are enlightned by his vvisdome justified by his merits sanctified by his grace are yet conflicting vvith manifold temptations and strugling with varieties of miseries and dangers till upon their happy death and glorious resurrection they shall be fully freed by their ever-blessed and victorious Redeemer He therefore vvho by vertue of that heavenly union is made unto us of God Wisdome Righteousnesse Sanctification is also upon the same ground made unto us our full Redemption Redemption implies a captivity We are naturally under the vvofull bondage of the Law of sin of miseries of death The Law is a cruell exactor for it requires of us vvhat vvee cannot now doe and vvhips us for not doing it for the Law worketh wrath and as many as are of the workes of the Law are under the curse Sinne is a vvorse tyrant then he and takes advantage to exercise his cruelty by the Law For when we were in the flesh the motions of sins which were by the Law did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death Upon sinne necessarily follows misery the forerunner of death and death the upshot of all miseries By one man sinne entred into the world and death by sin and so death passed upon all men for that all have sinned From all these is Christ our Redemption from the Law for Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the Law being made a curse for us From sin for we are dead to sin but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord Sin shall not have dominion over you for ye are not under the Law but under Grace From death and therein from all miseries O death where is thy sting O grave where is thy victory The sting of death is sinne and the strength of sinne is the Law But thanks be to God which giveth us victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Now then let the Lavv doe his vvorst we are not under the Law but under Grace The case therefore is altered betwixt the Law and us It is not now a cruell Task-master to beat us to and for our vvork it is our School-master to direct and to whip us unto Christ It is not a severe Judge to condemne us it is a friendly guide to set us the vvay towards heaven Let sin joyn his forces together vvith the Law they cannot prevail to our hurt For what the Law could not doe in that it was weak through the flesh God sending his owne Son in the likenesse of sinfull flesh condemned sin in the flesh that the righteousnesse of the Law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit Let death joyn his forces vvith them both vve are yet safe For the Law of the spirit of life hath freed us from the Law of sin and of death What can vve therefore fear vvhat can vve suffer vvhiles Christ is made our Redemption Finally as thus Christ is made unto us Wisdome Righteousnesse Sanctification Redemption so whatsoever else he either is or hath or doth by vertue of this blessed union becomes ours he is our riches our strength our glory our salvation our all he is all to us and all is ours in him From these primary and intrinsecal priviledges therefore flow all those secondary and externall vvherewith vve are blessed and therein a right to all the blessings of God both of the right hand and of the left an interesse in all the good things both of earth and heaven Hereupon it is that the glorious Angels of Heaven become our Guardians keeping us in all our ways and vvorking secretly for our good upon all occasions that all Gods creatures are at our service that we have a true spirituall title to them All things are yours saith the Apostle and ye are Christs and Christ Gods But take heed my son of mis-laying thy claime to what and in what manner thou ought'st not There is a civill right that must regulate our propriety to these earthly things our spirituall right neither gives us possession of them nor takes away the right and propriety of others Every man hath and must have what by the just Lawes of purchase gift or inheritance is derived to him otherwise there would follow an infinite confusion in the world we could neither enjoy nor give our owne and onely will and might must be the arbiters of all mens estates which how unequall it would be both reason and experience can sufficiently evince This right is not for the direption or usurpation of that which civill titles have legally put over to others there were no theft no robbery no oppression in the world if any mans goods might be every mans But for the warrantable and comfortable injoying of those earthly commodities in regard of God their originall owner which are by humane convciances justly become ours The earth is the Lords and the fulnesse of it in his right what ever parcells doe lawfully descend unto us we may justly possesse as we have them legally made over to us from the secondary and immediate owners There is a generation of men who have vainly fancied the founding of Temporall dominion in Grace and have upon this mistaking outed the true heyres as intruders and feoffed the just and godly in the possession of wicked inheritors which whether they be worse Commonwealths-men or Christians is to me utterly uncertaine sure I am they are enemies to both whiles on the one side they destroy all civill propriety and commerce and on the other retch the extent of the power of Christianity so far as to render it injurious and destructive both to reason and to the Lawes of all well-ordred humanity Nothing is ours by injury and injustice all things are so ours that we may with a good conscience enjoy them as from the hand of a munificent God when they are rightfully estated upon us by the lawfull convention or bequest of men In this regard it is that a Christian man is the Lord of the whole universe and hath a right to the whole creation of God how can he challenge lesse he is a son and in that an heire and according to the high expression of the holy ghost a co-heir with Christ As therefore we may not be high-minded but fear so we may not be too low-harted in the under-valuing of our condition In God we are great now mean soever in our selves In his right the world is ours what ever pittance we enjoy in our owne how can we goe lesse when we are one with him who is the possessour of heaven and earth It were but a poore comfort to us if by vertue of this union wee could only lay claime to all earthly things alas how vaine and transitory are the best of these perishing under our hand in the very use of them and in the meane while how unsatisfying in the fruition All this were nothing if we
