by himself the true Riches By the Salvation which he is the Author of is meant that from the worst of evils principally and everlasting Salvation So proportionably whenas the Son is said to make us free the meaning is free with the best of Freedoms viz. that from sin as also we have seen is manifest from the Context Whenas Christ is said to be Anointed according to the Prophecy of Esay concerning him to preach deliverance to the captives and to set at liberty them that are bruised with being long fettered and shackled we are likewise to understand the same most desirable of all Liberties and Deliverances Whereas S. Iames calls the Gospel the law of Liberty Chap. 1. 25. and the perfect law of Liberty Chap. 2. 12. we are primarily to understand it as will be further shewn of this same Liberty which infinitely surpasseth all other In which sence the Apostle S. Paul understood it to be The perfect law of Liberty when he called it The law of the Spirit of life which is in Christ Iesus adding that it had made him free from the law of Sin and death Rom. 8. 2. Secondly We find this Liberty was that the instating us wherein our Saviour when he was in the World and his Apostles after him were altogether bent and intent upon The business of making men holy and obedient to the Laws of Righteousness they had not only mostly in their Eye but all they did was subordinated thereunto All those powerful means that were used to perswade the world that Iesus is the Christ were in order to this end For the Son of God was manifested to take away our sins and to destroy the works of the Devil 1 John 3. 5 8. Therefore is Faith so highly commended and so much ascribed thereto and men so excited to believe in Christ or to believe his Gospel because the Doctrine Precepts Promises and Threatnings therein contained have a great aptness and tendency are of mighty force and efficacy to the thorough Reformation of our Lives and the cleansing our Natures from all filthiness both of flesh and spirit Because that Faith which is terminated upon those Objects is such a Shield as whereby we shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one Because it is most effectual to the purifying of the heart and the overcoming of the world In short Christ gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purifie to himself a peculiar people zealous of good works Titus 2. 14. He died for all that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves to the drudging service of their Lusts but unto him that died for them and rose again 2 Cor. 5. 15. Or that they should be his Servants that is his Free-men according to that of S. Paul 1 Cor. 7. 22. He that is called being a Servant is the Lords Free-man He gave himself for the Church that he might sanctifie and cleanse it by the washing of water by the word That he might present it to himself a glorious Church not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing but that it should be holy and without blemish Ephes. 5. 26 27. He his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree that we being dead to sins should live unto Righteousness 1 Pet. 2. 24. Or as S. Paul saith Rom. 6. 7. That being dead we might be freed from sin That is that being dead to it we might be freed from the Bondage we were in under it Or as we have it ver 18. That being made free from sin we might become the servants of righteousness Our Saviour required nothing of us forbad nothing to us but what was apparently designed in order to our deliverance from sin the making us pure in heart and holy in all manner of conversation He gave us not a Promise but what was to encourage us hereunto nor yet a Threatning but what was intended to scare us from the serving of one Lust or other And the Apostle tells us that the whole of the Gospel or The grace of God that brings salvation is designed to teach us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts we should live soberly righteously and godly in this present world Tit. 2. 11 12. 'T is sufficiently evident from this little that hath been said that the setting us free from Sin and the making us Free to Righteousness was the business which took up our Blessed Saviour's time and thoughts when he was upon the Earth and wherein his holy Apostles were employed after his departure And therefore this must necessarily be our grand Christian Liberty Abundantly more might have been said upon this Argument but we have heretofore copiously handled it in another Treatise Thirdly Our Saviours abrogating the Ceremonial Law his freeing from that yoke was mainly designed in order to the thorough effecting this Freedom and Liberty This was a yoke which the Apostle Peter saith neither they nor their Fathers were able to bear Acts 15. 10. It was a yoke of bondage as S. Paul calls it Gal. 5. 