those things that are not seen Or you may take the sense in this Proposition which I am next to open further and apply viz. That the nature and use of faith is to be as it were instead of presence possession and sight or to make the things that will be as if they were already in existence and the things unseen which God revealeth as if our bodily eyes beheld them 1. Not that faith doth really change its object 2. Nor doth it give the same degree of apprehensions and affections as the sight of present things would do But 1. Things invisible are the objects of our faith 2. And Faith is effectual instead of sight to all these uses 1. The apprehension is as infallible because of the objective certainty though not so satisfactory to our imperfect souls as if the things themselves were seen 2. The will is determined by it in its necessary consent and choice 3. The affections are moved in the necessary dâ—gree 4. It ruleth in our lives and bringeth us through duty and suffering for the sake of the happiness which we believe 3. This Faith is a grounded wise and justifiable act an infallible knowlâ—dge and often called so in Scripture John 6.69 1 Cor. 15.58 Rom. 8.28 c. And the constitutive and efficient causes will justifie the Name We know and are infallibly sure of the truth of God which we believe As it 's said John 6.69 We believe and are sure that thou art that Christ the Son of the living God 2 Cor. 5.1 We know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved we have a building of God an house not made with hands eternal in the Hâ—avens Rom. 8.28 We know that all things work together for good to them that love God 1 Cor. 15.58 You know that your labour is nâ—t in vain in the Lord Joh. 9.29 We knâ—w God spake to Moses c. 31. We know God heareth not sinners John 3.2 We know thou art a Teacher come from God So 1 John 3.5 15. 1 Pet. 3.17 and many other Scriptures tell you that Believing God is a certain infallible sort of knowledge I shall in justification of the work of Faith acquaint you briefly with 1. That in the Nature of it 2. And that in the causing of it which advanceth it to be an infallible knowledge 1. The Believer knows as sure as he knows there is a God that God is true and his Word is true it being impossible for God to lie Hâ—b 6.18 God that cannot lie hath promised Titus 1.2 2. He knows that the holy Scripture is the Word of God by his Image which it beareth and the many evidences of Divinity which it containeth and the many Miracles certainly proved which Christ and his Spirit in his servants wrought to confirm the truth 3. And therefore he knoweth assuredly the conclusion that all this Word of God is true And for the surer effecting of this knowledge God doth not only set before us the ascertaining Evidence of his own veracity and the Scriptures Divinity but moreover 1. He giveth us to believe Phil. 1.29 2 Pet. 1.3 For it is not of our selves but is the gift of God Ephes 2.8 Faith is one of the fruits of the Spirit Gal. 5.22 By the drawing of the Father we come to the Son And he that hath knowledge given from Heaven will certainly know and he that hath Faith given him from Heaven will certainly believe The heavenly Light will dissipate our darkness and infallibly illuminate Whilest God sets before us the glass of the Gospel in which the things invisible are revealed and also gives us eye sight to behold them Believers must needs be a heavenly people as walking in that light which proceedeth from and leadeth to the celestial everlasting Light 2. And that Faith may be so powerful as to serve instead of sight and presence Believers have the Spirit of Christ within them to excite and actuate it and help them against all temptations to unbelief and to work in them all other graces that concur to promote the works of Faith and to mortifie those sins that hinder our believing and are contrary to a heavenly life So that as the exercise of our sight and taste and hearing and feeling is caused by our natural life so the exercise of Faith and Hope and Love upon things unseen is caused by the holy Spirit which is the principle of our new life 1 Cor. 2.12 We have received the Spirit that we might know the things that are given us of God This Spirit of God acquainteth us with God with his veracity and his Word Heb. 10.30 We know him that hath said I will never fail thee nor forsake thee This Spirit of Christ acquainteth us with Christ and with his grace and will 1 Cor. 2.10 11 12. This heavenly Spirit acquainteth us with Heaven so that We know that when Christ appeareth we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is 1 Joh. 3.2 And we know that he was manifested to take away sin 1 Joh. 3.5 And will perfect his work and present us spotless to his Father Eph. 5.26 27. This heavenly Spirit possesseth the Saints with such heavenly dispositions and desires as much facilitate the work of Faith It bringeth us to a heavenly conversation and maketh us live as fellow-citizens of the Saints and in the houshold of God Phil. 3.20 Eph. 2.19 It is within us a Spirit of supplication breathing heaven-ward with sighs and groans which cannot be expressed and as God knoweth the meaning of the Spirit so the Spirit knows the mind of God Rom. 8.37 1 Cor. 2.11 3. And the work of Faith is much promoted by the spiritual experiences of Believers When they find a considerable part of the holy Scriptures verified on themselves it much confirmeth their Faith as to the whole They are really possessed of that heavenly disposition called The Divine Nature and have felt the power of the Word upon their hearts renewing them to the Image of God mortifying their most dear and strong corruptions shewing them a greater beauty and desirableness in the Objects of Faith than is to be found in sensible things They have found many of the Promises made good upon themselves in the answers of prayers and in great deliverances which strongly perswadeth them to believe the rest that are yet to be accomplished And experience is a very powerful and satisfying way of conviction He that feeleth as it were the first fruits the earnest and the beginnings of Heaven already in his soul will more easily and assuredly believe that there is a Heaven hereafter We know that the Son of God iâ— come and hath given us an understanding that we may know him that is true and we are in him that is true even in his Son Jesus Christ This is the true God and eternal life 1 Joh. 5.20 He that believeth on the Son hath the witness in himself Vers 10. There is so
denyal of its truth And a true Exposition is better than either The same God who hath given us a Saviour to satisfie legal Justice and to merit our Justification against the charge that we are condemnable by the Law of Works hath thought meet to convey our title to this Christ and Justification by the Instrumentality of a new Covenant Testament or pardoning Act in which though he absolutely give many antecedent mercies yet he giveth these and other Rights by a conditional gift that as the Reward of Glory should have invited man to keep the Law of Nature and his Innocency so the Reward should be a moving means to draw men to believe So that there is a condition to be performed by our selves through grace before we can have the Covenant right to Justification Now when that is performed Christ then is our only Righteousness as aforesaid by which we must answer the charge of breaking the first Law and being condemnable by it But we can lay no claim to this Righteousness of Christ till we first prove that we are our selves inherently righteous against the charge of being impenitent Vnbelievers This false accusation we must be justâ—fied against by our own Faith and Repentance that we may be justified by Christ against the true accusation of sinning against the Law and thereby being condemnable by it Now as to our Legal Righteousness or Pro-legal rather by which this last must be avoided it is only the merits of Christ given to us in its fruits in the New Covenant even the merits of his obedience and sacrifice But our Faith it self is the other Righteousness which must be found in our persons to entitle us to this first And this being it and being all in the sense aforesaid that is made the condition of our pardon by the New Covenant therefore God is said to impute it it self to us for a Righteousness because that condition makeeth it so and to impute it to us for our Righteousness that is as all that now by this Covenant he requireth to be personally done by us who had formerly been under a harder condition even the fulfilling of the Law by innocency or suffering for sin because he that doth not fulfil nor satisfie as is said yet if he believe hath a right to the Justification merited by Christ who did fulfil and satisfie This is easie to be understood as undoubted truth by the willing and the rest will be most contentious where they are most erroneous Errour 37. That sincere obedience and all acts of Love Repentance and Faith save one do justifie us only before men and of that speaketh St. James ch 2. Contr. I must refer the Reader to other Books in which I have fuly confuted this How can men judge of the acts of Repentance Faith Love c. which are in the heart And James plainly speaketh of Gods imputing Righteousness to Abraham James 2.21 23. And how should men justifie Abraham for kâ—lling his only Son And how small a matter is Justification by man when we may be saved without it 2. Sincere Obedience to God in Christ is the condition of the continuance or not losing our Justification here and the secondary part of the condition of our final sentential and executive Justification Errour 38. That our inherent Righteousness before described hath no place of a condition in our Justification in the day of Judgement Contr. The Scriptures fully confuting this I have elsewhere cited All those that say we shall be judged according to our works c. speak against it For to be judged is only to be justified or condemned So Rev. 22.14 Matth. 25 c. Errour 39 That there is no Justification at Judgement to be expected but only a declaration of it Contr. The Decisive sentence and declaration of the Judge is the most proper sense or sort of Justification and the perfection of all that went before If we shall not be then justified then there is no such thing as Justification by Sentence Nay there is no such thing as a day of Judgement or else all men must be condemned For it is most certain that we must be justified or condemned or not-judged Errour 40. That no man ought to believe that the conditional Covenant Act or Gift of Justification belongeth to him as a member of the lost world or as a sinner in Adam because God hath made no such gift or promise to any but to the Elect. Contr. This is confuted on the by before Errour 41. That though it be false that the non-elect are elect and that Christ dyed for them yet they are bound to believe it every man of himself to prove that they are elect Contr. This is confuted on the by before God bindeth or biddeth no man to believe a lye Errour 42. That we must believe Gods Election and our Justification and the special Love of God to us before we can love him with a special Love Because it will not cause in us a special love to believe only a common love of God and such as he hath to the wicked and his enemies Contr. No man can groundedly believe the special Love of God to him nor his own Election or Justification before he hath yea before he find in himself a special love to God Because he that hath no special love to God must believe a lye if he believe that he is justified or that ever God revealed to him that he is elect or specially beloved of God and no man hath any evidence or proof at all of his election and Gods special love till he have this evidence of his special love to God Till he know this he cannot know that any other is sincere 2. They that deny or blâ—spheme Gods common love to fallen man and his universal pardoning Covenant do their worst to keep men from being moved to the special Love of God by his common Love But when they have done their worst it shall stand as a sure obligation Is there not reason enough to bind men to love God above all even as one that yet may be their happiness in his own infinite Goodness and all the revelations of it by Christ and in his so loving the world as to give his only Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life And in his giving a free pardon of all sin to mankind and offering life eternal to them so that none but the final refusers shall lose it and intreating them to accept it c Is not all this sufficient in reason to move men to that love of God if the Spirit help them to make use of Reason as he must do what Reasons soever are presented to them unless men think that God doth not oblige them by any kindness which they can possibly reject or by any thing which many others do partake of Yet here note that Gods common love to man I do not mean any which he hath to Reprobates under
them for God but use them for themselves yet wonder not if he fear not much the face of man and be no admirer of worldly greatness when he seeth what they will be as well as what they are Would not usurpers have been less feared if all could have foreseen their fall Even common reason can foresee that shortly you will all be dust Methinks I foresee your ghastly paleness your loathsome blackness and your habitation in the dark And who can much envy or desire the advancements that have such an end One sight of God would blast all the glory of the world that 's now the bâ—â—t for mans perdition Quest 6. Would temptations be as powerful as now they are if you did but see the things you bear of Could all the beauty or pleasures in the world entice you to filthiness or sensuality if you saw God over you and judgement before you and saw what damned souls now suffer and what believers now enjoy Could you be perswaded by any company or recreation to waste your precious time in vain with such things in your eye I am confident you would abhor the motion and entertertain temptations to the most honoured gainful pleasant sin as now you would do a motion to cut your own throats or leap into a coal-pit or thrust your head into a burning-oven Why then doth not faith thus shame temptations if indeed you do believe these things Will you say It is your weakness you cannot â—husâ— or that it is your nature to be lustful revengeful sensual and you cannot overcome it But if you had a sight of Heaven and Hell you could then resist you cannot now bâ—cause you will not But did you see that which would make you willing your power would appear The sight of a Judge or Gallows can restrain mâ—n The sight of a person whom you reverence can restrain the exercise of your disgraceful sins much more would the sight of Heaven and Hell If you were but dying you would shake the head at him that would then tempt you to the committing of your former sins And is not a lively foreseeing faith as effectual Quest 7. Had you seen what you say you do believe you would not so much stick aâ— sufferings nor make so great a matter of it to be reproached slandered imprisoned or condemned by man when God and your salvation command your patience A sight of Hell would make you think it worse than madness to run thither to escape the wrath of man or any sufferings on earth Rom. 8.18 Quest 8. And O how such a sight would advance the Redeemer and his Grace and Promises and Word and Ordinances in your esteem It would quicken your desires and make you fly to Christ for life as a drowning man to that which may support him How sweetly then would you relish the name the word the waies of Christ which now seem dry and common things Qâ—est 9. Could you live as merrily and sleep as quietly in a negligent uncertainty of your salvation if you had seen these things as now you do Could you live at hearts ease while you know not where you shall be to morrow or must live for ever Oh no Were Heaven and Hell but seen before you your Consciences would be more busie in putting such questions Am I regenerate sanctified reconciled justified or not Then any the most zealous Minister is now Quest 10. I will put to you but one Quâ—stion more If we saw God and Heaven and Hell before us do you think it would not effectually reconcile our differences and heal our unbrotherly exasperâ—tions and divisions would it not hold the hands that itch to be using violence against those that are not in all things of their minds what abundance of vain controversies would it reconcile As the coming in of the Master doth part the fray among the School-boyes so the sight of God would frâ—ghten us from contentions or uncharitable violence This would teach us how to preach and pray better than a storm at Sea can do which yet doth it better than some in prosperity wâ—ll learn Did we see what we preach of it would drive us out of our man pleasing self-seeking sleepy strain as the cudgel drives the beggar from his canting and the breaking loose of the Bear did teach the affected cripple to find his legs and câ—st away his câ—utchâ—s I would desire no better outward help to end our controversies about indifferent modes of worship than a sight of the things of which we speak This would excite such a serious â—rame of soul as would not suffer Religion to evaporate into formality nor dwindle into affectation complement and ceremony nor should we dare to beat our fellow-servants and thrust them out of the vineyard and say you shall not preach or pray or live but upon these or those unnecessary terms But the sense of our own frailty and fear of a severe disquisition of our failings would make us compassionate to others and content that necessaries be the matter of our unity unnecessaries of our liberty and both of charity If sight in all these ten particulars would do so much should not faith do much if you verily believe the things you see not Alas corrupted reason is asleep with men that seem wise in other things till it be awakt by faith or sight And sleeping reason is as unserviceable as folly Iâ— doth no work it avoids no danger A Doctor that 's asleep can defend the truth no better than a waking child But reason will be reason and conscience will be conscience when the dust is blown out of mens eyes and sight and feeling have awakened and so recovered their understandings or Faith more seasonably and happily awaked them AND O that now we might all consent to addict ourâ—selves to the Life of Faith And 1. That we live not too much on visibles 2. That we live on the things invisible 1. One would think that worldliness is a disease that carryeth with it a cure for it self and that the rational nature should be loth to love at so dear a rate and to labour for so poor a recompence It is pitty that Gehezi's leprosie and Judas's death should no more prevent a succession of Gehezi's and Judas's in all generations Our Lord went before us most eminently in a contempt of earth His Kingdom was not of this world No men are more unlike him than the worldlings I know necessity is the pretence But it is the dropsie of Covetousness that causeth the thirst which they call Nâ—câ—ssity And therefore the cure is non addere opiâ—us sed imminuere cupiditatem The disease must not be fed but healed Saâ—s est divitiarum non amplius velle It hath lately been a controversie whether this be not the golden age that it is aetas ferrea we have felt our demonstrations are undeniable that it is aetas aurata we have sufficient proof and while gold is the god that rules
