by one Spirit unto the Father CHAP. VII Of the Efficacy of the Satisfaction of Christ and the Congruity of it to right Reason THUS for the settling of our Minds in the Truth of Christ we have considered of those clear Prophecies and Types of Christ in the Old Testament We now come to consider some Particulars concerning this great work of our Redemption 1. Wherein consists the Efficacy and Virtue of Christ's Mediation and Sacrifice 2. How it was effected Wherein we shall consider 1. His Satisfaction 2. The Application of this Satisfaction in reference to the Father his Intercession in reference to us his Word and Spirit 3. The Effects and Consequents of it 1. The Efficacy of this Satisfaction consists in that free Acceptance by God of this Sacrifice of Christ as a Satisfaction for the Sins of his Elect and to be the price of the Inheritance thereby purchased for them by an eternal Contract between the Father and the Son for otherwise it were impossible of its own nature that the Sacrifice of one could expiate for the sin of another The tenor of this great Covenant between God and Christ was that the Son should take upon him Flesh should fullfil the Law of our Creation should suffer death and rise again and that Almighty God would accept this as the satisfaction for the sins of the righteous and as the price of Eternal Life for as many as should believe in him This is effectually set forth by the Word of Truth it self John 6.37 38 39 40. All that the Father giveth me shall come unto me and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out for I came down from heaven not to do my own Will but the will of him that sent me and this is the Father's will that hath sent me that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing but should raise it up again at the last day And this is the will of him that sent me that every one which seeth the Son and believeth on him may have everlasting life and I will raise him up at the last day It is the Will of God which is nothing but the Acceptaton of God 1 John 4.10 He sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins his sending was his Acceptation Isa 53.10 When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin there was the Acceptation of the Father Again on the Son's part Psal 40.6 â— Burnt-offering and sin-offering hast thou not reâ—uired then said I Lo I come And the same Word of Truth that tells us John 3.16 That God gave his only begotten Son tells us again John 10.17 18. I lay dâ—wn my life that I may take it up again And this susception of Christ and acceptation of God though we represent it to our selves under several Notions yet it was one indivisible and eternal Counsel of the Divine Majesty Acts 2.23 Him being delivered by the determinate counsel and fore knowledge of God And this Purpose and Counsel of his only the proceed of his eternal and free Love So God loved the world John 3.16 In this was manifested the love of God towards us because he sent c. But could the Pardon of Man's Sin and his attaining of Happiness be had at no lower a rate could not God have freely forgiven the one and given the other without this great mixing of Heaven and Earth in this wonderful Mystery of the Sacrifice of the Son of God As the original Resolution of all the Works and Counsels of God must be into his own good pleasure so especially of this Ephes 1.5 He hath predestinated us to the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself according to the good pleasure of his Will. Yet we do find some Congruity of Right Reason in this course of Man's Redemption 1. To magnifie to all the World the Glory of his free Grace Ephes 1.6 and to take away all possibility of boasting in the subject of this Redemption Ephes 2.8 By Grace are ye saved through Faith and that not of your selves it is the gift of God not of works lest any man should boast 1 Cor. 1.29 That no flesh should glory in his presence The Dependence that all Creatures especially Man have upon the Creator both in their Being and Perfection doth most justly and reasonably challenge from the reasonable Creature a free Retribution of Acknowledgment of his Dependence upon the Goodness of God and it is an affection of the greatest Congruity that is imaginable yet we see how soon Man forgot that duty and would be independent upon his Lord. Now when Man had concluded all his Posterity under sin then for God freely to give such a Price of Redemption as it magnifies the Freeness and Bounty of his Goodness so it doth ingage lapsed Man to the everlasting Acknowledgment of the Free Grace of God in restoring him that so God may be all in all 2. To magnifie the Exquisiteness of his Justice In that dreadful Proclamation of the Name of God Exod. 34.6 7. we find a strange mixture of his Mercy and Justice Forgiving Iniquity Transgression and Sin and that will by no means clear the guilty and both parts essential to his Name Such a way then must be for Man's Restoration that may evidence his Mercy in pardoning as well as his Justice in punishing Sin Christ was made sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him 2 Cor. 5.21 And being made Sin for us was likewise made a Curse for us Galat. 3.13 Here we have him pardoning Iniquity Transgression and sin of Men and yet not sparing his own Son when he bore the imputed guilt of our sins 3. To magnifie the glory of his Wisdom The admirable Fabrick of the World speaks abundantly the Wisdom of our Creator but all this was inferiour and subservient unto this great Business 1 Cor. 1.24 Christ the Power of God and the Wisdom of God 1 Pet. 1.22 A Business for the inquiry and speculation of Angels Ephes 3.10 The manifold Wisdom of God the end of the Creation Colos 1.16 All things created by him and for him Colos 1.20 to reconcile all things to himself whether they be things in Heaven or things in Earth Ephes 1.10 That he might gather together in one all things in Christ The sum of this Mystery we have 1 Tim. 3.16 God manifested in the flesh justified in the Spirit seen of Angels preached to the Gentiles believed on in the world received into glory In this great frame of Man's Redemption we see the Counsel of God strangely executed his ancient Promises fulfilled the Shadows and Types of the Law unveiled the breach of the righteous Law of God punished the Righteousness thereof fulfilled the Justice of God satisfied his Mercy glorified his Creature pardoned justified glorified all those difficulties intricacies and confusions which came into the world by the sin of Man extricated ordered and salved the
in his Friend scorn and oppression from his Superiour supplanting from his Equal envy and mischief from his Inferiour falsness and temptation from the Wife of his Bosom rebellion from his Children vanity and disappointment in his Purposes Diseases Distempers and infections in his Body madness and blindness in his Understanding perverseness in his Will tumult and confusion in his Affections guilt and preapprehensions of terrour in his Conscience Death and dissolution of Body and Soul and Judgment Vengeance Hell and yet Eternity after all this Then let Man know that in all this and that which is all this and more than this the Aversion of the Favour and Light of the Countenance of God he eats but the Fruit of his own ways and thou O God art just when thou thus judgest and whatsoever is better than the worst of all this to any of the Children of men is meer Mercy and more than their due But if now in the midst of Judgment God remembers Mercy and Mankind being now condemned and concluded under sin if the merciful God that at first gave Being and Blessing shall after we had spent that Patrimony and lost our selves provide for our Restitution that when we of Free-Men had made our selves Slaves and Vessels of Wrath shall provide a Means for our Deliverance This engageth us to a higher degree both of Admiration and Duty than even our first Creation did This then is the next thing considerable viz. The means and way of Man's Restitution CHAP. V. Of the Restitution of Man by Christ ALL Mankind lay by the Fall under Guilt which is an Obligation to Punishment both of loss of Happiness and everlasting subjection both to temporal and eternal Curse And this estate of Man and his Posterity even to the end of the World was present in the infallible Foresight of God from all Eternity In that consideration he had a Kingdom but over Rebels and Traitors and had everlasting cause of the execution of his Justice and the Power of his Wrath but nothing to deserve or draw out his Mercy among all the Sons of Men who were all present and stood up together in his Eternal Foresight Thus Man had as far forth as was in him disappointed the End of God in his Creation insomuch that in the outward dispensation of God's Providence it seemed that he repented that he had made Man on the Earth Gen. 6.6 But though Man as much as in him lay had made himself an useless Creature and interrupted the possibility of attaining an End answerable to his Being yet God's Counsel was not disappointed But the great Lord of his own free Goodness did in his Eternal Counsel fore-appoint some of lost Men to Remission of their Sin and eternal Happiness in Christ by such Means as he had before ordained to be effectual for that purpose And this is the great Discovery of the Scripture and contains that great Business which Man hath to do in this World because it is that which concerns his great and everlasting End without which his very Being is not only unprofitable but miserable and now comes to be consider'd This then is the sum of all That Almighty God out of his own Free-will and Goodness did in his Eternal Counsel fore appoint some of lost Mankind to Remission of sin and guilt and Reconciliation and Eternal Happiness in Christ by such Means as he had before ordained in the same Counsel to be effectual for that purpose In this description we have these Particulars to be sifted and we have done our Business 1. What the Motive of this Purpose God's meer good Will 2. What the Object of it some of Mankind 3. What the End of this Counsel Remission of sin and Restoration to Happiness 4. What the Hand or immediate Instrument of effecting it Christ 5. What those subordinate Means of attaining it 6. What the Consequents of it 1. Touching the Motive nothing at all meritorious in Man but only the good will of God thus to select some out of the lost multitude of Men to be Vessels of Mercy And this is that which is so often inculcated in the Book of God in all the successions of it Exod. 33.19 I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious and will shew mercy to whom I will shew mercy So Deut. 9.5 Moses's sad Admonition to the Jews who in all things were typical Vnderstand therefore that the Lord thy God giveth thee not this good land for thy righteousness for thou art a stiff-necked people Ezek. 16.6 When I passed by thee and saw thee polluted in thy own blood I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood Live yea I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood Live. Isaiah 43.25 I even I am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake and will not remember thy sins Luke 10.21 And hast revealed them to babes even so Father for so it seemed good in thy sight Ephes 2.3 When we were by nature children of wrath even as others But God who is rich in mercy for his great love wherewith he hath loved us even when we were dead in sins hath quickned us together with Christ by grace are ye saved 2 Tim. 1.10 Who hath saved us and called us with an holy calling not according to our works but according to his own purpose and grace which was given us in Christ before the world began but now made manifest by the appearing of Christ 1 John 4.10 Here is love not that we loved God but that he loved us Ibid. 19. We love him because he loved us first Rom. 5.8 God commendeth his love towards us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us And indeed it is impossible it should be otherwise for the Scripture hath concluded all under sin Galat. 3.22 And we have shewed before an utter impossibility in Man to extricate himself The fore-appointing therefore of any to Eternal Life could not be from any Cause in the Creature meritoriously moving God to this Mercy The Freedom and Liberality of this Purpose of God. 1. In respect of the Elect to take away all matter of boasting Ephes 2.8 To keep them humble and to keep them thankful that God may be all in all It pleaseth the great God to order the Execution of his Counsels touching Man that they are brought about as with a powerful and irrisistible Hand so they are brought about by such means as is naturally suitable to the nature of Man Rationally and Freely Psal 110. Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy Power Now there cannot be a more engaging Argument to Humility and Thankfulness than the consideration of this Free Goodness of God that when I had thrown away my Happiness lay in the common lump of condemned Men God should freely single me out among thousands that he passed by and make me a Vessel of Mercy And this doth most sweetly and effectually win upon the Heart So
Magazine of Grace to heal and purge that corruption John 1.16 Of his fulness we receive grace for grace In sum Man had lost his Creator with an infinite distance and so lost his Happiness Christ as the Fulness of God dwelt in him bodily so together with him restores Man to his Lord and so to his Blessedness Ephes 3.19 And to know the love of Christ that passeth knowledge that ye may he filled with all the fulness of God. The Means then of this Fruition is Vnion The reason by which every thing enjoys what it hath is Union and the more strict the Union is between the thing that enjoys and the thing enjoyed The strictest Union is between any thing and its Essence therefore when Goodness is part of the Essence the Enjoyment is the most perfect And it is by vertue of this Union with Christ that all this Fulness of Christ is conveyed to the Believer Now as the Fulness of Christ ariseth from his Union with God the Fountain of Goodness so our Fruition of that Fulness ariseth from our Union with Christ John 17.23 I in them and thou in me that they may be made perfect in one And this was the great Purpose of God in sending Christ Ephes 1.10 That he might gather together in one all things in Christ And this Union with Christ is frequently expressed in the Scripture in the strictest terms of Union conversation of Friendship John 14.23 We will come unto him and make our abode with him Christ formed in them Galat. 4.19 Incorporation with him eating his Flesh and drinking his Blood John 6.53 Inhabiting in them Ephes 3.17 Christ living in them Galat. 2.20 Part of his very substance Ephes 5.30 For we are members of his body of his flesh and of his bones Partakers of the very Fulness of God that is in him Ephes 3.19 That ye may be filled with the fulness of God. Changed into the very Image of Christ 2 Cor. 3.18 Partakers of the Divine Nature 2 Pet. 1.4 Now we are to consider How this Vnion is wrought viz. By a double act 1. Of God's part 2. Of our part God in the Creation united Man unto himself and Man by his sin broke that Union and departed from him and is he could not so he would never have returned to God again unless God had brought him to himself John 6.65 No man can come unto me except it were given him of my Father Now the degrees of those acts whereby God unites us to him are 1. His Eternal Love Man by his sin got away from God as far as he could and as he lost his Ability so he lost his Mind to return Gen. 3.10 I heard thy voice and I was afraid and I hid my self Love is the first motion to Union and this Love of God is the first foundation of our Union to him John 3.16 For God so loved the world c. 1 John 4.10 Herein is Love not that we loved him but that he loved us first and gave his Son to be the propitiation for our sins 2 Cor. 5.19 God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself before the World either wisht or thought of that Reconciliation so that it was a free Love and not drawn out upon any desert in his Creature 2. The second step of the motion towards Union was the sending his Son to assume our Nature and come unto us The distance between God and his best Creature is essentially infinite because finite with infinite bears no proportion but the distance between God and his sinful Creature must needs be greater because the Creature by his sin is gone away from God farther than he was in his pure Being To fill up this infinite distance God and Man is united into one Christ by the assumption of our Nature and by this means God is come nearer unto us as we may say and we in a condition to draw nearer unto him even in his Son. And thus God hath gathered together all things in one in Christ Ephes 1.10 3. The third step is by the course of his Providence conveying the knowledge and use of this Mediator unto us This is a farther degree of Union the former was specifical in our Natures but this objective and intellectual viz. by means proportionable to our Natures and Conditions providentially disposed he sends unto us the relation of our own Condition by Nature our Duty our Saviour his Will and all those Truths contained in the Book of God and this Truth he sets on with Rational Convictions Prophecies Miracles Perswasions Intreaties all which nave a rational operation upon our Understanding and Wills. This is that which is the Outward Calling And among those many Effectual Truths that are conveyed unto us by this Calling which were either lost or defaced in Man these are principally discovered and of principal use 1. That God is the chiefest Good and therefore the chiefest Object of our Love and Desire and therefore doth justly require the extremity of our pursuit The enjoyment of this Object is that wherein Mans Felicity consisted in his State of Innocence and must in his State of Restitution and this truth once entertained doth render all things else insipid in Comparison of it Deut. 6.4 Hear O Israel The Lord our God is one Lord therefore thou shalt love c. 2. That he is a Communicative Good for without this the Labour of the Soul would be fruitless For it were impossible for a finite Power to reach or overtake an infinite Object unless the Object did exhibit himself unto that Power And herein is the excellence of this call of God it discovers the Free Love of God unto the Soul So as the Absolute Goodness of God engageth us even in Judgment to seek to be united unto him so this Free Love of God engageth us even in good Nature as I may say to seek him And the very Entertainment of this truth soundly in the heart is the Foundation of our Faith and Obedience Rom. 5.8 But God commendeth his Love towards us in that while we were yet Sinners Christ dyed for us As if he should have said There could not be imagined a more Conquering love than this that he whom we had injured by our Sins should yet seek the Good of his Creature 1 John 4.9 Herein is Love not that we loved God but that he loved us first This was Love with a Witness That when the Creature that owed to his Lord the strength of his Love had broken his Duty and become a hater of his Lord yet that that God should love such a Creature And as this Love was thus Free so it condescended to all the means of Communicating himself that are imaginable contriving means to reconcile us God was in Christ reconciling the World unto himself 2 Cor. 5.19 God was reconciling when Man thought of nothing but offending Importunities of reconciliation 2 Cor. 5.20 We pray you in Christ's stead be reconciled to God. It
