the first place looks up to God as sitting at the stern and ruling all every Affliction is a piece of his Government to murmur against it is rebellion in such a case nothing becomes us so much as with Aaron to hold our peace or if we open our lips to do it with Job Blessing the name of the great Giver and Taker Is he not the Lord and may he not do as he will in his own World and among his own Creatures Should not all flesh be silent before him None but himself may or can be Rector of the World and yet in every act of Impatience we aspire and virtutually would be such our selves and is he not Insinitely wise and just in all that he doth Every Wheel hath an eye in it and every Cross its just proportion and to think that it might have been better is to blaspheme Providence This made that holy Man Mr. Dod in his Sickness after extream sits of pain say to his Servant O think well of God for it for it is most justly and wisely done whatsoever he doth And is he not gracious and mercisul and doth not Mercy rejoyce against Judgment The measire of Grace as the Jewish Rabbins say is ever larger than the measure of Judgment for one Cross we have many Blessings And shall we receive good much good at his hand and not a little evil If we have his Heavenly Graces how much may we bate of Earth and its Comforts If Sin the greatest burden of all be taken off in a Pardon may we not easily bear the lesser ones Thus Mr. Greenham told his Son in Law complaining of his Crosses When Affliction lyeth heavy Sin lyeth light If guilt press not any thing may be born nay is not he gracious and merciful in the very Affliction Doth he not support with one hand whilest he smites with another St. Paul glories in his Infirmites That the power of Christ may rest upon him 2 Cor. 12.9 And the Noble Potamenia being threatned to be cast into a Vessel of burning Pitch begged Spond Annal. Ann. 310. That she might not be cast in all at once but piece-meal that they might see how much Patience the unknown Christ had given unto her and doth he not make all work together for good What are the issues of Affliction to Believers but the purgation of Sins trials of Grace peaceable fruits of Righteousness and inward joys and experiences of Gods Goodness Let Faith but cast up the reckoning and it will appear That he afflict us in Love and Faithfulness and therefore it must needs be well taken the wounds of such a Friend being better than the kisses of the enemy-World Again to advance this Grace Faith makes a right judgment of Afflictions to Sense these are grievous but to Faith fit and congruous The World in which the Believer lives is a stage of Sin and therefore fit to be a place of sorrow how calm soever it was before Sin entred it is now a troubled Sea an Ocean of Evils as Antoninus calls an Empire Storms and tossing waves are proper in it and to be expected by every Passenger as much a Paradise as it was before it is now a Wilderness thorns and thistles of trouble grow naturally in it and give many a scratch and sting to the poor Pilgrim in his way to Heaven The Believer himself as a Man is born to trouble and altogether vanity all-Adam is all-Abel or vanity as it is Psal 39.5 He comes into the World weeping and very fitly because by his Sin he hath set the whole Creation a groaning until now and as a Believer he lives as a lilly among thorns so is his person in the World among wicked ones which are as pricking briars on every side and so is the Grace in his heart among the reliques of Corruption which are as thorns in the flesh And whilest Sin is within it is congrnous that trouble should be without nay more than congrnous it is necessary upon many accounts Affliction is purgative of Sin it may be the Believers Heart may wax proud and the tumor must be lanced or light and the vanity must be fanned away it may be hard and the furnace must melt it or drowsie and the rod must awaken it One ill humour or other is ready to grow upon us and O felices tribulos tribulationum Oh happy thorns of Affliction which let them out It Medicine be necessary so is Affliction which is Spiritual Physick for our peceant Humours Affliction is the way which Christ hath sanctified by going in it himself to the Throne of Glory and Believers must follow him whithersoever he goes Innocency it self suffering lumps of dust and sin cannot but do so He drinking up the full cup of Wrath well may we take a few drops of it especially seeing our sufferings are sweetned by his and his Heaven will be ours at last where the light momentany sufferings shall be remunerated with an eternal weight of hyperbolical Glory Luther saith of himself That looking on the Susserings of Christ he counted his own as nothing And St. Bernard makes Christ Et speculum Patiendi pretium Patientis both a glass of Patience and a reward of the Patient Now we are tossing and toyling at Sea but the port of Bliss is within ken and anon we shall be there In the interim we may tasie Heaven in the Joys of the holy Spirit which sheds abroad the Love of God in our Hearts and so gives us Praemium ante praemium a lesser Heaven before a greater Saint Paul saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I superabound or overflow in joy in all our tribulations 2 