mis-spending the precious time of their Health and Strength which is most meet for the performance of this great Work They highly provoke God never to give them Time or Grace to Repent hereafter Others imagine that after they have heard the Gospel of Salvation by Christ they may lawfully defer the Believing of it until they have sufficiently examined the Truth of some other different Doctrin or until God be pleased to afford them some other means to assure them fully of the Truth of the Gospel Thus they that are called Seekers mis-spend the day of Grace ever learning but never coming to the knowledg of the Truth 2 Tim. 3.7 But the Truth of the Gospel doth so clearly evidence its self by its own Light That if People do not wilfully shut their Eyes or blind themselves by their own Pride and love of their Lusts they would easily perceive that it is the Truth of God because the Image of his Grace Mercy Power Justice and Holiness appears manifestly engraven upon it It is a sign People are Proud when they consent not to the words of our Lord Jesus Christ and to the Doctrine which is according to Godliness 1 Tim. 6.3 If they were humble and sincerely inclined to do the Will of God they would know whether the Doctrine be of God or no Joh. 7.17 They would quickly be persuaded of the Truth by Moses and the Prophets Christ and the Apostles spoken to them in the Scripture and if they will not hear them neither will they not be persuaded tho one rose from the dead or whatever other Miracle be wrought to confirm the Divine Authority of the Gospel Luke 16.31 Another sort of People there are that delay the great work of Believing to the ruin of their Souls upon the outward means of Grace and Salvation instead of any endeavours to receive Christ by Faith tho they be convinced of the Truth of the Gospel This they call waiting upon God at the doors of his Grace and Salvation in the use of Means appointed by him and sitting under the droppings of the Sanctuary But let them know that this is not the right waiting on God required in Scripture it is rather disobedience to God and to the Name of his appointment which requires that we should be doers of the Word and not hearers only deceiving our selves Jam. 1.22 and that we should come in to the spiritual Feast Luke 14.23 and not only stand at the door or sit under the droppings of the House of God lest Christ repute us no better than eve-droppers That holy waiting on the Lord commended to us in Scripture is ever accompanied with Believing and Hoping in the Lord and dependeth thereon I had fainted unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the Land of the Living Psal 23.13 14. It is good that a Man should both hope and quietly wait for the Salvation of the Lord Lam. 3.26 What is it that these deluded ones wait for before they perform the Duty of Believing Is it for more knowledge of the Gospel The way to encrease thy Knowledge as well as any other Talent is to make use of what thou hast received already Believe heartily on Christ for all thy Salvation according to that little knowledge of the Gospel which thou hast and thou wilt have an interest in the promise of knowledge contained in the New Covenant They shall all know me from the least to the greatest of them saith the Lord Jer. 31.34 Is it for the appointed time of thy Conversion that thou waitest then thou waitest as those impotent folk lay at the Pool of Bethesda waiting for the Season when the Angel would come down and move the Water know then that if thou enter into Christ now by Faith thou shalt find in him Waters of Life and the Spirit moving them for the Healing and Quickning of thy Soul God hath appointed by his Word that it shall be thy Duty to endeavour that the present time should be the time of thy Conversion as the Holy Ghost saith To day if thou wilt hear his Voice harden not thy Heart Heb. 3.7 8. and thou shalt never know at what time God hath purposed in his Secret Counsel to give Faith to thee until thou dost actually believe Dost thou wait for any Manifestations or Flowings in of Gods saving Love to thy Soul Then the way to obtain it is to believe that the God of Peace may sill thee with all Joy and Peace in Believing Rom. 15.13 Thou hast sufficient Manifestation of Gods Love to thy Soul by the free Promises of Life and Salvation by Christ do but trust on the Name of the Lord and stay upon thy God when thou walkest in Darkness and seest no Light of sensible Comforts any other way Otherwise thou waitest for Comfort in vain and this thou shalt have at the Lords hand thou shalt lye down in Sorrow Isa 50.10 11. Dost thou wait for any Qualifications to prepare thee for the work of Believing If they be good and Holy Qualifications thou canst not have them before Faith but they are either included in the Nature of Faith or they are Fruits of it as hath been largely proved If they be bad and Sinful it 's strange that any should wait for them and yet no more strange than true Some foolishly wait to be terrified with the Sense of Gods Wrath and despairing Thoughts and these they call the Pangs of the New Birth tho in their own Nature they are rather the Pangs of the Spiritual Death and bring forth Hatred to God rather than Holiness and therefore we should strive to prevent them by believing