had a Son from eternity yet he had none of humane race none of our kind all being fallen in Adam 4. Our spiritual Sonship runs thus If children then heirs 't is not so among men all Sons are not Heirs but only the eldest but we shall every one possess the whole Inheritance Come ye blessed of my father inherit the kingdom c. Mat. 25. 34. 5. Adoption among men implies a succession into the inheritance after the death of the Adopter Haereditas est successio in universum jus defuncti Civil A Testament is of force after men are dead Heb. 9. 17. The Heir whether Natural or Adopted has nothing to do with the Estate till then But our Heavenly Father never dies our Elder brother never dies and yet we enter into possession have a present Copartnership with the Father and the Son Truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ 1 John 1. 3. Nay we actually enjoy the whole inheritance with the Father and the Son indeed they are our inheritance the only portion of our Souls Had God left us never so much to be enjoyed by it self apart from God 't would be as nothing to us Heaven would not be Heaven if God were not there therefore we are said to be glorified together Rom. 8. 17. Christ will be always among his Brethren John 17. 24. Their Glory lies in beholding his the Father and the Son will have all things to be in common between them and the Saints and that to all Eternity Here is a Glorious Adoption indeed the world never knew the like What manner of love is this that we we should be called the children of God Tho our Heavenly Father never die nor our Elder Brother never die yet we must die before we can have full possession of the whole inheritance so did the Man Christ and so must we If we suffer with him we shall reign with him 2 Tim. 2. 12. CHAP. III. Fourthly The signs of Adoption 1. A Loving peaceable disposition Blessed are the peace-makers for they shall be called the children of God Mat. 5. 9. Who is the God of peace and hath commanded us with great earnestness if it be possible and as much as lies in us to live peaceably with all men Rom. 12. 18. So far as may be without wrong to the truth and our own Consciences we must so follow Peace as not to quit Holiness Heb. 12. 14. A zealous contending for the Truth is very consistent with the peaceable Temper of a true Christian We may have salt in our selves and yet have peace one with another Mark 9. 50. Adoption is an uniting principle the Saints should live together in Love as the Children of one Father as joined in the same interest Behold how good and how pleasant is it for brethren to dwell together in unity Psal. 133. 1. What Abraham said unto Lot Gen. 13. 8. we should say to each other Let there be no strife I pray thee between me and thee for we be brethren I wish there were more of this sign of Adoption among the Children of God this day We have reason all of us to pray for more of that Wisdom that is from above Which is first pure then peaceable gentle and easy to be intreated James 3. 17. 2. A spiritual and holy Conversation Abraham's children do the works of Abraham Joh. 8. 39. Walk in the steps of his faith Rom. 4. 12. Who is the father of us all V. 16. The Children of God should not debase themselves to the sordid practices of the men of the World they should shine out as lights in the midst of a crooked Generation making streight paths for their feet walking evenly and uprightly as those who are led by the Spirit of God and thereby do approve themselves to be the Children of God Rom. 8. 14 3. A reverential Fear of God in all our ways 1 Pet. 1. 17. Mal. 1. 6. joined with filial Obedience 1 Pet. 1. 14. which they are led to not from a mercenary hope of reward but from an innate Principle of Love to God as their Heavenly Father they cannot but take after that will of God of which they were begotten 4. A restless breathing and panting after God when he hides his face from us in any displeasure A child of God can't bear the least distance between God and his soul Psa. 42. 1 2. There is nothing that a gracious Soul more desires than the presence of God Psal. 84 10. Psal. 65. 4. He is carried out by a Divine instinct after God his joy is full when he is in communion with God and he is presently troubled when his face is hid The more God sheds abroad his Love in our hearts the more are our hearts captivated to him made more willing in the day of his power to serve him The Love of God is a conquering Love a heart-subduing Love it has a mighty constraining power over us drawing the will after it The Law presses duty but gives us no strength to perform it it pricks us forward as with the point of a Sword but does not bear us up in doing it The Law commands Holiness but under the Gospel Holiness commands us the Principles of it being inlaid in our renewed Natures We consent unto the law that it is good we delight in it after the inward man Rom. 7. 16. 22. 'T is written in our hearts we are a Law to our selves and therefore not without Law to God but under the Law to Christ 1 Cor. 9. 