that teach the contrary 1. AS for that Text which we deferred to speak to we shall now take it into consideration It was Gal. 2.16 Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law but by the faith of Iesus Christ even we have believed in Iesus Christ that we might be justified by the faith of Christ and not by the works of the Law For by the works of the Law shall no flesh be justified From this place of Scripture also there are some that would inferre a superannuating and annulling of all moral honesty and reall Righteousness whatever pretending that nothing but mere Faith is required to make us approvable before God And indeed they fansy that this whole Epistle administers invincible arguments to maintain this mischievous Conclusion though there be not to any indifferent Judge any solid reason of so full a confidence Which we shall easily understand if we take notice that the designe of this Epistle is only to reduce those Galatians again to the truth of Christianity that were almost apostatizing to Iudaisme and the Ceremonial Law of Moses Ye observe dayes and moneths and times and years I am afraid of you lest I have bestowed labour on you in vain Chap. 4.10 11. But the main scope of the Apostle is against Circumcision as is plain upon the very first perusall of the Epistle which he beating down together with the Law of Moses and extolling the Faith in Christ seems sometimes to excuse a man from walking according to the moral Law under the pretence of Faith in Christ. But as S. Peter hath well observed there be many things in S. Pauls Epistles hard to be understood which foolish men pervert to their own destruction But that we be not led into the same errour and mischief it will be of no small concernment to trace the footsteps of S. Paul that so we may wind our selves out of this dangerous Maze or Labyrinth 2. Whereas then he seems to nullifie or vilifie at least the Law in the advancing of that Righteousnesse that is by faith let us see what this Righteousnesse that is by faith and what that of the Law is Chap. 2.19 For I through the Law am dead to the Law that I might live unto God I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless I live yet not I but Christ liveth in me I through the Law am dead unto the Law what a riddle is this that the Law should deprive it self of its disciples And yet it doth so For it is a Schoolmaster to Christ or rather an Usher which when it hath well tutour'd us and castigated us removes us up higher to be made in Christ perfect who is the perfection of the Law But the Law it self makes nothing perfect and this is the reason that Righteousness is not of the Law And to this purpose speaks the Apostle in this very Epistle at the 21 verse of the 3. Chapter Is the Law then against the promises of God God forbid For if there had been a law given which could have given life verily righteousnesse should have been by the Law 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A law that could enliven and enquicken us But that is beyond the power of the Law That 's the title and prerogative of Christ who is the Way the Truth and the Life I am the Resurrection and the Life he that believeth in me though he were dead yet shall he live and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die Joh. 11. This therefore is the Righteousness of Faith or belief far above the Righteousness of the Law or killing letter 3. Wherefore when this Faith is come that worketh us up to a living frame of Righteousness within us we are no longer under the servility of the Law of Moses but are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus Now none are the children of God but those that are led by the Spirit of God as the Apostle elsewhere witnesseth in his Epistle to the Romans And those that have the Spirit of God what fruits they bring forth is amply set out by the Apostle in this to the Galatians chap. 5. v. 22. The fruit of the Spirit is love joy peace long-suffering gentlenesse goodnesse faith meeknesse temperance against such there is no law For indeed there is no need of it they being a law unto themselves So we see how those that are in Christ are not under the Law because that inward fountain of obedience or living law in their hearts is above it They do really and truly fulfill it through the Spirit that is by faith For that Spirit is the begetter of Love and Love is the fulfilling of the Law For all the Law is fulfilled in one word even in this Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy self Gal. 5.14 This I say then walk in the Spirit and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh and these are contrary one to another that ye may not do the things ye would Which certainly is the true and genuine sense of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Grotius also has noted And these are contrary that is to say oppose one the other namely the Spirit the flesh 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to the end you may not do those things that your own corrupt will or carnall minde inclines you to which naturally coheres with what follows But if you be led by the Spirit you are not under the Law For against such there is no law as was said before Which implyes if they be not led by the Spirit they are liable to the curse of the Law to death hell and damnation For so also speaks the Apostle when he hath reckoned up the works of the flesh That they that do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God ver 21. And v. 25. he openly declares That they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its passions and lusts 4. So we see plainly that the Righteousnesse that is of faith is not a mere Chimaera or phansie but a more excellent Righteousness then that of the Law For the Law is no quickening spirit but a dead letter But Christ is the Resurrection and the Life And he is God our righteousness mighty to save and can with ease destroy the powers of death darkness and the Devil out of the Soul of man but we must have the patience to endure the work wrought in us by him I live yet not I but Christ liveth in me And if we will still cloak and cover our foul corrupt hearts with forged conceits of Hypocrisie's own making and excuse our selves from being good to one another or to our selves because God in Christ is so good to us hear what the Apostle speaks in the sixth and last Chapter of this Epistle at the seventh verse Be not deceived God is not mocked For whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also