sinful world and flesh linger not now as unwilling to depart repent not of thy choice when all that the world can do for thee is past repent not of thy warfare when thou hast got the victory nor of thy voyage when thou art past the storms and waves and ready to land at the haven of felicity Thus Faith may sing our Nunc dimittis when the flesh is lothest to be dissolved But we must live by faith if we would thus die by faith Such a death doth not use to be the period of a fleshly worldly life nor of a careless dull and negligent life Nature which brought us into the world without our forecast or care will turn us out of the world without it But it will not give us a joyful passage nor bring us to a better world without it It costeth worldlings no small care to die in an honourable or plentiful estate that they may fall from an higher place than others and may have something to make death more grievous and unwelcome to them and may have a greater account to make at Judgement and that their passage to Heaven may be as a Camels through a Needle And may a believing joyful death be expected without the preparations of exercise and experience in a believing life Nature is so much afraid of dying and an incorporated soul is so incarcerated in sense and so hardly riseth to serious and satisfying apprehensions of the unseen world that even true Believers do find it a work of no small difficulty to desire to depart and be with Christ and to die in the joyful hopes of faith A little abatement of the terrours of death a little supporting hope and peace is all that the greater part of them attain instead of the fervent desires and triumphant joyes which the lively belief of endless glory should produce O therefore make it the work of your lives of all your lives your greatest work your constant work to live by faith that the faith which hath first conquered all the rest of your enemies may be able also to overcome the last and may do your last work well when it hath done the rest CHAP. I. Directions how to live by Faith And first how to strengthen Faith And secondly the natural Truths presupposed to be considered THe Directions which I shall give you as helps to live by Faith are of two ranks 1. Such as tend to the strengthening of your Faith 2. Such as tell you how to use it The first is the greatest part of our task for no man can use that faith which he hath not nor can use more of it than he hath And the commonest reason why we use but little is because we have but little to use But on this subject supposing it most weighty I have written many Treatises already The second part of the Saints Rest The Unreasonableness of Infidelity And last of all The Reasons of the Christian Religion Besides others which handle it on the by And somewhat is said in the beginning of this discourse But yet because in so great a matter I am more afraid of doing too little than too much I will here give you an Index of some of the chief Helps to be close together before you for your memories to be the constant fuel of your Faith In the work of Faith it is first needful that you get all the prerequisite Helps of Natural Light and be well acquainted with their Order and Evidence and their Vsefulness to befriend the supernatural revelations For it is supposed that we are men before we are Christians We were created before we were redeemed And we must know that there is a God before we can know that we have offended him or that we need a Saviour to reconcile us to him And we must know that we have reasonable souls before we can know that sin hath corrupted them or that grace must sanctifie them And we must know that whatsoâ—ver God saith is true before we can believe that the Scripture is true as being his revelation Faith is an act of Reason and Believing is a kind of knowing even a knowing by the testimâ—ny of him whom we believe because we have sufficient reason to believe him 2. And next we must be well acquainted with the evidence of supernatural Truth which presupposeth the foresaid Natural Verities I shall set both bâ—fore you briefly in their order 1. Think well â—f the nature of your souls of their faculties or pâ—wers their excellency and their proper use And then you will find that you are not meer brutes who know not their Creatâ—ur nor live noâ— by a Law nor think not of another world nor â—â—ar any â—â—fferings after death But that you have reasâ—n free-will and executive power to knâ—w your Maker and to live by â—ule aâ—d to hope for a Reward in another life and to fear a pâ—nâ—shmeâ—t hereafter And that as no wise Artificer maketh any thing in vain so God is mâ—ch less to be thought to havâ— given you such souls and faculties in vain 2. Coâ—sidâ—r next how all the world declareth to you that there is a Gâ—d whâ— is infiniteâ—y pâ—werful wise and good And thaâ— it is not possible that all things which we see should have no cause or that the derived Power and Wisdom and Goodnesâ— of the creature should not proceed from that which is more excellent in the first and total cause Or that God should give more than he had to give 3. Consider nexâ— in whâ—t Relation such a creature must needs stand to such a Creatour If he made us of Nâ—â—hing 〈◊〉 is not pâ—ssible but that he must be 〈◊〉 Owner and wâ— aâ—d all things absolutely his Own And if he be our Maker and Owner and be infinitely powerful wise and good and we be Reasonable-free-agents made to be guided by Laws or Moral Means unto our end it is not possible but that we should stand related to him as subjects to their rightful Governour And if he be our Creatour Owner and Ruler and also infinitely Good and the grand Benefactor of the world and if the nature of our souls be to Love Good as Good it cannot be possible that he should not be our End who is our Creatour and that we should not be related to him as to the Chiefest Good both originally as our Benefactor and finally as our End 4. And then it is easie for you next to see what duty you owe to that God to whom you are thus related That if you are absolutely his Own you should willingly be at his absolute dispose And iâ— he bâ— your Soveraign Ruler you should labour most diligently to know his Laws and absolutely to obey them And if he be infinitely Good and your Benefactor and your End you are absolutely bound to Love him most devotedly and to place your own felicity in his Love All this is so evidently the duty of man to God by nature that nothing but madness can deny
3. And this guilt and fear and unwillingness together will all keep down your thoughts from Heaven so that seldom thinking of it will increase your unbelief and they will make you unfit to see the evidences of truth in the Gospel when you do think of them or hear them For he that would not kâ—â—w cannot learn Obâ—y therefore according to the knowledge which you have if ever you would have more and would not be given up to the blindness of Infidelity Direct 11. Trust not only to your understandings and think not that study is all which is necessary to faith But remember that faith is the gift of God and therefore pray as well as study Prov. 3.5 Trust in the Lord with all thy heart and lean not to thy own understanding It is a precept as necessary in this point as in any In all things God abhorreth the proud and looketh at them afar off as with disowning and disdain But in no case more than when a blind ungodly sinner shall so overvalue his own understanding as to think that if there be evidence of truth in the mystery of faith he is able presently to discern it before or without any heavenly illumination to cure his dark distempered mind Remember that as the Sun is seen only by his own light so is God our Creatour and Redeemer Faith is the gift of God as well as Repentance Ephes 2.8 2 Tim. 2.25 26. Apply your selves therefore to God by earnest prayer for it As he Mark 9.24 Lord I believe help thou my unbelief And as the Disciples Luke 17.5 Increase our faith A humble soul that waiteth on God in fervent prayer and yet neglecteth not to study and search for truth is much liker to become a confirmed Believer than ungodly Students who trust and seek no further than to their Books and their perverted minds For as God will be sought to for his grace so those that draw near him do draw near unto the Light and therefore are like as children of Light to be delivered from the power of darkness For in his light we shall see the light that must acquaint us with him Direct 12. Lastly What measure of Light soever God vouchsafeth you labour to turn it all into Love and make it your serious care and business to know God that you may love him and to love God so far as you know him For he that desireth satisfaction in his doubts to no better end than to please his mind by knowing and to free it from the disquiet of uncertainty hath an end so low in all his studies that he cannot expect that God and his grace should be called down to serve such a low and base design That faith which is not employed in beholding the love of God in the face of Christ on purpose to increase and exercise our love is not indeed the true Christian Faith but a dead opinion And he that hath never so weak a faith and useth it to this end to know Gods amiableness and to love him doth take the most certain way for the confirmation of his faith For Love is the closest adherence of the soul to God and therefore will set it in the clearest light and will teach it by the sweet convincing way of experience and spiritual taste Believing alone is like the knowledge of our meat by seeing it And Love is as the knowledge of our meat by eating and digesting it And he that hath tasted that it is sweet hath a stronger kind of perswasion that it is sweet than he that only seeth it and will much more tenaciously hold his apprehension It is more possible to dispute him out of his belief who only seeth than him that also tasteth and concocteth A Parent and child will not so easily believe any false reports of one another as strangers or enemies will because Love is a powerful resister of such hard conceits And though this be delusory and blinding partiality where Love is guided by mistake yet when a sound understanding leadeth it and Love hath chosen the truest object it is the naturally perfective motion of the soul And Love keepeth us under the fullest influences of Gods Love and therefore in the reception of that grace which will increase our faith For Love is that act which the ancient Doctors were wont to call the principle of merit or first meritorious act of the soul and which we call the principle of rewardable acts God beginneth and loveth us first partly with a Love of complacency only as his creatures and also as in esse cognito he foreseeth how amiable his grace will make us and partly with a Love of benevolence intending to give us that grace which shall make us really the objects of his further Love And having received this grace it causeth us to love God And when we love God we are really the objects of his complacential Love and when we perceive this it still increaseth our Love And thus the mutual Love of God and Man is the true perpetual motion which hath an everlasting cause and therefore must have an everlasting duration And so the faith which hath once kindled Love even sincere Love to God in Christ hath taken rooting in the heart and lyeth deeper than the head and will hold fast and increase as Love increaseth And this is the true reason of the stedfastness and happiness of many weak unlearned Christians who have not the distinct conceptions and reasonings of learned men and yet because their Faith is turned into Love their Love doth help to confirm their Faith And as they love more heartily so they believe more stedfastly and perseveringly than many who can say more for their faith And so much for the strengthening of your faith CHAP. IX General Directions for exercising the Life of Faith HAving told you how Faith must be confirmed I am next to tell you how it must be used And in this I shall begin with some General Directions and then proceed to such particular cases in which we have the greatest use for Faith Direct 1. Remember the necessity of Faith in all the business of your hearts and lives that nothing can be done well without it There is no sin to be conquered no grace to be exercised no worship to be performed nor no acts of mercy or justice or worldly business to be well done without it in any manner acceptable to God Without Faith it is impossible to please God Heb. 11.6 You may as well go about your bodily work without your eye-sight as about your spiritual work without Faith Direct 2. Make it therefore your care and work to get Faith and to use it and think not that God must reveal his mind to you as in visions while you idly neglect your proper work Believing is the first part of your trade of life and the practice of it must be your constant business It is not living ordinarily by sense and looking when God will
what our case is and then hath taught him what he himself is as to his person and his office and what he hath done to reconcile us to God and how far God is reconciled hereupon and what a common conditional pardoning Covenant he hath made and offereth to all and what he will be and do to those that do come in the belief of all this serioâ—sly by the assenting act of the understanding is the first part of saving Faith going in nature before both the Love of God and the consenting act of the Will to the Redeemer And yet perhaps the same acts of faith in an uneffectual superficial measure may go long before this in many 6. In this assent our belief in God and in the Mediatour are conjunct in time and nature they being Relatives here as the objects of our faith It is not possible to believe in Christ as the Mediatour who hath propitiated God to us before we believe that God is propitiated by the Mediatour nor vice versâ Indeed there is a difference in order of dignity and desirableness God as propitiated being represented to us as the End and the Propitiator but as the Means But as to the order of our apprehension or believing there can be no difference at all no more than in the order of knowing the Father and the Son the Husband and Wife the King and subjects These Relatives are simul naturá tempore 7. This assenting act of Faith by which at once we believe Christ to be the Propitiator and God to be propitiated by him is not the belief that my sins are actually pardoned and my soul actually reconciled and justified but it includeth the belief of the history of Christs satisfaction and of the common conditional Covenant of Promise and Offer from God viz. that God is so far reconciled by the Mediatour as that he will forgive and justifie and glorifie all that Repent and Believe that is that return to God by faith in Christ and offereth this mercy to all and intreateth them to accept it and will condemn none of them but those that finally reject i◠〈◊〉 things are of God who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ and hath given to us the Ministry of reconciliation to wit that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himsâ—lf not imputing their trespasses to them and hath committed to us the word of reconciliation Now then we are Embassadors for Christ as though God did beseech you by us we pray you in Christs stead be ye reconciled unto God 2 Cor. 5.18 19 20. So that it is at once the belief of the Father as reconciled and the Son as the Reconcilâ—r and that according to the tenour of the common conditional Covenant which is the first assenting part of saving Faith 8. This same Covenant which revealeth God as thus far reconciled by Christ doth offer him to be further actualy and fully reconciled and to justifie and glorifie us that is to forgive accept and love us perfectly for ever And it offereth us Christ to be our actual Head and Mediatour to procure and give us all this mercy by communicating the benefits which he hath purchased according to his Covenant-terms so that as before the Father and the Son were revealed to our assent together so here they are offered to the Will together 9. In this offer God is offered as the End and Christ as Mediatour is offered as the Means therefore the act of the Will to God which is here required is simple Love of complacency