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A30350
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Four discourses delivered to the clergy of the Diocess of Sarum ... by the Right Reverend Father in God, Gilbert, Lord Bishop of Sarum.
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Burnet, Gilbert, 1643-1715.
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1694
(1694)
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Wing B5793; ESTC R202023
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160,531
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125
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the works of the law And by the tenor of the whole Discourse it is plain That by the works of the law are meant the Mosaical Precepts and not the Works of Moral Vertue For St. Paul had divided Mankind into those who were in or under the law and those who were without law that is into Iew and Gentile The design of the Epistle was not to give us Metaphysical Abstractions and Distinctions between Faith as it is a special Grace and Works or Obedience to the Laws of God but by Faith he means the entire receiving of the whole Gospel in its Commands as well as Promises for so he reckons Abraham's readiness to offer up his Son Isaac as an Act of his faith so that faith stands for the complex of all the Duties of Christianity and therefore his Assertion of our being justified by faith without the works of the law signifies no more than that those who received the Gospel who believed it and lived according to it were put in the favour of God by it without being brought under the obligation of the Mosaical Precepts The same Argument is handled by him upon the same grounds in his Epistle to the Galatians only there he gives a more explicite notion of that faith which justified that it was a faith that wrought by love So that in all St. Paul's Epistles he understands by faith the compleat receiving the Gospel in all its parts But whether these Expressions were any of those that St. Peter says the unstable wrested to their own perdition or not we see plainly by St. Iames's Epistle that some began to set up the Notion of a bare believing the Gospel as that which justified as if the meer profession of Christianity or the persuasion of its truth without a suitable Conversation justified For St. Iames speaks not of the works of law but of works simply and as he had just reason to condemn a Doctrine that tended to the total corruption of our Faith so he plainly shews that he did not differ from St. Paul since he takes his chief Instance from Abraham's Faith which made him offer up his Son Isaac upon the Altar by which he was justified so that faith wrought in his works and by works faith was made perfect And he concludes all That as the body without the spirit was dead so faith without works was dead also From whence it is plain that faith in St. Iames stands strictly for a believing the Truth of the Christian Religion and not for an entire receiving the Gospel which was the faith that St. Paul had treated of These things will appear so clear to any one who will attentively read and consider the scope of St. Paul's Epistles to the Romans and Galatians and the Discourse in St. Iames's Epistle that I am confident no scruple can remain in men that are not possessed with prejudices or over-run with a nice sort of Metaphysicks that some have brought into these matters by which they have instead of clearing them rendred them very intricate and unintelligible Their stating the instrumentality of faith in Justification their distinguishing it from Obedience in this but joining it with it in Sanctification are niceties not only without any ground in Scripture but really very hurtful by the disquiet they may give good minds For if the Christian Doctrine is plain in any one thing it must be in this which is the foundation of our quiet and of our hope It would make a long Article to reckon up all the different Subtilties with which this matter has been perplexed As whether Justification is an immanent or transient Act whether it is a Sentence pronounced in Heaven or in the Conscience or whether it is only a Relation and what constitutes it what is the efficient the instrument and the condition of it these with much more of the like nature filled many Books some years ago The strict sense of Iustification as it is a legal term and opposite to Condemnation is the absolution of a Sinner which is not to be solemnly done till the final Sentence is pronounced after death or at the day of Judgment But as men come to be in the state to which those Sentences do belong they in a freer form of speech are said to be justified or condemned And as they who do not believe are under condemnation and said to be condemned already that is they are liable to that Sentence and under those Characters that belong to it blindness obduration of heart and the Wrath and Judgments of God So such Believers to whom the Promises of the Gospel belong and on whom the final Sentence shall be pronounced justifying them are said now to be justified since they are now in the state to which that belongs They have the Characters of it upon them Faith Repentance and Renovation of heart and life by which they come to be in the favour and under the protection of God The Gospel is of the nature of a publick Amnesty in which a Pardon is offered to all Rebels who return to their duty and live peaceably in obedience to the Law and a day is prefixed to examine who has come in upon it and who has stood out upon which final Acts of Grace or Severity are to pass It is then plain that though every man is pardoned in the strictness of Law only by the final Sentence yet he is really in the construction of Law pardoned upon his coming within the Terms on which it is offered and thus men are justified who do truly repent of and forsake their sins who do sincerely believe not only the truth of the Gospel in general but do so firmly believe every part of it that acts proportioned to that belief arise out of it when they depend so much on the Promises that they venture all things in hope of them and do so receive the Rules and Laws given in it that they set themselves on obeying them in the course of their whole life and in a most particular manner when they lay claim to the Death of Christ as their Sacrifice and the means of their Reconciliation with such a Repentance as changes their inward Natures and Principles and such a Faith as purifies their hearts and makes them become new Creatures These are the Conditions of this Covenant and they are such Conditions that upon lower than these it became not the Infinite Purity and Holiness of God to offer us pardon or to receive us into his favour For without these the Mercies and Favours of the Gospel had been but the opening a Sanctuary to Criminals and the giving encouragement to Sin if a few howlings to God for mercy and the earnest imploring it for the sake of Christ and on the account of his Death would serve turn This every man under the least agony of thought will be apt to do especially when death seems to be near him and yet be still in all