Gods Love in Christ rather than to wait for them It is true that God maketh these despairing Thoughts as well as other Sins work for good to them that are delivered from them by Faith in Christ they are moved thereby to hate Sin and to prize Christ the more and the Comforts of his Gospel and to loath and abhor themselves yet many are brought to Christ without them by Gods giving them the knowledge of their own Sins and of Christ's Salvation together several Examples of these were above mentioned who received the Word with Joy at the first hearing of it And we must not desire or wait for any evil of Sin such as these despairing thoughts are that good may come of it Neither should we expect to be worse before we be better when we may and ought to be better presently by believing on Christ 4. In the direction it is that we should continue and increase in the most Holy Faith and that we may we must not think that when we have once attained to the Grace of saving Faith and thereby are begotten anew in Christ our Names are up in Heaven and perfect we may lye in Bed till Noon but as long as we continue in this Life we must endeavour to continue in the Faith grounded and setled not moved away from the
of these Consolations by Faith in the very first Beginning of a holy Life Besides the Gospel proposeth Peace and Comfort freely to those that are not yet brought to Holiness yet if they have Hearts to receive it they may be converted from Sin to Righteness When the Apostles entred into an House they were first to say Peace be to the house Luke 10.5 At their very first Preaching to Sinners they acquainted them with the glad Tidings of Salvation by Christ for every one that would receive it as a Free-gift by Faith Acts 3.26 13.26 32 38. 16.30 31. They assured them if they would but trust heartily on Christ for all his Salvation they should have it although they were at present the chief of Sinners which was Comfort sufficient for all that duly esteem Spiritual Comfort hungring and thirsting after it And this is a Method agreeable to the Design of the Gospel which is to advance the Riches of the Grace of God in all our Spiritual Enjoyments God will give us his Consolations before our good Works as well as after them that we may know that he giveth us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace and not through the Procurement of our Works 2 Thess 2.16 Fourthly The Nature of the Duties of the Law requireth a comfortable state of the Soul for the Performance of them I have before proved sufficiently that they require a Perswasion of our Reconciliation with God and of our future Happiness and Strength whereby we may be able to walk in holy Obedience Joshuah must be strong and very couragious that he might observe to do according to the Law that Moses the Servant of the Lord commanded him Josh 1.7 I shall instance briefly in the Comforts without which several great Duties cannot be sincerely performed Can we love God and delight in him above all while we look upon him as our everlasting Enemy and apprehend no Love and Mercy in him towards us that may render him a suitable Good for us and lovely in our Eyes What doleful Melody will the Heart make in the Duty of Praise if we account that all those Perfections for which we praise him will rather aggravate our Misery than make us happy What a heartless Work will it be to pray to him and to offer up our selves to his Service if we have no comfortable Hope that he will accept us Is it possible for us to free our selves from carking Cares by casting our Care upon the Lord if we do not apprehend that he careth for us Can we be patient in Affliction with Chearfulness and under Persecutions except we have peace with God and rejoyce in the hope of the glory of God Rom. 5.1 2 3. What Reason can perswade us to submit willingly according to our Duty to the Stroak of present Death if God be pleased to lay it upon us when we have no Comforts to relieve us against the horrible Fear of intollerable Torments in Hell for ever If we should be called to suffer Martyrdom for the Protestant Religion as our Ancestors in this Nation have done we should find it necessary to abandon the late upstart Notions that have been bred in a time of Ease and to embrace the comfortable Doctrine of former Protestants which through the Grace of God made so many couragious and joyful Martyrs Fifthly The state of those that are to be brought from Sin to Godliness requires necessarily that after they be convinced of the Vnnity of their former false Confidences and of their Deadness in Original-sin and Subjection to the Wrath of God they should have a Supply of new Gospel Comforts afforded to encourage their fainting Souls to holy Practices How little do many Physicians of Souls consider the Condition of their unconverted Patients that are altogether without Spiritual Life and Strength and are or must be convinced He that prescribeth bodily Exercise to a Man lying Bed-ridden under a dead Palsie before any effectual means be used to strengthen him deserveth the name of a merciless insulting Tormentor rather than of a wise and tender-hearted Physician How unreasonable is it to prescribe the immediate Practice of Love to God and universal Obedience to him out of Love as the means of Cure for those