21. The Grace of the Gospel suits our wills to the will of God the free Spirit of Christ inclines us to new Obedience God knows how to commend his Love to us how to ingratiate himself with us till he has so taken our hearts that we begin to be sick of love towards him Cant. 5. 9. Full of vehement desires and longings after him David's heart was ready to break under this most holy frame Psalm 119. 20. Till we are Adopted children we are as to our state under the Law To be under the Law is to be without a Spirit of Grace to be a debtor to the Law when we have nothing to pay to be under the curse and servitude of the Law acting out of Fear not Love We can't Love God or Godliness till we Believe God loves us in Christ this molifies and changes the heart we are holy by choice now are a Law to our selves ergo the Doctrine of Free-Grace is no licentious Doctrine as some would make us believe 'T is not wrangling about Faith and Works but living by Faith that gives us an experimental knowledge of the truth and power of the Doctrine of Free-grace which makes us own God as our God We must break the First Commandment before we can break any of the other Nine In a dying hour Bellarmine's Tutissimum est will be good Doctrine When we bring things to an issue between God and our own
all discouraging thoughts that may arise in thee Deut. 7. 17 18 19. If thou shalt say in thine heart these Nations are more than I how shall I dispossess them Thou shalt not be afraid of them but shall well remember what the Lord thy God did to Pharaoh and unto all Egypt Thou shalt not be afrighted at them for the Lord thy God is among you and he will put out these Nations by little and little v. 21 22 We complain things go on but slowly there is little done God chuses to do things by little and little consider what hath been done and don 't make it less than it is it may seem little in comparison of what shall be yet in it self as it is 't is very great And therefore let us argue as David did 1 Sam 17 37. Psal. 3. 7 8. Psal. 9. 10 11. Psal 143 5 6 7 8. so Jehosaphat 2 Chron. 20. 7 9 12. so Paul 2 Cor. 1. 10. God that hath delivered and doth deliver and we trust will yet deliver The remembrance of what God hath done and doth do will strengthen our Hope in him for the future 3. Converse much with the Scriptures especially with the Promises that through Patience and comfort of the Scriptures you may have hope Rom 15. 4. How did David raise his Hope from the Word of God Psal. 119. in many places v 42 72. and elsewhere in that Psalm When a man gives his word to us again and again we believe him and reckon our selves sure of what we ask having so many repeated promises that it shall be done The Word of God is a living Word in this respect because as often as we mingle it with Faith it represents God speaking afresh to us in particular Faith hearing this again and again is more confirmed Faith at first came by hearing and the oftner it hears God speaking in his Word the more it is strengthned in a lively Hope of all that God hath promised 4. Look upon it as your Duty to Hope in God He hath commanded us because he knows we are apt to doubt and question his Promises It is not presumption but Duty to Hope in God relying upon his free Grace and not upon our own deserts which never begets a true humble Christian Hope but a proud arrogant Confidence in a mans self Whereas the fiducial Confidence of Hope is always derived from Faith Eph. 3. 12. 5 thly and Lastly Look unto the God of Hope Live in a constant dependance upon his Spirit to work it in you It is through the Power of the Holy Ghost we abound in hope Rom. 15. 13. That we are brought under the Power of a Christian Hope which arises from such hidden causes such deep grounds not known to flesh and blood that none but God can demonstrate the reasonableness and certainty of our Hope He knows how to beget us again to a lively Hope by the Resurrection of Christ from the Dead which is more than a Promise It is the actual accomplishing of that in another that makes it credible to us that God can raise the Dead and that as he hath raised up Christ so he will also raise up us at the last Day To the former directions add these Two things following If you would ground your Hope aright upon Christ within you so as to come under the Power of it Then 1. Consider well whether Christ be indeed in you whether you have felt the quickning influences of his Spirit in your own Souls Christ is your life Col. 3. 4. comp with John 11. 25. Consider then whether he be indeed your Life use all your Spiritual senses about this it is no easy matter to understand this Mystery There are many who lead a Natural Rational Moral Life under a Christian Profession and may be estranged from the Life of God all their Days You see how Paul distinguishes in the case lest he should mistake himself or be mistaken by others Gal. 2. 