in Christ Jesus 2 Tim. 1.13 Hold fast the form of sound words which thou hast heard of me in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus Gal. 5.5 For we through the Spirit wait for the Hope of Righteousness by Faith for in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing noâ— uncircumcision but Faith which worketh by Love 1 Cor. 13.13 Now abideth Faith Hope and Love c. But of these distinctly and how any or all of these do either unite or move us unto Union with our Saviour 1. Faith which is taken in a double sense 1. For that firm and sound Assent of the Mind to Divine Truths wrote by the Spirit of God and so differs little or nothing from supernatural Knowledge and thus Heb. 11.1 Faith is the evidence of things not seen and hath for its Objects all Divine Truths And as Christ dwells in our Hearts by Faith thus taken Ephes 3.17 so other Truths dwell in the Heart by this Faith viz. objectively so that Faith thus taken is more properly an act upon the Soul than an act of it for in our Assent to any Truth our Soul is in truth passive the strength of the Conviction conquers the Soul. 2. For that motion of the Soul whereby it rests casts and adventures it self upon the Promises of God in Christ for Remission and Salvation and so differs from the former in these three respects 1. In the Latitude of its Object it is more restrained than the former 2. In the Order of its Being it is subsequent in the Order of Nature to the former and produced by it 3. In the Manner of its working In the work of supernatural Knowledge or Assent the Soul is passive in this though it be the work of God yet the Soul is more active As the Sun when it shines upon a solid Body doth cause a reflection of his own beaâ—s so when the Light of Grace falls upon the Heart in this special act of Faith as in that or Love there is a reflection from the Soul back to God. And therefore those Expressions of Faith in the Scripture import a motion in the Soul Christ comes into the Soul by his Light and Spirit and the Soul again comes to Christ Joh. 6.45 He that hath learned of the Father cometh unto me As Christ abides in the Heart by the former act of Faith so by this latter the Soul abides and incorporates into him and both these we have joyned together John 15.4 Abide in me and I in you Now this act of the Soul is the most natural result upon the true discovery of a Man 's own Condition God's promise and Christ's mediation unto the Soul. When a Man finds that the Sentence of Death is passed upon him that nevertheless God in infinite Love and Mercy hath sent his Son to be his Satisfaction and Righteousness and hath promised and proclaimed by him and in him and only by him Peace and Reconciliation and that without exception of any person though laden with never so much guilt and sin and without any difficult Conditions Whosoever believeth on him should not perish but have everlasting life John 3.16 John 6.40 That he is appointed a Sacrifice by him whom we offended John 3.16 God so loved the world c. The Son of God and able to save to the uttermost them that come unto God by him Heb. 7.25 The most genuine and natural motion of the Soul in such a condition and thus convinced is Trust Affiance and Divolution of the Soul upon this Promise of God in Christ And it is an observable thing how the Wise and Merciful Providence of God hath ordered all things so that we might be even necessitated to the right way of our Salvation and to cast our selves upon it All were concluded under a common guilt by the voluntary offence of Adam Rom. 5.12 And if we could derive our Being from another then we might escape the Guilt and that Guilt brought with it Death in the World both eternal and temporal bound upon us by irreversible Sentence of an omnipotent God. But cannot I by my future obedience emerit this guilt No. What thou doest for the future is but thy Duty and thou canst not out-act it But grant thy future obedience might satisfie for the guilt under which thou liest thou shalt have the Copy of that Rule which I required from thee and once enabled thee to perform Do this and live But be sure thou do it without turning to the right hand or the left with thy whole Might and Mind and Soul without the least aversion and that out of the meer Principle of Love and Duty and Obedience and thy future observance may expiate that original guilt yet our Condition had been still dâ—sperate because as the Obedience was impossible so the least miscarriage had been fatal for cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the Law to do them Gal. 3.10 So we find an universal Guilt and Curse gone over all and all this discovered to drive us to a Saviour Galat. 3.22 The Scripture hath concluded all under a sin that the promise by the â—aith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe We find a righteous Law given to our Nature but as the Obedience is unsatisfactory for a past Guilt so the Observance is become impossible by reason of our Corruption whereby our disobedience is rather excited than abated Rom. 7.8 When the commandment came sin revived and I died And all this still to drive us to the necessity of a Saviour Rom. 8.12 What the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin condemned sin in the flesh Thus in the midst of all those difficulties a Saviour presents himself with the suffrage of God the attestation of Types and Prophecies with reconciliation of all the difficulties which perplexed our Inquiries with Ability to save to the uttermost with Mercy and Acceptation and Pardon and Righteousness and Happiness offered and proclaimed to all and that upon most unhazardable and easie terms only believe him and trust on him So then Faith is nothing else but that result of dependance upon and confidence in and adherence unto Christ which follows upon the sound Conviction of the Truth of God concerning him It is true the Faith of the Ancients differed much in the distinctness of its acting and object from the Faith which is now required as Abraham's Faith Caleb's Faith c. But in this they both agreed 1. That it was a Confidence and Trusting upon God in that which was revealed unto them by God. The Promises of a Son was made to Abraham and he rested upon God for the performance The Promise of Canaan to the Jews and Caleb and the believing Jews rested upon the Power and Truth of God to perform it So with us God hath promised Mercy
and Happiness to them that believe on Christ the Soul resteth and trusteth in the Truth and Power of God in Christ for it 2. In that the Faith of both had a termination in Christ though theirs more indistinctly and confusedly in respect that the same was not so clearly revealed unto them In that Promise to Abraham In thee shall all nations of the earth be blessed wherein the Gospel was preached to Abraham Galat. 3.8 Abraham did see Christ and rejoyced John 8.56 And so for the rest of those ancient Fathers Rom. 10.4 They drank of that spiritual rock that followed them and that rock was Christ Now the Effects of Faith are of two kinds 1. In reference to God our Justification God having of his free Goodness exhibited the Righteousness of Christ and his Satisfaction to be theirs that shall truly know it and rest upon it Rom. Chap. 3 4 5 c. Galat. 2.16 2. In reference to us Peace with God Rom. 5.1 In him that is our Peace-maker Humility because the Righteousness whereby we are justified is none of ours Rom. 3.27 Where then is boasting worketh by Love Galat. 5.6 2. Hope is but modally or objectively distinguished from Faith for the same spiritual Life which is wrought in the Soul and brings Light with it when it looks upon Christ with Dependance and Recumbency is called Faith when it looks upon the fulfilling of these Promises yet unfulfilled with Expectation and Assurance is called Hope They are but the actings of the same spiritual Life with diversity only 〈◊〉 to the diversity of Objects Hence they are many times taken for the same thing Heb. 11. 〈◊〉 the substance of things hoped for Ephes 4.4 One Hâ—pe of your calling Galat. 5.5 We through the Spirit wait for the Hope of righteousness by Faith Rom. 8.24 We are saved by Hope 1 Pet. 1.4 Begotten again unto a lively Hope And the Fruit of this Hope must of necessity be Joy Reâ—â—ycing in Hope Rom. 12.12 And such a Joy as at once takes off the vexation sorrow and anxiety that the greatest Affliction in this world can afford and likewise the fixing of the Soul with over much Delight upon any thing that it here enjoys because it looks beyond both upon a Recompence of Reward that allays the bitterness of the greatest Affliction 2 Cor. 4.17 18. Heb. 11. and allays the Delight of the greatest temporal Enjoyment Heb. 11.26 Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt Purifies the Heart John 3.3 He that hath this hope purgeth himself even as he is pure that is winds up his Heart to such a Condition as is suitable to his Expectation 3. Love This is that first and great Commandment Deut. 6.5 Matth. 22.37 And therefore is the fulfilling of the whole Law Galat. 5.14 Rom. 13.8 Because it puts the only true and active Principle in the Heart which carries him to all true Obedience It is the highest Grace 1 Cor. 13.13 And that wherein consisâ—ed the Perfection of Humane and Angelical Nature because it was not only his Duty but his Happiness It was his Duty because the chiefest Good deserved his chiefest Love even out of a Principle of Nature and his Happiness because in this regular motion of the Creature to his Creator God was pleased to exibit himself to his Creature and according to the measure of his Love was the measure of his Fruition And in the Restitution of his Creature God is pleased to restore this quality to the Soul Gal. 5.22 The first fruit of the Spirit is Love 2 Tim. 1.7 The Spirit of Love 1 Tim. 1.14 with Faith and Love 2 Thes 2.10 receiving the Love of the Truth Ephes 4.15 speaking the truth in Love Jude 21. keep your selves in the Love of God now this Love is wrought by a double means 1. By the Knowledge of God as he is the Best and Universal Good and therefore it is impossible that there can be the true Knowledge of God but there must be the true Love of God 1 John 4.8 He that loveth not knoweth not God And this is an Act grounded upon a rational Judgment which even by the very Law and Rule of Nature teacheth us to value and esteem that most which is the greatest Good. 2. By the Knowledge of the Love of God to us The absolute Goodness of God deserves our Love but the communication of his Goodness to his Creature commands it The former doth most immediately work upon our Judgment and so is a love of Apprehension the latter upon our Wills and so is a love of Affection and yet both upon right Reason for as the Law of Nature teacheth us to love the Chiefest Good so the same Law of Nature teacheth us to love those most that do us most Good and consequently love us most Now when God by his Spirit sheds abroad his Love into the Heart and we once come to know the Love of Christ passing Knowledge Ephes 3.19 The Soul even out of a natural ingenuity being rescued by the Spirit of God from that malignity that sin and corruption had wrought in it cannot chuse but return to God again that hath done so much for so undeserving a Creature And therefore this was the great Wisdom and Goodness of God in sending Christ in the Flesh to die for us when we were Enemies and in revealing that Goodness of his therein that in a way proportionable to the conception and operation of our Souls we might understand the greatness of his Love to us 1 John 3.16 Hereby perceive we the love of God 1 John 4.9 In this was manifested the love of God Ephes 2.4 But God who is rich in mercy for his great love wherewith he loved us even when we were dead c. God commandeth his love to us c. All which being brought to a Soul that hath life in him must needs work Love to God again 1 John 4.19 We love him becâ—use he loved us first As it is the Love of God that gives us Power to love him for it is the first cause of our Happiness and consequently of our Love to God wherein consists our Happiness so it is the immediate cause of our Love to him When the Soul is convinced of so much Love from so great a God to so poor a Creature in very Ingenuity and Gratitude it cannot chuse but return an humble and hearty Love to his Creator again Methinks the Soul in the contemplation of the Goodness and Love of God might bespeak it self to this effect So immense and infinite is the Goodness and Beauty of thy God that were thy Being possible to be independent upon him he would deserve the most boundless and infinite motion of thy Love unto him But here is yet farther infinitude added to an infinitude he gave thee thy Being from nothing which was an infinite act of his Goodness and Power unto thee and doth and may justly challenge the highest tribute of Love
