once being in Court and Grace I illustrate it thus There 's a Catholick Pardon in a Statute of Parliament for Grace to all Traitors and that for Treasons past and also to come upon condition that after new Treasons committed they addresse themselves to the Publike Register of the State and cause insert their names in the blank of that Act of Grace Printed and in the keeping of some Officer of State now though any one be Pardoned at his first lapse fully if he fail again and again and yet perform the condition prescribed in Law we cannot say he hath obtained twenty a hundred yea as many severall pardons of Grace as he hath failed against King and State it s but one publike Act of Grace made use of severall times so here in the Gospel there is a written Act of the Grace of God in Iesus Christ Remission to all under the Treason of sin against the Royall Crown and glory of the most High the Supreame Law-Giver and that to the acceptation of the person of the Traitor in full favour when he shall have in his conscience the transumpt or transcript of it at first and also for Grace and Pardon of all after-slips and sins against the glory of the Redemer so he sin not against the only flower of the Prerogative-Royall the operation of the Holy Ghost in a speciall manner upon condition he walk from Faith to Faith and renew his addresse to Christ the great Lord of the Rolls who keepeth the Book of life now I cannot see here many Pardons of Grace but only the double Extract or Copy of the first Act of Free-Grace Obj. 2. But the sins pardoned to the Justified person after the first justification of his person were never pardoned before and they are now pardoned therefore there must be two justifications Ans. They were virtually pardoned and so as he shall never come to condemnation for any sins past or to come but the man now standeth Justus in curia justified in the Court whereas before his first beleeving God looked at him as a judge doth at a guilty person whose person he absolveth from all punishment because his surety hath given a ransom for him and he holdeth forth that ransom to the Judge but the man in all his after faults is so far forth a sinner as that which he hath done though he be a justified David displeaseth the Lord 2 Sam. 11.27 And in so far is he pardoned but God now looketh on him as a Father on an offending Son and this Son doth not hold forth a new ransome to God but onely renew the former nor doth it infer a new acceptance of his person that he had not before 3. Nor place in God any new love of free complacency and good will but only a further manifestation thereof and a greater measure of the love of benevolence 4. It is the same Act of Free-Grace that God putteth forth in pardoning his son now fallen in sin and in accepting his person at first 2. It s the same ransome of Christs atonement of his dear blood that his Faith layeth hold on now as before 3. The pardon of this sin committed by a justified son is not the freeing of him from the eternall punishment of this sin as if he had been under eternall wrath for it before for at his first beleeving when his person was accepted he was fully and freely pardoned and freed from all the obligation to eternall wrath that all or any of his sins past present or to come might subject him unto but it is the renewing of the certainty of the sufficiency of Christs ransom as applyed to take away that sin in particular and that by a renewed Act of Faith now the renewed apprehension of the Grace of God in the same ransom of blood for righteousnesse in Christ as applied to this new guiltinesse maketh not a new forinsecall and Law-act but doth only apply the Lords first Act of Grace to this particular sin nor do I mean that Faith for Remission of sins committed after a soul is in the state of justification is nothing else but a meer reflect Act by which we apprehend and know the first acceptance of a sinner to righteousnesse for it is a direct Act apprehending the former grace of a sufficient ransom as applied to this new contracted guiltinesse for the sinner is condemned for unbelief Joh. 3.18 36. And because he believeth not he is lyable to the wrath of God now he is not condemned because he doth not to his own sense know feel and apply the Remission of sins and satisfaction purchased in Christs blood for him because then he should be condemned because he doth not believe a lie for there was never any such Remission purchased for him he is condemned not for want of sense and actuall knowledge of any such pardon but for want of confiding on Christ as on him who hath made a sufficient atonement for all that believeth and so justifying Faith is some other thing then the sense of purchased Pardon of sins Object 3. Then may I with the like boldnesse believe the Remission of these sins that I am to commit and so sin boldly because I am perswaded they cannot prevail to condemne me eternally as I may with boldnesse believe the Remission of sins already committed Ans. There is a boldnesse of faith And 2. a sinfull boldnes In regard of boldnesse of faith I am to believe the sufficiency of that unvaluable ransome that it cannot be more or lesse nor intended or remitted but doth lie under the eye of justice and equally accepted of God as able to remove the eternall guilt of all sins past present as also of those to come but it were sinfull boldnesse to commit sin because Christ hath payed for it it s a motive to the contrary not to live to our selves but to him that died for us because Christ bare our sins on his own body on the Tree 1 Pet. 3.24 1 Pet. 1.18 Gal. 1.4 Rom. 6.1 2 3 4. 1 Pet. 4.1 2. For though I be perswaded there is no fear of eternall wrath in sins to be committed for my faith beleeveth freedom from that in regard of all sins there be other stronger motives to eschew sin then fear of Hell even fear of violating infinite love and mercy there 's a more prevailing and efficacious power in apprehended love to keep from sin it being saving grace then in fear of Hell which of it self is no grace 2. Fear of punishment of sin as sin is to keep from sin though it be not fear of eternall punishent the eternity of punishment is no wayes essentiall to punishment Libertines close remove this motive who will have no sin as sin in Gods Court punished in the beleever It s not punished in Order to satisfaction of justice but it followeth not that it s not punishable as sin Obj. It is mercenary and peculiar to hirelings to
sign even as the day-star maketh not the Sun to rise it being only a signe that the Sun shall rise and that justification is as old a childe of free-love as election to life Then say I Paul might have taken the like pains to prove these Propositions We are chosen to glory before the world was by faith and not by the good works of the Law and this men are reprobated from eternity by finall unbeleef For sure it is that we come to the knowledge of our election to glory by beleeving not to say that Pauls large dispute with justiciaries was not whether we know and apprehend our own justification by the works of the Law or by faith in Christ. 3. If Antinomians say That Christ was slain for our sins from eternity not actually but only in Gods eternall purpose and they must say either he was the Lamb actually crucified for us from eternity which is a new eternal world we are actually justified from eternity and our sins imputed to Christ and actually translated off us and laid on him and so our sins are actually pardoned from eternity Or then they must say Christ was the Lambe slain from eternity not actually not really but only in the decree and gracious purpose of God now that is I grant sound Divinity Christ died not from eternity but God only decreed and purposed that in the fulnesse of time he should die But then it must follow that God did not actually charge sin on Christ from eternity and that Christ did not actually from eternity justifie the ungodly but onely in his eternall purpose he did justifie the ungodly Then the ungodly are justified in time and when is this time I believe the word of God that it is never while the poor soul believe even as the sinner is condemned and under wrath but never while he mis-believe and reject the Son of God But 4. if the meaning that Christ is the Lamb slain for our sins from eternity be that he is slain only in Gods purpose then are we no more justified and pardoned from eternity and so before we beleeve then the world was created from eternity Now in the Antinomian sense as we are justified by faith that is we come to know that we were in Gods minde actually justified Then it may be said The world was created by faith For Heb. 11.2 Through faith we understood that the world was created and God laid our sins upon Christ by faith and Christ died for us and bare our sins on his own body on the tree by faith For by faith we come to know that God made the world but because the knowledge and apprehension of the creation may some say is not a point serving for peace of conscience and Christian consolation which yet is false every point of saving faith is apt to breed peace and consolation yet certainly we came to know and apprehend that God laid our sins upon Christ by faith Isa. 53.6 and that Christ died for us and bare our sins on his own body on the tree by faith and by faith only to our peace and consolation and so if justification by faith be nothing but the manifestation of Gods love to us in imputing our sins to Christ and have no subordinat organicall act in our justification but we be justified before we believe and that from eternity upon the very same ground God created the world by faith Christ died for our sins by faith 5. Yea in this sense the world must be created from eternity and all things which fell out in time fell out in eternity because as Christ was the Lamb slain from eternity in Gods eternall purpose so were all things and the world created from eternity in Gods purpose and decree but things that only have being in the decree of God are not simply nor have they any being at all and therefore our free justification from eternity had no being but only was to be and actually is when God giveth us faith to lay hold on the remission of our sins Nor is it enough to say That faith is only given for our joy and consolation and not for the alteration and change of our state that of unjustified we may be justified For this layeth down these false grounds 1. The believer is so â—n every moment of time to rejoice as he is never to sorrow for sin nor to confesse sin because â—ins were pardoned from all eternity but so neither after a soul believe nor before he believe is he to confesse sins or mourn for them because both after and before yea from eterniâ—y sins are not at all but removed in Christ. 2. It â—ayeth down this ground that we are justified no more by faith then by the works done by the saving grace of God after regeneration â—nd that Paul in the Epistle to the Romanes â—nd Galatians does contend with justiciaries â—ow these who were from eternity justified shall come to know and apprehend for their â—wn peace joy and consolation that they were â—ustified and elected to glory whether men â—ay know this by faith in Christ or by the works of the Law But 1. this is not the state of the question between Paul and the Justiciaries For Rom. 3. Paul concludeth strongly we are really and indeed changed from a state of sin unto a state of justification even before God not because by keeping the Law we know we are justified but because all have sinned and are come short of the glory of God and so are inherently wicked abominable doers of ill and condemned therefore before God from Davids testimony Psal. 14. Psal. 53. This Argument concludeth reall and intrinsecall condemnation v. 19. not the knowledge of condemnation nor the knowledge that we are not justified by the works of the Law Rom. 4.2 Paul proveth that we are justified as David and Abraham was Now they are not said to be justified by faith because they come by faith to the knowledge of their justification for Abrahams righteousnesse and the blessednesse of the justified man opposed to the curse of the Law from which we are freed in justification Gal. 3.10 11 12 13. is the reall fruit of justification and of believing in him that justifieth the ungodly Rom. 4.1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9. But this blessednesse and freedom from the curse of the Law is not any fruit or effect or consequent of our knowledge and apprehension of our justification in Christ as if we were before we believe blessed and freed from the curse of the Law because ever the Elect before they believe are under the curse and are not blessed 1. Because they are before they believe the children of wrath Eph. 2.2 Ergo They are under the curse 2. Because Paul and the Elect before they be under grace and belief were under the Law and so under wrath Rom. 6.14 15 16 17. Rom. 7.4 Wherefore my brethren ye also are become dead to the Law by the
God Obj. 2. Denne pag. 36. Obj. 3. Pag. 37. Denne Serm. Grace mercy peace Pag 38 Pag. 38 39. What it is to be under the Law Pag. 44. Pap. 45 46. Pag. 54. Pro. 4. How God loveth us before time how he now loveth us in time By faith and conversion to God our state is truely before God changed To be justified by faith is not barely to come to the knowledg that wee are justified before we believe or from eternity Serm. of grace mercy peace pa. 33 34. Iustification not eternall Faith is not onely given for our joy and consolation also for our justification but in our own soul and before God 6. Pro. There 's no ground for two reconciliations in Scripture one of mans reconciliation to God another of Gods reconciliation to man Christs merites no cause but an effect of Gods eternall love of Election What reconciliation is properly Pro. 7. Ser. 2. Recon of man to God pa. 16. Ioy of the holy Ghost without all sorrow is no fruit of the Kingdome of God Serm. 1. Reconcil pag. 85 86 87. The seeing of GOD Heb. 12.14 and the Kingdome of GOD 1 Cor. 6. and Joh. 3.3 not meant of the kingdome of Grace Pro. 8. How all acts of blood rough dealing in Christ toward his people become mercy tender compassion Omnipotencie hath influence 1. On Satan 2 On diseases 3. Stark Death 4. On life it self 5. On Mother-nothing 6. On all creatures c. Obedientiall power in the creature what it is 1. Use. Omnipotency is as it were a servant to Faith 2. Use. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 3. Use. We worship a Dependent God 4. Use. We have need of of the devil and other temptations for our humiliation Isai. 57.19 Immediate mercies the sweetest mercies The Lords action on us in glory immediate Immediate comforts in a sad condition sweetest Immediate mercies partake of immediate sweetnes from Christ the fountain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God immediate in his most glorious works and must be so in this great work now on the wheels in these 3 Kingdoms The deceitfulnesse of our confidence when God and the creature are joined in one work 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arias Monta. Quâ—a in medicis Christs power over Devils Christ in four relations dominion over devils Satan goeth no where without a Passe We often sign Satans conditionall passe A renued will is a renewed man A civile wil is not a sanctified will The yielding of the soul to God and to his light a speciall note of a renewed will 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Affections sanctified especially desires The lesse mixture in the affections the stronger are their operations Mind affections doe mutually and reciprocally vitiate one another Desires spiritual seek naturall things spiritually desires carnall seek spirituall things naturally God submitteth in a maner his liberality of Grace to the measure of a sanctified will 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Our affections in their acts and comprehension are far below spirituall objects Christ heaven c. about which they act More in Christ and heaven then our faith in this life can reach 1. Sathan not cast out of a Land or person but by violence both to Satan the party 2. 1. False peace known A roaring and a raging Devil is better then a calm and sleeping Devil 2. Luke 4.13 3. 4. Gods way of hardning blinding as its mystrious so its silent and invisible