20. I live saith he yet not I but Christ liveth in me And so may a Saint now say I understand Gospel Mysteries yet not I as a man by the Light of my own Reason but as a Man in Christ in the Light of Faith by which I know not only that such things are revealed in the Word but also that they shall be accomplished unto all those who rely upon Christ Neither can I give any other reason for their accomplishment but so it is Written and thus saith the Lord. This is to speak like a Christian when we resolve all into Christ becoming fools in our selves that we may be wise in him The Life I now live in the Flesh saith he I live by the Faith of the Son of God take away that Faith and all my Hope as a Christian vanishes away You had need have a true Spiritual Light rightly discerning of Spiritual things to know that Christ is in you as your Life It cannot be known but by Faith Though Faith be very rational in all its arguings from Gospel Principles yet Faith it self is not properly an act of Reason but rather an act above Reason it carries the Understanding above its Reason to act my Understanding so as to assent to that which I have no Natural Reason for This is the knowledge of Faith a strange way of knowing which the world counts Foolishness Supernatural truths don't rise up into our Minds as the product and consequent of our Reason this is humane knowledge according to our Logick But all supernatural truths are let down through the Word by the Spirit of God into our Understandings they are too deep too mysterious and profound to be conveyed to our Understandings by the ordinary course of Reason And therefore God opens another door and lets them into the Soul by Faith Thus he writes his Law in our Hearts puts his Truth into our inward parts Where is the Scribe Where is the Wise Where is the Disputer of this World How doth God confound the Wisdom of the Wise from whom he hides these things which he reveals to Babes and Sucklings Poor humble Souls they have the knowledge of the Heavenly Mysteries and the World knows not how they came by it Whence hath this man this wisdom and this knowledge having never learned say they of Christ Matth. 13. 54. comp with John 7. 15. They wonder'd that any not brought up in their Schools should be more knowing than themselves It is an astonishment to the World to consider what knowledge poor humble Saints have of things which they do in no wise understand 2. Have a care of too gross conceptions of Christ within you You must understand the Text Spiritually As Reason brings Natural things into your Minds and gives you an Intellectual Vision of them So Faith brings Heavenly things into your Minds and gives you a Spiritual Vision of them Christ is first known to us by Faith There is no knowing him but by Believing in him no coming to
he is no Worshipper of God but a Malicious Blasphemer of him he pretends to no manner of Worship he intends no such thing towards God though he promotes Idolatry in others yet does what in him lies to eclipse his Glory altogether and to set up himself for the God of this world The Devil would be a God to this end that Wickedness may be accounted Godliness receiving its denomination from Satan usurping the name and title of God But from such a God and such Godliness good Lord deliver us Therefore that we may have clear distinct apprehensions of the only True God let us keep the eye of our Faith fixed upon Christ in all the acts of Worship we perform unto God believing him and him only to be the True Living God who hath Manifested himself to us in the Flesh of Christ. CHAP. VI. To know this only True God to be OVR God 1. WHAT it is for God to be our God God as Creator and Sovereign Lord of Heaven and Earth might have dealt with his creature Man in a way of Absolute Prerogative commanding duty without promising any Reward being Debtor to none he might without shewing any cause why have given to or taken from man what he pleased all was his own whether he gave or took away he did with his own as he pleased Thus he might have disposed of Man from time to time according to the secret good pleasure of his Will not made known to us but by the unavoidable events of it upon us This had been a Government not so suitable to our rational Natures to which God was resolved to accommodate himself in all his dealings with us therefore having made Man a knowing Creature he reveals his Will to him tells him what he expects from him and binds himself by Covenant to continue man in Life as long as he continues in his Obedience which his perfect State inclined him to Thus God set Life and Death before him left him to his choice what he did he must do knowingly and willingly if he injure himself the whole blame must lye upon himself he could not rebel against God but he must rebel against his own Reason and wilfully act against his own Light I say wilfully For there was nothing in his perfect Nature that could incline him to the Sin he committed his will chose it without any direction from the understanding for it was absoltuely impossible that the perfect understanding of man in Innocency should be guilty of such a mistake and dictate such a wickedness no the Devil dictated it and the mutable will of man was deceived by the Tempter and fell under a Curse from that time forward the law could do nothing but Curse fallen man who had now lost his