this was in stead of all other Righteousness to him and that he was reputed as righteous all over now although he were not so at all in any other things 7. Now for Iustification we shall best understand the meaning of the word from the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 First therefore besides the forensal acception 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies to be just Gen. 38.26 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thamar is more righteous then I. So Eccles. 31.5 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He that loves gold will not be just Secondly it signifies to appear just Psa. 51.4 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is that thou maist plainly appear or approve thy self to be just And Psal. 143. â— For in thy sight no man living 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shall appear just Thirdly and lastly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies to make just and pure to free from vice and sinfulness Psalm 73. v. 13. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Therefore have I cleansed my heart in vain And Eccles. 18.22 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nec tuam probitatem usque ad mortem differas saies the Translation And Rom. 6.7 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He that is dead is freed from sin Also Act. 13.39 And by him all they that believe are justified from all things from which ye could not be justified by the Law of Moses i. e. Ye are more throughly cleansed and purged from sin and wickedness then you could be ever under the Law of Moses Which is consonant to other passages in Scripture as That the Law makes nothing perfect and again If there had been a Law that could have given life then verily righteousness might have been of the Law And now we have found out a warrantable sense of these words we shall be able more expeditely to discover the sense of the foregoing places of Scripture alledged for this pernicious conceit of a Christians being righteous without any real Righteousness in him 8. Wherefore to that in the 4. to the Romans whose force will be the greater if we adde that also which is written a little before in the 3 chap. v. 28. Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the Law and what he inferrs also vers 9. That Iews and Gentiles and all are under sin Wherein the meaning of the Apostle is to magnifie as was most fit the ministration of the Gospel and so he signifies to the world that whatsoever is discovered hitherto is imperfect lapsed and ruinous all but weak and sinful before the coming in of Christ even the works of the Law themselves and that smooth external Righteousness of mere Morality and Ceremony So that all the world are found guilty before God and by the deeds of the Law there shall be no flesh justified in his sight For by the Law is but the knowledge of sin vers 20. it gives no strength to perform Wherefore now reckoning nothing upon all these things we are as it were to begin the world again and to endeavour after such a Righteousness as is by Faith in Christ Jesus and not to rest in any thing that may be done by the ordinary power of the flesh but to aspire after that Righteousness which is communicable to us by that Spirit which raised Jesus Christ from the dead But neither Abraham nor any one else can be justified by any carnal righteousness of their own but that highly-spiritual act of Abraham reaching beyond the common rode of Nature who against hope believed in hope that was that which commended Abraham so much to God And thus from the Example of Abraham would the Apostle commend the Christian faith to the world and in particular to the Jews the Offspring of Abraham For at the end of the fourth chapter he makes this use of Abraham's faith being imputed to him for Righteousness that is reputed by God as a very excellent good act as it indeed was that we might also be brought off to believe on him that raised up â—esus our Lord from the dead who was delivered for our offences and raised again for our justification In which verse are contained the two grand priviledges of the Gospel that is the forgiveness of sins upon the satisfaction of Christs death and the justifying of us that is the making of us just and holy through a sound faith in him that raised Jesus from the dead Which interpretation the 11 verse of the 8 Chapter doth sufficiently countenance But if the Spirit of him that raised up Iesus from the dead dwell in you he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortall bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you viz. to Righteousness as is plain out of the foregoing verse And if Christ be in you the body is dead because of sin but the Spirit is life because of righteousnesse that is The body of death which we desire to be delivered from as the