to your faith vertue and to vertue knowledge and to knowledge temperance and to temperance patience and to patience godliness and to godliness brotherly kindness and to brotherly kindness charity viz. to all Men as well 〈◊〉 Strangers and Enemies as Brethren to distinguish it from brotherly kindness or kindness to the Brethren that is to all Christians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For if these things be in you and abound they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ Wherefore the rather Bretheren give diligence to make your Calling and Election sure for if ye do these things ye shall never fall For so an Entrance shall be ministred unto you abundantly into the everlasting Kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ Where note these three things 1. That to give diligence to make our Calling and Election sure is the same thing as to work out our own Salvation with fear and trembling For Calling and Election do signifie the free Grace and Mercy of God whereby Christians are called and elected to the state of Salvation by him that hath given unto us all things that pertain to Life and Godliness through the Knowledge of him that hath called us to Glory and Vertue vers 3. Life and Godliness Glory and Vertue are the things that comprehend the full sense of the word Salvation first declared as it signifies The being saved from our Sins that is from the power and practice of Sin as well as from the guilt and punishment thereof And to give diligence to make our Calling and Election sure is to take care that this Grace by which we are Called and Elected may prove effectual 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 firm and permanent and that we may obtain the benefit which was designed us thereby 2. The Direction given by the Apostle to this end is to add to our Faith Vertue c. that is to apply our selves with all diligence to the constant practice of all these Vertues and to labour for a proficiencie in them If these things be in you and abound and if ye do these things c. which agrees with the interposition of those words in the Vulgar Latin and some ancient Greek Copies vers 10. Wherefore the rather Brethren give diligence * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by good Works to make your Calling and Election sure Our Calling and Election is to be made sure that is firm and effectual by good Works in the practice of the above-named Vertues And this is to work out our own Salvation 3. This Direction is urged with an Argument drawn from the assured success in the use thereof in those words If ye do these things ye shall never fall 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For so an Entrance shall be ministred or afforded unto you abundantly into the everlasting Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ The latter words do plainly shew that the assurance of our Calling and Election 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 expressed vers 10. doth not referr only if at all in this place to that certitude of the Subject as it is ordinarily called that is to our being assured or confident that we are Called and Elected or to our acquiring a certain Plerophorie of faith or hope that we are at present in the favour of God and in a state of Salvation but signifies also and rather a certainty of the Object that is that our Calling and Election shall be and remain firm and effectual See Rom. 4.16 and 15.8 unto our entrance into the everlasting Kingdom of Christ which certitude ariseth from the performance of the conditions of the Promise of entrance into that Kingdom A second Text of like general direction to this end is in Tit. 2. v. 11 12 13. For the grace of God that bringeth Salvation to all men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hath appeared or hath appeared to all men For the Greek words are indifferent to either Reading teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts we should live soberly righteously and godly in this present world looking for the blessed Hope c. Where we are taught by the grace of God that bringeth Salvation that is by the Gospel what manner of Conversation is required of them that look to be partakers of this blessed hope of Salvation to wit that denying all ungodliness and worldly lusts not indulging themselves in any known Sin against first or second Table they should live soberly in reference to themselves and their own Bodies in all temperance and chastity and righteously towards all others in all acts of Justice and Charity and Godly to God-ward in all Piety and Holiness of inward and outward worship both private and publick Hereunto agrees that of S. John 1 Joh. 3.2 And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself even as he is pure And a compleat paraphrase of that Text we have in the words of S. Paul 2 Cor. 7.1 Having therefore these promises dearly beloved let us cleanse our selves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit perfecting holiness in the fear of God Salvation is promised in the Gospel under condition of sanctification 2 Thes 2.13 And is therefore no otherwise to be wrought out than by a through cleansing of our selves from all kinds and degrees of pollution both of Soul and body as far as is possible and