1. Stand fast in the Liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free and be not intangled again with the yoke of bondage This Liberty as appears by his discourse both before and after was that which Christ had given them from the burdensome services of the Mosaical Dispensation And diverse other places there are which speak of this Liberty as an effect and fruit of the death of Christ. Now it is worthy our Observation that the great reason wherefore our Saviour did put an end to the Obligation of this Law and why the Apostles especially S. Paul insisted so much upon it and so earnestly cautioned the Jewish Believers against intangling themselves again with this yoke was because it became very highly injurious to the Grand Evangelical Design of setting men perfectly free from their Lusts Because it gendered to that spiritual bondage in deliverance from which consisteth our best Liberty For this Law understood Carnally and according to the letter only which it ought not to have been was very apt to beget a sordid and low spirit a temper of mind very much estranged from true Piety and Goodness And it is too unquestionable that the Iews generally had no higher a sense of it The Law the Author to the Hebrews saith made nothing perfect Chap. 7. 19. It gave no man Freedom from the power of Sin no power to subdue corrupt Affections was obtainable thereby it did not make men truly and internally Righteous but only Ritually and Externally As the most eminently Good men under the Law did fall far short of the Apostles of our Saviour and those whose lives have been most answerable to the Christian precepts so those degrees of Virtue and Goodness they did attain to were not owing the Law but to the Covenant made with Abraham which was the same for substance with the Gospel Covenant The Law is
and grave Whatsoever things are just or exactly agreeable to the Rule of doing as we would be done unto Whatsoever things are pure or far from all shew and appearance of unchastity Whatsoever things are lovely or which tend to secure to us love among men such as all works of benignity mercy and Charity Whatsoever things are of good report or which are apt to procure a good name and therefore to prevent all the causes of shame and to give us the greatest freedom and confidence as before God so before Men too If there be any virtue if there be any thing that is by Good men reckoned in the number of Virtues And if there be any praise or any thing laudable and praise-worthy All these things as the Apostle in the general here enjoyneth us to think upon them so they are very particularly and as clearly and perspicuously recommended to us to be carefully observed by us in the New Testament There is nothing which it becometh us to Do or Forbear whether in reference to God our Great Creator Governour and Benefactor or to our Fellow-creatures or to our own Souls and Bodies but here we find it Again we may observe all these in our Saviour's Life also wherein He set us an Example that we should follow his steps And it is a most admirable Example of Piety towards God of Love to him Trust in him and Submission to his Will of Charity to all men even his greatest Enemies and of Humility Meekness Temperance Purity Contempt of the World and Heavenly-mindedness He that shall observe how our Blessed Saviour Lived cannot be ignorant of any of those Laws of Righteousness and Goodness which before his coming the World was so lamentably in not a few instances to seek in the knowledge of through that blindness which by the customary gratifying their vile Affections men had generally contracted I say he that is acquainted with the Life of our Saviour cannot easily be ignorant of any of those Laws although he never understood what particular Commands or Prohibitions his Precepts consist of So that this is the First thing Christ Iesus hath done for us in order to our being made Free He hath given us fully to understand what it is to be Free what are those several Rules of Righteousness and Goodness in compliance with which consists our Liberty Secondly Our Saviour hath also prescribed most Effectual Means by making use of which we shall most certainly obtain and maintain this Liberty that is obey those Laws of Liberty which he hath given us These Means are especially Believing himself to be the Son of God and consequently the Truth and Divinity of his Doctrine Hearing his Word and Receiving it into honest hearts or Pondering it in our minds and Meditating upon it with the Design of conforming our selves to it Prayer to God in his Name together with Faith in his Bloud for the Remission of our Sins and in his Power and Goodness for the Subduing our Lusts and the making us Obedient to his Precepts That is for the blessing our Endeavours to that End Setting his Example before our Eyes which is an Excellent Means to beget in us a likeness to him and to our partaking of his Spirit and Temper Watching over our own Hearts and against Temptations Denying our selves and not indulging our Sensitive Part. Advising in all Cases of doubt and difficulty with our Pastors and Spiritual Guides whom Christ hath given to his Church For the perfecting of the Saints for the work of the Ministery for the Edifying of the Body of Christ Ephes. 4. 12. And obeying them which have the Rule over us in the Lord they watching for our Souls as those that must give an Account Heb. 13. 17. Which Duties were never more neglected than in this Age to the great scandal of our Reformed Religion Keeping in the Communion of the Church And not forsaking the Assembling our selves together or our publick Assemblies as the manner of some is Heb. 10. 