Word and Son of God for his Natures God and Man for his Offices Prophet Priest and King His Work of Redemption hath two Parts 1. His Humiliation 2. His Exaltation in his Resurrection Ascension Session at his Father's right-hand and investiture with all power in Heaven and Earth whereby he is made Lord and Judge of the World The Application whereby we are made partakers of the Benefits of Christ's Redemption is made by the Spirit and Word working Faith whereby sinful men are made Members of Christ and of the Universal Church which is the society of Saints The benefits of this Redemption applyed and whereof the Church is partaker are Remission of sins Resurrection and Life Everlasting Amongst many other Forms of Confessions § V and Creeds delivered by the Ancients I thought good to pitch upon one in Tertullian especially that in his Prescriptions against Hereticks where we read thus REgula est autem Fidei ut jam hinc quod credamus profiteamur illa seilicet qua Credimus Vnum omnino Deum esse nec Alium prater Mundi Conditorem qui universa de Nihilo produxerit per Verbum Suum primo Omnium â—missum Id verbum Filium ejus appellatum in Nomine Dei variè visum Patriarchis in Prophetis semper auditum Postremo delatum ex Spiritu Dei Patris et virtute in Virginem Mariam Carnem factam in utero ejus et ex eâ natum Hominem et esse Jesum Christum exinde Praedicasse Novam Legem et Novam Promissionem Regni Coelorum virtutes fecisse Fixum cruci Tertiâ Die Resurrexisse In Coelos ereptum Sedere ad Dextram Patris Misisse Vicariam Vim Spiritus Sancti qui Credentes agat Venturus cum Claritate ad Sumendos Sanctos in Vitae aeternae et Promissorum Coelestium Fructum et ad Prophanos judicandos igni perpetuo facta utriusque Partis Resusâ—itatio ne cum Carnis Resurrectione Haec Regula à Christo ut probabitur instituta The reason why I propose this § VI is because its the most full and perfect form of Confession both in Irenaeus and Tertullian Concerning which several things are observable 1. That it agrees with all the rest for Matter and Method 2. It 's most exactly Consentaneous to plain and clear Scripture 3 The Method is grounded upon our Saviours Creed 4. It more fully and perfectly out of the Scriptures informs us of the Person and Natures of Christ and so of his Incarnation For that Word by which the World and so man was created was made flesh 5. As in it we have God the Father creating the World by his Word and the same Word by the Spirit assuming flesh redeeming man so we have the same God by his Spirit sanctifying man more expresly delivered then in any of the rest 6. We may observe that that Word which was first uttered and spoken in the Creation before any thing could be created was uttered and produced from everlasting as a lively Representation of God himself to himself 7. That as the Spirit so the Word was in the Prophets as Prophets as without neither of which they could have been Prophets 8. The Government of God Redeemer is therein more expresly declared then in most of the other Forms For the Government of Creation being presupposed 1. The manner of acquiring a New Power by the Humiliation of the Word made flesh 2. His Investiture with this Power in his Exaltation 3. The Exercise of it 1. In giving the New Law with a Promise of Heaven's Kingdom 2. In adjudging men either Prophane to everlasting fire or Holy unto the enjoyment of Life everlasting upon the Resurrection of both in the last and Universal Judgment are in these few Words delivered plainly and clearly 9. This Form was received by the Church from the Apostles and by the Apostles from Christ. 10. That not any but Hereticks did question any thing in this Creed 11. Seeing these Hereticks professed themselves Christians and did acknowledge Christ and this had continued from Christ and the Apostles Universally and without controversie before these Hereticks did arise therefore it did sufficiently prescribe against all Heresies which different from it did arise afterwards The Analysis of these Creeds § VII and Confessions according to the ensuing Discourse intended takes in the matter and method in general of the former yet is delivered in other expressions To understand it the better you must observe 1. That it presupposeth the principal Subject of the Holy Scriptures to be the Kingdom of God and that the Doctrine thereof is contracted in the Ancient Creeds and Forms of Confession 2. That in a Kingdom or Government there must be a King or Governour invested with Power which is 1. Acquired 2. Exercised It 's exercised 1. In constituting a Common-Wealth 2. In the Administration of the same The Common-wealth is administred by Laws and Judgments Laws determine the Duties and Dues of men Judgment renders the Dues of Rewards or Punishments according to the observation or violation of the Laws These things observed We have in this Kingdom 1. The KING 2. His Government The King is God the Father Son and Holy Ghost who alone is worthy of all honour glory power and dominion for evermore His Government presupposeth his Power which is 1. Acquired 2. Exercised It 's acquired by Creation as it is continued by Preservation For immediatly upon the Creation he became the Supream Universal and Absolute Lord and continues so for evermore by his perpetual Preservation For seeing he made all things even Men and Angels of nothing and they do always for ever wholly depend upon him therefore he must needs have an absolute full and perpetual Propriety in and Dominion over them and they must needs be his Servants and Vassals This Power thus acquired began to be exercised immediatly upon the Creation 1. In the general Government of all things 1. By a constitution of an Order amongst them 2. By a Direction of them according to that Order to their ends 2. In the special Government of the immortal and intellectual Creatures who alone were capable of Laws Rewards and Punishments These speciall Creatures were Angels and Men. Amongst the Angels he 1. Established an Order 2. According to that Order he doth govern them and exercise his Power 1. In giving them Laws 2. In judging them according to those Laws Some of the Angels continued loyal and obedient and were confirmed in perpetual estate of Holiness and Happiness which was their Reward The disloyal and Apostate Angels were cast down from Heaven and reserved in everlasting Chains under Darkness unto the Judgment of the great day Jude v. 6. This was their Doom and the judgment of God upon the Angels The Government of Men is two-fold The first of Justice The second of Mercy Of Justice in the first Adam of Mercy in the second In the first after God became his Lord and Man his Subject in a special manner he
This Submission § IV is a free acknowledgment of God as our onely Lord Redeemer by Christ with a total resignation of our selves to Him alone for Righteousness and Eternal Life From this Description it 's evident that a Divine and Effectual Belief of Redemption by Christ alone and a total dependence upon Him for Salvation is necessarily required so that there can be no sincere submission without this Faith no sincere Faith without this Submission Therefore this Submission is sometimes taken for Faith and Faith for Submission because Faith is the Foundation of it And here we must note 1. That by Subjection we bind our selves to be His perpetual Servants and Vassals 2. By it we renounce all other Powers Lords Masters Redeemers and especially the Devil the World and the Flesh so as to account them our Eâ—emies 3. That we resign our own Understanding Will and Power to His Wisdom Will and Power in all matters of Eternal Salvation 4. That seeing the Party submitting is a guilty person this cannot be performed without an acknowledgment of his own sin guilt baseness misery with godly sorrow a detestation of sin and a returning to obedience again 5. That in this resignation we renounce all confidence in our selves and all other things so as wholly to rely upon his mercy and Christ's merit as without which we must perish everlastingly 6. That upon a clear and distinct knowledge and firm belief of the excellency sufficiency and perfection of power and readiness in Him to save sinful Wretches liable to Eternal Death the Soul doth rest in Him alone as a compleat Redeemer and doth love esteem and admire Him so that it accounts all things most vile and base in comparison of Him and is willing for His sake to lose the best and rarest contents the World can give and suffer the greatest evils and miseries the Devil or Man can inflict upon Him 7. That it 's the Root and Ground of all Obedience and Service All these things are plain from the Doctrine and Example of Christ and His Apostles For Christ denyed Himself and took up His Cross and informs us that we must do so too That we must forsake Father and Mother for His sake and whosoever hateth not Father and Mother and dearest Relations of this Woold for His sake is not worthy of Him He is that Pearl for which we must give all or else never purchase Him And the Apostles forsook all and followed Him Math. 19. 27. Paul counted all things loss and dung in comparison of Him We have the like Examples in Abraham Moses the Prophets and all the Saints of old Whom have I in Heaven but thee And there is none on Earth that I desire besides thee Psal. 73. 25. was the confession of them all In Christ Jesus we have Wisdom Righteousness Sanctification Redemption and all things to make sinful man fully and for ever blessed This Submission § V is the principal and proper Duty required in the first Commandement understood Evangelically Thou shalt have no Redeemer besides Me And it 's solemnly testified in Baptism Wherein we renounce the Devil the World and the Flesh and engage our selves to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost This is our Allegeance and Fealty whereby we give our selves wholly to our God who hath redeemed and bought us that He might give Himself to us for to make us Eternally Blessed Though this Duty was always the first and principal which God required yet it was more distinctly and clearly revealed and urged after the Exhibition and Glorification of Christ. The first Lesson that Christ taught His Disciples and Apostles was That He was the Son of the Living God and their first and chief Duty was To deny themselves take up their Cross and depend upon Him for everlasting life And that His own people might believe this Truth and perform this Duty John the Baptist was sent before Him He was manifested to the World by His Doctrine and Miracles But after He was once set down at the Right-Hand of God and the Gospel was preached the first thing taught was that He was the Universal Officer by whom God would administer His Spiritual Kingdom and dispose of Eternal Life And the first Duty pressed upon Jew and Gentile was to receive Him as their onely Priest Prophet King and depend upon God by Him to be for ever saved This might be made evident from many places For Peter in his first Sermon preached after he had received the Holy Ghost would have the house of Israel to know that God had made that same Jesus whom they had crucified both Lord and Christ Act. 2. 36. He was the Prince of Life and that Prophet whom God had promised to send and threatned with destruction every one that should not hearken unto Him Act. 3. 15 22 23. He is the Head of the Corner neither is there Salvation in any other For there is no other Name under Heaven given amongst men whereby we must be saved Act. 4. 11 12. Him God exalted with His right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour for to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sin Act. 5. 31. The Eunuch must believe and profess that Jesus is the Son of God before He could be baptized Act. 8. 37. This was the principal point which Paul converted did assert and prove That Christ is the Son of God Act. 9. 20. This was the principal truth proposed to the Gentiles That Jesus was He whom God ordained to be Judge of the Quick and Dead and that through His Name all such as believe in Him shall receive remission of their sins Act. 10. 42 43. This is the principal scope of the Apostle Paul in several passages of his Epistles and especially in the first and second Chapters of that to the Colossians to manifest the excellency and sufficiency of Christ. And in that to the Hebrews it 's made manifest that He was a Prophet far above all other Prophets above Angels and Moses and a Priest above all Priests and especially in this that by one Offering He had consecrated the Sanctified for ever By this we may understand § VI what this Subjection required by a Fundamental Law of the Kingdom of God-Redeemer is yet because the performance of this Duty is above the power of sinful Man as born of sinful Adam therefore in the second place we must consider by what meanes Man is reduced and brought back unto his God again The Scriptures inform us that we must be called and born quickned and raised up by some Divine Power given out of free mercy for Christ's sake Therefore this Subjection may be said to be a Work of Vocation or Calling This Vocation is sometimes taken for a Work of God's Power whereby He reduceth Man Sometimes for a gracious admission and acceptation of the sinner submitting himself for a Subject to enjoy the Rights and Priviledges of His Kingdom Sometimes for both In this place I take it
Creatures Yet God is so One that there are no other Gods though there be other Beings Some things are so one as that there are not actually any other of that kind So there is one Sun one Moon one World one Heaven one Earth yet there may be and might have been more if it had pleased God to make them But God is so one as that there is not there cannot be another God Therefore he is onely one and takes up the Deity so fully as that he can admit no fellow That God is onely One the Scriptures testifie Is there any God besides me Yea there is no God I know not any Isa. 44. 8. Thou art God alone is the confession of the Psalmist Psal. 86. 10. and of Christ himself This is Life Eternal to know thee the onely true God These and many other places represent Him not onely as One but as the onely One so that there cannot be another He was alone and the onely One without Superiour Inferiour equal God Nay without any Being but his own Eternal Being before the World was This Unity was manifested in the Creation and Government of the World For as He was the onely one Being in Himself from Everlasting so He is the onely one Creatour the onely one Governour Vniversal and Supream and shall be so to Everlasting He is the onely one Redeemer and Sanctifier from whom the streams of everlasting Bliss do and shall for ever issue This Truth concerning God's Unity was so imprinted in the very hearts of the Heathen that though they did acknowledge and worship many gods yet they believed that there was onely one Supream God who was King and Lord of all the rest The infiniteness of God § IV is that whereby He is without all Bounds of Being in respect of extent or duration Hence arise two Attributes Immensity Eternity All Creatures have their Bounds within the compass whereof their Being is confined Neither Angels nor the Heaven of Heavens are infinite or boundless But great is our Lord and great is his Power his understanding is infinite Psal. 147. 5. The Power and Understanding of God are God They are not accidents and extrinsecal to his Being but they are his Being And if his Power be great and his Understanding infinite so that there is no number of it then his Being is infinite There is no searching of his Understanding saith the Prophet Isa. 40. 28. In which Chapter from ver 22. to 26. is described and that in most stately terms and expressions the greatness of God The terms indeed are suitable to our capacity and may inform us That he is far greater then we can possibly conceive And this Being is in some measure manifested to be infinite and unmeasurable by the great abundance and unsearchable depth of his Wisdom in his Judgments and his ways of special Providence Rom. 11. 33. The Creatures even all and every one of them yea the World it self have their utmost Circumference of space and the periods and terms of their Duration The space which they take up is finite so is the Duration of their Being though drawn out in greatest length Space of place and length of time with their Periods do measure all Yet this Being is beyond the Circumference of the World and the Periods of Time Neither Time nor Place can circumscribe or measure him that is Absolutely every way infinite For he is Immense Eternal His Immensity is that § V whereby he is beyond all measure of space or place Bodies have their Dimensions of length breadth thickness or depth And the Being of Spirits is confined The World and the Heaven of Heavens have their utmost Bounds and therefore are measurable But this glorious Lord and King hath no Dimensions and therefore is immense or unmeasurable The understanding of the Angels perhaps knows the measure and utmost bounâ—s of all things created even of the Heaven of Heavens yet never knew or can know any out-most circumference of the Divine Being God alone doth comprehend himself and is comprehended of himself Because this God is immense therefore he is incomprehensible and omnipresent Hence his Incomprehensibility Ubiquity or Omnipresence His Incomprehensibility is that whereby he cannot be contained of any thing but containeth all things God saith Heaven is my Throne and the Earth is my Foot-stool Isa. 66. 3. And again by another Prophet Do not I fill Heaven and Earth Jer 23. 24. And Solomon confesseth unto God 1 King 8. 27. That the Heavens of Heavens do not contain him The first place informs us that God is so in Heaven that He is on Earth so on Earth that He is in Heaven and in both at the same time Yet Because one may be in some part of Heaven and some part of the Earth at one and the same time yet not in every part of both The second Scripture tells us that He filleth Heaven and Earth and takes up both wholly Yet Lest we should think the outmost circumference of Heaven to be the outmost bounds of his Being and Presence The third place signifies plainly that He is not confined within those Bounds so that He must needs be beyond all place and imaginary space This Incomprehensibility of God's Being though not in it self absolute yet is represented unto us by the largest extent of things created yet so as that his Presence extends beyond the World which cannot contain him but He contains it and therefore is called Hamakom the Place From his Immensity follows also his Ubiquity § VI which is called also his Omnipresence whereby he is in every place This is described also in respect of place and signifies the presence of God and the extent thereof which is so vast that there can be no place where God is not yet no place where God is in it as containing him The words of the Prophet I fill Heaven and Earth do prove this For by Heaven and Earth is signified the whole World beyond which there is no place And to fill the World is not onely to be in some or many parts thereof but to be in all and every part so that no part can be empty of God who is where anything is He takes up the whole vast space of the great Body yet he can neither be in any part or in the whole so as to be contained or concluded in it The Scripture â—ets forth this Attribute by an enumeration of places affirming God's presence in every onâ— Whither shall I go saith the Psalmist from thy Spirit Whither shall I fly from thy presence c. That is If I go into Heaven into Hell into the utmost parts of the Sea into darkness or the most secret places of the World there shall I find thee and meet with thee The Philosophers tell us that everything is in some place either circumscriptively as Bodies or definitively as Spirits so that both are limited yet God is so in all places at all times
produceth an infinite and Eternal Knowledge of himself as most perfect and most excellent Thus he cannot know himself and be known of himself But he must love himself and be infinitely and eternally enamoured with his own Beauty which is sufficient sully and perpetually to satiate and content himself within himself And hence ariseth his full happiness For he is fully happy to all Eternity without any Man Angel without Heaven Earth the World or any Creature by acting thus upon himself Therefore perfect and full happiness is accounted one of the Attributes of God And if he were not happy he could not make the intellectual Beings for ever happy by a more full communion with him and enjoyment of him From these immanent acts of the Deity upon himself some conceive arise the Relations of Father Son and Holy Ghost and that stupendious and profound mystery of the glorious Trinity The Doctrine whereof is so far above Natural Reason improved to the highest pitch that the greatest Wits in the World have been confounded in the search thereof and many have denied and are offended with the Terms of Trinity and Persons as not found in the Holy Scriptures But first let us hear what the Scripture saith of this great mystery The Apostles Commission and Charge from Christ was To teach or Disciple all Nations baptizing them in the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost Math. 28. 18. And there are Three which bear Record in Heaven the Father the Word and the Holy Ghost 1 Joh. 5. 7. In the former place we may observe § II 1. One Name of three the Father Son and Holy Ghost And whether we take the Name for the Eternal Deity as the word in the Hebrew sometimes signifies or for Worship or for Power yet there is but one Name one Worship one Power of the Father Son and Holy Ghost 2. The Father Son and Holy Ghost are three 3. That the Father is the first the Son the second the Holy Ghost the third in order 4. That the Father as the Father is not the Son nor the Holy Ghost nor the Son as Son either the Father or the Holy Ghost nor the Holy Ghost as the Holy Ghost either of them 5. The Father hath relation to the Son as the Father of the Son the Son as the Son of the Father to the Father and the Holy Ghost being the Breath and Spirit of the Father and the Son hath relation to both and both to Him 6. Here are three distinct Relatives and three distinct Relative Properties 7. The Father as God hath no relation to the Son but as the Father noâ— the Son as God to the Father but as the Son And so the Holy Ghost not as God but as the Holy Ghost to them boâ—h as breathed by and proceeding from both In the latter place 1 Joh. 5. 7. we may observe 1. That there be three the Father Son and Holy Ghost 2. That the Father is first the Son is second the Holy Ghost is third in order as before 3. He that in the former place was called the Son is here called the Word 4. That the Word was in the beginning was with God was God and by it all things were made And by the Son it 's said All things were created and all things consist by him Col. 1. 15 16. From whence it follows That the Father and the Son are but one Creatour and so but one God together with the Holy Ghost to whom the incommunicable Perfections and Works of the Deity are attributed For as the Spirit of Man is the same Substance and Being with man and knows the things of man so the Spirit which searcheth and knoweth the deep things of God must needs be one and the same Substance and Being with God The Father was the Father before he created the World or sent his Son The Word and Son of God was the Word and Son beâ—ore the Word was made Flesh And the Holy Spirit was the Spirit before he sanctified either Man or Angel Yet the Father was more clearly manifested to be the Father by sending his Son into the World and the Son to be the Son by the incarnation and work of Redemption And the Holy Ghost to be the Holy Ghost by the Work of Sanctification The Word which was made flesh was coeternal and coequal with the Father though the Humane Nature assumed by the Word was neither coequal nor co-eternal These Three are called Persons § III by some of the Greek Fathers and most of the later Latine Christian Writers A Person was defined long ago by Occam to be Suppositum intellectuale an individual intellectual Substance subsisting by it self And in this strict Sense three Persons as three Angels three men are three distinct individual Substances But thus the Father Son and Holy Ghost are not Three Persons for then there should be three Gods whereas they are but one God and one Divine Substance though they be considered as they are represented according to these three distinct Relations and Relative Properties These three are so intimately united that they are but one individual substance And this Unity of three is called by the Greeks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the Latines Circumincession So that there can be no inequality amongst them in respect of Time Power Dignity or any other ways One may be considered before another in respect of order or origination as some of the School-men speak The Generation of the Son and the Spiration of the Holy Ghost which are wonderful and to us unsearchable had no beginning of Time nor can have end of Duration for they are Eternal In these high and glorious Productions the Essence cannot properly be said to be communicated Some of the Ancients § IV and many of the Modern Writers have denyed the Trinity of Persons and the Deity of the Son and Holy Ghost The Socinians argue against both 1. Against the Trinity of Persons alleaging that three Persons are three individual distinct Substances and thence they infer that if there be three distinct Persons in the Deity then there are three distinct Gods In this Argument they take for granted that in this great mystery the word Person is taken properly and strictly which no understanding Christian ever thought And this is gross and intolerable especially in men otherwise learned and judicious 2. Against the second they argue That because the Father in some places is said to be the onely true God therefore neither the Son nor Spirit can be properly Summus ille Deus that Supream God For example Crellius one of the most learned and judicious of them from those words of our Saviour This is life Eternal to know thee the onely true God argues to this purpose That if the Father be the onely true God then the Son and the Holy Ghost cannot be God This is so unworthy that it deserves no answer In that place the Son is considered as Man and flesh
and the other parts no matter immediately capable of a â—orm to be either introduced into it or educed out of it by any agent but by God So that God supplyed wholly all the causes And when we say that God Created all things either mediately or immediately of nothing the word Nothing doth neither signifie the matter nor properly the term of that act but is a Negative and denyes all pre-existent matter in the first part of Creation Neither doth the word Create in Ancient authors signifie to make a thing of nothing as some think it doth Therefore we must learn what Creation is from the Scripture not from this or that word God by this Act did so clearly manifest his eternall power and God-head that it 's evident that he alone is the efficient cause and Maker of the World and that without the advice or assistance of any others and also without any tool or instrument It was a frâ—e act of God For he was no wayes necessitated to make the World or to make it before or after or at that time when he did make it or to produce it in this or that order or manner rather then another For he Created all things and for his pleasure they are and were Created Rev. 4. 11. He Created Heaven and Earth in the beginning The word may signifie the Beginning of time as its the measure of things existing and standing out of their causes in their proper entity Or it may referr to the first part of the Creation teaching us That in the beginning and first of all God created Heaven and Earth which was voyd and without form and afterwards he made Light the Firmament and other things or it may referr unto the whole Creation and signifyes unto us that the first Work of God was the Creation of the World in six dayes And in this sense Creation was the first issuing-forth of his Almighty Power to make and do some things out of Himself This was the Act of Creation § XI and the Effects were all things Created All things joyntly taken together are the World and the principall parts thereof are Heaven and Earth And because Heaven and Earth are not Vacant places as it is written that the Heavens and the Earth were finished with all the Host of them Gen. 2. â— Where the word Host signifies all things in Heaven and Earth And these are called The Host of them 1. Because they are Many 2. Because they were all Created in an excellent order So Paraeus on the place 3. Because they were the Ornament and beauty of Heaven and Earth Thus the Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 uâ—ed by the Sepruaguit doth signifie By Heaven and Earth some understand by a Metonymie and Synechdoche all things Created as though these first words of the Scripture were an abridgement of the first Chapter of Genesis Others and upon better grounds do interpret Heaven to be the Heaven of Heavens and the Host thereof which is the innumerable multitude of Angells And Earth to be the Masse which was voyd and without form and the first rudiment and Seminary of all things Created-afterwards The first works of Creation therefore were Heaven and Angels The Scriptures tells us that there is an Heaven of Heavens which is sometimes called the Throne and Temple of God the third Heaven the place into which Christ ascended and where he will keep his residence till he come to judge the World No doubt its a Stately Glorious piece a place of Beauty and incomparable delight and therfore called Paradise In it are many Mansions where the Saints of God shall ever rest and enjoy their most excellent Inheritance Yet this highest place which is the Circumference of the World was not Created without the Host thereof which is the innumerable company of Angels These were concreated with the Heavens and are called the Angells of Heaven and by Creation as the Heavens so they are incorruptible and immortall Spirits which once began but shall never cease to live They are endued with a most piercing understanding free-Will and an admirable executive and active Power They were all at first righteous and holy like unto their God and had been for ever blessed as now the Holy Angels he if they had continued subject and obedient to the everlasting King who made them They were made and that in the Beginning as appeares from Psal. 104. 4. They were made before the foundation and Corner-stone of the earth was â—ay'd Job 38. 7. That they were Created long before the World was Jeroms groundlesse conceit And it was Austins fancy to think God made them when he said Let there be Light The Heaven of Heavens with their Host § XII was Created in the Beginning and with them the earth as co-aeval and concreated By Earth as appeares from the Text Gen. 1 2. was not meant this lowest part and Basis of the World as now it is for that was Created the third day but if we may so speak that first draught and imperfect Beeing which was as it were the rudiment and Seminary of this Lower world as distinct from the Heaven of Heavens and all things therein And if any thing may be called the first matter this surely is it which was so imperfect that only the skill and power of God could inform it And he did inform it and out of it made first the Elements and out of them all Mixt bodyes The first Elements was light which may be called the fire which is the purest the most subtil and active of all the rest and soared aloft into the highest place and the nature of it such that it hath great affinity with a Spirit and is next unto it The next was the Firmament which we call the Ayr And it was spread like a Curtain round about the Globe of the Earth and Water and takes up the space between them an the Aethereal light or fire a fit receptacle or subject to receive the Beames of light and being transparent to transmit them to the earth The third was the Water which first covered the earth and stood above the Mountaines but afterwards by the mighty power of God was reduced to the fluid substance which now we see it to be and gathered together into deep and Vast Channels of the earth whence the main Ocean and the narrow Seas and it s diffused into every part of the Earth through secret subterraneal Passages as through so many veines And hence our Springs Rivers Lakes The last the lowest and the dullest Element was the Earth And with it were created Minerals and Vegetables as Grasse Hearbs Plants and all Manner of Trees And with these he first furnished and beautified the earth the third day The Fourth he returns unto the Aetherial Part and creates the Sun Moon and Stars The two first as greater Lights the one for the Day the other for the Night together with the Stars These are the Lights and Lamps placed under the
Roof and highest part of the Lower-World These were made not onely for Beauty and Ornament but also for the benefit of the Lower Globe upon which by light and motion they have great power And as the order wherein they were placed and their motion in a certain Line according to a certain Rule which they always observe is excellent so the use and benefit of them is manifold and wonderful Between these and the Earth we have the Meteors which sometimes are Natural sometimes Supernatural and Prodigious The Heaven thus adorned the Glorious Creatour descends into the Water and thence produceth Fish to live spawn and swim in the Water and the Fowl to fly in the Firmament of Heaven and build and multiply upon the Earth Amongst the Watry-Creatures the Whales and Sea-Dragons are most eminent and terrible After all these finished He concludes his Creation with Beasts Cattle creeping things although animate yer irrational And last of all with Man a rational and noble Creature whose Creation requires a more particular and distinct consideration And this is the Genuine Order of Physicks or Natural Philosophie which should inform us not onely of Bodies but Spirits which have Nature and Being and Original of Being as well as other Creatures The Creation of Man § XIII is that whereby God according to his Image and likeness made Man of the Dust of the Earth breathing into his Nostrils the breath of life whereby he became a living soul and Woman of a Rib that they might have Dominion over the Sensitive Creatures and the Earth Gen. 1. 26 27 2. 7 22. Or more briefly It is that whereby he made man Male and Female according to his Image To know the Creation of man doth nearly and very much concern us not onely because we are men and also excellent Creatures but also because this knowledge gives much light unto the knowledge of this Kingdom and tends much to the glory of God and our eternal happiness He is the Abridgment of Heaven and Earth and is virtually the whole World and therefore styled the Micro-cosme or Little World His Body hath affinity with the Earth his Soul with Heaven and Angels Like those pretious stones which though Earth yet participate of Heaven He is the Horizon of Time and Eternity and dwells in the Confines of both as being contiguous both to the one and other He was stamped with the Image of God and was made capable of Heaven and Beatifical Communion with this Eternal King To understand his excellency the better we must consider his Parts and Perfections The Parts are two the Body and the Soul The Body was made of Dust and Dust of nothing at the first As there was a great distance betwixt Dust and nothing so there is between Dust and the Body if we look upon it but as a Carkass much more if we consider it as animated by the presence union and power of the Soul and most of all as glorified This distance between Dust and a Body is so great that nothing but the Hand of Heaven and the Art of the Almighty could make it so excellent a piece The Matter was base the Workmanship was excellent and will more gloriously appear when God who made it out of the Dust at first a Natural Body shall raise it again out of the Dust to make it a Spiritual Body The Perfections of the Body are these The Organs the orderly Composure of them and the Faculties For though it be but a Body and far inferiour to the Soul yet of all other Bodies it is most excellent as being a fit Habitation for the Immortal Soul as no other Body can be The Organs and Members are many their order composure and dependance one upon another excellent and curious the Faculties and Motions are wonderful They who know it best admire it most and know that the very Conception much more the Creation is a kind of Miracle It is not onely a fit Tabernacle for the Soul which was breath'd into it from Heaven but also a fit Instrument and Servant to perform the Works of Righteousness and Holiness jointly with the Soul as directed by it And as it concurs with the Soul to do good or evil so it shall partake with the Soul in rewards and punishments And no Body but this of man can be the Temple of the Holy Ghost and though it be corruptible and may die and by reason of sin is condemned to the Dust from whence it was taken yet this punishment lies upon it but for a time and as it is capable of Immortality so it shall be immortal and glorious upon the Resurrection Yet that which doth more ennoble § XIV and advance man is his reasonable and immortal Soul which is a Spiritual Substance and as a Spirit doth animate act and guide it being concreated and made with it and may and doth live when separated from it The Union of them is wonderful yet dissoluble and for Sin is dissolved It 's said God breathed in his Nostrils or his face the breath of life and man became a Living Soul What Expositors say upon the place I will not now report but onely observe 1. That these words speak of the Creation of the Soul yet especially as it did animate the Body 2. That it was not created first out of the Body and then put into it but created in it as it always is For God creates the Spirit in the midst of Man 3. That though God breathed it into Man yet it was no part nor particle of God's Essence but an effect of his power 4. That his Soul was reasonable and far more excellent then that of Beasts and therefore tearmed by the Chaldy-Paraphrast A speaking Soul for to speak is a proper effect of Reason 5. This Soul was created immediately and invisibly from God in an unspeakable manner as is signified by those words And God breathed in his face And in the face it doth most appear and manifest it self according to that saying Vultus est index Animi 6. By the Breathing it was united to the Body of which it might have kept possession for ever if Sin had not been a Cause of Dispossession Yet the second Union by the Resurrection when God shall breathe upon the Dust again shall be so firm as that it never shall be dissolved What this Soul of man is we do not perfectly know And it was well observed of Learned Vives that God gives us these Souls not so much to know their Essence as to use them Something vve know of them by Reason and Discourse something by Experience but most of all by the Holy Scriptures The Excellency thereof is clearly known by the Acts and Effects thereof it understands and freely wills The Understanding reacheth all things and in some manner and measure knoweth God and reacheth Eternity In this respect it 's said to be all things because it hath some affinity and cognation with all Objectes and a
