will discriminate between the Man and his Fault and whiles it is angry with the Man yet it hates him not it will hate the Injustice of the Man and destroy that but not the Man it may be he hates me without a cause his Fault cannot justifie mine God hath given him a Being and is the only Lord of it and that Being of his is good and deserves my Love to preserve it his offence is the only object of my hatred and cannot give me a Commission to destroy the Subject It is true that in order to my preservation I may do such a thing as may be prejudicial to him that hates me with such moderation that the evil I do him must not exceed the evil that otherwise I might suffer by him for this is agreeable to right Reason But this must be without the least grain of Revenge so much as in my thought For all Revenge hath in it somewhat of Irregularity The great God to whom Vengeance alone belongs Rom 12.19 that is absolute Lord of his Creature and therefore can owe him nothing yet punisheth not by way of Revenge as a party injured but by way of Justice as the supream Judge that inflicted that Penalty that was annexed to his righteous Law when he gave it Nothing that one Creature could do to another could be said to be Unjust were it not that it is against the Law of this supream Law-giver and Judge and therefore Retribution in me that am injured is an act of Revenge in God an act of his Justice and when he inflicts his Punishment though in respect of me that suffered it is his Revenge yet in respect of his Law that is broken it is but his own Justice The Lusts of the Flesh There are certain Natural Propensions in us for the preservation of our temporal being and kind those are planted in our Nature by the God of Nature as well as in the nature of sensitive Creatures and are in themselves good when acted according to that Rule which God hath given unto us Those Rules are such as either are adequate to the Sensitive Nature viz. That they should be acted with due proportion and to the end for which they are so implanted in our Nature or such as are applicable to them in respect of that higher degree of Being that is in our Nature viz. that they should be acted with subordination to the dictate of right Reason And when either of these fail even these natural Propensions do become Lusts of the Flesh and fight against the Soul for they are not in their place and consequently breed a disorder in the Soul. This is easie to be seen in the consideration of both of these defects The Appetite of Eating and Drinking is no Lust but a Propension incident to our Nature for the Preservation of the Compositum But when a Man shall act it beyond its due proportion eat or drink to Excess or when a Man shall use it to a wrong End to eat or drink because he will eat and drink placing the end of his Appetite in the use of it now he transgresseth the first Rule he makes his Belly his God and his Appetite becomes a Lust Again if a Man shall give way to his Appetite though in a due proportion or to a due end yet if upon rational Circumstances a greater Good shall be thereby lost or a greater Evil thereby incurred then this Appetite becomes a Lust because it is out of its place and wants its due subordination to right Reason as when my eating or drinking shall scandalize my weak Brother for whom Christ died 1 Cor. 10.28 and thereby bring a greater loss to him than good to my self Again if either the Providential Dispensation of God or his Command be against it it makes the exercise of that Appetite to become a Lust because it wants that subordination to right Reason for it is the most uncontrollable Principle of Reason to bear an universal subjection to the Command and Will of God Thus when God by the course of his Providence called to fasting then to find slaying of Oxen and killing of Sheep the Appetite becomes a Lust Again when God forbad the eating of the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil then Adam's eating becomes a Lust and consequently a snare unto him for his sensitive Appetite was out of its place it should have been subordinate to his Reason but it was above it And these Excesses of the fleshly Appetite are expressed by several Expressions in the Word of Truth sowing to the Flesh Galat. 6.8 making provision for the Flesh Rom. 13. ult warring after the Flesh 2 â—or 10.3 walking after the Flesh Rom. 8.2 2 Pet. 2.10 viz. when a Man makes it his Business to study the desires of his fleshly Appetite and to fulfil it And the disorder that is wrought in the Soul by this misplacing of the sensual Appetite Ephes 4.19 Who being past feeling have given themselveâ— over to lasâ—iviousness to work all uncleanness with greediness Galat. 5.17 The Flesh lusting against the Spirit 1 Pet. 2.11 Fleshly Lusts warring against the Soul Rom. 1.24 given over to vile Affections Rom. 6.19 yielding your members servants to uncleanness Rom. 7.23 A Law in the Members â—arring against the Law of the Mind and bringing it into captivity It is a sad thing for any Man to think that such a disorder should be in the Soul that the nobler part born to rule should be a Captive and a Slave to the inferiour part of Man much more when that noble part shall become a willing Vassal and Prostitute to that part of Man which is no higher than a Beast and not only so but improve its own Ability Wit Skill and Power to make that part of our Nature below a sensitive Creature The Beasts as hath been observed before though their sensual Appetite be their highest Faculty and so moves not in a subordination to any higher Power yet they move conformable to the End for which those Propensions were implanted in them But when the sensual Appetite in Man hath captivated his Reason which should be her guide and ruler it is made the worse by her Prisoner and now its motions are not only absolute and without controll of Reason excentrick to that very natural Rule given to the motions of the same sensitive Appetite in the very Sensitives themselves And the reason is partly because the Wisdom of God hath given a kind of natural Law or Boundary to those Propensions in the Sensitives because they have no higher Power in them to regulate them but to Man he gave a higher Power to order and manage this sensual Appetite which Power having lost his sovereignty the sensual Appetite doth not only want his Bounds but also having corrupted and displaced that higher Faculty is again corrupted by it and made by her captive and at length by Custom the reasonable Soul becomes only an Instrument to contrive
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
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
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
436 1. Natural Page 436 437 2. The Word of God absolutely in it self Page 438 1. The Law 1. Moral Page 438 2. Ceremonial Page 441 3. Judicial ibid. 2. The Prophets Page 442 3. The Gospel which contains a most excellent Rule of Righteousness in 1. The Example of Christ Page 443 2. The Precepts and Counsels Page 444 Page 1. General 1. Love of our Neighbour Page 448 2. Doing as we would be done unto Page 456 2. Particular things Page 1. To be done Page 2. To be suffered 3. Parts 3. God. A Brief Abstract of the Christian Religion Page 461 Seasonable Considerations for the Cleansing of the Heart and Life Page 473 A DISCOURSE OF THE Knowledge of God and of our Selves PART I. By the Light of Nature CHAP. I. Of the Existence and Attributes of God. I. ALL things but the Soul it self are extrinsecal to the Soul and therefore of necessity the Knowledge of all other things is extrinsecal to the Soul for Knowledge is nothing else but the true impression and shape of the thing known in the Understanding or a conception conform to the thing conceived And although the Soul in its own nature be apta nata to receive such impressions and doth therefore naturally desire and affect it yet it is as impossible for the Soul to know till the Object be some way applied to it as for a Looking-glass to reflect without first uniting of a Species of some Body to it that may be reflected The Means whereby the Scibile or thing to be known is united to the Soul and consequently Knowledge is wrought is threefold viz. 1. Supernatural Thus Almighty God in the first Creation of Man did fasten certain Principles of Truth in Man by his immediate discovery especially the Knowledge of Himself and his Will which was properly the Image or Impression of God in his Understanding This was not essential to the Soul but a Habit or Quality which God put into his Understanding and therefore though his Knowledge decayed by his Fall yet his Soul continued the same 2. Artificial Thus Knowledge is derived from Man to Man by signs of those impressions of Truth c. that are wrought in his Understanding that communicates it Thus Knowledge is acquired by Writing Speech and other Signs that are agreed upon to communicate Intelligence from the understanding of one Man to the understanding of another though mediante sensu Thus the Reliques of the knowledge of God in Adam were derived to his Posterity though still it grew for the most part of Men weaker and corrupter 3. Natural And this may be divided into these three branches viz. 1. Simple Apprehension Thus when any object singly by the Ear or Eye or other Sense is let into the Phantasy and so shewn to the Understanding without either affirming or denying any thing concerning it 2. Complex Apprehensions whereby either duo scibilia are joyned together in an Affirmation or Negation and this is a Proposition which again is of two kinds viz. either that which is most universal and therefore the first proposition that is framed in the understanding viz. that it is or est or est ens For that notion doth necessarily and upon the first view of any object joyn it self with it in the understanding Other propositions are more complex or remote as that