Apostle speaks appears by the presence of Christ in us to be thus deadly a body by reason of sin we feeling for the present nothing but an heavy indisposition to all holinesse and goodnesse in the body and its affections and all sinfulnesse and unclean Atheisticall suggestions from the flesh which is death to the Soul For to be carnally-minded is death So that by reason of the sinfulnesse of our body and the sad heavinesse thereof it appears as deadly and ghastly a thing to us as Mezentius his tying the living and the dead together when once Christ is in us but our Life is then that Righteousnesse which is of the Spirit we finding a comfortable warmth and pleasure in the gratefull arrivals of that holy and Divine sensation But he that raised Christ from the dead will in due time even quicken these our mortall bodies or these dead bodies of ours and make them conspire and come along with ease and chearfulnesse and be ready and active complying Instruments in all things with the Spirit of Righteousness Which belief is a chief Point in the Christian Faith and most of all parallel to that of Abraham's who believing in the Goodness and Power and Faithfulness of God had when both himself and his wife Sara were dry and dead as to natural generation and so hopeless of ever seeing any fruit of her womb who had I say Isaac born to him who bears Ioy and Laughter in the very Name of him and was undoubtedly a Type of Christ according to the Spirit For Isaac is the Wisedom Power and Righteousness of God flowing out and effectually branching it self so through all the Faculties both of mans Soul and Body that the whole man is carried away with joy and triumph to the acting all whatsoever is really and substantially good even with as much satisfaction and pleasure as he eats when he is hungry and drinks when he is dry And thus by our entrance and progress in so holy a
be not to act according to it and to act contrary thereto intolerable For it were the wounding and tormenting a principle of life in us or the Spirit of Christ in us whereby we are not only aided and assisted to every good work but take a natural delight therein whereas under the Mosaical law we have no conformity of Spirit to either the purer Moral precepts or any complacency in the luggage of a company of insipid and burdensome Ceremonies and yet the Mosaical Dispensation though it give no strength to perform what it requires yet like Pharaoh's hard task-masters requires the same tale of brick though they withhold the straw 6. And this gives us some light into the nature of the Two Covenants in reference to the Prophecie of Ieremie But it being an argument of very great consideration I will not content my self with so scant an account thereof but make a more copious deduction of the whole matter out of Paul Gal. 4. that we may the more fully understand so important a Mystery and when I have from thence discovered the excellency of the state of the Second Covenant I shall adde such things as tend to the more useful knowledge of the entrance into it and advance in it CHAP. VII 1. The different states of the Two Covenants set out Galat. 4. by a double similitude 2. The nature of the Old Covenant adumbrated in Agar 3. As also further in her Son Ismael 4. The nature of the New Covenant adumbrated in Sarah 5. As also in Isaac her Son and in Israel his offspring 6. The necessity of imitating Abraham's faith that the Spiritual Isaac or Christ may be born in us 7. The grand difference betwixt the First and Second Covenant wherein it doth consist With a direction by the by to the most eminent Object of our Faith 8. The Second main point wherein this difference consists namely Liberty and that First from Ceremonies and Opinions 9. Secondly from all kind of Sins and disallowable Passions 10. Lastly to all manner of Righteousness and Holiness 1. TEll me ye that desire to be under the Law do ye not hear the Law For it is written that Abraham had two Sons the one by a bond-maid and the other by a free-woman But he who was of the bond-woman was born after the flesh but he of the free-woman was by promise Which things are an Allegorie for these are the Two Covenants the one from the Mount Sinai which gendereth to bondage which is Agar For this Agar is Mount Sinai in Arabia and answereth to Ierusalem which now is and is in bondage with her children But Ierusalem which is above is free which is the Mother of us all Here the story of Agar and Sarah Ismael and Isaac is made to set out and that very appositely and lively the two different conditions of those that are under the Law and those that are under the Gospel that thereby the advantage and excellency of one above the other being laid open before the eyes of the Galatians they might not hereafter be any more in a tottering and fluctuating condition or sophisticate and adulterate the precious purity of the Gospel with Iudaical superfluities and useless if not now hurtfull Ceremonies but stick fast to Christ alone not going back from him to Moses nor yet mingling Mosaical Rites and Ceremonies with the plainness and sincerity of Christ. In the words we have recited there is a double Similitude We will in each first lay out the particulars of the Protases and then pass on to the Apodoses The particulars of the First are Agar Abraham's bond-woman Ismael the Son of the bond-woman and the manner of the birth of this Son of the bond-woman he was born after the flesh that is according to the ordinary course of Nature Now in the Apodosis Ierusalem that now is that is the Church of the Jews answers to Agar Abraham's bond-woman and those of that Church to Ismael the Son of the bond-woman and to the being born after the