as things stand with Man he hath not this means of his Cure in or from himself but must derive it being now lost from him who at first gave it him the next Enquiry is Whether God hath appointed any Means for the cure of Man's Ignorance Perverseness and Guilt and consequently to lead him to Happiness and what it is wherein we conclude 1. That God in his infinite Wisdom and Goodness hath revealed and conveyed to the Children of Men the Means of their Happiness in several times by several ways and in several degrees in all successions of times 2. That this Discovery and Means of Happiness he hath by the course of his Providence put together and diffused to Man-kind in the Compilation of the Old and New Testament wherein are contained not only the clear Discoveries of things to be Known and Believed conducing to Man's everlasting Happiness but likewise things to be Done and effectual Perswasions for the doing of it 3. That in the Use thereof there are not only the natural Means of discovery of Truths necessary to be known of things to be done and most effectual and powerful Perswasions beyond all other moral Arguments to the Obedience thereof but likewise a strong Concurrence of the Power of God according to his Will subduing the Understanding to believe and the Will to obey 4. That by this Belief of those necessary Truths and Obedience to the Will of God thus revealed Man shall be conducted to his everlasting Happiness which was the great End of his Creation CHAP. VI. 〈◊〉 the Credibility of the Sacred Scriptures THESE things be of easie consequence if once this be clearly proved to be the Word of God for then we argue demonstratively and à priori from the Cause to the Effect viz. Because that whatsoever is the express Word of God himself which is the God of Truth cannot chuse but be infallibly true and beyond all disputation But the question will be upon the Assumption viz Whether this be in truth the Word of God which if once granted all the rest will need no proof The Understanding of Man hath wrought in it a four-fold Assent to every Truth whereunto it assents 1. An Inherent Assent that is of such Principles if any be which are connatural to Man. Thus the Understanding assâ—â—ts not to this Proposition That the Old and New Testament are the Word of God. 2. Knowledge wrought by Demonstration or Scientia per causam Thus though there be many Truths in the Scripture that are demonstrable yet that these Scriptures are the infallible Word of God is not naturally demonstrable 3. Belief which is the taking up of a Truth upon the Testimony of him that asserts it This that it may be firm requires two qualifications First a firm and absolute perswasion That what the Author affirms is trâ— And thus a Man once admitting That this is 〈◊〉 â—ord of God doth most unquestionably believâ— because the truth of the Author is demonstrably unquestionable 2. A firm and clear Assent That this is the Word of that infallible Author And this is wrought only by a secret and immediate work of the Power of God upon the Soul and is as firm Assent if not more firm than Science it self 4. Perswasion or Opinion which riseth upon probable grounds And although this can never arrive to Belief or Knowledge yet according to the strength concurrence and multiplicity of Arguments concurring to the Perswasion it may arrive to the very next degree to Belief or Knowledge Thus it may be firmly concluded That this is the Word of God and the Means which he in his Providence hath appointed to guide Man to the attaining of his last Happiness This Perswasion though it be not Faith it doth prepare the Heart for that high and noble Assent and mighly strengthens it being attained These are in the next place to be considered 1. It doth discover those Truths clearly and satisfactorily which hath perplexed all the Labours and Enquiries of the wisest Men and thereby unriddles and renders easie most of those difficulties and doubts in natural and moral Philosophy which could never or not without strange uncertainty and reluctation be so much as guessed at by them The abstrusest Truths are hardly discovered and found out which is one cause of those several absurd Opinions and Positions which have been invented and imposed by Mens Fancies to make out supply and reconcile those Difficulties which the Ignorance of it may be one Truth doth most necessarily occasion but when that Truth is once discovered it doth most clearly resolve those Difficulties and scatter those Absurdities and procure an easie Assent from that Reason in Man which could not at first easily discover it To consider this in some Particulars In Matters Natural Whence grew all those strange Chimera's concerning the first Matter Its Eternity Its undeterminateness and a thousand disputes Whether it is What it is and all end in nothing but unsatisfactory and unresolving Disputes concerning Eduction of Forms out of the power of it and by what Agent concerning the eternal succession and concatenation of Causes concerning the beginning of Motion especially of the Heavens the endeavouring to reconcile an eternal duration to a successive motion concerning the different activities and qualities of simple Bodies their mutual actings one upon another the cause of the disgregating of the simple Bodies one from another unto that convenient distance and of their concurrence in production of mixt Bodies the production of Creatures especially Man the nature of the Soul the fitting of Objects and Powers in the Senses and Intellect All these and millions of Disputes rise from the ignorance of that Truth which at one view we may with satisfaction read resolved in the First of Genesis and in no Book in the World beside but what hath been borrowed from thence Again Touching the orderly Position of the Creatures The conveniency of one thing to the exigence and necessity of another The moderation and government of things endued with destructive qualities each to other The concurrence of several contingent Causes to the producing of Mutations in States Religion c. as if those contingent Causes had been as it were animated with one Soul or Spirit and the like The observation of these and the like things and the want of true knowledge have put Men to those exigences of invention which resolve them into Fate or Destiny into the power of the Stars into the Law of Nature and yet we are still where we were not knowing What that Fate is What that Order or Power of Heaven is Whence that Law of Nature came or was given But if we look into this Book of God we find all these difficulties extricated we find the preservation of this Order in the Creatures to proceed from and depend upon the Wisdom and Power and Government of an infinite and intellectual Being who whiles his Creature for the most part moves according to the Rule
hearkened not unto them as the Lord had said ibid. Verse 32. and divers other parts of the History The Lord hardened his Heart by Permission of the Magicians Miracles by permitting objective presenting to him the Profit of the Jews Labours by Withdrawing that external Concurrence and operation of his Grace which might have softned it and Pharaoh actively hardens his own Heart 2 Sam. 24.1 Israel had offended God and must be punished but there was an Impediment to the Execution of this Judgment David's Integrity who was concerned in the good or evil of his People if God withdraw his assistance from David and let in Satan to tempt him David will sin as well as his People and so both deservedly punishable And he moved David to number the people yet 1 Chron. 21.1 And Satan stood up against Israel and provoked David to number the people Here were three Parties God moved by permitting Satan to provoke by withdrawing a powerful Countermotion by Ordering David's sin for the means of the punishment of Israel's sin Satan provoked incited and perswaded either immediately or mediately for now the Watchman is gone God hath withdrawn his Hand and Satan loseth not the opportunity David numbers David's Heart was as corrupt and vain-glorious as anothers and as easily surprized by a Temptation when the Keeper of Israel is absent and remoto impedimento sins as freely and more naturally as before it walked conformable to the Will of his Maker this Sampson hath lost his Locks and he becomes as another Man. In the mean time let us ever admire the Justice of our Maker who never necessitates us to incur a Punishment by necessitating our Sin and his Mercy in rewarding that Obedience which he alone performs in us Also to thee O Lord belongeth mercy for thou renderest to every Man according to his Works Psalm 62.12 CHAP. III. Of the Execution of the Eternal Counsel of God in his Works of Creation and Providence NOW we come to consider the Execution of that Counsel in those two greater transient Acts viz. Creation and Providence 1. Touching the Creation This we consider in general and particularly as concerning Man In general we resolve the work of Creation into three parts 1. The original production of all things out of nothing This is simply Creation Gen. 1.1 In the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth God Created This is the greatest conceptible motion viz. Ã non esse ad esse and though it be an act of Faith to believe it because related Heb. 11.3 yet it is a conclusion of Reason to know it as it appears by what hath been before observed concerning the impossibility to have any eternal subsistence but one And this truth though it be deducible by necessity of Reason if a God be once admitted yet so infinite is the distance between Nothing and a Being that divers of the acutest Naturalists were ignorant of it the ignorance of which Principle caused many of their absurd and unintelligible Positions and Superstructions to supply those difficulties which by this only Truth are avoided as concerning the First Matter the Eductions of Forms out of the power of it by I know not what Agents God created This infinite Motion could only proceed from an infinite Power who by the mere act of his Will constitutes something out of nothing In the beginning Time could not be before there were something that had succession of Being for it is the measure of a successive Being and therefore the beginning of created Beings must needs be the beginning of Time and Creation was the beginning of created Beings The Heavens and the Earth The indigested matter of the Heavens and the Earth 2. The dividing and ordering of this Mass calling out the particular Subsistences and furnishing of them with forms and qualities This was subsequent to the creation of the Matter and we find the Manner of this production in two Expressions 1. The motion of the Spirit of God upon the face of the Waters Vers 2. containing an act of the Divine Power whereby he fitted every thing to be ready for his call for though by the same instantaneous act the Divine Power could in the first instant of Creation have put things in their several Beings yet it was his Will to work successively first creating the Matter then breathing upon it and fitting this confused substance with aptitude for the things to be thereout produced 2. The Word of Command Let there be Light c. in the several works of the six days And here we may observe the admirable Wisdom of God as in divers particulars c. so especially in these 1. In the Order of the creating particular Creatures proceeding 1. to the finishing of Fundamentals then to Superstructions though of more curiosity and perfection yet more dependant upon those of the first creation 2. in the Variety of the Creatures and accommodating them with Qualities and Conveniences suitable to their Kinds whereby one doth not desire to encroach upon the Conveniences of the other's Subsistence For an Instance the Beasts Fishes Fowl endued with Appetites suitable to their Being yet the several Kinds affecting several Nourishments several places of Residence c. Herbs of contrary qualities drawing several Nourishments of several Natures even from the same Clod of Earth 3. In the Position and Situation of created Beings both for Beauty and Convenience so that the Wit of the most envious Atheist cannot imagine how the Elements the Heavens the several Creatures could be more beautifully or usefully placed every thing serves to accommodate and fit the other and speaks the Wisdom and Goodness of the Creator the Position of the Earth the Water the Air with exquisite Convenience that they may meet for the constitution of mixt and the subsistence of animate Creatures The Earth and other Bodies have dependance upon the power and influence of the Sun and Heavens each is fitted with a Figure and the Heavens with a Motion that may with admirable convenience dispense that Influence the variety of Seasons depending upon the ecliptical motion of the Sun giving variety to the Creature and intermissions to the Earth whereby she may recover strength in the Winter for the supply of the Summer The very imprefect Creatures the Rain the Winds Snow c. of admirable use for the Earth Air and Water The Elements so placed and ordered that whiles their contrary motions and qualities of Rarety and Density preserve the extremity of their contrary active qualities from meeting yet their Vicinity is such that one allays the violence of the other and so are in a fit position and temper for production of mixt Bodies 3. The planting in every thing a radical Activity and Causality by which it moves This is by Virtue of that Word of the Power of God the very Multiplication of the Creature Gen. 1.22 The warming of our Garments by the South Wind Job 27.17 The Nourishment that comes from our Bread
