a contradiction that such as have once sinned and fallen from Law-righteousness should ever after even for eternity be justified by that Law-righteousness which once they lost or that they should be justified both by grace or by the redemption that is in Jesus without works Rom. 3. 15. Rom. 4. 1 2 3. and also should be justified by debt and hire and by works as Paul opposeth the one to the other Rom. 4. and no doubt all the glorified were once justified by grace without works even Abraham David and all like them how then can they be justified by works for ever and ever in Heaven see Rom. 11. 6. Qu. What then requires the Lord in these believe ye in Christ make you a new heart except we say we have strength natural to obey and that by natures law many were saved Ans 1. He requires the free act of believing but withall he requires what is our duty and moral obligation but not what is our physical strength to perform 2. He shews our impotency to wrestle out of the pit of misery except he give us Evangelick strength to escape nor is it the Lord's intention or decree that such as have fallen in the first Adam should rise again by the first Adam or their own strength or should pay of their own the money that they wasted in Adam Or 3. That they should have or get again the same individual sanctified power which they lost in Adam Or 4. That they should have these influences of God they once lost Object They are either condemned because they believe not by their own strength or because they believe not by a supernatural grace but both are physically impossible Now we can all keep the Law whole our selves justifie our selves live without sin Ans 1. They are condemned because they believe not through a supernatural power which power all are obliged to have for it was once a concreated and gifted power and the want of the power of believing is a culpable and sinful want of that image of God which man is obliged to have Rom. 3. 23. 2. Whatever principle and power of believing be the ground of Gospel-unbelief which condemns men the sons of Adam love that want and such as are within the visible Church are condemned for their voluntary unbelief John 5. 24. and John 5. 40. Ye will not come to me that ye may be saved 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As for the want of the power of believing it is common to all mankind to such as hear the Gospel and to all the Heathen and therefore cannot be the nearest formal principle of that Gospel-unbelief for which they are condemned who being within the visible Church do not believe And upon the same ground the culpable want of the power of believing as of the rest of the parts of the image of God must be a sin against the covenant of works common to all mankind now such as never heard the Gospel cannot be guilty of a sin proper to the covenant of grace Qu. What then is that a just command that the Lord should charge under the highest pain even of the second death the blind to see that is that the natural man believe and in the mean time God judicially puts out his eyes and out of his absolute freedome refuses to restore to him the faculty of seeing Ans Suppose 1. That the want of soul power to see is both a sin the contrary of it being moral goodness a part of original righteousnesse and of the concreated image of God to wit of righteousness and holiness Ephes 4. 23 24. Colos 3. 10. which makes a man lovely to God as also a punishment inflicted as Pharaoh's obstinate hardness is both a hainous sin and also judicially afflicted for former sins And then the holy Law may as well charge men to be holy and able to believe though they be judicially blind As God may charge Pharaoh's heart to be soft and moved with rods and to yield to the command Let my people go when God judicially hardens the heart 2. Suppose that man loves willingly to be blind as all love their native blindnesse 3. Suppose the blind man to be under the moral debt of having his seeing faculty even the compleat image of God and of loving not hating his Physitian Christ when revealed and preached who only can restore his faculty of seeing Now man remaining after the Fall a reasonable creature is obliged by the first command to believe God in all he saith and to love Christ God incarnate or not incarnate He from whom the eyes are plucked cannot be under a moral obligation to see because the eye seeth not by freedome that is inherent in the eye But a man within the visible Church is obliged to perform all free obedience of believing in Christ revealed whether habitual or actual which his Creator commands so the comparison halts widely 4. Suppose the man does first with his own hand put out his own eyes as we did in Adam and that the relation of penalty follows this blindnesse by the will of the just Creator as it s here 5. Suppose the blind man gave virtual consent to the voluntarily loved want of the lovely and gracious art of the onely Physician who can restore his sight as the case is here 6. Suppose that the Creator of eyes hath once given the facultie of seeing and that he is not obliged to restore it ever when the man casts it away and that the man a thousand times winks and shuts his eyes and hates to be anointed and you shall see there is no ground to quarrel with the just and holy Lord. Q. Whereas the contrary opinion that denies original fin to be sin as Pelagians Arminians Socinians 1. Contradicts Scripture which calls it both sin and iniquity Psal 51. 5. Vncleannesse Job 14. 4. The frame of the heart evil 2. Only evil 3. Continually 4. From the wombe Gen. 6. 5. Gen. 8. 21. Offence Rom. 5. 15 17 18. Disobedience by which many are made sinners 19. Indwelling sin even when Paul is justified A body of sin Rom. 7. 17. 23 24. The sin that doth so easily beset us Heb. 12. 1. Shall we teach the Lord to speak 2. The Lord saith it is an offence by which many be dead Rom. 5. 15. By which the judgment is by one unto condemnation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is the condemnation to the first and second death from which we are delivered in Jesus Christ Rom. 5. 16. Rom. 8. 1. It 's an offence by which death reigned as a King Now if this death be but a temporary death how is it opposed to the reigning in life by one Jesus Christ Rom. 5. 17 And as sin reigned unto death even so grace reigns through righteousnesse unto eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord Rom. 5. 21. Now except the Scripture had taught us that there is one sort of sin that deserves temporal death another
their faces with wings as blushing before infinite holiness why bestows he not as much saving influences on me as on David Moses Noah Job and Daniel why not as much grace and of the fulness of the anointing as upon the man Christ that holy thing Jesus 4. And is not free goodness here complained of God knowingly and wittingly saith the lying Divel envying you should be gods forbids you to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil Envy is contrary to communicative goodness free goodness gives freely in measure in weight and number as best pleaseth him now God gives not grace enough 5. His holiness and righteousness is arraigned 1. He did not from eternity shew mercy nor provide a new heart for me then that I serve not as he deserves let him blame himself not me 2. He created me a slippery clay vessel which he saw should fall upon stones and be broken he might have made me brass and iron that could not be broken And 3. that I sin wanting the fulness of the anointing and influences in a personal union as in the man Christ is a defect in God not in man and all the sins I commit he could have prevented them and either would not or could not 6. It s repugnant to the Lord 's holy charge in governing the world I would be holy and run but he withdraws influences What is this but I doe my part but the Lord is wanting in his part I am willing to run but he draws not I follow but he refuses to lead me I answer but he calleth not a holy meekned soul sees all the blame in it self and mercy and inviting kindness in God 7. I would doe otherwise but ah my sinful nature I was born in sin this is a blaming of providence 1. God denies influences and the fulness of the holy Ghost from the womb to me and all mankind which he gave to the man Christ But 1. The flowing of sin original is a work of holy justice who so punished the first fall and you carp not at the indwelling of sin original by which the poyson of the sinful nature is hateful to God Gen. 6. 5. Gen. 8. 21. but at the Lord 's righteous smiting of our nature Shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it what makest thou Isa 45. 9. and as if he were a patient under sin original Ah I would be from under a body of sin but I am captive sold under sin This is a lye every man is in this sense a captive under sin original in that nill he will he he is born in sin and the flux of justice so determined ere the man was born but the unrenewed Objector is not so a captive he that was never humbled for sin original as David confesseth it his plagne and sore Psal 51. 5. and Job 14. 4. is not a captive but a consenter to sin original 2. He that willingly lends lodging and a furnace and a warm hearth-stone to sin original and remains willingly in the state of unrenewed nature is not a patient under sin original the man is not a captive and a prisoner against his will to him who hath the power of life and death and to him who sends a writ of grace and bids him come out and casts ope the prison doors yet he remains there eats drinks sleeps sports Christ the Lord of life hath sent the Gospel which is a bill of free grace he bids you come out of cursed nature be renewed in the spirit of your mind come to me and I will ease you yet ye will not change your life this 20 30 40 years since the Gospel of grace came to you you eat drink sleep wake laugh rejoyce in a state of distance from Christ and refuse to come out of that prison 3. I would I were without original sin ye say and yet when you willingly lye swear whore you put seal subscription and consent to Adam's first sin He that delights in the streams and drinks with delight does he not love the water of the fountain then to say I would be without sin original is as much as I would be without sin and I would not be without sin does not this man allow Adam's deed and serve himself heir to Adam his father's sin twenty times in one day and in such a man sin original is not diminished and brought down to a sin of infirmity as in Paul Rom. 7. 15. For that which I doe I allow not for what I would that I doe not but what I hate that I doe That is a sanctified would a renewed hatred of one entering a protestation against sin but original sin lives in its vigour and reign of the Law in this man and where this sin hath the full consent and bensil of the will the Law in its condemning power is on its side Hence that excuse the man brings as in Fenner's Wilfull impenitency page 95. 96. which proves that he is not humbled thou excusest thy self for thy original sin too Lord I would be without original sin but I cannot if I could I would Belike then if it had been thy case as it was Adam 's thou wouldest not have eaten of the forbidden fruit and therefore it was his fault and not thine and thou wouldest not have sinned if thou couldst have otherwise chused David confesseth this sin as his personal as well as his natural sin Psal 51. 5. Behold in iniquity that is the highest of sin I was formed and in sin did my mother warme me or conceive me He names the person twice and the holy Ghost blacks all faces with this sin Rom. 5. 12. All 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 have sinned and yet this Objector is more innocent then Adam Verse 18. By the offence of one judgement came upon all men unto condemnation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Verse 19. By one mans disobedience many were made sinners that is all except the man Christ and this man must be free of sin and condemnation as the second Adam 4. He would have original sin removed in an extraordinary way and not in the Lord 's own way and so tempts God as Satan tempted Christ to work miracles for bread and to cast himself down over the pinacle of the Temple 1. Now this Lord I would be without sin original but I cannot thou hast so ordained my nature to be but it is against my will and my heart for my heart hates it its double dealing and an untruth for then the will must be clean then the Objector must be cleaner and holier then God says in Scripture the unrenewed man is 2. Then must the will be by nature free of sin original whereas the frame of the heart is only evil from the womb and deceitful and desperately wicked Gen. 6. 5. Gen. 8. 21. Jer. 17. 9. 3. Then must the holy Lord be in the fault who might give influences of grace and a whole nature
