with Perseverance unto the End in conjunction with it Then the Answer of Paul and Silas is the short Summary of the Gospel and they might well promise Salvation to whosoever should accomplish the purpose of it That this indeed is the Importance may appear by the words of our blessed Saviour who having been asked by a Iew as Paul and Silas by a Gentile what Course was to be taken whereby to inherit Eternal Life gave him an Answer which some may censure as too much savouring of the Law but yet it seems not unsuitable to the oeconomy of the Gospel If thou wilt enter into life keep the Commandments Now in as much as Paul and Silas did not teach another Doctrin but the same in other words with their Master Christ they must needs be understood to have given This Answer That if the Jailour should so believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as to imitate his Example and yield obedience to his Commands and continue so to do all the days of his life he should not fail in that Case of his being sav'd And though the Rule is very true That nothing is wanting in any Sentence which is of necessity understood which well might justifie Paul and Silas in the conciseness of their expression Yet not contented with this excuse they rather chose not to want it by speaking largely to the Jailour the Word of God After the very same manner § 13. That the People may not wrest the outward Letter of the Scripture to their Damnation we must carefully explain and disentangle it to their Safety If any of Us shall be consulted by either Believers or Unbelievers about the means of their being sav'd we have two ways of Answer and both exact but both are to be taken cum grano salis and with a due Interpretation We may answer with our Saviour They are to keep the Commandments or else with Paul and Silas that they are to believe in the Lord Iesus Christ. But if the former we must add This is the chief of the Commandments that we believe on the Name of the Lord Iesus Christ 1 Joh. 3. 23. And although we must have an inherent righteousness in part yet there is need that That of Christ be imputed to us if but to make up all the wants and the vacuities of our own For our own is no better than filthy Rags if impartially compar'd with our double Rule to wit The Doctrin and Life of Christ. We must negotiate indeed with the Talents of Grace that we may not be cast into outer Darkness yet so as to judge our selves at best to be unprofitable Servants weigh'd with the Greatness of our Redeemer and with the Richness of our Reward Or if we give them the second Answer we must also speak to them the Word of God We must explain what it is to believe in Christ and by the help of some Distinctions duly consider'd and apply'd teach them to see through all the Fallacies and flatten the edge of all objections which are oppos'd to the Necessity of strict obedience and good works When any Iustifying Vertue is given to Faith we must tell them it is meant of Faith unfeigned When we speak of the Sufficiency of Faith unfeigned we must shew them how Love is the Spirit of Faith Whether because in the Active it works by Love or else because in the Passive in which the Syriac and Tertullian translate the word by works of Charity and Obedience Faith is wrought and made perfect When we celebrate the force of a lively Faith we must season it with a Note that Faith is dead being alone When 't is said out of St. Paul that we are justified by Faith without the Deeds of the Law 't is fit we add out of St Iames that we are justified by Works and not by Faith only For to shew that St. Iames does not either contradict or confute St. Paul The Works excluded by St. Paul are no other than the Deeds of the Ceremonial Law And those included by St. Iames are no other than the Works of the Moral Law So we are justified by Faith as the Root of Works and we are justified by Works as the Fruit of Faith Not by Faith without Works for then St. Iames would not be Orthodox nor yet by Works without Faith for then we could not defend St. Paul but by such a Faith as worketh and by such Works as are of Faith By Both indeed improperly as being but necessary Conditions But very properly by Christ as being the sole meritorious Cause Again because 't is very natural for Carnal Professors of Christianity so to enhaunce the Price of Faith as to depretiate good Works and make obedience to pass at the cheaper Rate They must be told that when our Saviour ascribes the moving of Mountains and other Miracles to Faith He does not speak of That Faith which is a Sanctifying Grace Gal. 5. 22. but of that Faith alone which is an Edifying Gift 1 Cor. 12. 