way to his Happiness as one Man teacheth another though we must not exclude that powerful Co-operation of his mighty Spirit that strikes upon our Spirits even when his Word strikes upon our 〈◊〉 And herein the Pharisees spoke truth even against their own Wills Matth. 22.26 Thou teachest the way of God in Truth For God in these last times hath spoken to us by his Son Heb. 1.2 and revealed unto us the whole Counsel and Will of his Father concerning us For he spoke not of himself but the Father which sent him gave him Commandment what he should say John 12.49 And that this Doctrin of his might receive a Testimonial from Heaven it was 〈◊〉 with Miracles and with suffrages from Heaven John 12.30 This Voice came not because of me but 〈◊〉 your sakes Now among divers Particulars of the 〈◊〉 of Christ we may observe these great Master-pieces 1. Instâ—ucting us that there is a higher end for the Sons of Men to arrive unto than temporal Felicity in this Life viz. Blessedness express'd in those several Expressions of his Matth. 5.3 4. c. The Kingdom of Heaven Comfort Fulness sight of God c. And in order to this great Doctrin are those several Doctrines of the Resurrection the last Judgment the Immortality of the Soul truths that the whole World either never knew or had forgotten or doubted 2. Instructing in the true Way to attain this Blessedness teaching us that Righteousness accepted of God consists not in meer outward observations but in the integrity and sincerity of the Heart and hereby rubs off all those false glosses that the formallest of Men had put upon the Law of God teaches that the Love of God is the fulfilling of God's Commandments and the reason is because this Love of God if it be sincere will ingage the whole Man to the exact Observance of what he requires those abstruse practical Truths of Depending upon God's Providence Self-denyal Loving our Enemies Rejoycing in Affliction all flowing from the high Point of the Love of God this is the Law of Christ Gal. 6.2 3. In revealing that which is the only Means to attain the two former even that great Mystery of the Gospel that was hid with God in Christ A Man might rove at the two former though the World had almost lost them both but this latter was a mystery that the Angels themselves knew not 1 Cor. 2.16 Who hath known the Mind of the Lord that he way instruct him But we have the mind of Christ which contains the whole Counsel of God touching Man this is that which Paul calls all the Counsel of God. Acts 20.27 and Truth it self hath given us the Breviary of it John 6.40 This is the will of him that sent me that every one that seeth the Son and believeth on him may have everlasting life and I will raise him up at the last day These great Truths of so great Concernment to the Children of Men yet so far remov'd from their Understanding were the third Business of the Life of Christ 7. That Christ bearing the sins of his People did suffer the wrath of God for the Remission of their sins The sufferings of Christ did only befal his Humane Nature for his Divine Nature was impassible yet in respect of that strict union of both Natures in one Person they received a value from that divine and impassible Nature for the union of both Natures in one Person though it did not communicate the Conditions of either Nature to the other did communicate the conditions of either Nature to the same Person as is before shewn This Suffering of Christ had these several Attributions 1 It was a Voluntary Suffering and yet not without a Necessity The Suffering was Voluntary even in respect of his Humane Nature yet Obediential to the Counsel and Purpose of God Matth. 17.21 he must go and suffer Luke 24 26. Ought not Christ to have suffered these things Acts 2.23 Him being delivered by the determinate counsel and fore-knowledge of God Yet was this most Voluntary in Christ Voluntary in the original undertaking of this Work in that Eternal Susception by the Eternal Word Voluntary in the discharge of that Undertaking in the Humane Nature the Humane Nature of Christ pursuing and following the will of Eternity Luke 12.50 I have a baptism to be baptized withal and how am I straitned till it be accomplished And even when the Humane Nature did according to the Law of Nature shrink from its own dissolution yet he presently corrects that natural Passion John 12.27 Father save me from this hour But for this cause came I to this hour Father glorifie thy Name Matth. 26.39 O my Father if it be pâ—ssible let this cup pass from me nevertheless not as I will but as thou wilt whiles his Humanity trembles and startles at the Business he goes about yet his Love to his Church his Obedience to his Father his Faithfulness to his Undertaking breaks through that natural reluctance Now the Voluntariness yet obedience of Christ's suffering both consistent appears Joh. 10.15 1 Joh. 3.16 I lay down my life for my sheep No man taketh it from me but I lay it down of my self yet Isa 53.6 10. All we like sheep have gone astray and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all it pleased the Lord to bruise him when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin Psal 2.7 8. As he made himself of no reputation and humbled himself so he became obedient to death Titus 2.14 He gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity yet John 3.16 God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son c. Again 1 John 4.9 Herein perceive we the love of God because he laid down his life for us Yet Rom. 8.32 He spared not his own Son but delivered him up for us all 1 John 4.9 God sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins Psal 40.7 Then said I lo I come yet he came not without a Mission I delight to do thy will O my God. The sum of all then is the Love of God to Mankind was the absolute and original foundation of our Redemption the same act of this Love proposed and undertook the Redemption of Mankind voluntarily and freely in this way contrived by the Eternal Wisdom and Counsel of God The Humane Nature of Christ in exact and voluntary submission unto this Counsel performed it If it had been Voluntary and not in Conformity to the Will of God whose Will could be the only measure of his Satisfaction it could never have been satisfactory And if it had been meerly Passive it could not have been an Obedience which requires a free Submission and Conformity to the Will of him that injoyns without which it could never be meritorious 2. It was a Meritorious and Expiatory Suffering for by that Eternal Covenant between the Father and the Son he was to bear the sins of
were a Miracle of Mercy if such a God so offended and by his Creature should have accepted a Reconciliation upon the highest importunity of his Creature But for him thus injured that could not receive a grain of advantage by our Conversion unto him to change as it were conditions with his Creature and to importune a Reconciliation from it There wants conception in us to understand it it is a Love passing knowledge But yet like the waters of the Sanctuary still riseth higher It is true we made our selves miserable and if thou O Lord hadst never looked after us nor pitied us we could never have complained of thy Justice But if thou hadst pitied and done no more or if thy pity had gone so far as to have given us a deliverance if we could have found it we must for ever in our misery have magnified thy Mercy though we had been Non-plus'd in the inquiry But here is Love not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the Propitiation for our Sins a Propitiation and a Propitiation prepared by our offended injured Maker and such a Propitiation But it rests not here We had incurred Guilt enough to make us wretched and a delivery from wretchedness by such a means had been an unspeakable Mercy But this mercy rested not there he doth not only of miserable Men make us not miserable by pardoning our Guilt but of Enemies makes us Children by a Righteousness that he himself had prepared 1 John 1.3 Behold what manner of Love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the Sons of God. 4. Now a Man would think that ordinary Prudence and Ingenuity would engage the heart to entertain this Message of Happiness and Peace with Love and Acceptation and that a greater approach from God to his Creature as it could not be expected so it need not be required The Chiefest Good commands our Entertainment how much more when it offers it self with such a condescension as well to our Necessities as to our conditions Moral perswasions have wrought upon the Tempers of wise Men without any propositions of any thing beyond this Life how much more perswasions bottomed upon such sound Reason and propounding an end sutable to the highest Comprehension of our Souls But all this will not serve the turn unless the Mercy of God had gone farther We are dead in Trespasses and Sins and we can no more receive these Truths and this Love of God than a dead Man can receive a rational Impression Now Christ is our Life Colos 3.4 When Christ who is our Life shall appear 1 John 5.12 He that hath the Son hath Life he that hath not the Son hath not Life Now this Life is wrought in us and conveyed unto us by the very work of the Spirit of God and Christ in and upon our Souls John 6.63 It is the Spirit that quickens the same Spirit that raised up Christ from the Dead Rom. 8.11 If the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the Dead dwell in you he that raised up Christ from the Dead shall also quicken your Mortal Body by his Spirit that dwelleth in you Ephes 2.5 Even when we were dead in Sins he hath quickned us together with Christ Therefore he is called the Spirit of Life Rom. 8.2 This Life called the renewing of the Holy Ghost Tit. 2.5 a Birth of the Spirit John 3.5 Except a Man be born of Water and the Spirit Verse 6. that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit The first Resurrection Ephes 5.14 Awake thou that sleepest stand up from the Dead and Christ shall give thee Life And though it may seem a vain Command to a dead Man to stand up from the Dead yet we must remember whose Command it was even his that spake to dead Lazarus Come forth and he arose because a Spirit of Life and a word of Power went along with the Command John 6.63 The words that I speak unto you they are Spirit and they are Life They have not only Life in them for him that receives them but I can send a Spirit with them to enable him to receive them And now the Soul is put into a condition to entertain his Happiness It was the Happiness of Adam's Soul and it is the Happiness of Angelical Natures to be receptive of the knowledge and Love of God And here was Mans misery by his Sin that as he lost the actual Enjoyment of God so he had made his Soul as it were irreceptive of it again and as God hath offered himself to us again in Christ so by his Spirit he enables us to receive him by Faith which is the first motion of the Creature to Union with God. So then the work of the Spirit upon the Soul comes under a threefold Consideration though the same act produceth all three and therefore they are three put together 2 Tim. 1.7 The Spirit of Power of Love and of a sound Mind 1. Of Power or Life whereby Life is conveyed into the Soul which like the dry bones in Ezekiel was void of Life till this Spirit comes into them de quae supra and the two following are but the manifestation of this Life according to the Faculties wherein it appears 2. Of a sound Mind Light not only in the Medium but in the Organ John 1.4 In him was Life and the Life was the light of Men. Hence it is called a convincing Spirit John 16.8 a Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation in the knowledge of Christ Ephes 1.17 a Spirit of understanding He hath given us understanding that we may know him that is true 1 John 5.20 a Spirit of Demonstration and of Power 1 Cor. 2.4 a Spirit of discerning and Judication 1 Cor. 2.15 16. Man's Understanding by his Fall lost his Object and lost his Sight Ephes 5.8 ye were sometimes darkness And this was not only a darkness by the Absence but by the exclusion of light the Understanding was sealed against it so that though light did shine in the darkness yet the darkness comprehended it not John 1.5 Now here was the work of the Spirit of God in opening the heart Acts 16.14 enabling our understanding to receive and subduing of it to believe the truth of God. And this is certain not only in those truths which are farthest removed from our Reason and so most properly the Object of our Faith John 6.65 No man can come unto me except the Father draw him 1 Cor. 12.3 No man can say that Jesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost But even in those points of truth wherein even natural reason may guide us Even the belief of the Creation though it is deducible by natural reason to know it yet it is the work of Faith to believe it Heb. 11.3 By Faith we understand that the Worlds were framed c. The conviction of the same truth by the work of the Spirit of God creating Faith and the
work of Natural Reason working Opinion or at most knowledge differs as much as knowledge and Opinion Those things of God that are discoverable by natural Reason receive another kind of impression upon the Soul by the work of God as is evident by the Effects and Operations each have upon the Soul Rom. 1.21 When they knew God yet they glorified him not as God. 3. Of Love therefore so called because the Principal part of the Message that the Soul is acquainted with is a Message of Love and Goodness and so the Will inclined and ingaged to love that Goodness And this is the fruit of the work of God's Spirit 1. Mediately and naturally presupposing the former work of Illumination for some Objects are of so light a nature that when they are known all the work of the Soul is done so they are only known that they may be known But these objects of our Faith they do include a Goodness and Conveniency for the Soul and therefore being known they are desired so that in natural Consequence the Spirit of God if it demonstrates these Truths to the Soul it doth by consequence engage the Love of the Soul to them It is true that Education Instruction and Discipline may make us know these Truths speculatively and yet our Soul not affected with them but the Conviction which is wrought by the Power of God's Spirit is not so thin or jejune a union of these Truths to the understanding but deeper and more radicated and consequently doth more effectually work upon the Will and therefore it is the Logick of the Apostle 1 John 2.4 He that saith he knoweth God and keepeth not his Commandments is a liar and the truth is not in him 2 Pet. 1.9 He that lacketh these things is blind and cannot see The Argument is from the Negation of the necessary Effect or Consequent to the Negation of the Cause or Antecedent as if he should have said Wheresoever there is no true Obedience to the Will and Command of God there is certainly no Love of God. It is the conclusion of Truth and Reason Joh. 14.23 If a man love me he will keep my words And wheresoever there is a true knowledge of God there must of necessity be a true Love unto God because it doth represent God as the chiefest only and most suitable Good to the Soul. It is true that notional and speculative knowledge of God that is wrought by natural discourse cannot or at least seldom doth arrive to that full apprehension of the Goodness of God and consequently doth not raise up the Heart to that height of Love and Obedience for our Reason is weak and the disproportion between Him and our Understanding is infinite and therefore he hath chosen to reveal it unto us in his Word and Son and by his own Power working Knowledge in us And by this we see why the renovation and conversion unto God is sometimes expressed under the name of Knowledge John 17.3 This is life eternal that they might know thee the only true God c. Colos 3.10 Having put on the new man which is renewed in knowledge 2 Cor. 4.6 For God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ c. Sometimes under the name of Trusting and depending upon God Galat. 