Power of God that he put the fear of man upon them and such was the Majesty of Man continuing in his Integrity that his Countenance and Presence did strike an awe into the greatest stronget and most comely Creatures Some make this Dominion a part of God's Image and it 's true that man in this resembled God as Lord and King and as God's Vice-gerent was a Petty God and Lord of the Lower-World The Second thing common to man with the Sensitive and generative Creature which propagate and perpetuate their kind by a successive generation is God's blessing of them whereby he gave them a generative power to multiply and replenish the Earth and the Waters This power of Generation is a wonderful and strange Vertue which God alone can give and take away at pleasure and if he take it away or deny it then it 's above the power of Nature to generate The Third thing is That general quality of all Creatures as they came from God For God saw every thing that he had made and it was very good Genes 1. 31. 1. Every thing was good beautiful and perfect in it's kind there was no defect or blemish in the Being and Constitution of it 2. Every thing was good and perfect for the end and use he had created them 3. Every thing was good in it's order by which all things were united and one subordinate to another and did compleat the Beauty of the whole and made up the great and glorious Frame which we call the World The reason of this goodness was because they were made by a perfect Rule and every thing severally and all things jointly did fully answer and were exactly conformable to that most excellent Model and Idea contrived by his Wisdom So that there was no need that God should continue this Work of Creation any longer but might rest and keep his Sabbath and take content in his Works If God § XVII in the Beginning thus created Heaven and Earth then it follows 1. That the World had a Beginning it was not from Everlasting For there was a moment a first point and period when it began and before which it did not exist and before which God onely had his Being from Everlasting fully perfect and happy in himself and could have no need of the World for it could add nothing to his happiness 2. That the World in this respect was a Work and an effect which must needs have a cause and depend upon it for its very first Being without which it had never been 3. The efficient cause and Work-man which did contrive and make this curious and excellent piece was God For nothing but God had any Being or Existence before this Work of Creation Neither could there be any Power of Wisdom but his sufficient to produce the least thing from nothing into Being 4. This great Work once made must needs manifest the glorious Power Wisdom and Perfections of thâ— Maker For The Heavens declare the glory of God and the Firmament sheweth his handy-work Psal. 19. 1. 5. By this Work God is sufficiently differenced from all other Things as of far more excellent and of a far more admirable power So that by this it 's evident there can be no other God but He For whatsoever cannot make a World is not God as he is 6. Therefore He and He alone must needs be God there neither is nor can be any other For He is great and doth wondrous things and is God alone Psal. 86. 10. And before Among the gods there is none like to thee O Lord neither are there any Works like unto thy Works 7. It 's the duty of Men and Angels to behold these glorious Works and seriously therein to observe his wonderful Power and Wisdom that so they may admire his glorious Excellency and with all Humility adore his Eternal Majesty who alone is worthy of all honour glory and power for evermore even for this Work of Creation 6. If he created all things and that first of nothing then all things are wholly his He hath an absolute Propriety in them and full power to order them and dispose of them at Will and Pleasure And by this we understand how he did acquire his Supream and Vniversal Power Hitherto Creation hath been considered § XVIII briefly in it self and as it is a Work and the first Work of God and now Order requires that we return unto the principal and intended consideration thereof according to tâ—e Method of my Discourse as it is the Foundation and first ground of that Regal Power whereby the World is governed This Consideration is expressed in the last conclusion concerning the Power acquired by Creation For the World was made that it might be governed and none was fit to govern it but he that made it and none can govern without Power acquired one way or other This Power was acquired by Creation because by it God obtained an absolute and perfect Propriety in the whole World and every part thereof Amongst men whosoever makes any thing by his own proper Art and Labour and that of his own stuff he must needs have a full right unto it and a full power to dispose of it yet no Workman ever made any Work without some matter yet God made all things without any matter Pre-existent And in this is far above all other Work-men who never made their stust or matter In this respect He is the sole and total cause of the whole world and every thing receiveth its whole Entity and every Particle of it from the Creatour From hence it follows that seeing the whole Entity is Gods therefore his Propriety is entire and absolute And if it be such he must needs have an absolute Power to dispose of all things and to order them as he thought good And because of this absolute Propriety it is that they wholly depend upon him for Being and all things else and are wholly subject unto him Therefore he may give them what Rules he pleaseth order them to what ends he thinks good and he hath made them capable of and also by these regulate all their inclinations and motions and bind them to observe his Order upon what terms he will This Power acquired by these means and grounded upon this Propriety is original absolute supream universal Monarchical everlasting It 's originally and primarily in him as in the Fountain it 's not in the least measure derived from any other It 's absolute and no ways limited It 's supream and no ways subordinate or dependent upon any higher and above it It 's univeral and extended to the whole World as his Territory It 's Monarchical because the Power wholly resides in one It's everlasting and after it 's once begun it continues and shall for ever abide In these respects it 's not only different from but most excellent and far above all other Power And as it 's acquired by Creation so it 's continued by Preservation which
to such Rules as that he might attain Eternal Salvation For there was a Foundation of this new Government laid in that Judgment God passed upon the Devil and he began instantly to act according to the same Yet though he abolished the former Government yet he continued the memory of it and revealed the Doctrine thereof unto the Church and it remains in the same and it serves to let men see their misery and humble them that they may seek for remedy and vehemently desire it and follow the Directions God hath given And by this he may and ought to know that in strict Justice he can expect nothing but Eternal Death and that all hope of life depends upon the mere mercy of God and the merit of a Second Adam This Second Government did not abolish the power acquired by Creation § II for that continues still and will continue whilest man receives his Being from God by Creation and the continuance of his Being by preservation Yet God acquired a new power superadded unto the former and did exercise the same after a new manner In this respect there must needs be a great difference between the former and this latter Government For in the former the Governour was God-Creatour by the Word not incarnate or made flesh but in this he is not onely Creatour but Redeemer by the Word made Flesh. The subject of this latter is not man holy righteous innocent as he was created but sinful guilty miserable in Adam fallen The Laws thereof do not bind man as the former did to perfect and perpetual obedience as the condition of Life but to Faith in the Redeemer Neither in this New-Model doth God alone without a President-general as in the former◠govern Mankind but doth administer all things by his Son made Lord and King at his Right-hand after the Incarnation This Government is that Act of Divine Providence § III whereby he orders sinful man redeemed by Faith in Christ-Redeemer unto Salvation or upon his Unbelief unto Eternal Death unavoidable This is evident out of the sacred Writings both of the Old and New Testament For all the Holy Patriarchs from Adam were saved by their Faith in God Redeemer and the Seed of the Woman And after the exhibition of the Redeemer and his manifestation he himself faith That God so loved the World that he gave his onely begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have Eternal Life And He that believeth on him is not condemned And he that believeth not is condemned already because he hath not believed in the onely Begotten Son of God Joh. 3. 16 18. John the Baptist testifieth that the Father loveth the Son and hath given all things into his hand He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life but the wrath of God abideth on him Joh. 3. 36. And all power in Heaven and Earth was given to Christ Math. 28. 18. And from this Power the Apostles received Commission and Command to go to all the World and to preach the Gospel to every Creature And He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved and he that believeth not shall be damned Mark 16. 15 16. In all which words we have a New Power a New Government New Laws both as a Rule of Man's Duty and God's Judgment differing much from the former This might be called the Government of Mercy as the former the Government of Justice Whereas many tell us that the former Government continues that the Laws are still the same that God as Rectour by Substitution transferred the punishment merited by transgressions of the Law upon Christ and for and in consideration of satisfaction made by him remits sin and this is nothing but a relaxation or interpretation of the former Law they are much mistaken and reach not the truth in this particular And this shall be made evident when we come to speak of the Administration of this Kingdom from the times of Adam till the preaching and baptizing of John the Baptist and the manifestation of Christ's entring upon his Publique Office As in the former Government § IV so in this we must consider 1. Who is the Governour invested with Power 2. How this Power was 1. Acquired 2. Exercised The Governour is God Creatour and Preserver of Mankind the same who was Lord and King by Creation Yet here he must be considered under another notion as God-Redeemer For as the Work of Creation and Redemption differ so the Power acquired by Redemption differs from that acquired by Creation This Power is Supream Universal Eternal Monarchical as the former In the Acquisition we must consider by 1. Whom 2. What it was acquired It was acquired 1. By the Word made Flesh. 2. By the Humiliation of this Word made Flesh. The Person by whom God acquired this new Power was the Word made Flesh for as by the Word he made the World and in particular Man and so acquired a Properiety in Man and a Dominion over Man as a rational free Creature So by this Word incarnate and made Flesh in a wonderful manner he acquired a new propriety in Man fallen and a dominion over him as capable of Spiritual and Eternal Felicity to be recovered by a new way The work whereby this Power was acquired was the Humiliation of this Son of God So that now Man is God's and subject unto God not onely as Creatour and Preserver in general but as Redeemer and Sanctifier For this new Dominion considers Man in his Spiritual Capacity For the better understanding of this acquisition of New-Power § V we must consider 1. Who the Redeemer is 2. What the Work of Humiliation is The Redeemer is Jesus Christ our Lord first promised then exhibited Jesus Christ our Lord who is blessed for ever In himself is the Word made Flesh Ioh. ◠14. As our Redeemer he was anointed with the Holy Ghost and power to be a Prophet Priest and King Universal Act. 10. 38. In Him as the Word made Flesh we may observe 1. His Person 2. His Natures For his Person in a large sense as here I take Person He is the Word which was in the beginning and was with God and was God and by whom all things were made Joh. 1. 1 2. The onely begotten Son of God Joh. 3. 16. The Image of the Invisible God the first-born of every Creature by whom all things were not onely created but do subsist Col. 1. 15 16 17. The brightness of his Father's glory and the express Image of his Person Heb. 1. 3. He was begotten of the Father from Everlasting and is the full expression and representation of Himself unto Himself By these places it evidently appears that the Word did exist before the World was and so exist that He was with God and God To be with God implies some distinction to be God an identity of substance and this is that which we call
The excellency and dignity of that Nature and flesh not onely above all men but all Angels 4. The concurrence of the Word and flesh in the acts of Redemption and the same singular and extraordinary But whether the gifts of the Spirits confirmation in holinesse universall power glory and happinesse which Christ attayned did necessarily and instantly follow upon this Union may justly be doubted That the redeemer should be the Word and so God and Flesh too One and the chief Reason was the Wisdome and Will of God And other reasons not clearly contayned in Scripture are better forborne then mentioned After the number and union follows the distinction of the two Natures § IX for although they were personally united which union is extrinsecall yet they remained really distinct The Word was not changed into flesh nor flesh into the Word but the Word is the Word still and flesh flesh still and that essentially It 's true the word before the conception of the humane nature was not flesh but then it was flesh yet so that it continues the Word Neither was there any mixture or composition of these two to make one substance different from both nor any such union of both that so a third thing should arise by way of resultancy except we may say and that according to the Scripture that the word and flesh were so united that thence did arise a third thing which we call Christ and some call God-Man Yet still he was so God that he was Man and so man that he was the Word and God and so shall continue blessed for evermore Jesus Christ our Lord is the word made flesh § X and this is the definition that the Scriptures give of him That which followes is his office as he is Redeemer An office is a derivative power and therefore cannot be supreme but subordinate and as an officer by commission with a Mandate receives his power so he is liable to account In this respect and for this cause it is that though Jesus Christ of Nazareth be the Word and so God yet as God he cannot be an officer as flesh and man he may be and was such This the Scripture teacheth plainly when it saith that he was sent received commandement from his Father was sealed annoynted with the Holy-Ghost and with power did not glorifie himself that his Father gave him power over all flesh and that all power in Heaven and earth was given him all these things are true of him only as man His office was the greatest and highest that ever was Because he was supreme and universall governour above the Angels and all other creatures next unto God Therefore his place upon his investitute and solemn inauguration was at the right hand of the eternal Throne of God And in this particular Joseph advanced by Pharoah was a lively type of him In him as an officer we may consider 1. His Ability 2. His power and Authority His Ability is expressed in that metaphor of being annoynted with the Holy Ghost for he was endued with all the gifts of the Holy Ghost and in the highest degree that any creature was capable of therefore it is said God giveth not the Spirit in measure unto him Joh. 3. 34. but in fullnesse So that of his fullnesse we all have received grace for grace Joh. 1. 16. And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him the spirit of Wisdome and understanding the spirit of counsail and might the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord Isay. 11. And at his Baptism the Heavens were opened and the Holy-Ghost was seen in the likenesse of a Dove to descend and rest upon him These gifts and endowments he received with a power to communicate in a certain measure unto others The Spirit in this fullnesse was given him not only to sanctifie him but to enable him for the undertaking managing and accomplishing the great work of Redemption which was committed unto him Besides these Abilityes he received power and authority accordingly and so had plain right to do such things as neither men nor Angels had right to do He had power to command all the Angels of Heaven the Devils and all Creatures and they must obey him because they were subject unto him And because he must discharge this Office for that end was required an high degree of wisdom and the knowledge of the deep and secret Counsels of God especially concerning the Eternal Salvation of sinful man whose Nature he had taken upon him Therfore he must be a Prophet able fully infallibly and with Power and Majesty to declare the Mind and Will of God In which capacity and faculty he was more excellent then all the Prophets then Moses then the Angels who have the Spirit of Prophesie as being in the Bosome of the Father and more intimate then the Angels were And he could reach men not onely outwardly but inwardly and speak by the Spirit immediately unto the Souls of men and that not onely ordinarily by imprinting the Doctrines of the Scripture outwardly upon the Tables of the Heart but also extraordinarily by Inspiration and immediate Revelation of the Mysteries of Gods Kingdom Thus he taught Apostles Prophets Evangelists And he is the Head and Lord of all Prophets and all Angels Prophets Apostles Pastours Teachers are his Servants and subject unto him as a Prophet and his Doctrine must be heard believed obeyed and he that will not submit unto it must be cut off and everlastingly accursed Because Man is guilty § XI and God angry and Justice requires Eternal Punishments to be executed if not prevented therefore there must be some to interpose between the just God and unjust Man and make satisfaction unto justice procure his favour and plead the cause of penitent sinners before the Throne of God in the Heavenly Temple Therefore Christ if he will be a Redeemer must do all this and be a Priest and as a Priest offer a Sacrifice for the Eternall expiation of sin and as an Advocate plead his bloud and sacrifice before his Father for all such as come to God by him And he must not onely be a Priest but an Universal and Eternal Priest holy without any sin who may have free and immediate access to the Throne of God and such who is sensible of the Peoples misery and in that respect willing and ready to make reconciliation for their sin Such a Priest Christ and onely Christ Jesus of Nazareth is made so by God and now confirmed by Oath to minister in the Heavenly Tabernacle there to appear before God for us Therefore he is more excellent and above all other Priests even Aaron nay above Melchizedeck one of the greatest Priests on Earth and also above the Highest Priests of Angels if there be any Priest-hood amongst them Besides because he must have Subjects of all Nations in times successively unto the end of the World and He and His shall have many Enemies both Men and Devils
for an Act of Divine Power as it is a cause of subjection which must â—o before admission To understand this we must consider the Subject of it and that is Man as sub alienâ potestate under the power of Sin and Sathan and so out of God's Kingâ—om and as an Alien to this Heavenly Common-wealth and such is every one by Nature as he is out of Jesus Christ. Yet there are degrees of this distance some are further off some nearer to this Kingdom This is evident from the condition of Jews and Gentiles in former times and always especially since the times of the Gospel Because all men are either in the visible Church or out of it And men may be out of the Church two ways 1. As never admitted into the same Or 2. Such as being in the Church prove Apostates The Gentiles once were not Gentiles For their first Apostate Fathers were in the Church and the Jews in former times were God's people but for their unbelief are cast out and continue LO-AMMI none of God's people and this shall be their condition till such time as the fulness of the Gentiles be come in And we must distinguish of such as are in the visible Church for some are sincerely subjected unto God-Redeemer according to their Allegiance Some are Subjects onely by Name and Profession and by their ignorance unbelief disobedience are little better then Heathens and Aliens Some are subject in some measure but come short of that degree which is required to admission All these excepting one sort are out of this Kingdome as it consists of reall Saints and living members of Christ. Apostates shall never be called much lesse admitted if they be personally and wilfully such For if we sin wilfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth there remaineth no more Sacrifice for sins Heb. 10. 26. and if no more Sacrifice then calling is in vain and to no purpose Yet the posterity of Apostates may be and have been called And if once God vouchsafe the meanes of conversion to Idolators who have forsaken not only God as their Redeemer but as Creatour and Preserver he requires of them to renounce the Devil and turn from their Idols to the living God first and then unto him as Redeemer by Jesus Christ. They which have forsaken Jesus Christ or deny him as their Saviour and yet acknowledge and worship God alone as the Creatour of Heaven and Earth the Preserver and Governour of the World as Turks all Mahumetans and the unbelieving Jews do at this day are bound to acknowledge Christ as their Saviour and Redeemer and sure his incarnation and glorification as already come into the World The case of the Jew in the times of Christ and the Apostles was singular For the sincere Proselyte and Jew had onely this to do to believe in Christ already come as before they believed in him to come and so they became compleat members of the Church Christian and perfectly subjects of the Kingdome of Christ glorified The Ignorant and Prophane as also the Hypocrits must forsake their wicked wayes and sincerely submit themselves Yet none of these things can be done without a power from Heaven and a Vocation which is a gracious work of God Redeemer wherein he by his Word and Spirit reduceth man to subjection so that he is fitted to be a subject of his Blessed Kingdome For by Calling we are delivered from the power of darknesse and translated into the Kingdome of His Dear Son Col. 1. 13. Therefore said to be called out of darknesse into his marveylous light 1 Pet. 2. 9. And upon this they who were not a people are made the people of God verse 10. For God will put his lawes into their mind and write them in their hearts and thereupon He will be their God and they shall be to him a People Heb. 8. 10. In all these Passages and many more it 's evident 1. That by nature and as born of sinfull Adam we are in darknesse out of Gods Kingdome none of Gods People 2. That we passe out of darknesse into light and into Christs Kingdom 3. This is not a work of our own merit or power For it 's God that delivers us translates us writes his lawes in our hearts and this of his free mercy and by his great and wonderfull power 4. By this we become Gods people and subjects of Christ's Kingdom And all this is said to be by calling For he called us out of darknesse into his marvaylous light All these particulars are expressed or implyed in those words of the Apostle who signifies that God would send him to the Gentiles to open their eves and to turn them from darknesse to light and from the power of Sathan unto God that they may receive remission of sins and as inheritance among them which are sanctifyed by saith in Christ Act. 26. 17 18. This Vocation § VII as it is an act of power and great mercy and free grace for by grace we are saved so it s a work which is effected by the Word and Spirit For as we are regenerate so we are called and we are regenerate 1. By the Word 2. By the Spirit By the Word For of his own will he begat us with the word of truth Jam. 1. 18. By the Spirit For except a man be born again of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdome of God Joh. 3. 5. In the Word God commands and promiseth The command binds man to submit The promise is a motive to enforce the performance of the precept This we maâ— understand and observe in the Call of Abraham For 1. He is commanded to get him out of his Countrey and from his kindred and from his Fathers house unto a land that God would shew him and to perswade him God promiseth to make him a great nation and to blesse him c. But the principall promise was that in him all the familyes of the earth should be blessed Gen. 12. 1. 2 3. This precept implyes that man is under the domiâ—ion of sin and Sathan and therefore commands him to forsake his sin and Sathan and turn from Satan unto God In this God makes use of the Doctrine of the fall of Adam and the Morall Law as given unto him and binding him to perfect and perpetual obedience and upon disobedience threatning Death And by the precept is discovered mans sin and by threatning his misery to humble him break his heart make him weary of sin and desirous of deliverance and willing upon any termes to accept a Saviour Yet this gives him no Comfort nor any Power to do that which is his duty though God make use of it to prepare mans heart The first dutyes commanded are 1. A sight of sin as sin in our selves whereby we are miserable The 2. Is saith whereby we believe that God being satisfyed and attoned by the blood of Christ will be mercifull and pardon sin This faith
and clearly inform man that the World was not from everlasting but had beginning and that God did create it and so became the universal and supream Lord of Heaven and Earth by the Work of six days The seventh day wherein he rested from his work was a fit time for man's rest that on that day man might contemplate the glorious Works of God acknowledge God to be the Creatour and every Sabbath say Thou art worthy Oh Lord to receive glory honour and power for thou hast created all things and for thy pleasure they are and were created Rev. 4. 11. Besides the example of God's labour rest and Sanctification He knew that six days in the week was a fit proportion of time for man's secular works and one in seven for Diviner Employments And this is given the reason why God sanctified the seventh day and blessed it because that after in six days He had created Heaven and Earth He rested the 7th day And howsoever this great Work of Creation is never to be forgotten by Man yet because to sinful man the Work of Redemption is a greater blessing Therefore the first day of the Week being the day of Christ's Resurrection and the Restauration of Mankind is more to be observed and remembred The Lord said unto Judah Behold the days come when it shall be no more said The Lord liveth which brought up the Children of Israel out of the Land of Aegypt But the Lord liveth that brought the Children of Israel from the Land of the North c. Jer. 16. 14 15. So it may be said to us Christians since the time of Christ's glorification That it shall be no more said the Lord liveth that in six days made Heaven and Earth and rested the 7th day But the Lord liveth who after His Death and cruel Passion is risen again and hath redeemed sinful man from Hell and Eternal Death For if two great Blessings be received one after the other the latter and the greater is more to be remembred and the time thereof rather to be observed Therefore we do not observe the 7th day wherein God rested from the Work of Creation but the first day wherin Christ rose again and rested from His Work of Humiliation And though therein we do not forget the Work of Creation yet we rather remember the Work of Redemption and glorifie our God for the same From this Explication of the Words of God we may understand § XII what is here commanded and what is here forbidden The things commanded are two 1. Rest For we must remember a Sabbath and in the same we must do no manner of work 2. Sanctification For we must remember the Sabbath-day to sanctifie it Rest is two-fold 1. Of the Body 2. Of the Mind and in both these we must rest 1. The Body must rest from secular works which hinder and disturb us in the service of our God 2. The Soul must cease from such Thoughts Cares Meditations and Affections which as much distract us in the Worship of our God as labours of the Body do Again bodily works of man as man endued with understanding cannot be done without the Soul attending directing and moving it much less can Heavenly Duties be performed without the Soul which in the time of these Services must be drawn off from the World and sixed upon far more excellent Objects And because many Games and Sports which are accounted Recreations do as much toyl the Body and distract and take up the Soul as secular Works do therefore we must needs judge them to be contrary to the Rest here commanded And our very words of Conference and Discourse upon this time may be such as are neither consistent with the Rest nor the Sanctification required in this Precept Yet this Rest is not to be so strictly taken as though all kind of Work and Bodily Labour were unlawful on this day Therefore 1. Works of Necessity may be done this day and which those are the Light of Reason is sufficient to determine as to save Man or Beast in danger to receive harm or pâ—rish if not that day relieved Therefore the very Pharisees who were so precise in the observation of the outward Rest could not deny unto our Saviour but that upon the Sabbath it was lawful to lift a Beast out of a Pit or Ditch into which it was then fallen And upon the same ground it cannot be unlawful on that day to fight and defend our selves against an Enemy 2. Works which tend to the refreshment and ordinary preservation of Man and Beast cannot be unlawful Therefore on this day we cloath our selves and take our ordinary food and repast and a Beast may be watered and fed this day as well as others 3. Works which tend unto the Sanctification of the Day are not prohibited For we may travail unto and return from the places of publick Assemblies for Prayer Reading Preaching and other Divine Services The Priests under the Law did kill their Sacrifices and so prophaned the Sabbath and were blameless Math. 12. 5. And it was thought no prophanation to circumcise an Infant upon that day Joh. 7. 23. Of this nature is the toyl and labour of the Ministers in their several Congregations 4. Neither is any work of mercy as visiting the Sick administring Physick relieving the Poor and such like contrary to this Rest. And the reason of all this is because the Sabbath is for man and not man for the Sabbath and therein God intended our good not our hurt The principal thing required is the sincere Worship of God from an heart seriously bent and inclined thereunto nor the performance of some outward piece of service in such a precise nick of time Yet we must take care always to have a sanctified heart and a desire to sanctifie the same and what we lose one time we must endeavour to recompence at another The second Duty here commanded § XIII is Sanctification of the Day and this is the principal Duty â—o which Rest is subordinate For as there can be no Sanctification without Rest so there can be no Rest acceptable to God but that which tends to Sanctification An Holy Rest is the thing here commanded It must be the Rest of a Man and not of a Beast and the Rest of an Holy Man as Holy Therefore this Commandement presupposeth Man to be habitually sanctified For an unsanctified man cannot sanctifie a Sabbath as God requires it to be sanctified This Sanctification consists in the performance of Holy Duties in the Worship of God The Object of this Worship must be God alone The parts of the Worship must be such as He hath instituted and the acts of Worship must be performed by persons who are sanctified and in an holy manner And to consecrate this 7th Day to these Holy Services is the very thing here prescribed Therefore to this Sanctification is required 1. A knowledge of the day that it 's determined by God 2. A
contents than sin and displease our God and endanger our poor souls Many are not Chast at all few and very few perfectly Chast and this Commandement discovers much sin and manifests an absolute necessity of Christs merit and Gods mercy in this particular Many are wicked the best are frail and all imperfect at least in our strange and unclean thoughts which are very hardly prevented in them who abhor the sin and love the virtue I might in this pâ—ace take occasion to enlarge but I will not debate either of the nullity of some marriages or what doth make a nullity or determine the severall degrees of consanguinity or affinity and so discover what marriages are inceâ—â—uous or enquire into the nature of divorce and the causes thereof and whether divorce for Adultery doth totally dissolve the matrimoniall bond or onely separate à mensa thoro the bond continuing still or declare in what cases Man and Wife may live asunder As for living or not living together when the one party is a Believer the other an Unbeliever the Apostle 1. Cor. 7. hath sufficiently determined These particulars might take up a Volume Let the Reader observe that in this Commandement God saith to all single Persons Be Chaste To all Married Persons Be Faithful CHAP. XIV The Eighth Commandement THE Sin forbidden in this Commandement § I is THEFT Thou shalt not steal Theft is the unjust usurpation of anothers goods or the taking away or detaining anothers goods unjustly By unjust Usurpation I mean a making that our own which is not our own and to which we have no right For the better understanding of Theft we must consider 1. The matter of it 2. The form 3. The Persons that are guilty under which comes in the several distinctions of Theft 4. The Causes and Antecedents which make way unto it 5. The Degrees thereof The matter of Theft are the goods of other men Therefore as the former Commandement presupposed Marriage so doth this Propriety and a right to those things we call goods which are such things as God hath given us for the preservation comfort and ornament of this bodily life and in that respect called our lively-hood because they are not onely convenient but necessary in a competent measure for the continuance of life The absolute and highest degree of Propriery in these Earthly goods is onely in God because He made them For the Earth is the Lords and the fulness thereof the World and they that dwell therein for He hath founded it upon the Seas and establisht it upon the Floods Psal. 24. 1 2. The Earth is the Lords and the fulness thereof This is God's Propriety He hath founded and prepared it This is the reason and ground of this absolute Propriety Yet He was willing that seeing He made these things for Man he should have some right unto them and an inferiour kind of Propriety in them Therefore it is written The Heaven even the Heavens are the Lords but the Earth hath He given to the Children of Men Psal. 115. 16. So that Man derives his Right unto them from God by way of Donation and that from the Creation Gen. 1. 28 29. This Donation is from God not as Redeemer but Creatour and Preserver Therefore it 's true that Dominium non fundatur in Gratia That Man by Sin might â—orfeit there can be no doubt yet if God took not the Forfeit so as to re-enter the Right remains unto men as men not as sanctified The sanctified onely have a sanctified use of them and will be able to make a good account God renewed his Charter and Donation Gen. 9 3. and this after the Flood Yet this is but a common and general Right given unto man in general and might stand good though all things continued as common This gave neither publike Right to many nor private to any yet was a just Foundation of the Division and Appropriation of things which was once introduced by the Law of Nations and of several States and by the consent of private persons and though this Division and Appropriation leâ—t some things common and did onely constitute a publike or private Title yet to make that publike which God and Nature have made common as to drink water out of the River c. or that private which is publike is a breach of this Commandement Besides the Laws and consent of men there is a special Providence of God both in disposing the several parts of the Earth to several Nations as the Land of Canaan to Israel of Mount-Seir to Esau c. and also making private men rich or poor and giving to one more to another less This Donation of God is not absolute and unlimited for He gives with a Proviso to dispossess and take away at will and pleasure especially when whole Nations States or private men by their heynous crimes do forfeit These goods which God gave licence to be divided are either in no man's possession or propriety or in some man's possession or propriety For such as no man claims any right unto nor can justly do it they fall to the first Inventour and Possessour and this is a good Title as also Presciption For such goods as others have a Right unto whilest that Right continues we cannot in Justice challenge as ours except they be given us by the Owners or sold or exchanged or left by Inheritance or deserved by some Service or be made Lords thereof upon Conquest in a just War There be other just ways of acquiring but I remember them not These goods are corporeal or incorporeal corporeal are immoveable as Lands or moveable as other goods incorporeal as usages to pass to drive to carry through another mans ground and other such like There be degrees of this propriety Some have onely the use of another mans goods but not the profit some the use and profit but no right of alienation some have right of alienation some have onely Dominium Eminens as chief Lords and can onely demand a chief Rent which the Vassal in alienation must always except A man may be wronged in all or any of these and to deprive a man of the least right he hath in these things by the Laws of God and just Laws of men is Theft So that the Form is in the injustice of the Possession of these goods § II and to know when this Possession is unjust we must 1. Distinguish betwixt things common things publike things private that we may understand and that distinctly the common the publike the private Propriety and Right 2. We must consider that some Propriety and Right is grounded upon the Laws of God some upon the Laws of Men whether the Law of Nations or Laws of particular States some upon both 3. We must observe that some things may be proper and due by the Laws of men which are not due by the Laws of God and on the contrary and some things are due both by the Laws of
