many wise not many mighty not many noble are called now if God had chosen the rich mighty and wise things of the World then many rich mighty and noble men would have imbraced the truth such things being suitable to them but on the contrary God hath chosen the foolish things of the World not the foolish men of the World that comes by accident to confound the wise and God hath chosen the weake things of the world to confound the things that are mighty and base things of the World and things that are despised hath God chosen and things that are not to bring to nought things that are and this is the reason that so few wise men after the flesh so few mighty so few noble doe yeeld obedience to the Gospel And this I conceive to bee the meaning of the place Againe 1 Cor. 2.14 But the naturall man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God for they are foolishnesse unto him neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned A naturall man that is one that hath received the spirit of this world vers 11 12. and judgeth all things according thereunto one that is altogether carnall and walks according to men according to the men of this world chap. 3.3 imbracing things present that are seene felt and tasted such a one receiveth not the things of the spirit of God for they are foolishnesse to him that is there is an enmity between the spirit of this world which dwells in him and the spirit which is of God they are contrary one to the other what one esteemes wisdome the other accounts folly the spirit which is of God perswades us that the things wee see are vaine and therefore that wee should not looke on them not behold them not labour for them not desire to be richly possest of them not to trust in them but despise them to forsake them and to seeke those things which are above the things not seene vers 9. which are freely given to us of God vers 12. and to part with all here to be possest of those things hereafter The Spirit which is of God tells us that to strive for riches honour and esteeme in this world to set our affections on things here below to blesse our selves or to measure our happinesse according to our greatnesse in the things of this life is vaine and foolish the spirit of the world perswades us to cleave to the world to seek after the things thereof perswading us that it is a vaine thing to neglect and forsake things present which we see to seeke and embrace things which doe not appeare so that the naturall man cannot know that is cannot approve of the things of the Spirit of God for they are to be judged and discerned onely by faith by that spirit which he hath not received which dwells not in him which is contrary to him not but that a naturall man may reject and cast off the spirit of this World and so receive the things of the Spirit of God for we are all naturall untill we receive the things of the Spirit of God but he doth not receive them he cannot know them that is whilst he is naturall whilest he retaines hearkens unto and followes the dictates and suggestions of the spirit of this world The intent of the Apostle in this place is only to shew how contrary how incompatible the Spirit of God and the spirit of the World are how they cannot lodge under one roofe they are like God and Mammon hee that loves the one must hate the other he that cleaves to the one must despise the other and this I conceive is all that is intended in this place Thus have I briefly declared what I conceive to be the meaning of these hard places of Scripture To All Men IT was Pauls petition for the Ephesians that they might comprehend the large dimensions of the Love of GOD and so it should be our earnest petition and endevour to know and to make knowne the same When John describes the Divine Nature to bee Love he declares this as the most eminent manifestation thereof the giving his Sonne to death that we might live through him therefore it is of excellent use and concernment that the sonnes of men be rooted and grounded in the fulnesse of the glory of this truth of the full free universall and individuall Love of God towards them in Christ for that will fill their hearts with love to God The apprehension of his love begets love in us we love him because he loved us first and the reason why so few men love God is because so few men know him to be Love and those that have some affection and love to God if they saw more of his love would love him more and bee more establisht in his love they would not be so tossed too and fro with every wind of temptation for they might quench all the fiery darts of Sathan the grand enemy of their peace and comfort with this consideration God is Love Love affords us an excellent argument to prevail with our hearts to trust God in every strait and to cloze with him in every promise what can hee deny us that spared not his Sonne but gave him to death for us The apprehension of this love will fill us with joy and contentment in all conditions it will make us to doe and suffer with delight Love makes us one with God it quickneth and enlargeth us adding fulnesse and perfection to all our services making us fervent in Spirit serving the Lord but where there is little love there is little life in what is done for love is the soule love is the substance of Religion Knowledge puffes up Love builds up knowledge makes a man seem to bee but love makes a man to be indeed for he that is full of Love is full of God for God is Love hee is the fountaine and Father of Love love will teach us to deny all ungodlinesse and worldly lusts and to live righteously and holily in this present world for love will doe nothing unpleasing to the thing it loves Therefore seeing this truth is so excellent how should we labour to preserve it in its fullnesse beauty and glory it is the ground and foundation of all our hopes it is our life all our springs are in it and all our expectation from it it is the truth of God and the God of truth for God is love Now considering what excellent effects this truth would produce were it knowne and embraced among the sons of Men and withall considering what strange dark and dismall doctrines are preached and published by those which professe themselves Ministers of the gospel and grace of God in Christ yea by the most zealous of them as that God did from eternity decree the ruine and damnation of the most part of men without respect to any evil which he knew they would commit or as the more moderate that