3.6 Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for Righteousness sometimes under the name of Love Jud. 21. Keep your selves in the Love of God 1 Tim. 1.14 with faith and love which is in Christ 2 Tim. 1.13 2 Thes 2.10 Receiving the Love of the Truth sometimes under the name of Obedience James 1.27 Pure religion and undefiled c. James 2. per tot 1 John 2.29 Every one that doth righteousness is born of him so sometimes under the name of Repentance Fear of God c. For all this is but one work of this Spirit of Grace and but the several Emanations of the same work of the Spirit of God upon the Soul diversified only in the faculties or objects the first act in Nature is Light and when it convinceth the heart of the sinfulness of sin that works Repentance when of the Promises of God that breeds Dependence and Confidence when of the Goodness and Love of God in Christ that breeds Love unto him Watchfulness over our selves Obedience to his Will when of the Majesty and Justice of God it breeds Fear and Reverence when of our own vileness it breeds Humility so that all these are but the bringing home and joyning of those Convictions wrought in our Understanding unto the Will and Affections and thereupon these Effects do as naturally follow upon this work of Illumination and Conviction wrought by the Spirit of God as the like Effects do arise upon natural convictions of Objects of inferiour kinds and goodness 2. But this is not all there is a work of strength and power upon the Will Phil. 2.13 It is God that worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure As the death and disability was in both Faculties so the Life is conveyed into both universally And this Power of God's Spirit is not only in the first acts of our Conversion to him but it goes along with us All those actions which are pleasing to God are wrought by the same Spirit of Christ by which they were at first animated It is a Spirit of Supplication in our Prayers Rom. 8.26 The Spirit maketh intercession c. A Spirit of Access for our Prayers Eph. 2.18 A Spirit of Assurance and Sonship Gal. 3.6 Eph. 1.16 A Spirit of Wisdom to direct us in our difficulties Ephes 1.17 A Spirit of Comfort and Joy in our Distresses Rom. 14.17 A Spirit of Fruitfulness in our Conversation Galat. 5.22 25. A Spirit of Perseverance 1 Pet. 1.5 Ye are preserved by the power of God through faith unto salvation CHAP. X. How our Vnion with Christ is wrought on Man's part viz. By Faith Hope and Love. HITHERTO we have seen the motion of the Love of God to his Creature by which it may appear the whole Business of Man's Salvation is the work of God and Man appears in a manner passive in all the parts of it In the sending Light into his Understanding he is passive In the enabling the Understanding to receive this Light he is still passive In the subduing the Will to the entertainment of it he is still passive Yet there is some kind of motion in us which though it be the Work of our Creator in the first giving of it and againâ— his Work in reviving quickening and enabling it yet he is pleased to require it from us and to expect it of us Mori movemus And that are principally these three Faith Hope and Love we find them oftentimes joyned together 1 Tim. 1.14 The Grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant with faith and love which is
conception unto action and improve Joseph's question Gen. 39.9 How can I do this great wickedness and sin against God Thy Creator thy Judge beholds thee Let it be the matter of thy humiliation to consider that thou hast stained the habitation of his presence by admitting a sinful thought that thou hast in his presence and in his place nourished it into a resolution And therefore let it be at last thy care at least to kill this resolution before it comes to action by improving this practical consideration of the presence of the Holy Glorious and Terrible God And if notwithstanding this consideration thy Soul shrink not from thy purpose or if thou reject the consideration of his presence that thou mayest the more quietly and contentedly sin or if thou precipitate thy resolution into action lest the consideration of his presence should step into thy heart and divert thee Thy sin is heightned and thou addest contempt of God unto thy offence by rejecting the Light and Grace that might and would if brought to thy heart restrain thee and with the presumptuous sinner in Job 21.14 thou sayest to God Depart from me for I desire not the knowledge of thy ways And it is no wonder if he take thee at thy word and depart from thee to all Eternity by the presence of his Love and Goodness though his severe and angry Eye and presence ever rest upon thee Again Is the God of Heaven an Eye-witness of thy carriage when either by thy self or others thou art solicited to evil Take courage to resist this temptation because thy Creator sees thee Ask thy temptation whether it can secure thee from the sight and wrath of God whether it can countervail thy damage in displeasing him that beholds thee Dost thou want Courage or Resolution to oppose it Consider thy Lord stands by to see and observe and reward thee in thy opposition Couldest thou see but that Glory that hath commanded thy resistance of evil and how near it stands by thee all the choicest solicitations to any sin would die in their first offer against thee Dost thou doubt thy strength to oppose it Know that thou canst not want strength if thou hast but resolution It is thy cowardise makes thee weak it is not thy weakness that makes thee cowardly All the men in the World nor all the Devils in Hell could not fasten a sin upon thee unless thou first consent But suppose thou doubtest thy own heart yet consider thy Maker's presence who is by thee and able to support thee if thou wilt but lay hold of his strength and that strength of his he offers thee if thou wilt but take it And it is not possible thou shouldest wanr it if thou seriously consider that he is present for it is an act of thy Faith whereby thou dost believe his presence and by the same act thou dost partake of all that Goodness and Truth and Mercy which accompanies his presence and will bear thee up against the most accomplisht temptation Consider that the Presence of God that beholds thy carriage in a temptation as it must needs add an infinite dishonour and shame and confusion that in the presence of the Glorious and Pure God thou shouldest sink under a base temptation contrary to the Commands and Holiness of him that beholds thee so it cannot chuse but strengthen thee against the strongest temptation by the anticipation of that comfort and contentment that thou must needs have by holding thine integrity when such thoughts as these shall move thy heart I am now solicited to break my Maker's Command for a perishing profit or pleasure whatsoever my success be I know the Glorious Holy Mighty God sees my demeanour even he that hath his reward in his hand of Indignation and Vengeance and shame in case I yield to this unworthy solicitation And Approbation Glory and Immortality in case I stick to his Command and shall I in the presence of the Almighty and Glorious God prefer the satisfaction of an unworthy lust or temptation with shame in the presence of my Creator before my Obedience unto him even in his own sight when he looks upon me and encourageth me with a promise of strength to assist me and of Glory to reward me To be able to hear in my own conscience the suffrage of the Lord of Heaven beholding me Well done good and faithful servant were enough to overweigh all my Obedience though it were possible that it could be divided from what follows Enter into thy master's joy Again Art thou in any temporal Calamity be it what it will the consideration of the presence of God will make thy condition comfortable Psal 23.3 Though I walk in the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil for thou art with me My Wants are great and my Reproaches are great and my Enemies my Pains my Dangers my Losses my Discomforts are great But they are not hid from God he is present and his Wisdom and if he saw it not fit for me to be afflicted it is enough I have learned to acknowledge his Wisdom and with patience and chearfulness to submit to him who measures out every dram of this bitter potion to most wise Ends and yet stands by to manage it He is present and his Power and Omnipotence and my Prayers have no long journey to come unto him when my Exigences are at the highest his Power is enough and near enough to help me in the very article of necessity and when I am sinking with Peter he hath an arm near enough to rescue me from the ripe and victorious danger He is present and his Compassion and Mercy and Tenderness and Faithfulness who will not suffer me to be tempted above what I am able to bear It is his Mercy that hath thus much or thus long afflicted me for so much the necessity of my Soul it may be did require Psal 119.75 Thy Judgments are right and thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me And that I am afflicted no more it is thy Mercy For he stands by and sees what measure consists with my Good and when the measure begins to exceed my strength and either easeth my burden or helps me to bear it In all their afflictions he was afflicted Isa 63.9 He is present and his All-sufficiency and this is enough to swallow up all the bitterness and darkness of my extreamest misery The comfort and beauty and goodness of every thing in it self or which it can reach out to me by fruition or participation is that which is derived to it only from the Wisdom Power and Goodness of God and there is no more of good in the Creature than what he lends it neither can it communicate to me more nor can I receive more from it than what he enables it to give and me to receive And the Creatures are but those Vessels accommodated and fitted to my Nature out of which I drink that good that he hath
Perfection is held 4. a Rule or Law wherewith it is indued to regulate and direct and enable his Motions in the attaining of that Desire Thus we find in all Creatures below Man every thing moving to its own Preservation and Perfection by a strong Desire and constant Rule and enjoying a kind of Happiness in the Fruition of that End which the First Cause gave it as its Portion Nay in the very Dissolution of the Creature this is that which moves the ingredients thereof to part themselves or concur in the production of some third thing the thing corrupted struggling nevertheless as long as it can to keep it self entire Man though in his lower part he hath somewhat common with other especially sensible Creatures and therefore in that respect resembles them in his Motions Fruitions and Ends yet he hath something that is of a higher Constitution and consequently capable of a higher Perfection whereunto he moves as his End by a Law or Rule answerable to so great an End this latter being of a higher Frame yet answerable to that in other Creaturers which we call the Law of Nature Instinct or Natural Inclination The first thing therefore examinable is Wherein consists this Perfection of Man above other Creatures And questionless that is in his Soul which actuates animates and directs his Body and therefore before we can find out what is that End that is answerable to the degree of Man's being we must enquire what this Soul is wherein Man's Perfection consists whereby we shall be able to measure out what End will serve it The Soul of Man is considerable 1. In its absolute Essence we must conclude it to be an Immterial Immortal Substance This though it be a certain truth yet it is impossible naturally to demonstrate it the reason is because nothing can come to our Understandings demonstratively but either by our Senses or by Discourse and Reasons deduced from such things as so come to our Senses It is true the First Cause falls not under our Senses yet by necessary deduction from what falls under our Senses we necessarily conclude That he is and in some things What he is but the Being of the Soul as it is not conspicuous to the Sense so it is not deducible by Demonstration it is a Truth which is revealed at first supernaturally and afterwards traductively It is true that when we have the knowledge of it we may find many reasons to fortifie it divers difficulties thereby reconciled which without that admitted were almost impossible to be broken through which stings the most bold and adventurous sinner or Atheist with an invincible suspicion of the truth of this Truths yet I cannot find how merely by Natural Reason a Man can first find out the truth of this Proposition That the Soul is a Substance Immaterial We owe this truth in its original to Divine Revelation though when discovered the contribution of rectified Reason may conclude it at least probable But that being granted it doth of necessity follow that it is Immortal and Incorruptible for that which is Immaterial is actus simflex which excludes a composition of Matter and Form not Simflicissimus which excludes the composition ex Ente Essentia or ex Actu Potentia Now concerning those Reasons those Reasons that conduce to prove the Immortality and Spirituality of the Soul I. From the manner of its Operation 1. In the understanding which though it takes its rise from things that pass through