them a Pardon of their Sins so as they may still persist to be Sinful All Sins shall be pardoned for which under the Law strictly considered there was no Hope but not absolutely pardon'd without any further Consideration or Condition The great benefit of Faith is this to wit That instead of perfect Obedience our sincere Endeavours shall be accepted And where These are what Defects soever there be in us they shall all be made up by the Merits of Christ who is our Righteousness But no benefit is there to be expected if we endeavour not at all or be unsincere in our Endeavours The Apostle's words That the Law which was engraven in Stones is done away are to be understood of the Law as it was part of the Covenant with the Jews not as it was a Rule for all Men. In that it was the Law of Nature and written in the Hearts of Men before it was written in Tables it still obligeth and for ever will oblige to Obedience Nor can any one unless he hath bidden a Farewel to all Reason imagine that our Lord would bring the Moral Law into the Gospel delivering it in greater plainness and raising it to an higher Perfection that after all Mens Obedience thereunto should not be necessary or that Faith in Him who came to destroy the Works of the Devil should give a Liberty to the practising those Works To be short Faith though but a single word it be is yet an highly comprehensive one and includeth mighty things in it Such as in good sort do correspond to the infinite and wonderful Love which hath been shewn to Mankind It implyeth a Knowledge of the great Mystery of our Redemption A Closing with the Will of God which is holy and good A sober and right use of Reason A Couragious asserting of our Holy Religion against all Oppositions An unfeigned Love both to God and to Men with a deep sense of our Unworthiness and Affectionate Acknowledgment of our owing all to the Divine Bounty Who are they then can think that if they do but believe it 's no matter how they live And from which of all these Actions which make up the very Being of Faith is there so much as the least Countenance to a loose Conversation Nay there cannot be stronger Obligations to a Sober Righteous and Godly Life than These are and in the exercise of them this Sober Righteous and Godly Life doth consist And how Theophilus can any wrest Repentance for Sin to the further and more safe committing of Sin Shall the Example of the Thief on the Cross which was written for Mens Comfort administer to their Presumption They consider not the Eminency of that poor Malefactor's Faith from which his Repentance did spring It is not altogether improbable that this was the first Opportunity he had of believing in Christ However the time of his believing and hoping for Mercy was very remarkable That when our Lord was in Torments as well as he and was destitute of all Earthly Supports He Then should be sought unto When he was forsaken of his Disciples derided by the Souldiers and reviled by the other Thief as one justly suffering That Then he should be acknowledged as a Lord That Then he should be own'd and his Mercy thus begg'd Lord have Mercy upon me when thou comest in thy Kingdom was a more than ordinary Act of Faith and a Repentance very much heightned from the time in which it was begun and finished But can These who have been Baptized into Christ's Death and have given up their Names unto him as soon almost as they were born and this with Solemn Vows of Fighting Manfully under his Banner against the World the Flesh and the Devil Can These say That some of the Last Days of their Life are the First Opportunities they have had of that Faith which must give Life to their Repentance Should they say it the many outward Calls they have had by God's blessed Word read and heard the many inward Calls of his Holy Spirit moving them to their Duty the many Checks of Conscience they have felt in their sinful and unchristian Practices would be ready to contradict them to their Face And then for the Time though they should be as near their End as the Thief was the case with These and with Him is very different No Hour is there now but in it it may be said That Christ is risen from the Dead Ascended into Heaven hath given Gifts unto Men and hath had all Power given unto him and of these things we have had as great Proofs as can reasonably be desired Which makes the Encouragements of turning unto Christ now to be far greater than in that sad and dismal State of his Passion on the Cross they were Unless These Men could be put in the same Circumstances with the Thief or in some not altogether unlike unto his which cannot likely be while they shall thus from the means of Salvation contrive for their Sins there will be small hopes for them in their late Repentance As for Those who wrought in the Vineyard no sooner than the Eleventh Hour and yet were rewarded alike with the Earliest it is to be understood of those who were called no sooner as is evident from Matth. 