heaven in five particulars ibid. The Saints most dependent creatures p. 135. How we know the Scripture to be the Word of GOD two grounds one in the subject another in the object p. 136. Phancy leadeth not the Saints but Faith p. 137. How the Saints need a fresh supply of Grace from Christ though they have a habit and stock of grace within them proved by six reasons p. 138. Grace and glory but one continued thred p. 140. Three considerations we are to have of Gods work in leading us to Heaven p. 140 141. Faith is both active and passive ibid Desertions have reall advancing in the way to Heaven in eleven particulars ibid. We are not freed from Law-Directions p. 142. Actuall condemnation may be and is separated from the Law ibid. Two Objections removed p. 142. How works of holinesse conduce to salvation three things herein to be distinguished p. 143. We are to doe good works both from the principle of Law and love p 145. Oâ—her three Objections removed ibid. Of the Letter both of Law and Gospel diverse errors of Libertines touching the point p. 146. The Scriptures are not to be condemned because they profit not without the teaching of the Spirit proved by three reasons p. 147. Repentance different from Faith proved against Liberti p. 148 Repentance the same in the Old and New Testament p. 149. SERM. XIV In what sense Christ came to save the lost p. 150. A twofold preparation for Christ to be considered p. 151. Conversion is done by foregoing preparations and successively proved by four reasons p. 152. Sense of poverty fitteth for Christ p. 154. The Objections of D. Crispe removed sinners as sinners not fit to receive Christ p. 155. How Christ belongs to sinners under the notion of sinners ibid How the spirit acts most in the Saints when they endeavour least p. 157. The marrow of Libertinisme to neglect sanctification and to wallow in fleshly lusts ibid. Christs death maketh us active in duties of holinesse proved from three grounds p. 158. How Christ keepeth us from sin p. 159. SERM. XV. Eight necessary duties râ—quired of a beleever under Desertion 1. Patience 2. Faith c. p. 160. Hope Prophesieth glad tidings at midnight p. 162. It s a blessed mark when temptations chaseth not a soul from duties illustrated in three cases p. 166. It argueth three good things to go on in duties under a temptation p. 167. Antinomians take men off duties p. 169. Christ tempted cannot sin saints tempted dare not sin p. 170 Faith traffiqueth with heaven in the saddâ—st storms p. 171. SERM. XVI Nationall sins may occur to the conscience of the childe of God in his approach to God p. 172 173. A subtill humble pride the disease of weak ones who dare not apply the promises p. 175. Sense of Free-grace humbleth exceedingly ibid. How far forth conscience of wretchednesse hindereth any to come to Christ p. 177. Who ever doubâ—eth if God will save him doubteth also if God can save him p. 179. Sin kâ—â—peth not the door of Christ to hold out the sinner p. 180 Sense of sin and sense of the grace of Christ may consist p. 181. Holy walking and Christs excellency may both be felt by the believer holy walking considered as 1. A duty 2. A mean 3 A thing promised in the Covenant of Grace ibid· How we may collect our state and condition from holy walâ—ing p 182. The error of D. Crispe and Antinomians herein p. 183 Christ a great house-holder p. 184. The priviledge of the children of the house ibid. Christ the bread of life p. 185. Communion between the Children and the first heir Christ in five particulars ibid. The spirit of an heir and of a servant p. 186. There is a seed of hope and comforts in the hardest desertions of the Saints in three particulars illustrated p. 187. SERM. XVII Grace maketh quicknesse and wittinesse of heavenly reasoning p 189. Faith contradicteth Christ tempting but humbly and modestly p. 190. The Saints may dispute their state with Christ when they dare not dispute their actions p. 191. We are to accept humbly and with patience of a wakened conscience but not to seek a storming conscience ibid. True humility and its way in seven particulars see the place p 192. How we are to esteem every man better then our selves p. 195. The proud man known a far off p. 195. Graces lowlinesse in taking notice of sinners p. 196. Causes of unthankfulnesse p. 197. A justified soul is to confesse sin proved by three Arguments p. 199. And to mourn for sin by divers reasons p. 202. If we be not to mourn for sin committed because it s pardoned nor should our will be averse from the committing of it because before it be commited it is also pardoned as Antinomians teach p. 203. Libertines conspire with Papists in the doctrine of justification p. 206. SERM. XVIII How sins are removed in justification how not p. 207. There remaineth sin formally in the Justified proved by siâ— Arguments p. 208. How sin dwelleth in us after we are justified p. 209 A twofold removall of sin one Morall or Legall in justification another Physicall in our sanctification p. 210. The difference between the removall of sin in justification and its removall in sanctification p. 214. Seven grounds why sin dwelleth still in the justified person 216 How sins past present and to come are pardoned in justification p. 224. There 's a twofold consideration of justification but not two justifications p. 225. Sins in three divers respects are taken away according to Scripture ibid. Christs satisfaction performed on the Crosse for sin is not formally justification but only causatively fundamentally or meritoriously p. 226. There 's a change in justification p. 227. How sins not committed are remitted p. 228. There is but one justification of a beleever illustrated by a comparison p. 229. There 's a difference between Pardon of sin the justification of the person and the repeated sense of the pardon p. 230. Justifying Faith is some other thing then the sense of justification p. 232. How fear or hope or reward of glory have influence in our holy walking p. 233.234 Objections removed p. 235. SERM. XIX The Lord Jesus is so made the sinner in suffering for sin as there remaineth no sin in the sinner once pardoned as Antinomians teach especially Doctor Crispe p. 235. Sin so laid on â—hrist as that it leaveth not off to be our sin 238 The guilt of sin sin it self are not one the same thing 241. An inherent blot in sin and the guilt and debt of sin ibid. Two things in debt as in sin p 242. The blot of sin two wayes considered ibid. A twofold guilt in sin one intrinsecall and of the fault another of the punishment and extrinsecall p. 244. Reasons why sin and the guilt of sin cannot be the same 245 Christ not intrinsecally the sinner p. 250. Imputation of sin no imagination no lie p. 251.
2.20 Receiving Christ Ioh. 1.11 Having Christ 1 Joh. 5.12 Married to Christ Eph. 5.32 Eating and drinking Christ by Faith Joh. 6.35 47 45. Coming to him as to a living stone 1 Pet. 2.4 Abiding in him as branches in the Tree Joh. 15.4 5. Now if we were justified before we believe we should have a Union by the vitall act of Faith before we be justified and so we should live before we live and be new creatures while we are yet in the State of sin and heirs of wrath 5. This justification without Faith casteth loose the covenant I will be your God But here a condition God is not bound and we free therefore this is the other part And ye shall be my people Now it is taught by Libertines That there can be no closing with Christ in a promise that hath a qualification or condition expressed and that conditionall promises are legall It s true if the word condition be taken in a wrong sence the promises are not conditionall For 1. Arminians take a condition for a free act which we absolutely may perform by free-will not acted by the predeterminating grace of Christ so Jurists take the word but this maketh men Lords of Heaven and Hell and putteth the keys of life and death over to absolute contingency 2. Conditions have a Popish sence for doing that which by some merit moveth God to give to men wages for work and so promises are not conditionall But Libertines deny all conditions But taking condition for any qualification wrought in us by the power of the saving Grace of God Christ promiseth soul ease but upon a condition which I grant his Grace worketh that the soul be sin-sick for Christ and he offereth wine and milk Isa. 55.1 And the water of life freely Rev. 22.17 Upon condition that you buy without money no purse is Christs Grace-Market no hire and sence of wretchednesse is a hire for Christ and the truth is it s an unproper condition if a father promise Lands to a son so he will pay him a thousand Crowns for the Lands and if the Father of Free-grace can only and doth give him the thousand Crowns also the payment is most unproperly a hire or a condition and we may well say the whole bargain is pure Grace for both wages and work is Free-grace but the ground of Libertines is fleshly lazinesse and to sin beâ—cause Grace aboundeth for they print it that all the activity of a Believer is to sin So to beâ—lieve must be sin to run the ways of Gods commandments with a heart inlarged by Grace must be no action of Grace but an action of the flesh 6. Paul in the Epistle to the Romans to the Galatians taketh for granted that justification is a work done in time transient on us not an immanent and eternall action remaining either in God from eternity or performed by Christ on the Crosse before we believe and so never taketh on him to prove that we are justified before we either do the works of the Law or believe in Iesus Christ but that we are justified by Faith which certainly is an act performed by a regenerate person for a new creature only can perform the works of the new creature and Faith is not the naked manifestation of our justification so as we are justified before we have Faith satisfaction is indeed given to justice by Christ on the Crosse for all our sins before we believe and before any justified person who lived these fifteen hundred years be born but alas that is not justification but only the meritorious cause of it that is as if one should say this wall is white since the creation of the world though this very day only it was whited because whitenesse was in the world since the creation justification is a forinsecall sentence in time pronounced in the Gospel and applied to me now and never while the instant now that I believe it s not formally an act of the understanding to know a truth concerning my self but it s an heart-adherance of the affections to Christ as the saviour of sinners at the presence of which a sentance of free absolution is pronounced Suppose the Prince have it in his minde to pardon twenty Malefactors his grace is the cause why they are pardoned yet are they never in Law Pardoned so as they can in Law plead immunity while they can produce their Princes Royall sealed Pardon 5. The properties of the Covenant I call 1. The freedom of it consisting in persons 2. Causes 3. Time 4. Manner of dispensation 1. Men and not condemned Angels are capable of this covenant 2. Amongst men some Nations not others Psal. 147.19 20. 3. So many not any other 4. The Father not the Son the poor not alwayes Kings the Fool not the wise man the husband not the wife not these who were bidden to the Supper but beggers halt withered lame 2. Causes in the first covenant there was Grace not deserving and therefore now as the Law is propounded it is a Pursevant of Grace and the Gospels servant to stand at Christs and the Believers back as an attending servant 2. Yea mercy unto thousands toward those who have but Evangelick love to Christ cometh into the Law Christ having in a sort married the two Covenants 3. I am the Lord thy God Exod. 20. Is Grace standing at the entry of the door to these that are under the Law to bring them out but in the Gospell all is unmixed Grace 1. Not personall obedience is my heaven but I stand still and another doth all that may merit glory Christ saith Do ye but stand still behold me and see friends my garments rolled in blood I bind for you only consent put your hand to the Pen but I am the only undertaker to fight it out for you 3. For time the first breach of the Law is wrath and no place by Law for repentance but here come to Christ who will and when you will after thou hast plaid the Harlot with many lovers bring Hell and sins red as scarlet and crimson come and be washen come at the eleventh hour and welcome fall and rise again in Christ run away and come home again and repent 4. The maner is 1. That so much as would have bought ten thousand worlds of men and devils was given for so many only an infinite superplus of love so as I may say Christ did more then love us Aegypt and Aethiopia was not given for our ransom 2 A sure and eternall Covenant bottom'd upon infinite love Why may not the link be broken and the sheep pluckt out of his hand Why the Father that gave them to me is greater then all Where dwelleth he In what Heaven Who is stronger then the Father The covenant with night and day is naturall and cannot fail confirming Grace in the second Adam is more connaturall 3. Well ordered Christ keeping his