the Sense yet it refines them from their Materiality concludes from them things which are not conveyed in by the Senses abstracts riseth to the consideration and apprehension of Spiritual Truths 2. In the Will which is carried to affect a Good that falls not within the reach of Sense controlls and commands the Sensual Appetite takes it off from those things which it pursues as naturally and violently as the hungry Lion doth his Prey and imposeth a Law of Reason upon them 3. From the Conscience that startles at the committing of a horrid Offence though with the greatest secrecy and outward security in the World. Sed de his Latius infra 2. From the Justice of God. It is questionless certain that as God put in the several Instincts and Propensions in the inferior Creatures whereby they are carried to their Ends so there was some Rule given to Man that was answerable to the several dimensions of those Abilities he had above other Creatures viz. Understanding and Will. And questionless as those Propensions are internal to the inferiour Creatures and do not only rule their Actions but also their Inclinations so this Law that was given to Man extended not only to his outward Actions but to those inward Motions of his Soul by the violation of the least part of which Law he incurred a Guilt which is an Obligation to Punishment according to the Penalty of this Law. Now it is impossible that this Justice should be executed considering especially the outward dispensation of things without the Object of this Justice survived his Body 3. From the Wisdom of God who surely gave not his Creature an Understanding that might arrive to know him a Will rationally and ex deliberatione to obey him and yet that all this should die with the Body But who is sufficient for these things Here is the first Eminence then of Man above other things that he carries about him an Immaterial and Immortal Soul which survives his Body and this necessarily concludes that the Good or End or Happiness answerable to this Perfection cannot be either Material or Mortal 1. Not Material because it holds not proportion with that Nature and Receptibility of the Soul. And from hence as it is most rational to conclude that any Object of the Sense can never be that Good that the Soul drives at so it is most evident by two Experiments 1. In the Weariness Nauseousness and unsatisfactoriness of them If a Man had all the Wisdom and Contrivance in the World and the most eager and intense desire after these Objects of Sense or the Sensual Appetite that can be imagined and all those Supplies and Opportunities that might conduce to the filling of these Desires yet in the midst of those Enjoyments he would find a Nauseousness a Satiety a Weariness And that is the reason that voluptuous Men travel from one Pleasure to another Which though they are exquisitely proportionable to that Sense they are framed for yet there is somewhat within which is still empty and craves who cannot relish nor tast those Enjoyments and cries after something that may be more sutable to it and the Man not knowing what that is travels from one thing to another to find somewhat to satisfie that Desire but cannot till he light upon that Good that is Immaterial 2. In that the more Spiritual the Object is the more satisfaction it breeds Hence the Soul doth in effect Spiritualize all that cometh into it by abstractions
by one Spirit unto the Father CHAP. VII Of the Efficacy of the Satisfaction of Christ and the Congruity of it to right Reason THUS for the settling of our Minds in the Truth of Christ we have considered of those clear Prophecies and Types of Christ in the Old Testament We now come to consider some Particulars concerning this great work of our Redemption 1. Wherein consists the Efficacy and Virtue of Christ's Mediation and Sacrifice 2. How it was effected Wherein we shall consider 1. His Satisfaction 2. The Application of this Satisfaction in reference to the Father his Intercession in reference to us his Word and Spirit 3. The Effects and Consequents of it 1. The Efficacy of this Satisfaction consists in that free Acceptance by God of this Sacrifice of Christ as a Satisfaction for the Sins of his Elect and to be the price of the Inheritance thereby purchased for them by an eternal Contract between the Father and the Son for otherwise it were impossible of its own nature that the Sacrifice of one could expiate for the sin of another The tenor of this great Covenant between God and Christ was that the Son should take upon him Flesh should fullfil the Law of our Creation should suffer death and rise again and that Almighty God would accept this as the satisfaction for the sins of the righteous and as the price of Eternal Life for as many as should believe in him This is effectually set forth by the Word of Truth it self John 6.37 38 39 40. All that the Father giveth me shall come unto me and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out for I came down from heaven not to do my own Will but the will of him that sent me and this is the Father's will that hath sent me that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing but should raise it up again at the last day And this is the will of him that sent me that every one which seeth the Son and believeth on him may have everlasting life and I will raise him up at the last day It is the Will of God which is nothing but the Acceptaton of God 1 John 4.10 He sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins his sending was his Acceptation Isa 53.10 When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin there was the Acceptation of the Father Again on the Son's part Psal 40.6 â— Burnt-offering and sin-offering hast thou not reâ—uired then said I Lo I come And the same Word of Truth that tells us John 3.16 That God gave his only begotten Son tells us again John 10.17 18. I lay dâ—wn my life that I may take it up again And this susception of Christ and acceptation of God though we represent it to our selves under several Notions yet it was one indivisible and eternal Counsel of the Divine Majesty Acts 2.23 Him being delivered by the determinate counsel and fore knowledge of God And this Purpose and Counsel of his only the proceed of his eternal and free Love So God loved the world John 3.16 In this was manifested the love of God towards us because he sent c. But could the Pardon of Man's Sin and his attaining of Happiness be had at no lower a rate could not God have freely forgiven the one and given the other without this great mixing of Heaven and Earth in this wonderful Mystery of the Sacrifice of the Son of God As the original Resolution of all the Works and Counsels of God must be into his own good pleasure so especially of this Ephes 1.5 He hath predestinated us to the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself according to the good pleasure of his Will. Yet we do find some Congruity of Right Reason in this course of Man's Redemption 1. To magnifie to all the World the Glory of his free Grace Ephes 1.6 and to take away all possibility of boasting in the subject of this Redemption Ephes 2.8 By Grace are ye saved through Faith and that not of your selves it is the gift of God not of works lest any man should boast 1 Cor. 1.29 That no flesh should glory in his presence The Dependence that all Creatures especially Man have upon the Creator both in their Being and Perfection doth most justly and reasonably challenge from the reasonable Creature a free Retribution of Acknowledgment of his Dependence upon the Goodness of God and it is an affection of the greatest Congruity that is imaginable yet we see how soon Man forgot that duty and would be independent upon his Lord. Now when Man had concluded all his Posterity under sin then for God freely to give such a Price of Redemption as it magnifies the Freeness and Bounty of his Goodness so it doth ingage lapsed Man to the everlasting Acknowledgment of the Free Grace of God in restoring him that so God may be all in all 2. To magnifie the Exquisiteness of his Justice In that dreadful Proclamation of the Name of God Exod. 34.6 7. we find a strange mixture of his Mercy and Justice Forgiving Iniquity Transgression and Sin and that will by no means clear the guilty and both parts essential to his Name Such a way then must be for Man's Restoration that may evidence his Mercy in pardoning as well as his Justice in punishing Sin Christ was made sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him 2 Cor. 5.21 And being made Sin for us was likewise made a Curse for us Galat. 3.13 Here we have him pardoning Iniquity Transgression and sin of Men and yet not sparing his own Son when he bore the imputed guilt of our sins 3. To magnifie the glory of his Wisdom The admirable Fabrick of the World speaks abundantly the Wisdom of our Creator but all this was inferiour and subservient unto this great Business 1 Cor. 1.24 Christ the Power of God and the Wisdom of God 1 Pet. 1.22 A Business for the inquiry and speculation of Angels Ephes 3.10 The manifold Wisdom of God the end of the Creation Colos 1.16 All things created by him and for him Colos 1.20 to reconcile all things to himself whether they be things in Heaven or things in Earth Ephes 1.10 That he might gather together in one all things in Christ The sum of this Mystery we have 1 Tim. 3.16 God manifested in the flesh justified in the Spirit seen of Angels preached to the Gentiles believed on in the world received into glory In this great frame of Man's Redemption we see the Counsel of God strangely executed his ancient Promises fulfilled the Shadows and Types of the Law unveiled the breach of the righteous Law of God punished the Righteousness thereof fulfilled the Justice of God satisfied his Mercy glorified his Creature pardoned justified glorified all those difficulties intricacies and confusions which came into the world by the sin of Man extricated ordered and salved the
declared to be the Son of God with Power Rom. 1.4 And this Resurrection of Christ must of necessity follow his Satisfaction he had taken upon him our Sin and therefore must undergo the Wages due unto it viz. Death in the very instant of his Death he had compleated his Sacrifice and Satisfaction when he said upon the Cross It is finished John 19.30 Yet as it was necessary for him to lie under Death so long as might convince the Reality of it so it was impossible for him to lie longer the Debt was paid and he could be no longer detained Prisoner Acts 2.24 Whom God hath raised up having loosed the pains of death because it was not possible he should be holden of it And this Resurrection of Christ as it was by the Power of God 2 Cor. 13.4 He liveth by the Power of God Ephes 1.19 The working of his mighty Power or by the Eternal Spirit Rom. 8.11 The Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead so it was the effect of his Justice the Price of Man's Redemption being paid he was now by the Eternal Covenant of God to prolong his days And hence he is said to be justified in the Spirit 1 Tim. 3.16 Even that Spirit that raised him up from the dead did at the same time proclaim the compleatness of his Satisfaction and justifie the fulfilling of his Undertaking If Christ had not risen there had of necessity followed these two Consequences either of which had left us in as bad case as he found us 1. It had been then impossible that his Death had been a sufficient Sacrifice If he had been detained under Death the Guilt had still continued undischarged And hence 1 Cor. 15.17 If Christ be not raised your faith is vain ye are yet in your sins As if he should have said If there be no Satisfaction made for your Sins ye are still in them If Christ be detained under Death it is evident the Satisfaction is not made for the Curse of the Law continues undischarged and consequently the Guilt continues unacquitted and hence Christ's Sacrifice was justified by his Resurrection so are we Rom. 4.25 Who was delivered for our offences and raised again for our justification And this Resurrection of Christ was his Victory over Guilt and Death and Hell. 1 Cor. 15.57 The Victory given through Christ Colos 2.15 Having spoiled Principalities and Powers he then made a shew of them openly 2. It had been impossible that the Members of Christ could have the benefit either of the first or second Resurrection for by reason of that Union with their Head they partake of all those conditions whereof their head participates Crucified with him Gal. 2.20 Dead to sin and buried with him Rom. 6.3 6 8. Live with him Galat. 2.20 Rise together with him to newness of Life Rom. 6.4 Rom. 8.11 12. Planted unto the likeness of his Resurrection Rom. 6.5 Ascended with him Ephes 2.6 and shall rise again to eternal Happiness by virtue only of his Resurrection 1 Cor. 15. 1 Thes 4.14 9. That Christ after his Resurrection did Ascend up into Heaven where his humane Nature is cloathed with Power and Glory and Immortality The Death of our Saviour was attested by his three days keeping his Grave and the Resurrection was attested by all the Evidences that incredulity it self could require for satisfaction because the matter of the greatest difficulty to believe and which being admitted made the whole truth concerning him easily credible Therefore for the clearing of this truth as he spent forty days to conquer the Temptations of the Devil in the Wilderness so he spent forty days after his Resurrection to subdue the infidelity of mankind to the belief thereof And during that time used all the sensible Convictions that might be for the confirming of their belief that the very Body of Christ re-assumed his Soul and Life 1. The Body removed out of the Sepulchre Luke 24.5 Why seek ye the Living among the Dead 2. He appeared unto them and because those appearances were accompanied with some Circumstances that might breed jealousie that it was a finer substance than a Body as his sudden vanishing out of their sight Luke 24 3â— His sudden presenting of himself among them when the Doors were shut Luke 24.36 John 20.19 Yet to convince that suspicion he exhibits his hands and his side eats with them converses with them about forty days Acts. 1.3 The Body of Christ being by the power of God made of an Angelical though not spiritual substance is taken up into Heaven Mark 16.19 Luke 24.57 Acts 16.9 where he sits at the right hand of Glory Acts 3.21 Heb. 10.12 Heb. 12.2 This was that which was figured by the High Priest's entring into the Holy of Holies Heb. 9.24 and extended to the very whole humane Nature of Christ the same that ascended is he that descended Ephes 4.9 This was the saying of Christ himself John 20.17 I am not yet ascended to my Father but go tell my Brethren I ascend unto my Father and your Father c. And this is that that our Saviour so often inculcates That the Son of Man shall come in his Glory c. Matth. 