God is good c. For the first question in the Understanding is Whether it be to which that general proposition answers and in the next place What it is to which the second sort of complex notions answer Now of this second kind of complex notions there are two kinds viz. either such as without the help of any Discourse or Ratiocination present themselves from the object to the understanding as this The Man is red the Man and the red being both objects of Sense and meeting in the same subject or else such as either the thing affirmed or the thing whereof the affirmation is or both are things that do not immediately fall within our Senses as the Man is a substance or the Spirit is a substance These though originally derived from sense yet they are refined by the help of Discourse 3. Conclusions drawn either from these simple or complex apprehensions which flow into our understanding immediately by our Senses and this is Rational Discourse a Faculty or Power put into Man whereby he is beyond all other visible Creatures and whereby all his actions whether Civil or Religious are and ought to be guided This is that Power whereby we may improve even sensible Objects Apprehensions and Observations to attain more sublime and high discoveries and rise from Effects to their Causes till at last we attain to the First Cause of all things So we may conclude that the Knowledge of our Creator though it fall not within the reach of our Sense and so falls not immediately within the reach of our Understanding yet by the ascents and steps of Rational Discourse so much may be gathered as may leave an Atheist without excuse God having given to Man even in his lapsed condition besides other Providential helps a stock of Visibles and a Rational Faculty to improve that stock to some measure of the Knowledge of himself For the invisible things of him from the Creation of the World are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made even his Eternal Power and Godhead so that they are without excuse Rom 1.20 Therefore as on the one side we are to avoid curiosity in measuring the infinite Mysteries of Truth by our own finite Understandings so on the other side we must beware of Supineness and Neglect of imploying that treasure of God's Works and his Light or Reason in us to that end for which it was principally intrusted with us even the knowledge of our Creator yet still humbly concluding with Elihu Job 34.32 That which I see not teach thou me II. The first and most Magisterial Truth in the World upon which all other truths do depend is this That there is a First Being and Cause of all other Beings This is evident by clear Reason 1. Either we must admit a First Cause or else an actual infiniteness of Succession of Causes The latter is impossible in Nature because it is impossible there can be that which is infinite and yet successive for then it would follow That that which is actually infinite in number should be yet more infinite because there are new Successions on Causes and Causations Again it is impossible that there should be an eternal dependance of Causes one upon another without a First because then the whole Collection of those Causes taken all together must needs likewise be actually depending and if so then upon themselves and that is impossible for the immediate Cause of the Effect doth not depend upon its Effect but immediately upon its Cause Therefore this bundle of dependent causes must depend upon some one among them which is independent And impossible
of his own Nature yet wonderfully manageth them to Ends and Events which they dream not of who whiles the several contrary qualities that he hath planted in Bodies could be destructive one of another he hath so fenced their extremities one from another that one destroys not another and yet so tempers and allays them that they concur in the constitutions of other things There we find the various and most contingent motions of the Creatures marshalled by a Wise Providence to the production of those Events that the secret Counsel of the great God had appointed so that whiles with one Eye we see seemingly accidental casual motion of the World like the Finger upon the Dyal we may with the other Eye see in that Book that wheel of Providence moving and turning it rationally and with election for those Ends that it pleaseth the Wise Governour of all things to order Again in matters Moral what perplexed Questions have Men made concerning the Law of Nature in Men Whether there be any or if any What it is Whence it hath its Obligation since all Men are by Nature equal What is the original and radical Rule of of Just or not Just What the Standard of it or Whether any at ah Whether there be any Chief Good of Men What it is Whether attainable Hence have grown those infinite Disputes de summo bono every one stating his own Opinion and yet each sufficiently coâ—fâ—ting another All these Perplexities we find soon resolved in that Book of God shewing us That Just and Vnjust is only measurable by the Will of God that the Obligation of Just or Unjust ariseth from the meer Command of God and that relation of Duty which Man owes to his Creator and to the injunction that he gives shewing us the falsity of every of those Positions concerning the Chief Good and teaching us that it is to be had and to be had only in the enjoyment of our Creator True it is that many of these and the like Truths may be arrived at by the light of Reason But 1. It is not without much Difficulty and Labour and that of the most choice Men 2 It is not without the help of Tradition at least of some small Veins of these Truths 3. It is not without much mixture of corruptions errors and mistakes 4. Not without much hesitancy and doubting Our natural Reason as it lies in the Ore and therefore must be disgrossed from its dross by study and Education so it is weak and must be supported And where the strength of Reason is the same that Truth that another discovers is entertained with more confidence than if a Man singly had discovered it so that by the Scriptures Reason is enlighten'd and strengthened in those Truths which carry in them a consonancy to Reason and might haply though in a weaker measure and with more difficulty have been extracted out of sound Reason and Observation 2. It doth contain divers Truths which could never be discovered but by God himself as what the Will of God was that Man should do or the Law of God What the purpose of God was concerning Man both in his Fall and Restitution by Christ The Covenant which he made with the Jews and with us in Christ The uniting of the Divine and Humane Nature in the Person of Christ The last Judgment The motion of the great God towards his Creature in Mercy and Judgment and the like These as they are beyond the discovery of any Man so they were too high for any Man to invent or surmise It is true the Heathen Law-givers and Philosophers to gain Credit to their Laws and Dictates durst sometimes to patronize them upon Heaven but in them a considerate Man might clearly find those Laws to have arisen from a meer observation of the visible Inconveniences to publick Societies and a prudential application of such Rules as might meet with those Inconveniences the original of them was attributed to Divine Institution to gain Reputation and Opinion in the Vulgar but in truth all or at least those that were the best and best grounded were as naturally deducible from the observation of the Conveniences and Inconveniences of a civil Society as the Conclusions of Geometry or Arithmetick are grounded upon their Principles and therefore for the most part Humane Laws did in substance agree in the Points consisting in the relation between Man and Man as being more obvious and plain and did for the most part disagree and differ in those Points that concerned Religion as being more distant and difficult Now iâ— it be said That the distance and remoteness of those supposed Truths from natural Reason or discovery â—enders the Scriptures the more incredible or at best not credible thereby to be the Word of God for upon the same reason any improbable Relation may be obtruded upon us as a Divine Truth because not to be else imagined by Humane Reason In Answer to this we must premise two things 1. That it is possible there may be some intelligible Objects and Truths in the World that never any Man did nor without the help of a foreign discovery never can find out If a Man were supposed to be born without the Faculty of Seeing it were not possible for him to discover that quality or motion of a natural Body which we call Light or Colour nay scarce to understand it though a very rational Discourse were made concerning it And what Man can conclude but that there may be and are divers qualities or motions of natural Bodies which are without the Verge of any of our Senses and consequently never fall into humane discovery We clearly admit Spirits and we have notions of their motion locality and substance yet it is impossible for any Man by natural indagation without the help of some extrinsecal relation to find it out We may therefore conclude That as it is possible there may be so it is probable there are some intelligible Objects and Truths which we cannot discover without an extrinsecal help or discovery 2. That of necessity many of those Truths contained in the Scripture especially concerning the Deity the Will of God the Fall of Man and the Means of his Restauration are things that cannot be collected or concluded by any natural Reason partly in respect of the sublimity of their Nature being beyond the Verge of Sense and natural Discourse partly because they are Emanations of a free Agent whereof no other Reason can be given but the Will of the Agent and consequently not deducible into Knowledge or Assent by rational Conclusions 3. That though the discovery of or assent unto those Truths cannot be elicited by natural Reason yet they are not contrary to natural Reason but may be Truths notwithstanding any reason that can be given against them It is true that they being above the reach of Reason cannot be by force of Reason assented unto yet there is no reason against the truth of them Natural