legal Interest in the Love and Favour of God There is nothing due to a Sinner by Law but Death the wages of sin is death by nature we are Children of wrath fallen under the heavy displeasure of God and must Perish Eternally unless some means be found out to reconcile us to God again some dayes-man to umpire the business between God and us and to take up the quarrel Christ undertook this to make our peace with God to bring us nigh by his blood shed for the remission of our sins that God being pacified towards us might become our God and loving Father ceasing from his anger receiving us into a state of Grace and Favour with himself God lost none of his Power over us when we fell 't is so far from that that we fell into the hands of the living God sin fitted us for destruction Rom. 9. 22. Laid our Necks as it were upon the block exposed us to the stroke of Divine Vengeance In respect of power God is God over all still but in respect of Grace he ceases to be God i. e. a gracious God to those who are shut out of his love having forfeited all their Interest in it When God comes to a sinner and says as to Abraham Gen. 17. 7. I am thy God 't is as much as if he should say what I am in my self I 'll be on thy behalf I 'll be all in all to thee I 'll confer all blessings temporal and spiritual upon thee I 'll communicate all good to thee Grace and Protection I ll be with thee whereever thou goest to bless thee Alas What if God be Almighty and Alsufficient in himself unless he will help me and do good to me what am I the better therefore says God whatever I am have or can do shall be for thy good my Power Wisdom Goodness Mercy shall be applied to thee and thine for Blessing and Salvation Psal. 144. 15. I will be thy God In words a short promise but in sense the most ample promise in the whole Bible God here is taken relatively as he stands related to his people and his people to him he is the God of such a people and they are the people of such a God Hos. 2. 23. God dwells among them Exod. 29. 45 46. As a God nigh at hand to help them ready upon all occasions to do them good he does not only dwell but walk among us he goes into every room of the House takes care of every thing keeps all in good order Levit. 26. 12. 2 Cor. 6. 16. Zech. 2. 10 11 12. This dwelling denotes not only the general presence of his Power but the special presence of his Grace So he was with Joseph Gen. 39. 2. And when he withdraws his favour and assistance he is said not to be among us Numb 14. 42. Then they are smitten by their Enemies but when God appears then their Enemies fly before them Psal 79. 9 10. For God to be our God and our Father secures us to eternity whatever Chastisements we pass through all will issue well 2 Sam. 7. 14. 15. if God be our God and Father For God to be our God is equivalent to other expressions of Scripture of the like import viz. to be for us Rom. 8. 31. To be on our side Psal. 124. 1 2. To be round about us as the Mountains about Jerusalem Psal. 125. 2. To be with us in us always nigh at hand to help us God is ours when all that he hath is ours for our use and benefit 2. How comes God to be our God This comes originally from himself because he truly bestows himself upon us in the new Covenant by vertue of which he becomes ours and we become his Gen. 17. 7. God and the Saints have a propriety in each other Heb. 8. 10. I will be to them a God and they shall be to me a people God gives himself to us and then we resign up our selves to him Isa. 44. 5. We must prove God to be ours by some grant or deed of gift which God has made of himself to us in his word before we can lay claim to him As God became the God of Abraham by Covenant and
witness whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son and with a pure conscience 2 Tim. 1. 3. void of offence towards God Acts 24. 16. In simplicity and godly sincerity 2 Cor. 1. 12. When with our minds we serve the law of God Rom. 7. 25. God is a Spirit and will be Worshipped in spirit and truth You have reason to enure your selves to this Spiritual worship because ere long you will be all Spirit when you have laid down these earthly tabernacles I mean it is the will of God that the Souls of men should after death live a while out of the body in a separate state till the Resurrection conversing with an innumerable company of Angels and Spirits of just men made perfect Though Believers now are Spiritually joined to the general Assembly of the First-born and in the apprehensions of their Faith do rejoyce in that relation they stand in to the Church-triumphant yet after death they will have actual communion with those blessed Spirits above though we cannot so clearly apprehend what this happy Paradisical state is after death yet those who are spiritually minded conceive so much of it by Faith as makes them long to be dissolved and to be with Christ they grow weary of all earthly converses waiting till their change comes that they may enter into rest from all their Labours and from that hard travel of Soul which they cannot be freed from till their warfare be fully accomplish'd