Vultures have not seen the great God alone gave Man his End and appointed the way to that End we had once the knowledge of both but have lost it and we must owe the discovery of it to the Author of it And to Man he said Behold the Fear of the Lord that is Wisdom and to depart from Evil is Vnderstanding Job 18.28 6. It doth discover the whole Duty of Man to his Maker to himself and to others far beyond all other Books or Documents in the World. Man by his Sin hath lost the greatest part of his Light and Perfection his own discoveries of his Duty are lame and imperfect and till the God that first planted these Principles of Knowledge and Conformity to his Will give us a new Copy of them we shall never clearly attain unto them in our knowledge or practice There are these Eminencies touching Moral Precepts which this Book of God hath above all other Books in the World. 1. No other Book in the World doth discover the true ground of the Obligation unto Moral Precepts The Moral Philosopher perswades me to Temperance to Justice but what Obligation lies upon me for it If he tells me That it is his own Authority my Answer is He hath none over me more than I have over him If he tells me the Law under which I live binds me to it I shall enquire what binds me to observe those Laws but Power which if I can avoid by the like power or secrecy I am not bound or my own Consent which I am as well Master of as I was before I consented If he tells me the Law of Nature binds me I am still unsatisfied who gave that Law or when or to whom and there the Philosopher is to seek as well of my Conviction as of my Obedience But this Book shews what that Law is from whence the Obligation of Obedience to it ariseth even from that most Just and Uncontroulable Authority that God hath over his Creature 2. No other Book or Learning in the World perswades the observance of those Laws it injoyns with the like convincing and satisfying grounds of Reason that this doth The highest ground that ever Moral Philosopher could fetch to perswade to submit to Moral Precepts were but one of these viz. The Reputation and general esteem of Men which dies with me and while it lives is nothing else but a Fancie and contains no Reality or the Cohortion of the Laws which if I can avoid with secrecy or force I escape the strength of the Perswasion or that Congruity that sound Moral Precepts hold with Prudence and the permanent enjoyment of good here for it is a most certain Truth as appears before That the due observation of the Rules of right Reason hath a most clear connexion with Happiness in this Life and that the violation of these Precepts of Nature do necessarily introduce a loss of temporal Felicity These are the highest Motives of Obedience to these humane Documents But let us look upon the Motives that the very same Precepts are enforced with in this Book of God we shall find them of a higher Constitution we are there shewn they are commanded by that God to whom we owe our Being and therefore may justly challenge our Obedience as his Tribute by that God from whom we daily receive our Preservation and Mercies and therefore may justly expert the return of our Love and Thankfulness in the Observance of his Will by that God that hath annexed a Sanction to the breach of his Law which he both can and will inflict this may startle our Fear by that God that hath propounded and promised a Reward to our Obedience both in this Life and a future which he will certainly confer this doth quicken our Hope These and the like grounds and motives of Obedience fall upon the most active Affections with the most powerful and rational Perswasion and are able to conquer more difficulties in the Obedience of these very Precepts that are materially the same than all those faint and thin Perswasions that the wisest of Men could ever teach The great God that knows the frame of the Soul of Man hath not only given rational Laws to lead him to his great End and rational Means to draw out his Obedience by appointing Rewards or Punishments of his Obedience or Disobedience but also by the same Wisdom of his planted in him Affections which might be proper to receive the impressions of those Rewards and Punishments and by this Word of his conveys those Notions into his Heart which stick upon those active Affections of Love Hope and Fear in the most exact full and adequate manner This is therefore none else but the Finger of God. And this is not only evinced by the Threatnings and Promises in this Book but by the Historical part of it applying the Truths of both wherein we may see unriddled most of the varieties of Events that fall upon a People or Person especially knowing God which without this Light seem to be confused and meerly contingent Israel sins Israel is punished she repents and is delivered We are shewn by the very Historical passages of the Old Testament that when we are punished we eat but the fruit of our own ways 3. As the Eminence of the Scripture above other Learning and consequently its Original is discovered in the two former so in this that it doth distinctly and clearly evidence and set forth those Moral Precepts which are confusedly and imperfectly only delivered by the best of humane Writers especially in the Worship of God All agree God is to be worshipped but when they come to shew how then they are to seek for indeed as it is folly for any one to think that there can be any Worship of God acceptable but what is agreeable to his Will so it is vain to think that this Will of his could be discovered by any but himself And from the want of this grew Idolatries and other Vanities in Worship 4 The original of the Scriptures is discovered in this that it doth contain in it Precepts of a higher Constitution and therefore of a higher Pedegree than the best of all humane Learning ever did arrive unto such as are the Cleansing of the Heart and Thoughts from all Sin That the Formality of Sin consists in the Will even before it expresseth it self in Act That the outward Conformity of the Act to Vertue without the internal Conformity of the Will and Mind is but Hypocrisie and the seeming vertuous Action is at least dead and not of value if not sin That a Vertuous Action done out of any other End than in Obedience and Love to God that enjoyns it is not an Action rightly Principled nor acceptable to God The right directing of our Passions and Affections that nothing is worthy of our intense Love but God that nothing deserves our Hate but Sin and therefore teacheth us in the former to despise the World in the
and Happiness to them that believe on Christ the Soul resteth and trusteth in the Truth and Power of God in Christ for it 2. In that the Faith of both had a termination in Christ though theirs more indistinctly and confusedly in respect that the same was not so clearly revealed unto them In that Promise to Abraham In thee shall all nations of the earth be blessed wherein the Gospel was preached to Abraham Galat. 3.8 Abraham did see Christ and rejoyced John 8.56 And so for the rest of those ancient Fathers Rom. 10.4 They drank of that spiritual rock that followed them and that rock was Christ Now the Effects of Faith are of two kinds 1. In reference to God our Justification God having of his free Goodness exhibited the Righteousness of Christ and his Satisfaction to be theirs that shall truly know it and rest upon it Rom. Chap. 3 4 5 c. Galat. 2.16 2. In reference to us Peace with God Rom. 5.1 In him that is our Peace-maker Humility because the Righteousness whereby we are justified is none of ours Rom. 3.27 Where then is boasting worketh by Love Galat. 5.6 2. Hope is but modally or objectively distinguished from Faith for the same spiritual Life which is wrought in the Soul and brings Light with it when it looks upon Christ with Dependance and Recumbency is called Faith when it looks upon the fulfilling of these Promises yet unfulfilled with Expectation and Assurance is called Hope They are but the actings of the same spiritual Life with diversity only 〈◊〉 to the diversity of Objects Hence they are many times taken for the same thing Heb. 11. 〈◊〉 the substance of things hoped for Ephes 4.4 One Hâ—pe of your calling Galat. 5.5 We through the Spirit wait for the Hope of righteousness by Faith Rom. 8.24 We are saved by Hope 1 Pet. 1.4 Begotten again unto a lively Hope And the Fruit of this Hope must of necessity be Joy Reâ—â—ycing in Hope Rom. 12.12 And such a Joy as at once takes off the vexation sorrow and anxiety that the greatest Affliction in this world can afford and likewise the fixing of the Soul with over much Delight upon any thing that it here enjoys because it looks beyond both upon a Recompence of Reward that allays the bitterness of the greatest Affliction 2 Cor. 4.17 18. Heb. 11. and allays the Delight of the greatest temporal Enjoyment Heb. 11.26 Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt Purifies the Heart John 3.3 He that hath this hope purgeth himself even as he is pure that is winds up his Heart to such a Condition as is suitable to his Expectation 3. Love This is that first and great Commandment Deut. 6.5 Matth. 22.37 And therefore is the fulfilling of the whole Law Galat. 5.14 Rom. 13.8 Because it puts the only true and active Principle in the Heart which carries him to all true Obedience It is the highest Grace 1 Cor. 13.13 And that wherein consisâ—ed the Perfection of Humane and Angelical Nature because it was not only his Duty but his Happiness It was his Duty because the chiefest Good deserved his chiefest Love even out of a Principle of Nature and his Happiness because in this regular motion of the Creature to his Creator God was pleased to exibit himself to his Creature and according to the measure of his Love was the measure of his Fruition And in the Restitution of his Creature God is pleased to restore this quality to the Soul Gal. 5.22 The first fruit of the Spirit is Love 2 Tim. 1.7 The Spirit of Love 1 Tim. 1.14 with Faith and Love 2 Thes 2.10 receiving the Love of the Truth Ephes 4.15 speaking the truth in Love Jude 21. keep your selves in the Love of God now this Love is wrought by a double means 1. By the Knowledge of God as he is the Best and Universal Good and therefore it is impossible that there can be the true Knowledge of God but there must be the true Love of God 1 John 4.8 He that loveth not knoweth not God And this is an Act grounded upon a rational Judgment which even by the very Law and Rule of Nature teacheth us to value and esteem that most which is the greatest Good. 2. By the Knowledge of the Love of God to us The absolute Goodness of God deserves our Love but the communication of his Goodness to his Creature commands it The former doth most immediately work upon our Judgment and so is a love of Apprehension the latter upon our Wills and so is a love of Affection and yet both upon right Reason for as the Law of Nature teacheth us to love the Chiefest Good so the same Law of Nature teacheth us to love those most that do us most Good and consequently love us most Now when God by his Spirit sheds abroad his Love into the Heart and we once come to know the Love of Christ passing Knowledge Ephes 3.19 The Soul even out of a natural ingenuity being rescued by the Spirit of God from that malignity that sin and corruption had wrought in it cannot chuse but return to God again that hath done so much for so undeserving a Creature And therefore this was the great Wisdom and Goodness of God in sending Christ in the Flesh to die for us when we were Enemies and in revealing that Goodness of his therein that in a way proportionable to the conception and operation of our Souls we might understand the greatness of his Love to us 1 John 3.16 Hereby perceive we the love of God 1 John 4.9 In this was manifested the love of God Ephes 2.4 But God who is rich in mercy for his great love wherewith he loved us even when we were dead c. God commandeth his love to us c. All which being brought to a Soul that hath life in him must needs work Love to God again 1 John 4.19 We love him becâ—use he loved us first As it is the Love of God that gives us Power to love him for it is the first cause of our Happiness and consequently of our Love to God wherein consists our Happiness so it is the immediate cause of our Love to him When the Soul is convinced of so much Love from so great a God to so poor a Creature in very Ingenuity and Gratitude it cannot chuse but return an humble and hearty Love to his Creator again Methinks the Soul in the contemplation of the Goodness and Love of God might bespeak it self to this effect So immense and infinite is the Goodness and Beauty of thy God that were thy Being possible to be independent upon him he would deserve the most boundless and infinite motion of thy Love unto him But here is yet farther infinitude added to an infinitude he gave thee thy Being from nothing which was an infinite act of his Goodness and Power unto thee and doth and may justly challenge the highest tribute of Love
must needs drive to that End for if it should in any thing go beside that End or not aim at it there is so much want of Love My Love to a Creature may consist with a crossing of the End of that Creature out of my very love to it because the Creature which I love may drive to an End which is not for his own good but this is impossible in case of my Love to God for whatsoever most tends to his Glory is most conformable to his Will and whatsoever is conformable to his Will is most infallibly conformable to the soundest and best Wisdom 2. It makes the Heart Conformable unto the Will of God for he that loves God truly makes his Will the measure of his own and it is impossible to think that a Creature should love God truly and yet cross the Will of him whom he thus loves The Perfection of all Creatures even inanimate consists in their Conformity to the Will and Law of their Creator stampt upon them in their Creation and when they turn aside from this they contract Disorder and Deformity much more in case of a rational Creature who is endued with Faculties susceptive and executive of the Will of God in a higher measure And the Fruits of this Conformity to the Will of God are 1. A chearful Submission to the actings of the Will of God upon us with Patience and Contentedness for it is his Will whose Will I have made the measure of mine and though I shall not cease to make my humble application to him for the removing of his Hand of what kind soever yet I have learned of my Saviour to conclude Not my will but thy will be done 2. A solicitous inquiry what this Will of God is for the same Love that teacheth me to make his Will mine teacheth me likewise to make inquiry after this Will by my Prayers by my Studies and Inquiries c. 3. A strict walking according to that Will in all things and at all times 3. This Love of God works an awful Conversation and Heart before him And this is that Fear of God which the wise Man tells us is the great duty of Man Eccles 12.13 Now the Fear of God may arise upon some of these Considerations 1. Out of the meer Sense of a Guilt incurred and the Power and Wrath of God against the guilty Creature Such was the fear of Adam before God had revealed the Cure of his Guilt Gen. 2.10 I heard thy voice in the garden and was afraid and this fear drives the Heart from God and therefore he hid himself and therefore this Fear in the perfection of it is not consistent with the Love of God though so much of imperfection as our love unto God hath so much even of this Fear may be in the Soul Rom. 8.15 We have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear 1 John. 4.18 He that feareth is not made perfect in Love. 2. Out of the mere sense of the Majesty and Glory and Power of God and the subordination and subjection and distance of the Creature And such a Fear as this as it may consist so it ought to be joined unto our Love of God. And although there were in us an impossibility to sin as in Angelical Natures or blessed Souls yet this Awfulness and Reverence to his Majesty will be and must be in us for all the Attributions of God must be received with answerable Affections in his Creature and one hinders not the other And this awe of the Majesty of God in the Heart expresseth it self in suitable Deportments and Expressions without Abraham that was the Friend of God yet forgets not his distance in his Prayer Gen. 18.27 Behold now I have taken upon me to speak to the Lord which am but dust and ashes Exod. 34.6 When God passed by Moses he proclaimed his Majesty and Glory as well as his Mercy and Goodness The Lord The Lord God Merciful c. And it found a suitable affection of reverence in Moses he bowed his Head towards the Earth and worshipped Even when we rejoyce in him it must be with Trembling Psal 2.11 And this is a great part of the Business of the Old Testament to acquaint revolting Man with the Majesty of God and to fence out those irreverent and unbecoming thoughts that the degenerate Sons of Men had of the infinite God Isa 40. per totum Vers 18. To whom then will ye liken God And as the Angels in awful reverence to his Majesty are said to cover their Faces Isa 6.2 so the twenty four Elders that sat about the Throne cast down their Crowns before the Throne â—ev 4.10 3. Out of a sense of his Goodness mingled with the consideration of his Greatness which doth at once improve the value of his Mercy that it should come from so great a Majesty and improve that Fear of his Greatness by mixing with an humble Love the Love of a Child to a Father And this is most seen in the care of avoiding any thing which may displease God 1 Pet. 1.17 Passing the sojourning here in fear This is that that makes them watchful and jealous of themselves lest any thing unbeseeming so great an Engagement should pass from them This Caution against Sin riseth from the Love of God under both the notions before expressed 1. As our Love is terminated in him as the Chiefest Good and so we avoid sin out of fear of that loss which we may have by it This it is true is not without a mixture of Love to our selves yet allowable to be a ground of our Care. 2. As our Love returns to him by way of Benevolence Where Love is to an Equal it creates an awe of giving distaste How much more when to the infinite God and yet that so far condescends in his Love to us 4. This Love of God breeds an endeavour of Likeness to him The genuine effect of Love is Union and Similitude to the thing loved hath a degree of Union in it Now because no Eye can see God and live neither can there be that proportion between us and him that we should frame our selves unto his Image immediately he hath given us three Copies of himself to take out viz. 1. In his Works in his Patience in his Goodness in his Mercy 2. In his Word he hath transcribed for us a Copy of his Holiness 1 Pet. 1.16 Be ye holy for your heavenly Father is holy 3. In his Son. God in the Creation printed his Image upon Man and Man by his sin broke it and defaced it as Moses did the two Tables of Stone God gives a new Image of himself to Man He hath given his Son into the World who is the Image of the invisible God Colos 1.15 2 Cor. 4.4 And while we look on him with Faith and Love we put him on Rom. 13.14 We grow up to the measure of his stature Ephes 4.13 We are changed into the same
Corruption and the concurrence of the Prince of the Air it becomes our Misleader being filled with Errors and mistakings or our Tormentor being filled with horror and desperation and it is the great work of God in our renovation to restore the Conscience to his primitive office and place by taking away the guilt of sin which kept the Conscience in a continual storm Heb. 10.2.22 and by purging the Conscience from the pollutions and corruptions of sin Heb. 9.14 purging the Conscience from dead works to serve the living God. 3 In the Will there is irregularity upon a double ground 1. By reason of that Corruption that is in the Understanding for the prosecution or aversation of the Will are much qualified and ruled according to the Light that is in the Understanding and if that Light be Darkness and Error then there must necessarily follow a miscarriage in the Will. 2. By reason of that Captivity that is in the Will unto the Law of Sin and of the Flesh God gave unto Man a righteous Law which was to be the Law and Rule of his Mind and Will and while it was conformable to this it was conformable to the Will of God and so beautiful and regular But in stead thereof there is a Law of Sin and Death Rom. 8.2 Rom. 7.21 and this Law subdues the Law of the Mind and brings the Soul into captivity to the Law of Sin Rom. 7.23 And the Will being thus captivated is made carnal and filled with enmity against God and that Law which he once planted in us to be the Rule of our Will so that it is not subject to the Law of God neither indeed can be Rom. 8.7 nay the Will is so much mastered and possessed by this Old Man and his Law that when it meets with the Law of God coming into the Soul it takes occasion thereby to work in the Soul all manner of Concupiscence Rom. 7.6 out of malice and policy to make that Law which comes to rescue the Soul more odious to the Soul and the Soul to it as Conquerours use to introduce Laws Customs and Languages of their own the more to estrange the conquered from any memory of their former duty or freedoms And when Christ comes into the Soul he rescues the Will from this Captivity and from the Dominion of Sin though not from the Inherence and Residence of it and doth by degrees waste and diminish that very inherence of sin Rom. 6.14 Sin shall not have Dominion over you for you are not under the Law but under Grace and plants and supports another Law in us even the Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ which maketh us free from the Law of Sin and of Death Rom. 8.2 4. In the Affections The great and master Affection of our Soul is our Love and all other Affections are derived from it and in order to it Our Hatred of any thing is because it is contrary and destructive to what we love our Fear of any thing is because it would rob us of what we love our Grief for any thing is because it hath deprived us of what we love And according to the measure of our Love is the measure of our other Affections an intense Love unto any thing makes our Hatred of its contrary equally intense and so for the other Affections In our original Creation our Love was rightly placed upon God the only deserver of our Love and our Love was rightly qualified it was a most intense Love The Law and Command of God Deut. 6.5 Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy Soul and with all thy might was but the Copy of that Law that was written in our Nature And our Love thus rightly placed and rightly qualified did tutor all the rest of our Passions and Affections both in their objects and degrees It taught us to hate Sin and that with a perfect hatred because contrary to the Mind of that God whom we did perfectly love and it taught us to hate nothing else but Sin because nothing but that had a contrariety unto God. But when we fell our Love lost its object and all the Affections thereby became misplaced and disordered And though we lost the object of this Affection yet we lost not the Affection it self our Love therefore having lost his guide wanders after something else and takes up our selves and makes that the object of our Love. But as our Love is misplaced in respect of its object so it mistakes in its pursuit of that object no Man can truly love himself that doth not truly love God because the true effect of Love is to do all the Good it can to the thing it loves Now the chiefest Good to our selves is only our Conformity unto God's Will and consequently our Love to him wherein consists our Happiness But it is no marvel that having forsaken the true object of our Love and chosen our selves to be that object we are likewise mistaken in the seeking of our own Good Rom. 1.26 Who changed the truth of God into a lie and worshipped and served the Creature more than the Creator For this cause God gave them up to vile affections Now every man that terminates his Love upon himself serves and worships himself And now that order which God planted being broken it is no wonder that all confusion and disorder falls among our Affections And now our Love being misplaced all the rest of our Affections are likewise misplaced and out of order Now the right frame of our Love and consequently the corruption of it consists in three things 1. In the ultimate Object of our Love it ought to be settled upon God and upon him only 2. In the Order of our Love it ought to be set upon God and upon him first and all other things may be loved but yet in him and after him 3. In the Degree of our Love our chiefest and most intense Love must be set upon God and upon him only And these are most rational and natural Conclusions as appears before Now the Old Man in our Affections consists in the absence and deprivation of this Order that God hath set 1. The deprivation of the first when either we love not God at all or which is all one when we make him not the Ultimate Object of our Love but love him meerly in reference to our selves the consequence whereof is that if God be not in all things subservient to those things we conceive most conducible to our own good we disobey him we murmure against him we blaspheme him we hate him If the basest Lust Pleasure Content come in competition with his Command it shall conquer it because we have made our selves our Ultimate and Chief End and therefore shall certainly prefer any thing that we think most conducible to this End. And certainly he that makes himself his Ultimate End and the chief object of his Love cannot chuse but fail in
say upon found grounds the Lord is my Portion Psal 16.5 Like the Tree that Moses cast into the Waters of Marah Exod. 15.23 It makes those bitter Waters sweet and puts more Joy in my Heart than in the time that their Corn and their Wine increased Psal 4.6 But if it please him together with the Light of his Countenance to give me a competency of Externals to feed me with Food convenient for me with Agar Prov. 30.8 though with David Psal 23. my Cup runs not over yet if the Lord be the Portion of my Cup Psal 16.5 O Lord shouldest thou deny me all things even necessary for my present subsistence yet I have Portion enough in thy Favour and the Light of thy Countenance for which I owe thee more than all the thankfulness and strength of my Soul and such a Portion as would bear up my Heart in the midst of all my Exigences When thy Son bore our Nature in the Flesh though the sence of thy Love supported him yet he wanted things of convenience he became poor that we might be rich But if it shall please God to add the Blessings of his left hand to the Blessings of his right hand as rather than deny me the latter I beseech thee give me not the former If he shall bless me in the Fruit of my Body and my Ground and command a Blessing upon my Store-houses and all that I set my hand unto Deut. 28.4 8. I will learn to serve the Lord my God with joyfulness and gladness of Heart for the abundance of all things Deut. 28.47 to contemplate and bless that good hand of God that giveth me power to get Wealth Deut. 8.18 To look with more comfort and delight upon that Hand that gives than in the very Blessing that is given to set a watch over that evil and deceitful Heart of mine that is able to turn my Blessing into my Snare to beware lest when all that I have is multiplied my Heart be lifted up and I forget the Lord my God Deut. 8.13 14. To beware lest when my Riches increase I set my Heart upon them Psal 62.10 and trust in uncertain Riches 1 Tim. 6.17 To remember that I am but a Fiduciary a Steward of them they are not given me to look upon but to use them as one that must give an account of them to watch over my self that I use them soberly with moderation and as in his presence that I turn not the Grace and Bounty of God into Excess or Wantonness to look upon all the Goodness Comfort and Use of them as flowing from the Blessing and Commission that God sends along with them Eccles 2.24 That a man should make his soul enjoy good in his labour this also is from the hand of God To beware that the multiplication of Blessings do not rob my Creator of one grain of that Love Service and Dependance that I owe unto him to carry a loose affection towards them for it is infallibly true that where the Heart is truly set upon God and makes him his Portion it enables a Man equally to bear all Conditions because the object of his Soul is immutable and invaluable though his external Condition alter an accession of Externals may carry up such a Soul in a more sensible apprehension of the Goodness of him whom the Soul loves it cannot steal away one jot of that Love which it owes to the giver the Creature it self is of too low a value to diminish the Love to the Creator a Heart that is rightly principled cannot find any good in the Creature but what he will derive from and carry to the object of his Love. 3. The Pride of Life There are two great Cardinal Truths whereof if the Mind be soundly convinced it puts a Man in a right frame and temper of Spirit in the whole course of his Life 1. That there is an essential universal Subjection due from all Creatures to the Will and Power of God This is the ground of all true Obedience and all true Humility which is nothing else but a putting of the Mind into a Posture and frame answerable to that Position wherein by Nature it is framed a conformity of the Mind to the Truth and Station wherein it is set 2. That all Goodness Beauty and Perfection is originally in God and nothing of Good Beauty or Perfection is in any thing but derivatively from him according to that measure that he is freely pleased to communicate This keeps the Heart in a continual Love of him Dependance upon him and Thankfulness unto him From the Ignorance of those is the ground of all the Pride in the World which is nothing else but a false placing of the Mind in such a Condition or Station or the opinion of such a Station wherein in truth he is not and so it disorders the Mind it makes a Man that is essentially subordinate to God and depending upon him to place himself above God and to be independent upon him And though this false opinion cannot alter his condition in truth for he that hath said My Will shall stand cannot be removed by the pride or resistance of Man yet as to the Man himself it puts him out of his place and in the room of God And therefore above all other distempers of the Soul this is the most hateful to God for as the proud Man resisteth God and labours to get into his place so God resisteth him 1 Pet. 5.5 Prov. 3.24 And this Ignorance or not full subscription to these two Truths will appear to be the foundation of all the Pride in Men. 1. From the Ignorance of the former of the subjection we owe to God proceeds that Pride that manifests it self in Rebellion and Disobedience against God. God challengeth the subjection of our Wills to his as justly he may and Man will have his own Will take place Jer. 42.14 No but we will go into the â—and of Egypt Luke 19.14 We will not have this Man to rule over us And as among Men Pride is the Mother of Contention because it puts a Man out of that place wherein he is and he doth consequently put himself in the place of another and thence come Contentions so from this Pride of Men putting themselves into the place of God comes the contention between God and man He that hath said he will not give his Glory to another will not give his Place to his Creature but resisteth the proud And from this ignorance of that subjection we owe to God proceeds that Haughtiness and Arrogance which we find in the Spirits of Men Exod. 5.2 Who is the Lord that I should let the people go Job 21.15 What is the Almighty that we should serve him Dan. 3.15 Who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hands This Ignorance was that which bred that haughty speech in Nebuchadnezzar Dan. 4.30 Is not this great Babylon c. Till God by his immediate hand