Reason hath a privative opposition to the knowledge of them viz. an absence of a necessity of assenting not a positive opposition or a 〈…〉 by necessity of Reason to disassent to them 〈…〉 4. That though these Truths are 〈…〉 â—ry of Reason and beyond the 〈…〉 sent yet they carry 〈…〉 gr◠〈…〉 alt◠〈…〉 up◠〈…〉 p◠〈…〉 wi◠〈…〉 infra 〈…〉 Thus the Fall of Man 〈…〉 Truths unimaginable by Natu◠〈…〉 â—itness one to another and the Ju◠〈◊〉 Mercy of God bears witness to both The mâ—â—y of the Soul and the last Judgment bear witness each to other And as there is that mutual attestation by way of Congruity of one of these sublime Truths to another of the same nature so the Congruity that these Truths have to those Truths which rationally challenge an Assent from us That all things had a beginning from the First Cause is a Truth evident in Nature but in what way or by what manner is not possible to be known without a discovery How excellently doth that discovery of the manner of the Creation serve as I may say that Principle So again that Man being endued with a rational and immortal Soul was ordered by the First Cause to an immortal End by a rational Means prescribed by God may be concluded by rational inferences and deductions but what that Means was or clearly what that End was is not discoverable by natural Reason for it depends upon the Will of God. How admirably doth the Scripture discover that Means viz. the Law of God and that End the Vision and Fruition of God especially in the point of the Resurrection Again That the Violation of that Rule must incur a Guilt irreparable a loss of that End is rationally evident yet although that Man by that Guilt is justly deprivable of that End is clear yet that God should be disappointed in this End seems somewhat hard How clearly doth the Point of our Redemption by Christ a point inconceptible by Nature serve to extricate and untwist this difficulty gives God the Glory of his Justice and of his Mercy of his Wisdom and of his Creature Thus the subservience of a Truth more difficult to the exigence of a Truth that is more clear to Nature renders the former not only possible but probable 3. The third Evidence That this is the Word of God are those strange Predictions of most contingent Events fulfilled in their several times the Prediction in one Age and declared by one Instrument of God the fulfilling in another Age declared by another or seen by our selves This gives testimony both to the Truth and Divinity of the author or inspirer of it To omit those Predictions of Joseph concerning the removal out of Egypt The Prediction of the Jewish Captivity and the Restitution by Cyrus by Name The four Empires The destruction of Jerusalem take notice but of these two viz. The Prophecies of the coming of Christ describing his Nature Gen. 3.15 his Linage of Abraham Gen. 22.18 of Judah Gen. 49.10 of David Isa 11.1 the place of his Birth Micah 5.2 his Office Isa 61.1 his Mother Isa 7.14 his Death and the Ends of it Isa 53. the time of his Death Dan. 9.2 and divers other Circumstances fulfilled precisely in our Saviour 2. The Rejection of the Jews and Calling of the Gentiles to the Faith of Christ Deut. 31.29 and 32.21 Isa 11.10 Isa 42.6 Isa 49.6 this Prophecy fulfilled even in our own view yet upon such disadvantage of natural Reason as had not the same power effected it that at first declared it it could never have been effected considering 1. The utter Enmity between the Jews and Gentiles 2. The extream contrariety in Religion to it 3. The small and inconsiderable means of effecting that Conversion 4. The great Scorn and Sufferings of those that professed it 5. The visible impossibilities of making any temporal Advantages by it c. 4. The Consent and Harmony among the several parts of it When several Men in several Ages not brought up under the same Education write It is not possible to find Unity in their Tenets or Positions because their Spirits Judgments and Fancies are different but where so many several Authors writing or speaking at several times agree not only in matters dogmatical of sublime and difficult Natures but also in Predictions of future and contingent Events whereof it is impossible for humane Understanding to make a discovery without a superiour discovery made to it I must needs conclude one and the same Divine Spirit declared the same Truths to these several Men. 5. This Book alone and none besides but by derivation from it containeth matters of the most noble and useful nature The generality of all humane Learning do either in their Object or Use or both expire with this Life and none ever arrived to the discovery of the great and adequate End of Man. This is not only evident in these Arts or Sciences of Natural Philosophy the Mathematicks Physicks Politicks Laws c. all which at their highest are but only subservient to this Life but in those two great and noble Sciences that Speculative of Metaphysicks that other Practical of Moral Philosophy The former though it arrive to as high Truths as Nature can discover yet it rests in the knowing of them and in a meer Speculation and doth not shew wherein consists Man's true Happiness much less what is the way to attain it for the latter the most sublime piece of it is framed only for the Meridian of this Life both in the Use and End. Without all question the Great and Wise God did write in Man's Nature Habits exactly conducible to his internal Contentment and Felicity in reference to his living in this World as those which were of a higher Constitution and End as his communion with his Maker The wisest of Moral Philosophers though they have imperfectly copied out divers Positions of the former as Justice Temperance Contentedness Undervaluation of the World Patience yet they never arrived at the latter no Book in the World but this shews a Man the adequate End of his Being his Supream Good his Happiness nor directs the Means of acquiring it This doth not only inforce the nobleness and value of the Book but also the original of it for when I shall see a world of the most exact humane Wits turning every stone as it were within the reach of humane discovery and yet none of them all lighting upon this great Subject the way to eternal Happiness I must needs conclude That this discovery is of a higher extract than a meer humane invention and although when we have discovered that subject we begin to wonder that Mankind hath thus long roved and wasted its labour in those other impertinent inquiries and were so far from discovery of this Vnum Necessarium that they scarce so much as imagined there was any such Business yet we may justly forbear that wonder for this is a Path which the
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
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
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
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
he searcheth the Heart and trieth the Reins Jer. 17.10 Take heed therefore of so much as thinking any thing that may be unbecoming the Presence of such a Majesty Purity and Power This is the Fear of God the beginning of Wisdom and will teach us with Joseph to entertain any temptation fitted with the greatest secresie and advantage with his Resolution Gen. 39.9 How shall I do this great Evil and sin against God 4. Watch the course of the Providence of God. There is not a Passage of his Providence but if marked carries with it a secret Instruction and a watchful Man will spell the Lesson of Providence to Humiliation Mic. 6.9 Hear the Rod and him that hath appointed it to Sadness Isa 22.12 In that day did the Lord call for weeping to Reformation and Obedience Job 36 10 by cords of affliction he openeth the Ear to Discipline and commandeth that they return from iniquity to Dependance upon and Recourse to God Psal 107.15 19. extremity and natural impossibility of deliverance tutors Men to cry unto the Lord Jonah 1.6 Arise call upon thy God to Thankfulness Psal 5â— 25 I will deliver thee and thou shalt glorifie me And here we cannot chuse but ever remember the Excellence of the Word of God which teacheth us the English of all his Dispensations and what they mean That when in our blindness God by his Providence speaketh once yea twice yet Man perceiveth it not Job 33.14 this like a Messenger an Interpreter one among a thousand Job 33.23 expounds the Hieroglyphick and shews us the Errand it brings from God And although the Wisdom of God excedes our observation in many passages of his Providence Eccles 8.17 that almost the exactest watchfulness will have much ado to find any thing after him Eccles 3.11 yet I do believe that that Man that keeps a strict watch over himself and upon the passages of his Providence shall scarce find one uncomfortable passage in his Life but he may read in it some special omission of Duty to and some desertion of God some act of Pride Lust or Vanity eminently conspicuous to him that preceded it It is true the most exact walking may not only find but occasion Crosses and Afflictions in our way but most commonly if not always such are accompanied with such a measure of Comfort and Contentment in them or with them that I cannot call them Uncomfortable Passages but rather Objects of Rejoycing But when there comes an Affliction with a Sting in it though but a small one such a one as springs from my own folly or a disappointment or interruption in a justifiable action wherein I see as it were the hand of God hedging up my way or the like let me look but a little backward I shall see the spring of it As I will therefore