not our Relations or our Friends onely but also all Mankind and to do good to all without exception though especially to the Houshold of Faith to good men Nay our Saviour hath laid a strict charge upon us not to exclude our malicious enemies from our love that is of benevolence but to pray for them that despitefully use us and to Bless those that Curse us Which Law as harshly as it sounds to Carnal Persons they themselves cannot but acknowledge that what it enjoyneth is heroically and highly vertuous Secondly The Christian Precepts require the most Intensive Holiness Not onely Negative but Positive as was now intimated that is Not onely the forbearance of what is evil but the performance also of what is good Not onely Holiness of Actions and Words but likewise of Affections and Thoughts The worship of God with the Spirit as well as with the outward man a Holy frame and habit of mind as well as a holy life They forbid cherishing sin in the heart as well as practising it in the Conversation They make Iusting after a Woman Adultery as well as the Gross Act of Uncleanness They make Malice Murther as well as Killing They forbid Coveting no less than defrauding and being in love with this worlds goods as much as getting them by unlawful means And I shall digress so far as to say That there is infinite Reason that Thoughts and the inward workings of mens souls should be restrained by Laws upon these two accounts First Because Irregular Thoughts and Affections are the immediate Depravers of Mens Natures and therefore it is as necessary in order to the design of making men Holy that these should be forbidden as that evil Actions and Words should But suppose this were otherwise Yet Secondly Laws made against evil words and Actions would signifie very little if men were left at liberty as to their Thoughts and Affections It would be to very little purpose to forbid men to do evil if they might think and love it For where the sparks of Sin are kept glowing in the Soul how can they be kept from breaking out into a Flame in the Life From the abundance of the Heart the Mouth will speak and the Hands act But to proceed The Precepts of the Gospel command us not onely to perform good Actions but also to do them after a right manner with right ends c. or in one word from good Principles Whatsoever we do to do it heartily as to the Lord and not as to men To be fervent in Spirit in our service of God To do all to the glory of God To be holy as he that hath called us is Holy in all manner of Conversation To be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect Which Precepts shew that we ought to imitate him not onely in the matter of our actions but likewise in the qualifications of them Among which that which I said is Essential to true Holiness is a principal one namely To do good actions for those Reasons which moved God to enjoyn them and I adde which make it pleasing to him to perform them himself viz. because they are either in themselves and upon their own account excellent worthy and most fit to be done or are made so to be by some Circumstance Our whole Duty to God and our Neighbour as our Saviour hath told us is comprehended in the love of them But the love of God required by him is a most Intense love we are commanded to love him with all the Heart and Soul mind and strength And that of our Neighbour which he hath made our duty is such as for the kind of it is like the love which we bear to our selves such as will not permit us to wrong him in his good name any more than in his estate or person such as will not allow us rashly to speak or so much as think ill of him such as will cause us to put the best constructions on those actions of his that are capable of various interpretations c. And for the degree such as will make us willing to lay down our very lives for him that is for the promoting of his eternal happiness To summe up all together We are commanded to adde to our faith vertue to vertue knowledge to knowledge temperance to temperance patience to patience Godliness to Godliness Brotherly Kindness and to Brotherly kindness Charity To behave our selves in all respects towards our Creatour as becometh his Creatures and those which are under unspeakable obligations to him Towards one another as becometh those that are indued with the same Common nature and according to the diverse relations engagements and other Circumstances we stand in each to other and Towards our selves according as the Dignity of our Natures require we should In short whatsoever things are true whatsoever things are honest Whatsoever things are just whatsoever things are pure whatsoever things are lovely whatsoever things are of good report whatsoever things have vertue and praise in them are the objects of the Christian Precepts and by them recommended to us Let any one read but our Saviours incomparable Sermon upon the Mount the 12 th to the Romans and the third Chapter of the Epistle to the Colossians and well consider them and it will be strange should he find it difficult to assent to the truth of that Proposition Even Trypho himself in the Dialogue betwixt Iustin Martyr and him confessed that the Precepts contained in the Book called the Gospel are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Great and Admirable He saith indeed that they are so admirable