so much of the Creatures inferiour to my self as observe the Law of their Creation enjoy a measure of Perfection answerable to their Being and if interrupted in that law of their Nature they lose their Beauty if not their Being The degree of my Being was higher than theirs and so was consequently the End of my Being my Happiness of a higher Constitution than theirs And as my Debt was greater to my Creator for allowing me so high an End so was my ability proportionable to the pursuit and attaining of that End which was thus given to me But what have I been doing all this while I have measured my Heart by that great Law Thou shalt love the Lord with all thy heart and I have found my Heart full of the love of the World of Pleasures of Vanities but scarce a thought bestowed on him that gave me Power to think and which is worse my Heart hath held confederacy with all that he hath forbidden insomuch that I may justly conclude that surely nothing but a Heart hating God could so constantly and universally oppose his Will I have measured my Life by the Law of God and I can scarcely find one regular action in it my Heart hath not been so out of frame but it hath still found a full subservience of my whole Man unto it and that with greediness and yet I find all this unsatisfactory and I have cause to fear that is not all Sense doth tell me that in the pursuit of the ways of my Heart I spend my self for that which is not Bread and my labour for that which profiteth not I find no fulness in them but much vexation And Reason as well as Conscience tells me it will be bitterness in the end and the end is death I cannot but know that the great Lord of all Being hath measured out to all his Creatures their Beings and their Happiness suitable to their Beings and their Ways and Rules and Laws to attain their Happiness and if all this while I have been out of that Way I am travelling to another End If in the way of God I should have found Life and everlasting Life for my End out of that Way my End must be Death If I were now to begin my Life I should order it better Though I cannot expiate what is past yet my Soul looks upon it with Sorrow with Indignation with Amazement This is the first degree 2. That they are Vnbecoming Vngrateful and Vndutiful Returns It is implanted even in the sensitive Nature to return good for good We have received all the Good from the hands of that God against whom the practice of our Hearts and Lives hath been a continual Rebellion and upon this Consideration natural Ingenuity works a Shame in the Soul and a secret Condemnation and some kind of loathing so Ungrateful and Undutiful a Constitution 3. But hitherto the Soul looks only backward and these Considerations though they are enough to breed Shame and Despair in the Soul yet they are not strong enough to work Repentance because in those Considerations the Soul looks upon it self in an unexpiable and irrecoverable Condition The amendment will prove fruitless where the former guilt is irreversible and yet enough to sink the Soul Therefore the third Conviction is of the love of God that hath provided a means of pardon and acceptation when a Man throughly convinced of the unprofitableness and desperateness of his actions and condition his extream Ingratitude unto God shall for all this hear a voice after all those things Return back thou back-sliding Israel and I will not cause mine anger to fall upon you for I am merciful and will not keep mine anger for ever only acknowledge thine iniquity Jer. 3.12 13. This conquers the Soul not only into a dislike of sin past as dangerous and unprofitable but unto a hatred of it and of our selves for it as the enemy to such an invincible Love. The Consideration of our ways past and comparing them with the Law will enforce the Conscience to condemn them but it must be the sense of the Love and Goodness of God in Christ that can only incline us to change them as by the former he concludes his ways dangerous and unprofitable so without the latter he will conclude his Repentance unuseful And hereupon the Soul is cast into such Expressions as these O Lord I have been considering the present temper of my Heart and reviewed the course of my Life and have compared them with the Duty I owe unto thee and the Law which thou gavest me to be the Rule of that Duty and I find my heart and ways infinitely disproportionable to that Rule and thereby I conclude my self a most ungrateful and a miserable Creature But though I have sinned away that stock of Grace and Blessedness with which I was once intrusted by thee I find I have not out-sinned that Fountain of Goodness and Mercy that is in thee even whiles the sight and sense of my own Condition bids me despair either of repenting or acceptation of it yet I hear the voice of that Majesty which I have injured bids me Return and live Ezek. 18.32 Were there no acceptance of my turning from those ways of death and destruction yet it were my duty and though thy Justice might justly reject it yet it might justly require it But yet when thy merciful and free Promise shall crown my Repentance with Acceptation and Life This Love constrains beyond the sense of my own misery And when I hear the voice of my Lord calling to me to return and I will heal your backslidings that Love warms my Heart into that answer Behold I will come unto thee for thou art the Lord my God Jer 3.22 But who can come unto thee unless thou draw him send therefore thy Power along with thy Command for it is not of him that willeth nor of him that runneth Turn me and I shall be turned I will engage the uttermost of my strength to forsake my ways but I will still wait upon the same Mercy that did invite me to enable me to forsake them By that which preceeds we see a double Repentance 1. That which is Preparatory unto the receiving of Christ which is nothing else but a sense of the unhappiness and evil of our ways as destructive unto our Happiness and dissonant from that Rule of Righteousness which we cannot but naturally subscribe to be Just and Good and this doth naturally breed a Sorrow for what hath been so done and a Purpose and Inclination of Heart to forsake those ways And this was the work of the Baptist to prepare the way of the Lord his Doctrine was a Doctrine of Repentance and his Baptism a Baptism of Repentance a Seal of the Entertainment of that Doctrine to as many as received it Matth. 3.2 Luk. 3.16 Acts 19.4 2. That which is Subsequent to that entertainment of Christ in the Heart by Faith which is the sense of
let thy words be few seasonable considerate true 4. Set a Watch upon thine Appetite it is of it self natural and consequently good but the distemper of our Nature hath put it out of its place and consequently out of its bounds Suspect thy Appetite and keep it under with Rules of Moderation put a Knife to thy Throat Prov. 23.2 look not upon the Wine when it gives its colour in the Cup Prov. 23.31 love not sleep Prov 20.13 and with Rules of Seasonableness the wise Man tells us every thing is beautiful in its time Eccles 3.11 because it is then in that order which God hath appointed for it the same Action that may be but tolerable and indifferent in one time may be necessary in another and sinful in another Isaiah 22.12 13. In that day did the Lord call for weeping and mourning and behold slaving of oxen surely this iniquity shall not be purged from you till ye die 2 Sam. 11.11 The Ark and Israel and Judah abide in tents c. shall I then go down to my house to eat and to drink and to lie with my wife Regulate thy Reason by the Word and Counsel of God and discipline thy Appetite with thy Reason observe its motions and check them Rather deny it a lawful than countenance it in but a disputable Liberty CHAP. XX. Of Watchfulnes over our Affections and Passions of Love Anger and Fear 5. SET a Watch upon thine Affections and Passions Thy Affections are by thy natural corruption become inordinate Affections they are easily misplaced and more easily over-acted Take heed to thy Love according to the order or disorder of this Affection are all thy other Affections tempered See therefore that it be rightly placed Dispence thy Love in measures proportionable to the worth of the Object Nothing can challenge thy intensest Love but the intensest Good and that God that requires thy Heart is a jealous God let not out the whole Current of thy Affections upon any thing below him Lawful Pleasures natural Relations Conveniences in the World a Man 's own self may be Objects of a moderate and subordinate Love But when they take up the whole compass of our Love our Love becomes our Sin Matth. 10.37 He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me 1 John 2.15 If any man love the world the love of the Father is not in him 2 Tim. 3.2 4. lovers of themselves and lovers of Pleasures ranked amongst the worst of Men. When the Affection of thy Soul is moving after any thing before thou give it leave examine the Object whether worthy of any measure of thy Love and if so yet let it not go without a farther debate Consider the measure of Good that is in the Object and weigh out its proportion of Love answerable to the measure of its Good But rest not there neither remember it is but a subordinate a derivative Good as well as a measurable Good bestow not that measure of thy Love upon it absolutely but subordinately catechise thy Love with this Question Whether if thy Creator requires thee to hate that Object to forgo it to forsake it thou canst be better content to call home thy Affection than to let it rest where it is By this time and by this means thy Love will be under a discipline and a rule and the Precipitancy of this Affection beyond its due Proportion allayed and moderated And remember always it is the impotency of our Condition and the great cause of the disorders in our Souls and Lives that we are contented to give our Affections leave upon the first apprehension to pursue their Objects without debate lest we should interrupt the expectation of Contentment by a clear discovery of the unworthiness and vanity of the Object and the ill consequences of immoderation in the pursuit thus we are contented to deceive our selves with the Felicity of false Expectation rather than by pre-consideration to avoid a real Inconvenience or Disappointment Take heed to thine Anger Be angry but sin not Ephes 4.26 keep it not too long nor act it too far lest it prove Hatred Revenge Oppression Order thy Anger so that it may be rather an act of thy Judgment than of thy Perturbation If thou art provoked by an Injury before thou give a Commission to this Passion propose to thy self the Question which God asked Jonah Jonah 4.9 Dost thou well to he angry weigh well the Cause and remember thou art partial to thy self and apt to construe that for a just Provocation which it may be was none or deserved Suspect thy Judgment of Partiality put thy self in the others Condition before thou judgest remember that he that doth thee the Injury is but God's Instrument 2 Sam. 16 10. Because the Lord hath said unto him Curse David who then shall say Wherefore hast thou done so It may be his Injury is God's Justice and then thy Anger against the Instrument is Rebellion or at best it may be his Experiment of thy Patience and then thy Anger is Disobedience Remember the just occasions of Anger thou hast given to thy Creator and yet his Patience to thee and shouldest thou not have compassion on thy fellow servant Matth. 18.33 Remember thy Redeemer that bought thee with the Sacrifice of his Soul hath given thee another Precept Matth. 5.44 Love your Enemies and another Example who when he was reviled reviled not again and canst thou deny the denial of Passion for his sake Remember thy gentleness will more advantage thee than thy anger it may be he will be conquered with thy Patience and revenge thy Quarrel against himself with his Repentance but if not there is a God of Vengeance can and will do it Rom. 12.19 When a Man takes up the Office of his Judge he injures both the Judge and Party and in stead of doing himself right he makes himself guilty Again if thou doest well to be angry dost thou well to be angry so much or so long The Wise Man tells us That Anger resteth in the bosom of Fools Set a Watch therefore over thy Anger let it be just and moderate and let not the Sun go down on thy wrath Ephes 4.26 Set a Watch upon thy Fear There is nothing deserves thy fear of Reverence but thy Creator nâ— thy fear of Aversion but thy Sin If thy Peace he made with him thou art above the Fear of any thing below him objects of Terror shall not come near thee the Beasts of the Field shall be at peace with thee or if they are not they shall not hurt thee The terriblest things in the World are therefore terrible because they end in Death the King of Terrors And when thy Peace is made with thy Lord thou hast a double Security against them 1. Because they are in the hands of his Power and Wisdom and they cannot exceed their Commission that he gives them he can if it please him dissipate whole Armies of