that you were upon the borders of Hell yet the Gospel though it except you from actuall mercy yet not from the duty of believing and comming to Christ and though such think and imagine that they believe Christ is able to save and redeem them only they doubt of his will yet the truth is the doubt of unbelief is more of the power of mercy and infinite Grace in Christ then of his will and my reason is that whosoever believeth Joh. 3.33 hath set to his seal that God is true and 1 Ioh. 5.10 He that believeth not God hath made him a Liar because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son Now it is not Gods Testimony nor any Gospel-Truth that such as sin against the holy Ghost shall be pardoned yea the contrary is said Mat. 12.31 32. Yet these that sin against the holy Ghost are condemned for unbelief as all other unbelievers are Ioh. 3.18 36. Then such as fall in this sin though they say Infinite mercy can pardon them but infinite mercy will not pardon them should not bely God by unbelieving these truths for they are Gospel-truths then must the unbelief of those that sin against the Holy Ghost put a lie upon some Gospel-truth and this can be only on the power of infinite mercy and so they must say Christ cannot save though he would for there 's a power of Christ in mercie no lesse then a will If F. Spira go for a despairing Reprobate which I dare not averre yet when he said he believed Christ was able to save him but he doubted of his will he must not be so understood as if it were so indeed Unbelievers know not all the mysterious turnings of lying self deceiving unbelief Unbelief may lie to men of it self when it dare belie the worth of that soul-redeeming ransome of Christs blood if he that sinneth against the holy Ghost could believe the power of infinite mercy he should also believe the will and inclination of infinite mercy for the power of mercy is the very power of a mercifull will I shall not then be afraid that soul is lost which hath high and capacious apprehensions of the worth value dignity and power of that dear ransome and of infinite mercy It s faith to believe this Gospel-truth which is Heb. 7.25 That Christ is able to save to the utmost all those that come to him if I believe soundly what free grace can do I believe also soundly what free grace will do It s true Christ can save many whom he never will save but the faith of the power of mercie and of his will to save is of a far other consideration 4. It must then be the prevailing of a temptation not to dare to come to Christ because I am a dog and unworthy 1. Because sin is no porter put to watch the door of Christs house of free-grace mercy keepeth the keys sin may object my evill deserving but it cannot object Christs rich deserving 2. That which maketh me unworthy and gracelesse and unfit to be saved may make Christ worthy and gracious to save my sin may be Christs rich grace Though sin maketh me unworthy of Christ yet it maketh me a fit passive object for the Physitian Christ to work on and maketh not Christ unworthy to save If I feel sin it then saith Thou art the very person by name that Christ seeketh Therefore is the sense of sin required as a condition in all that cometh to Christ whether it be before conversion or after conversion when acts of faith are renewed Obj. But we finde by experience that true poverty of spirit and sense of sinfull wretchednesse doth kill and destroy any sight of guilt and wickednesse in my self if I rightly see Christ I shall not also see any unworthinesse in my self Answ. This experience is not warranted by the word of truth These may well consist together 1. That felt and apprehended wretchednesse of a sinner may stand with a sight of Christs riches of grace is as evident as the felt pain of the sting of the fiery Scorpion may stand with looking up to the brazen Serpent and being saved yea when the poor man Mark 9.24 said Lord I believe help my unbeleefe he both was sensible of faith and unbeleefe 2. Yea the converted may well see grace and holinesse in himself else how shall he be thankfull to Christ the giver and also see Christ and beleeve his righteousnesse for holy walking commeth under a threefold consideration 1. As a duty 2. As a mean ordained of God that we should walk in Eph. 2.10 3. As a promise or a thing promised in the new Covenant and in this threefold consideration we may know how far we may build our peace upon any duties as upon evidences of our state of grace 1. as holy walking is a duty coming from us it s no ground of true peace beleevers often seek in themselves what they should seek in Christ this is naturall merit often we argue from the measure of obedience to deny grace altogether this is a false way especially its a false way of logick to argue Negatively from want of such such a measure of obedience to deny you are in Christ how we may argue Affirmatively we shall hear hereafter 2. The dutie is Christs mean not injoyned in a strict Law-way but in a Gospel-way as the commandement is oiled with a Gospel-spirit of love Law and love are not contrary as Antinomians do imagine Christ has united not only persons but also graces and vertues This way the duty is a mean and a way not to the right of salvation but to the actuall possession of it and as it is or standeth stated before us in the letter of the Gospel in a Morall commanding or a Doctrinall or directing way without the efficacy of grace it can be nothing but a Doctrinall-mean no more then the Law-way is for all Gospel-precepts without grace are as little available to us as the Law But in the third Notion holy walking as performed by that efficacious grace promised in the Covenant of grace is an Argument on which we may build our peace not as a cause or a merit-deserving peace but as a grace threeded upon the free promise of God so the Saints have builded upon their sincere walking as on a fruit of the Covenant of Grace promised to us Jer. 31.33 Jer. 32. for so duties speak the mercies promised in the Covenant 38. And I will give them one heart and one way that they may fear me for ever See Ezech. 36.27 Isa. 54.13 Upon this ground Ezekiah pleadeth with God when he heard the sentence of death Isa. 38.3 Remember now O Lord I beseech thee how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart and have done that which is good in thy sight And David putteth his faith upon this as a gracious fruit of grace promised in the
shall be said unto them ye are the sons of the living God 1 Pet. 2.10 Which in time past were not a people but are now the people of God which had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy 3. The words of Scripture that importeth a reall change doth prove the same as Col. 1.12 Who hath made us meet or sufficiently qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the Saints in light Christ is a qualified work man and changeth Hel and the most untoward Timber of Hell in Heaven and in a Vessell of glory It s a vain thing to dream that Christ hath no other esteem and warmnesse of heart to us when we are dead in sins and trespasses and Posting as in a horse race after the Devil who rideth and acteth and breatheth in the children of disobedience and when he hath raised and quickned us for his great love and placed us in Heaven with Christ Eph. 2.1 2 3 4. And made us Kings and Priests unto God Then the state of Hell and Death should be the very state of Grace and Heaven before God A new creature 2 Cor. 5.17 Light in the Lord Eph. 5.8 partakers of the divine nature 2 Pet. 1.4 Renewed in the spirit of the mind Eph. 4.23 Such as are begotten again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Iesus Christ from the Dead 1 Pet. 1.3 Born again not of corruptible seed 1 Pet. 1.23 Kings and Priests unto God Rev. 1.5 A generation of Kings Priests unto God 1 Pet. 2.9 Must be in their state some other thing then old creatures then darknes then unrenewed uncircumcised old men slaves of sin persecutors blasphemers injurious persons The Lord speaketh of a change great enough Is. 43.4 Since thou wast precious in my sight thou hast been honourable and I have loved thee c. Were the children of wrath from Eternity Honourable No were they more precious honourable actually before God from eterernity then the rest of the Nations No the contrary is evident Ez. 16.3 Deu. 7.7 8. Ps. 147.19 20 Deu. 26.5 Certainly if Faith or conversion to God a special part of which is Faith doth not alter the state of Believers before God then are they Believers and actually converted before God and so justified from eternity When were they then sinners Never Their sins were just no sins from Eternity and blotted away as a cloud as a thick cloud as it is Isa. 44.22 And that from Eternity and from Eternity sought and not found because pardoned Jerem. 5.20 no more remembred Isaiah 43.25 now they were justified from Eternity and ere they believe in him that justifieth the ungodly no other ways then in Gods decree and eternall purpose but the truth is this is the principle false and rotten pillar of all Libertinisme which I evert thus and they shall never be able to answer it if faith be so far forth a manifestation of our justification before God because justification was in the sight of God actually done from eternity before all time then are we never ungodly and actually sinners before God For it is unpossible say Antinomians that God can both hate us as ungodly and love us as iustified in Christ and it is vain and non seâ—se say they that God loved the persons from eternity and hated the sins or that he loved the elect with the love of election or love of good will did not also love them with the love of justification this is their term not mine or with the love of complacency and his good liking to faith in them Then say I from eternity the justified were never ungodly never sinners never the heirs of wrath never such as served divers lusts and were disobedient polluted in their own blood which is down-right contrary to the word of truth 2. Observe the Principle of Antinomians We are not justified by faith say the How then Because we are justified from eternity only we are said by Paul to be justified by faith in that by faith we come to the knowledge and assurance of the state of election and of justification and Gods Act of not imputing sin to us which Acts were possed upon us from eternity and before the children had done good or evill Rom. 9.13 And observe the words of Mr. Hen. Denne to this purpose I do beleeve saith he sin to be of that hideous nature and the justice of God so perfect that be cannot but hate the person unto whom be imputeth and upon whom be chargeth sin if so be the person charged cannot give full perfect and present satisfaction and yet will I not say that the Son of God upon whom all our iniquities were charged was at any time Filius Odii a son of hatred for the Father was eternally well-pleased with him the reason is that our sins were no sooner charged upon him but that he had given full and perfect satisfaction being the Lambe slain from the foundation of the world Rev. 13.8 Answ. If God cannot but hate the person upon whom he chargeth sin either God never charged our sins upon Christ contrary to Scripture Isa. 53.6 1 Pet. 2.23 24. 2 Cor. 5.21 or then he hated Christ which no sound Divine dare say The payment and satisfaction which Christ made cannot hinder Christ to hate sin so the person upon whom sin is as Antinomians teach while as they refuse this distinction no more then the satisfaction that Christ made for sin can hinder it self or hinder Christ to die for sin for if God should hate Christ it should be satisfactory hatred and penall 2. I much wonder if God from eternity charged sin upon his Son Christ for the place he citeth Rev. 13.8 and the judgement of Antinomians so expounding it evinceth this to be his meaning how Christ from eternity could give full perfect and present satisfaction to prevent the hatred of his Father is not imaginable indeed when Christ gave satisfaction I beleeve that it was full and perfect but that Christ from eternity gave present satisfaction and that to make us actually justified from all Eternity is a Point no head can conceive except Herod Pilate Iews Gentiles the Traitour Judas and all who were wicked Actors in killing of Christ be men uncreated who had existence and being and sinned from eternity this lieth fairly for the eternall world of Aristotle then surely faith doth not bring us to the knowledge only of our state of justification as passed and done from eternity as if election to glory and the love of God therein and justification and that love as manifested by faith were two coeternal twins both at once begotten from eternity Sure I am we are justified by faith but sure I am we are not elected and chosen to life eternall by faith And if to be justified by faith be as our Masters though ignorantly teach nothing but this that we come to the knowledge of our justification by faith as by a
Scripture to be the Word of God by a supernaturall instinct 4. Rea. Fancy leadeth not the Saints but faith Rise Reign Ruine of Antino error 51 pag. 10. is c. 52. The Saints need fresh supply of grace from Christ though they have a habite stock of grace within them proved by six reasons 1. Use Grace glory but one continued thread In our progresse to heaven we are to have these considerations 1. Consideration Faith boâ—h active and passive 2 Consider Desertion hath â—eall advancing in the way to Heaven in â—1 particu 3 Consider 2 Use. We are not freed from law directions Obj. 1. Actuall condemnation may be separated from the Law Obj. 2. How works of holinesse conduce to Salvation Three things herein to be distinguished Obj. 3. Obj. 4. We are to performe good works both from the principle of love and Law Obj. 5. Of the letter both of Law Gospel divers errors of Libertines touching the point (a) 39. Rise and raiâ—â—â—er (b) er 33. (c) er 74. (d) er 7 (e) Er. 61. The Scriptures are not to be condemned because they profit nothing without the teaching of the spirit Obj. 6. Hen. Denne Doctor of Ioh. Baptists pa. 46 47. Repentance is different from Faith the contrary whereof Libertines teach Repentance the same in the Old New Testament In what sense Christ came to save the lost Those whom Christ immediately converteth are first lost A two fold preparation before converted Conversion is done by succession of foregoing preparations proved by foure Reasons Reas. 1 3. Rea. 4. Rea. Sense of poverty fitteth for Christ. Crisp. Ser. 7. pag. 208 209 210. seq Sinners as sinners are not fit to receive Christ. How Christ belongeth to sinners under the notion of sinners Rise Reign c. error 33. How the Spirit acts most in the Sts. when they endeavour least Error 43 The marrow of Libertinisme to neglect sanctification and wallow in fleshly lusts Christs death maketh us active in duties of holinesse Vnsavory speeches Er. 5. Towne Ans. to D. Tailor pag. 23. Rise p. 7 Vnsavory speeches Er. â— p. 19. How Christ keepeth us from sin 8. Necessary duties required of a believer under desolution 1. Patience 2. Faith 3. Hope which prophecieth glad things at midnight 4. Prayer 5. Love to God 6. Acquiting of God and exalting of him 7 A sight of the temptation as a temptation 8. Running into Christ. To run from Christ in desertion is two deaths to flee in to him though unprepared at worst is but one death a little one It s a blessed mark when a temptation chaceth not a soul from a duty in 3. cases illustrated 1. To go on in duties under a temptation speaketh threâ— good signes 1 Use. 2 Use. 3. Use. Mat. 15 Mark 7 Nationall sins may occurre to the consciences of the child of God in his approach to God A subtile humble pride the disease of weake ones who dare not apply the promises Sense of free grace humbleth exceedingly How far forth conscience of wretchednesse can hinder any to come to Christ and how it is a temptation Who ever doubteth if God will save him doubteth also if he can save Sin keepeth not the door of Christ to hold out sinners Rise reign ruine of Antino error 17. pag. 4. Sense of my own sinfull condition and a sight of the Excellency of Christ and his grace may stand together Holy walking may bee felt by the believer in himself and Christs excellency also Holiness considered 1. as a Duty 2. As a mean 3. As a promise August DEUS coronat innobis non nostra merita sed sua dona How we collect peace in our spiritual state by holy walking Christ a great housholder The Priviledges of the children of the house Christ the bread of life Communion between the children and the first heir Christ in five particulars The Spirit of an heir and of a servant different There 's a seed of hope and comfort in the hardest desertions of the Saints Grace maketh quicknes and wittines heavenly reasoning The Spirit of the Lord shal mak him of an excellent faculty of smelling Forerius his breathing or smelling of things shal be in the fear of the Lord. 3. Faith contradicteth Christ tempâ—ing but humbly and modestly The Saints may dispute their state with Christ when they dare not dispute their actions Er. 66. We are to acâ—â—pâ— submissively of a wakened conscienc but not to seek a storming conscienc True humility its way in seven