as that he suspected them not to be by Humane Nature Observable but in that he spake not unlike to himself that is a prejudiced and Carnal Iew. If it be now objected that notwithstanding what hath been said concerning the Christian Precepts recommending the most elevated Vertue to be practised by us it is acknowledged by all Sober Christians that they are not to be understood in so high a sense as to require of us indefective and unspotted Holiness or at least that our Saviour will accept of and reward that Holiness which is far short of Perfect and therefore he can be no such Great Friend to it as hath been affirmed The answer is very easie and obvious viz. That our Saviour's not rigidly exacting such a degree of Holiness as amounts to Perfection proceeds from hence that the attainment of it is in this state impossible to us and therefore it is not to be attributed to his liking or allowance of the least Sin but to his Special grace and good will to fallen Mankind Nay moreover it proceeds from his passionate desire that we may be as pure and holy as our unhappy Circumstances will admit he well knowing that should he declare that nothing short of Perfection shall be accepted at our hands he would make us desperate and take the most effectual Course to cause us to
give over all thoughts of becoming better nay and to let the reins loose unto all ungodliness But yet nothing short of Sincerity and diligent serious endeavors to abstain from all Sin will be admitted by him in order to our being made the objects of his Grace and Favour And as for Wilful and Presumptuous Sins of what kind soever he makes no allowances for them but hath by himself and his Ministers declared very frequently that they shall not be pardoned without our unfeigned Reformation from them And Lastly notwithstanding the allowances and abatements that in tender Compassion to us he is pleased to make us no less than our absolutely Perfect Holiness is designed by him though not to be effected in this yet in the other World CHAP. IV. That Holiness is the onely Design of the Promises of the Gospel shewed in Two Particulars And of the Threatnings therein Contained SEcondly The Promises and Threatnings of the Gospel have most apparently the promoting of Holiness for their onely Design First The Promises it is plain have This S. Peter assureth us 2 Epistle ch 1. v. 4. Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and pretious promises that by these you might be partakers of the Divine Nature having escaped the Corruption that is in the world through lust And S. Paul doth more than intimate the same in 2 Cor. 7. 1. Having saith he these Promises dearly beloved viz. those which the foregoing Chapter Concludes with let us cleanse our selves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit perfecting Holiness in the fear of the Lord. Again Rom. 12. 1. I beseech you by the Mercies of God that ye present your bodies a living Sacrifice holy acceptable to God which is your Reasonable Service And be ye not conformed to this present world but be ye transformed by the Renewing of your Minds c. 1. We always find these promises either limited to Holy persons or made use of as encouragements and exciting motives to Holiness The Apostle tells us that it is Godliness which hath the promises of the life that now is and of that which is to come The promise of the Beatifical vision is made to the Pure in Heart Blessed are the Pure in Heart for they shall see God That of the Kingdom of Heaven to the Poor in Spirit or those that are of humble and lowly tempers The promise of obtaining Mercy to the Merciful That of inheriting the Earth of temporal felicity to the Meek or such as live in obedience to Government c. That of Eternal life to those that patiently Continue in Well-doing That of sitting with Christ on his Throne to those that overcome that is that mortifie their Lusts and corrupt affections The promise of a Crown of life is used as a motive to perswade to faithfulness to the Death But to what purpose do I multiply instances when as there is not a particular promise throughout the whole Gospel but it is expressed or plainly enough intimated that its performance depends upon some duty of Holiness to be on our parts first performed or at least heartily endeavoured And whereas the Promises of Pardon and of Eternal Life are very frequently made to Believing there is nothing more evidently declared than that this Faith is such as purisieth the Heart and is productive of Good Works 2. Nay the Nature of these Promises is such as is of it self sufficient to satisfie us That Holiness is the Design of them 1. This is manifestly true concerning the Principal Promises or those which relate to the other life They may be reduced to these three Heads That of the holy Spirit of Remission of Sin and of Eternal happiness in the Enjoyment of God Now for the first of these viz. The Promise of the Spirit that is it to which we are beholden for grace and assistance in the great work of subduing Sin and acquiring the habit of Holiness and this is the very business for the sake of which that Promise is made to us And for the second third they are such as none but holy Souls are capable of That none but such are capable of having the Guilt of their Sins removed and of being freed from the displeasure and