4.19 We love him because he first loved us this even natural ingenuity would challenge of us 2. A Love of Prudence as I may call it which is the only tolerable self-Self-Love in the World to love God because the fruition of his Favour and his Presence is our best Advantage as a most suitable Good. By this thou mayest easily find what should be the Object of thy intensest Grief Sin in others Psal 119.136 Rivers of waters run down mine eyes because they keep not thy Law But especially Sin in our selves that and only that can deserve our intensest Sorrow as the only thing that is contrary 1. To the Purity the Glory the Will of him that is the chiefest Good. Is he the chiefest Good then certainly whatsoever is contrary to his Purity Glory or Will cannot chuse but be the chiefest Evil and consequently the object of thy Hatred and of thy Grief Is thy Conformity to his Nature and Will the necessary consequence of thy Love unto him that then that spoils that Conformity to him cannot chuse but be thy Sorrow thou lovest him because he is Good and that Goodness in him which is the cause of thy Love must of necessity imprint upon thee a desire to have the like ground of Loveliness in thy self and this thy sin disappoints thee of 2. Contrary to that Gratitude that even natural ingenuity teacheth thee to return to an ordinary Benefactor Consider that great God whom thou hast offended hath freely given thee thy Being the greatest Gift that is possibly conceiveable and with thy Being hath given thee the Copy of his Mind and Will a most Reasonable and Just Command in the Obedience whereof consists thy Perfection and Happiness If he had given thee a rigorous and severe Law taking in the whole compass of thy Being or such a Law wherein thou couldst bave seen nothing but the Absolute Will of thy Creator yet the Debt thou owest thy Creator could not be satisfied with such a performance And now for thee to offend such a Law of such a God that hath given thee thy Being Again consider that when thy Maker could not by any imaginable Rule of Justice owe any thing to the exactest Obedience of his Creature yet such was his Goodness that he made himself a Debtor even to his own Creature entring into a Covenant of Life with him thereby to encourage his Obedience and this for no other cause but because his Mercy endureth for ever For can a man be profitable to God Job 22.2 And for a Man to sin against so much Condescension of an Infinite God to his own Creature Again consider when against so much Mercy and Love thou hast offended thy Maker and even by thy own Contract as well as by the Just and Universal Right that God had over his Creature hast forfeited thy Being to thy Creator yet he took not the advantage of it remitted thy Forfeiture and sent a Sacrifice in thy stead of his own providing with a message of a fulness of Love with a new Covenant of more easiness to perform and of more comfort in the performance with a Pardon for thy Sin and with a Reward for anothers Righteousness and when thou wert an enemy and dead in sins and trespasses sent his Son to his Creature to beseech Reconciliation and his Spirit to give thee Life to accept it and to seal thy acceptation of it with an earnest and an assurance of Life and Glory that by that Spirit and through that Son of his hath given thee Access unto his own Majesty a discovery of that Glory to the which thou art called Certainly these are the highest ingagements of Gratitude that are possible to be put upon a Creature and do therefore challenge even from natural ingenuity the highest Return thou canst make though it be infinitely short of what thou doest owe And yet after all this cross the Will of thy Creator that hath done so much for thee to forget the Love of thy Saviour and to crucifie him again to grieve that Spirit of Love and Purity that comes to cleanse thee and fit thee for thy Masters use and to seal thee to Life and Immortality to dishonour that Name by which thou art called to pollute that Conscience which thy Saviour hath washed with his Bloud to deface that Image and Superscription of thy Creator which he was imprinting upon thy Soul to prefer a base unworthy perishing unprofitable Lust or Vanity before the Honour of such a God the Love of such a Saviour the perswasion and importunities of such a Spirit before thy own Peace Perfection and Happiness to vex and oppress and despise the Patience and Bounty of him that hath done all this for thee and gives thee yet an hour of Life to consider of it and a Promise of Grace and Pardon after all this if thou canst but mourn over thy Sins thy unthankfulness thy unworthy and disingenuous dealing with thy God. Lay the weight of these and the like aggravations upon thy hard and stony Heart and bruise it into Tears of Blood for thy unkindness to so merciful a God. Thou canst not exceed in this Sorrow it is a Sorrow that springs from the Love of God in the Soul a Sorrow that will cleanse thy Soul a Sorrow that will bring thee to thy Maker a Sorrow that hath a Promise of Acceptation goes along with it a Sorrow that is mingled with Comfort even the presence of a Saviour and a Sorrow that shall end in a fulness of Joy. Sorrow for sin as for a necessary cause of misery may end in desperation because it ariseth from love of our selves but sorrow for sin as for an ununthankful return of so much Love from God cannot because the Love of God is under that Sorrow and the spring of those Tears is a spring of Life and Comfort 3. Contrary to that Good which we lose by it 1. Our Conformity to the Mind and Will of God is our Perfection and the nearer our Conformity comes to his Will the more perfect is our Being Sin which is a violation of that Will of his spoils and disorders this Conformity and so it interrupts that inherent Good which otherwise would be in us 2. As it destroys our Conformity to the Will of God and so spoils us of our inherent Good so it interrupts that â—ommunicative Good that Influence of Life and Comfort which we have from God It removes us to a greater distance from him it displaceth us from that Position in which and by which the Goodness of God should be derived and conveyed to us we are by it out of that Covenant that Promise which God hath made with his Creature we are by it without the comfortable Presence of God without that Confidence that we might otherwise have in him out of the Assurance of his Providence and Protection It makes our Souls in the midst of all Fruition of outward Blessings full of doubtful Anxieties Fears and
that belongs to another thy heavenly Father knoweth thou hast need of all these things he is thy Father and therefore is willing to furnish thee with what shall be convenient for thee and he is thy Heavenly Father that wants not Power to do it he can supply thee in the ordinary way of his Providence and if there be need he can do it by the extraordinary work of his Power he can command Water out of a dry Rock as to the Israelites or out of a dry Bone as to Samson he can give thee Bread from Heaven he can feed Elijah by a Raven and can extend the Widows Barrel of Meal and Cruise of Oyl as large as the time and exigence of her Necessity Save thy self therefore the trouble of an unnecessary Care but commit thy way unto the Lord Trust also in him and he shall bring it to pass Thy Care may rob thy self of thy quietness and may rob thy God of his due but it is thy Dependance only upon him that can with ease and contentedness supply thy wants Diligence and Industry in that lawful Employment wherein his Providence hath placed thee is thy Duty and therefore observe it but Sollicitousness and Anxiousness is thy Sin and therefore avoid it Learn to obey him in what he commands and learn to wait upon him in what he promises 2. In our Love Set not thy Heart upon thy Wealth Psal 62.10 nor make it thy Treasure for if thou dost it will be master of thy Heart for where thy Treasure is there will thy Heart be Matth. 6.21 and if thy Heart be full of thy Wealth there will be no room for thy God Matth. 6.24 Ye cannot serve God and Mammon and If any Man love the world the Love of the Father is not in him 1 John 2.15 If the World have thy Love it will command thy Service and controll whatsoever opposeth that Command and break through all those Fences which seem to bridle or hedge in the pursuit of that World which thou so lovest Hath God set apart a time for his own Service thy love of the World will rob him of his own time Amos 8.5 When shall the new moon be gone that we may sell corn and the sabbath that we may set forth wheat and in the day of his fast thou wilt exalt all thy labours Isa 58.3 Doth he require a portion of our Goods for his Service thou wilt be ready to rob God of his Portion Mal. 3.8 or deceive him in it and sacrifice to the Lord a corrupt thing Malach 1.14 Hath he set apart a peculiar place for his Worship thou wilt be ready with Jeroboam to set up Calves in Dan and Bethel 1 Kings 12.26 to secure thy self in the enjoyment of thy temporol Advantage Hath he imprinted his own Superscription and Image upon Man with a strict prohibition of the violation of that Image Gen. 9.6 Yet if thou become one that is greedy of Gain it will prompt thee to take away the Life of the Owner that thou mayest be his Successor Prov. 1.19 Job 31.39 It will make thee grind the faces of the Poor sell them for a pair of old Shoes set Justice to sale sell thy Master with Judas for a small inconsiderable Gain And thus the Love of the World is the root of all evil for as all the Good in Man is the Conformity to the Will of God so whatsoever interrupts this Conformity must needs be an original of Evil and this is done by the Love of the World which makes a Man reject this Conformity when it is inconsistent with that imperious Love of the World. 3. In our Confidence And this is always a concomitant of our Love to them and our Care for them for these grow out of a mistaken over-valuation of them and as that carries on our care for them and love of them so in the fruition of them upon this mistaken Estimate grows a Confidence in them Psal 49.6 They trust in their wealth and boast themselves in the multitude of their riches Prov. 18.11 the rich man's wealth is his strong city and as an high wall in his own conceit And this was the ground of the rich Man's solacing himself in the Gospel Thou hast enough laid up for many years eat drink and be merry And from hence it is likewise that Covetousness is Idolatry for that is in truth thy God upon which thou most trustest if in a time of Prosperity thy Confidence is high and built upon thy Power or thy Wealth or thy carnal Confederacies and if in the dissipation of these thy Soul dies within thee and thy Hope is like the giving up of the Ghost it is plain the World is thy God for thy Confidence doth rise and fall and live and die with it Therefore take heed of laying the weight of thy Confidence upon the World Psal 62. Trust not in oppression c. Power belongeth only to God. Prov. 11.14 Riches profit nothing in the day of wrath 1 Tim. 6.17 Charge them that are rich in this world that they be not high minded nor trust in uncertain riches If God give thee Wealth and Riches look upon them as his Blessing and look upon that good and usefulness that is in them as that which comes not from themselves but from the Blessing of God and which he can when he please withdraw from them and then they will be so far from being a ground of Confidence as that they will be thy snare and occasion of thy ruine and not a foundation of thy strength Look upon them as things that cannot benefit thee in themselves whiles thou hast them unless he makes them instrumental and as things which will not abide with thee when he calls for thee or for them for Riches make themselves wings and flee away Prov. 23.5 If thou lean upon them they are a Reed and sink under thy Confidence and a broken Reed that will hurt thee in thy Dependance upon them They will disappoint thy Confidence in them and thy Confidence in them will pierce thee Jer. 2.3 The Lord hath rejected these thy confidences and thou shalt not prosper in them 3. Vnseasonableness 1. In thy Order of seeking of them seek them not in the first place but seek first that one thing which is necessary It is not necessary for thee to be rich but it is necessary for thee to be saved Lâ—t that which is of thy greatest Concernment be the subject of thy first Endeavour Matth. 6.33 Seek first the kingdom of God and the righteousness thereof and all these things shall he added unto you Thou hast but a short time here and upon the improvement of that little span of time depends thine everlasting condition of Happiness or Misery And if thou imploy the first-fruits of thy Life in the gain of this World which will certainly die with thee if not before thee who can tell if thou shalt have time enough left for the great
as far exceed all other Happiness in the World as far as it falls short of that perfect Knowledge Love and sense of the Love of God which shall be enjoyed hereafter Were a Man from the highest Honour and Reputation in the World cast into the greatest Scorn and Ignominy that the most exact and exasperated Envy could impose or wish or were his Body laden with as many Necessities Miseries and Torments as Hunger and the most sublimated and ingenious Malice could inflict or contrive could as well the highest sense as the most imminent expectation of Death the greatest of Evils be felt and yet protracted for an age yet if under all this the Soul can look upon these Miseries as such as must end and see though at a distance a Fruition of an Everlasting Beatitude infallibly expecting upon the close of these Miseries the Expected Happiness is made Present by Faith and over-ballanceth the Present but Ending Misery How much more when in the instant of these Sufferings the intention and bent of the Soul is to her Maker and the Great God shall by the secret yet real beams of his Favour send into the Soul Messages of Acceptation and Love How small and low doth this render the highest Contempts and Malice of Men and Devils and how much rather would this Man choose to enjoy these effects of the Love of his Maker with these Miseries than barely to see the Experiments of his Power and Justice in removing or revenging them 2 How far forth this Union of the Soul to God doth conduce to the Happiness of the Compositum the Whole Man or Whether it doth so or no Wherein we say 1. That the Happiness that is answerable to the Compositum without considering the great relation of the soul doth consist in the perfecting and continuing of his subsistence and kind and whatsoever the Compositum desires and moves after it is in order to these and not otherwise as in that one instance of Meats the Wise God hath given him the Sense of Tasting whereby he takes delight in those things that please the Appetite but this is in order to the taking in of those Nourishments that may preserve the Compositum the like of the other Senses Now as long as the Man in these things moves to these Ends he moves naturally and orderly but when in stead of moving to this End he rests in the Means then he moves inordinately and out of the way to that temporal Happiness the support of the Body as when he eats and drinks to excess the like for all other outward matters as Honours Riches Women c. When they are not enjoyed to those Ends for which they are ordained then is the Man out of that way to the temporal Happiness of the Compositum viz. the due Support and Subsistence of it 2. That the Felicity of the Soul may consist with this Felicity of the Compositum ex natura rei The reason à priori hath been already given because the Wise God in the first Institution of things did order every thing to their several Ends with that Wisdom that there was no clashing of the several Ends of the same thing or of several things but one did and might Consist with the other the Felicity of the Soul might and ex natura rei may consist with the Happiness of the Body and Compositum Therefore it follows 3. That Inconsistency of the Happiness of the Soul with that of the Body is not real but because however it comes to pass we have misplaced and mistaken the Happiness of the Body we now place the Happiness of the Body in turning our selves over to Sensuality in excessive using of the Creatures in excessive Lusts These are clear mistakes for it is most apparent that these are enemies to the very subsistence of the Body and Composium 3. That this Felicity of the Body is inferiour to the Felicity of the Soul and therefore if ex accidente it falls out though it seldom doth in truth that the temporal Felicity of the Body is in hoc individuo inconsistent with that of the Soul right Reason tells us that the greater End and that of more concernment is to be preferred so that as there is and ought to be a subordination of those Faculties and Powers placed in the Body to those Ends for which they were implanted viz. the preservation of the Compositum so there ought to be a subordination both of these Means and that End to the Great End the Happiness of the Soul. 4. As the Great End of Man doth consist with the Happiness of his Body or Compositum so it doth much and effectually conduce to it And as this is apparent in the original creation of Man when the Happiness of his Mind by the Knowledge and Presence of his Maker was accompanied with the Felicity of his Compositum and as it was likewise apparent in his Fall as he contracted Misery in the one so he did in the other so it is most rationally evident in the present state and condition of Mankind as will be evident in consideration of these ensuing particulars 1. It shews a Man the right use of the Creature viz. to be subservient and in order to the preservation of the Compositum The want of a true and rational use of secular matters is a great cause of the great unhappiness of Man as when he desires Riches because he would be rich or Honours because he would be great or delicate Fare because he would eat Now when Men mistake the use of things resting in that as an End which is only useful to something else this breeds these disorders in and among men which doth disturb even their outward Peace and Happiness This is regulated when the Heart is set upon the Love of God it takes off any inordinate Love to any thing else but in order to that End to which it is properly conducible and therefore in order to that only rationally desirable 2. It adds a sweetness to the enjoyment of the Creature which cannot be had without it because it mingles with it the sight of the great Master of this Family of the Earth that provides it the sense and security of his Love that gives it and so brings up the enjoyment of the Creature to a higher station and nearer to that which is the true Felicity of the Soul. A Blue Ribon bought in a Shop and a Blue Ribon given by a King in token of Honour is the same thing but with the latter there is a mingling of somewhat else with it as it imports a Gift from a King in token of Honour and therefore higher-prized 3. It takes away all that Sollicitousness in the Enjoyment and all that Anguish in the Loss and all that Anxiety in the Provision of external Accommodations though in very truth the real Happiness of the Compositum is its subsistence according to the perfectest degree of his Being which is the perfection of