let thy words be few seasonable considerate true 4. Set a Watch upon thine Appetite it is of it self natural and consequently good but the distemper of our Nature hath put it out of its place and consequently out of its bounds Suspect thy Appetite and keep it under with Rules of Moderation put a Knife to thy Throat Prov. 23.2 look not upon the Wine when it gives its colour in the Cup Prov. 23.31 love not sleep Prov 20.13 and with Rules of Seasonableness the wise Man tells us every thing is beautiful in its time Eccles 3.11 because it is then in that order which God hath appointed for it the same Action that may be but tolerable and indifferent in one time may be necessary in another and sinful in another Isaiah 22.12 13. In that day did the Lord call for weeping and mourning and behold slaving of oxen surely this iniquity shall not be purged from you till ye die 2 Sam. 11.11 The Ark and Israel and Judah abide in tents c. shall I then go down to my house to eat and to drink and to lie with my wife Regulate thy Reason by the Word and Counsel of God and discipline thy Appetite with thy Reason observe its motions and check them Rather deny it a lawful than countenance it in but a disputable Liberty CHAP. XX. Of Watchfulnes over our Affections and Passions of Love Anger and Fear 5. SET a Watch upon thine Affections and Passions Thy Affections are by thy natural corruption become inordinate Affections they are easily misplaced and more easily over-acted Take heed to thy Love according to the order or disorder of this Affection are all thy other Affections tempered See therefore that it be rightly placed Dispence thy Love in measures proportionable to the worth of the Object Nothing can challenge thy intensest Love but the intensest Good and that God that requires thy Heart is a jealous God let not out the whole Current of thy Affections upon any thing below him Lawful Pleasures natural Relations Conveniences in the World a Man 's own self may be Objects of a moderate and subordinate Love But when they take up the whole compass of our Love our Love becomes our Sin Matth. 10.37 He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me 1 John 2.15 If any man love the world the love of the Father is not in him 2 Tim. 3.2 4. lovers of themselves and lovers of Pleasures ranked amongst the worst of Men. When the Affection of thy Soul is moving after any thing before thou give it leave examine the Object whether worthy of any measure of thy Love and if so yet let it not go without a farther debate Consider the measure of Good that is in the Object and weigh out its proportion of Love answerable to the measure of its Good But rest not there neither remember it is but a subordinate a derivative Good as well as a measurable Good bestow not that measure of thy Love upon it absolutely but subordinately catechise thy Love with this Question Whether if thy Creator requires thee to hate that Object to forgo it to forsake it thou canst be better content to call home thy Affection than to let it rest where it is By this time and by this means thy Love will be under a discipline and a rule and the Precipitancy of this Affection beyond its due Proportion allayed and moderated And remember always it is the impotency of our Condition and the great cause of the disorders in our Souls and Lives that we are contented to give our Affections leave upon the first apprehension to pursue their Objects without debate lest we should interrupt the expectation of Contentment by a clear discovery of the unworthiness and vanity of the Object and the ill consequences of immoderation in the pursuit thus we are contented to deceive our selves with the Felicity of false Expectation rather than by pre-consideration to avoid a real Inconvenience or Disappointment Take heed to thine Anger Be angry but sin not Ephes 4.26 keep it not too long nor act it too far lest it prove Hatred Revenge Oppression Order thy Anger so that it may be rather an act of thy Judgment than of thy Perturbation If thou art provoked by an Injury before thou give a Commission to this Passion propose to thy self the Question which God asked Jonah Jonah 4.9 Dost thou well to he angry weigh well the Cause and remember thou art partial to thy self and apt to construe that for a just Provocation which it may be was none or deserved Suspect thy Judgment of Partiality put thy self in the others Condition before thou judgest remember that he that doth thee the Injury is but God's Instrument 2 Sam. 16 10. Because the Lord hath said unto him Curse David who then shall say Wherefore hast thou done so It may be his Injury is God's Justice and then thy Anger against the Instrument is Rebellion or at best it may be his Experiment of thy Patience and then thy Anger is Disobedience Remember the just occasions of Anger thou hast given to thy Creator and yet his Patience to thee and shouldest thou not have compassion on thy fellow servant Matth. 18.33 Remember thy Redeemer that bought thee with the Sacrifice of his Soul hath given thee another Precept Matth. 5.44 Love your Enemies and another Example who when he was reviled reviled not again and canst thou deny the denial of Passion for his sake Remember thy gentleness will more advantage thee than thy anger it may be he will be conquered with thy Patience and revenge thy Quarrel against himself with his Repentance but if not there is a God of Vengeance can and will do it Rom. 12.19 When a Man takes up the Office of his Judge he injures both the Judge and Party and in stead of doing himself right he makes himself guilty Again if thou doest well to be angry dost thou well to be angry so much or so long The Wise Man tells us That Anger resteth in the bosom of Fools Set a Watch therefore over thy Anger let it be just and moderate and let not the Sun go down on thy wrath Ephes 4.26 Set a Watch upon thy Fear There is nothing deserves thy fear of Reverence but thy Creator nâ— thy fear of Aversion but thy Sin If thy Peace he made with him thou art above the Fear of any thing below him objects of Terror shall not come near thee the Beasts of the Field shall be at peace with thee or if they are not they shall not hurt thee The terriblest things in the World are therefore terrible because they end in Death the King of Terrors And when thy Peace is made with thy Lord thou hast a double Security against them 1. Because they are in the hands of his Power and Wisdom and they cannot exceed their Commission that he gives them he can if it please him dissipate whole Armies of
Terrors by the least word of his Power 2. But if their Commission extend to thy very Life yet the Son of God hath taken away that sting that terror that is in Death hath by his own Death sanctified Death unto thee and made it a door unto a better Life so that Death though in it self terrible and bitter yet this Tree being himself cast into this bitter Water Exod. 15.25 hath sweetned them and as he hath taken away the Venome of it by destroying that Serpent that had the power of it Heb. 2.14 so he hath made it though not for it self yet in respect of him that stands on the other side of this Gulf with Immortality and Glory in his hand desirable Phil. 1.23 Having a desire to depart and to be with Christ which is far better It is true thou art pursued with an Army of Egyptians of Sins and of Miseries and when thou comest to the Shore thou seest a raging and a bloody Sea But remember thou hast an Angel even the Angel of the Covenant that hath gone before and yet goes with thee and turns this Sea into a Passage of Ease and Safety and though of either side the Waves may affright thy Sense they shall not hurt thee and remember that though thy Passage may be difficult and troublesome yet thou hast not as once the Israelites a Wilderness behind it but a Canaan Therefore in all Objects or Occurrences of Terror first look inward and see how the case stands between thy God and thy Conscience indeed if there remain a Guilt unwashed by the Blood of Christ a secret sin entertained and not repented of thou hast cause to fear because thy Lord is angry But if thou keep thy daily Watch upon thy Soul and thy Life if thou find the presence of thy Saviour in thy Soul and thy Heart though of it self a sinful Heart yet cleansed and delivered from the power of any evil way an honest Heart acted by the love of God in Christ thou mayest then look above them and having thine Eye fixed upon the Lord of Events walk quietly and untroubled through the midst of those dangers that do incompass thee It is true that in the great Concussions of the World God expects a suitable affection even from the most innocent Heart an affection of Reverence and awe of his Presence and working Jeremiah 10.7 Who would not fear thee O king of nations But the fear of an honest Heart is the fear of Reverence not of Consternation a Fear mingled with Love a Fear mingled with Faith and confidence a Fear mingled with Praise and Glorifying God a Fear terminated in the great Lord that works not in the Instrument not in the immediate Object of Terror a Fear mingled with Comfort not over-run with distraction When therefore thou meetest with Objects of Fear first learn to distinguish their kinds some there are that come as it were from the immediate hand of God such are Famine Pestilence Wars Fires Inundations Earthquakes and the like entertain them with Reverence to the great and Just and Powerful hand of God not slightly or saucily or presumptuously yet without consternation or distraction of Mind carry up thy Soul above the Objects to the Hand that guides them make him thy Dependance and his Will the measure of thine own under them use all warrantable means with Dependance upon his Power and Submission to his Will to avoid them The wise Man seeth the Plague and hideth himself Prov. 22.3 Prov. 27.12 If thou escape the danger bless the God that hath preserved thee if thou fall in them yet still bless the God that hath not left thee and value ten thousand Deaths with his Presence and Light upon thy Soul above the most sublimated Life without it Again there are some Objects of Fear which though they are guided and mastered by the hand of God yet they are immediately the works of Men and so less terrible such are wrought by the power oppression cruelty and malice of Men these may and ought to be entertained with more resolution and confidence That one Example may serve for all when the power and injustice of Man shall meet with an unarmed and weak innocence Dan. 3.16 O Nebuchadnezzar we are not careful to answer thee in this matter our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace and he will deliver us out of thine hand O king But if not be it known unto thee O king we will not serve thy Gods As if they should have said It is true thou art a King and where the word of a King is there is Power and to magnifie thy self and thy Glory in the face of thy Kingdom thou hast taken up this publick Resolution of the Dedication of thine Idol and this thy Purpose is stablished by a Decree a Mischief framed by a Law and this Decree armed with Death and a cruel and terrible Death we know we cross thy proud and impious Will impatient of the seeming neglect of thy Power by three poor despised Hebrews in the midst of thy Glory and People we see fury and rage enough in thy countenance to devour us before the Furnace be hot we see thy Courtiers adding fewel to thy rage and thy Instruments greedily catching after the least Warrant from thee for our Execution and we are compassed with Flesh and Blood which cannot but shrink at the preapprehension of this inevitable and terrible dissolution yet for all this know that we have learned to tutor our Fear not to fear a Man that shall die and the Son of Man that shall be made as Grass Isa 51.11 we have learned that the fear of Man bringeth a snare but he that trusteth in the Lord shall be safe Prov. 29.25 And therefore we are not much perplexed what Answer to return to these thy Commands and Threats we serve that God in whose hand thou art as the Ax or the Saw in his hand that shaketh it in whose hand thy Breath is and he can command away thy Breath and then what becomes of thy Word that Lord in whose hand thy Heart is and he can turn it as the River of Water and can set thy Command against thy Decree that God in whose hands are the issues of death and who can arm an inconsiderable Occurrence to divert and frustrate thy Purpose in whose hands are all the Powers of Heaven and Earth and can correct and controll that Fire which thou intendest for the execution of thy Fury And this is the God whom we serve and hath made a Covenant with us to preserve us in the Fire and we are no less confident of his Love and of his Truth than of his Wisdom and Power to deliver us he hath taught us that he is a present help in trouble Psal 46.1 that if we call upon him in the day of trouble he will deliver us Psal 50.15 Psalm 91.15 that in the Fire he will be with us and
unseemly a return is this for so much Love and Goodness as thou hast received how canst thou come in thy Prayers in thy Hopes in thy Dependance to that God whom against the bonds of ordinary Gratitude thou art now offending how canst thou ever expect to have the light and favour of his Countenance whom contrary to all thy engagements of Duty and Covenant thou art now about to injure canst thou profess thou lovest him whom thou darest to abuse to disobey even to his Face 3. Hope the Word of God hath promised in Christ Glory and immortality and the sight of himself to those that are pure in Heart Matth. 5.8 This truth contained in these Promises is received and entertained in the Heart by Faith and as the Motion of the Heart towards an absent but a possible and expected Good is Hope so it is here it is the Motion of the Soul arising upon Faith as it presents the truth of that Blessedness which wâ— do not yet but shall enjoy and this Motion of the Soul purifieth the Heart 1 John 3.3 He that haâ— this hope purifieth himself even as he is pure and bring the Heart and Life to Obedience Psal 119.1 6. I have hoped in thy Salvation and done thy Commanâ—ments Our love of God makes our Obedience sincere our fear of him makes our obedience awful and reverent our hope in him makes our obedience chearful Rom. 15.13 Patient Rom. 8.25 Constant Heb. 3.6 and Active Phil. 3.15 Pressing oâ— to the price of the high calling of God in Christ This was that that made Moses rather chuse Afflictions than the Pleasure of sin for a Season for he had an eye to the recompence of reward Heb. 11.26 which carried our Redeemer with choice and Victory through the Cross and shame for the joy that was set before him Heb. 12.2 Now this affection thus fixed and acted purifieth the Heart and Life upon these Considerations 1. It presents a Man with an expectation of an everlasting blesâ—d Station in the Presence of the most holy God and this works an endeavour of a present Conformity of his Mind and Life to that condition which it eâ—pects to enjoy everlastingly hereafter No Man 〈◊〉 hope for that which he desires not for the presâ— to enjoy he that hopes for an eternal Life in Holinâ— will thrust himself into as much of it as he câ— while he lives here and will consider how unbâ—coming any sin is of him who lives in a câ—tinued hope of enjoying a condition free from 〈◊〉 2. Hope doth link the Soul to the thing it hoâ— for which is of so great worth Glory and 〈◊〉 â—pectation that it carries the Soul through all â—ficulties to the attaining of it it makes 〈◊〉 which is future in Fruition present in appreâ—sion and thereby masters all those evils of Sense that actually come in the way and thus it lifteth up the Soul above all the present inconveniencies that may accompany or interrupt her way to Glory Thy Creator hath chalked thee out a way to walk in and it is true it is a narrow way and thou art cloathed with flesh and blood which cannot inherit the Kingdom of God the way will be grievous and troublesome unto it thou must deny thy self cut off thy right hand pluck out thy right eye thou must learn to unlove nay to hate those things wherein thy corrupted Nature most delights and take up thy Cross and follow thy Saviour and thy way is not only narrow and unpleasant to thy Nature but thou shalt find it it may be strawed with Afflictions with Temptations with Scorns with Poverty Wants Persecutions nay with the loss of Life it self and yet on thou must go and must not draw back for then thy Labour is all lost But here is that which will bear thee up through all the difficulties though thou art laden with the burden of thy own Flesh and Corruptions and art ready to slip upon every Temptation yet thou art not alone but thy Saviour stands by thee to bear thy burden to take thee by the hand to lift thee up from thy falls to support thee with his Grace which he hath promised shall be sufficient for thee to accept thy endeavours and to pitty and pardon and recover thy relapses Though thou dost loose and irrecoverably let go many Contentments Pleasures and external advantages yet thou seest with thee in the Promise and before thee in thy hope that which will abundantly recompence all thy losses even Pleasures at his right hand for ever Though thy journey be troublesome yet it is not long thy home thy Fathers house is in thine eye where thou mayst see thy Saviour preparing a place for thee and a far more exceeding and eternal weight of Glory which will sweeten thy light Afflictions which are but for a moment 2 Cor. 4.17 CHAP. XXVII Of the Extent and Degrees of Sanctification 3. WE come to consider the Extent or Degrees of it what it is or should and may be in this Life We find in the Book of God mention of perfect Men and Men of perfect Hearts Noah Gen. 6.9 Abraham Gen. 17.1 Job 1.8 David 1 Kings 9.4 14.8 Asa 1 Kings 15.14 and yet those several Men had their several Sins and Faults recorded in the same Book We find Psal 37.37 a perfect Man and yet Eccles 7.20 not a just Man that doth good and sinneth not Paul Ephes 4.12 13. tells us of a growing up to a perfect Man to the Measure of the stature of Christ and yet the same Paul Rom. 7.14 complains of himself to be carnal sold under sin The same S. John that 1 John 3.9 saith That he that is born of God sinneth not tells us 1 John 1.8 that if we say we have no sin we deceive our selves and the truth is not in us 2 Cor. 13.11 Finally brethren be perfect We are therefore to consider wherein this Perfection of our Sanctification consisteth not and wherein it consisteth The Perfection required of us and which we may and must attain is an Evangelical Perfection which though it be not perfect yet is accepted of God in Christ 1. Sincerity and Integrity of Heart Jerem. 24.7 They shall return to me with their whole heart The Sanctification required of us is not only a Sanctification of our external Actions those are but the fruits of Sanctification of the Man for as any act is therefore 〈◊〉 because it is but the production of that sin which is â—st in the Heart so is any action therefore holy because it proceeds from a holy and a sanctified motion of the Heart otherwise it is but Hypocrisie This Intâ—y of Heart was Noah's David's â—sa's Perfection it was Enoch's walking with God. When a Man 〈◊〉 with an humble confidence bring his Service his Words and Actions in the presence of God clearly with such a Confession as this O Lord I know that my Heart is deceitful above all who can know it and I know that I
Wisdom is within my call and within my vieâ— and I can beg his counsel and I am sure to have it and his is the best counsel Are my losses great and of those things wherein I took most delight yet they cannot countervail the enjoyment of the Presence of the All-sufficient God. Is my body full of tortures or diseases and death looks in upon me between the Curtains and my Soul sitting upon my lips and like the light of a dying Candle taking her flight from my body yet the Presence of the All-sufficient God is able to make this valley of the shadow of death lightsom and those pains easie and bear up my Soul against the horrour and amazement of death for he stands by me with strength to support me with Victory and Immortality to receive that Soul the only seat where my fear can dwell into a more near and immediate sense of his Presence than in my body it could feel Only remember that though the Presence of his Essence cannot be excluded from any place or person Jer. 23.34 yet there are occasions that may separate from the sense of his presence or make his presence terrible unto thee Isa 59.2 Your iniquities have separated between you and your God and your sins have hid his face from you that he will not hear And if such an unhappy time befal thee that he hide from thy Soul his comfortable presence let it be thy care to return unto him by humbling of thy heart sincerely before him for thy relapse He never departs from any till man first depart from him and he never hides himself long from any that in sincerity return unto him The very moving of thy heart to seek him is the work of his Power and Mercy upon thee and is an undeniable evidence that he hath not utterly forsaken thee unless he first did seek and find thee and touch that heart of thine with his own finger thy heart would rather die in her sin than return unto God and therefore be sure thy returning to him shall not be without a finding of him Only make this use of thy Experience of such a case bless the Mercy of God that hath not rejected thee though thou hast forsaken him bless the Mediation of thy Redeemer that when thou little thinkest of it intercedes for thy pardon and sends out his Spirit to reduce his wayward sinful wandring Creature bless the Bounty and Patience of God that is so ready to accept again into favour his relapsed but humbled Creature and remember that it is an evil thing and a bitter to depart from him fall upon thy knees with tears of sorrow for thy ingratitude and tears of joy for thy re entertainment into the presence of him that yet is pleased to own thee as a Father take up indignation against thy sin that hath deprived thee of so great a Good as the comfortable Presence of God and take up jealous thoughts over thy self and all thy ways and consider well of all thy enterprises before thou undertake them whether there be any thing in them that may offend thy reconciled Father and because thy Judgment is weak and cannot so clearly discern thy way and thy strength is weak in opposing of temptation suspect thy own judgment and strength and beg his Wisdom to teach thee and his Strength to assist thee and lean not to thy own Understanding Again The consideration of the Presence of God is of singular use in all thy Duties of Piety and Charity In the doing of them it will cleanse thy heart from Hypocrisie because thou art before the God that searcheth the heart and accordingly accepteth of the action It will keep thee from unseemliness and want of Reverence because the Lord of Heaven and Earth is present and an Eye-witness to all the deportment of thy Body and Soul. It will keep thee from sluggishness formality and deadness of heart because he stands by thee that sees not as man sees It will keep thee from Pride and vain Glory it will make thy heart sincere reverent watchful earnest and humble in all thou dost because as he that stands by thee requires all this in all thy Duties so these affections or habits of the Soul become the Creature that knows he is in the Presence of the Glorious and Infinite God that searcheth the hearts and sees the actions And as in thy Duties it will fit thee for them so after thy Duties it will comfort thee in them Hath thy heart been truly humbled in his presence for any sin for which thou hast begged pardon and mingled the Blood and Intercession of thy Saviour with thy Prayers Hast thou been upon thy knees before him for any thing necessary for thy Soul Body or Relations Hast thou endeavoured by a serious Meditation to consider of Divine Truths Hast thou examined the state of thy Soul and of thy Life and upon the view thereof taken up resolutions of amendment of what is amiss and persevering and increasing in what is agreeable to his Will Hast thou sought out to relieve those that are in want to recompense those that thou hast injured to advance the Gospel of Jesus Christ Hast thou been doing any thing that is the duty of thy general Calling as thou art a Christian or that particular Calling or Employment into which God's Providence hath cast thee And can thy heart bear thee witness that in all this thou hast endeavoured with all sincerity as in the Presence of God to walk and act in obedience to him and with a clear and upright heart and conscience Be sure thy heart cannot more clearly evidence it self to thy self than it doth to God and God was all this while present with thee beholding of thee there is not one grain of the sincerity and integrity of any of these thy actions not one tear not one thought of thy heart lost but most exactly observed and weighed by him that weigheth the Spirits and they shall not return unto thee empty Acts 10.4 Thy Prayers and thy Alms are come up for a memorial before God. 3. The Truth and Vnchangeableness of God he is unchangeable in his Nature Psal 102.27 They shall be changed but thou art the same Mal. 3.6 I am the Lord I change not therefore ye Sons of Jacob are not consumed James 1.17 The Father of lights with whom is no variableness nor shadow of turning And from this Immutability of his Essence flows the Truth of his Word in his Covenant in his Promises in his Threatnings in his Works Psal 111 7. The works of his hands are Verity and Judgment and all his Commandments are sure And the very variety of his Dispensations of Mercy and Justice to the Children of men ariseth from the very unchangeable Nature of God even from the very first Creation until now Gen. 4.7 If thou dost well shalâ— thou not be accepted and if thou dost not well sin lyes at the door which is the very same
