or Christ for Salvation to be accounted the principal Saving-act of it because as it seemeth to them many loose wicked People trust on God and Christ for their Salvation as much as others and are by their Confidence hardened the more in their Wickedness But they had rather it should be Obedience to all Christ's Laws at least in their Resolution or a Consent that Christ should be their Lord accepting of his terms of Salvation and a resignation of themselves to his Government in all things It is a sign that the Scripture-form of Teaching is grown into disesteem with our great Masters of Reason when trusting in the Lord so much commended in Scripture is accounted a mean and ordinary thing They endeavour to affright us from owning Faith to be an Instrument of Justification by telling us that thereby we that use the Instrument are made our own principal Justifiers to the dishonour of God though it might be easily answered that we are made thereby only the principal receivers of our own Justification from God the Giver of it to whom all the Glory doth belong All these Errors will fall if it can be proved that such a Faith as I have described is an Instrument whereby we actually receive Christ himself into our Hearts and Holiness of Heart and Life as well as Justification by Union and Fellowship with him For the proof of it I shall offer the following Arguments First By Faith we have the actual enjoyment and possession of Christ himself and not only of Remission of Sins but of Life and so of Holiness Christ dwelleth in our hearts by faith Ephes 3.17 We live to God and yet not we but Christ liveth in us by the Faith of the Son of God Gal. 2.19 20. He that believeth on the Son of God hath the Son and everlasting life that is in him 1 John 5.12 13. John 3.36 He that heareth Christ's word and believeth on him that sent Christ hath everlasting life and is passed from death unto life These Texts express clearly such a Faith as I have described therefore the efficiency or operation of Faith in order to the enjoyment of Christ and his Fulness cannot be the procurement of a bare Right or Title to this Enjoyment but rather it must be an entrance into it and taking possession of it We have our accâ—ss and entrance by faith into that Grace of Christ wherein we stand Rom. 5.2 Secondly The Scripture plainly ascribeth this effect to Faith that by it we receive Christ put him on are rooted and grounded in him and also that we receive the Spirit remission of sins and an inheritance among them which are sanctified John 1.2 Gal. 3.26 27. Col. 2.6 7. Gal. 3.14 Acts 26.18 And the Scripture illustrateth this Receiving by the Similitude of Eating and Drinking He that believeth on Christ drinketh the living water of his spirit John 7.37 38 39. Christ is the bread of life his flesh is meat indeed and his blood drink indeed and the way to eat and drink it is to believe in Christ and by so doing we dwell in Christ and Christ in us and have everlasting Life John 6.35 47 48 54 55 56. How can it be taught more clearly that we receive Christ himself properly into our Souls by Faith as we do receive Food into our Bodies by eating and drinking and that Christ is as truly united to us thereby as our Food when we eat or drink it So that Faith cannot be a Condition to procure a meer Right or Title to Christ no more than Eating or Drinking procureth a meer Right or Title to our Food but it is rather an Instrument to receive it as the Mouth that eateth and drinketh the Food Thirdly Christ with all his Salvation is freely given by the Grace of God to all that believe on him for we are saved by Grace through Faith and that not of our selves it is the Gist of God Eph. 2.8 9. We are justified freely by his Grace through Faith in his blood Rom. 8.24 The Holy Ghost who is the Bond of Union betwixt Christ and us is a Gift Acts 2.38 Now that which is a Gift of Grace must not be at all earned purchased or procured by any Work or Works performed as a Condition to get a right Title to it and therefore Faith it self must not be accounted such a Condition If it be by Grace it is no more of Works otherwise Grace is no more Grace Rom. 11.1 The Condition of a free Gift is only take and have and in this sence we will readily acknowledge Faith to be a Condition allowing a Liberty in Terms where we agree in the thing but if you give a Pepper-corn to purchase a Title to it then you spoil the freeness of the Gift The free Offer of Christ to you is sufficient to conferr upon you a Right yea to make it your Duty to receive Christ and his Salvation as yours and because we receive Christ by Faith as a free Gift therefore we may account Faith to be the Instrument and as it were the Hand whereby we receive him Fourthly It hath been already proved that all spiritual Life and Holiness is treasured up in the Fulness of Christ and communicated to us by Union with him therefore the accomplishing of Union with Christ is the first work of Saving Grace in our Hearts and Faith itself being an holy Grace and part of spiritual Life cannot be in us before the beginning of it but rather it is given to us and wrought in the very working of the Union And the way wherein it conduceth to the Union cannot be by procuring a meer Title to Christ as a Condition because then it should be performed before the uniting Work beginneth but rather by being an Instrument whereby we may actively receive and embrace Christ who is already come into the Soul to take possession of it his own Habitation True Saving-Faith such as I have described hath in its nature and manner of Operation a peculiar aptitude or fitness to receive Christ and his Salvation and to unite our Souls unto him and to furnish the Soul with a new holy Nature and to bring forth an holy Practice by Union and Fellowship with him God hath fitted natural Instruments for their Office as the Hands Feet c. so that we may know by their nature and natural manner of operation for what use they are designed In like manner we may know that Faith is an Instrument formed on purpose for our Union with Christ and Sanctification if we consider what a peculiar fitness it hath for the Work The discovery of this is of great use for the understanding of the mysterious manner of our receiving and practising all Holiness by Union and Fellowship with Christ By this precions Grace of Faith and to make you as it were to see with your Eyes that it is such an Instrument as I have asserted it to be I shall present it to your view
way to the Father before they clearly knew him to be the way John 14.5 And the best of us know it but in part and must wait for the perfect knowledge of it in another World One great Mystery is that the holy frame and disposition whereby our Souls are furnished and enabled for immediate Practice of the Law must be gotten by receiving it out of Christ's fulness as a thing already prepared and brought to an existance for us in Christ and treasured up in him and that as we are justified by a righteousness wrought out in Christ and imputed to us so we are sanctified by such an holy frame and qualifications as are first wrought out and compleated in Christ for us and then imparted to us and as our natural corruption was produced originally in the first Adam and propagated from him to us so our new nature and holiness is first produced in Christ and derived from him to us or as it were propagated So that we are not at all to work together with Christ in making or producing that holy frame in us but only to take it to ourselves and use it in our holy Practice as made ready to our hands Thus we have fellowship with Christ in recovering that holy frame of Spirit that was originally in him for fellowship is when several Persons have the same things in common 1 Jo. 1. This Mystery is so great that notwithstanding all the Light of the Gospel we commonly think that we must get an holy frame by producing it a new in ourselves and by forming and working it out of our own Hearts Therefore many that are seriously devout take a great deal of pains to mortifie their corrupted Nature and beget an holy frame of Heart in themselves by striving earnestly to master their sinful lusts and by pressing vehemently upon their Hearts many motives to Godliness labouring importunately to squeeze good qualifications out of them as Oyl out of a Flint They account that tho' they be justified by a righteousness wrought out by Christ yet they must be sanctifi'd by a holiness wrought out by themselves And thô out of humility they are willing to call it infused Grace yet they think they must get the infusion of it by the same manner of working as if it were wholly acquired by their endeavours On this account they acknowledge the entrance into a Godly Life to be harsh and unpleasing because it costs so much strugling with their own Hearts and Affections to new frame them if they knew that this way of entrance is not only harsh and unpleasant but altogether impossible and that the true way of mortifying sin and quickning themselves to holiness is by receiving a new nature out of the fulness of Christ and that we do no more to the production of a new nature than of original sin tho' we do more to the reception of it If they knew this they might save themselves many a bitter agony and a great deal of mispent burdensome labour and employ their endeavours to enter in at the strait Gate in such a way as would be more pleasant and successful Another greater mystery in the way of Sanctification is the glorious manner of our Fellowship with Christ in receiving an holy frame of heart from him It is by our being in Christ and having Christ himself in us and that not meerly by his universal presence as he is God but by such a close union as that we are one spirit and one flesh with him which is a priviledge peculiar to those that are truly sanctified I may well call this a mystical union because the Apostle calleth it a great mystery in an Epistle full of Mysteries Eph. 5.20 intimating that it is great eminently above many other Mysteries it is one of the three Mystical Unions that are the chief Mysteries in Religion the other two are the Union of the Trinity of Persons in One Godhead and the Union of the Divine and Human Natures in One Person Jesus Christ God and Man Though we cannot frame an exact Idea of the manner of any of these Three Unions in our Imaginations because the depth of these Mysteries is beyond our Comprehension yet we have cause to believe them all because they are