Principles concerning other matters yet in matters of Religion the differences have ever been wonderful The reason is not only from the defect of our Understanding but likewise from the nature of the Object which falls not easily within the reach of those Mediums whereby the understanding arrives to the attainment of other Truths and therefore stands in need of some extrinsecal help to set him right in this It is true that the great points of Religion viz. the knowledge that there is a God and some things concerning his Essence that he is the Cause of all things that he made all things for his own End and those other things before mentioned may be acquired by the Light of Nature and Reason yet such is the heighth and remoteness of the Subject that it requires much Industry and Consideration to carry us step by step unto this heighth But when we have arrived to this which few attain unto yet there is so much confusion in these Notions and they are so far fetcht that they make not that clear impression upon the Understanding as is fit But admit they did yet we are still to seek what is that Rule whereby to lead us to attain to our great End and this we rove at In the ways of the Children of Men concerning Religion we may observe these Several steps of Ignorance 1. An Ignorance whether there be any God or no This is the grossest Ignorance because it is against the first and most universal Principle for the affirmation of the being of any thing is the first foundation whereupon every Inquiry is built this is Atheism and meer Brutishness 2. When a Man hath once stated that question affirmatively That there is some Superior Power the next question and the next step of Man's Ignorance is concerning the Nature of this God What he is Whether one or more Whether visible and if so What visible c. This though it may by natural Reason be stated very far as appears before and so this Ignorance receive a cure in a great measure yet so far are our Intellectuals darkened in this matter that Men are hardly set right in this And hence grew those strange varieties of Gods in the World this is the cause of Idolatry and Polytheism 3. When a Man is rightly Principle'd concerning God and consequently concludes that he is the Cause of all things the next special question is Whether God hath given to every thing his several End and Rule or Law conducing to that End and consequently Whether he hath appointed to Man any End and Rule conducing to that End different from other Creatures or Whether he be left to do as he pleaseth and not confined by the Will of God to some End and Rule conducing to it the Ignorance of this is the Cause of Supineness Epicurism Impiety and professed Injustice 4. When a Man finding that God is a free and intellectual Agent and sees as he may by natural Reason every thing ordered to a suitable End to his Being and by a suitable Means or Rule conducing to that End and finds a higher degree of being in himself than in other Creatures and consequently an higher End and consequently an higher Rule conducing to that End he doth most naturally resolve this Rule into that Law which by the Will of God is given to Man conducing to that End the Subject of which Rule must be all his Internal and External Actions both in reference to God to himself and to others but here then is the next question and the next degree of Ignorance in Men viz. What that Law or Will of God is concerning Man and from hence grow those Varieties and Errors in Worship of God. And though haply most Men knowing the true God may by the same Light of Nature concur in the general and fundamentals of Worship viz. That God is to be feared with all Reverence loved with all intention obey'd with all sincerity chearfulness and exactness all which are but natural conclusions from the Nature of God the Nature of Man and the Relation that he beareth to God as his Creator Lord and Preserver yet because we know not what that Will of God particularly is we frame several ways and Rules of Worship according as our several Fancies perswade us to be agreeable to that Will which are either unnecessary and superstructive or erroneous and offensive and which is the most dangerous Ingredient conclude both his own way necessary and the other dangerously Erroneous These Defects in the Understanding must needs be the cause of much Error and Obliquity in the whole Man and his Actions And these defects are most clearly visible in the whole World nay in the most knowing Climates Times and Persons thereof In the last part concerning the Worship of God we see several sorts of Men highly opinionated concerning their own particular Way or Worship and most Magisterially condemning the way of others as bad as Paganism when it may fall out and so for the most part it doth that what is superadded beyond the plain and sincere Fear of God Subjection to his Will Thankfulness for his Mercy Belief of the great Means he hath provided for our Salvation and those other grand Principles whereof before and anon are but meer Superstructions of Humane Invention Ignorance Imbecility or Policy and yet made the greatest part of the business and inquiries and differences among Men in matters of this Nature 2. In the Will we find several Defects 1. Those that are consequential to the Ignorance or darkness or impotence of the Understanding whose Decisions doth or should preceed the act of the Will Were the Understanding truly principle'd with the knowledge of God of his Perfection Power and Will with the knowledge of our selves our Nature and the Dependence we have upon him in our being and continuance those practical Conclusions that would most clearly and necessarily arise from these viz. of Love to his Majesty Fear of Offending Care to conform to his Will Dependance upon him Thankfulness to him Contentedness and Chearfulness in him Valuation of the World according to its true Estimate c. would most effectually follow in the Will and those Affections that are subservient to it and consequently in the Life and Actions of Men one Divine Principle soundly and clearly seated in the Understanding would improve it self into infinite practical deductions for the regulation of the Will But where these are wanting the motions of the Will must needs be excentrick But where they are but weakly and doubtfully received in the Understanding the operation of the Understanding upon them is but weak the inclinations in the Will weaker and easily overmatcht with the least difficulty and seldom arrive to action or constancy in the life for according to the measure and intention and clearness of the Conviction of the Understanding concerning any Object the more fruitful rational and powerful are those practical Conclusions deduced from it and
Vultures have not seen the great God alone gave Man his End and appointed the way to that End we had once the knowledge of both but have lost it and we must owe the discovery of it to the Author of it And to Man he said Behold the Fear of the Lord that is Wisdom and to depart from Evil is Vnderstanding Job 18.28 6. It doth discover the whole Duty of Man to his Maker to himself and to others far beyond all other Books or Documents in the World. Man by his Sin hath lost the greatest part of his Light and Perfection his own discoveries of his Duty are lame and imperfect and till the God that first planted these Principles of Knowledge and Conformity to his Will give us a new Copy of them we shall never clearly attain unto them in our knowledge or practice There are these Eminencies touching Moral Precepts which this Book of God hath above all other Books in the World. 1. No other Book in the World doth discover the true ground of the Obligation unto Moral Precepts The Moral Philosopher perswades me to Temperance to Justice but what Obligation lies upon me for it If he tells me That it is his own Authority my Answer is He hath none over me more than I have over him If he tells me the Law under which I live binds me to it I shall enquire what binds me to observe those Laws but Power which if I can avoid by the like power or secrecy I am not bound or my own Consent which I am as well Master of as I was before I consented If he tells me the Law of Nature binds me I am still unsatisfied who gave that Law or when or to whom and there the Philosopher is to seek as well of my Conviction as of my Obedience But this Book shews what that Law is from whence the Obligation of Obedience to it ariseth even from that most Just and Uncontroulable Authority that God hath over his Creature 2. No other Book or Learning in the World perswades the observance of those Laws it injoyns with the like convincing and satisfying grounds of Reason that this doth The highest ground that ever Moral Philosopher could fetch to perswade to submit to Moral Precepts were but one of these viz. The Reputation and general esteem of Men which dies with me and while it lives is nothing else but a Fancie and contains no Reality or the Cohortion of the Laws which if I can avoid with secrecy or force I escape the strength of the Perswasion or that Congruity that sound Moral Precepts hold with Prudence and the permanent enjoyment of good here for it is a most certain Truth as appears before That the due observation of the Rules of right Reason hath a most clear connexion with Happiness in this Life and that the violation of these Precepts of Nature do necessarily introduce a loss of temporal Felicity These are the highest Motives of Obedience to these humane Documents But let us look upon the Motives that the very same Precepts are enforced with in this Book of God we shall find them of a higher Constitution we are there shewn they are commanded by that God to whom we owe our Being and therefore may justly challenge our Obedience as his Tribute by that God from whom we daily receive our Preservation and Mercies and therefore may justly expert the return of our Love and Thankfulness in the Observance of his Will by that God that hath annexed a Sanction to the breach of his Law which he both can and will inflict this may startle our Fear by that God that hath propounded and promised a Reward to our Obedience both in this Life and a future which he will certainly confer this doth quicken our Hope These and the like grounds and motives of Obedience fall upon the most active Affections with the most powerful and rational Perswasion and are able to conquer more difficulties in the Obedience of these very Precepts that are materially the same than all those faint and thin Perswasions that the wisest of Men could ever teach The great God that knows the frame of the Soul of Man hath not only given rational Laws to lead him to his great End and rational Means to draw out his Obedience by appointing Rewards or Punishments of his Obedience or Disobedience but also by the same Wisdom of his planted in him Affections which might be proper to receive the impressions of those Rewards and Punishments and by this Word of his conveys those Notions into his Heart which stick upon those active Affections of Love Hope and Fear in the most exact full and adequate manner This is therefore none else but the Finger of God. And this is not only evinced by the Threatnings and Promises in this Book but by the Historical part of it applying the Truths of both wherein we may see unriddled most of the varieties of Events that fall upon a People or Person especially knowing God which without this Light seem to be confused and meerly contingent Israel sins Israel is punished she repents and is delivered We are shewn by the very Historical passages of the Old Testament that when we are punished we eat but the fruit of our own ways 3. As the Eminence of the Scripture above other Learning and consequently its Original is discovered in the two former so in this that it doth distinctly and clearly evidence and set forth those Moral Precepts which are confusedly and imperfectly only delivered by the best of humane Writers especially in the Worship of God All agree God is to be worshipped but when they come to shew how then they are to seek for indeed as it is folly for any one to think that there can be any Worship of God acceptable but what is agreeable to his Will so it is vain to think that this Will of his could be discovered by any but himself And from the want of this grew Idolatries and other Vanities in Worship 4 The original of the Scriptures is discovered in this that it doth contain in it Precepts of a higher Constitution and therefore of a higher Pedegree than the best of all humane Learning ever did arrive unto such as are the Cleansing of the Heart and Thoughts from all Sin That the Formality of Sin consists in the Will even before it expresseth it self in Act That the outward Conformity of the Act to Vertue without the internal Conformity of the Will and Mind is but Hypocrisie and the seeming vertuous Action is at least dead and not of value if not sin That a Vertuous Action done out of any other End than in Obedience and Love to God that enjoyns it is not an Action rightly Principled nor acceptable to God The right directing of our Passions and Affections that nothing is worthy of our intense Love but God that nothing deserves our Hate but Sin and therefore teacheth us in the former to despise the World in the
that the very consideration of this Counsel of God is a means to effect its Execution in putting the Heart into such a frame as is fit to receive the impressions of God's Grace 2. In respect of those that are omitted The freedom of the Choice doth not in the least degree reflect upon the Justice of God He had no engagement to chuse any but might most justly have let all lie under that sin and misery into which we had cast our selves If God be pleased to chuse any it is the meer act of his Grace if he leaves any he leaves them but in that condition not in which he made them but in which they made themselves The act of his Bounty to the Elect is without any Injury to those he leaves for neither could challenge any thing but Misery as their Right 2. The Object of this Choice 1. Some are chosen from all Eternity The Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father 1 Pet. 1.2 The foundation of God standeth sure having this Seal The Lord knoweth who are his 2 Tim. 2.19 These are those for whom a Kingdom was prepared from the Foundation of the World Matth 25.34 These are they which by an eternal Contract between God the Father and his Son were given unto Christ I pray for them which thou hast given me for they are thine John 17.9 24. 2. But some and not all Many there are that are not so much as called and of those that are called yet few are chosen Matth. 