Resurrection and last Judgment when God shall be all in all and Reign perfectly without any enemy without any opposition This we pray for here as that special and spiritual Kingdom which is distinguished from the civil government of temporall States opposed to the Kingdom of darknesse of Sin Sathan Death It 's called in Scriptures the Kingdome of God the Kingdome of Heaven the Kingdom of Light the Kingdom of Christ the Kingdom of Grace the Vniversal and Eternall Kingdom The King is God § VIII not merely as Creatour and Preserver of the World but as Redeemer who since Christs Exaltation Reigns by him in Heaven and Earth as by his Administratour-generall Heaven is the place of his speciall residence his glorious pallace and his Royal throne His Territory is the World His speciall subjects men Redeemed by the blood of Christ His Lawes the Rules of the Gospel to direct mans obedience with promises and threats which are the standard of his judgments The eternall holy Spirit is his power His Judgments are spirituall and eternall rewards and punishments with temporall and bodily thereunto subordinate And because men are found in the Kingdom of darknesse and under the power of Sathan they are reduced by the word and spirit unto subjection Which is a work of great and most free mercy The word and Laws must be made known outwardly by man and then written in the heart by the Spirit In this government he doth exercise his severe justice his greatest power his choisest wisdome and his sweetest mercy in the highest degree This Kingdom comes unto a people when God graciously vouchsafeth to give them the word Sacraments Ministers and all the meanes of conversion with a promise in the word of his Spirit to make this used effectual He continues it with them whilst he continues these meanes and doth not take away his spirit and deliver them up to a reprobate mind so that the things that concern their everlasting peace are not eternally hid from their eyes It comes close and effectually when God by these meanes made efficacious by his spirit destroyes the dominion of sin and dispossesseth Sathan It 's then consummate when sin is wholly destroyed and the person made fully subject and perfectly obedient to his eternall Sovereign It 's consummate to the Universall Church upon the execution of the final judgment It 's principally with in us and established in our hearts by God when he there to Reigns as first to take away the Dominion then in the end the very existence as I may so call it of sin For it proceeds by degrees and sin doth first cease to Reign then to Be in us This government therefore is an act of God Redeemer in Christ giving all things doing all things necessary sufficient effectuall for our Conversion confirmation perseverance and consummation as he hath promised and by promise bound himself to us So that in this Petition we pray for and humbly seek of God his Word his Sacraments the Ministery of the Gospel Christian Sabbaths Discipline pious Magistrates the gifts and graces of the spirit the continuance and good successe of these the ordering of all things for the good of the Church the conversion of the Jews the reducement of all Nations to subjection unto Christ justification the continuance and perfection of sanctication the first fruits of the spirit of joy and comfort the destruction of the Kingdom of Sathan and Antichrist and all enemies of his truth and our salvation for the comming of Christ the Resurrection of the last judgment the execution of it in the eternall glorification of his Saints and perdition of their enemies That God by Christ hath thus far reigned in the World in this Nation in our hearts is a matter of thanksgiving and a benefit never to be forgotten The next Petition for spirituall blessings § IX is Thy will be done on Earth as it 's done in Heaven Wherein we have 1. Our Heavenly Father's Will 2. The doing of it 3. The manner and degrees of doing it By Will is not meant the essence of God nor his Decrees but the Lawes of his spirituall kingdom wherein he requires Subjection and Obedience Repentance Faith good works and these to be performed to him as Lord Redeemer by Christ Jesus To do this will is to be really and sincerely subject and obedient in avoyding all sins prohibited and doing all good Commanded by the Laws of his Kingdome having a speciall eye to the rewards promised and the punishments threatned The manner how this duty is to be performed is set down by prescribing a Pattern in Heaven It 's true that the Starrs of Heaven do continually and constantly in their motion observe their order fixed unto them in Creation Yet this is far short though something it be and they continually accuse us of disobedience and exorbitancy seeing they have followed strictly and precisely the rule of Creation from the first time of their Being but we are exorbitant and continually wander The will of God is done in an higher degree and more excellently by the Angels those blessed and immortall spirits who never sinned and are so confirmed that they shall never sin For they do his commandements Hearkening to the voyce of his Word Psal. 103. 20. They subject themselves wholly unto him Whose throne is in Heaven and his Kingdome ruleth over all vers 19. They acknowledge Jesus Christ at Gods right hand to be their Lord. They performe an universall obedience to all his Laws and that 1. Most freely 2. Perpetually 3. In a degree of Perfection It must be our design desire endeavour to follow their example till we reach and attain their perfection And because we have no power to do this will in this manner we therefore in these words pray for Gods sanctifying assisting and confirming power accompanying his Word and that we may wholly subject our selves unto his power and be effectually and continaully inclined and enabled to do his Will in all things at all times with all our hearts The reason why this petition followes the former and is immediately subjoyned is manifest For except we subject our selves unto the power of this King and thus observe the Lawes of this Heavenly Kingdome we cannot be capable of have any right unto or enjoy the honour joy peace and happinesse of the same It hath very near connexion with the former petition and therefore we may desire of God some mercies which in both are the same but in different respects In the former we desire them so as they are such as without which he cannot Reign and give us everlasting peace We desire here the same things as necessary and without which we cannot performe our duty in observing his Laws which is the condition of the rewards promised By them we acknowledge our fall depravation inability the want of Gods divine Spirit to re-instamp his Image upon us and we earnestly desire his sanctifying grace to be given and continued unto
it was in the beginning of civill States and it shall be so unto the end of the World God will have it to be so To all these Punishments must be added the losse of safety peace plenty and all other Blessings and Comforts which God doth usually give to men by good Government In the Execution of these Judgments the great Lord respects no Persons He punisheth many as well as few the mighty Monarchs of the World as well as the meanest Subjects The ruine of so many royall Families of so many large and potent Empires and Kingdomes might teach the Princes of the World to do Justice and to fear this everlasting Judge As there be civill § X so there are spirituall and ecclesiasticall Societies which as such have their proper Sins whereby they make themselves liable to those Punishments which God from Heaven inflicts upon them This Church which we call a spirituall Society began in a Family the first Family in the World of Adam and Eve being penitent and believing in that Seed of the Woman which should break the Serpent's head which was Christ. It encreased and was enlarged in that Family by their Children especially Abel first and then Seth and as mankind was multipled so it multiplied And at length there was a separation of the Sons of men from the Sons of God which Sons of God were in processe of time so degenerate mixed and polluted and the former Worthies and Sons of God translated into a better World that it was reduced again to that one Family of Noah Yet the greatest part of the Posterity of that Family who peopled the Earth did so apostate that a great part of Mankind was ejected and excommunicated out of this blessed Society And out of this great Body God calls Abraham and renews the Promise of Christ unto him more particularly and explicitly then formerly he had done He continues his Church in a more speciall manner in his Family and entailes the great Promise upon his posterity Isaac and Jacob and then in his Children who being multiplied into a Nation he brings out of Egypt and settles them in the Land of Canaan and encloseth them from all Mankind makes them his peculiar People continues the great Promise unto them trusts them with his Oracles and gives them Lawes and Statutes sends them Prophets and takes speciall charge of them till the Son of God was exhibited and incarnate Yet these with the Proselytes had their sins and according to their impenitency besides their temporall their spirituall Punishments But when Christ was once come into the World had finished the work of Humiliation was exalted to the right hand of Glory had powred down the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles God calls the Jewes first then the Gentiles and by them commissioned to go into all Nations he begins to gather a Church Christian For they preach the Jewes and Gentiles bear believe professe their faith and so are admitted as Subjects of God's spirituall Kingdom of Grace As Disciples and Professours were multiplied in any City or Country the Apostles or their Assistants and Commissioners appoint Elders and Ministers of the Word over them to take care of their Souls for to conform the converted and build them up and perfect them that were converted and convert others for to enlarge Christ's territories The Officers of Christ were extraordinary and ordinary and some did plant and some did water but God gave the increase And the Elders and ordinary Officers were trusted with the Word and Sacraments for to dispense the one and administer the other according unto their Commission After that not onely People but Ministers were encreased and severall Congregations setled under severall Ministers they begin to associate and combine for Discipline according to their Vicinities and other conveniences This was the beginning of outward Ecclesiasticalâ— Poâ—â—ties Christian The end of this discipline was to preserve the severall societies in unity and Purity of Doctrine an worship to promote Piety to prevent Errours Heresies Schâ—mâ—s Scandall 〈◊〉 erâ—â—â—tion and Idolatry and so preserve them pure according to the first plantation of the Apostles and institution of Christ. The power of this outward discipline was 〈◊〉 Virtually in the whole body of the Church whether greater or lesse associated into one body but delegated for the exercise thereof in an orderly way unto such persons as should be judged most fit and able for that businesse This power did extend to the making of Canons constituting Officers exercising Spirituall jurisdiction in binding and loosing on Earth which should be made good in Heaven All the particular Churches of the World on Earth at one time make up one body § XI and community Spirituall subject unto Jesus Christ their Monarch I say as one Universall body its subject onely to Christ. For as for outward discipline we cannot find that Christ Instituted any Vicar-generall or erected any Court supreme in any one City or place of the World As God never made an Universall King so He never made a Catholick or Vniversall Bishop Men may fancy such a thing But it 's only a fancy not a reall truth nor ever can be proved to be so In the Church of Christ there are some living members Reall Saints who haâ—e a reall communion with their head and derive Heavenly blessings and comforts from him and these make up that which we call the Mysticall Church of which no Prophane or Hypocriticall Wretch can be a member But in the Churches severall which we call Visible and Instituted there are good and bad sincere Believers and bare Professours and Hypocrites And of these visible societies I now intend to speak when I declare the judgments of God inflicted upon the Churches When Ministers and People begin to neglect the duties of worship are remisse in discipline as the Church of Ephesus Corinth Laodicea and many others were fall from their first Love Purity Piety abate in devotion and the fire of their zeal is quenched Tâ—heir punishments spirituall besides their temporall are Persecutions from without Schism and Heresy from within By the one the body is torn asunder and by the other the members are poysoned And as they abate in their duty God abates in the powerfull and comfortable Workings of the Spirit And if they continue in their sins God in the end will wholly take away his spirit and remove the Golden Candlestick as He once threatned the Church of Ephesus and in it all other Churches in the like case And He will send his Word and Messengers unto another People and will let out his Vineyard unto other Husbandmen which shall render him the fruits in their season Thus He dealt with the Jew Many times God brings in upon their Cities an their Countries where they professe the Gospel but not Practise it Cruel and Barbarous enemies Thus He gave the Northern and Western Churches and Nations to the Goths and Vandals who like a mighty deluge overflowed them and like an
impetuous stream did carry all before them This was the judgment of the Eastern and Southern Christians invaded by the Saracens and possessed by them from beyond Babylon and Arabia unto Barbary and Spain where they met the Northern Barbarians In these latter days How many Churches Christian are swallowed up by the Turkish Empire These were not meerly temporall judgments but spirituall Because the enemies did not onely invade and possesse their Countryes but in many places deprive them of their Teachers and the Gospel the glorious light whereof is mightily darkened as in â—ormer times so in these latter dayes by that Smoak and mist of Hell the doctrine of the Alcoran and that in many places of the World This is a just judgment of God which Christ avert from us because they walked not in the light of the Gospel when it so clearly shined upon them And its one of the most feafull punishments of Christians to be delivered up to believe lyes and false doctrine in matters of Salvation Yet Turks and other Mahumetans do not professe themselves Christians as we in this Western Corner of the World do But amongst us there be such as professe their faith in Christ who yet are in the just judgment of God delivered up to superstition Idolatry and most dangerous doctrines which have formerly been and now are dispersed into severall Nations We read That because men received not the Love of the truth that they might be saved for this cause God shall send them strong delusions that they should believe a Lie 2 Thes. 2. 10 11. Where we may observe 1. The sin which is Not to receive the love of the truth that they might be saved 2. The Punishment God shall send them strong delusions that they should believe a lye For when God doth take away his Spirit from such as enjoy the word of God which they will not believe and practise it 's an easy thing for the Devil to delude the wisest and most learned in matters of Religion and then there is no Doctrine so false and absurd which man so deluded will not believe This hath been confirmed by experience of former times especially in that Temple or Church wherein the Son of Perdition shall exalt himself above all Civil and Ecclesiasticall powers The seat of this Wicked one must be some eminent City so the Scripture tells us and this City shall be called Babylon in a mystery and stand built upon seven hills Some say that Constantinople which was called New-Rome is so Yet that cannot be it Because it must be that City which did Reign over the Kings of the Earth when John received the Revelation from Heaven and that was not Constantinople which was obscure at that time The Character of this Whore was 1. That She made the Nations of the Earth drunk with her cup of fornication And 2. She Her self was drunk with the blood of the Saints and the Martyrs of Jesus Fornication is Superstition Image-worship and Idolatry The drinking of the blood of the Saints is the persecution and murder of all such Christians as shall refuse to acknowledge Her power and to receive Her abominable and Idolatrous worship Lest any therefore should be ignorant what City this is The spirit informs us 1. That it 's a City which professeth Christ. 2. It 's the seat of the Son of Perdition arrogating Supreme power not only in temporals but spirituals 3. It 's Idolatrous and Superstitious worshiping of Images 4. It sheds the blood of such Christians as will not acknowledge Her power and drink of Her cup of fornication 5. It 's a City that was built and once stood upon seven hills 6. It Reigned over the Kings of the Earth in the times of John the Divine 7. It 's a City that boasts of many lying signs and wonders and believes lies receives false Doctrine That this City and the man of sin therein should continue so long have so great power delude so many Nations inâ—atuate them seem to be holy profess her self the Mother of all Christian Churches the Temple of God infallible and that society out of which there is no salvation is a spirituall judgment from Heaven and far greater then the Iâ—vasion of the Saracens and Barbarous Nations yea then the damned Doctrine of the Alcoran For that in many things is grosse ridiculous and absurd In this Mysticall Babylon the grossest errours put on the Vizard of saving and infallible truth the most abominable superstition of zealous devotion the greatest pride of deepest humility and he that beareth the title of Servant of Servants will be the Lord of Lords Besides all the transcended perogatives of this Church as of Supremacy Infallibility Authority above Scripture are maintainâ—d by the choisest wits of greatest Schollars And their Sophisms are so effectuall that not only the ignorant sort of people and silly women but persons of greatest power the Princes and Potentates of the Earth men of most excellent parts profoundest Learning and Policy are enchanted and bewitched by this great City This is one of the greatest trialls of Christians and the Church of God that ever came upon the World And if we Seriously consider we may easily understand that it 's God alone who preserves us in the truth And all such as love the truth and endeavour to practise it according to the plainnesse and simplicity of the Gospel may expect this blessing from Heaven even in the midst of these most dangerous times This is a fair warning to us all who enjoy the Scriptures and therein the word of God to take heed least we live unprofitably through our own neglect under the means of salvation For if we do not seriously attend unto the saving doctrine of the truth and give all diligence to practise it so far as we know it it will be just with God to suffer Sathan to delude us be a lying spirit in the mouths of our Prophets and to give us over to believe lyes errours heresies as we see it come to passe with many amongst us at this day By the former sins and neglect of our duty we do not only lose all the benefits and comforts which God hath promised and we might enjoy in a well constituted Church reformed in Doctrine Worship Discipline according to the word of God but also make our selves liable to the former punishments and all others which God hath threatned against us in his Book It 's the great and unspeakable mercy of God § XII which signifies his tender care oâ— our poor souls that he will make known unto us what glorious rewards we upon obedience to his Laws may expect from him and what fearfull punishments will follow upon our disobedience and impenitency The Law-givers and Rulers of the World think it sufficient to publish their Laws once enacted and to leave every man to take notice of them or neglect to do so at their perill But our gracious and most mercifull Lord sends his
revive his Faith if Actual and Particular Faith and Repentance were necessary to actual Remission Though it 's certain that many great sins are remitted upon a General Repentance if sincere 5 That 51. Psalm wherein we have so full an expression of serious Repentance and a very lively faith was not made by a new faith upon a new Regeneration but by his former faith which for the time was Dormant and as it were dead 6 The divine Apostle saith unto his little Children The annoyntment which ye have received abideth in you 1 Iohn 2. 27. And the seed of God is not onely in him who is born of God but remaineth in him Chap. 3. 9. And hereby we know that God not onely is but abideth in us by his Spirit which he hath given us ver◠24. Upon what other ground could Paul be perswaded that nothing could separate true believers from the love of God Rom. 8. 38. And except there were some promise in the Covenant to this purpose why should he be so confident of this very thing that God who had begun a good work in the Philippians would perform it unto the day of Jesus Christ Phil. 1. 6. And lest he should terrifie the Hebrews by his doctrine of the peremptory rejection and perdition of Apostates as though he understood it of them personally He explaines himself saying But beloved we are perswaded better things of you and things that accompany Salvation though we thus speak For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love which ye have shewed to his name in that ye have ministred to the Saints and do minister Heb. 6. 9 10. Where reall love to Christ and his Saints is joyned with salvation as having an inseparable connexion with it by vertue of the divine ordination Yet he doth not cease in these places and others to presse duties and perseverance because the performance of their duty and endeavour of perseverance was a meanes of Perseverance And surely that God who never deserts man before man deserts him will never totally desert man before man totally deserts him Certainly there is a state of confirmation in this life wherein by vertue of the earnest of the Spirit the Sons of God may be certain of their present right unto and thier future Possession of eternall glory Though few attain to this till the end of thier lives But of this more fully upon another occasion in mine exposition of the Epistle to the Hebrews For the present we may observe these particulars 1. That we may make our calling and election sure in this life For we are commanded even in this life to give all diligence to make our calling and election sure For if we do these things we shall never fall 2 Pet. 1. 10. 2. That the highest degree of sanctification in any intellectuall subject Men or Angels may be lost 3. That the perpetual continuance thereof in a created subject depends upon an extrinsecal cause which is Gods perpetual conservation 4. The certainty of our perseverance in this life both for the thing it self and the certain knowledge of it depends upon a promise in the Covenant of grace in Christ. 5. The controversy in this point between the Contra-remonstrants and Remonstrants if both parties had dealt plainly had been near an end and so far more easily determinable For if God hath made a promise that he will put his fear into the hearts of his Children in this life so that they shall not depart from him though they may sin and fail in many Particulars grievously then if the question be rightly stated the quarrel is ended 6. The first proof of the Remonstrants out of Scripture which by some is held unanswerable out of Ezek. 18. it nothing at all to purpose Because it speaks of the judgment of God and his judicial proceedings with Israel according to the Law and Covenant made at Horeb which the Apostle saith expresly is a distinct Covenant from the Covenant of grace Heb. 8. 9. But for the present to lay aside the controversy let us every one endeavour and give all diligence to persevere and every day pray for perseverance for that will be better then to dispute because by this meanes we may attain to that which many do deny But this you must know that no promise can give us comfort upon and in the time of disobedience and neglect of duty Thus far § XIII the continuance of Regeneration The continuance of Reconciliation and Adoption follows which makes our condition to be a condition of peace and joy in this Vale of Death In this I shall be brief because I have spoken more at large of the nature of both formerly It 's God's Will that the continuance of these should depend upon the continuance of Sanctification For no man can be happy if he be not first holy Therefore he that hath the hope of glory and joy upon that hope doth purifie himself 1 Joh. 3. 3. The more God continues to sanctifie and assist us the more we improve our Heavenly Graces the more diligently we practise pray and watch the greater evidence we shall have of the continuance of our Reconciliation Adoption and the greater will be our assurance of God's special love unto us And the greater this Assurance of His love shall be the greater our peace and joy will be The more we love God and the more we keep His Commandements the more He will love us He loved us much before we loved Him and even then He gave His Son to be the Propitiation for our sins But when we receive His Son He loves us more and several ways discovers that His love to us loving Him is everlasting and far greater then the heart of man can imagine And nothing can more quiet and content the heart of miserable man then assurance that God loves him with a special love which He hath manifested already and will manifest it more on Earth and most of all in Heaven For when we are fully glorified we shall fully know how much He loved us And for the present what can disquiet our hearts within when the Love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us and continued within us Surely no tribulation without no muttering of the Conscience within can disturb our peace abate our joy diminish our comfort We joy in Tribulation and in the midst of greatest Afflictions we can quietly repose our minds in God and sweetly rest in His Fatherly Affection Yet this requires an heart above the Earth and such a measure of Faith as to overcome fears and desires of the World For if we love our God above the World desire Heaven as infinitely more excellent then the Earth scorn the menaces of the Devil and wicked men disdain to look upon the glory and prosperity of the World as not worth the seeking so that no Worldly Cross nor Crown can work upon us to affect
from all weariness faintings diseases annoyances and pains so that the loss of Sense is turned to a benefit though in it self it be a punishment As for the Soul the reward thereof is excellent though not perfect It hath obtained a final Victory over sin Sathan the World and is out of all danger of Hell It 's freed from all trouble and inconvenience that did arise from the Body and is delivered up with great peace and joy into the hands of a gracious Redeemer who sends his Angels to receive it guard it and set it in the Heavenly Paradise where Satan can never come near it or tempt it any more either to sin or despair And now it 's free from all sin all fear and sorrow and temptations and washed in Christ's bloud shall be presented pure and blameless before God's Throne The place whatsoever it is is full of comfort the Society excellent it 's secure of the great reward of Eternal Glory And that which is the accomplishment of all comforts it is with Jesus Christ it's blessed Saviour who takes the charge and protection of it Paul desired to depart and be with his Saviour which was far better Phil. 1. 23. Which words inform us 1 That the Soul lives after it is separated from the Body 2 That Death is not a destruction but departure 3 It 's departure from a worse place and condition to the better 4 Though it's absent from the Body yet it 's present with the Lord. 5 Though it had many sweet and excellent joys and comforts in Christ in this life yet now it hath more and greater CHAP. XXIIII Of the Universall and finall Judgment and the Eternall Rewards and punishments of the World to come AFter all the judgments past § I and executed from the beginning of the world to the last period and moment of the same there will be another and it shall be the last for none shall follow It 's final As it shall be the last so it will be the greatest Court that ever God did keep both in respect of the persons to be judged which shall be all men and Angels and in respect of the retributions which shall be Punishments and Rewards in the highest degree and everlasting Many Signes and Prodigies both in Heaven and Earth shall go before and prognosticate the approach thereof The world shall be consum'd by fire the dead shall be raised the living shall be changed and both shall be immortall The Judg is God who hath given commission to Iesus Christ to judge both Angels and men both quick and dead He hath appointed a day wherein he will judge the World in Righteousnesse by that man whom he hath ordained whereof he hath given assurance unto all men in that he hath raised him from the dead Act. 17. 31. Yet of the day and hour when he shall come no man knoweth no not the Angels of Heaven He shall come in great glory all the holy Angels shall attend him a Cloud shall be his Chariot his Tribunal shall be high and dreadfull The Arch-Angel shall sound the Trumpet and make all the World to heare All shall be summond all shall appear All causes shall be evident The sentence shall be irrevocable the Punishments and Rewards great the execution certain and the estate of the partyes judged shall be unchangeable That such a day will come that it will be a great day that it will be dreadfull unto many and a day of unspeakable joy to true believers it 's certain For God hath said so and all his Saints believe him and long for that day and wait for their Saviours comming from Heaven That it will be a day of judgment and that Christ shall be the Universall judge we doubt not Yet the manner of his comming and the way of his proceeding we do not perfectly and distinctly for the particulars know Something of it God by his Son Jesus Christ hath signified unto us and informed us of as that an Eternall Kingdome upon a finall and totall absolution will be adjudged to some but others shall receive the doom of an eternall curse and excommunication to be cast out of Gods presence and condemned to suffer eternall Punishments with the Devill and his Angels All secrets shall then be brought to light and the judgment shall be exactly just according to mens works and the execution shall be answerable For the condemned shall go into everlasting Punishment but the righteous into life eternall Math. 25. 46. So that of this judgment and the execution thereof we have two parts 1. The Reward of the Righteous 2. The Punishment of the unrighteous according to their obedience or disobedience unto the Laws of God Redeemer The reward of the righteous shall be of the whole man § II both soul and body both united together and joyntly partakers in the reward as they were in obedience The body being raised shall be immortall free from all evils incident to a body free from all imperfections and defects and made glorious and perfect with all perfections a body can be capable of For from Heaven we look for the Saviour the Lord Jesus Christ who shall change our vile body that it may be fashion'd like unto his glorious body according to the Working whereby he is able to subdue all things to himself Phil. 3. 21. The greatest perfection shall be this that it shall be united to a Soul fully sanctified from which it shall never any more be separated and both together shall be the Eternal Temple of the Holy Ghost The Soul it self shall be finally and totally justified fully sanctified and endued with all the graces of the Spirit requisite to happiness and then their Reconciliation and Adoption shall be consummate the whole man shall be firmly established in Righteousness and Holiness never to sin never to be in danger to sin again They shall be with their Saviour and behold his glory enjoy the clear Vision of God be ravished with his Beauty filled with Eternal Joy and Delights and be secure of their perpetual full Bliss All tears shall be wiped away from off all faces and they shall never sorrow any more No evil that can be feared shall come near them and all good that can be desired shall abound there As the Light of God's Eternal Favour shall ever shine upon them in full strength so the streams of Eternal goodness shall ever issue from the Throne of God and the Lamb so that they shall be fully satiated with all pleasures for evermore The place will be glorious the company excellent and no good thing that may add unto their happiness shall be wanting Then shall they know how much God loved them and how much Christ hath done for them They believe now that the Reward is great but then by the enjoyment they shall know it to be far greater then ever entred into the heart of Man As Camaracensts saith truly § III That we may know God to be
THEO-POLITICA OR A Body of Divinity CONTAINING The Rules of the special Government OF GOD According to which He orders the immortal and intellectual Creatures Angels and Men to their final and Eternal Estate Being a Method of those saving Truths which are contained in the Canon of the Holy Scripture and abridged in those words of our Saviour Jesus Christ Go and teach all Nations Baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost Which were the Ground and Foundation of those Apostolical Creeds and Forms of Confessions related by the Ancients and in particular by Irenaeus and Tertullian BY GEORGE LAWSON Rector of More in the County of Salop. LONDON Printed by J. Streater for Francis Tyton and are to be sold at his Shop at the Sign of the Three Daggers in Fleet-street MDCLIX THE EPISTLE TO THE READER Christian Reader I Will not trouble thee with any tedious Preface or Epistle Dedicatory but onely in a few words acquaint thee 1. With the subject of this Treatise 2. The manner how it s handled 3. The use that be made of it I. The Subject is noble and excellent it is that glorious Kingdom and special Governmentt of the Supream Universal and Eternal King which is the principal if not the adoquate subject of the Holy Scriptures which were revealed from Heaven and without which neither Men nor Angels could have known much of it For as it is the Kingdom of God so the Word of God must inform us of it Angels Prophets Apostles and Christ himself spake of it and it was the principal matter of the Doctrine This Government was contrived before the World was and after time began it was one of his principal Works wherein once made known by Revelation we may read more of God of his deepest Counsels and of his perfections then in the vast Volume of Heaven and Earth The Doctrine thereof doth so much concern sinful Man that upon the knowledge thereof depends his Eternal Salvation This Kingdom should be the chiefest subject not onely of our most serious and retired Thoughts but of our Discourse that it might be made known to the following Generations till time shall be no more and it will be the matter of that Heavenly Musick and Melody which Saints and Angels shall make in the Temple of Eternal Glory For all thy Works shall praise thee O Lord and thy Saints shall bles thee They shall speak of the Glory of thy Kingdom and talk of thy power To make known unto the sons of men His mighty Acts and the glorious Majesty of thy Kingdom Thy Kingdom is an everlasting Kingdom and thy Dominion endureth throughout all Generations Psal. 145. 10 11 12 13. This Kingdom did commence upon the Creation of Angels and of Men whom both He governed according to different Rules especially after the Fall and Promise of a Redeemer for then He new-modelled the Government of Mankind and of that new Model there were three degrees The first continued from the times of Adam till the exaltation of Christ at His Fathers right hand The second which is more excellent began to be administred by Christ glorified and shall not determine till all Enemies even Death the last shall be destroyed The third which is most glorious shall commence upon the final Judgment and shall be of endless date This is the subject II. For the manner of handling of it the Language is plain and rather rude then polite and more Grammatical then Rhetorical for my desire was to be understood I had no design to please the curious but by plain Doctrine to inform the Vnderstanding by clear Method to help the Memory and by the divine and excellent matter rather than by excellency of words to work upon the affection and wind into the heart The very Subject being a Kingdom did dictate the Method and the Scripture furnished me with suitable Expressions I do not proceed by way of Dialogue or of Catechisms or of Probleme or of Systems or of Sermons I thought good and took the liberty to deliver positive Doctrine in a continued Discourse yet in a certain method and so to draw on the Reader from one head to another and from one part of this Government to another till he come to the beginning of that perfect and most glorious degree wherein God shall be all in all In some particulars I deliver my opinion yet with submission to the judgment of the more Learned and Judicious I desire no man to believe any thing delivered in this Treatise which shall not be found agreeable to the Holy Scriptures To seduce and mislead the meanest Christian would trouble me much If the more understanding discover my imperfections I desire him to pardon them if any passages be amiss to correct the mistakes and not too rigidly censure the Author We all have much of Man in us we are yet in the flesh and many are our imperfections and mine more then those of others And if every Reader shall remember himself to be a man as yet in the flesh I shall do well enough Let none impute to me the Errata of the Press though some few may be gross for I was for the time of Printing at a great distance Some things in this work I onely touch intending a more distinct discussion in another Book which is an Exposition of the Epistle to the Hebrews This for the manner of handling III. The use of it may be the same with that of other Systems and larger Catechisms What it may adde I leave to others for to judge It may serve to acquaint us more particularly with the nature of that Kingdom whereof many speak and which few do understand It may help to improve our Knowledge of the Principles to understand the Scriptures more clearly to direct younger Students who intend the Ministery to bring some Controversies to an Issue It may give occasion to men of more excellent gifts out of Scriptures to improve the Body of saving Doctrine And for the present it may testifie that notwithstanding all our Divisions and Alterations the substance of the Ancient and Apostolical Doctrine remains amongst us I desired to do some good unto this poor Church and if any good be done it is not I but the Grace of God in me who desired to serve in this as in other things the great and glorious Monarch of this Kingdom To whom be glory everlasting Amen Thine to serve in the Lord GEO LAWSON THE ARGUMENT AND CONTENTS OF The several Chapters LIB I. CHAP. I. THe Subject and Rule of the whole Treatise both in the First and Second Book CHAP. II. The Mind of God concerning His special Kingdom 1. Known unto Himself 2. Revealed 1. To Man immediately by inspiration 2. Communicated by Man to Man by Word and Writing and both Infallibly As written in Hebrew Chaldee Greek it makes up the Canon of the Scripture which is the most excellent Monument in the World and