particulars Christ cannot put humility lower Humility knoweth no Land-lord but Christ and free grace Humilty as it extolleth Christ so it thinketh the party not onely below grace and merey but also below the justice and wrath of God Humility putteth all men above it self None so capable of Grace as the humble man The humble man cannot complain of Gods dispensation Many â—ich 〈◊〉 conferred on the humble soul. How we are to esteem every man better then our self in the judgement of sense not of charity alwayes far lesse of verity 3. Use. Pride hateful to God 4. Use. Graces lowliness in taking notice of sinners 5. Use. Doct. A justified soul is to confesse sin and to be sorry for it Confession of sins made by the justified proveth to be a duty 2. Mourning for sin warranted to those who are pardoned If we are not to mourn for sin because pardoned the pardoned sin being no sin neither are we to eschew the committing of sin because it is also no sin before it be committed being pardoned as Libertines teach from eternity Honey comb of justification 371 Dec. 5. sess Chemnitius exa Con. Tri· pag. 94. Libertines conspire with Papists in the Doctrine of justification How sins are removed in justification and how not That there remaineth that which is formally sin in the justified and that sin dwelleth in the regenerated is proved by 5. Arguments Sinne dwelling in us after wee are justified A two fold removal of sin one Moral or Legall in justification another Physicall in our sanctification The difference between the removal of sin in justification and its removall in sanctification Simile Simile Seven reasons why sin dwelleth in the godly after they are justified by Grace Obj. 1. How sins past present and to come are pardoned in justifica Asse 1. D. Abb. in ThoÌ„ Diatriben de intercis justif c. 4. p. 92. There is a twofold consideration of justification but not two justifications far lesse are there not many Ass. 2. Sins in three diverse respects are taken away according to the Scriptures Christs satisfaction performed on the Cross for sin is not formall justification There is a change in justification How sins not committed are remitted and pardoned Ass. 3. There is but one justification of a believer Simile Obj. 2. There 's a difference between pardon of sin in the â—ustification of the person and in the repeated sense of the pardon of sins after committed Iustifying saith is some other
Reasons proving that Christ was not intrinsâ—cally and formally the sinner p. 253. What righteousnesse of Christ is made ours p. 256. The believer how righteous and Christ how not p. 257. Christs bearing of our sins by a frequent Hebraisme in Scripture is to bear the punishment due to our sins and not to bear the intrinsecall blot of our sins p. 263. How Christ is in our place p. 265. How the debter and the surety be one in Law and not intrinsecally one p. 267. A perplexâ—d conscience in a good sense is lawfully consistent with a justified sinners condition p. 269. A conditionall fear of eternall wrath required in the justified but not an absolute fear and yet trouble of minde for the indwelling of sin is required p. 271. SERM. XX. The conscience in Christ is freed from sin that is from actuall condemnation but not from incurring Gods displeasure by the breach of a Law if the believer sin p. 272.273 I am to believe the Remission of these same very sins which I am to confesse with sorrow p. 276. How the conscience is freed from condemnation and yet not from Gods displeasure for sin p. 272. Eight cases of conscience resolved from the former Doctrine p. 277. To be justified is a state of happinesse most desirable illustrated from the eternity of the debt of sin p. 280 The smallest and worst things of Christ are incomparably above the most excellent things on earth illustrated in six particulars p. 284. What must Christ himself be when the worst things of Christ are so desirable p. 290. The excellency of Christ further illustrated and the foulnesse of our choice evidenced p. 292. How to esteem of Christ illustrated in four grounds p. 294. Degrees of persons younger and older in grace in our Lords house p. 297. Christs Family is a growing Family p. 298 God bringeth great and heavenly works out of the day oâ— small things p. 299 We are to deal tenderly with weak ones upon six consideraâ—tions p. 303 SERM. XXI The prevalency of instant Prayer put forth upon God in eight acts p. 303. Prayer moveth and stirreth all wheels in Heaven and earth p. 304. Five things concerning Faith p. 312. There is a preparation going before Faith ibid. There is no necessary connexion between preparations going before Faith and Faith p. 313. Affections going before Faith and following after differ specifically and not gradually only p. 314. All are alike unfit for conversion ibid. Some nearer conversion then others p. 315. Three grounds or motives of beeleving p. 316. Glory and Christ the hope of glory strong motives of beleeving ibid. Faiths object the marrow of Gods attributes to speak so 318. Faith a Catholick Grace required in all our actions naturall and civill as well as spirituall p. 319. Christianity how an operous work p. 321. The six ingredients of Faith p. 322. Faith turneth all our acts which are terminated on the creature into halfe non-acts p. 324 Faith hath five notes of difference in closing with the promise p. 331. Literall knowledge worketh as a naturall Agent p. 334. Warrants of applying set down in five positions p. 337 SERM. XXII Eight ingredients of a counterfeit Faith p. 347. Thirteen works or ingredients of a strong Faith and how to discern a weake Faith ibid. Strong praying a note of strong Faith ibid. â— Instant pleading a note also ibid. Strength of grace required in beleeving â—bid Christ rewardeth grace with grace p. 349. How grace beginneth all Supernaturall acts p. 350. There is a promising of bowing and predeterminating grace made to supernaturall acts yet so as God reserveth his own liberty 1. How 2. When. 3. In what measure he doth co-operate with the believer in these acts ibid. Four reasons why Grace in the work of faith must begin and so begin as we are guilty in not following p. 351. Grace is on the Saints and to them but glory is on them but not to them p. 352. Grace to an Angel necessary to prevent possible sins p. 356. 3. Note of a strong Faith not to be broken with temptations ibid. 4. Faith staying on God without light of comfort a strong Faith p. 358. The fewer externalls that Faith needeth the stronger it is within p. 359 Comforts are externalls to Faith p. 360. Some cautions in this that some believe strongly without the help of comforts ibid. Reasons why diverse of Gods children die without comfort p. 361 SERM. XXIII The more of the word and the lesse of reason the stronger Faith is p. 362. 6. A Faith that can forgoe much for Christ is a strong faith p. 363 7. It s a strong Faith to pray and believe when God seemeth to forbid praying p. 364. 8. Great boldnesse argueth great Faith p. 365. 9. To rejoyce in tribulation p. 366. 10. To wait on with long patience p. 367. 11. A humble Faith is a strong Faith p. 368. 12. A strong desire of a communiâ—n with Christ p. 369. 13. Strength of working by love argueth a strong Faith p. 370. A great Faith is not free of doubtings p. 371. Diverse sorts of doubting opposite Faith p. 372. Some doubting a bad thing in it self yet per accidens and in regard of the person and concomitants a good signe and argueth sound gracâ— p. 373. Of a weak Faith p. 375. Negative adherence to Christ not sufficient to saving Faith ibid. A suffering Faith a strong Faith p. 378. Faith in regard of intention weak may be strong in regard of extension in three Relations ibid. The lowest ebbe of a fainting Faith p. 379. What of Christ remaineth in the lowest ebbe of a fainting Faith p. 381. SERM. XXIV A stock of Grace is within the Saints our Grace is not all and wholly in Christ though it be all from Christ p. 385. The powers of the soul remain whole in conversion ibid. The stock of grace is to be warily kept p. 386 Four things are to bee done to keep the stock without a craze p. 387. The tendernesse of Christs heart and strength of love toward sinners p. 389. Christ strong in morall acts and strongly moderate in naturall acts the contrary is in naturall men ibid. Christs motion of tender mercy as it were naturall p. 392. How mercy worketh eternally and secretly and under ground even under a bloody dispensation p. 393. Judgement on the two Kingdoms except they repent p. 394. A rough dispensation consistent with tendernesse of love in our Lord p. 395. Free love goeth before our Redemption p. 397. Christ loveth the persons of the elect but hateth their sins p. 398. A twofold love of God one of good will to the person another of complacency to his own image in the person ibid. No new love in Goâ— p. 399. Objections of Mr. Denne the Antinomian anâ—wereâ— p. 400. What it is to be under the Law p. 402. How God loveth us before time and how he now loveth uâ— in time p. 405 By Faith and conversion our state is truely
and that which is essentially sin dwelleth in us while we are here as the sad complaints of justified Saints do testifie as Chemnitius observeth yea Andradius saith as Antinomians do that we put blasphemy upon Christ his merits and grace as if he could not in a moment wash us perfectly from all sin And what Arguments Papists in this Point use the same doth Eaton and Antinomians use also yea but justified Job saith cap. 9.30 If I wash my self with snow-water and make my hands never so clean 31. Yet shalt thou plunge me in the ditch and mine own cloaths shall abhorrâ— me Job 40.4 Behold I am vile what shall I answer thee This Job after he was by Gods pen declared an upright man saith of his own wayes in his sufferings And David a justified man faith Psal. 143.2 Enter not in judgement with thy servant for in thy sight shall no flesh be justified yet Job and David were no hypocrites SERMON XVIII NAy give me leave to say that Antinomians make justification and free grace their Common-place of Divinity as if they only had seen the visions of the Almighty and no other but they are utterly ignorant thereof for they confound and mix what the Word distinguisheth because justification is onely a removall of sin by a Law way so that in Law it cannot actually condemn Rom. 8.1 There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he saith not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nothing that deserveth condemnation Nihil condemnabile So that in Law all obligation to externall punishment called Reatus personae the guiltinesse of the sinner is removed and he shall never be condemned for sin because Christ did bear that guilt for him hence we say in this regard its blasphemy to say that tears of sinners do wash away sin that sorrow for sin and fasting pacifieth or removeth Gods wrath for my part I never used such Popish and unsavory speeches Papists do and we must distinguish between the lax Rhetorick and the strict Divinity of fathers But 2. Justification is not an abolition of sin in its reall essence Physicall indwelling Justified Paul sigheth and cryeth Rom. 7.14 I am carnall sold under sin 18. I know that in me that is in my flesh dwelleth no good 24. O wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from the body of this death Now if the sense of the corrupt flesh make these complaints in Job David Paul and if sinfull flesh opposite to faith apprehending the just contrary in Christ who justifieth the sinner dwell not in us Then 1. David Job Paul did lie in these confessions for to speak contrary to the language of justifying faith must be a lie 2. They were not really carnall and sold under sin but onely according to the sinfull doubting and apprehension of the flesh Pauls crying out of the body of sin was an irrationall fleshly and hypocriticall complaint 3. We are not to grow in the grace of sanctification and abstinence from yeelding to the motions of the flesh because if there be no sinfull imperfections in our sanctification we are not to grow in grace really but only in the false and hypocriticall apprehension of the flesh 4. If God see nothing of sin in the saints after their justification then there can be no sin in them after justification and so the justified cannot sin except they may sin and yet God cannot see them sin contrary to Ps. 69.5 Ps. 139.1 2 3. Yet Iohn saith even of himself and of those who have an Advocate in heaven 1 Ioh. 2.1 That if we say we have no sin we deceive our selves and the truth is not in us 1 Joh. 1.8 Now he cannot speak of men as considered in the state of nature and unjustified because to answer a doubt of weak consciences who said oh if we have sin then are we eternally lost and condemned he answereth 1. the justified are to confesse v. 9. and God is faithfull to forgive 2. He answereth 1 Iohn 2.1 If we sin we have an advocate with the Father 5. It must inevitably follow that Christ commanding these who have a Father in heaven to pray forgive us our sins commandeth them daily to pray out of a fleshly doubting not from the Spirit of Faith I had rather say with Scripture that all the justified Saints must take down their Top-Sail and go to heaven halting and that they carry their bolts and fetters of indwelling 〈◊〉 through the field of Free-Grace even to the gates of glory Christ daily washing and renewing Pardons and we daily defiling to the end that grace may be grace 6. Yea the Scripture is most clear that the fairest face that is now shining in glory was once even in the Kingdom of Grace and in the state of justification blacked with sin and sin-burnt by reason of sin dwelling in them 1 Kin. 8.46 For there is no man that sinneth not This is a black put on the faces of all men dwelling on the earth amongst which you must reckon justified and pardoned souls Eccles. 7. v. 20. For there is not a just man upon earth thrâ— doth good and sinneth not Then there 's a Thorne in our fairest Rose Davids Sun shines not so bright but there 's a cloud going over it in every justified mans good he doth in every sacrifice he offereth there 's some dung The sun hath looked on him Augustine had the same controversie but on another ground with Julian who also of old conceited that justified souls were free of inherent sin as Libertins now teach but Augustine saith alway That sinne dwelleth in the regenerate but it is not imputed and concupiscence after Baptism is removed Non ut non sit sed ut non imputetur Not that it is not but that in the Court of justice it is not reckoned on our score by which it is more then evident that justification is not such an abolition of sin in its roâ—â— and essence as shall be in the state of glory â—hen root and branch shall be abolished and not only shall justification free us as it doth in this life from all Law-guilt and obligation to wrath which is but Actus Secundus the second Act of sin the effect not the essence of sin but also sanctification being perfected all indwelling of sin shall be removed sin in the justified hath but house-room and stayeth within the walls as a Captive an Underling a servant it hath not the keyes of the house to command all nor the Scepter to rule All the keys are upon Christs shoulder far lesse hath it a Law-power to condemne therefore saith Augustine â—xcellently Cont. Iulian lib. 6. c. 5. Sanat vitâ—atum à reatu statim ab infirmitate paulatim God healeth the sinner from his guiltinesse its a Law word and a Law cure presently but from his infirmity by degrees by little and little and Gregory Moral lib. 29. c.
