That therefore the Law is spiritual Ro. 7.14 and a Grace Joh. 1.16 17. of his fullness we have all received and grace for grace for the Law was given by Moses but Grace and Truth came by Jesus Christ the Grace of the Gospel instead of the grace of the Law 1 Cor. 2.13 The Gospel is in words not taught by mans wisdom but by the Holy Ghost comparing spiritual things with spiritual i. e. the Spiritual things of the Gospel as signified by the Law to the same spiritual things as revealed by Christ So the Righteousness of God in the Gospel from faith to faith Rom. 1.17 i. e. from the faith under the Law to the faith under the Gospel Most true it is as hath been observed that this Spirit of the Law was not discovered in the Law but by revelation of Gods Spirit that made it and that chiefly to Princes and Prophets the Priests had little knowledg besides the Letter The Prophets therefore called up the People higher than the Carnal Ordinance to the spiritual Service of Law Noah is called the Preacher of Righteousness not of the Law of Rites which then was not and they that resisted are charged for resisting the Spirit of God that called them to it 2 Pet. 2.5 St. Stephen taxeth the Jews all along for resisting Gods Spirit under the administration of the Law and now for resisting Christ himself As the Israelites would not understand the power of Gods Spirit in Moses by that act of killing the Egyptian that did the wrong and offering to make peace between the two Israelites that he was sent to be a Judge among them And as the People were rebellious to Moses in the Wilderness so they were to the Great Prophet whom Moses had foretold he concludes thus Ye stiff-necked and uncircumcised in hearts and ears ye do alwaies resist the Holy Ghost Act. 7. as your Fathers so you also Which of the Prophets did not your Fathers persecute killing those that foretold of the coming of that Righteous One of whom you are now become the Traitours and Murtherers And all that we read in the Old Testament of the grace of God to that People and of their ungraciousness to him in resisting his grace tends to the same purpose 41. That it is truly said indeed In rendring two kinds of Reason the true Reason being unknown why Christ came not till towards the latter end of the World That God meant first to shew the World that other means which he thought fit to use to reclaim the World by the Fathers and by the Law and by his Judgments and Favours were not efficacious that the necessity of Christs coming might appear 42. That this is not to be understood as if God meant to render them inexcusable by using insufficient means that could not take effect But that dispensing to those times such means of Grace as the reasons of his secret Counsels did require proportionable to the obedience and service which he expected at their hands he reserves the full measure of them to the coming of his Son proportionable to the difficulty of bearing the Cross which he purposed for the condition of those Promises which he brought And the same is to be said of the Fathers under the Law of Nature who by walking by that Rule did please God and were advanced farther by his Spirit to nearer Communion with him as appears in the Book of Job presenting large Instances both of Gods correspondence with the godly of the Gentiles and of the Piety of their conversation with him And if God gave his Creatures so much understanding and liberty as he was pleased to allow and as he knew to be sufficient for them if they shall put forth these their abilities to the utmost of the power that God hath given them shall that which he gave for sufficient when used be counted insufficient and they be condemned for doing according as God did enable them Or shall he give them no means at all sufficient and reject them for the insufficiency which he set them in or will God require more than he gives and be so hard a man as to reap where he did not sow and gather where he had not strawed and require Bricks without Straw These are hard thoughts far be it from us to speak or think after this fashion Shall not the Judge of all the World do right 43. That it cannot be supposed that God should employ his Creatures in his service and not reward them for it much less that he should create them with a decree that they should never have power to serve him and be condemned for it 44. That we may not safely think that because Christ came late into the World therefore the benefit of his coming was the less and that all or most of the Nations besides the Jews or most of the Jews did perish for want of Christ No by no means Christ is the same to day yesterday and for ever and the merit of his Mediation extends to all before at and after his coming in the flesh unto the Worlds end 45. That to close up this long Title I conclude with submission not magisterially That seeing the Holy Ghost hath distinguished between the Law and the Gospel none ought to presume to mingle them together as one and the same in their Nature or as one and the same in effect and operation or that one is contained in the other the New Testament in the Old 46. That to let pass therefore the oratorical and hyperbolical expressions of the Fathers in this and other points who were most of them bred in the Schools of Rhetoricians as also the School Terms and other strained expressions of Modern Systematicks let us choose rather to adhere to the form of sound words delivered in the Scriptures which are the Pandects or body of Divinity that we must trust unto and for explication of our conceptions upon them make use of those Jural words that are most homogeneal unto them And to be sure this is the safest way because all Heterogeneous and Exotick terms must needs puzzle the understanding more than such as are genuine and nearer related to the Subject These are connatural and familiar and obvious the other remote difficult and forced Take this Cause and hold it and it may bid fair for the Peace of Christendom Amen Thus Man at first did not like to keep Covenant with God Adam and Eve had a desire to be greater than God thought fit to make them and would fain have been as Gods to themselves without such dependance of God as was by a Covenant to do Gods will for they had a mind to do only their own will and to know Good and Evil and to be Immortal for so was God and so would they have been When therefore out of an aspiring mind they had tasted of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil in hopes to be made
If Adam had such rare Rectitudes and helpes to keep the Law what rectitudes or helpes had we 6. If we had any will in Adam it must be free or not free if no will how involved in his sin if a Free-will why involved in his will if not free how guilty 7. Either we sinned really in Adam or by Interpretation if really then we might not have sinned if by Interpretation what sin is that whether we will or no 8. If Adam lost his knowledg and will why was he as God knowing good and evil and shut out of Paradise least he should choose the Tree of Life as he had done the Tree of Knowledg 9. Original sin was never forbidden Ubi nulla Lex nulla transgressio 10. If guilty of Adam's sin because in his loyns why not guilty of all his other sins and of all his virtues The first propagated and none of the rest Then may all the sins of our Progenitors be propagated to us 11. Sin is in the will only it infects morally and not naturally 12. Father contributes nothing to the Soul's production how then to its phllution Father begets and sins not Son is begotten and sins not Ergo No Man can sin for another to make him sinful nor do good for another to make him good Mantissa Quod erat demonstrandum * Tutor in judicio repraesentat personam pupilli procurator Clientis sed pupillus non tenetur Tutoris sui actionibus quando aliquid in ipsius praejudicium fecit nec Cliens Procuratoris si is limites sibi praescriptos excesserit Quis Adamum Tutorem vel Procuratorem constituit Liberi cum haereditati paternae renunciant obligati non sunt ad solvendum eorum debita Levi figuratè 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 decimatus fuit in Abrahamo In decimatione passiva voluntas non requiritur Non eadem est peccatorum animae quà m morborum corporis ratio Transition Come we now as it is high time to shew how the Sinners in any of the afore-said senses come to be justified or made righteous The CONTENTS Just Just Legally Just Morally Just Jurally Right Accounting God Righteous TITLE III. Of a Just Man THe Term Just 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies three things 1. Legally faciendo by doing Right Righteous Just 2. Morally donando by giving Right Merciful 3. Jurally habendo by having Right an owner This primitive word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 just or righteous in these three acceptions thereof is thus demonstrated SECT I. 1. Just Legally quoad Leges i. e. Honest and Upright Just Legally giving to all their dues according unto Law The innocent and righteous person slay thou not He that ruleth over Men must needs be just Zadick 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ex. 23.7 2 Sam. 23.3 Is 26.7 Mar. 6.20 Luc. 1.6 The way of the just is uprightness Herod feared John knowing that he was a just Man Zacharias and Elizabeth were both righteous before God walking in all the Commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless Not the hearers of the Law but the doers are just before God Rom. 2.13 The abstract Righteousness is put for Uprightness Ps 45.7 Is 5.7 Acts 17.31 1 Joh. 3.7 Thou lovest Righteousness and hatest iniquity He looked for Righteousness and behold a cry He will judg the World in Righteousness He that doth Righteousness is Righteous Thus Righteous is opposed to a Sinner SECT II. 2. Just Morally quoad mores i. e. kind and courteous Just Morally liberal and bountiful That is one that is not only ruled by Law but over-ruled by Law That gives not only what is due by rigour of Justice but more than is due by equity of kindness that gives rights to others that deserve or do not deserve which by Law they had not nor could have He that forgives my trespass doth against the right of the Law release me from the penalty which the Law exacted from me and he that bestows a Boone upon me doth above the Law invest me with a right which by no Law could be conferred upon me This Mercy and Bounty is eminently required in all Rich and Great Men especially Princes who for wealth honour power and mercy come nearest unto God and are therefore called Gods who can and may give and forgive beyond and against Law having a Prerogative Supremacy and power of life and death Ps 37.2 Pro. 21.26 The Righteous sheweth mercy and lendeth The Righteous giveth and spareth not Joseph being a just Man i. e. a kind Man and not willing to make her a publick example i. e. to question her openly according to Law Mat. 1.19 Luc. 23.5 Acts 10.21 as a just Man might do Joseph the Counsellor that buried Christ was a good Man and a just Cornelius a just Man and gave alms 1 Sam. 12.7 So the abstract Righteousness is put for kindness Samuel reckoned to the People all the Righteousnesses i. e. all the benefits or kindnesses Ethcâ—l zedakah which the Lord did unto their Fathers He shall receive the blessing from the Lord and Righteousness from the God of his salvation He hath dispersed abroad and given to the poor Ps 23.5 Ps 112.19 Is 60.17 his Righteousness remaineth for ever I will make all thy officers peace and thine Exactors Righteousness Therein is the Righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith where Righteousness is opposed to unrighteousness Rom. 1.17 18. and wrath vers 18. For the wrath of God is revealed from Heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of Men who hold the truth in unrighteousness But now the righteousness of God without the Law is manifested being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets Ro. 3.21 c. even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe for there is no difference for all have sinned and come short of the Glory of God being justified freely by his Grace through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ The same thing is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Eph. 2.7 That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his Grace in his kindness towards us through Jesus Christ Tit. 3.4 After the kindness and true love of God appeared Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and his Righteousness Math. 6.33 2 Cor. 9.10 He that ministreth seed to the sower increase the fruits of Righteousness i. e. your kindness in ministring to the Saints The poor Man's Box or Chest in the Temple was called Cuphal schel zedakah i. e. The Chest of Righteousness i. e. of alms because it contained alms for the poor Zedakah is rendred by the Septuagint 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Deut. 6.25 Deut. 24.5 Ps 33.5 Ps 103.6 Dan. 4.27 And Chesed i. e. kindness is alwaies rendred 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. kindness is in Matthew and Luke rendred Alms but never so in
Nothing can be altered Eccles 1.15 That which is crooked cannot be made straight and that which is wanting cannot be numbred Consider the waies of God for who can make that straight which he hath made crooked Eccles 7.13 Let no man say Wherefore is this or wherefore is that For all things are fitted with their due shapes and qualities and though some things ugly in comparison of others yet all things make up the compleat beauty and loveliness of the Universe Reas A fortuitous convolation of blind Atoms could not do this Because all Beautiful composures require Labour and Art which is only in Spirit and Intellect not in Matter or Deadness Works of God harmonious III. Harmonious Works Agreement amongst disagreeing qualities and unlike quantities Reas 1. Because Chance links not one thing into another in contrived harmony 2. Because established Order amongst things void of understanding must be the work of an Infinite understanding that knows their natures and uses 3. Because not only Brutes but Inanimate Creatures sagaciously operate for ends which they understand not As the Regular course of a Ship argues a wise Pilot at the Helm so the Regular course of the World argues a wise Creatour Upon these Notions mankind acknowledged a Deity and because they could not see it chose to worship any thing for a God which they could see rather than to be without one which they could not see And when they found any benefit by any thing they made it a God as by Ceres Bacchus c. the good Corn and Wine that gladded their hearts Is not this a God And because they could not see the Deity being a Spirit they adored Idols and other Creatures which were material because they could see them Obj. Some have denied a Deity Sol. This is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to bely Nature In some Individuals Nature and Reason may be perverted by Education and Customes Institutions and Examples destroying natural Notions but this cannot invalidate Universal perswasions and the consent of all Nations The Will in some particulars doth often change as often as the Will changes which is very changable but the true Notion is fixt from the understanding natural which never changeth This must come either 1. From the Oracle of God or 2. From the Tradition of Parents If from God it must be true If from Parents it cannot be false Ob. Soul is invisible and all Spirits Ergo there are none Ergo no God Sol. Air invisible and Wind Ergo none Ob. We cannot comprehend God Ergo no God Sol. Inferiours cannot comprehend Superiours Beasts cannot comprehend Men nor their Actions Art or Government As Man is above Beasts so God is above Man There are higher than the highest and there are higher than they Arist Top. 6. That is universally known not which every one acknowledgeth but that which every one who doth not debauch his Faculties doth or may discern for it is enough evident that Gods Being lies eaven to all Understandings The Atheist eradicates 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 â—para To deny God is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Profaness of this Age has tinctured it with Atheisme Men sunk into Sensualities their Reason complies with their Carnal appetite contrary to its self and fain would they have none to see them or call them to an account Quod valdè volumus facilè credimus And so what they earnestly desire they do readily believe Therefore 1. Let the Soul know its own Imperfection and acknowledge all Perfection to be in God 2. Let the Soul know that Right and Wrong Good and Evil imply a Law which is Gods Ergo to be guided thereby 3. Let the Soul know she is a Judge of her own Actions but God is a Judge above her 4. Let the Soul know that her vast unsatiated desires may be satiated in God 5. Let the Soul know that she can frame no other Idea of God but that he is the first and best and therefore Independent and Munificent Being Therefore 1. Look on the Magnificent works of the VVorld Were they eternal in Atoms VVho made them 1. How could Dead matter move it self without Life and Spirit 2. How could Unreasonable matter produce Reason which it hath not Nihil dat quod non habet 3. How could blind Chance fall into such a World as it is and into no other and to no more what wit had it 4. How could various Atoms hang so handsomely together as they do and not flie unhappily asunder what Power had they 2. Look on the Beautiful works of the World How could ugly lumpish Matter make it self so fair as Nothing can be more 3. Look upon the Harmonious works of the World How can a curious Instrument be tuned without a skilful hand Why do not Contraries fall together by the ears sight and destroy all Who curbs them and keeps the Peace Who sets bounds to the proud Waves and keeps the Ocean with the bounds of the Sands 1. And now Who can look within himself into his own Soul and Body but he must see a God In his Understanding which because Imperfect must be derived from what is most Perfect which is God which in part sees good and evil Ergo God much more Which reflects upon and Judges good and evil Ergo God much more Which hath vast inexplicable desires Ergo God only can satisfie them 2. Who can look round about him upon the Creatures but he must see a God 1. In the Magnificence of his Works 2. In the Beauty of his Works 3. In the Harmony of his Works in which all agree And when we do see a God both from within us and from without us Who can choose but love obey trust and hope in him How then this Profaness this Cruelty this Hypocrisie c. Stay therefore and consider your own Souls your Bodies how wonderful they are how came you by them You made not your selves the Creatures made not themselves All must be judged Ergo there is a God Upon these Notions Mankind acknowledged a Deity And because they could not see Idolatry nor hear nor feel him being a Spirit and because they would not take so much pains as to elevate their Spirits to the contemplation of the Father of Spirits that they might worship him in Spirit they chose to acknowledge and worship any thing which they saw and felt any good from instead of the Most high God rather than be without one So when they found any extraordinary benefit from any thing they made it a God to them especially the Sun Moon and Stars whose kind influences they perceived to enrich the lower World with life and growth of all good things which did refresh their hearts with food and gladness And even those Men that had ruled them and saved them from their Enemies or taught them to sow Corn or plant Vineyards after their death they adored them for Petty-Gods as Mars and Ceres and Bacchus
wiser they would have gone farther to the Tree of Life in hopes to be made immortal too if God had not stopped them Gen. 3.21 saying Behold the Man is become like one of us knowing good and evil and now lest he put forth his hand and take also of the Tree of Life and live for ever Therefore God drave them out of the Garden and placed at the East of the Garden of Eden Cherubims and a flaming Sword which turned every way to keep the way of the Tree of Life Men would be Gods to themselves So Mankind would be Gods to themselves 1. Self-wise not to take wisdom from God but from their own Inventions 2. Self-rulers licentious and not subject to Laws 3. Self-livers to live of themselves if they could and as long as they please and be immortal Or at least would share with God and God should partly be their God and the World partly be their God and they partly be Gods to themselves But it must be otherwise For Men have not all wit in themselves some body must be wiser than they that is able to dictate unto them what they should understand and do And that which is wiser than we is a God to us and God is wiser than us all and is a God to us all Men have not all Power in themselves some body must be stronger than they that is able to rule them and that which is stronger than us all is a God to us all The Israelites lost Moses and could not see God and they lacked such gods as they could see saying Make us Gods to go before us And when they were made they rejoyced for those dumb and blind Leaders the Golden Calves saying These be thy Gods O Israel Gods they lacked mightily and these were the best they could choose such as they had seen in Egypt Natural to have a God It is natural to look out for Gods therefore all the World have desired Kings or others of different Titles who had the same power to counsel them and rule them and defend them And Kings and supream Powers look up to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords to rule and govern them and all that are committed to their charge The Athenians had a God they did not know for all their Learning and therefore they erected an Altar to that unknown God rather than to want a God The Heathens had their several Gods for Wisdom Valour Praises and Honour to direct their Princes to make Laws and to fight for them Lycurgus and Solon had their inspiring Numens Numa Pompilius had the Goddess Egeria Socrates his Daemon But all these Petty-gods had the great God Jupiter to over-rule all It cost Socrates his life for too plainly denying his Country Gods and confessing the True Romulus and Remus and Alexander and many Potentates were ambitious to derive their pedigrees from the Gods as 〈◊〉 good Omen to strengthen them in their Kingdoms The Greeks and Romans especially strove to monopolize all the Gods of strange Countries into their own custody counting it a mighty piece of Policy to strengthen their State thereby The Heathens in all their Ignorances and Dangers fled to their Gods and God-like men to instruct them and fight for them They had therefore Gods for all occasions Mars for War Ceres for Plenty Apollo and Aesculapius for Plagues and Sicknesses Minerva for Learning Mercury for Wit c. These were vain and false Gods that could not help themselves but it was the true God that succoured them in all their distresses whom they falsly worshipped There is nothing but looks out for a God in all their extremities but they are the worst of all others that trust to themselves and look out no farther The safest way is to hide our selves under Gods wing and shelter our selves under the shadow of the Almighty to be in Covenant with him To know good and evil is of God in vain therefore do foolish men undertake to be gods to themselves Why should man give Laws to himself do his own will in every thing 'T is evident that God only knows all things and can do all things and can secure all things O the pride of mans heart to forsake the true God! They that are neerest to God are Kings and all that have power Supream They have wisdom from above to make Laws they have Power and the Sword to command all things There is one God in Heaven there are many Gods on Earth We spurn at those Gods and would do so to the great God of Heaven and Earth if we could come at him Why should one man be thought to be sole god to another much less god to himself This is Self-will None should command from Heaven but God alone none should command upon Earth under God but Kings alone Stoop stoop therefore O ye Sons of Men ye must have a God and gods wiser and stronger than your selves when all is done ye must be taught ye must be ruled ye must not think to have your own wills it is not safe for you Who can resolve you in all your doubts or comfort you in all your sorrows or save you in all your distresses but God alone We are content to obey Gods Laws Obj. The Laws of Men impowred and enabled by God are to be taken for Gods Laws As the King commands by his Ministers Sol. so God commands by Kings which are his Vicegerents When will this one thing be understood Poor wretches that we are we cannot live without God we cannot live without Kings Without God no salvation hereafter without Kings no safety here Many Protectours above us but none to compare with God and the gods Why do Atheists eat and drink they are not worthy of a piece of Bread to strengthen them nor of a Rag to hide their nakedness Why do they die it is because they cannot help it and if there be a God they wish there were none There are gods many and lords many but none can do as the Most high God Look therefore to the hole of the Pit from whence ye are all dug if God be God serve him If I be a God where is my fear Is there any god besides me I know not any Unto which of the gods wilt they complain The Mariners in the storm cried every one to his God They have taken away my Gods and what have I more Thus any thing that I love fear adore admire praise and trust to most I make my god And shall I do all this to a Creature as I am That that does me most good I count my greatest God The Original of Idolatry and strange Gods was the good that men received from several Creatures as the Sun Moon and Stars Corn and Wine when they felt their rare Influences and refreshments O then said they are not these Gods When any famous Hero's fought for them and saved them or taught them the use of Corn and Wine and
taken or received this is jus habere in them that have power to consent SECT VIII Creation 1. The creating all Rights as of all Things is absolutely in God the fountain of all Being and Justice who giveth power unto men subordinately to make Laws and to do acts of Grace in imitation of that absolute Supremacy Legislative power and Prerogative that is in him alone this is Jurisfaction or making of Rights SECT IX Donation 2. The giving of all Rights as of Things is absolutely in God the fountain of all Beings and Graces from whom every good and perfect gift doth proceed who giveth power unto men to do acts of kindness and good will in imitation of that absolute Bounty and Liberality that is in him alone this is Jurisdation and Mercy SECT X. Declaration 3. The declaring of Rights is absolutely in God the fountain of all Wisdom who giveth power to men to know good and evil Right and Wrong that they might give every one his due in commuting just valuations and distributing proportionable rewards or punishments to vertue or vice in imitation of that infinite wisdom prudence justice and bounty that is in him eminently alone This is Jurisdiction and Justice SECT XI Faction 4. The Doing of Right is absolutely in God for there is none good but God the fountain of all goodness who giveth power unto men to do good and eschew evil by the practice of all vertue and honesty in imitation of that infinite goodness and integrity which is highly in him alone This is Righteousness and goodness SECT XII Reception The Taking of Right is absolutely in God who hath all right properly in and from himself who giveth power unto men to receive and take from him and them to whom he hath given Rights to such things as may be their own by free gift or law in imitation of that infinite possession and profit which is in him transcendently alone This is owning and enjoying Right SECT XIII Amongst all Rights whatsoever Justification the act of Justifying others unto Rights is the best and highest act of Justice or Judgment because it produceth or bringeth forth all original Rights as the parent or stock to the off-spring and branches that spring from the same For if he do right that either deals right or declares right much more doth he do right who creates that Right whereby actual Right is done by a neighbour to his neighbour or by a Judg to his Client When a Tenant pays thee his Rent he doth thee right but when thy Father gave thee thy Estate he did thee more right for he made that right and gave it to thee whereby thy Tenant doth thee right When I was questioned for my Living the Judg justified me by declaring me to have a good right thereunto but when my Patron presented me he justified me much more for he created and gave to me that right which the Judg declared me to have SECT XIV Of Rights some are private and some publick 1. Private Right Private Right is that which belongeth to the honour or benefit of every private person as they are in private capacity and society with themselves 2. Publick Right is that which belongeth to the honour and benefit of all persons as they are considered in publick capacity and communion with the State or Commonwealth which things are farther illustrated in the Civil Law In the Church of Rights some are private and some publick 1. Private Right is that which belongeth to the honour and profit of every particular person as Faith Justification Sanctification Love Hope Patience Temperance c Adoption Resurrection Ascension Glory SECT XV. 2. Publick Right Publick Right is that which belongeth to the honour and benefit of the whole communion of Saints and Body of Christ as 1. The Rights of Creation Protection Maintenance 2. The Rights of Redemption as Victory over World Flesh Death Devil 1. The Rights of Creation or Nature are common to all men good and bad and to all creatures and are the same that ever they were and ever shall be to the world's end And though the wicked amongst men are unrighteous legally and morally and therefore jurally have no spiritual Rights of the Gospel yet they are not unrighteous naturally to the use of the Creatures for food and raiment or temporal Dominion which are not founded upon Grace but upon natural and Civil Establishments Thus God left not the heathen that worshipped him not as God without Witness Act. 14.17 but gave them rain from heaven filling their hearts with food and gladness 1. The Rights of Redemption or Grace are peculiarly enjoyed by the Faithful only and are the same that ever they were and ever shall be world without end These Rights of Grace by Regeneration and a new Creature which were lost by the Fall of Adam are restored by the Redemption of the Second Adam Christ Jesus And all that have put off the Old man with the corruptions and lusts and have put on the New man which after Christ is renewed in righteousness and holiness are the righteous Heirs of God that have right to themselves and to their own spiritual actions and to the food and clothing of the Soul and all things that conduce to their everlasting welfare Rights are considered as private or publick 1. Natural in all natural Entities 2. Civil in all Corporations Politick 3. Religious in all Civil Communions 1. Singly to each person 2. Jointly in Divine or Humane Society SECT XVI Justice All Rights are Dues and may be claimed and Just and therefore Sacred and therefore not to be violated or profaned Because they are allowed to those to whom they do belong by the Laws of God and Man And therefore God forbid but every man should have his due that is his own Just Rights And this way of Justice and Honesty if it were trod in exactly would bring peace and quietness into the world and for want of it is all strife war and misery SECT XVII Rights to God My chiefest Rights of my Soul and Body Wife and Children Honour and Estate are of and to and from my God whose I am and all mine SECT XVIII Rights to Body and Soul My next Rights of my Soul and Body are to my self for I have Right to my self to be mine own for God hath given me my self my Soul and Body to be mine under him and for him and they are mine as they are his and therefore they are mine because they are his and because he hath given them to me and therefore he hath given them unto me which is his act and deed that I might give them again to him and this is my act and deed and so we have Rights interchangeably to each other And so I am contracted to my God and my God is contracted to me and I am his and he is mine I have interest in him and he
