Look what grace any where you see in Christ the resemblance of it is stamped upon every child of God by the spirit of Christ Hence it comes to passe that which is worth your observation those who have Christ they doe reason from the nature of Christ to justifie the temper of their owne spirits and the course of their own lives as is the Apostle Pauls owne Argument in 2 Corin. 1.17 18 19. Some of the false Apostles tooke up an Argument against the Apostle Paul to prove his levity and inconstancy and forgetfulnesse and how doth he free himselfe did I use lightnesse no saith he our words toward you was not yea and nay and thus he reasons from Christs nature The Sonne of God who was preached among you was not yea and nay but yea and amen Now he which establisheth us with you is Christ c. So that looke as Christ is yea and amen the faithfull and true witnesse of God what he speakes he confirmes and fulfills in due season Now saith he when Christ was preached among you it was not an uncertain Christ carryed about with lightnesse and unsettlednesse but what is once gone out of his lips It is yea and amen Therefore make account that God that hath poured the same spirit upon us hath established us together with you To shew you that by reason of the participation of the spirit of grace there is such a spirit in us as that you may argue all these the nature of Christ the nature of the Gospell and the nature of the frame of grace in the hearts of Gods people to be all alike they do mutually shew the face one of another in the frame and carriage one of another That as Christ is yea and amen so is the Gospell and such are they that beleeve the Gospell and are established by the Gospel in Christ Jesus v. 21.2 And he hath sealed us and given us the spirit in our hearts the same spirit of Christ that breathed in the Gospell and in the Preachers of the Gospell and the beleevers of it is yea and amen in them all a spirit of truth and innocency and gravity and purity whatsoever is the spirit of the one is the spirit of them all So that this is an evident signe that wee have Christ when we have the spirit of Christ when you may reason alike the one from the other though in us it be the weaker by reason of a spirit of corruption found in us and not in Christ Yet this is an evident argument of the stabillity and gravity of our hearts which though in regand of weaknesse we might think the Apostle might have been excepted against yet because there is no weaknesse in a child of God but if he have Christ his heart is in the same condition with Christ and with the Gospel also therefore he may comfortably argue a likenesse between them what he speakes that he thinkes in his heart and it is the desire of his soul that it may be effected And though he may be hindred yet his heart is still the same and he was by no meanes to bee taxed of any lightnesse because he did not performe his word the fault was not his levity his spirit was the same but some occasion fell out otherwise by the providence of God And so it is with every child of God if he have Christ the spirit of a Christian is ever the same if there should be any inclination to lying and inconstancy the frame of the spirit is altered but the true bent and frame of a Christian is to be one with Christ as Christ is one with him 2 Now as there is a likenesse and conformity The second conformity and unity in nature between Christ and a child of God so there is also in us a conformity to Christ in his Offices The meaning is Whosoever hath the Son he hath the offices which the Sonne hath As he was both King Priest and Prophet to God his Father so are we Rev. 1.6 As Kings to rule over all our lusts and to rule all those whom God commends to our Government according unto God As Kings to get victory and to conquer over the World and to over-wrastle any difficulty as we meete with As Kings anoynted with the spirit of a King of a royall spirit though not invested with fulnesse of glory till the last day yet of an heroyicke noble spirit can easily over-look all earthly drudgery and resist any enemy we meet with And Priests also we are so as we are able to offer up sacrifices of prayer and thanksgiving to God A broken and an humble heart is a Sacrifice much set by of God Psalm 51.17 and Phil. 2.17 offered upon the sacrifice and service of your faith We are now inabled to go to God and to offer up praises to him which are as insence before him and in offering up any other sacrifice of an holy life we are Priests unto God the Father And so are we also Prophets Acts 2.17 hee poures out his spirit in a rich and plentifull measure he poures out his spirit upon all flesh whence it comes to passe that the servants of God understand many secrets of Gods counsell Psalm 25.14 and whence also it comes to passe that many a godly man by the same spirit discernes many secret hidden mysteries and meanings of the Holy Ghost in Scripture more then ever he could by any reading or instruction and many times discernes some speciall work of the spirit of God which inables them to fore-see some speciall blessings most usefull for their spirituall estate and so leads them on to many good things which they did little thinke of and so makes them of Propheticall spirits and bowes them to teach others also to lead on others of their neighbours in the wayes of God And now I say that as these be the Offices of the Lord Jesus Christ so there is no child of God that hath the Son but he hath all these in him hee is now a man of a royall and Priestly and Prophetical spirit And you are hereby I meane by the spirit not onely called to these Offices but inabled to discharge them For that is the difference between a Christian in heart and a Christian in appearance fall short of ability to performe these Offices And as there is this conformity to the Nature and Offices of Christ in them that have the Sonne So Thirdly The third conformity there is a conformity in their Estates you know Christ waded through an Estate of humiliation and exaltation These bee the main Principles of Religion that looke as it was with Christs estate it was sometime the time wherein hee was humbled in this world all the course of his life was a time of humiliation and that unto the very death or else his state of exaltation in heaven that then when he was most mortified then was he most glorified triumphing openly and mightily shewing
doe enjoy this life of holinesse In the sixth place you shall have modesty mixed with much magnanimity Modesty mixed with magnanimity which is rarely found in men indued only with Morrall or Civill gifts but in nature the more modest the lesse magnanimous But a Christian the more modest he is the more magnanimous look at Paul and touching the righteousnesse which is of the Law he is indued with many carnall priviledges according to the Law but now all these are but losse and drosse and dung that he might win Christ all his good parts of nature and all his common gifts of grace yet all of them but drosse and dung this was the modest spirit of Paul a man who sometimes saith of himselfe He was not inferiour to the very chief Apostles 2 Cor. 12.11 yet againe saith he I am nothing there is his magnanimity When he is opposed and vilified by the false Apostles what hath Paul forgot his modesty now that he knowes not how to submit himselfe nor to compare himselfe with his equals No but though chiefe of the Apostles yet am I nothing He lookes at every thing he had as nothing This I am but yet I am nothing He sometimes calls himselfe the least of all the Apostles 1 Cor. 15.9 10 and yet other whiles not inferiour to the very chiefe of them Sometimes he calls himselfe the least of all Saints Eph. 3.8 and yet sometimes not inferiour to the very chiefe Apostles and this he had learned he had been instructed thus to deny himselfe he desired that he might know nothing but Christ and him crucified See the noble spirit of this selfe-deniall servant of God sometimes whey the Magistrates had done him wrong see then how he stands upon his priviledges he complaines they had beaten him a Roman being uncondemned Act. 16.9 and when they heard this they would have sent him away privately nay let them come and fetch him out See now a man of a great and magnanimous spirit though a man as fit to put up wrongs as any man yet when he sees the glory of God is interested in his person and his calling or his cause is called in question then he knowes how to stand upon his worth and if in such a case he sustaine open wrong then he will plead the liberty of a Subject whereas at another time he would have done more to a farre lesse man then a Magistrate He is become all things to all men that he might save some every way so gentle that you may turn him about your hand any way but else he wil stand upon his worth and not inferiour to the very chief Apostles those that are greatest and chiefest such who seemed to be pillars he is not inferiour to any of them the greatest of them all equall to the best of them if not before them all and yet laboured more then they all 1 Cor. 15. last to shew you the marvellous modesty of the spirit of grace a work incompattible to nature but is found only in a spirit of holinesse and there only they are combined together in the same person at the same time and in the same businesse with the same breath he can tell you He is not inferiour to the very chief Apostles and yet I am nothing Notable is that expression of David to this purpose My eyes are not lofty nor my heart haughty but I have behaved may selfe as a weaned childe Psal 131.1 2 Now you would thinke if a man were such a weaned humble creature he could not tell how to speake nor to take any great things in hand but when he comes to speake to that Psal 24.7 opened you shall marke the frame of his spirit Psal 24.7.9 Stand open ye everlasting doores and be ye lift up ye everlasting gates that the King of glory may come in When he lookes at earthly things yea the best of them his heart is so weaned from them that he knowes not how to have an high thought weaned even from a Kingdome as a childe from the breast and yet the same soule that is thus weaned and thus meane in his owne eyes when he comes to spirituall matters it is wonder to see the height of his spirit these things are too low and too shallow for him hee knowes not how to close with nor to content himselfe with such poore things as these be Crownes and Scepters and Dignities his heart was weaned from them all all of them things too low and too meane for him to be exercised about now be ye lift up ye gates and he meanes the heart and conscience of a man the affection of his soul lift up these to the wayes of God he would now be of an higher straine so that a man would wonder at this though the matter be great and high every way farre above all earthly things yet notwithstanding he lookes at them all as matters fit for his heart to be raised up unto he lookes at the favour of God and the blood of Christ and pardon of sinne the Kingdome of glory he lookes at all these high matters as fit objects for his heart to be set upon His eyes were not haughty and he did not exercise himselfe in great matters concerning earthly things and yet was it not a great matter to be King of Israel yet is it not a greater matter to be the Sonne of God then to be the Son in Law to a King but his eyes are not haughty he doth not exercise himselfe in such things as these be but yet he exerciseth himselfe in greater matters then these things are and therfore when as Christian men are thought to be of shallow weake spirits and know not how to carry on end matters in this world yet when they come to spirituall matters there they can tell how to set their hearts a work about such matters about the inheritance of the Kingdome of Heaven about the favour of God and the light of Gods countenance these be great matters when they come to have the eye of God upon them they can looke for the glory of his presence and the fellowship of the Angels and they can discourse and tell you of great blessings that God hath layed up for them in Christ then they can exercise their hearts in such great matters Psal 149.6 Let the high praises of God be in their mouthes what a strange speech is there Psal 149.6 expounded for a man that sometimes said Great matters are too high for him yet now as it is in the Originall High things the high glorious things of God the great things of God the magnanimous things of God the high praises of God the high Majesty of God the high praises and thanksgiving of God let them be in their mouthes the mighty power of God let that be in their lips and a two-edged sword in their hands Hee speakes of a word of Prophesie and instruction to the people the word is called
themselves and therefore this is the warmth of this knowledge it both burnes up their owne lusts like chaffe and all the sinfull distempers that we see in the lives and wayes of our Brethren this is one part of the heat of a Christian soule that his knowledge is a warme knowledge Look what he knowes he thinkes he must doe whereas another man knowes many things but he doth them not but a Christian if he know it to be the Will of God he must doe it And that is the reason why Gods servants are many times counted very busie as indeed the fire is ever very busily working no creature in the house so busie as the fire is and so the knowledge of Gods people makes them to be so busie in doing and therein they expresse the life of Christ Secondly 2. Where there is life there is breath where ever is true life there is this warmth a warmth in their breath both in the Naturall and Spirituall body in this Naturall body while we live it is warme and so long as we live we breath more or lesse it is but for a little time if at all breath be intercepted it may be in some suddaine fits but ordinarily if it tarry long it is a signe of death but if there be life there is breathing and that breathing is warme some warme breath comes from him that is alive And truely so shall you finde it in your spirituall life If there be any true life in the heart of a Christian soule there is alwayes some kind of warm breathing there is some measures of warmth in his prayers the prayers of an hypocrite ir alwayes but lip-labour and accordingly lust labor the words vanish away in the aire but there is ever more or lesse some kind of warmth-in the prayers of Gods servants according to what the Apostle speakes Rom. 8.26 even then when we know not what to pray for nor how to pray as we ought then the spirit helpes our infirmities that when we sometimes cannot bring out a word to God the heart is ful sometimes of anguish and discouragement in respect of inward desertions or temptations and outward afflictions but yet though in such a case we be not able to tel what to pray for yet there is ever in a Christian soule something that makes him seeke to God and the very sighs of such a soule come from ome warmeth of spirit within him The scalding sighs and deep groanes of the soule they come from a spirit of life and warmth in Christ Jesus Therefore though it be true there be many cold prayers that Gods servants do put up yet there is some kind of sighs and groans that springs from them which argues some heat and life in them And so is it As they breath thus to God-ward so doe they breath one to another so that if they speake of the things of God they speake not of God and his Word lightly and wantonly or loosely as those that have no affection to them but if they speak of the Word of God of his threatnings promises or of any of his commandements or any of the workes of his providence they speake not of them coldly as those that took no pleasure in them but if they speake of any of the things of God they speake with some reverence and desire after them and settling a confirmation in them they have love to the word and rejoyce in it and stand in awe and in feare of it and they exercise their hearts and wits about it when at any time they speak of the things of God so that there is some kind of warmth in the expression of a Chirstian in some savoury affection whereby he esteemes of the things of God above what is found in an hypocrite Thirdly Spiritual warmth digesteth Gods Ordinances There is a certaine kind of warmth by which the soule doth not only affect the Ordinances of God but by which it doth in some measure digest them there is no living man wanting some such measure of heat as makes him able to digest some kind of dyet though not alwayes strong meate especially if he be in any measure of health and that is no small measure of heate Psal 119.20 the very longing desire it alwayes hath to Gods Judgements was it that even made his soule to breake within him and so to pant after Gods Word and his presence in his Ordinances Psalm 42.1 there was a kind of panting and longing and eager desire after God by which it comes to passe that the soule of a Christian closes with God in his Ordinances and turnes them into nourishment within himselfe and so is more strongly and inwardly bent towards God in the ways of his grace whereas a dead spirit is flat and hath no affection to the word no affection to Gods presence no list to the things of this nature Fourthly things that are warm put them together and they are the more warm 4. Spiritual warmth heateth others but put cold clogs and peeces of wood together and they are never a whit the warmer but if you take but two or three of them things that are well kindled and they will set all a fire that comes nigh them though ready before to goe out for want of supply if you lay two or three warme brands together they will kindle one another And truly so it is among Christians take you a Christian that hath this spirituall warmth in him though almost benumbed for want of good company and good conference and breathing forth of Gods spirit and grace in the soule Yet if he meet with two or three like himselfe they presntly begin to kindle one another And the breath of such Christians is like bellows to blow up sparkes savoury and sweet expressions of their hearts and edifie themselves by their mutuall fellowship one with another Yea and sometimes they grow so warme by this means as that they are fit to admonish one another to exhort and to comfort and if need require to rebuke one another as occasion serves 1 Pet. 4.8 Have fervent love one to another above all things have fervent love among your selves this is a speciall thing love among Christians by which love they so kindle one another to such deep respects to God and the wayes of his grace and so burne one out of another much sinfull folly and frailety which will be in them that are so loose one to another and raiseth them up to that power of godlinesse which sometimes they had grown up unto and now almost lost for want of often joyning together for by so doing they do what they can to put out the fire when Satan means to put out the light and life of Religion out of both Church and Commonwealth hee layes one Christian in one corner and another in another that they shall when they list go to bed and sleep and then a lazy spirit shall come upon them and so they