with subjection which is a consent to obey but the act of the Will to Christ is called choice or consent though there be in it Amor Medii the Love of that Means for its aptitude as to the end 10. This Love of God as the End and Consent to Christ as the Means being not acts of the Intellect but of the Will cannot be the first acts of Faith but do presuppose the first assenting acts 11. But the assenting act of Faith doth cause these acts of the Will to God and the Mediatour Because we believe the Truth and Goodness we Consent and Love 12. Both these acts of the Will are caused by assent at one time without the least distance 13. But here is a difference in order of Nature because we will God as the End and for himself and therefore first in the natural order of intention and we will Christ as the Means for that End and therefore but secondarily Though in the Intellects apprehension and assent there be no such difference because in the Truth which is the Vnderstandings object there is no dâ—fference but only in the Goodness which is the Wills object And as Goodness it self is apprehended by the Vnderstanding ut verè bonum there is only an objective dâ—fference of dignity 14. Therefore as the Gospel revelation cometh to us in a way of offer promise and covenant so our Faith must act in a way of Acceptance Covenanting with God and the Redeemer and Sanctifier And the Sacrament of Baptism is the solemnizing of this Covenant on both parts And till our hearts do consent to the Baptismal Covenant of Grace we are not Believers in a saving sense 15. There is no distance of time between the Assent of Faith and the first true degree of Love and Consent Though an unsound Assent may go long before yet sound Assent doth immediately produce Love and Consent and though a clear and full resolved degree of consent may be some time afterward And therefore the soul may not at the first degree so well understand it self as to be ready for an open covenanting 16. This being the true order of the work of Faith and Love the case now lyeth plain before those that can observe things distinctly and take not up with confused knowledge And no other are fit to meddle with such cases viz that the knowing or assenting acts of faith in God as reconciled so far and in Christ as the reconciler so far as to give out the offer or Covenant of Grace are both at once and both go before the acts of the will as the cause before the immediate effect and that this assent first in order of nature but at once in time causeth the will to love God as our End and to consent to and chuse Christ in heart-covenant as the means and so in our covenant we give up our selves to both And that this Repentance and Love to God which are both one work called conversion of turning from the creature to God the one as denominated from the terminus à quo viz. Repentance the other from the terminus ad quem viz. Love are twisted at once with true saving Faith And that Christ as the means used by God is our first Teacher and bringeth us to assent And then that assent bringeth us to take God for our End and Christ for the Means of our actual Justification and Glory so that Christ is
For he that mistaketh the extent of the Promise and thinketh that it belongeth not to such as he would believe and trust it if he understood it that it extends to him as well as others And he that doubteth of his own Repentance and Faith may yet be confident of the truth of Gods Promise to all true penitent Believers I mention this for the cure of two mischiefs The first is that of the presumptuous Opinionist who goeth to Hell presuming that he hath true saving faith because he confidently believeth that he himself is pardoned and shall be saved The second is that of the perplexed fearful Christian who thinks that all his uncertainty of his own sincerity and so of his salvation is properly unbelief and so concludeth that he cannot believe and shall not be saved Because he knoweth not that faith is such a belief and trust in Christ as will bring us absolutely and unreservedly to venture our all upon him alone And yet I must tell all these persons that all this while it is ten to one but there is really a great deal of unbelief in them which they know not and that their belief of the truth of the immortality of the soul and the life to come and of the Gospel it self is not so strong and firm as their never-doubting of it would intimate or as some of their definitions of Faith and their Book-opinions and Disputes import And it had been well for some of them that they had doubted more that they might have believed and been settled better Direct 30. Think often of the excellencies of the life of faith that the Motives may be still inducing you thereto As 1. It is but reasonable that God should be trusted or else indeed we deny him to be God Psal 20 7. 2. What else shall we trust to shall we deifie creatures and say to a stock Thou art my Father Jer. 2.27 Lam. 1.19 Shall we distrust God and trust a lyar and a worm 3. Trying times will shortly come and then woe to the soul that cannot trust in God! Then nothing else will serve our turns Then cursed be the man that trusteth in man and maketh flesh his arm and withdraweth his heart from the Lord he shall be like the barren wilderness c. Then none that trusted in him shall be ashamed Jer. 17.5 6. Psal 25.3 4. Psal 73.26 27 28. 4. Gods Alsufficiency leaveth no reason for the least distrust There is the most absolute certainty that God cannot fail us because his veracity is grounded on his essential perfections 5. No witness could ever stand up against the life of faith and say that he lost by trusting God or that ever God deceived any 6. The life of faith is a conquest of all that would distress the soul and it is a life of constant peace and quietness Yea it feasteth the soul upon the everlasting Joyes Though the mountains be removed though this world be turned upside down and be dissolved whether poverty or wealth sickness or health evil report or good persecution or prosperity befall us how little are we concerned in all this and how little should they do to disturb the peace and comfort of that soul who believeth that he shall live with God for ever Many such considerations should make us more willing to live by faith upon Gods Promises than to live by sense on transitory things Direct 31. Renew your Covenant with Christ in his holy Sacrament frequently understandingly and seriously For 1. when we renew our Covenant with Christ then Christ reneweth his Covenant with us and that with great advantage to our faith 1. In an appointed Ordinance which he will bless 2. By a special Minister appointed to seal and deliver it to us as in his Name 3. By a solemn Sacramental Investiture 2. And our own renewing our Covenant with him is the renewed exercise of faith which will tend to strengthen it and to shew us that we are indeed Believers And there is much in that Sacrament to help the strengthening of faith Therefore the frequent and right using of it is one of Gods appointed means to feed and maintain our spiritual life which if we neglect we wilfully starve our faith 1 Cor. 11.26 28 c. Direct 32. Keep all your own promises to God and man For 1. Lyars alwaies suspect others 2. Guilt breedeth suspiciousness 3. God in justice may leave you to your distrust of him when you will be perfidious your selves You can never be confident in God while you deal falsly with him or with others The end of the Commandment is Charity out of a pure heart a good conscience and faith unfeigned 1 Tim. 1.5 Direct 33. Labour to improve your belief of every promise for the increase of holiness and obedience And to get more upon your souls that true Image of God in his Power Wisdom and Goodness which will make it easie to you to believe him 1. The more the hypocrite seemeth to believe the promise the more he boldly ventureth upon sin and disobeyeth the precept because it was but fear that restrained him and his belief is but presumption abating fear But the more a true Christian believeth the more he flyeth from sin and useth Gods means and studieth more exact obedience and having these promises laboureth to cleanse himself from all filthiness of flesh and Spirit perfecting holiness in the fear of God 2 Cor. 7.1 And receiving a Kingdom whih cannot be moved me must serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear Heb. 12.28 29. 2. The liker the soul is to God the easier it will believe and trust him As faith causeth holiness so every part of holiness befriendeth faith Now the three great impressions of the Trinity upon us are expressed distinctly by the Apostle 2 Tim. 1.7 For God hath not given us the Spirit of fear but of Power of Love and of a sound mind 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Power Love and a sound mind or understanding do answer Gods nature as the face in the glass doth answer our face and therefore cannot chuse but trust him Direct 34. Lay up in your memory particular pertinent and clear Promises for every particular use of faith The number is not so much but be sure that they be plain and well understood that you may have no cause to doubt whether they mean any such thing indeed or not Here some will expect that I should do this for them and gather them such promises Two things disswade me from doing it at large 1. So many Books have done it already 2. It will swell this Book too big But take these few 1. For forgiveness of all sins and Justification to penitent Believers Acts 5.31 Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins Acts 13.38 39. Be it known unto you that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins and by
and the everlasting miseries of the damned in Hell being the due effects or punishment of sin are the second cause of our necessity of pardon And therefore these also must be thought on seriously by him that will seriously believe in Christ 4. The Law of God which we have broken maketh this punishment our due Rom. 3. 5. 7. And the Justice of God is engaged to secure his own honour in the honour of his Law and Government Direct 2. Vnderstand well what Christ is and doth for the Justification of a sinner and how not one only but all the parts of his office are exercised hereunto In the dignity of his person and perfect original holiness of his natures divine and humane he is fitly qualified for his work of our Justification and Salvation His undertaking which is but the Divine Decree did from eternity lay the foundation of all but did not actually justifie any His Promise Gen. 3.15 and his new Relation to mâ—â— thereupon did that to the Fathers in some degree which his after-incarnation and performance and his Relation thereupon doth now to us His perfect Obedience to the Law yea to that Law of Mediation also peculiar to himself which he performed neither as Priest or Prophet or King but as a subject was the meritorious cause of that Covenant and Grace which justifieth us and so of our Justification And that which is the meritorious cause here is also usually called the material as it is that matter or thing which meriteth our Justification and so is called Our Righteousness it self As he was a sacrifice for sin he answered the ends of the Law which we violated and which condemned us as well as if we had been all punished according to the sense of the Law And therefore did thereby satisfie the Law-giver and thereby also merited our pardon and Justification so that his Obedience as such and his Sacrifice or whole humiliation as satisfactory by answering the ends of the Law are conjunctly the meritorious cause of our Justification His New Covenant which in Baptism is made mutual by our expressed consent is a general gift or act of oblivion or pardon given freely to all mankind on condition they will believe and consent to it or accept it so that it is Gods pardoning and adopting instrument And all are pardoned by it conditionally and every penitent Believer actually and really And this Covenant or Gift is the effect of the foresaid merit of Christ both founded and sealed by his blood As he merited this as a mediating subject and sacrifice so as our High Priest he offered this sacrifice of himself to God And as our King he being the Law-giver to the Church did make this Covenant as his Law of grace describing the terms of life and death And being the Judge of the world doth by his sentence justifie and condemn men as believers or unbelievers according to this Covenant And also executeth his sentence accordingly partly in this life but fully in the life to come As our Teacher and the Prophet or Angel of the Covenant he doth declare it as the Fathers will and promulgate and proclaim this Covenant and conditional Pardon and Justification to the world and send out his Embassadours with it to beseech men in his Name to be reconciled to God and to declare yea and by sacramental investiture to seal and deliver a Pardon and actual Justification to Believers when they consent And as our Mediating High Priest now in the Heavens he presenteth our necessity and his own righteousnesses and sacrifice as his meritâ— for the continual communication of all this grace by himself as the Head of the Church and Administrator of the Covenant So that Christ doth justifie us both as a subject meriting as a sacrifice meriting as a Priest offering that sacrifice as a King actually making the Justifying Law or enacting a general Pardon as a King sententially and executively justifying as a Prophet or Angel of the Covenant promulgating it as King and Prophet and Priest delivering a sealed Pardon by his Messengers And as the Priest Head and Administrator communicating this with the rest of his benefits By which you may see in what respects Christ must be believed in to Justification if Justifying Faith were as it is not only the receiving him as our Justifier It would not be the receiving him as in one part of his office only Direct 3. Vnderstand rightly how far it is that the righteousness of Christ himself is made ours or imputed to us and how far not There are most vehement controversies to this day about the Imputation of Christs Righteousness in which I know not well which of the extreams are in the greater errour those that plead for it in the mistaken sense or those that plead against it in the sober and right sense But I make no doubt but they are both of them damnable as plainly subverting the foundation of our faith And yet I do not think that they will prove actually damning to the Authors because I believe that they misunderstand their adversaries and do not well understand themselves and that they digest not and practise not what they plead for but digest and practise that truth which they doctrinally subvert not knowing the contrariety which if they knew they would renounce the errour and not the truth And I think that many a one that thus contradicteth fundamentals may be saved Some there be besides the Antinomians that hold that Christ did perfectly obey and satisfie not in the natural but in the civil or legal person of each sinner that is elect representing and bearing as many distinct persons as are elect so fully as that God doth repute every Elect person or say others every Believer to be one that in Law sense did perfectly obey and satisfie Justice himself and so imputeth Christs Righteousness and satisfaction to us as that which was reputatively or legally of our own performance and so is ours not only in its effects but in it self Others seeing the pernicious consequences of this opinion deny all imputed Righteousness of Christ to us and write many reproachful volumes against it as you may see in Thorndikes last works and Dr. Gell and Parker against the Assembly and abundance more The truth is Christ merited and satisfied for us in the person of a Mediator But this Mediator was the Head and Root of all Believers and the second Adam the fountain of spiritual life and the Surety of the New Covenant Heb. 7.22 1 Cor. 15.22 45. and did all this in the nature of man and for the sake and benefit of man suffering that we might not suffer damnation but not obeying that we might not obey but suffering and obeying that our sinful imperfection of obedience might not be our ruine and our perfect obedience might not be necessary to our own Justification or Salvation but that God might for the sake and merit of this his perfect obedience and