9. by which a man may do wonders and yet be damn'd Matth â— 22 23. So when he said unto the Ruler who had besought him to heal his bed-rid Daughter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Only Believe He only meant it was sufficient for the healing of her â—ody without alluding in any measure unto the saving of her Soul So far he was in that place from giving any ground of hope to a Solifidian And therefore briefly let it suffice me to say once for all That when we find men Believers without good Life we must shew them how many ways a man may be a Believer without true Faith may be justified in the Praemisses yet not sav'd in the Conclusion may get no more by his Knowledge than to be beaten with many stripes and have no more of a Saviour than to be damn'd by We must instruct them to distinguish betwixt the Act and the Habit of their Believing But above all betwixt a Speculative and a Practical Belief A Belief in the Heads and the Hearts of men A Belief which does consist with a drawing back unto Perdition and That by which a man believes unto the saving of the Soul § 14. Stand forth therefore Thou Antinomian or Thou Fiduciary or whosoever else Thou art who art a sturdy Believer without true Faith and ever namest the Name of Christ without departing from Iniquity Try thy self by this Touchstone which lyes before thee and examin whether thy Heart be not as apt to be deceiptful as 't was once said to be by the Prophet Ieremy Let the Tempter that is without make thee as credulous as he can And let the Traytor that is within make thee as confident as he will of thy Faith in Christ yet Thou wilt find when all is done there is exceeding great Truth in the Spanish Proverb That 't is a very hard Thing to believe in God And so very few there are who attain unto it
in Churches are no Swearers or Sabbath-Breakers they have therefore discharged their Duty towards God notwithstanding their dishonouring of Publick Parents their Killing their Cousening and their bearing False-witness Such as these must be taught by the Answer of this Master to this Inquiry that their chiefest Duty towards God is their Duty towards their Neighbour and that their Godliness is but Guile whilst they acknowledge the true God and yet disown his Vicegerent Abhor Idols and yet commit Sacrilege Scruple at vain or common Swearing but yet dissemble and lye and enter into Solemn Covenants against their many most sacred and praevious Oaths whilst they are strict Sabbatizers but disorderly walkers six days in the week ever putting on the Form but ever denying the Power of Godliness The Good Master in the Text will not thus be serv'd by us for he expects good Servants too And to our being good Servants there is nothing more needful than that we be honest and upright men In this especially saith our Saviour consists the way to Eternal Life So that the Liberty and Freedom so much spoken of in the Gospel is a Manumission from Satan and not from Christ who did not live our Example that we might not imitate him or praescribe us Praecepts that we might not obey them No the Liberty of the Gospel doth only make us the more his Servants And though his Service is perfect Freedom yet doth it not cease to be a Service For as he that is called in the Lord being a Servant is the Lord's Free-man so is He the Lord's Servant who is called being free 1 Cor. 7. 22. We are not said with greater Truth to be infranchiz'd by the Gospel than to have made an exchange of Masters We were before Servants to Sin But now to Righteousness Before to Satan but now to Christ. We did before serve an Hard Master but now a Good one And this I come to shew at large upon My second Doctrinal Proposition That our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is not any severe Egyptian Master But a Master full of Mercy and Loving kindness And this he is in two Respects In respect of the Work which he requires which is not foesible only but pleasant And of the Wages which he promiseth Aeternal Life He is for each of these Reasons 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A Good Master § 1. That he is a good Master and a good Master in perfection we may discern by the particulars of which a perfect good Master must be compos'd For He who exacts no more Duty than we are able to discharge and yet affords a greater Recompence than we are able to deserve He who sets us such a Task as is not only always possible but most times easy nor only easy to be perform'd but also pleasant in the performance He who treateth his Servants as Friends and Brethren as if he were their Fellow-Servant or indeed his Servants Servant He who when he takes upon him the most of Mastership and Empire commands his Servants no meaner things than he Himself in his Person hath done before them He who when he is affronted is very easily reconcil'd and even sues to his Servants for Reconcilement He whose work is worth the doing because to do it is a Reward and yet rewards it when it is done above all that we are able to ask or think He is sure a good Master and a good Master in perfection even as good as we are able to wish or fancy And just such a Master is Iesus Christ. He is the Master that makes us Free Gal. 5. 1. the Master whose Service is perfect Freedom Rom. 6. 18 22. The Master that frees us from all other Masters besides Himself The Master that bids us call no man Master upon Earth For one is our Master and He in Heaven Matth. 23. 