if so then there is a rationall ground for their faith in the Word of GOD or there is not if there bee then it is as well every mans ground as any mans and as possible for every man to believe as any man if there be not then they doe not believe for God himself cannot make a man believe without ground the things whereon they ground their peace and comfort and wherein they glory and rejoice as that God perswaded and overpowred their hearts to believe such a promise made this or that Scripture theirs spake to them in it gave them aboundance of comfort from it at such a time in such a place in such a manner after they had been so long in a despairing distracted condition in bondage under the Law are vaine For now though that Scripture or promise be made theirs as they conceive and they doe believe it as they say and comfort themselves in it that God loves them and that they shall certainly live yet can they give no ground or reason from their principles why that Scripture or Promise belongs to them much lesse that it should more belong to them then to others onely they say that God perswaded their hearts but if he perswaded them he perswaded their understandings and judgements by some evident and rationall demonstration or conclusion from the Scripture or promise so believed and if not then the things they speak of are but pleasing fancies and golden dreams Againe from this Doctrine of limiting the love of God to a few the love of the most religious men of our times is also limited to a few to love those that love them to do good to those that do good to them to salute their Brethren onely wheras Christ tells them plainly that there is nothing singular in it they doe no more then others then sinners then Publicans whereas if God indeed were the Patterne of their love their love would be universall like the love of God love is a debt due to all men and wee shall never be freed from that debt in this World Rom. 13.8 It appeares by the words of Christ Luk. 10.30 That every man we see in misery or in need of our helpe and relief is our Neighbour and wee must love our Neighbour as our selves in deed and in truth without dissimulation so that we ought to love all men the evill and unthankfull our enemies those that hate curse and persecute us and nothing can beget such a Spirit in us but the Spirit of this Doctrine of the free and universall love of God to us when we were enemies sinfull lost creatures evill and unthankfull As God by the discovery of his love and goodnesse to us did turn us from evill to good so should we endeavour to overcome the evill of men by good to prevaile with them by love for love is very powerfull whereas mens disposing and rejecting such as are not so good as they would have them or such as suit not with them in judgement and opinion makes them to be despised and hated yea many men despise Religion it self Seeing these things doe appeare in those which professe themselves to be most religious though indeed Religigion teacheth no such thing but the contrary as the Scriptures plainly manifest the substance of Religion is almost lost and there is little else then the shew or name of it remaining unlesse Religion bee a rigid A practice not suitable to the Gospel of grace and love but to policy and sensuality not comming from above but from beneath whether it tends and is therefore to be shund and abhord of all men blind and preposterous zeal in seeking dominion over the faith of our brethren and fellow-servants and by humane and positive lawes inhumanely Rev. 13.15 16 17. to compell their judgements and consciences to conformity to our dictates and determinations in matters of the worship of God We have much hearing much praying much talking amongst men but little love whereas all the means that God useth with us is to manifest his love to us that so we may love him and one another To do good and to shew mercy are services well pleasing to God better then all burnt Offrings and Sacrifices 1 Sam. 15.22 hearing praying and discoursing is no further beneficiall then it tends to edification in love yea it is abomination if love be wanting Pure Religion and undefiled before God and the father is this To visite the fatherlesse and the Widdowes in their affliction and to keepe our selves unspotted in the world and who so hath this worlds goods and seeth his brother hath need and shutteth up his bowells of compassion from him how dwelleth the love of God in him all his Religion is vaine and to no purpose If any Object that this doctrine of Gods rich and abundant grace to all tends to loosenesse I Answer as formerly that the grace of God which bringeth salvation to all men appearing teacheth us to deny all ungodlines and worldly lusts and to live righteously and godlily in this present world Tit. 2.11 12. But if any abuse this grace of God and turne that into wantonnesse which naturally leads to holinesse the Judgment of God is just against those that so doe now I desire you to consider what is here written in love and that the love of God may be shed abroad in our hearts that we may dwell in love walke in love and doe whatever wee doe in love shall bee the prayer and indeavour of him who while hee lives never ceaseth to remaine The Servant of all men in Love L. S. FJNJS