is faithful and just to forgive us our sisn and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness If all need of pardon had been prevented by Christ what use were there of his advocation for our future forgiveness Direct 12. Remember that though unknown infirmities and unavoidable ones have an immediate pardon because the Believer hath an habitual Faith and Repentance yet great and known sins must have actual Repentance before the pardon will be plenary or perfect though the person is not in the mean time an unregenerate nor unjustified person 1. That great and known sins must have a particular repentance appeareth 1. In that it is utterly inconsistent with the sincerity of habitual Repentance not to be actual when sins are known and come into our deliberate remembrance 2. By all those texts which require such repentance confession and forsaking 1 John 2.1 2. 1 John 1.9 Prov. 18.13 Psal 32. 51. 2 Cor. 7.11 Rev 2.5 16. Luke 13.3 5. Jam. 5.14 15. Luke 6.37 11.4 Repentance consisteth chiefly in forsaking sin and if men forsake not such known wilful sins they are wicked men and therefore are not pardoned 2. That unavoidable frailties and meer infirmities and unknown faults are pardoned immediately to them that are truly godly and have a general and implicit Repentance is plain because else no man in the world could be saved because every man hath such infirmities and unknown sins 1 John 1.10 3. Yet David himself is not put by his sin into a meer graceless state and as a person that hath no former Justification for he prayeth God not to take his Spirit from him and he was not deprived of the true love to God which is the character of Gods children But he had incurred heinous guilt and put himself in the way towards utter damnation and caused a necessity of a more particular deep Repentance before he could be fully pardoned than else he needed Before the world had a Saviour we were all so far unpardoned that a satisfying Sacrifice was necessary to our Justification But afterward all men are so far pardoned that only the Acceptance of what is purchased and freely though conditionally given is necessary to it Before men are converted they are yet so far unpardoned that though no more Sacrifice be necessary yet a total conversion and renovation by turning from a life of sin to God by Faith in Christ is necessary to their actual justification and forgiveness When a man is turned from a life of sin to God and liveth in the state of grace all his following sins which consist with the loving of God and holiness above the world and sinful pleasures are so far forgiven immediately upon the committing that they need neither another Sacrifice nor another Regeneration or Justification quoad statum but only an acting of that Faith and Repentance which habitually he hath already But the unknown errours and faults of such godly persons are pardoned even without that actual repentance and infirmities without forsaking of the sin overcomingly in practice And so every one liveth and dyeth in some degree of sinful defectiveness and omission of his love to God and trust and hope and zeal and desire and love to men and care of his duty and watchfulness and fervency in prayer meditation c. And in some degree of sinful disorder in our ill governed thoughts and words and affections or passions and actions we are never sinless till we die Direct 13. Remember that you must neither think that every sin which is a cause of Repentance is a sufficient reason for you to doubt of your present state of Justification nor yet that no sin can be so great as to be a necessary cause of doubting If every sin should make us doubt of our Justification then all men must alwaies doubt And then it must be because no sin is consistent with sincerity and the knowledge of sincerity which is apparently false If no sin should cause our doubting then there is no sin which is not consistent both with sincerity and with the knowledge of it which is as false and much more dangerous to hold 1. There are many sins that are utterly inconsistent with true godliness otherwise the godly were ungodly and as bad as others And if you say that no godly man commiteth these it is true and therefore it is true that he that committeth them is not a godly man or justified And how shall a man know his godliness but by his life as the product of his inward graces It is arguing from an uncertainty against a certainty to say I am justified and godly and therefore my wilful sins of drunkenness fornication oppression lying malâ—ce c. are consistent with Justification and it is arguing from a certain truth against a doubted falshood to say I live in ordinary wilful heinous sin therefore I am not justified or sincere Ephes 5.5 6. For this ye know that no whoremonger nor unclean person nor covetous man who is an Idolater hath any inheritance in the Kingdom of Christ and of God Let no man deceive you with vain words for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience 1 Cor. 6 9 10. Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the Kingdom of God Be not deceived neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers nor effeminate nor abusers of themselves with mankind nor thieves nor covetous nor drunkards nor revilers nor extortioners shall inherit the Kingdom of God And such were some of you but ye are washed but ye are sanctified but ye are justified c. Rom. 8.1 13. There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit If ye live after the flesh ye shall die c. Gal. 5.20 21 22 23 24. 2. And there are many sins which consist with true grace which will not consist with the assurance of its sincerity And that 1. From the nature of the things because the least degree of grace conjunct with and clouded by the greatest degree of sin which may consist with it is not discernable to to him that hath it He that is so very near a state of death and so very like to an unjustified person can never be sure in that case that he is justified 2. And also God in Wisdom and Justice will have it so that sin may not be encouraged nor presumption cherished nor the comforts which are the reward of an obedient child be cast away on an uncapable child in his stubborn disobedience Psal 51. 32. 77. Therefore for a man that liveth in grost sin to say that he is sure that he is justified and therefore no sin shall make him question it is but to believe the Antinomian Devil transforming himself into an Angel of Light and his Ministers when they call themselves the Ministers of Righteousness and to deny belief to the Spirit of Holiness and Truth And if a
be doth the Scripture say that all men believe or only some If some doth it name them or notifie them by any thing but the marks by which they must find it in themselves Object But he that believeth may be as sure that he believeth as that the Scripture is true Answ But not that he is sincere and exceedeth all hypocrites and common believers At least there are but few that get so full an assurance hereof Object The Spirit witnesseth that we are Gods children And to believe the Spirit is to believe God Answ The Spirit is oft called in Scripture the witness and pledge and earnest in the same sense that is it is the evidâ—nce of our right to Christ and life If any man have not his Spirit he is none of his Rom. 8.9 And hereby we know that he dweleth in us by the Spirit which he hath given us As the Spirits Miracles were the witness of Christ Heb. 2.3 c. objectively as evidence is called witness 2. And withall the Spirit by illumination and excitation helpeth us to see it self as our evidence 3. And to rejoyce in this discovery And thus the Spirit witnesseth our adoption But none of these are the proper objects of a Divine Belief 1. The objective evidence of holiness in us is the object of our rational self-acquaintance or conscience only 2. The illuminating grace by which we see this is not a new Divine Testimony or proper Revelation or Word of God but the same help of grace by which all other divine things are known And all the Spirits grace for our understanding of divine Revelations are not new objective Revelations themselves requiring a new act of Faith for them A word or proper Revelation from God is the object of divine belief otherwise every illuminating act of the Spirit for our understanding Gods Word would be it self a new word to be believed and so in infinitum Errour 33. Doubting of the life to come or of the truth of the Gospel will not stand with saving Faith Contr. It will not stand with a confirmed Faith but it will with a sincere Faith He that doubteth of the truth of the promise so far as that he will not venture life and soul and all his hopes and happiness temporal and eternal upon it hath no true Faith But he that doubteth but yet so far belâ—eveth the Gospel as to take God for his only God and portion and Christ for his only Saviour and the Spirit for his Sanctifier and will cast away life or all that stand in competition hath a true and saving Faith as is before proved Errour 34. That Repentance is no condition of Pardon or Justification for then it would be equal therein with Faith Contr. I have elsewhere at large proved the contrary from Scripture Repentance hath many acts as Faith hath To repent as it is the change of the mind of our Atheism Idolatry and not loving God and obeying him is the same motion of the soul denominated from the terminus à quo as Faith in God and Love to God is denominated from the terminus ad quem This is Repentance towards God Repenting of our Infidelity against Christ is the same motion of the soul as believing in Christ only one is denominated from the object-turned from and the other from the object-turned to By which you may see that some Repentance is the same with Faith in Christ and some is the same with Faith in God and some is the same with Love to God and some is but the same with the leaving of some particular sin or turning to some particular fore-neglected duty And so you may easily resolve the case how far it is the condition of Pardon Repentance aâ— it is a return to the Love of God as he is our God and End and All is made the final condition of further blessings as necessary in and of it self as the end of Faith in Christ And Repentance of Infidelity and Faith in Christ is made the Mediate or Medicinal Condition As consenting to be friends with your Father or King after a rebellion and consenting to the Mediation of a friend to reconcile you are both conditions one the more noble de fine and the other de mediis or as consenting to be cured and consenting to take Physick They that will or must live in the darkness of confusion were best at least hold their tongues there till they come into distinguishing light Errour 35. That all other acts of Faith in Christ as our Lord or Teacher or Judge or of Faith in God or the Holy Ghost all confessing sin and praying for pardon and repenting and forgiving others and receiving Baptism c. are the works which Paul excludeth from Justification And one act of faith only being the Justifying Instrument he that looketh to be justified by any of all these besides that one act doth look for Justification by Works and consequently is fallen from grace Contr. This is not only an addition to Gods Word and Covenant not to be used by them that judge it unlawful to add a form or ceremony in his worship but it is a most dangerous invention to wrack mens consciences and keep all men under certain desperation For whilest the world standeth the subtilest of these Inventers of new doctrines will never be able to tell the world which is that one sole act of Faith by which they are justified that they may escape looking for a legal Justification by the rest whether it be believing in Christs Divinity or Humanity or both or in his Divine or Humane or Habitual Righteousness or his Obedience as a subjâ—ct or his Sacrifice or his Priest-hood offering that Sacrifice or his Covenant and Promise of Pardon and Justification or in God that giveth him and them or in his Resurrections or in Gods present sentential or executive Justification or in his final sentential Justification c. No man to the end of the world shall know which of these or any other is the sole justifying act and so no man can scape being a legal adversary to grace Unhappy Papists who by the contrary extream have frightened or disputed us into such wild and scandalous inventions Of this see fully my Disput of Justification against the worthy and excellent Mr. Anthony Burgess Errour 36. That our own Faith is not at all imputed to us for Righteousness but only Christs Righteousness received by it Contr. The Scripture no where saith that Christ or his Righteousness or his Obedience or his Satisfaction is imputed to us And yet we justly defend it as is before explained and as Mr. Bradshaw and Grotius de satisfact have explained it And on the other side the Scripture often saith that Faith is imputed for Righteousness and shall be so to all that believe in God that raised Christ Rom. 4. And this these objectors peremptorily deny But expounding Scripture amiss is a much cleanlier pretence for errour than a flat
consenteth not to when his sinful pleasure is revived by the next temptation 3. But the true penitent Christian is both willing to be changed and had rather have his lusts to be killed than pleased and also willing to use Gods means both to mortifie the inward lust and to overcome the outward sin And this in sincerity is his habitual state Direct 3. Never forget that 1. The gracious nature of God 2. The sufficiency of Christs Sacrifice and Merit And 3. The truth of the universal â—ffer or promise of pardon to all if they will accept the offer are the foundation of all our faith and comforts and are that universal grace which is before our special grace or faith and is presupposed to it On this foundation all our faith and peace is to be built Direct 4. The particular application of this to our selves is 1. By Believing and then by knowing that we do believe and then by discerning our priviledges upon believing 1. Our believing it self is 1. Our Ascent to the truth of the Gospel 2. Our Acceptance of the good even Christ and life which is offered in it and consent to the Baptismal Covenant with God the Father Son and Holy Spirit And 3. Our Affiance in Christ and his Covenant 2. To know that we do believe somehow is easie when we do it But to be sure that this belief is sincere and saving is more difficult because of the deceitfulness of the heart of man and the mixtures of unbelief and other sins and the weakness of grace where it is true and the counterfeits of it and the insufficient degrees which are in Hypocrites so that it is not easie to discern whether the faith which we have be sincere and predominant above our sense and our unbelief as it must be But yet it may be known by such means as these 1. By labouring to strengthen and increase our faith and grace that it may not by the smalness be next to undiscernable 2. By subduing all contrary inward corruptions which obscure it 3. By frequent exercising it seeing habits are discerned only in their acts 4. By resisting and conquering temptations and doing all the good we can in the world and living as wholly devoted to God above all worldly fleshly interest that so 1 Faith may be evidenced by its fruits 2. And God may reward the faithful soul with his assuring seal and light and comfort 5. By escaping all those lapses into heinous and wilful sin which cause wounds and sears and hinder assurance peace and joy 6. By a wise and constant examination of the heart and observation of it in the time of tryal and finding the habits and strength of faith and of unbelief in their several actings and prevalencies in their conflicts 7. And withall escaping those ignorances and errours about the nature means causes and signs of grace and assurance which keep many from it who have justifying faith These seven are the true and necessary means to get assurance of your own sincerity and that indeed you have the true seal and earnest and witness of the Spirit of Christ 3. When you have first truly believed or consented to the Baptismal Covenant of Grace and next got assurance that you do this in sincerity the last part is the easiest which is to gather up the priviledges or comfortable conclusions which follow hereupon Which are your pardon and justification your adoption and right to life eternal and to all the benefits promised by God in that Covenant to which you do consent which are all comprehended in the three great Relations established by the Covenant viz. that God is your Reconciled God and Father Christ in your Head and Saviour and the Holy Spirit is your Life and Sanctifier These three works which make up assurance are contained in the three parts of this syllogism 1. He that truly believeth is justified and adopted and an heir of life But I do truly believe Therefore I am justified adopted and am an heir of life Or thus to the same sense Every one who truly consenteth to the Baptismal Covenant hath right to the blessings of the Covenant God is his Father Christ is his Saviour and the holy Spirit is his Sanctifier But I do truly consent to the Baptismal Covenant Therefore I have right to all the benefits of it God is my Father c. Direct 5. Remember that when you have got assurance and have truly gathered this conclusion the continual and lively exercise of faith is still necessary to your actual joy For it is possible for a man to have no notable doubtings of his own sincerity or salvation and yet to have such dulness of soul and such diversions of his thoughts as that he shall enjoy but little of the comforts of his own assurance Therefore true joy requireth much more than bare self examination and discerning of our evidences and right to life Direct 6. When doubts and troubles are caused by ignorance or errour about the true nature and signs of grace and the way of assurance which is very common nothing then is more necessary than a sound and skilful Teacher to work out those mistakes and to help the ignorant Christian to a clearer understanding of the terms of the Covenant and the sense of the Promise and the true methods of Christ in his gifts and operations Otherwise the erring soul will be distracted and lost in a wilderness of doubts and either sit down at last presumptuously on false grounds or turn to one errour to cure the troubles of another or languish in despair so lamentable a thing is it to be possessed with false principles and to attempt so great a work in the dark Direct 7. And here there are these two extreams to be carefully avoided 1. That of the Infidel and Justiciary who trusteth and teacheth others to trust to his own vertues and works without a Saviour or ascribeth the part of a Saviour to them 2. The Antinomian and Libertine who teach men not to look at any thing in themselves at all no not as an evidence or condition or means much less as any cause of life but to trust to Christs blood to be to you instead of Faith and Repentance and Obedience and all your use of means and do ascribe the part of these duties of man to the blood of Christ as if it did belong only to Christ to do that same thing which belongeth unto them Therefore here you must be sure to be well acquainted what is truly the office and part of Christ and what is truly the office and part of Faith of Repentance of Confession of Prayer c. And to be sure that you wholly trust Christ for his part and joyn not Faith nor any of your own works or duties in the least degree of that trust or honour which belongeth to Christ and his office and work And that you faithfully use yea I will say Trust too though ignorance snarl at