10. § 2. Indeed if Moses were our Master and none but He Our Case were then very hard For He requireth more Service than we are able to perform and pronounceth a Curse in case we do not perform it and yet affords not any strength whereby to adapt us for the performance But yet however he is an hard Master he is not a Cruel or an Unjust one because he is an hard Master in order to a just and a gracious End That is he drives us from Himself to make us look out for a better Master He gives us a Law by which we cannot be justified Gal. 2. 16. that we may seek to be justified by somewhat else He pronounceth a Curse to as many as are of the works of the Law that he may fright us into His Arms who hath redeemed us from the Curse by being made a Curse for us Gal. 3. 13. In a word he is our Schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ that being under Christ we may be no longer under a Schoolmaster Gal. 3. 24 25. And thus having ascended from Moses to Christ from the hard Master to the mild One we are no longer under the Tyranny and Exactions of the Law but under the Kingdom and State of Grace Rom. 6. 14. no longer in bondage under the Elements of the World Gal. 4. 3. but have received the Adoption of Sons v. 5. We are no longer under a Master who can only forbid Sin but we are now under a Master who can forgive it No longer under a hard Master who the longer we serve him keeps us in bondage so much the more But we are now under a Good one who turns our Service into Sonship translating us into Heirs and Coheirs with Himself v. 7. § 3. But here it cannot be deny'd That if we look upon Christ as nothing more than a Master who came not to abrogate but to fill up the Law Matth. 5. 17. our Condition is not better but rather worse than it was before For Christ is stricter in his Precepts than Moses was and seems to have set us an harder Task He commands us to forgive and to love our Enemies Not to look upon a Woman with the Adultery of the Eye to rejoyce in Persecutions and to leap for Ioy when we are Mourners He commands us to fight with all that is in the World and not to give over fighting until we conquer I therefore say with all that is in the World because as the Sublunary World was divided of old before the Times of Columbus and Americus Vesputius into these three parts Europe Asia and Africa to wit the parts of That World which was created by God alone so St. Iohn in his first Epistle hath divided the World of Sin and Wickedness the World created by Men and Devils For as he tells us in one place That the whole World lyeth in wickedness like a Net cast into the Sea so he tells us in another That All that is in the World is the lust of the flesh the lust of the eye and the pride of life And methinks This Trichotomy hath
with Silas in soothing up the poor Iailour and sowing Pillows under his Elbowes which is no better than to dawb with untemper'd Morter to lead their Convert into a Paradise wherein there lurks both an old and a cunning Serpent A Serpent apt to persuade him and by the help of this Text That though there are in the Gospel which is the Garden of God a great many sorts of forbidden fruit yet 't is so far from being deadly that 't is not dangerous to taste it as the best of God's Children have ever done so long as he can eat of the Tree of Faith too which is not only better tasted but also wholsomer by far than the Tree of Knowledge by being grafted on the stock of the Tree of Life What I say might be the Motive which induced Paul and Silas to give this Answer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Believe and be sav'd Is there more than This needful or is there not If any thing more than this is needful for the attainment of Salvation why then did They conceal it and that from one who even thirsted after a full Draught of Knowledge What was the All he was to do that he might be sav'd Or if This is so sufficient that nothing more than this is needful what Necessity is there of preaching or of learning any thing else For as when it was said by our Blessed Saviour It is easier for a Camel to pass the Eye of a Needle than for a Rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven his Disciples ask't presently Who then can be sav'd so when to One that had inquired what he must do that he might be sav'd no other Answer was given by Paul and Silas than that he must believe in the Lord Iesus Christ It may be ask't with as good reason who then can be damn'd For thus we see the way to Heaven is not only made Broader but less incumber'd than That to Hell The Flock of Christ is made a great and a numerous Flock So as The Kingdom of Heaven is but improperly compar'd unto a Pearl of great Price which a Merchant sold all that he had to purchase since one may have it for a Believing in the Lord Iesus Christ. All which being Absurdities and very profanely inconsistent with the Veracity of our Saviour may seem to speak Paul and Silas to be a Couple of gross Casuists for having given the Jailour's Quaere so lame and partial a Resolution But This again is an Absurdity as little allowable as the former For besides that All Scripture is of Divine Inspiration and Paul and Silas in particular had been acknowledged by The Daemoniack in the 17th Verse of this Chapter to be The Servants of the most high God who shew unto us the way of Salvation The Text which now lyes before us may be justified by a Parallel out of our Saviour's own Mouth For having been asked by the People who flock't about him at Capernaum what they should do that they might work the work of God John 6. 