clearly revealed in Scripture and are a necessary Foundation for other Points of Christian Doctrine particularly this Union betwixt Christ and Believers is plainly in several places of Scripture affirming that Christ is and dwelleth in believers and they in him Joh. 6.56 and 14.20 And that they are so joyned together as to become one Spirit 1 Cor. 6.17 And that Believers are Members of Christ's Body of his Flesh and of his Bones and they two Christ and the Church are one flesh Eph. 5.30 31. Furthermore this Union is illustrated in Scripture by various resemblances which would be very much unlike the things which they are made use of to resemble and would rather seem to beguile us by obscuring the Truth than instruct us by illustrating of it if there were no true proper Union betwixt Christ and Believers It is resembled by the Union betwixt God the Father and Christ Jo. 14.20 and 17.21 22 23. betwixt the Vine and its Branches Joh. 15.4 5. betwixt the Head and Body Ephes 1.22.23 betwixt Bread and the Eater Joh. 6.51 53 54. It is not only resembled but sealed in the Lords Supper where neither the Popish Transubstantiation nor the Lutherans Consubstantiation nor the Protestants spiritual Presence of Christ's Body and Blood to the true Receivers can stand without it and if we can imagine that Christ's Body and Blood are not truely eaten and drunk by Believers either spiritually or corporally we shall make the Bread and Wine joyned with the Words of Institution not only naked Signs but such Signs as are much more apt to breed false Notions in us than to establish us in the Truth And there is nothing in this Union so impossible or repugnant to Reason as may force us to depart from the plain and familiar sence of those Scriptures that express and illustrate it Though Christ be in Heaven and we on Earth yet he can joyn our Souls and Bodies to his at such a distance without any substantial Change of either by the same insinite Spirit dwelling in him and us and so our Flesh will become his when it is quickned by his Spirit and his Flesh ours as truly as if we did eat his Flesh and drink his Blood and he will be in us himself by his Spirit who is one with him and who can unite more closely to Christ than any material Substance can do or who can make a more close and intimate Union betwixt Christ and us And it will not follow from hence that a Believer is one Person with Christ any more than that Christ is one Person with the Father by that greater mystical Union Neither will a Believer be hereby made God's but only the Temple of God as Christ's Body
that it is the proper nature and tendency of Baptism to guide us to Faith in Christ alone for remission of Sins Holiness and all Salvation by Union and Fellowship with him and that a diligent improvement of this Ordinance must needs be of great advantage to the Life of Faith 5. The Sacrament of the Lords Supper is as a spiritual Feast to nourish our Faith and to strengthen us to walk in all Holiness by Christ living and working in us if it be used according to the Patern which Christ gave us in its first Institution recorded by Three Evangelists Mat. 26.26 Mar. 14.22 24. Luk. 22.19 20. and was extrordinarily revealed from Heaven by Christ himself to the Apostle Paul 1 Cor. 11.23 25. that we might be the more obliged and stirred up to the exact Observation of it It s end is not only that we may remember Christs Death in the History but in the Mystery of it as that his Body was broken for us that his Blood is the Blood of the New Testament or Covenant shed for us and for many for the remission of Sins that so we may receive and enjoy all the Promises of the New Covenant which are recorded Heb. 8.12 It s end is to mind us that Christs Body and Blood are Bread and Drink even all-sufficient Food to nourish our Souls to everlasting Life and that we ought to take and eat and drink him by Faith and to assure us that when we truly believe on him he is as really and closely united to us by his Spirit as the Food which we eat and drink is united to our Bodies Christ himself Joh. 6. doth more fully explain this Mystery Furthermore this Sacrament doth not only put us in mind of the spiritual Blessings wherewith we are Blessed in Christ and our Enjoyment of them by Faith but also it is a Mean and Instrument whereby God doth really exhibit and give forth Christ and his Salvation to true Believers and whereby he doth stir up and strengthen Believers to receive and feed upon Christ by present actings of Faith while they partake of the outward Elements When Christ saith eat drink this is my body this is my blood no less can be meant than that Christ doth as truly give his Body and Blood to true Believers in that Ordinance as the Bread and Cup and they do as truly receive it by Faith As if a Prince invest a Subject in some Honourable Office by delivering to him a Staff Sword or Signet and say to him take this Staff Sword or Signet this is such an Office or Preferment or if a Father should deliver a Deed for Conveyance of Land to his Son and say take it as thine own this is such a Farm or Mannor how can such Expressions import any less in common Senfe and Reason than a Present Gift and Conveyance of the Offices Preferments and Lands by and