implicite Of intention in general and of these two in particular Where an actual intention is necessary and where an habitual is sufficient to our Obedience Of the second Notion of sincerity as it notes purity of our service in opposition to mixture and corrupt alloy This Point stated viz. What intention of our good together with Gods service is consistent with an acceptable and sincere Obedience and what destroys it Integrity of our Obedience a sure mark whereby to judge whether it be sincere or no. 211 CHAP. II. Of the second qualification of al acceptable obedience viz. integrity The Contents Of the second qualification of an acceptable Obedience viz. integrity The Notion of integrity or uprightness A three fold integrity Of the integrity of our powers and faculties Or of the Obedience with our minds affections wills and bodily powers How God is to be obeyed with the first faculty our minds or understandings God is to be obeyed with the second faculty our affections This Question stated How God and his Laws which are spiritual things are proportionate Objects for our love and affections which are bodily faculties Of the difference betwixt our love of God and of the World that this is more warm and sensible that more lasting and powerful An account of what measures of Obedience in our minds and affections is necessary to the acceptance of our service That contrivances and consultations for evil things and such mere apprehensions as are particularly forbidden are deadly and damning but that all other bare apprehensions and that all our affections after good or evil things will be rewarded or punished not merely for themselves but only as they are Causes and Principles of good or evil choice and practice God to be obeyed with the third faculty our wills He cannot be served without them Men are guilty of sin if they chuse it and consent to it though they cannot act it All this service of our inward faculties is in order to our outward works and operations 240 CHAP. III. Of Obedience with the fourth faculty viz. our executive or bodily powers and outward operations The Contents God is to be obeyed with the fourth faculty viz. our executive or bodily powers and outward operations The great difficulty of Obedience in this instance Four false grounds whereupon men shift off the necessity of this service with their works and actions First A hope to be saved for a true belief or orthodox opinions Mens confidence in this represented The folly of it Orthodox Faith and Professions no further available than they produce obedient works and actions Secondly A hope of salvation upon an Obedience of idle desires and ineffective wishes An opinion of some Casuists That a desire of Grace is Grace refuted This stated and a distinct explication of what is promised to the desire of Obedience and what to Obedience it self The pretence for this acceptance of idle desires from Gal. 5.17 considered An account when the will and desire is taken for the deed and performance That Text 2 Cor. 8.11 12. plainly vindicated Thirdly A hope of being saved notwithstanding they do sin because they are insnared into it through the strength of temptations The folly of this Our own lusts make temptations strong The Grace of the Gospel is sufficient to overcome them Fourthly A hope of being excused because they transgress with an unwilling mind These mens state represented Vnwillingness in sin a mitigation but no sufficient excuse Some strugling in most actions both of good and bad men The strife of the Flesh and Spirit Two sorts of men feel nothing of it viz. the Saints in Heaven after the Resurrection and some profligate Sinners here now on Earth All good men and the generality of evil are subject to it in this life Mens peremptory will and last choice determines their condition 259 CHAP. IV. A further pursuit of this last ground of shifting off the obedience of our actions in an Exposition of the 7 th Chapter to the Romans The Contents A further pursâ—it of this last ground of false confidence The Plea for it from Rom. 7. represented This refuted A Mâ—tâ—schematism usual with Saint Paul in an odiou Topiâ—k The Apostle shown not to speâ—k of hâ—mself in that Chapter because of several things there spoken which are not truly applicable to him This evidenced in sundry instances Nor to have spoken in the person of any regenerate man which is proved by the same reason and manifested in sundry Particulars But to have personated a strugling but as yet unregenerated Jew who had no further assistance against his lusts but the weak and ineffective Law of Moses This shown from the order and design of that Chapter This whole matter represented in a Paraphrase upon the seventh Chapter with part of the sixth and the eighth Two Reasons of the inability of Moses's Law to make men wholly obedient and the perfection as to them of the Law of Christ viz. First The promise of eternal life Secondly The promise of the Spirit Both these were wanting in the Law and are most clearly supplied in the Gospel The Jews had the assistance of the Spirit not by virtue of any Article in their Law but by the gracious Covenant of the Gospel which has been confirmed with the world ever since Adam The Law mentioned in Scripture as a weak and mean instrument upon the account of these defects This weakness of the Law set off particularly in this seventh to the Romans No hopes to any man who acts sin from this Chapter but plain declarations of the necessity of a wâ—rking obedience shown in several expressions of it to that purpose A proof of the necessity of this fourth part of integrity the obedience of our exâ—cutive powers in our workâ— and actions and the insignificancy of all the rest when it is wanting 283 CHAP. V. Of the sâ—cond sort of integrity an integrity of times and seasons The Contents Of the second sort of integrity viz. that of times and seasons Of the unconstancy of many mens obedience Perseverance necessary unto bliss The desperate case of Apostates both as to the difficulty of their recovery from sin and the greatness of their punishment 325 CHAP. VI. Of the third fort of integrity viz. that of the object or of obedience to all the particular Laws and parts of Duty The Contents Of the partiality of mens Obedience from their love of some particular sins Three pretences whereby they justifie the allowed practice of some sins whilst they are obedient in some other instances The first pretence is the preservation of their Religion and themselves in times of persecution A particular account of mens disobedience under this pretence The vanity of it shown from the following considerations Religion needs not to be rescued from persecution The freedom of outward means of Religion is restrained by it but the substance of Religion it self is not It is extended in some parts and ennobled in all by
Romans The CONTENTS A further pursuit of this last ground of false confidence The Plea for it from Rom. 7. represented This refuted A Metaschematism usual with Saint Paul in an odious Topick The Apostle shown not to speak of himself in that Chapter because of several things there spoken which are not truly applicable to him This evidenced in sundry instances Nor to have spoken in the person of any regenerate man which is proved by the same reason and manifested in sundry Particulars But to have personated a strugling but as yet unregenerated Jew who had no further assistance against his lusts but the weak and ineffective Law of Moses This shown from the order and design of that Chapter This whole matter represented in a Paraphrase upon the seventh Chapter with part of the sixth and the eighth Two Reasons of the inability of Moses's Law to make men wholly obedient and the perfection as to them of the Law of Christ viz. First The promise of eternal life Secondly The promise of the Spirit Both these were wanting in the Law and are most clearly supplied in the Gospel The Jews had the assistance of the Spirit not by virtue of any Article in their Law but by the gracious Covenant of the Gospel which has been confirmed with the world ever since Adam The Law mentioned in Scripture as a weak and mean instrument upon the account of these defects This weakness of the Law set off particularly in this seventh to the Romans No hopes to any man who acts sin from this Chapter but plain declarations of the necessity of a working obedience shown in several expressions of it to that purpose A proof of the necessity of this fourth part of integrity the obedience of our executive powers in our works and actions and the insignificancy of all the rest when it is wanting THAT which has been the great occasion of this last pretence whereby men justifie themselves in the practice of disobedience viz. because when they do transgress it is with reluctancy and an unwilling mind is a wrong understanding of the words of S t Paul in the seventh Chapter of his Epistle to the Romans For thus says he That which I do I being sufficiently instructed in the Law which forbids it in my mind and conscience allow not For what through the Laws commanding I would do that do I not but what from the Laws prohibiting I hate and would not do that do I. The good that I would do I do not For although to will it is present with me yet through the prevailing power of my Flesh how to perform and practise that which is good I find not But the evil which I would not do that do I. And all this happens to me by reason that the Law of my lusts or members wars against the Law of God in my mind or Conscience and that with so much success as to make me act against my Conscience and bring me into a slavish observance or captivity to the Law of sin which is in my members So that I my self or the same I who with the mind and Conscience in approving and willing serve the Law of God do yet with the Flesh in my bodily and outward works and operations serve the Law of sin Now since no less a man than S t Paul himself speaks thus of sinning against his will of doing what he disallows and transgressing through the power of a ruling lust against his Conscience it may well be thought reasonable for any other man to conclude himself in a safe condition although he do so likewise For who would desire to be more perfect than S t Paul Who would ever scruple to have the same Lot in the next World with an Apostle If an unwillingness in sin and transgressing with reluctance could bear him out notwithstanding he did against his Duty and in works and actions disobeyed his Lord who can ever question but that it will be a sufficient Plea for us also And indeed if S t Paul had spoken all that of himself and meant it of his own Person the Inference is undeniable and it is not to be doubted but it would But for a full Answer to this Allegation it is plain that S t Paul when he expresses all those things in the first person uses that merely out of modesty but not out of truth For he was upon an odious Topick representing the unmortified state and sinful condition of those persons who had no other help against their Lusts but the Religion and Law of Moses And because this was a Charge which they who were most guilty would not love to hear of that he may soften the matter as much as may be and discover things of so much reproach with the least offence he wisely takes all the business and fathers all the shameful Narrative upon himself and expresses it not in theirs to whom it really did belong but in his own person And as for this Metaschematism or speaking things that are odious in his own name when indeed they belong not to him but to other men it is very usual with the Apostle For in this Disguise he recites a most blasphemous perversion which some men had made of his most pious Doctrine Rom. 3. If the truth of God or his faithfulness in performing his Covenant with us hath more ahounded to his Glory through my lye or unfaithfulness in breaking my Covenant with him which makes the most that can be for the honour of Gods faithfulness since no perfidiousness of ours can weary or provoke him out of it why yet am I not I Paul who could never act thus falsly or argue thus prophanely but I blasphemous Objector judged as a Sinner ver 7. And the same way of speech he observes again when he charges the wicked lives of those who have given up their names to Christ not upon his Religion but upon their own selves If while we seek to be justified by Christ in the profession of his Religion and not of Moses's Law we our selves are still found Sinners and as flagitious in our lives as ever is therefore Christ the Minister of sin God forbid For if I build again the things which at my very Baptism into Christianity I destroyed as 't is plain all Christians do who after Baptism prove customary Sinners it is no longer Christ who would rescue and free me from sin but I my self not I Paul but I flagitious Christian that make my self a Transgressor Gal. 2.17 18. Thus also he speaks in his own person when he only personates the strong but uncomplying Christian 1 Cor. 6. All things are lawful for me but all things are not expedient ver 12. And when he personates the uncharitable Christian 1 Cor. 13. If I have all faith and have no Charity what doth it profit me ver 2. And the same inoffensive way he uses in noting faults in other places And such an obliging disguise
or have all the force of a law in his members vers 23. That he sins against his own conscience For what he doth that he allows not but what in his own mind he hates and disapproves that he doth vers 15.19 That to do good although he might wish or approve it he found not v. 18. That he stands in need to cry out O wretched man that I am who will deliver me from this body of death being as yet not rescued from it but labouring under it vers 25. Of the regenerate elsewhere That as for their members they yield them not to be instruments unto sin but unto righteousness because now since their regeneration into true Christians Sin is not to reign in their mortal bodies that they should obey it in the lusts thereof Rom. 6.12 13. In becoming Christians they are dead and crucified with Christ that the body of sin might not be maintained to live and rule in them but destroyed that thenceforward they should not serve sin For he that is dead is freed from sin vers 6 7. The Gospel of Christ or the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath not enslaved but freed them from the law of sin and death Rom. 8.2 So that sin now shall not have dominion over them because they are not under the law through the weakness whereof it tyrannized but under Grace Rom. 6.14 That their body is dead because of sin Rom. 8.10 And that they make no provision for the flesh to fulfill and accomplish the lusts or concupiscence thereof Rom. 13.14 Because if they should they would cease to be sons of God and heirs of happiness and be rendred obnoxious to misery and death For the plain declaration of Christs Gospel concerning the heirs of life and death is this If you live after the flesh in accomplishing its lusts you shall die and 't is only if you through the spirit instead of acting and compleating do kill and mortifie the deeds of the body that you shall live Rom. 8.13 That against them there is no condemning force of any law Galat. 5.23 For the law of the spirit of life hath not left them still enslaved but made them free from the law of sin and death too Rom. 8.2 And being become the servants of God they have their fruit not to sin and death but to holiness at present and the end thereof at length everlasting life Rom. 6.22 That their bodies or fleshly members are temples of the Holy Ghost and sacred places wherein it inhabits and that they glorifie God in their bodies as well as in their spirits seeing both are Gods 1 Cor. 6.19 20. That they hold faith and a good conscience without which of faith in dangerous times they would soon make shipwrack 1 Tim. 1.19 And that they are saved by the answer of a good conscience which comforts and applauds but cannot accuse them 1 Pet. 3.21 That he only who doth good is of God 3 Joh. 11. and that there is no condemnation to them who do and walk after the spirit Rom. 8.1 And that without these new fruits it is in vain to lay any claim to a new nature because as our Saviour sayes if men were the children of Abraham they would do the works of Abraham Joh. 8.39 That the body of sin is already destroyed in them that henceforth they should not serve sin which the other complains so much of Rom. 6.6 For they are delivered from the law upon occasion of the weakness whereof sin brought forth in them fruits unto death to serve now in newness of Spirit Rom. 7.5 So that what the weak ineffective law could not do for them that the Grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord hath done in an effectual deliverance of them v. 25. So that if we will take the word of S t Paul and of the rest of the Apostles in this matter we must needs believe that regenerate men and heirs of heaven are not in any wise such persons as are described in that seventh Chapter to the Romans there being no agreement or resemblance at all between them Their tempers and behaviour are utterly inconsistent and as far distant as Heaven and Hell For one serves and fulfills the lusts of his flesh the other crucifies and subdues them one yields his members servants unto sin the other unto righteousness one is made a perfect captive and sold under sin the other is made free from it one is forced to act against his conscience the other alwayes acts according to it one complains of being oppressed by the body of death the other rejoyceth in being deliver'd from it one can perform and do no good the other doth all good one brings forth fruit unto death the other to eternal life These with others that might be mention'd are the lines of difference and the contrary characters of the person represented in the seventh Chapter to the Romans and the regenerate man described by S t Paul himself in all his other Epistles and in the following and foregoing Chapters of this By all which it appears that they are descriptions contradictory and incompatible which cannot at the same time be affirmed of the same man And that to give such an account of a regenerate man as is there set down would not in all appearance be the way to describe but rather slanderously to libel and revile him If any therefore enquire now how I know that S t Paul doth not speak of himself in that Chapter nor of any other regenerate person but of an unregenerate man who is yet in the state of death and sin he has his Answer full and undeniable already I know he doth not mean so because he cannot mean so the things which he sayes not bearing to be so understood For that meaning would make his speech to be no Apostolical Truth but an open falsehood it would make S t Paul inconsistent with himself and to unsay at one time what he had said most peremptorily at another It would make him flatly to gainsay all that he has taught elsewhere yea even what he had affirm'd almost in the same breath in the foregoing and the following Chapters So that he cannot be understood of himself or of any other regenerate person but must be allow'd according to his usual custome in such odious topicks as this was to speak all in a borrowed disguise and in the person of a sinfull and a lost man For indeed to be yet more particular all that discourse in that seventh Chapter is not meant either of S t Paul or of any other regenerate Christian but of a struggling and contending although yet unconquering and unregenerate Jew For the Apostle is there describing the state not of a perfect debauch nor of a perfect Saint but of a middle man He is one whose Conscience is awaken'd for he delights in the Law of God after the inner man of his mind and reason vers 22. and when he