double Notion of justification as D. Abbot teacheth us There is a universall and propâ—â—â—y so called justification There is a partiall and unproperly so called justification or give me leave to say There is a justification of the person of the estate or a justification repeated or rather a reiterated remission I doubt if it be called a justification The former justification doth include 1. The Act of Atonement made by Christ on the Crosse for all the sins of all the Elect of God past present and to come this Act is not tyed to believing nor are we properly justified in regard of this Act. But 2. There is a justification formall of which Paul speaketh Rom. 3. and 4. and Gal. 3 4 and 5. Chapters which goeth along in order of cause time and a required condition of apprehending Christs righteousnesse and this justification of the person while he believeth is but once done and that when the believer doth first lay hold on Christ and righteousnesse imputed in his blood There is 3. A remission and taking away of sin Now according to these are we to consider of doing away sin in a threefold Notion for though justification essentially include remission and pardon of sin yet every remission doth not include justification properly so called Asser. 2. This threefold taking away of sins I clear from the Scripture 1. Christ taketh away our sins on the Crosse causatively and by way of merit while as he suffereth for our sins on the Crosse So Joh. 1.29 Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world 1 Cor. 5.21 He was made sin for us Col. 2.14 Christ blotted out the hand-writing of Ordinances that was against us which was contrary to us and took it out of the way nailing it to the Crosse. 1 Pet. 2.24 Who his own self bare our sins on the tree Isa. 53.10 He made his soul an offering for sin This Atonement of blood was typified in Aaaron who Lev. 16.20 21. was to lay both his hands on the head of the Live-goat and to confesse the sins of the people and did translate them off from the people so as the Goat was to bear upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited v. 22. Now this was the paying of a ransome for us and a legall translation of the eternall punishment of our sins but it is not justification nor ever called justification there is a sort of imputation of sin to Christ here and a summe paid for me but with leave no formall imputation no forinsecall and no personall Law-reckoning to me who am not yet born far lesse cited before a Tribunall and absolved from sin when Christ had compleatly paid this summe Christ was justified Legally as a publike person and all his seed fundamentally meritoriously causatively but not in their persons There is a second removall of sin and that is when the beleever is justified by faith Paul Rom. 4.6 Even as David saith he also describeth the blessednesse of the man unto whom God imputeth righteousnesse without works 7. saying Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered 8. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth no sin This is the blessednesse of a man born living beleeving Now we say unproperly the heirs of a King not born are blessed Non entis nulla sunt accidentia So if Christs removall of sins on the Crosse were justification all Christs seed and we believers of the Gentiles who were not then born when Christ died should be blessed and justified before we be born Now in this which is formally the justification of the believing sinner the believers person is accepted reconciled justified and really translated by a Law-change from one state to another I mean not that there is a Physicall infusion of a new habit of sanctification and an expulsion of an old habit as Papists teach confounding regeneration or sanctification with justification But there is a reall change of the state of the person 1 Cor. 6.11 And such were some of you but ye are washed but ye are sanctified but ye are justified c. then they were sometime not justified 2. There is here a reall removall of all sins and a pardon and relaxation from the eternall punishment of all sins as well of sins to come and not yet committed as of sins past present and already committed so as sins not yet committed shall no more involve the believer in the punishment of eternall wrath then sins past or present Yet 3. the sins not committed though virtually pardoned with correction and submission are not formally pardoned that which is not sin at all but only in a naked potency it must be pardoned only in that notion that it is a sin and not first formally remitted and then afterward committed yet it is paid for and the person freed from all actuall condemnation for it but with all conditionally and virtually so he believe in Christ and renew his repentance which graces God shall infallibly give him because the calling and gifts of God are without repentance And of this third removall of sin is that Petition that Christ hath taught justified persons to ask of God Forgive us our sins as we forgive them that sin against us And Nathan saith to David 2 Sam. 12.13 The Lord also hath put away thy sin thou shalt not die David before he contracted this horrible guilt of murther and adultery was a man according to Gods own heart and so his person was justified this way God daily taketh away sin Rom. 1.17 For therein is the righteousnesse of God revealed from faith to faith as it is written the just shall live by faith Now the life of faith justifying is not one single act of faith such as is at ouâ— first personall relative and universall absolution but the believer liveth by renewed and often repeated acts of faith such as is To walk from faith to faith The least faith even the Minimum quod sic doth justifie but the Gospel requireth a growth in faith In this sense remission is a continued and one prorogated act of free grace from our first moment of believing to the day of putting the crown on our head If any object that I am contrary to my self in that I sometimes did write that justification is a plenary Pardon in one indivisible act of all sins past present and to come and therefore sin cannot be oftner then once Pardoned If I should answer that the knowledge we have especially in so supernaturall a mystery is but the twilight or the day-Stars glimmering of sinfull men it might suffice but I judge that I speak nothing contrary to that Asser. 3. For two formall justifications of a Beleever I utterly deny which is that which Arminians presse not a little yea and the justification of the person and his acceptance in Gods favour is but one act I never fall from that acceptance
hear an answer I was condemned I was judged I was crucified for sin when my Surety Christ was condemned judged and crucified for my sins and what would you have more of a man then his life it was a mans life and soul my life that my surety offered up to God for sin and I have payed all because my surety hath payed all And the truth is it is not two debts one that the believer owes to Gods justice another that Christ paid But the debt that Christ payed is our very debt sins which he did bear on his own body on the tree 1 Pet. 2.24 But though it be true in a legal sense that the surety is the broken man yet it is true only in regard of the Law punishment or Malum poenae the ill of punishment that is laid upon him For I take Dr Crisps words from his own pen Suppose saith he a Malefactor should be asked Guilty or not guilty He answereth Not guilty What doth he mean He meaneth he hath not done the Fact that was laid to his charge Then not to do the Fact of sin to Dr. Crispe is not to be guilty Now I assume But Jesus Christ did never any sinfull fact as he also confesseth then Christ was punished for sin and yet was never guilty of sin this must be the greatest unjustice in the world to punish a man for sin altogether free of the guilt of sin except Antinomians distinguish with us between sinfull guilt and penall guilt called Reatus culpae and Reatus poenae or Reatus personae seu potentialis and Reatus formalis seu actualis they shall never expede themselves Now though it be true that in Law the Debtor and the Surety be both one Legall person yet intrinsecally they are not one the broken Debtor as such may be an unjust man and the Surety a faithfull and just man so that the surety as a satisfying Surety removeth only the punishment due to the Debtor for his unjustice but he removeth not formally unjustice except he be such a Surety as Christ who can both pay the debt so remove the ill of punishment and also infuse holinesse and sanctifie and remove the evill of sin hence in justification formally Christ only taketh away the punishment of everlasting fire and eternall condemnation due to sin but he removeth not sin it self sin it self is removed in sanctification and by degrees justification taketh the sting out of the Serpent but doth not formally kill the Serpent the Serpent is killed by another act of Grace by infused and perfected sanctification justification is a forinsecall and a Legall Act and removeth the power of the Law which involveth the sinner in a curse Now the strength or the Legall sting of sin is the Law 1 Cor. 15.56 So we may judge how false this divinity is which Dr. Crispe asserteth You will never saith he have quietnesse of spirit in respect of sinne till you have received this principle that it is not the guilt of Iniquitie only but Iniquity it self that the Lord laid on Christ For it is true quietnesse and Peace of Faith with God floweth from justification Romanes 5.1 And the assurance that Christ hath pardoned sin and hath removed the penall guilt the punishment of Eternall condemnation from sin but that the conscience should be quiet that is that it should not have also a care to believe that Christ wil sanctifie throughly and perfect his good work in us is most false for though a soul be justified and freed from the guilt of Eternall punishment and so the spirit is no more to be afraid and disquieted for Eternall wrath and Hell which should never have been feared as the greatest evill in regard that sin as sin is more to be feared then Hell as Hell yet there be two other acts of disquietnesse of spirit laudable and commendable even in the Saints after they are justified and the guilt of â—ternall punishment removed as 1. The believer is to have a holy Anxiety and care of spirit I do not call it a troubled conscience to improve his faith in believing that Christ will perfect what he hath begun 2. He is to bee grieved that sin dwelleth in him and to groan and cry as a captive in fetters out of the sense of his wretched estate as Paul doth Rom. 7.23 24. Antinomians will have the justified to be so quiet in spirit as if Christ had removed sin in root and branch buds and stump whereas only the Eternall punishment and fear of Eternall condemnation is removed in justification But there is a worse thing remaining in sin after this and more to be feared and a more reall and rationall ground of disquietnesse of spirit and that is the fundamentall intrinsecall and sinfull guilt of sin which Christ never took on him and is not removed in justification but only in the graduall and successive perfection of sanctification and so being justified I am to be secure and to enjoy a sound Peace and quietnesse of spirit in freedome from Eternall wrath But yet am I to be disquieted grieved yea to sorrow that such a Ghuest as sin lodgeth in me and with me even as an ingenuous and honest hearted debtor is to rejoyce and be glad in the goodnesse and grace of his gracious surety who hath payed his debt and never to fear that the Law or Justice can go against him to Arrest and imprison him for that debt which is now compleatly paid by his surety But if the surety gave his back-bond to pay him service of love and service of sorrow and remorse for his unjustice and sinfull lavishing of his Neighbours goods which did necessitate his loving surety to hurt himself and be at a great losse for him he owes to his surety the debt of love and disquietnesse of spirit in so far as the blot of his wastry and the shame of his riotous youth lyeth on him all his dayes Antinomians conceive that there ought to be no disquietnesse of spirit no remorse no trouble of minde but that which hath its rise and spring from sins apprehended as not pardoned and from the fear of Eternall punishment to be inflicted for these sins and it is true that such a troubled and perplexed soul which is once in the state of justification is but the issue and brood of unbelief and ariseth from the flesh prevailing over the spirit in such sorrow yea or if confession of sinne arise from this spring of servile and slavish fear it is not a work of Faith except that a conditionall fear of Eternall wrath If a David fallen in Adultery and treacherous murther or a Peter overtaken with a denying of his Saviour before men shall not renew his Repentance and Faith in CHRIST is required in all the justified for the perfecting of their salvation and finall perseverance But there is another remorse and sorrow according to God required in all the justified and it