petitions and the having of them all fulfilled To open this point unto you And because John doth gather this from the end of his own writing for hee saith hee wrote these things onely to them that beleeve in the name of the Sonne of God for this end That they might beleeve on his name Therefore let me shew you first how these two great benefits confidence and certainty of hearing and having our petitions doth both spring and arise from what is here taught us First Which is the foundation of all the rest 1 John 3.1 speaking of Adoption saith he Behold what manner of love the Father hath shewed on us that we should be called the Sons of God he doth stand and wonder at the marvellous and incredible love of God that he should vouchsafe to stoop so low and honour us so much debase himself and lift us up not only stoop so low as to behold low things are on earth Psal 113. but so low as to take up such earth-worms as we be from the Dung-hill and set us among the Princes of the people ver 5 6 7 8. he not only beholds them with an eye of providence but his people with an eye of fatherly compassion and lifts us up to become sonnes and daughters to himselfe and helps us to beleeve it that we are so This is the first ground of the certainty and confidence of the hearing of our petitions if once we may come to be certaine that we are the sonnes of God upon which occasion a great part of this Epistle is spent this is the first ground and these the Apostle is wont to joyne together as the ground of all comfort in this kinde Gal. 4.5 6. Rom. 8.15 so that to be perswaded or to grow confident that we are the children of God will be a good foundation to the certainty of the hearing and granting of our Petitions To whom may a Son come for any blessing but to a Father and what makes him more confident of speaking and acceptance then this principle that he knowes he is the childe of such a Father as is willing and able to help him Secondly another principle in this Epistle tending to build up this certainty and confidence is not only our adoption but likewise Christs advocation 1 Io. 2.1 2. If any man sinne we have an Advocate with the Father Iesus Christ the righteous Advocate what What is it to be an Advocate To be an Advocate is to plead on our behalves with the Father for the granting and answering of our Petitions for the pardoning and healing of all our transgressions and the performing to us and giving of us all the good things we stand in need of whether we aske them or aske them not but especially there is no Petition we put up but Christ takes it at our hands and puts it up in such forme to his heavenly Father as that by and through him it is accepted As a man retaines an Advocate in a Court he brings him his cause rudely drawne so as it would be rejected in the Court but his Advocate puts it into such a forme as is agreeable to the Law and sutable to the order of the Court so as it findes free acceptance So we put up our Petitions rudely and many times farre short of that frame which God especially lookes for from his servants hands but Christ takes them at our hands and puts them into forme and so preferres them to his heavenly Father and so as from thence we have good occasion and good ground of confidence and certainty that whatever we put up in any measure according to Gods will being presented to our Advocate to our heavenly Father shall be accepted Thirdly The Attonement or propitiation that our Saviour makes to our blessed Father spoken of in the same place 1 Ioh. 2.2 Attonement or propitiation the thing is this That whereas many a servant of God might feare his Petitions would never be granted because he hath been so sinfull before God and hath so many wayes dishonoured God that he knowes not however God should heare such an unworthy creature as he is Now the Apostle sets forth in this Epistle the Lord Jesus Christ as our Attonement that if we come to our Advocate and say We have such Suits and Petitions to put up to our heavenly Father but we have so displeased him that we thinke he will never regard us Why saith the Apostle If any man sinne we have an Advocate with the Father Iesus Christ the righteous and he is the propitiation for our sins and therefore for our owne hearts though we have just cause of discouragement in regard of our sins yet we have a propitiation an attonement he makes intercession for us as an Advocate but you say God will not heare him for such sinners as we be Yes he makes propitiation or attonement that we perish not by our sins nor that they should hinder Gods acceptance of us or granting our desires ver 7. of the first chap. and so here is a third ground-worke of our confidence and certainty of our desires Fourthly There is another and that is the annoyntment that we have received from him by which we know all things 1 Joh. 2.20 implying that though we be dark in our owne mindes and dead and straight in our owne spirits and doe not know what the Lord or Christ hath done for us Why yet we have received an unction from the Lord Iesus who will tell us what he hath done for us As a mans Advocate will send his Clyent word of all things how they goe in the Court about his businesse that he may know how farre he hath proceeded and where they stick So the Lord Jesus Christ he is the holy one there spoken of You have received an unction from him he sends downe his holy Spirit into your hearts and lets you see and know all the petitions and requests that God grants you you shall no sooner have a petition granted but you shall have it certified to you by this unction of the holy one whereby you know you have them granted and for whose sake it is that they are granted by this unction you know all things pertinent to life and godlinesse And this is that which the Apostle Paul speakes 2 Cor. 2.12 God sends forth his owne Spirit into our hearts to let us know so much and this is a marvellous point that the Holy Ghost gives us to know all things that are done in Heaven for us and how farre God hath accepted us Further If you be inquisitive to know why the Spirit of God doth certifie the soule of this First the Spirit certifies us of this that surely our Petitions are heard and granted because he hath given us an heart to pray he hath helped us to pray we could never have prayed fervently and feelingly unlesse the Holy Ghost had helped us we know we have straight hearts and if we therefore come and
give where and to whom he will 3 And for a third ground why eternall life cannot bee given by any but by Christ is taken from the invincible difficulty of the passage to eternall life from the hand of death and the grave there is no redemption What man is he that can deliver his soule from the hand of the grave Psal 49. And if the soule be severed from the body no man can quicken his owne soule that is beyond the power and reach of the creature death is the passage to eternall life and this passage is of invincible difficulty for a man to dye and then to translate himselfe from death to life is far beyond the capacity of the creature and therefore saith our Saviour I am the resurrection and the life Joh. 11.25 and hee speakes of it formally and properly as if he should say being risen from the dead my selfe I rise my selfe and therefore raise up others also so that if you looke at the invincible difficulty of it you shall see that it onely is the Lord Jesus that can give eternall life it is a signe of an hypocrite when with Simon Magus we thinke this gift may be bought with money Reas 2 It is taken from the good pleasure of the Father whom it hath pleased that in Christ all fulnesse of life should dwell Col. 1.19 And when he which is our life shall appeare wee shall appeare with him 1 Cor. 1.30 And therefore since God hath concluded and shut up all the springs of life in Christ and out of Christ there is nothing but death the good pleasure of the Father hath determined this point that he having given us this eternall life in his Son there is no deriving life from any fountaine but only from the Son Vse If upon our having or not having of Christ depends our having or not having of life then from hence you see an evident ground of triall of every one of our estates whether we be alive or dead would any man know whether he have or not have life consider then whether you have or not have Christ And from hence you may discerne three grounds of triall to discerne whether we have Christ or no. First consider what it is to have a Christ Secondly what it is to have the Son Thirdly what signes there be of life and hereby wee shall have direction whether we have Christ or no and by this we may informe our selves aright in this particular This point containes in it the pith and marrow of Christianity so far as any comfort of it may redound to us First then let us consider what signes the Holy Ghost hath given us of our having of Christ We are said to have Christ four wayes in Scripture First by the honour or service or worship of him Secondly in some sense wee are said to have Christ by purchase Thirdly by way of Covenant Fourthly by way of free acceptance when God offers him First a man is said to have God or to have Christ that worships him and the very worshipping of him is the having of him so you read Exod. 20.3 Thou shalt have no other gods but me it is the expresse words of the Commandement And by having of God there he meanes thus much Thou shalt worship no other gods but me worship me and thou hast me worship any other and thou hast another god and not me So have the Lord Jesus Christ by worshipping of him and you have him fully Psal 45.10 11. He is the Lord thy God and worship thou him implying that as God hath set over his Son to us to be our Lord so we must receive accept and worship him this is that which Moses and the people of Israel sung He is my God and is become my salvation Exod. 15.2 He is my God and he is my Fathers God and therefore I will exalt him So that to set up and exalt God in our hearts and lives and to worship him is all one this sets up the Lord to worship him is to be our God Now a little better to understand this point that you may conceive what this worship of Christ is you are to conceive that worship is performed to Christ in minde in heart in life both in our obedience that wee performe in our life in suffering and patience which wee yeeld to God in our lives by all this we worship Christ and so have him 1 Part of the worship of Christ viz. in the mind and judgement First in our mindes we then indeed worship Christ when we have him in high estimation The worship and honour that we owe to Christ is to have him in high esteem Cant. 5 10. She the Spouse there may well call him her beloved Christ is my Christ when he is to me the chiefest of ten thousand Psal 89.6 Who among the sonnes of the mighty can be likened to the Lord. And Exod. 15.11 Who is a God like unto thee When the soule of a man doth esteem of Christ above all other things in the world when there is nothing that the soule so prizes as the Lord Jesus Christ then the soul hath him and herin lies the difference between spiritual earthly things you have an high esteem of an earthly thing and yet have it not a man may highly prize a good bargain and yet have it not but no man sets an high price upon Christ but hee that hath him spirituall things we wholly neglect untill we have them and when we have them then there oisn-thing with us comparable to them untill a man have his portion in the word of God it is but a thing of small value to him and so the Spirit of Gods grace and the blood of Christ untill a man have it it is but a light vaine thing to him yea till he have the Lord Jesus himselfe no spirituall thing is of any value with him but so soone as ever the heart begins to prize Jesus Christ as the chiefest of all the blessings that ever God bestowed upon the sonnes of men and if the soule thinke To prize Christ is to worship him that had he but his part in Christ he were the happiest man in the world in thus prizing him he worships him and in worshipping him hee hath him Now you must conceive that all worship stands in advancing another with the debasing of our selves we humble our selves that we may advance another Now if our debasement to them be such as is not compatible to a creature as when we subject our heart and spirits to them this is divine honour Now that soule that exalts the Lord Jesus Christ as the highest in his owne esteem he debases himself to the dust in his spirit before him John 1.27 It is the speech of John Baptist speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ He that commeth after me is preferred before me whose shooe latchet I am not worthy to loose This is a true worshipping of Christ when in
themselves Note this and what a grief it is to them to see this and that duty neglected in the family and they are very free to God But afterwards when they come to be Free men and are for themselves that they may now have as much liberty as they will pray when they will and take what time they will to instruct those that are about them which time they wanted when they were servants and which they then mourned under And yet whereas then they would serve God with much freedome and liberty of spirit were then free from the law of sinne and free for any duty There is now a secret kind of bondage come upon them their hearts is more imbondaged and insnared and imcombred and intangled and so dutyes come not to be performed either with that constancy and care or not with that inlargement of heart as they were when they were servants And therefore that is the reason why the Apostle bids them not bee over-ready to challenge freedom But this shewes you that there is a marvellous liberty even in those that are servants they are free from the service of men in their hearts and consciences and then most at liberty to serve God when they are most bound to serve men yet in their hearts and consciences they are free from their service they are not bound in conscience to doe any thing but what is the will of God and this is a marvellous great freedom that a man is not bound to become a slave to other mens wil and to do as other men do he is not bound to do any thing that is unlawfull and this is a spirit of liberty that makes even a servant to have a spirit of freedome he is a Free-man his heart is free to Gods Service and this is from nothing else but from this spirit of a sonne a spirit of liberty Now on the contrary side as by this spirit of liberty a Childe of God is free from the feare of sinne so he hath a certaine kinde of priviledge of peace in his soule and of freenesse and readinesse to every Christian duty and also he hath a certaine priviledge of dominion over all the Creatures It is the nature and proper definition of liberty Freedome from evil and liberty unto the enjoyment of some good things it sets me free from sinne and gives me liberty and peace of conscience from the same Spirit of the Lord Jesus it sets me at liberty to run the way of Gods Commandements Psal 119.32 And Gods people are a willing people Psal 110.3 This is indeed a spirit of liberty it inlarges me to dominion over men no Creature in heaven or in earth but a Christian is able to rule him to his owne advantage a Christian servant wil turne his Masters government to his advantage and so all his enemies tyranny he will be sure to be better by them all and he wil grow and thrive in his spirit by all the dangers and evils that can befall him in this world I know not in what better to instance then in that of Gen. 25.23 The Oracle of God said to Rebecca the elder shall serve the younger And this is a thing in much dispute among Divines wherein this was ever made good and say That Esau was never a servant to Jacob for you shall finde in the 32. and 33. Chapters of Genesis that Jacob uses this word My Lord Esau and beseeches his Lordship to goe before and his servant would follow after and so it stood in their outward condition And Divines say Though the promise be true of the persons both seperate from the Wombe yet the service was not so But we need not straighten our selves for the explication of it for Esaus Lording and domineering over Jacob was as serviceable to Jacobs spirit as if he had layed aside his state and come and served Jacob and kept his Sheep the bitternesse of Esau against him did him more reall service then all the service of all Iacobs servants could reach him Whence was it that Iacob went a Pilgrimage from his Fathers house and that in a strange Country God so prospered him that whereas he went out but with his staffe in his hand he returned back againe with two bands or two droves And whence was it that Iacob made such a solemne Vow to God and kept it in so much faithfulnesse that if God would keepe him in that journey God should be his God for ever Did not all this come from the rage and wrath of Esau towards him Esau did him that good service and when he came back againe and heard newes that Esau came out with foure hundred men against him and thought to come to spoyle them all what a marvellous service was this to Iacob as you may read Chap. 32. from 9. to the end Esau by this meanes set him on wrastling with God by prayer and therefore wrastles with God all that night and so wrastles that God changes his name upon it Thou shalt not be called Jacob a wrastler but Israel a Prevailer thou hast prevailed with God and thou shalt prevaile with men And now he is past the worst with his Brother and when he meets him expresses much naturall affection and is marvellous glad to see him and offers to help him to drive his flocks to shew you that the very emulation and envie and cruelty and ragings of the enemies of Gods Servants even when they are most incensed against them and most tread them down and insult over them then they doe them the greatest service that is possible to be done through the mighty power of the Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ that turnes all into contraries that even when men doe most domineere over them then they doe them the best service Looke as it was with the Tyrants of Syria and Aegypt that made waste of Gods people It is a notable speech that in Dan. 11.35 36. It is to purge them and to cleanse them and make them white A Scullion in the Kitchin when he scoures his Pewter when he first takes it in hand you would thinke he would quite spoile it but he but scoures and cleares it up and makes it more bright then it was before the end of all is but to take away the filth and to make it cleare and bright And so an Huswife that takes her linning she Sopes it and bedawbs it and it may be defiles it with dung so as it neither looks nor smels wel and when she hath done she rubs it and buckes it and wrings it and in the end all this is but to make it cleane and white and truly so it is here when as Tyrants most of all insult over Gods people and scoure them and lay them in Lee or Dung so as the very name of them stinks yet what is this but to purge them and to make them white and it is a great service they doe to the people of God in so