labouring to perfect holiness in the fear of God I shall mention but one Text more by way of general Direction what a Christian should do to work out his own Salvation and that shall be from the Apostle 1 Cor. 15.58 Therefore my beloved brethren be ye stedfast and unmoveable always abounding in the work of the Lord for as much as you know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord. The word therefore referrs to the precedent discourse that takes up the whole chapter containing an ample confirmation and explication of that grand Article of Christian Faith viz. the Resurrection of the Faithfull to Everlasting life and the final accomplishment of their Salvation from sin and death The truth of which Doctrine to him that believes it affords an argument abundantly sufficient to perswade and incourage him to all that may be necessary or profitable to the attaining unto this blessed estate wherein his labour will be so fully recompenced And therefore together with this argument from the certainty of the reward the Apostle concludes his discourse with special directions how it is to be attained shewing 1. What that work is which is to be done to this end 2. How it is to be persued viz. with all constancy and diligence 1. He sheweth what that work is which is to be done by him that looketh for this reward It must be the work of the Lord and what 's that our Saviour hath told us in the Text before quoted Joh. 6.29 This is the work of God that ye believe on him whom he hath sent But this
2.11.17 c. And to quote no more Texts in so evident a matter whosoever understands what this work is cannot be ignorant of the difficultie thereof Wherein so many strong lusts of the flesh are to be mortified the Old man to be crucified Self to be denied the Cross to be taken up So many duties to God Our selves and our Neighbours to be diligently performed An infinite number of temptations impediments and snares must be overcome even as many as can be raised or laid by the wit and malice of the Devell by all the variety of worldly things both good and bad that may be desired or feared to the prejudice of this designe and by al lthe men that we converse with in the world The evil examples inticements discouragements and seducement of bad men The errors infirmities and scandalous miscarriages of good men There is scarce any person or thing in the world that we can have to do withall but may minister some kind of temptation to divert us from the strictness of a holy life But to all those difficulties that can be created to us from without the greatest addition is given by our Selves from our own manifold imperfections infirmities corruptions and carnal dispositions comprehended under the general name of the flesh For the Flesh lusteth against the Spirit and the spirit against the flesh and these are contrary the one to the other so that ye cannot do the thing that ye would Gal. 5.17 By all which considerations it is abundantly evident that this saving work is full of difficultie and therefore not to be finished without great diligence Neither ought it to be a wonder that such an immense reward as that of an eternal felicity should be charged with so much difficultie as is enough to exercise the best of our diligence it being Proverbiably true amongst men that all excellent things are difficult to obtain and if they were not so they would be of no such esteem A cheap and easie Victory gives not so much joy as a difficult one So undoubtedly the difficulties that we meet withall in the way of Salvation being overcome by the Grace of God will much advance the joy of that victory and render us capable of greater degrees of glory than otherwise we should be That glory as it is promised in Scripture being to be dispensed by way of reward will bear proportion to the labour and difficultie of the work not as meritorious in a strict sense but as the effect and exercise of Divine grace For glory is the Crown of grace not as that signifies a gift habit or infused quality but as it works or is exercised in us by the co-operation of our own wills effectually assisted thereby Hence it is that both Scripture and Catholick sense of the Church doth attribute a special eminent degree of glory to Martyrs above other ordinary Saints I say ordinary Saints conceiving there will be as great a distinction of Saints as Scripture intimates there is of Angels As in the Catholick Church here below there is a plebs or vulgus a populacy and a Nobless Some * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Act. 17.11 more noble than others in the perfection of holiness Some Heroes such as Enoch and Elias Ahraham and David Peter and Paul and their collegues So will it be in the Kingdom of Heaven One Starre will differ from anothr in glory And though Infants and Ideots baptized especially will be saved yet it is not probable that their glory will be equal to that of other Saints who had less of Innocency but more of vertue in their Lives And upon this account it is justly desirable that Infants Baptized may live to adult years though therehy they cannot but incurre some hazard of that salvation whereof they were for that state secured by their Baptism as including the whole of the condition or qualification required in them not only that they may