25. And now is the manner of vast numbers of us though no Terms of Communion are required that contradict any one Text of Scripture which Separation we are too like ere long to pay dear for The Religious observation of the Lords Day both in Publick and Private is another singular Help and Advantage Though few Professors of Christianity seem now to have any great sense of it to the great prejudice of their own Souls and the Souls of those who are under their charge And to these add in the last place because 't is most convenient to place them here The Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper By Baptism we are admitted into the Church of Christ and brought into a New State We are baptized into the name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost or devoted to their service And the Father in this Sacrament takes us into his special care and into the Relation of his Children whereas before we were only the Children of Adam The Son receives us as members of his Body the Church We are baptized into one Body as the Apostle speaks 1 Cor. 12. 13. that Body whereof Christ is the Head And the Holy Ghost who is the Author of Grace and Spiritual Life taketh us for his Temples We are said to Receive the Holy Ghost in Baptism to receive that power and strength from him which will enable us to Mortifie the deeds of the Body and to acquire the Divine Graces and Virtues which we shall certainly do if we refuse not to Exert and Improve it when we come to years of Discretion and our Faculties are ripe enough for that purpose In Baptism the Holy Spirit communicates to us the Beginnings of a new life which may afterwards be improved to large measures of Virtue and Goodness if we be not wilfully wanting to our selves in the other Means And in the Lords Supper as we renew the Covenant we made in Baptism to renounce the Devil and all his works c. So all worthy Receivers of that Sacrament receive great additions of Grace and Spiritual Strength are fed with the spiritual food of the most Precious Body and Bloud of Christ. And of all the Means prescribed for the Subduing our Lusts and Growing in Grace the Frequent Receiving the Lord's Supper is very deservedly accounted the Principal Certainly there is not any Ordinance wherein sincere Souls do so experiment the Communications of the Holy Spirit by which they are so Strengthened with strength in their Souls Nor are there any such Strong and Spriteful Christians any so confirmed and rooted in Goodness in the love of God and their Neighbour and all the Christian Virtues as those who take all occasions to attend upon it with a thankful sense of the infinite love of God and Christ to them and sincerely design in so doing a fuller participation of the Divine nature But this intimation that these two Sacraments are conveyances of Grace and Strength leads me to shew that
can neither cease nor be diminished or relaxed in the least to all Eternity And then our Saviour adds Vers. 19. of this Fifth of S. Matthew Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least Commandments and shall teach men so he shall be called the least in the Kingdom of Heaven That is saith Grotius Minimi erit pretii eum minimi habitum iri he shall be contemned and treated as a most despicable wretch at the Day of Iudgment Then it follows But whosoever shall do and teach them the same shall be called Great in the Kingdom of Heaven He shall be highly Honoured and signally Rewarded When the young Man came to our Saviour to ask him What good thing he should do that he might have Eternal life we know what his Answer was If thou wilt enter into life keep the Commandments S. Matth. 19. 17. And whereas He meant all yet knowing how apt Hypocrites are to flatter themselves with an opinion of the goodness of their state upon the account of their External Conformity to the First Table Precepts though they live in the gross Transgression of those of the Second Table He only expressed those which enjoyn Duties relating to our Neighbour For the young Man asking which Commandments Iesus said Thou shalt do no Murder Thou shalt not commit Adultery Thou shalt not Steal Thou shalt not bear false Witness Honour thy Father and thy Mother And thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thyself Ver. 18 19. Secondly The Apostle would have Contradicted himself most Egregiously as well as his Master should he in the above-cited Places or any where else teach this Notion of Christian Liberty For 't was He that said Do we make void the Law through Faith God forbid yea we establish the Law Rom. 3. 31. He here includes even the Ceremonial Law as appears by ver 28. which gave occasion to these words Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by Faith without the deeds of the Law That is that a Gentile is justified without Circumcision or Sacrifices or any other of the Iewish Rites and Services which they still laid so great weight upon as appears by the two following Verses Is he the God of the Iews only Is he not also of the Gentiles Yes of the Gentiles also Seeing it is one God which shall justifie the Circumcision by Faith and Vncircumcision through Faith Now saith the Apostle God forbid we should affirm that the Gospel Dispensation should make void the Law should make useless so much as the Ceremonial Law therefore much less the Moral yea we assert it establisheth the Law In some sence it even establisheth or perfects that Law as it brings in the substance of that whereof that Law had the shadow and requireth purity of Heart which was the spiritual meaning of Circumcision Again 't was the same S. Paul that said Not the Hearers of the Law are just before God but the Doers of the Law shall be justified Rom. 2. 