20.6.7 About the Eleventh Hour he went out and found others standing idle And saith unto them why stand you idle They say unto him because no Man bath Hired us where by Hiring we are to understand Calling which Calling may have respect either unto single Persons or else Nations Those Persons who have not heard of the Gospel or have not had opportunities of understanding the Mysteries and Precepts of it if as soon as they are acquainted with them and are invited to give their Names unto Christ they shall sincerely do it though it be in respect of their Lives as the Eleventh Hour to the Day they shall not be refused And the like may be said of Nations even at the later end of the World They shall be as dear in the sight of God as those which have had earlier calls But the Receiving a Penny at the Ninth and Eleventh Hour is not to be understood of Them who having been Baptized in their Infancy and outwardly professing Christianity all along have deferred the practice of it till their last years For they were as I may so speak Hired at the first Hour and have idled it ever since And their Idleness is to be esteem'd much different from that of the other The other wrought not because as yet they had no Imployment nor place in the Vineyard But These had Imployment and Place in it and were Unfaithful and Truanty And so may expect Punishment for their early and continued neglect while the other shall have a full Reward for their late Labour late indeed yet as early as their Call. I will not say but the late Obedience of those who have been early called may sometimes be sincere
Actions of no Authority in respect of the Injunctions which from God they declared The Vncertainty Theophilus of Examples next will shew us that they of themselves do not oblige us How many of those Examples shall bind us to Imitation is no where in Scripture told us Some of them carry an open unlawfulness along with them Others may well be question'd whether they be rightly honest or not And others that were lawful and good in the Circumstances they when acted were in will be found not so easie to be fitted for our own and all other Mens Circumstances For they admit of an unaccountable variety and that variety may so much alter the quality of Actions as to make some that are lawful to become sinful and others that we are free to do or not to do to become necessary to be done So that either we must be told in how many Circumstances such Examples will hold good and be imitable and in how many they will become unlawful and inexpedient or else every one must be left to chuse what Examples he will and to apply them how he thinks good The former is a Task that no Man will undertake The later would bring in the greatest Confusion of Practice while some would take the bad Examples others misapply the good and so all Edification and Unity would be overthrown And as the Examples are uncertain so are they insufficient And indeed so far as there is an Uncertainty there is in some sense an Insufficiency For should they be never so full in themselves yet if Mens Understandings should generally be so dim-sighted as that they could not through diversity of Circumstances discern how to take right Measures of their Actions from them they would be insufficient as to us But we shall find a great Deficiency of Examples in Holy Writ in that there are Thousands of Actions which are to be governed by Religion as indeed all our Actions are of which we can find no suitable Example in Scripture I need not Theophilus give you nor myself the trouble of gathering together many Instances of Actions to shew what I now say Let Men in the Diversity of Callings that are in the World and in the many Relations that they stand in unto others consider their own Actions and amidst all the Examples of Scripture they will see themselves left alone not having a sure Light from any of them Whence from the Uncertainty and Insufficiency of the Examples as well as from the want of Authority in the Persons no Examples are Obligatory unto us nor to be imitated any further than they have the Laws of Christ for their Rule and Warrant Theoph. But Eubulus our Blessed Lord wanted no Authority in his Person and his Example was perfect and what Others Example could not do His may may it not Eubul We will therefore consider the Actions of our Lord than whom there never was neither could be a better Pattern in the World and yet we shall find that none of them from his Example merely and without a Law did lay an absolute Obligation upon us to imitate them 1. Some of them were Miraculous Actions and as such we are not bound to imitate them For no Man is obliged to do those things which are beyond the Powers which God ever gave him or hath promised to bestow upon him Such Actions as these are the accomplishments of the Son of God above all others neither hath he nor ever will he impart the Abilities of doing the like unless upon extraordinary occasions and for the obtaining the chiefest Ends the Glory of God and the Salvation of the Souls of Men when they cannot reasonably be compass'd without such Miraculous Actings as at the first spreading the Gospel they could not But ordinarily none will be thought deficient in their Actions because they turn not Water into Wine Cure not Diseases with a Word give not Eyes to the Blind Legs to the Lame and Life to the Dead 2. Some of our Lords Actions were such as proceeded from that Authority and Prerogative which as he was a Prince did belong unto him Of this sort was his sending for the Ass and Colt without so much as having the owners leave or acquainting him with what he did Matth. 