Cor. 7.4 Philip Lantgrave of Hesse being asked How he could endure his long tedious Imprisonment under the Emperor Charles the fifth professed Se Divinas Martyrum Consolationes sensisse That be felt the Divine Consolations of Martyrs The gracious Presence of God is able to sweeten Prisons Eghten Chains and make fire and water paffable to Believers Such things as these well digelled by Faith will make us keep a holy silence under all the Will of God Not to name any more Particulars I shall conclude this Point touching the actuating of Graces with one Observation more Faith connects all Graces together as links in a Chain and so by actuating one advances all in some measure The School-men do many of them allow a Connexion of all Moral Virtues in Prudence and yet commonly affirm That Faith may be without Charity As if Spiritual Graces were not so well united as Moral Virtues But the truth is true Faith is never without Charity true Faith makes us sons of God Joh. 1.12 but without Charity we are spurious and Children of the Devil By true Faith Christ dwells in the heart Ephes 3.17 and where he dwells Charity cannot be absent true Faith purisies the heart Act. 15.9 and without Charity there can be no Purity True Faith rests on the meer Grace of
it self in a transcendent excellency above that of Works which had no Promise of Perseverance annexed to it Shall we now say That all these Promises are Conditional if we will persevere and not otherwise Is not this to turn the Covenant of Grace into that of Works and a sure state in Christ into a lubricous Adamical one Is it not to evacuate all those glorious and magnificent Promises touching Perseverance as if God in them spoke only in such cold Language as this I will preserve you from all evils and dangers only for that greatest of all which is in your own hearts and wills I will not undertake or in such contradictory terms as these if you persevere I will make you persevere as if Perseverance could be the condition of it self After these Promises so interpreted Believers are but where they were before before these Promises it would have been true that if Believers persevere and continue in Grace they do so and after them so interpreted What have they more What do they contribute to Believers when the main stress of Perseverance is laid on Mans Will and not on Gods Grace But this obiter The experienced Believer knows better how to use Promises and from them communes with his own Heart Hath God promised Perseverance and will he not do it is not his Covenant 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an Everlasting Covenant and are not his Mercies sure Mercies Can his Faithfulness fail or his words of Grace fall to the ground Shall I trust him for Pardon and Salvation and not for Perseverance Will he give me Heaven and shall I faint by the way It cannot be He will guide me with his counsel and then receive me to glory Till I come there I shall be supported by his hand and supplied with his Spirit Goodness and Mercy shall follow me all the days of my life In such sort may the Believer be assured of his Perseverance in Grace and so of his Salvation Again the Believer may gather his Pardon and Salvation from that peace and joy which he finds in his own heart There is a kind of Peace and Joy springing out of Moral Virtues which because of their Congruity to Reason leave a serenity on the Soul where they are lodged Mens sibi conscia recti is a great matter a good Conscience is murus aheneus a wall of brass to the owner Seneca saith Res severa est verum gaudium True joy is in the severe prosecution of Virtue Hierocles tells us That the pleasure of the Virtuous 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 imitates the joy of the gods And it was a Point of ancient Philosophy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Virtue is sufficient to Happiness But the Peace and Joy in believing is of an higher nature Those in the Moralist come but from the face of Reason smiling on the Congruity which is in Moral Virtues to it self there is nothing of Grace or Christ in them But these in the Believer come from the reconciled face of God shining upon the Heart in a Mediator Those in the Moralist exceed not their own sphere of Reason but these in the Believer pass all understanding Phil. 4.7 and are full of glory 1 Pet. 1.8 Heaven comes down in them and puts a pure serenity on the Heart The Believer now dwells in Paradise the light of Gods Countenance shining as a clear Sun Christ as a Tree of Life dropping down Pardons and Graces the holy Spirit being as a perpetual spring of Virtues and Comforts the fragrant Promises breathing out the odors of Love and Mercy the sweet voice of Peace and Joy uttered from Heaven ecchoing and making melody in Conscience Nothing here but green pastures and still waters and placid Heavens not a cloud from the Law to darken the light not an ach in Conscience to break the rest not a spot of unremitted sin to stain the serenity Oh what manner of Peace and Joy is here A Stranger a Pagan Philosopher intermeddles not with them These are to be found in the Raptures of a Cyprian or in the Consolations of an Austin or Bernard In such a state as this what should the Believer do May