have them more My virtues or vices can no Man have but my self but others may have the like Ergo no Individual Rights can be reckoned to another Person but specifical only The particular right to such a place Dignity or Profit may be taken away from one Man and given to another but if it belong not to a Place but to a Person only then the specifical right of one may be taken away from him and given to another Man No reckoning or accounting any thing to any Man but rights Faith is accounted and Right is accounted Faith for Right and Right for Faith The righteousness of the Law is not imputable or transferrible to another But the Man that doth them shall live in them Gal. 3.12 and no other And the unrighteousness of the Law is not imputable or derivable to another but the Man that doth them shall die in them for the Soul that doth well that Soul shall live but the Soul that sins that Soul shall die If it be objected that we are united with Christ and therefore all that is Christ's is ours I answer It is all for us and our union with Christ is our capacity to have a righteousness imputed to us from Christ by our Faith in Christ and therefore was Christ united unto us that we might be united unto him Hence there is a sympathy between Christ and us Saul Acts 9.4 Saul why persecutest thou me Heb. 4.15 In asmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these ye did it not to me He was touched with the feeling of our infirmities So if we suffer with him we shall be glorified with him Rom. 8.17 He hath raised us up together Eph. 2.9 and made us to sit together in Heavenly places in Christ Jesus My Beloved is mine and I am his Christ espoused our Nature Cant. 2.16 and took our sins and sorrows upon him and Christ espoused our Persons and we take his Righteousness and Glories upon us And all things are ours 1 Cor. 3.22 and we are Christ's and Christ is God's As Christ was made sin by imputation not inhesion for us so we are made righteous by imputation but not inhesion by him Is 53.6 The Lord hath laid upon him the iniquities of us all and by his stripes we are healed God hath made him to be sin for us that we might be made the Righteousness of God in him And be found in him 2 Cor. 5.21 not having our own Righteousness which is of the Law but that which is through the Faith of Christ Phil. 3.9 the Righteousness which is of God by Faith So Christ's righteousness that justifies us is not the righteousness of Christ in us but a righteousness put upon us and imputed unto us by Faith Ro. 4.6 And Blessed is the Man to whom God imputeth righteousness without works Justification is not the discharge of a sinner acquitted from blame and punishment but the collation of a right from the justifier to some farther benefit Not a legal right to the sinner that was illegal but a jural right to the Quasi-sinner that had no jural right by his Faith the means to make him imputed righteous and morally righteous to walk accordingly Which righteousness though it be not exact coming up to the perfection of the Law yet it is accepted for exact in and through the perfection of Christ Here is still no imputation of Christ's Personal righteousness to be found given out and bestowed upon us but an imputation of righteousness by Faith for Christ his righteousness sake not our own We are accounted righteous before God saith our Church * See the 11. Artic. of Religion That is the merits of Christ's righteousness hath so far prevailed with God in our behalf that by and upon our Faith we shall be accounted righteous before God in Christ by our Faith which in it self and by it self justifies not but instrumentally and as the means of justification So God looks not upon a justified Person as if he had done and suffer'd sufficient to justifie him but upon Christ and the justified in Christ who did and suffered sufficiently for him It appears on all hands that there is such a thing as Imputed righteousness but at no hand is there found any agreement what this should be 'T is true that Christ's righteousness is imputed to us but not as they mean who in a popular pleasing phrase tell us That we put of the rags of the Old Adam and put on the rich Robes of the New that we are clothed with garments of our Elder Brother as Jacob was with Esau's that we as he may steal away the Blessing What dint of argument will such weak sayings endure So the Adulterer may say he is chast with Christ's chastity the intemperate sober with Christ's temperance the Rebel obedient with Christ's obedience the malicious loving with Christ's love and every wicked Person righteous with Christ's righteousness May it not as well be said That as we are holy with Christ's holiness so we are redeemers with Christ's redemption for he who is said to be our righteousness is as much said to be our redemption Many strange and dangerous consequences may issue from such imputations as they fancy If any eye can pierce farther into the Letter and find more than Imputation of Faith for Righteousness and not Imputation of sins for Christ's Righteousness sake let him follow it as he pleases so it be not to dishonour Christ and cheat his own Soul by taking no care to be any thing that is good because Christ is all in all unto him not flinging in so much as a mite into the Treasury of Holiness because Christ hath poured in that Vast Talent which at the last day he accounts of his own Head shall be reckoned to him as his own proper goods to all intents and purposes The better to fix the true sense of Imputation in our minds we must know That Imputation is a Genus to these three things Justification Condemnation and Oppression which how different soever and opposite they are among themselves yet they all agree in this one common general that they are an imputation whereby some good or evil is ascribed accounted and imputed to us For Condemnation is an imputation of that punishment to a Man which he hath deserved by Law Oppression is an imputation of that punishment which he hath not deserved by Law And Justification is an imputation of that benefit which he hath deserved by Law or not deserved by grace and favour And besides we have no word whereby to express our owning of any thing that is ours but this of Imputation Hence sin is imputed to us because it is properly our own as we have made it by our evil will and punishment is said to be ours because by our sin it is justly imputed to us And Righteousness is imputed to us because it is made ours by
but would do even what they list Many Controversies trouble many as of Original Sin Free-Will Justification Real presence Merits Predestination Infallibility Supremacy Discipline c. But Faith Repentance Love Honesty Peace c. are easie practical things and perplex no body for who can except against a Holy Life None but profane Libertines and Atheists whom all abhorre will find fault with Godliness and Honesty It were good if Learned Men would leave their idle and curious Speculations and busie themselves in practical Sciences which make for the Glory of God and benefit of Mankind Magna est dementia in tantâ temporis brevitate supervacanea discere It is madness to spend a short life in learning unnecessary things Discito eam Scientiam cujus cognitio perseverabit in Coelis Learn that Knowledg which in Heaven we shall perfectly understand Socrates was famous above all the Philosophers of the World for reforming Philosophy from Speculation to practise There are but two things which are necessary in respect of God our selves and the World a good Conscience and a good Name Qu. What shall we do when we are not satisfied Answ I answer For practise conform to the Supreme Authority which determine as well as they can for the settlement of peace As for Judgment we are free and if we doubt we must be content to doubt and be quiet till we can be better resolved but to be fully resolved in all things cannot reasonably be expected A wise Man is of an universal Spirit and tries all things but is slavishly tied to no blind obedience The prime essential Reason of the Indisposition of the Conscience in Bad men is the sensual lust or carnal will whereby the Mind and Conscience is defiled Tit. 1.15 The secondary subordinate or popular courses consequential from and included in the Grand universal cause are these Ignorance 1. Ignorance not pure and invincible because 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that which may be known of God is manifest in all Men For God hath shew'd it unto them but wilful and vincible so that they are left without excuse because they did know enough to convince them and might have known more from thence Ro. 1.19 but would not search nor gather consequences from the Principles that were in them Learning 2. Learning Invention of nice distinctions to call evil good and good evil Is 5.20 21. Wise in their own conceits setting up the Idol of abominations in their own hearts and the stumbling block of their wickedness before their own faces hiding iniquity under their tongues scorning to be taught and hating to be reformed Riches c. 3. Riches Honour Power willing to be flattered none daring to reprove them and they will not reprove themselves A Principle of pleasure Ede bibe lude Eat drink and be merry swimming in delights and forgetting all goodness Poverty 4. Poverty shame misery makes careless of the Laws of God or Men fancying themselves to be wronged because not forward as others and therefore refusing to serve such a Master as rewards them no better not considering that Poverty is no vice and that if they would look up to God they might be rich in Grace and highly recompenced for their patience under so great afflictions 5. Self-love We are too partial judges of our selves Self-love 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Deut. 29.19 When he heareth the word of the curse he blesses himself in his heart saying I shall have peace though I walk in the imagination of my heart to add drunkenness to thirst Is 28.15 18. We have made a Covenant with Death and with Hell are we at agreement when the overflowing scourge shall pass through it shall not come to us for we have made lyes our refuge and under falshood have we hid our selves but your Covenant with death shall be disannulled and your agreement with Hell shall not stand when the overflowing scourge shall pass through then ye shall be troden down by it These things hast thou done and I kept silence Ps 50.21 thou thoughtest that I was altogether such a one as thy self but I will reprove thee and set them in order before thine eyes Prov. 30.20 Such is the way of an adulterous woman she eateth and wipeth her mouth and saith I have done no wickedness Is there not a lye in my right hand 6. Idleness Reflectio aegrè fit hinc oblivio peccatorum Idleness Hardly do Men reflect upon their actions past by thinking over their old thoughts and recollecting their former desires words and actions hence in time comes a forgetfulness of sins excepting such as are extraordinary loading us griping us and staring in our faces and cannot be put off by any diversions or avocations of business or pleasure in this World 7. Prejudice and want of Love to a Soul-searching ministery Prejudice as Ahab said to Elijah Art thou he that troubleth Israel And he answered 1 R. 18.17 I have not troubled Israel but thou and thy Father's House And as Ahab said to Jehoshaphat concerning Micaiah He is a Prophet of the Lord 2 Chr. 18.7 but I hate him because he prophecieth not good unto me but evil As Amaziah said of Amos The Land is not able to bear all his words And again Amos 7.10 O thou Seer flee away into the Land of Judah and there eat bread and prophecy there but prophecy not again any more at Bethel for it is the King's Chappel and it is the King's Court. So Isaiah speaks of a rebellious People lying Children Children that will not hear the Law of the Lord Is 30.10 Which say to the Seers see not and to the Prophets Prophecy not unto us right things speak unto us smooth things prophecy deceits A wonderful and horrible thing is committed in the Land The Prophets prophecy falsly and the Priests bear rule by their means and my People love to have it so Jer. 5.31 and what will ye do in the end thereof Ezechiel sets them forth thus They come unto thee as the People cometh and they sit before thee as my People and they hear thy words Ez. 33.31 32. but they will not do them For with their mouth they shew much love but their heart goeth after their covetousness And loe thou art unto them as a very lovely Song of one that hath a pleasant voice and can play well on an Instrument for they hear thy words but they do them not Because they have seduced my People saying Peace Ez. 13.10 and there was no peace and one built up a wall and loe others dawbed it with untempered mortar And it shall be as with the People so with the Priest Is 24.2 Hos 4.9 Je. 6.13 14. Like People like Priest From the Prophet unto the Priest every one dealeth falsly they have healed also the hurt of the Daughter of my People slightly saying Peace Peace when there
is no peace We cannot benefit by a Preacher whom we do not love Object A Vulgar Errour Whose fault is it why do ye not love Answ at least for the Words sake If he give cause of disaffection yet you might set that aside and hear the Word which is able to save your Souls without respect of persons not having itching ears or heaping up to your selves teachers or having new persons in admiration This was the excuse of the King of Israel against Michaiah a good Prophet but he hated him because he prophecied not to his mind Object He lives not well Answ That 's something to him and a scandal to his Profession but the Scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses's Chair what therefore they say unto you that do but do not according to their works for they say and do not Therefore this is no just excuse before God Besides there is much of fancy and humour in the case and a luxurious kind of wantonness in the great variety of Preachers and affectation of humane Eloquence not knowing well who will please and never being long pleased with the best of Men. Here is a cheat in this for want of an honest humble heart God's Word is to be regarded though the Preacher be never so mean St. Paul was not liked for his plain though powerful preaching but the flourishing Attick Oratours had all the applause He was counted a babler and Christ himself was despised The good opinion of the People is to be desired if it may be had fairly but when it cannot as who is he that can please all and at all times The Person being approved by authority may do his Office and satisfie himself in his well informed conscience It is well said of Seneca Mala opinio benè parta delectat An evil Name may delight a good Liver Benè facere malè audire Regium est The best of Men have been abused Christ was slandered to do his Miracles by the Prince of Devils to have a Devil in him and to be a Friend of Publicans and Sinners Companions 1. Companions in sin especially the Clergy They strive to make a Priest drunk or otherwise debauched that they may spye his nakedness and glory in his fall and strengthen themselves in their own wickedness and stop the cry of their own Consciences The meanest Sot when rebuked for drunkenness will say Why our Parson is as often drunk as I And surely he knows the way to Heaven Others will scoff and say Surely these Priests know a nearer way to Heaven than other Men. These are blind Guides that lead the Blind and both fall into the ditch But the true rule is Follow not a multitude to do evil lest if we partake of their sins we share also in their judgments We must not live by examples but by Rules The safest way is to be holy God not regarding Gross nns 9. Conceit of God's not regarding Tush God regardeth not is there any knowledg in the Most High We shall scape in a croud 10. Gross sins Peccata conscientiam vastantia Sins that take away the sense of sinning Peccatis magnis etiam jura Naturae intereunt High sins destroy as it were the Law of Nature Success Ps 50.21 11. Success Prosperum scelus virtus vocatur Vice successful is called Virtue These things hast thou done and I kept silence thou thoughtest that I was altogether such a one as thy self but I will reprove thee and set them in order before thine eyes Joseph's Brethren prospered in peace and plenty in their Father's House for many years after their cruelty to their Brother at last being pinched with want and threatned with death they cryed out Gen. 42.21 We are verily guilty concerning our Brother in that we saw the anguish of his Soul when he besought us and we would not hear therefore is this distress come upon us Because sentence upon an evil work is not executed speedily therefore the heart of the Children of Men is fully set in them to do evil So will they call evil good and good evil put light for darkness and darkness for light but bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter Fret not thy self because of him who prospereth in his way because of the Man who bringeth wicked devices to pass For evil doers shall be cut off Ps 37.7 9. but those that wait upon the Lord shall inherit the Earth My feet were almost gone my steps had well nigh slipt for I was envious at the foolish when I saw the prosperity of the wicked for there are no bands in their death but their strength is firm They are not in trouble as other Men Ps 73.2 c. neither are they plagued like other Men therefore pride compasseth them about violence covereth them as a Garment their eyes stand out with fatness they have more than heart could wish Waters of a full cup are running out to them and they say How doth God know and Is there knowledg in the most High Behold these are the ungodly who prosper in the World they increase in riches Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain and washed my hands in innocency for all the day long have I been plagued and chastned every morning When I thought to know this it was too hard for me until I went unto the Sanctuary of God then understood I their end So foolish was I and ignorant I was as a Beast before thee Righteous art thou O Lord when I plead with thee Jer. 12.1 2 c. yet let me talk of thy Judgments Wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper wherefore are they all happy that deal very treacherously Thou hast planted them yea they have taken root they grow yea they bring forth fruit thou art near in their mouth and far from their reins pull them out like sheep for the slaughter and prepare them for the day of slaughter All things happen alike to all Men and no Man knoweth good or evil by all that is before him 12. Satisfaction A general cheat to Mens Souls when they fancy Satisfaction that after great sins if they pray read hear give alms pay for Masses Indulgences Penances c. they shall expiate their sins and bribe God As the Jews and Heathens thought they did which is a plain mocking of God and a derogation from his Justice and mercy and the full Mediation of Jesus Christ For what are Rivers of oyl and the Cattel upon ten thousand Hills the fruit of our Body for the sin of our Soul 13. Want of a Spiritual Clergy and Magistracy Want of a Spiritual Clergy Jude 2.19 2 Chr. 24.2 14. As the Children of Israel returned and corrupted themselves when the good Judg was dead And as Joash did that which was right in the sight of the Lord all the daies of Jehoiada the Priest but afterwards fell off again So great a matter is good teaching by precept upon precept and
descends to an Heir by Nature and Law An inheritance of Feudum falls to an Heir as to his Ancestors by Grace and Faith SECT V. Church Militant 1. The state of the Church Militant is the state of a Feudal Kingdom Where Christ is the Liege Lord and the Faithful are his Subjects 1 Cor. 15.25 Christ must Rule till he hath put all his enemies under his feet and when all things shall be subdued unto him then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him and deliver up the Kingdom to God the Father that God may be all in all In the mean while the Faithful hold their Right by fighting against the World the Flesh and the Devil A Tenure devisable temporal on Earth The Kingdom of Grace is Feudum SECT VI. Church Triumphant 2. The state of the Church Triumphant is the state of an Allodial Kingdom where all are Kings A Tenure indefeasible eternal in heaven No longer faith but fruition Subjects all Kings Fear not little flock it is your Fathers pleasure to give you a Kingdom A kingdom of Saints O thou King of Saints A kingdom of Priests The kingdom of Glory is Allodium God hath made Christ both Lord and King over all his Church and all power is given unto him both in Heaven and Earth At his Name every knee must bow both of things in heaven and things in earth and things under the earth Let all the Angels of God worship him Let the Kings of the earth kiss the Son and fall down at his feet Christs Kingdom is in Fee from his Father The Church holds in Fee under Christ All things are theirs and they are Christs and Christ is Gods and God is all in all SECT VII Tenure of heaven Conditional The Tenures of the Church much resembles the Tenures of the World which are conditional 1. Upon Investiture of Homage by oath 2. Upon Tenure by faith and love 3. Upon payment of the Canon or Reserve of Rent for acknowledgment of the Lords propriety 4. Upon Melioration or Jure Emphyteuseos 5. Upon service in Peace or War as the Lord shall require 6 Upon Renovation or renewing the right of Succession All which exactly correspond with 1. Baptism an investiture of Homage vowed and promised 2. Faith or Covenant with God performed 3. Obedience or Rent of acknowledgment of our Selves and our Estates to Gods service and the Poors good 4. Improvement of our Talent by trade and employment in bettering our Spiritual estate 5. Constant service to our great Lord in all conditions whensoever he shall require 6. Renewing our Oath Homage Faith and Allegiance in the holy Eucharist There is a Knights Tenure when the Lord requires the presence of his Tenant to serve him in warfare and battel abroad There is a Soccage Tenure when the Lord commandeth the presence of his Tenant to attend at the plough and other husbandry at home There is a Rent of Mony and a rent of Works and a rent of Love SECT VIII The best Tenures are those that hold immediately of God Holding of God As 1. The Crown Lands that hold of God for the service of Rule 2. The Church Lands which hold of God for the service of Worship So both Crown and Altar hold of God So no man hath any direct Estate in and from himself but as Sons of God we have an Inheritance in Gavel kind after the custom of the old Germans that made all Children alike So we all inherit together only mans Children have but each a part of the inheritance but Gods have the whole to every one Res Domanii as they speak uniuntur Dominio alienari non possunt The Lords own proper Estate which he hath reserved to himself is united to the Lordship it self and cannot be alienated from it because none are absolute Lords but he So Gods properties of Omniscience Omnipotence Omnipresence Honour Worship c. cannot be given to another besides Christ who is not another but one with his Father and his Father with him The nature of Man aspires to be as God sole and absolute in their persons and estates as Kings Gods to themselves They that maintain their own Righteousness and Blessedness to be due to them by their own merits to depend upon none but their own worth would be such This was the old temptation Ye shall be as Gods knowing good and evil But the Tenure of Feuds teaches us humility to depend upon God for all to be nothing in our selves and to have nothing but what we have received of Grace altogether not of Debt therefore no Allodium no boasting in the case The littleness and nothingness of the Creature advances the greatness and allness of the Creatour It is our honour to honour God our righteousness to acknowledge Gods righteousness our riches to acknowledge Gods riches our wisdom to acknowledge Gods wisdom and so God and Christ are made unto us all our righteousness riches and wisdom a Tenure of Grace I judge it the greatest badge of Soveraignty and Principality for the supream Monarch to be the sole Lord and Proprietary of all the Land and People therein as well as the sole Commander of all And surely this Absolute Dominion is most like unto God Absolute Dominion and though those men which we call Barbarians brought this form of Rule and Right into the world yet we are not to despise it but look upon it as from God and the greatest resemblance of Gods Power and Love and the subjection of his Creatures that ever was SECT IX A middle Government it was between the tyranny of the East Feuds a middle Government and the popularity of the West and better than both In this the Prince is most like unto God and his Subjects to the Saints for if Subjects should have Land in Allodium and owe no service for it they should be no longer Subjects but quasi Princes But now they are Subjects and Beneficiaries and their service is freedom and honourable only let Kings look to their Power that they be no Tyrants as God is not but Fathers as God is and let Subjects look to their service that they be no Rebels as the Saints are not but Children as the Saints are This is the constitution of Christs Church and Kingdom 1. They are all Souldiers so they must not be idle nor fearful but all must watch and be ready upon all occasions to fight against the World the Flesh and the Devil 2. They must all love their Lord Captain and King and be at his call 3. They must all love one another and help one another as they fight together and are partakers of the same grace together and aim at the same glory SECT X. Christ sole Judge Of this Church and Kingdom Christ is the Head and Judge As all things so all power and all judgment are Christs Christ is the Judge of the faith and