flesh the being born out of the outward letter of the Law The particulars in the Second Protasis are Sarah the free-woman and Isaac the Son of Abraham which he had of this free-woman and lastly the manner of his birth it was not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it was not after the ordinary course of Nature but the extraordinary power of God signified in his promise And now in the Apodosis Ierusalem that is from above that is the Church of true Christians answers to Sarah the Free-woman and those of that Church to Isaac the Son of the Free-woman and their being born of the Spirit not of the letter to the being born by promise not according to the flesh And now if we compare the particulars of these two Protases one with another in their due order we shall find a main difference or rather contrariety For Agar and Sarah differ as Bondage and Freedome and Ismael and Isaac as bond and free and the condition of their births as Nature and God And consequently there must arise a real difference or contrariety in the particulars of the Apodoses viz. betwixt the Old terrestrial Ierusalem and the New one from above betwixt the Jew Pharisee or outward Legalist and the true and real Christian and lastly betwixt the Flesh and the Spirit And so to speak compendiously this Text of the Apostle is nothing else but a description of the different conditions of the Two Covenants set out in an historical Allegorie taken from Agar and Sarah and their two Sons c. I shall therefore now fall upon them in that order as I have laid them out 2. And First therefore of Agar the bond-woman which signifies the Covenant of the Law given upon Mount Sinai For this Agar is Mount Sinai in Arabia Which is spoken Synecdochically from a Town there called Agra by Plinie and by Dion Agara and the people 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Greek Geographers as Grotius has pertinently observed This allusion therefore to Agar on Mount Sinai where the Law was given does commend to us more handsomely and facilitate the Allegory taken from the story of Agar and Sarah But if there were not this Geographical advantage the Application will be found very sutable and apposite even without it And much of the nature of the Old and New Covenant is hinted at even in the names themselves as in this of Agar which they ordinarily interpret Peregrina What the relation of habitude is betwixt the Soul of man and the things of the Old Covenant is very fitly set down in the meaning of this Name Agar For verily as for those things that were Positive and Ceremonial in the Law of Moses they are but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 things strange and of no affinity with the Soul and as for those things that are most precious and most indispensably good in the Law of Moses the Soul in
of glorifying God by them and laying foundations of Faith for the people to believe in him as the true Messias 2. Which belief yet he would not accelerate too fast that it might not prevent his Suffering nor yet accelerate his Suffering too fast before he had done the due preparatory works which he had to do Which made him sometime to seem unwilling to do over-publick Miracles as that at the wedding of turning water into wine and after he had fed the multitude he hid himself that they might not make him King and several times when he miraculously healed men with more privacy he strictly charged them that were thus healed to tell no man as well that he might not over-hastily precipitate belief in men as I have already intimated as also to keep himself from the rage of the Pharisees till the due time of his Suffering was at hand In the mean while his Miracles and Doctrine was to distill into the mindes of men by degrees to prepare them for a fuller belief upon his Resurrection from the dead 3. It would be too voluminous a business to rehearse the story of every particular Miracle and to descant upon it What we have thus advertised in general is most considerable and most profitable to be noted Nor need we adde any thing to facilitate the belief of them to those that are not such Infidels as not to believe the Existence of either God or Spirit For others will very easily conceive that Christ being joyn'd with that Eternal Word that healeth all things might heal those that are absent either by his word or by the Ministery of Angels who were alwaies to attend him And it is no wonder that Christ should never be mistaken in any attempt or presage he being so livingly united with the Eternal Wisdome of God and being of one Will and Spirit with him not disturb'd or distracted with any excursions or impetuosities of his own Will 4. The whifling Atheists impute all to the natural power of Imagination and please themselves mightily in the abuse of those passages in the Gospel that seem to assert that Christ was hindred from working of Miracles because of the Unbelief of the people as it is said in the Gospel of S. Mark that he could do no mighty works because of their unbelief But it was not a natural but moral impossibility he could not induce his minde thereto he being provoked to so just indignation against his own Country that despised him But say in good sadness poor blind and baffled souls How can the natural strength of Imagination heal the absent to say nothing of the present sick of ordinary diseases such as the Leprosy Palsy and Dropsie who ever cur'd those by mere Imagination How then shall Imagination recover Sight even to them that were born blind how shall it raise the dead in whom there is no Imagination at all as in Iairus his daughter and Lazarus who had lien four days in the grave Can Phansy feed five thousand men