keep a watch over my ways that I incur not the danger of God's deserting me though in an action it may be of no great consequence so when I find such a Cross I will look backward and search and try my ways and when I have found my Achan I will weep over him I will look forward and be more careful in my future Conversation I will look upward and bless the merciful hand of God that is pleased to take such care over a poor Creature as to send his Messenger though it may be a rough and sower one to reclaim me from the danger of a greater Evil. 5. Watch the secret perswasions and disswasions of the Spirit of God and beware thou quench it not 1 Thes 5.19 nor grieve it Ephes 4.30 A Man that observes his ways shall oftentimes hear a secret Voice from his Conscience conformable to the Word of God calling to him Do not this abominable thing which I hate Jer. 44.4 or This is the way walk in it Isa 30.21 Be sure thou observe this Voice try it with the Word the Rule of Truth and beware thou neglect it not This Wind that blows where it lists if shut out resisted or grieved may haply never breathe upon thee again but leave thee to be hardened in thy sins But if observed tried and obeyed thou shalt be sure to have it thy Monitor and Director upon all occasions CHAP. XIX Of Watchfulness in respect of our Selves our Senses Words and Appetite 2. FOR the second Object of our Watch our Selves such is the distemper and disorder of our Souls since the Fall that though it meets with no temptations from without yet it will make them and like a distempered Stomach the Lusts that are within us will turn that into our Poison which is of it self either wholesom or at least indifferent The Wedge of Gold and the Babylonish Garment had in it self naturally no temptation to Evil but Lust joyns with it conceives upon it and brings forth Sin the Rock stands still strikes not the Ship but the Ship strikes the Rock and splits it self The greatest part of that sin that is in us is not so much due to the influence and motion of Objects upon us as to the Corruption that the Object meets with in us therefore it concerns us to have a strict and continual Watch upon our selves And herein 1. Watch thy Senses watch thine Eye thine Eye is a wanton Eye an Eye full of Adultery 2 Pet. 2.14 David a Man after God's own Heart wanted his watch upon his Eye and he saw and lusted and sinned 2 Sam. 11.2 With Job therefore see that thou keep thine Eye under a Covenant Job 31.1 Thine Eye is a luxurious Eye the Fruit was pleasant to the Eye and our first Mother though to the ruine of her Posterity did let in the beauty of the Fruit and together with it Sin and Death through her Eye Gen. 3.6 Thine Eye is an unsatiable Eye Eccles 1.8 a covetous Eye Joshua 7.21 I saw and I coveted a lofty and proud Eye Prov. 30.14 a flattering and a deceitful Eye Prov. 30.12 a cruel and an oppressing Eye Psal 10.8 His Eyes are privily set against the Poor an evil Eye Let it therefore be thy Practice as well as thy Prayer to turn away thine Eye from beholding Vanity Psal 119.37 and to have thine Eyes always towards God Psal 141.8 2. Set a Guard upon thy Ear and take heed how and what thou hearest Mark 4.24 Thou hast a wandering Eye an Athenian Ear Acts 17.21 an itching Ear that will not endure sound Truth 2 Tim. 4.3 a deaf and stopped Ear when thou shouldest hear Isaiah 6.10 an open and unsatiable Ear after Vanity and Unprofitableness Eccles 1.8 3. Set a Watch over thy Tongue and keep the door of thy Lips Psal 141.3 and take heed thou sin not with thy Tongue Psal 39.1 Remember an account is to be given for an idle word Matth. 12.36 season thy words with Salt Colos 4.6 and that will take away the filthiness of thy Communication Colos 3.8 Remember that thy Tongue is set on fire of Hell James 3.6 Watch therefore thy Tongue
make us more humble more thankful more watchful then they may justly make us more confident because then the Love of God comes in with his Blessings And then are External Blessings arguments of the Love of God when they teach the Soul as well to love God as to trust in him 2. When a Man shall argue a personal and special Love of God by the presence of External Priviledges when there wants sincere Obedience Jer. 7.4 10. Trust ye not in lying words saying The Temple of the Lord c. and therefore God sends them to the Example of Shiloh Ibid. Verse 12. And the reason why this must needs be as well a deceiving Inference as displeasing to God is because in truth in such a case the Soul placeth her ultimate confidence in these things and robs God of part of that Confidence which belongs unto him 3. When a Man shall argue the Love of God to him from his External Performances of those things which God commanded Isa 1.11 Amos 5.21 This hath this double Error in it 1. A grossly mistaken Apprehension of the Will of God which is most just as if the God that judgeth the Heart and measures all the Actions of Men by their Hearts should be pleased with the Shell of Duties and Obedience whereas the things that are so done as they are in themselves without the Heart but indifferent Actions and so cannot be pleasing so they are but hypocritical and false and must needs be displeasing 2. A sharing of our Confidence between God and our selves de quo infra 4. When a Man shall argue the Love of God as an Effect and Price of his Obedience and Sincerity towards him The Error in this is that in truth a Man makes himself his Confidence for he that trusts in the Love of God because he thinks he hath purchased or procured the Love of God doth in truth resolve his Confidence into himself Therefore look upon the best Dress of thy Soul thy Humility thy Faith thy Love thy Sincerity thy Obedience not as Causes of the Love of thy God or the Price or Purchace of it but as Effects and Evidences of his Love to thee Look upon thy Sincerity Love and Obedience to God as the fruit and sign of his Love that will make thy God thy Confidence not as the Purchace or Price of his Love for that will make thy self thy Presumption were they thy own thou owest them and infinitely more to thy Creator and therefore canst not deserve by them But alas they are not thine own his Love as it is the Motive of thine so it is the Cause of it and of all that can be acceptable to him 5. When a Man from well grounded Arguments of the Love of God to his Person shall conclude the Favour of God to his Actions without measuring of them by his Will. This was the Error of Josiah's Confidence 2 Chron. 35.21 22. he hearkened not to the words of Necho from the mouth of God and fell 6. When a Man who hath a sound ground of the Love of God unto his Person shall yet go along in any known or unrepented Sin. Such sins by any that hath entred into Covenant with God have more Malignity and Presumption in them than the very same sins committed by others because committed against more Light and against more Love and the Merciful God is yet a Jealous God and one that accepteth not Persons his ways are equal and uniform Ezek. 18.25 If the best of Men walk contrary to him it must of necessity be that he walk contrary to them and therefore he hates with the same hatred a course of sin even in his subject as well as in his enemy And the same sin that puts a Stranger unto God in the Condition of an Enemy puts a Subject in the Condition of a Rebel and therefore though he will not utterly take his loving kindness from them he will visit their transgression with the rod and their sins with stripes Psal 89.32 will hide his face from them Deut. 31.18 a frequent expression of God's withdrawing the Actual Communication of his Love and Presence even from his own Psal 30.7 Psal 74.9 11. Psal 69.17 What ever be the Purpose of God concerning thee be assured of this that so long as thou art in a course of sin against him though his Counsel concerning thee be not thereby interrupted yet till thy returning to him and repenting of thy sin the Actual Fruition of thy interest in him is interrupted thou art actually in the same condition if not a worse than before thy first Covenant with thy Creator and hast as little cause of Confidence in his Love now as thou hadst then And as the Act of thy Love to God is most apparently interrupted by this thy practice of a known sin till thy return so thou mayest most justly conclude an interruption of the Act of his Love to thee till thou return though that return of thine is the fruit of that Love which was still in him though thou didst go along in the frowardness of thy ways when God hides himself by reason of sin thy Instruction thereby is to seek him out otherwise that which thou callest thy Confidence may be thy Presumption and may cause the Wrath and Jealousie of thy Creator to smoke against thee because thou hast blessed thy self in thy Heart saying I shall have peace though I walk in the imagination of my heart Deut. 29.19 Every motion of the Heart to God if it be right is conformable to the Mind of God throughout When thy Life is sinful and thy Heart not humble suspect thy Confidence to have more of thy Corruption than of Grace in it Take heed to thy Joy. Regularly as is the object or measure of thy Love such is the object and measure of thy Joy Joy is nothing else but a result of the Soul in the fruition of what is loved yet though thou hadst a watch over thy Love before thou enjoyedst have a stricter watch over the temper of thy Spirit in thy fruition Look to the object of thy Joy thy evil Heart will rejoyce will glory in thy sin in thy shame unless thou hast a watch upon thy Heart folly and mischief will be thy Joy Prov. 10.23 Prov. 15.21 the fall of thine Enemy will be thy Joy and the Lord will see and it will displease him Prov. 24.17 thou wilt make Excess Impurity Oppression Cruelty Injustice Pride thy Joy and thy Delight Thy Affections are blind and mad and must be led Examine the object of thy Joy and consider beforehand whether there be not in it more cause of grief than of delight But suppose thy fruition deserve some delight God hath blessed thee with a good Wife which the wise Man calls the Crown of her Husband Pro. 12.4 with a numerous and hopeful Issue which the wise Man calls the Crown of Old Age Prov. 17.6 with a Good Name which the wise Man calls a