that see nothing but Wrath and Enmity in God towards them in their present Condition what is it but to require a Man to work without Strength promising him that he shall have Strength when his Work is done for Comfort and Fortitude is so called because it comforteth and strengtheneth True it is That the Law which is the Ministration of Condemnation obligeth them to Obedience but our merciful God expecteth no sincere Performance of his Law from such impotent miserable Wretches in order to their Salvation by Christ till he hath first delivered them in some measure from those Discomforts slavish Fears and Despondencies that hold them captive under the Law of Sin and Death We may require a strong healthy Person first to work and then to expect Meat Drink and Wages but a fainting famished Person must first have Food or a reviving Cordial to strengthen his Heart before he can work Sixthly Both Scripture and Experience shew That this is the Method whereby God bringeth his People from Sin to Holiness though some of them are brought under Terrours for a while that Sin may be the more imbittered and the Salvation of Christ rendred more precious and acceptable to them yet such are again delivered from their Terrors by the Comfort of God's Salvation that they may be fitted for Holiness and generally a holy Life beginneth with Comfort and is maintained by it God gave to Adam at his first Creation the Comfort of his Love and Favour and the Happiness of Paradise to encourage him to Obedience and when he had left those Comforts by the Fall he was no longer able to obey until he was restored by new Comfort of the promised Seed Christ the Second Adam set God always before his face and he knew that because God was at his right hand he should not be moved therefore his heart was glad and his glory rejoyced Psal 16.8 9. This made him willing to bear his Agony and bloody Sweat and to be obedient unto Death even the death of the Cross God drew the Israelites to Obedience with the Cords of a Man with the Bonds of Love by taking off the Yoke on their Jaws and laying Meat before them Hos 11.4 David telleth us for our Instruction how he was brought to an holy Conversation Thy loving kindness is before mine eyes and I have walked in thy truth Psal 26.3 Lord I have hoped for thy salvation and done thy Commandements Psal 119.166 We have several Examples in the New Testament of the Joy that Sinners had in the first receiving of Christ Acts 2.41 And when the Gospel first came to the Thessalonians they received the Word in much affliction with joy in the Holy Ghost 1 Thess 1.4 5.
or New Testament which is the Ministration of the Spirit and the Power of God unto Salvation 2 Cor. 3.6 8. Rom. 1.16 7. For the performance of other Duties of the Law you are to consider not only these Endowments Priviledges and Properties of their new State which are meet and forcible to enable you to the Love of God and Universal Obedience but also those that have a peculiar force and aptitude suitable to the special Nature of such Duties And you must endeavour to assure your selves of them by Faith that you may be encouraged and strengthned to perform the Duties I shall give you some instances of this manner of practice in several Duties whereby you may the better understand how to guide your selves in the rest And as to the Duties of the first Table if you would draw near to God in a Duty of his Worship with a true Heart you must do it in full assurance of Faith concerning your enjoyment of Christ and his Salvation And would you perform the great Duty of trusting on the Lord with all your Heart easting your Care upon him and committing the disposal of your self to him in all your Concerns Perswade your self through Christ that God according to his Promise will never fail you nor forsake you that he taketh a Fatherly Care of you that he will with-hold no good thing from you and will make all things to work for your Good And thus you will be strong and couragious in the practice of this Duty Whereas if you live in a meer suspence concerning your Interest in the Priviledges you will be subject to carnal fears carping cares in despite of your Heart and you will be prone to trust on the Arm of Flesh tho your Conscience tell you plainly that in so doing you incur the hainous guilt of Idolatry Would you be strengthned to submit to the hand of God with a chearful Patience in bearing any Affliction and Death it self The way to fortifie your selves is to Believe assuredly that your Afflictions that are but for a moment do work for you a far more exceeding eternal weight of Glory that Christ is your gain in death and life that his Grace is sufficient for you and his strength made perfect in your weakness and that he will not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able and will at last make you more than Conquerours over all evil Until you attain to such perswasions as these you will be prone to fret and murmur under the burden of Affliction and to use indirect means to deliver your selves notwithstanding the clearest Convictions to the contrary Would you limit your selves to the Observation of Gods own Institutions in his Worship Believe that you are compleat in Christ and have all perfection of spiritual Blessings in him and that God will build