21.2 As also was his driving the Buyers and Sellers with a Scourge out of the Temple and overthrowing the Tables of the Money-changers Mat. 21.12 Neither are These to be imitated by us as we are private Men. Whosoever shall take away that which is anothers without his leave and licence and shall use it as their own will be guilty of Injustice And so whosoever as a private Person shall take upon him Magisterially to new Model the Church or the Discipline thereof he usurps that Authority which is due unto our Lord and is imparted to some only who are rightly called thereunto And he deserves the Scourge which our Lord made rather than any Praise for his Actions in this kind 3. Some Actions of our Lord are such as belong to his Mediatory Office by which he interceeds with God for Men not in a Submiss and Precarious manner but by way of Covenant and Merit These we must not imitate He that shall mediate with God upon the account of his own Merit as if he had done whatever was required of him to do and also had supererogated and so might claim as of Right a Reward to himself and somwhat over and above which he might impart to others who have been deficient in their Duty and could therefore expect nothing such an one imitateth Christ no otherwise than to become a Traytor to him and goeth about to share in that Glory which our Lord will not part with to another Nothing but Submission is to be shewn and Imperfection acknowledg'd by us For we have done in every thing less than was our Duty to do and so must account ourselves less than the least of Gods Mercies 4. Some Actions of our Lord are Moral such as respect Righteousness of Life and These we are to imitate But yet These we are not oblig'd unto merely by his Example Now These are such as may be reduced either to the Law of Nature or else to the Gospel as particularly belonging thereunto Those Actions which he did relating to the Law of Nature we also are to do Such are the Worshipping of God the being just unto Men Temperate in our own Persons and such like But the Law within us which as the Apostle saith is written in our Hearts laid an Obligation upon us before to do these things and so the Duty of performing them depends not upon his Example As for those Actions that purely relate unto the Gospel How had we been bound by them unless he had said This I say unto you This do ye Or how could we have known that his Actions should have been imitated unless he had given Laws for the doing the like When we had seen him reproached and bearing
for so themselves style the Advent of the Messias from Isai 62.2 3. And an Ordinance for ever it was as for ever had relation to the First Age of the World But was not to endure beyond what the Nature thereof would well permit Not for ever and ever as taking in the Age of the VVorld under the Messias And truly we may in a manner say that the Law is not Vilified and Destroy'd by our Lord any more than a House is when from being rough and imperfect it is finished with the greatest Wisdom and Adorned with the most Rich Materials Christianity being the Judaick Religion Heightned and Spiritualiz'd Our Lawgiver himself saith He came not to Destroy the Law and the Prophets And his mentioning the Prophets together with the Law seemeth unto me to be a good explication of what I am now Speaking We do not nor can we think that when Divine Prophecies are come to pass they are vilified and destroy'd Rather say we that they are compleated and that the Compleating them is the Honour and Crown of them If then our Lord hath not destroy'd but by his Coming made good those Prophecies which were of him Why should it be said that he hath Destroyed the Ceremonial Law rather than Fulfilled it Especially when That Law was in great measure as a Type and Prophesie of Him. It is not indeed any more to be so observed as to be reduced in Practice because He whom it did Prefigure hath been Present and Lived among Us just as the expectation of a Prophecie ceaseth when what was Predicted is come to pass But then it hath its use still as also the fulfilled Prophesie have and we are to look both upon the one and the other with a great deal of Reverence and Respect As the Coming of our Blessed Lawgiver and the Purity and Spiritualness of his Government have Crowned and Compleated Them so They do now stand as faithful and evident Witnesses of the Truth of his Coming and of the perfection of his Laws Eubul You have well improved what I said and were a Jew not obstinate in his hatred to our Lord he could not but be sway'd by such considerations Theoph. But let not me hinder you from Speaking to the Second thing to wit That such and only such Laws are injoyn'd by our Lawgiver as have in them an intrinsick Goodness or else are for Ends absolutely Good and such as are discernable by every one Eubul You hindred me not To this therefore we say That the Laws which relate unto God are all of a Refined Nature requiring that his Worship be performed in Spirit and in Truth and are such as shew forth his Spiritualness his Purity his Omniscience and other his Glorious Attributes While we are