glorifie God here which is the end of our Being and therefore ought to be desired but also that themselves may be qualified for a further degree of glory than their baptismal grace never proved or excercised can be concluded to give them Upon the same reason I suppose it not to be the interest of Christians to desire to get to Heaven with the least difficultie that may be Not only because thereby we shall glorifie God so much the lesse by how much the less the excercise and trial of our love and obedience shall be But also because by that means also the state and degree of our future glory and happiness may be abated and that for ought we know to all eternity This consideration may afford great incouragement and consolation to Christians against the special and extraordinary difficulties that they may meet withall in the way of Salvation above others Namely that all their labour of love will be undoubtedly considered in the free and bountifull reward But now against all the difficulties and impediments that are to be mett with in this great work we have also this further comfort and incouragement viz. That as we have many sorts of temptations many lets impediments and difficulties to passe through in this business so have we as many and indeed more variety of helps aids succours assistances and incouragements towards our inabling to go through withall The means of graâ—e are more various and more potent than the motives to sin For in opposition to the three generall principles and causes of temptation the Flesh the World and the Devil we have more than so many counterforces strengths auxiliaries and motives to withstand those temptations As for instance to incounter the Flesh and corrupt nature every Christian hath the promised assistance of the Spirit and grace of God For the spirit lusteth against the flesh Besides to oppose the inordinate lust of carnal affections and passions every man hath the faculties of Reason and Conscience which if they be not rejected or neglected will do him some service in this spiritual warfarre Against the temptations of the World that is of the things of the World good or evil by way of desire or fear a man hath if he believes the Scripture first the same kind of things of both sorts to confront his temptations in the Promises of Blessings in this Life to him that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts will live soberly righteously and godly in this present World For Godliness hath the promise of this Life and in the Threatnings of all sorts of Punishments in this World to him that doth not so And secondly he hath besides this the things of an other World both good and evil to desire and fear infinitely greater than any thing wherewith he is liable to be tempted in this World Then against temptations from the men of the World of all sorts we have also the Exhortations Counsels Admonitions and Examples of good men together with the Prayers of the whole Church to strengthen our patience excite and
11.6 4.4 then it is no more of Grace otherwise Work is no more Work Now to him that worketh is the Reward not reckoned of Grace but of Debt 1. The Answer to the Objection from these Texts is clearly suggested in the last of them wherein the strength of the Objection chiefly lies to wit in the specification First of this Gift or Grace by the relative term of a Reward And secondly of the Work as being such as makes the Reward to be of Debt 1. Thus Grace is termed a Reward as it is also called in other Texts The Reward of the Inheitrance And the Recompence of the Reward Rev. 22.12 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Col. 2.18 3.24 Heb. 11.26 My Reward is with me to give to wery man according as his Work shall be A Reward cannot be without respect to some Work A free Gift may be without any Condition but not such a one as is reckon'd for a Reward Whereas therefore the Apostle saith To him that worketh the Reward is not reckon'd of Grace but of Debt He cannot be understood to speak of all manner of Work without contradiction to himself in the term of a Reward but of such only as is inconsistent with Free Grace that is Meritorious Work and such as makes the Reward to be a due debt But no such work can be done by a Creature Though God may oblige himself in point of Truth to his Creature by his free Promise yet he can never be obliged by it in point of Justice by any Work of his Creature to any Reward much less to such an one as is so infinitely disproportionable to any possibility of their Works Because all that can be done by a Creature in conformity to God's Will that is all the good that can be done by him is a due Debt to the Creator But where the Work is a Debt the Reward if any be given can be none Besides it is absurd to think that any man can be bound to reward his own Works But every good Work is the Effect of God's grace For it is God that worketh in us to will and to do of his good pleasure So that this Condition of Evangelical Works doth not evacuate the freedom of God's grace nor yet diminish it but rather advance it Seeing those Works as well as the Reward are the Effects of his grace 2. But how little moment there is in this Objection must needs appear to him that first believes that which no body but an Atheist or an Epicurean