and the perfection as to this particular of the Law of Christ. The Law of Moses was unable to work a general reformation by reason of several defects two whereof I shall particularly mention which in the Religion of Christ are fully supplied and they are the great motive to all obedience eternal life and the great encouragement of all endeavour the promise of the Spirit Eternal life are words that are never heard of in all Moses's Law Indeed the good people under it had all some rude thoughts and confused expectations of it but the Law it self did no where clearly and expresly propose it Whereof this may serve for a probable proof because a whole Sect among them the Sadducees I mean did flatly deny it and this for an undeniable Argument because those very places of the Law which are brought to confirm it by those Jewish Doctors that are most for it are in all appearance so remote from it Nay even our Saviour himself when he goes to prove it against the Sadducees out of the Books of Moses can find no other Testimonies for it than such as are fetched about to speak it by art and brought to it by consequence Luke 20.37 38. So that well might S t Paul say in triumph over all other Religions in the World That life and immortality were brought to light by the Gospel 2 Tim. 1.10 And in the comparison of that Covenant which came by Moses with that other which came by Christ to affirm that the Covenant which came by Christ was the bringing in of a better hope Heb. 7.19 and a better Covenant for this reason because it was established upon better promises Heb. 8.6 And then as for the promise of the Spirit to enable men to do what was required of them of that Moses made no mention By this Law as S t Paul says was the knowledge of sin Rom. 3.20 It shewed men what they should do and denounced a Curse upon them if they failed to do it but it stopt there and went not on to promise any inward Grace and help that might enable them to be as good as it required them No the promise of that was reserved to another dispensation and to be the hope of a better Covenant it was not to come by Moses but by Christ nor to be an express Article of the Law but of the Gospel Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the Law saith the Apostle that now being under the Gospel we might receive the promise of the Spirit which comes not by the Law of Moses but through the Faith of Christ Gal. 3.13 14. The Law by its prohibition made several actions to be sinful it shewed us what was sin and it threatned the curse to it but that was all that it did towards the extirpation of it for as for any inward strength and ability to overcome it it offered none but left us there to our own selves And because sin was too strong for us and had got possession of our Bodies and executive Powers insomuch that we were quite enslaved to it and as it were sold under it therefore the Law by making more things sinful through its prohibition and not strengthening us against sin through spiritual assistance instead of lessening the Empire of sin proved in the end to encrease it For our lusts not being restrained by it and more of them becoming sinful by being prohibited when the Law entred as S t Paul says the offence did more abound Rom. 5.20 and the Law became not the bane and overthrow of sin but by making its services more numerous it was rather as the same Apostle says the strength of it 1 Cor. 15.56 And forasmuch as the Law did only thus outwardly shew and reveal sin to our eyes but brought along with it nothing of inward Grace and assistance to help us against it therefore is it called a Letter without us opposite to the Grace of the Gospel which is an enlivening Spirit within And since it did nothing more but outwardly shew and threaten sin but did not inwardly assist and rescue us from it it served only to condemn us for what we did from the doing whereof it brought no inward Grace to hinder us and so proved the ministration of death and condemnation not of life and pardon All which is plainly affirmed of it in the third Chapter of the second Epistle to the Corinthians God says S t Paul hath made us Apostles ministers of the New Testament or Covenant not of the external Letter only as Moses and the Ministers of the Law were but of the internal Spirit also For the Letter or old Law shews sin and curses men upon the breach of that which they cannot keep and thereby kills them but the Spirit or new Law enables them to do what it commands and thereby giveth right to life which is the mercy that it promises That was the ministration of condemnation for it shewed men the curse which it did not enable them to shun this is the ministration of justification and righteousness which it both promises and enables them to attain to ver 6 7 8 9. 'T is very true indeed that several of the Jews themselves under the Law of Moses had really such assistances of Gods Spirit as enabled them to do as well as to know what was required of them For David in all his life and behaviour was a man after Gods own heart 1 Sam. 13.14 Zacharias and Elizabeth as to their walking in all the Commandments of the Lord were blameless Luke 1.6 And the Case was the same with a number of other honest and godly Jews But then this assistance which they enjoyed was no Article of their Law although God afforded it yet had their Law no where promised it nor was he bound to it by the Mosaical Covenant For in very truth all this inward Spirit which was vouchsafed to them was reached out not by virtue of the Covenant of the Law but of the Covenant of Grace For the Covenant of Grace was not first made with the World when Christ came into it but was established long before with Adam Gen. 3.15 and after that confirmed again with Abraham and all his Seed after him Gen. 12.3 Gal. 3.8 17. So that under it as well as under Moses all the Jews lived and by the gracious terms and assisting Spirit of it all the righteous people that have been since the beginning of the World were justified It being as S t Paul says by faith which is the righteousness of the second Covenant that the Elders who lived before the Law obtained a good report Heb. 11.2 and that the Jews who lived under it were delivered and justified from all things from which they could not be justified by any virtue of the Law of Moses Acts 13.39 And therefore that which the Apostle affirms of the defectiveness of the Mosaick Law viz. it s having no promise of the Spirit to
it vers 3 4. So that upon the whole matter it plainly appears that all that is said in that seventh Chapter of willing but not doing of sinning against conscience and transgressing with regret doth not at all set forth the savable state of a true Christian under the Gospel of Christ but only the state of a midling sinner of a lost Jew who only struggles but cannot conquer being yet under the weakness and imperfections of the Mosaick Law Nay I add further So far is any man who continues to work and act his sin from having any real grounds of hope and encouragement from this place in so doing that in very deed if he rightly consider it it will possess him with the quite contrary It holds out to him a sentence of death and shews him plainly the absolute necessity not only of a willing but also of a working obedience For the man who disobeys thus unwillingly and sins with regret is so far from being in a state of Life and Salvation notwithstanding his sins that he is here expresly said to be undone and slain by them The motions of sin under the law bring forth fruit unto death vers 5. when sin revived by the coming of the Commandment I died vers 9. The Commandment which was ordained unto life I on the contrary found to be unto death vers 10. Sin taking occasion and advantage by the Commandment slew me vers 11. Sin wrought death in me by that Law which is good vers 13. O! wretched man that I am by reason of this subjection unto sin who shall deliver me from this body of Sin and Death vers 24. But on the other side if we would belong to Christ and appear such Servants as he will own and reward at last we are taught in this very place that we must not be worsted by sin but overcome it that we must not work evil but righteousness that we must not walk after those sinfull lusts which are seated in the flesh but after the Law of God which is enthroned in the Spirit Sin shall not have dominion over you if you are under Grace Chapter 6.14 Now yield your members servants unto righteousness vers 19. you are become subject and as it were married to Christ that you should bring forth fruit to God Chap. 7. vers 4. Now being delivered from the Law we must serve not sin as we did under it but God in newness of spirit vers 6. The Grace of God through Jesus Christ hath delivered me from this body of death vers 24 25. The Law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus when I became truly and acceptably Christian hath made me free from the law of Sin and Death Chap. 8. vers 2. So that the righteousness of the Law which it was not able to work in me is now by means of the Gospel wrought and fulfilled in me for since I came under it I am one who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit vers 4. So that all the while we see this is a Truth most sure and stedfast which S t Paul is so far from opposing in this seventh Chapter to the Romans that in reality he avers and confirms it viz. that if we do commit sin and work iniquity it will not excuse us to say that we did it unwillingly The regret in sinning may be allowed as was shewn in the last Chapter to lessen our crime and thereby to abate our punishment but that is all which it can do for it cannot quite exempt us from it And thus at last we see that this fourth ground of shifting off the necessity of this service with our actions viz. our hope of being saved at the last day although we have not obeyed in our works but have wrought disobedience because when we did so it was with reluctance and unwillingness is no less delusive than are all the former It will certainly fail any man who trusts to it and if he will not see it before make him know the falseness of it when it is too late to rectifie and amend it As for all those foundations therefore whereupon men build their hopes of a happy sentence without ever obeying with their strength or bodily powers viz. the conceit of being saved for Orthodox Opinions for ineffective desires for never transgressing but through a strong temptation or with an unwilling mind they are all false grounds snares of death and inlets to damnation But as ever we expect that our obedience should avail us unto Pardon and Life we must obey with our strength or bodily powers as well as with our wills our passions and our understandings If we would have God at the last day to approve our service and to reward and justifie our obedience this and nothing less than this must be done towards it We must not only desire but do it is not enough to will and approve but we must work and practise what is commanded us We must not barely think right in our minds or desire with our affections or choose with our wills but as the Perfection and Crown of all we must put to our strength and executive powers and work the will of God in our lives and actions Without this if we have life and opportunity all other things will signifie nothing For it is he who doth good saith S t John who will be looked upon to be of God 3 Joh. 11. Little children saith the same Apostle let no man deceive you for it is only he who doth righteousness who in Gods judgement is righteous 1 Joh. 3.7 It is this service of our strength or bodily powers in our outward works and operations which makes up our duty and secures our reward Blessed are they that do his Commandments for they only have right to the great reward the Tree of Life Revel 22.14 But on the other side if we do evil and work iniquity no service of our other faculties can stand us in any stead but in Gods account we shall be esteemed wicked wretches children of wrath and heirs of destruction For the words of our Saviour Christ himself who is to judge of it are vehement and plain Verily verily I say unto you whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin Joh. 8.34 He who commits sin is of the devil for whosoever doth not righteousness is not of God but a child of the devil 1 Joh. 3.8 10. And as this working wickedness howsoever we are against it in our thoughts and desires makes us in Gods account sons of sin and disobedience so will it be sure to render us withall children of wrath and destruction If you live after the flesh saith S t Paul you shall die Rom. 8.13 And whatever men think in their minds or desire in their hearts or profess in their words to the contrary if for all that they have sinned impenitently in their actions Christ has told them plainly that he will pronounce when he comes to
than as it effects obedience nor can we any otherwise confide in it Hereby alone says S t John we know that we know him in that sence of knowledge whereto God has promised life and pardon if we keep his Commandments But he that saith I know him and for all that keepeth not his Commandments he is a lyar and the truth is not in him 1 Joh. 2.3 4. And then as for Faith no man is interpreted to have that Faith which is made the condition of our pardon and acceptance but he who is acted by it and in his works is obedient to it The Faith says S t Paul which in Christ Jesus or the Christian Religion availeth any thing to that Righteousness which all Christians hope for is that only which worketh by Love Gal. 5.5 6. It begins the change within by purifying of our hearts and desires Acts 15.9 and thence goes on to perfect it in our outward works and actions And unless it proceed to this it will never be able to bear us out and to justifie us at Gods Bar for there as S t James tells us by our works we must all be justifyed and not by a Faith only which works nothing Jam. 2.24 Such alas will be wholly useless and of no consideration in that Court it will not any way profit and then certainly it cannot save us For what doth it profit my Brethren though a man be able to say either here or hereafter he hath Faith and hath not works will that be allow'd a sufficient plea in Gods Judgment shall that Faith save him no surely it never will Jam. 2.14 This unworking Faith is not that effectual Faith which the Gospel encourages but its worthless shell and liveless carkass For wilt thou know O vain man that faith without works is dead Even as the body without the spirit is dead so faith without works is dead also vers 20 26. It is Faith only in an imperfect degree and a weak unprofitable measure for it is not arrived to a perfect pitch to that compleat state whereto the Gospel doth at present promise Life and Christ will at the last Day award it till it shows it self in action and our lives express the power of it Our Father Abraham says S t James was justified by works produced by Faith when in an unstagger'd belief that God would make good his promise of a numerous issue by his Son Isaac though it were by raising him up again from the dead he would obey his command which seemed quite to overthrow it and offered up his Son upon the Altar Seest thou how his Faith in Gods Power and Promise wrought prevalently over all opposition to the production of that his strange work and by this justifying work upon it was his Faith made perfect vers 21 22. So that when all is done we see that there is no Life or Pardon promised to any Faith or knowledge which are separate from Obedience but to such only as cooperate to them and imply them There is no belief wherewith our Judge at the last day will be satisfyed or wherein we are safe which either he will accept or we may trust to if our dutiful works are wanting So that this is and ever will be as S t Paul says a faithful saying and such as every good Christian man ought constantly to receive or affirm that they who have Faith or have believed in God be careful to maintain obedience and good works because it is they which at the last day must do all men good are good and profitable unto men Tit. 3.8 Secondly This condition of our acceptance whereto the Gospel promises a happy sentence of Life and Pardon in the last judgment is sometimes called Being in Christ. There is no condemnation says S t Paul to them who are in Christ Jesus Rom. 8.1 The word Christ we must know many times in Scripture signifies the Religion of Christ. Thus the Law is said to be a Schoolmaster to bring us to Christ i. e. the imperfect rule of the Mosaick Religion was fitted for the minority of the world and intended to train men up as Children are by School Discipline for the more perfect and manly institution of the Christian Gal. 3.24 And thus we read of Preaching Christ that is the Christian Religion Phil. 1.15 And S t Paul tells the Ephesians of their learning Christ and hearing him i. e. his Gospel and Doctrine Ye have not so learned Christ if so be ye have heard him and been taught by him or in him Eph. 4.20 21. Heard him and been taught by him i. e. not by his person for he never went beyond Judea being sent as he said to none but the lost sheep of the house of Israel Mat. 15.24 and therefore never travelled so far as Ephesus but by and in his Doctrine or Religion And this is a most usual form of speech to call any institution or profession by the name of its first Author The Doctrine and Religion which was delivered to the Jews by Moses is called by his Name For S t Paul speaks of Moses being read i. e. the Law of Moses 2 Cor. 3.15 and of the Israelites being baptized into Moses i. e. the Mosaick Religion 1 Cor. 10.2 And our Lord himself tells the Jews in the Parable of the Rich Man that they have Moses and the Prophets and bids them hear them Luk. 6.29 where he cannot mean their persons in regard they were dead long before and got without the reach of their hearing but their Writings and Religion And as Christ many times signifies the Christian Religion so is being in Christ the very same with being of his Religion or being a Christian. Thus S t Paul tells us of Andronicus and Junia who embraced the Christian Doctrine whilst he persecuted and opposed it that they were in Christ i. e. in Christs Religion before him Rom. 16.7 They who dyed in the profession of the Christian Faith are said to be fallen asleep in Christ 1 Cor. 15.18 The veil of Moses is done away in Christ 2 Cor. 3.14 The veil of Moses i. e. the types and obscure shadows of the Mosaical Religion are done away in Christ i. e. by the plain clearness of the Christian. Thus I knew a man in Christ is no more than I knew a Christian man 2 Cor. 12.2 and the Churches of Judea in Christ are the very same as the Christian Churches among the Jews Gal. 1.22 So when we read that in Christ Jesus neither Circumcision availeth any thing nor Vncircumcision but a new Creature Gal. 6.15 the meaning is only this that what price soever the Religion of Moses put upon this outward Rite of Circumsion and those other Jewish observances whereof it was the federal undertaking yet the Religion of Christ doth not regard them at all but that all which can avail us in it is only a new Creature And to the same sence S t Peter speaks
of the elect of God holy and beloved humbleness of mind Col. 3.12 It is this poverty and lowliness of Spirit which must prepare us for eternal happiness Blessed are the poor in Spirit Matth. 5.3 For as our Saviour says 't is by learning of him who is meek and lowly that we shall find both here and hereafter rest to our souls Matth. 11.29 And for all the rest their Sanction is expressed in these ensuing places Labour not for the meat that perisheth but for that which endureth to everlasting life John 6.27 This is a necessary evidence of our being risen with Christ now at present If ye be risen with Christ seek those things which are above where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God Set your affections on things above and not on things on the earth Col. 3.1 2 and a necessary condition to our being blessed with him for ever hereafter the blessedness which our Saviour pronounces being to those which hunger and thirst after righteousness Matth. 5.6 Add to temperance patience for he that lacketh these is blind and shall not be looked on as a new man seeing he has forgot that he was purged from his old sins 2 Pet. 1.6 9. The fruit of the Spirit saith S t Paul is temperance or continence and it is against this among others that there is no Law to condemn it Gal. 5.23 And to the Hebrews he says that they have need of patience to inherit the promises of life and happiness Heb. 10.36 and therefore they must not cast away but hold fast their confidence or couragious and open owning even of a suffering Religion which hath great recompence of reward ver 35. It bring to them only who by patient continuance in well-doing seek for glory and immortality that God will give eternal life Rom. 2.7 Dearly Beloved I beseech you as Strangers and Pilgrims abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul to vanquish and destroy it 1 Pet. 2.11 This abstinence is one chief thing which we were called to at our Call to Christianity God hath not called us to uncleanness saith S t Paul but unto holiness or purity and cleanness For this is the will of God which you are first to perform before you expect his reward your purity or sanctification and particularly in one instance wherein you are so generally defective that you abstain from fornication and every one of you possess his Vessel or Body in purity or sanctification and honour And this Commandment you know we gave you by the Lord Jesus's order so that whosoever among you despiseth it despiseth not man but God 1 Thess. 4.2 3 4 7 8. For the wisdom which cometh from above and which must carry us thither is in the first place pure or chast James 3.17 Love not the world nor the things of the world for if any man love the world the love of the Father is not in him 1 John 2.15 For the esteem and friendship of the world is in very deed downright enmity with God Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God James 4.4 Godliness if it be joined with contentment is great gain saith S t Paul 1 Tim. 6.6 And our being content with such things as we have is reckoned a part of that Grace whereby we must serve God acceptably and be secured from his wrath who where he is angred is a consuming fire Heb. 12.28 to the fifth Verse of the thirteenth Chapter Christ said unto them all If any man will come after me and be accounted one of my Disciples let him deny himself and take up his Cross and follow me Luke 9.23 If ye through the Spirit do mortifie the deeds of the Body saith S t Paul you shall live Rom. 8.13 Yea its affections and desires as well as its sinful actions are to be deaded and brought under For they that are Christ's whom he will own for his at the last Day and reward accordingly have crucified the Flesh with the affections and lusts or desires thereof Gal. 5.24 They who would not be accounted in Gods judgment as Children of the night and of darkness S t Paul says plainly must watch and be sober 1 Thess. 5.5 6. For watching is necessary unto bliss Blessed is that Servant whom his Lord when he cometh shall find watching Luke 12.37 And give diligence to make your calling and election sure saith S t Peter for this is one of those things which if you do you shall never fall either from your duty or your reward 2 Pet. 1.10 Thus are all the particular Laws recited in the first Class sobriety expresly bound upon us by all our hopes of Heaven and our obedience to them plainly necessary to our life and pardon when we come to be judged according to them And the Sanction is the same for all the Particulars of the second Class our piety towards God as will appear by the following Scriptures Them that honour me saith God I will honour or make honourable but they who despise me shall on the other hand be as lightly set by 1 Sam. 2.30 And if any man be a worshipper of God him said the man who had received his sight most truly he heareth John 9.31 He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved but he that believeth not shall be damned Mark 16.16 For this is the will of him that sent me saith our Saviour that whosoever believeth on me may have everlasting life John 6.40 And what we hear of Faith is also said of Knowledge For this is life eternal saith Christ to know thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent John 17.3 The good things which neither eye hath seen nor ear hath heard i. e. the joys of Heaven are laid up for those who love God 1 Cor. 2.9 And if any man love God the same is known or accepted by him 1 Cor. 8.3 It is he who believes Christs promises or hopes on him that shall never be ashamed Rom. 10.11 And we trust in God saith S t Paul who is the Saviour of all men especially of those that believe or trust in him 1 Tim. 4.10 And a cheerful dependence upon Gods Providence for our food and maintenance c. and not being sollicitous about them is one of the Particulars of Christ's Law Matth. 6.25 the sanction whereof is expressed in the fifth Chapter in these words He who breaks the least oâ— these Commandments shall be least in the Kingdom oâ— Heaven i. e. according to the Hebrew manner of speaking he shall be none at all ver 19. Pray without ceasing 1 Thess. 5.17 It is this that must bring all blessings down upon us For the promise is Ask and you shall have Matth. 7.7 But no Petition being put up no Grant can in reason