practice thereupon 1. Suppose you saw the Lord in glory continually before you When you are hearing praying talking jâ—sting eating drinking and when you are tempted to any wilful sin Suppose you saw the Lord stand over you as verily as you see a man As you might do if your eyes could see him for it 's most certain that he is still present with you suppose you saw but such a glimpse of his back parts as Moses did Exod. 34. when God put him into a cleft of the Rock and covered him while he passed by Chap. 33.23 when the face of Moses shined with the sight that he was fain to vail it from the people Exod. 34.33 34 35. Or if you had seen but what the Prophet saw Isa 6.1 2 3 4 5 6. when he beheld the Lord upon a Throne high and lifted up c. and heard the Seraphim cry Holy Holy Holy is the Lord of Hosts the whole earth is full of his glory When he said Woe is me for I am undone because I am a man of unclean lips and dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips for mine eyes haue seen the King the Lord of Hosts Or if you had seen but what Job saw Job 42.5 6. when he said I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear but now mine eye seeth thee wherefore I abhor my self and repent in dust and ashes What course would you take what manner of persons would you be after such a sight as this If you had seen but Christ appâ—â—ring in his glory as the Disciples on the holy Mount Matth. 17. or as Paul saw him at his conversion when he was smitten to the earth Acts 9. or as John saw him Rev. 1.13 where he saith He was cloathed with a garment down to the fooâ— and girt with a golden girdle his head and his hairs were white like Wooll or 〈◊〉 and his eyes were as a flame of fire and his feet like unto fine brass as if they burned in a furnace and his voice as the sound of many waters and he had in his right hand seven Stars and out of his mouth went a sharp two edged Sword and his countenance was as the Sun shineth in his strength and when I saw him I fell at his feet as dead and he laid his right hand upon me saying unto me fear not I am the first and the last I am â—e that liveth and was dead and behold I am alive for evermore Amen and have the keyes of hell and death What do you think you should be and do if you had seen but such a sight as this Would you be godly or ungodly after it As sure as you live and see one another God alwaies seeth you He seeth your secret filthiness and deceit and malice which you think is hid he seeth you in the dark the locking of your doors the dâ—aâ—ing of your curtains the setting of the Sun or the putting out of the Candle doth hide nothing from him that is Omniscient Psal 94.8 9. Vnderstand oh ye brutish among the people and ye fools when will ye be wise He that planted the ear shall be not hear he that formed the eye shall he not see The lust and filthiness and covetousness and envy and vanity of your very thoughts are as open to his view as the Sun at noon And therefore you may well suppose him present that cannot be absent and you may suppose you saw him that still seeth you and whom you must see Oh what a change a glympse of the glory of his Majesty would make in this Assembly Oh what amazements what passionate workings of soul would it excite Were it but an Angel that did thus appear to you what manner of hearers would you be how serious how affectionate how sensible And yet are you Believers and have none of this when faith makes unseen things to be as seen If thou have faith indeed thou seest him that is invisible thou speakest to him thou hearest him in his Word thou seest him in his Works thou walkest with him he is the life of thy comforts thy converse and thy life 2. Suppose you had seen the matters revealed in the Gospel to your faith as to what is past and done already If you had seen the deluge and the Ark and preservation of one righteous family the burning of Sodom and Gomorrah with fire from Heaven and the saving of Lot whose righteâ—â—â— soul was grieved at their sins and hunted after as a prey to their ungodly rage because he would have hindered them from transgressing Suppose you had seen the opening of the Red Sea the passage of the Israelites the drowning of Pharaoh and his Aegyptians the Manna and the Qâ—ails that fell from Heaven the flaming Mount with the terrible Thunder when God delivered the Law to Moses what manner of people would you have been what lives would you have led after such sights as all or any one of these Suppose you had seen Christ in his state of Incarnation in his examples of lowliness meekness contempt of all the glory and vanities of this world and had heard him speak his heavenly Doctrine with power and authority as never man spake Suppose you had seen him heal the blind the lame the sick and raise the dead and seen him after all this made the scorn of sinners buffeted spit upon when they had crowned him with thorns and arrayed him gorgeously in scorn and then nailed between malefactors on a Cross and pierced and die a shameful death and this for such as you and I. Suppose you had seen the Sun darkned without any ecclipse the Vail of the Temple rent the Earth tremble the Angels terrifying the Keepers and Christ rise again Suppose you had been among the Disciples when he appeared in the midst of them and with Thomas had put your fingers into his wounded side and had seen him walking on the waters and at last seen him ascending up to Heaven Suppose you had seen when the Holy Ghost came down on the Disciples in the similitude of cloven tongues and had heard them speak in the various languages of the Nations and seen the variety of Miraclâ—s by which they convinced the unbelieving world What persons would you have been what lives would you have led if you had been eye-witnesses of all these things And do you not profess to believe all this and that these things are as certain truths as if you had seen them why then doth not your belief affect you or command you more why doth it not do what sight would do in some good measure if it were but a lively saving faith indeed that serveth instead of sense Yea I must tell you Faith must do more with you in this case than the sight of Christ alone could do or the sight of his Miracles did on most For many that saw him and saw his works heard his Word yet perished in their unbelief 3. Suppose
done But that which unavoidably must be seen should be foreseen But the unseen world is not thus mutable Eternal life is begun in the Believer The Church is built on Christ the Reck and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it Fix here and you shall never be removed 4. Hence followeth another difference The mutable creature doth impart a disgraceful mutability to the soul that chuseth it It disappointeth and deceiveth And therefore the ungodly are of one mind to day and another to morrow In health they are all for pleasure and commodity and honour and at death they cry out on it as deceitful Vanity In health they cannot abide this strictness this meditating and seeking and preparing for the life to come but at death or judgement they will all be of another mind Then O that they had been so wise as to know their time and O that they hâ—d lived as holily as the best They are now the bold opposers and reproachers of an holy life But then they would be glad it had been their own They would eat their words and will be down in the mouth and stand to never a word they say when sight and sense and judgement shall convince them But things unchangeable do fix the soul Pâ—eâ—y is no matter for Repentance Doth the Believer speak against sin and sinners and for an holy sober righteous life He will do so to the last Death and Judgement shall not change his mind in this but much confirm it And therefore he perseveres through sufferings to death Rom. 8.35 36 37. For this cause we faint not but though our outward man perish yet the inward man is renewed day by day For our light affliction which is but for a moment worketh for us a far more exceeding eternal weight of glory While we look not at the things that are seen but at the things which are not seen For the things which are seen are temporal but the things which are not seen are eternal 2 Cor. 4.16 17. 6. Lastly let this move you to live by a foreseeing Faith that it is of necessity to your salvation Believing Heaven must prepare you for it before you can enjoy it Believing Hell is necessâ—ry to prevent it Mark 16.16 John 3.18 36. The just shall live by Faith but if any man draw back or be lifted up the Lord will have no pleasure in him Heb. 10.38 Hâ—b 2.4 Take heed that there be not in any of you an evil heart of unbelief to depart from the living God Heb. 3.12 And be not of them that draw back to perdition but of them that believe to the saving of the soul Heb. 10.39 It is God that saith They shall all be damned that believed not the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness 2 Thes 2.10 11 12. May I now in the conclusion more particularly exhort you 1. That you will live upon things foreseen 2. That you will promote this life of faith in others according to your several capacities Princes and Nobles live not alwaies You are not the Rulers of the unmoveable Kingdom but of a boat that is in an hasty stream or a ship under sail that will speed both Pilot and Passengers to the shore Dixi estis Dii at moriemini ut homines It was not the least or worst of Kings that said I am a stranger vpon earth Psal 119.19 Vermis sum non homo I am a worm and no man Psal 32.6 You are the greater worms and we the little ones but we must all say with Job ch 17.13 14. The grave is our house and we must make our beds in darkness Corruption is our Father and the Worm our Mother and our Sister The inexorable Leveller is ready at your backs to convince you by unresistible argument that dust you are and to dust you shall return Heaven should be as desirable and Hell as terrible to you as to others No man will fear you after death much less will Christ be afraid to judge you Luke 19.27 As the Kingdoms and glory of the world were contemned by him in the hour of his temptation so are they inconsiderable to procure his approbation Trust not therefore to uncertain riches Value them but as they will prove at last As you stand on higher ground than others it is meet that you should see further The greater are your advantages the wiser and better you should be and therefore should better perceive the difference between things temporal and eternal It is alwaies dark where these glow-worms shine and a rotten post doth seem a fire Your difficulties also should excite you You must go as through a Needles eye to Heaven To live as in Heaven in a crowd of business and stream of temptations from the confluence of all worldly things is so hard that few such come to Heaven Withdraw your selves therefore to the frequent serious fore-thoughts of eternity and live by faith Had time allowed it I should have come down to some particular instances As 1. Let the things unseen be still at hand to answer every temptation and shame and repel each motion to sin 2. Let them be still at hand to quicken us to duty when backwardness and coldness doth surprize us What shall we do any thing coldly for eternity 3. Let it resolve you what company to delight in and what society to be of even those with whom you must dwell for ever What side soever is uppermost on earth you may foresee which side shall reign for ever 4. Let the things invisible be your daily solace and the satisfaction of your souls Are you slandered by men Faith tells you it is enough that Christ will justifie you O happy day when he will bring forth our righteousness as the light and set all strait which all the false histories or slanderous tongues or pens in all the world made crooked Are you frowned on or contemned by men Is it not enough that you shall everlastingly be honoured by the Lord Are you wronged oppressed or trodden on by pride or malice Is not Heaven enough to make you reparation and eternity long enough for your joyes O pray for your malicious enemies lest they suffer more than you can wish them 2. Lastly I should have become on the behalf of Christ a petitioner to you for protection and encouragement to the heirs of the invisible world For them that preach and them that live this life of faith not for the honours and riches of the world but for leave and countenance to work in the Vineyard and peaceably travel through the world as strangers and live in the Communion of Saints as they believe But though it be for the beloved of the Lord the apple of his eye the people that are sure to prevail and raign with Christ for ever whose prayers can do more for the greatest Princes than you can do for them whose joy is hastened by that which is intended for their sorrow I shall now lay
that they used the method which I now direct you to And if you consider it well you will find that the miracles of Christ himself and all those of his Apostles after him were wrought for the confirmation of Christianity it self immediately and mostly before the particular Epistles or Books were written and therefore were only remotely and consequentially for the confirmation of those Books as such as they proved that the Writers of them were guided by the infallible Spirit in all the proper work of their office of which the writing of the Scriptures was a part 1. Therefore settle your belief of Christianity it self that is of so much as Baptism containeth or importeth This is more easily proved than the truth of every word in the Scriptures because there are controversies about the Canon and the various readings and such like And this is the natural method which Christ and his Spirit have directed us to and the Apostles and the ancient Churches used And when this is first soundly proved to you then you cannot justly take any textual difficulties to be sufficient cause of raising difficulties to your faith in the essentials But you may quietly go on in the strength of faith to clear up all those difficulties by degrees I know you will meet with some who think very highly of their own mistakes and whose unskilfulness in these things is joyned with an equal measure of self conceitedness who will tell you that this method smells of an undervaluing of the Scripture But I would advise you not to depart from the way of Christ and his Apostles and Churches nor to cast your selves upon causeless hinderances in so high a matter as Saving Faith is upon the reverence of the words of any perverted factious wrangler nor to escape the fangs of censorious ignorance We cannot better justifie the holy Scriptures in the true Method than they can in their false one And can better build up when we have laid the right foundation than they can who begin in the middle and omit the foundation and call the superstructure by that name 2. Suspect not all Church-history or Tradition in an extreme opposition to the Papists who cry up a private unproved Tradition of their own They tell us of Apostolical Traditions which their own faction only are the keepâ—rs of and of which no true historical evidence is produced And this they call the Tradition of the Church But we have another sort of Tradition which must not be neglected or rejected unless we will deny humanity and reject Christianity Our Traditio tradens or active Tradition is primarily nothing but the certain history or usage of the universal Christian Church as Baptism the Lords day the Ministry the Church Assemblies and the daily Church exercises which are certain proofs what Religion was then received by them And 2. The Scriptures themselves Our Traditio tradita is nothing else but these two conjunctly 1. The Christian Religion even the Faith then professed and the Worship and Obedience then exercised 2. The Books themselves of the holy Scriptures which contain all this with much more But we are so far from thinking that Apostolical Oral Tradition is a supplement to the Scriptures as being larger than them that we believe the Scriptures to be much larger than such Tradition and that we have no certainty by any other than Scriptural Tradition of any more than the common matters of Christianity which all the Churches are agreed in But he that will not believe the most universal practice and history of the Church or world in a matter of fact must in reason much less believe his eye-sight 13. When you have soundly proved your foundation take not every difficult objection which you cannot answer to be a sufficient cause of doubting For if the fundamentals be proved truths you may trust to that proof and be sure that there are waies of solving the seeming inconsistent points though you are not yet acquainted with them There are few Truths so clear which a sophister may not clog with difficulties And there is scarce any man that hath so comprehensive a knowledge of the most certain Truths as to be able to answer all that can be said against it 14. Come not to this study in a melancholy or distracted frame of mind For in such a case you are ordinarily incapable of so great a work as the tryal of the grounds of Faith And therefore must live upon the ground-work before laid and wait for a fitter time to clear it 15. When new doubts arise mark whether they proceed not from the advantage which the tempter findeth in your minds rather than from the difficulty of the thing it self And whether you have not formerly had good satisfaction against the same doubts which now perplex you If so suffer not every discomposure of your minds to become a means of unbelief And suffer not Satan to command you to dispute your faith at his pleasure For if he may chuse the time he may chuse the success Many a man hath cast up a large account well or written a learned Treatise or Position well who cannot clear up all objected difficulties on a sudden nor without Books tell you all that he before wrote especially if he be half drunk or sleepy or in the midst of other thoughts oâ— business 15. When you are once perswaded of the truth of Christianity and the holy Scriptures think not that you need not study it any more because you do already confidently believe it For if your faith be not built on such cogent evidence as will warrant the conclusion whether it be at the present sound or not you know not what change assaults may make upon you as we have known them do on some ancient eminent Professors of the strictest Godliness who have turned from Christ and the belief of immortality Take heed how you understand the common saying of the Schools that Faith differeth from Knowledge in that it hath not Evidence It hath not evidence of sense indeed nor the immediate evidence of things invisible as in themselves but as they are the conclusions which follow the principles which are in themselves more evident It is evident that God is true and we can prove by good evidence that the Christian Verity is his Revelation And therefore it is evident though not immediately in it self that the matter of that word or revelation is true And as Mr. Rich. Hooker truly saith No man indeed believeth beyond the degree of evidence of truth which appeareth to him how confidently soever they may talk I remember that our excellent Vsher answered me to this case as out of Ariminensis that faith hath evidence of Credibility and science hath evidence of Certainty But undoubtedly an evidence of Divine Revelation is evidence of Certainty And all evidence of Divine Credibility is evidence of Certainty though of humane faith and credibility the case be otherwise 16. Yea think not that you have