with five loaves and two fishes or four thousand besides women and children with seven loaves and a few little fishes being almost hunger-starv'd by three dayes recess into the wilderness 5. Which things though not so substantially performed are notwithstanding in some measure imitated by Witches and Magicians I mean in their junketings whose viands are observed to afford so little satisfaction to nature that they leave oftentimes the partakers of them as weak and faint almost as if they had eaten nothing as Bodinus relates of the Magical entertainments of that Nobleman of Aspremont whose guests by that time they had rid a little space from his house were ready to faint and fall down both horse and man for hunger and also to be of such a fugitive consistence that they ordinarily vanished at the taking away of the cloth whenas in both these Miracles many Baskets full of the fragments were reserved CHAP. VI. 1. Of Christs dispossessing of Devils 2. An account of there being more Daemoniacks then ordinary in our Saviours time As first from a possible want of care or skill how to order their Mad-men or Lunaticks 3. The second from the power of the Devil being greater before the coming of Christ then after 4. That not onely Excommunication but Apostasy from Christ may subject a man to the Tyranny of Satan as may seem to have fallen out in several of the more desperate Sects of this Age. 5. An enumeration of sundry Daemoniacal symptoms amongst them 6. More of the same nature 7. Their profane and antick imitations of the most solemn passages in the History of Christ. 8. A further solution of the present difficulties from the premised considerations 9. A third and fourth Answer from the same of their cure and the conflux of these Daemoniacks into one Country 10. A fifth from the ambiguity of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 11. The sixth and last Answer That it is not at all absurd to admit there was a greater number of real Daemoniacks in Christs time then at other times from the useful end of their then abounding 1. AS for our Saviours dispossessing or ejecting of Devils out of men as his raising of the dead was a pledge and prefiguration of that power he professed was given him of crowning them that believed on him with life and immortality at the last day so was this a very proper Prelude to that utter overthrow he was to give the Kingdome of Satan he being to dispossess him of all places at last There 's nothing can seem harsh to them that believe there are Spirits and none but sensuall profane and foolish men will misbelieve such things there is nothing I say can seem harsh in this kind of Miracle unless it be the multitude of persons then possessed or the multitude of Devils in one possessed person whose name was Legion 2. But as for the First there may be many Answers none whereof want their use and weight Wee 'l begin with what seems of meaner consideration first where we will not omit to mention that the Redundancy of Daemoniacks in Christs time above what we observe in later Ages may proceed from the differences of the skill and care that was then had of Mad-men and Lunaticks in Iudea and the adjacent Countries of the Gentiles from whence no small part of them came and what is used now a-daies It is I say questionable whether they had so good provision for distracted people at those times and in those places for keeping them within and ordering their distemper to the greatest mitigation they were capable of For the stronger it is the more effectual allurement is there to bring some evil Spirit or other into the body of a man For he ceasing to be his own another does the more naturally become the master of him As he that is not his own man through the soveraignty of drink will find also many other masters buisy about him all the boyes
Dispensation are we well approved of by God and being justified thus by faith we have peace with him through our Lord Iesus Christ Rom. 5.1 So that this Iustification is not a mere belief that Christ died for us in particular or that he was raised from the dead whereby anothers Righteousness is imputed to us but a believing in God that he has accepted the bloud of Christ as a Sacrifice for sin and that he is able through the power of the Spirit to raise us up to newness of life whereby we are encouraged to breath and aspire after this more inward and perfect righteousnesse Which advantages God propounds to all the hearers of the Gospel without any respect of works or former demurenesse of life if so be they will but now come in and close with this high and rich dispensation and be carried on with couragious resolutions to fight against and pull down the man of sin within themselves that this living and new way of real Divine righteousnesse may be set up and rule in their hearts I say if they be encouraged to this holy enterprise by Faith in Christ for the remission of sins and for the power of his Spirit to utterly eradicate and extirpate all inward corruption and wickednesse this Faith is presently imputed to them for Righteousnesse that is they are and are approved by God as dear children of his and as good men and are of the seed of the Promise For they are born now not of the will of man nor of the will of the flesh but of the will of God and their will is wholly set upon righteousnesse and true holinesse which they hunger and thirst after as sincerely and eagerly as ever they did after their natural meat and drink and God who feeds the young Ravens is not so cruell as to deny them this celestial food which food they reach at and as it were wrest out of his hands by Faith in the power of his Spirit whereby they account themselves able