then they put off their Armour as more than Conquerors and sit down in an everlasting Peace with palms in their hands and crowns upon their heads triumphing in the Grace of Christ to all Eternity Could we look through the dark Entry of the Grace into Eternity lifting up our heads within the Vail we should see a Glorious Light that would dazzle our eyes we should have a stronger taste of the powers of the world to come The wiser sort of Heathens were not without some thoughts of a future happy estate they did praesentire in posterum They had some bodings in their minds of some great good or evil that should befal them after death What a shame is it for Christians to be so little affected with the future eternal state of their Immortal Souls Believers while they are in this world are joyned to the Lord in one Spirit i. e. in one spiritual body or in the same spiritual nature with Christ Heb. 2. 11. We live the life of Christ the Head and the Members being acted by the same Spirit Christians have not every one a diverse spirit as every man hath a divers Soul numerically distinct from the Soul of another man but as all Members of the Body have the same Soul though each of them divers operations Rom. 12. 4. so we have all of us one and the same Spirit though the operations of it be divers 1 Cor. 12. 4 13. Therefore if there be any fellowship of the Spirit let us glorifie God in our bodies and in our spirits which are God's CHRIST The ONLY MEDIATOR OF THE NEW COVENANT HEB. XII 24. And to Jesus the Mediator of the New Covenant BEfore I speak to the Words of the Text I shall premise Two Things 1. Compare the Covenant of Grace with the Covenant of Works shewing in what they agree and in what they differ 2. Compare the New Covenant with the Mount Sinai-Covenant CHAP. I. Christ the ONLY Mediator c. FIRST I shall Compare the Covenant of Works with the Covenant of Grace in sundry particulars 1. The Covenant of Grace frees a Sinner from two things which by the Covenant of Works are in force against him 1. From the Curse 2. From perfect Obedience as a Condition of life to be performed by man himself My meaning is That the Covenant of Grace does not take away the Condition of perfect obedience but only the Performance of it by us It is enough that Christ hath performed it for us by whose Obedience we are made Righteous 2. The Covenant of Grace is so far a friend to the Covenant of Works or rather to the Good Works commanded by that Covenant that it takes in all the moral Duties of that Covenant they are as much our Duty now under the Gospel as they were under the Law and our coming short in any of them is as much our sin now as then we ought as much to strive against it nay which is more than could be expected under the Law we are called to repent of it The Law neither gave Grace to repent neither did it admit of any Repentance You see how little countenance the Covenant of Grace rightly understood gives to Licentiousness how much it promotes Holiness even the perfection of Holiness For when all the Grace of that Covenant is given forth it will issue in Perfection then the Saints will be perfect The reason why under the Gospel imperfect Obedience is accepted is not because the Imperfections of it are approved but because they are pardoned and covered 3. The Covenant of Works shews what man must do to be justified The Covenant of Grace what a justified man ought to do how he should carry himself ever after towards God Holiness of life by the Covenant of Works went before Justification as the procuring meritorious cause of it but according to the Covenant of Grace it is the consequent or effect of Justification 4. The Covenant of Grace in the application of it to us begins in the pardon of sin No Grace reaches us till pardoning Grace begins with us we are under a curse till then concluded or shut up under wrath but pardoning Mercy opens the door for all manner of Mercies to enter in turns the whole stream and course of God's Grace towards us Blessed is the man whose transgression is forgiven c. Psalm 32. 1. This leads the way to all other blessings 5. In the Covenant of Grace God declares what he will be to us and do for us and also what he will enable us to be to him and to do for his Glory his free Grace undertakes both Parts of the Covenant 6. The Covenant of Grace presupposes full satisfaction made by Christ for all our sins against the Covenant of Works else God would not be just in justifying a Believer Rom. 3. 25 26. 7. The Covenant of Grace finds nothing in man to commed him to God but what it brings along with it To suppose any preparatory qualifications conditions causes or motives to make way for us into the favour of God does quite overthrow the nature of free Grace and take off greatly from the glory of it 1. None can have an interest in the Covenant of Grace or be said in a Gospel sence to be in Covenant in whom the essential parts of the Covenant are not already in some measure fulfilled viz. To have the Law written in their heart to have a right Spirit put into us to own God for our God to delight in