wrath of God is self-evident for the Guilt of Sin must needs remain while its power continues these two are inseparable from each other Sin is so loathsome and filthy a thing as shall hereafter be shewn that it is perfectly impossible that the blood of Christ it self should render a sinner lovely or not odious in the sight of God any otherwise than by washing away the pollution of it And nothing is more apparent than that holy Souls alone are in a Capacity of the Happiness that consists in the Enjoyment of God in the other World than that as without Holiness no man shall see the Lord as saith the Author to the Hebrews So without it none can see him For the full and Complete participation of God which our Saviour promiseth his Disciples and faithful followers ariseth out of the likeness and Conformity of mens Souls to him But there is such a perfect unlikeness and contrariety in impure and polluted souls to the infinitely Holy God that it is impossible there should be any Communications from him to them any friendly agreement and complacency between Him and them He is not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness neither can evil dwell with him Psal. 5. 4. What Communion hath Light with Darkness saith the Apostle 2 Cor. 6. 14. But vicious and unholy souls are full of Darkness whereas God is pure splendid Light and in Him is no Darkness at all The Platonists would not admit that any man is Capable of being acquainted with Divine things that is not purged from that which they called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Remissness of Mind and Brutish Passions How utterly impossible then is it that such as are not so should be acquainted with the Divinity it self Hierocles saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. As a Bleer eye cannot look upon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 things very bright and shining so a Soul unpossessed of vertue is unable to behold the Beauty of Truth How unable then is such a soul to behold the Beauty of God himself to see him as he is and be happy in the sight of him Those eyes which have continually beheld Vanity as saith an Excellent late writer of our own would be dazled not delighted with the Beatifick Vision Thanks be to God saith the Apostle who hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the Saints in Light Those can by no means partake of it that are not by Holiness made meet and disposed for it What happiness can we find in the enjoyment of God when he is of a perfectly contrary nature to our own and moreover how can we then enjoy him There must be in us a likeness
too lofty for them that considers Christ's was not Now these are all such motives and helps to holiness the like to which none but those who have the Gospel ever had 4. That this Son of God was an expiaatory Sacrifice for us We have already shewn what cogent Arguments to all holy obedience are herein contained 5. That this Son of God being raised from the Dead and ascended into Heaven is our High Priest there and ever lives as the Author to the * Hebrews saith to make intercession with his Father for us The Heathens it is confessed had a notion of Daemons negotiating the affairs of men with the Supreme God but they could never have imagined in the least that they should be so highly privileged as to have one who is the Begotten Son of this God and infinitely above all persons dear to him for their perpetual Mediator and Intercessor I need not say what an encouragement this is to an Holy Life And as the Doctrine of God's giving his Son which containeth the five forementioned particulars is such as the highest improvement of reason could never have caused any thing like it to have entered our thoughts or that is comparable thereunto for the effectual provoking of men to the pursuance of all Holiness of Heart and Life so Secondly The Doctrine of his sending the Holy Ghost to move and excite us to our Duty and to assist chear and comfort us in the performance of it may go along with it How could it have once been thought without Divine Revelation that a person indued with the Divine Nature and Infinite Power and Goodness should take it upon him as his Office and peculiar Province to assist mens weakness in the prosecution of vertue But this doth the Gospel assure us of as also that those which do not resist and repel his good motions shall be sure to have alwaies the superintendency of this Blessed Spirit and that he will never forsake them but abide with them for ever and carry them from one degree of Grace to another till at length it is consummate and made perfect in Glory And to this I adde Thirdly The Doctrine of our Union with Christ through this Spirit which Union to speak in the words of the Learned Dr. Patrick in his Mensa Mystica Is not only such a Moral one as is between Husband and Wife which is made by Love or between King and Subjects which is made by Laws but such a Natural Union as is between Head and Members the Vine and Branches which is made by one Spirit or Life dwelling in the whole The Apostle saith 1 Cor. 12. 12 13. As the body is one and hath many members and also the members of that one body being many are one body so also is Christ for by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body Now see what use the Apostle makes of both these 1 Cor. 6. 