that deserves eternal death we cannot believe Mr. Baxter 3. It makes us children of wrath Eph. 2. 3. by nature as others are If it be temporary wrath only and Infants be free of sin that condemnes to the second death Christ bare in his body the sin of no Infants Christ died for sinners only the just for the unjust 1 Pet. 3. 18. Rom. 4. 25. Isa 53. 6 10. Infants are not sinners nor are sucking Infants laved and washed in his blood as others Rev. 1. 5. Nor are they sinners whom Christ came to save 1 Tim. 1. 15. Nor are Infants any of the many or of the all for whom Christ gave himself a ransome Mat. 20. 28. 1 Tim. 2. 6. And since the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to Infants and they are to be baptized Act. 2. 38 39. there must be some other name by which Infants must be saved then by the name of Jesus Christ contrary to Act. 4. 12. For what need is there of Christ's righteousnesse and of remission of sins and redemption in Christ's blood Rom. 3. 25. Ephes 1. 7. Col. 1. 13 14. to Infants if sin original be no sin 4. Heathens ignorant of sin original are still left by such masters to accuse Justice If Infants be free of sin why is nature called by them a step-dame which hath brought forth men in such misery when they enter in the world Why do Infants suffer death burning drowning ripping up and wounding in the wombe Why suffer they such wrath of pining sicknesse incursions of Devils if all these be free of sin Some say these are temporary evils but it proves not any sin deserving eternal burning to be in Infants The Lord needs not my lye but let any man answer me in point of holy spotlesse justice how a punishment of ten degrees can more be inflicted for that which is no sin nor any transgression of a Law then a punishment of a thousand degrees See how Mr. Baxter with Arminians and Pelagians can from Scripture teach us of whole sins and half sins whole wrath and hell and half wrath and half condemnation or half hell Q. But what Law is there that we should have the power of believing or the image of God The covenant of works doth presuppose that image to be in man otherwise he is not in a capacitie to be in covenant with God therefore it could not be injoyned and commanded in the covenant of works that Adam should have this Image of God And if so the want of it must be a meer punishment not a sin Ans The Lord in creating Adam must necessarily have a two-fold Consideration One 1. of a Creator 2. Another of a Law-giver In the first the Lord creates Being but in the latter he is such a special Creator to wit a Law-giving Creator who while he creates Being does concreate these noble Principles and write and by nature ingrave the Law of the Image of God the natural knowledge of God his holinesse justice mercie c. and of right and wrong and a natural holinesse and innate conformitie of the heart to the eternal Law of God in mans soul A Painter drawes the portraict of a living beautiful heroick King according to the living man the Painter both gives being to the painted image and such a being according to the law and art of painting he followes exactly and accurately his copie and living samplar and so gives a law to his own acts of painting And therefore God in one and the same act both creates man and gives him a being even holinesse his image and holy being and in creating of man gives and concreates and ingraves the image of GOD sound knowledge right inclinations and while the Lord creates he gives and ingraves a Law and while he gives and ingraves a Law he creates man And therefore it follows not that the covenant of works does not presuppose the image of God in man and it does not follow but the very act of God in stamping and ingraving his image in Adam is also a giving of him a Law Yea God in creating any creature of nothing does also concreate as a sort of Law-giver such a natural Law Every creature Sun Moon Heaven Earth Sea Man Angel ought to be subject as a creature to God Creator in being and operation Here is both the act of a Creator and also the act of a Law-giver Now the eternal Law of God requires that mans soul should be by creation indued with the image of God and Adam and Evah by that image said Amen to that Law for a time Eat not lest ye die They knew the Law was just and they knew it was their natural obligation to obey and how can it be denied but this knowledge was a part of the mans natural goodnesse and holinesse and so agreeable to the eternal Law of God and that the contrary of this to doubt of the truth of this as Satan induced them to doe Gen. 3. was a blacking of that fair image and contrary to the law of nature 2. The more of this image that is left in the soules of men by nature as the more knowledge natural justice and vertue remain in Aristides Regulus Seneca Tullius c. the more lovely they are and so must their souls have a more natural conformitie with the law of nature then other Heathens who kil'd their aged Fathers sacrificed their sons to Devils used wives promiscuously Then what God condemnes in us that we should condemn in our selves and therefore are to be humbled for our state we are in by nature For we are dead in sins and trespasses by nature the children of wrath as well as others Eph. 2. 1 4 We our selves were sometimes foolish disobedient deceived serving divers lusts and pleasures living in malice and envy hateful and hating one another Psal 51. 5. Behold I was shapen in iniquity and in sin did my mother warm me Upon this account the Lord suffers his own to fall and lye in the dust and to know what beasts they are as the godly confesse Psal 73. 23. Prov. 30. 2. themselves to be Nothing men are more ashamed of then that they are descended of a traiterous and bloody Family that sucked the paps of the bear or the wolfe that the father and mother were dogs and swine and they born of leprous parents the house of sinful Adam that we lay claim unto is a botch-house and leper-house and worse And this is more vile then if there were none of the world that we could claim kindred unto but serpents dogs swine and wolves 2. How proud and shamelesse are we to deny this running botch of sin original and say it is no sin would it cure a man of a raging pest-boile to say it was no pest to give it another name It 's a part of original sin in our Atheism to belye the Lord and say it is soul-sicknesse but it is not sin it deserves not
speak at all Ezek. 2. 6. Self must be denied and shamefastness before Kings Psal 119. 46. see Psal 39. 1 2. laid aside Q. What then shall be done to be free of the indisposition of straitning and so to get influences of enlargement of heart Answ 1. Get and entertain large apprehension of God Who is a rock save our God Psal 18. 30 31. Be principled in the broad apprehensions of Christ he is altogether lovely all loves Cant. 5. 16. A touch of him can save 2. Rid marches betwixt the Law and grace some renewed ones must have their by past life and the strict law reconciled otherwise they but walk in the flesh and so live as they imagine in Law bondage and are sick of the old diseases and so weaken their faith Hence straitning Thou art under the Law and having made a bargain with the Law to keep it thou art in the flesh thou canst not speak to a strange King in another land a King of grace since thou hast fled back again to the old prison and if thou speak it is with much straitning and doubting thou art the Lawes man and not Christs 3. Keep near communion with God keep the vessel free of leaking and of under water sin weakens faith and saddens the spirit and where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty 2 Cor. 3. 4. Improve much faith Frequent believing shall come up to full assurance and that makes strong and bold knocking for a Son who hath right to come where his own flesh is within the vail is vigorous the servants knock is weak unbelief knocks faintly Yet mistake not heaviness as if it were unbelief Christ had much heaviness even to death in his suffering but no weaknesse of faith But Matth. 26. these O my Father O my Father as that also my God my God speak strong faith much enlargement in his heaviest case These four being observed influences are near 5. Grow in sonly love as a child to cry Abba Father a word of a child learning to speak Rom. 8. 26. 6. Get and cherish the inward witnessing of the Spirit Rom. 8. 16 17. and the confirmed assurance of justification by faith hence access and boldness Rom. 5. 1 2 3 4. Eph. 3. 16 17 18 19. The third question How far David or a child of God may undertake to run upon the supposal of an enlarged heart Hence these Assert 1. There is an undertaking as if the child of God had influences at his hand Of this nature in Scripture Psal 51. 10. Create in me a clean heart 11. Cast me not away from thy presence 12. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation and uphold me with thy free Spirit 13. Then will I teach sinners thy ways So v. 15. O Lord open thou my lips and my mouth shall shew forth thy praise Psal 119. 27. Make me to understand the way of thy precepts so shall I talk of thy wondrous works 88. Quicken me after thy loving kindness so shall I keep the testimonies of thy mouth In which he lays it for a ground if God graciously give a new heart he will graciously give influences of grace to teach sinners If the Lord of free grace open the lips he will also give influences to make him shew forth the praises of God not that dispositions of grace doe necessarily determine us to gracious acts or can determine the Lord to bestow influences of grace but the Lords free promise determines him Where he opens one door he opens a second and then a third until his child be in his bosome when he gives one grace he gives another yea because he gives grace he layes holy bands on himself to give more grace the Lord of grace chooses some to savation and gives them to his son and because he chooses them he gives his Son to death for them and because the Lord redeems them by his Son therefore he gives to them strong faith and because he gives to them saving faith therefore he gives to them perseverance and glory and so gives influences of graces in a golden link and chain Rom. 8. 29 30. 2 Thess 2. 13. Acts 13. 48. Eph. 1. 4 5. 1 Pet. 1. 2 3. Assert 2. A believer under the sense of mercy and deliverance is to engage his soul to praise David delivered in the cave Psal 58. 7. I will sing and praise Psal 30. Thou hast turned from me my mourning into dancing v. 12. O Lord my God I will give thanks to thee for ever Psal 116. 8. Thou hast delivered my soul from death 9. I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living out of the sense of the Lords goodness to all Psa 104. 33. I shall sing unto the Lord in my lives or as long as I live Psal 63. 3. Because thy loving kindness is better then life my lips shall praise thee thus will I bless thee while I live Heb. in my lives Assert 3. The man Christ may absolutely undertake Psal 22. 22. I will declare thy name unto thy brethren I will praise thee in the midst of the congregation For he knows perfectly he neither can sin or come short of his vow nor can the Lord withdraw influences of grace from the man Christ but Peter had no assurance that under that particular temptation the Lord should not forsake him The general all the renewed have that the Lord will not suffer his own to be tempted above their strength Peter was obliged to watch and pray under all the particular temptations that could occur and especially under the trial of his suffering Saviour of which he was fore-warned by the mouth of Christ from that Prophecie Zech. 13. 7. I will smite the shepherd and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered Obj. The faith of believers is to rely upon the promised help of Christ in every temptation Then may the believer pray to be delivered not in the general but in every particular not to be tempted above his strength Answ The promise of preserving the elect and of giving promised perseverance Isa 54. 10. Jer. 31. 25. 32. 40. to them now converted is absolute that the Lord will put his fear in their hearts that they shall never depart from him 2. That his grace shall fortifie them against attrocious sins committed with the full strength of consent and inconsistent with the seed of God and the inbiding of that seed in them with the holy anointing 1 Joh. 2. 20 27. c. 3. v. 9. But there is not any promise in the New Covenant that David and Peter shall be delivered from particular sins hic nunc such as may consist with the habit of grace and the seed of God There faith is to relie upon God and his grace that he shall not lead them into temptation hic nunc in such particular sins not absolutely but conditionally so the Lord in his wisedom and holy soveraignty shall
strong convictions come upon the spirit we are to yield our hearty assent to him Matth. 27. 54. the Centurion and the watchers of Christ seeing the earth-quake and other wonders from heaven say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Luke 23. 47. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 true certainly undoubtedly this was the Son of God this was a righteous man but ah he calls and we answer not we love to be wrought on as stones and blocks and could wish to be carried sleeping to heaven in Christs bosome 2. We often suffer the heart to cool and obey not the Spirit in his heavenly disposition and let the fire die out and the furnace cool 3. It were good if we did not counter-work heavenly dispositions by refusing and shifting Cant. 5. 3. of God and the actings of his Spirit Cant. 5. 2. open to me nay saith the Spouse how can I open The third particular is that David speaketh this prayer-ways to God there may be so heavenly a disposition upon the child of God as he dare lay it before God in point of sincerity that it is not rotten David prayer-ways lays before God the fervor of his desire of God Psalm 42. 1. As the hart panteth after the water-brooks so panteth my soul after thee O God Psalm 63. 1. My soul thirsteth for thee my flesh longeth for thee Psalm 73. 25. Whom have I in heaven but thee Psalm 119. 103. How sweet are thy words unto my mouth v. 97. O how love I thy law Psalm 139. 17. How precious are thy thoughts to me And the Church saith Isa 26. 8. Yea in the way of thy judgements we have waited for thee O Lord the desire of our soul is to thy name Jer. 15. 16. Thy words were found and I did eat them and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoycing of my heart for I am called by thy name O Lord God of hosts Q. 1. May we not lay out rotten and unclean hearts before God A. No doubt the pained man may lay out his boils before the Physitian and confession of sins and of the evil of our ways make way to making of a new creation in us Psalm 51. 5 10. Q. To what end should we speak to God of the sincerity of heavenly dispositions and fixedness of heart A. 1. Because neither David nor any of the Saints can order their own hearts under heavenly dispositions therefore the telling of this to God is a seeking help from him to improve these dispositions Peter cannot make use of the glory of Christs transfiguration which he saw except grace help in a manner glory and the Lord inable Peter to make the right use of it as he doth 2 Pet. 1. 16 17. and not as he doth Mark 9. 5 6 7. The Spouse banqueting with Christ in his garden eating honey and the honey-comb is in greater danger to miscarry and turn sleepy and carnally secure as it fell out Cant. 1. 2 3. then when she wants his presence Cant. 3. 1 2 3. It s not easie to guide a new heart or to guide and use well the heaven of a fixed heart and such heavenly disposition at the Kings banquet of wine when he gives the hidden manna and the white stone when Christs banner over you is love and his left hand under the head and the right embracing you there is then if ever need to pray and Christ is our precedent in this when he was transfigured and in that heaven so as he seemed to be beyond praying in a state of praising yet he prays Luke 9. 