13. And it is He who makes it to be the design of Christ's Expiating our Sins upon the Cross That the Righteousness of the Law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the Flesh but after the Spirit And it is this same Apostle that saith Though I speak with the Tongues of Men and of Angels and have not Charity a Moral Virtue I am become as sounding Brass or a tinkling Cymbal And though I have the gift of Prophecy and understand all Mysteries and all Knowledge And though I have all Faith so that I could remove Mountains and have no Charity I am nothing c. 1 Cor. 13. 1 2. And in the last Verse doth not only Equalize Charity with Faith and Hope which many now adays are so far from doing that they are angry with those who do so but also Advanceth it above those Graces And now abideth Faith Hope Charity these three but the greatest of these is Charity Thirdly Whosoever teacheth this Doctrine of Christ's having set us free from the Moral Law contradicteth the whole strain of the New Testament Our Saviours Sermon on the Mount throughout all his Injunctions and even all his Discourses and all the Precepts and Exhortations contained in the Epistles of the Apostles They are all so many instances of the Obligations that the First and Second Tables lay upon us as understood in the most Spiritual Sublime and Comprehensive Sence And none are more so than those of S. Paul so intolerably is he abused in being made the Great and I think Onely Patron of that most licentious and wicked Doctrine And even that Precept of Believing in the Name of the Son of God is a First-Table Precept not Positive but Moral in its own Nature necessarily obliging and a Dictate of Natural Light to all those who are acquainted with the Evidence of his being the Messiah and Son of God Upon our understanding how He is demonstrated so to be we should have known that Faith in Him is an indispensable Duty though we could not have produced one Text to prove it Moreover Believing in Christ together with the Institutions of Baptism and the Lord's Supper are designed as Means to the great End of making us intirely Obedient to the Moral Law or the Everlasting Rules of Righteousness Fourthly Whosoever teacheth this Doctrine teacheth a most manifest contradiction to the Essential Principles and Make of Mankind It is impossible that Reasonable Creatures should be disobliged from Loving God above all from being Just and Charitable Sober and Temperate Humble and Submissive to the Divine Will and the like It is impossible that any Power whatsoever should discharge them from such duties as these Their Obligation to them doth Naturally arise from their being such Creatures There is not a greater contradiction than this imaginable that Creatures made capable of understanding what God is and their Relation and Obligations to him may not be Eternally bound to behave themselves towards him as the Moral Law requires they should Infinite Power it self cannot set such Creatures free from their Obligation to love God with the highest degree of love their Souls will admit of Now as the Apostle tells us that Love is the fulfilling of the Law so 't is easie to shew that all Moral Duties whatsoever whether relating to God our Neighbour or our Selves are the necessary results and consequents of the Love of God so that we cannot once suppose that these should cease at any time to be the Duties of Men and Women but we must also suppose them then deprived of their Essential Form and to be changed into another sort of Beings Fifthly This Doctrine also is as apparent a contradiction to the Happiness and Welfare of Mankind We cannot be in a Happy or tolerably Good state but by conforming our selves to the Precepts of this Law We have already shewed that those must necessarily be deplorably Miserable who live in subjection to any corrupt Appetite any Fleshly or Spiritual Lust. To
which purpose I will add this passage of Clemens Alexandrinus To submit and give place to evil Affections is extreme Slavery as to overcome them is the only Liberty Nor can the best place in the World not Heaven it self or the most Glorious outward circumstances make that person Happy or not Miserable within whom all is amiss and out of order and who is indued with no good Habit or Temper of Mind A diseased Body will be uneasie do what you can to it and so will diseased Souls These things considered 't is the most Amazing thing that any who call themselves Christians can entertain such a Notion as this of Christian Liberty the directly contrary being the whole Design and Business of Christianity And yet for all that we find it as Ancient as the Apostles days there were those so early that did not only Teach it but Practised upon it that used their Liberty for a cloak of Maliciousness and turned the Grace of God into lasciviousness But 't is no over-bold saying that if this could be really proved to be a Liberty of Christ's bringing into the World there is no Good man but would abhor the Christian Religion But the Antinomians not to make worse of them than they are tell us that they do not deny the Obligation of Christians to the performance of the Duties required by the Moral Law but 't is only Love