22.14 And this preterition of God putteth them not in any worse Condition than it finds them And indeed this Counsel of God is not so much as the Potter's making some Vessels to honour some to dishonour he made all Vessels of honour and Men made themselves all Vessels of dishonour God in his mercy to restore some to become again Vessels of honour and this is without any injury to those that are omitted because they are continued to be but what they made themselves and what they most freely desire still to be Thy destruction is from thy self O Jerusalem 3. To what this Election or Choice is or what is the End of this Counsel of God There is a twofold End in the Counsel of God. 1. The End of Intention subordinate the good of his Creature adequate the good pleasure of his own Will or his own Glory as to shew his wrath and make his power known towards the Vessels of wrath fitted for destruction so to make known the riches of his Glory in the Vessels of Mercy which he had before prepared unto Glory Rom. 9.23 2. The End in Execution or rather the subject matter of this Counsel of God it is the whole Series and all the Conjunctures of all things conducing thereunto wherein the Counsel of God doth not per saltum step from the Fall to Glory but doth take in all those intermediate passages which he hath by the same Counsel appointed to be the Means of effecting it 1. The great Mystery of the Incarnation which is the Cardo negotii 1 Pet. 1.20 Who was fore-ordained before the foundation of the world but was manifested in these last times 2. Effectual calling by the Word and Spirit of God Rom. 8.28 Who are called according to his purpose 3. The effectual Assistance of the Spirit of God without which it were impossible these dry Bones should live Jer. 31.33 I will put my Law into their mind and write them in their hearts 3. Holiness and Sanctification John. 15.16 I have chosen you and ordained you that ye should bring forth fruit Ephes 14. Chosen to be holy Epes 2.10 Created in Christ unto good works which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them Rom. 8.29 30. Conformity unto Christ and all linked together Glory to Justification Justification to Calling Calling to Election 4. In whom or by whom he hath elected us Christ In this Consists the greatest Mystery that ever was and of most concernment to Mankind And because it is impossible to attain to the knowledge of it but by Revelation from God himself we must in this keep precisely to the Word of God where alone this Mystery is by God ordinarily discovered which is briefly thus much Almighty God in the Creation of Man did primarily intend the Glory of his own Goodness and the Happiness of his Creature and to that End furnished him with such Faculties and Rules as might conduct him to that Happiness Man being seduced abused his Liberty and by his Disobedience violated that Rule and consequently in himself lost the acquisition of that Happiness to which he was created Yet this could not disappoint the Purpose of God who with an eternal and indivisible act did foresee all Mankind in this miserable and lost Condition and appoint a way for his Recovery The way of Man's Recovery was by the Eternal Purpose Consultation or Contract as I may call it between the Father Son and Eternal Spirit resolved to be that the Son of God should assume the Nature of Man into one Person by an ineffable Generation and that he should Satisfie for the Guilt of Man's Sin by his Death And because that the bare Satisfaction for Sin could only exempt Man from the deserved Punishment of his Sin but could not restore him to that Happiness which he lost by the same Eternal Covenant the Righteousness and Obedience of Christ was to be accepted by God as the Righteousness of Man that as in his Sufferings he did bear the Sin of Man to make Satisfaction for the Curse deserved so by his Obedience imputed unto Man Man might acquire that Happiness that he lost To the end that this Satisfaction and Righteousness might be effectually applied for the Purposes above-mentioned Christ must after this Righteousness fulfilled and this Satisfaction made by his Death rise from Death ascend into Heaven and so continue as well the Mediator of Intercession as he was before of Satisfaction Though this Righteousness and Satisfaction were sufficient for the Sins of all Mankind and accordingly freely propounded yet it was effectual only for such as should according to those immediate Means that God had fore-appointed to be useful for that Purpose sue forth the benefit of it This is the sum of that great work of Man's Redemption which the Angels desire to look into 1 Pet. 1.12 and is discovered to Principalities and Powers by the Church Ephes 3.10 and therefore called The manifold Wisdom of God The Mystery of Christ Ephes 3.4 Ephes 6.19 The Mystery hid in God from the beginning of the world Ephes 3.9 The Mystery of God and of the Father and of Christ Colos 2.2 Colos 1.27 The Mystery hid from ages and generations but now made manifest to his Saints Colos 1.26 The Wisdom of God in a Mystery The Mystery of his Will 1 Cor. 2.7 The Revelation of the Mystery kept secret since the world began Rom. 16.25 The great Mystery of Godliness God manifested in
even seeming Disappointments and Frustrations of the Love of God to Man and the glory of God in him improved to the higher manifestation both of his Love and Glory This is the Lord 's doing and let it ever be marvellous in our Eyes 4. The Congruity of it even to that nature that is in Man. The great God could have over-ruled his Creature to his own Will by his own Power but he rather chuseth to bring him up unto him by such means as are congruous to the nature of his Creature and let in a supernatural Light and Life by natural means and instruments The Son of God takes upon him Flesh and in his Flesh reveals the way and means of Life 1 John 1.1 That which was from the beginning which we have heard which we have seen with our eyes which we have looked upon c. In this Flesh he evidenceth his Love to Mankind suffers dies for them As the Discovery of the Truth by him was most proportionable to our manner of Understanding so was that Love which he shewed to us most winning upon our Wills In this is the love of God made manifest that when we were enemies Christ died for us Greater love than this sheweth no Man. Thus he winneth us with the cords of Love and maketh us willing in the day of his Power especially when this Light and Love is carried home to the Heart with the strength of his own powerful Spirit Man is a compounded Creature of Senses Passions and Spirit and though his Excellence consist in the latter and to the higher Perfection he attains the more spiritual he is yet as he owes even the service of his more inferiour Faculties to his Lord so they were not uselesly placed in him even in reference to his supreme End there is the Excess usually Man is inordinate in the former especially his Senses and that is much evidenced by the proneness of Man to Idolatry and sensual Worship Exod. 32.1 Make us gods that may go before us this Malady the Wise God that knows our frame doth not only cure with severe Comminations and Prohibitions but diverts it he gave the Jews outward Sacrifices and Observations he hath given us Christians his Image in his Son to divert us from Idolatry his Love and Compassion revealed even in our own flesh to take up our Affections and yet by these leads us up to a higher pitch John 6.63 Even by sensual Objects and Expressions he leads up to spiritual It is the Spirit that quickens the flesh profiteth nothing the words that I speak unto you they are Spirit and they are Life And this is most evident in the whole Life of Christ for though he still winds up his Auditors to the high and spiritual conceptions yet he is contented to use those motives that work upon the Senses and Passions Miracles Tears Parables Importunities Signs diversity of Tongues Visions of Angels sensual Convictions to Thomas John 20.27 Reach hither thy finger and behold my hands and to all his Disciples Luke 24.39 Behold my hands and my feet that it is I my self Thus although the Power of God could have wrought his Work in his by an immediate hand he rather chuseth such Means as may bear Congruity with the humane and reasonable Nature of his reasonable Creatures CHAP. VIII Of the great Work of our Redemption What it is How effected and for whom NOW we come to consider the great Work it self of our Redemption by Christ 1. What it is 2. How effected 3. For whom 4. How applyed 5. The Effects wrought by it 1. For the first Man by his Sin incurred a Guilt which bound him over 1. To a necessity of losing the Favour and Presence of God which was to be attained and kept only by Obedience 2. To a necessity of undergoing the wrath of God as the just reward of his Disobedience That Redemption that we now consider must supply both these 1. There must be a deliverance from that Wrath which was justly sentenced upon Man for his Disobedience And because it is impossible that the Punishment could be removed unless the Guilt were likewise removed some course must be taken to remove that Guilt And because the Guilt of any one Offence doth everlastingly disable that person that hath contracted it to avoid or expiate it and puts it wholly and everlastingly in the power of that Person that is offended to be judge of his own Satisfaction for if it were imaginable that an offender could for the future as far out act his Duty as in his Offence he came short of it it is not conceptible to be satisfactory without the acceptation of him that is offended hence it is that unless our offended Creator to whom we owe our Obedience to the utmost extent of our Beings accept a Satisfaction for our Guilt it is not possible nor imaginable that the Guilt of any one Sin can receive any Expiation It is true he might have released it of his absolute Power without any Satisfaction but that he would not do as is before shewen then that he accepted any Satisfaction it is a wonder of Mercy but that he should propound it himself and such a Satisfaction as Christ and to accept it it is a Wonder of Wonders And for this reason the foundation of our Redemption is ever attributed to the Love of God 1 John 3.1 Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us 1 John 4.9 In this was manifested the love of God towards us because God sent his only begotten Son into the world that we might live through him 2 Cor. 5.19 God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself not imputing their trespasses to them The very foundation of Man's Redemption from his Guilt and Punishment by Christ was the Love of God in sending and accepting his Son's Satisfaction 2. But if we had only a Remission of our Guilt though that might have removed our Punishment it had not cured our Loss therefore to set Man right there must not only be the removal of the Wrath of God which made us miserable but his Favour and Reconciliation without which we could not be happy And because though our Debt were paid yet we could never come to the Favour and Acceptance of God unless his Image the Rule which he planted in Man to attain Happiness were again restored to Man and because that is impossible for us to do we by our Sin contracted Blindness as well as Guilt and Weakness as well as Blindness and therefore as we must up to our Creator for Acceptation of Satisfaction for our Guilt so we must to him to provide our Righteousness Though we had found Christ Sin for us 2 Cor. 5.21 and Christ a Curse for us Gal. 3.13 before we could be delivered from our Curse so had we found that we had been still short of our Happiness unless we had also found him as well our Righteousness as our Redemption 1 Cor. 1.30
way to his Happiness as one Man teacheth another though we must not exclude that powerful Co-operation of his mighty Spirit that strikes upon our Spirits even when his Word strikes upon our 〈◊〉 And herein the Pharisees spoke truth even against their own Wills Matth. 22.26 Thou teachest the way of God in Truth For God in these last times hath spoken to us by his Son Heb. 1.2 and revealed unto us the whole Counsel and Will of his Father concerning us For he spoke not of himself but the Father which sent him gave him Commandment what he should say John 12.49 And that this Doctrin of his might receive a Testimonial from Heaven it was 〈◊〉 with Miracles and with suffrages from Heaven John 12.30 This Voice came not because of me but 〈◊〉 your sakes Now among divers Particulars of the 〈◊〉 of Christ we may observe these great Master-pieces 1. Instâ—ucting us that there is a higher end for the Sons of Men to arrive unto than temporal Felicity in this Life viz. Blessedness express'd in those several Expressions of his Matth. 5.3 4. c. The Kingdom of Heaven Comfort Fulness sight of God c. And in order to this great Doctrin are those several Doctrines of the Resurrection the last Judgment the Immortality of the Soul truths that the whole World either never knew or had forgotten or doubted 2. Instructing in the true Way to attain this Blessedness teaching us that Righteousness accepted of God consists not in meer outward observations but in the integrity and sincerity of the Heart and hereby rubs off all those false glosses that the formallest of Men had put upon the Law of God teaches that the Love of God is the fulfilling of God's Commandments and the reason is because this Love of God if it be sincere will ingage the whole Man to the exact Observance of what he requires those abstruse practical Truths of Depending upon God's Providence Self-denyal Loving our Enemies Rejoycing in Affliction all flowing from the high Point of the Love of God this is the Law of Christ Gal. 6.2 3. In revealing that which is the only Means to attain the two former even that great Mystery of the Gospel that was hid with God in Christ A Man might rove at the two former though the World had almost lost them both but this latter was a mystery that the Angels themselves knew not 1 Cor. 2.16 Who hath known the Mind of the Lord that he way instruct him But we have the mind of Christ which contains the whole Counsel of God touching Man this is that which Paul calls all the Counsel of God. Acts 20.27 and Truth it self hath given us the Breviary of it John 6.40 This is the will of him that sent me that every one that seeth the Son and believeth on him may have everlasting life and I will raise him up at the last day These great Truths of so great Concernment to the Children of Men yet so far remov'd from their Understanding were the third Business of the Life of Christ 7. That Christ bearing the sins of his People did suffer the wrath of God for the Remission of their sins The sufferings of Christ did only befal his Humane Nature for his Divine Nature was impassible yet in respect of that strict union of both Natures in one Person they received a value from that divine and impassible Nature for the union of both Natures in one Person though it did not communicate the Conditions of either Nature to the other did communicate the conditions of either Nature to the same Person as is before shewn This Suffering of Christ had these several Attributions 1 It was a Voluntary Suffering and yet not without a Necessity The Suffering was Voluntary even in respect of his Humane Nature yet Obediential to the Counsel and Purpose of God Matth. 17.21 he must go and suffer Luke 24 26. Ought not Christ to have suffered these things Acts 2.23 Him being delivered by the determinate counsel and fore-knowledge of God Yet was this most Voluntary in Christ Voluntary in the original undertaking of this Work in that Eternal Susception by the Eternal Word Voluntary in the discharge of that Undertaking in the Humane Nature the Humane Nature of Christ pursuing and following the will of Eternity Luke 12.50 I have a baptism to be baptized withal and how am I straitned till it be accomplished And even when the Humane Nature did according to the Law of Nature shrink from its own dissolution yet he presently corrects that natural Passion John 12.27 Father save me from this hour But for this cause came I to this hour Father glorifie thy Name Matth. 26.39 O my Father if it be pâ—ssible let this cup pass from me nevertheless not as I will but as thou wilt whiles his Humanity trembles and startles at the Business he goes about yet his Love to his Church his Obedience to his Father his Faithfulness to his Undertaking breaks through that natural reluctance Now the Voluntariness yet obedience of Christ's suffering both consistent appears Joh. 10.15 1 Joh. 3.16 I lay down my life for my sheep No man taketh it from me but I lay it down of my self yet Isa 53.6 10. All we like sheep have gone astray and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all it pleased the Lord to bruise him when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin Psal 2.7 8. As he made himself of no reputation and humbled himself so he became obedient to death Titus 2.14 He gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity yet John 3.16 God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son c. Again 1 John 4.9 Herein perceive we the love of God because he laid down his life for us Yet Rom. 8.32 He spared not his own Son but delivered him up for us all 1 John 4.9 God sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins Psal 40.7 Then said I lo I come yet he came not without a Mission I delight to do thy will O my God. The sum of all then is the Love of God to Mankind was the absolute and original foundation of our Redemption the same act of this Love proposed and undertook the Redemption of Mankind voluntarily and freely in this way contrived by the Eternal Wisdom and Counsel of God The Humane Nature of Christ in exact and voluntary submission unto this Counsel performed it If it had been Voluntary and not in Conformity to the Will of God whose Will could be the only measure of his Satisfaction it could never have been satisfactory And if it had been meerly Passive it could not have been an Obedience which requires a free Submission and Conformity to the Will of him that injoyns without which it could never be meritorious 2. It was a Meritorious and Expiatory Suffering for by that Eternal Covenant between the Father and the Son he was to bear the sins of