the rest Whosoever looks upon a woman to lust after her or so long till his heart consent to commit lewdness with her if he could he though he never meet with an opportunity to act it or before any hath committed adultery with her already in his heart Matth. 5.28 No man then may venture to will and chuse any one sin and yet presume he is innocent For if fear or shame or interest or other bye-motive and worldly end or want of opportunity hinder him from the outward acting and compleating of his sin yet if his heart stands for it and all the while he wills and chuses it he is guilty in the Accounts of God as if he had committed it We disobey in willing as well as in doing and shall suffer for a wicked choice as well as for a wicked practice So that as ever we hope to have our obedience to the forementioned Laws avail us unto life and pardon at the last Day we must take care to perform it as with our minds and affections so with our hearts or wills likewise As for these three faculties therefore viz. our minds our wills and our affections they must necessarily be devoted to God's service to make up an intire obedience As ever we hope for Heaven we must employ our minds upon God and his Laws so far at least till we love them in our souls and chuse them in our hearts with full purpose and resolution of performing them Our understandings must consider of our duty and of the motives to obedience so long and so well till our affections are inflamed with a desire of it and our wills are firmly resolved upon it And as ever we expect to escape the torments of Hell we must take care that we entertain no thoughts or desires of any sin so long till in our hearts we become concerned for it and willing to fulfil it But if we will look on it it must be in order to loath and disdain it We must consider how disingenuous how shameful and how mischievous a thing it is and indulge to no apprehensions of it in our minds that are like to insnare either our choice or practice nor dwell upon any but those that are apt to kindle our indignation and zeal against it and arm our wills with full purpose to overcome it This must be the use and exercise of all our inward powers and principles of action They must be used as instruments of good life and made the great Springs and productive Causes of all vertuous practice and obedience It is this holy and obedient practice that is the end whereto all these obedient thoughts desires and resolutions are directed so that if they fall short of this they miss of their chief effect and appear to be weak and idle things that are insignificant and useless CHAP. III. Of Obedience with the fourth faculty viz. our executive or bodily powers and outward operations The CONTENTS God is to be obeyed with the fourth faculty viz. our executive or bodily powers and outward operations The great difficulty of Obedience in this instance Four false grounds whereupon men shift off the necessity of this service with their works and actions First A hope to be saved for a true belief or orthodox opinions Mens confidence in this represented The folly of it Orthodox faith and professions no further available than they produce obedient works and actions Secondly A hope of salvation upon an obedience of idle desires and ineffective wishes An opinion of some Casuists That a desire of Grace is Grace refuted This stated and a distinct explication of what is promised to the desire of Obedience and what to Obedience it self The pretence for this acceptance of idle desires from Gal. 5.17 considered An account when the will and desire is taken for the deed and performance That Text 2 Cor. 8.11 12. plainly vindicated Thirdly A hope of being saved notwithstanding they do sin because they are insnared into it through the strength of temptations The folly of this Our own lusts make temptations strong The Grace of the Gospel is sufficient to overcome them Fourthly A hope of being excused because they transgress with an unwilling mind These mens state represented Vnwillingness in sin a mitigation but no sufficient excuse Some strugling in most actions both of good and bad men The strife of the Flesh and Spirit Two sorts of men feel nothing of it viz. the Saints in Heaven after the Resurrection and some prostigate sinners here now on Earth All good men and the generality of evil are subject to it in this life Mens peremptory will and last choice determines their condition A Fourth faculty that is indispensably necessary to the integrity of our Obedience and which is the chief end and perfection and gets acceptance for all the rest is our strength or bodily and executive powers For the completion and crown of all we must do as well as think and desire and our obedient choice must end in an obedient practice For all our inward motions are in order to outward operations they must go on to good effects before they are fit for the great reward we must work as well as desire and not only will but do our duty because upon nothing less than that we shall at the last day be accepted This indeed is the severe service and the distastfull part of duty It is a matter of much labour and pains of much strife and contention For the doing of our Duty is the top of all every hinderance must be removed and every difficulty overcome before we can attain to it Our scruples and gainsaying reasonings must be silenced our discouraging fears quieted and all our repugnant desires cooled or conquered Every doubt of our minds must be solved and every hostile lust subdued e're we can act what we are required A secret wish or a sudden desire of Obedience may start up in our souls unawares and there is not much opposition made to it because our lusts receive no great hurt from it For the pleasure of our lusts lies in acting and fulfilling them they are secure of their own delights so long as they are of our practice And therefore they will allow us to think of good to spend a faint wish a sudden inclination or a fruitless desire upon it But if once we would go on to do our Duty and to work Obedience then begins the conflict Our Lusts then bestir themselves with might and main and set every faculty awork to resist and defeat it For our thoughts begin to argue and to pick quarrels with our Duty They suggest all its difficulties and dammages They represent all the pains of the undertaking to cool our love the appendant dangers to raise our fears and the great hazards to shake our hopes and make us despair of success For the sake of our sins we arm all discouraging passions and quite stifle all the obedient suggestions of our consciences For
in reprehending and exposing the faults of others is most usual among our selves Nothing being more common in our ordinary Discourse than when we would be sharp in reproving and inveighing against any thing by a most courteous Fiction to put it in our own Case and to suppose that we our selves should do this or that Whenas in the mean time we are no further concerned in it than to be able under this disguise with more success and less offence to disparage and chastise it And this way of transferring odious things to our selves when we would describe and reprove them which is so usual with all the world and with S t Paul in other Cases is particularly used by him in his Character of the ineffective Striver in this seventh Chapter of the Epistle to the Romans He speaks not those things above recited of willing but not performing c. in his own person or in the person of any regenerated man as will plainly appear from this reason Because in that Chapter such things are said of the person there spoken of as can by no means agree to S t Paul or to any regenerate person so that the Apostle must be made to falsifie if he should be understood to speak so of them Such things I say are there spoken as can by no means agree to S t Paul himself For we read Of the person there spoken of That he lived and was alive without the Law of the ten Commandments once ver 7.9 That the Law of his members wars against the Law of his mind and brings him into captivity to the Law of sin which is seated and rules in his members ver 23. That how to do or perform what is good he finds not ver 18. That sin works in him all manner of lust or concupiscence ver 8. That he is captivated and conquered and as a vanquished Slave sold under sin ver 14.23 That he sinned against his Conscience For what I do says he in my practice that I allow not in my mind or Conscience but what I hate and disapprove that I do ver 15.19 That he is in a state of death For sin revived and he died vers 9. and by deceiving him it had slain him v. 11. The good law he had found to be unto him the occasion of death by his falling into that disobedience whereto it had threatned it vers 10. For the motions of sin which were not and could not be restrained by the law wrought in his members to bring forth damning sins or fruit unto death vers 5. Of Saint Paul himself elsewhere That he was both born and bred up under the Law being circumcised the eighth Day of the Stock of Israel an Hebrew of the Hebrews or an Hebrew both by his Fathers and his Mothers side Phil. 3.5 That he keeps under his Body and is not led captive by it but on the contrary brings it into subjection and captivity 1 Cor. 9.27 That he can do all things which are good through Christ that strengthens him Phil. 4.13 That it works none but that instead of lusting and coveting worldly things the world is crucified to him and he unto the world Gal. 6.14 That he has fought a good fight against it 2 Tim. 4.7 And that by the Grace of God through Christ he is delivered from it Rom. 7.25 That he knew or was conscious of nothing by himself 1 Cor. 4.4 but that he trusted he had a good Conscience and that in all things being willing to live honestly Heb. 13.18 Acts 23.1 For this had all along been his care he hahaving made it his business and exercised himself to have not now and then but alwayes a conscience void of offence or not wounded and smitten with the sense of any offences either towards God or men Acts 24.16 That the law of the spirit of life hath made him free from the law of sin and death Rom. 8.2 That he has finished his course to his advantage so as there is laid up for him not a painfull death as the punishment of his disobedience but a Crown of Glory as a reward of his righteousness which the righteous judge will give him at the last day 2 Tim. 4.8 If therefore we will believe S t Paul and let those accounts which he gives of himself explain his own meaning he cannot be that very person who is there spoken of For they are persons altogether of a different stamp and a contrary character they are as opposite as a servant of God and a slave of sin as a spiritual and a carnal man as one whose conscience approves and another whose conscience condemns him as a child of God and a child of darkness as an heir of Heaven and a subject of Hell So that he cannot speak of himself in that seventh Chapter and in the other places too because then he would appear inconsistent with himself and be found false in his own story And therefore as sure as S t Paul is true he sayes all that is spoken there in an inoffensive disguise not intending to give a character of his own person but to personate another man Nay I add further that the person whom he represents in that Chapter is not only another from himself but also one of a quite opposite and contrary character He is not only no Apostle but even no good Christian or regenerate man For such things are there said of him as if S t Paul and the other Apostles say true are inconsistent with a regenerate state and destructive of salvation As will plainly appear by considering those things which are said Of the person described there That with his flesh or fleshly members he obeys the law of sin vers 25. And this he is forced to do and cannot help it For the law of his members wars against the law of his mind and brings him into captivity to the law of sin and death ver 23. He is as absolutely enslaved to it as ever any servant was to his master who was sold in the market For says he I am carnal and sold under sin vers 14. That sin works or accomplishes and brings on to outward act and perfection in him all manner of concupiscence vers 8. For taking occasion by the nakedness of the tenth Commandment whereto no punishment was expresly threatned it deceived him into the customary commission of it by that wile and thereby slew him vers 11. That the law he found to be unto death in discerning himself to be fallen under the curse and condemnation of it vers 10. For the motions of sin which were incouraged and emboldened by means of the fancied impunity of the law wrought in his members which are the seat of their Empire so far as to bring forth damning sins or fruit unto death vers 5. That in his flesh dwells no good thing vers 18. For sin dwells and inhabits in him vers 17. and that so as to rule and govern
my mind which strives against it and prevails over it and makes me practise contrary to what my mind approves So that when being enclined by Gods Law I would do good then being over-ruled by the law of sin I cannot but evil is laid before me and present with me Gods Law I say I serve with the mind For I delight in the Law of God after the inner man of my mind and conscience But all this while I only approve of it but no more For all the effect which it has upon me is only to create a liking of it in my mind But as for my practice and Outward performance it is under anothers power For I see another opposite Law viz. that of Lust and Sin which is seated in my bodily members not only warring against the Law of God in my mind but conquering also and prevailing over it bringing me into captivity that absolute sort of subjection and slavery to practise the Law of Sin which is seated in my members And since I am so far enslaved to the Law of Lust and Sin when the Law of God undertakes me that even that Law it self which God has appointed for my remedy is not able to rescue and deliver me I have too great reason to cry out O! wretched man that I am who shall deliver me since this Law given me by Moses is not able to do it from the slavery and misery of this body of death This indeed was our condition under the Law which shews at once the Laws holiness and goodness and withall its inability and weakness because notwithstanding it offer'd some Grace yet was not that enough but that during our subjection under it we commonly served sin still But now as for that slavish service of sin which a bare Jew who has no other help against it but Moses's Law complains of and longs to be delivered from that as I told you at first we Christians through the surpassing Grace of Christs Gospel are delivered from already So that to such a complaining Jew as I have here personated I Paul an Apostle of Jesus Christ can readily make answer Alter your subjection and you shall alter your service too for in becoming subject unto Christ instead of the Law you shall become servants of God instead of serving sin I thank God there is a way now in Christ for such deliverance or as it is read by some copies the Grace of God which comes through Jesus Christ our Lord shall deliver you although the Law could not which came by Moses But without this Grace I must still tell you that the Law it self will not generally have any such effect upon you seeing as I said it will only awaken your conscience but not reform your practice So then to shut up this discourse this you must still conclude upon that whilst you continue subject to the Law you will serve sin in your practice however you may disapprove it in your minds For I my self or the same I under the Law who with the mind as has been often observed serve in approving the Law of God do yet with the flesh so long as it has nothing else but the Law to restrain it serve in practising the Law of Sin But to return to what I said vers 5 6. of the last Chapter from whence we have hitherto diverted to answer this objection I say having by this passage from subjection to the Law to subjection unto Christ upon the Laws being abolished changed our service together with our subjection and become servants now not unto Sin but unto Christ All we Christians are safe from that Death which the Law of the members brought forth fruit to Chap. 7. vers 5. and have right to that Eternal Life which as I said is the gift of God to all his servants Chap. 6. vers 22 23. So that what reason soever a poor Jew under the Law who serves and obeys Sin may have to cry out of the body of Death yet we Christians who began to serve God upon our becoming subject unto Christ may comfort our selves to see that we are delivered from it And therefore whatever there be to a striving but yet unconquering Jew there is now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus's Religion because they are such who have changed their service together with their subjection and walk not now after the Flesh as they did formerly whilst the Law held them in subjection but after the Spirit This change of service I say is wrought in all true Christians by the Law of Christ although it could not generally be wrought in the Jews by the bare Law of Moses For the Law and power of the Spirit of life which is given to us in Christ Jesus and is expresly promised in his Religion though it were not in the Law of Moses that enabling Spirit I say hath made me Christian free from the so often mentioned Law of sin and from the punishment of it Death For what the Law of Moses could not do towards our deliverance from the service of sin in that it was too weak through the overpowering wickedness of the Law of lust in the Flesh even that hath God done in sending his own Son Jesus Christ in the likeness of sinful Flesh and in making him a Sacrifice for sin that in his death he might found his own Religion whereby he hath condemned and destroyed what the Law of Moses was overcome by viz. the Law of sin seated in the Flesh. So that by the help of Christs Law perfecting what the Law of Moses wanted the righteousness which was shown to us and required of us in the Book of the Law of Moses might be performed and fulfilled in us Christians although it was not ordinarily in the bare Jews because we are such who being Christs Subjects must be his Servants likewise and in our works and practice walk not after the lusts of the Flesh but after the motions of the Spirit Thus have I given a Paraphrase upon this involved and so much mistaken Chapter Wherein I have largely and as I hope truly represented the Apostles meaning his design and manner of arguing in this place In all which we see he intends not at all to give a Character of himself or of any other regenerate man but only of a midling Sinner who sins against his Conscience and transgresses with reluctance Which Transgressor of a middle rank he particularly represents under the person of an awaked but as yet unregenerate Jew who was one on whom the Law of Moses had wrought some change but could not work enough being able only to awaken his Conscience but not to reform his practice So that all that is there said in that seventh Chapter of willing but not performing c. only sets off the weakness and imperfection of the Law of Moses as to the making men compleatly obedient