a greater never allowed as good neither had so much as that toleration ever been if the hard-heartednesse and cruelty of that people had not enforced it upon Moses in a prevention of further mischief 〈◊〉 what place can this finde with a God in whom there is an infinite tendernesse of love and mercy No time can be any check to his gracious choice the inconstant mindes of us men may alter upon sleight dislikes our God is ever himself Jesus Christ the same yesterday and to day and for ever with him there is no variablenesse nor shadow of turning Divorces were ever grounded upon hatred No man saith the Apostle ever yet hated his owne flesh much lesse shall God do so who is love it self His love and our union is like himself everlasting Having loved his own saith the Disciple of Love which were in the world he loved them to the end He that hates putting away can never act it so as in this relation we are indissoluble Can they have received that bread which came down from heaven and that flesh which is meat indeed and that bloud which is drink indeed can their souls have digested it by a lively faith and converted themselves into it and it into themselves and can they now think it can be severed from their own substance Can they finde themselves truly ingraffed in the tree of life and grown into one body with that heavenly plant and as a living branch of that tree bearing pleasant and wholesome fruit acceptable to God and beneficiall to men and can they look upon themselves as some withered bough fit onely for the fire Can they find themselves living stones surely laid upon the foundation Jesus Christ to the making up of an heavenly Temple for the eternall inhabitation of God and can they think they can be shaken out with every storm of Temptation Have these men ever taken into their serious thoughts that divine prayer and meditation which our blessed Redeemer now at the point of his death left for an happy farewell to his Church in every word whereof there is an heaven of comfort Neither pray I for these alone but for them also which shall beleeve in me through their word That they all may be one as thou Father art in me and I in thee that they also may bee one with us And the glory that thou gavest me I have given them that they may be one even as we are one I in them and thou in me Oh heavenly consolation oh indefeasible assurance what roome can there be now here for our diffidence Can the Son of God pray and not be heard For himselfe hee needs not pray as being eternally one with the Father God blessed for ever he prays for his his prayer is That they may be one w th the Father him even as they are one They cannot therefore but be partakers of this blessed union and being partakers of it they cannot be dissevered And to make sure work that glory which the Father gave to the Son of his Love they are already through his gracious participation prepossessed of here they have begun to enter upon that heaven from which none of the powers of hell can possibly eject them Oh the unspeakably happy condition of beleevers Oh that all the Saints of God in a comfortable sense of their inchoate blessednesse could sing for joy and here before-hand begin to take up those Hallelujahs which they shall ere long continue and never end in the Chore of the highest Heaven Having now taken a view of this blessed union in the nature and resemblances of it it will be time to bend thine eyes upon those most advantageous consequents and high priviledges which doe necessarily follow upon and attend this heavenly conjunction Whereof the first is that which we are wont to account sweetest Life Not this naturall life which is maintained by the breath of our nosthrils Alas what is that but a bubble a vapour a shadow a dreame nothing as it is the gift of a good God worthy to be esteemed precious but as it is considered in its own transitorinesse and appendent miseries and in comparison of a better life not worthy to take up our hearts This life of nature is that which ariseth from the union of the body with the soul many times enjoyed upon hard tearms the spirituall life which we now speak of arising from the union betwixt God and the soul is that wherein there can be nothing but perfect contentment and joy unspeakable and full of glory Yea this is that life which Christ not only gives but is he that gave himself for us gives himselfe to us and is that life that he gives us When Christ which is our life shall appeare saith the Apostle And Christ is to me to live and most emphatically I am crucified with Christ Neverthelesse I live yet not I but Christ liveth in mee Lo it is a common favour that in him we live but it is an especiall favour to his own that he lives in us Know you not your own selves saith the Apostle how that Jesus Christ is in you except ye be reprobates and wheresoever he is there he lives we have not a dead Saviour but a living and where he lives he animates It is not therefore Saint Pauls case alone it is every beleevers who may truly say I live yet not I but Christ liveth in mee now how these lives and the authors of them are distinguished is worth thy carefullest consideration Know then my son that every faithfull mans bosome is a Rebeccaes womb wherein in there are twins a rough Esau and the seed of promise the old man and the new the flesh and the spirit and these have their lives distinct from each other the new man lives not the life of the old neither can the old man live the life of the new it is not one life that could maintain the opposite struglings of both these Corrupt nature is it that gives and continues the life of the old man It is Christ that gives life to the new we cannot say but the old man or flesh is the man too For I know saith the chosen Vessell that in me that is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing but the spirituall part may yet better challenge the title For I delight in the Law of God after the inward man That old man of ours is derived from the first Adam as we sinned in him so hee liveth in us The second Adam both gives and is the life of our regeneration like as he is also the life of our glory the life that follows our second resurrection I am saith he the resurrection and the life What is it then whereby the new creature lives surely no other then the Spirit of Christ that alone is it that gives beeing and life to the renued soule Life is no