by the Scriptures and by the Spirit of God in them If there be other Traditions without writing they also for the main agree with the Traditions written but some circumstances may differ and some must needs be lost in both But still the Traditions in Writing must needs be the surest and most lasting wherefore God himself wrote the two Tables with his own hand and commanded Moses to write the rest for a perpetual Record As for Traditions without writing they must needs be more hazardous because of the shortness of mens lives the weakness and varieties of mens apprehensions and memories the Interest of parties c. Nor are Writings impregnable but in the changes of times if they escape the fire and other ruines they cannot escape the ignorance and perversness of Scribes But God hath hitherto among both Jews and Christians secured the main Oracles written and unwritten and will secure them for ever SECT III. As for an exact Representation of the holy Catholick Church it cannot easily be imagined either in the Head thereof which is Christ Representative Church there being no express warrant for such a Representative Head or in the Members for such a Representative Body For who can represent the mind of Christ but the Spirit of Christ which is in him or who can represent the mind of Christians but the Spirit of Christians which is in them For Christ will not needs not come in Person to declare his will because he hath sufficiently done it already and Christians cannot meet all together to declare their will because there are most in Heaven from whence it is impossible for them to come and the rest are in all parts of the World from whence it is little less than impossible they should gather together and if they should they would all agree most certainly in the same Faith and Holiness but in Forms and Circumstances they could not And besides there would be Hypocrites among them do what they can for all that Profess have not faith And moreover men as men have various conceptions apprehensions and reasonings and languages and humors and interests And words are too few for things and are ambiguous and Idioms are diverse and there will be mistakes and there is no help for it and few have the true Arts of right reasoning therefore in these cases they must be contented to bear one with another and keep the peace well enough We may thank God that he hath left us the Scriptures and they are sufficient for salvation and be contented and judge as well as we can So men are fain to do in Civil Laws with some helps of Judges because mens Laws are not so plain as they should be but Gods are and they must rest satisfied with what they know till God shall come in into them by farther discoveries upon their honest search and endeavours after saving truth But still where scruples are some body must determine Some body must determine because of practice and because of peace I mean in matters of Discipline and so people must be contented though not satisfied but in Faith and a good Conscience every one knows sufficiently and every one is satisfied So in a Ship the Pilot must steer as well as he can though he may fail and some body else may know better For every one hath liberty to judge for himself but not altogether to act for himself much less for others That 's left to Governours who are as Gods yet they may erre as men it being Gods Prerogative only to know all good and evil and yet under God we must be guided by them who with reverence and godly fear do determine hard cases as the Turkish Mufti who when consulted to give his Judgment sets it down in writing and subscribes modestly This is my Judgment but God knows better And now what would the World have or what can they have more than they have and why will they not be contented with what they have and God thinks fit for them to have Why call they for a Judg when God is their Judge as the Israelites called for a King when God was their King This is to reject the Judgment and Government of God and trust to the judgment and government of Men and to have greater assurance than God thinks fit to allow them Pride There is an itch of Power in all this in the Clergy that are forbidden by their Master to seek after Greatness and leave the care and government of the Church and Commonwealth to Kings and Princes to whom it is committed to be Nursing Fathers and Nursing Mothers of Gods People Let every Soul be subject to the higher Powers Let them give their Advice to Kings humbly and teach their People truly and give them good Examples and they have done their duty God is not will not be wanting to his People for soul or body for this life or for a better But still the noise of an Earthly Judg rings in mine ears and I cannot be quiet for it And the sound thereof takes with the Vulgar and they are too willing to be cheated and some body thereby gets no small advantage O good God when shall we be at peace A Faction a stream of Worldly-mindedness and glory runs high The true Spirit of Christianity is lowly and lovely and quiet and looks up to God in the midst of all distractions What should poor Souls do but trust to their good God and be silent acquaint themselves with him and be at peace Calumnies They tell us we have no Church we are without a Head we have no Shepherd no Guide no Assurance we are utterly lost and out of the bosom of the Church c. Soft and fair Are we not Men have we not our reason and senses about us have we not Faith and a good Conscience within us What should we have more They that have ears to hear let them hear We will speak for our selves once more O ye that call your selves the Darlings of God the only True Church give us leave to own the same God and Faith with you and God will own us we doubt not whether you will own us or no. We are men and Christians still for all you our Senses and Judgments and Wills are our own still for all you There is Grace sufficient for us and you notwithstanding all your Anathema's and Curses against us Though you curse yet we bless All the Evidences cannot be on your side we have something to say for our Religion as well as you Scriptures The Scriptures of God we say under God are our Judges We go to the Law and to the Testament of God These you say are not Evident they are dead letters they cannot speak We say that the mind of God in them is a living letter and the Spirit speaks in them and is to be trusted to when the Spirits of men fail and are not to be trusted We understand
and saving Faith as shall be shewn hereafter Contrary unto this is our Covenanting with the Devil and the World To give our Souls to the Devil and the Flesh in giving away our Souls and Bodies for propriety and our Faculties and Estates for usufruct to these Enemies of God and our selves to our destruction and this is Infidelity and renouncing all Covenant or Communion with God So I give me and mine to God and God receives what I give and I am his So God gives Himself to me and I receive what he gives and He is mine And this is a perfect Covenant betwixt God and me and holds all the while I keep my Faith and true Allegiance unto him During the continuance of which Faith that maintains this League and Covenant betwixt God and my Soul Claim by Covenant I may claim all Gods Promises as my due with a holy boldness and he may challenge all mine and that we may first make and afterwards maintain and keep this our Covenant with God unto the end we have alwaies free access unto the Throne of his Grace for Grace sufficient to help us in the time of all our needs The CONTENTS First Covenant with Adam Second Covenant with Adam Resemblance of Covenants First Covenant inculcated from the Creation Second Covenant inculcated from the Creation Law written Spirit more plentiful in the Gospel Predestination of Rewards in Christ Men would be Gods to themselves Natural to have a God Natural to be in Covenant with God TITLE III. Of the distinction of Covenants Of the distinction of Covenants TO speak clearly and properly according to the Analogy of Faith concerning Gods two most eminent Covenants with Mankind Thus First Covenant with Adam I. The first Covenant that God made was with the first Man Adam in which was one Negative Commandment The Condition was to abstain from tasting of the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil The Promise was to eat of the Tree of Life in the earthly Paradise and by the help thereof to live for ever The Threatning was if he did break this Law he should pass his time in labour and sorrow be shut out of Paradise and at last die the death This is not the same Covenant with that of Moses Law 1. Because the Condition was diverse To obey all the Commandments which God then gave Ten whereof he wrote with his own Finger the rest he dictated to Moses and commanded him to write them in a Book 2. Because the Promises were diverse To enjoy long life honour Friends plenty peace and victory in the Land of Canaan 3. Because the Threatning was diverse Stoning scourging hanging c. Second Covenant with Adam II. The second Covenant that God made was with the first Man Adam The Condition was Love to the Seed of the Woman Enmity to the Seed of the Serpent The Promise was That the Seed of the Woman should break the Serpents head Thou shalt break his head The Threatning was That the seed of the Serpent should bruise the Womans heel And he shall bruise thy heel This may not be the same Covenant with that of God in Christ 1. Because the Condition was diverse viz. Faith and Love 2. Because the Promise was diverse viz. Eternal life and in order thereunto Remission of sins the Holy Spirit Resurrection and Ascension 3. Because the Threatning was diverse viz. Eternal death The first Covenant Resemblance of Covenants may in part resemble the Covenant of Works by the Law of Moses because of a prohibition from one thing and a permission of all the rest because of a promise of one Earthly Paradise because of the threatning of a Bodily Death The second Covenant may in part resemble the Covenant of Grace by the Gospel of Christ Because of the condition of Love to the true Seed of the Woman which is Christ and of Hatred to the true seed of the Serpent which is the Devil because of the true breaking of the true Serpents head which is the Devil by the true promised Seed of the Woman which is Christ And because of the true bruising of the true seed of the Woman by the true seed of the Serpent But though there were Promises many and Covenants many yet in the Scriptures it is evident that there are but two Covenants of God eminently and properly so called which are I. The Law of Moses which is the Old Covenant of Works The Condition was Obedience to the whole Law The Promise was the Land of Canaan and Rest therein The Threatning was Temporal punishments and Death without mercy The Mediatour was Moses The Duration was till Christ should come in the flesh II. The Gospel of Christ which is the New Covenant of Grace The Condition was Faith The Promise was Life eternal in Heaven The Threatning was Death eternal in Hell The Mediatour was Christ The Duration was till Christs second coming in Glory Yet no body can deny First Covenant inculcated from the Creation but that the first Covenant of the Old Testament was hinted from the Creation for the Precepts in the Law of Nature written in the heart and for the Promises and Rewards due to the obedience of a happy life on Earth never to have end and for the Threatnings of Calamities and Death never to end And so also the second Covenant of the New Testament was hinted from the Creation in the revelation in part of a Spiritual Law Second Covenant inculcated from the Creation to those that did obey the Law of Nature and in the obscure revelation of spiritual and eternal Promises to those that embraced the carnal and temporal ones But still there was no Law written in Tables till Moses and still there was no full Revelation of the spiritual Law and of spiritual and eternal Promises till Christ came and wrote them perfectly by his Spirit in the heart Law written Therefore when the writing of the Law of Nature upon the heart was almost quite worn out by habits and practices of unnatural Evils and the universal Examples of Wicked men turning from God to Idols and walking after the imaginations of their own hearts continually God made a Covenant with the Children of Abraham by Moses for the performance of Carnal duties and fruition of Carnal rewards to lead them on farther and prepare them to the practice of spiritual Services and enjoyment of eternal Rewards which to them as to Children were represented and shadowed out by several Rites and Ceremonies and temporal Prosperities These lesser and weaker Commands and Promises God gave unto them for that time of their Minority and reserved the manifestation of his higher and stronger Commands and Promises till the fullness of time when all things should be made perfect Spirit more plentiful in the Gospel Therefore God sprinckled a lesser portion of his Spirit upon some before and under the Law according to their present capacities But afterward when
but the less it suppresseth it or provideth any Remedy at all against it Rigour The Meer Law as it is the first Covenant of Works contains in it nothing but Rigour and Justice but no Grace nor Mercy at all A Rule it is to declare what is Right and what is Wrong but no means of it self efficacious to the doing of Right or the not doing of Wrong And therefore there is an extraordinary Weakness therein as to the Justification of a Sinner Heb. 7.18 Rom. 8.3 What therefore the Law could not do for the weakness and unprofitableness thereof through the flesh Christ taking the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin condemned sin in the flesh That the Righteousness of the Law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the Flesh but after the Spirit And that the Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus might make us free from the Law of Sin and Death Rom. 7 5 6 For when we were in the flesh the Motions of Sin by the Law did work in our Members to bring forth fruit unto Death But now we are delivered from the Law that being dead wherein we were held that we should serve in newness of Spirit and not in the oldness of the Letter So sin taking occasion by the Commandment works in us all manner of Concupiscence For without the Law sin is dead And so we were alive without the Law once but when the Commandment came Sin revived and we died And the Commandment which was ordained to Life proved in effect to be unto Death But sin taking occasion by the Commandment deceived us and by that Commandment slew us All this while the Law is holy and the Commandment holy and just and good And that which is so holy and just and good is not directly nor truly the Cause of our Death nor can it be so God forbid by its own Natural operation for out of good nothing but good can proceed but Sin that it might appear sin naturally worketh death by the occasion of that which is good For Sin taketh occasion by the Commandment to become exceeding sinful The CONTENTS Sin deceives Grace un-deceives My defect Fruition High understanding Ignorance True knowledge Means to discern Truth Rules Principles Authority Infallibility Will. My Lust Vnderstanding Physical and Moral Agents Will. Casual Cause of Sin Law TITLE IV. Of the Deceit of the Law THis seems to be a mystery Sin deceives that we should be deceived into sin by the Law of God It will not therefore be a Digression nor altogether unprofitable if it were to shew how a Law and a good Law and the Spiritual Law of God in the Old Testament should be said by St. Paul to be though but an occasion to deceive us into sin and death Strange that that which was so good should be made so much as the occasion of Evil and of the greatest of Evils to death it self and the greatest of deaths to a death in sin How then did Sin take this occasion by the Commandement of God first to deceive us and then to kill us if we can tell And how great then is the Power of Grace O the depth of the Riches of God's mercy that only can make us alive unto God Grace undeceives and be a death unto Sin and to the death of Sin and kill that which would kill us when nothing else can do it That when Sin did so abound by the occasion of Good Grace might so much the more abound by the occasion of Evil For which we must thank God who hath given us this great victory through Jesus Christ our Lord. When therefore Sin urges the strength of the Law against us and advances the Sword of Justice to strike us to death and that by the accusation of the Devil who hath the power of Death then Grace lays her hand upon the Sword of Justice and stops the mouth of Sin and the clamour of the Law and of the Devil that lays the Law against us and saves us from the stroke of Death and giveth us Victory over all those through Jesus Christ our Lord. So we may be deceived after a sort by the Law but we can no waies be deceived by Grace But yet we have not answered this point How the Law or rather Sin by the Law comes to deceive us This I say then Sin deceives me by misinforming my Understanding and by misguiding my Will The Law orders me to life but Sin deceives me in and by the Law unto death It will be sit therefore to consider here these four Points 1. My defect I am deceived that 's for certain 2. The direct efficient Cause of my deception is Lust 3. The casual or accidental Cause of Sin the Law 4. The Innocency of the Law My Defect My Defect I am plainly deceived He is said to be deceived that akes one thing for another this is all one with an errour or mistake in the Understanding and this in the Will declining to follow right Reason an Erratum He is properly decieved who fails of some end which he intended and aimed at Decipitur de quo aliquid capitur he is deceived from whom something is taken away which he should or would enjoy This is Fraud God praeordained every thing to its proper end All Unreasonable Creatures attain their ends but if they should not they cannot be said to be deceived because they understood them not that they might aim at them Reasonable Creatures fail of their Ends because they are deceived in their Judgments and Endeavours God in the Scriptures opens and offers Eternal life and gives me Understanding to apprehend it and a Will to accept it a Law to direct and his Grace to assist my Humane frailties But I am deceived 1. In my Apprehension by infinite Errors mistaking Falshood for Truth Vice for Vertue Pleasure or Profit for true happiness Temporal life and glory for Eternal 2. In my Prosecution by infinite Errata misdoing evil for good Fruition 3. In my Fruition which I fail of in the end and I deceive my self by way of fraud My Understanding I speak not of her privative Ignorance but of her Errors her oblique and depraved knowledge the more I have the more I am deceived High Understanding An elevate transcendent Understanding frames most irregular conclusions A fine Wit hath more refined Errors Learning it self is but a kind of progress in Error Ignorance When I was quite Ignorant I had no error in me but now I have got a little knowledge I have learned some Rules to erre by Learning is a remedy to Nescience but no bar to Error and Truth carrying the same countenance I have no perfect skill to discern them and especially because little Ore amongst a great deal of Dross and a pound of Error to a dram of Truth We are all deceived in one thing or other Truth is hard to come by and there
were in Egypt the house of Bondage their service was hereditary arbitrary and unprofitable at pleasure of their Task-masters and no wages but a charge to find straw and be beaten for not performing their daily tasks The CONTENTS The Soul Spirit 's free TITLE IX Of the Seat of Slavery THE seat of Slavery is the Spirit The Soul A bondage on the Soul and her faculties The bondage of the Body is a grievous burthen but it is not the true slavery For a man's Body may be moved to and fro and set on work to dig or draw or tug at an Oar or any other beastly works according to the will and command of a Tyrant but the Will all this while is free to act according to the mind and reason of a Man So a vertuous ingenuous Man is spiritually and truly free inwardly in his mind to know and do better things though outwardly in his Body he be a slave at the will of another as if he had no will of his own because he cannot use it to the guidance of his Corporal actions but he hath a will free to the actions of his Soul Thus Joseph was a bodily Bondslave to his Mistress to do her lawful commands but was spiritually free and refused to be subdued to her Lust He was more free than she He only a slave Corporal to her bodily power she a slave spiritual to her own base and filthy desires Joseph endures not so base a bondage chuses rather to lye fast bound in the dungeon and let the Iron enter into his Soul Thus the Israelites were slaves in Egypt under the Iron yoke of Pharaoh but free in the service of God to wait for his Promises So in the Babylonish Captivity they were slaves in body yet free to serve the Lord and would not sing the songs of Sion in a strange Land Give me any slavery but the slavery of the Soul I had rather they should bind me in Chains and load me with bolts and fetters of Iron make me tug at an Oar dig in a Mine or draw in a Wagon than take away the free use of that little Understanding which God hath given me I value the liberty of my Body to go when and whither I please and to do what and how I have a mind to but I value the liberty of my Soul at a far higher rate to judge and resolve according to the best of my skill and understanding As Mammon is the false Riches of Unrighteousness not the true and right riches but Wisdom is the true riches of the Spirit so bondage or Corporeal slavery is the false slavery of Unrighteousness but the true slavery is of the Soul and Spirit If therefore the Spirit be enthralled as it should not be how great is that thraldom and if the Spirit be free as it should be how great is that freedom Reason Because all Spirits are naturally free for they properly do force but are not forced they lead and are not led they bind and are not bound Spirit 's free The Spirit of God is absolutely free The will of his Spirit is supremely free to himself for he doth whatsoever he will The presence of his Spirit who is the Father of Spirits brings freedom to others Spirits 2 Cor. 3.17 For where the Spirit of God is there is liberty The conduct of the Spirit of freedom is the great freedom of the spirit The Leader makes the Follower free As many as are led by the Spirit of God Ro. 8.14 they are the Sons of God Gods Free-men The Will is naturally free by its first creation but now it comes to be supernaturally free by its New creation So the Will draws nearer and nearer to God in Liberty till it comes to the measure of the fulness of the stature of Christ till it comes to will nothing but good and can do no otherwise Thus the Spirits of Just men are made perfectly free Necessary willing of Good without haesitancy from within or coaction from without is the greatest freedom Gods necessary doing of all good and impossibility of doing of any evil is his perfection Necessary willing of Evil without haesitancy from within or coaction from without is the greatest slavery Satans necessity of all evil and impossibility of doing any good is his imperfection Gods Spirit is perfect and absolute Freedom that makes the spirits of Just men and Angels perfectly and absolutely free Satans spirit is perfect and absolute bondage that makes the spirits of Unjust men and Angels perfectly and absolutely slavish For The Spirits of Angels and Men though naturally they be free yet accidentally they may be bound as in divers cases Satan himself and his Crue are all Spirit yet every Wizard pretends to bind them Jud. 6. But God doth indeed bind him and them reserving them in chains of Darkness unto the Judgment of the great day The Spirit of Man is free yet may it be religiously bound by a Vow or Oath Numb 30.2 and is shamefully bound by lust of Flesh the pride of World and the Temptations of the Devil and too often led captive by him according to his will Now the bondage of the Spirit is the true right and perfect slavery because the Spirit is naturally free and the more free a thing is naturally the more slavish is the bondage thereof for therein is the greater violence and the greater violence makes the greater slavery The CONTENTS Restraint from proper End Restraint from proper Guide Restraint from proper Act. Restraint from proper Rule Restraint from proper State Restraint from proper Right Constraint to base Actions TITLE X. Of the Cases of Slavery The Cases of true Slavery TRue Slavery is a thing so large and indefinite as that it cannot well be defined therefore it will be best by shewing the Cases thereof to design it As because Felony and Treason are Crimes indefinite therefore wise Lawyers do not define them but shew the Cases to design them Cases designing true Slavery I. A Restraint of Man from his proper End is slavery Restraint from proper end The proper End of Man is Happiness which consists in the knowledge and fruition of God For this is life eternal to know God c. other Ends are improper alien and forreign as Honour Wealth c. for these are neither his proper end nor yet the proper means to it they are neither happiness nor holiness For a man then to be restrained from true happiness that he cannot or may not be happy that he cannot or may not know or enjoy God this is true slavery For the disability to true happiness to be made uncapable of it is true misery and true misery is true slavery Hence Bastardy is a misery which bars the Child from all Inheritance and makes him uncapable of succession to his natural Father's Estate And Infamy is a misery which bars a man from all Offices and makes him uncapable of all Honour
and Power in the Republick For Portae dignitatum non patent infamibus Personis The Gates of Honour are shut close against all Varlets and Sons of Belial These and the like Disabilities rendring men incapable of Benefices or diminutions or degradations of Promotions are but civil kinds of Slavery because they finally restrain or deprive the Parties from those humane Ends which worldly men esteem happiness Restraint from proper Guide II. Restraint of Man from his proper Guide is true slavery The proper Guide of Man that leads him to his proper End and moves him to all actions mediating thereunto is right Reason or as the Scripture terms it a right Spirit whether natural from himself or supernatural from God For right Reason enlightned and quickned by Grace becomes a right Spirit And even that Holy Spirit which moves in the Saints is but right Reason sublimated above Nature and exalted into Grace This right Spirit should be the proper spring or plummet of Man to move the strings and wheels of the Soul in her elicit or imperate acts All other guides as the passions of Love Fear and Anger are improper unto him for they are rather troublers than leaders hangers on than furtherers hence they are called Perturbations disturbing and discomposing the fair Soul as sickness and lameness the Body Now for a man to be restrained from his proper guide that he cannot or may not follow a right Spirit but must be forced after a forreign Leader after that Spirit which Satan suggests or those Lusts that the Flesh prescribes to be at a beck to every Passion and serve his own Servants this is slavery Hence when Subjects are governed by their own proper Prince that hath a true right and title to the Crown they account themselves Freemen but when forced under an Usurper that hath no true right or title to the Crown they reckon themselves to be no less than slaves Much more doth he make a slave of himself that is led away by his own lust and admits of a guide that hath no right to govern him at all Restraint from proper Act. III. A Restraint of Man from his proper Act is true slavery The proper Act of Man whereby he negotiates and performs the deeds of a man is his Will To chuse or refuse of his own will to consent or dissent to the will of another and afterwards to execute and perform his choice and consent Hence the acts of the Will are called by Divines Actus humani the proper Acts of man whereby he stands in the rank of Man All other Acts as Appetites that flow not from the Will or Errors and Mistakes that fall besides the Will or Constraints that run against the Will are improper and alien to Man and common to him with Beasts Thus for a man to be restrained from his proper Act that he cannot or may not chuse or refuse that he cannot or may not consent or dissent or that he can will or nill but not execute at all but is forced from his own will to act the will of another this is true slavery Of this St. Paul complains that he had a Will of his own but could not act it but the contrary To will is present with me but how to perform I find not for the good that I would I do not Ro. 7.18 but the evil which I would not that I do c. By the Civil Law the Slave can make no Will Servo nulla Testamenti factio The Slave also can be no Party to a Will neither a Testatour Executor or so much as a Witness Naturally he may write or speak his own mind or testifie the mind of another but legally he cannot do it he is dead in Law IV. A Restraint of Man from his proper Rule is true slavery Restraint from proper Rule The proper Rule of a man to frame and steer his Actions by is the Law as the Law of God which is alwaies just or of Man which is then alwaies just when no Law of God declares it unlawful The Law not Conscience is the Soveraign rule of Man For the Conscience must have a Law for the rule of it or else it will be unruly for where there is no Law there can be no Conscience seeing Conscience is but the dictate of the law of Equity a law prescribing to the law of Justice and overruling it And Conscience pretended is but blindness of mind or hardness of heart unless it can see or feel it self in some Law All other Rules as Favour and Fear Humour Fancy and Pleasure are improper unto man alien and forreign for they are leaden and crooked Rules that cause us to wander in crooked waies So for a man to be restrained from his proper Rule so that he cannot or may not live by the Law but is forced to live contrary to Law only at the will and pleasure of another this is true slavery Hence when Subjects are ruled by their own Municipal and National Laws that are genuine and proper to them they account themselves free men but when ruled by forreign and strange Laws or by the pleasure of the Prince in an arbitrary uncertain way such subjection is called Slavery V. A Restraint of Man from his proper State is true slavery Restraint from proper State The proper State of Man whereby he is ranked distinct and superiour to all other sublunary Creatures is to be a person living in the condition of a Reasonable Soul All other Estates whether they proceed from Titles Degrees or Offices are improper unto Man alien and forreign to him for none of these advance him to the rank of Man Now for a man to be restrained from his proper State that he cannot or may not live in the person of Man but is forced to a state below Man in the condition of a Beast or is yet farther forced to a state below a Beast and to live in the condition of the Dead alive in Nature but dead in Law this is true slavery Hence Slaves by the Civil Law are made equivalent to Beasts F.L. Aquila such as we call Cattel Horses or Oxen yea and to dead men Servitus morti assimilatur L. Intercidit F. de Conditionibus And by the Common Law of England Monks and Friers were under a Civil slavery as men dead in Law and entring into their Order were to make their Wills as men on their Death-beds else they were held to die intestate and the Ordinary thereupon was to grant away the Administration of their Goods as if already dead Vide 2d Book of Littleton Inst chap. Villenage Restraint from proper Right VI. Restraint of a man from his proper Right is true slavery The proper Right of Man whereby he claims any thing to be his own is the right and claim of himself over himself to have the propriety possession and government as to be Master of himself and have the use and fruit of