that which is her Enemy 3. Stablish thy mind in the knowledge of God and of his Goodness and this being laid in the bottom will keep thy Ship from uncertain giddy floating The knowledge and Sense of the chiefest Good will carry the chiefest Motions of thy Will towards it and against all that is contrary to it and by this means the Motions of thy Will will be certain steddy uniform and regular the inclination of thy Will to any thing else will be measured by this and subordinate unto it if the Good propounded consist not with the Fruition of thy chiefest Good thy Will will reject that Good propounded and if it consist with it it will measure a Motion of the Will towards that Good proportionable to it and the want of the Knowledge or Sence of this Good sends the Motions of thy Will on gadding after every Vanity stedfast in nothing willing what it hath not and weary of what it hath pursuing a Butter-fly or a Glow-worm with the same eagerness and intention of Soul as it would do a substantial and satisfactory Good when thou seest a Child fixing the intention of his mind upon a Rattle or a Hobby-horse more than upon a goodly Mannour or upon a Feather or a Riband more than upon a Title of Honour conjoyned with Power and when he hath these Toys to be weary of them and pursue something else thou canst easily see the ground of this Errour in his Valuation to arise from his Ignorance of the true difference between them and this unstability in his content in them doth arise from the emptiness and unusefulness of them and that disproportion which he finds in them to his expectation his infant reason being yet better able to value in Fruition than in expectation And yet thou dost not consider that the disproportion of those things which thy riper Will pursues as Good as to the chiefest Good is infinitely greater than that of the most Childish enjoyment to those things wherein the most and wisest of Men place their chief expectation and that the Errour of the most childish Judgment laid in the Ballance with the Judgment of the wise Men of the World wants fewer Grains to make it equal than that of the wisest Man in the World not having his Soul ballasted with the Love and Knowledge of God laid in the Scales with one that makes his Creator his chiefest hope and expectation Keep a Guard upon thy Conscience The chief work of Conscience in the Soul consists in these things 1. The reception of sound practical Principles this is the Foundation of all its subsequent working the Major proposition 2. The discovery of those Actions or purposes which are in the Soul 3. The comparing of those Actions or purposes with those former practical grounds 4. The Conclusion or Judgment upon those Actions and Principles thus compared of Absolution or Approbation or of Condemnation and Rejection 5. The Motion of the Conscience towards the Soul upon this conviction viz. Perswasion or Dissuasion to or from the Act in question if future stirring or comforting the Soul in reference to the Act if past Thy Conscience is that Cart by which thou dost or shouldest steer thy Course in this World towards the other and therefore it is of highest Concernment to have an eye upon it and therefore 1. Learn to furnish it with practical Principles of Truth and Soundness These Principles are for any thing that appears to me extrinsecal to the Soul the Dictates of the Divine Law and Will conveyed into the Conscience either by the immediate Revelation and Demonstration of God unto the Soul thus to Adam in a perfect measure and to those Holy men of God the Patriarchs Prophets and Apostles or by the Course and way of his Providence either by unwritten Tradition Rom. 2.15 and this was a more uncertain Dispensation because more easie to be corrupted by the Practices and teachings of Men which were so mingled with it that it was very hard to discover the Wheat from the Chaff so that if we should now go to gather up Principles for the Conscience out of the Practices of Men or Nations or the Collections of humane Laws or Authors we should gather up Principles full of uncertainty contrarieties and inconsistencies among themselves and such of them as had any sound Conformity to truth were so general that several Men or the same Man at several times or upon several occasions would deduce from them a justification of contrary Practices as we see is done among divers Men that admit the same general Principles of Practice and yet upon the same Principles their Consciences when they come to particular Actions act quite contrary one to the other the great and merciful God hath therefore by a wonderful Course of his Providence conveyed unto us a Collection of practical Principles made by himself even the Word of his Truth admirably adequated to our use especially in two things 1. Of their Truth and Infallibility we cannot mistake them for they are the very Revelations of the God of Truth unmingled with the Sophistications and Corruptions of Men Gold seven times tryed 2. Their Particularity and Certainty there is scarce an Action in a Mans whole life but a Man shall find a Rule fitted for it David that had but a part of it and a small and a dark part of it in Comparison of what we have câ—lls it a Perfect Law converting the Soul a sure Testimony making wise the Simple Psal 19.7 a Commandment exceeding all other perfection Psal 119.95 that made him wiser than his Enemies and Teachers Ibid 98. a Word able to make the Man of God peâ—fect throughly furnished to all good Works 2 Tim. 3.17 and though the very words of the Book are full of admirable Truth and Conviction infinitely out-going all the writings of Men yet there is more in it than this even a Promise of a Blessing of it to as many as seriously make it their study and Rule of Life and Faith and a fulfilling of that Promise the Son of God sending his own Spirit along with the use of that Word Life with the Letter into the Soul And this was that which made this Law of God though comprised in a little Volume to be so exceeding wide and precious to David there went along with it and with his Meditation of it a Spirit of Life and Light that shewed him larger Dimensions of it than could be found by the bare strength of his natural Understanding 2. Take leisure upon all thy Actions and purposes to acquaint thy Conscience with them that so thy Conscience may have time to deliberate and to compare it with its Principle the Word of God. Precipitancy and Hastiness in Actions robs the Conscience of that employment which God hath given to it and as it is the Mother of all sin so it brings a double inconvenience to a Man even from his Conscience viz. 1. A deadness and
unprofitableness in the faculty It is so kept under and out of employment that it forgets her business when it is laid aside and seldom consulted with it grows unexpert and unable to give an Answer when it may be we desire it The direction of Conscience where it is well used is seldom without the immediate direction of the very Spirit of God and when the Guidance of that Spirit is neglected it will not return to thy assistance when thou pleasest 2. It turns that which would be thy Counsellor into thy Accuser and Tormentor thou refusest to give her time to do her Office before thy Action and therefore it will be bold to take time to do her Office after She cannot be admitted to advise thee but she will take Liberty to accuse and sting thee 3. Endeavour still to keep thy Conscience tender and sensible Rather desire to be troubled with a seemingly peevish Conscience that will check almost at any thing than to be at quiet with a dull and stupid Conscience that will down with any thing It may be it will be somewhat troublesome but it is safe and thou shalt find Comfort in forbearing of that which thy tender Conscience wisht thee to foregoe and be able abundantly to satisfie that trouble which thou art put to by thy forbearance The Conscience of thine Integrity will be more satisfactory to thee than the curiosity of thy Conscience will be troublesome And be very prudent and curious in thy Disputations with thy Conscience thou mayst before thou art aware dispute thy Conscience into Stupidity or thy self into perplexity 4. Observe exactly the Language of thy Conscience to thy Soul for most commonly the Conscience takes part with her Maker if she perswade be doing if she dissuade forbear He that in the Fear of God listens to the Voice of his Conscience in a thing of it self indifferent yet over ballanced from its indifferency by the Dictate of his Conscience performs a work of Obedience to God well near as acceptable as he that doth a work of its own Nature good for as much as the Life and Formality of any good work consists not so much in the Nature of the thing that is done as in the reason or ground of the doing it viz. the Love of God And that man that having endeavoured to Principle his Conscience aright with the Word of truth doth honestly and sincerely follow the directions of it shall be sure not to erre long or dangerously God having placed the Conscience in our Breast as his own Vicegerent looks upon such a subjection to the Conscience as an Obedience to himself and his own Authority and will in due time by his own Power and Spirit inlighten and guide such a Conscience to perform his Office regularly and effectually 5. As a consequence of the former when a question ariseth in thy Conscience whether such a thing may be safely omitted which thou art sure may be safely done or whether such a thing may be safely done