repentance that being such a sin as God will never give repentance to Heb. 6.6 The sinning against the Holy Ghost in this sence then as it denotes the gift of tongues of prophecy c. which is the last evidence that God is resolved to make use of for the conversion of an unbelieving World is that unpardonable sin which shall never be forgiven And yet even here in this limited and contracted sence of the word Holy Ghost we must still proceed with some caution For it is not every affront and dishonour that is put upon these gifts which is the sin here styled irremissible Simon Magus cast a very high indignity and reproach upon them in his actions for he went about to purchase the gift of tongues and other sacred illuminations called the Holy Ghost which fell upon men at the imposition of the Apostles hands as if they had been only a trick to get money or a fit thing to drive a trade withal and make a gainful merchandise When Simon saw that through the laying on of the hands of the Apostles the Holy Ghost was given he offered them money says S t Luke saying Give me also this power that on whomsoever I lay hands he may receive the Holy Ghost Acts 8.18 19. This was a very great abuse and a most unworthy comparing of the heavenly and holy Spirit of God to a mercetable ware and vendible commodity thinking it fit to serve any ends and to minister to the basest purposes of filthy lucre and covetousness But yet this sin against the Holy Ghost in its strictest acceptation was not the unpardonable sin it came very near it indeed and would hardly be remitted but still in all likelihood it was remissible And therefore S t Peter although he be very severe upon this sordid man for the high affront doth not yet pronounce an irreversible doom of damnation upon him but on the contrary exhorts him to repent that the sin of his heart may be forgiven Repent says he of this thy wickedness and pray God if perhaps the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee ver 22. But that which is the desperately damning sin against the Holy Ghost which shall never be forgiven either in this world or in that which is to come is the sinning against it not by interpretation only in our actions but directly in our words and expressions It is our speaking reproachfully and slanderously of it as the Pharisees did of the spirit when they attributed it to Beelzebub And therefore it is expresly called the speaking blasphemously against the Holy Ghost Whosoever speaketh blasphemously against the Holy Ghost when he shall come it shall never be forgiven him neither in this world nor in the world to come Matth. 12.21 32. The great weight lyes in that for this heavy doom he denounced upon them says S t Mark because they said he hath an unclean spirit Mark 3 30. And thus at length we see what that sin against the Holy Ghost is whose doom is so dreadful and whose case is so desperate under the Gospel It is nothing less than a slandering and reviling instead of owning and assenting to that last evidence which God has given us of the truth of the Gospel in the gifts of tongues prophecy and other extraordinary illuminations called the Holy Ghost So that no man who ownes Christ's Religion and thinks he was no Impostor and believes that these miraculous gifts of the Holy Ghost were no magical shows or diabolical delusions can ever be guilty of it No before he arrive to that he must not only be an Infidel to the faith but also a Blasphemer of it he must not only disbelieve this last and greatest evidence but disparage and rail against it If then there be any man who ownes Christ's Authority and obeys his Laws and believes his Gospel and hopes in its promises and fears its threatnings and expects that every word of that Covenant which was confirmed to us by the infallible evidence of the Spirit and the Holy Ghost shall come to pass he is not more guiltless of any sin than of this against the Holy Ghost for he doth not so much as sleight and disparage but ownes and submits to it If good men therefore are afraid by reason of the irremissibleness of the sin against the Holy Ghost they fear where they need not and their scruple is utterly unreasonable and groundless For let it be as unpardonable as it will that shall not hurt them for they can never suffer by it since whilst they continue such as now they are they cannot possibly be guilty of it or of any thing that comes near it CHAP. VII The Conclusion The CONTENTS Some other causless scruples The point of growth in Grace more largely stated A summary repetition of this whole Discourse They may dye with courage whose Conscience doth not accuse them This accusation must not be for idle words distractions in Prayer c. but for a wilful transgression of some Law of Piety Sobriety c. above mentioned It must further be particular and express not general and roving If an honest mans heart condemn him not for some such unrepented sins God never will BEsides these scruples already mentioned some good minds may be put in fear and doubt of the safety of their present state because S t John says that whosoever is born of God sinneth not being no longer a child of God if he do 1 Joh. 3.6 9. But the sin here spoken of as was observed above is defined by S t John himself at the fourth verse of this Chapter to be not every deviation or going beside the Law but a wilful transgression and rejecting of the Law it self And this indeed is inconsistent with a regenerate state and puts us out of Gods favour making us liable to eternal destruction But then the case for these sins is not desperate seeing if once we forsake them and repent of them we are as safe again as ever we were before we committed them For our repentance will set us straight and if we transgress not wilfully again we are without the reach of condemnation Others doubt whether when once they have wilfully sinned they ever can repent or shall afterwards be pardoned because they read of Esau that after he had sold his birth-right with the blessing that attended it when he would have inherited it afterwards he was rejected and found no place of a change of mind or repentance though he sought it carefully with tears Heb. 12.17 In answer to this it will be sufficient to observe that this change of mind or repentance which Esau sought but could not find was not in himself but in his Father Isaac It was not in himself I say for there he did find a place for it being he was really possessed of it For he was heartily sorry for his former folly in parting with his birth-right and for his present unhappiness in being
sufferings Where it needs to be defended disobedience is no fit means to preserve it because God cannot be honoured nor Religion served by it Religion and the love of God is only the colour but the true and real cause of such disobedience is a want of Religion and too great a love of mens own selves Men are liable to be deceived by this pretence from a wrong Notion of Religion for religious opinions and professions A true Notion of Religion for religious practice upon a religious belief as it implies both faith and obedience The danger of disobedience upon this pretence The practice of all religious men in this case Of Religion in the narrow acceptation for religious professions and opinions The commendable way of mens preserving it First By acting within their own sphere Secondly By the use only of lawful means Thirdly By a zeal in the first place for the practice of religious Laws and next to that for the free profession of religious opinions 330 CHAP. VII Of the two remaining pretences for a partial obedience The Contents The second pretence for the allowed practice of some sins whilst men obey in others is the serving of their necessities by sinful arts in times of indigence An account of mens disobedience upon this pretence The vanity of it and the danger of disobeying through it A third pretence is bodily temper and complexion age and way of life A representation of mens disobedience upon this pretence The vanity of it and the danger of sinning through it No justifying Plea for disobedience from our age Nor from our way of life Nor from our natural temper and complexion So that this integrity of the Object is excusable upon no pretence It was always required to mens acceptance 355 CHAP. VIII Of obeying with all the heart and all the soul c. The Contents Of obeying God with all the heart and with all the strength c. It includes not all desire and endeavour after other things but it implies First Sincerity Secondly Fervency Thirdly Integrity or obeying not some but all the Laws of God These three include all that is contained in it which is shown from their obedience who are said in Scripture to have fulfilled it Integrity implies sincerity and fervency and love with all the heart is explained in the places where it is mentioned by loving him entirely Sincerity and uprightness the Conditions of an acceptable Obedience This a hard Condition in the degeneracy of our manners but that is our own fault It was easie and universally performed by the primitive Christians This shown from the Characters of the Apostles and of the primitive Writers Hence it was that they could despise Death and even provoke Martyrdom Some Pleas from our impotence against the strictness of this Obedience which are considered in the next Book 370 BOOK IV. Shewing what defects are consistent with a regenerate state and dispensed with in the Gospel CHAP. I. Shewing in general that some sins are consistent with a state of Grace The Contents SOme failings consistent with a state of Grace This shewn in the general First From the necessity of humane Nature which cannot live without them Secondly From sundry examples of pious men who had right to life whilst they lived in them 385 CHAP. II. Of the nature of these consistent slips more particularly The Contents Our unchosen sins are consistent with a state of Grace but our wilful and chosen ones destroy it All things are made good or evil a matter of reward or punishment by a Law Laws are given for the guidance and reward only of our voluntary and chosen actions This proved first from the clear reason of the thing Where it is inferred from the nature of Laws which is to oblige from that way that all Laws have of obliging which is not by forcing but perswading men from the dueness of rewards and punishments commendations and reproofs from the applause or accusations of mens own Consciences upon their obedience or transgressions Secondly From the express declarations of Scripture 396 CHAP. III. Of the nature and danger of voluntary sins The Contents The nature of a wilful and a deliberate sin Why it is called a despising of Gods Law a sinning presumptuously and with a high hand Wilful sins of two sorts viz. some chosen directly and expresly others only indirectly and by interpretation Of direct and interpretative volition Things chosen in the latter way justly imputable Of the voluntary causes of inconsideration in sins of commission which are drunkenness an indulged passion or a habit of sin Of the power of these to make men inconsiderate The cause of inconsideration in sins of omission viz. Neglect of the means of acquiring Vertue Of the voluntariness of all these causes Of the voluntariness of drunkenness when it mâ—y be looked upon as involuntary Of the voluntariness of an indulged passion mens great errour lies in indulging the beginnings of sin Of the voluntariness and crying guilt of a habit of sin Of the voluntariness of mens neglect of the means of Vertue No wilful sin is consistent with a state of Grace but all are damning A distinct account of the effect of wilful sins viz. when they only destroy our acceptance for the present and when moreover they greatly wound and endanger that habitual Vertue which is the foundation of it and which should again restore us to it for the time to come These last are particularly taken notice of in the accounts of God 409 CHAP. IV. Of the nature of involuntary sins and of their consistence with a state of salvation The Contents Of involuntary actions Of what account the forced actions of the Body are in Morals Two causes of involuntariness First The violence of mens passions It doth not excuse Secondly The ignorance of their understandings This is the cause of all our consistent failings and the sins that are involuntary upon this account are consistent with a state of salvation This proved 1. From their unavoidableness The causes of it in what sense any particular sin among them is said to be avoidable 2. From the nature of God A representation of God's nature from his own Word and mens experience The Argument drawn from it for the consistence of such failings 3. From the nature and declarations of the Gospel It is fitted to beget a cheerful and filial confidence and therefore is called the Spirit of Adoption The Argument from this The Scripture Declarations and Examples in this matter These Arguments summed up 440 CHAP. V. Of these involuntary and consistent sins particularly and of the first cause of innocent involuntariness viz. ignorance The Contents A twofold knowledg necessary to choice viz. a general understanding and particular consideration Consistent sins are either sins of ignorance or of inconsideration Of sins involuntary through ignorance of the general Law which makes a Duty How there is still room for it in the World Of crying sins which are against natural
temptations or to lusts and desires of evil This Point summed up 63â— CHAP. V. Of two other causes of groundless Scruple to good Souls The Contents A second cause of scruple is their uâ—affectedness or distraction sometimes in their prayers Of the necessity of fixedness and fervency in Devotion when we can and of Gods readiness to dispense with them when we cannot enjoy them Attention disturbed often whether we will or no. A particular cause of it in fervent prayers Fervency and affection not depending so much upon the command of our wills as upon the temper of our Bodies Fervency is unconstant in them whose temper is fit for it God measures us not by the fixedness of our thoughts or the warmth of our tempers but by the choice of our wills and the obedience of our lives Other qualifications in prayer are sufficient to have our prayers heard when these are wanting Yea those Vertues which make our prayers acceptable are more eminently shown in our Obedience so that it would bring down to us the blessings of prayer should it prove in those respects defective A third cause of scruple is the danger of idle or impertinent words mentioned Mat. 12.36 The scruples upon this represented The practical errour of a morose behaviour incurred upon it This discountenanced by the light of Nature and by Christianity The benefits and place of serious Discourse Pleasurable conversation a great Field of Vertue The idle words Mat. 12 not every vain and useless but false slanderous and reproachful words this proved from the place 664 CHAP. VI. Of the sin against the Holy Ghost which is a fourth cause of scruple The Contents Some good mens fear upon this account What is meant in Scripture by the Holy Ghost Holy Ghost or Spirit is taken for the gifts or effects of it whether they be first ordinary either in our minds or understandings or in our wills and tempers or secondly extraordinary and miraculous Extraordinary gifts of all sorts proceed from one and the same Spirit or Holy Ghost upon which account any of them indifferently are sometimes called Spirit sometimes Holy Ghost Holy Ghost and Spirit are frequently distinguished and then by Holy Ghost is meant extraordinary gifts respecting the understanding by Spirit extraordinary gifts respecting the executive powers The summ of the explication of this Holy Ghost What sin against it is unpardonable To sin against the Holy Ghost is to dishonour him This is done in every act of sin but these are not unpardonable What the unpardonable sin is Of sin against the ordinary endowments of the Holy Ghost whether of mind or will the several degrees in this all of them are pardonable Of sin against the Spirit Blaspheming of this comes very near it and was the sin of the Pharisees Mat. 12 but it was pardonable Of sinning against the Holy Ghost The Holy Ghost the last means of reducing men to believe the Gospel that Covenant of Repentance The sin against it is unpardonable because such Sinners are irreclamable All dishonour of this is not unpardonable for Simon Magus dishonoured it in actions who was yet capable of pardon but only a blaspheming of it in words No man is guilty of it whilst he continues Christian. 681 CHAP. VII The Conclusion The Contents Some other causless scruples The Point of growth in Grace more largely stated A summary repetition of this whole Discourse They may dye with courage whose Conscience doth not accuse them This accusation must not be for idle words distractions in Prayer c. but for a wilful transgression of some Law of Pieey Sobriety c. above mentioned It must further be particular and express not general and roving If an honest mans heart condemn him not for some such unrepented sins God never will 700 THE INTRODUCTION ROM viij 1 There is no Condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the Flesh but after the Spirit The Contents Religious men inquisitive after their future State Three Articles of Christian belief cause such inquisitiveness The Articles of Eternal Life and the Resurrection make men desire satisfaction The Article of the last Judgment encourages the search and points out a way towards it A proposal of the present design and the matters treated of in the ensuing Discourse AMong all those things which employ the minds of Religious and Considerate men there is none that is so much a matter of their thoughtful care and solicitous enquiries as their Eternal happiness or Misery in the next World For in Christs Religion there are three great Articles which being believed and seriously considered by a nature restlessly desirous of its own happiness and such ours is must needs render it very inquisitive after some security of its future good estate and they are these The Immortality of the Soul the Resurrection of the Body and the great Day of Doom or last Judgment Whosoever is firmly perswaded of these three as every man is or at least pretends to be who professes himself a Christian he assuredly believes that when this Life is over both his Body and Soul shall live again and be endlessly Delighted or Tormented Comforted or Distressed in the next world according as their condition is when they leave this For by the Doctrine of Eternal Life he is assured that his Soul shall live and be adjudged to an Eternal bliss or misery By the Article of the Resurrection he is perswaded that his Body with all its powers shall spring out of the dust and be again enlivened with its ancient Soul to be a sharer of its state and joyntly to undergo an endless train of most exquisite woes or pleasures And since it is the very frame and fundamental principle of our Natures studiously to pursue Pleasure and to fly as fast from Pain to seek good and to avoid evil These states of future Happiness and Misery are such as no man who sees and believes them can possibly be unaffected with or unconcern'd in But whosoever in his own thoughts views and beholds them must needs find all his faculties awake and through an innate care and natural instinct solicitously inquisitive after that lot which shall fall to their own share Now if this endless happiness and misery both of Soul and Body in the next world were only casual and contingent the gift of blind chance or partial and arbitrary favour then would the belief of it perplex us indeed with fears and misgiving thoughts but never encourage us on to any exact care or diligent enquiry It would be in vain for us to seek what we could never find and downright folly to endeavour after satisfaction and certainty in things which are utterly casual and Arbitrary For what comes by chance is neither foreseen by us nor subject to us And what is given arbitrarily without all rule or reason is as fickle and unconstant as Arbitrary will it self is It cannot be prevented by any endeavours because it doth not
things relating to our last doom and shewâ—â—â—oth what in the Judgment shall be indispensably required to our salvation what Defects do not overthrow but consist with it what Remedies when 't is wounded or lost can heal and restore us to it and what and of how great consideration those things really are which being wrong understood do often create causless fears and jealousies in good peoples minds about it Having I say clearly accounted for all these I suppose I may think I have said enough to shew men their Future State and fairly take leave of this Argument BOOK I. Of the indispensable condition of happiness in the general CHAP. I. Of Obedience the general condition of happiness The CONTENTS Obedience the indispensable condition of happiness The Laws of the Gospel are given as a Rule to it The Promises are all upon condition of it and intended to encourage it All the threatnings are now denounced and will be executed upon the disobedient Of those other things whereto Pardon is promised as well as to obedience Of Metonymy's Of the Principles of Humane Actions Of Principles of Obedience All those speeches metonymical where obedience is not express'd and yet pardon is promised THat Condition which the Gospel indispensably requires of us and which is to mete out to us our last doom of Bliss or Misery is in the General our Obedience When we are brought to that Bar and stand to be judged according to those Laws which are proclaim'd to us in the Gospel it is only our having kept them and Repented of all such transgressions of them as we have wilfully been guilty of which can capacitate us to be rewarded by them For 't is just with them as it is with all other Laws they never promise any thing but to obedience but threaten and punish all that disobey Whosoever breaks and despises them is guilty they do not comfort but accuse not acquit but condemn him For there is no Law that is wisely ordered but is sufficiently guarded against affront and back'd with such punishments as will make it every mans interest to fulfil and keep it The evil threatned must always by far exceed the pleasure that is reaped by disobedience so that no man may have any temptation sufficient to bear him out in Sin or ever hope to be a gainer by his transgression This is the tenour of all wise laws whose enactors have both wit and power sufficient to defend them They have dreadful Punishments annexed to them which take place upon disobedience they encourage and reward the obedient but severely punish all that dare presume to disobey And this is most eminently seen in all the Laws of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. He gave them for the compleatest Rules to mens Lives and has annexed to them most glorious Promises to encourage our obedience but has made them breath out nothing but woes and intolerable punishments to all that disobey He has given them for Rules of Life and annexed Rewards as encouragements to obedience He never intended his Laws for an entertainment of our eyes but for a Rule for our Actions not for a matter of talk and discourse but of practice not to be complemented by words of honour and lofty expressions but to be own'd in our lives and served by obedience He is our King and issues out his Laws as the instruments of his Government he is our Lord and they are Rulers for his Service They must be guides of our Lives and Actions it is not enough to know and talk of them but as ever we hope to live by them we must do and keep them For in the end they will be available to no mans happiness but his who has conscientiously performed them In Christ Jesus or the Christian Religion says S t Paul nothing avails but keeping of the Commandments of God 1 Cor. 7.19 Blessed are they saith S t John who do the Commandments for they only have right to the Tree of Life Rev. 22.14 It is not an idle wish or ineffectual endeavour but a thorough practice and performance of Christs Laws which can continue us in his Love and approve us Righteous in his Judgment If ye keep my Commandments says he ye shall abide in my Love Joh. 15.10 Let no man deceive you for it is he only that doth Righteousness who in Gods account is Righteous 1 Joh. 3.7 They only are pronounced Righteous and Sons of God in the Gospels estimation who walk after the spirit Rom. 8.4 who are led by the spirit vers 14. who bring forth the Fruits of the Spirit all words expressing Action and Practice Gal. 5 16-22 No man therefore will be acquitted and rewarded at that Bar barely for knowing and discoursing for wishing or desiring but only for working and obeying Such only the Gospel reckons for true servants now his servants ye are not whom you confess in words but whom in actions you obey Rom. 6.16 And such only he will honour and reward then For it is not every one who fawns upon me in his words whilest he reproaches me in his actions who says unto me Lord Lord that shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven but he only who doth the will of my Father which is in Heaven Which will he had just then proclaim'd to them in that Volume of Christian Laws which was published in the Sermon upon the Mount whereof this is in part the conclusion Matt. 7.21 He tells us that when the Son of Man shall come to judgment he will reward every man according to his works Matt. 16.27 and he repeats it again in his declaration to S t John Behold I come quickly and my reward is with me to give every man according as his work shall be Rev. 22.12 And so it was in that Prophetick sight of the Last Judgment which this same Apostle had vouchsafed him Rev. 20. For there as we are told when the Sea gave up the Dead which were in it and Death and Hell delivered up the Dead which were in them and they all both small and great stood before the Throne and him that sate thereon they were judged every man according to his WORKS vers 11 12 13. His Laws then Christ has given us not for talk and discourse but for action and practice and his Promises he has annexed to them not as rewards of idleness but only of active service and obedience Wherein if men fail Gods Rewards belong not to them they can make no claim or colourable pretence to them because they cannot show that which is to be rewarded by him Nay further if men disobey they are not only excluded from all glorious hopes but are moreover put into a desperate state of fears and dreadful expectations For God has back'd his Laws with threatnings as well as promises and as they propose most noble rewards to all that are obedient so likewise do they breath out most intolerable punishments to all that disobey