he not break out in the proper Idiom of Faith My Lord and my God May he not sinely conclude My sins are forgiven me Nay Ought he not to do so and with David call upon all that is within him to bless the Lord for it After such hansels of Heaven and Glory should he yet doubt and say I cannot enter when he is there already in the beginnings and first-fruits thereof Nothing is more unreasonable He knows in himself by the Graces and Comforts in his own heart That he hath a part in Heaven and Salvation In the last place The Nature of the Sacraments which are Seals of the Covenant evinces this Truth In the Gospel we have Gods Hand but in the Sacraments his Seal also In the Gospel Pardon and Salvation are set forth in general Promises but in the Sacraments they are Sealed up to this and that man in particular Circumcision is called The Seal of Righteousness Rom. 4.11 and by the Hebrew Doctors The Seal of the holy God And Baptism which succeeds and as Evangelical transcends it must be as much and more So Sealing Pardon and Salvation to Believers that there follows the answer of a good Conscience towards God 1 Pet. 3.21 or such a Conscience as can with an holy considence interrogate God himself in some such terms as these Did not Christ purchase Pardon and Salvation for me Have I not a share and interest in them Yes assuredly there is no doubt of it The Passover figured out Christ the true Lamb who was reasted in the Fire of his Fathers Wrath to take away Sin and the sprinkling of the Blood on the Door-posts pointed out the Application of Christs Blood to the Consciences of Believers in particular The Lords Supper which rose out of the Ashes of the Paschal Supper and took its very Materials from thence doth eminently Seal Christ with all his Benefits unto the Believer Our Saviour delivering it to his Disciples said This is my body which is given for you this is my blood which is shed for you Luk. 22.19 20. Why for you but to signifie the particular Application of his Passion to them By the Elements of Bread and Wine as by turf and twig God gives the Believer livery and seisin of Christ as if he said to him expresly Christ is thing Pardon and Salvation are thine thou hast my Seal for it and mayst be as sure of it as of the Bread and Wine in thine Hand and Mouth Bellarmine himself confesses De effect Sacram. l. 1. c. 8. That Sacraments were instituted Vt nos certos reddant remissionis gratie To make us certain of Pardon and Grace Only he adds 'T is only a moral certainty not an infallible one But how frivolous is this What can make an Infallible certainty if Gods Seal
the use of thy Talents exercise thy self unto Godliness that the Divine Life now latent in Principles may shew it self in acts blow up the holy fire in thy bosom that what was buried under ashes may revive into a flame Be still a putting forth one Grace or other melting in repenting tears or clasping thy Faith about Promises or kneeling down in obedience to Commands or inflaming thy Love at Gods or perfecting Patience under his hand or drawing out thy Soul in Charity As the season is let one Grace or other be still a-budding and bearing holy fruit Thy Graces thus exercised will become radiant and visible those which before lay hid like Saul among the stuff as if they had been upon the common level of nature will now come forth in their Supernatural statures and appear as the virtues of God Thou maist now dsscern in thy self that which is more than Humane a Divine Nature which sparkles out of thy flesh in holy Operarations Another an higher Spirit than thy own which follows God fully in holy walking Thou maist now sit down under Christs shadow and reckon thy self in the very borders of Assurance waiting the good hour when the irradiating Spirit shall take thee by the hand and lead thee into the full possession thereof Moreover unto the exercise of Grace add growth as a fruit thereof Grow in Grace and in the knowledg of Christ 2 Pet. 3.18 Abound more and more 1 Thes 4.1 Let thy Motto be Plus ultra and thy Christian Arms like Josephs a fruitful bough by a well Thou hast Faith but be strong in it that thou maist wrestle with God and not let him go till he bless thee with Assurance be great in it that he may condescend to thee and say Be it unto thee even as thou wilt Thou hast a being in Christ but be rooted in him by a more close adherence and intimate Union within him grow up into him in statures of Grace till thou come to the oylof gladness upon his head There is some holy Love in thee but be rooted and grounded in it that thou maist comprehend the breadth and length and depth and height and know the love of Christ which passeth knowledg and be filled with all the fulness of God Ephes 3.17 18 19. Through radicated and well-grown Graces as the Apostles assures us in that place admirable and wonderful things may be attained In a sober sense we may take Infinity know Transcendencies and be filled with a Deity Labour to grow every way downward in Húmility and self-denial upward in holy desires and raptures inward in the vitals of Faith and Love and outward in all holy fruits and good works fill up the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that which is lacking in Faith and other Graces let