which thou art sure may be safely forborn put not thy self nor thy Conscience upon a Dispute where thou needest not but be content rather to abridge thy self from a Liberty that may be probably lawful than to put thy self upon an Action or Omission that may at least be disputably sinful and so much the rather because thy Heart is deceitful and as it loves Liberty so it finds out Sophistry enough to corrupt thy Judgment and thy Conscience if thou give way unto it there is scarce the grossest sin that ever any Man committed but his Heart found out some Reasons to bribe or quiet his Conscience in the Commission of it Rather submit to the still Voice of thy Conscience in the restraint even of thy lawful Liberty though it give thee not a Reason for it than listen to the reasonings of thy Heart for the allowance of it Suspect her for she speaks in her own cause and is partial and deceitful This on the one hand may be a safe Rule for us touching Stage-Plays long Hair Gaming Usury c. on the other touching the strict Observation of the Lord's Day set times of Prayer c. 6. As an incident likewise to the former when a question comes in thy Conscience touching a thing whether to be done or not and that upon the scrutiny of thy Conscience it seems to be equally ballanced no Rule to guide thee no Circumstance that thrown into the Scale can take away the indifferency of either side it is a safe Rule though not always necessary to forsake that which the inclination of thy own natural Appetite most prompts thee to The Reason is that which is before mentioned the Heart is apt to magnifie those Arguments that conduce to the execution of that which suits with thy sinful Appetite and to lessen and slight those that make against it So that in a Decision of indifferency in such a competition a Man may in a more impartial Judgment conclude the thing to be therefore not indifferent but sinful because thy sinful Heart can but bring up what she loves but to an equal Ballance thou must therefore in such a Case never hold that Gold passable which doth not turn the Scale 7. As thus in the Directing Operation of thy Conscience in things to be done or not to be done so in the motion of thy Conscience after the things done or omitted Sometimes the Conscience is silent before the Action yet she speaks after and according to that Language of thy Conscience so let the affection of thy Soul be If it approve and justifie the thing done bless thy Creator for the Action and bless thy Creator for thy Conscience that he is pleased to give thee a reward within thy self of thy Integrity If thy Conscience blame thee though never so little despise not nor neglect this secret Check it is a Message from Heaven that summons thee to these Duties 1. To Thankfulness to God that is pleased not to give thee over to incurable Guilt of hardness of Heart that though thou hast rejected the Admonition of thy Lord sent by thy Conscience before thou offendest yet he doth not give thee over but follows thee with the rebuke of thy Conscience that though the former did not divert thee the latter may reclaim thee As long as thou hast a Conscience that can check thee God hath not given over his Care of thee for it is the Voice of God by thy Conscience 2. To Humiliation and sorrow of Heart This as it is the natural and genuine effect of a Guilt discovered unless the Heart be given over to a reprobate Sense so it is a most useful effect because it makes the Heart soft and fit to receive those impositions which will ensue upon such a Sorrow fit to receive Instruction a proud Heart will not bend nor yield fit to take up Resolutions of amendment the present Sense of Guilt shews sin to the Soul in its own true Dress it
is bitterness in the end fit to implore a Pardon and fit to receive it because it now knows how truly to value it And though thy greater sin deserve thy greater Sorrow yet thy very failings sins of daily incursion Erroâ— in Circumstances of Actions defects and wants of intention in Duties do all deserve as true Sorrow though not so great and therefore cherish and encourage thy Conscience to be vigilant in this by observing her rebukes even concerning these and let not the reflection of these pass without as particular an Humiliation of thy Soul before God for them for they are sins against the Duty and Gratitude thou owest to thy Creator and it will make thy future Conversation more exact and more comfortable sorrow of Heart for those smaller offences as it will make presumptuous sins the more hideous and the more abhorred so it will waste the number and measure of those smaller offences which like swarms of flyes cover our daily Actions of all kinds 3. To seek out for that which can only pacifie thy Conscience and remove thy Sorrow which cannot be but by removing the Guilt And now let thy Soul search the whole Compass of Heaven and Earth and where canst thou find any thing that can remove thy Guilt of the smallest sin imaginable but him alone against whom thou hast committed it and where canst thou find any means for obtaining remission from sins but by that means which he himself hath prescribed and where hath he prescribed any such means but in his Word and where in his Word but in his Son Matth. 11.28 Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest If then I stay at home I find nothing within me but a troubled and chiding Conscience and it will be impossible for me to remove this Guilt I will therefore venture my Soul upon the free Promise of God in Christ and with the Lepers in the Famine conclude If he save me I shall live and if he kill me I can but die 4. To fall upon thy knees before the great God and to beg for thy Life and for thy Peace O Lord my sin hath brought a Guilt upon my Soul and that Guilt hath raised a Storm in my Conscience but if thou who art only offended and therefore canst only forgive speak the Word to thy Servant Be thou clean and to my Conscience Peace be still my Guilt and with it that Tempest that is within me will be removed Do it I beseech thee for thy Truth and Promise sake thou canst not owe Remission to thy Creature but thou hast been pleased to ingage thy self to thy Creature upon Repentance to have mercy and forgive and upon that Promise of thine will I hang though thou seem to reject me Do it for thy Mercy sake thou that hast commanded me to forgive my Brother till seventy times seven times if as often he turn and repent hast infinitely more Mercy towards thy Creature than thou requirest from it Do it for thy Glories sake thou hast said it is the Glory of a Man to pass by a Transgression and what can be glorious in thy Creature that hath not a resemblance of thy own mind and Image nay do it for thy Justice sake thou hast been pleased to give a publick Sacrifice for all our sins against thee even thy Son by an eternal Covenant with a Proclamation That whosoever will may come and take of the water of Life freely and thou hast been pleased as it were to deposite a Pardon in thy Sons hand for as many as come unto thee by him and to lay upon him that Chastisement of our Peace and though I like a Man have gone aside yet thy Gifts are without Repentance That satisfaction therefore which thou out of thy abundant Love wert pleased to give unto thy self I beseech thee accept and as it will be the Glory of thy Mercy so it will be the Honour of thine own Justice for if we confess our sins thou art Just as well as Faithful to forgive us our sins in him that was the price of our Peace Set a Watch upon thy Spirit As the Soul is the Life of the Body so the Spirit is the Life of the Soul that active Principle which works by the Will the Affections and Conscience This appears by the frequent Denomination of the Spirit and by its contradistinction to the very Soul Ephes 4.23 Spirit of the mind Prov. 18.14 The Spirit of a Man will sustain his infirmities but a wounded Spirit who can bear Prov. 20.27 The Spirit of a Man is the Candle of the Lord. Prov. 16.2 The Lord weigheth the Spirits Eccl. 7.8 The patient in Spirit is better than the proud in Spirit Isaiah 57.15 to revive the Spirit of the humble 16. The Spirit should fall before me and the Souls which I have made James 4.5 The Spirit that is in us luâ—â—eth to liuâ—â—y Heb. 12 23. The Spirits of Just men made perfect 1 Thes â— 23 I pray God your whole Spirit and Soul and Body c. Heb. 4.12 dividing between the Soul and the Spirit Rom. 8.16 The Spirit beareth witness with our Spirit And here we take not Spirit physically for those Instruments whereby the Soul works but for that Principle of activity which works in the Soul these Disorders that sit upon the Spirit principally are two 1. In the Defect Deadness and Depression in the Spirit The Spirit is that which only can hold Communion with God he that will worship him as he must worship him in Spirit and Truth so with his Spirit and without that mingled with thy Prayers they are dead and cannot come at him and without thy Spirit brought to his Word and to his Ordinances they cannot come at thy Soul. As the Spirits of thy Blood are those that unite sensible Objects to thy Soul so the Spirit of thy Soul is that which can only bring home Divine impressions from God to thy Soul or expressions from thy Soul acceptably to God. Upon such occasions awake thy Spirit and mingle it with thy Services and shake off that Dulness and Heaviness of Spirit it will make thy Prayers uneffectual and thy Services unprofitable 2. In the Excess Elation and Pride of Spirit And from this Capital disease in the Spirit proceed those others of Envy the Spirit that is in us lusteth after eâ—y The Spirit of Revenge Luke 9.55 Ye 〈◊〉 not 〈◊〉 what Spirit you are The Spirit of Murmuring and Discontent These are but the productions of the Spirit of Pride when it meets with any thing that crosseth it If it meet with any Person that sensibly exceedeth the Person in whom it is in worth esteem or other Accessions then it is turned into Envy and that Envy into Revenge And this was the very Original of the Devils immediate action upon our first Parents his Pride though it made him lower by his fall it made him not more humble And from hence