himself This is his original Right whereby he was not only morally righteous but had a legal right over the Creatures Ergo much more over himself All other rights whereby he enjoys Houses Lands or Goods are improper to Man alien and forreign not natural but positive grounded upon humane Contracts Now for a man to be restrained from his proper Right that he cannot or may not have propriety possession or usufruct of himself but is forced to become the propriety possession and usufruct of another by selling or letting or losing the free-hold of himself this is true slavery Hence the Civil Law describes slavery to be subjection Contra naturam dominio alterius and Servus dicitur nullius Juris Against Nature for a man not to be his own but another's man and to have right to nothing not so much as to himself When Subjects have not the property of their Goods they count themselves slaves If he be rightly stiled a slave that hath not property in any goods much more is he a slave that hath no property of himself Constraint â—o base Actions VII Constraint of a man to vile and base Actions is true slavery For as Restraint from good makes slavery so Constraint to evil makes slavery out of measure slavish Hence the Israelites were slaves in Egypt constrained to make Bricks and Pots of Clay The Prodigal was a slave to the Citizen to feed his Swine and yet not to be sed with them The Possessed in the Gospel were slaves to Satan and forced often by him into the fire and water Put all these three together and they shew the full Nature of slavery that is bondage of Spirit restraining Man from his several properties and constraining him to their several contraries The use of all is to shew thee thy Error Thou complainest of Temporal slavery it is a false and counterfeit slavery the Spiritual slavery is the true slavery To feel the burthen of that and complain of the misery would argue a good increase of God's grace in thee and if God's grace free thee from that slavery then art thou free from all the World which God grant The CONTENTS The Sinner habitual TITLE XI Of the subject of Slavery THE subject of Slavery Who is a true slave the Sinner The Sinner habitual He that committeth sin is the servant of sin To commit sin is not to commit one single act of sin for the godly have their falls and surprizes of sin But habitually the course and practice of sin such an one is termed a sinner The extent of the Sinner is universal whosoever he be though otherwise never so free by Birth State or Tenure yet if he be an habitual sinner he is the servant of Sin The Jews alledged their freedom by Birth as they were the Children of Abraham and never in bondage to any man yet for their sins they were in spiritual bondage saith Christ David hinted this saying Bring my Soul out of Prison that I may praise thy Name Psal 142.7 What Prison could this be but the spiritual prison of Sin Christ hinted this saying The Spirit of the Lord hath sent me to preach deliverance to the poor c. Luc. 4.18 What poor how bound in what Fetters c. even the Sinner fast bound in spiritual bonds St. Paul tells the Romans that they had formerly been slaves voluntary slaves by yielding their Members as instruments of Unrighteousness from sin to sin Ro. 6.20 and were very free from Righteousness that is slaves to sin for freedom from Righteousness is the true slavery Sin is a Captive to Satan who is a Warrener and layes snares for Vermin What snares are Riches but such whereby men fall into divers foolish lusts and drowned in perdition and led captive by the Devil according to his will The CONTENTS Restraint from proper End Restraint from proper Guide Restraint from proper Act. Restraint from proper Rule Restraint from proper State Restraint from proper Right Captivity Constraint to base Actions TITLE XII Of the Reasons of Slavery THE Reasons why the Sinner is a Slave are according to the seven Cases of Slavery Restraint from proper End I. Because the Sinner is restrained from his proper end which is True Happiness For by the Law of God the sinner is deprived and disabled from all those priviledges of Eternal Joy and Glory whereof the Saints are capable For as it is the Glory of the Saints to enjoy the presence of God to see his face and know him as he is So the Misery of a Sinner is to be an Exile or out-cast from God never to see his face nor know him as he is Gal. 5.21 As by Man's Law a Bastard hath no Inheritance in Earthly Kingdoms so the Sinner hath no inheritance in the Kingdom of Heaven For they that do such things shall not inherit c. But the end of the sinner is Torment his Wages Everlasting Death and Pain Go ye Cursed c. Restraint from proper Guide II. Because restrained from his proper Guide which is a Right Spirit The guide of the sinner is the Flesh he is led by it and a debtor to it he is put on by it upon every beastly service The Pride of the flesh to dishonour Parents Wrath to murther Lust to commit Adultery c. So silly Men and Women are laden with sins and led away with divers lusts The guide to the sinner is Satan he leads his lust as when he possesseth the Body he carries it and moves it so when he Masters the Soul he leadeth it captive as he pleaseth For the great and famous Master-pieces of Villany are acted by men led on by the instigation of the Devil Judas was the guide to them that Crucified Christ but Satan was his guide for he entred into him twice first for his resolution when he bargained and sold his Master secondly the execution of the Treason after the delivery of the sop Ananias sells his estate and keeps back part thereof when Satan had first filled his heart Acts 5.3 The sinner is made blind by Satan that he might go for his God and be his guide 2 Cor. 4.4 The God of this world hath blinded the eyes of them that believe not III. Because restrained from his proper Act i. e. his Will Restraint from proper Act. The sinner hath a Will yet not a free Will but a Captive Will He hath the faculties of a Natural Will but cannot actuate that faculty to perform the proper acts thereof by choosing the good and refusing the evil But rather he acts quite contrary by choosing the evil and refusing the good which is not Liberty and Will but restraint and want of Will As to take Error for Truth is not Understanding but want of Understanding so to choose evil for good is not will but want of will For because God is the proper object of the Will that heart that cannot choose the
good hath no will at all As because Light is the proper object of seeing that Eye that cannot see the light hath no sight at all But as a blind man whose eyes are covered with a Film hath the faculty of seeing for he hath a Soul and organs of sight for he hath eyes but not the sense of seeing for he doth not see so the sinner hath the faculty of Will for he hath a Soul and the organ of Will for he hath a heart but not the Act of will he doth not will for his heart is hard and strong as the Scripture termeth it harder than the Neather Mill-stone The Regenerate have the first Act of the will to good but they fail in the second they cannot perform it Rom. 7.18 To will is present with me but how to perform that which is good I find not The sinner hath neither the first Act nor the second not a will to do good much less to perform it for to will evil is not exactly evil but an act contrary thereto for which we have no name IV. Because Restrained from his own proper Rule Restraint from proper Rule i. e. the Law of God The Law of God is no Rule to the sinner for he will not be ruled by it nor can he enjoy the benefit of it he opposeth the power of it and will not have it The Carnal mind is enmity against God Rom. 8.7 for he is not subject to the Law of God neither indeed can he he hath disabled himself from keeping it by making the Law impossible to him and himself impossible to the Law But the Sinner is over-ruled by the Will of the Flesh which orders him at pleasure and carries him captive to the Law of sin and sin being contrary to the Law of God must needs be a Law of Slavery for God's Law is a perfect Law of Liberty God's Law is a Royal Law but Sin 's is a Tyrannical Law and every Tyranny is Slavery V. Because Restrained from his proper State to be a Person Restraint from proper State Sin puts man from the Person of man When God formed him after his own Image Sin transformed him after the Image of a Beast and the Scripture brands him with the name of a beast profane a dog Cast not that which is holy unto dogs Mat. 7.6 Mat. 7.15 Beware of false Prophets which come to you in Sheeps cloathing but inwardly they are Ravening Wolves Herod called a Fox Go tell that Fox c. I have fought with beasts at Ephesus after the manner of men i. e. with railing Jews Chrys Theoph. Antichrist termed a Beast with seven Heads and ten Horns Satan the Author of sin called a Serpent or Dragon The Sinner in lower terms sunk to the dead legally dead in sin Let the dead i. e. Sinners bury their dead As Sin is a dead work that goes for no work so Sinner a dead person that goes for no person Restraint from proper Right VI. Because restrained from his proper Right i. e. the propriety of himself Is not Owner Master of himself Sin rules over him as a Lord over a slave Captivity Three waies a man loseth the Right over himself and becomes a slave by Birth by Captivity and by Sale Psal 51. 1. By Birth in sin I was conceived in sin and in iniquity did my Mother bring me forth For as the Rights of the Father so his Losses are conveyed to his Children by birth 2. By Captivity Captivity makes a slave of whom a man is overcome Ro. 7.23 of him he is brought in bondage carried captive to the law of Sin 3. By Sale he sells himself to sin Ahab sold himself to work wickedness in the sight of the Lord. I am sold under sin A sale made by Adam and all his Posterity Constraint to base Actions VII Because constrained to vile and base Actions As to be born in sin is true Bastardy so to commit sin is an act so base as it is all Baseness For as true Nobility consists only in Vertue so true Baseness consists in Vice Gen. 3.14 A Serpent is a base Creature goes basely creeping on his belly fares basely feeding on dust God's Curse An emblem of a Sinner A base service to serve a Beast to feed Swine and not be suffered to eat with them so is a Sinner A menstruous cloth is a base rag such is our righteousness stained with sin How filthy then is our sinfulness The vomit of a Dog is filthy such is Sin as when the Dog returneth to his vomit and the Swine that is washed to her wallowing in the mire The particular acts of Ambition Avarice and Filthiness such as that they must not be named Eph. 5.3 The CONTENTS Sin Satan TITLE XIII Of the Lord of Slavery THE Lord of slavery is Sin Servant of sin Of which sin The Lord of slavery Sin not of that he commits for that is actual sin which is the Sinner's work but the sinner is the servant of sin Original 1. Because sin Original is the lord and makes him a slave to work sin Actual Original sin is indeed in the godly not as a lord Sin shall not have dominion over them for they are not under the Law but under Grace But that sin is in them as a slave over whom they domineer They mortifie and crucifie it and make it a dying sin They that are Christs do crucifie the flesh with the affections and lusts But Original sin is in the sinner as a Lord an Inmate that domineers doth mortifie and crucifie the sinner till he be destroyed 2. Because Original sin restrains him from all his several properties from his proper end Eternal happiness from his proper guide a right Spirit from his proper act of choosing good and refusing evil from his proper rule the Law of God from his proper state a person after God's image from his proper right the propriety and possession of himself and constrains him to actual sins which are vile and base acts If the sinner be thus restrained to be a slave then Original sin that restrains him is his Lord because whatsoever restrains is Lord and Master over him that is restrained 3. Because Original sin reigns over the sinner She is a Tyrant usurping soveraignty and hath her Laws whereby to command him those laws are but several lusts i. e. her arbitrary will and pleasure Let not sin reign in your mortal bodies that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof In the godly it reigns not for they obey it not but in the sinner it reigns for he obeys it his servants ye are to whom ye obey whether it be to Sin or Righteousness If then thou obey Righteousness thou art a free servant but if Sin a bond-slave and the more willingly thou obeyest the more slave thou art II. But the Sinner's chief Lord is Satan The Prince of the Air Eph. 2.2 Satan the
due yea Grace gives much good when much evil is due The Law is inexorable and spares none but Grace is easie to be entreated and spares all For Grace is a priviledge above Law rather than extremely contrary to Law An act of Super-justice rather than contrary to Justice For Mercy rejoyceth and triumpheth over Justice as being the special and highest work of God in which he most delighteh This is the Trone of Grace this is the Mercy-Seat Throne of Grace the great Court of Requests and of Chancery Ubi Jus fit Jus datur where Rights are made and where Rights are bestowed whereas in other Courts of Law Rights are only declared Such Courts are much inferior Ubi Jus dicitur where Rights are declared upon Justice to those higher ones where they are created and granted upon Mercy and Bounty and God's Mercies are above all his Works 3. So God's Grace is opposed to Wrath in extremes Wrath. As Grace gives more good than is due by Law so Wrath gives more evil than is due by Law And this Wrath God executes by taking the Sword into his own hands and punishing our sins himself beyond the ordinary way of the Law as Kings by their Prerogatives may do by Wrath to execute Vengeance more than the bare Law calls for upon some extraordinary offences on some extraordinary occasions which they themselves can best judge of especially when the Inferior Judge is negligent of his duty in not inflicting the Punishment which the Law required and when sins have been done with a high hand in open defiance of Rule and Law to the endamagement of the Commonwealth Unto this Wrath God's Grace is extremely opposed For when Law and Anger were heavily against an obstinate Sinner and the Sword of both threatens to devour in an extraordinary way then steps in Mercy and stops the Flood-gate of Anger and saves the dying Soul from the Pit of Ruine which was ready to swallow him up because God sees remorse in him though he have been notoriously wicked yet it is the good will and pleasure of God for the Glory of his Grace to spare as a Father spareth his Son that serveth him to blot out iniquities transgressions and sins and to remember them no more but that they shall be as though they had never been and now that Soul shall live he shall not die SECTION I. Works 4. So God's Grace is opposed to Works which are the Merit of the Creature but this is the Grace of the Creatour Works deserve wages but Eternal life is the gift of God Grace dignifies a Person that deserves it not No man can deserve to be born of his Father or after he is born he cannot deserve to be made the Son and Heir of another man But the only cause of a Son is Love either by Nature or by Adoption and therefore the only cause to be made the Son of God is the Grace of God not the Works of Man Free Grace Such love of God is the Grace of God whereby the Receiver is honoured and profited and yet he never deserved it This is free Justification by Grace Ro. 3.24 of Faith and therefore not of Works that it might be by Grace only otherwise Grace were no more Grace and Works were no more Works This is the Riches of God's Grace whereby we are accepted in the Beloved The gift by Grace the kindness and good will of God This Grace of God is without Cause it is it self the supreme and high cause having no other Cause above or beyond it to actuate and move it Nor can any Works so much as concur with Grace because Grace is the sole Cause For if Salvation were of Works it should be of Debt and then it could not be of Grace They are inconsistent and contrary the one to the other Ro. 4.4 Now to him that worketh is the Reward reckoned not of Grace but of Debt But if it be of Grace it is of Gift and then it cannot be of Works Ro. 11.6 And if of Grace then it is no more of Works otherwise Grace is no more Grace Not by Works of Righteousness which we have done Tit. 35. but according to his mercy he saved us by the washing of Regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost By this Grace I a poor miserable Sinner attainted in the attainder of Adam's sin and born to temporal and eternal Miseries am looked upon with the eye of Mercy to be justified from all my Sin and Misery and to be invested with Holiness and Happiness And the farther Love and Grace of God to me is that all this should be done in a Testamentary way whereby I should be the more sure of it For such an Instrument as a Testament is requires all the favourable construction that can be imagined that it may take effect according to the best meaning of the Testator Rich Grace And still the Exceeding riches of his Grace appears that he did settle this his Testament by the Death of Christ who was his own and only Son whom he substituted to die in his stead For God could have setled his Testament by means less chargeable than was the precious Blood of his own Son but he could not to shew the abundance of his Love who so loved the World as that he sent his only begotten Son into the same and gave him over unto death that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life And lastly all this is Grace for Grace that is freely and out of mere Grace and only for the Thanks of the Receiver SECTION II. I have enough then to uphold my Soul withal till I die Assurance and when I die to lie down with my Body in hope of a glorious Resurrection And after my death my Soul shall wait for it and at last it will come at which time my Saviour will come again and call me from the Regions and Receptacles of Rest to put my Soul and Body both into the full possession of the Inheritance to which I have a present Right by Faith in the New Testament of my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ Against this New Testament established by Jesus Christ the Jews did mightily stickle Jews loth to leave the Law Because the Old Testament was God's Testament written and God had made a solemn Testimony thereof on Mount Sinai where with terrible Lightning and Thunder and the shrill sound of the Trumpet and by the Fire and Smoak and the quaking of the Mountain and the voice of the Angel who represented God it was testified in the sight and hearing of all the People And also because this Law and Testament had a long prescription of fifteen hundred years together and in such cases men do use to struggle very hard and are loth to part with their so ancient Laws Customes and Priviledges especially concerning their Religion and Worship and a Change is commonly very
Heirs for ever 2. Arbitrary Pro libitu Domini so is Liberty Pro libitu sui ipsius A man is lord of himself 3. Unprofitable no Reward of slavery but pain all Profits redound to the Lord. Whatsoever Slaves acquire they accrue to their Lord because they themselves and their Wives and Children are their Lord's Goods and Possessions therefore whatsoever they get by their Labours is their Lord's for they have no Rights at all but are dead in Law to all intents and purposes But Liberty redounds to a Man 's own self Thus contrary things have contrary forms as Gluttony is a vice Temperance a vertue II. The second Reason is from the affinity which Liberty hath with Reas 2 Largeness A Prisoner when free is set at large Largeness being before confined to a narrow space Thou hast enlarged me when I was in trouble Psal 4.1 Thou hast set my feet in a large room When a man is free he may walk abroad at large whither he pleaseth Psal 18.19 otherwise he is confined to the Will of another The CONTENTS Soul TITLE IX Of the Seat of Liberty THE Seat of Liberty is the Spirit The Soul and her Faculties That of the Body is a counterfeit and bastard Liberty Soul this of the Soul is Liberty indeed David though a King wanted this liberty while he was under Murther and Adultery therefore he prays that God would bring his Soul out of Prison and stablish him with a free Spirit As Mammon is not the true Riches so the Liberty of the Body is not a true Liberty What greater bondage than that of the Mind when the Judgment is captivated to believe the Magisterial dictates of the Pope or perhaps an ignorant Confessor It is to be wondered that brave men otherwise Wise and of great Perfections should suffer themselves to be such slaves and fools as to be imposed upon in their Judgments and not suffered nor suffer themselves to use their own Reasons nor question any thing but do like fools all manner of absurd and intollerable Commands to the macerating and hurting of their Bodies by Whippings Pilgrimages Sackcloths and other Ridiculous fopperies Reas 1 1. The first Reason is from the Contrariety of slavery Slavery is in the Spirit therefore Liberty is in the Spirit Because things contrary reside in the same seat not concurrently but successively As because the Eye is the seat of Blindness therefore it is also the seat of Seeing The Ear is the seat of Deafness therefore of Hearing So because the Spirit is the seat of Slavery it must needs be the seat of Liberty Reas 2 2. The second Reason is from the Nature of the Spirir which is naturally Free GOD the Father of Spirits is supremely Free therefore Angels and spirits of Men must be free under him The Soul is not properly united to the Body but the Body to the Soul Death is a separation but the Body departs not from the Soul but the Soul from the Body There is no man hath power over the Spirit Eccles 8.8 to retain the Spirit neither hath he power in the day of death The CONTENTS Recess from Evil. Access to Good TITLE X. Of the Terms of Liberty THE Terms of Liberty are Good and Evil. Liberty is a loosness from Evil to Good held by no Evil and withheld from no Good I. Recess from Evil i. e. from the World the Flesh and the Devil Recess from Evil. which three are Evils Remission of sins is true Liberty from the bonds of Death Hell and Satan II. Access to Good Access to Good Good is the proper and principal object of Liberty the end and scope it aims at When we are hindred from no good but capable of all then are we free indeed As when all Egypt lay open to Joseph when all Canaan lay open to the Israelites When the Throne of Grace stands wide open for all that have need to fly thereunto for Grace sufficient to help them in the time of all their need The first is a Vulgar Liberty such as the Poor and Strangers have the second is a Royal Liberty for Children and free Denizens The Reason is from the affinity it hath with Repentance Reason Liberty is a preparative to Repentance Till the Soul be loose from Evil it cannot turn unto God As Repentance is a turning from sin to God so Liberty is a turning from Evil to Good As in Repentance the Right turning is from Evil to Good or else it is Apostacy so in Liberty the Right turning is from Evil to Good or else it is Licentiousness So loosness from the Law is slavery To be free from Righteousness is to be the Servant of sin The CONTENTS Loosness to proper End Loosness to proper Guide Loosness to proper Act. Loosness to proper Rule Loosness to proper State Loosness to proper Right TITLE XI Of the Cases of Liberty The Cases of Liberty Loosness to proper End I. A Loosness of Man to his proper End is Liberty The proper End of Man is Happiness Restraint from that makes slavery or true Misery When we are free from Worldly ends of Honour c. and clearly loose to heaven and heavenly things then are we free indeed As Bastardy bars from a temporal Inheritance As Infamy bars from temporal Honour so Liberty admits to Eternal Felicity As Capacity of Temporal Honours makes a Freeman so much more Capacity to Eternal Honours Loosness to proper Guide II. A Loosness of Man to his Proper Guide is Liberty A Man 's Proper Guide is a Right Spirit As a Restraint from that is slavery so a Loosness to that is Liberty All other Guides as Satan World Passions of flesh are Troublers rather than Leaders but when we are free from all these then are we free indeed Philo. 2 Cor. 3. pen. Revera liber est qui solum Deum sequitur He is free indeed that follows God only Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is Liberty Hence that great Question ☞ how Free-will can consist with God's Grace is easily decided for where God's Grace works upon the Will the more it works upon the Will to draw it and the more the Will conforms to God's Grace to follow it the more Free the Will is Grace then doth not destroy nor abolish Liberty but beget and nourish it for the more God's Grace doth loose the Will from evil and lead it on to good the more it frees the Will And as till then the Will is not free so then it is most free III. A Loosness of Man to his Proper Act is Liberty Loosness to proper Act. The Proper Act of Man is his Will And as a Restraint from that is Slavery so a Loosness to that is Liberty The Stoicks say Liber est qui vivit ut vult which thou may'st not construe as a School-boy but as a Christian He is free that can act his own Will i. e. after Resolution
Children that descend from him and what he then ordereth or doth as concerning his Goods the same in a manner his Heirs are accounted to do and may be bound to do as his Heirs Executors Administrators or Assigns Hence may easily be understood that which together with the Author of the Hebrews we affirm That such external Acts of the Parents concerning their Honours or Estates not their Manners or Conversation good or evil must be extended or imputed to their Children whether by Nature Law or Adoption it is all one or Posterity that succeed in their Estates or Honours otherwise if the Estate or Honour be spent or forfeited or the Children disinherited or otherwise that the Inheritance fall and is not conveyed as in a stream or line of Succession Then whatsoever any man orders or disposes as to his Estate and all that belongs thereunto cannot be attributed or imputed at all to his Posterity SECTION VII Levi Blessed of Melchisedec Because Levi received a Blessing from Melchisedec Levi was a Blesser of others but here Levi himself is Blessed by another Levi did not Bless others in his own Person because he was not then in being but in his Posterity neither did he receive a Blessing properly in his own Person because he was not subsisting but in his Father's Person If at that time Levi had been a Person separated from Abraham his Father then he had been capable by the consent of his own Will to have received the Blessings from another's Will and so this Act of Abraham's Reception of the Blessing from Melchisedec had been nothing to him But because Levi was so united and joyned to Abraham as that he was part of him and one Person with him as fast asleep in his Causes and close locked up in his Loyns therefore also he is justly reckoned or imputed to have received a Blessing from Melchisedec in or from or through Abraham his Father Melchisedec Immortal 3. Because Levi was Mortal but Melchisedec Immortal He that blesseth and receiveth Tithes dieth and another comes in his place and dies also and so the Priests still die one after another But Melchisedec both Blesseth and receiveth Tithes and never dies having no Successor Heb. 7.8 but abideth for ever Thou art a Priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec Psal 110.4 The CONTENTS Christ of that Order Christ's Pedigree Joseph's Pedigree Maries Pedigree Christ no Priest by Birth Christ made a Priest by Oath Christ a Royal Priest Christ Priest and Sacrifice Christ Ministers in Heaven Tabernacle Imperfect Sanctuary a Worldly Manufacture Ordinances Arbitrary Way to Holiest not made Christ first enters the Holy place Faithful enter at the Last day Services Imperfect Christ's Blood dedicates the Holy of Holies One Offering Christ offers Self in Heaven Christ reigns in Heaven Melchisedec a Type of Christ Of the offering of Christ Through the Spirit Without Spot Once In Heaven TITLE VI. Of the Order of Melchisedec CHRIST a Priest of the Order of Melchisedec Christ of that Order Christ was not a Priest after the Order of Aaron Because Christ came of the Princely Tribe of Judah Christ's Pedigree which by Law had no right to the Priesthood nor never gave any attendance on the Altar as Priests For it is evident that our Lord sprang out of Judah Heb. 7.14 of which Moses spake nothing concerning Priesthood Judah was the Tribe Royal the Kings of that Tribe were called the Kings of Judah of this Tribe was the Virgin Mother of Christ and by Family of the House of David the Family Royal Luk. 1.24 c. for the Kings of Judah were all of that Family Joseph also was of the same Tribe and Family but in Line different from Maries Joseph's Pedigree Luk. 3. For Joseph descended from David by his Son Solomon in whom ran the Line of the Kings who ruled before the Captivity Maries Pedigree But the Virgin descended from David by his Son Nathan from whom ran the Line of the Dukes who ruled after the Captivity So Joseph came from the Line of the Kings and Mary from the Line of the Dukes 1 Chr 3.16 Jer. 22.30 who were the Princes of the Blood and possessed the Government when the Line of the Kings failed in the Issue of Jeconiah Math. 1.11 Luk. 3.31 St. Luke describes this Pedigree of Mary from the Tribe of Judah and Family of David Luk. 3.23 descending by his Son Nathan to her natural Father Eli or Eliakim the Father-in-law of Joseph Heb. 7.14 The Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews supposes this for granted because he wrote to the Jews that believed that Jesus was the Christ who by the Scriptures was to come from David Judah and Abraham and did come accordingly by being born of the Virgin Mary the Wife of Joseph who was of the Seed of David Judah and Abraham For any Son that is born of the Body of a Man's Wife whose Body is accounted the Husband's Body though he be not begotten by the Husband so it be not begotten by another Man that is not her Husband is and must be his Son who is the true Husband to the Woman Because God hath free Power to give a man a Son which way he pleaseth that is either naturally by generation of the Husband or supernaturally without the generation of the Husband or Wife either as in the case of Isaac by Abraham and Sarah both dead as to Generation So by the Law of God it was ordained that when the Husband died without Issue his Brother should marry the Widow and if he had any Child by her it should be called the Seed of the Husband that was deceased to whom his Brother was to raise up Seed by his Widow With how much more reason may Christ be called the Son of Joseph and therefore of David Judah or Abraham though conceived and begotten of the Holy Ghost upon Mary the espoused Wife of Joseph after a supernatural manner SECTION I. Christ no Priest by Birth 2. Because not a Priest by Carnal Law or Birth as Aaron and his Sons were For The Priesthood was bound to the Tribe of Levi and to the Family of Aaron in that Tribe but Christ's Priesthood was clear another thing not after a Carnal Commandment but after the Power of an endless Life Christ made a Priest by Oath Heb. 7.10 3. Because Christ was made with an Oath to make his Priesthood immutable but Aaron without an Oath An Oath declares the truth and strength of a thing Now the things which God will have to be firm strong and unchangeable must needs be better than those that are weak and mutable such as the things are to which no Oath is added but God will have them to depend only upon his will and pleasure to retain or remove as it shall seem good unto him For those Priests were made without an Oath but this with an Oath Heb.