Gratitude and ingenuity that can oblige them Which is as much as to say that they are not obliged to them in strict Justice or as they are the Matter of a Law But alas they very little mend the matter by this Salvo nay their Doctrine is of the same dangerous consequence with it that it is without it For First It destroys all the Gospel Precepts makes them insignificant and idle things They being all Moral either in themselves or in their Design Secondly It takes off all Obligation to Love Ingenuity and Gratitude You say you are not bound to be Righteous Charitable Temperate c. by any other Law than that of Love and Gratitude But by what Law are you obliged to the Love of God and Christ to be Grateful to them and to have an Ingenuous Thankful Sense of the Great things they have done for you You must say by no Law at all seeing you make these the only Law of Christians And if you are obliged to these things by no Law how are they Duties And perswade a man once that they are not Duties and 't will be very strange if he make any Conscience of Love and Gratitude And then there is nothing left to hold him in from committing all manner of wickedness with greediness whensoever the Tempter or his Lusts solicite him and opportunities are offered to him But besides they have another Doctrine and 't is that upon which this strange wild Notion is founded which takes away all necessity of being Grateful and Ingenuous viz. That the Righteousness of Christ is Formally and not only in its Fruits and Effects a Believers so that He hath done all that the Law requires in the Believers stead or as Personating him This is their Sence of those words lately cited I came not to destroy the Law but to fulfil it so that Christ having fulfilled the Law as the Believers Representative he hath fulfilled it himself in Christ. And Christs Active and Passive Obedience is his both as to Matter and Principle and therefore Christs Love and Gratitude are his Love and Gratitude and all those Graces which so shined forth in Christ are the Believers in their very Formality and Essential nature Now what should ail those that can down with this strange stuff to boggle at believing that they have no need at all of any other Love Ingenuity or Gratitude than what is thus imputed to them And therefore you see that their talking of the Law of Love and Gratitude is but a pitiful shift and will do nothing towards the deliverance of their Doctrine of Freedom from the Moral Law from the necessary tendency it is charged with to the letting the Reins loose and opening the Flood-gates to all Ungodliness I exceedingly wonder how it is possible for People that have not first lost their Wits to embrace an Opinion so apparently Destructive of Christianity and of all Religion and all this while profess themselves Christians and the onely Christians too But I have bestowed too much time in the Confutation of this Hateful Notion of Christian Liberty it being as ridiculously silly as it is wicked And it being as evident to him that knows any thing of the Gospel that it is Antichristian Licentiousness as that there is any such thing as Christian Liberty Poor Souls They little understand what Liberty meaneth who are able to talk or think at this rate In short He that believes that true Christians are delivered by the Sufferings of Christ from the Curse due to the Transgressors of this Law believes most truly but whosoever believes they are delivered from the Power it had to oblige to the Duties thereof or that any man can be so delivered thinks most wickedly and thinks most madly CHAP. XIII A Second False Notion of Christian Liberty viz. That which makes it to consist in Freedom from the Obligation of those Laws of Men which enjoyn or forbid indifferent things This Notion differently managed by the Defenders of it First Some extend it so far as to make it to reach to all Humane Laws the matter of which are things indifferent Secondly Others limit it to those which relate to Religion and the Worship of God The 23. Vers. of the 7. Chap. of the 1 Epist. to the Corinthians cleared from giving any Countenance to either of these Opinions The Former of them Confuted by three Arguments And the Latter by four Vnder the Second of which several Texts of Scripture which are much insisted upon in the defence thereof are taken into Consideration An unjust Reflection upon the Church of England briefly replied to And this Principle that the imposing of things indifferent in Divine Worship is no Violation of Christian Liberty proved to be no ways Serviceable to Popery by considering what the Popish Impositions are in Three Particulars SEcondly We are next to speak to that Notion of Christian Liberty which makes it to consist in Freedom from those Laws of Men that command or forbid Indifferent things i. e. Things neither good nor evil in their own nature nor required or prohibited by any Law of God This Notion is differently managed by the Defenders of it First Some extend it to all Humane laws the Matter of which are things Indifferent Secondly Others limit it to those which relate to Religion onely and the Worship of God But what proof is there of Christ's having purchased such a Liberty as this Or that Christians are made Free from such Laws in either of these Sences There is one Text insisted on by both of these Parties for each