with those outward Signs Therefore the Apostle Paul asserteth that the bread in the Lords supper is the communion of the body of Christ and the cup is the communion of his blood 1 Cor. 10.16 which sheweth that Christ's Body and Blood are really communicated to us and we do really partake of them as well as of the Bread and Cup. The chief Excellency and Advantage of this Ordinance is That it is not only a Figure and Resemblance of our living upon a crucified Saviour but also a precious Instrument whereby Christ the Bread and Drink of Life is really conveyed to us and received by us through Faith This makes it to be a Love-Token worthy of that ardent Affection toward us which filled Christ's Heart at the time when he instituted it when he was on the point of finishing of his greatest work of Love by laying down his Life for us 1 Cor. 11.23 And this is diligently to be observed that we may make a right improvement of this Ordinance and receive the saving Benesits of it One reason why many do little esteem and seldom or never partake of this Ordinance and do find little benefit by it is because they falsly imagine that God in it only holds forth naked signs and resemblances of Christ and his Salvation which they account to be held forth so plainly in Scripture that they need not the help of such a sign Whereas if they understood that God doth really give Christ himself to their Faith by and with those Signs and Resemblances they would prize it as the most delicious Feast and be desirous to partake of it on all opportunities Acts 2.42 and 20.7 Another reason why many partake seldom or never of this Ordinance and know little of the benefit of it is because they think themselves brought by it into great danger of eating and drinking their own Damnation according to those terrifying words of the Apostle 1 Cor. 11.29 therefore they account it the safest way wholly to abstain from such a dangerous Ordinance or at least that once a year is enough to run so great a Hazard And if they be brought to it sometimes by constraint of Conscience their slavish Fears bereave them of all comfortable Fruit of it So that instead of striving to receive Christ and his Salvation therein they account themselves to have succeeded well if they come off without the Sentence of Damnation As the Jewish Rabbies write that the High-Priests Life was so eminently hazarded by his entring once a year into the Holy of Holies that he stayed there as little time as he could lest the People should think him to be struck dead by the Hand of God And when he was come forth alive he usually made a Feast of Thanksgiving for Joy of so great a Deliverance But there is no reason why we should be so much terrified by those words of the Apostle for they were darted against such a gross prophanation of the Lords Supper amongst the Corinthians as we may easily avoid by observing the Institution of it which the Apostle proposeth to them as a sufficient remedy against the gross abuse in not discerning or differencing the Lords Body from other bodily Food and partaking of it as their own Supper with such disorder that one was Hungry and another Drunken Besides that terrifying word Damnation may be rendred more mildly Judgment as it is in the Margent yea the Apostle himself Ver. 32. doth interpret it of a merciful temporal Judgment whereby we are chastened of the Lord that we should not be condemned with the World We are indeed prone to sin in receiving this Ordinance unworthily and so we are also to pollute more or less all other holy things that we meddle with So that the consideration of our danger might sill us with slavish fear in the use of all other means of Grace as well as of this were it not that we have a great High-Priest to bear this Iniquity of our holy things Exod. 28.38 under the Covert of whose Righteousness we are to draw near unto God without
this be truly believed it will exclude Doubtfulness concerning your Salvation Secondly Several places of Scripture declare positively and expresly that we are to be assured of our Salvation in that Faith whereby we are justified and saved I shall produce some Instances We are exhorted to draw near to God with full assurance of faith Heb. 10.22 Many apply this Text to that which they call the reflect Act of Faith because they imagine that all Assurance must needs be by Reflection but the Words of the Text do clearly teach us to understand it of that Act of Faith whereby we draw near to God that is the direct Act and it is that very Faith whereby the Just do live even justifying saving Faith verse 38. And this Assurance must be full at least in the true and proper Nature of it in Opposition unto mere Doubtfulness and Uncertainty though we are yet further to labour for that which is full in the highest Degree of Perfection And the same Faith whereby we are exhorted to draw nigh unto God and whereby the Just liveth is a little after Chap. 11.1 affirmed to be the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen Why should saving Faith have these high Titles and Attributes given to it if it did not contain in it a sure Perswasion of the great things of our Salvation hoped for which maketh them to be evident to the Eyes of our Mind as if they were already