15 19 20. Know you not that your bodies are the members of Christ Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them the members of an Harlot God forbid And then he thus proceeds in the 19 and 20 Verses What know you not that your body is the Temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you which ye have of God and ye are not your own but ye are bought with a price Therefore glorifie God in your body and in your Spirit which are God's What helps and incitements we have to the perfecting of Holiness in the fear of God from these two Doctrines is inexpressible Lastly The Doctrine of the unconceivably great Reward that shall be conserred upon all good and holy persons which the Gospel hath revealed is such as could not possibly by the mere help of Natural Light enter into the thoughts of those that were strangers to it We are therein assured not only of another life and that good men shall therein be rewarded but likewise that the reward that shall be conferred upon them shall be no less than an Hyperbolically Hyperbolical Weight of Glory as are the words of S. Paul 2 Cor. 4. 1â—… Those that overcome are promised that they shall sit with Christ on his Throne even as he overcame and is set down with his Father on his Throne Rev. 3. 21. In short the happiness that our Saviour will reward all his faithful Disciples with is so expressed as that we are assured it is inexpressible and likewise far exceeding the short reach of our present conceptions of which their souls are not only to partake but their bodies also they being to be made as vile as they are in this state like the Glorious Body of Jesus Christ and though sown in Corruption and dishonour to be raised in â—…lory 1 Cor. 15. Now though as we said the learned Heathens did many of them by the exercise of their reason make it probable to themselves that their souls were immortal and that in another world vertuous persons shall be richly rewarded yet no reasoning of theirs could ever enable them so much as to conjecture that this reward shall be such an immensely great one as that the Gospel assures us of there being an infinite disproportion betwixt the best services that the most vertuous persons are in a possibility of performing and such a reward as this is and it being also impossible that so great a felicity as that of the Soul only should be a necessary and natural result from the highest degrees of holiness that are attainable in this low and imperfect state But yet it is too well known to be concealed that the Pythagoraeans and Platonists do speak very great things of the happiness of Heaven and those of them that discourse intelligibly concerning it do give in the general the Gospel-notion of it I have found Simplicius somewhere in his Comment on Epictetus calling it an eternal rest with God And the Pythagoraean verses conclude with these two 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 When from this body thou' rt set free Thou shalt mount up toth ' Sky And an immortal God shalt be Nor any more shalt die Where by Thou shalt be an immortal God the Commentator Hierocles understands thou shalt be like to the immortal Gods and by them he meaneth as appears by his Comment upon the first verse those excellent spirits that are immediately subordinate to their Maker the supreme God and the God of Gods as he calls him by which he seemeth to understand the same with those called in the Scripture Arch-Angels for I find that he gives the name Angels to an order next below them So that according to him it was the Pythagoraean doctrine That good men shall when they go to Heaven be made in state and condition like to those that are likest to God Almighty But how they should learn this by mere natural Light is unimaginable That which is most probably conjectured is that they received these with several other notions from the
antient traditions of the Hebrews But as for their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the splendid body and spiritual vehicle they talk of they mean not that Glorious Coelestial body which the Apostle tells us this Terrestial one shall be changed into but a thin subtile body which they say the soul even while it is in this gross one is immediately inclosed in And which being in this life well purified from the pollution it hath contracted from its Case of flesh the soul taking its flight from thence with it enjoyeth its happiness in it But I say the change of this vile into a Glorious body they were perfectly strangers to Now what an unspeakable encouragement to Holiness is the happiness which the Gospel proposeth to us and gives us assurance of also that the now mentioned or any of the Philosophers could never by the best improvement of their Intellectuals have conceived to be so much as likely to be attainable by mankind And who would still serve their filthy lusts and in so doing be the vilest of slaves here that looks to reign with the King of the world for ever hereafter He that hath this hope in him saith S. Iohn purisieth himself even as he is pure 1 Iohn 3. 