man's work abide which he hath built thereupon he shall receive a reward If any man's work shall be burnt he shall suffer loss but he himself shall be saved yet so as by fire Let the Clergy take heed what they speak and the Laity take heed what they hear Gal. 1.8 and if you or an Angel from Heaven preach any other Gospel than what is already preached let him be accursed Be instant in season and out of season whether the people hear or whether they forbear Look to your selves and to those that hear you shewing both in your lives and in your doctrines uncorruptness gravity and sincerity rightly dividing the word of truth like workmen that need not to be ashamed Let your lips preserve knowledg that the people may enquire the Law at your mouths that ye may be as Scribes throughly furnished for the kingdom of Heaven producing out of your Treasuries things new and old For God hath made us able Ministers of the New Testament not of the Letter but of the Spirit for the Letter killeth but the Spirit giveth Life The CONTENTS Joy Fear Decrees Gospel Dispensations Worship Spiritual Ceremonies Difference of Mosaick and Christian Rites Church of Rome Perfection of Christianity Spiritual Perfection Ritual Worship abolished No other Rites to be superinduced No Rites ever pleased God Greater Perfections in the Christian Religion Prayer and other Duties are Relativi Juris TITLE VIII Of the Genius of the Gospel Joy AND let Clergy and Laity learn to know the Genius of the Gospel better and the providence of God under it Ye have been taught so far inwardly because of your sins and temptations and God's wrath though you repent and believe and live up to the Gospel as near as possibly you can and overmuch Religion hath made you mad Fear Ye have been taught to fear outwardly Plagues Wars Famines Robbings Imprisonments Prodigies of Comets Blazing stars Witchcrafts Thunders Lightnings Storms Tempests fears and fears and nothing but fears all your life long as if there were no Comforter Ye have been taught out of the Old Testament more than the New out of the Fathers and Schoolmen Summists Casuists Postillers Orators Poets Wits and Flashes of Eloquence more than sound Doctrine But you are to learn the peace and tranquillity of the Gospel to eat your bread with joy and singleness of heart not to imagine a sword of Vengeance always hanging over your heads to make your hearts fail within you and your Countenances pale as if God stood over you continually with his sword drawn in his hand that you can never lead a quiet life Is this the Providence of God to fright you in all his Creatures Cur hanc tibi rector Olympi Sollicitis visum Mortalibus addere Curam Noscant venturas ut dira per omina Clades Christian Religion is to preserve men from a constant pedagogy to so many base and servile fears that make men dread to come near it as an Enemy to generousness and universal freedom and comfort of spirit because of such pale and feminine fears and amazements or make men grow weary of it as of a yoke ever galling and pressing down men's spirits and conclude themselves gainers if they can purchase manhood with Atheism and profaneness Fear binds in the powers of the Soul Religion is aimable Decrees till it comes to those horrid representations of God's decreeing of inevitable torments both here and hereafter to his poor creatures before they were or could do good or evil which makes them fear him but they cannot love him nor do any hearty service unto him wishing rather that he had never given them a being than to make them eternally miserable without any cause or fault of them at all only to shew the glory of his power that is how uncontroulably he can tyrannize over them The Devils indeed are in this condition of trembling because they know they are reserved in chains of darkness unto the judgment of the great day Therefore when they saw Christ they were afraid saying What have we to do with thee thou Jesus the Son of the Most High God art thou come to torment us before the time And surely the Devil would bring men into the same condition by frightning them from the service of God to his Altars as he did the Gentiles Surely other thoughts of God would better become men than the Devils have who nevertheless in this one thing are far better than some men for they know and confess the Justice of God upon them for their Apostasie but these blaspheme God for cruelty and unjustice It being the common principle of Nature in all men both wise and unwise whatsoever other sentiments and different opinions they had that God was Summum Bonum the most bountiful and gracious Being the greater wonder it is to me that so many Doctrines amongst the Heathens and Christians too should be received so contrary to God's goodness and Philanthropy 'T is very strange that the minds of men should be leavened with this sowr conceit and delight to hear of such terrors against themselves and to have God represented to be of that cruel nature to his Creatures which they would be loth to be of to their Children These Jealousies of God cannot stand with a belief of God's goodness for they imagine him to be good to a few of mankind of which number they are a part but for all the rest he looks upon them as dross and cast-aways and therefore he is always contriving new plagues and destructions for this so hated a people that they shall not so much as have the least refreshments of health or peace in this little pitiful span of life and after this painful and short life ended will hurle them into everlasting torments Did ever a more pestilentious vapour breathe from the bottomless Pit to the seizing upon the very vitals of Religion in the Soul's first notions and conceptions of a God to turn off their desires and loves from him whom they were made to love and serve I have often mused with my self about the vulgar conceptions of God's Judgments as if the Divine Goodness studied nothing else like the Heathen Jupiter but to throw his Thunderbolts and Plagues upon every single person for their particular aberrations and upon all Nations for their several corruptions for their conversion or else for their confusion That great and fearful calamities have fallen upon the world especially that of the Flood and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and the whole Nation of the Jews c. mentioned in Divine Writ is most evident Together with the Aegyptian Assyrian Persian Grecian and Roman Empires c. cannot be denied together with many particular examples of wicked men signally suffering the Divine Vengeance But that from hence every idle Fancy should dare to specifie the Reasons of God's workings upon those nations and persons I could never yet understand after that fashion My thoughts
days which are a shadow of things to come but the Body is of Christ Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world Why as though living in the world are ye subject to Ordinances touch not taste not handle not which all are to perish with the using after the commandments and doctrines of men Which things have indeed a shew of wisdom in Will-worship and humility and neglecting of the Body not in any honour to the satisfying of the flesh ib. v. 13. Blotting out the hand-writing of Ordinances which was against us which was contrary to us and took it out of the way nailing it to his Cross There are many proofs more to this purpose too long to set down here Because all other Ritual worship superinduced by Men must needs be Reas II as much contrary to the Analogy of Christ's worship No other rites to be superinduced and more than that of the Law was Because no Rites in themselves ever did or will please God Witness Reas III God's declaration that of old he never imposed Sacrifices upon them No rites ever pleased God and when he did he preferred Mercy and Obedience before them and says he never delighted in them and the Prophets all along called for this kind of Sacrifice in comparison whereof all others were an abomination unto him and he was weary of them Because greater perfection is required in the Christian than was in the Reas IV Jewish Religion Greater Perfection in the Christian Religion But against this kind of doctrine flie forth a swarm of Objections from the Wasps of the world This spiritual worship and perfection you speak of Obj. is hard to understand and harder to practise A hard saying who can hear it And if so who then can be saved You may understand and practise both by the Spirit Answ if you will learn and obey with your Reason and your Will The Mind and Will of the Flesh is dull to know and stout to do such spiritual things and indeed she neither can nor will act any thing towards it till it yield to the Spirit For the Carnal man understandeth not the things of God neither indeed can he because they are spiritually discerned The Spirit only understandeth the things of the Spirit and the Flesh only understandeth the things of the Flesh The Gospel is a light to our Spirit to understand it by and the Spirit of God is a light to the Gospel and Christ is the person in whom is this Spirit of whose fullness we all receive who is the light that enlighteneth every man that cometh into the world John 1.9 This Light is come into the World but the Darkness comprehendeth it not because the world loveth darkness rather than light because her deeds are evil Ceremonies are a great help to Devotion Obj. But Devotion brought them forth the Daughter destroys the Mother Answ They be few easie and significant and used with liberty of spirit yet God hath no where in the Gospel commanded them but forbidden such as are Jewish and Heathenish the rest that make for decency and order being enjoyned by the Church are freely to be used trusting in all things to the aids of the Spirit which helpeth all our Infirmities Use therefore all honest helps but trust to the Spirit have recourse to that Fountain and covet after the best gifts Behold I shew unto you a more excellent way The world is not able to bear these high Dispensations Obj. Why then hath God introduced them If they were impossible Answ there could no obligation be upon us to bear them nor could God be Just in imposing them The World is in its Majority now God saw it to be the time of Love the Fullness of Time The World is Older and might be Wiser than it is O that Men were Wise to learn to know in this their day of Visitation the things that do belong to their Peace 1. We have or might have heard of all God's dispensations before and under the Law and of this last and best under the Gospel what revelations providences and administrations of justice mercy and power by miracles God hath wrought 2. We have the great example of Jesus and the Saints a cloud of Witnesses before us 3. We have the New Testament read and preached with the inward teaching of the Spirit If we will not learn by all these more than they could that had not these assistances Is it not our own faults And shall we not be without excuse Wo unto us if we now bring not forth more fruits worthy of Repentance than they did who came short of the Means we have The times of the former ignorance that was not willful God winked at and forgave them because they knew not what they did for had they known better things they would have done them as many as had honest hearts Mat. 13.14 Blessed are your eyes for they see and your ears for they hear For verily I say unto you that many Prophets and Righteous men have desired to see the things which ye see and have not seen them and to hear those things which ye hear John 8.56 and have not heard them Abraham rejoyced to see my day and he saw it and was glad All the old Worthies died in Faith not having received the Promises but having seen them afar off and were perswaded of them and embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth Heb. 11.23 39 40. All these having obtained a good report through faith received not the Promise God having provided some better thing for us that they without us should not be made perfect What went ye out for to see A Prophet yea I say unto you and more than a Prophet Verily I say unto you among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist notwithstanding he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he Mat 11.9 c. And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffered violence and the violent take it by force for all the Prophets and the Law prophecied until John He that hath ears to hear let him hear When I was a Child I thought as a Child I spake as a Child I did as a Child but when I became a Man I put away childish things The childhood of the World is past Heb. 5.12 c. For our time we might have been teachers and not have need to be taught again which be the first principles of the Oracles of God we are dull of hearing Every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of Righteousness for he is a Babe But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil Heb. 6.1 Therefore leaving the Principles of the Doctrine of Christ
not often know what is right 2. Because men when they know will not do that which is right 3. Because men take away each others rights SECT XXIII Therefore there is great need of a day of Universal Judgment When God the Righteous Judge shall appear to declare what is right and what is wrong and to give to every one his due Day of Judgment according to what he hath done in the Flesh whether it be good or evil O therefore Wise and Honest are they and only they that study to know what is right and what is wrong and to whom those rights do belong and to help men to come by them and maintain them in them that no body may take them away from them O therefore Fools and Wicked are they and only they that never regard to know what is right or wrong nor to whom those rights do appertain and if they do instead of helping them to attain them and defending them in the enjoyment of them do either blind their judgments from understanding their due and so privately cheat them or else openly tear them away from them and devour them O Blessed are they that maintain innocency and do the thing that is right against them shall there be no Law nor Conscience nor Accusation of God or Man SECT XXIV Shame O Cursed are they that hurt and invade and spoil against all right and reason against these men all Law all Conscience all Shame all Curses and Condemnations shall arise from God and Man And it had been better for them that they had never been born or been like the untimely fruit of a Woman that never saw the Sun Mercy therefore and Grace creates Justice and Judgment distributes all Rights to the Sons of men They that love Grace and accept of Merciful Distributions from God and Men and carefully maintain keep and improve them to themselves and others are Righteous and Good Men. These give God and Men their Dues and by them the World is kept in peace and these shall enter into Peace But those that deny God and Men their dues by them the world is distracted into Wars and Tumults and these shall never enter into peace The Subject being right or just I shall yet farther enlarge upon it thus What it is 1. To be right 2. To create or make right 3. To bestow or give right 4. To enjoy or have right 5. To perform or do right SECT XXV To be Right 1. To be right God only is right it is his Nature i. e. 1. The rectitude of his Essence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Heathen in his prayer called God O thou Being of Beings help me God is the Author of all Beings Absolute in himself When Moses desired to know what name he should use in his Embassy when it should be asked him whose Embassadour he was or from whom he came with his Message he was bidden to say I Am hath sent me unto you The Eternal Being that is and was and is to come semper idem always the same the only God I am God and there is none beside me I know not any He that is all in all in whom we live and move and have our being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we are all his off-spring the Rock from whence we are all hew'd the hole of the Pit from whence we are all dug the Fountain from whence we all spring 2. The rectitude of his Holiness Reasons 1. Because he is one only Oneness in himself and from himself in his nature and essence 2. Because he is true only truth it self and cannot lie 3. Because he is good only goodness it self There is none good but God SECT XXVI To make right 2. To create and make right i. e. The Rectitude of his power By him all things were made and without him nothing was made that was made He spake the word only and the world appeared And behold all that was made was very right and very good 1. Natural Right and good in the essence of every creature nothing could be better than it is and all things are necessary and serve for the beauty of the whole world 2. Moral Right and good in the rectitude of qualities in every creature all genuine and proper for them according to the wisdom of him that made them 3. Jural Right and good in the propriety and dues that belong to every creature by right of God's immediate donation or their own just acquisition Reasons 1. Because goodness is communicative though sufficient in God yet spreads to the works of his hands 2. Because Goodness is upheld by the power of him that made it SECT XXVII To bestow right 3. To bestow and give right i. e. The rectitude of his Love He is the Father of Lights from whom every good and perfect gift doth proceed The great Benefactour that openeth his hand wide and filleth every living creature most plentifully with his Blessings So God said to Abraham Fear not for I will be thy exceeding great Reward And they that come to God must believe that he is and that he is the rewarder of all such as diligently seek him 1. Because God is Just to give every one his due Reasons 2. Because he is Gracious to make more dues ex abundante and to give them ex uberiori gratiâ more plentiful 3. Because his Mercy is above all his Works That all may come to God for a supply of all their wants and for a recompence of all their labours and for an encouragement over and above for all their service SECT XXVIII 4. To enjoy or have Right To have right this is The rectitude of his plenty To have and to hold all rights which in God is Allodium or absolute and in us Feudum or conditional and dependant Because it is a tenure and dependance of the Creature upon the Creator who hath reserved some rights which he hath given us to pay unto him as a token of our subjection to him and an assurance of our protection from him 1. That no man might trust in any thing but God 2. That man should not honour himself nor any thing but God 3. That God may receive all the thanks and praise 4. That God may have all the duty and service SECT XXIX To perform or do right To do right This is The rectitude of his Justice 1. Inanimate creatures do right in their kind 2. Sensitive creatures do right in their kind 3. Rational creatures do right in their kind as 1. Rights of Nature and Essence 2. Rights of Law and Justice 3. Rights of Price and Purchase 4. Rights of Grace and Favour 1. Because Justice gives right and due and does right and due Reasons 3. Because Super-justice gives more than is right or due and does more than is right or due SECT XXX 1. Therefore we are to be right and good in our nature Collections and to our nature
Atheism being a canker in my Estate and theirs and a poyson to me and their Souls that I have not fed my self or mine at all or as I ought or provided for my self or them at all or as I ought that I have not taught my self or them at all or as I ought But especially let not an army of strangers and of miserable persons made so by me come in against me to rail and curse me or go to God with strong cries and tears to help them from the wrongs that I have done them or call for vengeance from Heaven upon me for the same O these are lowd and bitter cries O they rent the very heavens O they come up to the ears of God day and night O what should I do or whether should I go if these Fatherless Widows Strangers should come in against me which God forbid or if the very brutes and inanimate creatures should find mouths to clamour to men to God and to the world against me And all this while which is worse I should cry lowdest against my self in a wounded Conscience which who is able to bear Therefore what ever I do what ever I suffer let me not eat the bread that should nourish others and for want of which they curse and starve Let me not be cloathed with the fleece that should keep others warm and for want of which their nakedness is discovered and they die for cold Let me not shelter my self under the roof of another which should be his castle to save himself nor let me possess the goods or lands of others which they of right should use or enjoy In a word Let none be hurt lamed killed deformed oppressed robbed spoiled or undone by me let no such stain be upon my honour in this world nor no such clog upon my soul to press it down in the world to come But rather let me truly say to my comfort and credit Whose Oxe have I taken or whose Ass have I taken or whom have I defrauded I am innocent from the blood of all men I have endeavoured to get and keep a good Conscience in all things void of offence to God or Man which will bring me peace to my latter end and to all eternity O Adam Adam What inevitable wrongs are done by thee by the miseries and deaths brought upon all thy Race if not the sins by thy example at least the imputation for thy sake What inevitable damnation hast thou brought upon thy self and all men had not the second Adam procured salvation for thee and all men O sinful and cruel men What sins and miseries have you brought upon your selves your families and countries by making them to sin by making them to suffer in peace and war in plenty and want in health and sickness O all ye Oppressours Ranters Rebels and Tyrants How much is the world the worse for you How much is the Church the worse for you What waste and havock and spoil have beastly prodigal and barbarous men made upon the good creatures of God ransacked rifled and preyed upon by your pride and wantonness The first Adam lost all right The second Adam recovered all right God created all right and truth and the Devil created all wrong and falsehood These are the two principles of right and wrong good and evil SECT XXXII Collect. Moral Honesty not doubted of 2 Therefore though many revealed truths of faith are called into question and many natural causes are doubted of yet we cannot if we be in our wits make any just scruple of moral honesty no body can deny it he must put out the light of nature if he do which cannot be A spade must be a spade and honesty is honesty when all is done whether we will or no and goes through the world A true man is the only man when all is done that hath honour and conscience in him his enemies themselves being Judges So there can be no difference about honesty that there is and ought to be such a thing But what that thing is and where to find it what is Right and Truth and Wrong and False we cannot we will not agree but call Right Wrong Lyes Truth Evill Good Darkness Light and é contra Every Man will be in the right a common sin to flatter our selves in sin to preach of it praise it pray for it inveigh against evill commend good but act against it Every Man is as his phancy and passion guides him as his party and interest lyes so he judges so he acts so do States and Kingdoms so do Churches too What shall we do in this case how shall we know Right from Wrong that we may do right I answer 1. God hath shew'd it unto us in the light of Nature if we will open our eyes to see it there it is in the common principles thereof very plain 2. Princes from God have shew'd it unto us in their Laws taken from the Law of Nature for our temporal good 3. Priests from God have shew'd it unto us in God's Laws revealed by the Apostles and Prophets for our spiritual good For the Priest's lips preserve knowledg and God's Law is to be enquired of from their mouthes for the good of the Soul 4. Physicians from God have shew'd it unto us in their skill what is for the Body 5. Lawyers from God shew it unto us in their wisdom what is good good for our Estates But in all we are deceiv'd and lose the Right while it is before us holding the Truth in unrighteousness SECT XXXIII Therefore every Man must see with his own eyes Collect. 3. Use Reason and hear with his own ears and understand with his own heart as well as he can and God will help him Let the world know that to assert Infallibility is a cheat and to set up Supremacy is a cheat and to impose Antiquity in all things is a cheat But right Reason humble and unbiassed not excluding frailties is no cheat He that seeketh findeth he that asketh shall have and he that knocketh at Wisdom's gate shall enter in SECT XXXIV Two Guides God hath given to all Men. Reason of Nature 1. Reason of Nature in common principles Quaedam Jura non scripta sed omnibus scriptis certiora saith Cicero There are some Laws which are not written but they are more certain than all the written Laws in the world This is the fountain of Right and it cannot at the same time send forth sweet waters and bitter This is the Treasure which God hath committed to the charge of every one to keep and improve SECT XXXV 2. Equity of conscience Equity of Conscience in common Conclusions drawn from the pure Truths These must guide us when positive Laws fail us Nec omne quod honestum est legibus praecipitur For not every thing that is honest is commanded by the Laws The reason is because Law-givers are not Diviners and Prophets to fore-see every contingent
of Faith Hope Love c. for the applying those rights to our selves For all actions in Law are for acquiring particular or universal good things or for keeping and encreasing them and if lost to recover them in a judicial way But of these things the Law speaks at large Lastly Actions are considered as 1. Natural in the Body personal 2. Civil in the State or Society humane Social 3. Religious in the Church 1. Private for selves 2. Common in a Body publick The Second BOOK OF TITLES The CONTENTS Transition Vnjust legally Vnjust morally Vnjust jurally Oppressed Blemished Distressed Tainted TITLE I. Of a Sinner Transition WE have hitherto fairly arrived from the consideration of Rights disposed of by God's Testament to the Understanding of Titles that those Persons have to those Rights so bequeathed unto them The Title to justify the Legataries of God to their rights is Faith from whence they are denominated Faithful Righteous or Just and they that want Faith have no title to these Rights and are therefore called unfaithful unrighteous or unjust A Sinner is a person unjust or unrighteous three waies Legally Morally or Jurally SECT I. Unjust legally quoad leges that is a Sinner or transgressor Unjust legally that does not that right which he ought to do by the rules of the Laws and Statutes such a one hath no right Such Sinners were our first Parents who for their transgression of God's Law in Paradise were the first sinners such was David in the matter of Bathsheba and Uriah and Jeroboam that made Israel to sin such were all the Israelites that were idolaters and otherwise guilty of all the breaches against the Laws of Moses and such were the Gentiles as guilty of the breach of the unwritten Law of God And these kind of sinners who were transgressors of the Law are opposed to those who were legally righteous by doing that right which the Law required SECT II. Unjust morally quoad mores Unjust morally that is a Sinner or Unrighteous in not doing that right which he might should could or ought to do by the rules of Morality Equity Decency Charity and Mercy The fact that constitutes or makes a Man a sinner or morally unrighteous is not an act of his that is unlawful in respect of any Law but an act that is not honest and equitable in respect of Decency Charity and Mercy Such a sinner was Cham that discover'd and mocked at his Father's nakedness such a sinner was Nabal that was rude unthankful and unkind to deny provision being able to David and his Men that had protected him and his night and day Math. 18.28 such a sinner was the wicked servant who when his Lord had forgiven him a debt of ten thousand Talents would neither forgive nor so much as forbear his fellow-servant a debt of an hundred pence Thus he might do in Law but not in Conscience Morality Equity or Charity Such a sinner was Dives in being vastly profuse upon himself and the Rich and sordidly penurious to the Poor such sinners were the Priest and Levite Luc. 10.31 that neglected the Man stripped and wounded and half deed such sinners are the damned that neither entertained nor clothed nor visited the poor members of Christ that were strangers naked sick and imprisoned Math. 25.42 SECT III. Unjust Jurally quoad Jura that is a sinner or unrighteous Uniust Jurally because calamitous and miserable who either hath no right at all or not that right which he should have or might have had by being debarred or deprived of that right which others had and he might have and should have by Law and is condemned to be and remain in the state of an offender to suffer losse shame or pain which is not properly a punishment for no Man is to be punished for having no right or for quitting it much less for losing it against his will but a misery and affliction This woful and wretched person becomes so not by any act of his own but either by the act of some adversary that chargeth him with that sin whereof he is not guilty or by the act of some Law or curse that burtheneth him for that sin whereof some other person is guilty to suffer affliction for it as if he were guilty of punishment This Man is no reall but a quasi sinner not actively but passively sinfull Rom. 5.19 constituted and made a sinner i. e. imputed or accounted a sinner SECT IV. Of these Jural sinners there are four sorts Oppressed 1. The Oppressed who unjustly against Law and Justice are calumniated criminated and condemned as sinners and transgressors Thus after David's death in case Adoniah had prevailed Bathsheba and Solomon should have been accounted sinners Otherwise it shall come to pass when my Lord the King shall sleep with his Fathers that I and my Son Solomon shall be counted offenders or sinners as in the margin Thus Naboth de facto was made a sinner for really he was none yet by the Letter of Jezabel he was predestinated ordained and appointed to be a blasphemer 1 K. 21.9 For She wrote in the Letters saying Proclaim a Fast and set Naboth on high among the People and set two Men Sons of Belial before him to bear witness against him saying Thou didst blaspheme God and the King and then carry him out and stone him that he may die In dangerous times when the wicked lay wait to intangle the innocent a word may make a Man an offender Is 29.21 All that watch for iniquity are cut off that make a Man an offender for a word and lay a snare for him that reproveth Thus Christ though he were true God and true Man without all guile yet he was made a sinner and suffered as a transgressor He poured out his Soul unto death Is 53.12 and was numbred with the transgressors For what the Law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh God sending his Son in the likeness of sinfull flesh and for sin condemned sin in the flesh Rom. 8.3 For he hath made him to be sin for us who knew no sin Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the Law being made a curse for us Gal. 3.13 SECT V. Blemished 2. The Blemished or tainted who justly according to the Law are disabled and debarred from the Common Rights and Priviledges of Men. As a Bastard who being no real transgressor against the Law is by an Act of the Law made a quasi Transgressor whereby he is debarred from the right of his birth and doomed for a sinner before he is born before he hath or could do good or evill And as soon as he is conceived he is conceived a sinner because his unlawful conception renders his Parents actually sinners or sinners legally for their unlawful copulation and himself a quasi Transgressor a sinner jurally to lose his Birth-right when he is born and by God's
and improbous as well as originally miserable and calamitous that is oppressed blemished distressed and especially tainted or corrupted from the womb Eccles 25.24 This is the Original sin with which all Men are defiled Rom. 5.12 for which death entred into the world Of the Woman came the beginning of sin and through her we all die By one Man sin entred into the world Chrys and death by sin so death passed upon all Men for that all have sinned 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Wisd 1.12.16 All the Generations of Men were healthful and there is no poyson in them nor the kingdom of death but ungodly Men by their wicked works and words have called it to them Contractio Causae SECT I. This cause of original sin may be thus contracted into these Corollaries or Aphorisms Accounting Corol. 1. All are made sinners in Adam as all are made righteous in Christ so accounted but both are really sinners and really righteous in their own actions 1. Because Adam had our Nature and we his but his Will was not ours Reason Adam's Will not ours nor ours his We were as to our Bodies in his loyns but not as to our Souls nor actually our Bodies neither but seminally causally and virtually But which way can any Man imagine that our Souls were propagated from him or that our Souls were in his Soul as our Bodies were in his Body Did not he judg for himself and choose for himself and do not we judg for our selves and choose for our selves for his Will was his own and our Wills are our own How can we imagine it otherwise He was deceived not we Reason He eat the forbidden fruit not we He was thrust out of Paradise not we 2. Because as it is just in Men to account the Sons of Traitors sinners Reason and punish them accordingly so it is much more just in God to account the Sons of Adam sinners and to punish them accordingly Adam sinned for himself and was punished for himself so that neither his sin was ours nor his punishment ours really but by imputation We are by Nature the Children of wrath Object Because we are Children of sin and of a sinner Solut. Adam a Representative of all Mankind as a Parliament is of a whole Kingdom If a Parliament err the Kingdom erres if they suffer the Kingdom suffers A Representative Will is a real Will in Law not in Nature Parliament's Wills are our Wills their Decrees oblige us because of our consent given to choose them to act for us How did we make such a Compact with Adam Yet Adam was a Corporation and we in him are included so as to stand or fall by him Adam was obliged to obey not to sin but he was obliged to suffer because he sinned We are obliged to obey not to sin but we are obliged to suffer because we sin And we are obliged to suffer because he sinned but how we are obliged to sin because he sinned I cannot understand SECT II. Object Solut. Levi's paying of Tithes Levi pay'd Tithes in Abraham's loyns A token of subjection in the Father which is derived to the Children If the Head yielded the Members must So they pay'd Tithes virtually in their Father before they were born but they must pay them actually in their own persons and for themselves after they are born As heirs have rights to Honours and Estates in their Father's Honours and Estates and also in their shames and Debts while they live but after their death they enjoy the profits and bear the burdens and shames of their Fathers How were our Persons in Adam Seminally as the plant in the root and seed potentially not actually But where were our Wills even where our Souls were with God that gives us them when he frames us in the womb Yet a Jural will we had in Adam to have a right in him and by him or else a wrong as people have in their Knights and Burgesses who nevertheless have distinct wills for themselves in other things as they have in whose wills for their election only their wills are included So Adam was for us all to stand or fall for us all not to do good or bad for us all and now we must all suffer by him though we did not act actually sin in him but virtually We have the same natural Body and inclinations thereof as Adam had But as his Body and his inclinations were personal to himself so our Bodies and our inclinations are personal to our selves If Adam in nature had been created a Child he could not have sinned because he as a Child could have no use of his will When I am born into the world I cannot sin in the world till I come to the use of my reason and will in the world how then could I sin before I was born or had a being in the world any more than as I was as the fruit is in the winter fast asleep in my causes How then say some we were sinners before we were and how indeed not so as they mean let them prove it if they can Corruption of Bodies is manifest and so Health is by weak or strong Progenitors Diseases and Health are much hereditary in Nature but virtues or vices of Souls I could never apprehend any descent or conveyance of them from Parents to their Children Estates Honours and Shames are convey'd and pass upon posterity but not by the passage of Nature but of Law We are all concluded by Adam's will yet how If he had done good altogether his goodness was personally his own nor is it or ever was or ever will be ours but we should be the better for it But being he did evil his evil was personally his own nor is it or ever was or ever will be ours but we shall fare the worse for it Adam was obliged to do good so are we Adam was not obliged to sin no more are we We are as free to good or bad as Adam and Eve were How is a Traitor's blood that runs in his veins or his Son's blood tainted the Wise can tell We put a great stress upon many things as upon this of Original sin and upon Hoc est corpus meum and upon Tu es Petrus and of being born in sin and of the power of the Keyes and of the Free-will and of Imputed Righteousness as also of Predestination Election Reprobation and of a Judg in matters of Faith of Infallibility and Universal Supremacy Heresy c. It was the custom then to speak yea think so as they declare in these matters Who can hinder or blame us justly for labouring to understand the meaning of these things and not be abused as our Fathers were We all agree concerning these matters of Original sin Election Reprobation Free-will Imputed righteousness the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist the washing of Baptism but we cannot agree concerning the manner If we would leave