differs in many things from all other Books especially in respect of the Authority thereof which is primarily Divine in the Original Copies secundarily in the Transcripts and Translations These sacred Writings are learned and known several ways and by several means of men that are not infallibly directed further then they follow the Scriptures rightly understood And by these especially Ministers by whom God speaks to men another way they are taught several ways in a certain order How these must be heard understood applyed so as the Hearer may attain to a Divine Faith and a Saving Knowledge Where something of the Tradition of the Church CHAP. III. The Doctrine of this Kingdom is contracted by Christ and His Apostles as such is the ground of all the Apostolical Creeds and Confessions all agreeing in method and matter The manner of the handling of the subject in this Treatise is different from that of ordinary Systems Catechisms and common places where something is said of Faith in general and of Divine Faith A Confession taken out of Tertullian CHAP. IV. Of the Divine Essence and Attributes How God's Essence is intelligible and how represented to us by certain Attributes What Attributes are and certain Rules concerning them The imperfect definition of God including all the Attributes CHAP. V. The Attributes in particular The distribution of them into Greatness Goodness In the Greatness unity infiniteness Infiniteness in Immensity from which ariseth His Incomprehensibility Vbiquity and in Eternity CHAP. VI. God's goodness being one and infinite is known by his excellent and most eminent Acts and Vertues of his Vnderstanding Will Power as His most excellent Knowledge and Wisdom the integrity of his Will and the perfection of his power CHAP. VII The Father Son and Holy Ghost their unity order distinction They are not Three Persons in that sense as Men or Angels are called persons The vanity of the Socinian Argument against the Trinity grounded upon the word person strictly taken How the Soul may be said to be an Image and imperfect resemblance of the Father Son and Holy Ghost CHAP. VIII God considered in his Regal Capacity in respect of his power acquired by Creation and continued by preservation How God is a cause of all things by his Counsel contriving Will decreeing Power actually producing The knowledge of GOD in respect of things out of Himself His Decrees free wise unchangeable The cooperation of the Persons their distinct manner of working The Creation in general the special Creation of Man The Conclusions deducible from this Principle God created Heaven and Earth and all things therein By this Work God hath a propriety in all things and may dispose of them and order them to the ends whereunto He hath made them ordinable Hence his supream universal absolute power How all things created are preserved and ordered Ordination in general the first act of God's Power acquired and continued CHAP. IX The Exercise of God's Power in general CHAP. X. The special Ordination and Government of the Intellectual and Immortall Creatures Angels Men. The government of Angels constituted administred according to certain Laws Judgment whereby some being obedient were confirmed rewarded Others disobeying rebelling and forsaking their station were punished and cast out of God's presence reserved for greater punishments in the end of the World CHAP. XI The special Government of Man which is two-fold 1. Of Justice without Christ. 2. Of Mercy in Christ. The constitution of the first Model The administrations Laws Moral Positive considered as a rule of Man's obedience God's Judgment CHAP. XII The Judgment of God-Creatour passed upon Man according to the Laws of Creation and strict Justice The Object of this Judgment 1. Man obedient rewarded with the continuance of a comfortable condition in Paradise 2. Sinning Sin in general is a disobedience to God's Laws The degrees and the consequents thereof The first sin of our first Parents in particular The causes of it The effects thereof before Judgment CHAP. XIII God's judicial proceeding against Adam Eve the Serpent Satan Their Convention Conviction Sentence Execution More particularly God's Sentence passed upon the old Serpent the Devil In which God new models his Kingdom of mercy in Christ promised and gives Man hope of Pardon and everlasting comfort CHAP. XIV The Penalties more particular both Bodily and Spiritual publike private Temporal Eternal all signified by Death to which Sin made man liable yet all by Christ removable CHAP. XV. Original sin what it is Whether it be properly so Whether Concupiscence in persons baptized be such in proper sense The derivation of Original sin Whether it be derived by Propagation or the just Judgment of God or both CHAP. XVI The principal Attributes of God manifested in this Judgment as Holinesse Justice especially Mercy in the manifestation whereof he exercised his transcendent power above the former Constitution and Laws LIB II. CHAP. I. THe Coherence of this Book with the former The difference of the two Models both the former and latter The acquisition of a New Power by the Word made Flesh and annointed taking upon him the form of a servant and being obedient to the Death of the Cross. A Description of the Redeemer His Person Nature Offices The union and distinction of the two Natures His particular Offices CHAP. II. The Humiliation of the Son of God 1. In taking upon Him the Form of a servant 2. In suffering Death A brief Historical Narration of His Sufferings 1. Before Judgment 2. His Judgment The Preparations of His Tryal His Tryal 1. Before the Ecclesiastical 2. The Civil Judge His Condemnation Execution with the Prodigies which hapned about that time CHAP. III. A more large Discourse concerning the Suffering and Death of Christ. It was an Act of Obedience to His Heavenly Father commanding Him to suffer for the sins of Man whereby He was offended To this Death He became obnoxious not onely by His Fathers Command but His own voluntary submission to be an Hostage and Surety for Man as guilty It was a Sacrifice offered freely to God as Law-giver offended and as supream Judge The effects of this sacrifice accepted are immediate mediate Immediate Satisfaction of Divine Justice and Merit What He merited for Himself what for Man How the benefit of this Sacrifiâ—â— became communicate from Christ as a Representator General and the Will of God the great Soveraign Of the extent of this benefit Whether Propitiation is to be ascribed to His active or passive Obedience severally or to both joyntly Whether this Death prevents all punishments or onely the Eternal And if not what punishments it removes The Attributes manifested in this great Work of Humiliation of the Word made Flesh by which a new Power was acquired CHAP. IV. The exercise of the new Power of God-Redeemer in the Constitution of His New Monarchy The Soveraign and Monarch The Subjects the Officers the Administrator-General the Enemies The manner of reducing Man to subjection the nature
of this subjection especially after Christ's Exaltation Men are reduced by Calling Of the nature of Calling whereby Predestination begins to be put in execution What Predestination is considered as a Model or Idea in God Of this special Government and Ordination of Man to His Eternal Estate CHAP. V. The Exercise of this New Power acquired in the Administration considered first in general How this Kingdom was administred from the times of Adam till the Call of Abraham and God's Covenant with him How from his time till Moses How from Moses till John the Baptist. The Covenant made at Mount Sinai The Bondage of the Church under that Covenant according to the Promise in her minority Some alteration begun by John the Baptist. The exaltation of Christ to be Administrator-General The great alteration that followed thereupon in Administration both in Heaven and Earth CHAP. VI. The Administration of the Kingdom of God-Redeemer in particular by Laws Moral Positive as a Rule of Obedience in Precepts and Prohibitions Conscience what it is The Moral Laws of perpetual Obligation The different manner of Obligation to Adam Innocent from that which followed after the first Promise of Christ. The more perfect knowledge of it always continued in the Church which hath its use to the Gentile to the Jew to the Church-Christian How to be understood Evangelically The inequality of the Morality of several Commandments CHAP. VII The First Commandment The Preface of Moses and the Preface of God The meaning of the words How to be understood and how observed Evangelically The sins forbidden reduced to Atheism and Idolatry The Duties commanded and how to be performed to God-Redeemer alone as Supream and that in the highest degree CHAP. VIII The Second Commandment The Analysis of the whole shewing the sinne prohibited the Reasons why it must be avoided the particular and distinct Explication of the whole Commandement and every part what is expresly and in proper sense forbidden what by consequence and analogy The Duties commanded both under the Law and the Gospel both by consequence and analogy CHAP. IX The third Commandement The Order and Connexion of this with the former as of the former with the first The Analysis the proper and immediate sense the sins forbidden and the Duties commanded by consequence and analogy CHAP. X. The Fourth Commandement The order and relation of this Commandement to the former The reason why God instituted a Sabbath and the end of it the Analysis of the words the Explication of every part the Duties commanded the sins forbidden the Reasons to perswade to Sanctification the Jewish Sabbath ceased the Lord Day substituted and both upon sufficient grounds plain in Scripture CHAP. XI The Fifth Commandement The order the difference the inequality of the former and this latter part of the Law This with the four following derive their Morality from the last as that receives Morality from the first of the first Table the Analysis the Explication the Duties commanded the sins forbidden expresly by consequence and analogy as they concern persons in Families States Churches according to their several Relations CHAP. XII The Sixth Commandement The Subject man's life the absolute propriety whereof is in God the use onely in Man and it cannot be taken away without Warrant and Commission from God What Murther is what the degrees thereof what sins are here forbidden what Duties commanded Reasons against Murther CHAP. XIII The Seventh Commandement Adultery presupposeth Marriage what Adultery it is how many ways committed the heynousness of the sin and the Reasons against it what sins here implicitly according to certain Rules are reducible to this Commandement and forbidden The degrees of uncleanness the Causes the Duty in general commanded Chastity inward outward in Marrriage Single life the disswasives from Uncleanness the swasives to Chastity with the means to preserve it CHAP. XIV The Eighth Commandment Which presupposeth Propriety absolute in God derivative and limited in Man The several ways of acquiring it the degrees of it What Theft is The distinction of Thieves and Theft according as it is more or less palpable and as goods are publike or private or sacred committed by such as are trusted by others or have contracted with others The several kinds of Thefts in respect of Contracts The degrees of Theft The Causes What is commanded The meanes whereby Justice in this kind is preserved The reasons perswading to the observation of it CHAP. XV. The Ninth Commandement This Commandement presupposing Laws and the power of Jurisdiction aymes at just Judgment The former determines the right of Persons in the fifth of things as Wife-life Goods in the sixth seventh eighth and this to be observed before Judgment This prescribes our Neighbours right in Judgment The words explained The end why Witnesses are onely mentioned The Duties and Offences judicial of Jnformers Plaintiffs Defendants Sollicitors Atturneys Witnesses Notaries Counsellours Iurors delatory and judicial Judges Executioners The Disswasives from Disobedience Swasives to Obedience of this Commandement CHAP. XVI The Tenth Commandement This Commandement derives morality unto and is the rule root and measure of the five former Commandements and is explained Certain Rules and Observations upon the words explained The sins forbidden the Duties commanded the principal and intended duty which is To love our Neighbour as our selves What love in general is What the love of our Neighbour What the measure and what the end of it is Certain Rules added to give light to understand and use the Moral Law of Moses's Ten Commandements CHAP. XVII Of Positive and Ceremonial Laws of God-Redeemer as a Rule of Obedience The Name and Nature of Ceremonial and Positive Laws The Ceremonials and Positives especially Sacrifices and Sacraments instituted before the Exhibition of Christ and the Revelation of the Gospel The nature of Sacraments in general and their Accidents The Sacraments of the New Testament The Institution of Baptism by Christ in the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost The definition of it the Institution of the Eucharist with the definition of it the Explication of the Elements Actions Words mentioned in the Institution who may administer these Sacraments To whom this may be administred Whether Christian Infants as one person with their Parents who are members of the Church and joyned with them in obligations and priviledges may not be baptized Whether the Faith as well as Prayers of one may not profit another Whether these Sacraments ought to be administred upon a divine infallible or humane fallible Judgment CHAP. XVIII Of Prayer Of the nature of Prayer The Lord's Prayer The Preface directing 1 Who must pray 2 For whom 3 To whom 4 In what manner And that since Christ's Glorification all Prayers even the Lord's Prayer is to be offered in the name of Christ and so to God-Redeemer The body of the Prayer contracting the matter of all Prayer to a few Petitions disposed in a most excellent order That which is first matter of
the form of an Art or Science as some use to speak They determine the Subject of it to be Man Quatenus Beatificabilis as capable of Spiritual and Eternal Happiness The Object of it must be Deus quatenus Beatificans God as the Fountain and Cause of Eternal Bliss And the end is to direct the Spiritual Acts and Operations of the Immortal Soul so that by them well regulated and fixed upon their due Object man may tend unto and in the end attain the full fruition of that Eternal Being in whom he shall be for ever blessed According to this determination some reduce the Doctrine of the Scriptures to Truths Promises Duties yet this is imperfect Others make three Heads of this Doctrine 1. The first is the Being and Perfection of God in himself 2. The second the Works of God 3. The third His Commands Yet this as the former proves defective and no ways exact Others tell us that the Scriptures represent God to us 1. As to be known And 2. As to be worshipped And so make the Parts of this Divine Doctrine to be 1. Knowledge 2. The Worship of God And this hath much affinity with that Distribution of Theologie into Faith and Obedience that is the Rule of Faith and Obedience These conceive all things in the Scripture especially conducing to Salvation to be credenda or agenda The things to be believed the Object of Faith the things to be done and performed the Object of Obedience For this they think that they have a sufficient ground in the Mandate and Commission of our Blessed Saviour Go and teach all Nations baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you Math. 28. 19 20. And that of the Apostle seems to confirm this Hold fast the form of sound words which thou hast heard of me in faith and love 2 Tim. 1. 13. I will not examine these distinctions now but onely say this much That Faith and Obedience or Observancy as some call it according to the intended sense of these two places are onely Duties to be performed by sinful man Redeemed and Called according to the Commands of their God-Redeemer and so do not reach the utmost bounds of this Heavenly Doctrine And even in this respect they refer to Government and belong onely to that One Head and part thereof The Commands and Laws of God Redeemer requiring obedience And Faith it self is but one part of this obedience as it is a Duty So that these things may be some ways true but no ways accurate and perfect And if they may be allowed mine intended method I hope may pass without any harsh censure For I know no reason to the contrary seeing it's evident that the Principal if not the adaequat subject of the Holy Scriptures is the Kingdom and Government of God The Doctrine whereof is methodically contracted in ancient Creeds and Confessions which take in the Agenda or things to be practised as well as the Credenda things to be believed Of these ancient Confessions it may be observed that 1. Though they differ in words and expressions § II as may appear by the several forms thereof some more brief some more large especially in Irenaeus and Tertullian yet they agree in the matter and the principal method 2. That divers of the Ancients inform us that the first Planted Churches received the Forms of Confession though different in some words and expressions yet the same for matter and the general and principal method from the Apostles the Apostles from Christ Christ from God Thus amongst others Tertullian 3. They were received from Christ 1. In that Mandate and Commission to the Apostles Go and teach all Nations baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost 2. By Inspiration of the Holy Ghost 4. In those Words we have 1. God the Father Almighty making Heaven and Earth by his Word 2. This Word and Son made flesh redeeming sinful man 3. The Holy Ghost by whom Christ was conceived and anointed the Prophets inspired the Church sanctified unto Eternal Glory For so the Ancients understood it being directed by the Apostles 5. This Form thus understood was 1. A Tradition unwritten and of Divine Authority as taught by Christ and his Apostles before it was written But 2. Being written and more fully explained in the Canon of the New Testament it can be no longer an unwritten Tradition And whosoever reading the New Testament doth not find and that in several places both the matter and method of the ancient Confessions understands little 6. No particular form of Confession considered as a Tradition of the Church since the time of the Apostles can be of equal authority with the Scriptures 7. That which we call the Apostles Creed which we find in the Works of Cyprian and Russinus with an Exposition is no more nor so much the Apostles Creed as some ancient Creeds in form differing from it 8. Those words of our Saviour and his Rule of Doctrine concerning the Father Son and Holy Ghost with the three glorious Works of Creation Redemption Sanctification is a divine and wonderful Abridgment of all the Doctrine of the Scripture especially of that which is necessary to Salvation The Confession and Creed of the Patriarchs § III in particular of Enoch was thus God is and he is a Rewarder of them who diligently seek him Heb. 11. 6. For they believed That there was one God most glorious and blessed in Himself who by his Wisdome and Power made preserved and governed the World and especially Mankind For to Reward is an act of judgment Judgment presupposeth Laws Laws a Governour a Governour Subjects made and to be governed So that in their ancient Creed we have God considered 1. In Himself 2. As a Governour of the World made by him and especially of Men and Angels and that by Laws and Judgments The obedience to these Laws is to seek God diligently according to the direction of those Laws and the reward of this Obeâ—ience is Eternal Life as the punishment of Disobedience is Eternal Death And after the Fall of Man no man in himself was capable of this Eternal Liâ—â— because all were guilty Therefore they sought this glorious Reward by Châ—iâ—â— to come whom all their Ilastical Sacrifices did typifie as they sought their God by Him The ordinary Analysis of that which we call § IV The Apostles Creed as delivered by more understanding Catechists and Authors of Theological Systems is this God being the Subject of that Confession is considered 1. In himself as God the Father Son and Holy Ghost 2. As in his Works 1. Of Creation 2. Of Providence Providence preserves and governs all things created especially Man Man made righteous holy happy 1. Falls 2. Is restored He is restored by Redemption and the Application of it The Redeemer for Person is the
as that He cannot be contained in any one or all but is far beyond all How this should be Reason cannot understand such Knowledge is too wonderfull for us Thus God is always every where present not onely by his Power but his Being too And leâ—t we should mistake this Immensity of God we must know that this agreed unto him before there was any place or World His Being was neither contracted nor extended upon or by the Creation for he was essentially great infinite and incomprehensible when He dwelt in His Eternal Being by Himself alone As God is infinite in his Being § VII so is he in his Duration For He is Eternal His Eternity is that Duration of his Existence whereby he is always necessarily the same This doth presuppose 1. His Existence 2. The perpetual continuance of his Existence 3. The necessity thereof For He so ever was that He cannot but ever be This is that they call necessitas essendi necesse esse the absolute necessity of Being 4. He doth so necessarily always exist that he necessarily is alwayes the same and hence his immutability whereby he is not subject unto but free from all change 1. God is always and the continuance of his Being is perpetual Because he had no Beginning no interruption nor ever shall have end of his Existence He hath no Beginning For before the Mountains were brought forth or ever thou hadst formed the Earth and the World even from everlasting to everlasting Thou art God saith the Author of Psal. 90. v. 2. By which words we understand 1. That God created the Mountains the Earth the World 2. That He was and did exist before they were created 3. That He was before them from everlasting without any beginning 4. That He continues without any interruption to everlasting without end This long and perpetual Existence is sometimes represented by His Co-Existence with all times or rather with all things in all times For He is acknowledged to be the Lord God Almighty which was and is and is to come Rev. 4. 8. He was in all times past is in all times present and shall be in all times to come Yet Time is not His Measure it 's too short and cannot measure his Everlasting Being which infinitely exceeds the Duration of the World He did exist when nothing did exist when nothing could co-exist with Him 2. He necessarily always exists For He had no cause of his Being without Himself neither could He be a Cause of His own Being For then He should have been before Himself which is impossible Neither is there or can be any cause either within or without Himself destructive of His Being He stands immoveably fixed in Himself so that it 's impossible to give or take away the least Particle of His Being 3. He is always necessarily the same For though the Heavens shall wax old as a garment and as a vesture be changed yet he shall enâ—ure and be the same and oâ— his years there shall be no end Psal. 102. 25 26 27. He is incorruptible Rom. 1. 23. Alone hath Immortality 1 Tim. 6. 16. In this Perfection of Immutability he far exceeds and excels all created Beings even the most excellent The Angels now are yet once they were not They had a Beginning of their Beeing after not being at all and are subject to return to nothing again That they are in some respect immortal and shall never ceale to be it 's extrinsecall unto them The continuance of their Being without end depends upon the Will of the great King their Creatour without whose support they cannot exist a moment upon whose Will their Being always doth depend And in that respect it 's not necessary but contingent Besides this essential change they are accidentally mutable and may of holy and happy become unholy and miserable as was evident by the Apostate Angels Therefore in all Creatures even in Angels we find a mutable Succession of Being after Not-being and a Subjection to Not-being after Being and a Being so and so after Being otherwise But there can be no Succession in this eternal and unchangeable Being which is every way perfect without any imperfections at all Yet if any thing exist it must necessarily co-exist with it And in this respect that of Boetius may be true that it is tota simul because free from all mutability and not subject any ways to any mutable Succession Therefore the Eternity of God infinitely differs from the Successive Duration of Angels yet the Duration of their Being is the most perfect of all Created Durations The Decrees of God which have things ad extra out of God for their Object are not properly Eternal For that is Eternal which hath nothing antecedent as a cause and is absolutely necessary But the Decrees of God presuppose the Divine Essence and Subsistence as antecedent and the Will of God as the cause and are contingent Because it was in the Free-will and good-pleasure of God whether he would Decree any thing out of himself or no and also whether he would Decree this or that thus or otherwise If not so all things would have been necessary and as necessary as God and the World had been a necessary effect of his Eternal Power How this unity and infiniteness in Immensity and Eternity necessarily concur to the greatness of God is evident to any unâ—erstanding man according to our manner of Understanding But how they necessarily conduce to make him an Universal Supream Eternal King and Monarch and an Universal Fountain of Eternall Bliss shall be declared hereafter Take any of these away from God he is neither absolutely Great nor Perfect And by all these we may easily perceive that our finite understanding can have no perfect notion of him that is Infinite but we rather know what he is not then what he is CHAP. VI. Of the Goodness of GOD. THE Goodness of God follows next after his Greatness § 1 and may be described to be that whereby He is one infinitely good For this Goodness we conceive it after the manner of a Quality though it be no Quality but his Essence according to that Axiom Nihil in Deo quod non Deus and cannot be conceived aright without his Greatness For conceive of any goodness as not essential one and infinite it cannot agree to God Therefore Divines do affirm the former Attributes of Unity infiniteness and Eternity of this goodness and all the Particulars thereof Some attribute this goodness to God as Vivens Living and his Greatness to him as Being Greatness without Goodness is no absolute Perfection therefore God is not onely great but good yet not onely good but great that his goodness may be great and that as he is the greatest so he may be the best Here I will not speak particularly of Metaphysical Natural Moral Goodness but onely say this That whatsoever kind of Goodness there is in any thing the same must be in God and
shall not ever be totally in Act. For he doth not effect all things which he can but those things which he will He is said to be pure Act in respect of his Essence and eternall acting upon himself And this power as an Attribute is pure act and in that respect is properly actual strength not power physically taken It extends to all things possible and is able to produce them But we must not think that they are possible or producible in themselves but in respect of this power And it 's to be conceived first as able to effect before it actually effect any thing as it actually effecteth all things that are effected It 's the root and originall of all created active Power and all Created causes are effects of it and act as acted and moved by him How it acts and concurrs with free Agents when they sin the Wit of Man cannot clearly understand and satisfie it self But this is certain that as the Decree so the Power is alwayes regulated by the Wisdom and Juctice of God It 's great and irresistible For though men and Angels may disobey his Lawes yet they cannot resist or hinder his power For he is in the Heavens and hath done whatsoever he pleased Psal. 115. 3. And whatsoever the Lord pleased that did He in Heaven and in Earth in the Seas and all deep places Psal. 135. 6. Therefore if God promise great things and such as to man may seem impossible we may safely rely upon Him What is said shall certainly be done Thus â—art the Works of God have been considered in respect of the Essence § VIII It remaines that we observe them with respect unto the Father Son and Holy Ghost In this later respect the Authours of Theologicall Systems inform us of two things Their Co-operation Distinct manner of Working The Co-operation is that whereby the Father Son and Holy Ghost concur as one Individual efficient cause of every Work and effect out of themselves In this respect that 's true that Opera Trinitatis ad Extra sunt indivisa What one is said to do all are to be understood to do The Father doth not create without the Word nor was the Word made flesh nor did redeem without the Father nor the Holy Ghost sanctifie without the Father and the Word neither do the Father and the Son any thing without the Holy Ghost For all the Works of God ad extra do necessarily presuppose the immanent necessary acts of the Deity upon it self Yet we must not conceive them as any wayes unequal either in themselves or in their working nor as three distinct agents uniting their forces joyntly to produce one and the same effect For one Individuall Essence must needs if it act be one Individuall Agent in the production of all Creatures and effecting all his works Therefore we find the Creation and other Works of God ascribed as well unto the Word and Spirit as to the Father and for the most part to them all as to one God The manner of their concurrence is that § IX whereby the Father worketh by the Word and Spirit the Son from the Father by the Spirit and the Spirit from them both This doth imply that the manner of their Work is distinct yet it 's very difficult to conceive the distinction or difference We read that the Father doth many things by the Word and Spirit but never that the Word or Spirit did any thing by the Father All things were made by the Word and without him was not any thing made that was made John 1. 3 And by him were all things created and by him all things consist Col. 1. 16 17. And God the Father is said to have made the Worlds by him Heb. 1 2. The Father will quicken our bodyes by his Spirit dwelling in us Rom. 8. 11. And he revealed the deep things of his Gospel by his Spirit 1 Cor. 2. 10. And God elected the Thessalonian Christians to Salvation through the Sanctification of the Spirit 2 Thes. 2. 13. We have some resemblance hereof in the soul of man which being one individuall essence is one individuall agent It conâ—riveth all its works by the counsell of the understanding determines them by his will and is ready to effect them by his active power When it actually produceth any thing the Will commands the understanding directs and the power executeth The Will is first and begins the understanding is the second and goes on the power is the last and finisheth the Work And these three inseparably and individually concur efficiently to produce the effect as one efficient And the Will directs by the understanding and executes by understanding directing the power and by the Power Acting according to the Understanding How Redemption is appropriated to the â—on and Sanctification to the Holy Ghost must be considered hereafter In these things We must be sober and not Curious We must neither confidently affirm any thing as a Divine Truth which is not evident unto us out of the Scripture nor Peremptorily deny any thing because We do not clearly see it in the Scriptures For so the Sadduces deny'd the Resurrection because they could not see it in the Book of God Though it was in that book as our Saviour made it evident These things premised concerning the Works of God in general § X I will proceed to say something of them in particular Though they be many yet may they all be reduced to three heads For they all are either works of Creation of Preservation or of Ordination Some bring these under two heads the first of Creation the second of Providence And by Providence they understand both Preservation and Government But this is but difference in Words The first work whereby the Eternall King did first acquire his power is Creation Which is a Work of God whereby in the beginning he created Heaven and Earth and all things therein This work must be considered Absolutely in it self Respectively as aground of absolute power And in it self Generally Specially in respect of man In it self generally it 's A Work or Act of God yet this Act is not immanent but emanant and transient yet farr different from the Acts of any Creature and from many other Acts of God It had an objâ—ct logically considered no subject existent For the Creature as existent was an effect and not the subject of it As Cameracensis doth distinguish of Predestination That Praedestinatio Activa est Deus Praedestinans Passiva est Res Praedestinata So Creatio activa est Dâ—uâ— creans Passiva Res creata So that in Creation we have God and his Creativity as Occam and Bacon expresse it and the thing created It is a proper Act of God and can be truly affirmed of nothing else if it were not so God by this work could not be distinguished from all other things as by this act we read in Scripture he is The first part of the Creation presupposed no matter
his bodily life were many For his body became mortal subject to weariness infirmities languishing hunger thirst diseases grievous pangs and torments and monstrous deformities and of it self by little and little mouldred into dust Besides He was exposed to nakednesse cold heat lightening thunderbolts stings of Serpents rage of wild beast unmercifull and cruel murderers treacheries assassinations exquisite tortures and many other accidents destructive of his life which was every moment and in every place in danger to be cut off from without Besides the principles of mortality were alwayes within his body And the danger was the greater because he had lost the Ministery Guardiance and direction of Angels and was deprived of the speciall care and providence of his Lord and maker the Heavens above him were made like iron or brasse and either denied their light and influence or powred down stormes and terrified him with fiery Meteors and strange prodigious Comets or apparitions The earth was cursed barâ—en or fruitfull in proâ—â—cing unprofitable Weeds ingendring Toads Serpents and Pestilent Vermine and other creatures to consume fruites And the best soyl refused to give him bread without sweat labour care and both Heaven and Earth did often threaten him with hunger thirst and so with famine If the Earth and Heaven too did favour him so that through Gods Blessing and his industry they both promised a plentiful harvest and return yet it was subject to many casualties before it could be reaped and inned as to blasting mildew peâ—iâ—ential ayr inundatious fire Locusts Caterpillars and several sorts of worms and devouring Creatures which threaten death to man and beast If the fruits of the earth were layd up in his barnes and store-houses yet they were in danger If his house was furnished and his treasuries stored with rich and precious goods yet he was in peril of thieves Oppressours plunderers by Land and his Merchandise by Sea of Pirats and merciles enemies Neither could the Liberty of his Person be secure because of imprisonment banishment captivity His credit and reputation could not be safe but he might suffer in this particular and be stayned by reproaches slanders his own imprudent or base carriage His publique peace and safety might be disturbed by seditions rebellions civil Wars and forreign invasions and his houses Lands goods possessed by Strangers or made desolate And he might suffer from enemies desertion of Friends treachery ill neighbours bad servants his parents bretheren sisters near kinred nay from his own children issuing out of his own Bowels He might be cursed in his Cattle in his Children in his Lands in all his designs By his sinâ—â—e provoked God armed Heaven Earth Ayr Sea and all Creatures againâ—â— him His spirituall Condition was much prejudiced by evil education bad example pernicious counsail ungodly company and many other wayes These penalties and many more are recorded in the Scriptures and in the great Volum of divine Providence and stored up in the treasures of Gods Almighty and severe Justice To make a more full enumeration of the miseries whereunto Man by his first sin and Gods just judgments is exposed and reduce them into a Method would take up a great Volum Of the Penalties to be endured after this life I will not now say any thing These Penalties 1. Are spiritual § V bodily temporal private publick personal social and all may be reduced to Privative which we call punishments of losse or Positive which we call punishments of Sense 2. There be many degrees of these punishments and the continuance of them might be for ever so far as man is capable for ever to suffer them 3. Though every son of Adam be subject to these yet God doth not inflict them all upon any son of Adam 4. These Punishments may be deserved by other sins Against the Law of nature which the Gentiles violated Against the Law of Moses which the Jews transgressed Against the Gospel which Christians violate And many of Gods own Children may justly suffer For all actuall sins are not merely from Originall Corruption though it be a cursed root of all kind of iniquity 5. These Penalties become unremoveable either by Negative or Positive Impenitency and Unbelief or by Apostacy 6. All these Punishments in Scripture are signified by one word DEATH For the Wages of Sin is DEATH CHAP. XV. Of Original Sin and the Derivation of it from Adam to his Posterity IT s to be known § I 1. What the Authors who write or speak of it mean by Original Sin 2. Whether it be properly a Sin 3. How it is derived from Adam to his Posterity 1. Some distinguish of Original Sin and inform us that its Originans aut Originatum By the first they understand the first sin of Adam and this onely Pighius defines to be Original Sin By the second they understand the want of Original Righteousness and the depravation of our Nature following thereupon And thus it is commonly taken So that in it we may consider two things 1. Not onely the want or absence but the privation of the Righteousness which God gave Adam in the day of his Creation So that it is a want of it in the subject where it should be and was at first Yet this privation may be understood actively or passively Actively and so it 's a taking away from one that had it or denying it to one who never actually received it In the first sense God took it from Adam In the latter sense he denies it to all his Posterity In what manner God is in this Act to be considered or what was the reason why he did thus I do not here inquire Passively considered it respects the Subject from whom it 's taken or to whom iâ—'â— denied Upon this deprivation follows a depravation in the Moral and Spiritual Qualities and of the Acts of the Party deprived And this Depravation is either Negative or Positive Negative as Ignorance Positive as Errour in the Understanding Negative as no affection to good Positive as inclination to evil in the Will This Depravation doth not destroy the Essence of man nor his qualities nor his Acts but the perfection and excellency of them all and doth necessarily presuppose the Being Qualities Acts as the Subject All this doth imply that this Rightâ—ousness being an excellent Quality doth much ennoble and perfect man and did depend both in fieri in facto as they speak upon a superiour and intelligent-supernatural-tree Agent who could give it continue it as also upon cause take it away And if once the Soul lost it upon demerit or any other ways it was made imperfect defective and base and the inclinations and motions were unworthy so noble a Creature and so much the more because a Superiour Spirit had power to delude and deceive the mind and incline the heart to evil This is the reason why so many are said to walk after the Prince of the power of Darkness that now worketh in the