continue to separate between him and his God whatever God CAN do yet certainly he WILL not save him The Lords hand saith the Prophet Isaiah to the afflicted Jews is not shortened that it cannot save nor his ear heavy that it cannot hear but your iniquities have separated between you and your God and your sins have hid his face from you that he will not hear For your hand 's are defiled with blood and your fingers with iniquity your lips have spoken lies your tongue hath muttered perverseness none calls for Justice nor any pleads for Truth and since your disobedience is so heinous your hopes must needs be false you TRVST in vanity Isai. 59.1 2 3 4. Christ himself never dyed to reconcile God to mens sins and to procure hopes of pardon for the finally impenitent and unperswadably disobedient So that no man may ever think himself delivered to act wickedness or wilfully transgress Gods Laws and still dare to trust in him But if any are so bold and frontless Christ will rebuke them at the last Day as God doth the presumptuous Jews by the Prophet Jeremiah Behold says he you trust in lying words which cannot profit you Will you steal murther and commit adultery and swear falsly and notwithstanding all that come and stand before me in this house which is called by my Name as Men that owne my service and dare trust in my love and say as in effect you do by such usage we are delivered to do all these abominations Dare you by thus presuming upon my favour in the midst of all your transgressions make me become a Patron and Protector of your villainies And is this house which is called by my Name become a Den or Receptacle and Sanctuary of Robbers in your eyes Behold I even I have seen it saith the Lord and that surely not to encourage and reward but most severely to punish it for I will utterly cast you out of my sight Jer. 7.8 9 10 11 15. God will by no means endure to have his own most holy Nature become a support to sin nor his Religion to be made a refuge for disobedience nor his Mercy and Goodness a Sanctuary to wicked and unholy men So that no man must dare to hope and trust in him but he only who honestly observes his Laws and uprightly obeys him That fear of God then and trust in his mercy which the Gospel encourages and Christ our Judge will at the last Day accept of is not a fear and trust without obedience but such only as implies it We must serve him in fear and obey him through hope as ever we expect he should acquit and pardon us For no fears or hopes will avail us unto bliss but those that amend our lives and effect in us an honest service and obedience CHAP. VII Of Pardon promised to the love of God and of our Neighbour The CONTENTS Of Pardon promised to the love of God and of our Neighbour Of the fitness of an universal love to produce an universal obedience That pardon is promised to it for this Reason The Conclusion EIghthly That condition which the Gospel indispensably requires of us to our pardon and happiness is sometimes called Love For of this S t Paul says plainly that it is the fulfilling of the Law Rom. 13.10 It is the great condition of Life the standing Terms of mercy and happiness We have the same Apostles word for it of our love of God Those things which neither eye hath seen nor ear heard neither have entred into the heart of man to conceive are prepared for them who LOVE God 1 Cor. 2.9 And again Chap. 8. If any man love God the same is known or accepted of him vers 3. And S t John says as much of the love of our Neighbour Beloved let us LOVE one another for LOVE is of God and every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God 1 John 4.7 And again God is Love and manifested his Love in giving Christ to dye for us And if we love one another God dwells in us For hereby by this mark and evidence we know that we dwell in him and he in us because he hath given us of this loving temper and Spirit of his ver 8 9 12 13. And to the same purpose he speaks fully in the third Chapter of that first Epistle We know says he that we have passed from death unto life because we LOVE the BRETHREN ver 14. Now our hearty love both of God and men is a most natural and easie Principle of an intire service and obedience For the most genuine and proper effect of Love is to seek the satisfaction and delight of the persons beloved It is careful in nothing to behave it self unseemly but to keep back from every thing that may offend and forward in all such services as may any ways pleasure and content them If they rejoyce it congratulates if they mourn it grieves with them If they are in distress it affords succour if in want supply in doubts it ministers counsel in business dispatch It is always full and teeming with good offices and transforms it self into all shapes whereby it may procure their satisfaction and render their condition comfortable and easie to them So that it exerts it self in pity to the miserable in protection to the oppressed in relief to the indigent in counsel to the ignorant in encouragement to the good in kind reproof to the evil in thanks for kindnesses in patience and forbearance upon sufferings in forgiveness of wrong and injuries In one word it is an universal Source and Spring of all works of Justice Charity Humility and Peace Now the Body of our Religion is made up of these Duties For what doth the Lord thy God require of thee O man saith the Prophet Micah but to do justly to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God Mic. 6.8 Those things which God has adopted into his Service and made the matter of our duty towards one another are nothing else but these natural effects of love and kindness and expressions of good nature towards all men All the Precepts of Religion only forbid our doing evil and require our doing good to all the World And since as the Apostle argues love seeketh all things that are good and worketh no evil to our Neighbour therefore Love must needs be the fulfilling of those Laws which concern them This Commandment for instance as he illustrates it Thou shalt not commit Adultery thou shalt not kill thou shalt not steal thou shalt not bear false witness thou shalt not covet all these and if there be any other Commandment relating to our Brethren it is briefly comprehended in this Saying Thou shalt LOVE they Neighbour as thy self For LOVE worketh none of all these ills to our Neighbour therefore LOVE is the fulfilling of the Law Rom. 13.9 10. Thus doth our Love of our Neighbour fulfil all those particular Laws which contain our Duty
if this last Clause were expounded thus Ye do not the things that your Spirit lusts after which yet through its lusting ye would do it would destroy that which the Apostle brings it to confirm viz. their not willing and desiring only but doing or walking also after the Spirit so as not to fulfil the works of the Flesh ver 16. Which in plain English is to make the Apostle in the same breath to say and unsay to tell them of walking in the Spirit and not fulfilling the lusts of the Flesh because they do not after the Spirit but do fulfil the lusts of the Flesh. Which is flatly to make the Apostles proof to contradict the Apostles affirmation If therefore we would approve our selves regenerate and have a just hope of life and pardon at the last Day we must not only wish and desire but live and walk after the Spirit The service of the Flesh indeed must go no further than desire and although we shall all of us more or less have lustings from it yet must we not fulfil them But as for the service of God it must have our hands as well as our hearts for it is not enough to will and desire what he commands but we must moreover practise and perform it As for the affirmative Commands of God it is not required that we perform every one of them at every time for so our whole life would be taken up in the keeping of one Command and we could never observe all since we cannot do any two things and much less such a multitude at the same time But all that obedience which God requires of us to them is that we act them as his Providence and ordering of times and occasions gives us opportunity Now although for the main Body and greatest Number of them every man has opportunities returning almost every day yet for a perfect and compleat performance of some of them some men have not opportunity at some times nor others in all their lives I instance in the affirmative Command of Alms-giving A man that has but little can give but little at any time and a rich man if he be in a strange place and have no great stock about him although he have a great Object of Charity can yet make but small relief So that in both these the work of Alms and outward performance must needs be very strait although both of them in their hearts and desires are never so liberal They have not power and opportunity to act as they would they would perform more if their circumstances would allow it And now in this Case God doth not measure their obedience by the size of their outward performance he looks not so much at what was done as at what would have been done had they had ability So that they shall be accepted according to the greatness of their will and not according to the narrowness of their deed and their reward shall be fitted to what was in their heart and not that which appeared in their action And this very Case is expresly determined by S t Paul in his second Epistle to the Corinthians For exhorting them to contribute to the relief of the Saints in Judea as the poor Christians in Macedonia had already done most liberally he encourages them to give what they could out of their present livelihood by telling them that albeit it were not so much as they could wish and were forward in their own hearts to give if they were able yet in Gods acceptance it should be estimated as if it were For if there be first a willing mind saith he it is accepted according to what a man hath and not according to what he hath not chap. 8. vers 11 12. This is the very case for which the Apostle layes down this rule as any man may see who will be at the pains to peruse that Chapter He speaks it upon no other occasion but where our wills are really ready to perform farther than our outward fortune enables us He gives it as an Axiome only where our inward resolutions are larger than our possessions For where our heart is indeed ready to do more than in our necessitous circumstances we can do there God looks upon the will and not upon the work and rewards us according to the compass of our desires but not according to the scantiness of our performance But if any man shall conclude from hence that when it is in his Power to do what is commanded God will still accept of an idle desire without an active performance he may use S t Paul's words indeed but he perverts them wholly to his own meaning For the Apostle spake them in one case and there they are true but he applies them to another and there they will deceive him Because the will is never accepted for the deed when it is in our power to do as well as to will and wheresoever we have opportunity to do what we desire it is not the willing but the doing that must save us as the Apostle himself intimates in this very place when he presses them to compleat their readiness to will by performing according as they were able vers 11. So that this thinking to be saved by an idle desire and an ineffective wish of obedience without ever obeying in our works and actions is very whit as false and delusive as the former deceitfull ground was of being saved at the last day barely upon the account of an Orthodox Faith and Opinions Thirdly Another false ground whereupon men hope to be saved though they work disobedience is because when they do so it is through the violence of a great and overpowering temptation which they see and resist but cannot prevail over They are drawn in by a great gain or a great pleasure the bait laid for them is very enticing and there is no withstanding it This indeed is a great and an usual pretence For men would gladly shift off their sin and charge it upon any thing but their own selves They would have the pleasures of their flesh and the pride of their hearts both served at once enjoy all the pleasures of sin and yet have the praises of virtue Whensoever they do well as a great Philosopher has observed they would arrogate that to themselves but when they do amiss they would impute that to the pleasure that mislead them and to the strength of temptation But this is a very vain shift and a thin pretence For what is it that makes any temptation strong but the wickedness of mens own hearts They are slavishly in love with it and therefore they cannot resist it but are overcome by it It is ridiculous to think sayes the same excellent Philosopher that the pleasure of the sin which is without us is the cause of our sinfull action and not rather that we our selves are who are so wickedly inclined as to be so easily taken by it It is only
the strength of our own sinfull lusts that gives such an irresistible strength to the outward temptation A great offer of gain indeed cannot be withstood by a covetous heart and an inviting beauty and a fair opportunity are irresistible to a slave of lust and a lascivious reigning inclination But if the man is above the world and his heart is chaste they are of no force nor can they offer any violence at all It is the wickedness of our own hearts lusts therefore which are so deeply in love with them and so unbridledly bend after them that gives all the prevailing force and overpowering strength to the outward temptation But now this is our Sin and so can by no means plead our excuse it is our damnable disease and therefore it can never prove our saving remedy For this is that reigning power of Sin which the Gospel has indispensably required us to mortifie but not to submit to It is only if you through the spirit do mortifie the deeds of the body says S t Paul that you shall live Rom. 8.13 Col. 3.5 But if we are not under this damnable servitude to Sin there are no temptations so strong but that God has given us sufficient defensatives against them For the present offer of a Gibbet would fright away the most endearing temptation the near expectation of a great Estate or of a Crown would make us prevail over it And what are these to hell fire and an eternal Crown of Glory Heaven therefore and Hell when they can be considered of are an answer to all temptations in the world they will engage our hearts more than all the endearments of a lust and infinitely out do all the baits and allurements of sin If we commit sin then it is no sufficient excuse to us that the temptation was strong because it was only the strength of our own unmortified lusts that made it so For we loved the sinfull pleasure too well and that was the reason why it overpower'd us And since the strength of temptation is owing only to the strength of sin it can never excuse us from undergoing punishment So that this must needs be a false hope to think of being excused for our sin because we acted it through the violence of a great temptation Fourthly Another ground of false confidence whereupon men hope to be saved although they do not obey in their works and actions but are workers of sin and disobedience is because when they do transgress it is with reluctance and unwillingness Albeit in their actions they do serve sin yet in their minds they do not approve of it their service of it is an unwilling and a slavish service They cannot sin freely and at their own ease but with fearfulness and regret For the Conviction of their duty abides in their Consciences the fear of hell torments sticks fast in their souls they cannot shake off either their sense of duty or their fears of punishment So that even when they do sin against God it is with remorse of mind and fearfulness of apprehension They cannot embrace their sin with a full choice because they know that it is not an unmixed pleasure They believe and know it to be of a compound and mixt nature to have some present pleasure which will delight but withall much future punishment which will torment them And since they know it to be a composition of good and ill they do not perfectly either love or hate choose or refuse it Their will is distracted by different motives in the same choice for the future pains would draw them to reject but the present joyes invite them to embrace it So that in a different degree they both will and nill the same thing they would have it and yet they would avoid it For they would enjoy what they desire but withall they would keep off from what they fear they have a mind to commit the sin because it will please them for the present and yet they are afraid of it because of that wrath which it treasures up for them against the time to come But notwithstanding all this conflict in their own choice yet at last their sin prevails and they obey it For they had rather hazard all its torments than miss of its delights they are unwilling to venture upon those dangers which it brings but yet they had rather venture on them than go without it They sin unwillingly just as a labourer works or as a soldier fights unwillingly that is they do not will it for it self they would not do it unless they were hired to it For considering all things they will to act and not to omit it their will is against it indeed at the first sight but upon better consideration it resolves upon it and all things laid together they choose to commit the sin rather than to forbear it But now this is such a State as will never bring any man to Heaven For whether he transgress willingly or with reluctancy is not the question but if he choose at last to disobey when God comes to judgment he shall be sure to pronounce upon him that death which he has established for the punishment of disobedience Because for all he fears and mistrusts grumbles and repines yet he serves and obeys his lusts all the while notwithstanding He works at their will and doth what they command him He serves not with a full heart or a fearless mind but yet he is their servant still 'T is true indeed it is some mitigation of his sin that he doth it with regret and the transgression is something the less for being acted not without reluctance and aversion It shews that his sense of duty is not quite lost his Conscience wholly fear'd or his fear of God utterly extinguished It is some extenuation that he startles at the offence for it argues that his soul is not wholly depraved or his heart harden'd in disobedience But although his sins be not of the highest rate yet he is a lost sinner still For so long as his lusts prevail and he chooses at last to act and commit them he serves and obeys them It is his works and actions that must determine his service and obedience so that if he commit sin he is the servant of sin Willing or unwilling may extenuate or heighten his disobedience but not utterly destroy or alter the nature of it For indeed something of struggling and regret is to be found in the obedience and disobedience of the greatest part of the world There being few so good as to obey without all reluctance and few so wicked as to sin without all remorse For as long as we are in this life we are a mixt and compound substance of Soul and Body Flesh and Spirit Our carnal appetite draws us on to forbidden things to transgress those restraints which Gods Law has set to it and to sin And our Conscience being enlightned with the knowledge of Gods Laws and