in the second place there is something in our prayers made according to the will of God as is exprest in the spirit of him that prayes for this you shall finde ordinarily in Scripture that men that pray pray in the spirit Jud. 20. Praying in the Holy Ghost and Eph. 6.18 Pray in the spirit And you know what the Apostle saith in that well knowne place Rom. 8.26 27. We know not what to pray for nor how to pray as we ought but the Spirit helpeth us c. God searcheth the heart especially in prayer he knowes the meaning of the Spirit for he maketh requests according to the will of God that is the words of the text so that if you would aske how we may pray according to the will of God looke what is revealed in the breathings of the Spirit which marvellously declares it selfe in the wrastling and longing desires that it puts up to God Psal 119. My soule longeth and breatheth after thee and it lets us know what the will of God is and for that the Spirit helps us to pray First to pray in the spirit is to pray feelingly Now to open this a little First you shall discerne the will of God by the breathing of the Spirit first when the Spirit helps us to pray feelingly and sensibly for those blessings that we stand in need of when the Spirit doth lift up our hearts and reach after those mercies we stand in need of in some feeling and sensible manner The will of God is revealed in the breathing of the Spirit that stretches forth it selfe in such an humble and faithfull manner as that the soule is very sensible of its need of it we poure out our soules before God for what we stand in need of in feeling desires and this good Hannah expressed in her prayers 1 Sam. 1.15 I am a woman of a sorrowfull spirit I have poured out my soule before the Lord. To shew you there was an inward sensible worke of the Spirit of God in her heart that did inlarge her not so much to poure out words as sighes and groanes this feeling power of the Spirit doth mightily expresse what the will of God is that we should aske this is according to the will of God according to what you read Esay 26.9 With my spirit within me will I seeke thee early my spirit within me that is to say he speakes as if there were a spirit within his spirit besides the inclination God had given and wrought in him to the wayes of grace and besides his soule that did animate his body the Spirit of God within him with that spirit will he seeke God early in prayer the spirit will inwardly be working and turning him towards God so then this is the first thing wherein God reveales his will to us and we pray in the spirit which we doe when we pray in the sence and feeling of our own wants of those blessings we want at Gods hand that is by a certaine strength greater then any of our owne spirits can reach forth themselves unto the Spirit of God comes and helps us to wrastle with God with sighes and groanes that cannot be expressed that we thinke more then we speake and we speake more then we thought of 2. Fervently Secondly besides this this spirit helps us to pray unto God with fervency and heate of spirit so much as that in such a case as this we strive with God in our prayers and wrastle with him The effectuall fervent prayer of the righteous availeth much Jam. 5.16 When the Spirit of God helps us to fervency to cry to God and to be earnest with him in that regard and not to give him over and comes from a sensible want of the blessings we stand in need of and that makes us goe out of our selves to God for the mercy that is according to the will of God and this in Scripture is called wrastling and striving with God Rom. 15.30 when you grow sensible of your owne danger and you strive with him for the blessing this is to expresse fervency of spirit and this was commended in Iacob that he wrastled with God Gen. 32.24 26. which is expounded Hos 12.4 that he prayed and wept his wrastling was chiefly in prayer with teares that God would be mercifull to him in this case Thirdly 3. Perseverance We pray then in the spirit when we also persevere in prayer for that is also requisite in all the Petitions we put up our Saviour put forth a Parable for this very end that men should pray constantly and never be weary Luk. 18.1 Pray upon all occasions for every thing that you stand in need of and never give over til you be heard and answered and the Parable teacheth thus much from the unjust Iudge Shall a sinfull mortall man be moved with importunity and shall not God arise and be moved for those poore soules that cry unto him night and day yes doubtlesse though you may thinke God is not sensible of your prayers but he rests himselfe quietly in heaven and remaines in fulnesse of glory who is blessed for ever in himselfe and will not trouble himselfe with such poore requests as yours is but let me tell you this woman did not so much trouble the Judge here nor could be more troublesome to him then a poore Christian is to God that wrastles with him in prayer God cannot be quiet in heaven for such a soule but in the end he must rise and satisfie its desire so you have the like Luk. 11.8 to 13. If you continue knocking he will rise and so will your heavenly Father doe for you much more so as that though God might seeme to be asleep and rest himself satisfied in that blessed estate he enjoys in another world and no more regard things below then men asleep yet if you continue knocking and begging you wil disturbe his peace till he arise and shew mercy to you and this he speakes after the manner of men to shew you that he doth as unfeignedly and as deeply take to heart the desires of your soules as any of you can doe one of another and therefore be constant and persevering in prayer and never give over when we have a good petition in hand never give over when we pray for pardon of sin or for peace of conscience or for strength of grace for our selves or for others when we pray for the healing of our soules or our bodies for the Church or Common-wealth whatsoever we have in hand if the Spirit of God doe but move us this way it is for us never to give over untill God shew mercy to us in some one kinde or other that we may see our requests was not neglected Ephes 6.18 Watch thereunto with perseverance vers 19. where you see what course God would have his Servants to take take this course ever follow God watch night and day and never give over till he blesse you and
his Son to whom this eternall life is communicated and that is to all such as to whom the Son is communicated amplified by the contrary He that hath not the Son hath not life Doctrine According to or upon our having or not having of Christ depends our having or not having of life The note is of speciall weight in our Christian experience and therefore let us take so much the more care in opening of it He that findeth me which is all one with hee that hath me he hath life Prov. 8.34 but he that is estranged from me he loveth death ver 36. So that finde Christ and finde life Finde him not but be estranged from him and finde death So Eph. 2.12 In times past ye were without Christ being aliens from the Commonwealth of Israel strangers from the Covenant of promise having no hope and without God in the world and Eph. 4.18.19 There he speakes of some that were alienated from the life of God but in ver 20. Ye have not so learned Christ if so be you have been taught by him as the truth is in Jesus For further clearing of this point let me shew you first the Reasons upon which it depends and then the uses of it Creatures broken Sisterns without Christ Reason 1. For the first The first reason arises from the insufficiency of all the body of the creature to give us life without Christ Heb. 10.1.4 It is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats should cleanse the conscience from sinne They are not a valuable recompence to God for the transgressions we have done by our transgressions we had deserved death for which the death of the beasts cannot make recompence Men cannot redeem themselves And besides should we dye for our sinnes our selves our death would not free us from the punishment for we are not able to overcome death but should for ever sinke under it If there had been a Law that could have given us life then wee might have lived by it but there is no such Law as can give us spirituall life David speakes in the name of Christ Psal 22.29 It is the speech of our Saviour or of David in his name No Man can keepe alive his owne soule It is beyond the power of the creature to keep alive his own soule no not so much as naturall life Psal 49.7.9 No man can give a ransome for the soule of his brother no man is able to ransome or redeem his owne life or anothers yea which is much Adam in innocency was taught to looke for the preservation of his inocent nature out of himself for to that end did God give him the tree of life Gen. 2.9 the tree of life grows not in Adam but in the Garden Now he that was to eat of the tree called the tree of life he was taught from thence that the maintenance and continuance of that life which he then lived a life of grace and glory was not to be expected from his owne strength but from something without himselfe The tree of life was a type of the Lord Jesus Christ the second person in Trinity 1 Joh. 3.4 Now if Adam could not keep alive his own soule but by that tree how much lesse Adam falne and corrupted being now become unable to keep that Law which in innocency he might have kept But more clearly see the grounds of this insufficiency in the creature to helpe it selfe The first is taken from the preciousnesse of the price of our redemption The costlinesse of it the matter of our justification is the price of our redemption and without justification no spirituall life at all Now the price of our redemption is our justification the forme of that justification is Gods accepting of it and imputing it to us but the matter of it is the price of our redemption and that is the root of all our spirituall life the price of our redemption given to God is accepted of him and by him given to us Psal 49.8 Precious is the redemption of soules it is farre beyond the power of the creature that which may be fit matter to give to God by way of satisfaction for a soule that is very precious and this was onely the obedience of Christ to the death he by suffering death for us and rising from the dead declared himselfe mightily to be the Son of God and he by his obedience to the death offered to God the price of our redemption He gave himselfe a ransome for many And this shews that it had beene impossible for any under the Sonne of God to have given a sufficient price for our redemption neither man nor Angels could doe it but he in giving a sufficient price for us did thereby mightily declare himselfe to be the Sonne of God he onely by his death is the matter of our justification and his rising is our life the Father himselfe it could not stand with his justice to give a price for our redemption he being the person offended but the Sonne taking upon him our nature that nature which had offended God he by this meanes made atonement betweene the Father and us and in making atonement declared himselfe mightily to be the Sonne of God none but he alone was able to tender to God such a recompence as might be a satisfaction for our sins 2. And as this is ground why there is no sufficiency in the creature to give us the life of our justification so it is also taken from the root of our sanctification and consolation for they spring both from one fountaine and that is the Spirit of Gods grace John 16.7 he is the comforter that is our sanctifier and this springs in us to everlasting life Joh. 4.14 Now he that can give a spirit of sanctification and consolation is onely the Lord Jesus Christ unlesse he goe away and send the Comforter to us he never comes If you would know who it is that can give this water of life you shal read Joh. 4.10 that it is only the Lord Jesus he it is only that goes to the Father and sends his Spirit of grace into our hearts unlesse he go to heaven and send it downe from heaven to us it is not given So that he being the root of the Spirit of consolation of sanctification all this life of consolation sanctification springing from the Spirit as from a fountain and Christ being he that sets open this fountain Zac. 1.13 Therefore it is that there is an insufficiency in the creature to shed abroad such a thing as this into our hearts Act. 2 33. when he was to give a reason of the spirit of Tongues he fetches it fom the resurrection of Christ that he by his ascending into heaven did shed abroad this word which you now see and heare so that by his death he gave to God not onely the price of our redemption but prevailed with the Father to bestow upon him the Spirit to
this point there are three Cases in which money must be layed out or else Christ cannot be had and in refusing to lay out money we refuse life in him 1 Case First when the Lord by some speciall command requires it as was the case of the young man in the Gospel there was a speciall commandement given to him not given to every man nor to every rich man nor scarce any man in ordinary course now adayes yet then given to him and now to stick for money and rather lose eternall life then his goods in such a case as this he loseth his life in Christ and upon the same poynt or the like broke Ananias and Saphira it was the common resolution of the Church of God in that Age to sell all that they had and to give to the poore and to live after the same rate that other men did a like proportion to every man and to distribute faithfully to every man as every man had need and as the Apostle saw cause and when they come and keep back part of the price for which their possessions was sold you see how bitter a curse from the presence of the Lord fell upon them they were cut off from the Congregation of Gods people and it is much to be feared cut off from the Lord Jesus Christ and from all hope of eternall life and to stand as a terrible example to the whole Church of God to shew what a dangerous thing it is to stand upon termes with Christ and not to part with money for him they could not have fellowship with the people of God unlesse they parted with all they had and live upon the common distribution but this case is not alwayes But secondly there is another time namely when in case of persecution the market of Christ goes at so high a rate that a man cannot have Christ with any comfort in his soule or peace to his Conscience or purity of heart or life unlesse he hazzard all his estate or a good part of it In buying and selling of a precious commodity a good Chapman wil have it what ever it cost him So Christ is sometimes at an higher and sometimes at a lower rate but whatever he costs him he will have him it is spoken in commendation of the Hebrews that they suffered joyfully the spoyling of their goods Heb. 10.34 to shew you that sometimes it comes to that passe that unlesse a man be content to part with all his goods he cannot have the recompence of reward the Lord Jesus Christ to his soule and therefore the Servants of God have been content to loose all that they had and willing to resigne up all for the maintaining the integrity of their spirits and the purity of their hearts and lives in the presence of God and then let all goe they can suffer the spoyle of all joyfully 3 It is in case that by Gods providence you be cast to live in such Congregations where you cannot have the Ordinances of God but at a great charge as it is the case of many places that unlesse they be at charge for the Ministery of the Gospel it cannot be had then we must communicate freely that way then be not deceived God is not mocked for what a man sowes that shall he also reap Gal. 6.6 7 8 Where the Apostle doth encourage men at such a time as this when the Gospel cannot be had but at great charge then lay out liberally for the Gospel of Christ and he calls it A sowing to the Spirit as a man that layes out his money for an earthly commodity for a good bargaine he reapes corruption so he that sowes of the Spirit shall of the Spirit reape life everlasting When a man layes out his money unto Spirituall ends to obtaine the free passage of the Ordinances of Christ to enjoy the liberty of the Gospel he thereby sowes to the Spirit and shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting for this is the blessing promised unto it such as so sow shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting so that when a man out of a good and honest heart and an hungering desire after Gods Ordinances shall be willing to be at charge for them he hath this promise made to him and it shall be fulfilled He shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting But yet when a man hath layed out his money for this end if he then thinke his money is worthy of Christ he gets him not but this is the first way of having Christ by way of Purchase a seasonable laying out our money for him as God requires it Secondly Christ is to be purchased not so much by money as chiefly this purchase must be made by parting with all those many and strong Lusts and Corruptions and sinfull rebellions of heart by which we keep off Christ from comming into our hearts this is that which the Prophet Esay directs us to Esa 55.7 Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts c. where he tels us what we must give for Christ for sinne is neither money nor moneys worth but he makes a good bargaine that parts with his sins though he should get no Christ for his parting with them He speakes of the first and principall part of the life of a Christian man the life of his Justification that springs from pardon of sinne let a man forsake those sins and lusts that he hath been most carried captive with let a wicked man forgoe his thoughts and wayes both his secret and open sins and let him then turne to God and he will abundantly pardon then God will receive him graciously to the justification of life This is the thing that we must doe this was the point upon which sundry of them that have been hopefull for Religion have broken off from Christ and Christ from them they have forsooke him and he left them Jehu stuck upon this very point he would goe a great way but when it comes as he thinkes to hazzard his title to the Crowne then he will set up the golden Calves when he saw that all must be parted with rather then he would forgoe that without which he could not maintaine his Kingdome he would rather loose Christ then venture the losse of that 2 King 10.29.31 He regarded not to walke in all the Commandements of the Lord and then as he cut short with God in reformation and did not fulfill to walke after the Lord therefore God cut Jehu short of all the hopes of grace that ever he might have attained to vers 32. so that if we cut at a scanting with God and will part with some lusts and corruptions but not with others then will God cut you short of all your hopes of eternall life and it was upon the same termes that Herod fell short of Christ Mar. 6.10 Luk. 3.18 he had done many things according to Johns Ministry but when God would cut him short of Herodias
short Paul knew nothing wherein he had dealt unfaithfully and yet was he not thereby justified 1 Cor. 4.4 but he that justifies me is the Lord and therefore if you trust upon a gift and thereby to be justified and accepted you declare your graces to be but common and such as are but found among Hypocrites and in this the Papists have cause to groane under the burthen that lyes upon their religion they by looking for salvation and acceptance by common graces doe plainly shew that Christ profits them nothing And further as you are not to trust upon them for justification so neither are you to trust upon them for the life of your sanctification for though they be truly parts of sanctification faith hope love patience humility and every other grace of God which flowes from our fellowship with the death of Christ because these are parts of our sanctification you may looke at them as precious tallents received from God yet if you trust in these in preaching or praying or edefying your selves or families or neighbours and that in the strength of these you shall doe valiantly and bring mighty things to passe and be a fruitfull Christian you have truth of grace sound hearted saving grace and you doubt not but God will carry you an end in a comfortable Christian course if so you wil finde this to be true that you wil want Christ in the quickning and inlarging and thriving power of the life of your sanctification it cannot be but that where saving grace is there is Christ but you may have Christ and yet have but a dead Christ of him he may be so dead in your spirit that you shall cry out O what a dead heart and a dead spirit have I and yet I doubt not but Christ is in my heart true it may be thou hast received him but Christ can tell how to lye dead and to worke but little there where saving grace is layed up and therefore the life of Christ is not a life of grace but a life of faith I live not by all my zeale and humility and gifts of grace for I might have all these and make but dead work of them all How then By the faith of the Sonne of God Gal. 2.20 It is one of the chiefest points that concernes our Christian practise and therefore I pray you consider it Note this the life of Christianity is not a life of wisdome and graces but of faith if you would have Christ live in you and live so that he may shew his life in you you must then live by faith that is not only looke for your justification by faith in Christ but looke for your sanctification and consolation from Christ by faith that if you goe about any duty goe not about it in the strength of grace received preach not or pray not in the strength of your knowledge and love and zeale and humility but go about them all in faith in Jesus Christ that is by comming to him and being inwardly sensible that unlesse he put new life into us and make new worke in our soules we may have but a dead businesse of it all the graces of Gods Spirit in us but dead and herein it is wonder to see sometimes how Gods servants are straitned all for want of the life of faith in their soules if God cut short with us it is because we doe not live in Christ but in the spirit of grace and think to walke by the strength of grace received we loose by it and spend of the stock of grace and therefore remember that speech Esa 40.30 31. They that waite on the Lord shall renew their strength to shew you your duty it is a borrowed speech from young men going out to warre they goe out in the name of the Lord of Hosts as David went out against Goliah 1 Sam. 17. If we waite upon the Lord and be sensible of our owne Insufficiency and unworthinesse of doing any Christian duty and not depend upon our owne sufficiency then we shall finde God lifting us up farre beyond all our owne apprehensions and gifts God wil put a new life into us and in this case even the weakest gifts of Gods servants are sometimes much enlarged and the same Christians gifts farre more enlarged at some time above what they are at another only by waiting upon the Lord and that puts life into our duties therefore if you would finde Christ to be the life of your sanctification then you must put away all confidence in saving graces they are not able to make you bring forth any one lively fruit of Sanctification I mean in your owne estimation and you wil have little comfort in it There is in this case much difference between one Christian and another and between the same Christian and himselfe at one time and another according to his waiting on the Lord for the renewall of his strength therefore trust not in any grace if you doe you wil want it when you stand in most need of it SERMON III. 1 JOHN 5.12 He that hath the Son hath life and he that hath not the Son hath not life WE now come to speake of the third way of having Christ A third way of having Christ is by Covenant and that is by way of Covenant Esa 49.8 I will give thee for a Covenant of the people to establish the earth to cause to inherit the desolate heritages Psal 50.5 Gather my Saints together unto me those that have made a Covenant with me by Sacrifice so that would you know to whom God is a God and to whom it may be said He is my God Any of us that have made a Covenant with God by Sacrifice no man hath him unlesse by way of covenant for all these wayes though divers in explication yet all co-incident to this having of Christ And such as have made a covenant with God by Sacrifice they are his people of them it is said I am thy God vers 7. according to the tenour of the Covenant Gen. 17.7 Behold I make a Covenant with thee this day to be a God unto thee and to thy seed God becomes a God to me and to my seed by way of covenant so Deut. 29.10 to 13. both your Children of understanding and your little ones of no understanding you are all here before God this day to enter into a Covenant with him to keep his Commandements for ever you and yours enter into a Covenant with God and this is the way of having him for our God Deut. 26.17.18 This day thou hast avouched the Lord to be thy God and he hath avouched thee to be his people Junius translates the word Thou hast required by way of Covenant and he hath promised that he will be thy God in the originall it is he hath made thee to speake thou hast made God to speake this as men that make promises one to another so that when people give up themselves