Attribute which God did exercise § III and manifest in this Judgment passed upon man was his Mercy which is his free love of man who had made himself unworthy For after that he had sinned and made himself miserable though his misery were an object of compassion yet his sin did provoke to anger and deserved vengeance God looking upon man in this condition was more willing to pitty him then to punish him to remove the sin then to destroy the sinner He was unwilling all Mankind should perish as they must needs have done if he had proceeded in strict justice against them The sin in it self was no fit subject of mercy yet seeing that Woman was deceived by the subtilty of the Devil and Man by Woman his dearest Wife brought into transgression God took occasion to pitty them yet there could be no mercy for them except it issue out of the abundant goodness of God who is slow to anger and so much inclined to compassion and willing in this particular rather to manifest the glory of his mercy then of his justice Man had made himself unworthy and liable to eternal misery and God might have eternally punisht him and that justly too yet mercy kept justice back mitigated the rigour of it and confined it in a narrow compass to inlarge her self more abundantly This mercy was the Fountain from which issued the Promise of Christ the ruine of Sathan's Kingdom the Redemption of Mankind the Relicks of God's Image the means of Conversion the patience long-suffering bounty and clemency of God the gifts of the Spirit the remission of sin and eternal life And that God might be placable Sin pardonable Man saveable he accepts Christ's propitiation reverseth the Law of Works as requiring and that strictly perfect and perpetual obedience as the condition of life and makes a new Law and Covenant which determines Faith to be the condition of life and that condition to be performed by the power of the Spirit merited by and restored for Christ's sake This mercy did appear in this great Judgment many ways § IV 1. God sentenced the Devils in the first place and that without any mercy and for this very cause even because they had attempted the eternal ruine of man which upon the success of their damned Design had proved unavoidable and the recovery of man impossible if God should not have done some extraordinary work to prevent it Upon this fiery indignation of God against these Liars and Murderers of Mankind expressed in this Sentence it did appear 1. That the punishment to be suffered by these cursed Fiends was grievous unavoidable and unremovable for ever 2. That God was highly displeased at their malice shewed against and the mischief done to Mankind in that he takes so fearful vengeance upon them 3. That there was some pitty in God towards poor man trembling at the Bar of God for though their folly was inexcusable yet their condition considering the temptation was lamentable 2. This mercy was manifest in an high and extraordinary degree and measure in that in this Sentence he promiseth or at least implies a most certain promise of Jesus Christ a Saviour and Redeemer It 's true that this great promise was folded and wrapt up in a few words and the same very mysterious as we read them in Moses Gen. 3. 15. But those very words inform us 1. That the Redeemer should be the Seed of the Woman that Woman whom the Serpent had so deluded and who now stood guilty before God's Tribunal 2. That this Seed of the Woman should bruise the Serpents head and so be the ruine of his Kingdom and Dominion over Man 3. That he should not obtain this Victory without Blood for his Head must be bruised and he put to death And there is not onely an Emphasis but a Mystery in those words The Seed of the Woman The Emphasis is in this That God doth not say an Angel or Spirit or some man more excellent then Adam whom he should create instantly but the Seed a Child a Mortal Man born of that sinful Woman though now contemptible and miserable should encounter the Devil with that power and policy as to foil him The Mystery seems to be this That it 's not said the Seed of Man nor the Seed of Man and Woman but the Seed of the Woman signifying though darkly that Christ should be the Seed and Child immediate of a Woman but of no Man For as he was Man he had an immediate Mother who conceived bare him brought him forth but no immediate Father Upon these words as the condition of Man and Woman became more comfortable so the Kingdom and Government of Mankind began instantly to be altered and a second Adam was appointed their Head to redeem them as the first Adam had undone them We must needs think that our first Parents being sinful guilty and convicted before the Supream Judge of Heaven and Earth stood with sad and heavy hearts expecting their doom and condemnation to Eternal Death until they heard these words The Seed of the Woman should bruise the Serpents Head Then their Despair was turned into Hope and their sinking-dying-hearts began to revive For to them these were words far above all expectation of sweetest comfort Never better words spoken never better heard 3. This mercy was evident in that God did not send the Spirit of Despair nor of Slumber and Security upon them § V nor deliver them up to a reprobate mind as he might justly have done and so made their condition desperate and irrecoverable nor presently execute his judgment Eternal upon them either by taking away their lives in their sin or making their bodies immortal to punishment in body and soul for ever Neither did he take from them the Light of Nature and the sense and power of Conscience but gave them the saving-light of the Gospel and the means of Conversion with the promise of the Spirit All this is evident by the promise of Christ the ruine of Satan's Kingdom a final Victory after a Bloody War in this Sentence of the Devil and it doth further appear by the Education of Cain and Abel and especially in the Faith of Abel That the means of Conversion have been denied several persons whole Tribes many Nations and the greatest part of the World howsoever it might be deâ—erved by this sin of Adam yet usually it 's the punishment of Apostasie as of the generality of mankind before the â—lood of the Gentiles before Christ's incarnation and of the generality of the Jews and many of the Gentiles since the preaching of the Gospel to all Nations And the very Gentiles were not delivered up unto a Reprobate mind before they abused the Light of Nature Yet the very outward means of Conversion were a gift of Free grace for the merit of Christ who was promised of pure and abundant mercy The Sentence of Justice past upon them was allayed § VI and tempered with great mercy
and of great power and policy therefore he must be a King invested with Universal and Eternal Power to make Laws and Officers to judge and to execute Judgment in rendring eternal rewards and punishments according to the Works of such as shall be judged that so he may subdue all Enemies even Death it self protect his people and give Eternal Peace and Felicity to such as shall unfeignedly submit unto his Power and continue loyal and obedient Subjects to the end As God hath decreed before the World upon the fore-sight of man's sin that the World should be made flesh so he likewise decreed that he should be invested with this three-fold power and to confer it upon him as Flesh united to the Word Upon the Fall of Adam this Office was promised in his Conception and Birth he was designed unto it in his Baptism he was declared to be the Son of God Upon his manifestation after his Baptism he began to act in this Three-fold Office Upon his Resurrection he was constituted a compleat Priest Prophet King and all power in Heaven and Earth given Him Upon his Ascension he was solemnly invested and confirmed in the place and began at the right hand of God to exercise his Power more gloriously CHAP. II. Concerning the Humiliation of Jesus Christ whereby this New Power was acquired And a brief Historical Narration of His Sufferings THis New Power as you heard before was acquired by the Word made flesh § I and now we know by whom In the next place we must enquire by what it was acquired It was acquired by the Humiliation of the Son of God This Humiliation of Jesus Christ is that whereby He in the form of a Servant was obedient unto Death the Death of the Cross. In this Humiliation we have two degrees 1. He took upon him the form of a Servant 2. In that form he suffered the Death of the Cross. 1. He was a Servant For being in the form of God he thought it not Robbery or Sacriledge to be equal with God yet he made himself of no reputation and took upon him the form of a Servant and was made in the likeness of men Phil. 2. 6 7. This state and condition of a Servant taken upon Him was the first part of his Humiliation But here it 's to be noted 1. That He was not a Slave taken in War nor sold nor born of Servile Parents or Parent 2. As He was the Word and equal with God He could not be a Servant but as He was flesh and made Man For as Man He was a reasonable Creature and so subject to God and bound to Obedience 3. Yet to be Man was not all For He was a Servant in respect of the mean condition of His Humane Nature For He was born of a Mother though of Royal Extraction from the house of King David at a great distance yet poor and mean as appears in that she was espoused and married to Joseph a Carpenter and so a Mechanick and of the lowest Rank of Subjects and also by his poor Birth in a Stable 4. He as Man for the time laid aside or did not assume the Robes of Glory the State and Dignity which did agree unto Him as He was the Son of God neither did He take upon Him any Civil Command or Jurisdiction much less that Universal and Supream Power wherewith He was invested afterward 5. He was born not onely a Man but a Jew under the Bondage and Servitude of the Law as was manifest by His Circumcision and Presentation in the Temple 6. He subjected himself unto the Ecclesiastical Power of His own Nation and the Civil Power of the Romanes so far as to be tried and condemned by both though He was innocent and was willing to be obedient not onely in doing the good commanded but to suffer the evil even Death the death of Servants nay of Slaves nay of Dogs which He no way deserved So that He wholly denied Himself renounced his own Will even in things lawful and was a Servant to his Father in one of the hardest and lowest services that ever was the service of Sin excepted This was a way which the unsearchable depth of Eternal Wisdom contrived to acquire a new transcendent Power It 's true that alter He appeared in publique He took upon him some power and acted accordingly He began to preach the Gospel with power and majesty not onely in private but publick He gathered Disciples and made Apostles and other Officers instituted Sacraments and gave Laws and Commissions and signified that He was the Son of God and should one day come in the Clouds of Heaven yet still He was a Servant The second degree of his Humiliation was § II that as a Servant he was obedient unto Death the Death of the Cross. He was always obedient both to God and Man in all things so far as He was bound He observed not onely the Moral but the Ceremonial Laws of the Jews and the Civil Laws of the Romans so far as they were just He many ways manifested himself to be the Word made flesh and the onely Begotten Son of God and that not onely by his eminent Vertues but by his Heavenly Doctrine and glorious Works So that never any gave better Example taught better Doctrine or did greater Works so beneficiall to Mankind and to destructive to Sathan's power Yet he manifested himself in this manner onely amongst his own people seeking earnestly not onely their Temporal Peace but their Eternal Salvation And all this may be called his Active Obedience which though so excellent and perfect yet could not free him from obedience in sufferings which were many and ended in the death of the Cross. The History hereof I will 1. Deliver briefly out of the Evangelists And 2. Discourse of the same more at large out of these and other places of Scripture Though he suffered by the Determinate Counsel and sore-knowledge of God and God had shewed before by the mouth of all his Prophets that he should suffer yet the Counsel of God and Predictions of the Prophets were fulfilled in the manner following 1. By his Sufferings before Judgment 2. By his Sufferings in Judgment 1. Before Judgment He by his Example Doctrine Works gathered many Disciples and the people followed him in great multitudes This was a provocation to the ambitious Rulers of the Jews many of whom were Pharisees a Sect in those times in great account and admiration with the people for eminent Piety and Learning wherein they seemed to excel And this did grieve them much that He did neither comply with them nor their Designs nor receive any Commission from them but did reprove their Hypocrisie and took off their Vizard of Sanctity and open before the people their Ambition Covetousness Cruelty Oppression and other enormous Sins confuted their false Doctrine and denounced most fearful Woes against them His eminency and respect with the People with the multitude of Disciples
they should see him sitting on the right hand of power and coming in the Clouds of Heaven This answer they expected and from his own words condemn the Judge of Heaven and Earth to be guilty of Blasphemy After his most unjust condemnation He as one out of all Protection and unworthy of any benefit of Law is exposed to the abuses of the vilest Wretches who did hood wink him mock him spit upon him blaspheme him who was now already betrayed by Judas presently denied by Peter and forsaken of all his Disciples These miseries this ingratitude these indignities the glorious Son of God and Lord of Angels did endure This Trial in the Ecclesiastical Court § IV being finished He is brought before the Civil Judge and tried there again What the Reason hereof was is not so evident It may be the High-Priests still were afraid of the People lest they should rise against them if they shou'd proceed to publique and open execution or it might be because the Romanes denied them Jurisdiction in Capital Causes This seems to be implied in their words to the Procurator It 's not lawful for us to put any man to death Joh. 18. 31. He is brought before Pilate and sent by Pilate to Herod Herod finds in him no cause of death neither doth Pilate and therefore out of Justice and Natural Conscience and other Reasons justifies him as unworthy of death several times and several times seeks to release him And as he was unwilling to condemn him because there was no cause and for that He knew the Rulers out of Envy had delivered Him into His hands so He was afraid to do it is admonished by His Wife and that in some sort from Heaven to have nothing to do with that righteous man but especially when He heard He was the Son of God Yet they accuse Him vehemently of haynous crimes as Sedition and High-Treason against Caesar and importune him to do justice and seeing him unwilling to pass judgment against Him and willing and very earnest to release Him they perswade the people to desire Barabbas a cruel Murtheret to be delivered to them according to the Custom and to cry without ceasing Crucifie crucifie Jesus and that which was of greatest force they tell Pilate plainly that if He released Him He was not Caesars friend and in these words imply that they would accuse Him if he let Him go So in the end the cries of the tumultuous Rabble the fear of a Tumult and much more of his Masters displeasure prevail with him to condemn him to death against all Justice all Admonitions and his own Conscience though he had formerâ—y scourged him So vile a thing it is in any Judge especially to fear Man more than God and Temporal more than Eternal punishments Thus Barabbas is released the guilt of Christ's bloud charged upon the Jews who take it upon them and their children to their condemnation and confusion And Christ is delivered to the Souldiers 1. To be abused 2. To be executed As He was accused and so condemned for this cause alleadged that He said He was the King of the Jews so they accordingly abuse Him They divest Him of His outward garments crown Him with thorns array Him with a purple garment as signs of Royal Dignity put a Reed for a Scepter into his hands bow before him and salute him as King of the Jews and withall smite Him on the Head to make the Thorny-Crown pierce into His Temples And after they had made themselves sport with His miseries and satiated themselves they take off those Ornaments of derision and lead him to the place of Execution which followed immediately upon this unjust Judgment and so many indignities offered him He is led out of the City as a prophane unhallowed person unworthy to abide in that holy place and he must carry his cross which yet Simon of Cyrene was afterward compelled to do Being brought to the place of execution he is divested of his garments which are divided amongst the Souldiers who cast lots upon his seamless coat which done He is nailed to the Cross and suffers cruel torment Instead of ease and comfort they give him gall to eat and vinegar to drink they mock him give him vile and cutting words In midst of this condition He is deserted for a time the sweetest comforts of Heaven restrained from Him the Devils of Hell permitted to exercise their malice cruelty and power upon Him And that we might understand his sufferings to be far greater then we can imagine He cries out My God my God why hast thou forsaken me and complains of such miseries as never any suffered Job's afflictions were many and grievous and came nearest unto these of Christ yet were far short He suffered thus upon the Cross from the 6th unto the 9th hour of the day and then died and commended his Soul into the hands of his Heavenly Father Thus the Consecration of the great High Priest was finished the things fore-told concerning his Suffering fulfilled and his bitter suffering had an end That day his body being dead pierced by a Souldier though no bone of this true Paschal Lamb was broken sent forth water and bloud and being taken down from the Cross yielded by consent of the Governour into the hands of Joseph of Arimathea was by him and Nicodemus decently and honourably interred in a new Sepulchre where never any man was buried continued separate from His Soul as His Soul from it unto the third day and saw no corruption And this was the deep Humiliation of the Son of God whereby this universal and eternal Power was acquired CHAP. III. A more large Discourse of Christ's Obedience unto the Death of the Cross. I Will not here take up time in shewing both how many § I and also how grievous the sufferings of Christ were For that hath been done by many others and it may be sufficiently understood by what hath been said nor onely that they were many and grievous but also far greater then we can understand But I will 1. Consider this Humiliation of Christ as it was an Obedience unto Death and a Sacrifice of Him as a Priest 2. I will declare the Effects thereof 3. I will endeavour to shew how far the benefit of this Humiliation was communicable or derivable unto sinful Man And 4. The Attributes God manifested in this Humiliation Many with great Eloquence and Art have methodically set forth the Passions of our Saviour and their intention was to affect the Hearts of their Auditors and stir up to sorrow and other passions Yet these four things are matter of greatest moment give a clearer light to understand the great mystery of Redemption and are effectual to melt our hearts with godly inccour for our sins to make us sensible of God's wonderful love to revive our hearts with heavenly comfort and to mortifie our corruptions 1. Therefore this Humiliation was an Act of Obedience unto God his Heavenly Father
Whence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 used in the New-Testament and translated Redemption Ransome c. And it signifies a gift or price or something offered to him that hath power of life and death and accepted as a sufficient satisfaction it frees the party liable to death because an Enemy or guilty of some capital Crime from Death and that Obligation unto Death The word Lutron comes from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because it doth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 free from death That which made sinful man liable to death was the Will of the Law-giver expressed in the Law and binding man to Obedience or Death Man disobeying justly deserves Death and God the Supream Judge might justly condemn him and nothing could free man from the Obligation but Pardon Pardon might be granted two ways either ex nudâ voluntate absolutely and freely out of meet mercy without any consideration of or respect unto His Law and Justice or à Satisfactione upon consideration of something done suffered offered for satisfaction unto Divine Justice violated And this satisfaction might be made either by the Party offending or some other taken as a Surety or Hostage whose life is engaged for the life of another In this particular case pardon is granted not without consideration For that could not stand with the honour of the Law and Divine Justice but upon satisfaction to be made This satisfaction could not be made by the Parties offending who were guilty and unworthy Therefore it was made by another Christ Jesus the Word made flesh who became an Hostage for sinful Man and engaged His life And as He had engaged His Life so He gave Himself a Ransome for ALL 1 Tim. 2. 6. And here many things are observable 1. That Christ being the Word made Flesh and Innocent was fit and onely He was fit to be a Hostage 1. As Flesh. 2. As Flesh united to the Word 3. As Innocent 4. As freely upon God's Command and Commission offering Himself 2. That God in strict Justice might have refused the Hostage and the Ransome and Satisfaction offered and made because neither the one nor the other were in the Obligation of the Law 3. Yet He in free mercy accepted both in behalf of and for sinful Man 4. The proper effect in respect of God which followed upon the Ransome or Lutron given and accepted was that God was propitious and willing to pardon and save 5. Yet Divine Wisdome in respect unto His Justice and Holiness determined the tearms upon which Pardon should be actually given and expressed the tearms in the Promise which was grounded upon the Death of Christ accepted 6. For God to be propitious was to be willing to turn away His Wrath and forbear to punish and also to be favourable unto Man In respect of the former Christ's Death is called Satisfaction of the latter Merit yet both are really the same and was a changing of Justice into Mercy which took away or rather immediately made the Punishment of Pain and Loss removable And Christ's Death accepted may be said onely to merit Yet because this Merit was upon a Wrong done and presupposed it 's called Satisfaction Seeing the immediate Effect of this Sacrifice is Merit § V in respect of Christ and Propitiation in respect of God and this Merit in respect of sinful Man is a Propitiation active or a Propitiating God offended and in respect of Christ merit of Reward Therefore let 's consider 1. What Christ merited for Man 2. What He merited for Himself Christ merited for Man 1. The Abrogation of the Law of Works and requiring perfect and perpetuall Obedience as the onely condition of Life 2. The Promises of the NewCovenant making Faith the onely condition of Life 3. Upon these that God should be placable Sin pardonable and Eternal Liâ—e possible 4. The power of the sanctifying Spirit to enable man to keep the Conditions annexed to the Promises without which all the rest had been vain The mediate Effects are such as Christ merited to follow upon the performance of the Condition which are Conversion and Faith And these principally are Justification Reconciliation Adoption Eternal Glory upon the Resurrection The Apostle Heb. 9. beginning at the 11th vers reckons up five Effects of the Sacrifice and Death of Christ. 1. By it He obtained Eternal Redemption The word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies Expiation and Remission For God upon this Sacrifice offered presented and accepted was willing to grant Eternal Pardon without expectation of any other Sacrifice to be offered or other satisfaction to be made The 2d Is the purging of the Conscience from Dead Works to serve the Living God ver 14. The Conscience is the Immortal Soul Dead Works are sins compared to dead Bodies or unclean things which did legally pollute so that the persons could not be admitted with the rest of God's People to worship God in the Tabernacle or Temple till they were purified To purge is to justifie and sanctifie and free from sinne that so we may be fit to serve our God and when our Purification and Consecration is finished that we may serve the Living God in the Temple of Heaven The 3d Effect is the Confirmation of the New Covenant or Testament as Mediatour and Priest thereof For as the Promises of Remission and the Eternal Inheritance formerly made to the Called for and in the consideration of the Death and Sacrifice of Christ had been void and of none effect if Christ had never dyed So upon this Death and Sacrifice they were firmly established and of full force to convey the Inheritance upon the Called so that if they obey the Heavenly Call they may certainly expect as they shall certainly receive Remission and the Eternal Inheritance ver 15 16 17. The Fourth Effect is His entrance into Heaven to appear in the Presence of God for Us ver 24. For upon our Repentance Faith Prayers upon Earth He as our Advocate and Intercessour pleads before the Throne of God with His own Blood to obtain Remission and Acceptance for Us. This Intercession made by Him as an ever-living Priest is made effectual for us by vertue of this Sacrifice and the efficacy and success depends upon this Vnspotted Blood Therefore is it written for our comfort That if any man sinne we have an Advocate with the Father Jesus Christ the Righteous who is the Propitiation for our sins 1 Joh. 2. 1 2. And His Plea is this That though His Client hath sinned and deserved death yet he ought not to suffer and dye because He Himself hath suffered God accepteth His Death the sinner confesseth repenteth and believeth and God his Father and supream Judge at whose Bar He pleadeth hath promised Pardon and Salvation upon those tearms The Fifth and last Effect is the Actual Collation and enjoyment of Eternal Glory For unto them who look for Him He will appear the second time without sin that is suffering for sin unto Salvation For the
Actual Enjoyment of Salvation and Eternal Glory is granted as merited by this Death ver 28. All these are summed up in that one of the Eternal Consecration of the Sanctified Chap. 10. 14. Seeing Christ merited many and glorious things for sinful man § VI he must needs merit some greater thing for himself and so he did For because he humbled himself so low and took upon him the form of a Servant and was obedient unto death the death of the Cross Therefore God highly exalted Him and gave Him a Name which is above every Name Phil. 2. 9. And God advanced Him far above all Principality and Power and Might and Dominion and every Name that is named not onely in this World but in that which is to come and hath put all things under his feet and gave Him to be Head over all things to the Church Ephes. 1. 21 22. By which we may understand that He merited to Himself a Supream and Universal Power in Heaven and Earth and not onely power over all flesh but over all Creatures even over all Angels And He was invested with this power immediately upon the Resurrection for then He was made universal Prophet Priest and King and upon His Ascension followed His Solemn Inauguration and Coronation as we may so speak when He was set at the right hand of God and then His Eternal and unchangeable Priest-hood was confirmed unto Him by an Oath 2. He merited Immortality the Place and Throne of Glory fulness of joy in His Fathers presence and pleasures at His right hand for evermore He attained Immortality upon His Resurrection the Place and Throne of Glory fulness of joy and Eternal Pleasures upon His Aâ—cension 3. He merited a Judgment to be passed upon the Devil to lose his power over Mankind and the same to be transferred upon Himself and a strength to rescue him out of Sathan's possession aâ— will and pleasure 4. He merited a power to send down the Holy Ghost to reveal the Gospel and in a special manner to head His Church protect it guide it give it everlasting peace and in respect of His highest Dignity that not onely Men but Angels shall worship and honour Him and all such as refuse so to do must be dashed in pieces with His Iron-Scepter and cast into Hell Christ's Sufferings being 1. An Obedience unto the Death of the Cross § VII and a Sacrifice And 2. Having many and glorious Effects one and the same principal being the Acquisition of a new Power over Mankind The 3. Thing in order is the manner and measure of the communication of the benefit thereof unto others That the benefit of this Death and Sacrifice is communicable to sinful Man is express Scripture For as by the offence of One Judgment came upon all men unto condemnation even so by the Righteousness of One the free gift came unto all men unto justification of life And again As by one man's disobedience many were made sinners so by the obedience of One shall many be made righteous Rom. 5. 18 19. And since by man came death by Man came also the Resurrection of the Dead for as in Adam all dye so in Christ shall all be made alive 1 Cor. 15. 21 22. From which places it 's clear that as from Adam Sin and Death were derived upon all men so Righteousness and Life are derived upon Mankind by Christ. But the Question will be 1. How 2. How far this Benefit is derived 1. If we enquire of the manner how Righteousness and Life is derived from Christ being One unto so many we shall find that this cannot be except Christ be a general Head of Mankind and one person with them as Adam was And this He could not be as He was the Word properly but as the Word made Flesh for if He will sanctifie them he must take Flesh and Bloud with the Sanctified and so be Man Yet He may be Man and not a general Person so as to be one with them and we do not read of any but onely two who were general Heads and in some respect virtually all Mankind the first and second Adam Such Christ was not but by the Will of God and His own voluntary Consent The Will of God appoints Him to be the Head of Mankind and their Surety and Hostage and so accounted Him and He did willingly submit and took upon Him the Person of others And the principal cause of this Representation whereby He is one Person with us is the Will of God who as Lord made Him such and as Law-giver and Judge did so account Him But 2. How far is He One Person with us The Answer is 1. In general so far as it pleased God to make Him so and no farther 2. In particular He and We are One so far 1. As to make Him liable to the Penalty of the Law which He suffered not for Himself but for us 2. So far as to free us from that Obligation and derive the benefit of His Death to Us. I may instance in a Debtour and his Surety who are one person and the Law so accounts them so far as 1. The Surety becomes liable to the Debt And 2. If he pay it the Principal is freed from the Obligation Yet the Surety is not the Principal nor if he pay the Debt with his own money doth the Principal pay it with his So though Christ be so far one with us as to be liable to the Penalty of the Law and to suffer it and upon this Suffering we are freed yet Christ is not the sinner nor the sinner Christ. Christ is the Word made Flesh innocent and without sin an universal Priest and King but we are none of these Though we be accounted as one person in Law with him by a Trope yet in proper sense it cannot be said that in Christ satisfying we satisfied for our own sins For then we should have been the Word made Flesh able to plead innocency with perfect and perpetual obedience have dyed upon the Cross when He was crucified and by our own blood entring into the Holy Place to have obtained Eternal Redemption But all these things are false impossible blasphemous if affirmed by any It 's true that we were so one with Him that He satisfied for us and the benefits of this Satisfaction redounds to us and is communicable to all upon certain tearms though not actually communicated to all From this Vnity and Identity of Person in Law if I may so speak it follows clearly that Christ's Sufferings were not onely Afflictions but Punishments in proper sense For it is not material whether He suffer for His own sins which He could not because He was innocent or for the sins of others For if He suffered for sins then His Sufferings were Punishments For Poena is Vindâ—cta noxae sive propriae sive alienae That one may suffer for the sins of others and that justly except we will accuse God of injustice
his sin confess it be sensible of it hate it resolv against it return unto his God rely upon his Saviour who must plead his cause with his own blood and the sinner must be washed in that blood and sanctified by his Spirit before he can be admitted to the Throne of Grace and have accesse unto and acceptation with his God And he must be cleansed fully from all sin before he can enter into Glory and no man must expect eternall life upon other Terms The Mercy § XI Love and free Grace of God appears in that he was willing to save man though a grievous offender that he would transfer the punishment due to us and deserved by us upon another and he must be his onely begotten that must bear it that he doth all this freely when there was nothing out of himself to move him of merit it for us That he should do thus for unworthy Wretches enemies ungodly miserable base polluted deserving to be cast out of his presence and condemned to eternall death Upon the very foresight of our sin and misery he out of love decrees to send his Son and give him unto death and in him elects us and predestinates us unto eternall Glory When man was created had sinned he promiseth Christ renews this promise often in fulnesse of time he sends him and severely punisheth our sins in him accepts his suffering and sacrifice as a sufficient satisfaction for all our sins and meritorious of Remission and eternall life He reveales him in the Gospell offers him unto us calls us gives his Spirit and with patience and long-suffering waits for our Repentance abrogates the law of works and promiseth eternall life anew upon fairest terms constitutes him an High-Priest in Heaven and ever hears his Intercession which he ever lives to make for us Nay upon this suffering of Christ foreseen and fore-accepted he gives his Spirit who justifies and saves all Believers of the World who lived before his Incarnation and the finishing the work of Redemption When we cry to him with penitent and believing hearts and come unto our Saviour our sins though many and grâ—evous are pardoned and Christ hath a charge given him to receive us have a care of us protect us guide us raise us up at the last day and give us everlasting life Angells must be ministring Spirits to guard us all things must work together for our good And this is strange The Son of God must be punished that we might be spared must be condemned that we may be justified dy that we may live be humbled very low that we may be exalted very high endure most bitter pains that we may enjoy eternall pleasures and be miserable that we may be for ever happy But what Tongue of Men or Angells is able to expresse the exceeding greatnesse of his Love to us which was the greatest that ever God did manifest Who is able to number and reckon up the particular mercyes and benefits which Christ did merit and we receive by him This Mercy in Christ is to be remembred not onely on earth but to be matter of eternall praise and thanksgiving in Heaven The subject of this discourse is the Acquisition of a new Power § XII and by all this dâ—th appear not onely that another power is acquired and added to that of Creation and preservation but also that it was acquired by the humiliation of the Son of God made Man And now man in respect of his spirituall capacity and eternall estate is wholly Gods and subjected to him anew and now are we not our own for we are bought with a price 1 Cor. 6. 19 20. And Christ hath given himself a Ransome for us 1 Timothy cap. 2 ver 6. And we are redeemed by his pretious Blood as of a Lamb without blemish and immaculate 1 Pet. 1. 19. And as God acquired a new right unto us by Redemption so likewise by Regeneration which is a new creation so that our spirituall being is wholly his and he hath acquired a new power to dispose of us and give us laws and bind us to obedience and his service upon another account For wee are delivered out of the hands of our enemies to serve him without fear in holinesse and righteousnesse before him all the dayes of our life This power being acquired we must consider to whom it was acquired and to whom it was communicated God acquired this power unto himself and he communicates it to Christ as man so farr as he is capable That God did acquire it 't is evident for he sent Christ he gave him he transferred the punishment of our sins upon him he accepted his death and sacrifice as a full propitiation He regenerates and renews us by his spirit and gives us our new being And if althese be his works then the Power as also the Glory is his and he hath a new propâ—iety inus For the Word made flesh was his son The work of Redemption and Humiliation of this son was his work Therefore we are said to be purchased by his Blood his own Blood Act. 20. 28. We are said to be his workmanship created anew in Christ Jesus Ephes. 2. 10. All that we are in respect of our spirituall estate we are wholly wholly his and al things that we have as New-creatures are from him who quickned us raised us up set us in heavenly places in Christ Jesus Though it be said that Christ is our Lord § XIII our Head our Saviour who hath washed us in his blood redeemed us out of all Nations made us Kings and Priests to God for ever and reconciled us to the Father so that whether we live or dy we are the Lords because to this end Christ both died and revived and rose again that he might be Lord both of the living and the dead Rom. 14. 8 9. Yet God did all this likewise and put him to death and raised him up again and made him Lord and King This power therefore is Christs but so as that it is derived and communicated unto him from his heavenly Father For he gave him power as he himself confesseth over all flesh he exalted him and gave him a name above all names he by his mighty power raised him from the dead and set him at his own right hand in heavenly places farr above all principality power and might and Dominion And though he had all power in heaven earth yet he acknowledgeth it as given him The son hath an universal jurisdiction yet all judgment was committed unto him Joh. 5. 22. so that he hath it by commission From all this it 's evident that God acquired this power and Christ acquired it God hath it Christ hath it God hath it originally and primitively Christ hath it derivatively as man and by commission God is the principall cause of the work of Redemption Christ as man united to the Word is the ministeriall agent And as God by Christ did