will deny viz. that there is no temporal Salvation of the Body Life Health or any other good thing in this World but is also the gift of God And secondly considers what necessity there is of humane industry care and pains to the obtainment of some at least of these Gifts And this Answer if it be duly adverted will suffice to solve an other Objection against the necessity of Working in order to Salvation drawn from 2. Object the Doctrine of Predestination Because that Salvation which the Text speaks of is not only a free Gift of God but such a one as is given to none but them to whom it is predestinated And to them it is so certain as can never fail without the frustration of the Divine Decrees What need then of our sollicitude or labour to work it out Is it our part to take care that God be not deceived in his Providence or disappointed in his Decrees They that make this Objection Answer shall need no other Answer than that which they shall be able to make to themselves in reference to the following Questions 1. Whether they do believe that any kind of temporal bodily salvation or any other worldly good thing is given to any but them to whom it is predestinated Or which is all one whether God's Decrees do not extend as well to things Temporal as to eternal Secondly supposing they do What need is there of any work or care of man's for any end or purpose whatsoever What need so much toil of the Husbandman to plow and sow and mannure his ground seeing his Crop if he shall have any is predestinate What need any working for meat drink or rayment Nay what need of Meat Rayment Physick what need of Eating or Drinking in order to the presevation of life or health what needs any care or defence to preserve the body from the most imminent danger that can be seeing that all preservation of life and health is decreed by God The answer which any sober man can make to himself as to these questions will fully suffice to discharge his mind from the temptation of this old Objection Seeing he cannot but understand that it may be altogether as true that no body is predestinate to Salvation but he that indeavours to work it out with fear and trembling as it is that no body is predestinate to live in bodily health and safety but he that eats and drinks and avoids such things as would necessarily destroy his life And that the certainty of the End doth not take away but rather inferre the necessity of the Means 3. The third Motive may be taken from the equity and reasonableness of this work There is nothing required of us in order to the obtainment of this great Salvation but what as reasonable men we must conclude to be altogether just and indispensably necessary To believe in the Son of God after that he hath been sufficiently declared to be so by all reasonable evidences obey Him to whom all power in Heaven and Earth is given and whom God hath made Lord of quick and dead To repent of and to forsake all known sin To deny all ungodliness and worldly lusts and to live soberly righteously and godly in this present world To love God with all the heart and all the soul and all the might and our neighbours as our selves To do to others as we would they should do to us These and whatever other Christian duty is required as part of the condition of Salvation are things so apparently just and reasonable as will admit of no colour of exception against them Let us but examine what those things are which are required of us to render us capable of Salvation and judg Which of them we could wish with any face of reason to have been abated Would we be saved by Christ without believing in him without acknowledging him for a Saviour without any dependence upon him Would we have the Son of God to be sent from Heaven on purpose to preach the Gospel of Salvation to us and our selves not bound to believe on him Or would we be bound to believe his Doctrine to be the Will of God but not be obliged to practise it Would we believe in him for a Saviour and have liberty to reject him as a Lord Would we that he should have nothing to do to exact any service or obedience from us that hath bought us with the price
encourage our affections and indeavours to constancy in a holy life Besides the examples of punishments upon bad men Against the evil Spirit we have the good Spirit of God which is infinitely stronger Against the Devil and all wicked Spirits we have the ministry of good Angels who cannot be supposed to have less power and will to assist and further us unto all well doing than the Devils have to hinder us or tempt us to evil The opinion of an * Angelus-Custos Angel-keeper allotted to every good man is more received and more probable than that of the evil Genius or the * Et tentans tempting Angel And if neither be certain as to the particularity yet the common assistance of the one is as credible as the opposition of the other sort of Spirits But that which gives us the most certain advantage is the promised assistance of God himself by his all-sufficient grace if we will seek embrace and improve it The Father is our gracious Father ready to hear and help us knows our weakness and how to deliver us from or out of temptation The Lord Jesus Christ the Son hath overcome both World and Devil John 16.33 not for himself only but for us having