crooked wayes be made strait and rough wayes made smooth Isa 40.3 4. and this is the preparation we must make for Christ to come into us you have sometime heard this fully spoken to that is when the high mountaines of our great spirits and lofty lookes are brought so low that we are content to be nothing in our owne eyes that we have all we have in Christ and are able to bring nothing to him and are willing that he should take all from us whatever he would have us to part with and when we are willing to be whatsoever he would have us to be and that he should doe with us what is good in his owne eyes then these high mountaines being brought low we are made fit for Christ to come into us we must have no crooked wayes of our owne if we have any imagination of our owne left in us that we wil part with such and such Lusts but yet are loath to be disposed of in all things as God wil have us then there is no roome for God he wil not climbe for it but if we smooth the way for him then he wil come into our hearts But besides this there is to be filled up every low valley and that holds forth two things Every Valley shal be filled that is first every base heart shall lift up it selfe to the high things of God for he speakes of vallies first as if there were such a low dejectednesse in the Creature as made it unfit for Christ God requires that every base heart should be exalted to the minding of high and heavenly things lifted up farre above these low things that cannot reach the wayes of God these Gates must stand open and be lifted up that the King of glory may come in Psal 24.7 to 10. and he meanes the gates of our hearts and he calls them the gates of eternity they are our hearts and soules stand not poring upon earthly things here below but lift up your heads higher looke for a God and for a Kingdome stand not pedling about these earthly things as if you had nothing else to looke after your hearts lye too low for Christ to come into but if you would lye levell with him then lift up your minde to heavenly things let the bent of your heart be for pardon of sinne and for everlasting life be of a levell frame of spirit to the Kingdome of Heaven and then Christ will come into you And as it implyes that the heart must not be too low for Christ through basenesse of spirit and an earthly mind so it may be too low through despaire and through excessive sorrow for sinne he may be cast so low downe in dejection of spirit that his heart lyes too low for Christ not able to lay hold on Gods favour to him in Christ thinkes the Promises belongs not to him it is well and happy for them that can lay hold upon them but for his part there is none of these Promises reach him Did yee ever know any in my case finde mercy now the heart lyes something too low this mans heart is not base he looks at Christ as the most honourable thing in the world he sets his heart upon the bloud of Christ and would be glad with all his heart that he had his part in it but he is dejected and lyes too low fit to despaire and therefore in this case a Christian must be thus farre exalted as to be made levell with Christ to beleeve there is hope in Israel touching his estate Christ hath had mercy upon many in such a case and he wil doe so to us if we seeke him in the way of his Ordinances and if therefore we resolve to seek him and put our mouthes in the dust expecting salvation to be revealed by him and follow him in his Ordinances and never have fellowship with the unfruitfull workes of darknesse and wil still continue to seeke him then we begin to be something levell with Christ But you say There is such a crookednesse in my heart and un-evennesse that Christ cannot come in truly that must be made strait Princes are not wont to goe downe back lanes but downe plaine wayes so Christ as he would have his way neither too high nor too low so he would not goe round about but would have the way to lye plaine before him the judgement and heart and affection lye in such sort of evennesse as simply to aime at the glory of God in his way and therein to be ruled by the Word of God and then is the heart of a man in a good frame if there be nothing in a mans heart but hee is willing to bee guided in it by the streight rule of Gods Word and hee aimes directly at the glory of God and the comming of his Kingdom and the doing of his will then is all a mans crooked wayes laid aside and the heart lyes so levell that Christ will suddenly come into his Temple these crooked windings of a spirit of hypocrisie are made streight when he is brought low yet he may have much hypocrisie in him pretend to be more then he is he may be doing good dutys more to be seen of men then that God should observe him therefore when God hath brought us to this that we are desirous of grace rather in truth then in outward shew or if in shew but that we might doe others good thereby and singly aime at Gods glory in it and desire and endeavor to walk by the streight rule of the Word of God then are our hearts cleansed in some measure from the crooked windings of hypocrisie which might hinder the free passage of Christ into the soul And yet there is another winding in a mans heart though in some truth the dutyes be done yet there is many times an aptnesse in us to cover and to wind about our own sinnes and to make them lesse then they be and this is a wicked course Psal 125.4 5. and therefore God would have us deale most plainly with him that in the singlenesse of our hearts when it may stand with the glory of God and the confusion of our own faces we will not be wanting to lay open our hearts before him these be such windings as will not profit us when we deal plainly and confesse what we have done and come to be thus open hearted to God then is Christ ready to come suddenly into his Temple when we have brought downe our high spirits and raised up our too low base and dejected spirit and laid all levell before him then there remaines no more but for Christ to come suddainly into his Temple But yet besides all this when al this is don yet there may be stil a great measure of a rough and harsh and sharpe and fiery spirit in him which Christ will have removed before he comes to dwel there before that he will have this harshnesse and bitternesse laid down that they shal
Phil. 1.23 Though the other be a lawfull desire but chiefly his desire is that he might see Christ whom from his first conversion he hath most loved and in whom he hath lived all his life and now to be wholly possessed of him and wholly acted and swayed by him not that he might have his heart filled with joy but that he might be with Christ not only as chiefest of ten thousand persons but as the chiefest of ten thousands benefits of God that should God give us pardon of sinne his Word and Sacrament and victory over all our lusts strength of every grace of God and everlasting life and therewith fellowship with all the blessed Saints and Angels yet to us Christ is the chiefest of them all none greater then the gift of Christ and this is the sincerity of a Christians soule he desires more any benefit for Christs sake then Christ for any of his benefits sake for he whose heart is set upon Christ more then upon the pardon of sinne or salvation that soule hath Christ and life in him he that hath Christ in his eye and heart above all blessings he indeed is a true Christian and hath Christ Reas Christ must so be had and we must so receive him as God gives him now God gives us first Christ in all his Ordinances and then in Christ all other things all benefits in and through Christ Act. 8.35 We preach to you Jesus we offer you him all lusts layed aside all sinfull corruptions put away whatever separates between God and us that being done away We now offer you Christ and in Christ plentious redemption but if we be without Christ we are without true life As in the Sacrament first you have the body and blood of Christ set before you Matth. 26.26 and then sealed up and confirmed to you in the Sacrament and together with that justification and further degrees of the sanctifying spirit and further pledges of everlasting life and glory No benefit but it s conveyed through him Christ first and then the benefit It is true Herod received joy but Foelix trembling and Jehu zeale but none of these received Christ they received the huske but wanted Christ they had the shell but not the marrow and kernell within they received the benefit but Christ they did not receive and for want of him they had no life at all Simon Magus hee beleeved Acts 8.13 but he had no lively faith because he would receive the benefit but Christ he minded not to receive Unlesse the heart be knit to Christ and the soule more seek Christ then pardon of sinne or subduing of lusts he hath no life in truth he that hath the Son he hath life not so he that hath the gifts and benefits of the son But Christ first and in having Christ we have all Christ must be received as God gives him we must acknowledge there is no life in any grace but in Christ Hos 14.8 On me is your fruit found and without me can you do nothing John 15.5 Now then carry this truth home with you and gather from hence a true estimate of your own estates whether you may judge of your selves as living or dead Christians Upon our having or not having of Christ depends our having or not having of life How will you know whether you have life or no you say you have Christ how know you that Whether is your hearts more set upon Christ then the gifts of Christ Whether do you labour more for gifts or for Christ himselfe And if you finde this that in the truth of your hearts you come not to the Ordinances but to find your beloved there not out of unclean and wanton spirits but to seeke him whom your soule most desires whose favour and countenance you would rather behold then to hear the voyce of a pleasant singer and you are not satisfied with any thing unlesse you find him then shal you find life in so coming to the Ordinances Can. 3.1 2 3. By night in my bed I sought him whom my soule loved c. The bed was the Temple wherein God did reveale himselfe in his Ordinances and disperse himselfe to his people in the bed of his love Shee came to the Temple not to seek any of the Preists and Levites there She goes indeed to the Watch-men and makes her moane and complaint to them that she could not finde Christ in his Ordinances and she durst not rest upon their opinions but saith have you not seen him whom my soul loveth can you tel me any newes or give me any intelligence of my beloved Saviour Thus she inquires of the Watch-men And from them she goes to the Daughters of Jerusalem to her Christian friends and chargeth them to tell him that she is sick of love Now if thus to desire him is to find Christ then there is no more to be doubted of in such a case as this But the heart thus seeking him in his Ordinances and the affections gon after him there more then after any of his benefits then in truth we have the Sonne he could not have our hearts if we first had not him And therefore it is a strong evidence we have him because our hearts are set upon him We search for nothing so much as for him This is part of the meaning of that place in Psal 73.25 Whom have I in heaven but thee or in earth in comparison of thee he desires nothing more then him neither peace of conscience nor joy in the Holy ghost nor any thing so cheifly and principally as God but if wee have a longing affection after pardon of sinne and peace of conscience and assurance of salvation after subduing of lusts and growth in grace these be blessed desires and usually upright and sincere but there may be hypocrisie even in these very desires and in using the meanes to attaine these for sometimes by this meanes we seek Christ and him in his Ordinances not so much for himself as for the benefits we have by him which is a spirit of harlotry As in a woman that it may bee hath a strong affection to match with such a man but it is but that hee might pay her debts and that she might be well provided for for the world and that he might be availe and a protector to her these be lawfull ends to aime at but if it be only and cheifly for these ends it is not true conjugal affection for if another man could do this for her as well as he she could make choyce of another as well as of him and she desires him not for his but for her own ends And just so it is alike in this case If a man desire the Lord Jesus Christ to this end that he may have his sinne pardoned and be furnished with grace though these be spirituall ends yet so much as wee prize the benefit above Christ so much are we halting in the truth of our affection to him If
such terms if you wil not have him unlesse he be thus and thus qualified then let him alone never talke of him rest not in looking after any of his benefits it is a good thing to looke for such benefits as accompany Christ but rest not there content not your selves in such wrastlings never thinke you are of a right spirit and that you have a lively life and such as by which you shall maintaine constant fellowship with God unlesse you finde your hearts longing after Christ My soule is a thirst for the living God Psal 42.1 2. Let your hearts be chiefly set upon him for his owne sake you can tell what it is to set your affections more upon a person then upon their estate and you must know that your affections are more set upon Christ then upon any benefit he hath unlesse you finde Christ more then his gifts you shall finde little peace in your way you must see that all even the worst of his things are beautifull and comly and is more to be desired then Gold is sweeter then the Honey or the Honey-combe he that thus hath the Sonne he hath life the Sonne of God God and Man as he is our Son and our Saviour let the desire of your soule be unto him and your affections run out after him be you for him and then he wil be for you Hos 3.2 3 4. Stand not so much upon this what Christ wil be for you but be sure that you be for him let friends and all goe and be sure you be only for him Though Christ love us first yet he wil make us no assurance of his love to us till he see us love him and if we chuse him first before and above all his benefits then we shall have him make him then your assurance and your Kingdome shall not be shaken thinke not that he wil make you a feoffement before you be married to him but we must be content to come to him and take him as he is and stand upon no conditions with him You must not looke for assurance of Christs benefits till you have himselfe and if you chuse him then you shall have assurance to your soules that he hath chosen you first you cannot aske more then hee wil give but first you must have himselfe he wil give you a kingdome but you must first be a little flocke all is yours and ye are Christs and Christ is Gods Thus chuse him above all his benefits and you shall have him and life in him SERMON V. 1 JOHN 5.12 He that hath the Son hath life and he that hath not the Son hath not life FRom the second part of the words He that hath the Sonne there are three sorts of Heads of notes drawne One is already handled to wit That such as have the Sonne they have not so much nor doe so much stand upon nor so much desire the benefits of the Sonne as the Sonne himselfe This is the Spirituall life of a Christian while some men labour more for Spirituall gifts then for Christ himselfe the true Christian is only for him and let his gifts goe we now come to the second head of notes from the word SONNE A man is said to have the Sonne when he hath the spirit of the Son A man is said to have Christ when he hath the Spirit and therefore you may read 2 Cor. 3.17 Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty and the Lord is that Spirit viz. He had spoken before of a Spirit of righteousnesse and of the Spirit of grace dispensed in the Ministery of the Gospel now the Lord is the Spirit not only so called because he is the Giver of that Spirit and Grace but also as there is a secret fellowship between Christ and the Spirit so that have one and you have both have not the Spirit of Christ and you have none of Christ Rom. 8.9 If a man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his And notable to this purpose is that in Gal. 4.6 Because ye are sonnes God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Sonne into your hearts and verse â— He redeemed them which were under the Law that we might receive the adoption of sonnes Implying that to whomsoever Christ came for into the World to save and redeeme all those have fellowship with the Son and into all their hearts he hath shed abroad the spirit of the Son So that look how Christ is and was in this world so are we in the world hee that hath the Sonne hath the spirit of the Son Now that I may the better open this point unto you because it is of speciall use for our direction in a Christian course There is a Threefold spirit of a Son A threefold spirit dispensing himself three wayes and bestowing a threefold gift upon us which gives us the Lord Jesus Christ to be ours and us to him to be his First A spirit that doth knit us to the Lord Jesus Christ and him to us Secondly A spirit of liberty Thirdly A spirit of prayer These three the Holy Ghost takes special notice of in this case First The spirit of God wheresoever it is shed abroad in any member of Christ it doth make us one with the Lord Jesus it unites us into one fellowship of nature a likenesse in affection and disposition and a likenesse in all the graces of God as John 17.21 our Saviour prayes the Father that all those whom he had given him might bee one with him as thou and I art one thou in me by thy spirit and I in thee by the same spirit and this spirit is such as makes not onely mee one with thee but them also one with mee and they also in like sort one with another it makes us and Christ us it were one Hence it is that as soone as we receive him we of his fullnesse receive grace for grace Joh. 1.16 There is a conformity between Christ and us one and the same Image stamped upon us both Rom. 8.29 a like in grace a like in affection and in continuance of affection a like in every thing For a little further clearing of the point The same spirit of Christ being shed abroad into the heart of every one that hath Christ doth worke a threefold conformity or likenesse betweene Christ and us First A threefold conformity between Christ and his A likenesse in Nature Secondly A likenesse in Offices Thirdly In Estate both of humiliation and exaltation And all this is done by the mighty power of the spirit of Christ First For the Nature of Christ by the precious promises of God which are made unto us The first Conformity and which the Holy Ghost doth apply to us We are made partakers of the divine nature 2 Pet. 1.4 There is a likenesse and a participation of the divine nature and we are made partakers of the like grace in Christ Jesus and that grace for grace