the Holy Ghost fell visibly on Cornelius and his Friends Can any man forbid water that those should not be baptized who have received the Holy Ghost as well as we And with this he settled the minds of those who were a little offended at that action This shews that no pretence to a high dispensation of the Spirit can evacuate that Precept since on the contrary an evidence of the giving the Holy Ghost was pleaded as an Argument for baptizing Nor does any one passage in which Baptism is mentioned in the New Testament limit it to that time and intimate that it belonged only to the beginnings of Christianity or that it was to determine when it was more fully setled so that this with the constant practice of all succeeding Ages without a shadow of any Exception must conclude us as to this Point Our Saviour did also appoint the other Sacrament to be continued in remembrance of him by which St. Paul says we shew forth his death till he come Now these words cannot be understood of any supposed inward and spiritual coming since the most signal coming in that sense was the effusion of the Holy Ghost at Pentecost and yet after that time the Apostles continued to practice it and delivered it to the Churches as a Precept still obligatory till Christ should come If then we ought still to remember him and shew forth his death if it is the Communion of his Body and Blood if it is the new Covenant in his Blood for the remission of sins then as long as these things are Duties incumbent on us so long we must be under the obligation of eating that Bread and drinking that Cup. Further If Christ has left different Gifts to different Orders of men some Apostles some Prophets some Evangeliste and some Pastors and Teachers for the perfecting the Saints for the work of the Ministry and for edifying the Body of Christ till we come unto a perfect man and are no more in danger of being tossed to and fro and carried away with every wind of doctrine These words do plainly import That as long as mankind is under the frailties of this present state and in this confused Scene that some of these Orders must still be continued in the Church and that those Rules and Preceps given to Timothy and Titus concerning such as were to be ordained Bishops or Elders that is Priests and Diacons were to be lasting and standing Rules for indeed if the design had not been to establish that Order for the succeeding Ages there was less need of it in that in which there was such a plentiful Measure of the Spirit poured out upon all Christians that such Functions in that time might have been well spared if it had not been for this that they were then to be setled under the Patronage if I may so speak of the Apostles themselves from whom they were to receive an Authority which how little necessary soever it might seem in that wonderful time yet was to be more needed in the succeeding Ages Therefore we may well conclude That whatsoever was ordered concerning those Offices or Officers of the Church in the first Age was by a stronger parity of reason to be continued down through all the Ages of the Church and in particular if in that time in which Women received the Gifts of the Holy Ghost so that some prophesied and others laboured much in the Lord that is in the Gospel yet St. Paul did in two different Epistles particularly restrain them from teaching or speaking in the Church to which he adds That it was a shame for Women to speak in the Church that is it might turn to be a reproach to the Christian Religion and furnish Scoffers with some colours of exposing it to the scorn of the Age. This was to be much more strictly observed when all those extraordinary Characters that might seem to be exemptions from common Rules did no longer continue As for those distinctions into which they have cast themselves of the Hat and the denying Titles and speaking in the singular Thou and Thee it is to be considered That how unfit soever it be and how unbecoming Christians to be conformed to this world yet it rather lessens than heightens the great Idea that the world ought to have of the Christian Religion when it states a diversity among men about meer Trifles Our Saviour and his Apostles complied as much in all innocent Customs as they avoided all sinful ones Honour to whom honour is due is a standing Duty and though the bowing the Body and falling prostrate are postures that seem liker Idolatry and more abject in their nature than the Hat yet the very Prophets of God paid these respects to Kings Outward Actions or Gestures signify only what is entended to be expressed and what is generally understood by them so that what is known to be meant only for a piece of Civil respect can never be stretched to a Religious respect and though that abject homage under which the Iewish Rabbies had brought their Disciples and which they had exprest in Titles that imported their profound submission to them was reproved by our Saviour yet we see that the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sir or Lord was then used as commonly as we now do since Mary Magdalen called him whom shee took for a Gardener Sir or Lord. And St. Paul gave Festus the Title which belonged to his Office it being the same that Claudius Lysias gave Felix who certainly was not wanting in that and that being the Title of men of Rank St. Luke adresses both his Books to Thephilus designing him in one ofthem in the same manner Words signify nothing of themselves as they are meer sounds but according to the signification in which men agree to use them so if the speaking to one man in the plural number is understood only as a more respectful way of treating him then the plural is in this case really but a singular Indeed these things scarce deserve to be so narrowly lookt into The Scruple against Swearing is more important both to them and to the Publick They have indeed the appearance of a plain Command of our Saviour's against all manner of Swearing which is repeated by St. Iames but this must be restricted to their communication according to the words that follow since we find Swearing not only commanded in the Old Testament but practised in the New The Apostles swear at every time they say God is witness and more solemnly when God is called for a record upon their Soul The Angel of God lifts up his hand and swears by him that lives for ever and ever God swears by himself and an Oath for confirmation that is for affirming any matter is the end of all Controversy We find our Saviour himself answered upon Oath when adjured by the High Priest to tell If he was the