Equity and Charity obligeth him but is churlish uncharitable unmerciful and unkind And he that doth not right according to the rules of Equity and Good manners he is unrighteous and a person unrighteous is a sinner Gen. 9.22 Such a sinner was Cham who seeing his Father's nakedness told his two Brethren without This fact was a sin for it was punished with a heavy curse of perpetual slavery to him and his heirs yet this was no legal sin for there was no Statute Law in being which forbad that fact but it was a moral sin against the rule of Good manners for the Son to tell of his Father's infirmity 1 Sam. 10.27 Such sinners were they who despised Saul and brought him no presents This fact was a sin for the Trespassers are thereupon called the Children of Belial yet this was no Legal sin against any Law of Moses but a Moral sin against Equity and Good manners and Common custom for Subjects to despise their King and bring him no presents 1 Sam. 25.10 Such a sinner was Nabal who churlishly answer'd David and deny'd him relief and his Servants for which he is censured such a Son of Belial that a Man cannot speak to him yet this was no Legal sin against any Law but a Moral sin against Equity and Good manners that a Man of a great Estate should be so unthankful as to deny a little provision to such persons as had not only done him no hurt but much good in securing him and all that he had Such a sinner was the wicked Servant who when his Lord had forgiven him ten thousand Talents Math. 18.28 would neither forgive nor forbear his fellow-servant who owed him but an hundred pence but arrested him and imprisoned him for it This fact was a sin for the Lord was wroth and revoking his former pardon delivered him to the Tormenters till he should pay all that was due unto him yet this was no Legal sin against any Law for the Law allows every Creditor to sue for his debt but was a Moral sin against Equity and Good manners for him to whom his Master had forgiven a debt of a thousand Talents to exact from his fellow-servant a debt of an hundred pence And such sinners were the Priest and the Levite who seeing a Man lye in the way stripped wounded and half dead passed by on the other side This fact of theirs was no Legal sin against any Law but a Moral sin against the rules of Equity Humanity Mercy and Courtesie And this Moral sinner who is a trespasser against the rules of Equity and Good manners is opposed to the person who is Morally righteous by doing that right which Equity Humanity and Charity require Such sinners will the Damned be found at the day of Judgment when they shall be convicted and sentenced for not giving food to the hungry nor drink to the thirsty nor clothes to the naked c. which are not Legal sins but Moral against Equity Charity and Mercy SECT VIII 3. A Sinner Jurally quoad Jura is one who is a Quasi-Trespasser i. e. a miserable or piteous person who hath no right or not that right which he had or might or should have had but is debarred or deprived of that right which by Law Equity or favour is commonly allow'd to others and is doom'd or condemned to suffer those pains and losses which are commonly inflicted upon transgressors commonly used in like cases He that hath no right may be called unrighteous and he that is unrighteous is a sinner Yet a Quasi sinner is not a sinner actually as the two former were as if he had done any act of a sinner or had sin inherent in him but he is a sinner passively being put into the state of a sinner to whom sin is imputed and being made obnoxious to be offended and afflicted as if he were really an offender and a sinner For it is not any act of his own that makes him a transgressor or puts him into the state of a sinner but either the act of the Law which justly imputes unto him the sin whereof some other is guilty or the act of some adversary who unjustly imputes unto him that sin whereof neither he nor any other is guilty but calumniates and criminates him falsly vide Gen. 4 11. Gen. 19.15 Exod. 34.7 Num. 14.18 Such a sinner is a Bastard who being no transgressor against the Law is by the Law made a Quasi-Trespasser and deprived of his Birth-right and debarred from that inheritance which by the common course of custom belongs unto him For the poor Bastard is condemned for a sinner before he is born before he hath done any good or evil before he hath stirr'd in his Mother's womb because his conception being unlawful and sinful doth by an act of the Law render his Parents sinners Legally and himself a Quasi-transgressor or a sinner Jurally And by the Law of God the Bastard lost not only his Birth-right but also his right of Assembly to him and his heirs for ten Generations during which time they stood as persons excommunicate Deut. 23.2 debarred from entrance into the Congregation of the Lord. Such a sinner is an Alien Forreigner or Stranger inhabiting a Countrey where he is disabled and debarred from the priviledges of inheritances Assemblies and Societies and other common Benefits of the Law which the People of the Land enjoy and consequently he lives in a state or condition which is usually inflicted on sinners for some sin So the Romans Greeks and other Nations living in Judaea the Jews accounted and called sinners because they were Aliens and Strangers who had no right to the Lands and inheritances in the Kingdom of Israel nor to the Assemblies Congregations and Ceremonies of Moses which were by the Law appropriated and entailed to the Nation of the Jews for in this Jural sense the word Sinner is taken frequently in the Gospel especially where it stands adjoined with Publicans See Math. 9 10. Math. 11.19 Mar. 2.15 16. Luc. 5.30 Luc. 15.1 And by the Law of God the Ammonites and Moabites were cast into the condition and state of sinners for ever Deut. 23.6 Thou shalt not seek their peace nor their prosperity all thy daies for ever i. e. They shall be for ever unto thee Quasi-trespassers Such a sinner is a Bond-Man a Slave though he be a villain or slave born who is no actual transgressor against any Law yet by the Law of Nations is made a Quasi-trespasser being wholly decapitated and depersonated from the common condition of a humane person to be an odious cursed and detestable Creature living as it were in the state of a Beast wholly disabled from having any right at all no right of Assembly to consult no right of Testimony to bear witness no right of a Testament to make a Will no right of inheritance to enjoy any Estate And by the Law of God the Gibeonites were cursed into
there have been that have made it a Substance and there have not been wanting those that made it nothing at all It is my Choler saith the Revenger It is my Melancholy saith the Desperate one It is my Blood saith the Wanton It is my Appetite saith the Glutton It is it is not what every one pleaseth Well be these darknesses in the Understanding and these perversnesses and slaveries of the Will and these pollutions of the whole Man what they may be yet for all them nor for all the Devils in her that are about them we shall not sin nor die unless we will our destruction is from our selves 1 Cor. 6.12 And if such we were all yet now we are washed now we are sanctified now we are justified in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ And the Leper who is cleansed complaineth no more of his scab but returneth to give thanks and strives to keep himself sweet and clean None but dogs will return to their vomit and none but swine when they are washed will wallow in the mire The Blind Man who is cured will not return into the ditch and impute it to his former blindness but rejoyceth in the light and walketh therein And we cannot without soul ingratitude deny but what we lost in Adam we have recover'd in Christ with manifold improvements for not as is the offence Rom. 5.15 19. so is also the free-gift For as by the offence of one many were made sinners so by the obedience of one many shall be made righteous Made so not only by imputation for that would please us well have sins removed and be Sinners still but made so that is supply'd with all helps and strengths necessary to perfect that Holiness which is required of them that are justified by Faith in Christ Jesus For is not the Gospel above the Law Grace above Works God above the Devil the Second Adam stronger than the first the Spirit above the Flesh Mighty for the casting down of the strong holds of Sin and Satan and for the translating us from the power of darkness into the Kingdom of the dear Son of God To conclude If in Adam we were all lost and crowded into Hell in Christ we are all saved and advanced into Heaven And if we are weak yet in God is our strength And therefore why will ye die O ye house of Israel Take we heed of sowing pillows under our own elbows and if they be not soft and easy enough to sleep on beware of bringing in a good meaning and honest intention to stuff them up least on these we sleep so securely as Sampson did on the lap of Dalilah till our strength go from us indeed and be fit for nothing but to grind in his prison and to do him service who put out our eyes able to die and perish but not able to live and be saved strong to do evil but feeble and lost to all good And as we pretend Original Sin to be our driver into all other evils and calamities so we pretend the want and insufficiency of Grace to save us and as we know not what that monster of Sin is so we understand not the Beauty of God's Grace Grace as Sin is in every Man's mouth the sound of it hath gone through the Earth Ebrius ad phialam mendicus ad januam The drunkard speaketh of it in his cups and vows 't is better than Wine and by the Grace of God he will be drunk no more The Beggar maketh it his Topick and hopeth that God's Grace will melt the hearts of the Rich to relieve his wants and he will promise to fall to work for his living but the one adds drunkenness to his thirst and the other hath no power to unfold his idle hands for all this Even they that are Giants for Learning leading Men of the first rank and file that say they know it and have it have kept it to themselves or but slightly discovered it to the People in that simplicity and nakedness that upon the first sight they may say This is it Sometimes they represent it to be an infused Habit sometimes a Motion or operation sometimes they know not how to distinguish it from Faith and Charity it is one and the same and yet it is manifold it exciteth and stirreth us up it worketh in us and it worketh with us it goeth before us and it follows us Thus they handle Grace as the Philosophers do the Soul they tell us what wonders it worketh but not its Essence they tell us what it doth but not what it is In all that I have written I profess not to slight or jeer at that original Weakness or attainder of Sin and Death which all of us have cause to bemoan but my scope is to attest the Justice and Mercy of God who hath been made too much the author of Sin and Death And to satisfie the ignorant that Sin is not entailed upon us by fate or Blood nor Grace neither whether we will or no. They have been too long made to believe that Sin and Grace have been real infusions and Physical operations from the evil and the Good Spirit working sensible alterations in the Flesh and Spirit without any concurrence or operation of the Will of either Upon this inevitable necessity of sinning and damnation on the one hand and of Grace and Salvation on the other hand they are moved to lie still under the one which they cannot help and wait for the other if ever it be decreed to come which they cannot call nor invite unto them The People are astonished when they are told of their blindness and lameness and deadness to all good and of the necessity of a real descension of the Spirit into the Heart which being stark blind and stone dead is not able to know what is done unto it in the Reviving thereof no not so much as to consent to receive what shall be given it If Sin were inevitably decreed and accordingly infused by the Devil into all Souls beginning at Adam it should be non-sense to define Sin to be a transgression of the Law and a covenant with Satan And if Grace were inevitably decreed and accordingly poured by God into all Souls beginning at Adam it should be non-sense to define Grace to be an obedience to the Gospel and a covenant with God There was never yet any Covenant made without consent of Wills between both parties The Devil and the Sinner are agreed and God and the Godly are agreed also And this Agreement must be free on both sides for a forc'd will is no will nor can the will be forc'd either by God or Man Nullum pertinaciae remedium posuit Deus aut homo There is no remedy against the obstinacy of will either from God or Man God hath made in Man a Free-will to work freely neither can it work otherwise neither will God destroy the work of his own hands nor is there any reason
but that Man should be left to the liberty of his own will for good or evil And if any thing be given from above to help the Gifts of Nature whatsoever is so given is given according to the capacity of the receiver Nor is any thing given till it be received nor can it be received till it be accepted nor can it be accepted without a will nor can it be a will without God who hath given this will Who then can sin and be damned against his will and who can repent and be saved against his will Damnation it self cannot damn them that will not be damned and Salvation it self cannot save them that will not be saved The Devil wills us to sin and we will it too God wills us to repent and we will it too So comes Sin and Damnation so comes Grace and Salvation We cannot sin nor be damned without our selves we cannot have Grace nor be saved without our selves There is shuffling and cutting in saying God worketh the will sweetly over to consent how then irresistibly and how comes the will to dissent but irresistibly O Irresistibility Irresistibility thou takest away all Sin and all Goodness because thou takest away all will to either and there can be neither good nor bad without a will O Irresistibility Irresistibility thou takest away all damnation and salvation because thou takest away all will to either and there can be neither damnation nor salvation without a will And so no punishment nor reward can be due to any And so all Rules and Laws are fooleries and signifie nothing So God shall be the author of Grace without or against the will and give a Gift and no Gift And the Devil by act but God by purpose shall be the author of sin without and against the will and force a sin and no sin I may suffer against my will but I cannot sin against my will I cannot do good against my will nor can I be rewarded against my will These are such necessary consequential demonstrations as no body can deny But some would if they could put out the eyes of all Men and being blind in themselves would have no body see because they want tails would perswade others to cut off theirs If God had not given Man a will he had had no sin but now his sin remaineth If God had not given Man a Will he had had no good but now his good remaineth If God had not given a Man will it had been very unreasonable to bid him use what he never had But now God hath given him a will it is very reasonable to bid him use what he hath So God's wayes are very equal Just and true are thy wayes O King of Saints and the Judg of all the World must needs do right He therefore that hath eyes to see let him see and he shall see more clearly He that hath ears to hear let him hear and he shall hear more distinctly He that hath a Heart to understand let him understand and he shall understand more profoundly And he that hath a Will let him will and he shall will more freely SECT X. But still the point is not clear'd Object till I have answer'd to those two stabbing Texts that smite the adversary under the fifth rib and 't is thought impossible for any living Soul to escape the dint of that deadly two-edged sword Et nunc ventum est ad Triarios Now we are come to our last Prayers we must therefore strive to come off now or never The first Text is that of David Behold I was shapen in iniquity Ps 51.6 explained Answ and in sin did my mother conceive me What shall we say to this no more than this It is an Hyperbolical expression shewing the long continuance of his Soul in sin not only now but ever since his childhood that he came to have the use of Reason Such another speech he useth Ps 22.9.10 Thou art he that took me out of the womb thou didst make me hope when I was upon my mother's breasts I was cast upon thee from the womb thou art my God from my mother's belly In like manner Job speaking of the poor and Widow From my youth he was brought up with me Job 31.18 as with a Father and I have guided her i. e. the Widow from my mother's womb Ab utero matris meae deduxi eam i. e. comitem habui That is From my first age I had a pity and a care of her And again the Psalmist speaketh thus The wicked are estranged from the womb Ps 58.3 Ps 71.5 6. they go astray as soon as they be born speaking lyes And again For thou art my hope O Lord God thou art my trust from my youth By thee have I been holden up from the womb thou art he that took me out of my mother's bowels my praise shall be continually of thee In like manner God rebuketh the Jews for their obstinacy Thou heardest not yea thou knewest not Is 48.8 yea from that time that thine ear was not opened For I knew that thou wouldest deal very treacherously and wast called a transgressor from the womb The same answer serves for John 5.34 Thou wast altogether born in sin and doest thou teach us That is they counted him a pittiful ignorant fellow but they were not born in sin but bravely born and bred to all knowledg And now what is all this great cry Does it appear from these Texts or any other of the Old Testament that ever David Job or any of the Patriarchs Priests or Prophets understood any thing of sinning in the womb or from the womb or any such thing as from Adam's loyns let any Man judg Are not Prophets and Poets ecstatical and can their high Rapsodies be taken Literally I but what shall we say to St. Paul in the New Testament Object Eph. 2.3 explained Amongst whom also we had our conversation in times past in the lust of our flesh fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind and were by nature the children of wrath even as others To this I answer The precedent words sufficiently declare Answ that nothing is here meant of Original Sin but of Actual Sin contrary to Original Nature because many of the Heathens feared God and were free from such vices as are above described viz. Walking after the course of this world Eph. 2.2 according to the Prince of the power of the Air the Spirit that now worketh in the Children of disobedience And further though the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may signify 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is really and truly Gal. 4.8 as When ye knew not God ye did service to them which by nature are no gods as the Syriach Plenè omninò Yet we need not strain the word Nature at all for they that so walked in the lust of the flesh c. being contrary to Natures rational principles are even by Nature
still very shy to be kept they can hardly be lookt upon or handled they are desultorious and slippery and long to be gone from us But God sticks by us and delights to dwell with us A Servant abideth not in the house Joh. 8.35 but the Son abideth for ever Wisdom invites and courts all to her embraces O ye simple how long will ye love simplicity and ye fools delight in scorning Get wisdom get understanding wisdom shall preserve you understanding shall keep you Put her on as a Robe as a Crown as ornaments of gold and pretious stones and keep her as thy life God is not lapt up in the Ephod for the Priest alone nor wrapped up in the Diadem for the Prince alone All are equally concerned to enjoy God as well he that groveleth on the dunghil as he that sits on the Throne as well the dweller in the smoky Cottage as the Lord of stately Palaces The Gospel is preached to every Creature his Messengers are equally sent to the Captains and Scribes as to the common Souldiers that sit on the Wall God is no respecter of persons but in every Nation he that feareth him and worketh righteousness is accepted of him Christ disdained not the society of Publicans and Sinners and the Kingdom of Heaven is pressed into by all sorts and the violent take it by force SECT XIII Good lovely 3. Because Good is lovely and amiable to all and praised by the worst because Nature teacheth all Men to reverence Virtue though they choose the contrary It striketh an awe into those that scorn it A Man of God a Magistrate carries such gravity in his Countenance and habit and Majesty in his life and Calling that his presence will daunt the stoutest Atheists and Ranters and stop their oathes and lewdness till Cato be gone they start at him and beg of him to depart out of their coast and pray him not to come among them to torment them The preaching of Paul of Justice and Judgment made Felix tremble Bonum tunc vincit cum laeditur tunc intelligitur cum arguitur When good is most opposed she conquers most and is then understood when she is reproved so hard a thing it is to loose the Instinct of Nature which when put by will come on with the greater force to our greater conviction and shame in refusing that good which is so obvious and easie to be practised and hunt after that evil which is more remote and painful to be performed Herod was troubled to cut of John Baptist's head because it was unjust and dishonorable yet for his Oath 's sake and those that were with him and to please a wanton Damsel in Point of Honour falsely so called he commanded it to be done contrary to his conscience and was troubled after he had done it when hearing of the famous works of Christ he cryed out it was John the Baptist that was risen from the dead Christ's innocency evicted Pilate's heart while his tongue condemned him saying to the People Be it as you require And yet he could not but say I find no fault in this Man The malice of Tyrants raged against the Martyrs to kill them while their innocency acquitted them even in the Judgments of their murtherers fain would they have spar'd their lives if they would but conform to their idolatrous courses so contrary to nature for an Idol is nothing there is no reason in Nature for it nor in many other things which unreasonable and unnatural Men presume to do Wicked Men are glad when they can get companions in their sins and glory most when for fear of torments they can bring godly Men over to their ungodly courses thinking thereby to strengthen themselves in their sin and to salve their own sores and lull the loud cries of their conscience condemning them for what they do What Traitor ever praised Rebellion and what Devil will not commend a Saint Let me die the death of the Righteous saith the most profane and let my last end be like unto his yet they will not give themselves leave to do that which in reason they allow to be good and just so strongly are Men confuted by themselves and so powerful is the Law of Nature in all Men. Besides what satisfaction ever had any wicked Man in his wicked courses Eat drink and be merry take thine ease let loose the reins to all licentiousness beat at every bush crown thy head with Rose-buds before they be withered taste of all the delights of the Sons of Men will this do in the midst of laughter the heart is sorrowful Vanity of vanities saith even Nature it self all is vanity and vexation of Spirit Nothing can fill the heart but God nothing can comfort but a good conscience Lastly to make all sure remember that undeniable principle of Reason mentioned in the first Book and first Title of the first Volume to be written with Letters of Gold and to be engraven in the Rock with the point of a Diamond for ever which is this That every Action that is in our Power to do or not to do is imputable to us and may justly be imputed to us by God or Man But on the contrary every Action that is not in our power to do or not to do is not imputable unto us nor can be justly imputed to us by God or Man That is not of debt to the hurt of any but of Grace it may be imputed for their good For favours may be imputed where they are not due But sins and plagues can never be imputed but only where they are due The Rule is unquestionable It is impossible rightly to lay the guilt of sin upon any Man unless he by his own individual Act of will hath made himself guilty of the transgression of a known Law If this be true then consider what rightly follows Vide l. 7. T. 3. of Christ's feudal Kingdom Sect. A publick person c. SECT XIV Argumenta Laciniata Aculeata 1. God pardoned Adam's sin upon his repentance Ergo he suffered not for it any more than a temporal death which was threatned him how then shall his Children be unpardoned and suffer any more than a temporal death threatned in Adam to all his posterity 2. Our Birth is involuntary and without our knowledg how then born in sin involuntary and unknown except God by decree included our knowledg and wills by interpretation How can these things be No being no life no Action no Understanding no Will. Then we must charge God who makes us consent before we were or could consent 3. Our will was fast asleep in its causes The cause of our will is God's will not Adam's will The Soul is immediately created and infused by God Ergo was not in Adam's Soul 4. God did not punish the Devils but for their own most perfect choice why are Men punished for no choice 5. If Adam had notice of the Law what notice had we
can possibly be reckoned or accounted from another Man as that the use-fruit or propriety thereof should belong to me and no other No right can be imputed or reckoned to any Man's Virtues or vices which are the qualities and habits of his Soul no more than the temper features or proportion of his Body can be accounted to another But Rights adherent unto things to have use and enjoy them may and are with very good reason accounted and reckoned unto such or such Persons As by Birth Labour Purchase Donation or Usuâ—apion are qualified for them The summe is God by his Promise counted to Abraham a right not for his Birth generous nor for his Works righteous but for his acceptation of Faith Jus fidei 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 3.14 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ro. 4.11 13. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ro. 9.30 Faith-right is opposed to Birth-right Work-right Purchase-right Gift-right or any other Right To all Rights Accounting is the common Genus that is to the species of justifying or condemning Rights for both these are acts of accounting either to justify Men to some good by giving to them a reward or to condemn Men to some evil by inflicting on them some punishment or taking their Rights away and laying contrary hardships upon them SECT VI. Reason 4. Abraham was legally and morally righteous before he believed the Promise and yet he was not justified by that Righteousness But when once the Promise was made by God and accepted by Abraham then was created unto him a Right which he never had nor could have before to a numberless Issue and plentiful Inheritance to an Alliance and Friendship with God and to an exceeding great reward which he had not here And therefore he looked for a City whose builder and maker is God Heb. 11.10 And he desired a better Countrey than the Land of Canaan was even a Heavenly And so did the Patriarchs who had not their portion in this life Heb. 11.16 but wandered up and down in Deserts and in Mountains and in Caves of the Earth clothed with sheep skins and Goatskins being destitute afflicted and tormented of whom the World was not worthy wherefore God was not ashamed to be called their God for he hath prepared for them a City and he is not the God of the Dead but of the Living I conclude therefore as far as I am able to conceive being ready to learn better that all Rights that do arise unto any Person from a promise are convey'd to that Person by his Faith or which is all one his Faith is reckoned unto him to be the means to give him Right to the thing promised and be he never so Righteous or Holy otherwise this is not nor cannot be imputed or reckoned to him to give him any Right as to God and his Rewards but Faith only Hitherto hath been treated the Righteousness of Man which is the stream now in humility I approach to God who is the Fountain from which all Righteousness is derived SECT VII God is only Righteous yea Righteousness it self There is none good but God who hath all Right and doth all Right God Righteous All that have Right and do all right both have it and do it from God they are of God and do the works of God that have any jural or legal or do any moral Righteousness Satan only is unrighteous and wickedness it self not having any jural or legal nor doing any moral Righteousness he hath no right and doth all wrong All that are unrighteous have it and do it from Satan As to have no good by Jural Righteousness and to do no good by Moral Righteousness Ye are of your Father the Devil because you do the works of your Father All Righteousness of God is by Faith and all unrighteousness of Satan is by infidelity SECT VIII 1. God is Legally Righteous the Fountain of Law and Justice Legally The Judgment is Gods he sitteth amongst Princes The Judg of all the World must needs do right Just and true are thy waies O King of Saints that thou mightst be justified when thou speakest Ps 51.4 and clear when thou judgest SECT IX 2. God is Morally Righteous the Fountain of Mercy and Pity Morally whose Mercies are above all his works He doth abundantly pardon and pass by iniquities transgressions and sins and remembers them no more SECT X. Jurally 3. God is Jurally Righteous the Fountain of all Lordship and Dominion that hath the Allodium the absolute direct soveraign Dominion of the whole world over all owners Lords and Kings by right of Creation all other Lords holding of him and he only of himself To Mankind God hath granted the utile Dominium the Usufruct and Emphyteusis of the World in fee under him and they performing the condition of Faith Homage and Allegiance to him their Liege Lord upon them he hath setled the Heavenly Inheritance And for the better Conveyance and assurance of this settlement God after the manner of Men ordained his last Will and Testament and confirmes it by the death of Jesus Christ that it might never be revoked and disannulled and justifies them to all the Rights and Legacies therein contained by the Title of their Faith Transition of which Justification we come now to speak in its proper place The Third BOOK OF JUSTIFICATION The CONTENTS The Term Justify Accounting Synonyma Bondage Freedom Burden Corporation Other names TITLE I. Of the Name of Justification THE Term Justifie 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies three things Term. 1. To make upright 2 To make kind 3. To make a proprietary or owner two waies 1. Declaratively by Sentence in Judgment to do Men right not to justifie the wicked The doers of the Law shall be justified Rom. 2.13 2. Efficiently by free donation i. e. to be Jurified 1. Procreantly My righteous Servant shall justifie many i. e. shall give them a right By the obedience of one many are made righteous 3. Conservantly to hold right Thus Abraham was justified by works after he was justified and created righteous by Faith Ja. 2.24 25. For by works a Man is justified and not by Faith only So Rahab was justified by her works Faith gives right works declare and keep right Works are a sign to shew Faith and a cause to conserve Faith from being a dead Faith The Term Justifie and Justified in English is a Latinisme in Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ro. 5.19 made Righteous 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Italian Constituted just in French Rendred just To Justifie is to declare a Man guiltless or to pardon and give him a right to have and to hold all those rights whereof condemnation would deprive him Ps 82.3 should Sentence of Law be given against him Defend the poor and Fatherless do justice to the afflicted and needy The Latin saith Humilem pauperem justificate Justifie the oppressed and poor vulgar English