forth himself to be the Son of God even then when in mans sight hee was separated from God banished from the Church so as that al men cried away with him crucifie him and al his own Disciples forsook him and not a soul acknowledged him but one poor theefe upon the crosse with him yet even then was he so gloriously magnified as that well might the Apostle say he triumphed openly upon the crosse having therein made a spoyle of Principallities and Powers Col. 2.15 Now this very estate is the estate of every child of God and so farre as hee hath the Sonne so far doth he expresse this estate in his whole conversation for an estate of humiliation great and many be the afflictions of the righteous Psalm 34.18 19. there is their debasement in the world but the Lord delivereth them out of all there is their exaltation mixed together many wayes humbled and exalted deliverances Psalm 149.4,5 The Lord will beautifie the meeke with salvation that is hee will beautifie them by their manifold deliverances Nay besides deliverances you shall finde this to be the beautifull frame of the spirits of Gods people in their estates Take it in their outward condition in the World an estate of means and affliction if he be a man of a faire outward estate and of good means in the world yet you shall see a marvellous spirit of selfe-deniall in him so as that in the middest of many worldly comforts he fits loose from them and lives besides them these are not the things that he hath set his heart upon as our Savior said to his disciples concerning the stones of the Temple so as that though God had don much for them and given them many comforts yet there is a more hidden matter in their hearts better then these things can reach unto they are not a Christians crowne and glory but he is crucified to them and they unto him Gal. 6.14 And if so be that God give him any great or eminent gifts of Spirituall grace it is strange to see how they are clad in him with a garment of Christ crucified over shadowed in selfe deniall as they said of Paul meane in outward view and speech of little or no value 2 Cor. 13.3 and yet even in this very meanness which any of them labour under in regard of want of outward things and all their meanness and lownesse of carriage and selfe-deniall of all the outward blessings and contentments they have received yet you shall see a mighty power of Christ triumphing in the basenesse and mortifiednesse of a Christian soule so as that the Apostle fitly and sutably expresses their estate Though he was crucified through weaknesse yet he liveth by the power of God for we also are weak in him but we shall also live with him by the power of God So that as it was with Christ in his estate so it is with us in our estate weake in him meaning that as Christ in his outward Man seemed to be weake and contemptible so we as it is in the Originall are weake with him but we shall live with him by the power of God so that suppose Christ be indeed weake in outward view so as he that lookes once would not looke twice at him yet when he seemes to be most weake and base then is he most powerfull and glorious and so the very death of Christ wherein he is most exposed to such infirmities as follow mans nature yet then he performes the greatest worke of our Redemption satisfies the Fathers wrath for us procures us pardon of sinne and redeemes us from the bondage of Hel and purchases for us a spirit of grace and power and truly there is a certaine kinde of conformity even in this very point between the Lord Jesus and every servant of Christ as he is weake so are we as he dyes so doe we as he is in his greatest debasements and advancements so it is with us And hence it is that ye read these Phrases in Scripture We are dead with Christ Col. 2.20 and risen with Christ Col. 3.1 and crucified with Christ Rom. 6.6 Now these be strange Phrases that Christ who is dead one thousand six hundred yeares agoe and risen againe so long since what is this which the Apostle saith we are thus dead and crucified and risen with Christ What is the intendment of his discourse The true meaning is that by the same spirit of Christ which was shed abroad into his heart above measure we are so knit unto Christ as that we are not only of the like nature with him but of like estate with Christ that as he was in this world so are we while we are in the world weake as he yea glorious as he and as he rose againe out of all contempt and reproach and persecution so doe we rise againe out of all our many and great afflictions mightily by the same power of the same Spirit of the Lord Jesus so that this is a point that inwardly flowes from this having of Christ he that hath the Sonne hath the spirit of the Sonne whereby he is made one with Christ in Nature in Offices and in his estate and this is evident in the experience of Gods servants and by testimony of the Holy Ghost in Scripture And therefore examine we our selves in this particular if we have the Son we have the spirit of the Son The second worke of the Spirit is that it is not only a spirit of union but it is also a spirit of liberty The second work of the Spirits liberty for of all the kindes of temper in a Sonne there is nothing more expresses the frame of a Sonne next to his likenesse and union with the Father then liberty doth Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty 2 Cor. 3.17 And if the Sonne have made you free then are you free indeed Joh. 8.36 It is a reall liberty if the Sonne shall give you liberty and he speakes of such a liberty as appertaines to Sons and not to Servants that may be turned out of doores but the Sonne abides in the house for ever And it is a strange kind of liberty which the children of God are advanced to by the spirit of the Son it is a phrase of much importance A spirit of liberty First liberty from the feare of sinne Liberty from feare of sinne and the feare of Hell from feare of the Grave and of all the enemies of our Salvation a freedome from feare of any of them A Servant if he offend is afraid of extremity from his Master but the Sonne walkes with more liberty Rom. 8.15 Wee have received the spirit of adoption whereby we cry Abba Father We looke at God as a Father and we walke before him not in feare but in liberty and therefore we are free from the feare of death to which some are all their life time subject to bondage Heb. 2.14 15. Now this is
a spirit of liberty to have the heart set free from all feares it is the summe of all security he hath redeemed us That we might serve him without feare all the dayes of our lives Luk. 1.74 75.78 We are free from feare of Death and Hell and of the World and we doe not feare what flesh can doe unto us Psal 3.5 6. his meaning is That the feares of men should not breake his sleep but he would walke in a child-like confidence before God and man and he would lye him downe quietly and sleepe securely though ten thousand had compassed him round about and the like you read Psal 56.3 What time I am afraid I will trust in thee And vers 11. In God will I put my trust I will not be afraid what man can doe unto me It is an usuall phrase with David and the usuall frame of the spirits of Gods people and this kinde of holy tranquillity of heart and liberty to walk with even nesse and comfort of soule against all the feares of this and another world this kinde of inward liberty from all feare Naturall property of a son is the naturall property of a Sonne a sonne never greatly feares ill measures from his Father all his care is to approve himselfe to his Fathers will and then he knowes his Fathers care is more for his owne provision and protection then his owne can be and if at any time he fall short of doing his Fathers will he makes his peace with his father upon as good termes as he can and there he rests but this is his fathers will and you need not possesse him of that and if he be a sonne he will looke for protection from his father A childe of God knowes his heavenly Father will support him and he feares not what sinne and Hell and the Grave and Death can doe unto him he feares not persecution nor sword nor famine the Lord is with him and he feares none of them I am perswaded saith Paul that in all these we are more then conquerours Rom. 8.37 38. this is the liberty of the spirit of a sonne Now as there is by the Spirit in the heart of the Childe of God liberty from all feare of sinne Liberty from power of sin so he hath liberty from all the power and dominion of sinne he is not subject to the dominion and bondage of sinne sinne hath not that power over him as to carry him captive to it but he walkes at liberty Psal 119. and therefore at liberty because he is not under the law but under grace Rom. 6.14 And notable is that speech in Chap. 8.2 The law of the spirit of life which is in Christ Jesus hath freed me from the law of sinne and of death The spirit of life viz. That spirit of life which hath a legall power in it a power like a law and hath a ruling power over me as the law hath and in both these respects called A Law of God A kinde of spirituall life because there is a lively spirit in him And this law of the Spirituall life of Grace hath freed me set me at liberty from the law and trade of sinne and of death sinne and death set him a course and trade which this Law of the Spirit of life hath set him free from so as that he is but a bungler in sin now not now learned in the law of sinne as sometimes he hath been but the Law of the Spirit of life hath freed him from the skill of sinne and from the command of sinne the law of sinne hath had a soveraigne power over him but now he is freed from the act and trade of sinne and now he walkes at liberty even from the dominion and usurpation of sinne time hath been when nothing would withhold him and he could have followed evil company and unlawfull games they were as lawfull to him as to any and he had no power to resist them but now the Law of the Spirit of life hath helped him against them all this is another part of the spirit of liberty a liberty from the bondage and dominion of sinne and it is a marvellous comfortable liberty indeed many a vallourous spirited man hath so little feare of death that he rushes upon the Pikes as the Horse into the Battell as if it were their meat and drinke but yet he wants this liberty he is not at liberty from feare of danger by the redemption of the Lord Jesus Christ but as Aristotle saith valiant because ignorant of the danger And besides such a naturall man though he be of a magnanimous spirit in respect of fear of danger yet such a man is often captivated of many base lusts and sinfull courses and is not able to resist ill counsell nor ill company whereas a godly man is free from all these free from the bondage and dominion of sinne and all the law of sinne he looks at it as a cobweb-law which hee may easily breake through and accordingly doth so and overcomes all his former sinfull lusts Freedome from sins Service Thirdly There is another frame of this spirit of liberty as it is the Spirit of the Sonne it frees us from the service of men 1 Cor. 7.23 Not that it forbids civill subjection not so to make men free but if God have called you a servant live as a servant 1 Cor. 7.12 to 20. but use your liberty the rather if you can but if you must needs be a servant then know that he that is a servant is the Lords free man but be not ye the servants of men that is though you owe and doe your bodily service to men yet towards God walk at liberty and if thy labour be great and thy reward little yet doe thy service and looke for more wages at the hand of Christ Col. 3.23 then from men in serving men serve Christ and therefore goe about your Masters service not with eye service but in singlenesse of heart serving the Lord and not men in serving of men they do faithfull and diligent service to the Lord and therefore they do it willingly and not grudgingly but in much quietnesse of spirit and are more free for Christian duties and have more quiet time for seeking God then ever after 1 Cor. 7.22 He that is married careth for the things of the world And it is true he that is most free is but a servant to Christ but a free servant though But he that is a servant is the Lords free-man the meaning is not only to doe the worke of his owne service with a free spirit but he is not onely a free man when he is most bound but then hee goes about the service of God with much more liberty of spirit then when he is his own man It is oft times wonder to see servants being called what care they will have of Christian dutyes what time they will steal to call upon God and to examin
doing and this is a great measure of liberty that a Childe of God can tell how to make an advantage of all the afflictions he meets with in this world these things doe but serve his turne and afterward he wil say he could have missed none of them so that this is a second worke of the spirit of the Sonne it is a spirit of liberty Onely take this word for a Conclusion And that is thus much Examine now and try whether you have the Son or no which you may know by your having or not having the spirit of the Son Say then have you the spirit of the Son viz. have you that spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ that makes you to be of one and the same nature with him of the same Offices and same Estate with him can you find this in truth and that with comfort and honesty you may reason this is the frame of my spirit such is the Spirit of Christ And such is the spirit of the godly and if in any thing you faile your spirit is against it do you find that you are in some measure invested with a royall spirit that you can over-come your selves and the temptations of this world and are you able to offer up spirituall sacrifice to God of prayer and praises And doe you finde a spirit of Prophesie shed abroad into you that makes you sensible of and privie to the secret paths of God Doe you finde that Christ was most glorious when he was most humbled and so are you and when you enjoy outward blessings your hearts are not puffed up with them these are not the goodly stones that your hearts and eyes are set upon but you have greater matters then these to minde then I say it is the very Spirit of Christ that makes you to dye with Christ as well as Christ to dye for you he may dye for many men but he only dyes with those that are brought on to the fellowship of his grace if a Spirit of Christ so knit you together that he is yours and you are his then you have the Sonne because you have the spirit of the Sonne because you are sonnes God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Sonne into your hearts but now if there be no proportion no conformity to Christ in holinesse and righteousnesse not patient and meek as he is And though we be not such yet we allow our selves in not being such and are ever and anon starting aside from him And if we have not his Offices nor rule over our lusts nor over the world and we can neither pray nor prophesie and shew forth no spirituall life in our lives cannot deny our selves that wee may shew forth the hidden man of the heart then consider that for the present we have not yet Christ because we have not the spirit of Christ And also if we be not yet free from the fear of death And take no care to be free from the dominion and power of sinne but sinne hath still a power over us like a law and are not yet free from the service of men but as our Masters and Governours say so it must be if we yet know not how to rule men for our own advantage we have not yet received the spirit of Christ wee cannot tell how to serve our Masters with liberty of spirit we know not how to make advantage of them SERMON VI. 1 JOHN 5.12 He that hath the Son hath life and he that hath not the Son hath not life IT now remaines that we come to shew what it is to have the Sonne by a spirit of prayer but of this we shal have further occasion to speak in the 14 15 and 16 verses and therefore we shall leave it now and speak to it then You may remember we said there was three notes to discern whether we had the Son no. The first was if we desired not Christ for his benefits but cheifly for himselfe The second was If we have received the spirit of the Sonne We now come to speake of a third signe a point more easie to be gathered then the former but though most common yet not to be neglected but being well applyed will bee of speciall use to the edification and salvation of the hearers for every truth in his place is divine and precious The third signe He that hath the Sonne hath him for his Prince And therefore the next note is this He that hath the Son he hath him not only for a Saviour but for his Lord and the Prince A point which upon sundry occasions hath been touched but now to speake of it more fully There is no man that hath the Son but as he hath him for his Saviour so he hath him for his Prince Acts 3 3â— Him hath God exalted with his right hand whom they slew a Prince and a Saviour so that he that hath Christ hath him not only as a Saviour but as a Prince to whomsoever he is a Saviour to them he is also become a Prince it were a wonderfull dishonour to him to save them whom he doth not rule to save them from the power of the grave and to leave them still in their sinnes and unbroken off from their evill wayes it were much dishonor to him It is a dishonour to parents to have children and to have them untaught and unmannerly And God hath given the life blood of his owne Son to purchase us unto himselfe and therefore he would not onely save us but rule us or else we shall never have him for our Saviour So that here is two points to be opened Point 1 First Hee that hath the Sonne hath him for his Saviour Point 2 Secondly Hee that hath the Sonne hath him also for his Lord. It is an usuall saying every man would have Christ for a Saviour but rare are those that will have him for their Ruler and Governour But though the saying be true in respect of the common conceit of men yet in truth I say they are but rare Christians that wil have him for a Saviour so far off are they from desiring him as their Lord. For two things there be that goe to the having of Christ for a Saviour To have Christ for a Savior requires two things First He that will have Christ for a Saviour must look up to him for salvation in all his wayes and distresses we have other Saviours but not him if we looke for salvation else-where Esa 40.22 Look unto me all ye ends of the earth and be ye saved there is no God nor Saviour besides me therefore look to me and be ye saved So that if a man wil have God for his Savior he must look to him from one end of the earth to the other we are at the utmost corner of the earth and if we will be saved we must looke up to the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation as David looked towards the Temple at Jerusalem for salvation