28. This reply'd our blessed Lord is the work of God That ye BELIEVE on Him whom He hath sent v. 29. In so much that to obviate and to satisfie all Objections we must not quarrel or suspect but meekly study to understand and explain the Text. Which I shall first attempt to do by a full Division and after That not by a curious but by a pertinent and useful Tractation of it § 5. First to Divide the Text aright and so as that it may contain an Explication of its Importance we must view and review it in its double relation to the Context I mean in its Dependance on the words going before and its Cohaerence with the two Verses which do immediately follow after The words before are an Inquiry touching the Thing of all the World which is to every man living of greatest moment even the Necessary Means of his being sav'd This is the Ground and the Occasion and Introduction to the Text. The Text it self is an obscure because a short Resolution of That Inquiry And the two Verses coming after do very happily though briefly and so indeed the less plainly expound it to us The Inquiry was made by the frighted Iailour of Philippi The Resolution is given by Paul and Silas The Exposition is St. Luke's to whom we also owe the Narrative and the Contexture of the whole The Text abstractively consider'd does afford at first view but a single Act and a single Object Yet in relation to the Context each of these is twofold one whereof is express'd and the other imply'd First the Object here express'd is in sensu composito The Lord Iesus Christ. And this is Objectum formale Quod. It is not Christ without Iesus nor is it Iesus without The Lord. For That were the gross and common Fallacy A benè conjunctis ad malè divisa which yet the Flesh of most Professors is apt to impose upon their spirits He is in all his Three Offices to be the Object of our Belief And in his Three special Titles his Threefold Office is here included His Prophetical in the first his Priestly in the second and his Kingly in the third If Salvation is the end and if we aspire to have it also the event of our Belief we must impartially believe in the whole Messias Not as Iesus only a Saviour no nor only as Christ a King but undividedly and at once as the Lord Iesus Christ. This is the Object of our Faith which is here express'd Next the Word of God preach'd is the object of our Faith which is here imply'd And as the men of the Schools do love to word it This is Fidei objectum formale Quo. For as Faith cometh by Hearing and Hearing by the Word of God which Word cannot be heard without a Preacher so no sooner was it said by Paul and Silas that the Jailour must believe in the Lord Iesus Christ but in the next breath it follows They spake unto him the WORD of God v. 32. They had in vain told him he must had they not taught him how he might And therefore they did not only possess him with the necessity of his believing But in tenderness to his Soul they straight afforded him the means too They did not train up their Convert like the Catechists of Rome only to believe as the Church believes that is to say by a blind and implicit Faith making Ignorance and Credulity the only Parents of Devotion But they built up his Faith on the Foundation of the Scriptures That by the knowledge of some Praemisses which he might easily comprehend he might attain to a Belief of what was yet Incomprehensible To beget in him a solid and a well-grounded Faith such as whereof he might be able to give a rational Accompt they both exhorted him to believe in and also preached to him the WORD of the Lord Jesus Christ the object of our Faith which
we need Bridles to hold them fast § 15. It may perhaps be one Motive to moderation of Mind and to a Christian's not seeking Great Things for himself that Iesus Christ our great Exemplar did for Himself seek the least was pleas'd to empty himself of Glory became of no Reputation made it his choice to be so poor as not to have where to lay his head and thô he was born of the Blood Royal the House of David did choose to take upon him the Form of a very mean Subject and to live on Their Charity who administred to him of their Substance Luke 8. 3. Nor was This only the option of God Incarnate the blessed Redeemer of the World our Lord Jesus Christ whose coming was to destroy the Works of the Devil the Pomps and Vanities of the World with the sinful Lusts of the Flesh as well by his Practice and Example as by his Praecepts But All the Wisest and the Best even of meer moral men thô they had no Light to go by but that of Nature and Education had yet such a Mastery over themselves such a right Apprehension of human Conditions and Affairs had such an Insight into the Things which the World calls Great and did so seriously depretiate the Pomps and Vanities of the World coveting Poverty rather than Wealth and courting obscurity rather than Honour that most Professors of Christianity may be provoked by them to jealousy if not prevailed upon