as far exceed all other Happiness in the World as far as it falls short of that perfect Knowledge Love and sense of the Love of God which shall be enjoyed hereafter Were a Man from the highest Honour and Reputation in the World cast into the greatest Scorn and Ignominy that the most exact and exasperated Envy could impose or wish or were his Body laden with as many Necessities Miseries and Torments as Hunger and the most sublimated and ingenious Malice could inflict or contrive could as well the highest sense as the most imminent expectation of Death the greatest of Evils be felt and yet protracted for an age yet if under all this the Soul can look upon these Miseries as such as must end and see though at a distance a Fruition of an Everlasting Beatitude infallibly expecting upon the close of these Miseries the Expected Happiness is made Present by Faith and over-ballanceth the Present but Ending Misery How much more when in the instant of these Sufferings the intention and bent of the Soul is to her Maker and the Great God shall by the secret yet real beams of his Favour send into the Soul Messages of Acceptation and Love How small and low doth this render the highest Contempts and Malice of Men and Devils and how much rather would this Man choose to enjoy these effects of the Love of his Maker with these Miseries than barely to see the Experiments of his Power and Justice in removing or revenging them 2 How far forth this Union of the Soul to God doth conduce to the Happiness of the Compositum the Whole Man or Whether it doth so or no Wherein we say 1. That the Happiness that is answerable to the Compositum without considering the great relation of the soul doth consist in the perfecting and continuing of his subsistence and kind and whatsoever the Compositum desires and moves after it is in order to these and not otherwise as in that one instance of Meats the Wise God hath given him the Sense of Tasting whereby he takes delight in those things that please the Appetite but this is in order to the taking in of those Nourishments that may preserve the Compositum the like of the other Senses Now as long as the Man in these things moves to these Ends he moves naturally and orderly but when in stead of moving to this End he rests in the Means then he moves inordinately and out of the way to that temporal Happiness the support of the Body as when he eats and drinks to excess the like for all other outward matters as Honours Riches Women c. When they are not enjoyed to those Ends for which they are ordained then is the Man out of that way to the temporal Happiness of the Compositum viz. the due Support and Subsistence of it 2. That the Felicity of the Soul may consist with this Felicity of the Compositum ex natura rei The reason à priori hath been already given because the Wise God in the first Institution of things did order every thing to their several Ends with that Wisdom that there was no clashing of the several Ends of the same thing or of several things but one did and might Consist with the other the Felicity of the Soul might and ex natura rei may consist with the Happiness of the Body and Compositum Therefore it follows 3. That Inconsistency of the Happiness of the Soul with that of the Body is not real but because however it comes to pass we have misplaced and mistaken the Happiness of the Body we now place the Happiness of the Body in turning our selves over to Sensuality in excessive using of the Creatures in excessive Lusts These are clear mistakes for it is most apparent that these are enemies to the very subsistence of the Body and Composium 3. That this Felicity of the Body is inferiour to the Felicity of the Soul and therefore if ex accidente it falls out though it seldom doth in truth that the temporal Felicity of the Body is in hoc individuo inconsistent with that of the Soul right Reason tells us that the greater End and that of more concernment is to be preferred so that as there is and ought to be a subordination of those Faculties and Powers placed in the Body to those Ends for which they were implanted viz. the preservation of the Compositum so there ought to be a subordination both of these Means and that End to the Great End the Happiness of the Soul. 4. As the Great End of Man doth consist with the Happiness of his Body or Compositum so it doth much and effectually conduce to it And as this is apparent in the original creation of Man when the Happiness of his Mind by the Knowledge and Presence of his Maker was accompanied with the Felicity of his Compositum and as it was likewise apparent in his Fall as he contracted Misery in the one so he did in the other so it is most rationally evident in the present state and condition of Mankind as will be evident in consideration of these ensuing particulars 1. It shews a Man the right use of the Creature viz. to be subservient and in order to the preservation of the Compositum The want of a true and rational use of secular matters is a great cause of the great unhappiness of Man as when he desires Riches because he would be rich or Honours because he would be great or delicate Fare because he would eat Now when Men mistake the use of things resting in that as an End which is only useful to something else this breeds these disorders in and among men which doth disturb even their outward Peace and Happiness This is regulated when the Heart is set upon the Love of God it takes off any inordinate Love to any thing else but in order to that End to which it is properly conducible and therefore in order to that only rationally desirable 2. It adds a sweetness to the enjoyment of the Creature which cannot be had without it because it mingles with it the sight of the great Master of this Family of the Earth that provides it the sense and security of his Love that gives it and so brings up the enjoyment of the Creature to a higher station and nearer to that which is the true Felicity of the Soul. A Blue Ribon bought in a Shop and a Blue Ribon given by a King in token of Honour is the same thing but with the latter there is a mingling of somewhat else with it as it imports a Gift from a King in token of Honour and therefore higher-prized 3. It takes away all that Sollicitousness in the Enjoyment and all that Anguish in the Loss and all that Anxiety in the Provision of external Accommodations though in very truth the real Happiness of the Compositum is its subsistence according to the perfectest degree of his Being which is the perfection of
way to his Happiness as one Man teacheth another though we must not exclude that powerful Co-operation of his mighty Spirit that strikes upon our Spirits even when his Word strikes upon our 〈◊〉 And herein the Pharisees spoke truth even against their own Wills Matth. 22.26 Thou teachest the way of God in Truth For God in these last times hath spoken to us by his Son Heb. 1.2 and revealed unto us the whole Counsel and Will of his Father concerning us For he spoke not of himself but the Father which sent him gave him Commandment what he should say John 12.49 And that this Doctrin of his might receive a Testimonial from Heaven it was 〈◊〉 with Miracles and with suffrages from Heaven John 12.30 This Voice came not because of me but 〈◊〉 your sakes Now among divers Particulars of the 〈◊〉 of Christ we may observe these great Master-pieces 1. Instâ—ucting us that there is a higher end for the Sons of Men to arrive unto than temporal Felicity in this Life viz. Blessedness express'd in those several Expressions of his Matth. 5.3 4. c. The Kingdom of Heaven Comfort Fulness sight of God c. And in order to this great Doctrin are those several Doctrines of the Resurrection the last Judgment the Immortality of the Soul truths that the whole World either never knew or had forgotten or doubted 2. Instructing in the true Way to attain this Blessedness teaching us that Righteousness accepted of God consists not in meer outward observations but in the integrity and sincerity of the Heart and hereby rubs off all those false glosses that the formallest of Men had put upon the Law of God teaches that the Love of God is the fulfilling of God's Commandments and the reason is because this Love of God if it be sincere will ingage the whole Man to the exact Observance of what he requires those abstruse practical Truths of Depending upon God's Providence Self-denyal Loving our Enemies Rejoycing in Affliction all flowing from the high Point of the Love of God this is the Law of Christ Gal. 6.2 3. In revealing that which is the only Means to attain the two former even that great Mystery of the Gospel that was hid with God in Christ A Man might rove at the two former though the World had almost lost them both but this latter was a mystery that the Angels themselves knew not 1 Cor. 2.16 Who hath known the Mind of the Lord that he way instruct him But we have the mind of Christ which contains the whole Counsel of God touching Man this is that which Paul calls all the Counsel of God. Acts 20.27 and Truth it self hath given us the Breviary of it John 6.40 This is the will of him that sent me that every one that seeth the Son and believeth on him may have everlasting life and I will raise him up at the last day These great Truths of so great Concernment to the Children of Men yet so far remov'd from their Understanding were the third Business of the Life of Christ 7. That Christ bearing the sins of his People did suffer the wrath of God for the Remission of their sins The sufferings of Christ did only befal his Humane Nature for his Divine Nature was impassible yet in respect of that strict union of both Natures in one Person they received a value from that divine and impassible Nature for the union of both Natures in one Person though it did not communicate the Conditions of either Nature to the other did communicate the conditions of either Nature to the same Person as is before shewn This Suffering of Christ had these several Attributions 1 It was a Voluntary Suffering and yet not without a Necessity The Suffering was Voluntary even in respect of his Humane Nature yet Obediential to the Counsel and Purpose of God Matth. 17.21 he must go and suffer Luke 24 26. Ought not Christ to have suffered these things Acts 2.23 Him being delivered by the determinate counsel and fore-knowledge of God Yet was this most Voluntary in Christ Voluntary in the original undertaking of this Work in that Eternal Susception by the Eternal Word Voluntary in the discharge of that Undertaking in the Humane Nature the Humane Nature of Christ pursuing and following the will of Eternity Luke 12.50 I have a baptism to be baptized withal and how am I straitned till it be accomplished And even when the Humane Nature did according to the Law of Nature shrink from its own dissolution yet he presently corrects that natural Passion John 12.27 Father save me from this hour But for this cause came I to this hour Father glorifie thy Name Matth. 26.39 O my Father if it be pâ—ssible let this cup pass from me nevertheless not as I will but as thou wilt whiles his Humanity trembles and startles at the Business he goes about yet his Love to his Church his Obedience to his Father his Faithfulness to his Undertaking breaks through that natural reluctance Now the Voluntariness yet obedience of Christ's suffering both consistent appears Joh. 10.15 1 Joh. 3.16 I lay down my life for my sheep No man taketh it from me but I lay it down of my self yet Isa 53.6 10. All we like sheep have gone astray and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all it pleased the Lord to bruise him when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin Psal 2.7 8. As he made himself of no reputation and humbled himself so he became obedient to death Titus 2.14 He gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity yet John 3.16 God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son c. Again 1 John 4.9 Herein perceive we the love of God because he laid down his life for us Yet Rom. 8.32 He spared not his own Son but delivered him up for us all 1 John 4.9 God sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins Psal 40.7 Then said I lo I come yet he came not without a Mission I delight to do thy will O my God. The sum of all then is the Love of God to Mankind was the absolute and original foundation of our Redemption the same act of this Love proposed and undertook the Redemption of Mankind voluntarily and freely in this way contrived by the Eternal Wisdom and Counsel of God The Humane Nature of Christ in exact and voluntary submission unto this Counsel performed it If it had been Voluntary and not in Conformity to the Will of God whose Will could be the only measure of his Satisfaction it could never have been satisfactory And if it had been meerly Passive it could not have been an Obedience which requires a free Submission and Conformity to the Will of him that injoyns without which it could never be meritorious 2. It was a Meritorious and Expiatory Suffering for by that Eternal Covenant between the Father and the Son he was to bear the sins of
known of God is manifest in them for God hath shewed it unto them 2. The Law pronounced given to the Jews upon Sinai 3. The Gospel of Christ shewing us what is to be believed and what to be done When the great God comes to Judge the World he will judge it according to the several Dispensations of Light Rom. 2.12 For as many as have sinned without the law shall also perish without the law and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law There is light enough or neglect enough in the most ignorant Soul in the World to charge with Guilt enough for Condemnation though he never knew of the Law promulgated to the Jew or were bound by it As we there find the division of condemned persons unto such as sin without the Law and under the Law so we find another division 2 Thes 1.8 Taking vengeance on them that know not God and obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ This seems to contain these two Rules whereby the Gentiles should be judged 1. Ignorance and want of Fear of God for such to whom the Gospel was not preached this was unexcusable ignorance and disobedience Rom. 1.20 2. Unbelief and Disobedience of the Gospel of Christ And though this be a high Truth that is not discovered by the Light of Nature yet being discovered it is an offence even against the Law of Nature not to believe it because a most high and absolute Truth 3. Not to love it and consequently obey it because the means to attain the most high and absolute Good. And as every Sin is an aversion from the chief Good either to that which is a lesser or no Good so it is impossible but the aversion from the greatest Good must needs be the greatest Sin even by the Rules of sound Reason Both these we find plainly set down John 3.36 He that believeth not the Son shall not see life but the wrath of God abideth on him John 3.19 This is the condemnation that light came into the world and men loved darkness rather than light as if he should have said that it is the most reasonable and natural Principle for reasonable Creatures to entertain and obey that Rule which will conduct them to the highest Good and therefore the condemnation of such as neglect is most reasonable and the rather for that this proceeds not originally from Ignorance but from the Perverseness of the Heart in preferring Darkness before Light. So that as Infidelity is the cause of Condemnation John 3.18 So this want of Love of the Light is the great cause of Infidelity And though Man hath put himself in that Condition that he cannot come to Christ or entertain this chiefest Good except the Father draw him John 6.44 Yet this doth neither excuse him from sin or guilt because as in the first Man he willingly contracted this disability so he doth most freely and voluntarily affect it though he sins necessarily in rejecting the Light yet he sins voluntarily Now concerning those several places in holy Scripture that seem to infer the Vniversality of an intended Redemption John 3.17 John 12.47 1 John 2.2 1 Tim. 2.6 1 Tim. 2.4 1 Cor. 15.21 It may be considerable whether the intention of those places be that the Price was sufficient for all the World so that whosoever shall reject the offered Mercy shall never have this excuse that there was not a sufficiency left for him Or whether it be meant that Christ by his Death did fully expiate for all that Original Guilt which was contracted by the Fall of Adam upon all Mankind but for the Actual Offences only of such as believed that so as the voluntary sin of Adam had without the actual consent of his Posterity made them liable to Guilt so the Satisfaction of Christ without any actual application of him should discharge all Mankind from that originally contracted Guilt These disquisitions though fit yet are not necessary to be known it is enough for me to know that if I believe on him I shall not perish but have everlasting Life John 3.16 And that all are invited and none excluded but such as first exclude themselves CHAP. IX Of the Means which God hath appointed to make this Sacrifice of Christ effectual viz. Vnion with Christ and how the same is wrought on God's part 4. WE come to that Means which the Will of God hath appointed to make this Sacrifice Effectual for us God in his Eternal Counsel foreseeing the Fall of Man did from all Eternity covenant that the Eterval Word should take upon him Flesh and should be an all-sufficient Mediator between God and Man and to that End did furnish this Mediator with all things necessary for so great a Work Colos 1.19 For it pleased the Father that in him should all Fulness dwell Fulness of the Godhead Colos 2.9 For in him dwelleth all the Fulness of the Godhead bodily Fulness of Grace John 1.16 For of his Fulness we receive Grace for Grace Fulness of Wisdom and Knowledge Colos 2.3 In whom are hid all the treasures of Wisdom and Knowledge Fulness of Perfection Ephes 4.13 The measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ A Fulness of Life John 1.4 In him was life and the life was the light of men John 5.27 As the Father hath life in himself so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself A Fulness of Love Ephes 3.19 And to know the love of Christ passing knowledge All the Promises of God are in him and put into him as into a Treasury and bottomed upon him 2 Cor. 1.20 In whom all the promises of God are yea and Amen And this Plenitude of Christ was therefore in him that from him it might be communicated according to the Exigence of those for whom he was a Mediator for although the Plenitude of the Divine Nature was absolute and no way in reference to the Business of the Mediatorship yet the communication of that Plenitude to Christ as one Mediator was in order to his Office. And this Fulness of Christ was necessary to supply that Emptiness which was in Man by sin He stood in need of a sea of Love to redeem him and Christ was not without riches of Love and Compassion he had lost his Life The day that thou eatest thou shalt die the death and there was as well a Quickning as a Living Life in Christ to revive him Ephes 2.1 Those who were formerly dead in trespasses and sins hath he quickned Colos 3.4 When Christ who is our life shall appear Man had lost the whole Image of his Creator Christ who was the express Image of his Father re-imprints it again by forming himself in us Colos 3.10 Renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him Ephes 4.24 Put ye on the New Man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness The nature of Man is corrupted and Christ hath a
Magazine of Grace to heal and purge that corruption John 1.16 Of his fulness we receive grace for grace In sum Man had lost his Creator with an infinite distance and so lost his Happiness Christ as the Fulness of God dwelt in him bodily so together with him restores Man to his Lord and so to his Blessedness Ephes 3.19 And to know the love of Christ that passeth knowledge that ye may he filled with all the fulness of God. The Means then of this Fruition is Vnion The reason by which every thing enjoys what it hath is Union and the more strict the Union is between the thing that enjoys and the thing enjoyed The strictest Union is between any thing and its Essence therefore when Goodness is part of the Essence the Enjoyment is the most perfect And it is by vertue of this Union with Christ that all this Fulness of Christ is conveyed to the Believer Now as the Fulness of Christ ariseth from his Union with God the Fountain of Goodness so our Fruition of that Fulness ariseth from our Union with Christ John 17.23 I in them and thou in me that they may be made perfect in one And this was the great Purpose of God in sending Christ Ephes 1.10 That he might gather together in one all things in Christ And this Union with Christ is frequently expressed in the Scripture in the strictest terms of Union conversation of Friendship John 14.23 We will come unto him and make our abode with him Christ formed in them Galat. 4.19 Incorporation with him eating his Flesh and drinking his Blood John 6.53 Inhabiting in them Ephes 3.17 Christ living in them Galat. 2.20 Part of his very substance Ephes 5.30 For we are members of his body of his flesh and of his bones Partakers of the very Fulness of God that is in him Ephes 3.19 That ye may be filled with the fulness of God. Changed into the very Image of Christ 2 Cor. 3.18 Partakers of the Divine Nature 2 Pet. 1.4 Now we are to consider How this Vnion is wrought viz. By a double act 1. Of God's part 2. Of our part God in the Creation united Man unto himself and Man by his sin broke that Union and departed from him and is he could not so he would never have returned to God again unless God had brought him to himself John 6.65 No man can come unto me except it were given him of my Father Now the degrees of those acts whereby God unites us to him are 1. His Eternal Love Man by his sin got away from God as far as he could and as he lost his Ability so he lost his Mind to return Gen. 3.10 I heard thy voice and I was afraid and I hid my self Love is the first motion to Union and this Love of God is the first foundation of our Union to him John 3.16 For God so loved the world c. 1 John 4.10 Herein is Love not that we loved him but that he loved us first and gave his Son to be the propitiation for our sins 2 Cor. 5.19 God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself before the World either wisht or thought of that Reconciliation so that it was a free Love and not drawn out upon any desert in his Creature 2. The second step of the motion towards Union was the sending his Son to assume our Nature and come unto us The distance between God and his best Creature is essentially infinite because finite with infinite bears no proportion but the distance between God and his sinful Creature must needs be greater because the Creature by his sin is gone away from God farther than he was in his pure Being To fill up this infinite distance God and Man is united into one Christ by the assumption of our Nature and by this means God is come nearer unto us as we may say and we in a condition to draw nearer unto him even in his Son. And thus God hath gathered together all things in one in Christ Ephes 1.10 3. The third step is by the course of his Providence conveying the knowledge and use of this Mediator unto us This is a farther degree of Union the former was specifical in our Natures but this objective and intellectual viz. by means proportionable to our Natures and Conditions providentially disposed he sends unto us the relation of our own Condition by Nature our Duty our Saviour his Will and all those Truths contained in the Book of God and this Truth he sets on with Rational Convictions Prophecies Miracles Perswasions Intreaties all which nave a rational operation upon our Understanding and Wills. This is that which is the Outward Calling And among those many Effectual Truths that are conveyed unto us by this Calling which were either lost or defaced in Man these are principally discovered and of principal use 1. That God is the chiefest Good and therefore the chiefest Object of our Love and Desire and therefore doth justly require the extremity of our pursuit The enjoyment of this Object is that wherein Mans Felicity consisted in his State of Innocence and must in his State of Restitution and this truth once entertained doth render all things else insipid in Comparison of it Deut. 6.4 Hear O Israel The Lord our God is one Lord therefore thou shalt love c. 2. That he is a Communicative Good for without this the Labour of the Soul would be fruitless For it were impossible for a finite Power to reach or overtake an infinite Object unless the Object did exhibit himself unto that Power And herein is the excellence of this call of God it discovers the Free Love of God unto the Soul So as the Absolute Goodness of God engageth us even in Judgment to seek to be united unto him so this Free Love of God engageth us even in good Nature as I may say to seek him And the very Entertainment of this truth soundly in the heart is the Foundation of our Faith and Obedience Rom. 5.8 But God commendeth his Love towards us in that while we were yet Sinners Christ dyed for us As if he should have said There could not be imagined a more Conquering love than this that he whom we had injured by our Sins should yet seek the Good of his Creature 1 John 4.9 Herein is Love not that we loved God but that he loved us first This was Love with a Witness That when the Creature that owed to his Lord the strength of his Love had broken his Duty and become a hater of his Lord yet that that God should love such a Creature And as this Love was thus Free so it condescended to all the means of Communicating himself that are imaginable contriving means to reconcile us God was in Christ reconciling the World unto himself 2 Cor. 5.19 God was reconciling when Man thought of nothing but offending Importunities of reconciliation 2 Cor. 5.20 We pray you in Christ's stead be reconciled to God. It