justice as we are ready to conceit of our Evangelick rejoicing and holiest works But they are to sorrow for offended love for the body of sin breaking out in scandals I may then have peace with God in the assurance of remission and removall of eternall wrath and yet not have peace with my own conscience 1. Because I may be perswaded that God in Christ hath forgiven me yet am I not to forgive my self 2. I am to beleeve that in Christ I am delivered from eternall wraâ—h and justified in Christ and yet to sorrow that I have sinned against Christs love 3. I may have peace sense of peace and Pardon in Christ and yea a necessary disquietnesse sorrow and tears that I should have been so unthankfull to so lovely a Redeemer so Christ doth commend the womans tears as a sign of love and of the sense of many sins pardoned Luke 7.44 Thou gavest me no water for my feet But she hath washed my feet with tears yet many sins were forgiven her v. 47. Hence I may 1. Beleeve the Remission of that sin for which I am to sorrow and for the Remission of which I am to pray and which I am to confesse Nathan said to David thy sin is pardoned yet the Spirit of God after that both confessed sorrowed prayed for pardon in David 2. We may comfort those that mourn for sin from assurance of Pardon and yet exhort them to be humbled and afflicted in spirit and to confesse sorrow and pray for Pardon so Antinomians rejoicing evermore after justification without sorrow remorse down-casting for sin at all is but fleshly wantonnesse I may have and ought to have a disquieted spirit and no peace with my self and yet peace with God even as the Sea after a storme and when the winds are gone and the Aire is calmed hath yet a raging and great motion by reason of wind inclosed in the bowels of the Sea and after the cool of a mighty Feaver yet are the humours in the body stirred and distempered But we are hence led to finde out resolution for divers cases of consciences after justification 1. Many dare not question their state of justification so are freed from the storms of apprehended wrath arising from the guilt of sin yet there is another storm within the bowels of the Sea arising from the indwelling of the body of guilt the storm before justification is lesse free lesse ingenuous more servile as looking to that Eternall wrath hanging over the soul for unpardoned sin this is more free and is a peaceable a gracious and heavenly storm raised not for sin unpardoned the Eternal punishment thereof but for sin as sin as indwelling not for the penall guilt and the sting of Hell in sin but for the sinfull guilt and the wounding of Christ. 2. It s unpossible this latter storme can be in the soul till the sentence of justification be pronounced as none can have the moved bowels of a son for the offence of a Father till he be a son 2. Another case is that many have an absolute loose and laxe peace and calmnesse great confidence of deliverance from Eternall wrath and so of a supposed pardon whose peace is convinced to be but a base outside and meer paintry and fairding because there is in them no storm for sin as sin and for the over-motions of boiling lusts no tendernesse to walk spiritually A Faith that eateth out the bottome and bowels of conscience of declining sin and walking with God is the justification of the Antinomians of the old Gnosticks of the naturall men all our professors are cured none or few are healed 3. Full assurance that Christ hath delivered Paul from condemnation yea so full and reall as produceth thanksgiving and triumphing in Christ Rom. 7.25 Rom. 8.1 2. may and doth consist with complaints and outcryes of a wretched condition for the indwelling of the body of sin Rom. 7.14 15 16.23 24. Then the justified that are whole not sick not pained are yet in their sins and not justified what ever Antinomians say on the contrary 4. The flesh in the justified cannot complain of indwelling sin but the flesh mixt with some life of Christ may raise a false Alaram of sins not pardoned which are really pardoned some false grief may and often hath its rise from a false and imaginary ground as a sanctified soul may praise God through occasion of a lying report of the victory of the Church of God when there is no such matter a sanctified child may spiritually mourn for the supposed death of his Father or that he hath offended his Father according to the flesh when his Father is neither dead nor offended at all So gracious affections as gracious may work spiritually upon supposed and false grounds when there is no cause as that the soul hath grieved his heavenly Father and that he is displeased when it is not so 5. Sin indwelling is a greater evill then the feared evill of ten hells and therefore there is more cause of sorrow for sin confession disquietnesse of spirit after justification then before because sin the only true object of fear and disquietnesse of spirit is both a ghuest dwelling in the soul and is more really and distinctly apprehended as a spirituall evil after the light of faith hath shown us the sinfulnesse of sin then ever it was discovered to be before 6. I doubt if justified souls are to be refuted in their complaints and fears for the indwelling of sin providing they fear not eternall wrath which fear is contrary to faith and so they fear not and sorrow not for that God hath changed the Court and the wind of his love turned in the contrary air and he hath forgotten to be mercifull 7. Faith chargeth us to believe that Grace shall at length finally subdue sin and as boat-men labour with oars to promove their course in sailing even when the wind sails and tide are doing somewhat to promove the course so doth faith which purifieth the heart set the soul on work to perfect holinesse in the fear of God and believeth also that God shall work both to will and to do It s not then good Physick for many exercised in conscience especially after their first conversion to apply only the honey and sweetnesse of consolations of the Gospel as if there were not any need of humiliation and sorrow for sin Yet it is to be cleared that 1. Sorrow for sin is no satisfaction for sin for the pride of merit is crafty and can creep in at a smal hole We think there is no repentance where there be no tears God of purpose withholdeth tears as knowing when water goes out wind cometh in 2. They are tenderly to be bound up and comforted in whom sin riseth up with a witnesse O what pity and humble on-looking should be here For a hell of pain in the body is nothing wheels racks whips hot irons breaking
of bones is nothing but half a hell in the spirit is a whole hell The upper hell the grave to Ezekiah is like to swallow him up when dipped in the lower hell and covered with the apprehension of wrath O sweet Jesus what a mercy that thou swallowed up all hels to believers and calmed the sea of hell Vse If in Justification sins be blotted out cast in the depths of the Sea and removed as if they never had been the state of Justification must be a condition of sound blessednesse the most desireable life in the world Ro. 4.6 Even as David also describeth the blessednesse of the man unto whom God imputeth righteousnesse without works 7. Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered For consider 1. What an Act of Grace it is in a Prince to take a condemned malefactour from under the ax the rack the wheel and so many hours torture before he end his miserable life Or 2. Suppose he were condemned to be tortured leisurely and his life continued and prorogated that bones sinues lights joynts might be pained for twenty or thirty years so much of his flesh cut off every day such a bone broken and by Art the bone cured again and the flesh restored that he might for thirty years space every day be dying and yet never die Or 3. Imagine a man could be kept alive in torment in this case from sleep ease food clothing 500. years or a 1000. years and boiling all the time in a cauldron full of melted lead say the soul could dwell in a body under the rack the wheel the lashes and scourges of Scorpions and whips of iron the man bleeding crying in the act of dying for pain gnawing his tongue for ten hundred years now suppose a mighty Prince by an act of free grace could and would deliver this man from all this pain and torture and give him a life in perfect health in ten hundred Paradises of joy pleasure worldly happinesse and a day all the thousand years without a night a summer all this time without cloud storm winter all the honour acclamations love and service of a world of men and Angels cloath this man with all the most compleat delights perfections and vertues of minde and body set him ten thousand degrees of elevation to the top of all imaginable happinesse above Solomon in his highest Royalty or Adam in his first innocencie or Angels in their most transcendent glory and happinesse Yea 4. In our conception we may extend the former misery and pain and all this happines to the length of ten thousand years this should be thought incomparably the highest act of grace and love that any creature could extend to his fellow-creature And yet all this were but a shadow of Grace in comparison of the love and rich Grace of God in Christ in the justification of a sinner 2. Consider we are freed from the guilt of sin in justification Now this is the eternall debt of sin that remaineth after sin that none can wash away but Christ and that this remaineth after sin is acted 2. That it remaineth for eternity 3. That it is a misery we are onely in justification delivered from is cleare in Scripture 1. Because sin is a debt After the borrowed money is spent and gone somewhat in Law and justice remaineth and this is debt or obligation to make payment to the Creditour 2. So the Scripture speaketh Jer. 2.22 For though thou wash thee with Nitre and take thee much sope yet thy iniquity is marked before me Borith is an hearb that Fullers use for washing and purging yet is sin such a Leopard-spot that no Art no industry of of the creature can remove it Jer. 17.1 The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron and the point of a diamond it is graven upon the table of their heart and the horns of your Altars There is writ remaining after sin is acted 2. Writ written with a pen of iron and diamond to endure for eternity 3. Not written onely but ingraved and indented upon the conscience 1 Sam. 24.5 When David rent the rob of Saul his heart smote him so that it left a hole or the mark of the stripe behinde it as when a burning iron is put on the face of an evill-doer it leaveth behinde it a brand or a stigma 2. This is terrible that this brand is eternall as the Prophet prayeth Psal. 109.14 Let the iniquities of his fathers be remembred with the Lord and let not the sin of his mother be botted out 15. Let them be before the Lord continually O dreadfull The sins of wicked men shal stand up in heaven before the justice of God so long as God shal live and that is for ever and ever So the Lord sweareth By the excellency of Jacob That is by himself Amos 8.7 Surely I will never forget any of their works Joh. 10.8 All that ever came before me all that came not in by me the Door and the Way they are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Theeves and Robbers The false Prophets many of them were dead yet being dead saith Christ this day they are in regard of guilt Theeves and Robbers To this day above sixteen hundred years the Jews are guilty murderers though their fathers who slew the Lord of glory be dead This day Cain is a murderer Judas a traitour and shall be so long as GOD shall live and be GOD Now without shedding of Christs blood there is no remission of sins Heb. 9.22 To be delivered from eternall debt and intituled to an eternall Kingdom is a life most desireable maketh the sinner to stand in the books of Christ as the eternally ingaged debtor of Grace Young Heirs know your blessednesse aright sinners under eternall debt you laugh sport rejoice and you are firebrands of wrath you go singing and shaking and tinckling your bolts and fetters of black and unmixed vengeance Alas how can you sleep How can you laugh and sing Eat the crums The dogs desire but the least and to speak so the refuse of Christ. Doct. The meanest and worst things of Christ to speak so are incomparably to be desired above all things 1. Any thing of Christ is desirable but to lay hold on the skirt of a Jew Zac. 10.23 Because Christ that is with him is good Yea the dust of Zion is a thing that the servants of God take pleasure in Psal. 102.14 The dust and stones of Zion are not like the earth and the mules of the holy grave as Papists fondly dream and are but earth but because the Lord Christ dwelleth there therefore are they desirable The people carried their old harps to Babylon with them and Iosephs bones must be carried out of Egypt to Canaan Why Canaan was Christs land his dwelling Why but we are to love the ground that Christs feet treadeth on This I say not that I judge it holy earth that is
Nay but if thou canst pray thou dost set the whole wheels of Omnipotency on work for the building of the Lords house in which regard the Prayer of a sick and poor man shall do more in War for the Cause of God then twenty thousand men It was not Ahasuerus nor the grace that Esther found in the eyes of the King that saved the whole Church of the Iews from destruction but the Prayers of Esther and her maids It s true an Angel broght Peter out of Prison Act. 12. But what stirred that wheel in Heaven vers 5. Here 's the Cause Prayer was made without ceasing to God for Peter by the Church Quod est causa causae est etiam causa causati Prayer Prayer can put a reeling and tottering on King and Court Pope Prelate and Babylon we are to pray the King of the bottomlesse pit the man of sin the graven Images of Apostate Rome out of the world Prayer can yoke all the swords in Europe against the Whore every one who hath the Spirit of Adoption though poor and rejected of men by prayer have powerfull influence on all the Nations of the earth on all Europe on the ends of the earth on the hearts of the Jews on Turkes and Indians Prayer can reach as far as Omnipotency accompanied by the wise decree of our Lord And the poorest Girle or Maid that can pray doth lend a strong lift to heighten the footstool of Christs Royall Throne children and poor Maids by Prayer may put the Crown on Christs head and hold up his Throne and may store and increase heaven by praying Thy Kingdome come and inlarge Hell and fill the pits with the dead bodies of Christs enemies and may by prayer binde Kings in Fetters chaine up and confine Devils subdue Kingdoms Great is thy Faith For the clearing of these words we are to consider three points 1. What Faith is 2. What a great Faith is 3. Why he saith thy Faith appropriating it to the woman Now of Faith I shall speak 1. A word of preparations for Faith 2. Of the grounds and necessary motives to Faith 3. Of the Ingredients of Faith 4. Of the sinners warrants to believe 5. Of divers sorts of false and ill rooted Faiths 1. There be some preparations which go before Faith 1. Faith is a seed of heaven it is not sowen by the good husbandman in unplowed and in Fallow ground Christ soweth not amongst thornes we are builded on the Faith stones are hewen rubbish removed before one stone be laid 2. Every act of Grace in God is an act of Omnipotency and so requireth not time or succession God might have set up the frame of the world in all its fulnesse with lesse then one thought or act of his will put forth by Omnipotency yet did our Lord subject the acts of creating the first world to the rule of time and to a circle of evening and morning nights and dayes so doth the Lord set up a new world of Faith in a soul void of Faith by degrees There 's a time when there 's neither perfect night nor perfect day but the twilight of the morning and God not withstanding created the morning no lesse then the noon day Sun There 's a half Summer and a half Spring in the close of the Spring which God made The Embrio or birth not yet animated is neither seed onely