the two latter for his love to himself makes him love all things else in order meerly to himself and so far forth only as is conducible to his own mistaken good so that God shall be no longer loved served or obeyed than he is subservient to that End. Now it is easie from this Consideration to see the Original of most of the Evil in the World whether it relates to God to Men or to a Man's self From this Original grows the very Hatred of God. This distemper wrought by sin in our Souls hath not only deprived God of our chiefest Love which we justly owe to him and turned that Love into our selves but hath made us haters of God by our corrupred Nature Rom. 1.30 He strengtheneth himself against the Almighty Job 25.25 that say unto God Depart from us Job 22.17 For having made himself his End he cannot chuse but be a hater of God upon a double ground 1. Because the Presence and Purity and Commands and Admonitions of God either by his Word or Conscience or the outward Dispensations of Providence do extreamly thwart that End which we pursue Hence grow the Blasphemies in the World Revel 16.21 Men blasphemed God because of the hail The Disappointment and Controll and Interruption that Men have in the pursuit of their Ends do make them hate the Presence the Word the very Being of God himself because they take it to be a hinderance of their End and their Happiness 2. The Soul that was once united to God is by sin gone a whoring from him and hath taken up another End yet God in Mercy still perswades the Soul to return Turn O back-sliding Children saith the Lord for I am married unto you Jer. 3. The skill of the enemy of God within us is as much as may be to divert the access of such perswasions to the Soul or the Entertainment of them lest thereby he should be dispossess'd and therefore as Ahitophel to Absolom to secure his Party with impossibility of reconciliation to his Father perswades him to the highest Villany that so he might be abhorred of his Father 2 Sam. 16.21 so the Devil and Sin in us ingage the Soul in the greatest Villanies and Blasphemies against God that so the Soul abhorring God may be abhorred of him Thus Sin taking occasion by the Command works in the Soul all manner of Concupiscence Rom. 7.6 From hence likewise proceeds the Slavish Fear of God. We have shewen before that all Love of God is accompanied with the Fear of God but this Fear is without the Love of God but proceeds from Love to our selves as a Man fears that which he doubts will be destructive to that which he makes his End. When God sent Lions among the captive Israelites it is said they feared the Lord and served their own gods 2 Kings 17.33 their fear and their Love was divided From hence proceeds Atheism it self for it begins in the Affection not in the Understanding The desire of that not to be which the corrupted Soul conceives an impediment or check to the prosecution of his supream End is that which at length breeds a half perswasion in the Understanding that that which he desires should not be indeed is not From hence proceed Idolatries and misapprehensions of God. When we will not frame our selves to God we endeavour to frame him to our selves thou thoughtest I was such an one at thou art And from this cause are all those will-worships contrary to the Command of God. Did our chiefest Love settle upon God our Obedience would be Universal but especially in this matter of his worship but when we make our selves our Ends we measure him out such a Worship as may best please our selves and suit with our own Contentment From hence proceeds Hypocrisie a Form of Godliness without the power thereof 2 Tim. 3.5 The Power of Godliness which is nothing else but the entire and intense Love of God cannot consist with that End a Man hath chosen viz. himself yet the shape and form of it according as the occasion is is conducible to his Ease Greatness or Preferment so the same self-self-love puts on the shadow and rejects the substance In matters relative to others From this making a Man's self his End proceed all the acts and habits of Injustice Oppression Cruelty Malice Envy that is in the World because he that makes himself his End doth with all vigor pursue that which he conceives good for himself and if he meet with any obstacle or fear of an obstacle from another it engageth per fas nefas the ruine of that which he finds so hindring him for all these Acts proceed from the Love of himself In reference to a Man's self He that makes himself his own End is subservient unto himself to the uttermost in the pursuit and enjoyment of all those things which may please and content himself according to the varieties of Constitutions Ages and Circumstances If it be in the Lusts of the Flesh it will teach him to make provision for the flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof Rom. 13.14 It will put him upon studies and inquiries and pursuits of unnatural impurities Rom. 1.26 it will make him give himself over to lasciviousness to work all uncleanness with greediness Ephes 4.19 because what a Man makes his chiefest End he strives by all means to please in whatsoever way it discovers its delight or acceptation If it be in Luxury and delights in Meat and Drink it will make a Man to serve his Belly Rom. 16.18 It will make a Man's Belly his God Phil. 3.19 A Man making himself his End observes which way the vein of his mind and delight runs he doth serve that affection or delight with the same intenseness of pursuit as if it were his God for what a Man makes his End he makes his God. If it be in the Lust of the Eyes after Wealth or Possessions a Man pursues that with the same violence as a Heart well set pursues after God There shall nothing stand in his way neither the Command of God nor Lives nor Laws nor Justice nor Reputation nor a Man 's own quiet ease health life For Self hath discovered her self in this desire and he doth pursue the satisfaction of it as the first-born of his End. The like for the Pride of Life Ambition c. And from hence grows the Pride of the Heart of Man. Every Man that makes not God his Chiefest Good and highest End makes himself so But this Self discovers it self according to varieties of Constitutions and Circumstances Self in one Man is his Lust in another his Wealth in another his Honour Power and Command in another Wit Learning Policy And these he pursues as the first-born of his End And such as is his earnestness in the pursuit such is his fulness and contentedness when he enjoys or thinks he enjoys it and that especially in those pursuits that are less bruitish makes the Man
the love of God in Christ continuing towards us notwithstanding our many Injuries This fills the Heart with Sorrow and Wonder and puts the Soul upon a flat Resolution never to sin against so great Love. This was that sorrow that pricked the Jews to the heart and brought in Repentance for remission of sins Acts 2.37 38. Acts 3.19 that Sorrow that worketh Repentance unto Salvation 2 Cor. 2.10 And though sometimes Christ appear unto the Soul without a Baptist and the light of the Love of God discovers the irregularity and filthiness of our former ways and tempers yet the usual method of his Grace and Providence is to baptize with the Baptism of John and after with the Baptism of Christ Acts 19.5 The love of God being most naturally welcome and operative when the Soul hath before taken a just survey of his Condition without the sight of that love But his ways are unsearchable and past finding out And this Evangelical Repentance viz. our sorrow for our past Offences and our purpose of better Obedience is not only the Act of our first Conversion unto God but is to be our continual Exercise there is a continual adherence of our flesh and sin unto us and notwithstanding the bent and frame of the Soul be changed yet there are continual Renewed Offences which though God is pleased not to impute yet as they are contrary to that Life in the Soul and therefore will be opposed by that Life so they are still naturally our own and therefore must and will be repented of and sorrowed for For a Soul once truly affected with the Love of God would willingly have his whole Man and Life and Thoughts and World conformable to the Will of God and therefore every strugling cannot chuse but cause sorrow and gather up the strength of the Soul for the future against it For the sins of the very Members of Christ though by his Righteousness and Satisfaction they have lost their power to condemn being his by imputation yet they are sins still and therefore objects of our opposition and ours in reality and therefore objects of our Sorrow and Repentance and by how much the more they have our consent by so much the more they are sins and ours And as it is the Power and Grace of Christ that subdues the Dominion and prevailing of Sin so this Grace doth work by setting the operations and affections of the Soul against it especially in our Sorrow and Repentance Our Repentance after Conversion is nothing else but the strugling of the Life of Christ to work out that poyson of sin which is contrary unto it and doth weaken it and would destroy it 1 John 3.9 For his seed remaineth in him and he cannot sin because he is born of God. CHAP. XV. Of Mortification and the Means thereof and 1. Of Meditation 2. WHERE Repentance ends viz. in the purpose of forsaking the ways of Death there Mortification begins and is nothing else but the Execution of those Purposes of the Soul which are wrought by Repentance by the use of all such Means as may for the future weaken the power of sin in the Soul. This is that which our Saviour calls putting out the right Eye and cutting off the right Hand crucifying the Flesh with the Affections and Lusts Galat. 5.24 Mortifying the earthly Members Colos 3.5 Denying a Man's self taking up the Cross Matt. 16.24 Dying daily 1 Cor. 15.31 The World crucified to a Man and a Man to the World Galat. 6.14 Putting off the body of the sins of the Flesh Colos 2.11 The body of sin destroyed Rom. 6.6 Mortification therefore is nothing else but the daily practice of opposition against Sin especially such as we are most inclined to and that by such Means as are reasonably conducing to it These Means according to the several tempers both spiritual and natural are more or less effectual I shall divide them into these degrees 1. Supernatural Helps 2. Moral or Rational Helps 3. Natural Helps 1. Supernatural They are rational Means but fixt upon supernatural objects and discovered by supernatural Light for it will most clearly appear that these very Helps which we call Supernatural are most rationally effectual against it Meditation and Prayer 1. Meditation and serious and deep Consideration of the Word of God and the Truths therein revealed but especially of these ensuing 1. A deep Meditation of the Love of God whom I must needs offend in every sin And this is the most powerful Consideration in the World to mortifie any sin and that is the reason why where there is the truest and highest manifestation of the Love of God to the Soul there is the highest Purity because there is the highest Preservative against Sin for it must needs be clear that where there is the highest manifestation of the Love of God to the Soul there is the highest Love again to God and consequently the most absolute dominion over sin for as the Love of God is the cause of our Love to him 1 John 4.19 so according to the measure of the manifestation of the Love of God to the Soul is the measure of the Love of the Soul to God again and consequently of the hatred of sin And he that often and deeply considers of the Love of God must even rationally improve the sense of it to his Soul and consequently his Love to God again and his abhorrence of Sin. When a Man shall take such Considerations as these into him God hath commanded me to abstain from this or that sin whereunto it may be my Nature my Custom my Temptation inclines me The competition is between my Pleasure my Pride my Profit and my Lord he that gave me a Being he that hath given me all the Comforts of my Being he that might justly have taken me away to judgment in the midst of my sin but he hath spared me and waited upon me that he might though I were righteous make me a vessel of misery he that hath invited perswaded intreated me to return unto him for my own good that when I would not I could not return unto him hath sent his Son to fetch me to redeem me with the greatest Price that ever the World heard of Behold what manner of love 1 John 3.1 And shall I can I make so ill a return to entertain his Enemy the only object of his displeasure that will ruine me before my Lord that hath infinitely out-done my highest speculations for me Certainly the sense of the Love of God is either not at all or not awake when any Man considerately commits any the least sin against his Conscience It were no less than for a Man to return despight against the Love of God and as much as in us lies to disappoint his very End and Purpose in sending of Christ who therefore gave himself for us to redeem us from all iniquity and purifie unto himself a peculiar People zealous of good works 2. A serious
say upon found grounds the Lord is my Portion Psal 16.5 Like the Tree that Moses cast into the Waters of Marah Exod. 15.23 It makes those bitter Waters sweet and puts more Joy in my Heart than in the time that their Corn and their Wine increased Psal 4.6 But if it please him together with the Light of his Countenance to give me a competency of Externals to feed me with Food convenient for me with Agar Prov. 30.8 though with David Psal 23. my Cup runs not over yet if the Lord be the Portion of my Cup Psal 16.5 O Lord shouldest thou deny me all things even necessary for my present subsistence yet I have Portion enough in thy Favour and the Light of thy Countenance for which I owe thee more than all the thankfulness and strength of my Soul and such a Portion as would bear up my Heart in the midst of all my Exigences When thy Son bore our Nature in the Flesh though the sence of thy Love supported him yet he wanted things of convenience he became poor that we might be rich But if it shall please God to add the Blessings of his left hand to the Blessings of his right hand as rather than deny me the latter I beseech thee give me not the former If he shall bless me in the Fruit of my Body and my Ground and command a Blessing upon my Store-houses and all that I set my hand unto Deut. 28.4 8. I will learn to serve the Lord my God with joyfulness and gladness of Heart for the abundance of all things Deut. 28.47 to contemplate and bless that good hand of God that giveth me power to get Wealth Deut. 8.18 To look with more comfort and delight upon that Hand that gives than in the very Blessing that is given to set a watch over that evil and deceitful Heart of mine that is able to turn my Blessing into my Snare to beware lest when all that I have is multiplied my Heart be lifted up and I forget the Lord my God Deut. 8.13 14. To beware lest when my Riches increase I set my Heart upon them Psal 62.10 and trust in uncertain Riches 1 Tim. 6.17 To remember that I am but a Fiduciary a Steward of them they are not given me to look upon but to use them as one that must give an account of them to watch over my self that I use them soberly with moderation and as in his presence that I turn not the Grace and Bounty of God into Excess or Wantonness to look upon all the Goodness Comfort and Use of them as flowing from the Blessing and Commission that God sends along with them Eccles 2.24 That a man should make his soul enjoy good in his labour this also is from the hand of God To beware that the multiplication of Blessings do not rob my Creator of one grain of that Love Service and Dependance that I owe unto him to carry a loose affection towards them for it is infallibly true that where the Heart is truly set upon God and makes him his Portion it enables a Man equally to bear all Conditions because the object of his Soul is immutable and invaluable though his external Condition alter an accession of Externals may carry up such a Soul in a more sensible apprehension of the Goodness of him whom the Soul loves it cannot steal away one jot of that Love which it owes to the giver the Creature it self is of too low a value to diminish the Love to the Creator a Heart that is rightly principled cannot find any good in the Creature but what he will derive from and carry to the object of his Love. 3. The Pride of Life There are two great Cardinal Truths whereof if the Mind be soundly convinced it puts a Man in a right frame and temper of Spirit in the whole course of his Life 1. That there is an essential universal Subjection due from all Creatures to the Will and Power of God This is the ground of all true Obedience and all true Humility which is nothing else but a putting of the Mind into a Posture and frame answerable to that Position wherein by Nature it is framed a conformity of the Mind to the Truth and Station wherein it is set 2. That all Goodness Beauty and Perfection is originally in God and nothing of Good Beauty or Perfection is in any thing but derivatively from him according to that measure that he is freely pleased to communicate This keeps the Heart in a continual Love of him Dependance upon him and Thankfulness unto him From the Ignorance of those is the ground of all the Pride in the World which is nothing else but a false placing of the Mind in such a Condition or Station or the opinion of such a Station wherein in truth he is not and so it disorders the Mind it makes a Man that is essentially subordinate to God and depending upon him to place himself above God and to be independent upon him And though this false opinion cannot alter his condition in truth for he that hath said My Will shall stand cannot be removed by the pride or resistance of Man yet as to the Man himself it puts him out of his place and in the room of God And therefore above all other distempers of the Soul this is the most hateful to God for as the proud Man resisteth God and labours to get into his place so God resisteth him 1 Pet. 5.5 Prov. 3.24 And this Ignorance or not full subscription to these two Truths will appear to be the foundation of all the Pride in Men. 1. From the Ignorance of the former of the subjection we owe to God proceeds that Pride that manifests it self in Rebellion and Disobedience against God. God challengeth the subjection of our Wills to his as justly he may and Man will have his own Will take place Jer. 42.14 No but we will go into the â—and of Egypt Luke 19.14 We will not have this Man to rule over us And as among Men Pride is the Mother of Contention because it puts a Man out of that place wherein he is and he doth consequently put himself in the place of another and thence come Contentions so from this Pride of Men putting themselves into the place of God comes the contention between God and man He that hath said he will not give his Glory to another will not give his Place to his Creature but resisteth the proud And from this ignorance of that subjection we owe to God proceeds that Haughtiness and Arrogance which we find in the Spirits of Men Exod. 5.2 Who is the Lord that I should let the people go Job 21.15 What is the Almighty that we should serve him Dan. 3.15 Who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hands This Ignorance was that which bred that haughty speech in Nebuchadnezzar Dan. 4.30 Is not this great Babylon c. Till God by his immediate hand