were a Miracle of Mercy if such a God so offended and by his Creature should have accepted a Reconciliation upon the highest importunity of his Creature But for him thus injured that could not receive a grain of advantage by our Conversion unto him to change as it were conditions with his Creature and to importune a Reconciliation from it There wants conception in us to understand it it is a Love passing knowledge But yet like the waters of the Sanctuary still riseth higher It is true we made our selves miserable and if thou O Lord hadst never looked after us nor pitied us we could never have complained of thy Justice But if thou hadst pitied and done no more or if thy pity had gone so far as to have given us a deliverance if we could have found it we must for ever in our misery have magnified thy Mercy though we had been Non-plus'd in the inquiry But here is Love not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the Propitiation for our Sins a Propitiation and a Propitiation prepared by our offended injured Maker and such a Propitiation But it rests not here We had incurred Guilt enough to make us wretched and a delivery from wretchedness by such a means had been an unspeakable Mercy But this mercy rested not there he doth not only of miserable Men make us not miserable by pardoning our Guilt but of Enemies makes us Children by a Righteousness that he himself had prepared 1 John 1.3 Behold what manner of Love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the Sons of God. 4. Now a Man would think that ordinary Prudence and Ingenuity would engage the heart to entertain this Message of Happiness and Peace with Love and Acceptation and that a greater approach from God to his Creature as it could not be expected so it need not be required The Chiefest Good commands our Entertainment how much more when it offers it self with such a condescension as well to our Necessities as to our conditions Moral perswasions have wrought upon the Tempers of wise Men without any propositions of any thing beyond this Life how much more perswasions bottomed upon such sound Reason and propounding an end sutable to the highest Comprehension of our Souls But all this will not serve the turn unless the Mercy of God had gone farther We are dead in Trespasses and Sins and we can no more receive these Truths and this Love of God than a dead Man can receive a rational Impression Now Christ is our Life Colos 3.4 When Christ who is our Life shall appear 1 John 5.12 He that hath the Son hath Life he that hath not the Son hath not Life Now this Life is wrought in us and conveyed unto us by the very work of the Spirit of God and Christ in and upon our Souls John 6.63 It is the Spirit that quickens the same Spirit that raised up Christ from the Dead Rom. 8.11 If the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the Dead dwell in you he that raised up Christ from the Dead shall also quicken your Mortal Body by his Spirit that dwelleth in you Ephes 2.5 Even when we were dead in Sins he hath quickned us together with Christ Therefore he is called the Spirit of Life Rom. 8.2 This Life called the renewing of the Holy Ghost Tit. 2.5 a Birth of the Spirit John 3.5 Except a Man be born of Water and the Spirit Verse 6. that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit The first Resurrection Ephes 5.14 Awake thou that sleepest stand up from the Dead and Christ shall give thee Life And though it may seem a vain Command to a dead Man to stand up from the Dead yet we must remember whose Command it was even his that spake to dead Lazarus Come forth and he arose because a Spirit of Life and a word of Power went along with the Command John 6.63 The words that I speak unto you they are Spirit and they are Life They have not only Life in them for him that receives them but I can send a Spirit with them to enable him to receive them And now the Soul is put into a condition to entertain his Happiness It was the Happiness of Adam's Soul and it is the Happiness of Angelical Natures to be receptive of the knowledge and Love of God And here was Mans misery by his Sin that as he lost the actual Enjoyment of God so he had made his Soul as it were irreceptive of it again and as God hath offered himself to us again in Christ so by his Spirit he enables us to receive him by Faith which is the first motion of the Creature to Union with God. So then the work of the Spirit upon the Soul comes under a threefold Consideration though the same act produceth all three and therefore they are three put together 2 Tim. 1.7 The Spirit of Power of Love and of a sound Mind 1. Of Power or Life whereby Life is conveyed into the Soul which like the dry bones in Ezekiel was void of Life till this Spirit comes into them de quae supra and the two following are but the manifestation of this Life according to the Faculties wherein it appears 2. Of a sound Mind Light not only in the Medium but in the Organ John 1.4 In him was Life and the Life was the light of Men. Hence it is called a convincing Spirit John 16.8 a Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation in the knowledge of Christ Ephes 1.17 a Spirit of understanding He hath given us understanding that we may know him that is true 1 John 5.20 a Spirit of Demonstration and of Power 1 Cor. 2.4 a Spirit of discerning and Judication 1 Cor. 2.15 16. Man's Understanding by his Fall lost his Object and lost his Sight Ephes 5.8 ye were sometimes darkness And this was not only a darkness by the Absence but by the exclusion of light the Understanding was sealed against it so that though light did shine in the darkness yet the darkness comprehended it not John 1.5 Now here was the work of the Spirit of God in opening the heart Acts 16.14 enabling our understanding to receive and subduing of it to believe the truth of God. And this is certain not only in those truths which are farthest removed from our Reason and so most properly the Object of our Faith John 6.65 No man can come unto me except the Father draw him 1 Cor. 12.3 No man can say that Jesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost But even in those points of truth wherein even natural reason may guide us Even the belief of the Creation though it is deducible by natural reason to know it yet it is the work of Faith to believe it Heb. 11.3 By Faith we understand that the Worlds were framed c. The conviction of the same truth by the work of the Spirit of God creating Faith and the
work of Natural Reason working Opinion or at most knowledge differs as much as knowledge and Opinion Those things of God that are discoverable by natural Reason receive another kind of impression upon the Soul by the work of God as is evident by the Effects and Operations each have upon the Soul Rom. 1.21 When they knew God yet they glorified him not as God. 3. Of Love therefore so called because the Principal part of the Message that the Soul is acquainted with is a Message of Love and Goodness and so the Will inclined and ingaged to love that Goodness And this is the fruit of the work of God's Spirit 1. Mediately and naturally presupposing the former work of Illumination for some Objects are of so light a nature that when they are known all the work of the Soul is done so they are only known that they may be known But these objects of our Faith they do include a Goodness and Conveniency for the Soul and therefore being known they are desired so that in natural Consequence the Spirit of God if it demonstrates these Truths to the Soul it doth by consequence engage the Love of the Soul to them It is true that Education Instruction and Discipline may make us know these Truths speculatively and yet our Soul not affected with them but the Conviction which is wrought by the Power of God's Spirit is not so thin or jejune a union of these Truths to the understanding but deeper and more radicated and consequently doth more effectually work upon the Will and therefore it is the Logick of the Apostle 1 John 2.4 He that saith he knoweth God and keepeth not his Commandments is a liar and the truth is not in him 2 Pet. 1.9 He that lacketh these things is blind and cannot see The Argument is from the Negation of the necessary Effect or Consequent to the Negation of the Cause or Antecedent as if he should have said Wheresoever there is no true Obedience to the Will and Command of God there is certainly no Love of God. It is the conclusion of Truth and Reason Joh. 14.23 If a man love me he will keep my words And wheresoever there is a true knowledge of God there must of necessity be a true Love unto God because it doth represent God as the chiefest only and most suitable Good to the Soul. It is true that notional and speculative knowledge of God that is wrought by natural discourse cannot or at least seldom doth arrive to that full apprehension of the Goodness of God and consequently doth not raise up the Heart to that height of Love and Obedience for our Reason is weak and the disproportion between Him and our Understanding is infinite and therefore he hath chosen to reveal it unto us in his Word and Son and by his own Power working Knowledge in us And by this we see why the renovation and conversion unto God is sometimes expressed under the name of Knowledge John 17.3 This is life eternal that they might know thee the only true God c. Colos 3.10 Having put on the new man which is renewed in knowledge 2 Cor. 4.6 For God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ c. Sometimes under the name of Trusting and depending upon God Galat. 3.6 Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for Righteousness sometimes under the name of Love Jud. 21. Keep your selves in the Love of God 1 Tim. 1.14 with faith and love which is in Christ 2 Tim. 1.13 2 Thes 2.10 Receiving the Love of the Truth sometimes under the name of Obedience James 1.27 Pure religion and undefiled c. James 2. per tot 1 John 2.29 Every one that doth righteousness is born of him so sometimes under the name of Repentance Fear of God c. For all this is but one work of this Spirit of Grace and but the several Emanations of the same work of the Spirit of God upon the Soul diversified only in the faculties or objects the first act in Nature is Light and when it convinceth the heart of the sinfulness of sin that works Repentance when of the Promises of God that breeds Dependence and Confidence when of the Goodness and Love of God in Christ that breeds Love unto him Watchfulness over our selves Obedience to his Will when of the Majesty and Justice of God it breeds Fear and Reverence when of our own vileness it breeds Humility so that all these are but the bringing home and joyning of those Convictions wrought in our Understanding unto the Will and Affections and thereupon these Effects do as naturally follow upon this work of Illumination and Conviction wrought by the Spirit of God as the like Effects do arise upon natural convictions of Objects of inferiour kinds and goodness 2. But this is not all there is a work of strength and power upon the Will Phil. 2.13 It is God that worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure As the death and disability was in both Faculties so the Life is conveyed into both universally And this Power of God's Spirit is not only in the first acts of our Conversion to him but it goes along with us All those actions which are pleasing to God are wrought by the same Spirit of Christ by which they were at first animated It is a Spirit of Supplication in our Prayers Rom. 8.26 The Spirit maketh intercession c. A Spirit of Access for our Prayers Eph. 2.18 A Spirit of Assurance and Sonship Gal. 3.6 Eph. 1.16 A Spirit of Wisdom to direct us in our difficulties Ephes 1.17 A Spirit of Comfort and Joy in our Distresses Rom. 14.17 A Spirit of Fruitfulness in our Conversation Galat. 5.22 25. A Spirit of Perseverance 1 Pet. 1.5 Ye are preserved by the power of God through faith unto salvation CHAP. X. How our Vnion with Christ is wrought on Man's part viz. By Faith Hope and Love. HITHERTO we have seen the motion of the Love of God to his Creature by which it may appear the whole Business of Man's Salvation is the work of God and Man appears in a manner passive in all the parts of it In the sending Light into his Understanding he is passive In the enabling the Understanding to receive this Light he is still passive In the subduing the Will to the entertainment of it he is still passive Yet there is some kind of motion in us which though it be the Work of our Creator in the first giving of it and againâ— his Work in reviving quickening and enabling it yet he is pleased to require it from us and to expect it of us Mori movemus And that are principally these three Faith Hope and Love we find them oftentimes joyned together 1 Tim. 1.14 The Grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant with faith and love which is
in Christ Jesus 2 Tim. 1.13 Hold fast the form of sound words which thou hast heard of me in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus Gal. 5.5 For we through the Spirit wait for the Hope of Righteousness by Faith for in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing noâ— uncircumcision but Faith which worketh by Love 1 Cor. 13.13 Now abideth Faith Hope and Love c. But of these distinctly and how any or all of these do either unite or move us unto Union with our Saviour 1. Faith which is taken in a double sense 1. For that firm and sound Assent of the Mind to Divine Truths wrote by the Spirit of God and so differs little or nothing from supernatural Knowledge and thus Heb. 11.1 Faith is the evidence of things not seen and hath for its Objects all Divine Truths And as Christ dwells in our Hearts by Faith thus taken Ephes 3.17 so other Truths dwell in the Heart by this Faith viz. objectively so that Faith thus taken is more properly an act upon the Soul than an act of it for in our Assent to any Truth our Soul is in truth passive the strength of the Conviction conquers the Soul. 2. For that motion of the Soul whereby it rests casts and adventures it self upon the Promises of God in Christ for Remission and Salvation and so differs from the former in these three respects 1. In the Latitude of its Object it is more restrained than the former 2. In the Order of its Being it is subsequent in the Order of Nature to the former and produced by it 3. In the Manner of its working In the work of supernatural Knowledge or Assent the Soul is passive in this though it be the work of God yet the Soul is more active As the Sun when it shines upon a solid Body doth cause a reflection of his own beaâ—s so when the Light of Grace falls upon the Heart in this special act of Faith as in that or Love there is a reflection from the Soul back to God. And therefore those Expressions of Faith in the Scripture import a motion in the Soul Christ comes into the Soul by his Light and Spirit and the Soul again comes to Christ Joh. 6.45 He that hath learned of the Father cometh unto me As Christ abides in the Heart by the former act of Faith so by this latter the Soul abides and incorporates into him and both these we have joyned together John 15.4 Abide in me and I in you Now this act of the Soul is the most natural result upon the true discovery of a Man 's own Condition God's promise and Christ's mediation unto the Soul. When a Man finds that the Sentence of Death is passed upon him that nevertheless God in infinite Love and Mercy hath sent his Son to be his Satisfaction and Righteousness and hath promised and proclaimed by him and in him and only by him Peace and Reconciliation and that without exception of any person though laden with never so much guilt and sin and without any difficult Conditions Whosoever believeth on him should not perish but have everlasting life John 3.16 John 6.40 That he is appointed a Sacrifice by him whom we offended John 3.16 God so loved the world c. The Son of God and able to save to the uttermost them that come unto God by him Heb. 7.25 The most genuine and natural motion of the Soul in such a condition and thus convinced is Trust Affiance and Divolution of the Soul upon this Promise of God in Christ And it is an observable thing how the Wise and Merciful Providence of God hath ordered all things so that we might be even necessitated to the right way of our Salvation and to cast our selves upon it All were concluded under a common guilt by the voluntary offence of Adam Rom. 5.12 And if we could derive our Being from another then we might escape the Guilt and that Guilt brought with it Death in the World both eternal and temporal bound upon us by irreversible Sentence of an omnipotent God. But cannot I by my future obedience emerit this guilt No. What thou doest for the future is but thy Duty and thou canst not out-act it But grant thy future obedience might satisfie for the guilt under which thou liest thou shalt have the Copy of that Rule which I required from thee and once enabled thee to perform Do this and live But be sure thou do it without turning to the right hand or the left with thy whole Might and Mind and Soul without the least aversion and that out of the meer Principle of Love and Duty and Obedience and thy future observance may expiate that original guilt yet our Condition had been still dâ—sperate because as the Obedience was impossible so the least miscarriage had been fatal for cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the Law to do them Gal. 3.10 So we find an universal Guilt and Curse gone over all and all this discovered to drive us to a Saviour Galat. 3.22 The Scripture hath concluded all under a sin that the promise by the â—aith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe We find a righteous Law given to our Nature but as the Obedience is unsatisfactory for a past Guilt so the Observance is become impossible by reason of our Corruption whereby our disobedience is rather excited than abated Rom. 7.8 When the commandment came sin revived and I died And all this still to drive us to the necessity of a Saviour Rom. 8.12 What the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin condemned sin in the flesh Thus in the midst of all those difficulties a Saviour presents himself with the suffrage of God the attestation of Types and Prophecies with reconciliation of all the difficulties which perplexed our Inquiries with Ability to save to the uttermost with Mercy and Acceptation and Pardon and Righteousness and Happiness offered and proclaimed to all and that upon most unhazardable and easie terms only believe him and trust on him So then Faith is nothing else but that result of dependance upon and confidence in and adherence unto Christ which follows upon the sound Conviction of the Truth of God concerning him It is true the Faith of the Ancients differed much in the distinctness of its acting and object from the Faith which is now required as Abraham's Faith Caleb's Faith c. But in this they both agreed 1. That it was a Confidence and Trusting upon God in that which was revealed unto them by God. The Promises of a Son was made to Abraham and he rested upon God for the performance The Promise of Canaan to the Jews and Caleb and the believing Jews rested upon the Power and Truth of God to perform it So with us God hath promised Mercy
and Glory that thy Being can return unto him But had he given thee a simple Being thy Debt had not been so great so have the most unaccomplisht Creatures But thy Being was dressed with an Intellectual Nature and that Nature furnished with Fruition of Happiness filling the uttermost extent of its Capacity and that Happiness guarded with such a Law as was suitable to that Nature full of Beauty and Order in the obedience whereof thou didst at once perform thy Duty and improve thy Felicity But thou rejectedst all this and becamest a Rebel to thy God and a ruine to thy self and thou hast improved thy ruine and rebellion by a voluntary rejection of thy Duty and thy Happiness until this hour And what canst thou expect but a just return of an infinite Vengeance from an omnipotent injured Creator for so ungrateful a breach of an infinite Obligation But consider what thy Lord hath done for thee for all this and stay thy self and wonder Thy Lord proclaims Return thou backsliding Soul and I will not cause mine anger to fall upon you Jer. 12. Hadst thou offended thine Equal for thy offended Equal to have solicited thy Reconciliation had deserved Acceptation and Love But for the infinite God to whom thou owest an infinite Duty and hast violated it who is able to annihilate thee and can receive no advantage by thy return to solicit it with an offer of a Reprieve nay of a Pardon But here 's not all our Deliverance from the Wrath of God is wonder enough Let me now be as one of my Father's hired Servants No there is more yet 1 John 3.1 Behold what manner of love he is content to accept of us as Sons But what must the Price be of so great a Change or who shall give it Thy Lord whom thou hast thus injured hath paid the Price of thy Redemption and such a Price as Heaven and Earth may wonder at the mention of it The Son of God lays down his Life for his Rebels Pardon and Assumption into a Partnership with him in his own Kingdom But thou art not for all this at the End of thy Debt this Price is rendred to thee upon easie terms Believe and live and this Life accompanied with infinite Advantages even Communion with this Creator But yet like the murmuring Israelite thou wilt die with the Manna between thy Teeth unless God who hath given thee such a Price of thy Redemption enable thee to receive him He sends his Spirit into thy Heart with Light and Life to strive with thy unbelieving Heart and to subdue it and to cleanse thy filthy and polluted Heart to bring Redemption into thy Heart and to solicite perswade importune thy Heart to receive him for thy own Good. What remains then but that thou shouldest ever admire that Love that hath done all this for thee that thou shouldest in all humility and humble reverence return love to thy Lord and magnifie his condescension that he is pleased to accept the Love of his poor Creature that thou study not to grieve the Spirit of that God that hath taken this pains and care with thee for thy good not to crucifie again that Christ that hath died for thee that thou labour to find out what is the Will of thy Lord and to obey it and to walk in love as Christ also loved us and hath given himself for us Ephes 5.2 Now according to the measure of the true Knowledge of God and of his Love in Christ is the measure of our Love to him and as that Knowledge is the immediate cause of its production so it must of necessity be the measure of its Degree And although both the knowledge of his Absolute Goodness which excites the love of Desire and the knowledge of his Benefactoriness to us which increaseth the love of Gratitude or Benevolence are mingled in every Soul that truly loves God yet according to the different degrees of the discoveries of either to the Soul so are the different manners of their working upon the Soul. The knowledge of the Perfection and Absolute Goodness of God is more suitable to an Angelical Nature and therefore produceth an high Angelical and Intellectual Love for this Love begins with the Judgment But because our Nature as it now stands as it arrives seldom to such a Knowledge so seldom to such a Love and that Love which comes into the Heart meerly upon such Contemplations is weak mingled with Servile Fear unactive because the Knowledge like the Sun in a Cloud shines dim and the Heat proves waterish and weak But the knowledge of the Goodness of God to us as it draws the Goodness of God nearer to us in Sense so it strikes more our Affections which God hath placed in us for this End. And this was the motive of Love and consequently of Obedience both under the Law and under the Gospel though the Expressions of that Love under the Law had more in them of Sense and under the Gospel more of Spirit Deut. 30.20 That thou mayest love the Lord thy God and obey his voice and cleave unto him for he is thy life and the length of thy days c. Luk. 7.47 Her sins which are many are forgiven for she loved much Christ argues from the measure of her Love to the measure of God's Goodness to her and her Sense of it And here we have the true Principle of all true Obedience to God The bare External act of any thing commanded by God unless it move from a Heart or Principle conformable to the Will of God is no Obedience for all External actions taking them divided from the Will they are all of one kind and nature The very same act proceeding from a Soul differently principled may be an act of Obedience viz. when proceeding from an obedient loving Heart an act of compulsion when proceeding from a bare servile Heart a bruitish act when it proceeds from a Soul not moved with any Consideration and an act of malignity against God when done out of a malicious cunning design Some even preached the Gospel for Envy Phil. 1.16 So then as the Knowledge of the Goodness and Love of God to us is the immediate cause of the return of our Love to God so this love of the Soul unto God is the true and immediate Principle of all true Obedience unto God Now these are the genuine and natural Effects of Love to God 1. It makes a Man to make God and his Honour and Glory the highest and supream End of all his actions And this must needs be so in Reason For as the great End of all the works of God are his own Honour so where there is true Love to God it cannot chuse but make the Soul value that most which God most values As he must needs be convinced in his Judgment that that which God makes his End must needs be the chief End of the Creatures actions so where this Affection is it
image from glory to glory even as by the Spirit of the Lord 2 Cor. 3.18 We put on the new Man which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him Colos 3.10 And we were predestinate to be conformable to his image Rom. 8.29 5. This Love of God breeds in us an undervaluing of all things in comparison of him And this is a natural effect of Love for according to the measure of our Love is the measure of the Estimate of the things loved If God be the choicest and chiefest Object of our Love it will like Moses his Rod devour and confound the rest especially when they come in competition with it If we have disorderly Passions and Affections and Lusts This Love of God will mortifie them for Christ is our Life Mortifie therefore your earthly members c. Colos 3.4 5. It will crucifie the flesh with the Affections and Lusts Galat. 5.24 I will pull out a right Eye and cut off a right Hand if it offend Matth. 5.24 I will teach a Man to hate his Mother Wife Children Brothers Sisters yea his own Life when it comes in competition with his Saviour Luk. 14.26 To esteem his outward Privileges Learning Reputation c. and all things but loss and dung for the Excellency of the Knowledge of Christ Philip. 3.8 nay the best of our Obedience Prayers Righteousness It makes this humble Confession O Lord I owe unto thee the strength of my Soul and when I have paid it I am but an unprofitable Servant Thy Goodness to me is none of thy debt to thy Creature but my most exquisite and perfect Obedience is due to thee And behold I have brought before thee these Services what there is in them worth the accepting is thy own the work of thine own Spirit the purchace of thine own Blood the rest alas is mine and is an Object rather for thy Mercy to pardon than thy Justice to accept 6. It works true Sorrow for any sin committed for as it cannot chuse but be sensible as of any injury committed to the God he loves so most especially of such an injury as is done by himself 7. The Love of God is the only true Principle of all Obedience Faith works by Love Ephes 5.6 And Christ died not only to redeem us from our Iniquities but to purifie unto himself a peculiar people zealous of good works Tit. 2.14 And we are created in Christ unto good Works Ephes 2.10 And this is the will of God your Father eve◠your sanctification 1 Thes 4.3 And it is as impossible that where the true Love of God is these can be wanting as it is for the Sun to be without his Light. The Love of Christ is a constraining Love 2 Cor. 5.14 And he died for all that they that live should not from henceforth live to themselves but to him that died for them and rose again Our Obedience to Christ is the true Experiment of our Love to him John 14.15 If ye love me keep my Commandments 1 John 2.3 So our Love is the only true Principle of our Obedience Deuteronom 6.4 and 10.12 And now O Israel what doth the Lord thy God require of thee but to fear the Lord thy God and to walk in his ways and to love him and to serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy Soul. The Love of God cannot be without his Fear and Obedience Now the Qualifications arising from this Love will be 1. A Sincere Obedience because it proceeds from a Principle within for the Obedience is formed in the Heart before it is formed in the Action Love cannot be dissembled because its residence is in the Soul the action that proceeds from Love must needs be therefore sincere 2. A Perpetual Obedience because the Principle within is perpetual and increasing for the more a Man loves God the more God is pleased to discover his Goodness to him and consequently his Love increaseth and consequently his Obedience 3. Vniversal Obedience for it is the same Principle within that looks universally upon all The Obedience is upon this ground It is the Will and the Command of him whom I love that ingageth my Obedience and wheresoever I find that impression there is my ground If the thing commanded be more unsuitable to my Constitution Occasions Exigencies yet it hath the Impression of my Lord upon it I will by his strength and Grace obey it If I love him his Will and not my own must be the measure of my Obedience And this is the reason why the breach of one Command of God knowingly is the breach of all because if my Obedience to the rest had been rightly principled upon the Love of God the same Love would have ingaged me to the obedience of this my Obedience therefore to the rest is not Obedience but a Pretence or Shew Some Commandments of God do include in them a greater suitableness to the Rational Nature of Man than others such are the Laws of Nature the Decalogue some are such Commands as seem only to be Experiments of our Obedience such were the Ceremonial Commands the Command to Abraham to sacrifice his Son to the Young Man to sell all he had But where this true Principle of the Love of God is there will follow Obedience to both though the more hard the Command the greater measure of Love to God is required to a full performance of it It teaches Obedience where the thing commanded is of it self full of Beauty as all Moral Commands are because but the Abstract of his Image and it teacheth to obey where the Command seems to carry nothing in it but asperity and unusefulness for it hath made the Will of God the measure of its own Will. Now concerning the Subject of our Obedience how far it extends and what the Rule of it is vide infra CHAP. XI Why or by what reason the act of Faith worketh our Vnion with Christ and so our Justification in the sight of God. HITHERTO we have seen those motions of God to his Creature and the motion of the Creature unto God again and both these must needs end in Union and this Union can be no otherwise than in the Son in whom the Divine and Humane Nature were united in one Person in whom the distance and difference between God and Man were filled up and reconciled And by virtue of our Union with him as our sins are made as it were his in point of Imputation and Satisfaction so we have all that communicable 〈◊〉 that was in Christ his Righteousness Phil. 3.9 the Righteousness which is of God by Faith his Life Galat. 2 2◠his Death Galat. 2.20 I am crucified with Christ his Spirit Rom. 8.9 his Resurrection 〈◊〉 2.6 hath raised us up together and made us sit 〈…〉 him in heavenly places Colos 2.12 Buried 〈…〉 Baptism wherein also ye are risen with him through the Faith of the operation of God of his Sonship