fitted for that occasion strikes effectually upon the Heart and works upon it whether it be an Affliction or a Blessing or a Deliverance or a Word of God. Thus when Nathaniel was under the Fig tree Christ saw him and prepared his Heart to entertain the call of Philip John 1.48 2. The concomitant act of the Spirit of God especially with the Word of God and some other extraordinary acts of his Providence And herein it hath a double work 1. Of Strength to drive on this Word and hence it is called the Sword of the Spirit The Spirit of God is that Arm that manageth this Sword Ephes 6.17 To the dividing asunder of Soul and Spirit Heb. 4.12 When thou seest therefore a tumultuous disorderly Heart filled with Pride and obstinacy yet brought upon his Knees by a seemingly weak Admonition Reproof or other passage of the Word of God wonder not at the change for the powerful and mighty Arm of the Spirit of God hath shaken this little dart between the joynts of his harness even into the midst of his Soul. What ailed thee O thou Sea that thou fleddest c. Tremble thou Earth at the presence of the Lord at the presence of the God of Jacob Psal 114.5.2 Of Life to go along with it into the Spirit of a Man John 6.63 The words that I speak unto you they are Spirit and they are Life The passage between the Sense and the Spirit of a Man is of a great distance and full of many turnings and hence the words of Men for the most part die and lose their efficacy before they come at the Spirit of a Man sometimes they die in the Ear sometimes they get into the Brain and die there in a Speculation sometimes they strike a little but yet live not long there for the words have no Life in them But with this Word there goes a Life which goes along with it even to the uttermost corner of thy Soul even thy Spirit and there it continues alive 1 John 3.9 His seed remaineth in him and he cannot sin and hence it is that the Commands of God even to us that are dead are not incongruous when God pleaseth that his Work shall be wrought in the Heart for a Spirit of Life goes along with the Command even to the penetralia animae John 5.25 The time is that the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God and they that hear shall live And as thus the Spirit of God carries the Word of God with Life and Vigour into the choicest parts of the Soul so doth it with all other Dispensations of Divine Providence If thou hast an outward Blessing given thee it will along with the Sense of thy Blessing carry in the Sense of the Goodness of God and teach thee Thankfulness and Moderation If an Affliction it will get along into thy Soul with that Affliction and teach thee to examine thy self and to search and try thy ways and having discovered thy sin it will teach thee Humiliation and Repentance and if upon thy search thou find thine Integrity yet it will teach thee Humility Thankfulness Contentedness Dependance upon God it will with every Dispensation of Providence go along with it into thy Soul and carry that message with it that God by this his Dispensation intends to send thee And thus it is a Sanctifying Spirit by way of concomitance with the Word and Providence 3. The Spirit of God sanctifies the Heart by its own immediate and Continual Assistance It contests with thy daily Temptations that are from without and conquers them and with thy hourly Corruptions that are within thee and wasts and subdues them In the midst of thy Difficulties it will be thy Counsellor a secret voice behind thee saying This is the way walk in it In the midst of thy Temptations it will be thy Strength and a Grace sufficient for thee In the midst of thy Troubles it will be thy Light and thy Comfort In the midst of thy Corruptions it will be thy Cleanser a Spirit of burning to consume those swarms of Lusts that cover and fill thy Heart In thy Failings and Falls it will be thy Remembrancer and teach thee to repent and humble thy self This was that Monitor that furnished Joseph with an answer to a most importunate and advantageous Temptation How shall I do this great wickedness and sin against God Gen. 39.9 that furnished Job with silencing Answers to all those temptations to Insolence Pride Self-confidence and Injustice Job 9.1 that after David's Sin smote David's Heart before David's Heart smote him and taught him Confession and Sorrow and to beg a Pardon 2 Sam. 24.10 Only beware thou neglect not the Voice of this Spirit of God It may be thy neglect may quench it and thou mayest never hear that Voice more or at least it will certainly grieve it and canst thou think of grieving that Spirit without a Tear which is content to descend into thy impure polluted Heart to make it a Heart fitted for Glory Thy folly is great and thy ingratitude greater When God speaks once and twice and Man perceives him not Job 33.14 it sometimes falls out that he never speaks to that Man more Ephraim is set upon Idols let him alone Hos 4.17 and that is the saddest Condition in the World but if he do his Mercy will be a severe Mercy he will speak louder Job 33.22 when the still Voice is not heard his Soul draweth near to the grave and his Life to the destroyers The observation of the secret Admonition and Reasonings of the Spirit of God in the Heart as it is an effectual means so it is a calm and a comfortable means to cleanse and sanctifie thy Heart and the â—oâ—eâ—itâ—i attended unto the more it will be conversant with thy Soul for thy Instruction Strength and Comfort Prov. 6.22 When thou goest it shall lead thee when thou sleepest it shall keep thee and when thou awakest it shall talk with thee CHAP. XXVI Of the Means of Sanctification 2. On Man's part viz. Faith Love Fear Hope ON our part the Instruments of our Sanctification are those supernatural acts or habits of the Soul wrought by the finger of God Faith Hope and Love. 1. Faith Acts 15.9 God also purifying their Hearts by Faith. And this it doth as it is an Act receiving into the Soul the Word of God and subscribing to the Truth and Goodness of it receving it not as the word of Man but as the Word of the just and true God. 1. It therein finds and believes the great Debt of Duty that the Creature owes to his Creator What can be unjust for God to require of that Being which he gave and made As the Gift of a Being is an infinite Gift because it is an infinite Motion there being no greater disproportion imaginable than between not being and being so the engagement of Obedience and Conformity from that Creature to the Will and good Pleasure of
me not keepeth not my Sayings Now our Love to God ariseth upon two Grounds 1. From a Sense of the Perfection and Beauty and Purity and Excellency that is in him and in this respect our Love to him cannot chuse but move the Heart to desire to be like unto him as far forth as is or can be communicable to our Nature and Condition for whatsoever I love in another that is communicable unto me I cannot chuse but desire to be in my self 1 Pet. 2. Be ye holy for I am holy and this Love of that Goodness that is in God doth bring the Heart nearer to him for Love is a Motion unto Union and as we come nearer to that Purity of his it doth in some measure assimilate the Soul unto himself because his Goodness and Brightness is an assimilating active communicative Goodness and from this nearness to him doth grow much of our Holiness here and all our Happiness hereafter 1 John 3.2 We shall bâ— like him for we shall see him as he is 2 Cor. 3.18 But we with open Face beholding as in a Glass the Glory of the Lord are changed into the same Image from Glory to Glory Our Love to God works in the Soul a desire of Union with him and likeness to him which is a kind of Union and that approximation to him doth derive from him an impression of his own Nature and likeness unto him 2. The ground of our Love to God is the Sense of that Love that he hath shewen to us 1 John. 4.19 We love him because he loved us first and this is a Love of Gratitude or Thankfulness arising from the full Sense of the undeserved and wonderful Love of God to his unworthy Creature revealed and dispensed in Jesus Christ and this cannot chuse but put the Soul into such kind of thoughts and purposes as these O Lord at first I received my Being from thee and when I had forfeited my Being and my Blessedness to thee thou wast patient towards me and didst not take that forfeiture which thou justly mightest thou wast merciful to me and didst pitty and forgive me and when I was in my Blood thou saidst unto me Live thou was bountiful unto and didst not only pardon me but restore me to that Blessedness which I unthankfully lost and thus thou didst without my seeking even when I was Senseless and knew not my own Misery when I was obstinate and would not have it and this thou didst not by an ordinary means but thy Love did send the Son of thy love to become my Sacrifice and my Righteousness and canst thou require any thing of me that can bear any proportion to so great Love If thou shouldest call for that Being again which thou hast thus freely given me I should but return unto thee that which is thine own But after all this what dost thou require of me but to do justly and love Mercy to walk humbly with my God Such a Service wherein consists my own Happiness and Perfection a conformity unto thy Beauty and Purity If the Service that thou shouldest have enjoyned me had been a Service mingled with my own Dishonour Shame Misery Ruin thy Love to me had deserved and commanded this from me how much more when all thou requirest from my Leprous Soul is but Wash and be clean I will bless thy Name for that Love