see that such as are in necessity have right Help all them to right that suffer wrong and punish the wrong doer Do right to the poor use no force nor fraud against him to deprive him of his right but by a right Sentence give him his right The Italian renders it Faitte drito the French Faites justice it is the act of justice to give every one his right 1. Thus to justifie is to acquite or discharge one that is guilty by Favour and Grace 2. To justifie is to declare a Man free from guilt of which he was wrongfully charged and pronounced guilty by wrong Sentence of Law 3. To justifie is to create a right to a Man that had none before 4. To justifie is to restore a right to a Man that had lost it 5. To justifie is to make a Man a proprietary or an owner of something that had nothing or at least not that which he is now justified unto 6. To justifie is to assert and prove any thing to be true or any Person to be honest in word or deed SECT I. Accounting Thus to account any right to any Person is to justifie that Person or to impute righteousness unto him Rom. 4.6 Gal. 2.16 So to be accounted righteous or for righteousness to be accounted to us or for Faith to be accounted for Righteousness or to be justified by Faith are all one and the same thing And truly all Rights consist in imputing accounting or reckoning which is their force or essence As that the Usefruit or propriety of any thing is imputed or reckoned to appertain and belong to such a Person this is his right by some title or other And all accounting or reckoning is either 1. Of sayings or Propositions as in Logick 2. Of numbers as in Logistick 3. Of Rights or Dues as in Justice or Mercy So to be justified is to be imputed reckoned accounted declared pronounced or created righteous i. e. to have a present right to a future inheritance by the means of Faith and Title of Grace and Mercy in Jesus Christ Thus our justification makes no moral alteration in us that is makes us not just or righteous in doing moral righteousness much less does moral righteousness justifie but justification produceth in us a civil capacity to possess something investing us in an Estate and gives us a new right to have and hold something as our own The poor oppressed are justified not by making them morally righteous but by giving them right that is either declaring their right by a right Sentence or by hindring of that force and fraud which would deprive them of their right Thus Justification is opposed to Condemnation Rom. 8 33 34 It is God that justifies who shall condemn To justifie is to invest a Man with a right to condemn is to devest or deprive a Man of right If through the offence of one many be dead Rom. 5.15 16 c. much more the Grace of God and the Gift by Grace which is by one Man Jesus Christ hath abounded unto many The judgment is of one to condemnation but the free-gift is of many offences unto justification Therefore as by the offence of one Man judgment came upon all to condemnation even so by the righteousness of one the free-gift came upon all Men unto justification of life For as by one Man's disobedience many were made sinners so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous He that is dead is freed from sin the Original is justified from sin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is contrary to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or rather to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 SECT II. The Synonyma or Parallel names are these Synonyma Eph. 1.11 1. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. To obtain an inheritance 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To gather together in one all things in Christ which is properly our Incorporation or imbodying into Christ our Head 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To be reconciled unto God for Being justified by faith we have peace with God Rom. 5.10 2 Cor. 5.19 20. When we were his enemies we were reconciled to God God was in Christ reconciling the World to himself not imputing their trespasses unto them and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation that he might reconcile both unto God in one Body by the Cross Eph. 2.16 Col. 1.12 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To be sufficiented or made meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the Saints in light 5. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Col. 1.13 To be translated into the Kingdom of the dear Son of God from darkness to light i. e. to be justified 6. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To be accepted to the Beloved i. e. to be justified Eph. 1.6 7. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To be engraffed being a wild Olive Rom. 11.24 and to partake of the fatness thereof c. 8. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To be enfranchised If the Son shall make you free John 8.36 Eph. 2.19 then are ye free indeed i. e. justified 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Fellow-Citizens with the Saints and of the houshold of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 partakers of the Divine Nature 2 Pet. 1.4 1 Pet. 5.1 9. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Access or coming unto God 10. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Adoption As many as received him John 1.12 Rom. 8. to them gave he power i. e. right to be called the Sons of God We have received the Spirit of Adoption whereby we cry Abba Father 11. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Alliance to God Eph. 2.13 Ye who sometimes were afar off are made nigh by the Blood of Christ 12. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pardoning and forgiving Col. 2.13 And you being dead in your sin and the uncircumcisien of your flesh hath he quickened together with him having forgiven you all trespasses 13. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ransoming or redeeming Rev. 5.9 Thou wast slain and hast redeemed us to God by thy Blood By all these and the like expressions is declared a permanent state and stable condition wherein a person standeth as to Freedom and is the Base or standard of all Rights accounted to him SECT III. Bondage There are two Spiritual States the one of bondage the other of freedom 1. Spiritual Bondage which is a Restraint Pressure Closeness or Fastness of the Spirit whereby a man is tyed from good to evil is a drudge to sin and a slave to lust a captive to the Devil This is a State of wrath low base terrene and miserable a condition below the nature and quality of a man having no Right nor capacity of Right to any Spiritual Benefit a very death SECT IV. Freedom 2. Spiritual Freedome which is a gallantry fluency clearness or loosness of the Spirit an enlargement from
evil to good a license and ability to do a mans own Will or rather a better will even the Will and pleasure of God This is a State of Grace an high noble and blessed condition transcending the proper nature and quality of man SECT V. Burden 1. Now the State from which a man is justified is the base condition of Spiritual Bondage and the miseries consequent thereunto This is the Terme of recesse or Terminus à quo from whence Iustification commenceth a great Burden A Burden vulgarly signifies a heavy weight but legally it signifies some Charge Penalty Disability or Service Hence Isaiah calls Gods Iudgments Burdens as the Burden of Babylon Egypt Damascus c. In all kingdomes there are Burdens as Infamy is a Burden of Disgrace restraining a man from all Honours and Offices as Outlary is a Burden restraining a man from the benefit of Law hindring a man from being Plaintiff and having audience in a Court of Iustice to be a Stranger and Alien is a Burden hindring a man from purchasing or possessing Lands of Inheritance In all families there are Burdens as Bastardy is a Burden of Disinheritance laid upon a child unlawfully begotten Slavery is a Burden of Bondage laid upon some servant hindring him from getting possessing or suing for any thing Divorce is a Burden of Expulsion laid upon a Wife disloial hindring her from the Society of bed and board and marrying to another man Thus in Abraham's family Ishmael sustained the Burden of Bastardy and Hagar the Burden of Slavery hence Sarah required of Abraham that he would disinherit Ishmael Gen. 21.10 and be divorced from Hagar Cast out this Bondwoman and her son for the son of the Bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the Freewoman 2. The state to which a man is Justified is the stately condition of spiritual freedome and the miseries consequent thereunto This is the Access or Terminus ad quem to which we are advanced As Bondage was Capitis Diminutio the lessening of the head or Degrading of a man So Freedome is the Capitis Exaltatio or the raising or lifting up the head of a man or advancing of a man Gen. 40.20 2 King 25.27 As the heads of Pharaohs cheif Butler and Baker were lifted up and Jehojakin's head was lifted up out of Prison by Evilmerodach King of Babylon This state of Divine Freedome drawes into it Forgiveness of sins Resurrection from the dead and Life everlasting Thus the Term or bound of Recess from which we are justified is some Burden and the Term or bound of Access to which we are justified is some Right A Right vulgarly is a thing which is true and good and honest but legally it is a thing which is due to have and to hold some benefit and good which the Law owes us and settles upon us This is opposed to some burden Penalty or Charge which signifies to have and to hold some sufferance or grievance which the Law owes us and settles upon us SECT VI. There are in the world many Corporations where diverse persons are united into one body And in these Corporations there are diverse Rights Corporation some of them are Burdens and some Benefits as in a Kingdom there are Rights of Liberty to be a free-man born or to be made free to be a Member of some Corporation to have suffrage or vote in Elections to be heir in a Family to succeed to the Inheritance and Honour to be a Judg to give Judgment and to do Justice The burdens contrary to these are Slavery that deprives a man of Liberty Banishment that deprives of some Corporation Bastardy that deprives a man of his family Infamy that deprives a man of Honour and Preferment For the true rule is though not kept in the world Portae dignitatum non patent infamibus Personis The Gates of Honour are fast shut against scandalous Persons In a Family there are diverse Rights as Matrimony a state of Right whereby the Husband and the Wife have Right to each others bodies The Wife hath not power or Right over her own body but the Husband 1 Cor. 7.4 and the Husband hath not power or Right over his own body but the Wife For each have given to other a power or Right over their bodies respectively Primogeniture is the Right to succeed to the Inheritance of the Father under the Law Cleanness was a State of Right to enter into the Congregation and to partake of the Sacrifice Ministery is a Right to preach the Word and apply the Sacraments The Husband and Wife are no more two but one Flesh more united than the Father and Son For for the cause of a Wife the Son shall leave his Father and Mother and shall cleave to his Wife and they two shall be one Flesh they are partakers of all Rights together The good and evil of the Husband is the good and evil of the Wife and the good and evil of the Wife is the good and evil of the Husband his Honour and Wealth is hers and her Honour and Wealth is his if he suffers she suffers if he prosper she rejoyceth The King and his Subjects are one Body The Honour and Welfare of the King is the Honour and Welfare of the Subjects and the Honour and Welfare of the Subjects is the Honour and Welfare of the King his wrong is theirs and their wrong is his The Church is a Corporation in which Christ and his Subjects or Members are one Body they are Members of his flesh and of his bones Eph. 5. Christ and the Faithful are more united than Man and Wife for Man and Wife are but one Flesh but Christ and the Faithful are one Spirit A man for Christ his sake must forsake Father and Mother Wife and Children and he that doth so shall receive an hundred fold and in the end everlasting life The honour of Christ is the honour of the Faithful and the honour of the Faithful is the honour of Christ and the welfare of one is the welfare of the other and è contra Christ is a Party in all the conditions of his Subjects Saul Saul why persecutest thou me All charity that is done to them is done to Christ In as much as ye have done it to the least of these my Brethren ye have done it unto me and in as much as ye have not done it to one of these little ones ye have not done it to me Thus he whose Right is created that had none before is justified And he whose Right is restored that had Right but lost it is justified unto it again All restitution is justification all in-lawing is justification for thereby the Party outlawed is restored to the Benefit of the Law SECT VII Other Names There are other Names of the same thing or other Words whereby the nature of justification is farther illustrated 1. As by such words which do create or constitute a Right as
the good will of the Imputer that bestows it and our own good will who accept it The want of this distinction makes many run aside first into confusion and then into contention but the clear understanding and application thereof settles the controversie into peace and quietness So Righteousness is imputed and Sin is imputed and Reward is imputed and punishment is imputed so Works are imputed for Righteousness and for a Reward of debt and Faith is imputed for Righteousness and for a Reward of Grace In a word as for imputation of sin it comes by the Law through works and for imputation of Righteousness it comes by the Gospel through Faith The Law curses and condemns the Sinner the Gospel blesses and justifies the ungodly No Law was ever made to justifie that must be grace nor Grace was ever made to condemn that must be Law Moses's yoke is intolerable for condemnation to death Christ's yoke is easie for justification to Life Let Christ therefore live that we may live also in him and by him But let Moses die and be buried and his Sepulchre never be found The CONTENTS Right Corporation Impunity Liberty Provision Protection Audience Alliance Resurrection Jurisdiction Glory Rights of Christ Expectation Supplication Possession TITLE III. Of the matter of Justification THe matter of Justification is Rights A Right is whereby some benefit is made ours Matter of Justification Right There is a difference between Right and Righteousness Righteousness is a moral word signifying a virtue or habit to do that good and right which Law prescribes and it is opposed to unrighteousness and sinfulness which is a vice and habit of doing that evil and wrong which Law forbids But Right is a Jural word signifying the having holding and enjoying of some benefit and good which some Law settles upon us and makes to be ours And this is opposed to a Burthen or charge signifying the having holding and suffering of some grievance and evil which some Law also settles upon us and makes ours In every Kingdom there are diverse rights as the right of Liberty to be a Free-man a Member of a Corporation of suffrage to have a voice in Elections of Family to succeed to an Inheritance of Honour to have a precedency and take place of Power to give Judgment and do justice of Office to perform some function and service of Benefice to have and enjoy some profits and generally all Capacities Abilities Augmentations Honours Degrees Rewards c. are Benefits and Rights There are also in every Kingdom diverse wrongs and burthens quite contrary and privative to those As the burthen of slavery that deprives a Man of liberty of Banishment that deprives a Man of some Corporation of Bastardy that deprives him of his Family of Infamy that deprives him of Honour c. and generally all Incapacities Disabilities Diminutions Degradations and Penalties are Burthens and Wrongs In every Family there are diverse Rights Matrimony a state of right whereby the Husband and the Wife have a right to each others Bed and Board and over each others Bodies Children and Estates 1 Cor. 7.4 Primogeniture is a state of right to succeed to the whole inheritance of the Father Cleanness was a state of right to enter into the Congregation and partake of the Sacrifice Ministery a state of right to preach the word and apply the Sacraments Righteousness in Scripture many times is put for a right As Abraham believed in God Rom. 4.3 and it was accounted to him for righteousness i. e. for a right For God promised Abraham a Blessing that Eliezer his servant should not be his heir but that he should have a Son and Heir of his own Body and that his Seed should be as the stars of Heaven for multitude Abraham believed in God for this Promise and Blessing and his Faith was counted for righteousness or gave him a right and title to this Blessing Had not Abraham believed God i. e. had he not accepted of God's promise God's promise had been a dead offer to him and Abraham had had no right at all unto it But his Faith i e. his acceptance of the promise gave him a right to claim and enjoy the Blessing And Abraham received the Sign of Circumcision a Seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had yet being uncircumcised i. e. of the right of Faith for Seals are not signs of moral righteousness but of jural rights for Seals are put to conveyances and evidences and other writings to testifie matters of right So by Circumcision he had now God's Seal to that Grant which God had formerly made to him And v. 13. The promise that Abraham should be the heir of the World was not to him through the Law but through the righteousness of Faith i. e. through the right by faith That is the right of inheritance promised came not to him by any right that the Law gave him but by the right which his faith gave him Contrarily the word unrighteousness in Scripture many times is put for wrong Luc. 16.8 The Lord commended the unjust Steward in the Original the Steward of unrighteousness i. e. the Steward that was not right vers 9. The Mammon of unrighteousness Luc. 18.6 i. e. the Mammon that is not the right riches Hear what the unjust Judg saith in the Original the Judg of unrighteousness Gen. 18.25 i. e. Judg that did not do right but wrong Shall not the Judg of all the World do right in the Original shall he not do righteousness Ps 4.1 Hear me O God of my righteousness i. e. my true and right God for other gods were false and wrong gods And ver 5. Offer the Sacrifices of righteousness i. e. the right Sacrifices what those Sacrifices are he specifies afterwards as the Sacrifice of Thanksgiving and of a broken heart Oblations and Burnt-offerings were not the right Sacrifices but Thanksgiving and Contrition Thou satest in the Throne of judging right Ps 9.4 Math. 21.32 in the Original in the Throne of judging righteousness John came unto you in the way of righteousness i. e. in the right way SECT I. Corporation The matter of our Justification is a right of Incorporation into God A Corporation is a Body in Law As besides Natural Parents there are Parents in Law so besides Natural Bodies there are Bodies in Law Diverse Persons united into one and communicating in good or evil are one Body and prosper or suffer together If one member suffer all the members suffer with it or if one member be honoured all the members rejoyce with it 1 Cor. 12.26 A Family is a Corporation Husband and Wife are one Body Father and Children are one Body A Kingdom is one Body A Church is one Body These partake of wealth and honour Sin or punishment Their Heads are mutually augmented or diminished because they are one Body In a Corporation some Persons have no right because they
within our selves waiting for the Adoption to wit the redemption of our Bodies 2 Cor. 5.2 In this we groan earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house from Heaven SECT XV. 3. A right of Possession to enter upon and enjoy all these things Possession whereto we have a present right to be inducted invested installed and enthroned to pass over Jordan to possess the Promised Land This is the best fullest and perfectest Right of all compleating all precedent Rights Well done thou Good and Faithful Servant enter thou into thy Master's joy Come ye Blessed Children of my Father inherit the Kingdom of God prepared for you before the beginning of the World The Rights to all things for Salvation were intended and prepared for all Men by Creation but were no sooner enjoy'd by Adam in their Names but were lost by him to him and his Posterity by his infidelity and disobedience The Rights to all things for Salvation by the Grace and Favour of God were re-intended and re-prepared for all Men by Redemption and are enjoy'd by Christ in their Names and for them and if lost are lost by them that will not embrace them nor covenant with God for them by infidelity and rebellion To have Right and to do Right is a state of Grace Life and Liberty To have no Right and do no Right is a state of sin death and slavery The CONTENTS Free-Grace Titles Birth Purchase Desert Favour Condemnation Gifts Impunity Election Glory Boasting Will of the Receiver Will of the Donor Free-Grace begins at God's Will Free-Grace makes the Title stronger Free-Grace makes for God's Grace and Glory Justification is the best State of Love All Rights are from Grace Donation Election Promise God justifieth Christ justifieth The wrong Title Law Allegory of the two Covenants Ishmael and Isaac Hagar and Sarah Law a Covenant of Bondage Gospel a Covenant of Liberty Jacob and Esau Works TITLE IV. Of the Title of Justification Free-Grace Transition THe Title of Justification is Free-Grace 'T is fit thou shouldst understand thy self concerning thy Title to this right of Justification lest otherwise upon occasion thou beest to seek and thy Soul put to some trouble thereupon For to many Men many troubles do arise for want of due knowledg of their Titles to those Rights which they possess Free-Grace is either by Election or Postulation or meer Grace Election is a Grace of the Elector to choose a Person that is both worthy and capable by Law Postulation is a Grace of the Postulator to admit a Person who is worthy but not capable by Grace Meer Grace is a free donation to a Person not worthy nor capable but accepted and made worthy and capable by Grace for Grace When thou hast that good which thou deservest and is due unto thee thou hast right and that right comes to thee by Law When thou hast that evil which thou deservest and art punished just according to thy deserts and sufferest so much as thy sin requireth neither more nor less all this while thou hast Law But when thou hast less evil than thou deservest and art not punished so much as thy sin requireth then thou hast Grace When thy sin requires hanging and quartering if then thou art but beheaded thou hast Grace yet this is but a low degree of Grace the groundsel or half-pace of it But when thou hast more good than thou deservest or much good when thou deservest much evil then also thou hast Grace such Grace is of high degree and is exceeding gracious St. Paul had a right to the Freedom and that right came by Law for it was his due by birth I was free born saith he And Lysias the Chief Captain had the same right and his right also came by Law not by the same Law but by another for it was his due by purchase With a great summe obtained I this Freedom The Labourers in the Vineyard had a right to a penny Math. 20. and that right came by Law yet not by the same Law but by another for it was their due by works by desert service or earning For they laboured all day in the Vineyard SECT I. So the Titles whereby Men generally acquire and procure those rights they enjoy are two either by Law or by Grace Titles Some Men have their Title by Law When thou hast evil that is due unto thee just so much as thy sin requires there the Title whereby the Magistrate doth punish thee is by Law for all punishment is by Law The strength of sin is the Law saith St. Paul i. e. all the Title and power that sin hath to punish is by virtue of the Law Contrarily when thou hast that good that is due unto thee just in the measure whereby it is due then also thy Title is by Law because all dues must come by Law for where there is no Law there is no sin so where there is no Law there is nothing due And Title by Law is commonly threefold Either by Birth or by Purchase or by Works For the Law doth convey and settle rights upon us either upon our Birth or our Purchase or our Works St. Paul had a right to the Freedom of Rome and that right came by Title of Law for it was his due and the Law whereby it was due was his Birth Lysias the Chief Captain had the same right for he also was Free of Rome and his Title was by Law for it was his due and the Law whereby it was due was his Purchase Jacob had a right to Leah and Rachel and his Title was by Law for they were his due and the Law whereby they were due was his Work and Service for he had served Laban fourteen years for them Some have a Title by Grace When thou hast more good than is due unto thee or when none at all is due then thou hast Grace and when thou hast much good done thee when thou deservest much evil there Grace is exceeding gracious Such Grace had Abraham to the Land of Canaan Such Grace hath the incumbent to his living If a Woman seized in Fee-simple marry have Issue and die the Husband living that Husband hath a right of Free-hold in her Estate yet this Title to that Estate is no way by Law neither by Birth Purchase Marriage or Works but only by Grace or as the Lawyers term it by the Courtesie of England For farther illustration The Titles whereby Men enjoy their Right may be reckoned four By Birth Purchase Desert or Favour SECT II. Birth 1. By Birth or inheritance so Esau had a right to the Estate of Isaac it was his Birth-right he was his first born Among us ordinarily the Title to Lands descending is by Birth and the Heir at Common-Law proves his Title by Birth as descending from him that was tenant in Fee or Fee-Taile Our Title to the right of Salvation is not by Birth the right of the Father to
which all our Justification tends Now all Pardons are by Grace and the pardoned to his pardon hath no other Title than the Grace and Favour of the Prince For Pardon is above Law the Law hath no power to pardon but is altogether against it and where the party is condemned the Law is all for speedy execution but Pardon is of Grace and that Grace is not against the Law but above it for God's Pardon comes from God's Prerogative SECT X. Reason 4 Because these Rights come by Election All the Righteous are elected and chosen to the Rights they are justified unto Election For the Kingdom of God is an Elective Kingdom not for the Kings part only but for all the Subjects for the Subjects of that Kingdom are not Natives nor born so but all Electives comming in by Election Hence the Righteous are called the Elect for all they and they only are Elected And Justification is but an effect of Election as Filiation is of Adoption And hence our Election so often mentioned is not grounded upon any works of ours but only on the pleasure of God that elects us which is the election of his Grace For all Elections are by Grace Rom. 9.11 and the Elected hath no other Title to his Right by Election than the grace and favour of the Elector hence St. Paul calls it the Election of Grace SECT XI That all the Glory might be to God Titles by Law bring some Glory Reason 5 to the Titulary hence Men are so prone to strive in Suits of Law Glory because the Eviction of their Right by Law is some glory to them The title by Birth is a glory hence all Inheritance and Nobility is grounded For Nobility properly is Honour by Birth the Title by Purchase is more glorious to the Purchaser than to the Seller For every sale of an Estate is a blemish to the Seller The Title by works is a glory to the Work-man but Titles by Grace are altogether glorious to the Donor As in Adoption all the glory is to the Adopter in a Presentation all the glory to the Patron For seeing the Receiver hath all the profit there is great reason the Donor should have all the honour and glory seeing he hath nothing else for the grace he bestows God then justifies thee by Grace that all the glory might be to him God hath predestinated us to the adoption of Children by Jesus Christ Eph. 1.5 6. to himself according to the good pleasure of his will To the praise of the glory of his Grace wherein he hath made us accepted in the Beloved SECT XII That no boasting might be left to Man Titles by Law are subject to Reason 6 boasting for commonly Men boast of their Birth Boasting and for that purpose they set up their Arms. So the Jews boasted We have Abraham to our Father we are the Seed of Abraham And they boast of their purchases as in the Parable did two of the guests that refused to come Math. 22. I have bought a piece of Ground saith one and I have bought five Yoke of Oxen saith another This they say partly by way of excuse and partly by way of boasting And Men boast of their Works so did the Pharisee who instead of praying fell to boasting I am no extortioner no adulterer c. But Titles by Grace bear no boasting to the receiver because boasting seekes for Glory and as was shew'd before all the glory goes to the Donor In Adoption the adopted can boast of nothing unless it be of his Father's goodness and that is to his Father's glory In a Presentation the Clerk can boast of nothing unless it be of his Patron 's bounty and that is to the Patron 's glory God then justifies thee by Grace to exclude all boasting Ro. 3.27 that no boasting might be left to thee This reason follows the Text God is just and the justifier of the Faithful and the Title whereby he justifies them is Grace Rom. 8.26 Why so To exclude boasting that it might not be by the Law of Works but of Faith i. e. by no Law at all but only by Grace therefore it is of Faith that it might be by Grace SECT XIII ☞ Hence it appears that the Grace which makes us this Title is not a moral term that signifies any virtue residing in us For if our Justification were the work of such a Grace then should it be of works But this Grace is a jural term opposed to Law and signifies a work flowing from God from a virtue residing in him which the Scripture calls his Love his Kindness and his Mercy Whereby when God creates a right unto us above Law and above our deserts such an affection in God is called Grace Rom. 4.16 and the effect of that affection upon us is called Grace also As for the Freedom of this Grace it is a work of Gradation for Grace hath two degrees SECT XIV Will of the Receiver 1. When it begins at the will of the Receiver and comes upon the occasion of his motion or else it had not came at all This is but a low and servile Grace such as the Master grants to the Servant and one stranger to another So Christ healed the Centurion's Servant and the Daughter of the Cananitish Woman upon the request of the Master and Mother SECT XV. Will of the Donor 2. When it begins at the will of the Donor and comes upon the occasion of his kindness only or else it had never come This is a high and Filial Grace As when the Father makes the Son his heir whether born or unborn before he have done good or evil or whether he be a Stranger made and adopted to be a Son There is no Law for this Free-Grace for Law is binding but Grace is free God or Man may choose whether they will be gracious or to whom or when or how at their pleasure So God gave the Kingdom to Saul when he was seeking for his Father's Asses To David when he was following the Ewes great with young Thus Paul was called from Heaven in the height and heat of his persecution The Gentiles that sate in darkness saw a great light which they neither sought for nor so much as thought of God's Grace prevents our works our words and thoughts SECT XVI Reason 1 Because God's Free-Grace begins at his own will his will his first and leading Free-Grace begins at God's will ours is secondary and following His will is not against our will but above it and before it not violently forcing it but gently perswading a free rational agent to yield to his most gracious will Thus we are born again Joh. 1.12 16. Not by the will of the Flesh nor by the will of Man but by the will of God Justification is so far from being our own will that it is a Mystery to our Understanding and so could never come
kind Mother and Mistress This Ishmael was born after the flesh of Hagar a young Woman and Abraham able to beget by her Isaak born after the Spirit of Sarah an old Woman and Abraham an old Man not able to beget but Abraham was supernaturally enabled Heb. 11.12 especially Sarah who was both old and barren 1. Ishmael typifies those that seek Justification by the Law or works 2. Isaak typifies those that seeks Justification by Grace or Faith They that seek Justification by works depend upon themselves and their own natural goodness or strength or the works of Law They who seek Justification by Faith depend upon God's Grace and free Promise ☞ Note here by the way that Isaak was a Type not of personal Election from all Eternity but of such as shall be justified by Faith in the Promise For the scope of the Epistle is in opposition to the Jewish confidence to prove that Justification is not by the Law So that the conceit of Election and Reprobation from this place is quite and clear Eccentrical from the scope and business which the Apostle aims at in this place 1. From whence I observe That the Mysteries of Salvation are declared not by words only but by Providences and Dispensations 2. That God without acceptation of persons may advance one above another in temporal benefits Acceptation of Persons hath place only in Judiciary rewards not in Dispensations of Grace and Mercy to eternal Rewards SECT XXXII Gen. 25.3 Jacob and Esau Besides that Allegory of Jacob and Esau denotes two Nations for the Text saith Two Nations are in thy womb and is by the Apostle applied to the Freedom of God preferring the younger Brother the Gentiles before the Elder the Jews Ro. 9.11 c. not upon any account of works For the children being yet unborn neither having done good or evil that the purpose of God according to Election might stand not of works but of him that calleth it was said unto her The elder shall serve the younger As it is written Jacob have I loved and Esau have I hated But the Preferring of the Gentiles before the Jews was only upon the account of Faith by the which they were justified and the Jews could not be justified because they stood upon their works So Jacob and Esau were not Types of a Personal Election and Reprobation but of a specifical National Election and Reprobation whosoever how many or how few soever not to an Eternal but to a Temporal Inheritance 2 Sam. 8.14 For the Elder shall serve the Younger and so the Edomite did serve the Israelite v. 2 Sam. 8.14 Je. 60. 1 Chron. 18.11 13. And the Idumaeans revolted Psal 137.7 Ez. 35.5 10. yet were they subjects 1660 years Jacob signifies the People of the New Testament by Faith Esau signifies the People of the Old Testament by Works Object Gal. 3.17 The Covenant that was confirmed of God before in Christ the Law that was four hundred and thirty years after cannot disannull that it should make the promise of God of no effect Solut. These words prove not that the Gospel or Covenant of Grace was before the Law or Covenant of works but before that solemn repetition or new Delivery thereof upon Mount Sinai When there was a Brief Transcript of it written and delivered unto Moses in Tables of Stone by God Rom. 5.20 Gal. 3 19 c. The Law entred that the offence might abound The Law was added because of transgressions till the Seed should come to whom the promise was made c. And that the Law or Covenant of Works was in being yea in force in the World before the publication of it from Mount Sion appears For untill Law sin was in the world Rom. 5.13 that is from the beginning of the World until the giving of the Law in words and writing from Mount Sinai And Consequently a necessity of the Law because where no Law is there is no transgression Rom. 4.15 but sin is not imputed where there is no Law that is Ro. 5.13 sin is not charged upon Men or punished nevertheless death reigned from Adam inclusivè unto Moses even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression and consequently there must needs have been a Law without the breach whereof Men had not been obnoxious unto death Yea not only the Moral Law properly so called was extant in Men's hearts and delivered by Tradition but some particulars of the Ritual Law practised in the World before the delivery of the same Law much disused and forgotten to Moses in Writing upon Tables of Stone upon Mount Sinai As appears by the offering of Sacrifices of old and of the Sabbath and of Circumcision commanded to Abraham and his Seed and by the Marriage of the Widow of a Kinsman dying without Issue before the Law Yea the Law or Covenant of Works was as ancient as Adam and by transgression thereof he and all his Posterity incurred the guilt and punishment of Death Therefore the Law or Covenant of Works was the first born Testament or Covenant of Works made by God with Mankind And upon this account they who are of the Law i. e. who seek for Justification by the Law of works are resembled by Esau the Elder Son and they who expect Justification by the New Testament or Law of Grace i. e. by Faith are properly typified by Jacob the Younger Brother When God said to Rebecca Two Nations are in thy Womb ☜ and the Elder shall serve the Younger he mystically signified that his absolute will and purpose was never to own for Sons and Heirs of Heaven the People of the Elder Covenent i. e. those that should seek for Justification by the Law but to assign over those for Servants or Bondmen to his Children i. e. those of the later or younger Covenant who should seek the Adoption of Sons or Justification by Faith Thus God was pleased to declare to the World that his purpose according to Election might stand firme and unchanged and that he meant not to elect or make choice of those whom he should or would adopt by the rule of Works or by any rule that Men should commend to him or desire to impose or obtrude upon him but only by the Rule of his own most free gracious and wise pleasure which he hath declared to be the Rule of Faith Inasmuch as in equitable Right the making his own choice in this kind accrueth unto him as he is the sole Magnificent Founder of this Blessed Feast of Justification calling and inviting the World from all Quarters to come unto it For a Clench to keep this Interpretation from stirring The Prophet Malachi brings in God thus Saying Was not Esau Jacob's Brother Mal. 1.2 c. yet I loved Jacob and hated Esau and laid his Mountains and Heritage waste for the Dragons of the wilderness He gave Esau a lesser portion of an earthly