a guilty and condemning Conscience when I look behind me I see the avenger of blood pursuing me and ready to overtake me when I look before me I see nothing but a Hell to receive me in my flight when I look upward I behold an offended and angry God aâ—med with Power and Justice to condemn me 〈◊〉 is true he is a Merciful and Bountiful God but that aggravates my Misery What Comfort can the thought of a neglected an abused Mercy add unto 〈◊〉 so that now as my Misery is intolerable so it is inextricable as I cannot help my self so I can see nothing without me but storms but trouble and darkness and dimness and anguish Isa 8.22 and a guilt within me still telling me worse is to come and to prevent my despair I turn me to the Creatures to Friends to Pleasures but alas they have no more taste in them than the white of an Egg like Drink in a Fever they increase my Torment In the midst of all this tempest of the Soul the Love of God like the Dove to the drowning Ark le ts fall an Olive Branch a 〈◊〉 a Message and Promise of Life and Deliveâ—â—â—â— an invitation to Peace and Salvation Let any 〈◊〉 judge now whether a Soul sensible of his own Condition will not greedily and even before it hath leisure to contemplate the Mercy lay hold upon it rest upon it get unto it so that the condition of the Soul and the sense of it doth even drive the Heart in the first act of its Illumination to coming unto Christ and resting upon him And then the Soul hath more opportunity to discover and contemplate and value the Goodness of God whereby the Love of the Soul to God is more and more excited and increased And thus we see how the Believer is united unto Christ not corporeally nor yet substantially yet really and spiritually these motions of the Soul being met and entertained with Objects suitable to their utmost latitude Our motion unto him by Faith and Adherence finds not only an invitation before it come Matth. 11.28 Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy ladâ—n and I will give you rest But a rest when it doth come Our motion unto him by our Love finds an entertainment with Fruition John 14.23 If a man love we he will keep my words and my Father will love him and we will come unto him and make our abode with him Our Hope entertained with Assurance and the Prepossession of our Expectation John 14.2 I go to prepare a place for you 1 Pet. 1.4 An inheritance incorruptible and undefiled reserved in Heaven In the creation of Man as likewise of Angels God placed in them Powers suceptive and able to receive a great measure of his Truth Glory and Goodness And when he had furnished them with Vessels as I may say of this Capacity he filled them with his Light and Goodness And herein consisted that great Union between God and his Creature and consequently his great Happiness And in Man's Restitution the same course is taken to make him happy again Here is the difference and our accession of Happiness that this Mercy 〈◊〉 put into our own hands but into the hands of our Mediator for our use For as in him dwells the fulness of God so every true Believer dwells in him and makes up that Body which is the fulness of him that filleth all in all Ephes 1.23 And is thereby filled with the Fulness of God Ephes 3.19 CHAP. XII The Effects of our Vnion with Christ NOW we come to consider the Effects of this our Vnion with Christ more distinctly 1. Remission of Sins Ephes 1.7 Colos 1.14 In whom we have redemption through his blood even the forgiveness of sins For by virtue of our Union with him the Father looks upon us as having made that Satisfaction for Sin which in truth his Son made 2. Justification For as by virtue of our Union with him his Satisfaction is ours so is his Righteousness And hence that Righteousness by which we are made righteous in the sight of God is called the Righteousness of God 2 Cor. 5.21 That we might be made the Righteousness of God in him Phil. 3.9 That I may be found in him not having mine own righteousness which is of the Law but that which is through the Faith of Christ the Righteousness which is of God by Faith And therefore Jer. 23.6.33.16 he is called The Lord our Righteousness And indeed without this though it were possible that we could have our sins forgiven yet without this Righteousness we could not actually attain Happiness Christ therefore must present us Holy as well as unblameable Colos 1.22 So then being one with him as our sins by imputation were his and his Satisfaction ours so was also his Righteousness 3. Peace and Reconciliation with God For as God from Heaven proclaimed himself well pleased in his Son so if we are one with him he is consequently well pleased with us And this Conclusion follows naturally from our Justification in the sight of God The controversie between God and his Creature was Sin and when Christ took up that Controversie there must needs follow peace Rom. 5.1 Being justified by Faith we have Peace with God through Christ Colos 1.20 Having made Peace through the blood of his Cross Eph. 2.14 For he is our Peace And the consequent of this Peace with God is Peace with the Creature who when Man became Rebel to God became Rebel to Man unuseful vain full of vexation but by our Peace restored with our God our Peace with the Creature is part of our Portion Godliness having the Promise of this Life as well as that to come 1 Tim. 4.8 Matt. 6.33 and peace with our own Consciences Conscience was God's Vicegerent in Man and when her Lord is angry the Conscience will chide It is a Glass wherein a Man may by reflection see the face of Heaven and of his own Soul. But when once the Heart is sprinkled from an evil Conscience by the Blood of Christ Heb. 10.2.22 the Conscience is quiet for Heaven is quiet As Peace was the Proclamation of an Angel at the Birth of Christ Luke 2.14 so Peace was the Legacy of Christ when he was leaving the World John 14.27 My Peace I leave with you And the Fruit of this Peace must needs be Joy When a Man upon sound grounds doth find that his Peace is made with Heaven there cannot chuse but be a Joy answerable to the sense of so beneficial a Peace Therefore Rom. 14.17 The Kingdom of God is Righteousness and Peace and Joy in the Holy Ghost Rom. 15.13 The God of Hope fill you with all Joy and Peace in believing Where there is Faith there will be Peace and where Peace Joy and therefore when Christ had finished the work of our Redemption that Spirit which he sent into the World is called the Comforter John 15.26 4. The Spirit of Christ and that
the two latter for his love to himself makes him love all things else in order meerly to himself and so far forth only as is conducible to his own mistaken good so that God shall be no longer loved served or obeyed than he is subservient to that End. Now it is easie from this Consideration to see the Original of most of the Evil in the World whether it relates to God to Men or to a Man's self From this Original grows the very Hatred of God. This distemper wrought by sin in our Souls hath not only deprived God of our chiefest Love which we justly owe to him and turned that Love into our selves but hath made us haters of God by our corrupred Nature Rom. 1.30 He strengtheneth himself against the Almighty Job 25.25 that say unto God Depart from us Job 22.17 For having made himself his End he cannot chuse but be a hater of God upon a double ground 1. Because the Presence and Purity and Commands and Admonitions of God either by his Word or Conscience or the outward Dispensations of Providence do extreamly thwart that End which we pursue Hence grow the Blasphemies in the World Revel 16.21 Men blasphemed God because of the hail The Disappointment and Controll and Interruption that Men have in the pursuit of their Ends do make them hate the Presence the Word the very Being of God himself because they take it to be a hinderance of their End and their Happiness 2. The Soul that was once united to God is by sin gone a whoring from him and hath taken up another End yet God in Mercy still perswades the Soul to return Turn O back-sliding Children saith the Lord for I am married unto you Jer. 3. The skill of the enemy of God within us is as much as may be to divert the access of such perswasions to the Soul or the Entertainment of them lest thereby he should be dispossess'd and therefore as Ahitophel to Absolom to secure his Party with impossibility of reconciliation to his Father perswades him to the highest Villany that so he might be abhorred of his Father 2 Sam. 16.21 so the Devil and Sin in us ingage the Soul in the greatest Villanies and Blasphemies against God that so the Soul abhorring God may be abhorred of him Thus Sin taking occasion by the Command works in the Soul all manner of Concupiscence Rom. 7.6 From hence likewise proceeds the Slavish Fear of God. We have shewen before that all Love of God is accompanied with the Fear of God but this Fear is without the Love of God but proceeds from Love to our selves as a Man fears that which he doubts will be destructive to that which he makes his End. When God sent Lions among the captive Israelites it is said they feared the Lord and served their own gods 2 Kings 17.33 their fear and their Love was divided From hence proceeds Atheism it self for it begins in the Affection not in the Understanding The desire of that not to be which the corrupted Soul conceives an impediment or check to the prosecution of his supream End is that which at length breeds a half perswasion in the Understanding that that which he desires should not be indeed is not From hence proceed Idolatries and misapprehensions of God. When we will not frame our selves to God we endeavour to frame him to our selves thou thoughtest I was such an one at thou art And from this cause are all those will-worships contrary to the Command of God. Did our chiefest Love settle upon God our Obedience would be Universal but especially in this matter of his worship but when we make our selves our Ends we measure him out such a Worship as may best please our selves and suit with our own Contentment From hence proceeds Hypocrisie a Form of Godliness without the power thereof 2 Tim. 3.5 The Power of Godliness which is nothing else but the entire and intense Love of God cannot consist with that End a Man hath chosen viz. himself yet the shape and form of it according as the occasion is is conducible to his Ease Greatness or Preferment so the same self-love puts on the shadow and rejects the substance In matters relative to others From this making a Man's self his End proceed all the acts and habits of Injustice Oppression Cruelty Malice Envy that is in the World because he that makes himself his End doth with all vigor pursue that which he conceives good for himself and if he meet with any obstacle or fear of an obstacle from another it engageth per fas nefas the ruine of that which he finds so hindring him for all these Acts proceed from the Love of himself In reference to a Man's self He that makes himself his own End is subservient unto himself to the uttermost in the pursuit and enjoyment of all those things which may please and content himself according to the varieties of Constitutions Ages and Circumstances If it be in the Lusts of the Flesh it will teach him to make provision for the flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof Rom. 13.14 It will put him upon studies and inquiries and pursuits of unnatural impurities Rom. 1.26 it will make him give himself over to lasciviousness to work all uncleanness with greediness Ephes 4.19 because what a Man makes his chiefest End he strives by all means to please in whatsoever way it discovers its delight or acceptation If it be in Luxury and delights in Meat and Drink it will make a Man to serve his Belly Rom. 16.18 It will make a Man's Belly his God Phil. 3.19 A Man making himself his End observes which way the vein of his mind and delight runs he doth serve that affection or delight with the same intenseness of pursuit as if it were his God for what a Man makes his End he makes his God. If it be in the Lust of the Eyes after Wealth or Possessions a Man pursues that with the same violence as a Heart well set pursues after God There shall nothing stand in his way neither the Command of God nor Lives nor Laws nor Justice nor Reputation nor a Man 's own quiet ease health life For Self hath discovered her self in this desire and he doth pursue the satisfaction of it as the first-born of his End. The like for the Pride of Life Ambition c. And from hence grows the Pride of the Heart of Man. Every Man that makes not God his Chiefest Good and highest End makes himself so But this Self discovers it self according to varieties of Constitutions and Circumstances Self in one Man is his Lust in another his Wealth in another his Honour Power and Command in another Wit Learning Policy And these he pursues as the first-born of his End And such as is his earnestness in the pursuit such is his fulness and contentedness when he enjoys or thinks he enjoys it and that especially in those pursuits that are less bruitish makes the Man
so much of the Creatures inferiour to my self as observe the Law of their Creation enjoy a measure of Perfection answerable to their Being and if interrupted in that law of their Nature they lose their Beauty if not their Being The degree of my Being was higher than theirs and so was consequently the End of my Being my Happiness of a higher Constitution than theirs And as my Debt was greater to my Creator for allowing me so high an End so was my ability proportionable to the pursuit and attaining of that End which was thus given to me But what have I been doing all this while I have measured my Heart by that great Law Thou shalt love the Lord with all thy heart and I have found my Heart full of the love of the World of Pleasures of Vanities but scarce a thought bestowed on him that gave me Power to think and which is worse my Heart hath held confederacy with all that he hath forbidden insomuch that I may justly conclude that surely nothing but a Heart hating God could so constantly and universally oppose his Will I have measured my Life by the Law of God and I can scarcely find one regular action in it my Heart hath not been so out of frame but it hath still found a full subservience of my whole Man unto it and that with greediness and yet I find all this unsatisfactory and I have cause to fear that is not all Sense doth tell me that in the pursuit of the ways of my Heart I spend my self for that which is not Bread and my labour for that which profiteth not I find no fulness in them but much vexation And Reason as well as Conscience tells me it will be bitterness in the end and the end is death I cannot but know that the great Lord of all Being hath measured out to all his Creatures their Beings and their Happiness suitable to their Beings and their Ways and Rules and Laws to attain their Happiness and if all this while I have been out of that Way I am travelling to another End If in the way of God I should have found Life and everlasting Life for my End out of that Way my End must be Death If I were now to begin my Life I should order it better Though I cannot expiate what is past yet my Soul looks upon it with Sorrow with Indignation with Amazement This is the first degree 2. That they are Vnbecoming Vngrateful and Vndutiful Returns It is implanted even in the sensitive Nature to return good for good We have received all the Good from the hands of that God against whom the practice of our Hearts and Lives hath been a continual Rebellion and upon this Consideration natural Ingenuity works a Shame in the Soul and a secret Condemnation and some kind of loathing so Ungrateful and Undutiful a Constitution 3. But hitherto the Soul looks only backward and these Considerations though they are enough to breed Shame and Despair in the Soul yet they are not strong enough to work Repentance because in those Considerations the Soul looks upon it self in an unexpiable and irrecoverable Condition The amendment will prove fruitless where the former guilt is irreversible and yet enough to sink the Soul Therefore the third Conviction is of the love of God that hath provided a means of pardon and acceptation when a Man throughly convinced of the unprofitableness and desperateness of his actions and condition his extream Ingratitude unto God shall for all this hear a voice after all those things Return back thou back-sliding Israel and I will not cause mine anger to fall upon you for I am merciful and will not keep mine anger for ever only acknowledge thine iniquity Jer. 3.12 13. This conquers the Soul not only into a dislike of sin past as dangerous and unprofitable but unto a hatred of it and of our selves for it as the enemy to such an invincible Love. The Consideration of our ways past and comparing them with the Law will enforce the Conscience to condemn them but it must be the sense of the Love and Goodness of God in Christ that can only incline us to change them as by the former he concludes his ways dangerous and unprofitable so without the latter he will conclude his Repentance unuseful And hereupon the Soul is cast into such Expressions as these O Lord I have been considering the present temper of my Heart and reviewed the course of my Life and have compared them with the Duty I owe unto thee and the Law which thou gavest me to be the Rule of that Duty and I find my heart and ways infinitely disproportionable to that Rule and thereby I conclude my self a most ungrateful and a miserable Creature But though I have sinned away that stock of Grace and Blessedness with which I was once intrusted by thee I find I have not out-sinned that Fountain of Goodness and Mercy that is in thee even whiles the sight and sense of my own Condition bids me despair either of repenting or acceptation of it yet I hear the voice of that Majesty which I have injured bids me Return and live Ezek. 18.32 Were there no acceptance of my turning from those ways of death and destruction yet it were my duty and though thy Justice might justly reject it yet it might justly require it But yet when thy merciful and free Promise shall crown my Repentance with Acceptation and Life This Love constrains beyond the sense of my own misery And when I hear the voice of my Lord calling to me to return and I will heal your backslidings that Love warms my Heart into that answer Behold I will come unto thee for thou art the Lord my God Jer 3.22 But who can come unto thee unless thou draw him send therefore thy Power along with thy Command for it is not of him that willeth nor of him that runneth Turn me and I shall be turned I will engage the uttermost of my strength to forsake my ways but I will still wait upon the same Mercy that did invite me to enable me to forsake them By that which preceeds we see a double Repentance 1. That which is Preparatory unto the receiving of Christ which is nothing else but a sense of the unhappiness and evil of our ways as destructive unto our Happiness and dissonant from that Rule of Righteousness which we cannot but naturally subscribe to be Just and Good and this doth naturally breed a Sorrow for what hath been so done and a Purpose and Inclination of Heart to forsake those ways And this was the work of the Baptist to prepare the way of the Lord his Doctrine was a Doctrine of Repentance and his Baptism a Baptism of Repentance a Seal of the Entertainment of that Doctrine to as many as received it Matth. 3.2 Luk. 3.16 Acts 19.4 2. That which is Subsequent to that entertainment of Christ in the Heart by Faith which is the sense of
the love of God in Christ continuing towards us notwithstanding our many Injuries This fills the Heart with Sorrow and Wonder and puts the Soul upon a flat Resolution never to sin against so great Love. This was that sorrow that pricked the Jews to the heart and brought in Repentance for remission of sins Acts 2.37 38. Acts 3.19 that Sorrow that worketh Repentance unto Salvation 2 Cor. 2.10 And though sometimes Christ appear unto the Soul without a Baptist and the light of the Love of God discovers the irregularity and filthiness of our former ways and tempers yet the usual method of his Grace and Providence is to baptize with the Baptism of John and after with the Baptism of Christ Acts 19.5 The love of God being most naturally welcome and operative when the Soul hath before taken a just survey of his Condition without the sight of that love But his ways are unsearchable and past finding out And this Evangelical Repentance viz. our sorrow for our past Offences and our purpose of better Obedience is not only the Act of our first Conversion unto God but is to be our continual Exercise there is a continual adherence of our flesh and sin unto us and notwithstanding the bent and frame of the Soul be changed yet there are continual Renewed Offences which though God is pleased not to impute yet as they are contrary to that Life in the Soul and therefore will be opposed by that Life so they are still naturally our own and therefore must and will be repented of and sorrowed for For a Soul once truly affected with the Love of God would willingly have his whole Man and Life and Thoughts and World conformable to the Will of God and therefore every strugling cannot chuse but cause sorrow and gather up the strength of the Soul for the future against it For the sins of the very Members of Christ though by his Righteousness and Satisfaction they have lost their power to condemn being his by imputation yet they are sins still and therefore objects of our opposition and ours in reality and therefore objects of our Sorrow and Repentance and by how much the more they have our consent by so much the more they are sins and ours And as it is the Power and Grace of Christ that subdues the Dominion and prevailing of Sin so this Grace doth work by setting the operations and affections of the Soul against it especially in our Sorrow and Repentance Our Repentance after Conversion is nothing else but the strugling of the Life of Christ to work out that poyson of sin which is contrary unto it and doth weaken it and would destroy it 1 John 3.9 For his seed remaineth in him and he cannot sin because he is born of God. CHAP. XV. Of Mortification and the Means thereof and 1. Of Meditation 2. WHERE Repentance ends viz. in the purpose of forsaking the ways of Death there Mortification begins and is nothing else but the Execution of those Purposes of the Soul which are wrought by Repentance by the use of all such Means as may for the future weaken the power of sin in the Soul. This is that which our Saviour calls putting out the right Eye and cutting off the right Hand crucifying the Flesh with the Affections and Lusts Galat. 5.24 Mortifying the earthly Members Colos 3.5 Denying a Man's self taking up the Cross Matt. 16.24 Dying daily 1 Cor. 15.31 The World crucified to a Man and a Man to the World Galat. 6.14 Putting off the body of the sins of the Flesh Colos 2.11 The body of sin destroyed Rom. 6.6 Mortification therefore is nothing else but the daily practice of opposition against Sin especially such as we are most inclined to and that by such Means as are reasonably conducing to it These Means according to the several tempers both spiritual and natural are more or less effectual I shall divide them into these degrees 1. Supernatural Helps 2. Moral or Rational Helps 3. Natural Helps 1. Supernatural They are rational Means but fixt upon supernatural objects and discovered by supernatural Light for it will most clearly appear that these very Helps which we call Supernatural are most rationally effectual against it Meditation and Prayer 1. Meditation and serious and deep Consideration of the Word of God and the Truths therein revealed but especially of these ensuing 1. A deep Meditation of the Love of God whom I must needs offend in every sin And this is the most powerful Consideration in the World to mortifie any sin and that is the reason why where there is the truest and highest manifestation of the Love of God to the Soul there is the highest Purity because there is the highest Preservative against Sin for it must needs be clear that where there is the highest manifestation of the Love of God to the Soul there is the highest Love again to God and consequently the most absolute dominion over sin for as the Love of God is the cause of our Love to him 1 John 4.19 so according to the measure of the manifestation of the Love of God to the Soul is the measure of the Love of the Soul to God again and consequently of the hatred of sin And he that often and deeply considers of the Love of God must even rationally improve the sense of it to his Soul and consequently his Love to God again and his abhorrence of Sin. When a Man shall take such Considerations as these into him God hath commanded me to abstain from this or that sin whereunto it may be my Nature my Custom my Temptation inclines me The competition is between my Pleasure my Pride my Profit and my Lord he that gave me a Being he that hath given me all the Comforts of my Being he that might justly have taken me away to judgment in the midst of my sin but he hath spared me and waited upon me that he might though I were righteous make me a vessel of misery he that hath invited perswaded intreated me to return unto him for my own good that when I would not I could not return unto him hath sent his Son to fetch me to redeem me with the greatest Price that ever the World heard of Behold what manner of love 1 John 3.1 And shall I can I make so ill a return to entertain his Enemy the only object of his displeasure that will ruine me before my Lord that hath infinitely out-done my highest speculations for me Certainly the sense of the Love of God is either not at all or not awake when any Man considerately commits any the least sin against his Conscience It were no less than for a Man to return despight against the Love of God and as much as in us lies to disappoint his very End and Purpose in sending of Christ who therefore gave himself for us to redeem us from all iniquity and purifie unto himself a peculiar People zealous of good works 2. A serious