Commanded to approach unto him with our Hearts and to have them clean and uncorrupt before him the Law hath an inward goodness in it in that it requires us to be Holy as he whom we serve is Holy. And it nourisheth in us right apprehensions of God that his Nature is not Gross and Bodily but that he is present with us and is a discerner of our thoughts A thing which could not be said of some of those actions which in Moses's Law had Relation to Gods immediate Service For wherein could the Spirituality of Gods Nature be inferred from the Blood of Beasts and their Flesh being offered up unto him How could we from these Rites in themselves consider'd be instructed in the Holiness Goodness and Mercy of God These Acts of Worship might seem to be of a Carnal and Gross Nature and though there be places enough in the Old Testament that speak forth God to be a Spiritual and Immaterial Being to be Holy and Good yet from these parts of his Service look'd upon in themselves alone Men could not learn so much Theoph. But Eubulus there are Two Precepts of Christianity respecting Gods immediate Service which may seem not to have any thing of internal Goodness in them and those are the Dipping or Sprinkling of Children with Water in Baptism and the Eating of Bread and Drinking of Wine in the Sacrament of the Lords Supper For what Affinity doth there appear between true Goodness and the Eating a Bit of Bread and Sipping a little Wine Between true Goodness and the Sprinkling a little Water Eubul I deny not Theophilus what you say but then you must Remember the whole that was said viz. That only such Laws are enjoyn'd which have an intrinsick Goodness in them or else are for Ends absolutely Good and such as are discernable by every one By Baptism we are initiated into the Church of Christ becoming Members to him our Head and have the guilt of Sin wash'd away Baptism being instituted for the Remission of Sins Acts 2.38 And we are also thereby made partakers of the benefits of Christs Death into which we are Baptized Rom. 3.6 In which Rite our Lawgiver as in every thing he exceeded what was done before hath amplified his Seal by making it applicable to both Sexes when in Circumcision it was impressed only upon one Thus also the Eating of Bread and Drinking of Wine in the Holy Sacrament are done in Remembrance of the Death and Passion of our Lord. And this Remembrance of him is upon the Account that he hath laid down his Life for Mankind and for ourselves in that Number And so as oft as we do this Worthily and as we ought to do we are afresh entituled to that Salvation which by his Death he hath purchased for us and have God the Father Reconciled unto us Now these are excellent Ends and that to these Ends both Baptism and the Lords Supper were instituted we are expressly told in Holy Writ without any Clouds and Darkness without so much as a word that may have a double or doubtful signification that whoever runs may read Which cannot be said of Sacrifices and some other Significant Rites among the Jews For although they were Types of our Lord as hath been said yet they were not known so to be by the generality of the People And truly it doth not a little Commend the Precepts of Baptism and the Lords Supper that in these great Acts of our Faith our Lawgiver is so far pleased to condescend to our Senses as to make the things that may be Seen and Tasted to be the Conveighers of such inestimable Favours Water and Bread and Wine are indeed things of ordinary use But in so being they import these Divine Priviledges to belong not to the Rich only and the Great but to the Meaner Sort also And very rightly suted they are to the ends for which they were instituted The Washing away of Sins is well signified by the Cleansing of our Bodies with Water And Christs Wounded Body and Spilled Blood are better represented by the lowly Elements of Bread broken and Wine poured out than by more costly and rich Materials they would have been For we are to Remember
him not as in a pompous and splendid but in an humble and afflicted Condition Though mean as a Bit of Bread and Sip of Wine may seem yet very apposite it is that our Spiritual Food by which we are nourished up unto Eternal Life should be conveighed to us in That which gives Nourishment unto and supports our Temporal Life in this World. So that all those Precepts which in their observance have an immediate Relation unto Gods Service are such as are Intrinsically Good or else such as may be ranked with those that are for the admirable Ends which 't is plainly shew'd they are ordain'd unto And further yet Theophilus Those Precepts which throughout our whole Conversation look towards God are such as are worthy to be practised by understanding Creatures towards the most perfect of Beings And it would not be just to conceive a God in the World who hath deserved infinitely well of Man and not conceive such obedience to be due unto him Such is the Believing and Trusting in him the submitting our Wills unto his and the Doing all things to his Glory and such like For by these He is own'd to be a God of Truth and Wisdom a God of Power and Goodness and to be All in all the Great and Holy One. And surely Those Laws cannot but be in themselves