29. and then there is need of watching yea a believer is to pray in a good sense to be delivered from the evil of our prayers and from the sinful abusing of spiritual acts of a renewed heart from the evil of the flowings of free grace and heavenly dispositions so to speak and therefore should we tremble for fear that our sinful abuse of the impressions of the Spirit and heavenly dispositions move not the Lord to hide his face from his own shinings of grace and darken his own Sun and overcloud his noon-day beams and rays of light and love and who knows that God may mar his own feast and remove the table before the believer eat because he was sinfully wanton at the sight of dainties and prayed not humbly that Christ would bless his coming down to his garden and his banqueting with his Spouse Psalm 141. David prays for his own prayers it s a great art to carry equally the running over cup of consolation or to guide the comforts of the Spirit when the man is high the head is giddy Psalm 77. 6 7. I will offer in his tabernacle sacrifices of praise I will sing yea I will sing praises to the Lord this hath been a warmly condition of his spirit therefore he follows it with prayer v. 7. Hear O Lord when I cry with my voice The body being warm and sweating there 's need to take heed that cold get not into the heart 2. To tell the Lord of our fixedness of heart is a sort of in aging of him to perfect his own new building and to send rain and summer warmness on his own sowing and to perfect what he hath begun and it s a secret praying that God would make an eik to his own work that he would give influences of grace and would be pleased to milk out holy actings willing and doing out of holy dispositions Psalm 119. 35. Make me to go in the path of thy precepts for therein do I delight If the Lord give freely of grace a disposition to delight in his precepts he will also give grace to walk in his paths he that made the plant creates the tree and the fruit he who made the vine-tree makes the Summer-sun to nourish it v. 159. Consider how I love thy precepts quicken me O Lord according to thy loving kindness The Lord who gives the life of love and a warmly disposition of heart to the precepts of God must also give more quickning to that life he that brings the sown corn to a blade brings it to an ear of corn and to be bread the saving work of grace is one piece one building foundation walls and covering it s one growing tree root bulk and branch one compleat new man Doth the Lord of free grace create half a new man or rear up half a new building No grace is grace is grace going on and advancing till it be reaped grace and so glory 3. He tells the Lord of his fixed heart by way of thanksgiving and praise as Psalm 131. Lord my heart is not haughty he lays before the Lord the depth of the mercy of heavenly dispositions and of a fixed and prepared heart though he was at the mouth and entry of death the cave was like to be his burial place being chased for his life into it yet he tells the Lord he feared no evil in the valley of death Hence 1. Try
a manner legal the Father made him ours by free gift the withdrawing of influences 2. The shining and smiling 3. the suspending of influences needful for the act of feeling is physical and real The Lords outward dispensations make no change of 1. Covenant-interest the Covenant is eternal the Lords absence from his own is not eternal Nor is there change in relation of interest no distance of miles no frowning or hiding of his face makes Christ leave off to be a husband a head a ransom-payer a Father 2. Faith layes hold on right and on propriety When the heirs possession is suspended and an out-lawed heir here is an heir the use of the breathings and influences is removed the mill stands and grindeth not the ground is plowed yet the same Lord and heritor of mill and land remaines Hang not your rights writs and charters upon your sense or upon the ups and downs of the Lords dispensation nor doth a believers heaven stand in the particular out-lettings of the Lords free grace or his withdrawings though the more of the Spirit any hath the more doth their spiritual life and being depend upon the operations of grace as all things that grow and have life depend upon the influences of the Sun and Heaven trees and plants and flowers and herbs suffer a sort of death by the departure of the Sun from them and they begin to live again when in the spring the Sun moves near toward them so are the out-goings and gracious influences of the Sun of righteousnesse to the renewed ones in whom is the life of Christ for Christ keeps in being his own life and cannot but keep it in being and operation Rom. 8. 10. And if Christ be in you the body is dead because of sin but the spirit is life because of righteousness v. 11. But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by the Spirit that dwelleth in you See both the life of grace in this life is kept in being by the Spirit and the life of the body which shall be made spiritual in the resurrection is restored again by the Spirit of Christ 2. Deserted soules under the Lords withdrawing would neither cast away their confidence nor be too securely comforted when the Lord withdrawes to speak to the former the right in Christ is entire 2. The bargain of Redemption Christs act of buying and dying and paying a price for his own 3. The care of the trust and charge of redeemed soules committed to Christ 4. The act of Atonement made by Christ accepted by God by which justice and the law stands fully satisfied are all whole and untouched under desertion For our obedience is neither in whole nor in part neither in toto nor in tanto any penny of satisfaction to the law but payed upon another account All these 4. stand entire and the land and shore sail not and move not though the green Sailer judgeth so because he and the vessel are in sail 2. Nor is it safe to sleep and lie and be secure when the Spirit in his flowings withdraws It speaks some out-cast or out-lawry and the child should not be quiet when he knows the Father is displeased nor would Ministers heal them with all Gospel and hony and lay aside all Law for what cures help the disease and the first fever the same are good some way for the second fever and recidivation I am sick of love As Cant. 2. Greek wounded of love the Hebrew word imports weakness Judg. 16. 11. If they bind me with ropes I shall be weak as another man Hence it implies languishing pain through want of the feeling and enjoying of Christs presence Cant. 2. 5. Cant. 3. 1 2 3. Cant. 3. 6 8. 2. It implies sicknesse and weakening of the person as in Amnons love to his sister Tamar 2 Sam. 13. 1 2 3 4. It comes from apprehended wrath and the curse of the Law Psal 90. 8. Psal 32. 3 4. Psal 6. 1. Psal 38. 1 2 3 4 c. Dan. 9. 11. Rom. 7. 24. Isa 33. 24. Job 13. 24. Psal 77. 7 8. Psal 88. Psal 80. 7 19. 3. It imports the feeling of that pain The second act of sicknesse Matth. 9. 12. as to the pain through want of feeling and enjoying God 1. Two things are here 1. The want of the life though the believer be still loved chosen redeemed translated from death to life but the Lord who can put a check-lock and an iron bar on all our comforts withdrawes and lets the Spouse swoon and stayes not the heart with flagons of wine and apples that is with the effectual applying of the word of promise by which the heart is established or strengthened Jam. 5. 8. Rom. 1. 11. and by which we stay and rest our selves upon the word the Lord 2 Chron. 32. 6 7 8. Acts 14. 21 22. 2. There is here suspending and the want of the consolations of the Spirit the comforter which is the other want Now the Lord hath holy and necessary reasons why he suspends influences to the feeling and knowledge of these rich comforts 1. His holy Soveraignty Now soveraignty never acts separated from infinite wisedome when it 's most abstract from the object as in making a world or not creating any thing in ordaining of the same lump some to be vessels of honour and some of dishonour There is a reason of the object but never a reason concludent or so objectively binding and limiting the Lord but the contradicent to wit no created world no ordaining of some to honour and some to dishonour should be as good As we see in thousands and millions of possible worlds of other men other Angels and other creatures which he can create 2. Infinite wisedome judges it fitter that old Jacob weep and be not comforted that Joseph be sold into Egypt then be a rejoycing free Patriarch at home that the man Christ lie before him with tears and strong cries then that it be otherwise 3. To infinite wisedom it is clear that a creature and a sinful creature cannot so measure out sense and comfort as the only wise God as it is not so fit all the members of the house servants children strangers should be their own stewards of the bread wine and dainties of the house spices ointments myrrhe aloes and cassia as that there should be one wise and faithful servant over the family that all and every one hand over head run not to the heap Therefore is the Lord to be adored in his wisedome as much in withdrawing influences of sense and comforts as in bestowing them Judge if all the fatherless infants and pupils and minors of the earth were left to be fathers and tutors to themselves how would it be with their inheritances If all the sick on earth were their own only Physicians whether old or
climb up to a knowing state with God which the Lord in his â—atent purpose and decree did deny to man So the divels quarrel is not with their own apostasie but with the holy Lords dispensation art thou come 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to torment us and which is another fault before the time Matth. 8. 29. nor can we move questions concerning the decrees and deep dispensations of God but we must fall upon the Almighty to defend our own sin the damned in hell eternally rail against the decrees of holy and spotless justice and his decrees of giving to them life and being and denying to them the benefit of death Rev. 6. 15 16. but as they blaspheme the God of heaven because of their pains so they never repent of their deeds Rev. 16. 11. 6. It 's safe sailing in declining of rocks when we adore the Lords withdrawing of influences and justifie him and bewail our own sinful choice and condemn our selves in the Psal 51. David and in the confession Daniel c. 9. Ezra 9. the humbled people of God do not hint at any heart wrestling with the decree of God but only bewail their own rebellion and not hearkening to the voice of the prophets and desire to sit patiently and in silence in their lot of suffering and reproach and shame It is true they complain Lam. 3. 13. He hath caused the arrow of his quiver to enter into my reins but yet they believe 24. the Lord is my portion saith my soul therefore will I hope in him And 2. they check unbelieving complaining 39. Wherefore doth a living man complain a man for the punishment of his sinne 7. It cannot be conceived how a soul in guiltiness must be in a case of invincibly necessitated despair if he conceive and believe the Lord gave me a power to will or not to will free from all divine determination and before any act of his foreknowledge or decree I was finaly and wilfully to reject the Physitian Christ and this the Lord did foreknow but could not efficaciously hinder what place can be left for consolation in God or submission to the holy will of God for this was invincibly to come to pass before any act of his will or praescience 8. Nor can I pray in faith Lord encline my heart unto thy testimonies if the voluntary determination of my own heart to his holy testimonies or the wicked vital refusing to yield unto or to be led by his testimonies go before the act of the Lords knowledge or will or before any efficacious congruous internal and victorious drawing of me to Jesus Christ 9. It cannot be denied but this very way which the Lord hath taken in denying of his influences to the eternal standing of Adam and to law-doing and law-living is the most excellent course and that flesh and blood dare not to appear to countermand herein either infinite wisedom or admirable soveraignty For 1. The Law-heaven the Garland the crown and reward of Law-merit should have been a paradise where there is no tree of life as Rev. 2. 7. no river of water of life no Lamb which is in the midst of the throne to feed and to lead them to the fountain of living waters as Rev. 7. 17. yea it should be darker and a less glorious heaven then the Gospel-heaven For 2. There should have been there no new heaven nor new earth no chair of estate no high lifted up throne for the power of the Kings of the earth who hath loved us and washen in his blood Nor 3. Should there have been any new song nor any such redeemed Musitians who sing with a loud voice as Rev. 5. 12. Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisedom and strength and honour and glory and blessing and what an heaven should that be that wants the fairest rose in that garden it should be only the heaven of God Creator which though glorious yet not so kindly nor so desirable to us wanting the savour and delicious smell of the man Christ head of men and Angels 4. Nor can there be more lovely Christians then that great and fair mystical body of the ransomed of the Lord the lovely company that are before the throne cloathed in white with palms in their hands in sign of eternal victory who have come out of great tribulation and have washen their garments and made them white in the blood of the Lamb and with them their glorious head so that here shall be compleated and perfected Christ mystical It is boldness to weave a web of carnal difficulties against the Lords holy providence he hated the first sin as he doth all sin but to say he was weak and impatient about its entrance in the world blames his omnipotency to say the watchman of Israel was as to all care and vigilance of holy providence sleeping or slumbring and was thoughtless and drowsie not valuing whether his noble Sons of creation Angels and men should fall and irrecoverably and eternally be broken and become fewel for everlasting fire or stand and be eternally happy is injurious to infinite wisedom and the perfection of his holy will to say that the Lord loved such a guest as sin must blame his spotless holiness but if any say Obj. But did man by any necessity of a divine decree sin Answ A compelling necessity everting the creatures liberty there was none but a necessity by which the man was determined to one distinctively to stand or fall not copulatively both to stand and not to stand to obey and disobey there was in created free-will if we suppone there had been no decree Now the holy decree brought no necessity 1. Compelling such as is of a man bound hand and foot 2. No natural necessity such as that of the Sun to give light the fire to cast out heat Nor 3. No bruitish necessity void of a discoursing faculty such as that of the swallow building her nest the Bee making honey but we must say there was some eminent holy and spotless necessity of decree in Christs thrice rather then seven times praying why King Joash smites the ground thrice and stays and smites it not six times 2 Kings 13. 19. why the Lord writes in his booke Psal 139. 16. such a number of drops of rain such a number of drops of snow to make up such a treasure and God determined Job 38. 22. such a number of pound weights of mountains Isa 40. 12. and it was necessary the Lord should determine the names and number of the Stars Psal 147. 4. and why ten acres of a vineyard should yield one bath not two why every mans number of his months should be determined by the statute of a divine decree Job 14. 4 5. 2. Nor wrong we the Lord or free-will either to say God decreed that Joseph should be sold by his brethren David cursed and reproached by Shimei Judah carried away captive by the Babylonians Israel oppressed