merited for us a sufficiency of Grace to do the like As our Head and King he is able and willing to assist us against all temptation and to furnish us with all grace for grace John 1.16 The Seed of the Woman shall bruise the Serpents Head Gen. 3.15 And The holy Spirit abideth in us if we be true Christians to work in us to will and to do what ever is required at our hands Besides all these we have the Holy Word of God to teach us our Duty by way of instruction and to excite us to the performance thereof by rich and precious promises and to deterr us from sin by severe threatnings And special Promises we have too in the same Word if we will take any care to observe the implicite conditions of them in our own indeavours Rom. 6.14 That Sin shall not have dominion over us That God will beat down Satan under our feet Rom. 16.20 That he will not suffer us to be tempted above that we are able but will with the temptation make way for our escape 1 Cor. 10.13 that we may be able to bear it All these things considered and compared it is evident that those that are with us are more and stronger than those that are against us Our aids and our Counter-forces against temptations are stronger than all our Enemies which abundantly clears the Justice and Goodness of God in permitting and ordering all the temptations which we meet withall in this World And leaves us without excuse from any of them Affording us a sufficient incouragement to the work we have to do 5. A fift Motive to the prosecution of this Work with fear and trembling is to be drawn from the shortness and uncertainty of the time wherein it is to be wrought out which we all know is indispensably limited to the term of this life And therefore that which our Saviour saith concerning himself Jo. 9.4 I must work the Works of him that sent me while it is Day the Night cometh when no man can work doth as much concern every one of us to consider and something more in in respect that he knew the length of his Day and the certain Hour of the Night 's approaching which is impossible for us to do We are sure There is no Work nor Invention in the Grave whither we are going and how near we may be to the brink of that we cannot learn without a Revelation which no man in his Wits will expect They are in a sad condition then that have all this work to do when they know not whether they shall have an hour to dispatch it in but they in a sadder that will still deferr it Certainly there is no instance of presumption in the World that can parallel the desperate folly of this dilatoriness in a Business of such infinite Concernment And because I know it is not in the power of words to express the madness of this practise I shall not make any further attempt to such a purpose But instead of a weak declamation against such a folly as is above all measures of rhetorical aggravation I shall only in compassion to the Souls of men propound to them that may be perswaded to weigh them a few serious Considerations First that although we be fully assured by our Saviour's Parable that he that comes in at the eleventh hour may possibly find time enough to finish this Work Mat. 20.6.12 yet that for ought any man can know that hour may be already past with him yea and the very twelfth may not want many minutes of being spent already with which the day of Salvation must necessarily expire and to recover any minute of it will be as impossible as to recall Yesterday Secondly It is worth the inquiry Whether those persons that came in and were accepted at the eleventh hour had ever been called before and refused to obey For if they had not or it cannot appear that they had their Example is vastly different from the Case of such as have perhaps been called every hour of the day and have always refused with a pertinacious wilfulness presumptuously deferring their obedience to the last And though the negative of their former Calling cannot be fully proved yet there is a strong presumption for it from their own words if they signifie any thing in the Parable Matth. 20.6 7. And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing idle and saith unto them Why stand ye here all the day idle They say unto him Because no man hath hired us What these words should mean is scarce accountable if they do not signifie that that was the first time they had been called to work And for the Thief upon the Cross who came not in till the end of the twelfth hour and yet had the priviledge of accompanying his Saviour the same day into the Heavenly Paradise it is no less uncertain whether ever he met with Christ before or had heard so much of him as could rationally oblige his Faith Besides there were so many singularities of Circumstance in his Case impossible to be found in any other as being considered by one that is not willing to deceive his own Soul can afford no more than a bare Remedy against absolute Despair at the last Moment It is doubtless a very rational truth that one heroïcal act of Vertue may have a just Equivalency to a multitude of ordinary ones And the service of a quarter of an hour may possibly by it's degrees of intension in the zeal as well as by the extraordinary matter of it be as considerable as that of many years Such perhaps is that of a sudden free and zealous Martyrdom whereof