make us more humble more thankful more watchful then they may justly make us more confident because then the Love of God comes in with his Blessings And then are External Blessings arguments of the Love of God when they teach the Soul as well to love God as to trust in him 2. When a Man shall argue a personal and special Love of God by the presence of External Priviledges when there wants sincere Obedience Jer. 7.4 10. Trust ye not in lying words saying The Temple of the Lord c. and therefore God sends them to the Example of Shiloh Ibid. Verse 12. And the reason why this must needs be as well a deceiving Inference as displeasing to God is because in truth in such a case the Soul placeth her ultimate confidence in these things and robs God of part of that Confidence which belongs unto him 3. When a Man shall argue the Love of God to him from his External Performances of those things which God commanded Isa 1.11 Amos 5.21 This hath this double Error in it 1. A grossly mistaken Apprehension of the Will of God which is most just as if the God that judgeth the Heart and measures all the Actions of Men by their Hearts should be pleased with the Shell of Duties and Obedience whereas the things that are so done as they are in themselves without the Heart but indifferent Actions and so cannot be pleasing so they are but hypocritical and false and must needs be displeasing 2. A sharing of our Confidence between God and our selves de quo infra 4. When a Man shall argue the Love of God as an Effect and Price of his Obedience and Sincerity towards him The Error in this is that in truth a Man makes himself his Confidence for he that trusts in the Love of God because he thinks he hath purchased or procured the Love of God doth in truth resolve his Confidence into himself Therefore look upon the best Dress of thy Soul thy Humility thy Faith thy Love thy Sincerity thy Obedience not as Causes of the Love of thy God or the Price or Purchace of it but as Effects and Evidences of his Love to thee Look upon thy Sincerity Love and Obedience to God as the fruit and sign of his Love that will make thy God thy Confidence not as the Purchace or Price of his Love for that will make thy self thy Presumption were they thy own thou owest them and infinitely more to thy Creator and therefore canst not deserve by them But alas they are not thine own his Love as it is the Motive of thine so it is the Cause of it and of all that can be acceptable to him 5. When a Man from well grounded Arguments of the Love of God to his Person shall conclude the Favour of God to his Actions without measuring of them by his Will. This was the Error of Josiah's Confidence 2 Chron. 35.21 22. he hearkened not to the words of Necho from the mouth of God and fell 6. When a Man who hath a sound ground of the Love of God unto his Person shall yet go along in any known or unrepented Sin. Such sins by any that hath entred into Covenant with God have more Malignity and Presumption in them than the very same sins committed by others because committed against more Light and against more Love and the Merciful God is yet a Jealous God and one that accepteth not Persons his ways are equal and uniform Ezek. 18.25 If the best of Men walk contrary to him it must of necessity be that he walk contrary to them and therefore he hates with the same hatred a course of sin even in his subject as well as in his enemy And the same sin that puts a Stranger unto God in the Condition of an Enemy puts a Subject in the Condition of a Rebel and therefore though he will not utterly take his loving kindness from them he will visit their transgression with the rod and their sins with stripes Psal 89.32 will hide his face from them Deut. 31.18 a frequent expression of God's withdrawing the Actual Communication of his Love and Presence even from his own Psal 30.7 Psal 74.9 11. Psal 69.17 What ever be the Purpose of God concerning thee be assured of this that so long as thou art in a course of sin against him though his Counsel concerning thee be not thereby interrupted yet till thy returning to him and repenting of thy sin the Actual Fruition of thy interest in him is interrupted thou art actually in the same condition if not a worse than before thy first Covenant with thy Creator and hast as little cause of Confidence in his Love now as thou hadst then And as the Act of thy Love to God is most apparently interrupted by this thy practice of a known sin till thy return so thou mayest most justly conclude an interruption of the Act of his Love to thee till thou return though that return of thine is the fruit of that Love which was still in him though thou didst go along in the frowardness of thy ways when God hides himself by reason of sin thy Instruction thereby is to seek him out otherwise that which thou callest thy Confidence may be thy Presumption and may cause the Wrath and Jealousie of thy Creator to smoke against thee because thou hast blessed thy self in thy Heart saying I shall have peace though I walk in the imagination of my heart Deut. 29.19 Every motion of the Heart to God if it be right is conformable to the Mind of God throughout When thy Life is sinful and thy Heart not humble suspect thy Confidence to have more of thy Corruption than of Grace in it Take heed to thy Joy. Regularly as is the object or measure of thy Love such is the object and measure of thy Joy Joy is nothing else but a result of the Soul in the fruition of what is loved yet though thou hadst a watch over thy Love before thou enjoyedst have a stricter watch over the temper of thy Spirit in thy fruition Look to the object of thy Joy thy evil Heart will rejoyce will glory in thy sin in thy shame unless thou hast a watch upon thy Heart folly and mischief will be thy Joy Prov. 10.23 Prov. 15.21 the fall of thine Enemy will be thy Joy and the Lord will see and it will displease him Prov. 24.17 thou wilt make Excess Impurity Oppression Cruelty Injustice Pride thy Joy and thy Delight Thy Affections are blind and mad and must be led Examine the object of thy Joy and consider beforehand whether there be not in it more cause of grief than of delight But suppose thy fruition deserve some delight God hath blessed thee with a good Wife which the wise Man calls the Crown of her Husband Pro. 12.4 with a numerous and hopeful Issue which the wise Man calls the Crown of Old Age Prov. 17.6 with a Good Name which the wise Man calls a
4.19 We love him because he first loved us this even natural ingenuity would challenge of us 2. A Love of Prudence as I may call it which is the only tolerable Self-Love in the World to love God because the fruition of his Favour and his Presence is our best Advantage as a most suitable Good. By this thou mayest easily find what should be the Object of thy intensest Grief Sin in others Psal 119.136 Rivers of waters run down mine eyes because they keep not thy Law But especially Sin in our selves that and only that can deserve our intensest Sorrow as the only thing that is contrary 1. To the Purity the Glory the Will of him that is the chiefest Good. Is he the chiefest Good then certainly whatsoever is contrary to his Purity Glory or Will cannot chuse but be the chiefest Evil and consequently the object of thy Hatred and of thy Grief Is thy Conformity to his Nature and Will the necessary consequence of thy Love unto him that then that spoils that Conformity to him cannot chuse but be thy Sorrow thou lovest him because he is Good and that Goodness in him which is the cause of thy Love must of necessity imprint upon thee a desire to have the like ground of Loveliness in thy self and this thy sin disappoints thee of 2. Contrary to that Gratitude that even natural ingenuity teacheth thee to return to an ordinary Benefactor Consider that great God whom thou hast offended hath freely given thee thy Being the greatest Gift that is possibly conceiveable and with thy Being hath given thee the Copy of his Mind and Will a most Reasonable and Just Command in the Obedience whereof consists thy Perfection and Happiness If he had given thee a rigorous and severe Law taking in the whole compass of thy Being or such a Law wherein thou couldst bave seen nothing but the Absolute Will of thy Creator yet the Debt thou owest thy Creator could not be satisfied with such a performance And now for thee to offend such a Law of such a God that hath given thee thy Being Again consider that when thy Maker could not by any imaginable Rule of Justice owe any thing to the exactest Obedience of his Creature yet such was his Goodness that he made himself a Debtor even to his own Creature entring into a Covenant of Life with him thereby to encourage his Obedience and this for no other cause but because his Mercy endureth for ever For can a man be profitable to God Job 22.2 And for a Man to sin against so much Condescension of an Infinite God to his own Creature Again consider when against so much Mercy and Love thou hast offended thy Maker and even by thy own Contract as well as by the Just and Universal Right that God had over his Creature hast forfeited thy Being to thy Creator yet he took not the advantage of it remitted thy Forfeiture and sent a Sacrifice in thy stead of his own providing with a message of a fulness of Love with a new Covenant of more easiness to perform and of more comfort in the performance with a Pardon for thy Sin and with a Reward for anothers Righteousness and when thou wert an enemy and dead in sins and trespasses sent his Son to his Creature to beseech Reconciliation and his Spirit to give thee Life to accept it and to seal thy acceptation of it with an earnest and an assurance of Life and Glory that by that Spirit and through that Son of his hath given thee Access unto his own Majesty a discovery of that Glory to the which thou art called Certainly these are the highest ingagements of Gratitude that are possible to be put upon a Creature and do therefore challenge even from natural ingenuity the highest Return thou canst make though it be infinitely short of what thou doest owe And yet after all this cross the Will of thy Creator that hath done so much for thee to forget the Love of thy Saviour and to crucifie him again to grieve that Spirit of Love and Purity that comes to cleanse thee and fit thee for thy Masters use and to seal thee to Life and Immortality to dishonour that Name by which thou art called to pollute that Conscience which thy Saviour hath washed with his Bloud to deface that Image and Superscription of thy Creator which he was imprinting upon thy Soul to prefer a base unworthy perishing unprofitable Lust or Vanity before the Honour of such a God the Love of such a Saviour the perswasion and importunities of such a Spirit before thy own Peace Perfection and Happiness to vex and oppress and despise the Patience and Bounty of him that hath done all this for thee and gives thee yet an hour of Life to consider of it and a Promise of Grace and Pardon after all this if thou canst but mourn over thy Sins thy unthankfulness thy unworthy and disingenuous dealing with thy God. Lay the weight of these and the like aggravations upon thy hard and stony Heart and bruise it into Tears of Blood for thy unkindness to so merciful a God. Thou canst not exceed in this Sorrow it is a Sorrow that springs from the Love of God in the Soul a Sorrow that will cleanse thy Soul a Sorrow that will bring thee to thy Maker a Sorrow that hath a Promise of Acceptation goes along with it a Sorrow that is mingled with Comfort even the presence of a Saviour and a Sorrow that shall end in a fulness of Joy. Sorrow for sin as for a necessary cause of misery may end in desperation because it ariseth from love of our selves but sorrow for sin as for an ununthankful return of so much Love from God cannot because the Love of God is under that Sorrow and the spring of those Tears is a spring of Life and Comfort 3. Contrary to that Good which we lose by it 1. Our Conformity to the Mind and Will of God is our Perfection and the nearer our Conformity comes to his Will the more perfect is our Being Sin which is a violation of that Will of his spoils and disorders this Conformity and so it interrupts that inherent Good which otherwise would be in us 2. As it destroys our Conformity to the Will of God and so spoils us of our inherent Good so it interrupts that â—ommunicative Good that Influence of Life and Comfort which we have from God It removes us to a greater distance from him it displaceth us from that Position in which and by which the Goodness of God should be derived and conveyed to us we are by it out of that Covenant that Promise which God hath made with his Creature we are by it without the comfortable Presence of God without that Confidence that we might otherwise have in him out of the Assurance of his Providence and Protection It makes our Souls in the midst of all Fruition of outward Blessings full of doubtful Anxieties Fears and
Uncertainties in the midst of any external Trouble without a Refuge and so full of Despair As we cannot have Confidence to go to our offended God by our Prayers so it makes him withdraw and hide himself from them a continual disquietness and heaviness of Spirit mingles and winds it self into all our thoughts even in our pursuits of diversions from it the same aspect that is between God and us is between our own Conscience and us The Light of his Countenance is able to give Life and Comfort and Serenity to the Soul in the midst of all the Losses and Pains and Deaths in the World and the want of that Light makes the most happy external Condition to be dark and disconsolate And all this Good I lose by a transient unprofitable Sin a Sin that I might have avoided and therefore a Loss that I might have avoided a Loss that comes not to me by my necessity but by my foolish choice I will therefore sit down and mourn in secret for that Comfort and Light that I have thus foolishly sinned away and measure out my sorrows and tears proportionable in some degree to that Loss I have sustained The time was when it pleased the great God to let his Presence and the Light of his Countenance to shine into my Soul and when I could with Comfort and Confidence upon any occasion go to him and present my wants my desires my acknowledgements unto him and he that sits in Heaven was pleased to accept and entertain them at the hands of his Creature But now that Influence of his hath met with a filthy and backsliding Heart and is weary of it and hath withdrawn it self as justly it may and my Prayers are laden with my Guilt and cannot get up to him and he hides himself I have regarded Iniquity in my Heart and as he hath said so I find he will not hear my Prayers But though he will not hear my Prayers yet he will not neglect my Tears A broken and contrite heart O Lord thou wilt not despise O Lord though I have thus trifled away my Peace and my Comfort and have destroyed my self yet in thee is my help As I will not rest in my Sin so neither will I rest in my Grief but will never give my self nor thee rest till thou hast been pleased in the Blood of thy Son to wash away my Guilt and restore unto me thy Presence and Peace again And when I have recovered this Loss I will by the assistance of that good Spirit of thine learn by this my sin to revenge my self upon my sin to value the Mercy and Goodness of my Creator that hath yet once more intrusted into my hands the Life and Comfort which I had so lately lost to value the necessity as well as the Love of my Saviour that hath been pleased by a reapplication of his own Blood to wash me again after my late Relapse to value the kindness of the Pure and Blessed Spirit that though by my sin I made him weary and forsake that polluted chamber of my Heart yet is pleased to return and cleanse and take up again that Room from which I had so unworthily excluded him I will learn to prise that Peace and Comfort which once I had and valued not but lost it for an unprofitable perishing Sin I will strive to sence my Heart with renewed Covenants and Resolutions of more watchfulness over my self that I return not again to Folly I will sit down and bless the Mercy Goodness Patience Bounty of God that hath not left me in that Condition which I could neither endure nor remove and study to return a Heart and Life in some measure answerable to so great Love and Goodness And when I have done all O Lord Jesus let that Eternal Covenant between thee and the Father that thou shouldest give Eternal Life to as many as he hath given thee John 17.2 that Power and Promise of thine that none shall pluck me out of thy hands John 10.28 that Union with thee that thou art pleased to give to as many as believe on thee John 15.4 5. that Spirit of thine which by that Union with thee conveys Life and Influence to the smallest branch in thee preserve and support me in all my Purposes and Resolutions in all my Frailties and Temptations For without thee I can do nothing 2. In reference to outward Objects and occasions of Sorrow as loss of Friends Wealth Reputation Health Life it self have a guard upon this Passion 1. Look upon them as the Fruits and Effects of thy Sin and so let them carry thy Grief beyond the immediate object to the meritorious cause of them This is the sting of all Affliction the Plague in thy Heart is the Core and Fountain of the Plague of thy Externals And when thou hast humbled thy Soul before thy Creator and gotten the Blood of thy Saviour to wash thy Conscience thy Affliction shall be removed or thy Soul enabled with chearfulness and comfort to bear it 2. Labour to find out the Voice of the Rod the Mind of thy Creator for if thou diligently observe it there is not a dispensation of Divine Providence but it brings a message with it to thy Soul. Look into thy Heart it may be there is an accursed thing in the midst of thee Joshua 7.13 and this Affliction bids thee be up and removing it It may be thy Heart was leaning too much upon that very Blessing wherein thou findest thy Cross or Affliction which robbed thy Maker of some of the Love and Duty thou owest to him It may be thy Heart was grown dead and careless in thy applications to thy Creator secure and resting in thy temporal Enjoyment and he hath sent his Messenger to awake thee It may be thou hast had a dull and heavy Ear that would not listen or could not perceive God speaking once yea twice unto thee in a still voice Job 33.14 and now he hath sent an instruction with a louder voice It may be thou begannest too much to set up thy rest here to place thy Confidence in the things of this World to be overtaken with the delight in them to overâ—expect them and he hath sent a disappointment into thy Counsels a Worm into thy Gourd a Moth into thy Store a Canker into thy Bag a Distemper into thy Body to shew thee the vanity of thy Dependances to make thee let go thy hold of that which may fall upon and hurt thee but cannot secure thee to make the look upward to quicken thy Life of Faith by shaking thy Life of Sense It may be thou wert growing presumptuous in the Goodness of God Saucy in thy Carriage towards him insolent towards him opinionative of thy self And he hath sent this searching Medicine to fallow and purge these disorderly and dangerous Humours But gâ—ant that upon all thy search thou findest that for a long time thou hast kept a Watch over thy Heart that thou
Glory so every Creature having a conformity to the Will of God is moved by him towards that End. And as this is the greatest and chiefest End of all Creatures and Actions so the motion towards it must needs be the most perfect operation of the Creature And as this Truth is sounded in Nature and Reason so it is the good Pleasure of Almighty God to joyn the Perfection and Happiness of the Creature in this Conformity to his Mind and Will. When any thing therefore continues in an universal free subjection and subservience to the Will of God as that very subjection and subservience is an Honour to the Lord of his Being so by that subjection and subservience is the Creature moved and managed to the Glory of God even to the fulfilling of his Will and as a necessary Concomitant to it to its own Perfection and Happiness Christ that was in all things conformable to the Mind and Will of God for he came to do the Will of his Father came into this World to bring Honour to the great God by his Creature Man and as a concomitant and a necessary Consequent of it Happiness and Perfection to Man and to that End first he sets him free from that Guilt and Curse which he contracted by his Fall removes from him those Fetters of the Power and Reign of Sin whereby he was disabled to move conformably to the Will of God puts into him a Spirit of Life that may enable him to live to God and be conformable to his Will and move to his Glory and this is his Sanctification So then next to that great and ultimate End of the Glory of God the Sanctification of the Creature and rendering it conformable to the Will of God was the greatest End of Christ's work of Redemption Ephes 5.25 26 27. Even as Christ also loved the Church and gave himself for it that he might sanctifie and cleanse it c. Luke 1.74 that we being delivered c. might serve him without fear in Holiness and Righteousness Tit. 2.14 who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purifie unto himself a peculiar people c. So that even our Justification is in order to our Sanctification and that in order to the Glory of God viz. that his Creature might be conformable to his Will and might actively move to the Glory of the Creator wherein consists his End and with which is joyned the Creatures Happiness Touching this matter these things are considerable 1. The Necessity of it 2. The Means whereby it is effected 3. The Degrees of it 4. The Parts or Extent of it 1. That the Sanctification of the Heart and Life is absolutely Necessary to every Christian in some measure answerable to his natural Perfection upon these Considerations 1. It was the End of the coming of Christ into the World and the very End of thy Justification His End was not only to remove thy Guilt and thy Curse but to make thee conformable to the Will of thy Creator that thou mayest be actively subservient unto his Glory which thou canst not be unless thy Nature be changed as well as thy Sin pardoned The great End of the coming of Christ was to bring Glory to his Father If he only free thee from thy Guilt he brings Mercy to his Creature but unless he cleanse and change thy Nature thou remainest useless to thy Master 2 It is impossible that there can be Justification of any Man but that according to the measure of his natural ability there will be likewise a cleansing and changing of his Nature because the knowledge and belief of the Love of God in Christ cannot be in Heart without a return of Love from the Soul again to God. The very same act of the Spirit and Grace of God which discovers and unites the sense of the Love of God to thy Soul doth as naturally cause Love in thee to God as the union of the Species to the Glass reflects the Resemblance from the Glass again 1 John 4.19 We love him because he loved us first his was a Love of Pity Compassion a Love of Bounty and Goodness a Love that broke through Death and greater difficulties than Death even the uniting of the Divinity to our Flesh a Love passing Knowledge and thine cannot chuse but be a Love of Admiration and Astonishment a Love of Thankfulness and Gratitude When the Spirit of God works Faith in thee it worketh by Love even by presenting the Love of God to thy Soul in as full dimensions as thy Soul can receive it and when Faith is wrought in thy Soul that worketh again by Love to God. If thou hast not Love to God thou hast not Faith in him and if thou hast Love to him thou canst not chuse but conform thy self to his Mind and his Will John 14.23 If a man love me he will keep my words And for this cause the Apostle makes it not only an inconsistency but a kind of impossibility for one justified to continue in sin Rom. 6.2 How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein 1 John 3.9 he cannot sin because he is born of God In every act of known sin that thou committest and every omission of every known good that thou neglectest there is an actual intermission or suppression of the act of Faith and of thy Love to God. 3. It is a necessary consequent of our Vnion with Christ There is as hath been shewed a double act whereby our Union with Christ is wrought on our part an act of Faith to apprehend him on his part an act of his Spirit whereby he apprehends us Philip. 3.1 2. and this Union is so strict that it is resembled to those things that have the strictest Union the Vine and the Branches John 15.1 2. Rom. 11.18 Members of his Body of his Flesh and of his Bones Ephes 5.30 and as in the virtue of this Union we partake of all these Priviledges which were in him his Satisfaction his Righteousness his Sonship his Intercession his Resurrection so likewise of his Spirit as there is one Body so there is one Spirit Ephes 4.4 If any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his Rom. 8.9 It is his in Essence it is ours in Operation and Influence so that the inward Life of a Christian is not his own but he lives by the Life that is that living Spirit of the Son of God. Now as that Spirit or Life that is in the Root when it passeth into the Branch makes the Branch conformable in Nature and Fruit unto the Root So the Spirit of Christ transfused into a Christian doth conform his Nature and Operations unto Christ for that was the great End of God in sending his Son into the World who was in all things conformable unto him that we should be conformable to the Image of his Son Rom. 8.29 And thus that impression of the Image of God
its Author is infinite and boundless by all the Justice that can be 2. Faith doth find in that Word a farther ingagement of Conformity and Obedience if a farther may be in that it finds the immense overflowing Love of God to Man It is that Love that did at first furnish him with those Excellencies of his Nature with that greater excellency his image and Superscription It is that Love that upholds his temporal Being and blesseth it It is that love that when he was lost sent a Sacrifice and a Righteousness for him whereby he is not only pardoned from his Guilt and Curse but restored to Glory and immortality And this it doth truly and really believe and is thereby convinced that there is a greater obligation than that of his Nature to live conformable to the Will and Mind of so unspeakable a Benefactor 3. Faith doth find in this Word of God his Mind and Will and believes it to be that very Rule the conformity whereunto is well pleasing and acceptable to God. Mic. 6.8 and what doth the Lord thy God require of thee but to do justly to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God It looks upon every Admonition Exhortation Reprehension and Direction as the very immediate Message of God unto the Soul and entertains it with the same awe and reverence as if it were audibly delivered in Thunder and trembles at it and therefore it receives it in the power and Life of it and in the uttermost compass and extent of it it will not take this part as most consonant to thy Temper Condition Designs Constitution or Ends and reject another part where it crosseth them because it is equally the Will and Command of the great God and so received 4. Faith finds in this Word the Rectitude Justice and Regularity of the Will of God concerning Man they are not only just as proceeding from him to whom his Creature owes an infinite Obedience as was the Command to Adam for forbearing the forbidden Fruit or to Abraham to sacrifice his Son but Faith finds in these Commands a natural Justice and Reasonableness and Perfection and concludes with David Psal 19. That his Statutes are right and his Commands pure such as include in themselves a natural and absolute Beauty and such as confer upon the Creature a Perfection and Happiness such as are exactly conformable to thy Nature were thy Nature conformable to it self for as the Rule or Law that God hath given to every Creature is that wherein consists its Beauty Preservation and Perfection according to the degree wherein it is placed and therefore every Creature labours according to its own Nature to continue in that Rule and when it misseth it it contracts Deformity and Corruption so the Divine Law or Command of God given to Man is that wherein consists his Perfection as being a Rule most exactly conformable to the reasonable Nature of Man sin hath deformed and blinded us that we cannot now see that Perfection and Excellency that is in our Conformity to his Will and hath perverted and corrupted us that as we are in this corrupted condition we cannot desire it but when God is pleased to anoint our eyes with the Eye-salve of Faith and presents this Glass this image of his mind in his Word unto that Eve Faith again discerns and discerning cannot chuse but desire that Beauty Perfection and Rectitude which is there discovered in the Commands of God and the conformity of the Soul to the â—ame 5. Faith doth find in that Word and finding it doth most assuredly believe the Presence of the Glorious and infinite God in every place even in the darkest and most remote Corners and Chambers of the Heart searching weighing and discerning the Spirit every thought of the Heart every word of the Tongue every action of the Life and measuring them exactly with the Rule that he hath given and this keeps the Heart in a continual awe of the Presence of God purgeth out all Hypocrisie sets a continual Watch upon the whole Man lays a Bridle upon the very thoughts and brings them into subjection to this Rule because that clear and pure and severe eye of the Great and Infinite God searcheth the most retired thoughts of the Heart and observes what conformity they hold with his most Just and Reasonable Command 6. Faith finds in this Word of God and doth more really and practically believe that that great God which hath given us his Will and is a witness to the Obedience and Disobedience of it hath most certainly annexed an everlasting Curse to the Disobedience of it so it hath most certainly annexed an everlasting Glory to the Obedience thereunto not as the merit of it but as the free and bountiful gift of his Goodness and Mercy in Jesus Christ And it finds and believes the Truth and Faithfulness and Glory and Power of the Infinite God there engaged for the performance of it and therefore it binds the Heart to the Obedience of this Will of God and Conformity unto it which is our Sanctification Thus the word mingled with Faith cleanseth and sanctifieth and perfecteth and purifieth the Heart and Life And as thus in Man God useth this instrument on Mans part to sanctifie his Creature and make him conformable to himself so Secondarily upon this Act of Faith upon the Word of God as its Object the Heart is likewise cleansed by Fear Hope and Love by way of emanation from this Act of Faith. Love Fear and Hope are those several Motions or Affections of the Soul that arise from the same Act of Faith only as Faith is diversified according to those different Objects apprehended by Faith or according to the different Notions Relations or Actions of the same Object as for instance God apprehended in his Goodness Love and Bounty moves our Love towards him as apprehended in his Glory Majesty Power and Justice excites Fear as apprehended in his Faithfulness Truth and Promises begets Hope and each of these Affections thus directed do habituate and dispose the Soul and Life to a religious frame and Constitution which is our Sanctification as will appear in these particulars 1. The Love of God this is that true Principle of all true Obedience where it is not the Obedience is a dead and unacceptable Obedience for God that is a Spirit and will be worshipped in Spirit and Truth will be obeyed likewise in Spirit and Truth and the outward Conformity without this is but a dead Obedience and Hypocrisie and where it is it will work a Conformity of the Heart and Life to the mind of God upon which it is pitched and therefore it is called the First and Great Commandment Matth. 22.51 the fulfilling of the Law because when it is once wrought in the Heart whatsoever it can discover to be agreeable to the Will of him that she loves it will most sincerely and intirely obey John 14.15.24 If ye love me keep my Commandments he that loveth