God bee thus served think you doe you thinke to put him off as Witches put off the Devill will he think you take your service then Consider of it This is to make God our Prince when wee give up our selves to serve him There is a second thing wherein the having of Christ for a Prince doth stand And it requires that you doe all your service to him as to a Prince it should all be Princely service such as becomes a Prince Mal. 1.8 When you bring that which is torne or lame offer it to your Prince and see if hee will accept it Implying that God is a Prince and if a Prince then where is his Princely service if you wil serve him serve him of the best of that you have God looks for no more but what you have but when you come and offer him a lame peremptory Sacrifice and be loath to come off with the fat and strength of your affections and are loath to crucifie your dearest lusts then you deal not with God as with a Prince you offer him such a Sacrifice as is loathsome to him God curses such Deceivers who have in their flock a male and sacrifice unto the Lord a corrupt thing For I am a great King saith the Lord of Hoasts to pretend him to be a Prince and yet to serve him like a Peasant this God curses God accepts Abells Sacrifice because he brought the fattest and best of the flock to sacrifice Gen. 4. When we bring the strength of our hearts the fat of our strength this God accepts and then wee offer to him as to a Prince Notable was that speech of David 2 Sam. 24.24 I will not offer to God a Sacrifice of that which will cost me nothing A man offered royally to the King I give them all freely to thee As a King he gave to the King If a man give to a King he must give of the best he hath behold all are thine And as if David should say If you will be so bountifull to mee shall not I much more that am a King give like a King to the King of Kings We must give our best strength the best we have of any thing to God I and my houshold will serve the Lord Josh 24.15 All is little enough to give to God make it a point of our service in our best duties this God lookes for we should do it the best we can If we would have him for a Prince and as to a Prince we should freely part with all And therefore to conclude this point know that this point is the principall summe of the Gospell and this duty is of great necessity And let us therefore summe it up together Sum of all and lay it to our owne hearts You would know whether you have life or no if you have life you have Christ How will you know that Aske then your hearts this question Hath God exalted Christ to be a Prince and a Saviour to you Consider if you have Christ for a Saviour and a Prince And if you so have him then you have the Son and if you have the Son you have life And therefore meditate upon this seriously do you find your hearts looking to Christ for salvation in whatsoever distresses you are in Some will say I am in distresse and anguish of soule comfortlesse in my spirit and troubled with fear of Gods wrath and sence of the torment of Hel. Another man saith I am in distresse through bodily weaknesse and sicknesse another sayes I am in distresse through great poverty another in debts another is in distresse through the great untowardnesse of Wife and Children and Servants these be deep and great distresses yet consider Christ is a Saviour from all distresses God hath not limited his salvation to this and that but it reaches all the evils we are subject to then whether doth thy heart looke and upon whom doest thou waite for salvation If thy heart tell thee that in the midst of all these desertions thou lookest for salvation from the Lord Iesus and thine eyes are unto him and thou doest finde thy spirit willing to waite for salvation from him then thou hast him for thy Saviour and he wil save and redeeme thee from them all and it is an evident argument we have him for a Saviour But if in our dangers and distresses we looke to this and that meanes and to this and that friend and sometimes put our selves to flight from Pestilence and Famine though in some cases we lawfully may if thou doest only consider lawfull meanes and usest them according to Gods wil and for Gods honour then thou waitest upon God for salvation else not If thou lookest to him which hideth his face from the house of Israel if God hide his face from Church and Common-wealth and yet our eyes are towards him and we know not what to doe for our Consciences and Liberty and Estates and health and peace c. But our eyes are unto Christ such a looke at Christ is a saving and healing looke and as they were saved and healed by looking at the brazen Serpent Numb 21.9 so truly the Son of Man is exalted that whosoever lookes for salvation from him should receive it though they be not yet come to the full perswasion that the Lord is their God as they shall in time come to but if they looke with a wist sad looke at him and rest not satisfied till salvation come this makes him their Saviour Looke unto me and be ye saved But if we look to friends and meanes and our owne hands and doings then no hope of salvation from him There is this difference between the Cony and the Hare the Cony is a thing not strong yet reckoned among the wise people when they heare the noyse of a Dogge they run to their rock and shrowd themselves and so are safe whereas the wilde Hare hath no helpe but her heels shee runs through Fields and pastures runs every way but hath no protection but her heeles and is of all Creatures most destitute So if we run to the Lord Jesus for deliverance from all our evils he wil spread a wing of preservation over us but if we run to any Creature we can have no rest nor peace and then it argues we have no Christ because no Saviour and no Saviour because we look not to him And if you looke to him to save you from your miseries and not from your sins you have him not as a Saviour you would be excused in this and that spare me but here only Faelix would be spared in his Dalilah but if you would be spared in any sinne excused for nor parting with any iniquity then you have not Christ for your Saviour remember what our Saviour said to the man Joh. 5.6 Wouldest thou be made whole He said Yea Lord and he was healed So this is the point Wilt thou be made whole If God so far turne the
expression of a living soul is he doth not say it was wrought when he had a good mind to hear such a man or to take such a course so it may be will flesh and blood say but when you come to an heart that indeed lives in God sight he expresseth himself thus but when it pleased God it was done I for my part ran cleane another way I never had a desire after God I had indeed a kind of forme and shew and could comply my selfe to my Governours and Neighbours that I might be flattered and incouraged by them and I should never have taken better course of my selfe but when it pleased God to call me by his grace there is the life of a Christian he fetches his life from the highest heavens It pleased God to call me by his grace and to reveale his Sonne in me when it pleased him to shew me the estate of my soule and the sinfull rebellion of my heart and when he revealed Christ not so much to me as in me he was revealed to him in Act. 9. in the first vision and worke upon him but when he revealed Christ in me then he went that way the Holy ghost led him Thus you shal easily discerne it plainly though it be hidden in the pleasure of God yet it will shew it selfe evidently in the expression of a Christian man when he comes to speake of the life of his spirituall estate they never attribute it to good inclination nor to the good instructions of others but they say when it pleased God thus and thus to reveal himself in me when he shewed me my selfe when God laid about to find which way to hemme me in then it pleased God to do it and since then I have lived A second cause of my spiritual life is The second cause of spiritual life The Word of God the word of Promise for so the Apostle tells you Not all that are of Abraham are the seed and children of Abraham but the children of the Promise are counted for the spirituall seed That seed which is elected of God and chosen to everlasting life that is the seed of Promise That is such as are begotten of some promise of God or other Every Isaack is a Sonne of the promise And least you should thinke it peculiar to Isaack alone the Apostle opens it sweetly in Gal. 4.28 As a thing common with Isaack to all the people of God it is a like Priviledge given to the Galathians and to all others that were born of God We brethren are children of the Promise it was not peculiar to Isaack alone to be borne of the Promise and yet of the Promise he was borne in a kind of peculiar manner for before he was born God gave Isaack to Sarah by promise and by vertue of that promise was he borne even a naturall life Now so farre indeed it was a speciall peculiar Prerogative to Isaack and Jacob but the Apostle would from thence gather that the spiritual birth of us all is by a word of promise All of us one and other is born by a word of Providence but if we speak of our spiritual birth then we brethren are children of the Promise So that you shall observe this to be an holy truth of God That every child of God is borne of the promise of God So that then hast thou a new birth and dost thou live a new life Tel me then what promise was it that did beget thee to God that begat thee to this new life What Word of God was it by which thou wast begotten it is a general speech that in Ro. 10.17 Faith commeth by hearing and by the doctrine of faith preached Gal. 3.5 that is the Gospell of faith so that this is the point There is some promise which being reported to the soule in the ministery of the Word is laid hold upon by the hearts of Gods people the same Word of promise working that faith in the heart by which the soule cleaves to such a promise Then doe but consider if thou beest borne of God what cause was there of thy birth wa st thou born of that Word of God or of thine own conceite or of the good opinion of Christians or is there some Word of God which thou hast placed thy confidence in and upon which thou hast been reformed and since that day to this God hath turned thy heart and way to another course and given thee to live in his sight It is true it may be many a good soule cannot readily tell you Note this what promise did first bring them on to God but though thou canst not alwayes tell yet a word of promise it was and ordinarily a word of Promise which the word preached did apply to thy soule and caused thy heart to reach forth and to lay hold upon it but though thou beest not always able to reckon up the first Promises yet this I say And marke it there is no Christian soule but hath some promises of God on which his heart is stayed upon and by which his life is nourished which argues it was bred of those promises of which it is now fed though a man be not alwayes able to tell what promise it was sometimes a word of reproofe or of counsell may sink deep into a man when God sets it wel on and may make a deep impression in the heart of a man And may so turne about the course of their lives as that thereby they may reforme all common and outward and knowne soule sinnes which before was ever cause and matter of reproofe but that is not so safe a worke of Christ not such a strong evidence of our spirituall life when such a word of reproofe or counsell hath set us in such a course and we have thereupon refrained gaming and breaking of the Sabbath and vain fashions this is well but it is not so safe a signe of our new birth for this may befal even an hypocrite he may be so convinced by a word of grace and wise counsell as may strongly turne the streame of his course another way and yet bee without any life and power of godlinesse only the word of promise is able to work grace and life in the heart of a man For the Ground of the Point is this Ground of the point we cannot have a spirit of life wrought in us by the workes of the Law nor by the words of the Law Gal. 3.5 He that ministereth to you in the spirit and worketh miracles doth hee it by the workes of the Law As if he should say did ye ever receive the grace of Christ by the workes of the Law or by the counsell of the Law or by the commandements of the Law or by the reproofes reached forth from the Law he excludes it as impossible and as no wayes able to doe it vers 21. And therefore he doth ever lead us unto some word of the Gospel to some promise
of grace for the ground of all our spiritual life as if ever we would be able to say we are begotten to a new Inheritance we must be able and are able to say we have some word of Promise which hath wrought this in our soules which hath bowed us to looke to Christ and to cleave to him for strength and increase and groweth in grace For it is true indeed The Workes of the Law may indeed cut us off from some bad wayes but when it hath don so it leaves us there leaves us in an estate wherein we would not give offence and would not displease men that are grave and wise And this we may reach unto without respect to the glory of God or any inward regard of his holy feare but when as we are quickned to live by vertue of some Promise then the love of God constraineth us to live to obedience and good ends then our respects can reach heavenly and spiritual ends And therefore observe this as of necessary use for any man that as he would be loath to be deceived in a counterfeit peece of money so much more let him be carefull in the main points of his everlasting estate on this depends our having or not having of life And therefore it behooves us to bee sure that we be not disappointed in this great mystery of godlinesse and consider seriously upon what your hopes and confidence was bred and whence it was grounded Quest You will say But is it not ordinary that the Word of the Law doth humble and cast downe the heart and spirit before God and cut them off from all confidence in the flesh before they come to lay hold of the promise of grace in Christ Answ True it is so indeed That ordinarily some word of the Law some word of conviction prevailes with the heart and makes him in sence of sinne say to his Christian friends what shall I doe to be saved this is true but yet this is not it that makes him a new man in Gods sight it may reach to the reformation of his outward man and to the alteration of sundry of his former courses which no meanes else could have reclaimed but yet this makes him not live a spiritual life until he be not onely humbled by the Law but in some measure brought on to look after the promise of grace in Christ and to long after them and to say and desire oh that I had but my part in this or that promise what a mercy of God would that be to me could I but lay hold upon them but thereupon the soule of a Christian doth stand poring and plodding and wistly gazeing upon them till in the end the very sight of a promise hath so seasoned us with a spirit of faith that we begin not only to long after that promise but to cleave to it and in time come to receive it into our hearts and come to imbrace it to rejoyce in it to acknowledge it and finde our happinesse and life and comfort to bee wrapped up in it A third cause of our spiritual life A third cause of Spirituall life Is the Spirit of grace that which is borne of the spirit is spirit whatever is borne of the flesh and no more is but carnall but that which is borne of the spirit is spirit Joh. 3.6 there is a shedding abroad the spirit of Gods grace in the heart of man that makes him of another spirit he is not the same man that he was before his spirit was changed his inclination and disposition is changed For Spirit is nothing else but the inclination and disposition the habit of it the spirit of wisdome is an habit or inclination to Wisdome the Spirit of grace is an habit of Grace the Spirit of prayer is an inclination or an habit of Prayer they are severall words but all meane the same thing Be renewed in the spirit of your mindes that is bee renewed in the inclination and disposition of your minde Epb. 4.23 And not only be renewed in the mind or judgement or understanding of a man but there must be a renewall of the whole soule of a man the disposition and inclination of the whole must be changed and altered Caleb and Ioshua was of another spirit they could judge of things otherwise then other men could doe other men not renewed in the spirit of their mind have no alteration but the truly regenerate they see a great change they never saw the danger of their sinnes before nor ever before judged themselves for their sinnes but now their spirit and soule and affection is changed and now a spirit of feare and love and care and every affection is altered now a man is turned quite off from earthly things so farre as they hinder him in the enjoyment of his Spirituall life and now we are set upon the things of God so as that he that is borne of God to a Spirituall life is become a new Creature and old things are past away 2 Cor. 5.17 He hath a new mind and a new heart new affections new Language and new employments that he was never wont to doe before now he can read Gods Word and conferre with Gods people about the things of God and can instruct others and fashion himselfe to a new mould and all upon the renewall of the spirit of his minde so that if you see that God hath put another spirit into you then ever you had before so as not only this or that part but the whole man is changed and put into another frame that though there be still a taste of the Old man yet the frame both of the body and soule is of another mould and all things are become new in some measure then you live a new life indeed else it is not a perfect change though this and that alteration bee wrought in you By these causes you may clearly discerne whether God hath given you a new life or no consider it therefore I beseech you how doe you now finde your hearts apt to speak when you speak of that estate you are in Are you in your Closets wont to say That time was when you have been thus and thus led in the vanitie of your minde and the hardnesse of your heart and custome of sinne but when it pleased God who called you by his grace when it pleased God then it tooke place you had been in good company before and had used many meanes but never any thing would worke but when it pleased God then it wrought and from that day to this it hath been so and so with me It is a good signe to you if withall you can recall that such or such a word of promise it pleased God to pitch your soules upon you have long looked and waited for salvation but in the end it pleased God to wrap up your soules in life by such a promise and if you can call to minde that such a promise
your soules did cleave unto then are you indeed borne to a Spirituall life because you are right bred bred of a Promise and of the holy will and pleasure of God but if you finde your selves to be of another frame and you are bowed to walke with God and to reforme your course of life by outward bounds this is not so safe but if your whole man universally be bowed to a godly holy frame and all things are become new new friends new affections new desires if you finde such an universall change then you are right bred Christians and indeed no Christians are right bred but such Christians but if you make a great stirre about the great Reformation that is wrought in you and it is from the good inclination and disposition you have alwaies had you ever had a good minde and in the end you thanke God you have reformed such and such evils as you have been blamed for time was when you could have freely played at Cards and Dice but since then you see the vanity of it Note this and you take better courses and doe now consort your selves with wel ordered and stayed company you had alwaies a good minde to be better but you could not doe it suddenly and so in the conclusion your reformation is but a good inclination or disposition of your minde and if you see that much good hath been wrought upon you by the counsell of such and such friends and by the good example of such and such wise and discreet friends and if you find that there is some strange change in your carriage your course of life is much altered you are not so light and wanton as you were but you take a farre more grave and wise and stayed course and to much better purpose both for Church and Common-wealth wherein you live now I say if you shall goe on and looke for that Spirituall life which only springs from Christ Jesus and wil lead on to eternall glory and therefore rests not in any reformation of your selves till you finde there be such an inward and whole change wrought in you which the heart is wont to speake of to the praise of Gods grace it was Gods will else it could never have been wrought and you could not speak of it till now and you never rest satisfied in such a change as a word of reproofe or counsell that hath wrought such a change or reformation in you that stayed in the outward man or in some affections till you found your hearts to sanctifie the name of Gods grace in the acknowledgement of the word of Promise and of the Spirit of grace making you new that you may bee able to say that in very deed you have Christ and with Christ life and that life which will never decay but wil hold to all eternity And therefore now to speake something of the signes of the life of our Justification Therefore a second sort of signes Signes of spirituall life from the effects of it is taken from the effects of Spirituall life you see what is the causes of it as the good pleasure of God the word of promise and the Spirit of grace these be the first sort of signes Now a second sort of signes is from the effects and fruits of life and herein take notice of some fruits of your life of Justification Life of Justification it is a principall part of our Spirituall life to have our sins forgiven Blessed is the man whose iniquity is pardoned and to whom the Lord