the Lord blow not ah I cannot sail 2. As in the case of James his Merchant and of Peter's undertaking I le die with thee rather or I deny thee So here 1. The man sows broad hopes upon his own praying and the harvest is thin and nothing 2. Such a Preacher shall set the Ship a float and all shall be well if such an Instrument act and then the Lord is away and the Reed is broken and the Sea flows not 3. At the Death of such an Eminent Christian O there must be strange manifestations and the poor man is taken away under a cloud and in a huge deal of darkness The faith of our reposing upon our selves and the creature and our not reposing on the Lord 's acting in us to will and to do in these set times does disappoint us A godly jealousie and despair of our selves a relying wholy upon the Lords actings is good and seldom can we difference between presumptuous confidence on our selves with a godly trembling and a pure and spiritual relying upon God in his breathings of grace 3. We stumble that when the impetuous faird of resolving is on and possibly the Lord effectually acting us yet when it comes to the time of praying the whole spirit is a lump of deadness and the Comforter is away and the flesh saith I covenanted a meeting with Christ and he covenanted with me but I kept the appointed time and he failed and came not according to his promise And we do not remember that there is a promise that he will work in us to will and to doe but for a Covenant that the Spirit shall keep your fixed hour where is that for the Spirit even the hour before blows sweetly and the hour after but he is absent at your fixed hour In a word we may limit a time for your Duty for the obligation to pray continally is perpetual but we cannot limit a time or an hour to his breathing It s ever true John 3. 8. The Wind bloweth where it listeth 4. The more Angel-like and the more spiritual pride is such as is Angel-haughtiness in the damned spirits who were not content with their own station and in Evah the more sinful guiltiness is in it Pride resulting from acts common to men as that of the King of Assyria Isa 37. and that of the King of Babylon Hab. 2. Isa 14. 13 14. is nothing so damnable as the proud fathering of holiness and grace upon our vain nature and here we think we can command the ebbing and flowing of the Sea and have the breathings of the Spirit at our will and if we be humble it should especially be in stooping to the most poor and holy actings of the Soveraign Lord and presumptuous relying on self here is the first samplar pride Neither do we consider that most of the Arguments if we may act when and where we will Salvation and Damnation and all the high actings of gracious Soveraignty must be under our power if we may or can act without the habit and influence of grace and must be here as when one great higher Wheel moves and turns about many Wheels and the first moves the second and second the third and the third the fourth and so forth so must the habits of Grace and the influences of the Spirit and all the outgoings of God be subject to mans Free-will as the first mover if we can pray and praise under the withdrawings of God Hence the 6. Argument may be removed that though we cannot pray but when and as the Spirit moves us it follows both that we are not loosed from our obligation to pray nor can we pray more or less fervently but as the grace of Christ in whom is all fulness qualifies us in the habit and actings because the gracious acts depend not upon our Free-will simply but upon our Free-will as instructed with the supernatural habit infused nor do the more intense and stronger actings of love of faith of prayer depend upon our Free-will but as instructed with the stronger habit and actual influences of God But more hereafter of this CHAP. VII Of the Soveraignty of God in his actings and especially in influences And 2. what Soveraignty is BEcause the influence of the Lord's grace depends most upon the Soveraignty of God so far above us as is spoken in the fourth Article its needful we speak of these 1. What Soveraignty is 2. In how many particulars the soveraignty of God doth appear 3. What submission we owe and how we are to stoop thereunto 4. Such as are most active in doing God's will are most submissively patient in suffering his will contra 5. We are to give submission of pain to God 6. Providence of the Gospel is above Law-providence 7. The righteousness of God is incomparably above our righteousness 8. Our Justification is not negative only 9. The Law requires sinless suffering 10. Inherent righteousness is not the adequate end of the Gospel 1. To know what Soveraignty is 1. Let us see what it is not 1. Omnipotency and Soveraignty thus differ Omnipotency looks simply to effects physically what the Lord can doe he can of stones make sons to Abraham he can create millions of Worlds his Soveraignty is not only his holy Nature what he can doe and so supposeth his Omnipoteucy but also what he doth freely or doth not freely and doth by no natural necessity and so it includes his holy supreme Liberty and also what the Lord may doe as it were Jure he may doe all things and as Elihu saith gives not an account of his matters to any Job 33. 13. by his holy soveraign Will as above all Laws that bind the rational Creatures he does as he pleaseth and what he pleaseth and none can say What dost thou Hence 1. It s graciousness of holy Soveraignty that because he is Soveraign he does not crush us the flesh speaks that in Job 10. 3. to the Lord Is it good to thee that thou shouldest oppress and because he is soveraign upon the account of his soveraignty he crusheth not under his feet all the prisoners of the earth to turn aside the right of a man before the face of the most High Lam. 3. 33 34. whereas to sinful soveraigns power is a Law many take by violence fields and houses because it s in the power of their haâ—ds to doe it Micah 2. the Law of the Lion and the great Fish to devour the Lamb and swallow the lesser Fish is only power and strength Satan and his never stays in this side of their power but doth all the evil they can Jerem. 3. 5. Behold thou hast spoken and done evill as thou could the soveraignty of God saith he may withdraw influences of grace from Angels and Men as pleaseth him best he may let this Ground wither and dry up as a Rock and make the other Plot of Ground near by like a fruitful Paradice and why may not
I say not inherently or personally for Christ's satisfaction is not a meer dying nor meer suffering for beasts may die and suffer much But such a dying and such a suffering for 1. Christ's dying and satisfying hath an excellency from the subject God-man who dyed Act. 20. 28. 2. It hath an excellent qualification from the patience submission willingness of God-man the like wherof could be in no simple Man in no Angel in no Creature for the personal influence of God was in him his obedience As for the damned in Hell their satisfaction is of another nature different from Christ's is only satispassion and pure torment not holy willing suffering as the Law requires sinless sufferings as contradistinguished from active obedience How be it the Law moral doth require patient and submissive suffering without dispairing or blaspheming in any reasonable Creature for the holy Law cannot but condemn sin and blasphemy adhering either to our acting or suffering Nor 6. Let it be said to the undervaluing of the righteousness of God through faith that inherent righteousness is the full end of Christ's bloud when in the state of glory there shal be no more pardoning of sin but perfect inherent holiness For 1. that inherent holiness in the estate of glory is not perfect legal holiness nor the formal cause of our justification in glory because all the glorified once sinned and so for eternity are such as have violated the Law 2. Our righteousness from the time forward shall not only be inherent for the righteousness of God is an everlasting righteousness Dan. 9. 24. and how that robe of Christ's surety-righteousness shall in the state of glory be laid by as an old useless garment and the robe of inherent righteousness in lieu of it put on for ever The Scripture does not speak What men without Scripture speak we care not 3. Nor is our inherent righteousness only either the adequate end of Christ's bloud or of faith and labours as if God intended as his only end to make us eternally Law-righteous whereas he shall eternally delight in us and lead us in glory as those that are freely redeemed in the bloud of the Lamb for the Lamb shall be the everlasting righteousness of all crowned with glory Rev. 4. 8 9 10. Rev. 5. 11 12 13. Rev. 7. 14 15 16. 3. Soveraignty challengeth submission to the will of God in doing and in suffering because it is his obliging will we fail not a little in the former when we pray because the Mast of the Ship is broken and death is at the bedside and we hear the Word because it is the fashion and abstain from fornication and from other works of darkness and put on a sort of holiness not because it is the will of God even our sanctification as for eating drinking sleeping waking they are spiritually minded who doe not these things for nature and lust but as wel-pleasing to the Lord and find a convincing and perswading reason in the holy commanding will of the Soveraign Lord why they ought to be done upon a spiritual account and the other is no less spiritual for many are sick and die many are poor and persecuted for weldoing because they cannot chuse but so it must be not because as Peter saith 1 Pet. 3 17. So is the well of God in a spiritual account to them for when holy Soveraignty hath laid on the necessity of dying of sickness and pain and a gracious spirit shall close with that this is spiritual patience 4. Because the Lord hath a dominion over second causes and as it were a strong lock upon all Creatures to open and sâ—ut at his pleasure and he puts a seal upon Sun and Stars Job 9. 7 8 9. that they cease and shine or shine not or go down we are to put our Amen and Seal to Soveraignties decrees I rise early and there is no bread ah Lord I lay in a soft bed and there is no sleep in the night but pain Say Amen Lord the Fig-tree blossoms not this year yet I will rejoyce in the Lord Hab. 3. 16 17. Soveraignty hath so appointed there is nothing but rolling of garments in bloud and captivity and spoils yet pray thy will be done in the Earth as it is done in the Heaven CHAP. VIII Divers Particulars in which Soveraignty appears 1. SOveraignty and the glorious liberty of God appears in 1. His Decrees 2. The Works of God especially 1. Of Creation 2. Of common Providence 3. Works of more special Providence 1. Works of Justice 2. Works of Free-grace The Soveraignty of his Decrees is 1. In these two solemn and celebrious Decrees of Election and Reprobation He loved Jacob and hated Esau before ever the children had done good or evil Rom. 9. this is a humbling thought to clay graciously disposed which dare not contradict the Soveraign potter The Lord might have appointed my chair before the Throne and my eternal crown to Judas and to Pharaoh and the same Lord might so have ordered as the furnace of the traitor Judas in Hell should have been my furnace in Hell 2. O what depth of love did the King chuse me or did he once name my name and write me for life eternal This is a hardning thought in the fallen Angels and reprobate men that they strive against and hate the providence permitting their fall and sin but doe neither strive against nor hate their permitted fall and sin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 why doth he yet notwithstanding of his irresistible Decree find fault with our sin why doth he not blame his own Decree who hath resisted his will a graceless soul will flee upon eternal Decrees and Events that belong to God but is never humbled for sin and remission of duties The gracious soul is much upon these thoughts O the freedome of the eternal emanations of free grace and the depth of the outgoings of Soveraign justice and does mournfully complain of its own sinful actings Psal 51. 1 2 3 4 5. we are to say Amen to his way Soveraignty is not our Rule clay is not to watch over the Lord's acts of holy Soveraignty but in point of submitting to the opened and revealed Decrees but is to eye the rule watch over the heart in point of duties 2. All things to be and never to be are written in his book Psal 139. 16. the number of David's members all the hairs of the head are numbred Matth. 10. 30. all the piles of dust and sand all the drops of dew rain hail snow all the drops of the sea rivers lakes fountains of the Earth Isa 40. 12. Pro. 30. 4. all the ounces and dram weights of the hills and mountains are exactly weighed as in ballances and numbred by holy Soveraignty all the blasts of wind gathered in his fists Prov. 30. 4. he knows how many inches and spans are in the Earth from East to West and in the compass and circle of