though we must not with Fanatical persons put first our own interpretation upon Gods works and then expound his Word by them but use his works as the fulfilling of his Word and expound his Providences by his Precepts and his Promises and Threats Direct 7. Mark well Gods inward works of Government upon the soul and you shall find it very agreeable to the Gospel There is a very great evidence of a certain Kingdom of God within us And as he is himself a Spirit so it is with the Spirit that he doth most apparently converse in the work of his moral Government in the world 1. There you shall find a Law of duty or an inward conviction of much of that obedience which you owe to God 2. There you shall find an inward mover striving with you to draw you to perform this duty 3. There you shall find the inward suggestions of an enemy labouring to draw you away from this duty and to make a godly life seem grievous to you and also to draw you to all the sins which Christ forbiddeth 4. There you shall find an inward conviction that God is your Judge and that he will call you to account for your wilful violations of the Laws of Christ 5. There you shall find an inward sentence past upon you according as you do good or evil 6. And there you may find the sorest Judgements of God inflicted which any short of Hell endure You may there find how God for sin doth first afflict the soul that is not quite forsaken with troubles and affrightments and some of the feeling of his displeasure And where that is long despised and men sin on still he useth to with hold his gracious motions and leave the sinner dull and senseless so that he can sin with sinful remorse having no heart or life to any thing that is spiritually good And if yet the sinner think not of his condition to repent he is usually so far forsaken as to be given up to the power of his most bruitish lust and to glory impudently in his shame and to hate and persecute the servants of Christ who would recover him till he hath filled up the measure of his sin and wrath be come upon him to the uttermost Ephes 4.18 19. 1 Thes 2.15 16. being abominable and disobedient and to every good work reprobate Titus 1.15 16. Besides the lesser penal withdrawings of the Spirit which Gods own servants find in themselves after some sins or neglects of grace 7. And there also you may find the Rewards of Love and faithful duty by many tastes of Gods acceptance and many comforts of his Spirit and by his owning the soul and giving out larger assistance of his Spirit and peace of conscience and entertainment in prayer and all approaches of the soul to God and sweeter forecasts of life eternal In a word if we did but note Gods dreadful Judgements on the souls of the ungodly in this age as well as we have noted our plagues and flames and if Gods servants kept as exact observations of their inward rewards and punishments and that in particulars as suited to their particular sins and duties you will see that Christ is King indeed and that there is a real Government according to his Gospel kept up in the consciences or souls of men though not so observable as the rewards and punishments at the last day Direct 8. Dwell not too much on sensual objects and let them not come too near your hearts Three things I here perswade you carefully to avoid 1. That you keep your hearts at a meet distance from all things in this world that they grow not too sweet to you nor too great in your esteem 2. That you gratifie not sense it self too much and live not in the pleasing of your taste or lust 3. That you suffer not your imaginations to run out greedily after things sensitive nor make them the too frequent objects of your thoughts You may ask perhaps what is all this to our faith why the life of faith is exercised upon things that are not seen And if you live upon the things that are seen and imprison your soul in the fetters of your concupiscence and fill your fancies with things of another nature how can you be acquainted with the life of faith Can a bird flye that hath a stone tyed to her foot Can you have a mind full of lust and of God at once Or can that mind that is used to these inordinate sensualities be fit to rellish the things that are spiritual And can it be a lover of earth and fleshly pleasures and also a Believer and lover of Heaven Direct 9. Vse your selves much to think and speak of Heaven and the invisible things of Faith Speaking of Heaven is needful both to express your thoughts and to actuate and preserve them And the often thoughts of Heaven will make the mind familiar there And familiarity will assist and encourage faith For it will much acquaint us with those reasons and inducements of faith which a few strange and distant thoughts will never reach to As he that converseth much with a learned wise or godly man will easilier believe that he is learned wise or godly than he that is a stranger to him and only now and then seeth him afar off So he that thinketh so frequently of God and Heaven till his mind hath contracted a humble acquaintance and familiarity must needs believe the truth of all that excellency which before he doubted of For doubting is the effect of ignorance And he that knoweth most here believeth best Falshood and evil cannot bear the light but the more you think of them and know them the more they are detected and ashamed But truth and goodness love the light and the better you are acquainted with them the more will your belief and love be increased Direct 10. Live not in the guilt of wilful sin For that will many waies hinder your belief 1. It will breed fear and horrour in your minds and make you wish that it were not true that there is a day of Judgement and a Hell for the ungodly and such a God such a Christ and such a life to come as the Gospel doth describe And when you take it for your interest to be an unbeliever you will hearken with desire to all that the Devil and Infidels can say And you will the more easily make your selves believe that the Gospel is not true by how much the more you desire that it should not be true 2. And you will forfeit the grace which should help you to believe both by your wilfull sin and by your unwillingness to believe For who can expect that Christ should give his grace to them who wilfully despise him and abuse it Or that he should make men believe who had rather not believe Indeed he may possibly do both these but these are not the way nor is it a thing which we can expect
and some among men are meritorious And with God every act that is chosen by him to be a condition of his gift is pleasing to him for some special aptitude which it hath to that office This is the full truth and the plain truth about conditions Errour 18. There is no degree of pardon given to any that are not perfectly justified and that shall not be saved But the giving of the Spirit so far as to cause us to believe and repent is sâ—me degree of executive pardon Therefore we are justified before we believe Contr. There is a great degree of pardon given to the world before conversion which shall yet justifie and save none but Believers Gods giving a Saviour to the world and a New Covenant and in that an universal conditional pardon yea his giving them teaching exhortations and offers of free grace and his giving them life and time and many mercies which the full execution of the Law would have deprived them of is a very great degree of pardon God pardoned to mankind much of the penalty which sin deserved even presently after the first transgression in the promâ—se made to Adam Gen. 3.15 Many texts of Scripture which partial men for their opinions sake do pervert do speak magnificently of a common pardon which must be sued out and made particular upon our believing The world was before under so much impossibility of being saved by any thing that they could do that they must have procured all to be done first which Christ hath done and suffered for them which was utterly above their power They that were actually obliged to bear the pains of death both temporal spiritual and eternal are now so far redeemed pardoned and delivered that all the merit and satisfaction necessary to actual forgiveness is made for them by another and no one of them all shall perish for want of a Sacrifice made and accepted for them and an universal conditional pardon is enacted sealed and recorded and offered and urged on all to whom the Gospel cometh and nothing but their obstinate wilful refusal or neglect can deprive them of it And this is so great a degree of pardon that it is called often by such absolute names as if all were done because all is done which concerneth God as Legislator or Covenant maker to do before our own Acceptance of it Suppose a Prince redeem all his captive subjects from the Turkish slavery and one half of them so love their state of bondage or some harlot or ill company there yea if all of them do so till half of them are perswaded from it that they will not come away It is no improper nor unusual language to say that he hath redeemed them and given them a release though they would not have it That may be given to a man which he never hath because he refuseth to accept it when the Donor hath done all that belongeth to him in that relation of a Donor though perhaps as a Perswader he might do more This is the sense of Heb. 1.3 When he had by himself purged our sins or made purgation of our sins he sate down on the right hand of the Majesty on high that is when he had become a sacrifice for sin and sealed the Covenant by his blood For actual personal pardon was not given by him before our acceptance This is the plain sense of 2 Cor. 5.18 19 20. God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself not imputing to them their trespasses that is purchasing and giving them a pardoning Covenant and hath committed to us the word and ministry of reconciliation Now then we are Embassadours for Christ as though God did beseech you by us we pray you in Christs stead to be reconciled to God John 1.29 36. Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world that is as a sacrifice for sin As Heb. 9.26 Once in the end of the world he hath appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself Though the sacrifice as offered only doth not actually and fully pardon it The same as Heb. 10.12 After he had offered one Sacrifice for sins for ever sate down on the right hand of God So Matth. 18.27 32. He forgave him the debt I forgave thee all that debt viz. conditionally and as David forgave Shimei Psal 78.38 He forgave their iniquity and destroyed them not that is he forgave the temporal punishment and suspended the execution of eternal punishment giving them yet more time and offers of repentance and of further mercy And so he forgave Ahab and Nineve upon their humiliation Numb 14.19 Pardon I beseech thee the iniquity of this people according to the greatness of thy mercy and as thou hast forgiven this people from Egypt until now So Psal 85.2 3. Thou hast forgiven the iniquity of thy people thou hast covered all their sins thou hast taken away all thy wrath Turn us O God of our salvation and cause thine anger to cease wilt thou be angry with us for ever So that they are two palpable errors here asserted by the objecters viz. that there is no degree of pardon to such as are not saved and that we are justified when ever we have any degree of pardon We may be so far pardoned as to have grace given us effectually to believe and yet our Justification or the Covenant-forgiveness of eternal punishment is in order of nature after our believing and not before it Errour 19. That our natures are as far from being able to believe in Christ as from being able to fulfil the Law of works and to be justified by it they being equally impossible to us and as much help is necessary to one as to the other Contr. To be justified by the Law of works when we have once broken it is a contradiction and a natural impossibility as it is to be at once a sinner and no sinner But so it is not for a sinner to believe in Christ The impossibility is but moral at most which consisteth not in a want of natural faculties or power but in the want of a right dâ—spâ—sition or willingness of mind And to fulfil the Law of God and to be perfect for the future is surely a far higher degree of spiritual grace and excellency than to be a poor weak sinful believer dâ—siring to fulfil it Therefore our sinful natures are much farther off from perfection than from faith 3. And though the same Omnipotency do all Gods works for all Gods Power is Omnipotency yet it is not equally put forth and manifested in all his works The moving of a feather and the making of the world are both works of Omnipotency but not equal works or exertions of it 4. And it is certain that in verum natura there is such a thing as a proper Power given by God to do many things that nâ—ver are done and that necessary grace which some call sufficient which is not eventually effectual for
is as Davenant well noteth the act of the whole man I was wont to say of both faculties I now say of the three faculties which constitute the soul of man the Potestative the Intellective and the Volitive And the Assent it self is many acts as acts are physically specified by their objects as is shewed It is one moral act or work of the soul Like trusting a man as my Physician which is a fiducial consent that he be my Physician in order to the use of his remedies Oâ— as taking a man to be your Prince Husband Tutor Master c. where he that will tell people that taking signifieth but one physical act would be ridiculous And he that will tell people that only one physical act of one faculty is it that they must look to be justified by will be much worse than ridiculous Errour 24. That we are justified by Faith not as it receiveth Christs person but his benefits or righteousness Contr. The contrary is before and after proved and insisted on by Dr. Preston at large Indeed we receive not Christs person it self physically but his person in the office and relation of our Saviour as we must chuse what person shall be our Physician before we take his medicines or receive our health but it is only a consent that he and no other be our Physician which we call the taking of his person And so it is here Errour 25. That it is one act of Faith which giveth us right to Christ and another to his righteousness and another to his teaching and another to his Spirit and another to Adoption and to Heaven c. and not the same Contr. This is 1. Adding to the Word of God and that in a matter near our chiefest comfort and safety Prove it or affirm it not 2. It is corrupting and perverting and contradicting the Word and Covenant of God which unitedly makeeth the same Faith without any such distinction the condition of all the Covenant-gifts Mark 16.16 John 3.16 c. Errour 26. That though the same Faith which justifieth doth believe in him as a Teacher as a King and Judge c. yet it justifieth us only quatenus receptio justitiae as it is the receiving of Christs Righteousness Contr. See in my Dispute of Justification my Confutation of this Assertion in Mr. Warner Properly Faith justifieth not at all but we are justified of or by it as a condition by the tenour of Gods deed of gift And so far as it is the condition in that gift so far we are justified by it But it is one entire Faith in Christ which is the condition without such distinction therefore we are so justified by it 2. According to that Rule there must be as many acts of Faith as there are benefits to be received and the title to be ascribed to each one accordingly 3. The natural relation of the act to the object sheweth no more but what the nature or essence of that Faith is and not how we come to be justified by it 4. The sense containeth this false Proposition Haec fides qua talis or quae fides justificat Faith as Faith or as this Faith in specie justifieth which some call the To credere For it is the essence of