union with God the Father and Jesus Christ and the Saints they are become the Temples of the Holy Ghost and being washed in their Saviours bloud are the adopted Sons of God the Heirs of Glory come under the Divine Protection and have a general right to all those Mercies and Blessings which Christ hath purchased and God hath promised as shall more particularly be shewed hereafter For as this Subjection is virtually all obedience so it receives a right to all Blessings limited to the performance of several Duties And before I conclude this great Duty you must observe this one thing that this Subjection is that whereby we submit our selves to Christ and so to God not onely as King as some conceive but to Him as our onely Priest for expiation and intercession and also to Him as our onely Prophet to teach us not onely outwardly by the Word written but inwardly by the Spirit From this Subjection § XIV we understand what the nature of the Church as visible and of the Church mystical as consisting of real Saints is The Church in general is a Society or community of all such as subject themselves to God-Redeemer by Jesus Christ. The Church-mystical is the community of such as subject themselves sincerely unto GOD-REDEEMER So that this Subjection is the very essence of the Church To believe and subject to Christ to come and to Christ already come is accidental So to be National or Universal is To be under a Form of Discipline or to be without any setled outward Government is not essential nor to be militant or triumphant though it as such and such differs much is of the Essence To be Pilgrims and Strangers on this Earth seeking an abiding City in Heaven and to be militant fighting against the Devil the World and the Flesh is the condition of this Society in this life To obtain a final and full Victory over Sin and be secure of Eternal Bliss is in some measure an estate of triumph But to rise again be immortal and fully glorified in one full body after that all Enemies are totally and eternally subdued is the most perfect triumph And this is the Order that God hath decreed and established that first we must be militant obey and suffer in an estate of Humiliation till we prove finally victorious and after that we must except a reward and a Crown of Glory which in due time we shall certainly receive So Christ our Head was first humbled afterwards exalted and passed by the Cross to the Crown so must we His members do In this life we must be consecrated and in the life to come we shall be compleat Kings and Priests and reign with our Saviour and serve in the glorious Temple of Heaven These two conditions differ much and very much yet the difference is not essential but accidental Thus far the constitution of this Kingdom in the Soveraignty of God-Redeemer and subjection of sinful Man redeemed and called CHAP. V. Concerning the exercise of the Power of God Redeemer in the Administration of the Kingdome of Grace in general THis administration is the exercise of the power of God acquired by the humiliation of the Word § I made flesh in making new lawes and judging according to them This administration is to be considered 1. In generall and in respect of the generall affections accidentall to it 2. In the parts thereof which are 1. Legislation and 2. Jurisdiction This administration for the substance was the same alwayes and it began betimes even in the dayes of Adam after that promise of the seed of the Woman which should break the Serpents head Yet there was a great difference in the same in many things after that Christ was exhibited and glorified from that which was before Yet in all times God as Redeemer was the supreme Lord and King man sinfull the subject Faith and subjection to Christ the Law and the judgment was according to that Law And though the humiliation of the Son of God to be made man was yet to come and Christ onely present and represented in the promise yet as this humiliation was accepted from the beginning for the benefit of man so that power which was alwayes virtually in God was exercised by the word not incarnate and by the Spirit as though it had been acquired already That this administration began so early might be made evident from severall texts of Scripture rightly understood Neither was the promise of Christ made first to Abraham for this promise was passed in the sentence of the Devill The Sacrifices and offerings of Cain and Abel taught them and used before by their Father and instituted by God did witnesse the same That they were instituted by God the acceptation of Abel's Sacrifice doth prove For no service is accepted of God which is not instituted by God The Faith of Enoch whereby he pleased God was Faith in Christ otherwise he could not have sought God so as to have found him nor expected or received so glorious a reward but by the merit of his Saviour believed upon Without this faith Noah could not have been the heir of the righteousnesse which is by faith and partaker of that eternall deliverance which was typifyed by his deliverance from the flood This administration after the time of Abraham was more clear Yet God had his Kingdome and his Church long before yet he did administer the same without any Vice-gerent or President generall except some emineâ—t and principall Angel was his universal deputy as was hinted formerly Yet in the Church on earth God by his Word eternal and the Spirit in the Patriarchs and extraordinary Prophets did supply Christs propheticall office and by them at certain times made known the lawes and judgements of his Kingdom but ordinarily he used for this purpose ordinary teachers Yet besides these he gave the Spirit of Prophecy to the Angels and by them he instructed Patriarchs and other Prophets His Sacerdotall office was executed by the Patriarches the first born of the familyes and at length by the Leviticall Priests and they were typicall mediators between God and man The most eminent Priest lively Type of Christ both as King and especially as Priest was Melchizedeck who lived at Salem in the dayâ—s of Abraham He was a righteous King who by the just administration of his Kingdome procured the peace and prosperity of his subjects when the neighbour-Countryes were invalded and spoiled by War In this respect he did represent this King of perfect righteousnesse and eternal peace And as a Priest he had no predecessour from whom nor successour to whom he might derive his Sacerdotal power For he was not a Priest by birth nor did he transmit his Priesthood by death unto another as the Leviticall Priests did And in this respect he might be truly said to be without Father and Mother and descent so as to receive his Priesthood that way and without end of dayes and so was the
that we shall rise again to glory For if the Spirit of him that raised up Christ from the dead dwell in us He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken our mortall bodyes by his Spirit that dwelleth in us Rom. 8. 11. The manifestation was full and clear § VI and for this end he stayed 40. dayes on earth after his resurrection His body was now become spirituall and could appear when and to whom he pleased And he appeares 1. To Mary Magdalene 2. To two Disciples going to Emaus 3. To Cephas 4. To the twelve 5. To 500 Brethren together 6. to James 7. To all the Apostles and that severall times Thomas must not onely see him but with his hands and fingers feel the print of the nailes and the scars of his wounds They eat and drink with him receive instructions and commissions from him and see him taken up into Heaven Steeven Paul and John the Divine see him after he was ascended into Heaven The Souldiers who were set to guard the Sepulcher are forced to be witnesses as of death so of his resurrection The comming down of the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles the miracles done the gifts of the Spirit received in his name the Faith of the world in him do testifie the same So that there can be no reason in the world to doubt of this Resurrection The persons to whom he most of all appeared were the Apostles to whom he shewed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs being seen of them 40. dayes and speaking of the things pertayning to the Kingdome of God Act. 1. 3. And the reason hereof was this that they might be witnesses to him both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and in Samaria and unto the uttermost parts of the earth verse 8. And its remarkable that he severall times appeared on the first day of the week as though he intended not onely by his Resurrection but his several apparations to consecrate and honour that day After that Christ was risen § VII and had continued fourty dayes on earth he takes with him to Mount Olivet his Disciples gives them commission to go to all Nations promiseth the Spirit blesseth them and in their sight from that place ascends into Heaven in a cloud For the Angels which appeared unto them in the likenesse of two men in white apparell told them that he was taken up into Heaven Act. 1. 10 11. This Ascension added nothing to his power though it might be a part of his Glory and Honour The place from whence he ascended was the Mount of Olivet at the foot whereof he suffered so much in his bitter Agony where he was betrayed apprehended deserted The place to which he did ascend was Heaven the highest and most glorious place in the world For he ascended far above all Heavens to fulfill all things Eph. 4. 19. The manner of this Ascension was glorious and by way of Triumph For accompanied with Angells he led captivity captive and gave gifts to men Psal. 68. 18. And no doubt hee made open shew of the Principalityes and Powers of Hell which he had conquered It was the greatest and most stately Triumph that ever was in the World Great was the joy of Angells and the Honour of that day wherein the Son of God mounted in his triumphant charior a bright and glorious cloud ascended into that glorious place where in his Fathers presence he after his biter sufferings hath fullnesse of joy and pleasures for ever more Where he hath taken possession of those blessed mansions of eternall rest not onely for himself but in our behalf And Oh that our minds were lifted up above the world and our affections so placed that we might seek those things above where he sitteth at his Fathers right hand that we might have a certain hope that one day he would descend from that holy place and take us with him that we might be where he is and so behold his Glory and be eternally freed from all sin and sorrow And surely if we believe him it was expedient he should depart and leave this Earth not onely for his own Glory but for our comfort that he might send down his Spirit to sanctify comfort and guide us into all truth Daniel saw in his Night-Vision behold one like the Son of man came in the clouds of Heaven and approached to the ancient of dayes and the Angells brought him neer before him This Vision was fulfilled in this Ascension Dan. 7. 13. The Heaven of Heavens was the fittest place not onely for his enjoyment of eternall pleasures but it was a stately Pallace from whence he might exercise his universall Power and administer his eternall Kingdom and be ettended and guarded by the heavenly powers For the Chariots of God are twenty thousands even many thousands and he is in the midst of them as in Sinai even in the holy place Psal. 68. 17. There he as a Priest for ever liveth to make intercession for us and continues our Advocate to plead our cause and make it good before his Fathers Tribunal After that Christ ascended into Heaven § VIII God set him at his right hand For God said unto him Sit thou at my right hand till I make thine Enemies thy Foot-stool To sit at God's right Hand is to reign as King So the Apostle expounds it 1 Cor. 15. 25. Therefore by those words we understand that the highest degree of Honour and Power next unto God was solemnly conferred upon him and he was instantly to begin to exercise the same The Angells and all things were subjected unto and put under his power and he became Administrator-Generall of this spirituall and everlasting Kingdom This Power was given him before For he said that All Power in Heaven Earth was given him whilst he was on Earth Yet now in Heaven he receivs full Possession and was solemnly crowned and enthroned before all the Angells and the Host of Heaven by vertue of these Words Sit thou at my right Hand He was made Law-giver and Judge and could bind men to obedience or punishment and judge them accordingly and determine of their final and eternal estates so as to give them eternal rewards or afflict them with eternal punishments This was part of Daniel's Vision For when one like the Son of Man was brought neer before the ancient of days there was given Him Dominion and Glory and a Kingdom that all People Nations and Languages should serve Him His Dominion is an everlasting Dominion which shall not pass away and His Kingdom that which shall not be destroyed The success and issue of His Administration was a final Victory over all Enemies and a total subduing of all opposite and contrary Powers and also the Eternal Peace and Felicity of His loyal and obedient Subjects As upon His Entrance into the glorious place of Heaven His everlasting Kingdom was established in His hands so His Priest-hood was made
this law I passe by The first commandement is § III Thou shalt have no other Gods but me and it is negative and so a Prohibition It presupposeth that there is One onely true and living God most glorious and blessed in himself the great Creatour Preserver Law-giver and Judge of the world who as he delivered Israel out of Egypt and called them to be his peculiar people so hath redeemed sinfull man by Jesus Christ and hath called us out of darknesse into his marveylous light and made those that were Lo ammi not his people to be Ammi his people and the Sons of the living God This commandement Evangelically understood doth presuppose him to be such The thing prohibited is either to deny or doubt that there is such a God or not to acknowledge him as such or to beleeve there is another God or Gods and to acknowledge him or them so to be This deniall doubting false belief and not acknowledging him or acknowledging any other may proceed from negligent or wilfull blindnesse which both are inexcusable So that the sins here forbidden may be reduced to Atheism or Idolatry The one seemes to be negative and a sin of omission though it is not alwayes so the other affirmative or positive and a sin of commission And though the having of other Gods besides him seemes onely to be forbidden yet from the affirmative part it doth appear that though we should have none other God and yet not have him as God and our God is a sin against this law And upon accurate search it wil appear that every one that hath not him as God his God must needs have another God And here it 's to be noted that though many translate the words of this Commandement Thou shalt have no other Gods before me yet the principall meaning is besides or but me as they are understood by the Chaldy paraphrast and the Septuagint and may be expounded by those words of Exod. 20. 23. Thou shalt not make With me Gods of Silver c These words presuppose 1. That none ought to be so accused as to deny the Lord his Maker in whom he lives moves and hath his Beeing 2. That to have another God doth not imply that there is another God but that men may account other things which are no Gods to be Gods 3. That it was the custome and practise of Egypt and most nations of the World to worship other Gods The first sin here forbidden § IV as you heard before is Atheism which is more grosse or not so palpable The more grosse is either to doubt or deny or not acknowledge that there is one glorious and eternal Being for ever blessed in himself or if there be yet he is not the Creatour and preserver of all things or if he be so that he is not the universall Lord Law-giver who takes notice of all mens hearts acts doings to reward or punish them accordingly These usually deny the immortality of the Soul the Resurrection of the Body and the eternall rewards and punishments These are not to be confuted so much by any kind of arguments as by such as are drawn è concessis from something they themselves grant to be true This Atheism doth not arise so much from the want of the light of reason within or sufficient representation of God without as from negligence or wilfull blindnesse contracted by former sins and sent upon them by the just judgement of God who hath delivered them up to a reprobate mind Atheism lesse palpable is when men professe they know God but in works deny him being abominable and disobedient and to every good work reprobate Tit. 1. 16. And all such as know him Speculatively and yet do not acknowledge and respect him as God the onely God are in some degree guilty of this Sin For the commandement requireth us not onely to know God but to acknowledge and respect him and him alone as God Idolatry § V which is the other sin here prohibited is a belief acknowledgment and worship of that as God which is no God For here I do not understand by Idol an image as the Word doth often signifie but a false God For to beleeve that there is any God but one or that any but he that made Heaven and Earth is that God and to give the Worship due unto the onely true God unto it is Idolotry So that the object of Idolatry is a false God that which is no God yet conceived to be such and set up as God in the vile hearts of men An Idol saith the Apostle is nothing in the world for there is none other God but one 1 Cor. 8. 4. Some give Divine Worship to those who are no Gods and deny it or do not give it to the true God Some give Divine honour to the true God and to false Gods too Both are guilty As one that hath worn allegiance to his own Soveraign and yet continuing his subject swears unto another is guilty of high-treason much more He that denyes fealty unto his own Lord and yet sweares unto another Honour properly Divine as such cannot justly be given to any but God and to give it to any other is not to glorifie God as God the onely God When it s said in the Place fore-alleaged that an Idol is nothing in the World it s not so to be understood as though an Idol were no real Being or had no existence in the World for the matter of an Idol is some real thing for the most part but that it 's no God in it self but onely in the conceit and judgment of the Idolater The Gods of the Gentils are said to be Idols 1 Chron. 19. 16. Where the Word translated Idols by the Septuagins and others signifies not-Gods or no-Gods This Idolatry is more grosse or not so palpable as Atheism was The more groâ—se is when men Worship as gods either the invisible Creatures as Angels or the Spirits of men deceased or visible as Living men Birds Beasts creeping things the Sun the Moon the Stars of Heaven the Elements These all are reall Beings But some fancy things that are not both to be and to be gods The lesse palpable Idolatry is from the basenesse and deceit of our own hearts as when we do acknowledge and professe one onely true God yet so love and affect the World and the things thereof as Honour Glory Power Riches Pleasures and this bodily life as though there were some Power in them to make us happy which God onely can do And we love fear trust in men or other Creatures and not in God or more in them then in God or as much as in God We often forgeâ— our God and rely upon our own Strength Wisdome and other outward meanes and give the glory of our good successe to our selves and not to Him This to do is inconsistent with the love of the Father 1 Joh. 2. 15. And we cannot serve God and Mammon Math.
receive power and dignity above others so as in that respect to represent God honour service and subjection may be due unto them from their fellow Servants In this sense higher powers are called Gods and as such are not fellow-Servants and subjects but Superiours and in honouring them we honour God whose persons they beare And as there may be an inequality and also a difference of this communicated power and dignity so there must be in the honour and â—ervice to be performed unto them For some have supreme and some sâ—bordinate power amongst men and this is the inequality Some have Spiritual some have civil and temporall power and this is the difference and according to the degree and quality of the power such must be the Worship and Subjection For according to the power and dignity must the service and honour be both for quantity and quality In matters Civil and temporall Civil and temporall honour is due either in a family or a City or a state In matters spiritual honour is due in a Church What honour and service may be due to Saints departed and to Angels we know not because we know not what Power and Commission God hath given them over us living upon the earth Neither do we converse with them nor do they ordinarily appear unto us so as ordinarily to converse with us Honour them we may in generall as participating an higher degree of spirituall excellency But to subject our selves unto them obey them in particular and present our petitions unto them we have no warrant neither do we know that they have any such place or power as to require it of us or we be bound unto it But this we certainly believe that Christ is at his Fathers right hand is Lord of Angels and men who hath received and doth exercise all Power in Heaven and earth and therefore to him as Man the highest degree of subjection honour service next unto that which is due to God as God is due to him and none else And it 's strange that the Socinian who denyes his Deity and believes him to be a meere man though exâ—ellent and â—ighly exalted should affirm that Divine Honour in proper sense which is due onely to the supreme God should be due unto him and ought to be exhibited Yet the Orthodox Christian who acknowledgeth him to be God should give unto him as man an inferiour honour as sitting at the right hand of the Throne of Majesty and not in that Throne it self For the Divine attributes and perfections cannot be communicated to any Creature and such as he as man is and no more And the Lutheran who asserts the Divine proprietyes to be not onely Communicable but communicated to Christ as man must needs place him higher then the right hand of the Throne and set him in the Throne it self And if they worship him as man with supreme Worship as invested with supreme power which is properly Divine they cannot be excused from Idolatry The power of an Officer is derivative and cannot as such be supreme But the Scripture makes it evident that Christ is but an Officer though the Universall and supreme Officer in the administration of Gods Kingdom and according to a Commission which one day He must deliver up unto the Father The reason of this Commandement is very clear § XI For the Kingdome and government of Gods is purely Monarchical and God himself is the absolute Lord and Monarch As he onely and alone made the World so he alone doth govern it and he alone hath power to do so For among the Gods saith the Psalmist there is none like unto thee O Lord neither are theâ—e any Works like thy Works All nations whom thou hast made shall come and worship before thee O Lord and shall glorifie thy name For thou art great and dost wondrous things Thou art God alone Psal. 86. 8 9 10. Therefore to transgresse this Commandement and worship the Servant and creature above the Creator who is God blessed for ever must needs be Crimen laesae Majestatis High Treason and to deny him and refuse to submit unto him as Supream Lord must needs be Rebellion And as Subjection is virtually all obedience so Atheism and Idolatry are the root of all iniquity For the Fool hath said in his heart There is no God and then he became Corrupt and did abominable things And the Gentiles changing the glory of the incorruptible God into an image and his truth into a Lie and worshipping and serving the creature more than the Creator were delivered up unto Vile affections and a reprobate mind and then they were filled with all Vnrighteousnesse Fornication Wickednesse c. Rom. 1. 23 25 26 28 29. That which is contrary to this Subjection is Pride whereby man contemns God and with Pharoah saith Who is the Lord that I should let Israel go with Rabshakeh blasphemes the living God and opens the mouth against Heaven with the King of Babel sacrificeth to his own Nets with Sennacherib attributeth the works of God to Man's power and wisdome makes men with Alexander the great and some of the Roman Caesars conceit that they are Gods and to require divine Honour to be given them CHAP. VIII The second Commandement THe second Commandement is negative § I And therein we have 1. A prohibition of a Sin 2. The Reasons and Disswasives The sin prohibited is 1. The making 2. The worshipping of Images The Disswasive is 1. From the jealousie and justice of God who will severely punish this Sin of Image-Worship 2. From his mercy rewarding such as have a care to keep this Commandement This is the brief analysis of the whole This hath so near connexion with and such a dependance upon the former Law that many have taken them for the same and no man can Violate this without violation of the former It had reference in Special to the Israelites as newly come out of Egypt where this Image-Worship was a custome and a law and to those times when it was generally practis'd in other Nations For men began betimes after the sâ—ood to degenerate and apostatize especially the cursed posterity of Ham and Canaan his son It was even then an universall practise And this may seem to be the reason why God so much enlargeth upon this particular and useth such powerful reasons to disswade the people from it who were so much inclin'd unto it that notwithstanding they had solemnly engaged themselves to obey the Lord in all his Commandements had heard God speaking these Words with great Majesty and terrour yet before Moses returned from the Mount they had set up a Molten calf and did worship it Several Authours have delivered several occasions of the first beginning of this Image-Worship § II and they may be all true in respect of divers places and perâ—ons For some might have one occasion some another and all agree in the thing Yet of a universal custome it 's probable there
was an universal cause and occasion and the same perhaps not bad in it self but accidentally through the corruption of man and the suggession of the Devil abused God gâ—ve unto the Israelâ—â—es the Ark a sign of his speciall presence yet not to be Worshipped Abraham Isaac and Jacob whilest Pilgrims and Sojourners erected their Altars in such places as God appeared unto them and there did worship And it might be that the Patriarchs before the flood had some visible signs of Gods special presence yet afâ—erwards abused to Idolatry and superstition From this Laban and others might take occasion to make their Teraphims and other signs of the presence of the true God first then of their false gods and in the end made them as gods or objects of Worship and so much the rather because the Devils did â—ometimes appear near unto and sometimes spake out of thâ—ir Images being consecrated And this was suffiâ—ient to perswade the more intelligent that their God was near unto or in the image and the simple people that the Image was a God if once consecrated so that to them the image was the body and the Devil the soul of their cursed Deity Whether these things be so or no it 's certain man naturally desires the presence of his God or some visible or evident sign thereof at least not onely to help his memory but to affect his heart and strengthen his hope And it 's in vain to worship that God which either is not or cannot be present virtually at least unto his suppliant and devoâ—ed Servant And the Worship of that man who hath no assurance of the presence of his God must needs be cold defective and uncertain Neither can a Rational man believe effectually that he is a God indeed which cannot be present in the time of need To return to the Words of the Commandement The first thing in them is the Prohibition § III and therein we must consider the thing prohibited which is 1. The making of images 2. The worshipping and serving of them In both these we have 1. The image or likenesse of any thing 2. The acts about these objects which are making worshipping serving An image or likenesse is 1. Something in it self absolutely considered 2. Something in relation to another thing whereof it is an Image or likenesse which is represented by it For the form of an image or likenesse as such is to represent some other thing This image is Quid fusile tornatile sculptile 1. Something cast in some mould when the matter whereof it is made is melted Such are all images made of mettal 2. Something framed by the Turner and this kind is usually made of wood 3. Something carved or engraven in stone or wood And this is the word here used when it is saâ—d Thou shalt not make to thy self any graven image The word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is used often by the Septuagint in Greek to signifie Pesel and sometimes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and in this place they turn it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And lest we should think that this Pesel is onely some rude matter of woo mettal stone the word Likenesse is added to let us understand that the matter is molded and râ—ceives the figure and shape of some other thing as being made to repreâ—ent it which it cannot do without some likenesse This likenesse may be either more perfect as an image or lesse perfect and hidden as in Hieroglyphicks And some do observe that every image is a likeness but every likenesse is not an image The word likeness which in Latine is turned Simulachrum may be added also to signifie that the subject of this Commandement was not onely Statues or standing Images but pictures and all other resemblances Now this Image or likenesse must be visible and represent some other visible things These Visible things which might be represented viâ—bâ—y are reckoned by induction from the place to be things in Heaven in the earth in the waters And these are reall things made by God And lest any should find some colour of exception it s added of any thing Thou shaâ—t not make the image or likenesse of any thing that is in theâ—e three places These things are ennumerated more particularly man beasts fowl creeping things fish Sun Moon Stars and the host of Heaven Deut. 4. 16 17 18 19. Among thâ—se there is no mention of God Angels the Spirits of men for these are 〈◊〉 visible Yet because these have appeared unto men in some bodily form or figure assumed men have devised how to resemble them at the second hand according to the figures assumed though not immediately as they are in themselve Yet because this appearance was never made but in the likenesse of some of the forementioned things therefore these images and likenesses must needs be here included The first act in respect of the Images § IV and resemblances of those things which is prohibited is to make them to or for our selves Not that it is unlawfull to make the Image or likenesse of any thing For Moses and Solomon had warrant to make the likenesse of Cherubins Palm-Trees and other things to beautifie the Tabernacle and Temple And there were the Molten Images of Oxen made to support the great Laver and brasen Sea in the Temple and of Lyons on either side his Throne out of the Temple And Orthodâ—x Christians who detest Image-worship make no scruple to draw Pictures and make Statues The meaning therefore is that we must not make these or cause them to be made or use them being made in or for religious Worship For we must observe that the subject of the first 4. Commandements is Cultus Dei the Worship of God and to understand this making to our selves without reference to this is to mistake 1. Therefore these Images and Likenesses must not be made to represent the true eternal and invisible God For this cause Moses saith That Israel saw no similitude in the day that the Lord spake unto them out of the mid'st of the fire Deut. 4. 15. Whereby it was implyed 1. That no religious worship was due to any but God 2. That no similitude must be made to represent him After that God in high and stately termes had set forth his glorious eternall and incomprehensible Mâ—jesty he adds To whom will ye liken God or whâ—t likenesse will ye compare unto him Esay 40. 8. Neither ought we as the Apostle saith to think that the God-head is like unto Silver or Gold or stone graven by art and mans device Act. 17. 29. For the matter of these Images is mettal oâ— stone or wood and this is naturall The form of them as Images is artificiall from the art and device of man the reâ—igious form is to represent a Deity after the false conceit of mans corrupt heart It 's true that every creature made by God doth speak Gods wisdome and power and the
Heavens and in them the Sun declares the glory of God in an eminent manner and measure And the Souls of men and the Angels those glorious and immortall Spirits resemble him most of all his works Yet these stand at an infinite distanâ—e below his Majesty and God did never command man to Worship him in or by these more lively Images and resemblances of â—is infinit excellency Surely iâ— we have not farr higher apprehensions and more excellent notions of him we cannot possibly worship him aright How therefore should the Image or visible likenesse of any bodily and visible being molded and fashioned by the hand or art of man represent him so glorious The stock is a Doctrin of vanityes Jer. 10 8 In this respect the Molten Image is a teacher of lyes Hab. 2. 19. It 's falshood Ier. 10. 14. 2. As an Image must not be made to represent God lest our conceits and worship oâ— him be base and corrupt so we must not think that there is any Divine power in an Image made and consecrated by man or at the appointment of man For the power of things made by Gods own hand must needs be farr more excellent then the power and vertue of any thing made by Man For the works made and consecrated by God are as far more excellent as the Heaven is above the Earth Yet there is no Divinity nor divine power in them no not in the Angels of Heaven Images may indeed be conceived by some to have some strange power when the Devil 's in them or by them or near unto them work some strange effect But these are but the Delusions of the Vnclean Spirits and the cheats of his damned Flamins and Priests The Image it self can do nothing neither could the Brazen Serpent for it was God that healed such as being stung with fiery Serpents looked upon it 3. We must not think that any Image or any other thing made by man without warrant direction command and promise from God can be a sign of his special presence as the Ark the Tabernacle the Temple were God may voluntarily bind himself to be present in a speciall manner in some special place to his people worshipping him in that place according to his commandement But it 's not in the power of any Man or Angel either to tye God's special presence to any Image or to any place The Devil if God permitted it might by compact with the cursed Conjuring Priests bind himself to be in an hollow Image to speak out of it or appear or do some strange thing near unto it Thus the Heathen no doubt were deluded and confirmed in their Image-worship And its lamentable that Christians should be thus inchanted and bewitched by their jugling Priests 4. We must not make an Image or similitude in Belief that it wil help or further our religious Worship or make it more acceptable to God neither must we use them or rather abuse them to that end To worship the true God in or by an Image is a Corruption of his Service as any rational impartial man may easily understand Therefore Moses said to Israel Take heed therefore unto your selves for you saw no manner of similitude on the day the Lord spake unto you in Horeb out of the mid'st of the fire lest you corrupt your selves and make you an Image c Deut 4. 15 16. 5. We must not think either that an Image consecrated or the use of it in religious Worship hath any sanctifying power For nothing can be effectual in this kind or conducing to mans spiritual good which is not instituted by God with a promise of his concurrence thereunto The second act or acts prohibited are § V Bowing down unto an Image or serving it These imply that the former act of making these Images and resemblances is here forbidden as relating to religious worship 1. To bow down is an act of Worship and Adoration wherein by some outward gesture or carriage of the body before the thing to be worshipped we testifie the inward acknowledgment of the excellency of that thing and our submission to it These outward reverentiall acts are testifications of the inward deportment of our Soules and they are specified not meer from the object but the inward recognition of the Soul Some of these are common so that the same outward acts may be performed to God or man the inward cannot For they must of necessity be either Civil or Religious One and the same cannot be both If it be the custome of any people or nation or persons to make some of these outward acts and testifications proper unto a Diety and to be performed thereunto then to use them to any thing else is Idolatry These are many â—s bowing the head kissing the hand kneeling prostrating the body and such like all signified here by the word Bowing 2. The other act here mentioned is so serve or worship and so sometimes may be the same with the former But it 's here understood as distinct to signifie Sacrificing Burning Incense Praying and the like Both these acts are usually tendred to and before Images and that several way 1. To the Images as gods endued with a Divine Power able to hear Man's Prayer bless him and deliver him and this is directly to terminate the Worship upon it as a god against the former Commandement 2. Some direct this Worship to the Image as representing some other thing besides and the same more excellent then it self The thing represented may be either the true God or some Saint or Angel or Soul of Man departed or the Devil yet not conceived to be the Devil or some other thing 1. To perform any Worship any ways unto the Devil is abominable 2. To direct Divine and Religious Worship to and terminate it upon any thing but the true God is Idolatry 3. To terminate Worship any ways upon an Image is not onely unlawful but irrational and absurd for an Image is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a thing made by the Art and Device of Man and there is no excellency in it to make it a fit Object of Worship 4. To terminate Worship partly upon the Image as a partial Object and partly upon the thing represented is impossible if the act of Worship be one and the same individual Act. 5. If any perform the Worship onely before the Image without any thoughts of the Image and terminate it onely and merely upon the thing represented it is to make no use at all of the Image as altogether needless and vain to that act Yet thus to do hath a colour of Superstition if not of Idolatry and can no ways be excused because that Image was no sign of God's special presence by Institution or Promise from God 6. To worship God in or by an Image made by the hand and art of man must of necessity be a corruption of that divine performance and there is no Warrant or Command from God to make or
