent in humane Institutions it delivers with infinite more authority and efficacy And what natural reason did not reach to it fully describes in order to the Glory of God and the Happiness of Man Now as God the Authour of Nature hath by Tasts and Smells and other sensible qualities distinguish'd things wholsom from noxious even to the lowest living Creatures So He hath much more distinguish'd objects that are saving from deadly that is the true Religion from the false by undoubted evidences to any who will exercise their Spiritual Senses and sincerely desire to know and obey it And that all the wise and holy embraced it in the face of the greatest discouragements is an unanswerable Argument that 't is pleasing to God For how is it possible that the Good God should suffer those to fall into mortal Errour who from an ardent Affection to Him