Master who gives all the Kingdomes of the World to his Worshippers then God who denies Bread to his own wel-beloved Son thus doth Satan but in another kind fret So Gen. 3. it s a bad providence that Adam and Evah are not as knowing as God and Luke 5. 34. What have we to doe with Christ But may not conscience accuse providence in the Lord 's withdrawing of grace especially being wakened Ans The Conscience of Divels and the Damned is awakned either penally or sinfully these may be distinguished here the Conscience as penally wakned by the Judge primarily gnaws and torments it self for sin as punished I have sinned saith Judas and he casts down the seven pieces feeling the worm but as the Conscience is sinfully wakned by it self in blaspheming the God of Heaven Rev. 16. 9 11. because of pain it also frets against providence but is is not pain'd for the want of saving grace and holy influences which might have prevented sin yea their blasphemings of God eternally is a seal and a closeing with the state of unrenewed nature which is never moved for sin but wrestles against the providence which sometime did permit sin which now hath such tormenting consequences though the conscience in the mean time being taken with the Iustre and apparent good in sin did also close with the opportunity of sin and with providence opening the way to tentations Prov. 7. 15. and seek such a providence Gen. 39. 11 12. and embrace it Mark 14. 10 11. yet is there saving good in a regulated spiritual complaining of the want of saving influences So as 1. They be not looked on as misdeeds of providence and we say not the Lord might have lent me the influence to such a self-denying death as Abraham's journey in aiming to sacrifice his only son for God but he would not 2. It s good if there be a holy submissive complaining of the want of gracious influences as terminated upon duties Isa 63. 17. O Lord why hast thou made us to erre from thy ways and hardened our hearts from thy fear and not looked on as withdrawings of meer providence Though there be a holy claimbring to God ver 19. we are thine yet we are so thine as thy grace is Soveraign Thou never bearest rule over them they were not called by thy name and yet no praise or thanks to Israel that they were called by his Name rather then the Heathen 3. We may pray for and so earnestly suit and desire influences as Draw me quicken me encline my heart unto thy testimonies Therefore we may pray against withdrawings of influences as sad privations of dreadful consequents and so much is held forth in that Petition lead us not unto temptation 4. Yet so as there is no deserving in us of having eyes to see and spiritual influences to see to hear to perceive with a new heart Deut. 29. 2 3. as its not the merit of one part of the Earth the South that it lie nearer the Sun then another Northern part nor the good deserving of one Horse that he wear a golden Saddle and a silken Bridle rather than another this would be minded What am I Lord as it was Christ's mind to cry down works in point of salvation yet not to cry down all actings by way of duty in the New-covenant way Therefore 5. since grace may be desired and all gracious influences are grace so is there a conformity betwixt the believers will suiting influences and the revealed and approving will of God I say not his high decree and ordaining will for sure New-Testament or New-Covenant prayers new oyl and new supply of grace do import a fresh supply and watering of influences to be furnished to believers especially since we may pray Hallowed be thy Name in me thy Kingdome come to me thy will be done by me in the Earth is it is in Heaven 5. We may and ought to suit of God what the Lord promiseth in the Covenant of grace but the Lord promiseth to bestow predeterminating grace in this Covenant as after shall be cleared Now the faultiness of this I will not pray untill the Spirit act upon me and move me to pray is seen in that it importeth that the moral ground of praying is not the command of God pray continually and that command call upon me in the day of trouble which is most false for another warrant for all moral obedience then precept promise or practise can no man give yea it supposeth that the warrant of prayer is the influence of grace Now the influence of grace is the efficient helping cause not the rule not the objective cause of either our praying or any acts of our obedience Yea it is the way of Enthysiasts to make divine impulsions and not the word of precept the Rule of our obedience 2. This I will not pray untill the Spirit first act upon me must have either this sense I will not pray untill the Lord first give a praying disposition or untill the Lord first actually breath upon me This latter saith indeed I will not pray until I pray for the Lord 's actual influence includes praying The former cannot be said For there is no warrant to disobey the command pray continually untill I get a new disposition from Heaven for then might all praying of the renewed be shifted and the three Disciples in the garden might have said to Christ our Master bids us pray but we are heavy with sleep and indisposed and cannot pray and so must we be excused 2. Upon the same account Magus Acts 8. 21. and other unrenewed men should shift the command of praying for while we be translated out of nature to the Kingdome of grace we want the habit of grace and spirit of adoption by which only we can pray acceptably 3. How unsavoury shall this be a man falls over a Bridge and is a drowning another is going to the place of Execution to die another is sick to death all of them may by this shift say we must not pray lest we take the Name of God in vain untill the Spirit breath upon us heavenly impressions of speaking in the Spirit to God 4. This shift cannot stand to suspend praying until the Spirit breath from on high for we are to pray for the spirit 's breathing and for teaching quickning enlarging of heart that we may pray and praise Psal 51. 15. Psal 119. 36 37 40 48. Wind fetches wind here and fire begets fire as cold flint creates hot fire so the Atheists let them pray that can pray I 'me no Minister But it hath this I am ready to pray but the blame of my not praying is to be laid on the Spirit for the wind blows not but this is but witty laziness as when the Sea-man will sleep and attempt no Sea-voyage and lay the blame which is his fall upon the wind which blows not after his mind it appears he is but a sleeper
nor receiving of a new heart is our sin The sowrness and naughtiness of the Earth in bringing forth poysonable weeds is the Earth's own indispotion the Sun and Clouds extract these poysonable herbs the natural driness of some rocky Earth and the not raining of the clouds meet both in one to wit the barrenness of the earth and this takes not away the faultiness of this earth so rocky 2. Our guiltiness that appears is evident in our eik which we make to original and natural malice for acquired pravity meets with natural and original corruption like two floods to make a Sea or a great River or as when a man forceth a wound to bleed which of it self would bleed And again what ever may be said of the result of the Lord 's withdrawing of influences we add an impulsion to his withdrawing as the adding of the heat of an Oven neer the root of a fruit tree to cause it to ripen adds something to the heat of the Sun and the Influences of the Heavens and when the heart walketh after the heart of our detestable things as it is Ezech. 11. 21. and with the intended bensil of the free-will we put our seal and consent to the Lord's withdrawing there is no ground to complain of his withdrawing Q. But does not the Lord 's withdrawing of his influences since without his concurrence of that kind our actings are impossible doe violence to free-will which must be indifferent to act or not to act to doe or not to doe Ans This is a weak reason for to our willing the influence of God is natural and so is it to our nilling the Lord â—akes his influences and the withdrawing thereof connatural to all our actions to both willing and to nilling driness and barrenness is as connatural to the tree as budding and fruit-bearing if God add his influences either to the one or to the other yea since the Lord's concurrence is sutable to the nature of second causes the fire leaves not off to be fire nor is its nature destroyed if the Lord withdraw his influence so that the fire burns not the three children nor is violence done to nature by the Lord 's joyning of his influence to the fire to burn in acts of righteousness or of sin there is still nilling and willing And suppose that the Martyr chose to die a violent death for the confirming of the truth there is no violence done to free will nay there is no miracle in the Lord 's concurring to the material acts of sin 2. To have dominion over the Soveraignty of God is no part of the creatures liberty but only it is free in order to its own actings nor is it essential to the free-will of Men or Angels or any creature to have the influences of God in its power or at hand As it is no part of the Sun's power of yielding light or of the fires quality of casting heat to have dominion and command over the influences of God the supreme and first cause but the Lord hath so a dominion over second causes both in acts natural and supernatural that his influence as Midwife ever attends saving his holy Soveraignty the bringing forth of all births and effects of second causes So as in the free-wills moral actings the not acting of free-will or the marring of the birth of new obedience to a law of God is never from the Lord 's physical withdrawing of his influence as from a culpable cause but the sinfulness of the action is ever from our own sinful withdrawing of our will from under the moral sway of the holy command of God and let it be a mystery how the Lord withdraws his concurrence as being above a law he is holy and spotless in so doing and how we are under a law and sinfully guilty in that we love to want his holy influence and it s our sin and he loves to withdraw his influence and it is his holy Soveraignty Both which are clear in Scripture if we confess that we are debters to the Lord and to his just Law and his holy Soveraignty in that he yieldeth his influences and in his having mercy on whom he will and in hardning whom he will in the Lord 's drawing of men or his not drawing of them to Christ in revealing the Gospel mystery savingly to whom he will Rom. 9. 18. John 6. 44 63. Matth 11. 26 27. nor can the Lord be a debter to the Creature in these And this mysterie is a clear revealed truth if we yield that the Lord 's active drawing calling inviting of sinners to come to Christ is his holy and sinless work and our passive not being drawn and not being effectually called and invited to come to Christ is our sin of unbelief and our refusing and rebellious rejecting of his call Isa 65. 1 2. Prov. 1. 24 25 26. John 5. 40. and that he so calleth and hath mercy on whom he will because he will as it is the flesh and carnal wisedom that objecteth But God so calling some as they must come because so he willeth and so calling other some as they must be hardened because he willeth gives a seeming ground to two great Objections 1. Why then doth God find fault and rebuke and eternally refuse the so called for if they were called with that drawing power that others are called with sure they would believe and come but they are not so called therefore God cannot blame us find the fault in unbelievers Rom. 18. 19. 2. If God so call some as they obey and others as they obey not because he will who can resist his will his will is as himself then do we reject God's calling and eternally perish because God so doth will Now not any ever breathing moved any such Objections but the carnal Jew in Paul's time and the Socinians Jesuits and Arminians in the age we now live in and stumblers at the word for all such enemies to grace turn the Objection into an argument against the absolute will and invincible grace of God and answer not with the holy Ghost who Rom. 9. calls it a bold fleshly replying unto God v. 20. for the holy Ghost asserts the Soveraignty of God as the potter over the clay the guiltiness of vessels of wrath Rom. 9. 22. and their disobedience in refusing the call of God v. 29. their following like Pharisees Law-righteousness by works and stumbling at Christ the stumbling stone laid in Sion Rom. 9. 31 32 33. wheras the Gentils were called of free grace v. 24. 25 26. therefore they must be of the same stamp with the fleshly Jews who thus object against us and such are the Patrons of universal grace and free-will Hence let that be discussed 1. Would God give me grace I would be a man according to God's heart as well as David But 2. I was born in sin and I cannot have more grace then God hath given me