me not keepeth not my Sayings Now our Love to God ariseth upon two Grounds 1. From a Sense of the Perfection and Beauty and Purity and Excellency that is in him and in this respect our Love to him cannot chuse but move the Heart to desire to be like unto him as far forth as is or can be communicable to our Nature and Condition for whatsoever I love in another that is communicable unto me I cannot chuse but desire to be in my self 1 Pet. 2. Be ye holy for I am holy and this Love of that Goodness that is in God doth bring the Heart nearer to him for Love is a Motion unto Union and as we come nearer to that Purity of his it doth in some measure assimilate the Soul unto himself because his Goodness and Brightness is an assimilating active communicative Goodness and from this nearness to him doth grow much of our Holiness here and all our Happiness hereafter 1 John 3.2 We shall bâ— like him for we shall see him as he is 2 Cor. 3.18 But we with open Face beholding as in a Glass the Glory of the Lord are changed into the same Image from Glory to Glory Our Love to God works in the Soul a desire of Union with him and likeness to him which is a kind of Union and that approximation to him doth derive from him an impression of his own Nature and likeness unto him 2. The ground of our Love to God is the Sense of that Love that he hath shewen to us 1 John. 4.19 We love him because he loved us first and this is a Love of Gratitude or Thankfulness arising from the full Sense of the undeserved and wonderful Love of God to his unworthy Creature revealed and dispensed in Jesus Christ and this cannot chuse but put the Soul into such kind of thoughts and purposes as these O Lord at first I received my Being from thee and when I had forfeited my Being and my Blessedness to thee thou wast patient towards me and didst not take that forfeiture which thou justly mightest thou wast merciful to me and didst pitty and forgive me and when I was in my Blood thou saidst unto me Live thou was bountiful unto and didst not only pardon me but restore me to that Blessedness which I unthankfully lost and thus thou didst without my seeking even when I was Senseless and knew not my own Misery when I was obstinate and would not have it and this thou didst not by an ordinary means but thy Love did send the Son of thy love to become my Sacrifice and my Righteousness and canst thou require any thing of me that can bear any proportion to so great Love If thou shouldest call for that Being again which thou hast thus freely given me I should but return unto thee that which is thine own But after all this what dost thou require of me but to do justly and love Mercy to walk humbly with my God Such a Service wherein consists my own Happiness and Perfection a conformity unto thy Beauty and Purity If the Service that thou shouldest have enjoyned me had been a Service mingled with my own Dishonour Shame Misery Ruin thy Love to me had deserved and commanded this from me how much more when all thou requirest from my Leprous Soul is but Wash and be clean I will bless thy Name for that Love which thou shewest to me in my Redemption from so great a Death and I will bless thy Name that thou art pleased to injoyn thy Creature such a Service wherein consists his Beauty and Perfection a reasonable Service and that thou art pleased to accept that as a Tribute unto thee which inricheth thy Creature by paying it even our Conformity to thy most Righteous and Holy Will and I will endeavour in the whole Course of my Life in the whole frame and temper of my Soul to express my Thankfulness to thee in the watchful universal diligent and sincere Conformity unto that will of thine and blessed be thy Name that hast given thy poor Creature an opportunity of expressing his Sense of thy Love in so reasonable a Service 2. Fear of God likewise cleanseth the Heart Psal 19.9 The fear of God is clean Prov. 8.13 The fear of the Lord is to hate evil Prov. 16.16 By the fear of the Lord Men depart from evil And this was Joseph's fence against Temptations of all kinds Gen. 39.9 How shall I do this great wickedness and sin against the Lord and his highest security to his Brethren of keeping his Promise Gen 42.18 This do and live for I fear God. Now this fear of God is wrought upon the precedent Act of Faith in a double Relation 1. As it presents God unto the Soul in his Purity Majesty Power Justice and Presence even in the innermost and darkest Chambers of our Hearts And this Consideration becomes even the exactest Christian always to have about him for all the strongest ingagements even upon every Affection are too little God knows to fence and ward the Soul against the Corruptions within it and the Temptations without it And this Consideration will most opportunely bespeak the Soul in this manner Consider what thou art doing thou art now going about to purpose or do that which thy Creator forbids thee and thou art in the Presence of that God before whom all things are naked and manifest Heb. 4.13 whose eyes are upon all the ways of Man and he seeth all his goings Job 32.21 and his eyes are therefore upon his ways that he may give every Man according to his works Job 32.18 Consider thou art in his Presence that is a consuming Fire and a jealous God Deut. 4.24 A great God and a mighty and terrible that regardeth not Persons nor taketh rewards Deut. 10.27 That hath said that When any Man heareth the words of this Curse and shall bless himself in his Heart saying I shall have Peace though I walk in the immagination of my Heart the Lord will not spare him but his jealousie shall smoak against that man Deut. 29.19 20. That hath Justice and Wisdom and Truth and Power enough to fulfil and execute the most exquisite seasonable and unavoidable Vengeance upon any contemner of his Will and this is the God whom thou a Creature that art nothing in his hands art about to offend Consider this thou that forgettest God lest he tear thee in pieces and there be none to deliver thee But 2. Fear is a Fruit of Love and though we are not to neglect the former yet we must be sure to entertain this perfect Love casts out fear a fear of punishment but not a fear of sin a fear of a Malefactor not the fear of a Child And upon this Consideration this affection upon any Temptation thus bespeaks the Soul Consider what thou art now setting about It is that thy Lord thy Redeemer forbids thee he that hath died for thee to rescue thee from thy vain Conversation how
operations and whose Gifts and Callings are without Repentance hath promised to be with us to the end of the World He cannot sin because his sâ—â—d abideth in him 1 John 3.9 It is true there may be intermissions of the acting of Grace in the Heart and there may be falls in the Life but to be given over to a course of sin without repentance to be brought under the power and dominion of Sin as a King or a Ruler the Honour and Truth of God is engaged in it it shall not be 2 Thes 3.3 The Lord is faithful who shall stablish you John â—0 28 Nâ—er shall any man pluck them out of my hand Rom. 6.14 Sin shall not have dominion over you for 〈…〉 under the Law but under Grace And these Promises of God cannot make the Heart of any one to whom they truly belong any whit the more careless or loose in his watch over himself for that very Spirit whereby those Promises are sealed to us is an active vigilant pure Spirit and puts the Heart and Life upon those Practices that do naturally and properly conduce to this very Perseverance viz. Assiduity in Duties Humble and Watchful walking before God Examination and search of the state of our Souls and Lives Jealousie over the Treachery of our own Hearts and the snares that are within us and without us a Guard upon our Affections and Senses a frequent Consideration of the Will of God of his Goodness to us in Christ of the Price wherewith we are bought of the Hope whereunto we are redeemed and all those other helps that conduce to the settling and stablishing of our Hearts and Lives in a Conformity to the Will of God and in avoiding of all those things which are contrary thereunto and consequently as contraries do would impair corrupt and destroy that Life of Grace which he hath begun in us And from hence ariseth 3. An Increase and Growth in a more exact Conformity to the Will of God than formerly This is that which is so often commended unto us by the Spirit of God Colos 2.7 Rooted and built up in him Colos 4.12 Compleat in all the will of God Phil. 1.9 that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and in all judgment 1 Cor. 15.58 abounding in the work of the Lord Heb. 13.21 make you perfect in good works to do his will Phil. 3.13 forgetting what is past and reaching forth to the things that are before Ephes 4.13 growing to a perfect man 2.16 increase of the body 2 Pet. 3.17 beware lest ye fall from your own stedfastness but grow in grace Jude 20. building up your selves in your most holy faith Prov. 4.18 Increasing more and more unto the perfect day John 15.2 Every branch that beareth fruit he purgeth it that it may bring forth more fruit And as this is the Will of God so it is as naturally the effect of this Life that is wrought in the Heart as it is the effect of natural Life in the Body for it is an active and operative Life If any quality have got the mastery in a mixt Body it doth ever more and more by degrees waste and consume the contrary qualities and assimulates the whole unto it self And although as long as our Flesh hangs about us it is impossible that a compleat and absolute conquest can be wrought of all that Sin that is in us because it is a spring of Corruption yet it is wasted weakned and decayed By this work of Grace Saul's House waxeth weaker and weaker Every habit though it be moral or natural only receiveth an augmentation and degrees by its continual actings And the Grace of God which is more operative and active in the Heart than any habit can be for it is accompanied with the immediate Power and Efficacy of the Divine Spirit never stands still but like the little Leven that was hid in the great quantity of Meal it never gives over till the whole be leavened 4. Renewed Repentance Thy corrupt Nature is a Body of Sin and Death a spring of Corruption that will ever cast up mire and dirt and Grace in thy Heart is a spring of living Waters that as often as that corrupts will be washing it again When thou hast made the chamber of thy Heart as clean as thou canst yet there will be leaks in it that will let in Corruptions enough quickly to make it as foul as ever Grace by the continual examination of thy self humbling of thy Heart before God renewing thy Covenant with him doth not only pump out the filth that would poyson and drown and dam thee but stops the decays and leaks of this thy infirm Vessel When the Grace of God at first found thee thou wast dead in trespasses and sins and it came into thee and by Repentance did exercise its own act of Life to quicken thee And that same Body of Death that did at first inclose thee is still about thee and takes all opportunities to get its old mastery of thee and by this means thou catchest many a fall and bruise but that same Life by which thou livest re-acts against those inroads of sin and death and doth conquer them so that though thy renewed sins are not thy ruine yet they ought to be thy burden though they must not make thee despair yet they cannot chuse but make thee mourn though thy Saviour hath born their Guilt yet it is but equal thou shouldest bear thy shame When thou hadst no Life in thee thou couldest not feel thy self dead But now thou hast Life in thee thou canst not chuse but be sensible of thy sickness and thy hurts which thy own folly have occasioned and judge and condemn and avoid that Folly of thine that occasioned it Though thou canst not be rid of thy sins that fight against thy Life yet thou wilt not entertain them with better Entertainment than Bread of Affliction and Water of Affliction Though thou canst not expiate for any of them yet thou canst not look upon them without indignation as Traytors against thy Life and thy Peace thou canst not look upon thy self without loathing and detestation thou canst not look unto Christ without shame and confusion that one that he hath redeemed from so great a Misery with so great a Price to so great a nearness as to be a member of himself a partaker of his Spirit a Co-heir of his Glory should so unworthily so unthankfully in his sight dishonour his Head and pollute himself Thou canst not look upon what is past without Repentance nor upon what is to come without a Resolution of more Vigilance and keeping a better Guard upon thy self And yet in the midst of all these thy perplexed thoughts thou canst not chuse but admire and bless that Mercy of Christ that when thou deniest him looks back upon thee as once on Peter and with that look sends in a Messenger that makes thee go by thy self and bewail thy Relapse that leaves
that belongs to another thy heavenly Father knoweth thou hast need of all these things he is thy Father and therefore is willing to furnish thee with what shall be convenient for thee and he is thy Heavenly Father that wants not Power to do it he can supply thee in the ordinary way of his Providence and if there be need he can do it by the extraordinary work of his Power he can command Water out of a dry Rock as to the Israelites or out of a dry Bone as to Samson he can give thee Bread from Heaven he can feed Elijah by a Raven and can extend the Widows Barrel of Meal and Cruise of Oyl as large as the time and exigence of her Necessity Save thy self therefore the trouble of an unnecessary Care but commit thy way unto the Lord Trust also in him and he shall bring it to pass Thy Care may rob thy self of thy quietness and may rob thy God of his due but it is thy Dependance only upon him that can with ease and contentedness supply thy wants Diligence and Industry in that lawful Employment wherein his Providence hath placed thee is thy Duty and therefore observe it but Sollicitousness and Anxiousness is thy Sin and therefore avoid it Learn to obey him in what he commands and learn to wait upon him in what he promises 2. In our Love Set not thy Heart upon thy Wealth Psal 62.10 nor make it thy Treasure for if thou dost it will be master of thy Heart for where thy Treasure is there will thy Heart be Matth. 6.21 and if thy Heart be full of thy Wealth there will be no room for thy God Matth. 6.24 Ye cannot serve God and Mammon and If any Man love the world the Love of the Father is not in him 1 John 2.15 If the World have thy Love it will command thy Service and controll whatsoever opposeth that Command and break through all those Fences which seem to bridle or hedge in the pursuit of that World which thou so lovest Hath God set apart a time for his own Service thy love of the World will rob him of his own time Amos 8.5 When shall the new moon be gone that we may sell corn and the sabbath that we may set forth wheat and in the day of his fast thou wilt exalt all thy labours Isa 58.3 Doth he require a portion of our Goods for his Service thou wilt be ready to rob God of his Portion Mal. 3.8 or deceive him in it and sacrifice to the Lord a corrupt thing Malach 1.14 Hath he set apart a peculiar place for his Worship thou wilt be ready with Jeroboam to set up Calves in Dan and Bethel 1 Kings 12.26 to secure thy self in the enjoyment of thy temporol Advantage Hath he imprinted his own Superscription and Image upon Man with a strict prohibition of the violation of that Image Gen. 9.6 Yet if thou become one that is greedy of Gain it will prompt thee to take away the Life of the Owner that thou mayest be his Successor Prov. 1.19 Job 31.39 It will make thee grind the faces of the Poor sell them for a pair of old Shoes set Justice to sale sell thy Master with Judas for a small inconsiderable Gain And thus the Love of the World is the root of all evil for as all the Good in Man is the Conformity to the Will of God so whatsoever interrupts this Conformity must needs be an original of Evil and this is done by the Love of the World which makes a Man reject this Conformity when it is inconsistent with that imperious Love of the World. 3. In our Confidence And this is always a concomitant of our Love to them and our Care for them for these grow out of a mistaken over-valuation of them and as that carries on our care for them and love of them so in the fruition of them upon this mistaken Estimate grows a Confidence in them Psal 49.6 They trust in their wealth and boast themselves in the multitude of their riches Prov. 18.11 the rich man's wealth is his strong city and as an high wall in his own conceit And this was the ground of the rich Man's solacing himself in the Gospel Thou hast enough laid up for many years eat drink and be merry And from hence it is likewise that Covetousness is Idolatry for that is in truth thy God upon which thou most trustest if in a time of Prosperity thy Confidence is high and built upon thy Power or thy Wealth or thy carnal Confederacies and if in the dissipation of these thy Soul dies within thee and thy Hope is like the giving up of the Ghost it is plain the World is thy God for thy Confidence doth rise and fall and live and die with it Therefore take heed of laying the weight of thy Confidence upon the World Psal 62. Trust not in oppression c. Power belongeth only to God. Prov. 11.14 Riches profit nothing in the day of wrath 1 Tim. 6.17 Charge them that are rich in this world that they be not high minded nor trust in uncertain riches If God give thee Wealth and Riches look upon them as his Blessing and look upon that good and usefulness that is in them as that which comes not from themselves but from the Blessing of God and which he can when he please withdraw from them and then they will be so far from being a ground of Confidence as that they will be thy snare and occasion of thy ruine and not a foundation of thy strength Look upon them as things that cannot benefit thee in themselves whiles thou hast them unless he makes them instrumental and as things which will not abide with thee when he calls for thee or for them for Riches make themselves wings and flee away Prov. 23.5 If thou lean upon them they are a Reed and sink under thy Confidence and a broken Reed that will hurt thee in thy Dependance upon them They will disappoint thy Confidence in them and thy Confidence in them will pierce thee Jer. 2.3 The Lord hath rejected these thy confidences and thou shalt not prosper in them 3. Vnseasonableness 1. In thy Order of seeking of them seek them not in the first place but seek first that one thing which is necessary It is not necessary for thee to be rich but it is necessary for thee to be saved Lâ—t that which is of thy greatest Concernment be the subject of thy first Endeavour Matth. 6.33 Seek first the kingdom of God and the righteousness thereof and all these things shall he added unto you Thou hast but a short time here and upon the improvement of that little span of time depends thine everlasting condition of Happiness or Misery And if thou imploy the first-fruits of thy Life in the gain of this World which will certainly die with thee if not before thee who can tell if thou shalt have time enough left for the great
few days God forbid that I should look upon it as the merit of my Charity for it was his own or that I should be therefore charitable because I expected a temporal Reward for I have therein but done my duty and am therein an unprofitable Servant But I bless God that hath made good this Truth of his even to my sensible and frequent Experience CHAP. XXIX Of Sanctification in reference to our Neighbour viz. Righteousness the Habit and Rule of it 2. THE second general wherein our Sanctification consists is Righteousness viz. that just temperature of Mind and consequently of our Conversation that respecteth other Men Herein we will consider 1. The Habit it self or habitual Righteousness 2. The Rule of it 3. The Parts of it 1. The Habit it self it is a frame and temper of Mind arising from the Love of God to give every Man his due according to the Will of God. The great Duty that the Creature owes to his Creator is Love Thou shalt love the Lord with all thy Heart and this as hath been shewn is the first and great Commandment and the first and most natural Duty and Bond that can be the Consequence of this Love is the doing all the good we can unto him and for him from whom we receive our Being now all the good we can do him is but to please him to be conformable to his Will for it is impossible that any thing can contribute any thing to him that is infinitely full all the good we can do him therefore and all the expressions of our Love consists in this viz. A free subjection and obedience to his Will. And because we find this Righteousness and Justice and Love to our Neighbour is commanded by him and is evidenced to his Will both by that natural inclination that he hath put in us by the dispensation of his Providence whereby he makes every Man useful and beneficial to another in this way of mutual Justice and by his written Word whereby he expresly requires it this Cardinal and fundamental motion of the Soul viz. the Love of God doth presently conclude that since that great God to whom I owe my self and all my Love and all my Obedience requires this duty at my hands though I could see no reason for it I would presently submit unto much more when there is so much reason for it as indeed God doth not require my Obedience in any thing but if it be well considered is most admirably consonant to sound Reason and to my own advantage Deut. 4.6 Keep therefore and do them for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations so that the foundation of habitual Righteousness is Love to God the Consequence of that Love to God is a rational universal and voluntary Obedience to his Will and Command the Command of God next to Love to himself is to love our Neighbours the expression of that Love is in acts of Righteousness and Justice to them hence it is called the second great Commandment the great Injunction that Christ gave to his followers the fulfilling of the whole Law. 2 The Rule of Righteousness In our original Condition God gave unto Man a Rule of Righteousness by the immediate impression and revelation of his own Mind unto him and inclination to submit â—to it And this although it was much defaced yet was not wholly taken away by his Fall. So much was by the Divine Providence conveyed from Man to Man as left the Offender without excuse But as the River ran farther from the Fountain so it became more foul and polluted the sins of Men contesting with and corrupting by degrees that traditional Righteousness which was derived from Man to Man But the merciful God was pleased as the sins and corruptions of Mankind did make breaches into this Rule of Righteousness and corrupted the manners of Men so he was pleased in the ways of his Providence to repair it in some measure in all Ages raising up Prophets and Preachers of Righteousness as Noah was to the old World exciting and by his powerful and wise Spirit enabling Men to make Laws and Constitutions in States and Kingdoms which though they were not of his own immediate dictating yet he attributes too little to the Wisdom and Providence of God that doth attribute the inventing and composing of those useful and righteous Laws even among the Heathen to the meer Wisdom and discovery of Men when he himself leads us up unto himself even in the low Projections of the Plowman Isa 38.26 For his God doth instruct him to discretion and doth teach him It is true that there is a kind of natural Consonancy of the Rules of Justice and Righteousness to the well being of Men and Societies of Men as is most evident both where that Justice is and where it is not and by the observation of the now aged World and of the success and motions of Mankind much may be collected both of the Necessity of Righteousness and of the Parts and Particulars wherein it consists But God yet more careful of his Creature hath not left us to our own Collections wherein the varieties of Manners the growth of Sin and Corruptions and our own Blindness may deceive us or perplex us but hath given us a written Rule of Righteousness the Word of the Old and New Testaments He hath shewed thee O man what is good Micah 6.8 Deuteronom 30.14 The word is very nigh thee in thy mouth and in thy heart that thou mayest do it Now the Word of God is considerable as a Rule of Righteousness 1. Absolutely and in it self and therein it is considerable how the Law Moral Ceremonial and Judicial alone or joyned with the Expositions and Counsels of the Gospel are a Rule of Righteousness 2. Relatively and thus the Word of God sends us to two other but subordinate Rules 1. Subjection to Humane Laws Be obedient to every Ordinance of Man for Conscience sake 1. Pet. 2.13 2. Conscience in that great Rule Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you that do you unto them 1. The first Consideration the Scripture as it is the Rule of all Divine Truth so it is a perfect Rule of Righteousness both towards God and Man 2 Tim 3.16 All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine for reproof for correction for instruction in Righteousness that the man of God may be perfect throughly furnished to every good work There wants nothing in the Rule to acquire Perfection though by reason of the defect in the subject it cannot be attained 1. The Law of God is a Rule of Righteousness viz. the Moral Law. It is true in these two â—derations the Law is not binding to the 〈…〉 since the coming of Christ to the 〈…〉 1. It is not binding to the Gentiles as a Covenant for so it was in a particular manner given to the Jews and not to the Gentiles The External