nor a man-child only so is a Convert in his first framing neither perfectly untamed corruption because there 's a crack and a throw in the iron sinew of the neck nor is he a thorow child of light but as we say in the dead-throw in the place of breaking forth of children as Hosea speaketh A child with his head come forth of the womb and no more and so half born only so is the Convert while he is in the making not taken off Christs wheels half in the borders of hell and looking a far off at the Suburbs of Heaven not far from the Kingdom of Heaven But 2. This bridge over the water between the kingdom of darknesse and the state of saving Grace hath no necessary connexion with that Kingdom of the Son of Gods love but such as it hath from the sole and meer decree of the free Election of Grace and therefore many Reprobates may enter the Bridge and never go along to the other Banke of the River God breaketh the Bridge this being the very division and parting of these two unsearchable wayes of Election and Reprobation yet so as the sin in cutting the bridge is the guilt of the Reprobate man As many births die in the breaking forth out of the womb divers Roses in the Bud are blasted and never see harvest through the fault of the seed not of the Sun 3. It s true the new creation and life of God is vertually Seminaliter in these preparations as the seed is a tree in hope the blossome an apple the foundation a Palace in its beginning so half a desire in the Non-converted is love sicknesse for Christ in the seed legall humiliation is in hope Evangelick Repentance and mortification But as the seed and the growing tree differ not gradually only but in nature specifically as a thing without life is not of that same nature and essence with a creature that hath a vegetative life and groweth so the preparatory good affections of desire hunger sorrow humiliation going before conversion differ specifically from those renewed affections which follow after The former being acts of Grace but not of saving grace which goeth along with the decree of Election of Grace and of like Latitude with it the latter being the native and connaturall fruits of the Spirit of which the Apostle speaketh Gal. 5.22.23 In which regard no man is morally and in regard of a divine promise such as this Do this and this and God shall bestow on you the Grace of conversion fitter and in a nearer disposition to conversion then another 1. Because we read not of any such promise in the Gospel 2. Because amongst things void of life all are equally void of life and there 's here no degrees of more or lesse life no intention no remission or flacking of the degrees of life for even as an Ape or an Horse are as equally no men as stones and dead earth are no men though an Ape or an Horse have life common to them with men which stones and earth have not yet they are equally as destitute of reason and an intellectual life which is the only life of a man as a man as stones and earth are So Saul only humbled by the terrours of the Law and sick of half raw desires of Christ is no lesse yet a creature void of the life of God then when he was in the highest pitch of obstinacy spitting out blood and murthers on the face of that Lord Jesus whom he persecuted and in this regard conversion is no lesse pure
to the sails in that flux of the souls way toward God But Faith moderateth and lesseneth all these in relation to the creature so the Faith which hath its direct aspect toward eternity and looketh on the shortnesse of sliding away time and the transâ—ent wheeling away oâ— the poor figure of this world 1 Cor. 7. v. 29.31 turneth all these acts into but half a face on thâ— creature and into leasurely and leaden motions or to half non-acts as if made up of heavenlâ— contradictions v. 29 30 31. Having wives having no wives Weeping no weeping Rejoicing no rejoicing Buying no possessing Vsing the world not using the world When the Saints throng through the presse and croud of the creatures for the world is a bushie and rank wood thorns take hold of their garments and retard them in their way Faith looseth their garments riddeth them of such thornie friends as are too kind to them in their journy who diggeth for Iron and Tin in the earth with mattocks of Gold What wise man would make a Web of cloth of gold a net to catch fish Expences should over-grow gains There 's much of the mettall of heaven in the soul Faith would forbid us to wear out the threds of this immortall spirit such as are love joy fear sorrow upon peeces of corruptible clay Alas is it Faiths light that setteth men a work to make the soul a golden-needle and the precious powers and affections thereof threds of silver to sow together peeces of sackcloth and old rotten rags What better I pray you is the finest of the web in the whole systeme of creation Certainly the heavens must be a thred of better wool then the clay-earth yet if you should break your immortal spirit and bend all the acts to the highest extent of your affections to conquer thousands of Acres of ground in the Heavens and intitle your soul to that inheritance as to your onely patrimonie without Christ Faiths day-light should discover to you that this finest part of that web of Creation with which you desire to cloth your precious soul is but base wool and rotten thred and though beautifull and well dyed to the eye yet Psal. 102.26 The heavens even all of them shall wax old like a garment And the wisdome of Faith knoweth a shop where there 's a more excellent suit of clothes for the soul 2 Cor. 5.1 2. And a more precious peece of the Heaven to dwell in even a House which is from Heaven with which you shall bee clothed When life shall eat up death and mortality 2. The creatures are below the affections of the believer and his affections conquer them as having the vantage of the mount above all the creatures So Paul maketh an elegant contrariety Phil. 3.19 20. Between those whose heart senses minde findeth neither smell taste nor wisedome but in earthly things for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to minde things of the earth importeth all these and those who by Faith look to Heaven and dwell there And the temporaries heart is below the world and the creatures are up in the mount above him So Mat. 13. v. 7.22 The thorns or cares of riches have the fore-start of the earth and sap above Faith or the good seed For the seed was cast in the earth when the thorns had been there before and had the vantage of the season and the soil both The first love is often strongest The Martyrs Heb. 11.35 had poor and weak thoughts of this life and would not accept and welcome life and deliverance from death but had strong acts of Faith and love toward a better resurrection It s a souls strong Faith that bringeth him to nil admirari and to wonder at nothing Never to love much nor fear much nor sorrow much nor joy much nor weep much nor laugh much nor hope much nor dispaire much when the creature is the object of all these acts there is nothing great not the worlds All things or their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to him who is possessed with that Righteousnes which is of God by Faith Phil. 3.8 9. Men that talketh with good will and all their heart of their learning books of their own Acts good Works Wisdom Court Honour valour in War Flocks Lands Gold Moneys Children Friends Travels are to Examine If Faith be not a chaste thing and that acts of whoredome with the creature and of believing in Christ are scarce consistent Let your affections move toward the creature without sound of feet 3. There must be self-forsaking in believing 1. An affirming and an ay to grace is a negation and deniall to it self 1 Cor. 15.10 I laboured more abundantly then they all Yet not I but the grace of God which was with me To deny that you are Christs or that you have any grace if Christ have any thing of his in you is not self-deniall but grace deniall and God-deniall deny the work of the spirit and deny himself It s a saying of humility Cant. 1.5 I am black and of Faith but comely as the tents of Kedar as the curtains of Solomon And Cant. 5.1 I slept but my heart waked It s Faith to hold fast your state of adoption Lord I am thine 2. When our self maketh a suit to self and putteth in a bill to the flesh O pitie thy self Rejoice O young man in thy youth It s self-renouncing to deny this request to the flesh And Faith only can give an answer to self-declining the crosse He that denieth me before men him will I deny before my Father and his holy Angels saith Christ. And another answer Faith giveth Rom. 8.12 I am not debtor to thee O flesh I owe thee nothing And its Faiths word of answer Eccles. 11.9 But know thou that for all these things God will bring thee unto judgement 3. Faith putteth the soul in that condition that self may be plucked from self without great violence as an apple full of the tree and of harvest-sap is with a small motion pluckt off the stalk Act. 21.13 I am ready 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I have my self in readinesse not only to be bound but also to dye at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus Certainly Faith saw here more in Jesus of excellency and sweetnesse then there could be of bitternes in bonds and death to self 4. There 's a deniall of the creature and a bill of defiance sent to all the lovers of the world when Ephraim is brought to this act of believing Hos. 14.3 For in thee the Fatherlesse findeth mercy Then it s said Ashur shall not save us We will not ride upon horses That creature that we trust on we ride upon it as Israel did upon the horses of Assyria and Aegypt But in this regard Faith dismounteth the believer and abaseth him to walk on foot All the creatures are ships to the believer without a bottome They are empty and weak David forbiddeth us to ride on a Prince
chain of thy neck Holines and the image of God is the object of this love not the cause nor any hire it is not so properly love as the other God rather loveth persons desiring well and good to them then things Mr. Denne is not content with this distinction and why The love of Election and the love of Justification saith he are not diverse loves or divers degrees of love but divers manifestations of one and the same infinite love as when a Father hath conveyed an Inheritance to his son here is no new love from the Father to the son but a new manifestation of that love wherewith the Father loved the son before Answ. Men should not take on them to refute they know not what not any Protestant Divines ever taught that there is a new love in God or any new degree of love in God that was not in him before Arminians indeed tell us of new love new desires and of ebbing flowing love and hatred succeeding one to another in Gods minde these Vorstian blasphemies we disclaim it is indeed one and the same simple and holy will of God by which he loved Peter and John from eternity and choosed them to salvation by which he so loveth them in time as of Free-grace he bestoweth on them Faith Holiness Pardon in Christ and followeth these with his love and the former is called his love of good will to their person ere they do good or ill the latter his love of complacency to their State and the Lords new workman-ship in them as with the same love the husband chooseth such a one for his wife and loveth her being now his married Spouse Obj. 2. Men like those whom they love and so doth God Ans. We grant all these termes of Gods good loving and good-liking are chosen of Divines to expresse the thing God loveth and liketh Jacob not Esau from eternity ere he believe or do good but he doth not so love and like Jacob from eternity to bestow Faith and the Image of the second Adam on him while in time he hear the Word and be humbled for sin and the truth is the love of complacency is not a new act of Gods wil that ariseth in God in time but the declaration of Gods love of good wil in this effect that God is pleased to bestow faith his beauty of holinesse which maketh the soul lovely to God and it is rather the effect of eternall love then love And God hath a love of complacency toward the persons of the Elect love of good will though not of chusing good will toward them for their holiness Cant. 4.9 Obj. 3. It is absurd that God should love the Elect vvith infinite love to chuse them to salvation as touching their persons and withall to hate them with an infinite batred as workers of iniquity Answ. It were absurd I grant if Gods hatred to the Elect as sinners were any immanent affection in God opposite to his love by which he should be averse to their persons But Gods hatred to the Elect because they are sinners is nothing but his displicency against sin not against the person so as he is to inflict satisfactory punishment on the surety Christ for their sin A Father may so love his Prodigall Son as to retain a purpose to make him Inheritor of a Kingdom if he had a Crown for himself and to pay his debts and yet both hate and punish his profuse and lavish wasting of his goods Mr. Denne would teach us how love and hatred toward sinners doth consist The Law saith he and the Gospel speak divers things the one being the manifestation of Gods Justice tells us what we are by nature the other the manifestation of Gods mercy tells us what we are by Gods mercy in Jesus Christ. The Law curseth and condemneth the sinner The Gospel blesseth and justifieth the ungodly Ans. What is this else But that which Mr Denne and other Antinomians condemn in us How can one and the same unchangeable God curse condemn and so hate sinners as to punish them eternally and yet blesse justifie and love to eternall salvation their persons except they teach the same very thing which we do For the Law and the Gospel are no more contrary one to another then love to the persons of the Elect and hatred and revenging justice to their sins Mr. Denne would further clear the point thus What ever wrath the Law speeketh it is to the sinner under the Law although the elect are sinners in the judgment of the Law sense reason yea oftentimes conscience yet having their sins translated into the Son of God in whom they are elected they are righteous in Christ the Mediator Ans. The Law speaketh wrath in regard of its reign and dominion to death to the elect not yet converted and to the reprobate without exception of persons but it cannot speak wrath to the believer though he be one that daily sins and is under the Law that is under the rule of the Law now to be under the Law to Paul Rom. 6. and 7. is to be under the damnation of the Law in which regard believers are not under the Law but under the sweet reign of pardoning grace yet are they under the Law as a Tutor a guide a rule and that the rule and reign of the Law are different is evident 1. because the ruling power of the Law is an essentiall ingredient of the Law without the which the Law is not the Law the reign or damnation of the Law agreeth to the Law by accident in so far as man is a sinner which is a state accidental to the law 2. The Law is a rule and hath a proper guidance and tutory over the confirmed Angels and should have had over man if he had never sinned but the Law can have no reign to death over the confirmed Angels and man in that case as the Iayler hath no power over the man who was never an evil doer 1. We are sinners in the judgement of Law both sin dwelling in vs and 2. the guilt of the Law lying on us to condemnation But being once in Christ and justified we remain sinners as touching the indwelling blot but we are not sinners as we are justified in Christ as touching the Law-obligation to eternall condemnation from which we are fully freed But the justified and redeemed of Christ remain as formally and inherently sinners as Milk is formally white a Raven black Justification removeth not the indwelling of sin and so in regard of sense reason and conscience we are sinners to our dying day but not condemned sinners M. Denne objecteth We pray daily forgive us our sins then we are not righteous in Christ he answereth that Protestants say we begge greater certainty and assurance of forgivenesse but not content with this answer he addeth When we pray for forgivenesse we magnifie his grace who hath freely given us