have peace at the last ransack them thoroughly not contenting your selves with a perfunctory and fashionable over-sight which will one day leave you irremediably miserable but so search as those that resolve not to give over till you finde these gracious dispositions in your bosomes which I have here described to you so shall we be and make each other happy in the successe of our holy labours which the God of heaven blesse in both our hands to his own glory and our mutuall comfort in the day of the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ Amen THE CHRISTIAN THE Christian is a man and more an earthly Saint an Angel cloathed in flesh the onely lawfull image of his Maker and Redeemer the abstract of Gods Church on earth a modell of heaven made up in clay the living Temple of the holy Ghost For his disposition it hath in it as much of heaven as his earth may make room for He were not a man if he were quite free from corrupt affections but these he masters and keeps in with a strait hand and if at any time they grow resty and headstrong he breaks them with a severe discipline and will rather punish himself then not tame them Hee checks his appetite with discreet but strong denials and forbears to pamper nature lest it grow wanton and impetuous He walks on earth but converses in heaven having his eyes fixed on the invisible and enjoying a sweet communion with his God and Saviour Whiles all the rest of the world sits in darknesse he lives in a perpetuall light the heaven of heavens is open to none but him thither his eye pierceth and beholds those beams of inaccessible glory which shine in no face but his The deep mysteries of godlinesse which to the great Clerks of the world are as a book clasped and sealed up lye open before him fair and legible and whiles those book-men know whom they have heard of hee knowes whom he hath beleeved He will not suffer his Saviour to be ever out of his eye and if through some worldly interceptions he lose the sight of that blessed object for a time he zealously retrives him not without an angry check of his own mis-carriage and is now so much the more fixed by his former slackning so as he will henceforth sooner part with his soul then his Redeemer The tearmes of entirenesse wherein he stands with the Lord of life are such as he can feel but cannot expresse though hee should borrow the language of Angels it is enough that they two are one spirit His reason is willingly captivated to his faith his will to his reason and his affections to both He fears nothing that he sees in comparison of that which he sees not and displeasure is more dreadfull to him then smart Good is the adequate object of his love which he duly proportions according to the degrees of its eminence affecting the chiefe good not without a certaine ravishment of spirit the lesser with a wise and holy moderation Whether he do more hate sin or the evil spirit that suggests it is a question Earthly contentments are too mean grounds whereon to raise his joy these as hee baulks not whē they meet him in his way so he doth not too eagerly pursue he may taste of them but so as he had rather fast then surset He is not insensible of those losses w ch casualty or enmity may inflict but that w ch lyes most heavily upon his heart is his sin This makes his sleep short troublesome his meals stomacklesse his recreations listlesse his every thing tedious till he finde his soul acquitted by his great Surety in heaven which done he feels more peace and pleasure in his calm then he found horrour in the tempest His heart is the store-house of most precious graces That faith whereby his soul is established triumphs over the world wvether it allure or threaten and bids defiance to all the powers of darknesse not fearing to be foiled by any opposition His hope cannot be discouraged with the greatest difficulties but bears up against naturall impossibilities and knows how to reconcile contradictions His charity is both extensive and fervent barring out no one that bears the face of a man but pouring out it self upon the houshold of faith that studies good constructions of men and actions and keeps it self free both from suspicion and censure Grace doth not more exalt him then his humility depresses him Were it not for that Christ who dwels in him he could think himself the meanest of all creatures now he knows he may not disparage the Deity of him by whom he is so gloriously inhabited in whose only right he can be as great in his own thoughts as he is despicable in the eyes of the world He is wise to God-ward however it be with him for the world and well knowing he cannot serve two masters he cleaves to the better making choice of that good part which can never be taken from him not so much regarding to get that which he cannot keep as to possesse himself of that good which he cannot lose He is just in all his dealings with men hating to thrive by injury and oppression and will rather leave behinde something of his own then silch from anothers heap Hee is not close-fisted where there is just occasion of his distribution willingly parting with those metals which he regards onely for use not caring for either their colour or substance earth is to him no other then it self in what hiew so ever it appeareth In every good cause hee is bold as a Lion and can neither fear faces nor shrink at dangers and is rather heartned with opposition pressing so much the more where he findes a large door open and many adversaries and when he must suffer doth as resolutely stoop as he did before valiantly resist He is holily temperate in the use of all Gods blessings as knowing by whom they are given and to what end neither dares either to mis-lay them or to mis-spend them lavishly as duly weighing upon what tearms he receives them and fore-expecting an account Such an hand doth he carry upon his pleasures and delights that they run not away with him he knows how to slacken the reins without a debauched kind of dissolutenesse and how to straiten them without a sullen rigour He lives as a man that hath borrowed his time and challenges not to be an owner of it caring to spend the day in a gracious and well-governed thrift His first mornings task after he hath lifted up his heart to that God who gives his beloved sleep shall be to put himself into a due posture wherein to entertain himself and the whole day which shall be done if he shall effectually work his thoughts to a right apprehension of his God of himself of all that may concern him The true posture of a Christian then is this He sees still heaven open to him and beholds