which thou shewest to me in my Redemption from so great a Death and I will bless thy Name that thou art pleased to injoyn thy Creature such a Service wherein consists his Beauty and Perfection a reasonable Service and that thou art pleased to accept that as a Tribute unto thee which inricheth thy Creature by paying it even our Conformity to thy most Righteous and Holy Will and I will endeavour in the whole Course of my Life in the whole frame and temper of my Soul to express my Thankfulness to thee in the watchful universal diligent and sincere Conformity unto that will of thine and blessed be thy Name that hast given thy poor Creature an opportunity of expressing his Sense of thy Love in so reasonable a Service 2. Fear of God likewise cleanseth the Heart Psal 19.9 The fear of God is clean Prov. 8.13 The fear of the Lord is to hate evil Prov. 16.16 By the fear of the Lord Men depart from evil And this was Joseph's fence against Temptations of all kinds Gen. 39.9 How shall I do this great wickedness and sin against the Lord and his highest security to his Brethren of keeping his Promise Gen 42.18 This do and live for I fear God. Now this fear of God is wrought upon the precedent Act of Faith in a double Relation 1. As it presents God unto the Soul in his Purity Majesty Power Justice and Presence even in the innermost and darkest Chambers of our Hearts And this Consideration becomes even the exactest Christian always to have about him for all the strongest ingagements even upon every Affection are too little God knows to fence and ward the Soul against the Corruptions within it and the Temptations without it And this Consideration will most opportunely bespeak the Soul in this manner Consider what thou art doing thou art now going about to purpose or do that which thy Creator forbids thee and thou art in the Presence of that God before whom all things are naked and manifest Heb. 4.13 whose eyes are upon all the ways of Man and he seeth all his goings Job 32.21 and his eyes are therefore upon his ways that he may give every Man according to his works Job 32.18 Consider thou art in his Presence that is a consuming Fire and a jealous God Deut. 4.24 A great God and a mighty and terrible that regardeth not Persons nor taketh rewards Deut. 10.27 That hath said that When any Man heareth the words of this Curse and shall bless himself in his Heart saying I shall have Peace though I walk in the immagination of my Heart the Lord will not spare him but his jealousie shall smoak against that man Deut. 29.19 20. That hath Justice and Wisdom and Truth and Power enough to fulfil and execute the most exquisite seasonable and unavoidable Vengeance upon any contemner of his Will and this is the God whom thou a Creature that art nothing in his hands art about to offend Consider this thou that forgettest God lest he tear thee in pieces and there be none to deliver thee But 2. Fear is a Fruit of Love and though we are not to neglect the former yet we must be sure to entertain this perfect Love casts out fear a fear of punishment but not a fear of sin a fear of a Malefactor not the fear of a Child And upon this Consideration this affection upon any Temptation thus bespeaks the Soul Consider what thou art now setting about It is that thy Lord thy Redeemer forbids thee he that hath died for thee to rescue thee from thy vain Conversation how
unseemly a return is this for so much Love and Goodness as thou hast received how canst thou come in thy Prayers in thy Hopes in thy Dependance to that God whom against the bonds of ordinary Gratitude thou art now offending how canst thou ever expect to have the light and favour of his Countenance whom contrary to all thy engagements of Duty and Covenant thou art now about to injure canst thou profess thou lovest him whom thou darest to abuse to disobey even to his Face 3. Hope the Word of God hath promised in Christ Glory and immortality and the sight of himself to those that are pure in Heart Matth. 5.8 This truth contained in these Promises is received and entertained in the Heart by Faith and as the Motion of the Heart towards an absent but a possible and expected Good is Hope so it is here it is the Motion of the Soul arising upon Faith as it presents the truth of that Blessedness which wâ— do not yet but shall enjoy and this Motion of the Soul purifieth the Heart 1 John 3.3 He that haâ— this hope purifieth himself even as he is pure and bring the Heart and Life to Obedience Psal 119.1 6. I have hoped in thy Salvation and done thy Commanâ—ments Our love of God makes our Obedience sincere our fear of him makes our obedience awful and reverent our hope in him makes our obedience chearful Rom. 15.13 Patient Rom. 8.25 Constant Heb. 3.6 and Active Phil. 3.15 Pressing oâ— to the price of the high calling of God in Christ This was that that made Moses rather chuse Afflictions than the Pleasure of sin for a Season for he had an eye to the recompence of reward Heb. 11.26 which carried our Redeemer with choice and Victory through the Cross and shame for the joy that was set before him Heb. 12.2 Now this affection thus fixed and acted purifieth the Heart and Life upon these Considerations 1. It presents a Man with an expectation of an everlasting blesâ—d Station in the Presence of the most holy God and this works an endeavour of a present Conformity of his Mind and Life to that condition which it eâ—pects to enjoy everlastingly hereafter No Man 〈◊〉 hope for that which he desires not for the presâ— to enjoy he that hopes for an eternal Life in Holinâ— will thrust himself into as much of it as he câ— while he lives here and will consider how unbâ—coming any sin is of him who lives in a câ—tinued hope of enjoying a condition free from 〈◊〉 2. Hope doth link the Soul to the thing it hoâ— for which is of so great worth Glory and 〈◊〉 â—pectation that it carries the Soul through all â—ficulties to the attaining of it it makes 〈◊〉 which is future in Fruition present in appreâ—sion and thereby masters all those evils of Sense that actually come in the way and thus it lifteth up the Soul above all the present inconveniencies that may accompany or interrupt her way to Glory Thy Creator hath chalked thee out a way to walk in and it is true it is a narrow way and thou art cloathed with flesh and blood which cannot inherit the Kingdom of God the way will be grievous and troublesome unto it thou must deny thy self cut off thy right hand pluck out thy right eye thou must learn to unlove nay to hate those things wherein thy corrupted Nature most delights and take up thy Cross and follow thy Saviour and thy way is not only narrow and unpleasant to thy Nature but thou shalt find it it may be strawed with Afflictions with Temptations with Scorns with Poverty Wants Persecutions nay with the loss of Life it self and yet on thou must go and must not draw back for then thy Labour is all lost But here is that which will bear thee up through all the difficulties though thou art laden with the burden of thy own Flesh and Corruptions and art ready to slip upon every Temptation yet thou art not alone but thy Saviour stands by thee to bear thy burden to take thee by the hand to lift thee up from thy falls to support thee with his Grace which he hath promised shall be sufficient for thee to accept thy endeavours and to pitty and pardon and recover thy relapses Though thou dost loose and irrecoverably let go many Contentments Pleasures and external advantages yet thou seest with thee in the Promise and before thee in thy hope that which will abundantly recompence all thy losses even Pleasures at his right hand for ever Though thy journey be troublesome yet it is not long thy home thy Fathers house is in thine eye where thou mayst see thy Saviour preparing a place for thee and a far more exceeding and eternal weight of Glory which will sweeten thy light Afflictions which are but for a moment 2 Cor. 4.17 CHAP. XXVII Of the Extent and Degrees of Sanctification 3. WE come to consider the Extent or Degrees of it what it is or should and may be in this Life We find in the Book of God mention of perfect Men and Men of perfect Hearts Noah Gen. 6.9 Abraham Gen. 17.1 Job 1.8 David 1 Kings 9.4 14.8 Asa 1 Kings 15.14 and yet those several Men had their several Sins and Faults recorded in the same Book We find Psal 37.37 a perfect Man and yet Eccles 7.20 not a just Man that doth good and sinneth not Paul Ephes 4.12 13. tells us of a growing up to a perfect Man to the Measure of the stature of Christ and yet the same Paul Rom. 7.14 complains of himself to be carnal sold under sin The same S. John that 1 John 3.9 saith That he that is born of God sinneth not tells us 1 John 1.8 that if we say we have no sin we deceive our selves and the truth is not in us 2 Cor. 13.11 Finally brethren be perfect We are therefore to consider wherein this Perfection of our Sanctification consisteth not and wherein it consisteth The Perfection required of us and which we may and must attain is an Evangelical Perfection which though it be not perfect yet is accepted of God in Christ 1. Sincerity and Integrity of Heart Jerem. 24.7 They shall return to me with their whole heart The Sanctification required of us is not only a Sanctification of our external Actions those are but the fruits of Sanctification of the Man for as any act is therefore 〈◊〉 because it is but the production of that sin which is â—st in the Heart so is any action therefore holy because it proceeds from a holy and a sanctified motion of the Heart otherwise it is but Hypocrisie This Intâ—y of Heart was Noah's David's â—sa's Perfection it was Enoch's walking with God. When a Man 〈◊〉 with an humble confidence bring his Service his Words and Actions in the presence of God clearly with such a Confession as this O Lord I know that my Heart is deceitful above all who can know it and I know that I