Gods turning hardning softning opening or shutting of Mens hearts as Men do of the motion of natural bodies by strength or wit not considering that these things are spoken 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 after the manner of Men Metaphorically for our apprehension And if wise Men are able by solid reasons to convince Mens judgments and Eloquent Men are able to incline their wills and affections how much more is the Alwise God by his Spirit able to clear our understandings to a full satisfaction and to draw our desires to those divine truths which he hath revealed by Jesus Christ What more there is in the work of God's conversion of Men by his calling Justification and Sanctification of them let any Man satisfie me fairly Saving Faith Et erit mihi magnus Apollo If Saving Faith properly so called be an entring into Covenant with God in assenting to the promises of his Last will and Testament and making reciprocal promises to him again for Justification And if Holiness be a keeping of our Covenant or faithfulness to our promises for Sanctification And if expectation of Glory be a hope of that Blessedness to which we are justified and sanctified Then where is the infusion of any habit or physical change insensibly made in the Soul But rather as in all Covenants is there not 1. A free offer or promise from God 2. A free consent of acceptance from Man 3. A free observation of obedience to God 4. A free expectation of reward from God All things are free in rational Agents and Patients A rational free Agent thus works upon a rational free Patient 1. By propounding his will in Doctrine 2. By intreaties and exhortations in promises This is Divine and Humane working and drawing with the cords of Love So Wisdom enters into the Soule Not as water out of one vessel into another while one vessel knows not what another doth but by illumination of Wisdom precept upon precept line upon line here a little and there a little This is our forcing and fashioning anew our partaking of the Divine Nature and of the precious promises of God our regeneration our new Creation our Translation from the power of Darkness into the Kingdom of the dear Son of God This is to be in the state of Grace to be Elect to have our Names written in the Book of Life to be in Covenant and Alliance with God to be his Children Heirs and Co-heirs with Christ If Faith comes ordinarily by hearing or otherwise Means of Faith where there is no preaching even by Conversation Contemplation observation of Divine Providences or by other unknown instincts and revelations All these waies and means are informative and persuasive and the more because they come from a Divine Spirit and offer a Divine reward and carry a Divine assistance along with them This is a more God like and Man like way from a free Creator to a free Creature than an insensible irresistible plastick power upon a dead stock or stone It would be mockery to a Soul in that senseless and slavish condition to bid it hear that is deaf or see that is blind or run that is lame Then to what purpose is Reason Will or Memory or are they lost by our fall and where are they if we can answer without blushing God can do all this and more Object God can do nothing but wisely and justly Answ It is not wise to save a Man without or against his Will or to make him willing whether he will or no. Therefore God cannot do it It is not noble to give any thing to one that refuseth or to continue it to him that after acceptation and reception will not use it or improve it As for the notion of a New Heart and a New Spirit A New Heart It is as when a Man is advanced to any Dignity or Rule He is a New Man and hath another Spirit yet the same individual Soul and Body remains How much more when a Man by being in League and Covenant with his God is advanced to the Dignity of a Son and Heir of Heaven hath a Man a New Heart and Spirit yet the same individual Soul and Body remains so doth he live above himself and all the World to what he did before yet he is the same Person though altered in his conditions And God gives this Spirit to this Faith which is the Gift of God 1. To hear his Word outward inward 2. To understand it 3. To love and embrace it 4. To persevere in it 5. To hope for Eternal Life by it So God is all in all not essentially by his Substance in our Hearts working as in a Shop but virtually rationally liberally operating and cooperating by his Spirit with our Spirits teaching moving helping in all our internal and external actions Amen The Fourth BOOK OF SANCTIFICATION The CONTENTS Transition Spirit the first Agent Hidden Man Outward Man Natural Man Supernatural Inspiration Penal and grievous Beneficial and gracious Holy Spirit Spiritual Man TITLE I. Of the Spirit THE Act of the Understanding apprehending the truth of Divine promises and the Act of the Will assenting to them The Transition and covenanting with the Promiser is the act of Faith justifying the Soul to all the Rights of God's Estate and engaging the Soul to all the Commands of God's Will The Act of the Understanding apprehending the Truth of Divine precepts and the act of the Will consenting to them and performing the Covenant is the act of Love sanctifying the Soul till it come to perfect holiness in the fear of God for the obtaining of the Inheritance amongst them that are sanctified by Faith which is in Christ Jesus Thus the Entrance into Covenant with God is the Exercise of Faith to Justification and the continuance in that Covenant is the practise of Faithfulness or Holiness to Sanctification and Glorification by the Spirit SECT I. There is scarce any word in the whole Scripture that hath more various significations than the word Spirit I shall pass by most of them and shall only lead the understanding to the sense which this word beareth particularly to the point in hand Spirit the first Agent That secret Engine which is the first mover in a Watch which moveth all the wheels but is moved of no wheel and without which no wheel doth or can move as to the going of the Watch is called the Spring of the Watch. And that secret fine substance which is the first Agent in Man which doth act all his Members but is acted of no Member and without which no Member doth or can act as to any humane action is called the Spirit of Man Whereof the knowing faculty which affirmeth or denyeth matter of truth or falshood is called the Mind or Understanding and the moving faculty whereby the Spirit chooseth or refuseth matter of good or evil is called the Will or Affection And the judging faculty which accuseth or excuseth acquitteth
or condemneth for the approving or rejecting of truth or falshood is called the Conscience For the Mind Will and Conscience are faculties of that substance which is the Spirit Hidden Man This Spirit is the very Being and Person of a Man called in the Scripture the Hidden Man and the Inward Man because it is a fine secret substance which is both unseen and invisible and because it dwelleth inward within the Body as in a moving Tent or House which in Scripture is called the Outward Man i. e. a poor weak cottage framed of a few slender bones Outward Man clouted together with rags of Flesh plaistered over with a skin of Parchment and thatched over head with a shag of Hair which after a few years is half blown off and after a few more the whole hovel is quite blown down to the ground for it is but a sorry composure of Flesh and Bloud mire and clay God knows Natural Man And while this Native Spirit or inmate or inward Man to the Body acteth no otherwise than according to that native force and strength which he hath by Nature so long is he called the Natural Man and the Carnal Man Supernatural Inspiration But moreover when any supernatural influence or ability is inspired into the Native Spirit of Man it is also called the Spirit For such an ability inspired is as it were a Super-spirit or Spirit upon Spirit or an After-spirit whereby the Spirit of man is changed altered and moved to act otherwise than by the course of Nature it could or easily would And this Supernatural inspiration is differenced by the effects which it operateth upon the Native Spirit Penal and grievous For when the Justification is penal and grievous to depress deject and vex the Native Spirit then it is called in Scripture an Evil Spirit Such an evil Spirit was upon the Native Spirit of Saul after his disobedience Such were the evil Spirits 1 Sam. 16.14 Luc. 7.21 Luc. 8.2 whereof Christ cured many And such was that evil Spirit mentioned Acts 19.15 16. Beneficial and gracious And when the Inspiration is beneficial and gracious to elevate and exalt and sublimate the native Spirit of man refining re-enforcing and strengthening the native fineness force and strength thereof then it is called a Good Spirit Which Good Spirit is again diversified according to the diverse effects which it worketh upon the native Spirit Hence we read The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him Is 11.2 the Spirit of Wisdom and Understanding the Spirit of Counsel and might the Spirit of Knowledg and of the fear of the Lord. And again 2 Tim. 1.7 God hath not given us the Spirit of Fear but of power of Love and of a sound mind But when this good Inspiration is beneficial in a peculiar manner Holy Spirit for pious uses and holy purposes exalting the native Spirit of man to such a degree that thereby he disrelisheth despiseth and forsaketh vanity worldly and earthly things relisheth affecteth and aspireth after Divine and Heavenly things performeth or is enabled to perform the true Service of God in the duties and works of true holiness according to the precepts of the New Testament then this good Inspiration is called the Holy Spirit and many times singularly The Spirit in an Eminent and excellent sense And the man whose native Spirit is inspired with this Holy Spirit Spiritual Man is called the Spiritual man the New man and a new Creature because by this Holy Spirit his native Spirit is sanctified regenerated or re-nated i. e. begotten again born again new formed or new created The Spirit then is a supernatural ability of man's native Spirit to form the works of true Holiness And the words Mortification Sanctification Regeneration and Renovation and the like signifie either that thing or the effects of that thing whereof the name is the Spirit For the works of true Holiness are Love Joy Peace long suffering Gal. 5.21 gentleness Good Fidelity Meekness Temperance and such like all which are called the Fruits of the Spirit This Spirit which sanctifieth the knowing faculty of the mind of Man to discern between good and evil as also the moving faculty of the Will to choose good from evil doth also farther sanctifie the judging faults of the conscience to accuse or excuse acquit or condemn rightly and truly as it ought to do keeping a conscience in all things void of offence both towards God and towards Men. The CONTENTS Definition Seat Vnderstanding Will. Memory Reflection TITLE II. Of Conscience Definition COnscience is the judging faculty of the Soul of a Man regulated by a Law for the practise of life and conversation Seat There needs no dispute about the Seat of Conscience whether it be in the Understanding Will or Memory for it is in them all even in the whole Soul Understanding The Understanding speculative considereth Universals Principles Axioms that is Notions or Rules natural or revealed for contemplation of wisdom so the conscience intends the truth of things The Understanding practical considereth particulars consequences and conclusions that flow from those natural Axioms in order to action So the conscience intends the goodness of things and both these are one and the same faculty Will. The Will is created with liberty to follow the dictates of the understanding for the exerting of internal and external actions in the practise of life and conversation Memory Reflection The Memory is the Treasury of all that is done in the whole Man And when the conscience in all these faculties hath speculated considered directed and willed it doth also reflect upon all these internal acts and glances shrewdly upon all the external acts that flow from them judging exactly and impartially upon every one of them and passing sentence accordingly For which cause it may be fitly described Judicium hominis de semetipso The judgment of a Man upon himself A Watchman an Intelligencer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Porter of the Soul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Houshold God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an Overseer upon the place an Universal Spye to all our practises or if you will God's Vice-gerent in our own breasts The CONTENTS To direct To urge To register To testifie To accuse Before the Action In the Action After the Action TITLE III. Of the Disposition of Conscience THe Disposition of the conscience is rightly to perform these several Offices 1. To direct 2. to urge 3. to record 4. to testifie 5. to accuse or excuse for grief or comfort SECT I. 1. To direct as a Law This is that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Law of the mind To direct the Spirit that delights in the Law of God Ro. 7.23 James 1.21 Rom. 1.19 Arist That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the common notions in all nature the work of the Law written in the heart
the Law to our selves whereby we do by nature the things contained in the Law This is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Gatherer and Preserver of prime natural reasons of immediate or mediate Revelations of acquired wisdom by Arts and Sciences especially Laws of daily experience and observation from all which as from a Fountain should flow all the actions of life but that Passion Humour and Fancy under the name of Conscience and Reason hurry us into their actions quite contrary SECT II. 2. To urge or prompt to do according to the Law in the conscience To urge A vehement protrusion a binding of conscience to do good and an abhorrence or reluctancy from evil loathing as the stomach all that is contrary to it St. Paul was thus urged to his duty 1 Cor. 9.16 Woe unto me if I preach not the Gospel Thus the Prophet Jeremiah though much disheartned in so much that he had thoughts of silence and speaking no more in His name for the which he was so derided yet he recollects himself and his conscience thrusts him forward to do his duty against all discouragement For the Word was in his heart as a burning fire shut up in his bones Jer. 20.9 and he was weary with forbearing and could not stay Job 32.18 c. Thus Elihu said of himself I am full of matter the Spirit within me constraineth me My belly is as wine which hath no vent it is ready to burst like new bottles I will speak that I may be refreshed The Apostles that were witnesses of Christ could not but speak the things which they had seen and heard Acts 4.19 20. St. Paul was a debter to the Greeks and Barbarians to preach the Gospel in season and out of season to become all things to all Men that by all means he might gain some Acts 20.23 Ro. 13.5 1 Cor. 10.28 Ps 39.3 Gen. 39.9 He went bound in the spirit to Jerusalem not knowing what thing should befall him there We must obey for conscience sake Eat not for conscience sake My heart was hot within me at last I spake with my tongue Gen. 39.9 Joseph was restrained by his conscience when he said How shall I do this great wickedness and so sin against God Balaam had this conscience in him when tempted by Balak Num. 24.13 If Balak would give me his House full of silver and gold I cannot go beyond the Word of the Lord to do less or more If doubt be made of this Man there can be none made of St. Paul who when his Friends besought him not to go up to Jerusalem for fear of bonds answered Acts 21.13 What mean ye to weep and break mine heart for I am ready not to be bound only but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus Was he a reprobate that said Si scirem Deos mihi condonaturos homines ignoraturos adhuc peccare erubescerem propter peccati turpitudinem What can a Christian say or do more if he be as he should be as good as his word If I were sure that God would forgive me and that no Man were privy to my sin yet I would blush to commit it for the filthiness thereof And surely the Mistresses of our vile affections are so ugly that we cannot kiss them if we did but view their deformity we should loath them And if we would observe the beauty of Virtue we would be ravished therewith for the waies of Wisdom are pure and pleasant The Conscience naturally suffers not to do otherwise than she suggests unto us and as naturally it doth loath a foul action although the carnal Will be fierce upon it as Hector said of Achilles in his violent passion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 O that my conscience would give me leave to do that I long for even to devour thy flesh chopt in pieces But I can get no leave from conscience to do so as my revenge would have me There is an unwillingness in the rational will to do the will of the Flesh she is more noble of her self than to serve base lusts which was born to serve the Queen of Reason She is free to do good as agreeable to the Spirit Rom. 7.22 23. I delight in the Law of God after the inward Man but I see another law in my members warring against the Law of my mind and bringing me into captivity to the Law of sin which is in my members SECT III. To register 3. To register or record the intrinsecal and extrinsecal actions of the whole Man 1 Cor. 4.4 St. Paul saith I know nothing by my self yet am I not thereby justified The Brethren of Joseph were not conscious to themselves of the Money put into their sacks if they had done it they must have known it but Non est in conscientiâ nostrâ it is not in all our consciences we cannot find that we have done any such thing Gen. 43.21 if it were in our hearts we should find it We know not who hath put our Money in our sacks 1 Cor. 2.11 Eccles 7.21 From hence the Conscience is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What Man knoweth the things of a Man save the Spirit of Man which is in him Thine own heart knoweth that thou thy self hast cursed others Here things are written with a Pen of Iron and with the point of a Diamond and with a beam of the Sun Ps 51.3 1 Kings 2.44 that he that runs may read them My sin is ever before me As Solomon said to Shimei Thou knowest all the wickedness which thine heart is privy to Coarguit conscientia ipsos sibi ipsis ostendit The conscience of wicked Men shews themselves to themselves A Court of Record is kept in their own breasts by God's own Vicegerent SECT IV. 4. To testifie for us or against us To testifie The Conscience is a thousand witnesses Their Consciences bearing witness This is our rejoycing Ro. 2.15 2 Cor. 1.12 Ro. 9.1 Jâ—b 16.19 Prov. 14.15 Jer. 59.12 even the testimony of our consciences I lye not my conscience also bearing me witness My witness is in Heaven and my witness is in my own heart And a faithful witness will not lye Our sins testifie against us and as for our iniquities we know them For the iniquity which he knoweth At one time or other the Conscience will speak the truth the whole truth 1 Sam. 3.13 and nothing but the truth SECT V. 5. To accuse or excuse for grief or comfort To accuse Thus the accusers of the Woman taken in adultery were convicted by their own consciences When they cast up their accompt they shall come with fear Joh. 8.8 and their own iniquities shall convince them to their face Wisd 4.20 But the Righteous Man shall stand in great boldness and when they shall see it they shall be troubled with terrible
Prince though it were possible for him to fulfil his whole Law exactly And therefore the Prince can be a Debtor to no Subject but as he is pleased to make himself so by his free and gracious Promise which gives him to whom th Promise was made a right by grace which by works he could not have Yet God and Princes who have power perfectly to oblige their Subjects do confer good things upon those that obey their Commands to stir up their readiness to obey not as Rewards due but as Free gifts promised The Reason is Because those things which I perfectly owe to another he to whom they are due from me hath already a right unto them so that if I do them properly I part with nothing of that to which for the present I have a right because if I withhold my duty or deny it to him to whom it is due I do him wrong because the right of that office is no longer mine but his to whom I am obliged and therefore if I do what I should do there can be no place left for any Merit at all But when without any perfect obligation on my part I do what I do to another that right which issues from me accrues to him and leaves me a right to be had from him upon whom I did bestow as much work as did countervail the wages he gave me and this is Merit If this Merit be expresly stipulated for it is called Wages if it be left for the manner time quantity and quality thereof to the free will and equity of the Donor it is called a Reward which is either corporeal as Mony Cattel Fields Houses Houshold goods c. or incorporeal as Immunities Priviledges Honours c. Supererogation So that a Merit is a kind of work of Supererogation issuing from our own free will more than we need to do and of which we may glory and for which we may expect thanks And this being a grace to God or man must of necessity destroy the grace of God or man as if they were the better for us When the contrary is most true that we are the better for them and so they merit of us in this case and not we of them at all And therefore all School Disputes of Merits on mans part are but idle talk If there were any such thing as Merit in us Then first we should be the better for doing that good which we were never obliged to do and God should be the better for that good which he could never exact from us But this is absurd SECT I. Demerit On the contrary a Demerit is the Non-performance of a work which is due to another or to which a right on our part should compel us and the Party to whom it is not done had a right to compel us to the doing of the same but we would not do it Therefore all mortal men do demerit many things at Gods hands when they are obliged to obey his Laws and do not and therefore all men are debtors to God and do demerit against him by their evil works Therefore all mortal men do demerit many things at the hand of Princes when they are obliged to obey their Laws and do not and therefore are debtors to their Prince and do demerit against them by their evil works In all Demerits or sins against another there are two things The defect it self or distance from the Rule of the Law according to the execution or intention thereof and the loss accruing thereby to the Law-maker directly or indirectly The Party therefore that demerits or sins is accountable to the Lawmaker for the sin it self or the breach of his Law and for the loss that accrues to him thereby For both which he is bound to suffer punishment commensurable to the offence of the Law and to the loss or damage received thereby And therefore every mortal man is a debtor to God to satisfie for his sin against his Law and for the damage to speak after the manner of men which he received thereby by repentance and amendment and sufficient caution if it could be to do so no more These things may and do hold in Foro humano but how they can or do hold in Foro divino I confess I do not understand And therefore I break off this discourse abruptly what I have said already is come hardly from me and the rest is altogether out of my reach Only this I think I may say That Feudal Subjects can do no more than is due and therefore cannot merit but may do less than is due and therefore do demerit The effect of their work in coming up to the Rule of Feudal Law is their virtue and the benefit if any may be said to be to the Law-maker is their reward But the defect of their work in coming short to the rule of the Feudal Law is their sin and the damage if any may be said to be is their punishment And as every Merit supposeth a work of Supererogation undue and uncommanded and therefore is not imputable to any but to them that do it for the vertue or for the reward thereof So every Demerit supposeth a work of Supererogation unrequired and unforbidden and therefore is not imputable to any but to them that commit it for the vice or for the punishment thereof And therefore as it is contrary to nature Rewards and Punishments for any one to be rewarded for that good deed which cannot be imputed unto him because he never did it so it is contrary to nature for any one to be punished for that evil deed which cannot be imputed unto him because he never committed it For as by Rewards men are encouraged to vertue and the reward ought to be distributed upon the consideration of the good deed so by Punishments men are deterred from vice and the punishment ought to be inflicted upon the consideration of the evil deed And as none are properly capable of the rewards but those persons that have done the vertue as the cause of those rewards so none are properly capable of the punishments but those persons that have committed the sin as the cause of those punishments Therefore as the pleasure and profit of the Reward is properly due by merit to him who acted or concurred to the good done So the grief or disprofit of the Punishment is properly due by demerit to him who acted or concurred to the evil committed So Children are not properly rewarded by Merit when their Father for his vertue is invested with the Fee And Children are not properly punished by Demerit when their Father for his vice is devested of the Fee Because as in that respect Children are not directly rewarded with the investiture of that right which was not properly their own So neither are Children in that respect directly punished with the devestiture of that right which was not properly their own But only by consequence both they are rewarded
of him that was substituted as Man to die for God who could not die And thus we are made by the best of Testators God himself by the best of Testaments the Gospel the best of Heirs next unto Christ to the best of Inheritances Everlasting Life by the best of Mediators Jesus Christ to whom the Inheritance is first given and in whom it is sure to all the Seed Therefore Believers are stiled God's Beloved as Christ is God's Beloved and with them God is well pleased as with Christ he is well pleased and they are partakers of the same priviledges with Christ for likeness and trueness though not for degree and greatness Testator Amongst men a Testator is bound to institute his lawful children to be his Heirs or to shew just Cause why he doth it not and they must also be instituted or disinherited in his written Testament by Name SECTION XI Appellative 〈◊〉 of Beâ—â—â—â— So doth God institute his Elect Children by the Appellative Name of Believers which is sufficient in such kind of Wills as God's is and in good Men's Wills that are ad pias causas and disinherits the Reprobate by the common Name of Unbelievers shewing the just Cause of their being disinherited because of their Unbelief Thus all the Children of Israel were by the Will of God ordained to enter into the Rest of the Land of Canaan by the common name of God's obedient People but were disinherited and fell in the Wilderness and could not enter into that Rest because of their Disobedience or Unbelief Amongst men Children that are instituted Heirs Consent must adire Hereditatem animo voluntate i. e. enter upon the Inheritance willingly So God's Children must consent and embrace the Promises or else they can have no Right or Title to them and so by refusing they make themselves uncapable and disinherit themselves And such a Testament is God's Testamentum Patris inter Liberos A Testament of Father to Children A Testament of a Father to his Children A Testament for pious Causes Testamentum ad pias causas not inofficious or unkind in giving the Children's part unto strangers without shewing a just Cause For can a Father forget his Child Yes he may No Preterition but God cannot forget his own to make any disinheriting or Preterition of such who of Right were capable to be his Heirs if they did not refuse it for in so doing they made themselves utterly uncapable So that there is no Cause to find fault with God's Will No inofficious Testament as unjust or unnatural as is often amongst men Querela inofficiosi Testamenti a Complaint of an inofficious Testament made unto the Praetor or Chancellor to relieve them with a Child's part from which the Father had excluded them without shewing a just Cause or any Cause at all No no it is not so with God O Israel thy destruction is from thy self but in me is thy help God would have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the Truth God's waies are alwaies equal but our waies are unequal for the Judge of the World must needs do right God's Will was rightly made as a Father's Will should be and rightly confirmed by the Death of Christ in whom all the Promises of God are Yea and Amen so that the foundation of the Lord standeth sure more sure than Heaven and Earth which shall pass away but not the least title of God's Will shall ever fail His Mercies are sure in him there is no change nor shadow of turning he hath done all that a Father should do And to shew that the immutability of his Purpose according to Election must stand he confirmed his Will by Death in the nature of a Testament whereby he hath given us to understand after the manner of men that he hath left himself no more power or possibility than a Dead man hath to disannul or revoke his own last Will and Testament The CONTENTS Definition of Grace Nature Free-Grace Right Nature Law Throne of Grace Wrath. Works Free Grace Rich Grace Assurance Jews loth to leave the Law TITLE V. Of the Grace of the New Testament THE Gospel is the best of Testaments as those are amongst Men which are made by Fathers to their Children or by Benefactors to miserable Persons by Free Grace without any Petition Mediation or Merit from themselves or others A Testament of Grace Definition of Grace Grace therefore is the act of God's Will spontaneously or mero motu making us his Sons and Heirs in Christ Jesus Here is nothing of Nature or Merit or Mediation in the case here is the mere Motion of the Adopter and unto this to make it complete here is nothing required but the full and free consent of the Adopted to make them as perfect Sons and Heirs by Grace of Adoption as if they had been made so by Nature or Generation Nature 'T is Nature makes us Men and Heirs of Earth but 't is Grace makes us Christians and Heirs of Heaven 'T is Nature makes us the Sons of Men but 't is Grace makes us the Sons of God Free Grace Every Testament is an act of Grace but this is the greatest Grace that ever was even Grace for Grace purely without any motive from the Object to whom it is directed or from any other for him It hath its rise wholly from the Will of the Donor and not at all from the Will of the Receiver So God gave Abraham the Land of Canaan and the Kingdom of Israel to Saul and David It is an independent and unlimited Grace solely issuing from his mere bounty without all bounds of Law Right This with God and Man creates Jus pingue the best Right A Paternal Grace to his Children the Grace of a Patron to his Beneficiary Such a Grace was fittest for God's Grace and Glory fittest for God to give and for his Children to receive Nature stands at a great distance and in a very low sphere from Grace for it makes us no more but barely the Sons of Men that which is born of the Flesh is but flesh but it is Grace only that makes us the Sons of God for that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit 1. Hence Grace is opposed to Nature whereby we are made Men Nature to have an Earthly Inheritance and Dominion after the Image and likeness of God in our Creation but Grace is that whereby we are made Christians to an Heavenly Inheritance and Dominion after the Image and likeness of Christ who was the Natural Son of God born to that Inheritance whereto we after his likeness are called by the Grace of Adoption 2. So God's Grace is opposed to Law not in extremes Law Law gives just that good which is due and no more Grace gives more good than is due yea Grace gives good where none at all is due yea Grace gives good where evil is