you up in Christ by the Ordinances of his own Appointment This will make you account his Ordinances sufficient and Mens Traditions and Inventions needless in the Worship of God Whereas if you do not apprehend all fulness in Christ you will be like the Papists prone to catch at every Straw and to multiply Superstitious Observations without end for the supply of your spiritual Wants Would you confess your sins to God pray to him and praise him heartily for his Benefits Would you praise him for Afflictions as well as Prosperity Believe assuredly that God is Faithful and Just to forgive your sin through Christ that you are made an Holy Priesthood to offer spiritual Sacrisices of Prayer and Praises that are acceptable to God through Christ and that God heareth your Prayers and will fulfill them so far as they are good for you and that all Gods ways are Mercy and Truth toward you whether he prosper or afflict you in this life If you be altogether in doubt or otherwise perswaded concerning these Priviledges all your Confessions Prayers and Praises will be but heartless Lip-labours Slavish or Pharisaical Works In like manner you will be enabled to hear and receive the Word as the Word of God and to meditate on it with delight and you will be willing to know the strictness and spirituality of the Commands of God and to try and examine your ways impartially by them if you believe assuredly that the Word is the Power of God to Salvation and that Christ is your great Physician willing and able to heal you be the case never so bad And where your sin abounds his Grace towards you doth so much the more abound Whereas without these Comfortable Apprehensions all the works of Hearing Meditation Self-examination will be but uncouth heartless Works and they will be performed negligently and by halves or hypocritically and out of slavish Fear with much reluctancy without any good will or readiness of mind So also for the right receiving of the Sacraments you will find your selves much strengthned by Believing that you may have Communion with God and Christ in them and that you have a great High-Priest to bear the Iniquity of your holy things and to make you for ever accepted before the Lord. In the same way you are to apply your selves to all Duties towards your Neighbour required in the second Table of the Law by Acting in a perswasion of such priviledges of your new Estate as have a peculiar force to encourage and strengthen you for the performance of them That you may love your Neighbour as your self and do to him in all things as you would he should do to you without partiality and self-seeking that you may give him his due Honour and abstain from injuring him in his Life Chastity worldly Estate good Name or from Coveting any thing that is his according to the several Commands in the second Table of the Decalogue You must walk in a perswasion not only that these things are just and equitable toward your Fellow-Creatures and that you are strictly bound to the performance of them but that they are the will of your heavenly Father that hath begotten you according to his own Image in Righteousness and true Holiness and hath given you his Spirit that you may be like-minded to him in all things And that they are the mind of Christ who dwelleth in you and you in him That God and Christ are kind tender-hearted long-suffering full of goodness to Men whether good or bad Friends or Enemies Poor or Rich and that Christ came into the World not to destroy but to save and that you are of the same Spirit that the Injuries done to you by your Neighbours can do you no harm And you need not seek any good for your selves by injuring them because you have all desirable happiness in Christ and all things tho intended by your Enemies for your hurt certainly work for your good through Christ Such apprehensions as these wrought in us by the Spirit of Faith do certainly beget in us a right frame of Spirit throughly furnished for every good work towards our Neighbour
necessary to the very being there of because Faith cometh by hearing the Word of God and receiveth Christ as manifested by the Word as I have before proved Raab the Canaanite was justifyed by Faith before she had any visible Commuion with the Church in any of God's Ordinances yet not without the Word of God even the same Word for Substance which was written in the Scriptures and was then extant in the Books of Moses Though that Word was not brought to her by any Book of Holy Scripture nor by the Preaching of any Holy Minister but by the Report of the Heathens Josh 2.9 11. But here our great work must be to get such a Knowledge of the Word as is necessary and sufficient to guide us in receiving of Christ and walking in him by Faith You must not be of their Minds that think the Knowledge of the Ten Commandments to be sufficient to Salvation or that would have Mysteries to remain hidden from the Understanding of the Vulgar and nothing to be Preached to them but that they can readily assent to and receive by the Light that is in all Men of which Mind it may be some Ministers are who unwitingly agree with the Quakers in a Fundamental of their Heresie But you must endeavour chiefly to know the Mystery of the Father and the Son as it is discovered in the Gospel Wherein