Terrors by the least word of his Power 2. But if their Commission extend to thy very Life yet the Son of God hath taken away that sting that terror that is in Death hath by his own Death sanctified Death unto thee and made it a door unto a better Life so that Death though in it self terrible and bitter yet this Tree being himself cast into this bitter Water Exod. 15.25 hath sweetned them and as he hath taken away the Venome of it by destroying that Serpent that had the power of it Heb. 2.14 so he hath made it though not for it self yet in respect of him that stands on the other side of this Gulf with Immortality and Glory in his hand desirable Phil. 1.23 Having a desire to depart and to be with Christ which is far better It is true thou art pursued with an Army of Egyptians of Sins and of Miseries and when thou comest to the Shore thou seest a raging and a bloody Sea But remember thou hast an Angel even the Angel of the Covenant that hath gone before and yet goes with thee and turns this Sea into a Passage of Ease and Safety and though of either side the Waves may affright thy Sense they shall not hurt thee and remember that though thy Passage may be difficult and troublesome yet thou hast not as once the Israelites a Wilderness behind it but a Canaan Therefore in all Objects or Occurrences of Terror first look inward and see how the case stands between thy God and thy Conscience indeed if there remain a Guilt unwashed by the Blood of Christ a secret sin entertained and not repented of thou hast cause to fear because thy Lord is angry But if thou keep thy daily Watch upon thy Soul and thy Life if thou find the presence of thy Saviour in thy Soul and thy Heart though of it self a sinful Heart yet cleansed and delivered from the power of any evil way an honest Heart acted by the love of God in Christ thou mayest then look above them and having thine Eye fixed upon the Lord of Events walk quietly and untroubled through the midst of those dangers that do incompass thee It is true that in the great Concussions of the World God expects a suitable affection even from the most innocent Heart an affection of Reverence and awe of his Presence and working Jeremiah 10.7 Who would not fear thee O king of nations But the fear of an honest Heart is the fear of Reverence not of Consternation a Fear mingled with Love a Fear mingled with Faith and confidence a Fear mingled with Praise and Glorifying God a Fear terminated in the great Lord that works not in the Instrument not in the immediate Object of Terror a Fear mingled with Comfort not over-run with distraction When therefore thou meetest with Objects of Fear first learn to distinguish their kinds some there are that come as it were from the immediate hand of God such are Famine Pestilence Wars Fires Inundations Earthquakes and the like entertain them with Reverence to the great and Just and Powerful hand of God not slightly or saucily or presumptuously yet without consternation or distraction of Mind carry up thy Soul above the Objects to the Hand that guides them make him thy Dependance and his Will the measure of thine own under them use all warrantable means with Dependance upon his Power and Submission to his Will to avoid them The wise Man seeth the Plague and hideth himself Prov. 22.3 Prov. 27.12 If thou escape the danger bless the God that hath preserved thee if thou fall in them yet still bless the God that hath not left thee and value ten thousand Deaths with his Presence and Light upon thy Soul above the most sublimated Life without it Again there are some Objects of Fear which though they are guided and mastered by the hand of God yet they are immediately the works of Men and so less terrible such are wrought by the power oppression cruelty and malice of Men these may and ought to be entertained with more resolution and confidence That one Example may serve for all when the power and injustice of Man shall meet with an unarmed and weak innocence Dan. 3.16 O Nebuchadnezzar we are not careful to answer thee in this matter our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace and he will deliver us out of thine hand O king But if not be it known unto thee O king we will not serve thy Gods As if they should have said It is true thou art a King and where the word of a King is there is Power and to magnifie thy self and thy Glory in the face of thy Kingdom thou hast taken up this publick Resolution of the Dedication of thine Idol and this thy Purpose is stablished by a Decree a Mischief framed by a Law and this Decree armed with Death and a cruel and terrible Death we know we cross thy proud and impious Will impatient of the seeming neglect of thy Power by three poor despised Hebrews in the midst of thy Glory and People we see fury and rage enough in thy countenance to devour us before the Furnace be hot we see thy Courtiers adding fewel to thy rage and thy Instruments greedily catching after the least Warrant from thee for our Execution and we are compassed with Flesh and Blood which cannot but shrink at the preapprehension of this inevitable and terrible dissolution yet for all this know that we have learned to tutor our Fear not to fear a Man that shall die and the Son of Man that shall be made as Grass Isa 51.11 we have learned that the fear of Man bringeth a snare but he that trusteth in the Lord shall be safe Prov. 29.25 And therefore we are not much perplexed what Answer to return to these thy Commands and Threats we serve that God in whose hand thou art as the Ax or the Saw in his hand that shaketh it in whose hand thy Breath is and he can command away thy Breath and then what becomes of thy Word that Lord in whose hand thy Heart is and he can turn it as the River of Water and can set thy Command against thy Decree that God in whose hands are the issues of death and who can arm an inconsiderable Occurrence to divert and frustrate thy Purpose in whose hands are all the Powers of Heaven and Earth and can correct and controll that Fire which thou intendest for the execution of thy Fury And this is the God whom we serve and hath made a Covenant with us to preserve us in the Fire and we are no less confident of his Love and of his Truth than of his Wisdom and Power to deliver us he hath taught us that he is a present help in trouble Psal 46.1 that if we call upon him in the day of trouble he will deliver us Psal 50.15 Psalm 91.15 that in the Fire he will be with us and
to him but he is but what he was before he had it and when he loseth it will be what he was before he left it in all points save meerly outside and vulgar opinion He looks upon himself under the Beauty of his external Ornaments as a little Clay drest up in Gallantry that that may more justly make him proud that made it than him that wears it that alters not the Soul or Body that is under it nor is become part of it he looks upon his Strength or Beauty or temperature of Body as that which a few years will lay in the Dust and the Worms will master it as that which is not able to contest with the least Distemper either within it or without it and yet the good that is in it while it lasts is but a borrowed good He looks upon his Knowledge Vnderstanding and Wisdom as that which is infinitely short of what it was or what it might be the most that we know being infinitely short of what we know not and what we should know that his increase of Knowledge is but an increase of his Account an aggravation of those sins which would be of lesser magnitude had they not been committed against a greater Light that the most of what we know and that makes up the most of Men great in their own conceits is that which will be utterly unuseful after this life Of what use will those Volumes of Learning concerning Human Laws Physicks the Mathematicks Natural Philosophy and the Knowledge of the Contemperation of mixt Bodies be when the Earth with the works thereof shall be burnt up Political dispensations shall cease either the things shall not continue and so the knowledge of them be useless or the truth shall be more compendiously and clearly discovered to us and so the Labour to acquire them unnecessary It looks upon the best practical Habits or Actions it doth as things that need an expiation rather than deserving a reward it finds in it self a little small Grain of Gold in them but so covered and stifled with dross and filth that that which is good is scarce worth the accepting Finally he looks upon nothing as his own but the sin of his Nature that hath stained and polluted the sin of his Life that makes him odious in the Presence of God the sin of his Services as that which adulterates and spoyls them and whatsoever is useful or comfortable in his external Accessions whatsoever is beautiful in his Body or Soul he looks upon as anothers not as his and blesseth him for it carries the glory to him takes upon himself the shame and abhorrence of his own Deformities and magnifies the patience of his Creator in sparing him and his bounty in lending to him whatsoever of good he finds in himself or any way belonging to him And out of this right and sober judgment concerning himself and the reflection of the mind thereupon spring those Vertues of Humility Meekness Gentleness Patience Moderation Contentedness Thankfulness Quietness whereby a Man entertains all the Dispensations of God with such a frame and Temper of Spirit as he expects In thy addresses to God it will teach thee Lowliness and Reverence remembring thee of thy own Vileness and his Perfection and that infinite distance between thee a Man a sinful Man and Him the great and glorious God Gen. 18.27 Now I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord that am but Dust and Ashes Luk. 18.13 the Publican standing a far off would not lift up his eyes to Heaven In the midst of Blessings either of this Life or that to come it will teach thee Admiration and Thankfulness 2 Sam. 7.18 What am I O Lord and what is my Fathers house that thou hast brought me hitherto Psal 8.4 When I consider the Heavens c. What is Man that thou art mindful of him that a sinful Man that owes so much to God and performs so little should receive such Blessings such Mercies and such Bounty from the hand of an injured God. In the midst of the severest Afflictions it will teach thee Patience and Quietness of mind and Contentedness when the Soul shall sit down and consider it self and justifie yea and magnifie God in this very dealing with her O Lord by that light that thou hast lent me I do see my self and therein behold nothing of my own but Deformity and Rebellion against thee unthankfulness and vileness and now I eat but the Fruit of my own ways and thou art just when thou judgest Nay thou dealest not with me according to the severest Rule of Justice thou hast punished me less than mine iniquities deserve Ezra 9.13 I have forfeited all unto thee but thou hast not taken all from me I have deserved that thy whole fury should be poured out upon me but thou hast afflicted me in measure thou hast left me my life thou hast left me my hope thou hast left me some Light of thy Countenance which is better than my Life thou hast left me Liberty and Encouragement to pour out my Soul before thee and dost entertain it if thou hadst deprived me of all this yet thou hadst not been unjust and in that thou hast left me these or any of these or any other mercy thou art gracious Nay more than all this I find in that very thing wherein thy hand lyeth heaviest upon me a mercy and that thou hast afflicted me in very faithfulness Psal 119.75 in love Rev. 3.19 and for my profit and advantage Heb. 12.10 that I should not be condemned with the World 1 Cor. 11.32 my heart began to grow wanton to be lingring too much after the World to be taken up too much with Vanity and things that must perish to me and I to them I began to grow confident upon my Wit my Wealth my Power to grow negligent cold and careless in my Duty to thee in my Dependance upon thee in my Obedience to thee The Consolations of God the Presence of my Saviour my Life by Faith my hope of Glory began to grow small unto me Job 15.11 And this I plainly see was the state of my Soul and therefore I desire to receive these thy Afflictions not only as Punishments but as Medicines as Messages as well of thy care of me and thy mercy to me as of thy Justice upon me that they may not only be an exercise of my Patience but an Object of my Thankfulness of my Joyfulness that they may not only be a conviction of thy Detestation of my sin but a pledge of thy Love to my Person I shall therefore endeavour to bear thy hand as becomes me with Patience because I deserve them with Thankfulness because they are moderate and with Comfort because they are thy Ministers sent me for my good and as I shall thus learn to entertain them so I shall endeavour to use and improve them to that end thou sendest them to take me off from the World to bring me