he so prayed for shall certainely bee saved To which I answer that God hath not in the Scriptures declared absolutely or peremptorily that he will save all men but he hath declared and that truly and sincerely that he would have all men to be saved he speaks in the Optative Mood he wills it he desires it And in this also we must understand that God speaks after the manner of men now what men desire they use means to accomplish so God wills and desires the salvation of men that is hee puts forth himself in waies means to accomplish it and suitable to this must our Prayers for men be that God would be pleased to manifest the Gospel of grace to them which is able to save their souls that hee would bring them that is that hee would use means to bring them from darknes to light from the power of Satan unto himselfe Mat. 9.37 38. Object Wee must pray for all that is for all sorts Answ If we are to pray for all sorts and not for all of all sorts then I say we cannot pray for one of any sort for that person whatsoever he be if any bee excepted may be the man for whom wee ought not to pray so this principle doth state a man in an impossibility of fullfilling the mind of Christ for he would have us pray for all and wee must pray in faith or we were better to hold our peace for we shall never obtaine any thing of God we must not doubt Iames 1. now if God leaves the thing dubitable and unresolved concerning persons in unbeliefe whom he would have saved and who not then I must be in doubt also unlesse I will be wiseabove that which is written and so I can pray for the salvation of no man whatsoever Againe 1 Ioh. 2.1 My little children these things I write unto you that you sin not but if any man sin we have an advocate with the Father Iesus Christ the righteous and hee is the propitiation for our sins and not for ours only but for the sins of the whole world The words are plaine onely be pleased to consider that this Epistle was written in generall to all beleevers such as had attained to the knowledge of the truth and he tells them that Christ is a propitiation for their sins and not for theirs onely but also for the sins of the whole world The spirit of God foreseeing that men would endevour to hide themselves under the mists and clouds of vaine interpretations labours to anticipate them by such full and evident expressions as may no way be avoided with any shew or colour of ground and therefore he puts in the whole world the world in an universall and individuall consideration so that no man can without offering great violence and injury to the Text put any other interpretation upon it Again in 1 Ioh. 5.10.11.12 it is said that he that beleeveth on the Son of God hath the witnesse in himselfe he that beleeveth not God hath made him a lyar because he beleeveth not the record that God gave of his Son and this is the record that God hath given to us eternall life and this life is in his Son he that hath the Son hath life he that hath not the Son hath not life Here we see that the Apostle affirmes that the unbeleever makes God a lyar in not beleeving that God hath given him eternall life Ob. If God hath given him eternall life he shall certainly live and not come into condemnation The answere to this objection is in the latter end of the 11. and 12 verses in these words And this life is in his Son c. As if he should have said he that beleeves not makes God a lyar in not beleeving that God hath given his Sonne as a meanes of eternall life to all men or in not beleeving that God hath given him eternall life in his Son All that God requires of us is to receive the Son in whom this life is to beleeve the record of God that he hath given us eternall life in him and he that receives the Son receives life and he that receives him not the wrath of God abides on him because he receives him not Ioh. 3.36 Againe 1 Ioh. 4 8.9 the Apostle saith He that loveth not knoweth not God for God is love In this was manifested the love of God towards us because that God sent his onely begotten Son into the world that wee might live through him Here are three things considerable in this Text first the description of the divine nature in these words God is love Secondly the manifestation thereof he sent his onely begotten Son into the world that wee might live through him and lastly a principall ground and reason of the want of love in those persons that love not God they know him not who is love and hath manifested the same in sending his Sonne into the world that they might live through him If it be objected That the Apostle wrote this to beleevers and therefore when hee saith he sent his onely begotten Son into the world that we might live through him hee therein hath relation onely to such I answere that the Apostle wrote this to Beleevers is true but when he saith hee that loveth not knoweth not God for God is love he hath relation to unbeleevers and intimateth such persons as are ignorant of God and of his love towards them manifested in the Gospel And if these words God sent his Son into the World that we might live through him should onely respect beleevers then would there bee no argument therein to convince those persons that doe not love God as is intended for of what force would it be with any man that doth not love God or reason to perswade him thereunto or to convince him of sinne in not loving to tell him that God is love and hath manifested the same in sending his Son into the world that other men but not that he might live through him wherefore we must understand the Apostle in this place as if he should have said thus There be many persons in the World that love not God but if they did but know and consider what he is and what love he hath manifested towards them in sending his onely begotten Sonne into the World that they through him might have life it would bee a strong motive and perswasion with them to love him To this purpose of Christs dying for all you may further consider these Scriptures 2 Pet. 2.1 where wicked men which perish are charged with denying the Lord that bought them Heb. 2.9 where it is said that Christ tasted death for every man Ioh. 12.48 where Christ is said to come into the world to save the word Ioh. 6.51 where it is said that he gave his flesh for the life of the world 1 Ioh. 4.14 where he is termed the Saviour of the world Ioh. 1.29 where he is called the Lambe of God