to doe all things 9. And this is the only warrantable notion that I can finde of being justified by faith Nor do those places above recited prove any other then this For that which seems to make most of all for another viz. Rom. 4.5 But to him that worketh not but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly his faith is counted for righteousness may very well be interpreted according to that tenour of sense I have already declared For that is the great and comfortable priviledge of the Gospel that without any respect of former works if so be we do but now believe remission of sins in Christ and believe in his power that justifies the ungodly i. e. that makes just the ungodly and purifies and purges them from all sin and iniquity from which by their own naturall power they could not purged and restores them to inward reall righteousnesse by the working of his Spirit this Faith is imputed for Righteousnesse For they that do thus believe are good and righteous men for matter of sincerity so that they have peace with God through the bloud of Christ and by the power of that Spirit that is now working in them are renewed daily more and more into that glorious image and desirable liberty which arises in the further conquest of the Divine life in them and makes them righteous even as Christ was righteous And now the hardest is satisfied the other places alledged will easily fall of themselves by the application of what has been said concerning this nature of Faith and Iustification 10. As for those places of Scripture that seem to attribute the Righteousness of Christ to us as where he is said to be made unto us wisedom righteousness sanctification and redemption the sense is only this that he works in us wisedom righteousness c. Otherwise it might be inferred that we shall have only an imputative Redemption and that we shall not be really saved and redeemed As for that other As by the disobedience of one man many were made sinners so by the obedience of one man many shall be made righteous I say it is a place against themselves For by Adam we became really sinners and sinful contracting original corruption from his loins therefore by Christ we are to be made really righteous And this was the end of his obedience that was obedient even to the death of the crosse that we being buried with him by baptisme into death like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father even so we also should walk in newness of life Rom. 6. Wherefore there really being no ground in Scripture for this childish mistake and it being as unreasonable that one Soul should be righteous for another as that one Body should be in health for another if I shew that the Scripture it self does expresly require of us that we be righteous and holy in our own persons there is then nothing wanting to the full discovery of this childish and ungrounded conceit of being righteous without any Righteousness residing in us 11. And in my apprehension this very Text of S. Iohn is a clear eviction of this Truth it plainly declaring that they are mistaken who ever conceit themselves righteous without doing righteousnesse or without being righteous in such a sense as Christ himself was righteous There are also several other Testimonies of the Apostles to the same purpose some whereof I have noted already as where he saith That Christ was manifested to take away our sins and that he came to destroy the works of the Devil and that he that is born of God sinneth not because the seed of God abideth in him that is a permanent Principle of Divine life and sense whereby he seeth and abhorreth whatsoever is wicked and unholy And again 1 Ioh. â— Hereby we know that we know him if we keep his commandements He that saith I know him and keepeth not his commandements is a lyar and the truth is not in him but whose keepeth his word in him verily is the love of God perfected Hereby know we that we are in him He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also to walk even as he walked Like that 2 Tim. 2.19 Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity CHAP. VI. 1. Their alledgement of Gal. 2.16 as also of the whole drift of that Epistle 2. What the Righteousnesse of faith is according to the Apostle 3. In what sense those that are in Christ are said not to be under the Law 4. That the Righteousness of faith is no figment but a reality in us 5. That this Righteousnesse is the New Creature and what this new Creature is according to Scripture 6. That the new Creature consists in Wisedom Righteousness and true Holiness 7. The Righteousnesse of the new Creature 8. His Wisedom and Holinesse 9. That the Righteousness of faith excludes not good Works The wicked treachery of those
having been contracted by our Lapse may justly by Religion be set on our score This Sincere Christian whose Character I have given will be so far from setting the Person of Christ at defiance and vilifying his Passion Intercession and holy Priesthood that he will with the greatest reverence of Devotion that can be imagined love him and adore him and will not quit that sweet Repose of minde he findes in the recounting with himself what an inestimable Friend he has with God for all the Pleasures and greatest Interests of this present life nor presume to be justified by his own Life or Works but by Faith in Christ whom he rejoices to think that he shall see his Judge at the last Day 3. This is the true and sound complexion of a Sincere Christian and he that does not faithfully endeavour to arrive at this state discovers himself to be an halting Hypocrite and one that is no Lover of the Divine Life nor has tasted the sweetness of Sanctity and of the holy Spirit