usurpation and an incâ—oachment upon the Soveraign power of God who alone hath right to determine and institute these things As he hath prohibited religious Worship to be given to any but himself so he hath said that we must not do unto him the true God as the Heathen did to their Gods What he commands that they must do and must not add nor diminish Deut. 12. 31. 32. The Heathens made Images to represent their gods instituted rites some ridiculous some vain some abominable and did Worship the Images and their Gods in them by them before them and sacrificed their innocent Children unto them Men out of devotion or some other reason may add unto the rules of worship given by God or they may neglect them and omit them and institute something of their own but both are against this Law In this Commandement therefore § XI are forbidden all the foolish vain abominable superstitious rites and ceremonyes used by the Heathen both before and after the time of Moses all of all the revolting Jewes of all Mahumetans since the time of Mahomet and of Christians after that superstition entred into the Church as it entred betimes For some of the Jewes being made Christians and disperâ—ed into severaâ—l Countryes retained some of their Pharisaical traditiâ—ns and many of the Levitical Ceremonyes as being zealous of the Law and many of the Heathens converted could not at first be weaned from their heathenish customes and rites And of this some of the ancients complained in their times Some relicks both of Levitical rites and Heathenish Ceremonyes we find in many places at this day I will not in this brief exposition â—pend time in the examination of the Ceremonyes of the Masse which are very many in such a short piece of Service It 's matter oâ— Lamentation to consider how soon Superstition and Idolatry entred into the Church and being diffused through many places and having continued for a long time they put on the face oâ— Vniversality and Antiquity though neither of these be a sufficient ground to warrant any thing not instituted from Heaven Both these entred secretly and by degrees For Commemoration conâ—inued for a time and received gave occasion unto and ended in the invocation of Saints and Angels Images and Monuments of God Saints and Angels secretly crept in and were tolerated and allowed for Instruction and at length abused to Adoration And in the end the worship of Images was defended commanded used established by civil Lawes and Ecclesiasticall Canons though it was much opposed from the beginning But that which made up and brought unto perfection both Superstition and Idolatry amongst Christians was a Doctrine which did peremptorily affirm and many did and do believe it that a Wafer or a piece of Bread by a few words of a Priest was changed into the Body of Christ and Wine into his blood contrary to Scripture reason sense And it was and is commanded that upon this supposed imaginary change this Wafer and this Wine should be worshipped as God with divine and religious worship And it 's stupendious and a matter of amazement that Christians who professe the Scriptures to be the word of God that the God who made Heaven and Earth is onely one and our Lord Jeâ—us Christ one onely Lord shoulâ— believe A morsel of bread not only to be a sign of Gods presence but to be the onely true God and so be worshipped with the highest degree of Worship Yet the Eternal Glorious and most Just God looks down from Heaven sees all this and in due time will certainly judge it I need not here insist upon particulars and enumerate the superstitious rites and ceremonyes invented and used either by Heathens Jewes Christians or Mahumetans Many of them are expresly named and particularly delivered in Scripture Many others both in Christian and prophane Historyes What is here commanded may be easily understood § XII not onely from the Prohibition but also from the end and scope of this commandement For it was added to be a Fense unto the former Commandement and to prevent the violation thereof For how can we worship God as God and the onely God except we know what manner or kind of worship is most suitable to his Majesty acceptable to him and conducing to his glory and this in all times Yet these things he alone doth know and hath power to institute and his institutions are the onely rule of Worship and tend most effectually to preserve it pure and undefiled It 's true that many rites and Ceremonyes invented by man may have a fair face of devotion and Reverence but they never proved to do any good but much hurt For they did beget false notions and apprehensions of the Deity who is to be conceived of by us according as he is represented in the holy Scriptures For if our apprehensions be false our affections and worship will be base and adulterate Therefore the general duty here presented is to worship God with that Worship which he hath instituted in his word without addition or diminution As for circumstances of time place and order to be observed in the Worship of God either publick or private they ought to be regulated by the general rules of Scripture particular examples of such as are related in the Scripture to have performed the service and worship of God according to those general rules and the prudential dictates of right reason no wayes different from but agreeable to the Word of God For these are not any parts of Worship but accidentall to the Worship of God yet not to it precisely as worship but as a serious act which requires in the performance thereof due circumstances order and decency As for significant ceremonyes annexed to the service of God no wayes conducing to the better performance thereof I think they are better spared and omitted then used and observed For though consiâ—ered in themselves without any reference to Gods worship they be indifferent and so in generall may be lawfull yet if we examine their original the first occasion of their use and institution the persons who use or rather abuse them and understand withall how needlesse and unprofitable they be and how offensive unto some weak Bâ—ethren and also besides these may be instituted many more of that kind and may be imposed upon the same ground and that in the Church of Rome they have been an occasion of superstition it must needs be concluded by impartial and juâ—icious men that they are not expedient To say and publickly declare that they have no sanctifying power that they are neither holy nor unholy will not serve the turn For the same may be said of Images at first when they began to be used and do what we can many of the people do account them to be holy make them parts of Gods worship and are more carefull in the observation of them then they are of the more weighty dutyes of Religion To understand the more
do Christians though the seventh day of the Jewes was the last as Christians is the first of the week as our weeks are now reckoned And if any people in the world then surely Jewes and Christians had their warrant for the observation of holy times from Heaven What the Patriarchs from Adam to Moses did in this particular we cannot so clearly determin because the Scripture in this point is silent That God set a special Character upon the seventh day of creation is evident Gen. 2. 2. 3. Because having finished his glorious works in six dayes he rested the 7th and blessed and hallowed that day and so he did none of the rest Some take it for certain that God even then insâ—ituted the Sabbath and others do think it probable that God from the beginning required of man the 7th part of his time and the 10th part of his goods for his service and reserved both as a chief rent to be paid to him as chief Lord in acknowledgment of his supreme dominion If reason were consulted it could not deny but that these are due to God especially if he require them by a command If Scripture which is a rule above humane reason some think it might be demonstrated that God did command Man to gave both in all times Yet to give both is not moral but positive That is properly Moral which is intrinsecally good just necessary and such as directly and immediately makes a man better and that which is good in this manner cannot any wayes be performed by a wicked man or an hypocrite Yet the tenth of a mans goods and the 7th of his time may be given to God by a Cain by an hypocritical Pharisee tho with an heart rightly qualified they cannot be offered to God by such kind of persons whose very hearts are corrupt and depraved That which is just and holy in it self and renders a man acceptable to God is of universal and perpetual obligation from the beginning If any particular duty afterwards become such by vertue of Gods command though the matter of the duty and the thing commanded in it self be not intrinsecally just then that duty is not moral but positive and receives its morality ab extrinseco from Gods Command not from the nature of the thing In respect of this Morality not onely the Sabbath but the Sacraments and the precept concerning the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil may be said to be moral and so moral and ceremoniall Lawes which are really difâ—erent should be consounded Yet if any will call such commands Positively moral I will not wrangle about words Yet I must say that term Positively moral is not proper nor accurate As in Grammer there be words which derive their signification and in Logick arguments which receive the force of arguing from Primitive so even in this decalogue which we call the moral law there be Commandements which derive their morality from others and all from the first Yet this is the diâ—ference between such Commandements and others which are purely positive or ceremonial That these derivatives have a nearer connexion with pure morals and conduce more effectually to pure justice and holinesse then these positives do whose matter in it self is indifferent and no better The end of this Commandement § III in the third place is to preserve Religion and the Worship of God which without the observation of set and determinate times would soon decay and determine And we find that they who usually neglect Sabbaths and Sanctified Times are prophane and irreligious Wretches God knew this better then we do and therefore so strictly required the Sanctification of the Sabbath Persons who take liberty in their own Families to neglect the constant times of Prayer and serving their God in private and are left to their liberty â—or publick Worship in a short time prove little better then Heathens The end of the Sabbath to the Jew was constantly to worship God in remembrance of Creation and deliverance out of Aegypt Deut. 5. 15. and to distinguish them from the Heathen who had forsaken that God who created Heaven and Earth and worshipped Idols and their Sabbath tended and did conduce to these ends The Christian observes his Sabbath in remembrance of Christ's Resurrection and his Deliverance from Eternal Death thereby and consecrates himself in that day the more solemnly unto that God who hath not onely created but redeemed him And take away their Sabbath-Christian their Religion is not likely to continue long To enter upon the Commandment It 's Affirmative and includes a Negative § IV and in the same we have 1. The Commandement it self 2. The Explication of it The Commandement it self is brief and delivered in few words The Explication is large The words are these Remember the Sabbath-Day to keep it holy Exod. 20. 8. Keep the Sabbath-Day to sanctifie it Deut. 5. 12. Remember in the former place is explained in the latter by the word Keep which word according to the Hebrew Chaldee and the Versâ—on of the Septuagint sometimes signifies to have a special care to keep or observe a thing and the Arabick word Natar is of the same signification And the meaning of it is Have a care and take special heed to sanctifie the Sabbath For when we are forgetful of a thing we neglect it To remember a thing is sometimes to do it if it be a thing to be done as when God saith He will remember His Covenant it 's meant he will be careful to keep and perform it Gen. 9. 15. God had a special reason to prefix this word which signifies or imports special care and heed 1. Because Religion did so much depend upon the Sanctification of the Sabbath and man's Salvation upon Religion 2. I believe the Israelites in Aegypt had much neglected the Sabbath and Holy Times neither if they had been careful could they so well observe them because of their cruel Bondage 3. Some of these Israelites contrary to God's Command went out upon the Sabbath to gather Manna as though that had been an ordinary 〈◊〉 and God did signifie himself much herewith displeased Exod. 16. 26 27. 〈◊〉 hence no man can conclude an higher degree of Morality in this 〈◊〉 then in others For of the four first it 's least Moral Thus far it is 1. As it 's commanded by God 2. As requiring a special and more solemn performance of Moral Duties 3. As necessary for preservation of Religion amongst men The Sabbath-Day The word § V Remember take care and heeâ— is but general though a special Item yet here it 's specified by the Object The Sabbath-Day and the end the Sanctification of it For the thing to be remembred and so carefully observed was the Sanctification of that time The word Sabbath taken from the Hebrew Language and used in many Languages of the World signifies 1. By it self Rest. 2. Joyned with the word Day a time of Rest. 3. A certain determinate time
of Rest. 4. An Holy Rest not a rest from all Works but such as are secular 5. The word Day doth distinguish it from Years and Moneths and Weeks as greater and longer times and from an hour as a shorter measure of time And because it may signifie either a natural day of 24 hours or as it is an artificial day so far as it is a time of work and is opposed to a Night which is a time appointed by God for man to rest in For here it 's differenced from those six days wherein man may labour and do his secular works which also had their several nights and times of rest from the Creation And as our secularâ—work on other days is not confined merely to the time of Light natural from the Sun approaching unto or appearing in our Horizon no more is this Sabbath-Day Yet God did not take from it nor deny man in it a Night as a time of Rest. And men in these things should not be more precise than God would have them to be It 's not material whether we turn it The Sabbath or A Sabbath though The Sabbath is more emphatical and more agreeable to the Hebrew Chaldee Septuagim all which put a double Particle One upon the day another upon Sabbath Remember The Day of The Sabbath This word Sabbath-day doth not determine whether it should be one day in a Year or in a Moneth or in a Week Whether it should be the first or last of a Week or any of the intervenient Days neither doth it inform us when the Week begins or ends Yet that People of the Jews might easily understand that he meant that particular Sabbath-Day wherein they were prohibited to gather Manna which God denyed to give them that time And if they had been ignorant of this they might easily know that it signified such a time as God should determine and judge sufficient for preservation of Religion and His Worship and yet leave a competent portion of time for man's necessities This appears by the Explication following For all this I do not think that God did ever make such account of this or that seventh day as that one and the same should be of necessity and of universal and perpetual Obligation to Jews and Gentiles Neither is there any Morality in the number of seven or any necessary dependence of the continuance of Religion upon this or that seventh day The light of Natural Reason seems unable of it self to know this time yet if it be once revealed by God it cannot but acknowledge the Equity of it It may dictate unto us that if God once determine the time that time is the fittest The Heathens might have some Astronomical knowledge of the seventh day but Theological they could have none except by Tradition To sanctifie it This is the principall part of this Commandement § VI and of mans duty To sanctifie this day But it s one thing for God another thing for man to sanctifie it God may hallow it by his practise as he did the first 7th day of the World or by his institution and command For his command institution designation of the day makes it relatively holy distinguisheth it from and advanceth it above other dayes and binds man to honour it in his practice Man sactifies it for that is the sanctification here intended yet presupposing the former 1. When he esâ—eemes and accounts that day such as God hath made it 2. When not onely he rests from secular works but applyes that time to the due performance of those heavenly services which God requires of him especially and principally on this day It 's a time wherein the soul must be more imployed then the Body it 's a time wherein we must converse more with God than men with Heaven than with earth it 's a time ordained not for the temporal so much as the spiritual and eternal good of man it 's a time wherein we must not onely cease from our worldly labours businesse imployment which take up and toyl the body but sequesâ—er our hearts from worldly thoughts cares aâ—fections which distract our minds and diviner facultyes Thus instituted of God and thus hallowed of man it s the best and most excellent and noble part of our time and resembles in some degree that eternal Sabbath which we hope to hallow more perfectly in heaven When we shall be free from all sin and sorrow and Rest our selves with unspeakable content and joy in our God! This will be that glorious Festival and Holy-day the Sun whereof shall never set but ever shine For it shall have no end But this Blessed and Eternal Sabbath is not prepared for prophane wretches who neglect to serve their God on earth but for such as shall be most careâ—ull to sanctifie God Sabbaths in this life For the more carefull we are of the one the more sure we may be of the other The summe of the Commandement is this That whatsoever time God shall determine and design to man for a Sabbath man must remember it and be very carefull not onely to rest in it and forbear his secular imployments therein but he must be carefull to sanctifie it in the holy performance of Heavenly services without distraction After the words of the Commandement followes the explication § VII Wherein God 1. Explaines the word Sabbath Day and determins in particular what day he meant and singles it out from amongst the rest 2. Teacheth him how to sanctifie it 3. Gives the reason why he did determin upon that day for Rest and sanctification rather then upon any other So that in the words following we have 1. The determination of the day 2. The sanctification of the day 3. The reason of both 1. The determination of the day is in these words Six dayes shalt thou labour and do all thy Works but the 7th Day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God Herein He 1. Takes out of mans time Six dayes and assignes them for secular imployments 2. He pitcheth upon the 7th which he appropriates to himself and designes for the Sabbath The former words Six dayes shalt thou labour and do all thy works are neither a Command nor a Permission nor a Toleration nor indulgence in strict sense whatsoever they may imply But the proper intention of them is to single out six dayes that God may let us know that none of them is the Sabbath but the 7th following They first presuppose that measure of time we call a week according to the number of the first seven dayes of the World which God created in six dayes and ceased from Creation the 7th 2. They imply that the Sabbath is weekly 3. That it 's none of the Six dayes In these six dayes man may labour and do his Work and all his Work By Mans Work may be meant 1. The work of sin in opposition to the Works of God and of the Spirit which are contrary and as God never gave any liberty
worse or to do nothing For if the thing commanded had been onely rest then a Beast might keep the Sabbath as well as Man and receive as much benefit from it Therefore this time was subordinate to an higher end then rest and rest was ordayned for a diviner imployment as the service of our God and the sanctification of our souls For we must Remember the Sabbath day to sanctifie it But it cannot be a Sabbath except we rest it cannot be sanctified except we apply and consecrate that time of rest to God and the service of his glorious Majesty The Jewes were directed by the Prophet how to observe a Sabbath in these words If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath from doing thy pleasure on mine holy day and call the Sabbath a delight the holy of the Lord honourable and shalt honour him not doing thine own wayes nor finding thine own pleasure nor speaking thine own words then thou shalt delight thy self in the Lord Esay 58. 13. 14. In which words we have 1. A Precâ—pt 2. A promise of Reward The matter of the precept is the sanctification of the Sabbath by which Synechdochically is understood mans duty unto God For to sanctifie the Sabbath sincerely includes all the dutyes of the first table which have God for their immediate object In this sactification we may observe 1. The quality of the day 2. The observation of it 1. The qualityes are these 1. It 's a Sabbath and day of rest 2. It 's Gods day 3. It 's holy Gods holy day 4. It 's honourable and more excellent then other days 2. The observation requires 1. That we rest and that 1. From our sin and our vain pleasures 2. From our own Labours Works Words and all secular acts 2. That we consecrate it unto God with joy and delight so that our observation may answer the quality of the day and tend to the glory of God The persons charged with this Duty § VI are 1. Every one who is sui juris and can dispose of himself for labour and rest 2. Those persons are either Superiours or Inferiours Superiours are either private as Parents and Masters of Families or publick as Magistrates and Governours And these must 1. In their own persons rest and sanctifie this day 2. They must cause others subject to their power so far as in them is to do the like For as they are charged so they must have care of the persons subject unto them and use all means to cause them to serve their God and obey Him as well as themselves In this respect it 's true that Magistratus est custos utriusque tabulae and so is every Superiour invested with power The Inferiours are either rational or irrational Rational are either members of the Family or of the State or Church or Strangers Members of the Family are either Children as Sons and Daughters or Servants as Man-servants Maid-servants Strangers are either strangers in a Family or in a City and they may be Native or Aliens and Aliens may be Proselytes and incorporate or not incorporate Irrational as Ox or Ass or any Beast that is used for travel or labour in carrying or other Works of Husbandry This last of Brutes is not so to be understood as though the Law were given to Brutes and irrational Creatures For they are not capable of Laws The Law is not given to them but of them It 's given to Man who is the Owner and Master of the Beast 1. That he might be merciful unto his Beast For God will not have man to be cruel unto his labouring and harmless Beast For he that is cruel to these will be cruel to his Servants and such as are under his power 2. Because his Beast could not be used for Travail Carriage Draught Plowing treading out the corn or other service except some man as the Master or his children or his Servants direct them and make that use of them And from hence it 's evident That one end of this Commandement was the refreshment of Man and Beast and God in this had respect unto poor Servants who might by cruel and covetous Masters be abused and oppressed and also debarred from the service of their God to the hazard of their poor souls Poor Servants had Souls as well as the best were bound to serve their God and had as much need of Spiritual comfort as free men or their Masters And in those days if any Servants were under cruel and prophane Masters their case was lamentable For being either taken in War or sold or born Servants their Masters might force them to labour that day or to suffer cruelly if the Magistrate did not relieve them These words signifie that no man in power should suffer any Subject unto them to prophane the Sabbath so far as they could hinder it Neither did this charge unto Superiours excuse Inferiours who had liberty to sanctifie this day if they did neglect or prophane it And such as were restrained were bound to use all means to obtain this liberty to serve their God To say that this Commandement was given of Servants not unto Servants is not true For then it would follow that if they had good and Religious Masters or such as would permit them to observe the day yet they were not bound unto that duty neither did they offend if they did prophane it So far indeed as they were merely passive and subject to the absolute power of their Superiours who would in no wise suffer them to rest and sanctifie this day when they desired it and they should every way endeavour to enjoy this liberty and after all this could not then the sin must lye upon their Masters and Superiours upon whom God would charge it and that heavily too And let all Inferiours who enjoy this liberty be thankful to their God who hath shewed such great mercy to them The reason of the Institution of the Sabbath follows § IX And it 's from the end which in general is the remembrance of some great and glorious work of God for which he ought to be praised and glorified One Reason why the Israelites must rest and also give liberty to their Servants to rest is because they themselves were Servants in the Land of Aegypt and had little intermission granted them either for to refresh their Bodies or sanctifie Holy Times And this very rest and liberty might put them in mind of their great deliverance and stir them up to thankfulness upon their Sabbath-days Deut. 5. 15. Another Reason and the same more general was from the great work of Creation worthy of eternal remembrance And herein God is a Pattern and proposeth his own example unto man for imitation that as he in six days created Heaven and Earth and rested the seventh day and so sanctified and honoured it above other days so man might labour six days and rest the seventh and sanctifie it to the Lord. This example doth more distinctly
sense as they are a Petition and so usually taken we must first consider the meaning of the words Wherein we have 1. The Name of our heavenly Father 2. The Hallowing of it 3. Our Petition that it may be Hallowed By Name is meant the Majesty and the supreame and universall and eternall power of God whereby he is King of Kings Lord of Lords and the onely God to whom alone all Glory Honour Praise and Worship are for ever due from all both Men and Angels and that in the highest degree For his Name is above all Names and there is an infinit distance between him so far above and all other things even the most excellent so far below This Name and this Power this Excellent Majesty and Supreme Dominion doth presuppose his glorious perfections and his eminent acts The Hallowing of this Name is not to make it more Holy or excellent then in it self it is For that cannot be done There is no degree above the highest no addition to that which is infinite To Hallow it therefore must be something else And it is to know and acknowledge it to be such as it is This cannot be done except it be manifested and it 's manifested in his glorious works and especially in his blessed word To know it thus manifested and to acknowledge him the onely supreme Lord with all humility and reverence and to subject our selves as nothing in our selves wholly unto him is to hallow glorify and magnify the same For all these words signify the same thing For to sanctify is to acknowledge Him to be excellent to glorify is to acknowledge him as glorious to magnify is to acknowledge him as great Yet it 's not sufficient to acknowledge him as excellent glorious great but he must be acknowledged as most excellent most glorious and the greatest and we must wholly submit our selves to him as such not onely as Creatour and Preserver but Redeemer To petition for this Hallowing of his Name is to request 1. That as he hath already so he would continue to manifest his name more and more not onely unto us but unto all others not onely by his word revealed from Heaven and by his former works but by new and glorious works so that his very enemies may acknowledge that he alone is God and that his name is most excellent and that he rules in Heaven and earth His name hath bin manifested to others it hath bin manifested to us and may be manifested to them that are unborn It hath bin manifested much it may be manifested more It hath bin Hallowed by others and much too We pray it may be Hallowed by us and by us more and more It 's manifest to all by the works of Creation and preservation and generall government of the World but not by his Gospell and the Work of Redemption as it is to us Yet many do not know his name though manifested many know it but imperfectly and not as they should and might do Many know it more then others yet do not acknowledge it as they should do and submit unto it And they who in this life know it most do not acknowledge it and submit unto it perfectly Therefore there is great need to pray continually that this Name may be Hallowed by us by all and that perfectly which duty will not fully be performed by us till we see him face to face in glory Yet in this vale of teares we may cry Holy Holy Holy Lord God Almighty which was and is and is to come and cast our selves and lye at his Throne giving all Glory Honour and Power to Father Son and Holy Ghost for evermore In this we pray for the confusion of Atheists Idolaters which either do not acknowledge him at all or not alone and of all Men and Devils which shall usurp this power and glory and arrogate it to themselves The second petition is § VII Thy Kingdome Come wherein that Gods Name might be the more Hallowed and Glorified we pray that he would exercise his supreme and universall power especially in the Spiritual government of mankind that all his enemies may be subdued and his Loyall and obedient subjects may obtain full and everlasting peace and safety For this is the principall end of the comming of his Kingdome and his Kingdome comes when he Reigns This Kingdome is not that generall providence of God whereby he orders all things to their ends nor the civil government of mankind in their severall Common-weales though both be subordinate unto this but the speciall government of God-Redeemer in Christ by which man is ordered to his finall and eternall estate This Kingdom and Reign of God began betimes even presently upon the fall of Adam and was still coming unto that very day when our Saviour did teach his disciples to pray Thy Kingdome Come It was come before and a great part of this Reign was past but for the most eminent and most excellent manner it was then to come John the Baptist Christ himself his Apostles and Disciples by his direction did preach that the Kingdome of God was at hand which did imply that the more eminent degree and glorious manner was not yet come though not far off And when he had finished his work of humiliation was risen again ascended into Heaven and set at the right hand of God invested with an Universall Regall power and confirmed in his everlasting Priesthood then this Kingdome was come and he began to Reign gloriously and God in and by him began to order and administer his spirituall and eternall kingdome so as he never did before Then the rod of his Scepter went out of Sion and he Reigned in the midst of his enemies he enlarged the borders of his Dominion and he made all nations his territory This is the Kingdom of the Messias so much spoken of by all the Prophets so much desired so much longed for so long expected by Kings and Prophets who lived not to see it This is the Kingdome in a Speciall and strict manner which they were then taught to pray for and in such a manner as that neither we now not they after Christ began to rule at his Father's right hand could pray for Yet because Christ did onely then begin to Reign and He must Reign till his enemies be made his foot-stool and all his adversaries even death the last be subdued and destroyed and this is not yet done therefore they might then after Christ's exaltation and we must now pray that he would continue to Rule by his word his spirit his speciall power till that which was promised be accomplished that so that great design of God which was the totall and perpetuall ruine of Sathans Kingdom and the full and finall deliverance of his Saints might take effect There be three degrees and Periods of this Reign The Frist Commenced upon the Fall of man The 2d Upon the exaltation of Christ. And the 3d. Shall follow upon the
or obligation to punishment and this it is properly and in strict sense and the word remit doth inform us and teach us that it is so and so far as the obligation is remitted so far sin is pardoned and no further If it be wholly remitted the party guilty is wholly freed but if the remission of the obligation be but in part as it may be the pardon is not full and consummate And it 's not to be doubted but if the obligation may be remitted in part and by degrees and is so many times and not wholly at an instant Simul Semel And so far as a guilty person is freed by the supreme Judge from the guilt so far he is freed from the punishment either present and lying upon him by removall or future by prevention And a judge or a party offended may pardon either ex nuda voluntate without requiring any satisfaction or upon satisfaction given and accepted And the satisfaction may be made either by the party offending or some other substituted and accepted The forgivenesse or pardon we here pray for is granted upon satisfaction made unto divine justice not by the sinner but by Jesus Christ substituted and accepted by God Yet this satisfaction must be acknowledged and pleaded in the Court of Heaven by the sinner confessing repenting believing in Christ not onely making satisfaction on earth by his blood but pleading his blood as a Propiâ—iation in Heaven And here forgivenesse Pardon Remission sparing not imputing justifying are all one By this discourse we understand what Forgivenesse is The Party that forgives sin is our Heavenly Father And it is an act of God not as Law-giver but as Judge yet not of him as Judge according to the law of works given to man at his Creation but according to the law of Redemption Whereas some think that pardon is not the act of a Judge as a Judge they surely meane it of an inferiour Judge bound to passe judgment according to the Law in force Otherwise a Judge Supream and above Law may pardon and as a Judge for Pardon actively considered is a Sentence The reason why a subordinate Judge by Commission cannot pardon is not because he is a Judge but because he is a Judge limited by his Commission which is not essential but accidental to a Judge Yet Absolution which declares a man to be innocent upon Proof may be an Act of an inferiour Jurisdiction But howsoever it be in Humane Courts yet it 's certain that Justification by Faith in Christ opposed in the Scripture to Condemnation is a Sentence according to the Law of Redemption in force Yet in many things it differs from all Humane Judgments and is called Pardon because the party pardoned is guilty and unjust in himself and it 's called Justification because the party pardoned is just in Christ. God onely being the Supream Law-giver and Judge can forgive sin in proper sense yet He may use the Ministery of others in doing this according to that measure of Jurisdiction He shall derive unto them Yet as He never gave either Men or Angels infallible Knowledge to know the secrets of men's hearts not power to inflict or remove Spiritual Judgments so He never gave them Authority abâ—olutely to forgive sin or pronounce Sentence in their own name For it 's onely valid and irrevocable so far as He shall by His own Name make it such Yet this Forgiveness is an Act of God as merciful yet just and as sitting in the Throne of Grace pâ—opitiated by the Bâ—oud of Christ upon a person penitent and believing in Christ and pleading his satisfaction or propitiation in â—is Prayers The Party pardoned is 1. Sinful Man § XII 2. Man confessing his guilt and desert of punishment 3. Hating sin and willing to forsake it 4. Believing 5. Pleading the propitiation of Christ as the onely meritorious cause and the Promise of God in Christ. 6. Ready to forgive others who have offended and wronged him This forgiving others is an act of private Jurisdiction for so the power of a private man to pass by offences done unto himself may be truly called Yet this Pardon cannot free him from the punishment due unto him either by the Law of God or Men if God or Man proceed to Judgment against him By this Petition when we say Forgive us our sins we acknowledge our selves and others for whom we pray to be guilty and by this Confession we accuse our selves as guilty justifie God if He should condemn us magnifie His Mercy if He pardon us It must be made with a bleeding heart and godly sorrow that we have offended so just so holy so good and merciful a Father with great humility and importunity not onely for our selves but others and because we daily sin we must daily pray Lord forgive us our trespasses We must not mention our own merits righteousness good works for all righteousness and merit in our selves must be renounced otherwise we lose the cause And if we from our hearts do not forgive others we plead against our selves and cannot obtain pardon This is the reason why our Saviour so much mentioneth and urgeth the Duty of forgiving others though 77 times a day And if we pray in this due manner Christ will plead and God will pardon and we shall depart justified For the most merciful God propitiated and pressed by Christ's Intercession cannot hide his face long from penitent and believing sinners His Promises to tâ—is purpose are many and firm and He is faithful and just and all of them in Christ are Yea and Amen The second Deprecation § XIII is of sin not yet committed yet so possible that it may be easily committed and there is great danger of it The words are Lead us not into Temptation For because it 's to little purpose to be pardoned and freed from the guilt of sin past if we continually return to sin again and so contract a new guilt therefore our Saviour taught us daily to tender this Petition to our Heavenly Father For if we were in Heaven all former sins pardoned yet if we were not fully freed from the danger of sinning again we could not be fully happy because we could not be fully secur'd in that estate of holiness and bliss God in his abundant mercy in Christ doth not pardon sin-past with any intention to give us liberty to sin again that Grace may abound and that we may make new Work for Mercy When He hath once healed and restored us He saith unto us as Christ did to the impotent man whom He had healed at the Pool of Bethesda Behold thou art made whole Sin no more lest a worse thing come unto thee Joh. 5. 14. For we are delivered out of the hands of all our Enemies to serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness before him all our days Luke 1. 74 75. For as we have engaged our selves so it must be our special care to observe and not