allured by his Promises and affrighted with his threatnings would perswade us to keep within his bounds and to act obedience Now these two contrary and gainsaying Principles distract our choice and divide our wills so that when we close with one of them it is not without the grudging and reluctance of the other We would and we would not one inclines us for a thing and the other against it The flesh says S t Paul lusteth against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh and these are contrary one to the other so that you cannot fulfill both their desires and do each of the things that you would Gal. 5.17 If we obey it is through the repining of our appetites and if we transgress it is with the remorse and lashings of our Consciences On both sides there is something that is evil whereof we are afraid and which we would not our will is imperfect and with reluctance and we will and choose in some measure unwillingly whether it be to work obedience or sin As for the Saints in Heaven indeed after the Resurrection 't is true that they shall have no gainsaying appetites For their flesh will be in perfect subjection to the spirit their will shall have nothing to seduce it but shall stand alwayes firm and entire for God so that they shall obey without any thing of reluctance or regret And as for some of the profligate and prophane sinners here on earth they have now already so quite benum'd their Consciences that they neither allure nor threaten admonish nor accuse them And they sin without all contention they transgress and do not dispute their lusts hurry them without any opposition so that they disobey most willingly and free from all remorse But as for all the good and the generality of the wicked here on earth they are of a middle rate They both of them act through strife and conquest their consent is courted on both sides and when they comply with one they must refuse the other Both Flesh and Spirit struggle in them although at last but one prevails For in the Regenerate good man the flesh stirs but it cannot conquer they have bodies and bodily appetites but they subdue them and as S t Paul says keep them under 1 Cor. 9.27 So that all the while the Spirit rules in them when the flesh doth but in vain solicite this may tempt but it cannot govern for the spirit gives them Laws its pleasure they perform and what it commands that in their actions they obey But in the wicked and disobedient the case is quite opposite For in them although their Conscience smite them yet can it not prevail with them it suggests but they will not hearken it shews the way but they will not follow it in all things their Lusts are the governours of their lives and actions so that although the lashes of their consciences may sharpen and embitter yet are they not able to disappoint the service of their sin In all the obedience therefore and in the greatest part of the transgressions here on Earth there is still something of strugling and reluctance Men act not by a will that is void of all restraint or by a desire and choice that is free from all unwillingness but there is a mixture of love and hatred an unwilling will that carries them on either to act obedience or to disobey But notwithstanding their ineffective wishes and imperfect wouldings to the contrary it is their peremptory will and last choice which shall determine their condition For if they will and chuse to do what God commands in spight of all the gainsaying wishes raised by their fleshly Appetites they shall be pardoned and acquitted When the good man overcomes the temptation and prevails over his unwillingness and triumphing over it goes on to practise and obey he shall receive the reward of his obedience But if they will and chuse to do what God forbids in spight of all the contrary Admonitions and Threatnings of their Consciences they shall dye in their disobedience The Sinner who is carried on to do what he disallows to work what he fears and to commit what at first sight his will is averse to he shall undergo the smart and punishment of his transgression And the reason is plain for he serves his sin and fulfils his lust and his thraldome to it is so absolute that no aids of the Spirit nor any suggestions of his Conscience can deliver him from it He that committeth sin saith our Saviour is the servant of sin John 8.34 So long as it conquers it doth indeed inslave him For of whom a man is overcome of the same says S t Peter he is brought in bondage 2 Pet. 2.19 If we yield our selves up to serve it we do indeed obey it and must expect that death which is denounced upon such obedience Know you not saith another Apostle that to whom you yield your selves servants to obey his servants you are to whom you obey whether of sin unto death or of obedience unto righteousness Rom. 6.16 If we are at the beck of our Lusts and go where they send and do what they command us and acknowledge their pleasure in all things to be a Law to us we are perfect Slaves to them and liable to all that misery which is denounced upon them We serve and obey them and that shall surely bring us to suffer for them For it is the fulfilling of our lusts the doing or walking after them and the obeying of our sin which Christs Gospel threatens so severely whatever mind we do it with If you live after the Flesh saith the Apostle you shall dye and it is only if you through the Spirit do mortifie the deeds of the Body that you shall live Rom. 8.13 When Christ comes to Judgment the enquiry will not be Whether we sinned with a full delight or with fear and reluctance but whether in very deed without repenting of it afterwards we sinned wilfully or transgressed at all For we have what shall be his Sentence at that Day from his own mouth already Depart from me ye that work iniquity Matth. 7.23 So that it will be no sufficient Plea for any man at the last Day who has disobeyed in deed and wrought wickedness to say That he did it with backwardness and remorse For that which God indispensably requires is that hâ— should not do it at all and he will only deceive himself if he ever expect to be accepted otherwise For as the hopes of salvation upon mere orthodox opinions or ineffective desires of obedience or sinning through a strong temptation are utterly delusive and sure to fail them that trust to them so is this fourth ground likewise viz. our hopes of being accepted notwithstanding our sins because we transgressed with reluctance and unwillingness CHAP. IV. A further pursuit of this last ground of shifting off the Obedience of our actions in an Exposition of the seventh Chapter to the
enable men to do what it commanded is true still For the Law did not promise it although several both before and under the Law enjoyed it but they who had the benefit of it received it not from the Covenant of the Law but from the Covenant of Grace and the Gospel which has been more or less on foot through all times ever since the World began And in this Covenant since Christ has given us the last Edition and perfection of it both these great defects of the Mosaick Law which rendered it so unable to work this intire reformation and obedience are fully supplied For in every Page of Christ's Gospel what is so legible as the promise of eternal life The joys of Heaven are as much insisted on by Christ as the delights of Canaan were by Moses And then as for the other promise viz. that of the Spirit it is now as plainly revealed as words can make it For we need not to guess at it by signs or to presume it from probabilities or to believe it upon Syllogism and consequence but Christ has spoke out so as to be understood by every capacity God will give the holy Spirit to them that ask him Luke 11.13 Now because the Law of Moses laboured under these two great defects which are happily supplied by the Gospel of Christ by reason whereof it was very unable to effect that reformation of the World which was necessary therefore doth the Apostle in several places speak very meanly of it as of a weak and ineffective Instrument He affirms plainly and proves also That it neither could nor did make men throughly good and that therefore God was forced in the fulness of time to make known and in Christ's death to establish a better If there had been a Law given by Moses which could have given life then saith he verily righteousness should not have needed to be sought by another Covenant but have been by the Law But this we see it could not for the Scripture hath concluded all those who lived under it to be still under the dominion of sin that so since the Law of Moses could not do it the promise of eternal life of the Spirit and of other things which we have by the faith of Jesus Christ might be given to work and effect it to those that believe Gal. 3.21 22. Something indeed the Law did towards it for it armed their consciences against sin so that they could not take their full swing and transgress without all fear and remorse And this was some restraint and kept them from being so ill by far as otherwise they would have been although it was not able to make them so good as they should And to lay this hank upon sin and to check it in some measure till such time as the Gospel should be more clearly revealed to subdue it perfectly was that very end for which the Law was at first given and whereto so long as it was in force it served Wherefore saith he serveth the Law of Moses It was added to the rude draught of the Gospel-Covenant made with Abraham because of the transgressions of men which grew very high that it might in some degree restrain them till Jesus Christ the seed of Abraham should come to whom as to the head and in behalf of his Church the promise of such Grace as would restrain it fully was made And to fit it the more for imprinting an awe upon peoples Consciences whereby it might lay this restraint upon sin it was ordained at the first giving of it by terrible fire and thundrings made by the Angels which were so dreadful that the people desired of God that those formidable Angels might be no more employed in delivering it to them but that it might be put into the hands of another Mediator viz. Moses who was a man like unto themselves Gal. 3.19 But although this restraint upon Sin were something yet was it far from sufficient so that still it is true of the Law of Moses that notwithstanding it could begin yet it could finish and make nothing perfect but that it was the bringing in of a better hope than was warranted by the Law which should do that Heb. 7.19 And as for this imperfection and faultiness which the Apostle imputes to the first Covenant or Law of Moses in these and other places it is nothing more as he observes than God himself has charged upon it when he speaks of establishing a better instead of it For if the first Covenant by Moses had been faultless and void of imperfection then should no place have been sought for the introduction of the second which it is plain there was For finding fault with them for their breach of the first Covenant he saith in Jer. 31.31 the dayes come when I will make a New Covenant with the house of Israel such as shall make me to be for ever unto them a God and enable them to be unto me an obedient People Heb. 8.7 8 9 10. Now this Inability of the Law of Moses to work a compleat conquest over sin and a thorow reformation which the Apostle affirms so clearly in these other places he sets out more largely and particularly in that seventh Chapter to the Romans For from the beginning of this Discourse which I have taken at the 14 th Verse of the 6 th Chapter to the end of it at the 5 th vers of the 8 th this weakness and inability of the Law is that still which is every where endeavour'd to be made out and which returns upon us as the conclusion and inference from every argument Sin must not have dominion over you saith he because you are not under the Law where is the place of its reigning but under the Grace of Christ at the 14. verse of the 6 th Chapter And in the 7 th it is taken notice of at every turn When you were in the flesh or under the Law which from its consisting so much of Carnal Ordinances and giving the flesh so much advantage is called flesh Galat. 3.3 the motions of sin which were encouraged by the weakness of the Law brought forth fruit unto death but now being delivered from the weak Law you serve in newness of spirit not as you did then in the oldness of the letter vers 5 6. Sin taking occasion or advantage over the weak Commandment wrought in me all manner of concupiscence vers 8. When the weak Commandment came sin revived and I died vers 9. Sin taking occasion or advantage by the Commandment slew me vers 11. by which prevailing over the Commandment it appears to be exceeding sinfull vers 13. And at the end of the discourse at the 8 th Chapter we are told again of the Law of Moses being weak through the conquering power of the flesh which made it necessary for God to send his own Son with a better Law which was strong enough to rescue us not of the dominion of
And to go no further for an evidence of this we will take those accounts of the obedience of Christians in the first times which the Apostles themselves give us You sayes the Apostle to the Colossians that were sometimes in your Gentile State alienated from God and enemies in your minds by means of your wicked works yet now since you become Christians hath he reconciled in his death to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable according to the terms of the Gospel in his sight Col. 1.21 22. And to the same purpose he speaks of the Ephesians yet more fully You saith he hath God quickned by the preaching of the Gospel who before you heard of that were dead in trespasses and sins wherein in times past of Gentilism ye walked as well as others according to the wicked course of this world according to the instigation of the Prince of the powers in the air who is the spirit that both aforetime and even now worketh in the children of disobedience Among whom also we all as I say had our conversation in times past living just as they did in the lusts of our flesh fulfilling and performing the desires of our flesh and were thereby the children of wrath as well as others But God even when we were thus dead in sins hath upon our embracing of Christs Religion quickned us together with Christ by that same spirit whereby he raised up him Ephes. 2.1 2 3 4 5. But the character which he gives of the Corinthians is more particular and compleat still No unrighteous saith he of one sort or other shall enter into the kingdom of heaven For neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers nor effeminate nor abusers of themselves with mankind nor thieves nor covetous nor revilers nor drunkards nor extortioners shall inherit the kingdom of God And such indeed as these were some of you once viz. in your Gentilism but since you were Christned I bear you record that you are washed from those impurities that you are sanctified from those wickednesses and that you are justified from the condemning force of all these Commandments in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the help of the enlivening and converting spirit of our God 1 Cor. 6.9 10 11. These places are very full and particular for the power of Christianity and the perfect and entire obedience of Christians in those dayes And yet there is one testimony more of this Apostle which I must not omit because it is so very comprehensive and that is the account which he gives us of the Reformation which the Gospel wrought among the Romans For before it was preached among them they were strangely debauched and unaccountably wicked as we may be fully informed were there no other register of their vices from that prodigious Catalogue of their sins which S t Paul himself has given us Rom. 1. For they worshipped and served the Creature more than the Creator Their very women were so unnatural in their lusts as to change their natural use into that which is against nature And the men leaving the natural use of the women burned in their lusts towards one another men with men working that which is unseemly They were filled with all unrighteousness fornication wickedness covetousness maliciousness being full of envy murder debate deceit malignity whisperers back-biters haters of God despitefull proud boasters inventers of evil things disobedient to parents without understanding covenant-breakers without natural affection implacable unmercifull Thus had they degenerated from all sense of common honesty and honour and fallen into the vilest sink of vices But when once Christianity took place among them it quickly turned them from a most impious and monstrously unclean into a most religious and holy people For so S t Paul himself bears witness to them You were sayes he in your time of Heathenism the servants nay the rankest slaves of sin but God be thanked that ye have now since you became Christians obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was by us Apostles delivered to you For being made free from that strange inventory of sins ye became the servants of righteousness Rom. 6.17 18. And what S t Paul tells us of these particular Churches under his care S t Peter will also inform us was true of all the Churches in Pontus and Asia with whom he was concerned and to whom he directed his first Epistle The time past of our life may suffice us saith he to have wrought the will of the Gentiles when we walked with them in lasciviousness lusts excess of wine revellings banquettings and abominable idolatries Yea indeed this doth suffice us For since we became Christians we have left off to accompany them in these vices for which they are estranged to us and revile us For they think it strange that we run not with them to the same excess of riot as we used formerly speaking evil of us for abstaining from them 1 Pet. 4.3 4. Thus honest was the service and thus entire was the obedience of Christians in the Apostles dayes And when they had finished their course and were called out of the world Christs Gospel had still the same effects and his subjects continued to pay him the same service As for the Religion and Laws of Christ sayes Lactantius what excellent effects they have upon the minds and lives of men is plain from every dayes experience For give me a man that is fierce hasty and ungovernable and with this Law I will make him as tractable and gentle as a lamb Give me one who is covetous greedy and tenacious this Religion shall quickly make him liberal and generous It will make the cowardly and timorous to become bold and venturous the lustful and intemperate to turn chast and sober the cruel and revengeful to grow merciful and placable In one word it works a perfect change and alteration making the wicked and injurious to become forthwith most innocent and holy men For all manner of sin is renounced at their entrance all filthy habits are washt off at the Font and never again resumed They are so wholly altered in their life and temper by embracing of our Faith that you will scarce know them to be the same men Thus were the Christians in those Days the holiest sort of men and the most noble patterns of Vertue and Goodness being distinguishable from other men as Tertullian says in nothing so much as this That they had left off all their former vices For they lived what they taught and performed what others only could discourse of their common Motto being this Although we have not the skill to talk yet we have the Grace to live as well as any Nay their very enemies themselves who would be sure to spare no pains nor skill in fastening some immoralities upon them were yet forced at last to confess that they had no fault but one and that was that they were called