forgivenesse it were not folly to a condemned person having receied a pardon and being assured of it to fall down and say Pardon me my Lord the King Ans. What Protestant Divines say in this we acknowledge but if we seek only a fuller certainty of forgivenesse in this Petition and not also the application of the generall pardon as appropriated to the sins we daily fall in I see no other thing we seek but a greater measure of faith to lay hold on remission I should ask a warrant of Scripture to prove that forgiveness of sin signifieth assurance of the pardon of sin 2. That to seek forgivenes daily is to glorifie and magnifie him from whom we once received forgivenesse is not to purpose for that is a generall in all Petitions that we put up to God no lesse then in this 3. If a pardoned malefactor having assurance he were pardoned should fall down and begge pardon of the King and not rather tender him thanks and blessings for a received pardon I should believe he called in question the Kings favour but should he every day when he eateth bread beg pardon from the King as we beg daily forgivenesse he might be charged with more then ordinary folly M. Denne God loves us in blood saith he and pollution as well before conversion as after conversion and though faith procure not Gods love and favour yet it serveth us for other uses that we may be sealed by believing Eph. 1.13 and may thereby know the love of God It is said he that believeth not is damned not because his believing doth alter or change his estate before God but because God hath promised that he will not only give us remission but also faith for our consolation and so faith becometh a note and a mark of life everlasting as finall infidelity is of eternall condemnation Ans. 1. It is true God loveth the elect before conversion equally as after conversion in regard of that free love of election that moved him to give his Son to death for them Joh. 3.16 and to call them effectually 2 Tim. 1.9 Eph. 2.1 2 3 4. Tit. 3.3 4. 4. Propos. It is a palpable untruth that the elect by believing in Christ and being translated from death to life in their conversion to God are equally loved of God before conversion as after conversion if we speak of Gods love of complacency for though the inward affection and love of God as it is an immanent and indwelling act in God be eternall and have not its rise in time and be not like the love of man to man which is like the Sea ebbing and flowing or the Moon which admitteth of a cloudy and dark visage and of an enlighted and full condition yet as the same love of God is terminated upon sinfull men or rather that which is called the love of complacency which is indeed the effect of Gods love it is not every way one and the same after conversion and before as it is the same fountain and spring that runneth in its streams toward the South which by Art and industry of men may be made to run toward the North the change is in the streams not in the fountain yet we say the fountain now runneth not Southward as it did afore but Northward also give me leave to doubt if these same very visible Sun beams that did fall upon Adam and Eve doth this Summer fall upon us yet I doubt not but the same Sun that did shine the first six hours of the Creation on the Garden of Paradice shineth upon all our gardens and orchards that now are So Gods love is one the same toward the elect before time and while they are wallowing in the state of sinfull and depraved nature and now when they are changed in the spirits of their mind But it may well be said that God loveth his Church as washed as fair and spotlesse Cant. 4.7 and that he doth now say of her Cant. 4.10 How fair is thy love my sister my Spouse how much better is thy love then wine and the smell of thine ointments then all spices whereas the Lord said before of her Eze. 16.3 Thy birth and thy nativity is of the Land of Canaan thy father was an Amorite thy mother an Hittite 4. As for thy nativity in the day that thou wast born thy Naevell was not cut neither wast thou washed in water to supple thee thou wast not salted at all nor swadled at all 6. And when I possed by thee and saw thee polluted in thy blood I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood live and all this the Lord might speak to the same Church yet unconverted and at that time the Lord could not utter that expression of love to say to a bloudy and polluted Church as he doth Can. 4.7 Thou art all fair my love there is not a spot in thee now could it be said that the Father and the son loveth such a Church as such as loveth the Father and keepeth the words of the Son as it is Ioh. 14.21.23 what the Church was not fair not spotlesse but filthy polluted not washed not justified as yet and though it be true that faith procure not Gods love and favour it is a calumnie that ever Protestant Divine taught any such thing for the work of Gods eternall love in election to Glory or his hatred in reprobation is not the yesterday or the daies-birth of our faith or our unbelief yet that believing or our effectual conversion maketh no alteration or change in our state before God is a grosse untruth Faith and conversion maketh indeed No change of any state in the ancient of days in the strength of Israel who cannot lie or repent and putteth not God from the State of a Reprobating or hating or a not loving and choosing God whereas before he was such who did love and chuse us to salvation the Lord is our witnesse we asserted the contrary doctrine of Free-grace against Arminians and Papists 5. Prop. Our believing and conversion to God doth alter and change our state before God 1. Because God esteemed an unbeliever that which he was even an unbeliever a child of wrath one that is disobedient serving divers lusts a soul unwashed polluted in his blood before his conversion to God but being once converted and graced to believe his state before God is altered and changed even in the Court of Heaven in the Lords Books he is another man he goeth now for a fair and undefiled soul the Church that was in a polluted filthy and miserable condition Ezek. 16.3 4 5 6 7 8. Is now in Christs heart as a seal Cant. 8.6 so fair as her beauty ravisheth the heart of Christ now Christ nameth things according to their nature 2. The condition is so changed before God that Hos. 1.10 It cometh to passe That in the place where it was said to them ye are not my people there it
changed before God p. 407. To be justified by Faith is not barely to come to the knowledge that we are justified before we beleeve p. 410. Justification not Eternall p. 411 Faith is not only given for our joy and consolation but also for our justification both in our own soul before God 415 There 's no warrant in Scripture for two reconciliations one of mans reconciliation to God and another of Gods reconciliation to man p. 419. Christs merits no cause but an effect of Gods eternall love ibid. What reconciliation is ibid. Joy without all sorrow for sin no fruit of the Kingdome of God p. 420 The seeing of God Heb. 12.14 and the Kingdom 1 Cor. 6. Joh. 3.3 Not the Kingdom of Grace but of Glory p. 421. All acts of blood and rough dealing in God to his own acts of mercy ibid. SERM. XXV Omnipotency hath influence on 1. Satan 2. Diseases 3. Stark death 4. Mother-nothing 5. On all creatures 6. On sin to speak to them p. 424. Obedientiall power in the creation what it is p. 425. Omnipotency is as it were a servant to Faith p. 428. We worship a dependent God p. 429. We have need of the devil and other temptations for our humiliation p. 432. Immediate mercies are the sweetest mercies cleared 1. In Christ. 2. Grace 3. Glory 4· Comfort 5. The rarest of Gods works p. 433. The deceitfulnesse of our confidence when God and the creature are joyned in one work p. 442. SERM. XXVI Christ in four relations hath dominion over Devils p. 446. Satan goeth no where without a Passe p. 448. We often sign Satans conditionall Passe ibid. A renewed will is a renewed man p. 451. Eight positions concerning the will and affections ibid. A civill will is not a sanctified will ibid. The yeelding of the soul to God and to his light a special note of a renewed will ibid. Affections sanctified especially desires p. 453. The lesse mixture in the affections the stronger are their operations ibid. Minde and affections do reciprocally vitiate one another p. 454. Spirituall desires seek naturall things spiritually Carnall desires seek spirituall things naturally p. 455. God submitteth his liberality of Grace to the measure of a sanctified will in four considerations ibid. Our affections in their acts and comprehension are far below spirituall objects Christ and Heaven p. 456. More in Christ and Heaven then our faith can reach in this life p. 457. SERM. XXVII Satan not cast out of a land or a person but by violence both to Satan and the party amplified in four considerations p. 460. False peace known p. 462. A roaring and a raging Devil is better then a calm and a sleeping Devil ibid. Gods way of hardning as it is mysterious so it is silent and invisible p. 465. The Triall and Triumph of Faith SERMON I. Mar. 7.24 And from thence he arose and went into the borders of Tyre and Sidon and went into an house and would that no man should know it but he could not be hid Matth. 15.21 Then Jesus went thence and came into the coasts of Tyre and Sidon V. 22. And behold a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts and cryed unto him saying Have mercy on me O Lord thou son of David for my daughter is grievously vexed with a Devil Mar. 7.25 For a certain woman whose young little daughter had an unclean spirit heard of him and came and fell at his feet V. 26. The woman was a Greek a Syrophoenician by Nation and she besought him that hee would cast forth the Devil out of her daughter THis Text being with childe of Free-Grace holdeth forth to us a Miracle of note and because Christ is in the work in an eminent manner and there is here also much of Christs new creation and a floor planted and watered by Christs own hand a strong faith in a tryed woman it requireth the bending of our heart to attention for to any seeking Iesus Christ this Text cryeth Come and see The words for their scope drive at the wakening of beleevers in Praying when an answer is not given at the first to a fixed and resolved lying and dying at Christs door by continuing in Prayer while the King come out and open and answer the desire of the hungry and poor 2. For the subject they are a History of a rare Miracle wrought by Christ in casting forth a Devil out of the Daughter of a Woman of Canaan and for Christ to throw the Devill out of a Canaanite was very like the white Banner of Christs Love displayed to the Nations and the Kings Royall Standard set up to gather in the Heathen under his colours The parts of the Miracle are 1. The place where it was wrought Math. 15.21 2. The parties on whom the Mother and the possessed Daughter she is described by her Nation 3. The impulsive cause she hearing came and prayed to Iesus for her little Daughter In which there is a Dialogue between Christ and the Woman containing Christs trying of her 1. With no answer 2. With a refusal 3. With the reproach of a dog 4. Her instancy of Faith 1. In crying till the Disciples interposed themselves 2. Her going on in adoring 3. Praying 4. Arguing by Faith with Christ that she had some interest in Christ though amongst the dogs yet withall as Grace hath no evil eye not envying because the morning market of Christ and the high Table was the Jews due as the Kings Children so she might be amongst the dogs to eat the crumbs under Christs Table knowing that the very refuse of Christ is more excellent then ten worlds 4. The Miracle it self wrought by the womans faith in which we have Christs heightning of her Faith 2. The granting of her desire 3. The measure of Christs bounty as thou wilt 4. The healing of her Daughter Mark saith that the woman came to Christ in a house Matthew seemeth to say that she came to him in the way as these words do make good send her away for she cryeth after us Augustine thinketh that the woman first came to Christ while he was in the house and desired to be hid either because he did not for offending the Jews openly offer himself to the Gentiles having forbidden his Disciples to go to the Samaritans or because he would have his glory hid for a time or rather of purpose he did hide himself from the woman that her faith might finde him out and then refusing to answer the woman in the house she still followeth him in the way and cryeth after him as Matthew saith For Christs Love is 1. Liberal but yet it must be suited and Christ though he sell not his Love for the penny worth of our sweating and paines yet must we dig low for such a gold-mine as Christ. 2. Christs Love is wise he holdeth us knocking while our desire be love-sick for him and knoweth that delayes raiseth and heighteth the market and