And this without any Salvô or exception But the Law of Redemption saith Except ye Repent ye shall all likewise perish Luke 13. 3. They give hope of Pardon upon condition of Repentance and do not look at sin merely as sin but as sin unrepented of The one faith the sinner shall dye the other the sinner not repenting not believing shall dye They may be distinguished in respect of the end For some are for destruction some for correction and amendment and the lesser are threatned and inflicted to prevent the greater and the temporall to turn away the eternall Some are exemplary to warn others some are not So likewise in respect of the sins committed they may be distinguished for some are for one sin some for many sins jointly together Some are for personall sins personall others for the sins of others as when Children become liable to punishment for the sins of the Parents Subjects for the sins of the Soveraign and such like They may be differenced according to the measure which is alwayes proportionable to the sin Some are threatned to be inflicted in the same kind by way of reâ—aliation as when a man suffers in that wherein he sins They may be distinguished according to the severall distinctions of the Subjects For some are directed against single Persons some against Families Some against whole Nations Some against the whole World Yet this is a good and true observation made by many that neither the promises nor mercies promised are merited or deserved by sinfull man though he repent and believe yet the punishments threatned are fully deserved by man and God in punishing never did exceed but rather abate and when he afflicts most severely yet he doth it rather â—itra Condignum For we may justly and fully deserve the highest degree of punishments threatned but not the lowest degree of mercies promised We must all say with good Jacob I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies and the truth which thou hast shewed thy servant Gen. 32. 10. I forbear for the present further to inlarge in the doctrine of promises and threats and to descend to particulars because I shall have occasion in my discourse of Gods judgment to speak more particularly of rewards and punishments which are the matter of promises and threats which fully inform man of his destiny and doom and what in judgment he must look for to his own misery or happinesse CHAP. XX. Of the Judgment of God REDEEMER in Rewards and Punishments and of the Object Obedience or Disobedienco to the Laws of God Redeemer and in Particular of Punishments AFter the Laws of God as a rule of mans obedience in the precepts § I and prohibitions and of his judgment in the promises or threats follows the consideration of the judgment of God-Redeemer And it may be described to be An act of the jurisdiction of God-Redeemer whereby he renders to every man according to his workes as agreeable or disagreeable to the Laws of Redemption punishment or rewards In these words we may observe 1. The generall nature of it 2. The speciâ—icall form and difference The generall nature is this 1. That it is not an attribute but an Act of God 2. An act of God Redeemer 3. An act of Juridiction It s not an act of acquiring Power nor of the constitution of his kingdome but of the administration and it s not an act of Legislation but of jurisdiction The power of jurisdiction God acquired as you heard by the humiliation of the word made flesh It was exercised first before the word incarnate by God without any Administratour-generall But after that our blessed Saviour was exalted to the right hand of Majesty He committed all judgment to the Son John 5. 22. To whom he had given all power both in Heaven and Earth Mat. 27. 18. Yet in the excercise and execution of this jurisdiction both before and since the exaltation of Christ there is use made of Angels Men and all Creatures This jurisdiction is supreme Universal Spirituall Independent yet exercised according to Law The subject upon which this jurisdiction is exercised is man even all men and every person from the first Adam unto the last Child that shall be born The act of it is retribution of something for nothing of good for good of evil for evil The Object of this act is the doings or Works of man as man endued with understanding and Free Will For it considers not the acts of man naturall as he is Vegetative or Sensitive which are meerely naturall and agreeable to the acts of Beasts and other Creatures These works are not meerely deeds of the executive power but words of the mouth and the inward acts of the Soul and not onely the acts but the moral habits and dispositions whether naturall or acquired but especially acquired and dependent upon free acts These works are an object of this act of jurisdiction as they are agreeable or disagreeable to some Law and especially to the Laws of God Redeemer and according to these works Man is the formall object of this retribution and so of this judgment The Retribution is twofold 1. Of punishments 2. Of rewards For as mens works are so their retribution shall be If their works be good and they found obedient God will render a most glorious and excellent reward in the end and many other inferiour besides If their works be evil and they prove disobedient their Retribution shall be punishment according to their disobedience both in quantity and quality It shall be Malum triste propter Malum turpe or Malum incommodi propter malum injustitiae Yet we must know that no reward spiritual or eternal is rendered but as merited by Christ for such as shall be rightly qualified and capable thereof And because supreme Judges were never bound to formalities and this Judge is present in all places at all times knows all things even the most hidden both fully aâ—d clearly we need not here in this discourse bind our selves particularly and severally to declare the acts of convention examination testimonyes conviction sentence and execution as though these were alwayes observed distinctly and severally and that actually Hence we may easily understand the perfection of this judgment from the perfection of the Judge For. 1. There can be no question of the jurisdiction because the Judg is Creatour Preserver and Redeemer and his title is most clear 2. His power is universal and none can be exempted from his jurisdiction all are his subjects and his Vassals 3. It 's supreme and there can be no appeale lye from his Tribunall to a Superiour 4. As he is Omnipresent so he is Omniscient and knows all mens works and hearts even the hidden things of Darknesse and every ones Conscience shall acknowledge every charge to be absolutely true 5. He is most just and essentiall justice and cannot possibly judge unjustly Shall not the Judge of all the World do right saith Abraham
wofull estate it highly concerns all and every one of us whilst it is said to day if we will hearken to his voice not to harden our hearts lest God swear in his wrath that we shall never enter into his Rest. We that live in the last dayes and enjoy the Ministery of the Gospell have not onely many a fair Warning but many a fearfull Example represented before our very eyes These are the Punishments of the unregenerate § VIII which they suffer before the Resurrection There are also Punishments which God's own Children after their Regeneration and beginning of the estate of Justification suffer in this life For as they have their Negligencies Ignorances Failings and sometimes their grievous Sins So they have their Punishments accordingly For the most just God who is most holy and of purest Eyes will in no wise allow of Sin in his own dearest Children For though his greatest design is to save the sinner yet he will punish and destroy the sin As the greater their diligence care and zeal shall be the greater their peace joy and comfort shall prove So if they offend be negligent carelesse cold the lesse Communion they shall have with their God and the greater their doubts feares troubles griefs shall be And these spirituall Desertions of their God and the withdrawings of the Spirit are sad and heavy Judgments How great must their discomfort needs be when God doth hide his face Christ standeth at a distance and the Spirit doth not appear This is evident from the many dolefull complaints and lamentations of God's Servants and dearest Children They suffer many temporall Afflictions in their Persons Goods Families Children near Relations besides For they are many times chastened of the Lord that they should not be condemned with the World 1 Cor. 11. 35. The Sword departs not from David's house and his Children wrong and murther one another for his crimes of Adultery and Murther Yet these though grievous were not his most grievous and greatest Punishments The sting of sin and guilt thereof doth deeply pierce and torment his Soul the sanctifying and sealing Spirit was abated and in a great measure withdrawn as his divine Vertues so his blessed Comforts were almost reduced to a spark raked up in the ashes and if God had not in due time out of depth of Mercy revived it What had become of him What his case was we may easily understand by Psal. 51. at large especially by that earnest Petition Create in me a clean Heart and renew a right Spirit within me Cast me not away from thy presence and take not thine holy Spirit from me Restore unto me the joy of thy Salvation and uphold me with thy free Spirit that is Comfort me with the Spirit of Adoption Psal. 51. 10 11 12. This Punishment Peter felt tormenting his Soul when he reflected upon his Sin in denying his Saviour And surely to find the Power of Sanctification and spirituall Consolation to abate in our Hearts and the Vigour of it for present extinct is an unvaluable losse and an intolerable Punishment to God's Saints Therefore we are advised not to grieve or offend the Spirit of God whereby we are sealed unto the day of Redemption Ephes. 4. 30. and exhorted to give all diligence to make our Calling and Election sure 2 Pet. 1. 10. For the more diligent waâ—chfull zealous constant we are in the Practise of holy Duties the more our sanctifying power shall be increased the â—â—ronger our Hope the greater our Assurance and the more abundantly our Consolations will â—low Otherwise God being light will not communicate himselfe to men that live in darknesse nor to his own Children but as walking in the Light It 's strange that Saints and Martyrs in the midst of flaming fire and whilst under most cruell and most exquisite Torments should rejoyce with unspeakeable joy and in these Desertions should be so fearfully dejected Yet the cause is God will not abate the least Jot of his Justice when he shews the greatest Mercies After the Punishments inflicted by this most just Lord § IX and King upon single Persons declared briefly something must be said of the Punishments rendred to Persons associated as such These are considered either in a civill Capacity making up the body of a civill State or in an Ecclesiasticall and spirituall Capacity constituting a Church The Punishments of civill States and Kingdoms we may read and understand in sacred and humane Stories And so great are the Motions Shakings made in these great Bodies throughout the World in all times that we may easily understand that there is an universall and supreme Lord and that there is one most high whose Throne is in Heaven that ordereth the Kingdoms of men and disposeth all things in it according to certain Rules of Justice and Wisdome It 's a great Mercy of God to affoord us civill Government and to preserve the same And though the benefit thereof be generall and extends to all Mankind yet in the ordering and establishing Common-weales God hath a speciall care of the Church and the Society of Pilgrims and Strangers here on earth who seek eternall peace in Heaven as Subjects and Citizens of an eternall State This he continues protects and ordereth aright by his almighty hand and profoundest wisdom in the midst of all the Tumults Confusions Ruines Dâ—solations of the Kingdoms of the World These have their Beginning Increase Corruptions Alterations Ruines and fatal Periods not according to any certain Numbers or revolution of times nor the motion and influence of heavenly bodies and Aethereal lights nor from the power or weaknesse the imprudence or policy of man but from God according to the eternall rules of Justice and Wisdom determined and observed by him Yet he doth all things in number weight and measure most exactly and in the execution of his Judgments â—â—th the ministery of Angels Men and other Creatures When States that professe not the Gospel shall govern negligently imprudently unjusâ—ly and shall be corrupted and Corrupters and especially Persecutors of the Church and when States professing knowledge of the true God and the faith of Jesus Christ shall not onely violate the Lawes of Nature but neglect to protect the Church persecute the power of Godlinesse under what pretence â—oever become superstitious idolatrous prophane administer Injustice Cruelty be imprudent negligent unmercifull vitious and degenerate then the Punishments both of the one and other shall be Famine Pestilences Seditions civill Wars forreign Invasions Captivity Poverty Desolations many other Miseries and many times change of Government or the Translation of the Power Civill from one People to another and sometimes Anarchy and a totall dissolution of all order God useth the Governours to punish the People the People to punish their Princes and sometimes the Sword of a forreign Prince to punish or destroy both And when no Justice can be had from men on Earth he executes Vengeance in some extraordinary manner from Heaven Thus
said to be set forth or ordained to be a propitiation through faith in His blood Rom. 3. 25. For we are not immediately made justifiable either by Christ dying or Christ pleading but by Christ dying and pleading believed upon The righteousnesse of God is by faith in Jesus Christ unto all and upon all that believe Rom. 3. 22. This is an unspeakable comfort to sinfull guilty man deserving to be sentenced unto eternall death and the extreme punishments in Hell that 1. There is a Court of Grace Equity and Mercy ever kept in Heaven 2. A propitiated and most merciful God is the Judge 3. Jesus Christ His Son being once tempted and having suffered cruel punishments is very sensible of our miserable condition and full of compassion 4. Every penitent and believing sinner on Earth is his client and he will vndertake his cause and plead it as his own 5. A prayer a sigh a groan will mind him of our cause 6. A most righteous Advocate pleading vehemently and before a Father of eternal mercy for penitent believing and heart-bleeding sinners and that with his own blood and urging Gods own promise must needs prevaile Oh! fear not guilty Wretch thy cause will be carried in Heaven There can be no doubt of it Yet the Saints of God who lived and died before Christ's exaltation to glory had faith in Christ and were justified by it as Abraham was Their faith indeed was implicit and far short of ours yet it pleaded Mercy a Promise a Messias a Sacrifice though very darkly and God did look upon Christ though to come as a Propitiatour and intercessour and for his propitiation and intercession foreseen and fore-accepted and imperfectly yet sincerely believed did justifie them This Faith whereby we are justified is opposed by the Apostle Paul § IV to the Faith of the Jew in his Letter to the Romans to the Faith of the Judaizing Christian in that to the Galatians unto the Faith of Jews of Philosophers of the Worshippers of Angels in that to the Colossians It s opposed to these severall faith 's in a twofold respect 1. As an assent and perswasion 2. As a confidence or reliance The Jew believed that he might be justified by the Works of the Law and so trusted unto and relied upon his own Works alone The Judaizing Christian believed that Christ alone without the Law could not save him but with the Law he might and so his confidence was not in Christ alone but in Christ and the Law The Jew the Jewish Christian the Philosopher the Worshipper of Angels were perswaded either that Christ was needlesse or yet if he was needful he was not sufficient without the Law or without Philosophy or without the Worship of Angels and did either trust in Christ with these or in these without Christ and none of these would be compleate without or with Christ without some of these The Doctrine of the Gospel different from and opposed to all these proposeth Christ and him only and Christ alone as the complete High Priest Sacrificing himself and pleading his Sacrifice as the meanes and only meanes of justification Justifying faith believes all this and out of this belief rests upon Christ and Christ alone and pleads him and him alone and none else nothing else This Faith is not a perswasion that our sins are already forgiven § V nor a speculative assent to the truths of the Gospel concerning Christ as our Saviour which vanisheth with the speculation and doth not pierce the inwards of the soul nor is it any kind of resting upon Christ as our High Priest and Mediatour neither is it a sincere receiving of Christ as our Lord and King much lesse is it a generall act of faith in God Redeemer meerly considered under that generall notion 1. It cannot be a perswasion that our sins for Christs sake are already forgiven For we must believe before we can be justified much more before we can be assured that we are justified But this perswasion follows justification and remission it self It puts the act before the object and the reward before the performance of the duty and so makes justifying faith which is antecedent to be consequent and needlesse and from hence its consequent that a man may be justified without faith by a faith which follows justification But these things are absurd to a considerate Christian. 2. It 's not a mere speculative assent to the truths of the Gospel concerning Christ for it presupposeth practicall acts antecedent and issues from a practicall habit It looketh upon and closeth fast with the object wherein there be the Highest and most powerfull motives unto practise and obedience that ever were or possibly can be How is it possible that a man should believe seriously that stupendious love of God which moved him to give his onely begotten Son That whosoever believeth on him should not perish but have everlasting life and not be powerfully stirred up to love that most loving and mercifull God who loved him so much How can Faith look upon the Son of God bleeâ—ing and dying for his sins upon the Crosse and not hate sin with an eternall hatred and give himself wholly to Christ as infinitely more pretious and beneficiall to him then many Worlds Our reformed Writers had good reason to say that though this faith in receiving Christ Satisfying meriting interceding was Sola yet not Solitaria for it must of necessity work and work by love For it 's a lively principle of all heavenly virtues and sincere obedience That faith which is not predominant over all lusts and a mother of universall obedience is no faith whereby a man can be justifiable and justified 3. It 's not any kind of resting upon Christ as our High Priest and Mediatour For we may rest in part on Christ and in part on the Law and our own Works and in Saints and Angels and Superstitious rites of men We may rest on Christ for benefit and not duty We may rest on Christ and yet continue in sin be Hypocrites and so presume It must be a totall and a sincere dependance with a detestation of sin 4. It 's not a receiving him as Lord and King in that it presupposeth him as so received already For faith it self is a duty of obedience and presupposeth a submission unto him as Lord and King to command and bind us to obedience But it 's one thing to receive Christ for duty another to receive him for benefit Justification is a Benefit a reward not a duty not an act of obedience And though faith receiving Christ as Priest for justification be a duty as doing that which is commanded yet it 's but the generall nature of it whereby it agrees with and differeth not from any duty commanded by God Redeemer And consider it as a duty it 's a work and faith it self as a Work is not justifying But to come more closely up to the point and head of the matter now by some
subject § VI and makes the subject capable of the reward according to the eternall and unchangeable Laws of God-Redeemer It doth not justify but makes us justifiable To justify must be an act of the Judge To believe is the duty of the Subject To the duty man is bound by the command to render the reward God is bound by his promise But faith doth not only make him capacable and a fit subject to receive justification but upon it by vertue of the promise made in the blood of Christ the party thus as thus believing hath a right unto it The foundation of this right or the title which is sometimes taken for the right sometimes for the foundation of this right is faith but not faith as a duty performed or such a duty in particular but as it is specified and made a condition in the grant and promise made for Christs sake For a donation essentially includes the Donour the Donee and the Consideration if there be any as if it be nudum pactum there is none In this Grant God is Donour sinfull man believing the Donee the Consideration is the blood of Christ. If Christ have made no purchase there is nothing to be granted If He have purchased and there be no grant there is no conveyance If Christ hath purchased and God hath granted and yet the Donee be not specifyed it 's no grant no donation But in this donation man is the Donee and is specifyed as a Believer Yet the party doth not only believe but in and by the power of this faith doth confesse pray vow and Christ an Advocate in Heaven doth plead The Devil accuseth chargeth the sinner desires justice to be done upon the guilty wretch For why should he himself be guilty being condemned and punished and man being guilty as he is go unpunished Here Christ comes in confesseth his client guilty in himself yet just another way and though he deserve to be punished yet by law he ought not to be punished He Pleads three things 1. His own propitiation made 2. Gods promise as part of his Law 3. His clients unfeigned faith By this plea the charge of the Devil is make void the cause of his client made good and the judge effectually moved to pardon This pleading and intercession of Christ is necessary not onely because God ordained and required it but also because our prayer and pleading is very imperfect and His perfect And happy is he that hath such a Counsellour and Advocate in Heaven who is ever ready day and night before his Fathers Throne taking care of the cause of all his Clients pleading GRATIS without any Fee and ever carrying the cause Yet a sinner may be justifiable and yet not instantly actually justifyed For the sentence may be delayed for a certain time But this is the comfort of a true believer that the sentence will certainly be passed in Gods due time which in his wisdome he knoweth to be best Thus you have heard 1. Who is the Judge § VII 2. Who is the party judged Now 3. It 's high time to say something of the judiciall act which is the principall thing But before I proceed to unfold the nature of it I must digresse a little and examine the different opinions of men in this point For some question whether it be a sentence properly or no and if it be a sentence properly when and where it 's passed and if it be passed whether it be a bare sentence without any execution or with some execution 1. That t is a sentence most will grant but some distinguish of Sententia Legis and Sententia judicis The one is not the other is properly a sentence and this no doubt is an act of judgment not of Legislation For if it be an act of Legislation it 's then onely promise and that looks at none in particular but all in generall to whom the promise is made and presupposeth a duty to be performed But justification presupposeth a particular person a particular cause a duty performed and the performance as already past is pleaded and the Judge sollicited to passe judgment accordingly But let it be a sentence and that properly and of the Judge as it is When and where is it passed For passed if properly a sentence it must be For it 's not a sentence as conceived in the breast of the Judge but as judicially pronounced It 's not Sententia mere concepta sed prolata some wayes declared Whether for the time is it passed in eternity before time or in time For the place whether is it passed in man or out of man If out of man whether in Heauen or in Earth If on Earth whether by God and Man If by God whether by the promise of the Law that whosoever believeth is not condemned or some other thing If by man whether by the Minister or the Church binding or loosing so on earth as to be bound and loosed in Heaven If it be whether it be an act of conscience or the blessed spirit If the spirit whether it be by inspiration and enthusiasm or by some real operation Thus the wit of man forsaking the rule of Gods word will wander and ignorance joyned with curiosity will start many doubts puzzle a clear truth infinitely multiply questions not so much for edification as destruction and distraction 1. The sentence was not passed in eternity and onely manifested in time for if it were passed then and onely manifested now it might from hence be argued that the world was created from eternity and so is eternall and the glorious work of creation in the beginning had only been a manifestation of that which was from everlasting And how absurd if not blasphemous must such a fancy be It is trâ—e that as God before the foundation of the World did decree all things to be done in time so he decreed to passe this sentence But the decree it self without the issuing out and exercise of an almighty executive power is no sentence In eternity before time no man was created no sin committed no Saviour promised no law published no duty of faith performed no person convenâ—ed no promise pleaded and therefore no sinner believing justified 2. For the place 1. It 's not passed in Heaven and only there for no Scripture saith so neither is there any meanes discovered how the poor guilty sinner should know whether it be past or no and if past when and so till it be known to be passed and that certainly the believer must alwayes be in doubt The cause indeed is pleaded in Heaven by the great High Priest and his plea is effectual But that the sentence is always passed presently upon the cause pleaded cannot be proved It 's true that if a man doth certainly know his faith and the sincerity thereof he may certainly know his right unto justification and so he knows his cause to be good in Law He is justified in law-title that is he
is justifiable by Law But whether this be all the justification the Scripture speaks of especially the Writings of the Apostles shall be considered hereafter 3. It cannot be the sentence only of the Church or Minister because they do not alwayes judge and absolve Clave non errante infallibly and so one may be absolved on Earth and not in Heaven or in Heaven and not on Earth either in foro interiori aut extâ—riori as many use to expresse themselves It 's true that when it is exactly agreeable to Gods rule then it 's ratified in Heaven that is by Christ and manifested so to be by the execution For Gods sentence is not a bare word or distinct sound in the Aire 4. It 's not the sentence of the conscience For conscience is neither the supreme judge nor infallible 5. That it 's not pronounced by inspiration or enthusiasm as the words are ordinarily taken will easily be granted 6. Whether it be signified to the soul in man by some real operation with some execution is more disputable That it is signified by some real operation of the spirit with execution seems very probable if not very certain But let others judge when they have considered these places following The justified by faith have peace with God through our Lord Iesus Christ by whom also they have accesse by faith into his grace wherein they stand and rejoyce in the hope of the glory of God c. And the love of God is shed abroad in their hearts by the holy Ghost which is given them Rom. 5. 1. 2 5. Believers in Christ by the spirit mortifie the lusts of the flesh and are led moved acted by this spirit have received the spirit of Adoption whereby they cry Abba Father This spirit witnesseth to their spirit that they are the Sons of God having the first fruits of the spirit they groan within themselves waiting for the Adoption the Redemption of their body Rom. 8. 13 14 15 16 23. Now he that stablisheth us with you in Christ and hath anointed us is God who hath also sealed us and given us the earnest of the spirit in our hearts 2 Cor. 1. 21. 22. We know that we have passed from death to life because we love the Brethren 1 Ioh. 3. 14. God will give him that overcommeth a white stone and in the stone a new name written which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it Rev. 2. 17. 1. All these places with many more speak not onely of Believers but Believers justified and in this life 2. All these places either expresly or by consequence speak of the Spirit of God and of this Spirit in us and the effects of this Spirit in particular persons 3. The Effects are Divine and such as onely God can produce 4. These Effects are the shedding of the love of God that is the Manifestation the evident and abundant manifestation of God's special love accepting us to Eternal Life the Sanctification of the Spirit and enabling them to mortifie the Deeds of the Flesh and acting them to Obedience Adoption whereby call upon God as a Father their Father and giving them boldness and confidence to approach the Throne of Grace testifying inwardly testifying in them and to them that they in particular are the Sons of God and Heirs of Glory giving them assurance of Eternal Glory as giving the first-fruits thereof being a Seal and Earnest of the same making them know and certainly know that they are passed from Death to Life and that God is in them and they in God and that God abides in them and they abide in God 5. All these signifie and declare and that evidently that there is a great change wrought in them both for disposition and condition For disposition they are regenerate and sanctified For condition they are in the state of Life not of Death of Salvation not of Damnation and neither of these can be without Justification actual And this change is the more evident because the Spirit abides in them constantly as a constant Spring of Sanctification and unspeakable consolation and joy 6. Therefore God by this Spirit in them by these Effects and real operations speaks plainly with some execution that particular persons in this life are justifyed not merely by the Promise of the Law but the Sentence of the great Judge God's Word is not like man's word which is a bare sound but it 's a Word with power It 's like the Word of Creation saying Let there be Light and there was Light like the Word of Christ to the man of the Palsie Arise take up thy bed and walk and presently the thing is done Health and Strength is given He takes up his bed and walks and so his sins were forgiven and the remission was signified by a real operation and word of power And certainly there is no greater Evidence of sin past forgiven then power given to subdue sin for the time to come and after fear sorrow and trouble of men sweet peace joy and Heavenly Consolation 〈…〉 this Word which the Spirit speaks within is the very same Word with 〈…〉 Word which the Spirit speaks without us in the Scripture Yet with this difference that there it is a Promise made to all Believers in general here a Word with performance unto particular Believers The Word is not the Sentence of the Conscience The Witness of the Spirit is not the Witness of Conscience The Sentence of the Spirit is infallible the Sentence of the Conscience is fallible The Spirit is the Supream Judge by which God so justifies as no man can condemn the Conscience is an inferiour and subordinate Judge and the Sentence thereof may be revoked and made void The Spirit speaks with power and produceth Divine Effects and in the very Soul and such as neither Man nor Angels can produce These or like Effects the Conscience cannot reach If any say or ask How can God pass this Sentence but by the Conscience It 's answered That such men seem to be ignorant what the Conscience is and what the Sentence of it is what the different Sentences of the Conscience before and after Justification be The Sentence of the Spirit is a principle but that of the Conscience a conclusion And the Spirit must speak by these real Effects before Conscience can certainly conclude Justification to be past or the state of Justification to be present But this Point will receive some further Light § VIII after that we understand what this Judicial Act of Justification is Yet here ye must know that the act of Justification is one thing and the state of the party justified is another and they must be distinguished as cause and effect The general nature of it is that it is not the Promise of the Law nor the convention of the party to be judged nor the discussion of the cause but it 's a Sentence Yet because there 's a Sentence against a party and a Sentence for
before whose Throne of Grace we may approach without fear We are free Children of a free Mother We are not Servants born of Hagar the Bond-woman but free women of Jerusalem which is above and Mother of us all Gal. 4. 26. And as Jerusalem is our Mother so God is our Father who hath given us the Spirit of Adoption 3 We being adopted enjoy the Ministery of Angels those Blessed and Immortal Spirits who have a charge to keep us in all our ways guard us and pitch their Tents about us If we be in any place in any danger at any time they must be ready at hand If Jacob fear his Brother Esau two Armies of them shall meet him and secure him from danger When man by sin forsakes his God he 's out of God's special Protection and the Angels have no Commission to take care of him But if he return unto his God again they rejoyce upon his Conversion and upon God's Command do pitch their Tents about him And since Jesus Christ the Son of God was made Lord of Angels as soon as any do believe in him and are made the Sons of God he gives them special charge concerning his little Ones For they are all ministring Spirits sent forth to minister for them that shall be Heirs of Salvation Heb. 1. 14. 4 So soon as we are Sons we fall under God's special Providence and so He takes a far greater care of us than of others If we offend He in dearest love will chastise us not to destroy us but correct us because He will not suffer sinne to lye upon us He will try us not vex us but to exercise our Virtues and purifie our Faith that so we may come out of the Furnace of afflictions more pure then finest Gold If we fall He will raise us up again If we grow cold He will quicken us If we fall into danger He will deliver us if into want He will provide for us necessaries For our Heavenly Father knoweth that we have need of all these things 5 He in His excellent Wisdom out of greatest mercy so orders all events all conditions either of Prosperity or Adversity all his Works of Providence so that Heaven and Earth Men and Angels yea all Creatures and all things shall conspire and work together for our good and all shall unite Forces and full power which united as in one single cause shall further our Salvation 6 God loves them as his Children with a special love and pities them far more then any Father in the World pities his Child and nothing shall be able to separate from the love of that Father whom they love 7 He gives his Spirit of Adoption into their Hearts to anoint them seal them assure them of their present right unto and the full Possession in due time of their Heavenly Inheritance God their Father loves them and they must certainly know it Their estate therefore is an estate of unspeakable joy comfort Yet it requires that we should be obedient and dutiful Children and the love of God which is so great and advanceth them so high should deeply engage them to the love and obedience of their Heavenly Father This is the beginning of God's Judgment § VII in dispensing and disposing of his Spiritual Rewards of Conversion and Justification which include all the rest and bring them into an happy and blessed estate After this the continuance of this blessed estate is to be considered For God continues to judge and reward according to the continuance of their Faith and this in all parts of the World where any of his Saints shall be For all jointly and every one severally are the subjects of this Judgment which continually proceeds according to his Laws of Redemption As their Faith and Repentance are not made perfect at the first so their rewards joys and comforts are not consummate but by degrees And as their Faith may be sometimes greater sometimes less so this estate is better or worse or rather not so good Whilest Faith habitual remains rooted in 〈◊〉 heart they are virtually justified When it 's actual their Justification actual will follow When their Faith is lively and continues to act vigorously their estate is so much the more comfortable In this continuance of Rewards the same Rewards formerly given there is required a continuance of the grace of God's Spirit abiding in them to enable them to Duty and observance of his Laws and according to the continuance of this grace a continuance of performances without both which there can be no continuance of Rewards The grace of God is so continued that it doth not prevent all sin and disobedience and therefore we are not free from all punishments Yet as we contract new guilt every day so every day we should renew our Repentance and Faith and so present our selves before the Tribunal of this Heavenly Judge and sue for Pardon in the Name of Christ and suffer no guilt to lye long upon us And as this Court is continually open to dispense Rewards so it is to punish and chastise according as our deserts shall be If our sins shall be greater and our neglect of our renewing our Repentance and Faith longer the greater punishments both of loss and pain shall be as was evident in David This state of Conversion § VIII and Justification may be considered as continued in this Life or after Death until the Resurrection And it 's a continuance of it in the several Branches of Justification as in the continuance of Regeneration Reconciliation Adoption Regeneration which is commonly called Sanctification as continued is the first For that which they call Sanctification which follows Justification is the continuance of the first Regeneration which is a Bâ—anch of Juâ—â—ification and a removing of that great Penalty of loss of the sanctifying Spirit and the woful immediate consequent thereof as Blindness Perversness and the Dominion of Sin from which issue all Actual Transgressions which would multiply to a great number and rise to a higher degree of Malignancy if God by Reâ—â—raint or Renovation did not prevent both To understand this Sanctification continued the better we must distinguish of it as Active and Passive As Active it's an act of God sanctifying us Passive it 's those gifts and graces of the Spirit whereby we are enabled to avoid sin and obey God For though this be an active Power yet in respect of God giving it and us receiving it it may be called Passive though properly it be an effect of God the cause and a cause of an obedience following The active Sanctification is 1 The acting of the Spirit to prepare us convert us work Faith in us and by Faith unite us unto Christ. For all these may be called Acts of Sanctification in a large sense yet in Scripture they are called Vocation whereby God through the power of the Spirit accompanying the Word doth convert us and bring us to Christ. 2 This Sanctification active