25.31 Matth. 26.64 To insinuate that that very humane Nature by which he is denominated Man should continue in immortality and appear the last day for the judgment of the World. And as by the power of God Man in his purity had been perpetuated to immortality and so he shall be in his Resurrection so by the power of God the Life of Christ's humane Nature shall be perpetuated to everlasting 2 Cor. 13.4 He liveth by the power of God. And this Body of Christ as it is filled with immortality so it is filled with Glory we shall be made like unto his glorious Body Phil. 3.21 10. That Christ having perfected the work of Man's redemption and ascended into Heaven exerciseth a threefold Office for the benefit of his Church and People 1. Of Power of Dominion This was that Inauguration of Christ in his Kingdom Psal 110.1 Sit thou at my right Hand Isaiah 53.10 Therefore will I divide him a Portion with the great c. because he hath poured out his Soul unto Death And therefore after his Resurrection he tells his Disciples Matth. 28.18 That all power is given him both in Heaven and in Earth and is that which is so often called his sitting at the right hand of his Father Ephs 1.20 and his making both Lord and Christ Acts 2.36 And this Kingdom Dominion and Power of Christ shall continue until the end when he shall deliver up the Kingdom to his Father that God may be all in all 1 Cor. 15.24 27. 2. The Communication of his Spirit The Power of the Spirit of God is in all his Creatures and especially in Men and all Creatures in their actings are but instrumental to the Spirit of God But by Christ the Power of that Spirit is communicated in a more
known of God is manifest in them for God hath shewed it unto them 2. The Law pronounced given to the Jews upon Sinai 3. The Gospel of Christ shewing us what is to be believed and what to be done When the great God comes to Judge the World he will judge it according to the several Dispensations of Light Rom. 2.12 For as many as have sinned without the law shall also perish without the law and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law There is light enough or neglect enough in the most ignorant Soul in the World to charge with Guilt enough for Condemnation though he never knew of the Law promulgated to the Jew or were bound by it As we there find the division of condemned persons unto such as sin without the Law and under the Law so we find another division 2 Thes 1.8 Taking vengeance on them that know not God and obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ This seems to contain these two Rules whereby the Gentiles should be judged 1. Ignorance and want of Fear of God for such to whom the Gospel was not preached this was unexcusable ignorance and disobedience Rom. 1.20 2. Unbelief and Disobedience of the Gospel of Christ And though this be a high Truth that is not discovered by the Light of Nature yet being discovered it is an offence even against the Law of Nature not to believe it because a most high and absolute Truth 3. Not to love it and consequently obey it because the means to attain the most high and absolute Good. And as every Sin is an aversion from the chief Good either to that which is a lesser or no Good so it is impossible but the aversion from the greatest Good must needs be the greatest Sin even by the Rules of sound Reason Both these we find plainly set down John 3.36 He that believeth not the Son shall not see life but the wrath of God abideth on him John 3.19 This is the condemnation that light came into the world and men loved darkness rather than light as if he should have said that it is the most reasonable and natural Principle for reasonable Creatures to entertain and obey that Rule which will conduct them to the highest Good and therefore the condemnation of such as neglect is most reasonable and the rather for that this proceeds not originally from Ignorance but from the Perverseness of the Heart in preferring Darkness before Light. So that as Infidelity is the cause of Condemnation John 3.18 So this want of Love of the Light is the great cause of Infidelity And though Man hath put himself in that Condition that he cannot come to Christ or entertain this chiefest Good except the Father draw him John 6.44 Yet this doth neither excuse him from sin or guilt because as in the first Man he willingly contracted this disability so he doth most freely and voluntarily affect it though he sins necessarily in rejecting the Light yet he sins voluntarily Now concerning those several places in holy Scripture that seem to infer the Vniversality of an intended Redemption John 3.17 John 12.47 1 John 2.2 1 Tim. 2.6 1 Tim. 2.4 1 Cor. 15.21 It may be considerable whether the intention of those places be that the Price was sufficient for all the World so that whosoever shall reject the offered Mercy shall never have this excuse that there was not a sufficiency left for him Or whether it be meant that Christ by his Death did fully expiate for all that Original Guilt which was contracted by the Fall of Adam upon all Mankind but for the Actual Offences only of such as believed that so as the voluntary sin of Adam had without the actual consent of his Posterity made them liable to Guilt so the Satisfaction of Christ without any actual application of him should discharge all Mankind from that originally contracted Guilt These disquisitions though fit yet are not necessary to be known it is enough for me to know that if I believe on him I shall not perish but have everlasting Life John 3.16 And that all are invited and none excluded but such as first exclude themselves CHAP. IX Of the Means which God hath appointed to make this Sacrifice of Christ effectual viz. Vnion with Christ and how the same is wrought on God's part 4. WE come to that Means which the Will of God hath appointed to make this Sacrifice Effectual for us God in his Eternal Counsel foreseeing the Fall of Man did from all Eternity covenant that the Eterval Word should take upon him Flesh and should be an all-sufficient Mediator between God and Man and to that End did furnish this Mediator with all things necessary for so great a Work Colos 1.19 For it pleased the Father that in him should all Fulness dwell Fulness of the Godhead Colos 2.9 For in him dwelleth all the Fulness of the Godhead bodily Fulness of Grace John 1.16 For of his Fulness we receive Grace for Grace Fulness of Wisdom and Knowledge Colos 2.3 In whom are hid all the treasures of Wisdom and Knowledge Fulness of Perfection Ephes 4.13 The measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ A Fulness of Life John 1.4 In him was life and the life was the light of men John 5.27 As the Father hath life in himself so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself A Fulness of Love Ephes 3.19 And to know the love of Christ passing knowledge All the Promises of God are in him and put into him as into a Treasury and bottomed upon him 2 Cor. 1.20 In whom all the promises of God are yea and Amen And this Plenitude of Christ was therefore in him that from him it might be communicated according to the Exigence of those for whom he was a Mediator for although the Plenitude of the Divine Nature was absolute and no way in reference to the Business of the Mediatorship yet the communication of that Plenitude to Christ as one Mediator was in order to his Office. And this Fulness of Christ was necessary to supply that Emptiness which was in Man by sin He stood in need of a sea of Love to redeem him and Christ was not without riches of Love and Compassion he had lost his Life The day that thou eatest thou shalt die the death and there was as well a Quickning as a Living Life in Christ to revive him Ephes 2.1 Those who were formerly dead in trespasses and sins hath he quickned Colos 3.4 When Christ who is our life shall appear Man had lost the whole Image of his Creator Christ who was the express Image of his Father re-imprints it again by forming himself in us Colos 3.10 Renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him Ephes 4.24 Put ye on the New Man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness The nature of Man is corrupted and Christ hath a
and Heirship Galat. 4.7 Heirs of God through Christ Now all these three Graces of God wrought in our 〈◊〉 by the Spirit of God are motions unto Union 〈…〉 is the first act of the Soul and there◠〈…〉 this Union is formally maâ—e 〈…〉 to be justified by Faith Rom. 3.28 To partake of of the Righteousness of God by Faith Rom. 3.22 Phil. 3.9 viz. That by the Eternal Counsel and Goodness of God Christ is put in the place of him that believes in respect of his sins and he that believes is in the sight of God put in place or stead of Christ and by that means is judged righteous in the sight of God even by that very Righteousness which was the Righteousness of Christ the Mediator And when we speak of Faith we must not intend that work of the Spirit of God in our Souls whereby we believe for by the very same work is wrought belief love of God and hope in him But it is that act of that Life so wrought which doth believe Now we shall consider Why or by what reason the act of Faith worketh our Vnion with Christ and so our Justification in the sight of God 1. Because it is the Will of God John 6.40 This is the will of him that sent me that every one which seeth the Son and believeth on him may have everlasting life He that is the great dispenser of his own Goodness is pleased that this shall be the means of that Dispensation In ancient times before the coming of Christ he was pleased to use other immediate Instruments such were Circumcision Obedience to those Laws which he gave these had not their Efficacy of themselves for they were indifferent things but they had their Efficacy upon these grounds 1. The Divine Institution to that End 2. The mingling of the Efficacy of the Sacrifice and Satisfaction of Christ with 3. A performance of them with an Obediential and believing Heart which though it was not always accompanied with an explicite and actual belief of Christ yet it was not without thus much Faith viz. That it was a thing injoined by God for some special Purpose for the good of his Creature And thus likewise in Infants who are not capable of an actual exercise of Faith God hath questionless some secret efficacious means of the application of Christ's Sacrifice unto them Thus proportionable to the Condition of his Elect in all times and Conditions God is pleased to proportion a means to make this Sacrifice effectual To the ancient Fathers that had not the same opportunity of believing in respect Christ was not revealed to them so clearly as to us it was his Will to appoint at least a more implicite and obscure act of Faith They were shut up unto the Faith that should afterwards be revealed Galat. 3.23 2. Because Faith is the first act of the New Life wrought in the Heart by the Spirit of God tending to Union It is true that Knowledge is that which precedes all the works of Grace in the Soul but in this the Soul is not so much active as passive and Knowledge doth not of it self unite the Soul to the Object viz. Christ as it doth unite the Object to the Soul But the first motion of the Soul to Union is not that Faith of Assent which differs not from Knowledge but the Faith of Recumbency or Adherence And this priority of the act of Faith is not in time for Life is wrought all at once in the Soul but in Nature and actual operation And this priority of Faith in this sense is upon three grounds 1. In respect of the nature of the Act. 2. In respect of the nature of that Truth upon which it fixeth 3. In respect of the Condition of the Creature 1. In respect of the nature of the Act The Creature is created essentially depending upon God and Dependance is the first relative act of the Creature unto the Creator as it is the first relation so the first motion of a rational Creature unto God is by an act of Dependance and Recumbence upon his Truth and Goodness And herein consisted as the first act of Union in our uncorrupted Nature unto God so herein was the first breach that was made upon Man Gen. 3.1 Yea hath God said c. Man's Duty was Recumbency and Trust and Reliance upon the Goodness of his Creator and the Devil weakens his Faith or Dependance upon his God and deceives him His first Fall was Distrust in the Word and Goodness of God and his first Recovery must be by Recumbency upon him his Truth and Goodness 2. In respect of the nature of the Message It is a Message that as it requires so it concerns our Faith and Recumbency It is a Promise of Mercy and Peace unto as many as believe the Message According to the nature of the thing known is the motion of the Heart towards it This is a Message of Deliverance and Peace with a Command to rest upon it therefore of necessity the first act must be Recumbence John 11.40 Said I not if thou wouldest believe thou shouldest see the Glory of God Exod. 14.13 Fear not stand still and see the salvation of the Lord. The first act that a Message of Deliverance from God worketh upon the Heart that entertains it is Recumbency and Resting upon the Truth and Power of God. 3. In respect of the Condition that this Message of Deliverance finds us in We are incompassed every where with Guilt and the avenger of blood pursues that guilt and we cannot by any means find any Power in our selves or in any other Creature to escape it The Soul being seriously convinced of this God presents unto it the Satisfaction and Righteousness of Christ his Promise of Acceptation of it and our deliverance from his wrath by it And now the Soul like a Man ready to be drowned first lays hold of the Cable that is thrown out to him even before it hath leisure to contemplate the Goodness of him that did it So the condition of our Misery teacheth us first to clasp the Promise of Mercy and Salvation in Christ and then to consider and contemplate the great Mercy and Goodness of God and to entertain it with Love and Thankfulness An extream Exigence will give a Man some confidence to adventure upon a difficult and unlikely occasion of deliverance because it is possible his Condition may be bettered it cannot be made worse 2 Kings 8.4 Why sit we here until we die if we enter into the City the Famine is in the City and we shall die there if we sit still here we die also Now therefore let us fâ—ll into the Host of the Assyrians if they save us alive 〈…〉 live and if they kill us we shall but die Even so even in a way of Reason may the Soul debate with it seâ—f I find my Condition miserable and I know not how to avoid it when I look into my self I find