Faith which they call its Reception of Christs Righteousness 5. The true passive Reception of Righteousness and Pardon is that of the person as he is the terminus of the donative or justifying act of the Covenant To receive Pardon properly is to be pardoned But our Active Receiving or Consent is but the condition of it and there is no proof or reason that the condition should be so parcelled 6. Yet if by your quatenus you intend no more than the description of the act of Faith as essentially related to its subsequent benefit and not at all to speak of its conditional nearest interest in our Justification the matter were less 7. But the truth is that if we might distinguish where God doth not distinguish it were much more rational to say that taking Christ for a true Messenger of God and a Teacher and Sanctifier and King hath a greater hand in our Justification than taking him to justifie us supposing that all be present Because the common way and reason of conditions in Covenants is that somewhat which the party is willing of is promised upon condition of something which he is unwilling of that for the one he may be drawn to consent unto the other As if the Physician should say If you will take me for your Physician and refuse none of my medicines I will undertake to cure you Here it is supposed that the Patient is willing of health and not willing of the Medicines but for healths sake and therefore consenting to the Medicines or receiving this man to be his Physician as a pâ—escriber of the Medicines is more the condition of his cure than his consenting to the cure it self or receiving the Physician as the cause of his health So here it is supposed that condemned sinners are already willing to be justified pardoned and saved from punishment but not willing to repent and follow the teaching and counsel of a Saviour and therefore that Pardon and Justification is given and offered them on condition that they accept of and submit to the teaching and government of Christ and of salvation from their sins But the truth is we must not presume beyond his revelation to give the reasons of Gods institutions We are sure that the entire Belief in Christ and accepting of himself as our perfect Saviour in order to all the ends of his Relation is made by God in his Covenant the condition of our title to the benefits of his Covenant conjunctly And it is not only the believing in Christ for pardon that as such is the condition of pardon nor is any one act the condition of any benefit but as it is a part of that whole Faith which is indeed the condition The occasion of their errour is that they consider only what it is in Christ the object of Faith which justifieth sanctifieth c. and they think that the act only which is exercised on that object must do it which is a gross mistake Because Faith is not like taking of mony jewels books c. into ones hand which is a physical act which taketh possession of them But it is a Jus or Debitum a Right and Relation which we are morally and passively to receive as constituting our first Justification and Pardon and as the condition of this we are to take Christ for our Saviour which is but a physicial active metaphorical receiving in order to the attainment of the said passive proper receiving For recipere proprie est pati If an Act be passed that all Traitors and Rebels who will give up themselves to the Kings Son as one that hath ransomed them to be taught and ruled by him and reduced to their obedience to be their
general in the wars against his enemies shall have pardon and lands and honours and further rewards after this service here the Prince himself doth deliver them by his ransom and enrich them by his lands and honour them by his honour or power c. But their act of giving up themselves to him under the notion of a Ransomer doth no more to their deliverance than their giving up themselves to him under the notion of a General or Ruler c. Because it doth not free them as it is such an act but as it is an act made the condition of his gift And note that I have before proved that even as to the object Christ justifieth us in all the parts of his office Errour 27. That believing in God as God and our Father in Christ is not an act of Justifying Faith but only a consequent or concomitant of it Contr. 1. No doubt but God must some way be believed in in order of nature before Christ can be believed in as is proved who can believe that Christ is the Son and Messenger of God who believeth not that there is a God Or that Christ reconcileth us to God before he believe that he is our offended God and Governour 2. But to believe in God as the end of our Redemption to whose love and savour we must be restored by Faith in Christ and who pardoneth by the Son is as essential an act of Justifying Faith as our belief in Christ Object But not quatenus justificantis not of Faith as justifying Answ If by as justifying you mean not as effecting Justification it is a false supposition There is no such Faith If you mean not as the condition of Justification it is false It is as essential a part of it as the condition If you mean not as Faith is denominated Justifying from the consequent benefit it s true but impertinent For the same may be said of Faith in Christ it is not called Faith in Christ as it is called by you Justifying And yet I may add that in the very physical nature of it Belief in God as our God and End is essential to it As consenting to be healed is essential to consenting to the Physician and consenting to be reconciled is essential to our consenting to a Mediation for that end Because the respect to the end is essential to the Relation consented to All the Faith described Heb. 11. in all those instances hath special essential respect to God So hath Abrahams faith Rom. 4.3 Abraham believed God and it was imputed to him for righteousness v. 5. To him that worketh not but believeth on him on God that justifieth the ungodly his Faith is counted for righteousness v. 8. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin v. 17. Before him whom he believed even God who quickeneth the dead v. 20. He staggered not at the Promise of God Being fuly perswaded that what he had promised he was also able to perform v. 21 22. And therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness Now it was not written for his sake alone that it was imputed to him but for us also to whom it shall be imputed if we believe on him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead Abundance such testimonies are obvious in Scripture but this being as plain as can be spoken he maketh his own Faith who refuseth to believe it Our Faith in God as God hath as much hand in our Justification as our Faith in Christ as Mediatour But the form of the Baptismal Covenant which the Church ever used fully proveth it as is aforesaid though to answer all ignorant cavils against it as an unnecessary tediousness I pass by Errour 28. The belief of Heaven or the life to come is no essential part of Justifying Faith as such Contr. The last answer to this Errour is sufficient Heaven is the everlasting vision and love of God and therefore we are justified by believing it though not it alone It is essential to our Saviour to save and bring us to the fruition of God Errour 29. That Justifying Faith is a believing that I am justified or elect and shall be saved by Christ Errour 30. That this Faith is a full assurance or perswasion at least excluding doubting Contr. 1. We are justified by believing and accepting God for our God and Christ for our Saviour that we may be justified and not by believing that we are justified 2. It is false and ever will be that any of the praesciti as Austin and Prosper call them or the Non-Elect are elect or justified or will be saved But the Non-Elect are commanded and bound to believe with that same kind of Faith by which we are justified Therefore to believe that they themselves are elect justified and shall be saved is not that kind of Faith by which we are justified No men are bound by God on pain of damnation to believe a lye nor damned for not believing it 3. Assurance of personal pardon is the happiness but of few true Christians in this life And where it is it is only an effect or consequent participating of Faith See Mr. Hickman on this subject Errour 31. The meaning of that Article of our Creed I believe the remission of sins is I believe that my own sins are forgiven to me personally Contr. Though worthy Mr. Perkins and other ancient Divines have too much countenanced this exposition it is false The meaning of that Article is but this I believe that a sufficient provision for pardon is made by Christ both for sins before regeneration and after-fault which shall be repented of and that a pardoning Covenant is made to all if they will repent and believe and to me as well as others and I accept of that gracious offer and trust in that Covenant in Christ It s dangerous misexpounding Articles of the Creed Errour 32. At least it is an act of Divine Belief to believe that I am elect and justified and shall be saved Contr. Many have been a great scandal or snare to harden the Papists by asserting this But the truth is it is but a rational conclusion from two premises the one of which is of Divine Revelation and the other of inward experience and all that is capable of being a controversie to the judicious is only de nomine whether logically the conclusion be to be denominated from the more debile of the premises or from both by participation as being both an act of Faith and of Reason secundum quid and of neither simpliciter But it is commonly concluded that the more debile of the premises must denominate the conclusion And it is certain de re that the conclusion can be no more certain than it Object But when the Scripture saith He that believeth shall be saved it is equipollent to this I John believe and therefore I shall be saved Answ A gross deceit That I believe is no where in the Scripture If it
there are some Nebuchadnezzars that would never be humbled and some Pharaohs that would never confess their sins and some Manassehs that would never be converted Many in Heaven are thankful for affliction and so should we Eccles 7.2 3 4 5 6. It is better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of feasting For that is the end of all men and the living will lay it to heart Sorrow is better than laughter for â—y the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise than for a man to hear the song of fools For as the crackling of thorns under a pot so is the laughter of a fool Do you not perceive that a merry prosperous state inclineth to folly levity rashness inconsiderateness stupidity forgetting the latter end c And that a sadder frame is more awakened illuminated fixed sensible considerate and fit for great employments Quarrel not then with your Physician because he dyeteth you as tendeth to your cure and turneth you not over to the dyet of desperate patients or of fools Direct 15. If God afflict you add not causless affliction to your selves If he touch your friends or body or estate do not you therefore touch and tear your hearts If you have not enough why do you complain of it If you have enough why do you make your selves more He that hath said Blessed are they that mourn did never mean that those are blessed that mourn erroneously for nothing or for that which is their benefit or that plevishly quarrel with God and man or that wilfully by pride or impatiency torment themselves He meant not to bless the sorrow of the covetous that grieveth because he is not rich or because he is wronged or is a loser in some commodity nor to bless the sorrow of the proud who is troubled because he is not observed honoured or preferred Nor the sorrow of the sensual who grieve when their lusts and pleasures are restrained Nor the sorrows of the idle who grieve if they are called to diligent labour nor the sorrow of the envious who grieveth to see another prosper nor the sorrows of the cruel who grieve when they cannot be as hurtful to Gods servants and their neighbours or enemies as they desire It is neither wicked sorrows nor wilful self-vexation which Christ doth bless But it is the holy improving and patient enduring the sufferings laid upon us by God or man Direct 16. Let Patience have its perfect work He that believeth will not make haste James 1.3 Isa 28.16 God's time is best and eternity is long enough for our ease and comfort It is by patient continuance in well doing that glory honour and immortality must be sought Rom. 2. We shall reap in due season if we faint not Galat. 6.9 James 5.7 8 9. Be patient therefore Brethren unto the coming of the Lord. Behold the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth and hath long patience for it until he receive the early and latter rain Be ye also patient stablish your hearts for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh When others by impatience lose themselves do you in your patience possess your souls Luke 21.19 Rom. 5.4 Patience worketh experience and experience hope which maketh not ashamed If we hope for that we see not thee do we with patience wait for it Rom. 8.25 Through patience and comfort of the Scriptures it is that we have hope Rom. 15.4 Therefore we have need of patience that when we have done the will of God we may inherit the promise Heb. 10.36.11 CHAP. XX. How to live by Faith in troubles of Conscience and doubts or terrours about our spiritual and everlasting state HAving written a Treatise called The Right Method for Spiritual Peace and Comfort c. upon this subject already I must refer the Reader thither and here only add these few Directions Direct 1. Distinguish of the several Causes of these troubles and take heed of those unskilful Mountebanks who have the same cure for every such disease and speak present comfort to all that they hear complain and that think every trouble of mind is some notable work of the Spirit of God when it is often the fruit of the manifold weakness or wilfulness of the troubled complainers Direct 2. When it is some heinous sin committed or great corruption indulged which doth cause the trouble be sure that sound Repentance be never omitted in the cure and that a real reformation prove the truth of that Repentance For Christ never died to justifie and save the impenitent sinner And a deceitful Repentance is the common self-deceit and undoing of the world And how can that be true Repentance which changeth not the will and life God will not give you peace and comfort as long as you indulge your wilful sin Note here the difference between 1. The grosly impenitent 2. And the mock-repentance of the Hypocrite 3. And the true Repentance of sound Believers 1. The grosly impenitent cannot bring his heart to a serious purpose to let go his sin nor to a consent or willingness that God should cure him and change his mind but he had rather have his pride and covetousness and sensuality to be fully pleased than to be mortified Like a fool in a Feaver or a Dropsie that had rather have drink than have the cure of his thirst 2. The mock repentance of the Hypocrite hath some purposes under an extraordinary conviction to leave his sin and for a time may seem to do it But when the temptation is as strong again he is the same and returneth to his vomit or else exchangeth his sin for a worse And if you ask him whether he had rather have the mortifying of all his lusts or the pleasing of them his understanding and conviction may cause him truly to say at the present that if God would presently mortifie his sin or offer him this in choice he would rather consent to it than take the pleasing of them But mark it 1. That though he consent that God should do this himself yet he will not consent to use the means and do his duty to attain it If a cold wish or bare consent would change his soul and take away all sinful inclinations at once that he might never more desire the pleasure of sin nor be put to any conflict to overcome it nor any great difficulty to deny it and all this might be done without any labour of his own I doubt not but the Hypocrite would consent to be so mortified But to watch and pray and read and meditate and use the means which God appointeth him both to get mortification and to use it for the conquering of every temptation this the Hypocrite will not consent to 2. And what he doth consent to at the present he