every particular Action and Occasion of our Lives in reference to others These are principally two viz. that of Matth. 22.39 taken out of Leviticus 19.18 and again enforced by the Apostle Rom. 3.9 Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy self and that other which is but a repetition of the former in different words Matth. 7.12 Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you do ye even so to them for this is the Law and the Prophets It is a certain Rule and easily applicable to every Action of our Lives because if a Man will not wilfully blind himself he is able to judge whether the Action he now doth or resolveth be such as he would be contented should be done to him were the Persons and conditions changed And because these two great Rules are the best and clearest direction of our Consciences and the Conscience is not regular where it is not conformable to these Rules we shall examine them more particularly Then as to the first Thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thy self wherein we must take this word Neighbour as our Saviour himself expounds it that it includes every Person of what Relation or Condition soever though a Person is my Enemy therefore Matth. 5.43 our Saviour confutes that false Gloss of the Jewish Masters that did contradistinguish a Neighbour to an Enemy and tells us that an Enemy is to be the Object of our Love and Beneficence Luke 10.33 a Jew and a Samaritane between whom there was not only a kind of civil and national Enmity but an Hatred grounded upon difference in Religion in so much that the Jews could not use a more bitter reproach against our Saviour than to stile him a Samaritan John 8.48 yet these were within the comprehension of this Command So that whatsoever he be whether knit unto me in any relation or not nay though extreamly contrary unto me either in civil Enmity or in Religion yet such a Person is the subject of this Command This being premised these things are evidently consequent upon this Command 1. That every Man is bound to love himself 2. That every Man is bound to love another as he loves himself 1. Concerning the former it is certainly a Duty and if it were not a Man might easily elude this Precept for if I might hate my self the rule and measure of my Love to my Neighbour were lost therefore a Love to my self is implicitly injoyned in this Precept of our Saviour as well as in the Inclination of Nature Ephes 5.29 No man ever hated his own flesh but the Errors of Self-love are that which our Saviour elsewhere so often reproves 1. When a Man mistakes and esteems that himself which indeed is not when a Man takes that for an Eye or a Hand or a Foot viz. parts of himself which indeed are not Matth. 5.29 When a Man shall make the lust of his Eye as dear as his Eye and the corruption of his Hand as dear as his Hand to these our Saviour commands cruelty to be shewn to be cut off and pulled out when a Man shall mistake that old Man that is in him to be himself which is to be put off and crucified Ephes 4.22 and shall take those to be members of himself which are members of the old Man which are not to be loved but mortified Colos 3.5 Such is the disorder and corruption of our Nature that we esteem our Sins and Lusts to be part of our Essentials and thereby misplace our Love upon them in stead of our selves And this is a Self Love forbidden nay they are our only Enemies Enemies that fight against our Souls 2. When our Love though it be partly right placed yet it is either beyond the due measure and proportion or doth not take in our whole Selves Every one is bound by the Laws of God and Nature to love his own Flesh but he that so loveth his own Flesh that he neglects his Soul he loves not his whole self and consequently hath indeed less love for himself than he should have Thus he that loseth his Life shall save it That Man that for the advantage of a temporal Life much less for the advantage of some temporal Profit or Pleasure shall hazard his everlasting Soul loves himself less than he should because he prefers the temporary advantage of his worse part before the eternal advantage of his better part 3. When Love to a Man's self wants the due subordination to our Love to God. The Good that is in God is infinite and the Good that we receive from him is the highest Good we are capable of for our Being which is our Capacity to receive any Good and all the Comforts Benefits and Conveniences that fill up that Capacity we receive from him and therefore our Love to him ought to take up the whole Compass and Capacity of our Soul. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy Soul and with all thy might the first and great Commandment Matth. 22.37 And as the Being of the Creature is a dependant Being so his own Love to himself ought to be a subordinate Love to him upon whom it hath his dependance Luke 26.14 If any man come to me and hate not his father c. yea and his own life he cannot be my disciple Yet such is the wonderful Bounty and Wisdom of the Will of God that in Conformity thereunto a man exactly conforms to his own Happiness Our highest and most universal Love to God is joyned with a true and exact Love to our selves for he hath conjoyned the Happiness of the Creature with the Duty to himself Both which we find Matth. 16.25 Whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it It may so happen that thy Love to thy Saviour may not consist with thy external Honour Wealth or Peace nay not with the enjoyment of thy own Life but it shall ever consist with the life and blessedness of thy Soul unto all Eternity and what can be an exchange equivalent to thy immortal Soul Thus whilst thou hatest thy Life when the Love and Duty thou owest to God calls for it thou dost at once perform a double duty of Love to God and Love to thy self 2. From hence it appears that in the relation between my Neighbour and my self there is a priority of Love due to my self to that Love I owe to my Neighbour for the Love to my self is presupposed and made the Rule of that Love I owe to my Neighbour therefore in an equality of Concernment to my self and my Neighbour I am to prefer my self as if this unhappy Necessity should lie upon me either to preserve my own Life or that my Neighbour must lose his and that without my fault I may I must prefer the saving of my own Life But where there is an inequality of Concernment there the difficulty is great to discover the measure of my Duty to my Neighbour
de quibus infrá 3. From hence it is evident that I am bound to love my Neighbour This is evident and it is that great Command of the New Testament 1 John 4.20 4. From hence it is evident and it is the scoâ—â— and substance of the Command that we must love our Neighbour as our selves Now this word as imports Equality therefore it is considerable how far this Equality of Love to our Neighbour as to our selves is to be extended 1. Our Love to our Neighbour must be of equal Sincerity and Integrity with that Love a Man bears to himself A Man loves himself sincerely he doth not pretend or bear a dissembled Love to himself but it is in good earnest and with his Heart I must love my Neighbour as truly as I love my self This is an Equality of Nature or Essence 2. Our Love to our Neighbour must be of the same order or method as our Love to our selves As we are to prefer our chiefest Good before our temporal Good and the good of our Souls before that of our Bodies so we ought to hold the same order in the Love we shew to our Neighbour Levit. 19.17 Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thy heart but shalt reprove him There is sometimes a merciful Cruelty to be shewn to our Brother pulling him out of the Fire and holds resemblance to the Love of God to us that reproves that he may not strike and strikes that he may not destroy And this is an Equality of Order 3. But an Equality of Degree is not required as it seems and as is before touched But though in an Equality we may prefer our selves yet when there is a disproportion there in many cases our Neighbour's Good is to be preferred before our own 1. The salvation of our Neighbour's Soul is to be preferred before the preservation of our own temporal Life much more ought we to deny our selves in those things which are onely useful or pleasing to our Sense if the salvation of anothers Soul is concerned in it And this was that which was meant 1 Cor. 10.24 1 Cor. 8.13 Rom. 14.21 If meat make my brother offend I will eat no flesh while the world standeth lest I make my brother offend And as our Saviour laid down his natural Life to redeem our everlasting Souls from an eternal Death so hath he lefâ— the same for an Example and a Command to us John 13.34 A new command I give unto you that ye 〈◊〉 one another as I have loved you He had before commanded us that we should love our Neighbour as our selves and because we might take out that Lesson by his Example Christ the Son of God who had all perfection in himself and consequently did and must love himself yet preferred the salvation of our Souls before the preservation of his natural Life to be in this an Example to us that if the exigence of the salvation of my Brother's Soul could not consist with the preservation of my own Life I am bound to lay down that Life of mine rather than his Soul should be lost 1 John 3.16 Hereby perceive we the love of God because he laid down his life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren 2. We are by vertue of this Precept to prefer the preservation of our Neighbours temporal Life which otherwise would inevitably happen before our own Safety the hazard whereof may possibly but not necessarily endanger our own This among other Examples is evidenced in the Example of Esther Esther 4.16 A Decree was passed for the Massacre of the Jews which would necessarily have ensued if there were not a speedy prevention the only means to prevent it was Esthers Address to the King and such an immediate Address without an Invitation was present Death by the Law Esther 4.11 yet Esther resolves in that Exigence to adventure her Life Esther 4.16 I will go unto the King which is not according to the Law and if I perish I perish So that although the Concernment be equal my Neighbour's Life and my own Life in which case were there not a disproportion of the Danger I were bound to preserve my own Life rather than to lose it with the preservation of my Neighbours yet when the loss of my Neighbour Life is necessary without incurring some danger of my own I am to trust the good Providence of God with my own Life in a dangerous Adventure of it rather than to see my Brother inevitably perish And the like proportion holds in matters of a lower Concernment 3. Therefore much more it follows that if the being of my Neighbour cannot consist without the parting with somewhat that consists with my temporal well-being I am to prefer my Neighbour's being before my own well-being Thus I am bound to lose my Estate rather than see my Neighbour lose his Life if my Estate would preserve it But this is still intendible only in case of an injurious taking away his Life for if by the due course of Justice my Neighbour's Life be required I am not bound to buy his Pardon with the expence of my whole Estate and so in case my Neighbour shall wilfully cast away his own Life in such Cases there is a Latitude of Christian Discretion left unto me and I am not then a debtor to his Life 4. If my Neighbour's Necessity come in competition with my Convenience only I am bound by this Law of Love to prefer my Neighbour's Necessity before my own Convenience If there be a poor Man whose Exigences are such that he hath wherewith to preserve Life only but not to satisfie Nature and I have wherewith to satisfie the Exigences of my Nature with some Advantage I am bound out of that to supply his Necessity And though my corrupted Reason may object that my future Condition may stand in need of that which I now part with to anothers Necessity we are in this to trust the Almighty to whom I lend in this my Charity and though of his own yet he is content for his own to become my Debtor And that Man cannot want when God is pleased to become his Debtor He that giveth to the poor lendeth to the Lord and he will repay him Proverbs 19.17 Yet in the measuring of Supplies for my own Necessity I am to account for all those for whom I am bound to provide for he that provideth not for his own Family is worse than an Infidel 1 Tim. 5.8 yet herein take heed that thy Heart deceive thee not CHAP. XXXI Of the second general Precept of Righteousness Doing as we would be done unto 2. THE Second Precept Matth. 7.12 Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you do ye even so to them for this is the Law and the Prophets This is nothing else but a practical Experiment of the former for every Man is presumed to love himself and in order and subservience to that Love to be able to judge whether
conception unto action and improve Joseph's question Gen. 39.9 How can I do this great wickedness and sin against God Thy Creator thy Judge beholds thee Let it be the matter of thy humiliation to consider that thou hast stained the habitation of his presence by admitting a sinful thought that thou hast in his presence and in his place nourished it into a resolution And therefore let it be at last thy care at least to kill this resolution before it comes to action by improving this practical consideration of the presence of the Holy Glorious and Terrible God And if notwithstanding this consideration thy Soul shrink not from thy purpose or if thou reject the consideration of his presence that thou mayest the more quietly and contentedly sin or if thou precipitate thy resolution into action lest the consideration of his presence should step into thy heart and divert thee Thy sin is heightned and thou addest contempt of God unto thy offence by rejecting the Light and Grace that might and would if brought to thy heart restrain thee and with the presumptuous sinner in Job 21.14 thou sayest to God Depart from me for I desire not the knowledge of thy ways And it is no wonder if he take thee at thy word and depart from thee to all Eternity by the presence of his Love and Goodness though his severe and angry Eye and presence ever rest upon thee Again Is the God of Heaven an Eye-witness of thy carriage when either by thy self or others thou art solicited to evil Take courage to resist this temptation because thy Creator sees thee Ask thy temptation whether it can secure thee from the sight and wrath of God whether it can countervail thy damage in displeasing him that beholds thee Dost thou want Courage or Resolution to oppose it Consider thy Lord stands by to see and observe and reward thee in thy opposition Couldest thou see but that Glory that hath commanded thy resistance of evil and how near it stands by thee all the choicest solicitations to any sin would die in their first offer against thee Dost thou doubt thy strength to oppose it Know that thou canst not want strength if thou hast but resolution It is thy cowardise makes thee weak it is not thy weakness that makes thee cowardly All the men in the World nor all the Devils in Hell could not fasten a sin upon thee unless thou first consent But suppose thou doubtest thy own heart yet consider thy Maker's presence who is by thee and able to support thee if thou wilt but lay hold of his strength and that strength of his he offers thee if thou wilt but take it And it is not possible thou shouldest wanr it if thou seriously consider that he is present for it is an act of thy Faith whereby thou dost believe his presence and by the same act thou dost partake of all that Goodness and Truth and Mercy which accompanies his presence and will bear thee up against the most accomplisht temptation Consider that the Presence of God that beholds thy carriage in a temptation as it must needs add an infinite dishonour and shame and confusion that in the presence of the Glorious and Pure God thou shouldest sink under a base temptation contrary to the Commands and Holiness of him that beholds thee so it cannot chuse but strengthen thee against the strongest temptation by the anticipation of that comfort and contentment that thou must needs have by holding thine integrity when such thoughts as these shall move thy heart I am now solicited to break my Maker's Command for a perishing profit or pleasure whatsoever my success be I know the Glorious Holy Mighty God sees my demeanour even he that hath his reward in his hand of Indignation and Vengeance and shame in case I yield to this unworthy solicitation And Approbation Glory and Immortality in case I stick to his Command and shall I in the presence of the Almighty and Glorious God prefer the satisfaction of an unworthy lust or temptation with shame in the presence of my Creator before my Obedience unto him even in his own sight when he looks upon me and encourageth me with a promise of strength to assist me and of Glory to reward me To be able to hear in my own conscience the suffrage of the Lord of Heaven beholding me Well done good and faithful servant were enough to overweigh all my Obedience though it were possible that it could be divided from what follows Enter into thy master's joy Again Art thou in any temporal Calamity be it what it will the consideration of the presence of God will make thy condition comfortable Psal 23.3 Though I walk in the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil for thou art with me My Wants are great and my Reproaches are great and my Enemies my Pains my Dangers my Losses my Discomforts are great But they are not hid from God he is present and his Wisdom and if he saw it not fit for me to be afflicted it is enough I have learned to acknowledge his Wisdom and with patience and chearfulness to submit to him who measures out every dram of this bitter potion to most wise Ends and yet stands by to manage it He is present and his Power and Omnipotence and my Prayers have no long journey to come unto him when my Exigences are at the highest his Power is enough and near enough to help me in the very article of necessity and when I am sinking with Peter he hath an arm near enough to rescue me from the ripe and victorious danger He is present and his Compassion and Mercy and Tenderness and Faithfulness who will not suffer me to be tempted above what I am able to bear It is his Mercy that hath thus much or thus long afflicted me for so much the necessity of my Soul it may be did require Psal 119.75 Thy Judgments are right and thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me And that I am afflicted no more it is thy Mercy For he stands by and sees what measure consists with my Good and when the measure begins to exceed my strength and either easeth my burden or helps me to bear it In all their afflictions he was afflicted Isa 63.9 He is present and his All-sufficiency and this is enough to swallow up all the bitterness and darkness of my extreamest misery The comfort and beauty and goodness of every thing in it self or which it can reach out to me by fruition or participation is that which is derived to it only from the Wisdom Power and Goodness of God and there is no more of good in the Creature than what he lends it neither can it communicate to me more nor can I receive more from it than what he enables it to give and me to receive And the Creatures are but those Vessels accommodated and fitted to my Nature out of which I drink that good that he hath
several men or one man at several times and yet they may be of different natures one may be a Chastisement another may be a Trial and another may be a Favour it is according as the thing sent hath its Commission from him that sends it If it be a Chastisement it is not without a sting If it be a Tryal it is not without an issue If it be a Favour it is not without a great measure of comforts mingled with it 1. A Chastisement for a sin past carries with it the poison and malignity of the sin which causes it as the fruit carries the nature of that seed from whence it grows Jer. 21.14 Thy way and thy doings have procured these things unto thee this is thy wickedness because it is bitter Jer. 4.18 the Affliction tasted of the sin Psal 40.12 Mine iniquities have taken hold upon me Psal 38.3 There is no rest in my bones because of my sin And this like the Trumpet in the Mount waxeth louder and louder and Prayers for Deliverance prove fruitless though they come from a Joshua Josh 7.10 till the accursed thing be sought out for till then the message that the Affliction brings is not received and it will not give over vexing the man till it hath done his Errand When a man begins to examine his ways and finds out the root of his trouble and humbles himself before God for his sin then and not till then can he expect a Deliverance When David Psal 38. had run over the Catalogue of his Sufferings his Prayer for Deliverance was never seasonable v. 22. till he had undertaken Confession and Repentance of his Sin v. 18. If upon the gentle Admonitions of the Almighty in the Conscience a man listens not he hath a Messenger sent to him that will be heard Job 33.16 Then he openeth the ear of man and it may be by a disease in his Body or some other affliction and he stands by to see how this message is entertained v. 27 28. And if any say I have sinned and perverted what was right and it profited me not then he will deliver his Soul c. A Chastisement for a sin hath at the same time an Act of Justice as it looks backward to the sin and an Act of Mercy as it looks forward to an Amendment and the latter is the principal End of God in it And therefore with the Repentance either the Chastisement is ........ if immanent or if transient and past is sweetned with a sense of God's Reconciliation 2. If it be a Tryal that carries with it his message for if upon an impartial inquiry a man cannot find any eminent sin unrepented of yet it pleaseth God to lay his hand upon him yet it brings these Lessons with it 1. To acknowledge the Justice of God for all this It is somewhat strange that Job could so much justifie himself against his Sufferings and yet was made to possess the sins of his youth Those little sins which were passed twenty or thirty years since and had all the extenuations of the infirmity of Nature have malignity enough in them to deserve those Sufferings that thou now art under and it was the Patience of God towards thee that they were thus long before they bore their fruit when thou art in a better condition to make use of the punishment than thou wert shortly after their commission And it may be thy Repentance even for those long past transgressions was not particular or deep enough and it is no loss of time or labour to thee to mourn again over thy stale transgressions but howsoever let it be thy care to search thy self it will make thee better acquainted with thy self If thou find a sin not deeply enough sorrowed for thy affliction hath deserved well at thy hands and if thou find it not yet thy affliction is well recompensed by giving thee an opportunity to discover that to thy self which contents thy Conscience more valuably than thy affliction hath done thee prejudice 2. To acknowledge the Sovereignty of God and to submit to his Will with an obedient Patience 1 Sam. 3.18 It is the Lord let him do what seemeth him good Psal 39.9 I was dumb and opened not my mouth because thou didst it Jer. 18.6 Behold as the clay is in the hand of the potter so are ye in my hands Though thou canst not see a cause for thy afflictions that might signally deserve it nor canst see an end in it yet thou canst not chuse but find a use of it to teach thee with Wisdom to acknowledge and with Patience to submit unto the most justly unlimited Power and Authority of the Almighty God over the Work of his own hands and to put thy mouth in the dust and to wait for him and upon him Jam. 3.28 29. till he give an expected End Jer. 29.11 3. To depend and rest upon his Mercy and Goodness for deliverance from or strength and comfort in thy Affliction As the Creature is essentially dependent upon God so it is its Duty and Perfection and he useth the absence of external confidences and comforts upon which we are most apt to rest to call man to his duty to fix his heart upon him Psal 112.7 External Confluences many times rob God of that Love and that Dependence we owe to him and if the loss or want of them send thy Love and Confidence to him to whom it belongs thou art no loser by thy loss 4. To walk more strictly and vigilantly with God. Though thou canst not upon thy Examination find a cause of thy cross that may eminently discover it self in it yet thou canst not chuse but know thou art far short of that Duty and degree of Perfection in thy heart and life which by that assistance of his Grace that thou hast thou mayest arrive unto thy affliction though it put thee not in mind of any notable sin which should humble thee it may very well put thee in mind of thy neglects and want of intention in thy duty 5. Though thy Disease needs not this Physick to cure thee yet thy Corruption needs it to prevent thee thou hast within thee a Fountain of Corruptions that were they not restrained or allayed would upon a small opportunity turn to a desperate disease in thy Soul and those Corruptions of thine live and feed upon external superfluities and supplies and the Wise God foresees it may be that in a month or two or more or less thy full Enjoyments would ripen this or that corruption into a distemper that might be dangerous if not fatal to thy Soul and he sends this Messenger to abate or allay or divert or cross or weaken this corruption to put in a little Wormwood into thy sweet Cup that thou mayest take it with more moderation and not so greedily to throw some dirt upon thy self-opinion or growing pride that may spoil the growth of it to give a check to thy desires of external Wealth or
Greatness which without it would in a little time swell into a stark Ambition or Covetousness The Evangelist tells us thar All that is in the world is the Lust of the Flesh the Lust of the Eyes and the Pride of Life that is those Lusts that are in us fasten upon their suitable objects in the World and upon them they live and grow strong and are thereby the better enabled to fight against our Souls and God shews as much Mercy when he takes away their food and starves them by an affliction as when he pardons them Therefore learn by thy affliction the Mind of God in this also and bless him as well for an affliction that prevents thee from sin as for one that leads thee to repentance 6. It may be God hath some extraordinary work to do for thee or by thee prepares thee by those afflictions with humility that thou mayst be a fit Instrument for his Glory or a fit Vessel for his Bounty A sudden access of Greatness or Wealth or Power or Eminence is apt to make thy Nature swell and look big and deny God Prov. 30.9 therefore he prepares thee with the sense of his hand to shew how he can when he pleaseth handle thee with the experience of the benefit of Dependance upon him with a condition that may teach thee to waâ—k humbly with him otherwise thou wilt not be able to bear and to manage that condition he intends to put thee in with moderation with his fear with an eye unto him and to his Glory Thus he prepared David for the Crown Job for Wealth the People of Israel for Canaan that they might receive and use it with Thankfulness as from his hand with Sobriety and Faithfulness as in his presence 7. Howsoever it is of most certain and universal use to take off thy Love from this World to present it to thee as it is to take thee off from setting up Tabernacles and thy Rest here and to carry thy thoughts and thy desires to thy home and to thy Country and to make the remembrance of it frequent and sweet and that upon which thou reckonest to make thy passage through death easie and comfortable when thou shalt consider such thoughts as these I am in a body full of pains and weaknesses and diseases so that I have much ado to keep up my Cottage to be comfortable or useful to me but am busied every day to underprop it and repair it that it fall not and when I have done my best yet Old Age will come and that will be an irreparable decay and my anxious life will most surely be attended with a certain death I live in a World full of labour at the best to provide necessaries for my support in a World full of troubles dangers and calumnies If my outward contentments increase yet my cares and my fears increase with them But my condition is not such but with the Psalmist I have cause to say Psal 73.14 All the day long have I been plagued and chastned every morning and like Noah's Dove I can find here no rest for the soal of my foot My walk here is like a pilgrimage and my path is not plain and easie but narrow and deep and troublesom on either hand of me I pass through the scorns and injuries and vexations of the men of this World who if I want will not relieve me and if I have any thing they are ready to tear it from me and my way which of it self is thus troublesom is accompanied with Storms and Stumbling-blocks and fiery Assaults raised by the Prince of this World and if I take up a lodging by the way it is neither a pleasing nor a safe lodging my dangers and difficulties are greater in my Inn than they are in my Journey To what purpose go I about to set up my rest or to build Tabernacles here The time I can stay will be but short and my short stay in such a World as this cannot be pleasing nor comfortable and this is not my home but I see it at a distance I find it as it were in Landskips Revel 21. the Tabernacle of God where he shall wipe away all tears from mine eyes and there shall be no more death neither sorrow nor crying neither shall there be any more pain and then these my light afflictions which are here but for a moment shall be rewarded with an eternal weight of Glory In the confidence and strength of this expectation I will hold on my troublesom Journey with chearfulness and look upon this World as the place of my pilgrimage not of my rest and the unpleasingness of my pilgrimage shall heighten if it be possible the expectation as well as the fruition of my home and the more unwelcome the World is to me and I to it the more shall my heart undervalue and disesteem it and send forth my desires the more earnestly for my Journey 's end teach me to welcome death and to desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ which is best of all 3. Sometimes external troubles are in themselves an express token of the Love of God and they carry with them comfort and delight namely when it is a Persecution for Righteousness sake and in those both the Precepts of Christ and the Pattern of his Disciples command us up to rejoycing Mat. 5.10 11 12. Rejoyce and be exceeding glad Jam. 1.1 2. Count it all joy Acts 5.41 Rejoycing that they were accounted worthy to suffer shame for his Name Coloss 1.24 Who now rejoyce in my sufferings for you and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh 4. The fourth Consideration is of the Mercy of God and therein 1. his Patience and forbearing Mercy whiles we are in our sins 2. his Clemency and forgiving Mercy upon our Repentance 3. his Bounty and rewarding Mercy in the whole course of our lives and hopes 1. The Patience Long-suffering and Forbearance of God from our infancy God leads us as once he did Ephraim Hos 11.3 teaching us to go and taking us by the arm but we know it not and bears with the frowardness and peevishness and stubborness and wantonness of our youth and when we come to our riper age he plants us with the choicest Vine with the instruction of his Word and Providence and now he doth as justly he may expect Grapes and we bring forth no Grapes or wild ones Isa 5.2 4. and now how just were it for him to pull up the hedge of it and command the Clouds that they rain no rain upon it or to lay upon it that sad Curse Matt. 2â— 19 Never fruit grow on thee more But he doth not thus but expects a second and a third and a fourth year Luke 13.8 and uses all means to mend this unfruitful and unprofitable Plant useth line upon line and precept upon precept and if his Word nor the secret whispers of his Grace will not do