are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge Col. 2.2 3. Which to know is life eternal and the ignorance of it is death eternal Joh. 17.3 2 Cor. 4.3 You must know that Christ is the end of the law Rom. 10.4 and therefore you must endeavour to know the Commands of the Law not that you may be enabled by that Knowledge to practife them immediately and so to procure Salvation by your Works but rather by your Knowledge of them you may be made sensible of your Inablility to perform them and of the Enmity that is in your Heart against them and the Wrath that you are under for breaking of them and the Impossibility of being saved by your own Works that so you may flee to Christ for Refuge and trust only to the Free Grace of God for Justification and Strength to fulfill the Law acceptably through Christ in your Conversation And for this end you must endeavour to learn the utmost Strictness of the Commands the exact Perfection and spiritual Purity which they require that you may be the more convinced of Sin and stired up to seek unto Christ for Remission of Sin for Purity of Heart and spiritual Obedience and be brought nearer to the Enjoyment of him As Christ testified that the Scribel who understood the greatness of that Command of Loving the Lord with all the Heart and Soul was not far from the Kingdom of God Mar. 12.34 the most effectual Knowledge for your Salvation is to understand these Two Points The desperate Sinfulness and Misery of your own natural Condition and the alone Sufficiency of the Grace of God in Christ for your Salvation that you may be abased as to the Flesh and exalted in Christ alone And for the better understanding of these Two main Points you should learn how the first Adam was the figure of the second Rom. 5.14 How Sin and Death came upon all the natural Seed of the first Adam by his Disobedience in eating the forbidden Fruit and how Righteousness and Everlasting Life come upon all the spiritual Seed of the second Adam Jesus Christ by his Obedience unto Death even the death of the Cross You also should learn the true difference betwixt the Two Covenants the Old and the New or the Law and the Gospel that the former shutteth us up under the Guilt and Power of Sin and the Wrath of God and his Curse by its rigorons Terms Do all the Commandments and live and cursed are you if you do them not and fail in the least Point The latter openeth the gates of righteousness and life to all Believers i. e. the New Covenant by its gracious Terms Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and live i. e. All your Sins shall be forgiven and Holiness and Glory shall be given to you freely by his Merit and Spirit Furthermore you should learn the Gospel Principles that you are to walk by for the attainment of Holiness in Christ And here I shall mind you particularly that you would be a good Proficient in Christian Learning if you get a good Understanding of the 6th and 7th Chapters of the Apostle Paul to the Romans where the powerful Principles of Sanctification are purposely treated of and differenced from those weak and ineffectual Principles which we are most naturally prone to walk by I need not particularly commend any other Points of Religion to your Learning for if you get the Knowledge of these principal Points which I have mentioned and improve it to a right end which is to Live and Walk by Faith in Christ your own renewed Mind will covet the Knowledge of all other things that appertain to Life and Godliness And if in any thing you be otherwise minded than is according to saving Truth God shall reveal even this unto you Phil. 3.15 Yet let me caution you lest instead of gaining Christ by your Knowledge you rather lose him by putting your Knowledge in the place of Christ and trusting on it for your Salvation One cause of the Jews perishing was that they rested in a form of knowledge and of the truth in the law Rom. 2.20 and doubtless all that many Christians will gain by their Knowledge in the end will only be to be beaten with more Stripes because they place their Religion and Salvation chiefly in the Knowledge of their Lords Will and in their Ability to Talk and Dispute of it though it may be for the most part at the Tavern or Ale-Bench without preparing themselves to do according thereunto Luk. 12.47 much less are you to place your Religion and hope of Salvation in a daily Task of reading Chapters or repeating Sermons without understanding more than the Papists do their Lessons in the Latin Mass and Canonical Hours as sad Experience sheweth that many seemingly Devout and frequent Hearers of the Word do notwithstanding remain in lamentable and wonderful Ignorance of the saving Truth and in them is fulfilled the Prophecy of Isaias That in hearing they shall hear and not understand and in seeing they shall see c. Mat. 13.14 15. 2. Another means to be used diligently for the promoting of the Life of Faith is Examination of our State and Ways according to the Word whether we be at present in a State of Sin and Wrath or of Grace and Salvation that if we be in a State of Sin we may know our Sickness and come to the great Physician while it is called to day And if we be in a State of Grace ws may know that we are of the truth and assure our hearts before God with the greater confidence by