and not to our own commodity in the world 2. No man can deny this principle but by setting up natural self-love or appetite and making the rational stoop to that which would infer as well that we may love our selves better than God himself and that our sense is nobler than our reason and must rule it 3. We find our own reason tell us much more of our duty in this than our corrupted wills do follow The best way therefore to discern the truth is to treat with reason alone and leave out the will till we have dispatcht with reason And you will find that the common light of nature justifieth this Law of God 1. He that would not confess that it is better he had no being than that there were no God or no world besides him is a monster of selfishness And if a man say never so much I cannot do so yet while he confesseth that this should be his desire it sufficeth to the decision of our present case 2. He that will not confess that it is better that he himself should die than all the Church of Christ or the whole Kingdom die is unreasonably selfish in the eyes of all impartial men The gallant Romans and Athenians had learnt it as one of their plainest greatest Lessons to prefer their Country before their lives And is not that to love their Countryes better than themselves 3. For the same reason many of them saw that it was the duty of a good subject or a gallant souldier to save the life of his King or General with the loss of his own Because their lives were of more publick utility And the ground of all this was these natural verities The best should be best loved Goodness must be measured by a higher rule than personal self-interest Multitudes are better than one c. 4. All men acknowledge that a man of eminent Learning Piety Wisdom and Vsefulness to the Church or World should be loved and preserved rather than a wicked sottish worthless child of our own Yea God himself requireth that Parents procure the death of their own children by publick Justice if they be obstinately wicked Deut. 21. 5. The same Reasons plainly infer that I ought rather to desire the life of a much more worthy useful instrument for the Church and State than my own and so to love a better man better than my self if I be acquainted sufficiently with his goodness And if this be all so sure and plain hence observe 1. How much humane nature is corrupted Alas how rare is this equal Love 2. How few true Christians are and how defective and imperfect grace is in the best Alas how strange are many Christians to the extent of this duty and how far are we all from practising it in any eminent degree 3. Wherein it is that natures corruption most consisteth and what is the chief part of the nature and work of sanctifying grace and reformation 4. Whence come all the oppressions injuries persecutions frauds and cruelties on the earth For want of loving mens neighbours as themselves Otherwise how tenderly would they handle one another How easily would they pardon wrongs How patiently would they bear the dissent of honest upright Christians who cannot force their judgments to be of other mens mould and size How apt would men be to suspect their own understandings of weakness presumption or errour rather than to rave with the fury of the Dragon against all others who think them to be mistaken How safely and quietly might we live by them in the world if they loved their neighbours as themselves I do not say now How plentiful would men be in doing good to others I am but pleading a lower cause How seldom they would be in doing hurt But alas miserable Brittain It was in thee that one extraordinary Emperour Alexander Sevetus was betrayed and murdered who made that Christian precept his Motto and wrote it on his doors and books and goods Do as you would be done by In thee it is that Love hath been beheaded while nothing hath been more acknowledged and professed If Love be treacherous hurtful envious scandalous ensnaring and plotting for mens destruction If Love teach proud and vicious sots to take themselves for Deities and Oracles and all for Vermine that must be hunted unto death who bow not to their carnal erroneous conceits and do not with the readiest prostitute consciences serve their carnal interests and ends If Love be known by reviling those that are much better than our selves and stigmatizing the faithfullest servants of Christ with the most odious character that lyes can utter If it was Love that called Paul a pestilent fellow and a mover of sedition among the people and represented Christ as an enemy to Caesar and his followers as the filth and off-scouring of the earth then happy age in which we live and happy they that are possessed with the proud and factious spirit But if all be otherwise alas where be they and how few that love their neighbours or betters as themselves 5. You see here what a plague sin is to the earth and how great a punishment may I call it or rather a misery to the sinner and to the world 6. And you see how joyful and heavenly a life we should live if we did but follow Gods commands And what a felicity Love it self is to the soul 7. And you see by what measure to try mens spirits and to know who are the best among all the pretenders to goodness in the world Certainly not the most censorious contemptuous backbiters and cruel that seek to make all odious that are not for their interest But those that most abound in Love which Faith it self is given to produce Object All this is true but still we find it a thing impossible to love our neighbour equally with our selves Can you teach us how to do it Answ It is that I have been teaching you in the ten Directions before set down But it is this which I have reserved to the close that must do the work indeed and without it nothing else will do it Direct 11. Make it the work of all your lives by Faith in Christ to bring up your souls to the unfeigned Love of God and then it will be done For then you will love God above all and love God in all and love your selves and your neighbours principally for God Then Gods Image and Glory and Will will be Goodness or Amiableness in your eyes and not carnal pleasure honour or commodity And then it will be easie to you to love that most which hath most of God You will then easily see the reason of this seeming Paradox and that the contrary is most unreasonable You will then be as Timothy who had a natural Love to others as others have to themselves and who sought the things of Jesus Christ when all others even the best Ministers too much sought their own Phil. 2.20 21. You
converse and our comfort Will you converse with none but ignorant selfish worldly sinners Are you more contemptuous of the heavenly inhabitants than the Gentleman in hell torments was Luke 16.26 27. that thought one from the dead though it had been but a beggar would have been reverenced even by his sensual brethren on earth so far as to have perswaded them unto saving Repentance I tell you a dead mans skull is oft-times a more profitable companion than most that you shall converse with in the common world The dust of your departed friends and the clay that corps are turned into is a good medicine for those eyes that are blinded with the dust of worldly vanities Much more should you keep your acquaintance with the soul which may for all the distance be perhaps more useful to you than it was in the flesh Alas how carnally and coldly or seldom do most Professors look at their Brethren and at the Angelical hosts that are above They long for our conversion and mind our great concernments and rejoyce in our felicity and shall we be so swinishly ungrateful as seldom to look up and remember their high and blessed state Many think that they have no more business with their deceased friends than to see them decently interred and to mourn over them as if their removal were their loss or to grieve for our own loss when we perceive their places empty but we scarce look up after them with an eye of faith much less do we daily maintain our communion with them in Heaven When Christ was taken up his Disciples gazed after him Act. 1.10 Stephen looked up stedfastly into Heaven and saw Christ sitting at the right hand of God Acts 7.55 And how seldome how slightly do we look up either to Jesus his Angels or his Saints I tell you Sirs you have not done with your friends when you have buryed their flesh They have left you their holy examples They are entered before you into rest You are hastening after them and must be quickly with them if you are true Believers You must see them every day by faith When you look to Christ you must look to them as his beloved friends entertained by him in his family of glory When you look up to Heaven remember that they are there When you think of coming thither remember that you must there meet them You must honour their memories more than you did on earth because they are more honourable being more honoured of God You must love them better than you did when they were on earth because they are better and so more lovely You must rejoyce much more for their felicity than you did whilest they were on earth because they are incomparably more happy than they were Either you believe this or you do not If you do not believe that the dead are blessed that die in the Lord and rest from their labours and are with Christ in Paradise why do you seem Christians If you do believe it why do you not more rejoyce with your glorified friends than you would have done if they had been advanced to the greatest honours in the world It is the natural duty of friends to mourn with them that mourn and to rejoyce with them that rejoyce and if one member be honoured or dishonoured the rest of the body are accordingly affected Do not your sorrows then instead of joyes tell all men that you believe that your friends are gone to sorrow and not to joy If not you are very selfish or inconsiderate Direct 10. Lastly Let not your aversation to Popery turn to a factiâ—us partial forsaking of Gods Truth and your own duty and consolation in this point Abundance of Christians have taken up opinions in Religion upon the love and honour of the parties that they took them of and being possessed with a just dislike of Popery in the main they suspect and cast away not a few great truths and duties upon a false information that they are parts of Popery It hath grieved 〈…〉 â—han once to hear religious persons come from heariâ—g 〈◊〉 Ministers with disdain and censure saying that they prayed for the dead and all their proof was that Thanksgiving is a part of prayer but they gave God thanks for the glorification of the spirits of the Just therefore they prayed for them And so have they argued because they have read the 1 Cor. 15. at the grave or because they have preached a Funeral Sermon while the Corpse was present or because they prayed then for themselves or for the Church Alas for the childish ignorance and pievishness and foolish wranglings of many Christians who think they are better than their neighbours How much is Christs family dishonoured by his silly froward children And they will not be instructed by their friends and therefore they are posted up and openly reproached by their enemies Have Angels or heavenly Saints deserved so ill of God or us that we should be so shy of their communion Are they nothing to us Have we nothing to do with them Have we cause to be ashamed of them Is their honour any dishonour to God or us if it be no more than what is their due Can we give so much love respect and honour to Magistrates Ministers and Friends on earth imperfect sinful troublesome mortals and shall we think that all is idolatrous or cast away which is given to them that so far excel us Is it your design to make Heaven either contemptible or strange to men on earth Or would you perswade the world that the souls of the Saints are not immortal but perish as the bruits Or that there is no Heaven Or that God is there alone without any company Are so many fond of the opinion of a Personal Reign on Earth for Christ with his holy ones and yet is it Popery so much as to speak honourably and joyfully of the Saints in Heaven My Brethren these things declare you yet to be too dark too factious and too carnal and to hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ with respect to parties sides and persons Christ taketh not his Saints as strangers to him He that judgeth men as they love and use him in the least of his Brethren upon Earth will not so soon censure and quarrel with us as the Sectary will do for loving and honouring him in his Saints in Heaven for it is his will and prayer that they be with him where he is to behold his glory John 12.26 17.24 And he will come with his holy Angels to be glorified in his Saints who shall judge the world and Angels and to be admired in all them that do now believe 2 Thes 1.10 11 12. CHAP. XXVII How to receive the Sentence of Death and how to die by Faith HAving said so much of this elsewhere in my Books called A Believers last work The last Enemy My Christian Directory Treatise of Self-denyal c. I shall be here but
very brief I. For the first Case before sickness cometh Direct 1. Be sure that you settle your Belief of the life to come that your Faith may not fail Direct 2. Expect Death as seriously all your life as wise Believers are obliged to do That is as men that are alwaies sure to die as men that are never sure to live a moment longer as men that are sure that life will be short and death is not far off and as foreseeing what it is to die of what eternal consequence and what will then appear to be necessary to your safe and to your comfortable change Direct 3. All your daies habituate your souls to believing sweet enlarged thoughts of the infinite Goodness and Love of God to whom you go and with whom you hope to live for ever Direct 4. Dwell in the studies of a crucified and glorified Christ who is the way the truth and life who must be your hope in life and death Ephes 3.17 18 19. Direct 5. Keep clear your evidences of your right to Christ and all his Promises by keeping grace or the heavenly nature in life activity and increase 2 Pet. 1.10 2 Cor. 13.5 John 15 1 c. 1 John 3. Direct 6. Consider often of the possession which your nature in Christ hath already of Heaven and how highly it is advanced and how near his relation is and how dear his love is to his weakest members upon earth And that as souls in Heaven have an inclination and desire to communicate their own felicity to their bodies so hath Christ as to his body the Church John 17.24 Ephes 5.25 27 c. Direct 7. Look to the Heavenly Host and those who have lived before you or with you in the flesh to make the thoughts of Heaven the more familiar to you as in the former chapter Direct 8. Improve all Afflictions yea the plague of sin it self to make you weary of this world and willing to be gone to Christ Rom. 7. Direct 9. Be much with God in Prayer Meditation and other heart-raising duties that you may not by strangeness to him be dismayed Direct 10. Live not in the guilt of any wilful sin nor in any slothful neglect of duty lest guilt breed terrour and make you fly from God your Judge But especially study to redeem your time and to do all the good you can iâ— the world and to live as totally devoted to God as conscious that you live to no carnal interest but desire to serve him with all you have and your consciences testimony of this will abundantly take off the terrours of death whatever any erroneous ones may say to the contrary for fear of being guilty of conceits of merit A fruitful life is a great preparative for death 2 Tim. 4.8 2 Cor. 1.12 c. Direct 11. Fetch from Heaven the comforts which you live upon through all your life And when you have truly learned to live more upon the comforts of believed glory than upon any pictures or hopes below then you will be able to die in and for those comforts Matth. 6.20 21. Col. 3.1 4. Phil. 3.20 21. 1 Thes 4.18 Phil. 1.21 23. Direct 12. The Knowledge and Love of God in Christ is the beginning or foretaste of Heaven John 17.3 1 Cor. 13. c. and the foretastes are excellent preparations Therefore still remember that all that you do in the world for the getting and exercising the true Knowledge and Love of God in Christ so much you do for the foretastes and best preparations for Heaven 1 Cor. 8.3 If any man love God the same is known of him with approbation and love II. In the time of sickness and near to death Direct 1. Let your first work when God seemeth to call you away be to renew a diligent search of your hearts and lives and to see lest in either of them there should be any sin which is not truly hated and repented of Though this must be done through all your lives yet with an extraordinary care and diligence when you are like to come so speedily to your tryal For it is only to Repenting Believers that the Covenant of Grace doth pardon sin And the impenitent have no right to pardon Though for ordinary failings which are forgotten and for sins which you are willing to know and remember but cannot a general Repentance will be accepted as when you pray God to shew you the sins which you see not and to forgive those which you cannot remember or find out Yet those which you know must be particularly repented of And Repentance is a remembring duty and will hardly forget any great and heinous sins which are known to be sins indeed If your Repentance be then to begin alas it is high time to begin it And though if it be sound it will be saving that is If it be such as would settle you in a truly godly life if you should recover yet you will hardly have any assurance of salvation or such comfort in it as is desirable to dying man Because you will very hardly know whether it come from true conversion and contain a Love to God and Godliness or whether it be only the fruit of fear and would come to nothing if you were restored to health But he that hath truly repented heretofore and lived in uprightness towards God and man and hath nothing to do but to discern his sincerity and to exercise a special Repentance for some late or special sins or to do that again which he hath done unfeignedly before will much more easily get the assurance and comfort of his forgiveness and salvation Direct 2. Renew your sense of the Vanity of this world Which at such a time one would think should be very easie to do When you see that you are near an end of all your pleasures and have had all except a grave to rot in that ever this world willd o for you may you not easily then see whether the godly or the worldly be the wiser and the happier man And what it is that the life of man should be spent in seeeking after Matth. 6.33 Isa 55.1 2 3. Eccles 7.3 4 5 6. Direct 3. Remember what Flesh is and what it hath been to you that you may not be too loth to lay it down Of the dust it was made and to the dust it must return Corruption is your Father and the Worm is your Mother and your Sister Job 17.14 Drought and beat consume the Snow-waters so doth the grave those which have sinned The womb shall forget him the Worm shall feed sweetly on him Job 24.20 Flesh and blood shall not inherit the Kingdom of God but this mortal must put on immortality by being made a spiritual body 1 Cor. 15. And this flesh hath cost you so dear to carry it about so much care and labour to provide it food to repair that which daily vanisheth away and so many weary painful hours and so many fearful