the love of God in Christ continuing towards us notwithstanding our many Injuries This fills the Heart with Sorrow and Wonder and puts the Soul upon a flat Resolution never to sin against so great Love. This was that sorrow that pricked the Jews to the heart and brought in Repentance for remission of sins Acts 2.37 38. Acts 3.19 that Sorrow that worketh Repentance unto Salvation 2 Cor. 2.10 And though sometimes Christ appear unto the Soul without a Baptist and the light of the Love of God discovers the irregularity and filthiness of our former ways and tempers yet the usual method of his Grace and Providence is to baptize with the Baptism of John and after with the Baptism of Christ Acts 19.5 The love of God being most naturally welcome and operative when the Soul hath before taken a just survey of his Condition without the sight of that love But his ways are unsearchable and past finding out And this Evangelical Repentance viz. our sorrow for our past Offences and our purpose of better Obedience is not only the Act of our first Conversion unto God but is to be our continual Exercise there is a continual adherence of our flesh and sin unto us and notwithstanding the bent and frame of the Soul be changed yet there are continual Renewed Offences which though God is pleased not to impute yet as they are contrary to that Life in the Soul and therefore will be opposed by that Life so they are still naturally our own and therefore must and will be repented of and sorrowed for For a Soul once truly affected with the Love of God would willingly have his whole Man and Life and Thoughts and World conformable to the Will of God and therefore every strugling cannot chuse but cause sorrow and gather up the strength of the Soul for the future against it For the sins of the very Members of Christ though by his Righteousness and Satisfaction they have lost their power to condemn being his by imputation yet they are sins still and therefore objects of our opposition and ours in reality and therefore objects of our Sorrow and Repentance and by how much the more they have our consent by so much the more they are sins and ours And as it is the Power and Grace of Christ that subdues the Dominion and prevailing of Sin so this Grace doth work by setting the operations and affections of the Soul against it especially in our Sorrow and Repentance Our Repentance after Conversion is nothing else but the strugling of the Life of Christ to work out that poyson of sin which is contrary unto it and doth weaken it and would destroy it 1 John 3.9 For his seed remaineth in him and he cannot sin because he is born of God. CHAP. XV. Of Mortification and the Means thereof and 1. Of Meditation 2. WHERE Repentance ends viz. in the purpose of forsaking the ways of Death there Mortification begins and is nothing else but the Execution of those Purposes of the Soul which are wrought by Repentance by the use of all such Means as may for the future weaken the power of sin in the Soul. This is that which our Saviour calls putting out the right Eye and cutting off the right Hand crucifying the Flesh with the Affections and Lusts Galat. 5.24 Mortifying the earthly Members Colos 3.5 Denying a Man's self taking up the Cross Matt. 16.24 Dying daily 1 Cor. 15.31 The World crucified to a Man and a Man to the World Galat. 6.14 Putting off the body of the sins of the Flesh Colos 2.11 The body of sin destroyed Rom. 6.6 Mortification therefore is nothing else but the daily practice of opposition against Sin especially such as we are most inclined to and that by such Means as are reasonably conducing to it These Means according to the several tempers both spiritual and natural are more or less effectual I shall divide them into these degrees 1. Supernatural Helps 2. Moral or Rational Helps 3. Natural Helps 1. Supernatural They are rational Means but fixt upon supernatural objects and discovered by supernatural Light for it will most clearly appear that these very Helps which we call Supernatural are most rationally effectual against it Meditation and Prayer 1. Meditation and serious and deep Consideration of the Word of God and the Truths therein revealed but especially of these ensuing 1. A deep Meditation of the Love of God whom I must needs offend in every sin And this is the most powerful Consideration in the World to mortifie any sin and that is the reason why where there is the truest and highest manifestation of the Love of God to the Soul there is the highest Purity because there is the highest Preservative against Sin for it must needs be clear that where there is the highest manifestation of the Love of God to the Soul there is the highest Love again to God and consequently the most absolute dominion over sin for as the Love of God is the cause of our Love to him 1 John 4.19 so according to the measure of the manifestation of the Love of God to the Soul is the measure of the Love of the Soul to God again and consequently of the hatred of sin And he that often and deeply considers of the Love of God must even rationally improve the sense of it to his Soul and consequently his Love to God again and his abhorrence of Sin. When a Man shall take such Considerations as these into him God hath commanded me to abstain from this or that sin whereunto it may be my Nature my Custom my Temptation inclines me The competition is between my Pleasure my Pride my Profit and my Lord he that gave me a Being he that hath given me all the Comforts of my Being he that might justly have taken me away to judgment in the midst of my sin but he hath spared me and waited upon me that he might though I were righteous make me a vessel of misery he that hath invited perswaded intreated me to return unto him for my own good that when I would not I could not return unto him hath sent his Son to fetch me to redeem me with the greatest Price that ever the World heard of Behold what manner of love 1 John 3.1 And shall I can I make so ill a return to entertain his Enemy the only object of his displeasure that will ruine me before my Lord that hath infinitely out-done my highest speculations for me Certainly the sense of the Love of God is either not at all or not awake when any Man considerately commits any the least sin against his Conscience It were no less than for a Man to return despight against the Love of God and as much as in us lies to disappoint his very End and Purpose in sending of Christ who therefore gave himself for us to redeem us from all iniquity and purifie unto himself a peculiar People zealous of good works 2. A serious
which was lost in Adam is re-imprinted by him that was the express Image of his Father by the secret transmission of his own pure and operative Spirit into all those that are united unto him and thereby the Will of God is fulfilled Be ye holy for I am holy 1 Pet. 1.16 4. It is necessary as a Preparation or Pre-disposition of the Soul to that everlasting condition of Blessedness which it expects in Heaven the place a holy place Heb. 10.19 an immortal and undefiled Inheritance 1 Pet. 1.4 where nothing that defileth can enter Rev. 21.27 The company an holy company the company of pure Angels and the Spirits of just Men made perfect Heb. 12.22 23. The Business a pure and holy Employment Rev. 19.2 c. The Presence a glorious and holy Presence the Presence of that God that cannot behold any unclean thing whose Name is Holy the Presence of our Mediator who is holy harmless separate from sinners Heb. 7.26 And what congruity can such a Soul have to such a Hope who spends his whole Life in a way quite contrary unto it He therefore that hath this Hope purifieth himself even as he is pure 1 John 3.3 And since all these tâ—ings shall be dissolved what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holiness and godly conversation Couldest thou carry thy sinful and impure Heart into Heaven with thee yet thou couldest not see God which is the Heaven of Heaven Matth. 5. the pure in Heart shall see God Heb. 12.14 Follow peace with all men and holiness without which no man shall see the Lord. CHAP. XXV Of the Means of Sanctification and 1. On God's part his Word and his Spirit 2. THE Means whereby this is effected are either properly on God's part or on ours On God's part his Word and his Spirit 1. The Word of God He having to deal with Creatures which he hath endued with Sense and understanding hath been pleased in his Wisdom and Providence to preserve and deliver unto us his written Word whereby the Truths therein contained may be united to our Understanding And this Word as it contains the holy Counsels of the holy God so the Truths therein contained do naturally tend to our Sanctification though of it self as a bare Moral Cause it be not sufficient to effect it in respect of our indisposition and deadness which must have a Spirit of Life to quicken us and make that Word operative upon us Now in respect of the tendency of this Word to our Sanctification and in as much as God is pleased by it to work this work in us therefore often our Sanctification is attributed at least instrumentally to it John 17.17 Sanctifie them through thy truth thy word is truth Psal 19.7 the law of the Lord is perfect converting the soul John 15.3 Now are ye clean through the word that I have spoken All which tend to no more than this that this Word of God contains those Truths in it which being truly known and believed do conform the Soul to the Will of God that Image which he first cast consisting in Righteousness and true Holiness Now the general Truths which this Book Exhibits to us tending to this end are principally two 1. It discovers what that will of God concerning Man is and this it doth two ways 1. By Precepts of most excellent and sound Justice and Reason which are nothing else but the Repetitions of that Law which was at first in our Nature 2. By Examples especially that Example of our Saviour's who was the Image of the invisible God Colos 1.15 and therefore in our imitation of him we re-assume that impression of God's Image which we once lost Now Christ's Life as it was a Meritorious Righteousness so it was an Exemplary Righteousness Matth. 11.29 Learn of me for I am meek John 13.15 For I have given you an Example that ye should do as I have done Ephes 4.13 the measure of his statuâ—e Philip. 2.5 the mind of Christ 2. It discovers a great deal of convincing Reason why we should conform to this Will of God 1. In respect of the Commands themselves it shews their Righteousness Justice and Perfection and that in our conformity to them consists our Perfection 2. In respect of God that commands them 1. It is he requires it that is the Author and Lord of thy Being and thou canst not chuse but infinitely owe what he requires 2. It is he requires it that will not cannot be mocked he is infinitely able to avenge the rebellion of his Creature 3. It is he commands it that hath been a Bountiful Merciful God unto thee that when thou hast incurred his Curse hath provided a Sacrifice to expiate it when thou hast disabled thy self to obey provides a Spirit of his own to assist thee that when thou fallest pities pardons and restores thee and though he owes it not to thee rewards his own Grace and work in thee with an immortal Glory to thee And what natural ingenuity can chuse but ingage to the uttermost expression of his thankfulness to such a God by a most advantageous Obedience 3. In respect of thy self if thou disobey the loss is thy own if thou obey the benefit is thine Deut. 30.15 For I have set before thee Life and Good and Death and Evil. And herein among divers others is the Excellency of the Word of God as it contains Precepts of most singular Purity and evidencing their own Perfection so it inforceth the Obedience upon Reasons of greater strength and more powerful Perswasions than all the Writings of Men ever did or could by annexing Rewards and Punishments of a higher constitution than the divinest Philosophers ever thought of 2. The Spirit of God Hence this work is attributed to the Spirit of God 1 Pet. 1.2 Through Sanctification of the Spirit unto Obedience and this principally these three ways 1. In preparing and disposing the Heart 2. In accompanying and coming in with the Word 3. In following that Work with a continual assistance of direction and strength 1. As to the first viz. the Preparation of the Heart Since the defacing of the Image of God in the Soul our Hearts like the first Creation are without form and void and darkness is upon the face of it till the Spirit of God move upon the face of these Waters Gen. 1.2 a Heart filled with evil thoughts and that continually Gen. 6.5 till this Spirit strive with it Gen. 6.3 a Heart dammed and blocked up with Lusts and Earth and Disorders so that there is no â—ss for Christ till the Spirit of God open it Acts 〈◊〉 â—n obstinate and a hard Heart an iron sinew 〈…〉 of brass Isa 48.4 till the Spirit of the 〈…〉 and a Heart full of madness Eccles 9. 〈…〉 Spirit be chased away and the Heart 〈…〉 Spirit of God. There oftentimes goes a secret disposition and calming of Heart before whereby some external act of the Providence of God which is prepared and