Vriah and adulterating his wife For upon that he felt both these losses which I have mention'd viz. the laying waste of the virtuous temper of his own spirit and the deprivation of the good spirit of God For this sin being so long in acting as it must needs be since it required such a train of wicked plots and contrivances to the consummation of it he must needs feel all the opposition that could be made from the checks of his own Conscience and from the restraints of the Spirit of God And when he had born down both for the satisfaction of his lust and trampled them under foot for the consummation of his sin then doth he begin to feel the want and to be all in fear of losing the habitual rectitude of his own spirit which by so many contrary actions implyed in that one great one he had almost quite destroyed and of suffering the desertion of Gods spirit which by his continued provocations contained in it likewise he had well nigh abandon'd For to this purpose we find him complaining and crying out in his Psalm of repentance for that great transgression whereof at the 14 th verse he makes express mention Create or new make in me a clean heart O God sayes he and renew a right spirit within me And besides that cast me not away neither from thy presence nor take thy holy spirit from me Psal. 51.10 11. So that as for the effect of wilfull sins it is plainly this All wilfull sins whatsoever destroy our state of acceptance with God and put us into a state of enmity and death for the present But as for those among them which lay waste the Conscience they effect not that only but moreover they destroy that virtuous habit and grieve nay sometimes drive away that good spirit whereby we should restore our selves to it for the time to come And because this latter sort have the mischievous effect in making our return thus dubious and difficult they are particularly taken notice of in the accounts of God Thus for instance David had committed several deadly sins for some whereof he had undergone severe punishment as particularly for that proud presumptuous offence of his in numbring of the people 2 Sam. 24.1 10 13 c. But these made no notable decay or devastation in the virtuous temper of his soul for his own heart admonished him of the evil which he had done and he repented quickly and rose again without delay and so was presently restored to what he was before But as for his sin in the matter of Vriah it was a lasting work and took up a long deliberation and contrivance It made his Conscience hard and insensible for his own heart did not smite him into a change nor enable him to repent without a monitor So that his stay in this crying sin was long and his return both difficult and dangerous And therefore in that character which is given of him by the Holy Ghost when all the rest are buried in silence this sin particularly is expresly specified David did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord and turned not from any thing that he commanded him all the days of his life save only in the matter of Vriah the Hittite 1 Kings 15.5 Thus then as for this first part of our enquiry we see plainly of all our wilful sins that they are not consistent with a state of Grace and salvation but that they are all deadly and damning for the present if we dye under them without repenting of them and as for the future that they do all of them wound and weaken but some almost quite destroy that habitual inherent Grace whereby we should recover our selves to the state of pardon for the time to come CHAP. IV. Of the nature of involuntary sins and of their consistence with a state of salvation The CONTENTS Of involuntary actions Of what account the forced actions of the Body are in morals Two causes of involuntariness First The violence of mens passions It doth not excuse Secondly The ignorance of their understandings This is the cause of all our consistent failings and the sins that are involuntary upon this account are consistent with a state of salvation This proved 1. From their unavoidableness The Causes of it in what sense any particular sin among them is said to be avoidable 2. From the nature of God A representation of God's nature from his own Word and mens experience The Argument drawn from it for the consistence of such failings 3. From the nature and declarations of the Gospel It is fitted to beget a cheerful and filial confidence and therefore is called the Spirit of Adoption The Argument from this The Scripture-Declarations and Examples in this matter These Arguments summed up THE second sort of sins are such as are involuntary and unchosen and these are consistent with a state of salvation and such as Christ's Gospel doth not eternally threaten but graciously bears and in great mercy dispenseth with As for the involuntariness of mens actions that which produces and effects it is not any force from without upon our will it self All the things in the material world can never bind and compel the will of man seeing it is no physical bodily thing so as that any bodily force might act upon it Nothing in the world can make us will and like that which we do not like the will of man is liable to no compulsion it has this priviledge above all other things on the Earth that nothing about it can force or constrain it but that still it wills and chuses as it self pleaseth As for the actions of men indeed they are mixt things Because they flow from the whole man both Body and Soul and beginning in the mind or will within are consummate in our outward and bodily operation And as for the last of these viz. our bodily operation it may be forced forasmuch as one Body is liable to the force and compulsion of another Thus for instance a chast Matrons Body may be violently ravished A peaceable mans hand may by the overpowering strength of another man be made the forced instrument of anothers murther The bodily work and operation can be forced seeing other Bodies more powerful than it self can compel it And in this sence the Schools understand the word action viz. only for the action of the Body when they make one kind of involuntary actions to be involuntary by violence or compulsion that being a thing whereto not the will it self but the body only can be liable But now these forced actions of the Body although in Nature they be looked upon as actions yet in morality they are esteemed as none at all That is Laws which are the Rules of good and evil and the measure of mens manners take no notice of them nor look upon themselves to be either broken or kept by them because it is not the Body and Carkass
that in what proportion it increases in the same must this increase likewise Charity sayes S t Paul suffereth long and is kind charity is not easily provoked charity thinketh no evil charity beareth all things and endureth all things 1 Cor. 13.4 5 7. The more therefore that any man has of charity the more will he be sure to show of sufferance of pity of endurance of such slips and oversights as are consistent with an honest and otherwise obedient heart And now since those imperfect measures and degrees of Love which are found in the hearts of all good men are of force more than sufficient to make them pity and bear with these slips of honest ignorance and inconsideration that infinite height of Love which dwells in God Almighty must needs make him bear with them much rather For the most loving man upon earth hath not the thousandth part of his affection the more loving any men are indeed the more still they are like him but when they are arrived to the highest pitch of what humanity can bear it is not possible that they should in any measure equal him And since Gods Love is infinitely more his pity and forbearance towards such pitiable oversights which is a most natural and necessary effect of it cannot possibly be less than ours is No if no kind-hearted loving man would it must needs be the greatest injury to an infinitely loving God to suspect that ever he should be severe in punishing us for them If we ask Gods Pardon then for all our ignorant and inconsiderate slips and failings he is as ready to give as we are to desire it And this we are assured of because it is no more than we daily experience at the hands of every loving and good natured man For since God cannot be equalled and much less out-done by the very best of us in kindness what the weak Love of a man doth every day effect that certainly the infinite Love of God will effect more abundantly And as for this way of arguing it is no more than our Saviour himself uses in another case when he shows that God will give good gifts unto his children at their request because all earthly Parents do it unto theirs daily whenas yet their Love which makes them grant the good things asked so readily is infinitely exceeded by the Love of God Luk. 11.13 Thus from the consideration of Gods Nature it plainly appears that those slips and transgressions which are committed involuntarily and unavoidably because ignorantly and inconsiderately do not put us out of a state of Grace but consist with it Which will appear yet further if we consider Secondly The Nature and plain declarations of the Gospel As for the Nature of the Gospel S t Paul affirms plainly that it is of such a temper and genius as tends to ingenerate in the professors of it not a spirit of fear and slavery which they are possessed with who serve a rigorous and austere Lord but a spirit of chearfulness and free confidence such as they enjoy who serve a gracious and a loving Father For he tells the Jews at Rome that in embracing of Christs Gospel they had not received again the spirit of bondage unto the possessing of their hearts with fears and scruples but the spirit of adoption whereby they were emboldened with the chearfulness and confidence of sons to cry unto God Abba Father Rom. 8.15 But now if the condition of the Gospel it self were so severe as that according to the tenour of it these unavoidable slips of inconsideration and ignorance should set God and us at enmity no Christian man could ever look upon God as upon his tender Father with this spirit of filial freedom but must needs fear and dread him as his angry and avenging Lord. And the Gospel requiring more of us under the forfeiture of Gods favour than any man among us is able to perform it could not minister to ingenerate in us a spirit of chearfull confidence towards him but quite contrary to that to fill us with inextricable doubts and fears of him As for these slips of ignorance then which cannot be avoided we may be assured that according to the Gospel they never can be punish'd for the New Covenant must bear with them because it cannot ingender in us this spirit of adoption and filial confidence without such forbearance And then as for the Declarations of the Gospel in this matter they are very clear also For besides those places that are mentioned above which show clearly that no involuntary sins are damning and then certainly that our slips of ignorance are not seeing they have the greatest plea to involuntariness of any I say besides those this consistence of our unknown and unconsidered slips will be evident from other places also And for this to seek no further S t James's Rule is full and plain To him that knoweth or which comes to the same thing if he will may know how to do good and doth it not to him it is sin Jam. 4.17 If then we have no other sins to answer for but only these of inconsideration and ignorance we are guilty of none wherefore we shall be condemned these unknown sins not being of that number And indeed S t James's Rule is verified by Scripture instances For holy David fell through inconsideration and unadvisedness in sundry things as particularly in an inconsiderate despairing of Gods mercy Psal. 31.22 and in an excessive sorrow for his Son Absolom 2 Sam. 18.33 and ch 19.4 But notwithstanding these and all other his unadvised slips he was all the while a man after Gods own heart a person upright and acceptably obedient still Zacharias and Elizabeth were surprized no question as well as other people are into several slips and inconsiderate follies For one we have mention'd even in that short account which the Scriptures have given us of them and that is this viz. that at the first hearing of the joyful message of the Angel he is incredulous and is punished with dumbness for his unbelief Luk. 1.18 20. But yet this and his other involuntary failings of like nature come not into the account of his sins and disobedience when God speaks of him for notwithstanding these their infirmities of both of them we are told that they were righteous and that before God walking in all the Commandments of the Lord blameless Luk. 1.6 As for this sort of slips and transgressions therefore viz. our sins of ignorance and inconsideration we see plainly that they never will be charged upon us to our condemnation They do not destroy a Saint or put us out of a state of Grace and Salvation but consist with it This must needs be true for they must be pardoned because they cannot be avoided Besides the love and pitifulness of Gods Nature infers and the very temper and genius of his Gospel supposes it the Apostle plainly and fully declares it and from Gods own mouth we are told
last and will trouble himself no more about them but leave them wholly to themselves And this God plainly intimates concerning incorrigible Ephraim who was just then about to be abandoned and to be given up to the unmasterable wickedness of his own heart How shall I give thee up says he O Ephraim how shall I deliver thee O Israel Hos. 11.8 And our Saviour says the same over intractable Jerusalem O! if thou hadst but known at least in this thy day the things that belong unto thy peace with God but now it is too late for they are hid from thine eyes Luk. 19.42 This I confess is a state of sin which is desperate and irrecoverable not for that repentance is no sure means of remission but because when once men are come thus far God deserts them so that they never can repent of them But as for the time when any man is come up to this unpardonable pitch that only God in Heaven knows No man can say I am beyond my time of repentance because without a special Revelation no man can understand it And therefore let a man have sinned never so long yet cannot that discourage him from repenting because if he set himself seriously about it for ought he knows God will pity him and afford him his Grace and Spirit which is never wanting to such as heartily desire it to aid and strengthen him in his repentance Nay indeed if a man be come so far as to bethink himself and to be apprehensive of his danger and to be convinced of the destructiveness of his sinful courses there is no question to be made but that he will For the tide is turned and the change is begun already and that is a thing which needed God's Grace as much as any thing that is yet remaining For a cariere in wickedness is like running down hill the great difficulty is to make the first stop but when once that is done to return again is much more easie And therefore if a man has received so much Grace as makes him break off his evil courses for the present and stand and deliberate with himself whether or no he shall proceed in it he need not doubt if he will go on to endeavour as he has begun but that he shall have more till at last he is fully enabled to perfect and compleat it He has an experimental evidence that his time of Grace is not past he may be sure it is still with him because it helps and works in him For it is Grace that brings him on to what he is and if he be but as willing to be aided by it as it is ready to assist him it will not fail to carry him on further Gods Grace will still grow upon him as his own endeavours do so that if he make good use of this he shall have more For this is laid down by our Lord as a certain Rule of Divine dispensations To him that hath that is maketh a right use of that Grace which he hath shall more be given even in abundance Mat. 25.29 Whatsoever irreconcileableness therefore there may be and truly is in some states of sin when men have gone on beyond their time of Grace yet he who has so much Grace as to doubt and question to fear and scruple has great reason to think that as for his part he is not past Grace but under it For an irrecoverable sinner is commonly one that is hardned he transgresses without sense and goes on without fear he is infatuated with his lusts and lull'd asleep in his sin and scarce ever comes to himself till he awakes in Damnation But if once he begins especially in the time of health either through a severe reproof or a severe providence to interrupt his sin for the present and to apprehend the evil of it and if from thence he goes on to good desires and holy purposes of well-doing then he feels that Grace which he is afraid he wants and that good Spirit works in him which he suspects to have deserted him He is not in this irrecoverable state but is going on towards a good recovery Indeed if his Conscience is awakned in the height of horror and extremity of despair so that he is obstinate against all good advice and dead to all endeavour and continues to be so this is not an effect of Grace and a step towards repentance but a terror of Judgment and a fore-taste of Hell If it deads all industry by excluding all hope if he complain of his estate without seeking to get out of it and despair without all amendment this fear of heart and terror of soul 't is true doth not bring him nearer unto life and pardon but by secuing him faster in his sin it shuts him up a closer Prisoner of Condemnation But if he be so apprehensive of his danger as to run from it if he has so much hope as will put him upon trying all means and using his best endeavours if upon his apprehensions of his present evil state he fears and desires and resolves and strives to get quit of it he is not deprived of a good Providence or of a gracious Spirit but enjoys the benefit of them and is conducted by them He is in the way to Life and under the recovering methods of Grace Gods holy Spirit has not for ever abandoned him but has begun again to work in him And thus at last it appears that as for all the wilful sins of any Christian man they are in no wise desperate and helpless but the Gospel has reached out a remedy for them to all who are willing to make use of it For let them but particularly repent of them and amend them and then they are safe from them So long as they continue in the profession of the Christian Faith and do not apostatize from it there is no sin whatsoever which they wilfully commit but is pardonable upon their repentance If once they honestly undo the fault and conscientiously forsake it their work is done for their penitent reformation shall make them innocent and whatever punishment the Law may threaten to any sins when God comes to Judgment he will not exact it of any man who has been thus reclaimed from them Do we find our selves guilty then of any unretracted wilful sins and thereby subject to a dreadful sentence according to those measures that have in great largeness been hitherto discoursed of Let us particularly repent of them and begin to amend them and then we are safe from it and shall most certainly prevent it Have any voluntary faults put us out of a state of favour and made us obnoxious to the severities of Judgment let us reform them and do so no more and repair the breach which ensued upon them and we are surely pardoned For the Gospel of Christ doth not in any wise intend to amaze and astonish us or to affright us from amendment by putting us into a despair
which we sue for obtained although sometimes our prayers are less attent and less affectionate than at other times they are and we at all times greatly desire they might be For our fixedness and fervency are not the only things which procure acceptance for our prayers They are great good things as I said and such qualifications as make our requests fit both for us to offer and for God to hear and therefore we must take care still when we pray in such measure as we are able to be provided with them But although they are some yet are they not the only qualifications of our prayers which prevail with God and move him to hear them For our trust and dependance our submission and resignedness and other spiritual vertues and instances of obedience are likewise dispositions which God respects in them nay indeed which he prizes above all and principally looks at So that if we pray with these God is honoured by our prayers and he will reward them and our petitions shall not be put up in vain although by reason of some bodily dulness or distraction the fixt attention of our minds and the fervency of our hearts which we endeavour after always and enjoy at other times should happen to be wanting Yea I add further so long as our hearts are honest and our lives entirely obedient we are always furnished with those qualifications which are sufficient to bring down Gods Grace and Blessing upon us and which are the principal things that make our prayers themselves an acceptable Offering A good man is drawing down the blessings of Heaven upon himself all his life long and not only whilst he is upon his knees so that if at any time his prayers are less perfect and chance to falter that defect will be otherwise supplied and he will have all that mercy conveyed to him through another means which his prayers should have obtained for him seeing that which makes his prayers procure Gods love and mercy for him will make his obedience procure the very same For I suppose no man is so silly as to imagine that it is the lifting up of his eyes and hands the composedness of his countenance the quaintness of his phrase the eloquence of his expressions the volubility of his language or any other external thing which makes his prayers so powerful and brings down the blessing of God upon them But it is that dependance upon God that confidence in God that love of God and desire of goodness that acknowledgment of his tenderness and power that submission to his Authority and resignation to his pleasure which are all implied in prayer and fitly expressed by it and which make up the very life and spirit of it these I say it is which God looks at in our prayers and for the sake whereof he so graciously accepts and rewards them But now as for all these they are expressed every whit as much by the obedience of our lives as by the prayer of our lips nay indeed much more in as much as our actions are a more perfect expression and certain evidence of all these tempers of a good heart than our words are They differ as much as words and deeds as profession and performance for whereas in our prayers we only speak and profess all this in the obedience of our lives we work and perform it We shew our love and resignation to God when for his sake we deny our selves and give up our own will in obedience to his We acknowledge his Power and Authority most effectually when we obey it and owne his Providence to the best purpose when we contentedly acquiesce in it and patiently submit to it and confess his love and kindness after the most acceptable sort when we throw our selves upon it and work and endeavour all our lives long in hopes and expectations of it In our daily actions of Justice and Charity of Temperance and Sobriety of Meekness Patience Mercy and Forgiveness and in all other instances of obedience we give God the honour to chuse for us to dispose of us to be sought after and intrusted by us We evidence our esteem of him our love for him our trust in him our dependance on him our resignation to him and that most effectually So that whatsoever can move God in our prayers will move him in a higher degree and after another fashion in our obedience the Spirit of goodness which is evidenced in our prayers being evidenced much more in the course of good actions No Rhetorick therefore of our Prayers is like to that of a good life every action of obedience in a good man having the effect of a prayer and calling down upon him the same mercy and the same Grace which would be procured by a supplication Let a man therefore make sure in the first place of a good life and of an honest and intire obedience and then he need not fear to want those things which all good men have need to pray for seeing he will shew so much daily in his life as will make his requests be granted and his prayers be hearkened to He cannot perish for want of those mercies which he prays for although it be sometimes with coldness and distraction because not only the other obedient tempers of his prayers when through some unchosen hindrances a due fixedness and fervency are wanting but also the constant and uninterrupted obedience of his life is daily ascending up and brings them down upon him Let no good soul therefore be further troubled and disquieted upon this account as if because after all his care his prayers are sometimes dull and cold and his thoughts therein are much distracted he should either be eternally punished for them or at least go without those blessings which he desires in them For so long as the Spirit of obedience appears both in his Prayers and in his actions the unwilled distractions of his mind and the dulness and frozenness of his affections at some times shall be no hindrance either to his Suit at present or to his happiness hereafter his request shall not be thrown by nor he condemned for them but so far as God sees it fitting for him it shall be granted and he shall eternally be saved notwithstanding them 3. A third scruple which is wont causelesly to disquiet and trouble good and honest minds is the words of our Saviour Matth. 12. I say unto you That as concerning every idle word which men shall speak they shall give an account thereof at the Day of Judgment ver 36. This seems to be a strict and a severe Saying For in all the crowd and variety of converse in the infinite numbers of Questions and Answers and other occasions of discourse what man in all the World but especially of those who are of a conversation that is free and open courteous and ingenuous cheerful and delightsome which tempers the Gospel doth not only allow but approve of who I say of