2 3 4. nor can we believe with justifying and saving faith while we be born again 1 John 5. 1 4 5. for if so it were as much as the tree blossoms grows and brings forth fruit ere it be planted and the birth moves and stirs and receives seed and nourishment in the womb before it receive life in the womb 3. Nor does the Scripture tell us of a premeriting of the faith of pardon and remission by a reformation of life so as conversion the Gospel and accepting of Christ as Lord and a tract of obedience was required of the Jaylor of Lydia and of the Thief upon the Cross before they believe For accepting of Christ as Lord is obeying of Christ and faith in Christ as saith Mr Baxter and so Faith must be required before Faith and Reformation of life before Reformation of life and so Mr. Baxter forbids us to believe and accept Christ for our Lord and King pardoning treason while first we have reformed our lives Now to reform our lives Evangelically for of this he must mean is to accept Christ as our Lord that is to doe Evangelically and live to obey the new Law and to perform new obedience to Christ Hence he saith ibid. pag. 28. I desire him to tell me whether he can prove that any mans sins are pardoned before they have accepted Christ for their Lord that is before faith If not whether this be not the Subjection of the soul to Christ to be governed by him and so a heart-reformation Now it may be told Mr. Baxter that accepting of Christ as our Lord pag. 285. That is to take him both as our Saviour and to obey him pag. 286. to be subject to him and obey him and to square our actions according to his will Now the actions are not one or two but all our actions to our death and so no man compleatly takes Christ for his Lord and so no man compleatly believes until death and so the consolations of Christ must be as morally cold as the consolations of Solon who said no man can be happy while he die and the comforts of Aristotle no man is happy who may fall in the calamities of Priamus Christ must make us glad of a painted nothing Rejoyce and be glad there is a great reward laid up for you in Heaven rejoyce with joy unspeakable and glorious nothing can separate you from the love of God mountains and hills may be removed but my love is more stable But 1. Ye cannot be sure therefore doubt and tremble 2. Suppose you stand to day and know that you know him you may be and thousands as happy as you are to morrow limbs of Satan and eternally damned Now if no man compleatly take Christ until he have consummated and perfected his obedience to the death Christ's word to any be of good chear thy sins are forgiven is but comfortless for they are neither forgiven nor half forgiven until he hath taken Christ for his Lord and wrought his days work to the end and then and never till then can he have comfort in his wages and in his work 2. It may be answered the woman diseased of the bloudy issue Mar. 5. 34. the woman who did wash Christ's feet with her tears Luk. 7. 47 48. so the man sick of the palsie Matth. 9. 2. the justifyed by faith who have peace with God David Psal 103. 3. the repenting man upon the Cross Luk. 23. 42 43. had their sins forgiven upon the testimony of believing without any testimony of their good works and Scripture tells us not that a Master bids his servant rejoyce with joy unspeakable and glorious at the beginning and morning of his day for at night he shall have a rich reward if such a servant and millions of servants in his case may fall and loose whole wage for they doe but half work CHAP. XII 1. The Soveraingty of God is wonderful in the various tempers of renewed ones 2. In various influences 3. In the desertions of the Saints under the Old and under the New-Testament 4. In variety of desertions of elect and reprobate and God's various dispensations to them 5. Q. What we may doe to wrestle out from under desertions 6. Variety of temptations 7. Rules for our behaviour under them in order to Influences THe Soveraignty of God is much to be observed in the Lord's manner of dispensing of grace James and John are called being at their Nets and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 immediately they l 'ave their father and follow him Matth. 4. 21 22. Matthew hears but one word follow me Matth. 9. 9. and he follows Christ A gentle throw of the key opens Lydia's heart the hearers of Peter who had crucified the Lord of glory are more violently rent and torn as if the sharpest points or the stings of many impoysoned Dragons and Scorpions had been at once fastned in their hearts Acts 2. 37. the way of Saul's coming with trembling and astonishment and blindnesse and fasting and praying three days and the Jaylors down casting may witness that the lock being more rusted and the iron blunted Acts 9. 6. 7 c. more strength is required for the opening of the door then the Lord otherwise imployed as some Divels are cast out with a word and go out with some sort of humble prayers not to be tormented before the time Matth. 8. others throw the possessed in the midst and almost kill the child so as beholders say he is dead Mark 9. there is a certain kind which is not cast out but by fasting and praying So some are filled with the holy Ghost from the womb and hardly can John Baptist give an account of his conversion as to the degrees of pangs of the new-birth the way and manner the place the Mathematical hour of the holy Ghost's sliding in on the heart Nor must we think none are in John Baptist's case for beside that God imploys some to and for rare advantages and gaining of souls to the Kingdom of Christ shall there be nothing of the holy Ghost in multitudes of infants in Covenant with God of which many die as ripe as if they were an hundred years old only beware we take not a sweet tractable nature to be the very holy Ghost and a work of Infantconversion such as was in John Baptist and let not others cast themselves away as not belonging to Christ who yet are his because they know not such pangs and throwings of the new-birth as Saul the Jaylor the converts who killed Christ Acts 2. where the skin of the boyle is doubly thick some more violence is required and a sharper lance is made use of to open the wound 2. Some require milder influences as beng led all their time with sweetness of peace The Arches grieved Joseph sore no man more moved from vessel to vessel then he and meek Moses was much tossed and both for any thing we read far from cursing the day wherein
any we read Cant. 5. 6. I rose up to open to my beloved my beloved had withdrawn himself and had passed away my soul went forth because of his speech Ainsworth My soul was gone and departed that is failed fainted I was even a dead woman through fear and grief for death is the departing of the soul from the body Gen. 33. 18. This though an Evangelical desertion is as much as David saith my moisture is turned into the drought of Summer and as the waves of the Lord's wrath comming over Heman yea and it is more painful to be thrust out of Heaven and to be deprived of an high measure of enjoyed and felt love and is a sadder torment then all the law-burnings though they have in David and others some such love-sickness which was ordinary to the Old Testament-dispensation and these and the like the soul is more able to bear that the habit and stock is rich as Christ from the personally indwelling God-head was strong in his desertions peculiar to him and the richer the habit of grace be the more able is the soul to stand out the strong ship is more able to endure the storm then the crazy and rotten vessel a Giant is fitter for a battle with a Giant then a Child is 9. Some are kept in perfect peace whose minds are staid on the Lord and being justifyed by faith have peace with God Isa 26. 2. Rom. 5. 1. There are two sorts of dispensations one fundamental another not fundamental the former is the Lord 's carrying on his begun work which is to will and doe to the end in his ordinary course the dispensation which is not fundamental respects the Lord's way of doing hic nunc in such circumstances and the degrees of grace given or infused which do not vary the spece and nature of the work We read not of Daniel's cursing the day he was born in as Jeremy and Job doe nor is there any shaddow of it in Joseph yet nothing hinders but Job and Jeremy may and did at other times enjoy sweet presence and nearness to God But 1. We would not take extraordinary feasts to be dayly food nor should we much wonder when a change cometh but how do we chide quarrel complain because it is not always so Nor 2. Should we be rough but compassionate to sick ones it s the Lord's way that all in the house should not be sick at once but some are sick and some whole to wait on the sick and all to bear one anothers burthens all the diseases of the house are not the same in kind and degree 2. Some do all their life dwell in the borders of hell and never have fair sayling nor fulness of assurance until they be upon the shoar such have only Star-light and are called to pure living by faith Isa 50. 10. 3. Some once in all their life have one only remarkable night of wrestling with God and prevail as Jacob did and some love so their prison that they take a sentence à non judice à non habente potestatem the Law severed from Christ is no judge at all to believers the Law speaks to its own that are under the Law Rom. 3. 19. the Jaylor can command none but his own prisoners 4. Some are frequently taken into the house of Wine and to the Kings Chamber And what changes there be Cant. 2. cap. 3. c. 4 5 9. 1. v. 6. may be seen its cleer and he that runs may read felt love is not heritage to any There is a huge difference between Cant. 2. 6. His left hand is under mine head and his right hand doth embrace me And that I sought him but I found him not chap. 3. And that is a joyful feast Cant. 5. 1. I am come unto my garden my sister my spouse I have gathered my myrrhe with my spice eat O friends drink yea drink abundantly O beloved And that again is a sad song ver 6. My beloved had withdrawn himself I sought him but I found him not I called him but he answered me not 5. Some are all their life creeping children yet saved a sincere affection in Nicodemus consists with much ignorance yet is not the faith rotten 6. It belongs to soveraignty that the little vessels of small quantity hang upon Christ as well as the great Isa 22. 24. and that the lambs as well as the stronger of the flock are cared for by him Isa 40. 11. and that the bruised reeds have their dependence on him 7. To this head of soveraignty belong the various kinds of desertions As 1. None are so deserted as the fallen Angels they have done for ever and ever with all influences of grace and are eternally outlaws from the Court of the King who is head of principalities and powers Jude ver 6. reserved 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in everlasting chains c. 2 Pet. 2. 4. O but the chains of Divels are fiery and hellish 2. Next to them are reprobate men who cast off Christ and turn into Satans camp No saving influences are due to such as are reprobate to good works Ah beware of habitual hating of Christ and his house dependers and seed yet are there here degrees for none are in that measure deserted or blasphemers of the holy Ghost 3. Christ's desertion was extremely penal and brought out tears and strong cries mixt with a curse and only influences were suspended as touching vision and enjoyment or fruition and the actual comforts of God the crown in a manner was laid aside out of the eye and sight of the man Christ yet wanted he never influences 1. For acts of love Father remove 2. For acts of faith O my father remove 3. For acts of praying more earnestly Luk. 23. 44. O my father remove this cup. 4. For acts of witnessing a good confession before Pontius Pilate 5. For acts of preaching the confessing man to Paradise with him none are eternally and cursedly deserted who can pray and hope and believe in the furnace as Christ 4. The redeemed of God are not all one and the same way deserted 1. Some are extremely at under as Job who apprehended that God did pursue him as an enemy Job 13. 20. though Job and every believer be the friend of God Jam. 2. 23. 2. The Spouses desertions are less being conveyed with love-sickness Magdalen hath no wakenings of conscience for sin nor any positive agony or law-challenges but only love desertion she says with tears They have taken away my Lord and I know not where they have laid him 3. Some are meer desertions as to the act of sin God is angry at David when God withdraws so as he numbers the people and commits adultery and murther and Christ is angry at Peter's pride when he suffers him to deny his Master but neither David and Peter feels any anger from the Lord in such withdrawings of gracious influences but it s so much the worse the man is
that be said by Isa 40. 13. Who hath directed the Spirit of the Lord or being his counsellour hath taught him Ver. 14. With whom took he counsell who instructed him and taught him in the path of judgement and taught him knowledge and shewed him the way of understanding Or what needs that Job 21. 22. Shall any teach God knowledge seeing he judgeth things that are high What a God is an unknowing God who needs a lesson from the creature or from some higher God and then who taught that other God who is supposed to be higher then the most high what a carnal mind is this that chaseth the Almighty God out of the world 4. What doe they who curse the day the stars the twilight the birth as Job chap. 3. A gracious heart saith let the Lord be the Lord and closes with all the attributes of God and with all the influences of Omnipotency wisedome goodness and justice on men and of love mercy grace bounty forbearance to the Saints and to their own soul this is to sing mercy and to sing judgement whereas its a note of Atheisme to wish and vote out of the world God his attributes and all the acting and influences of mercy justice truth grace soveraignty and to say It s not the Lord the Lord can neither doe good neither can be doe evil Zeph. 1. 8. So would we beware to fight with the Lord's dispensations of grace he is Lord and Soveraign disposer of his own comforts whether we look upon comforts as duties commanded 2 Thes 5. 17. Jer. 31. 15. or as a reward of duties from the Lord Rom. 15. 4. Psal 27. 14. 2 Thes 2. 16. Isa 66. 13 14. he is the Lord of all influences to work in us to will and to doe and Master of his own rewards The Lord is Master of his own love-visits and is neither debtor to the man Christ nor to the elect Angels yea the Lord 's saving influences go along with his free decree of Election and look as the Lord of nature preserves the speces of Roses of Vine-trees though this or that individual rose or vine-tree may wither and be blasted so he holds on the work of believing praying of hoping and persevering to the end though there may be a miscarrying in this or that particular act of faith and some deadness in praying hic nunc And as in a great work of a water-mill some one of the wheels may be broken and yet the Mill is kept a going and the Ship still under sayl though some instrument or other be wanting and laid aside for a while So when there is a withdrawing of feeling of a presence in praying as Cantic 5. 6. I called him but he answered me not yet influences flow in another duty of praising ver 10. My Beloved is white and ruddy and the chief among ten thousand And when there are withdraw-drawings of God as touching vigourousness of believing Why art thou disquieted O my soul c. yet are there very large outlettings of God in love-sickness and strong desires after the Lord Psal 42. 