imputeth no sinne Psal 32.1 2. And therefore it is that forgivenesse of sinne is called justification then God accounts us righteous and this is called Justification of life Rom. 5.18 because in the pardon of our sins is our life As when a Malefactor by the Law is condemned he is by the Law a dead man and if his Pardon come his pardon is his life and it is so indeed So is it in this case the pardon of our sins is the very life of our soules and if God give us to finde that life there is no feare of the life of our Sanctification or Consolation c. The first effect then that flowes from the pardon of our sins is some inward peace of Conscience Inward peace flowes from pardon of sins some inward refreshment and satisfaction yeelded to the heart that it could never attaine to before for sinne may be pardoned in the sight of God and yet that pardon is not manifested and declared to my soule untill God vouchsafe me some measure of peace and a manifestation of the free pardon of my sins I can have little rest it is a notable saying Rom. 5.1 Being justified by faith we have peace with God through Jesus Christ A man justified is one that hath his sins pardoned for what was it that all our life time before made us afraid of Gods displeasure and we had much disquietnesse about our estates Oh the sinne of our soules that we had committed all our life long the sinne committed many a day agoe that now lay heavie upon our soules and the want of pardon lay as heavie as our sins but now if God come and say Thy sins are pardoned then followes a sweete tranquility of peace in the soule A matter that Philosophers have talked of to quiet the minde to lull men asleep and with applying remedies did stupisie for a while and take off the heavie burthen or the sence of the burthen rather then the burthen it selfe but so soone as ever God pardons sinne there is shed abroad a spirit of peace in our soules and sometimes in that unspeakable measure as that it passeth the understanding of a man to conceive Note this Phil. 4.7 But I doe not so conceive that every Christian as soone as ever his sinne is first pardoned hath such an unconceiveable peace in his soule but he findes a great deale of ease sometimes as if you had thrown a Milstone from off his body notable is that expression in Esa 32.17 The work of righteousnesse shall be peace and the effect of righteousnesse quietnesse and assurance for ever He speakes of that righteousnesse whereby we stand righteous before God and the imputation of Christs righteousnesse to our soules The worke of righteousnesse shall be peace from this worke and effect you may gather what the causes of it is blessed are such it is quietnesse and assurance for ever Not that there is an everlasting sence of that peace for the sence of it is sometimes obscured for want of watchfulnesse and want of experience in the wayes of godlinesse and sometimes through the buffetings of Sathan or desertions from the hand of God and so many times our peace may be over-clouded and the sence of it taken away but the worke of righteousnesse is peace if sinne be pardoned peace will follow upon it and the fruit of this righteousnesse is quietnesse and assurance for ever the heart
former offence but he can put no new principle into him but Gods Pardons doth convey life into the soule and it hath this worke in it when the soule sees that all its sins are done away and those sins many and great as many and great sins are forgiven him so is his love great and manifold and this is of the same nature of the love there spoken of she was a wicked women and very notorious for uncleannesse for so said the people vers 38 39. Surely if this man were a Prophet he would know what manner of woman this was for she is a sinner And when they say A sinner they meane not such a sinner as other men and women ordinarily be but such a sinner as was a notorious wicked woman and therefore a shame for him that profest himselfe to be a Prophet to come so neare her she begins to wash and to kisse his feet and to wipe them with the haire of her head and to annoint him with precious oyntment Now saith Christ to Simon the Pharisee and he was none of the worst of them neither for Christ seemes to imply that he had some sins forgiven him I have something to say unto thee Simon there was a Creditor had two Debtors the one owed five hundred pence the other fifty and when they had nothing to pay he franckly forgave them both tell me therefore which of them will love him most Why saith he I suppose him to whom he forgave most And Jesus said thou hast rightly judged since I entred into thy house thou gavest me no water for my feet c. wherefore I say unto thee her sinnes which are many are forgiven her for she loved much Shee shewed wonderfull much love she sate behind him weeping when she though she had not been so much seen not presuming to come into his presence Now therefore her sins which are many are forgiven her You may see it plainly because she loveth so much and thou that hast shewed lesse love thou hast lesse forgiven thee but they that have many sins forgiven them they have much And therefore if a mans sins be forgiven him and God give him peace in the pardon of them according to the measure and multitude of his sins such is the measure and variety of his love the greatnesse of his love to God and as God hath forgiven him many sins so hee gives God manifold measures of love he loves God greatly the very feet of God the lowest and poorest members of the Body of Christ He is content to stoop to the meanest office of love to Christ or to any of his servants any thing wherein love may be shewed to Christ or his Members he is content to stoop to it According to what is thy forgivenesse such is thy love And because no man hath so little forgiven him but if any thing be forgiven him at all he knows that little is so much and so great as would indeed have plunged him into the neathermost Hel and therefore no true Christian is conceited of the smalnesse of his sins but he thinkes it a very great matter to have any one sinne forgiven him but he knowes if God had cast him out of his sight for any one of them just had his Judgements been and if at any time his love decay he renewes it by repentance of that sinne for which before God had vouchsafed him pardon And thus you see a six-fold signe of our spiritual life three from the causes and three from the effects and the latter the three effects chiefly concerne the life of our Justification And therefore doe but apply it home to your soules Application because the whole discourse is but an application and an use of the point but I pray you consider what you have heard and lay it to heart and draw neare now into the closet of your spirits that you may discerne what God hath done for you Did you yet ever see any peace of Conscience you say I never had a troubled unquiet Conscience all my dayes but to you I only say thus much your peace hath neither a good root nor will it bring forth any good fruit not well rooted for I pray you whence came it did it come from any word of Gods Promise or any worke of the Spirit of grace or from thy Selfe love or is it not as benumbed peace and if so then it is not wel rooted And truly it hath and wil have as bad fruits for if thou sayest thy sins are pardoned then what care hast thou to keep that peace and to preserve it Doth not a sin befall thee but it is an annoyance to thy spirituall life and thou canst not rest till thou beest shut of it and cannot be satisfied till thou beest wholly discharged of it it is wel but if thou findest that thou canst live quietly in knowne sins and thy soule is never troubled about them this is then but a barren and false-hearted peace and will deceive thee and in the midst of this peace thou mayest sinke into Hell unlesse God heale this distempered peace in thee and if God have given thee such a peace what love doest thou then return to God Where is that great and manifold love thou gives to God If this love be wanting and thy care to preserve it be wanting If thy peace be groundlesse and fruitlesse then spirituall life is wanting but if God have been pleased and thine own heart can find it so and bear witnesse to thy soule that God hath pardoned thy sinnes then that peace which is in thy soul will refresh thee Hast thou ever found such a peace in thy soul as hath been unspeakable and full of glory and thou hast been sweetly quieted when many troubles have been about thee and hast thou found comfort from hence in any of the Ordinances of God And dost thou find that though that peace then gotten be in a great measure lost and decayed yet thou hast as great a care as may be to preserve it and to maintain it and to renew and to recover it again by repentance and art careful to preserve thy selfe spotlesse before the world And dost thou find that according as God hath been mercifull to thee so thy love is great and manifold thou canst never love God so much as he hath done thee thou canst never answer the thousand part of his love and mercy shewed to thee And then no service of God or office so meane that he calls thee to but to the utmost of thy indeavor art willing to spend and be spent for God then it is an evident argument that justification is conveyed to thy soule for God hath given thee peace and hath given thee an heart to love him back again SERMON VIII 1 JOHN 5.12 He that hath the Son hath life and he that hath not the Son hath not life THe causes of this life you have heard and some of the effects of it
also The life of Justification you heard hath these three effects or fruits in the heart Peace Quietnesse and Assurance for ever Care to keepe our conscience pacified in some measure carefull to maintaine that peace we have had so much ado to get And also love of God according to the abundance of sin that hath been pardoned to us We are now speaking of the effects of life and now to speake of the effects of the life of our sanctification Life of Sanctification Hee that hath the Son hath life not only in the pardon of his sin but he hath likewise the graces of Gods spirit which are the life of sanctification A frame of grace wrought in the soule which is the life of holinesse Now because Sanctification is found partly in the heart and partly in the life Let me now shew you some such effects of spirituall life as are found in the heart of a Christian And breathe forth themselves in his life by those habits and gifts which are principally within And the sum of what I shall now say is thus much There are certaine variety of the graces of God in themselves so different and opposite As that in nature they are seldome compatible to one person at one and the same time or least of all to be found in one and the same businesse And yet are found where ever the heart of a man is sanctified by the Spirit of grace where you have the life of sanctification in a Christian you shall finde variety of graces in them some of them of such diversity and opposition one to another that in nature the like temper is not to be found in one person at the same time and in the same businesse They are certaine kind of conjugations or companions of grace so fitted and joyned together in the heart of a man as that nature is not able to compact such sanctified affections unto such uses upon any occasion much lesse able to bring them forth upon any occasion they are so different in themselves to name some of them in particular First if you looke at the grace of God as it workes in the heart Ioy and griefe in the soule sanctified at once and exercises it selfe in the conversion of a sinner you shall finde that when the soule discernes any life of grace in its heart that sin is now pardoned and God is pleased to frame it anew and to give it a new life at that time the heart is taken up with these two contrary effects it is both inlarged with no small measure of joy that ever God should redeeme him from such a desperate condition as his soul lay in and yet withall full of grief of heart that ever he should have so much displeased that God that hath done so much for him and so plaine as that you shall evidently discerne the voyce of your own joy from the voyce of your owne griefe I know not better how to instance in it then to fetch a resemblance from the returne of the Children of Israel from captivity to Ierusalem read Psal 126.2 3 4. When God turned the captivity of his people this was their affection then was their mouth filled with laughter and their tongue with singing c. Now the same people that so rejoyce to see themselves redeemed by the Arme of the Lord when they doe rejoyce to see themselves set at liberty from the captivity they doe at the same time as sadly grieve and weepe to consider the unkindnesse they have put upon God and their unworthinesse of such a mercy from him as you may read Jer. 50. 4 5. speaking of the same people and of the same time their return from the captivity and he tels you They shall come going and weeping shall they goe and seek the Lord God and aske the way to Zion with their faces thitherward If the Psalmist speakes of it he saith they were out of and beyond themselves for joy as in a comfortable dreame the newes seemed to be too good to be true and they rejoyced with exceeding great joy and if the Prophet Jeremy speake of the very same people and the same time and the very same action he tells you They goe to Jerusalem weeping they goe to seek the Lord and aske the way to Zion they rejoyce at the greatnesse of the mercy and weep in sence of their unworthinesse of it And truly this kinde of combination shall you finde stirring in every soule that is converted to God when the pardon of its sin is sealed to its heart it breeds a certaine kind of inward joy and comfort in the Lord that hath thus graciously pardoned their iniquity and yet more abundantly mourning for the evils it hath so displeased God with nor is there any mourning so deeply woundeth the soule as that which ariseth from the sight of Christ crucified then the soule mournes full bitterly Zach. 12.10 He wil mourne exceedingly to thinke that he should deale so unworthily against that God that hath all this while had such wonderfull thoughts of peace towards him This is the first combination of graces that is found in the soule after sinne is pardoned and the heart restored to a new life for wee spake before of prizing Christ in our judgements by certaine preparative graces but now we speak of that kind of life of sanctification which puts forth it selfe after some sence of our justification this life of the mixture of joy and mourning beares witnesse to our life of sanctification Secondly in the worshipping of God in those duties of the life of sanctification 2. Joy and feare you shall finde another combination of mixed affections the like of which are not and cannot be found in nature and that is joy and feare according to Psal 2.11 Serve the Lord with feare and rejoyce with trembling A Christian man when he is in a good frame and the life of grace most stirres in his spirit he never comes to an holy duty but with some holy fear and trembling before God before whom he then stands and yet there is no duties he goes about with more comfort and joy then those when his heart is not dead It is true a dead hearted Christian comes to good duties like a Beare to a stake while they are in such a temper if they can shun duties they wil but take the heart of a Christian when it is alive and then they are a willing people Psal 110.3 they come with some inward gladnesse of heart it is the joy of their spirits to heare of an opportunity when they may heare the Word and pray or performe any duty acceptable to God but how when their hearts are most joyful and they goe about duties most willingly yet then most awfully for take you a Christian when he comes unwillingly his heart is not much affected with feare and trembling but then he is most awfull when his heart is in the best frame towards holy duties these
distemper with boyling in heat of wrath against his enemies he is all upon it to doe him any harme his heart is full of hot and bitter wrath so as that love which was as heat and fire to thaw and warme cold and hard hearts when it comes to the fire of wrath it is as it were cold water and allayes that heat and bitternesse and harshnesse which else our hearts are subject to This is the nature of love as it is the nature of water to coole hot distempers and as it is the nature of fire to thaw and soften hard frozen spirits so though it be but as one intire grace Yet in the act it puts forth a kind of variety of worke whereby one would thinke it did crosse it selfe but it doth not but doth all by the life of Christ thus you see what the effects of the life of sanctification is in the heart of a man after that God hath begun to roote the life of justification in us and hee discernes that God hath wrought a change in him and then these severall graces though in themselves and worke one opposite to another yet in a Christian heart they can meet and joyne together And therefore now doe but lay this to heart he that hath the Sonne hath life Will a Christian say how shal I know that I have that life in having of which I may know I have Christ Why do but consider with thine owne soule not now of the life of thy justification but hast thou found that ever God did fill thy heart with joy so as thy soule hath said the Lord hath done great things for my soule whereof he hath made me to rejoyce and hast thou found that when thou hast most rejoyced in the wonderfull mercy of God then hath thy heart most melted before the Lord thy God And thou hast been ashamed and confounded within thy selfe and never open thy mouth against God any more Doest thou see that the more God reveales Christ to thee who was crucified for thy sake the more bitterly thou moanest for thy wickednesse then it is a strong evidence of life and peace in thy soule were it not the mighty power of the life of Christ in thee thou couldest have had neither of both these graces much lesse combined together to worke the same thing at one and the same time if therefore God hath helped you to looke at the great mercy of God with joy and yet with shame and bitter mourning that ever thou shouldest dishonour such a God certainly God hath vouchsafed thee life and such a life as in which thou shalt live You shall have many a soule that is marvellously comforted in hearing the word rejoyce exceedingly in what they heare and goe home and say such a word was good and very comfortable and never man spake like that man and he never thought before that there was so much to be found in the word as now he conceives there is But now if this were the joy of Gods Elect if it were such a joy as would not vanish away like lightning in the aire a flash of joy it would sinke downe into the heart and leave so much the more deeper impression mourning by how much the more it hath had joy I grant that sometimes the joy of Gods owne servants may soone vanish away but it was never knowne that the joy of a living Christian did so soone vanish and depart away but that when it did most abound in the heart it did cause inward mourning and if not weeping yet an affection of greife and sorrow of soule that ever we have so displeased God the more God hath been mercifull to us the more are we shamed of ourselves inwardly grieve for our shamelesse carriages If therefore you only finde joy in hearing that may deceive you it is not the shortnesse of the continuance that argues the unsoundnesse of the joy but the want of this combination that will argue the falshood of it if God yoake not spirituall joy with spirituall mourning then suspect your joy for it doth not accompany salvation unto life And in very deed this you shall find to be true the joy of living soules in Christ though that oftentimes bee soon gone yet it leaves this spirit of mourning which keeps possession for it and that many times for a long time and you may read your comfort in the sorrow that it hath left behind for there is as much cause of comfort in this sorrow as in the joy when you had it when you see your soules can mourne unfeignedly for that you see so good a God to such a wretch this very comfortable sorrow that is left in thy heart is an undoubted pledge that it is not a vanishing joy the power and work of it lasts long and wil abide in the soule for ever a man will in such a case mourne for his sin while he lives If you have therefore found your joy mixed with sorrow it is right else it is but a fading hypocriticall and false joy Againe further how doe you finde your heart affected with the duties of Gods worship Doe you come to duties marvellous unwillingly that if you could avoyd it you would not keep such duties in your house and if it must needs be you put it upon any body rather then upon your selfe you may be a living Christian but your heart is in a dead frame at that time and if it be alwayes so with you you never did truly live but if you finde your spirits at least your hearts comming on most willingly to Christian duties that you performe them like Free-will offerings not free so as without warrant from Gods Word but free in respect of grace Doe but observe thus much it may be you may come off freely before God because hee hath given you spirituall gifts and you can quit your selves well in the performance of them and that makes you come the more boldly but consider if the more willingly you come to Christian duties the more trembling your heart goes about them the more the soule is prepared the more it feares before the Lord and the more lowly the spirit is and awfull in the sight of God if a man can serve the Lord with joy and trembling together then the service you perform to God is heavenly and spirituall and lively and such as in which you live they come from a living heart and the sacrifice is lively and acceptable and argues you have life and therein you have Christ the God of peace but if a man have only feare in a duty but no joy or joy but no feare his heart is not in a good frame we must bring a better frame of heart before God then so before we can say that we have the life of sanctification Againe for another signe How doe you finde your selves in your tribulations are they altogether matter of burden and wearinesse to your hearts Have you no