laid down for the Sins of the World namely the precious Life of his own Son Jesus Christ that published this Doctrine to the World And this Sacrifice and Satisfaction the glorious God would accept in a way of Justice and yet in a way of Mercy that his Justice might be satisfied his Mercy magnified and his Creature saved 8. And that because it would be neither agreeable to the Honour nor the Wisdom of Almighty God that any Man that had the use of his Reason and Understanding should have the fruit and benefit of this Mercy and Sacrifice without returning to his Duty to God by true Repentance for what he had done amiss and by better Obedience to God neither was there any fitness or suitableness between a Pure and Holy God or that Blessedness which Mankind might expect with him and a People that should yet continue desperately sinful and impure and it was also reasonable and fit that if Mankind would expect the Restitution to that everlasting Happiness that they lost by their own sins and the sin of their first Parents then they should also return to their Duty and Obedience to God and perform in some measure that End for which Mankind was at first created namely actively to glorifie that God that had made them especially after so great an addition of Mercy as the Redemption of the World by the Death of his own Son therefore he appointed and intended and published to the World that all that would have the fruit and benefit of this great Redemption should repent of their Sins and endeavour sincerely to obey the Precepts of Piety Sobriety and Righteousness commanded by Almighty God by the Message of his Son. 9. And because that if those to whom this Message of the Gospel of Christ should be published should yet not believe the same nor believe that Jesus was the true Messias or that his Doctrine was the true and real Message of Almighty God to the World it could never be expected that they would obey this Heavenly Command nor return to God or the Duty they owed him he did therefore require of all Persons that were of Understanding to whom the Gospel should be published that they should Believe it to be True and believe that Christ was the True Messias the great Sacrifice for the Sin of the World and the Doctrine which he preached was the Will of God concerning Man. 10. And thus there are these Conditions to be performed on the part of those that will expect the Benefit of the Redemption purchased by the Blood of Christ 1. That all that are of Understanding to whom the Gospel is preached should Believe it to be the Truth and rest upon it as the Truth of God 2. That they should be heartily sorry for their former Sins and Repent of them and turn from them This is Repentance 3. That they should in all Sincerity endeavour to conform their Hearts and Wills and Lives to the Precepts and Commandments of Christ and his Gospel which is called Sanctification and new Obedience 11. And because when we have done all we can yet we are in this Life compassed about with many Infirmities and Temptations and subject to fail in our Duty to God and to these Holy Precepts of the Gospel yet the merciful God hath assured us by his Son Christ Jesus that if we sincerely endeavour to obey the Precepts of the Gospel and repent for our Failings herein and so renew our Peace with God by unfeigned Repentance the same Sacrifice of his Son shall be accepted to expiate for our Sins and Failings and the blessed God will accept of our sincere though imperfect Obedience as a Performance of that part of the Covenant of the Gospel that concerns our Obedience to God and the Commands of the Gospel And this is called Evangelical Obedience which though it be not perfect yet being sincere and accompanied with real and sincere Endeavours to obey and Repentance for our daily Failings is accepted of God through the Sacrifice of Christ who is not only our Sacrifice and Propitiation but also our Intercessor and Mediator at the right hand of God. If any man sin we have an Advocate with the Father even Jesus Christ who sitteth at the right hand of the Father 1 John 2.1 Heb. 8.1 10.12 12. And because many times Example gives a great Light and Life to Precepts our blessed Saviour in his Life gave us an excellent Example of the Practice of those Precepts which he hath given to us as namely Obedience and Submission to the Will of God Invocation upon him Holiness Purity Sobriety Patience Righteousness Justice Charity Compassion Bounty Truth Sincerity Uprightness Heavenly mindedness low esteem of Worldly Glory Condescension and all those Graces and Vertues that he requires and expects from us 18. And as thus our Lord Jesus came to instruct us in all things necessary for us to believe and practise and to give us an admirable Pattern and Example of a Holy and Vertuous Life so 2. He came to die for us and to die such a Death as had in it all the Circumstances of Bitterness and yet accompanied with unspotted Innocence and incomparable Patience and he thus died for these Ends. 1. To lay down a Ransom for the Sins of Mankind and a Price for the Purchace of Everlasting Life and Happiness for all those that receive him believe in him and obey the Gospel 2. To satisfie the Justice of God to make good his Truth to vindicate the Honour of his Government and to proclaim his Justice his Indignation against Sin and yet to magnifie his Love and Mercy to Mankind in giving his Son to be a Price of their Redemption 3. To give a just indication unto all the World of the vileness of Sin the abhorrence of it that cost the Son of God his Life when he was but under the imputed guilt of it that so Mankind might detest and avoid Sin as the vilest of Evils 4. To give a most unparallel'd Instance of his Love to the World that did chuse to die for the Children of Men to redeem them from Everlasting Death 5. And thereby to oblige Mankind with the most obliging and indearing Instance to love and obey that Jesus that thus died for them and out of the common Principles of Humanity and Gratitude to love and obey him that thus loved them and laid down his Life for them 6. To give a most convincing Evidence of the Truth of his Doctrine and the Sincereness of his Professions of Love to Mankind by sealing the same with his own Blood. FINIS Considerations Seasonable at all Times for the Cleansing OF THE HEART AND LIFE Considerations Seasonable at all Times for the Cleansing OF THE HEART and LIFE 1. OF God and therein 1. Of his Purity and Holiness one that cannot endure to behold iniquity The Stars are not pure in his sight Job 25.5 Job 15.15 and his Angels he chargeth with folly Job 4.18
Greatness which without it would in a little time swell into a stark Ambition or Covetousness The Evangelist tells us thar All that is in the world is the Lust of the Flesh the Lust of the Eyes and the Pride of Life that is those Lusts that are in us fasten upon their suitable objects in the World and upon them they live and grow strong and are thereby the better enabled to fight against our Souls and God shews as much Mercy when he takes away their food and starves them by an affliction as when he pardons them Therefore learn by thy affliction the Mind of God in this also and bless him as well for an affliction that prevents thee from sin as for one that leads thee to repentance 6. It may be God hath some extraordinary work to do for thee or by thee prepares thee by those afflictions with humility that thou mayst be a fit Instrument for his Glory or a fit Vessel for his Bounty A sudden access of Greatness or Wealth or Power or Eminence is apt to make thy Nature swell and look big and deny God Prov. 30.9 therefore he prepares thee with the sense of his hand to shew how he can when he pleaseth handle thee with the experience of the benefit of Dependance upon him with a condition that may teach thee to waâ—k humbly with him otherwise thou wilt not be able to bear and to manage that condition he intends to put thee in with moderation with his fear with an eye unto him and to his Glory Thus he prepared David for the Crown Job for Wealth the People of Israel for Canaan that they might receive and use it with Thankfulness as from his hand with Sobriety and Faithfulness as in his presence 7. Howsoever it is of most certain and universal use to take off thy Love from this World to present it to thee as it is to take thee off from setting up Tabernacles and thy Rest here and to carry thy thoughts and thy desires to thy home and to thy Country and to make the remembrance of it frequent and sweet and that upon which thou reckonest to make thy passage through death easie and comfortable when thou shalt consider such thoughts as these I am in a body full of pains and weaknesses and diseases so that I have much ado to keep up my Cottage to be comfortable or useful to me but am busied every day to underprop it and repair it that it fall not and when I have done my best yet Old Age will come and that will be an irreparable decay and my anxious life will most surely be attended with a certain death I live in a World full of labour at the best to provide necessaries for my support in a World full of troubles dangers and calumnies If my outward contentments increase yet my cares and my fears increase with them But my condition is not such but with the Psalmist I have cause to say Psal 73.14 All the day long have I been plagued and chastned every morning and like Noah's Dove I can find here no rest for the soal of my foot My walk here is like a pilgrimage and my path is not plain and easie but narrow and deep and troublesom on either hand of me I pass through the scorns and injuries and vexations of the men of this World who if I want will not relieve me and if I have any thing they are ready to tear it from me and my way which of it self is thus troublesom is accompanied with Storms and Stumbling-blocks and fiery Assaults raised by the Prince of this World and if I take up a lodging by the way it is neither a pleasing nor a safe lodging my dangers and difficulties are greater in my Inn than they are in my Journey To what purpose go I about to set up my rest or to build Tabernacles here The time I can stay will be but short and my short stay in such a World as this cannot be pleasing nor comfortable and this is not my home but I see it at a distance I find it as it were in Landskips Revel 21. the Tabernacle of God where he shall wipe away all tears from mine eyes and there shall be no more death neither sorrow nor crying neither shall there be any more pain and then these my light afflictions which are here but for a moment shall be rewarded with an eternal weight of Glory In the confidence and strength of this expectation I will hold on my troublesom Journey with chearfulness and look upon this World as the place of my pilgrimage not of my rest and the unpleasingness of my pilgrimage shall heighten if it be possible the expectation as well as the fruition of my home and the more unwelcome the World is to me and I to it the more shall my heart undervalue and disesteem it and send forth my desires the more earnestly for my Journey 's end teach me to welcome death and to desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ which is best of all 3. Sometimes external troubles are in themselves an express token of the Love of God and they carry with them comfort and delight namely when it is a Persecution for Righteousness sake and in those both the Precepts of Christ and the Pattern of his Disciples command us up to rejoycing Mat. 5.10 11 12. Rejoyce and be exceeding glad Jam. 1.1 2. Count it all joy Acts 5.41 Rejoycing that they were accounted worthy to suffer shame for his Name Coloss 1.24 Who now rejoyce in my sufferings for you and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh 4. The fourth Consideration is of the Mercy of God and therein 1. his Patience and forbearing Mercy whiles we are in our sins 2. his Clemency and forgiving Mercy upon our Repentance 3. his Bounty and rewarding Mercy in the whole course of our lives and hopes 1. The Patience Long-suffering and Forbearance of God from our infancy God leads us as once he did Ephraim Hos 11.3 teaching us to go and taking us by the arm but we know it not and bears with the frowardness and peevishness and stubborness and wantonness of our youth and when we come to our riper age he plants us with the choicest Vine with the instruction of his Word and Providence and now he doth as justly he may expect Grapes and we bring forth no Grapes or wild ones Isa 5.2 4. and now how just were it for him to pull up the hedge of it and command the Clouds that they rain no rain upon it or to lay upon it that sad Curse Matt. 2â— 19 Never fruit grow on thee more But he doth not thus but expects a second and a third and a fourth year Luke 13.8 and uses all means to mend this unfruitful and unprofitable Plant useth line upon line and precept upon precept and if his Word nor the secret whispers of his Grace will not do
precious Ointment Eccles 7.1 with a merry Heart which doth good like a Medicine Prov. 17.22 with Honour and Promotion Wealth Wisdom Success in thy Labours and these ought to be entertained with rejoycing and comfort the wise Man tells us it is the Portion that God giveth thee in them Eccles 3.13 22. Eccles 5.18 Eccles 9.9 and it is thy duty enjoyned thee by God Deut. 28.27 Because thou servedst not the Lord thy God with joyfulness and with gladness of heart for the abundance of all things therefore c. But take heed to thy Heart it will soon abuse and exceed his Commission 1. Look to the Manner of thy Joy or Mirth that it be not light or vain thy Mirth may prove mad Eccles 2.2 the Laughter of a Fool Eccles 7.6 a Mirth that will end in Heaviness Prov. 14.13 2. Look to the Measure of it First weigh the Good that thou enjoyest and then weigh out a Proportion of Joy answerable to the value of that Good lay not out the whole stock of thy Joy for that which deserves but a small part of it We are commonly mistaken in the value we put upon the things we expect or enjoy and that makes us mis-spend our selves upon them Be sure nothing below the fruition of thy Creator can deserve the whole stock of thy Delight and if thou dispensest it otherwise thou robbest thy God and deceivest thy self There are three Considerations and Cautions that are often to be used to moderate our Delight in Externals 1. To consider the true value of them they are but limited Good and not large enough for thy Soul limited in measure limited in duration the Good that is in them is that Congruity that God hath put in them and that only a limited good and can deserve but a limited Delight 2. To mingle those sad Considerations of Mortality and an Account with the Fruition of any Externals This doth allay the exorbitancy of the Heart and keeps the Soul from surfeiting upon any outward Good this is the going to the house of Mourning commended by the wise Man Eccles 7.2 that sad remembrance which he gives to the young man in the midst of his jollity Eccl. 11.9 But know that for all these things God will bring thee to judgment there is a severe Eye that beholdeth all thy deportment in the fruition of those things I lend thee that will have a sad account for thy carriage in the use of them 3. To contemplate often the Goodness of God his Mercy his Bounty to find the Presence and Love of God in thy Love the sound hope of eternal Life This will take up the whole compass of thy delight and rejoycing wherein thou canst not exceed so that thou wilt not have Joy enough or at least not too much for any thing below him Luke 10.20 In this rejoyce not but rather rejoyce because your names are written in heaven When this Sun shines in the Heart those little Stars of outward Comfort which at no time have but a derivative Light will not appear And this thy Faith is the Victory that overcometh the World the delights of the World as well as the terrours of the World It will keep Comforts and thy Delight in them in their due place and subordination and count them but dung and loss that thou mayest win Christ Phil. 3.8 If the Lord shall lift up the light of his countenance upon thee it will put more gladness in thy Heart than when their or thine own Corn and Wine increased Psal 4.7 When thy Peace is made with God thy Conscience sprinkled by the Blood of Christ the Spirit the Comforter witnessing with thy own Spirit Rom. 8.16 thy Heart sincere towards God 2 Cor. 1.12 this will cause an abiding Joy 2 Thes 5.16 John 16.12 a full Joy 1 John 1.4 a victorious Joy that like Moses's Serpent devours the false Joys and conquers the temporal Sorrows of this Life Acts 5.41 James 1.2 1 Pet. 4.13 a Joy unspeakable and full of Glory 1 Pet. 1.8 3. And as to the manner and measure of thy Delight so look to the Ground the formal Reason of thy Delight see that thy delight or rejoycing fix not in those external Comforts singly for then thy Delight will be sensual immoderate and vain the very same that an irrational Creature takes in them viz. a complacency in the fruition of that which is convenient and suitable to his Sense But look upon thy Blessings and delight in them as thou seest the Bounty the Goodness the Hand the Promise the Truth of God in them This will not only moderate but spiritualize thy delight in them thy delight in them will not only be Comfortable to thy self but Acceptable to God thy delight in thy Blessings is then mingled with Thankfulness with Humility with Sobriety with Faith with Watchfulness it is thy Duty and it is thy Safety The rich Man in the Gospel Luk. 12.19 Soul thou hast much goods laid up for many years eat drink and be merry and this was his sin The Israelite offering his first Fruits to God Deut. 26.11 is commanded to rejoyce in every good thing which the Lord thy God hath given unto thee this was his Duty the rejoycing the same here was the odds the former terminated and laid out his Joy in the thing as the suitable Good to his Nature and Condition the latter looked upon it and rejoyced in it as a Gift of God learn therefore to find God in the Creature and that will heal the Creature and make it useful and safe thou mayest then delight in them safely because thou wilt then do it warrantably CHAP. XXII Of Watchfulness over our Grief 1. In reference to God for Sin 2. In reference to Externals TAKE heed to thy Grief Love as is before noted is the great Cardinal Affection or Motion of the Soul and the other Affections are but Love diversified according to the site or position of the Object Love in the expectation of its Object is Hope in the doubt or danger of it Fear in the enjoyment of it Joy in the absence of it Grief or Sorrow The Object therefore of thy Love is the subject of thy Grief and the measure of thy Love to it is the measure of thy Grief for it First therefore see that thy intensest Grief be relative to him that ought to be the Object of thy intensest Love. Now our Love to God is under a double Consideration 1. Absolutely as he is the chiefest perfect absolute Good. And under this Consideration our Love ends in him we love him for his own sake And this is an Angelical Love and a pure sublime Love and the Fruit of this Love is an endeavour of Conformity to his Nature and to his Will. 2. Relatively as he is the Chiefest Good to us And this creates in us a double Love to him 1. A Love of Gratitude a return of Love to him because we receive Love from him 1 John