2. My soul thirsteth for God for the living God So is it that some River which floweth a far other way in a new cutted out Channel the former being dried up So the bloud runs in another vein and still furnisheth strength to the body nor is there cause to complain as if all strength were gone for when the afflicted man eats ashes for bread and drinks tears the heart is withered as grass and the mans bones are burnt as an hearth Psal 102. the flood breaks out in another corner Ver. 12. But thou O Lord shalt endure for ever and thy remembrance unto all generations V. 19. He looks down from Heaven 20. To hear the groaning of the Prisoner to loose them that are appointed for death There is some spiritual compensation in the Lord 's forbidding the wind to blow in one earth when it strongly blows in another Some deadned deserted ones are much meekned and made to speak out of the dust and fed and fatned also with hunger yea if it were but lying at the gate of Christ and knocking though no answer at all be returned it hath much of Christ in it in other considerations deadness may be on and want of holy vigorous acting of faith and yet spiritual complainings yea and with the complainings fervent praying Psal 119. 25. My soul cleaveth unto the dust quicken thou me according to thy word Ver. 28. My soul melteth for heaviness strengthen me according to thy word Ye would judge righteously of the Lord and see whether or no ye complain without cause for though there be fainting yet there is hoping Psal 119. 81. My soul fainteth for thy salvation but I hope in thy word Some children are always malecontent and still weeping nothing in the house can please them it s the fault of some greedy wretches who have abundance and yet still complain of want It were good to turn our censuring of the Lord's providence into complaining of our own evil hearts it follows humble and diligent obedience that hath sweetness of submission Psal 119. 165. Great peace have they that keep thy Law and nothing shall offend or as the word is stumble their feet There is a heart-covenanting with God when the man saith God shall doe nothing that shall stumble me his killing of me his casting me out of his presence into hell shall not offend me Job 1. 22. 2 Sam. 16. 10. The man Christ could be broken or offended at nothing whether the traytor sell him or the disciples forsake him or the Jews apprehend him or the souldiers spit on his face or Pilate condemn him or the people nod the head shoot out the lip and mock him there is nothing can break Christ but the Scriptures must be fulfilled in Christ's sufferings If the Lord slay Aaron's sons Aaron holds his peace Let me be rained upon with showres of influences from Heaven or let my fleece be dry and let me be a bottle in the smoke yet there is no unrighteousness with God and in him is no darkness Ah I am dead but the Lord guides well ah he is a Lion to me and a Leopard but the Lord is good to the soul that waits for him The man that stumbles least at the sins of others and their falls is the man nearest to God's heart Psal 18. 18. They prevented me in the day of my calamity They wronged me ver 25. But I kept my self from my iniquity and what can ye say against his withdrawings will ye make it a quarrel that he hides his face there is a deep of soveraignty between the Lord 's withdrawing from Hezekiah and Hezekiah's pride God hardens Pharaoh's heart and Pharaoh hardens his own heart Joshua 11. 19 20. Isaiah 57. 17. Psalm 81. 11 12. Qu. But what shall be done under deadness Ans 1. If there be any life life helps life the one
and he rejoycingly triumphed over death In a moment there may come in a carnal disposition and drown and quench the smoaking and flaming of an heavenly kindling We might draw down rich influences and sweet actual breathings which are connatural and suitable to spiritual and supernatural influences the Lord though his liberty in breathing when and where he will be admirable yet should we more vigorously improve ordinances and specially promises for ordinarily the Lord would let out more of his breathings did we more improve the habits of grace and sure he that trades not at all with his stock may become poorer and we might make influences more near to us for the habit of grace is nearest of kindred of any thing else to the actual breathings of the Lord and the only culpable cause of our not growing in grace and augmenting of the habit of grace is our own sinful sluggishness CHAP. IV. Now the third particular we proposed to speak to was the connexion between the habits of grace and actual breathings and how we may by using habits fetch home the breathings of the Spirit The habit of grace is to be considered two ways 1. In order to God 2. In its own nature In order to God 1. The Father 2. The Son 3. The Spirit 1. IN order to God and his holy decree if the Lord ordain a certain number to glory and upon that account bestow the habit of grace upon these so chosen then God who doth nothing in vain when he creates powers and habits must intend to send influences to act upon these powers and habits as when God creates the Sun a heavenly body which is apt to move to send forth heat and light he must intend by constant law and decree to joyn his influences to the moving and shining of the Sun otherwise if he had created these heavenly bodies never to be acted upon for the sending forth of their vertues of light heat motion he had created Sun and Stars in vaiâ— â—o if the husbandman make a plough and never make use of it for tilling the ground and make a sickle and never put it in act for reaping he must have made the plougâ— and the sickle in vain If the Lord pour the habit of grace and supplication upon the house of David then have the inhabitants of Jerusalem who have received that gâ—ace ground of faith and hope that the Lord shall suitâ—bly to his intended end and begun work bestow saving influences on them to believe and repent to look on him by faith whom they have pierced and mourn over Christ whom they have slain by their sins as a man mournes and is in bitterness for his first-born Zech. 12. 10. otherwise the Lord bestowes that habit of grace in vain which we are not to imagine of the only wise Lord Psal 89. 47. If the Lord pour water upon the thirsty ground and his Spirit upon the seed of Jacob the nature of husbandry which joyns end and meanes requireth that he joyn to the new heart and new spirit influences for the growing of the seed of Jacob as the willows by the water courses and that he lead the trembling hand at the pen and give influences of grace to swear and subscribe that they shall be the Lords maried land joyned to him in a perpetual covenant Isa 44. 3 4 5. 2. The graciousness of the Lords holy nature revealed Exod. 34. 6. The Lord God merciful and gracious long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth to fallen man for he hath revealed no pardoning grace and mercy to fallen Angels nor is that the scope of Moses Exo. 34. or of the Scripture any where Now if so he as the Lord is under some necessity upon supposal that he created men and Angels to declare his pure immixed justice in the fallen Angels so by some necessity of decency suitable to his goodnesse and holy nature he must choose some to glory and give them inherent habits of grace that he may carry them to heaven in a way of voluntary obedience so that upon supposal he hath so declared himself to Angels and men there must be glorious emanations and out-goings of free grace both to ordain some to glory and beautifie them with the habit of faith to believe in him that justifies the sinner and habits of sanctification I say upon supposal he so reveal himself in his word otherwise absolutely and simply the the contrary order that he had placed fallen Angels in mans room and men in the place of fallen Angels had been as just and good as that which now is 3. The holy Lord gives some to Christ and his enduing them with grace to come and giving to them of his free grace the habit of faith it 's an engaging of the holy Lord to give influences suitable to the habit upon the very account that the Lord make over a man to Christ and create his own image in him he intends to make him an honourable vessel in his house and to adorn the man so gifted to Christ as when the Lord builds a house he minds that some shall dwell in it And 2. the great designe of free grace in Christ must in these two bring him under a holy necessity to bring his many children to glory for the decree of election is an act of the three persons John 10. 16. Other sheep I have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and they are not yet in his actual possession but he hath an actual right to them I have paid a ransome for them them also I must bring in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Christ is under a necessity of driving them in then is Christ under a necessity of a decree common to him with the Father and the Spirit to breath upon and cherish the habit of grace that his great designe of free grace in the work of redemption may stand sure and attain its graciously designed end as also he is 2. Under an official and mediatory necessity to the chosen to bestow on them the freely given habit of grace and so I judge with reverence of the judgment of others that Christ hath an advocation and office of intercession for the elect even such as are not yet actually converted not that he extends the same acts of advocation to the chosen converted and to the chosen not yet converted 1. Because Christ as Mediator and high Priest prayes for them and so that habits of grace and influences may be bestowed on them John 17. 20. Neither pray I for these alone but for them also which shall believe on me through their word Nor can it be said that Christ intends not they should reap any mediatory fruit of his prayer till they be born and actually believe for he prayes and intercedes for their conversion and faith they yet being in nature and unrenewed for that is true in some sense Christ prays for their faith actual when it is in being and shall actually
judge it fit for their humiliation and the promoting of the work of their salvation and especially for the glory of holy Soveraignty they are to believe that the Lord shall absolutely confer upon them fundamental and amply necessary influences of grace but not that he shall bestow on them absolutely non-fundamental influences Assert 4. It s not lawful to engage to run the ways of the Lords commandments leaning to the habit of grace and the stock within the Believer Peter relied on this I am ready 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nothing habitual grace and faith to go with thee to prison and to death Luke 22. 33. and John 13. 37. Peter is angry because Christ lesseneth his stock and habit of grace and strength of faith Lord why can I not follow thee now 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This habit of grace is not Christ neither the Spirit and therefore the enlarging of the heart upon the supposal whereof David engageth to run the way of the Lords commandments is not the only habitual enlarging of the heart but he supposeth also that the Lord must add his actual breathings and influences of grace else he cannot run nor move at all in the way of God John 15. 5. 1. Cor. 12. 2. 2 Cor. 3. 3. Assert 5. Far less can we engage to run the way of the Lord upon our own strength For 1. The Apostle James rebukes such as say they shall go to such a City and buy and sell and say not if God will James 4. 10 11. far less can we engage to spiritual duties on our own strength 2. This is carnal presumption for men to lay wagers on their own strength and to say with Peter and the Disciples they 'l do wonders 3. Men believe not the wickedness of their own hearts nor see they to the bottome of soveraignty the depth of sin original 4. It s contrary to godly watchfulness and an hardning of the heart as Prov. 28. 14. Blessed is the man who fears always but he that hardeneth his heart shall fall into mischiefe 5. It s atheism to suppose that influences of saving grace are as due and connatural to men now fallen in sin as influences natural are some way due to the falling of rain the rising and going down of the Sun the growing of trees the ebbing and flowing of the sea and that we have dominion of free-will over the saving breathings of the holy Ghost Whereas 6. The Gospel bids us pray and by faith rely on the Lord for influences of grace and give the glory and praise of the breathings of the Spirit to God 7. It s against that humble self-denial and godly trembling and humble despairing of our own strength that should be in us in our undertakings of obedience So an huge deal of pride 2. want of mortification to self must be lurking in our undertakings Assert 6. It s not lawful to blame the Lord for our sinful omissions for that is to father our sin upon the holy Lord nor is that Isa 63. 17. O Lord why hast thou made us to erre from thy ways and hardened our hearts from thy fear a complaining against God It s 1. a tacit complaining of themselves that they are grosse matter and the dunghil on which the Sun with his beams stirs up a stinking smell which is not the Suns fault 2. As Gods active hardning of us is a punishment of sin the Church may lawfully complain of it to God and deprecate that and all the like sad evils of punishment yet it shall never follow that God is the author or the cause of the sins of our being passively hardned of God or of active hardening of our selves 3. It s a prayer for softning and grace not to erre return for thy servants sake v. 16. thou O Lord art our Father our Redeemer thy Name is from everlasting 2. None of the Saints yielding to temptations do blame the Lords withdrawing but blame themselves and clear the Lord. Psalm 51. Against thee thee only have I sinned thou hast taught me wisedom in the inward parts here is a clearing of the Lord. Isa 64. 6. We are all as an unclean thing v. 4. since the beginning of the world men have not perceived a God beside thee 5 8. So Lam. 3. 34. Assert 7. A Believer may undertake in the strength of God Psalm 119. 33. Cant. 14. Draw me we will run Grace and the Spirit in his sweet breathings being undertakers one may undertake for a journey when Christ engages for such a chariot the midst whereof is paved with love O be humble and lay not great wagers upon self ye know not sin original as a sin but ye know it as a meer punishment What we are sinners by nature and we can do no otherwise Pharaoh and Judas knew it so CHAP. VIII Q. 4. Is there no running except God enlarge the heart what then can we do ASsert 1. Without some enlargement of heart there is no running the negative is true none come to Christ except such as the father draws John 6. 44. John 15. 5. and the affirmative is true all that are drawn and have heard and learned of the Father do run and come apace Cant. 1. 4. John 6. 44. There is a spiritual riches in heavenly and spiritual suppositions O for more of Christ to ern his praises with a shout which might waken Angels and Men all men in this side and in the other side of the Sun and that all creatures might hear and put to their seal and cry Amen to the Psalm Assert 2. The use we are to make of our sinful weakness is not to sit still he loves death who says I cannot heal my self art and skill must only do it therefore I le seek to no Physitian if the Lord will not do it let me die The husbandman were mad who would say my plowing sowing early rising and late labouring can never make the corn to grow except God give the increase therefore I le fold my hands and take the other sleep and if another say God only creates the wind therefore I le never set my foot in a ship so is it here what can the dead and the sick sinner do if the Physitian Christ will neither quicken nor cure his influences of life are above my reach therefore I le never make out to Christ nor ask for the Gospel if Christ will not heal us we must pine away in our sins how then shall we live this is to tempt Christ and to bring him under a new miraculous way to heal and save the sinner in his dream without hearing the Gospel which is that God should bring bread and cloathing to the sleeping mans bed-side The contrary is Phil. 2. 13. work because he works Cant. 1. Draw and we will run the Spouse saith not Lord draw that we may sleep 2. Our impotency leads us to turn sinful wickedness in mournful confession and godly complaining as the Saints