effectually unto a generous aemulation Such as the famous Abdolonymus who however he was by Birth of Royal Family and Extraction was yet by Breeding but a poor Gardiner in the Suburbs of Sidon where he work't out all his Bread at his fingers ends and so accordingly did eat it in the Sweat of his Brows A Condition so duly fitted to the Humility of his Desires that when created King of Sidon by Alexander the Great he was ask't with what Patience he could indure his late Poverty I would to God answer'd He I could as well indure a Kingdom Hae manus suffecêre desiderio meo nihil habui nihil defuit He said his Hands had been sufficient to administer to his Necessities and that the Things which he had not he did not want The choice he made of his Employment brings Democritus into my memory who made the same For having travell'd through the World whereby to gain a full Experience and Knowledge of it he chose at last a deep Poverty and a confinement to his Garden wherein he satisfied his Body with the Productions of the Earth and feasted his Soul with Contemplation The Pomps and Vanities of the World at the Miseries of which Heraclitus wept He daily laugh't at And thô the Vulgar thought him a Madman for his Recess from all Company yet Hippocrates who was sent to cure him of it as a Physician was compell'd by his Discourse to admire his Wisdom and pronounced Them mad who had so esteem'd him And truly Crates of Thebes may with Somebody's profit be here remember'd who being both Rich and a Philosopher turn'd his Land into Mony and put his Mony to the Banker on this Condition That if his Sons did prove Fools he should supply their Wants with it but if Philosophers he should deal out all his Treasure to the most indigent of the City It having been really his opinion that Fools want Mony however Rich whilst Wise-men thô Poor are in need of nothing Now whether This is the true History or That which is told us by Philostratus That Crates threw his whole Estate into the Sea as having found it a great Impediment to the Prosperity of his Studies and the Tranquillity of his Life it matters not much because his Judgment does appear by Both Accompts of his Practice to have been This that in very much of the World there 's very much Trouble and Solicitude and that the more any man has the more he has of disturbance and interruption the more he has to be carking and caring for whether as to its Use or its Conservation The Emperour Sigismund I am sure did find it so to some purpose when having brought him out of Hungary a Chest of Gold ready coyn'd he could never sleep well till he parted with it For he could not saith Cuspinian but still be thinking either where he might keep it with greatest safety or how lay it out to the most Advantage Therefore calling to him his Counsellors with the chief Officers of his Army and all his Lifeguard more especially he caus'd his Chest to be laid open and his Forty thousand Pieces a great Treasure Then thrown out amongst them Those he call'd his Tormentors his Murderers his cruell'st Enemies and his Lictors which would not suffer him to rest by reason of the lashes they laid upon him all Night without remorse or intermission This 't is plain is not impertinent to the Discourse I am upon thô impertinent in comparison with all those Emperours and Kings and other Persons more signal whom I might reckon if I had Time upon This occasion But desirous to comply with the Time allow'd I shall not Instance in as many but in as few as I am able of most Remarque Such as are the Three Scipio's in whom the Roman Historians and the best of the Greek ones do justly triumph The chief of These was Africanus the glorious Downfall of Carthage and Staff of Rome as his Paternal Name Scipio does well import One who grew to such an Highth of Worldly Happiness and Renown that there was nothing now left to make him Higher but his Humility He did not only refuse the Offer of having his Statue signaliz'd in the highest Places but that of Consulship during Life and that of perpetual Dictator also Yea if Polybius may be credited who had most reason to know both in Asia and Europe as well as Africa he did many times refuse to be made a King And This Polybius calls often not the Poverty or the Lowness as the men of this Age would be apt to call it but as it was in good earnest the Highth and Greatness of Scipio's Spirit I am perswaded says Lucius Seneca that Scipio ' s Soul went up to Heaven not because as a Commander he led so many and great Armies but because of That Piety by which he triumph't over Himself Not so much because he saved as because having saved he LEFT his Country Nor because he left the Service but the Honours and the Wealth and Injoyments of it It was the Littleness and Obscurity of his House at Linternum which made that Philosopher admire his Greatness It was his lying close hid in a little Corner turning his Spear into a Plough-share and his Sword into a Pruning-hook and labouring with his own hands in dressing and cultivating the Earth which made this Great man who transcended All others at the last to exceed and transcend Himself 'T was in his Cloud he shin'd brightest