its Author is infinite and boundless by all the Justice that can be 2. Faith doth find in that Word a farther ingagement of Conformity and Obedience if a farther may be in that it finds the immense overflowing Love of God to Man It is that Love that did at first furnish him with those Excellencies of his Nature with that greater excellency his image and Superscription It is that Love that upholds his temporal Being and blesseth it It is that love that when he was lost sent a Sacrifice and a Righteousness for him whereby he is not only pardoned from his Guilt and Curse but restored to Glory and immortality And this it doth truly and really believe and is thereby convinced that there is a greater obligation than that of his Nature to live conformable to the Will and Mind of so unspeakable a Benefactor 3. Faith doth find in this Word of God his Mind and Will and believes it to be that very Rule the conformity whereunto is well pleasing and acceptable to God. Mic. 6.8 and what doth the Lord thy God require of thee but to do justly to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God It looks upon every Admonition Exhortation Reprehension and Direction as the very immediate Message of God unto the Soul and entertains it with the same awe and reverence as if it were audibly delivered in Thunder and trembles at it and therefore it receives it in the power and Life of it and in the uttermost compass and extent of it it will not take this part as most consonant to thy Temper Condition Designs Constitution or Ends and reject another part where it crosseth them because it is equally the Will and Command of the great God and so received 4. Faith finds in this Word the Rectitude Justice and Regularity of the Will of God concerning Man they are not only just as proceeding from him to whom his Creature owes an infinite Obedience as was the Command to Adam for forbearing the forbidden Fruit or to Abraham to sacrifice his Son but Faith finds in these Commands a natural Justice and Reasonableness and Perfection and concludes with David Psal 19. That his Statutes are right and his Commands pure such as include in themselves a natural and absolute Beauty and such as confer upon the Creature a Perfection and Happiness such as are exactly conformable to thy Nature were thy Nature conformable to it self for as the Rule or Law that God hath given to every Creature is that wherein consists its Beauty Preservation and Perfection according to the degree wherein it is placed and therefore every Creature labours according to its own Nature to continue in that Rule and when it misseth it it contracts Deformity and Corruption so the Divine Law or Command of God given to Man is that wherein consists his Perfection as being a Rule most exactly conformable to the reasonable Nature of Man sin hath deformed and blinded us that we cannot now see that Perfection and Excellency that is in our Conformity to his Will and hath perverted and corrupted us that as we are in this corrupted condition we cannot desire it but when God is pleased to anoint our eyes with the Eye-salve of Faith and presents this Glass this image of his mind in his Word unto that Eve Faith again discerns and discerning cannot chuse but desire that Beauty Perfection and Rectitude which is there discovered in the Commands of God and the conformity of the Soul to the â—ame 5. Faith doth find in that Word and finding it doth most assuredly believe the Presence of the Glorious and infinite God in every place even in the darkest and most remote Corners and Chambers of the Heart searching weighing and discerning the Spirit every thought of the Heart every word of the Tongue every action of the Life and measuring them exactly with the Rule that he hath given and this keeps the Heart in a continual awe of the Presence of God purgeth out all Hypocrisie sets a continual Watch upon the whole Man lays a Bridle upon the very thoughts and brings them into subjection to this Rule because that clear and pure and severe eye of the Great and Infinite God searcheth the most retired thoughts of the Heart and observes what conformity they hold with his most Just and Reasonable Command 6. Faith finds in this Word of God and doth more really and practically believe that that great God which hath given us his Will and is a witness to the Obedience and Disobedience of it hath most certainly annexed an everlasting Curse to the Disobedience of it so it hath most certainly annexed an everlasting Glory to the Obedience thereunto not as the merit of it but as the free and bountiful gift of his Goodness and Mercy in Jesus Christ And it finds and believes the Truth and Faithfulness and Glory and Power of the Infinite God there engaged for the performance of it and therefore it binds the Heart to the Obedience of this Will of God and Conformity unto it which is our Sanctification Thus the word mingled with Faith cleanseth and sanctifieth and perfecteth and purifieth the Heart and Life And as thus in Man God useth this instrument on Mans part to sanctifie his Creature and make him conformable to himself so Secondarily upon this Act of Faith upon the Word of God as its Object the Heart is likewise cleansed by Fear Hope and Love by way of emanation from this Act of Faith. Love Fear and Hope are those several Motions or Affections of the Soul that arise from the same Act of Faith only as Faith is diversified according to those different Objects apprehended by Faith or according to the different Notions Relations or Actions of the same Object as for instance God apprehended in his Goodness Love and Bounty moves our Love towards him as apprehended in his Glory Majesty Power and Justice excites Fear as apprehended in his Faithfulness Truth and Promises begets Hope and each of these Affections thus directed do habituate and dispose the Soul and Life to a religious frame and Constitution which is our Sanctification as will appear in these particulars 1. The Love of God this is that true Principle of all true Obedience where it is not the Obedience is a dead and unacceptable Obedience for God that is a Spirit and will be worshipped in Spirit and Truth will be obeyed likewise in Spirit and Truth and the outward Conformity without this is but a dead Obedience and Hypocrisie and where it is it will work a Conformity of the Heart and Life to the mind of God upon which it is pitched and therefore it is called the First and Great Commandment Matth. 22.51 the fulfilling of the Law because when it is once wrought in the Heart whatsoever it can discover to be agreeable to the Will of him that she loves it will most sincerely and intirely obey John 14.15.24 If ye love me keep my Commandments he that loveth
laid down for the Sins of the World namely the precious Life of his own Son Jesus Christ that published this Doctrine to the World And this Sacrifice and Satisfaction the glorious God would accept in a way of Justice and yet in a way of Mercy that his Justice might be satisfied his Mercy magnified and his Creature saved 8. And that because it would be neither agreeable to the Honour nor the Wisdom of Almighty God that any Man that had the use of his Reason and Understanding should have the fruit and benefit of this Mercy and Sacrifice without returning to his Duty to God by true Repentance for what he had done amiss and by better Obedience to God neither was there any fitness or suitableness between a Pure and Holy God or that Blessedness which Mankind might expect with him and a People that should yet continue desperately sinful and impure and it was also reasonable and fit that if Mankind would expect the Restitution to that everlasting Happiness that they lost by their own sins and the sin of their first Parents then they should also return to their Duty and Obedience to God and perform in some measure that End for which Mankind was at first created namely actively to glorifie that God that had made them especially after so great an addition of Mercy as the Redemption of the World by the Death of his own Son therefore he appointed and intended and published to the World that all that would have the fruit and benefit of this great Redemption should repent of their Sins and endeavour sincerely to obey the Precepts of Piety Sobriety and Righteousness commanded by Almighty God by the Message of his Son. 9. And because that if those to whom this Message of the Gospel of Christ should be published should yet not believe the same nor believe that Jesus was the true Messias or that his Doctrine was the true and real Message of Almighty God to the World it could never be expected that they would obey this Heavenly Command nor return to God or the Duty they owed him he did therefore require of all Persons that were of Understanding to whom the Gospel should be published that they should Believe it to be True and believe that Christ was the True Messias the great Sacrifice for the Sin of the World and the Doctrine which he preached was the Will of God concerning Man. 10. And thus there are these Conditions to be performed on the part of those that will expect the Benefit of the Redemption purchased by the Blood of Christ 1. That all that are of Understanding to whom the Gospel is preached should Believe it to be the Truth and rest upon it as the Truth of God 2. That they should be heartily sorry for their former Sins and Repent of them and turn from them This is Repentance 3. That they should in all Sincerity endeavour to conform their Hearts and Wills and Lives to the Precepts and Commandments of Christ and his Gospel which is called Sanctification and new Obedience 11. And because when we have done all we can yet we are in this Life compassed about with many Infirmities and Temptations and subject to fail in our Duty to God and to these Holy Precepts of the Gospel yet the merciful God hath assured us by his Son Christ Jesus that if we sincerely endeavour to obey the Precepts of the Gospel and repent for our Failings herein and so renew our Peace with God by unfeigned Repentance the same Sacrifice of his Son shall be accepted to expiate for our Sins and Failings and the blessed God will accept of our sincere though imperfect Obedience as a Performance of that part of the Covenant of the Gospel that concerns our Obedience to God and the Commands of the Gospel And this is called Evangelical Obedience which though it be not perfect yet being sincere and accompanied with real and sincere Endeavours to obey and Repentance for our daily Failings is accepted of God through the Sacrifice of Christ who is not only our Sacrifice and Propitiation but also our Intercessor and Mediator at the right hand of God. If any man sin we have an Advocate with the Father even Jesus Christ who sitteth at the right hand of the Father 1 John 2.1 Heb. 8.1 10.12 12. And because many times Example gives a great Light and Life to Precepts our blessed Saviour in his Life gave us an excellent Example of the Practice of those Precepts which he hath given to us as namely Obedience and Submission to the Will of God Invocation upon him Holiness Purity Sobriety Patience Righteousness Justice Charity Compassion Bounty Truth Sincerity Uprightness Heavenly mindedness low esteem of Worldly Glory Condescension and all those Graces and Vertues that he requires and expects from us 18. And as thus our Lord Jesus came to instruct us in all things necessary for us to believe and practise and to give us an admirable Pattern and Example of a Holy and Vertuous Life so 2. He came to die for us and to die such a Death as had in it all the Circumstances of Bitterness and yet accompanied with unspotted Innocence and incomparable Patience and he thus died for these Ends. 1. To lay down a Ransom for the Sins of Mankind and a Price for the Purchace of Everlasting Life and Happiness for all those that receive him believe in him and obey the Gospel 2. To satisfie the Justice of God to make good his Truth to vindicate the Honour of his Government and to proclaim his Justice his Indignation against Sin and yet to magnifie his Love and Mercy to Mankind in giving his Son to be a Price of their Redemption 3. To give a just indication unto all the World of the vileness of Sin the abhorrence of it that cost the Son of God his Life when he was but under the imputed guilt of it that so Mankind might detest and avoid Sin as the vilest of Evils 4. To give a most unparallel'd Instance of his Love to the World that did chuse to die for the Children of Men to redeem them from Everlasting Death 5. And thereby to oblige Mankind with the most obliging and indearing Instance to love and obey that Jesus that thus died for them and out of the common Principles of Humanity and Gratitude to love and obey him that thus loved them and laid down his Life for them 6. To give a most convincing Evidence of the Truth of his Doctrine and the Sincereness of his Professions of Love to Mankind by sealing the same with his own Blood. FINIS Considerations Seasonable at all Times for the Cleansing OF THE HEART AND LIFE Considerations Seasonable at all Times for the Cleansing OF THE HEART and LIFE 1. OF God and therein 1. Of his Purity and Holiness one that cannot endure to behold iniquity The Stars are not pure in his sight Job 25.5 Job 15.15 and his Angels he chargeth with folly Job 4.18