do Psalm 51. 5. Jer. 14. 4. Isa 64. 8 9. Dan. 9. 5 6 11. Psalm 116. 6 7. 3. Cain Pharaoh Saul Magus never complain of themselves Heathens complain of sin original not as mans sin but as Socinians and Pelagians complain of it as mans misery and the Lords fault and sin with reverence to his holiness in that God and the step-mother nature have dealt worse with man in bringing him into the world naked weeping weak sick dying then with bulls that are born with thick skins and have horns to defend them It s a shameful accusing of God to deny original sin to be a transgression of the Law such as deserveth death eternal Ah our pride who dare bark against God when we should weep over our own wolfish and beastly nature Assert 3. We do not so much in the use of means as our lameness doth permit The Lord hath drawn a bill in the conscience that the blind will not so much as open their eye-lids we may be a law to our selves Rom. 1. 14 15. we know God by nature and glorifie him not as God Rom. 1. 2. 15. we may go many miles farther toward God by Natures light but we sit still 2. Yea we blow out the candle and here the criple and lame man breaks his own legs and arms the second time and complains of the Physitian Christ that he will not heal him against his will he who adds to his sickness a poyson drink cannot father his death upon the Physitian Ah we stir not broken legs and arms upon and towards the Physitian Christ 3. The criple may move and creep toward the Physitian The motion of such as stepped in the pool immediately after the Angel troubled the water John 5. was not a motion of perfect nature nor a perfect motion but yet a means of health it was Christ rejects not criple and sickly motions in using means towards himself Assert 4. The motions of the Spirit to come to the renewed mans case serve as legs to bear the criple-man but not as eyes for Psalm 119. 105. Thy word is a lamp to my feet and light to my path Yea a doubt it is if the motions of the Spirit as the Spirit without the word lay an obligation on us to follow these motions except when the Spirit speaks to Paul and Barnabas to go to Macedonia not to Bythinia and then the word of the Spirit becomes formally the word of the Lord as the word of Christ from his mouth is the word of God but heed is to be taken in a special manner when the bastard spirit speaks to Becold to Hichol and such wizards for God speaks like God and his own know his voice and the children of the Divel know also their fathers voice learn to go as far as you can in the way to Christ 1. No violence but from your own heart stands in your way the birth helps it self in the womb to come out work with the tide or against it he who rowes with oars in a manner helps the wind they desire not to sail who will not stir a foot to the ship 2. Hearing in Lydia and the Gaoler reading in the Eunuch diligent taking heed to the word of the Gospel preached by Phillip in the Samaritans the woman of Samaria conferring with Christ have in them though they come not up to the nature of a perfect duty somewhat of the ordinance of Christ and Christ loves to be in his own ordinances pro tanto its true the unrenewed man cannot use the means formally as they are referred to Christ and for Christ until his will and intention be renewed yet he is in the way to Christ and materially he comes to Christ nor is walking to the ship on dry land an act of sailing nor the sick mans journeying to the Physitian or his simple receiving of medicine an act of healing its good to come to the work-house of the spirit the preached Gospel and to lie under the breathing of the Lord when the word is spoken lend the letter of the Gospel lodging in the outer house the ear and literal understanding go in to the Potters house and stand beside the furnace and behold what work the Lord hath 3. Upon the wheels towards others and how many he meets with in the way of his ordinances frames the new creature in them makes a real change in them that you wonder at them knowing thy were blind and now they see 2. As for renewed ones these cases are considerable 1. When the letter of the Law is granted there is something and a great something wanting Psal 119. 29. remove from me the way of lying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be grace over thy Law to me which is first a suit that deeper and deeper spiritual impressions of God in the Law may be engraven on him till he be filled with all the fulness of God and influences may amount to a strong habit following of hearing reading conferring meditating with much praying for spiritual teaching from him as all along through Psal 119. would make us rich in influences 2. The natural man never misses life and quickning influences in the word the spiritual doth Psalm 119. 50. This is my comfort in mine affliction for thy word hath quickned me It s not a bad property of the earth to gape and thirst for rain there is no such gaping and thirsting in the rock the stone is never parched for want of rain but this parchedness is a neerest disposition for influences of sope and moisture from the clouds and though the thirsty man pray not yet thirst it self calls for watering influences as the Lord disappoints not nature so uses he not to frustrate gracious thirst of suitable influences of grace and these are put together and both are satisfied Psalm 145. 15 16 19. So his way Matth. 5. 6. Luke 1. 53. if thirsts for life and not for the bare condemning letter 3. There is something which we call fetching of the wind and casting of a board again to wind to the right harbour and it is a sort of courting the wind and that is the case of the soul that would live upon influences its fit to pant and gape and carefully wait on for the holy breathings of the Lord could we wait in the way that the Spirit uses to come and attend him in ordinances he must come that way as Zacheus cast himself in that way of Christ providence places two blind beggars in Christs way the Lord thereby bestows the Son of Davids mercy on them and providence placed the woman of Samaria at the well of Jacob and Christ must needs go thorow Samaria and her way she looked for water from Jacobs well and looked not for the Messiah yet she meets with him and feels his influences before she goes hence but we are with ordinances to lie at the tide and wait for and seek the flowings of
the disposition of the heart see what hearts ye can bring out before the Lord its true the repenting thief could not as Hezekiah say Lord I have walked before thee with a perfect heart or as Paul 2 Tim. 4. 7 8. I have fought the good fight I have finished my course I have kept the faith yet the crown is laid for love and such as love his appearance though all cannot wind up to be such fighting souldiers as Paul was the repenting thiefs flock was small his race short yet what he wanted of inherent grace that Hezekiah and Paul had he had it of free righteousness and Christ crucified was the gloriation of both David brings not out his fixed heart in his extream danger as building his peace on it the influence of works on justification and peace is not causative no more then the poor bride can say she hath put a debt upon the bride-groom to love her with marriage love because she wears his golden chains his bracelets and jewels it s the bridegrooms comliness that he puts upon her nor can roses and lillies say our Creator is our debtor oweth us love because we are subjects bearing his colours smell vertue and beauty of the Creator What would the rose be if the Creator should take all from it he gave to it We know such a rock to be covered with water therefore its full sea here is smoke therefore here is fire And ah what a heart in death can the unrenewed man bring forth before the Lord except he say Lord I was never in Christ Lord I never wept for sin Lord I never did a good work for Christ but all for my self Lord I prophesied in thy name but I was never born again but hated all those that were born again 2. How strongly may the believer argue who hath any heavenly fixedness of heart or any thing of Christ in him It s a sort of holy obligation with reverence that he shall bring forth to acting all his own holy dispositions it speaks an ingaging of holy unchangeableness that he shall perfect the good work he hath begun but be not ye lazy and do not ye sleep and say God shall do of all his grace that is a strong argument that the man who habitually uses such logick hath nothing to do with Christ Ah the Spirit will do whether I will or not and in the mean time thou livest a sensual beast know that thou but foments lies of the holy Ghost Jude puts these two together v. 19. sensual not having the Spirit and before v. 8. Likewise all these filthy dreamers defile the flesh dreaming and filthiness are conjoyned Men dream the influences of grace shall go along with their dispositions for good and they are but natural dispositions at the best and the Lord never said he would perfect nature and finish works of nature that are begun in swinish dreamers woful secure dreaming destroys external professors men will not awake neither are they afraid of that condition but a trembling professor is the surest and safest professor Verse 7. I will sing and give praise V. 8. Awake my glory awake psaltery The fourth point in the text tells us what this fixedness of heart produced in David I will sing so we are led to the rest of the characters and properties of the heavenly disposition of fixedness for it brought forth holy actings as singing of praise and awaking of his gift and grace which flow from holy dispositions hence the second property of holy dispositions 1. Once grace brings forth another and so holy dispositions holy actings faith and trusting in God brings forth claiming of God as the mans own Psalm 16. 1. In thee do I put my trust Hence v. 2. O my soul thou hast said unto the Lord Thou art my Lord. The disposition of believing brings forth speaking Psalm 116. 10. I believed therefore I spake 2. A disposition of loving God brings forth praying Psalm 18. 1. I will love thee O Lord my strength 3. I will call upon the Lord who is worthy to be praised Hannah Jonah Hezekiah David the afflicted soul Psalm 102. graciously sad and heavy pray and call on God in that case 3. The disposition of felt mercy brings forth praises Psal 30. 5. O Lord thou hast brought up my soul from the grave v. 3. Hence that Sing unto the Lord O ye Saints of his and give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness 4. David's joyful disposition to glory in the Lord brings forth his dancing before the Ark with all his might and his constancy therein to be yet more vile before the Lord what ever Michol said to the contrary and this is most sutable to the nature of heavenly dispositions motion comes kindly from the wheels when they are oyled the heavenly dispositions oyles and anoints the soul and renders the powers more active as they anointed wrestlers of old to make them more nimble and active in wrestling 2. The very intention apointment of God speaks so much God hath ordained heavenly dispositions for heavenly actings as he hath appointed the plant to be a tree the seed to be growing corn bread the Lord sends a praying disposition on David as a seed of praying a praising disposition that he must rise at midnight and praise Psalm 119. 62. and prevent the dawning and the night-watches to cry and pray v. 147 148. And an hoping disposition on Job that when he is dead bones lying in a bed he must profess his perswasion to see his living Redeemer stand the last man on the earth and desires his words were printed in a book and graven with a pen of iron and lead in the rock for ever Job 19. 24 25 26 27. And dispositions on Elihu to plead for the Lords Soveraignty so as if he should hold his tongue he should give up the ghost his belly should burst like new wine-bottles Job 32. 19. And Job must plead for God and for his own integrity that he was not an hypocrite as his friends slanderously said his disposition pressing him so as he saith Job 13. 19. Who is he that will plead with me for now if I hold my tongue I shall give up the ghost And the Lord gives such a disposition of zeal for God to Moses though he was a man of a meek disposition that he breaks the two Tables of stone containing the written law when he heard of the peoples worshipping of the golden calfe and such a heavenly self-denying disposition to prophecie on Jacob that in his testament he curses his two sons Simeon and Levi for their unjust anger against the Sichemites and there is such an impression of zeal and a feaver against Idolatry on Pauls spirit at Athens Acts 17. that he must dispute against their false gods Nor are we to think that holy dispositions are but as sailes to the ship and wings to the bird which adde no strength to the