3. And what hath been spoken of the greatness of the Reward which is promised in the Gospel to obedient persons may be said also of the punishment it threateneth to the disobedient It would make one would think even an heart of Oak and the most hardened sinner to tremble and shake at the reading of those expressions it is set forth by Some of the Philosophers do speak very dreadful things concerning the condition of wicked men in the other world but they fall extremely short of what the Gospel hath declared But I confess a discourse on this head will not very properly come in here For mere reason might make it exceedingly probable that so highly aggravated sins as those which are committed against the Gospel are shall be punish'd as severely if impenitently persisted in as is declared by our Saviour and his Apostles they shall be But however it is no small awakening to us Christians that we have such an undoubted assurance from God himself what we must expect if we will not be prevailed upon by all the means afforded us for our reformation but shall notwithstanding them persevere in the neglect of known duties and in the allowance of known wickedness CHAP. XV. That the Gospel containeth incomparably greater helps for the effecting of the design of making men inwardly righteous and truly holy than God's most peculiar people the Israelites were favoured with Where it is shewed 1. That the Gospel is infinitely more effectual for this purpose than the Mosaical Law was 2. And that upon no other accounts the Jewes were in circumstances for the obtaining of a thorow reformation of life and purification of nature comparable to those our Saviour hath blessed his Disciples with IN the second place it is the clearest case That the Gospel of our Saviour containeth incomparably greater helps and advantages for the effecting of the great work of making men really righteous and truly holy than God's most peculiar people the Israelites whom he knew and favoured above all the nations of the earth were partakers of First Nothing is plainer than that the Gospel is infinitely more effectual for this purpose than the Mosaical Law was For indeed that was directly designed only to restrain those that were under the obligation of it from the more notorious sins It was added saith the Apostle because of Transgression till the Seed should come c. Gal. 3. 19. Iustin Martyr saith particularly of the Sacrifices that the end of them was to keep the Jews from worshipping Idols which Trypho also though a Jew that greatly gloried in the Law acknowledged They were an extremely carnal and vain people exceedingly prone to be bewitched with the Superstitions of the Gentiles God gave them therefore a pompous way of worship that might gratifie their childish humour and so keep them from being drawn away with the vanities of the Heathens among whom they dwelt and he gave them withall such Precepts inforced with threatnings of most severe and present punishments as might by main force hold them in from those vile disorders immoralities and exorbitances that had then overspread the face of the woefully depraved corrupted world It is certain that the Law of Moses strictly so called did properly tend to make them no more than externally righteous and whosoever was so and did those works it enjoined which they might do by their own natural strength was esteemed according to that Law and dealt with as just and blameless and had a right to the immunities and privileges therein promised But much less was it accompanied with grace to indue the observers of it with an inward principle of Holiness And the Apostle S. Paul expresseth this as the great difference between that Law and the Gospel in calling this the Spirit and that the Letter as he several times doth Not that God who was ever of an infinitely benign nature and love it self as S. Iohn describes him was wanting with his Grace to well-minded men under the Old-Testament or that the Jews were all destitute of an inward principle of Holiness nothing less But the Law which Moses was peculiarly the promulger of did not contain any promises of Grace nor did the obligation thereof extend any farther than to the outward man But there ran as I may so express my self a vein of Gospel all along with this Law which was contained in the Covenant made with Abraham and his Seed by virtue of which the good men among the Jews expected Justification and eternal Salvation and performed the substance of those Duties which the New Testament requireth and which were both by Moses and the Prophets at certain times and upon several occasions urged upon them But as for this Law of Moses considered according to its natural meaning it is called a Law of a carnal Commandment Heb. 7. 16. And the services it imposed weak and beggerly Elements Gal. 4. 9. And a Law which made no man perfect Heb. 7. 19. Its promises therefore were only temporal upon which account the Author to the Hebrews saith that the Gospel is established on better promises Nor was Justification before God obtainable by it as S. Paul frequently sheweth and therefore did account the righteousness of it very mean and vile in comparison of that which the Gospel indued men with No man could be acquitted by the severest observance of this Law from any other than Civil punishments nor were its Sacrifices able to make the offerers perfect as pertaining to the conscience Heb. 9. 9. And though it be true as Mr. Chillingworth observeth in his Sermon on Gal. 5. 5. That the legal Sacrifices were very apt and commodious to shadow forth the oblation and satisfaction of