of God nor known the power of his operations He that pretends to be above it he is self-condemned and betraies himself of what Kingdome he is that he is inacted by the envy of Satan against the Kingdome of Christ to antiquate his Offices and to lay aside his Person which he perswades sundry fanatical Souls to do puffing them up with the conceit of Self-perfection on purpose to exclude our Saviour The danger of which errour is no less then the utter forfeiture of their Eternal Salvation For no man shall inherit eternal life but by the donation of the crucified Iesus whom God has appointed Judge at the last day Besides that the very life and moral temper in these Revolters from the Son of God if we compare it with that of the Sincere Christian there is as much difference to them that can tast as betwixt the wilde grape and the sweet So hard a thing is it for either Nature or the Devil to imitate the true tincture of the Spirit of Christ. Their vine is the vine of Sodom and their fruit as the clusters of Gomorrah and their Churches as a field whom the Lord hath blasted there is the smell of the Sulphurous Lake and of the pit of Hell amongst them 4. The last thing I propounded was the Personal Reign of Christ upon Earth Of which Opinion as the reasons are slender or none at all so the Usefulness thereof to me invisible not knowing that it promotes any End of the Gospel which I can take notice of But that there may be a Millennium as they usually call it or a Long Period of time wherein a more excellent Reign of Christ then has manifested it self yet to the World may take place truly it seems so reasonable in it self and there are such shrewd places of Scripture seem to speak that way that it is hard for an indifferent man to gainsay it But I conceive then that the Renovation of the state of things will be as S. Peter speaks into new Heavens and new Earth wherein Righteousness shall dwell wherein real Sanctity and universal Peacefulness shall bear sway wherein the crucified Iesus shall not be onely complemented aloof off and saluted in Statues and Pictures both himself and his Mother and all his Apostles and most eminent Adherents whenas in the mean time Mars Venus and Pluto and other Idols of the Heathen are cordially lov'd and serv'd all Christendome giving themselves enormously to War and Bloudshed to Lust and Luxury to Wealth and Covetousness worshipping these Deities in Spirit and in truth but as the Divine honour done to our Saviours person shall not then cease so the power of His spirit shall be more potently felt for the unpaganizing of the World and for the destroying of this spiritual Idolatry which is the Inordinate Affections and fierce endeavours of the Animal Life and shall implant such a love and liking of the life of Christ that Peace and Righteousness shall overflow all Contentions about Opinions shall then cease they being priz'd onely by the Pride and Curiosity of the Natural man and all the goodly Inventions of nice Theologers shall then cease and all the foolish and perplexing Arguments of the disputacious Schools shall be laid aside and the Gospel alone shall be exalted in that day And truly the Millennium being in such a sense as this stated it is both probable and very desirable and an opinion that agrees with nay such as may very well further all the designes of the Gospel as any one may discern by making application to the Rules I have set down Of which Rules these few Examples may serve to shew the use and to teach a man how to extricate himself from that mighty cumbersomeness of the numerosity of Opinions whether they be suggested from his own thoughts or offer'd by other men For if he applies them to these Rules he will finde most of them either so little to the designes of the Gospel or so much against them that he will account some not worth the sifting others not worthy the naming much less the entertaining by a sober Christian. Which practises and considerations cannot but tend much to the advancement of the Gospel of Christ if diligently observ'd though but by private Christians I shall onely give some brief touch what is proper for the Magistrate to contribute for the Advancement of Christianity and then we shall conclude CHAP. X. 1 That in those that believe There is a God and a Life to come there is an antecedent Right of Liberty of Conscience not to be invaded by the Civil Magistrate 2. Object That no false Religion is the command of God with the Answer thereto 3. That there is no incongruity to admit That God may command contrary Religions in the world 4 5. The utmost Difficulty in that Position with the Answer thereto 6. That God may introduce a false perswasion into the mind of man as well for probation as punishment 7. That simple falsities in Religion are no forfeiture of Liberty of Conscience 8. That though no falsities in Religion were the command of God yet upon other considerations it is demonstrated that the Religionist ought to be free 9. A further demonstration of this Truth from the gross absurdities that follow the contrary Position 1. BEfore we can well understand the Power of the Magistrate in matters of Religion we must first consider the Common Right of Mankind in this point provided they be not degenerated into Atheisme and Prophaneness For he that believes there is no God nor Reward nor Punishment after this life what plea can he have to Liberty of Conscience or how unproper is it to talk of his Right in matters of Religion who professedly has no Religion at all nor any tie of Conscience upon him to make that wicked profession For Atheisme as it is very coursely false in it self to any man that has the clear exercise of his Reason so is