Patience and all other Graces have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their perfect work that thy path may be as the shining light shining more and more to the perfect day As an Heavenly Pilgrim go from faith to faith and from strength to strength travelling to meet the day coming towards thee in the light of Gods Countenance In such a growth as this as in a clear glass thou maist discover that thy Graces are vital and true feeds of Immortality Statues and Pictures such as Hypocrites are grow not Essentials and Vitals are Vltra penicillum Sincerity and Divine Vitality cannot be painted Confider therefore with thy self how it hath been with thee there was but a little dawn in thy Heart and now a pure morning Thy Grace was but a little grain of Mustard-seed and now it is become a Tree Thou wast but a little Embrio a babe in Christ and now a man of strength and spiritual stature And what doth this argue but Life in thee Confider again thou hast an ocean of Corruption in thy Heart and yet thy little spark of Grace hath grown thou hast stood in the midst of Satans winds and withering blasts and yet thou growest thou hast had many a sharp frost from the World to nip thy fruit in the bud and yet thou growest And what doth this speak but a seed and life of God in thee such as will spring up into Life Eternal Take this as an Earnest from God that maugre Satan and all the power of Darkness thou shalt grow and grow on till thou art transplanted into the Heavenly Paradise Again If thou wouldst have Assurance be much in mortifying of Sin This is the great troubler If thou indulg it a cloud will come over thy Conscience darken thy Evidences thy Graces will all droop and like a Candle in the socket be ready to die the Law will arm it self against thee and from one threatning or other will flash Hell in thy face Satan will rake in thy old wounds of Guilt and put thee into fresh torments the holy Spirit will be gone and carry away all his Cordials with him the Promises will be as dry Breasts and let out never a drop of sweetness to thee thy Duties will hang the wing and become dead and spiritless and without comfort In the end thou wilt experimentally find That in crooked Paths Peace cannot be found Awake therefore O Believer to the work of Mortification Look upon sin as it is an evil an only evil an hellish abomination infinitely more loathsom than the Dogs Vomit or the Sow's Mire or the menstruous Cloth by which it is shadowed out in Scripture Arraign it as the greatest Malefactor that ever was Call in Death and Hell and a blasted World and groaning Creatures and the Ruins of Angels and Souls of Men and the bloody Passion of Christ and the horrible Injuries done to God himself To bear witness against it Each of these can tell sad stories about it and all of them cry out Crucifie it Crucifie it It is worthy to dye Pass therefore thy doom upon it that it may do to Strip it of all its veils and false covers and bewitching appearances pluck off its Golden Profit and Silken Pleasures and Purple of false Honour that it may look as it is in its own ugly nakedness sinful out of measure sinful Nail it to the Cross by holy Restraints if it start in a Thought or creep in at a Sense or hide it self under thy Lawful things have one holy Truth or other as a Nail ready to fasten it that it move no further in thee Pierce it let out its vital blood I mean the love and joy and delight of it Surrender up thy Affections to God and Christ and heavenly things that it may give up the ghost bury it out of thy sight never give it a look or glance more converse no more with it than thou wouldst do with the dead raise it not up again into any fresh embraces no not so much as the picture of it in a sinful thought or fancy After this manner mortifie sin and above all thy darling only one which thy Heart hath been tender of and could wish
God in Christ and that must needs in flame the Heart towards him Tamum amamus quantum credimus Hence Aquinas himself confesses That though Faith and Hope may be without Charity yet without Charity they are not properly Virtues And Durandus saith Credere in Deum non est praecise actus fidei sid actus fidei charitatis simul To believe in God is not precisely an act of Faith but of Faith and Charity together So Inseparable are these two Graces But leaving the Schoolmen I shall proceed Faith connects all Graces together in a triple way it connects them in the fontal cause the boly Spirit which it receives all Graces are from the Spirit and the Spirit is received by Faith hence rivers of living water flow in the Believers heart Joh. 7.38 that is All Graces flow there as waters from a fountain it connects them in the Rule the Command of God which it universally respects It is observed by Divines That the five last Commands in Deut. 5. run thus Thou shalt not kill and thou shalt not commit Adultery and thou shalt not Steal and thou shalt not bear false Witness and thou shalt not Govet The word And points out to us that all the Commands are coupled together by God like the Curtains of the Tabernacle all are as it were one body and Faith hath a respect to every one of them and in every one owns the same stamp of Divine Authority He that said Love thy