present in their Substance though yet not visible to our bodily Eyes that Faith whereby we are made Partakers of Christ and to be Christ's House must be worthy to be called Confidence and accompanied with reioycing Hope Whose house are we if we hold fast the confidence and rejoycing of the hope firm unto the end Heb. 3.6.14 What is Confidence concerning any thing but trusting concerning it with a firm Perswasion of the Truth of it If we have only a strong Opinion concerning a thing without any absolute certainty we use to say that we are not altogether confident of it The Faith whereby we are justified must be in a measure like to the Faith whereby Abraham against Hope believed in Hope that his Seed should certainly be multiplyed according to the Promise of God though by reason of the Deadness of his own Body and of Sarah's Womb he could have no Evidence from his own Qualifications to assure himself of it but all Appearances were rather to the contrary as the Apostle teacheth clearly Rom. 4.18 19 23.24 As absolute as this Promise was thus made Abraham yet it was not to be fulfilled without this Assurance of Faith and by the like Faith the free Promises of Salvation by Christ will be absolutely fulfilled to us The Apostle James expresly requireth that we should ask good things of God in Faith nothing doubting which includeth Assurance manifestly and he telleth us plainly that without it a Man ought not to think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord therefore we may firmly conclude that without it we shall not receive the Salvation of Christ James 1.6 7. And that which the Apostle James requireth us not to doubt of is the obtaining the things that we ask as we may learn from an Instruction to the same purpose given to us by Christ himself What things soever ye desire when ye pray believe that ye receive them and ye shall have them Mark 11.24 More places of Scripture might be alledged to the same purpose but these are sufficient to evince that we are bound to assure our selves of our Salvation in Faith it self or else we are never likely to enjoy it and that it is not Humility but rather proud Disobedience to live in a state of mere Suspense and Doubtfulness concerning our Salvation and that this Assurance must be in the direct Act of Faith whereby we are justified and saved For as for that which is called the Reflect Act of Faith it is a certain Truth and generally owned that it is not absolutely necessary to Salvation to any and that it is sinful and pernicious to many to believe that they are already entred into a state of Grace and Salvation Thirdly God giveth us sufficient ground in Scripture to come to Christ with confident Faith at the very first trusting assuredly that Christ and his Salvation shall be given to us without any Failing and Delay however vile and sinful our Condition hath been hitherto The Scripture speaketh to the vilest Sinners in such a manner as if it were framed on purpose to beget Assurance of Salvation in them immediately Acts 2.39 Chap. 3.26 This Promise is unversal That whosoever believeth on Christ shall not be ashamed without making a Difference between Jew and Greek Rom. 10.11 12. And this Promise is confirmed by the Blood of Christ who was given for the World and lifted up upon the Cross for this very end that whosoever believeth on him should not perish but have everlasting life John 3.14 15 16. His Invitation is free to any If any man thirst let him come to me and drink and this Drink is promised to every one that believeth John 7.37 39. The Command of believing is propounded not only in general but in particular and the Promise of Salvation upon believing is also applyed personally and that to such as have been hitherto in a state of Sin and Wrath as to the wicked persecuting self-murdering Jaylor Acts 16.31 Believe on the Lord Jesus and thou shalt be saved and thine house God commanded them that walked altogether in Sin hitherto to call him their own Father in their very first returning Jer. 3.4 So Hos 2.23 God saith he will say Thou art my people and they shall say Thou art my God confidently averring their personal Interest in him God hath joyned Confidence and Salvation inseparably together In returning and rest ye shall be saved in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength Isai 30.15 What a poor slender Use and Improvement do many make of these Discoveries of the rich Grace of God towards Sinners who say that if we see that we have performed the Condition of believing then we may take Christ confidently as our own they skip over the first and principal Use they ought to make of them the very Performance of the Condition is to take Christ as our own immediately and to eat him and drink him by believing consiently on him for our Salvation If an honest rich Man say to a poor Woman I promise to be thy Husband if thou wilt have me say but the Word and I am thine may not she presently answer confidently Then thou art my Husband and I claim thee for my Husband and should she not rather say so then say I believe not what thou sayest If an honest Man say Do but take this Gift and it is your own do but eat and drink and you are freely welcome may not I take the Gift and eat and drink at first