truly Good which so fashion the Hearts of Men that they appositely shall answer to those perfections which are in God and thereby as far as Man's Nature is capable become partakers of them And how genuine a pleasure is it for a Soul thus to believe in Him who cannot be Deceived himself and who will not Deceive us Who hath Revealed Truths which have been hid from Ages Truths that include the greatest Wonder and also the greatest Love And were it not a Command that so we should do what would we be more Solicitous for or what more seek after than the Priviledge of Reposing Trust in one who never faileth those that with a Christian confidence rely upon him When we are as of ourselves unable to see those things which shall be for our good and very forward to look to those things that will be for our hurt it sure is a Righteous Command that requires our Wills to be Subordinate unto His whose perfection it is to will only those things which are best And since the designs of Men so often create them trouble and nothing that here they enjoy can give them true satisfaction what can be a more noble End to all the Actions of Men than that which is the End the Almighty proposeth unto himself and which gives him Eternal delight in the obtaining it viz. His Glory If as all our powers and faculties proceed from him we shall in all things improve them unto him there will be no cause for us to complain that they are lost to Ourselves by being found in Him. But we shall be filled with that Glory which we do so Administer unto And lest the Goodness which these Laws have in them should be injured by an undue Practice they are to be obey'd in Righteousness and no otherwise Gods Glory is to be our continual Aim but we must not go about to promote it by a Lye or any thing that is Evil. The keeping of our Souls is to be committed unto God but it must be in Well-doing And the like is there for all others Laws which both sheweth and establisheth their Goodness Neither are those Laws which more nearly respect Men of a different Make from the other we by these are enjoyn'd the Exercise of Righteousness Mercy and Kindness And what would a Man wish should by others be Practised to himself and his Friend dear as himself sooner than these These do not from any thing we possess wring out the Tears of the Orphans and Widow No Stone is there to cry out of the Wall nor Beam to answer it out of the Timber We by them are taught to rejoyce at the Welfare of others as if it were the Fruit of our Prayers To esteem the Blessings which we ourselves do enjoy to be the greater because thereby we are enabled to do the more good By them also a True Relish is preserved in our Meats and Drinks and they are made to hold out Health and Long Life unto us by freeing us from those Surfeits and Excesses which would turn the most pleasant and wholsom things nto Bitterness and Poison In a Word these Laws how many or of what sort soever they be are such as perfect our Natures and capacitate us for a better World when this is done For a Man without the Practice of these would be altogether as far from reaching to the Glory of a Saint as a Beast is from being improved into the Excellencies of a Man. And Theophilus thay which is not to be forgotten have nothing of dark Ceremony annexed to be observed with the same Care as we do the substance of the Duties themselves Wherefore upon these accounts also we have very great Inducements to Love the Divine Laws Theoph I can easily grant that from the Intrinsick Goodness of these Laws there is a very strong inducement to Love them But is it Eubulus so great an one that these Laws which have an Intrinsick Goodness should Alone be enjoyn'd I therefore ask this because I remember you said that the sitting some inferiour Laws to the Temper of the Jewish Nation did the better fit that People for the observance of those Laws which were in their own Nature Moral Eubul It is a very great Inducement to our Love that those Laws alone should be enjoyned which have an Intrinsick Goodness in them For now as our whole Duty is reasonable so we have it in a little room and may the better understand and do it which would not so well be done by reason of the vast Number of Laws if all People wheresoever scatter'd should have had some suted to their Dispositions which are so Various The giving of the Christian Laws and of the Mosaick was very different Those by Moses were only or chiefly to the Jews God having then his Tabernacle in Salem and his dwelling place in Sion and among Them alone of all the Inhabitants of the Earth He chose to place his Name And over and above as he was their God so as was before said at the giving of these Laws he was their Temporal Prince And therefore the Nation being one People he might the better sute some Laws to their Temper Which in much Wisdom he did in the Judicial Law apparently and not less in the Ceremonial making That which did so much Typifie the future Kingdom of the Messias to hit also the Constitution of their Climate which enclined them much to a Variety of Rites and a Ceremonious way of Worship Yet not so did God sute his Laws to their Tempers as in every thing to Close with them But he in a manner did cultivate that People keeping