God said also Love thy Neighbour He that said Be Zealous said also Be Meek and Patient and Obedient and abundant in all Grace It connects them also in the end the Glory of God which it looks at in all things all Graces tend to that Glory and Faith is the single eye which guides them all thither Bonum opus intentio facit Enarr in Psal 31. in Pras intentionem sides dirigis saith St. Austin Faith knows what that is wherein God would be glorisied All Graces being thus connected in Faith which is a kind of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or firmament as the word is Col. 2.5 to them all it comes to pass that Faith in actuating any one Grace gives a strength and further growth to every other Grace Thus it is in Graces respecting distinct Tables the more we act our Love to God the more will be our Love to our Neighbour this though belonging to the second Table flows ex fonte pietatis out of that fountain of Piety which respects the first Thus it is in those Graces which are seemingly contrary as in Zeal and Meekness the more we act our Zeal for God the more will be our Meekness towards Men. Hence in the Primitive Christians who were so hot for Christianity was found a very meek Spirit and the reason is because a Man cannot truly actuate one Grace but he will have more of that Spirit which is fontally all Grace and graciously multiplies Talents in the use of them Neither can he truly obey one Command but it will render his Heart more Obediential and ready to obey others also as being enjoined by the same Authority nor can he in one thing look at Gods Glory but it will in some measure encline him to seek it in other things also and so the New Creature grows in every part and his Path shines more and more to the perfect day in Heaven CHAP. XI Precious Faith considered in the Crowns and Statures thereof The Divine Experiences of Faith as it Experiments the Divinity of Scripture in the Precepts Promises Threatnings and Supernatural Truths thereof Concerning the Blessed Trinity of Persons in the Unity of the Divine Essence Jesus Christ the Mcdiator and the Efficacy of Grace HAVing treated of Justification Adoption and Sanctification which are Fruits of Faith and are more or less in all Believers I now proceed to some other which are The Crowns and Statures of Faith and to be found not in all Believers at least not at first but in such as have made a good progress in Grace Faith have made a good progress in Grace Faith having obtained the Holy Spirit with all its Graces doth now go on like The Baptized Eunuch rejoycing in the ways of God glorying in Free Grace triumphing in Jesus Christ warring against Corruptions actuating Holy Graces bowing down under the Commands of Heaven sucking the Sweet-Breasts of the Promises and waiting for the Heavenly Dews and Distillations of the Spirit and in this holy Progress gathers up many choice Experiments more worth than a World All learned Men are for Experiments and every one would cry 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I have found it the Sages of the Law are for tried Cases which have been sub judice the Physitian sets a probatum est on approved Medicines the Anatomists hunts after the arcana of Nature by Dissection of Bodies and the Chymist by Dissolution thereof Experience is procreatrix Artium the very Parent of Arts whose universal Precepts are collected by an induction of particulars but there are no Experiments like those of Faith Dr. Dees Spirits made as if they would reveal great Mysteries to him such as they called the Cabbala of Nature the Numbers of the World the linea Spiritus Sancti the Mirabilia Dei and the Nova terra bringing forth without Tillage but all these were but Dreams and Impostures and so I suppose are many things in Chymistry like Helmonts Alkahest wonderful if true But the Experiments of Faith are great Realities and withal Divine as much above those in the Sphear of Nature as Souls are above Bodies and Heaven is above Earth God in the Prophet calls on his People to baing in the Tythes for his House and so by their Obedience to prove him If he would not open the windows of Heaven and pour out a blessing that there should not be room enough to receive it Mal. 3.10 When Faith goes on in a Tract of Obedience proving of God Heaven opens in wonderful Experiences of him the Manna of holy Truth is then tasted the Hony-combs of Free-Grace drop upon the Heart Promises are realized exemplified in Providences Divine Helps and Salvations come down and call for Eben-Ezers to be set up for them and Discoveries of heavenly things in their certainty and excellency are in a manner made as if a Man could look into the Holy of Holies and see God Face to Face Some such Experiences I suppose the learned Rivet had in his last Sickness in which he said of himself In these ten days I have made a greater progress in Divinity than in all my Life but leaving Generals I shall come to Particulars One great Experiment of Faith is touching the Truths of God a Believer in his holy Progress comes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding as the Apostle speaks Cal. 2.2 At the first he hath a Stock of Divine Knowledg but after Experience Riches and all Riches of it at the first