explication of this sin for if they once knew what it is they would be at ease from such tormenting suspicions and unreasonable fears about it To explain this I will consider 1. What is meant in Scripture by the Holy Ghost 2. What is meant here by sinning against it 1. What is meant in Scripture by the Holy Ghost By the word Holy Ghost or holy Spirit according to an usual Metonymie of the giver for the gift or of the cause for the effect is very often meant the gifts or effects of the holy Spirit whether they be such as he ordinarily produces in us or such as are extraordinary and miraculous Sometimes it signifies such gifts and dispositions whether of mind or temper as the Holy Ghost or Spirit of God is wont ordinarily to produce in men It notes I say the good qualifications of our minds or understandings which as all other good gifts are wrought in us by the Spirit and derived to us from God Thus a man endued with wisdom and discretion such as Joseph advised Pharaoh to set over all the Land of Egypt is called a man in whom the Spirit of God is Gen. 41.33 38 and the Spirit of the Lord mentioned Isai. 11 is in the very next words explained by the Spirit of wisdom the Spirit of understanding the Spirit of counsel the Spirit of knowledge and the Spirit of quick understanding vers 2 3. It signifies also the vertuous tempers and good qualifications of our hearts which like as the former were are given us of God Thus that good and charitable temper which is so exemplary in God and which is wrought in our souls by him is called the Spirit of God 1 John 4. If we love one another God dwells in us so that hereby know we that we dwell in him and he in us because he hath given us that loving temper of his Spirit ver 12 13. The temper which was so observable in Christ is called the Spirit of Christ Rom. 8.9 the temper of Elias is called the spirit of Elias Luke 1.17 the Spirit of the Lord is explained by the Spirit of the fear of the Lord Isai. 11.2 and that spirit which God hath given us says S t Paul is not the spirit of fear but the spirit of power of love and of a sound mind 2 Tim. 1.7 Thus doth the Spirit of God signifie many times in Scripture those ordinary gifts and Graces which are the good effects of the Spirit But besides these effects of it in the good endowments and perfections of our natural faculties whether of mind or temper which are common and ordinary sometimes it signifies more especially those gifts which are extraordinary and miraculous Of which sort are the gift of tongues of prophecy of healing Diseases without any natural means and performing other miraculous operations so famous in the first times of the Gospel Thus for example that Saying I will pour out in those days of my Spirit is interpreted by this in the next words And they shall prophesie Acts 2.18 And the elder Brothers which was a double share of the prophetick power of Elias is called a double portion of his Spirit 2 Kin. 2.9 And the Corinthians zealous pursuit of the miraculous and extraordinary gifts of prophecy speaking with tongues healing diseases and working miracles is called by the Apostle their being zealous of Spirits or as we translate it of spiritual gifts 1 Cor. 14.12 Now as for these extraordinary gifts they are all wrought in us by the same cause and proceed from the same Principle viz. the holy Spirit of God or the holy Ghost There are in the Church now in our times saith the Apostle diversities of gifts but yet one and the same Spirit is the Donor of them all For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom or of Gospel truths and revelations to another the word of knowledg or discerning of remote things and prophetical predictions by the same Spirit to another faith of his being Divinely assisted to produce supernatural effects to another miraculous gifts of healing Diseases without use of means by the same Spirit to another the working of miracles or the utmost activity and energy of powers in the highest instances and effects of them of which sort are raising the Dead casting out Devils inflicting bodily torments on contumacious Sinners c. to another prophecy or exposition of Scripture and inspired Hymns to another discerning of Spirits both in seeing into mens spiritual thoughts and intentions and also in discerning who wrought true Miracles and who Satanical Delusions who were divinely inspired and who were mere Pretenders to another the ecstatick gift of speaking divers kinds of tongues in such rapturous transports as permitted them not to stay to interpret what they said and made them afterwards forget it to another the gift of interpreting into the vulgar language of any in the Congregation those strange tongues But all these diversities of gifts worketh that one and the self same Spirit dividing all these different gifts to every man severally as he will 1 Cor. 12.4 8 9 10 11. And seeing it is the same Spirit or Holy Ghost which is the Authour and Giver of them all therefore are they all indifferently called by either name For sometimes all these extraordinary gifts both the power of miracles and the gift of tongues and prophecy are called the Spirit Thus when the Apostles began to speak with tongues and to prophesie as well as to work miracles and heal diseases it is said that the Spirit was poured out upon them Acts 2.17 18 19 and all these varieties of gifts oâ— one sort or other which are reckoned up by S t Paul in this twelfth Chapter to the Corinthians are attributed to the Spirit and said to be wrought by it and the Apostles being filled with the Holy Ghost and speaking with tongues is called their speaking by the spirit they were all filled with the Holy Ghost says S t Luke and began to speak as the Spirit gave them utterance Acts 2.4 And in like manner at other times all these same powers whether of understanding or action of tongues or miracles are called the Holy Ghost Thus the gifts of signs and wonders and divers miracles are reckoned among the gifts of the Holy Ghost Heb. God says Saint Paul bearing the Apostles witness with signs and wonders and divers miracles and other gifts of the Holy Ghost ver 4. And the signs and wonders which were done by the hands of the Apostles particularly that of healing the lame man so much taken notice of Acts 3 is said to be the witness of the Holy Ghost Acts 5.12 32. Thus I say by reason that all these extraordinary gifts whether relating to our minds in knowledge and speaking with tongues or to our executive powers in healing diseases and working miracles proceed all from the self same Holy Ghost or Holy Spirit the gifts of either sort are called
indifferently by either name being sometimes called the Spirit and sometimes the Holy Ghost But although as I say for this reason the words Spirit and Holy Ghost are sometimes used promiscuously to signifie all or any of these extraordinary gifts indifferently yet what is very material to our purpose sometimes nay very frequently they are distinguished And then by the Holy Ghost is meant not all extraordinary gifts indifferently but particularly those which respect our understandings not executive powers consisting rather in illumination than in power and action of which sort are the gift of tongues of prophecy of discerning Spirits of knowledg of revelation and such like Thus the lying against that part of the gift of discerning Spirits which consisted in understanding the thoughts and purposes of the heart is called lying to the Holy Ghost For so S t Peter who was endowed with this gift tells Ananias when he would have imposed upon him Why hath Satan filled thine heart saith he to lye to the Holy Ghost Acts 5.3 And S t Stephen's being filled with an extraordinary revelation of Christ's sitting at God's right hand in Heaven is called his being filled with the Holy Ghost Acts 7.55 But more especially the gift of Tongues and Prophecy is dignified with that name Thus in the 10 th Chapter of the Acts when the Gentiles in Cornelius's house begun to speak with Tongues upon S t Peters preaching it is said that the Holy Ghost fell on all them that heard the word and that on the Gentiles was poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost v. 44 45 46. The Disciples at Ephesus who being baptized with the Baptism of John cannot be supposed ignorant of the many miraculous Cures so much talked of among the Jews and of the strange effects of the Spirit in Jesus whom John preached did yet tell Paul that they had not so much as heard of the Holy Ghost Act. 19.2 which might very well be because the Holy Ghost or gift of Tongues and Prophecy were not given till after Jesus was glorified Joh. 7.39 But upon the preaching of S t Paul they were made partakers of it for when Paul laid his hands on them the Holy Ghost came upon them and they spake with tongues and prophesied Act. 19.6 And to name no more instances in this matter that place which I now hinted in the 7 th Chapter of S t John is a full proof of this restrained acceptation For there after all the instances of curing diseases casting out Devils and other effects of the Spirit in miraculous operations which Christ shewed wheresoever he came it is yet expresly affirmed that the Holy Ghost was not yet given because Jesus was not yet glorified by his Exaltation to the right hand of God v. 39. The Holy Ghost i. e. these gifts of Tongues of Prophecy and the like which are all that remained still to be shed abroad and which came upon the Apostles at the descent of the Holy Ghost at Pentecost Act. 2. Thus is the Holy Ghost set to denote not all the miraculous and extraordinary gifts of the Spirit promiscuously but particularly those which respect the mind or understanding such as the gift of Tongues of Prophecy of deep Knowledge and the like And on the other side as for the word Spirit it is set to express not all extraordinary gifts and effects of the Spirit in general but those by name which respect our executive not knowing powers and which consist not in illumination but in action Of which sort are the gift of healing diseases of casting out Devils of raising the dead and other miraculous operations Thus the miraculous courage and valour which was given to Othoniel is called the Spirit of the Lord Judg. 3.10 as is that likewise which was given to Gideon Judg. 6.34 and the miraculous strength of Samson is called the Spirit of the Lord upon Samson Judg. 14.6 And upon Christs working the miraculous cure upon the man with the withered hand S t Matthew applies to him that saying of the Prophet the Spirit of the Lord came upon him Mat. 12.18 and his casting out Devils he himself attributes to the Spirit of God I says he by the spirit of God cast out devils v. 28. As by the Holy Ghost therefore are meant particularly the gifts of illumination in Tongues and Prophecy so by the Spirit are signified the gifts of Power in healing diseases casting out Devils and doing mighty and miraculous works And both these together take up the full compass of the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit and are both distinctly expressed by S t Peter when he says that Jesus was anointed with the holy Ghost and with Power Act. 10.38 These then are the several meanings of the words Holy Ghost and holy Spirit They denote as the third Person in the Trinity the Holy Ghost himself so also those gifts and effects which proceed from him Whether those gifts are ordinary either in the endowments of our minds or the vertuous tempers and dispositions of our wills and hearts or extraordinary and miraculous Wherein yet we must observe this difference that the gifts of the executive powers in healing diseases casting out Devils working Miracles are by a peculiar name called the Spirit and the gifts of the knowing or understanding Faculties in Prophecies Revelations speaking with divers sorts of Tongues are by a contradistinct name called the Holy Ghost And thus having shewn what is meant by the Holy Ghost I proceed now to show 2. What is meant by sinning against it and which of all those which are committed against it is the unpardonable sin The only way whereby any men are capable to sin against God as was observed is by affront and dishonour for God is out of our reach for any other sort of injury and we cannot otherwise hurt him than by shewing our contempt and disrepect of him And in regard the Holy Ghost in his own person is very and essential God this must needs be the only way whereby we can sin against him likewise We cannot injure him in his Nature but only in his Honour but then we sin against him when we walk cross to him and oppose him or any way slight and contemn undervalue or reproach him or any of those excellent and Divine gifts which proceed from him Now this we do more or less in every sin For this Spirit of God is an universal instrument of faith and good life it has taken the utmost care by miracles and other its convictive evidences to evince the truth of Christs Doctrine and doth now still by his daily suggestions and sollicitations excite men to the observance of it And seeing the Spirit of God has shown it self so much concerned for our faith and obedience every act of unbelief and disobedience is a direct opposition to it and reproach of it and therefore is a sin against it But every such sin is not the unpardonable fault here mentioned For our very
wilful sins themselves as has been shewn are not desperate under Christs Religion the Gospel being a Covenant that doth not damn men upon all voluntary sin but encourages their repentance with the promise of pardon so that although all our sins are against God and his Spirit they are not irremissible but will be remitted to every man who repents of them It is not every sin against the Spirit of God then which this place in S t Matthew threatens so severely But the unpardonable sin is a sin by it self it has something peculiar in it from all other sins which by shutting us out from all possibility of repentance excludes it from all hopes of being forgiven And indeed it is plainly this It is a sinning against the Holy Ghost in the last sense as it signifies not only the power of miracles but also the gift of tongues and other illuminations of the Holy Ghost which came down upon the Apostles at Pentecost and it is such a sinning against these as is particularly by reviling and blaspheming them This and none other I take to be the sin here mentioned For the clearer discerning whereof we will consider the sins against the Holy Ghost in all the acceptations before laid down and in all of them except the last we shall find room for pardon and remission First then to sin against the Holy Ghost as it signifies the ordinary endowments and vertuous tempers of our minds and wills is not the unpardonable sin that is here spoken of For every sin against any particular vertue is a sin against the Holy Ghost in that sense Every act of drunkenness for instance is against the gift of sobriety and every act of uncleanness is against the gift of continency and so it is in the several actions of all other sorts of sin But now as for all these the great offer and invitation of the Gospel is that men would accept of mercy upon repentance The Incestuous Corinthian sinned deeply against the grace of chastity and he repented and was forgiven S t Peter denied his Lord and upon his repentance he was also pardoned and the same Grace has been allowed as we have seen to all other wilful sinners Nay in this sort of sinning against the Holy Ghost viz. by sinning against those Christian gifts and graces which he works in us there is mercy to very great degrees For sometimes we do not hearken to his holy motions but fall into lesser sins and offensive indecencies notwithstanding all his vertuous suggestions and endeavours to the contrary and then he is troubled and grieved at us Eph. 4.30 And at other times we venture upon more hainous crimes which quite lay waste the conscience and undo all the vertuous temper and resolution of our souls so that we lie long in our impenitence as David did in the matter of Vriah and are almost hardned in our wicked way before we are able again to recover out of it and in these offences the Spirit has been so much affronted and his importunate suggestions so frequently thrown out that he is almost ready to forsake us and to leave us to our selves so that it may be called a quenching of him 1 Thess. 5.19 But although the last of these especially be very dangerous yet is neither of them desperate But after we have been guilty of them God continues still to make offers and invitations and by his long-sufferance and his gracious providences and the repeated calls of his Word and Ministers he still endeavours to recover us to pardon by recalling us to repentance Yea the holy Spirit it self makes fresh assaults upon us and tries again whether we will hearken to it and be relieved by it as it was with David after he had complained of his being deprived of Gods presence and of the holy Spirit 's being taken from him Psal. 51.11 and as it is with every other reclaimed back-slider The sinning against the Holy Ghost therefore in this sense as it signifies the ordinary gifts and graces of the Holy Ghost is far from being the unpardonable sin and is manifestly under the grace of pardon and repentance Secondly Nor is a sin against the extraordinary gifts of casting out Devils healing diseases working miracles or other things called the Spirit that unpardonable sin which is here intended To blaspheme the Spirit 't is true comes very near it and when men are once gone on to that God is very nigh giving of them up and using no more means about them to bring them either to Faith or Repentance which are the only way to pardon and forgiveness But although this pitch of sin be extreme dangerous yet in great likelihood it is not wholly desperate for after all the dirt that men had thrown upon this evidence viz. the miraculous operation wrought by Christ whilst he continued upon earth God was still pleased to use some means further to bring them to believe and that was the evidence of the Holy Ghost which came down to compleat all after that Jesus was glorified Act. 2. This great proof which was to be poured out upon the Disciples at Pentecost and upon other Christians at the Imposition of their hands for a good while after might effect that wherein the other had failed and be acknowledged by those very men who had blasphemed the former So that their case notwithstanding it were gone extreme far was not for all that quite hopeless because one remedy still remained which God resolved he would use to reclaim them though after that he would try no more The blaspheming of the Spirit then was very near the unpardonable because unamendable sin but yet it was not fully grown up to it it was in the next degree to unpardonable but yet if it went no further it might be pardoned still And of this I think we have a clear proof even in those blasphemous Pharisees whose reviling of the Spirit was the occasion of all this discourse For as for the Spirit they blasphemed it in this very Chapter when upon occasion of the miraculous cure of the man with the withered hand v. 13 and of Christs casting out of Devils v. 28 both which were so manifestly wrought before their eyes that none of them durst question or deny the working of them they go blasphemously to charge these evident effects of the Spirit upon the power of Magick and to say that these works of God were performed by the Devil For when these mighty effects of the Spirit were urged to them in behalf of Jesus they answered and said says S t Matthew this Fellow doth not cast out Devils but by Beelzebub the Prince of the Devils v. 24. Here is a reproach to these miraculous gifts of the Spirit as great as can be invented for it is nothing less than an attributing them to the most foul and loathsom Fiends in Nature even to the very Devils themselves But yet this Blasphemy as dangerous as it was is not