joy in them Have you many afflictions in inward or in outward man and no comfort in them It is an uncomfortable signe to you the life of sanctification is not so shed abroad in your hearts that you may gather you have life but if you finde that in the multitude of your thoughts within you Gods comforts delight your soule Psal 94.19 20. In the midst of sorrow you finde some comfort if your life in Christ makes your saddest times joyfull and comfortable to you and so in outward afflictions though afflictions may seeme to be grievous yet waite a while and you shall see the more weight and burthen that lyes upon thee and the more thy afflictions for Christ hath abounded so hath thy consolation abounded much more 2 Cor. 1.6 Againe observe your carriage with men it is good to be patient when you meet with evill doers 2 Tim. 2. last yet notwithstanding not so patiently as to beare with them in every thing that is evil to allow them in any sin no if God give you place and opportunity shew some kinde of zeal to cleanse them from their evils and this may well stand with your patience be patient in things that concerne your selfe but beare not with them that are evil in their evil deeds Againe doe but observe the frame of your spirit in the things that you suffer Are you meeke and gentle and flexible that is a good vertue but how are you in the things of God Are you stiffe and unmoveable there 1 Cor. 15. last that though they may perswade you very farre in any reasonable thing concerning man Note but in things concerning God you will not baite any thing of the peace of your Conscience for any mans pleasure are you unmoveable in such a case both these together doe very well stedfast and yet soone perswaded such an heart as is thus mixed and knowes how to temper and frame his spirit according to God he is a living soule and hath life and Christ the Prince of life Againe thou art a modest Creature and thinkest meanly of thy selfe and art weaned from this world it is a vertue but how is it coupled for God couples every grace with another grace that they may poyse one another as Christ sent out his Disciples by two and two together so all the graces of the Spirit joyne one with another they ballance one another that he may not be too high on the one side nor too low on the other but that all things may be carried according to God and therefore thou art modest it is well but hast thou withall an high and a lofty spirit that if it be heavenly matters thou art to be exercised in they cannot be too high for thee Let a man tell thee of State matters comming before Princes and tell thee of nobility thou art ashamed and knowest not how to set about such things as those be but tell thee of an inheritance in the Kingdome of glory and the making it sure to thee in a way of Gods grace Tell thee of pardon of sinne and of the Spirit of grace and the riches of the precious promises of God and thy heart can looke at these highly then thou art of a magnanimous spirit then is thy modesty in outward things well coupled but he whose spirit is most lofty should be most humble couple them together and they well suit one another when they goe hand in hand righteousnesse and peace goe together modesty and magnanimity humility and courage goe together they make an amiable set of grace where-ever they are so coupled if it be of things concerning thy selfe thou hast not an heart to stand out against any man of place but he may bow thee round about but if they wrong thee so farre as Gods honour is interested in the thing thou canst then stand upon thy lawfull rights and if therein thou be impeached thou canst come off with this thou art not inferiour to the chiefe Apostles and yet art nothing nor art able to doe any thing Againe looke at thy worldly businesse art thou diligent in thy Calling it is well and you say Cursed is he that doth the worke of the Lord negligently and the work of his Calling is the worke of the Lord. But how stands thy heart affected in the midst of thy businesse Is thy heart dead to the world goe not about it with a worldly heart goe not about it for profit sake but because God sets thee about it And you are more free to the service of God and to doe more good this is the life of sanctification And lastly if God give us hearts so abundant in love that it both thawes our cold and stiffe hearts towards our poore Brethren and also puts a watery temper to coole the wilde-fire of our wrath towards our enemies it is a mighty power of the Spirit of grace to turne it selfe so many wayes for the right ordering and framing of a Christian in the course of his sanctification these be comfortable signes of our life of sanctification SERMON IX 1 JOHN 5.12 He that hath the Son hath life and he that hath not the Son hath not life NOw we come to speake of such effects of the life of Sanctification Effects of Sanctification signes of spiritual life as shew themselves in the lives of Christians by observing of which in our selves we may know we have Christ and life in him Now these effects are suitable to the effects of naturall life and they are principally five The first is motion 1 Effect motion when a creature is able to move it self unto the duties of its place it is an effect of naturall life when it is able to move it selfe in its place then it is said to live such or such a life if you see a Creature stirres and moves not further then by the help of another then you say it lives not but if it stirre of it selfe then you say it lives Nor is it strait way alive if it move unlesse it be in its place for you see earthly things will move downward if they be upward and light things will move upward but these are out of their places they are rather moved then themselves doe move when they are out of their place and it is not so much from a power of moving but rather an affection to rest then a power to move themselves And further suppose they should move themselves meet it is they should move themselves to such actions as argues as argue this and that life which they expresse suppose a Tree moves it selfe and nourish it selfe and grow and that in its place yet it doth not move it selfe to see nor heare and beasts that doe move themselves to see and heare yet they cannot move themselves to acts of Reason and men that can move to acts of Reason yet cannot move themselves to any spirituall duty and work of grace so that that motion which argues the life
about such duties meerly for themselves they are wanting of this spirituall life So then doe but lay these things together doe you finde a man that is desirous to be doing good duties but is it to please others or is it out of the bonds of authority that lyes upon him Doe you see them have affection to duties but out of their place and calling or in their calling they doe such duties but rather out of their own strength then from the strength of Christ and not out of a conscionable respect to all the Commandements of God or if it be from outward principles and to wrong ends the glory of God not sought after nor tending to the building up themselves nor others in grace all these are such as men may be carried to doe from outward respects they may doe something that one would thinke would argue life but all the duties they doe by their owne strength is like a Spider that weaves a webbe out of her owne bowels we follow not the rule of the Word exactly but are ever wheeling about to our owne ends and to those respects that concerne our selves rather then to the glory of God and the Churches good it is true no man that hath common graces men that have gifts of preaching and gifts of praying may love to act and move them or any other zealous gift but yet notwithstanding you shal finde this to be true that till the heart be sanctified by the life of Christ we ever detaine all the graces of God in unrighteousnesse as the Romans and Gentiles did detaine the truth of God in unrighteousnesse Rom. 1.18 So we by a spirit of ypocrisie detaine all the graces of God in unrighteousnesse and in Hypocrisie whereas God hath given us every grace and the manifestation thereof to edifie himselfe and to glorifie God withall We wonderfully magnifie our selves withall and make our selves goodly in the eyes of men we are full of our selves and thinke we have this and that in us that will serve our turne and reach our owne ends this is not a life of grace but is indeed a dead worke all that we doe and therefore rest not in any such kinde of life and motion But if you finde an inward inclination of soule to Spirituall duties and to those duties in speciall that are pertinent to your place and if they be not within the compasse of your calling you dare not reach unto them and in your calling you do them not out of desire to be seen of men but you are doing good duties out of a sence of your owne inability to reach any duty in your calling much lesse of Gods service and in them all you observe every commandement of God and the ends you aime at are singly that God may be glorifyed and that God may see you and not man that good may be done by you in your places in Church and Family and Commonwealth and that thereby others might be brought on to God and his Kingdome increased this very motion and inclination of your hearts is an argument that you have a stirring spirit to spiritual duties and this is spirituall life in Christ And therefore by how much the more God shall give you an heart to bee doing your works and duties in this order so much the more comfort you shal gather to your souls that undoubtedly Christ hath shed abroad his spirit in you by which you are able to doe that which else you could not have reached unto Quest You say unto me may not a good Christian man have his heart so dead that he is unfit to pray or preach or to instruct his Family or for the duties of his calling fit and good for nothing And is a soule in such a case as this altogether void of spirituall life and sanctification is there not sometimes a kind of a coath come upon a Christian that so benumbs his spirit that he performes no duties at all but if he might have his owne mind he would not pray at all nor receive Sacraments Is not this sometimes the case of Christian and will you say that such an one is a dead soule because he is altogether listlesse and dead-hearted to move to any spirituall duty Answ It is true there may fall such a deadnesse upon the heart of Christian men that they are both unable and unwilling to any spiritual duty Which commonly God leaves his servants unto when he hath found them acting and moving in their own strength and upon their detaining of the graces of God in unrighteousnesse Causes of deadnes of heart and diverting them rather to their own praise in the world then the edifying of the people of God or the glorifying of his own name when God sees we are much of our selves and thinke we can doe much by the strength of grace we have received then God is wont to leave us cold and dead so as we know not in the world what to doe nor are we willing to do any thing The very presence of a duty and the thoughts of it is an horror to such soules in such cases we have been too busie in our own strength and too mighty in the grace we have received and rather aimed at our selves then at him and then no marvaile if God leave us to a world of deadnesse But when God hath thus by this meanes let us see that all our life is in him and that we are dead hearted further then we have life from him then God is wont not to faile but to help us thus farre at the least to looke with a wist and a sad eye upon the forlornnes of our estates and to cry out of our selves O what dead hearted Creatures and dull spirited things are we and bemoane our selves as Paul did Rom. 7.18 I see that in me that is in my flesh Remedies against deadnesse dwels no good thing Sometimes I have a minde to doe good duties but I finde that I have no strength to performe Paul comes to Macedonia and he had an open doore a faire calling to preach but he had no heart to it because he found not Titus his brother there Now when this is the case of a Christian man that he is strait and dead hearted he groanes under the burthen of it and he lookes at it with sad countenance and sees he is not well but is ready to complaine of it now this sence and complaint of deadnesse and using the best meanes to raise himselfe up out of this deadnesse this is an action of Spirituall life It is an act of Spirituall life for a man to be sensible of his owne deadnesse which in time workes the soule of a Christian to a more constant dependance upon Christ for life and makes him more observeable of the Word and more ingenuous and sincere in looking at the glory of God and the Churches good more then his owne and by how much the more we come to this passe and
though at the first it may be weake yet it growes to that temper by which it may propagate and the life of grace is most strong in this regard it no sooner moves and feeds or growes in any measure or begins to expell any ill matter but it will have a minde to be fruitfull begetting its kinde and that is above naturall life a Christian is most apt and ready to draw on others to be like himselfe As soone as ever the woman of Samaria saw that Jesus was indeed the Messiah and found true sweetnesse in him the very same houre she runs into the Towne and tells her neighbours Come see a man that hath told me all that ever I did Joh. 4.29 Is not he the Christ and when they came and saw it they said We beleeve not because of thy Word but because we have heard him our selves and we know that this is indeed the Christ This is the proper nature of true life as soone as they are truly begotten they beget others of their owne kinde not but that sometimes a Christian soule hides himselfe long before he be well setled but when he truly discernes that he lives and is conscious to himselfe that God will be gracious to his soule then he desires to propagate the like grace unto others Joh. 1.41 to 46. when one had found Christ they call others to come and see Psal 51.10 Then shall I teach transgressors thy wayes and sinners shall be converted to thee to shew you that if God will but worke a cleane heart in David and renew a right spirit within him and his broken bones may be recovered and if God shall be pleased to establish him with his free spirit and he may be once againe assured of the pardon his sins then will he teach others the wayes of God if he be once converted himselfe he will draw on as many others as he can Thus you have five signes of spirituall life SERMON X. 1 JOHN 5.12 He that hath the Son hath life and he that hath not the Son hath not life WE are now in the next place to see how we may discerne life by the properties and adjuncts of it you heard before of the effects of life now of the properties and qualities of this life by discerning of which we may know that we have life There be three properties or qualities of life Three properties of life 1. Warmth First where ever there is life there is some warmth 2 King 9.34 when the Prophet had laine upon the childe and had done so seven times at length the breath of the childe began to wax warme a signe that life was a restoring and thereby the Prophet discerned that life began to returne into the body of the childe because warmth returned and so is the presence of the Spirit of grace and the union of it with the soule and body of a man it makes a man fervent and warme Fervent in spirit Rom. 12.11 and therefore it is that it is resembled unto fire Matth. 3.11 The Holy Ghost shall come downe upon you as it were with fiery tongues and shall warme and heate you with whatever duties God shall call you to 1 Thes 5.19 Quench not the Spirit now quenching belongs to fire a signe therefore that the spirit is of a fervent nature so farre forth as it is capable of any quenching and destroying by the Sons of men and 2 Tim. 1.6 Stirre up the gifts of grace in you as if yee stirred up the embers of the fire so stirre up and kindle the gifts of God which is in you blow them up into a kindling flame so that all these things expresse thus much That since the Spirit of life which is in Christ Jesus and from him communicated to his Members is a spirit of heat therefore wheresoever there is warmth there is life if no warmth nor heat there is no life and as our spirits begin to wax warme so we grow to life in Christianity Notable is that expression in Luke 24.22 Did not our hearts burne within us while he talked with us of the Scriptures to shew you that there is a power in the Word to convey such a measure of the Spirit of grace to the Hearers as that their hearts begin to glow within them and to convey some heat and warmth into them when the Word is powerfully applyed to the soule For the further opening of this point you shall see it in some things principally which are ever found in some measure in the spirits of Christian men that have any life in Christ First that which is wonderfull and is indeed no where found but in them their very knowledge is warme Knowledge warme which in all other men is cold knowledge is but an empty speculation brings forth no great matter of heat but in a Christian his knowledge is full of heat Zeale must be according to knowledge knowledge is no knowledge without zeal and zeale is but a wilde-fire without knowledge Rom. 10.2 So if Christians have a knowledge of God but no zeale there is no saving life in that knowledge it is not the knowledge of Gods people Notable is that speech of our Saviour Joh. 5.35 speaking of John He was a burning and a shining light not only a shining light to give cleare instruction in the knowledge of the Messiah and the true meaning of the Law but withall a burning light Joh. 5.3 expoundeâ— so as that he had a notable power when Hypocrites came before him to burne them up Mat. 3.12 And so where ever he came he did not only shew them what they should doe what shall we Publicans doe and what shal we Souldiers doe Luk. 3.3 to 15. but he did burne up not only those who were professed enemies to the wayes of grace but all those that he found in Hypocrisie he burnt them all up where ever he came and if he did not finde out their lusts he would kindle a fire in them he warmed Herod in such sort as that he was constrained to doe many things according to Johns Ministery Mark 6. and so shall you finde it in all the Servants of God that according to their life if there be true life there is true burning though sometimes their burning is not so strong as their life yet there is heat and fervency of spirit mixed with their knowledge that if they know the Will of God they are inflamed and their knowledge of Christ will not suffer them to be barren and unfruitfull 2 Pet. 3.18 So that the knowledge which a Christian man hath is such as by which he will doe what he ought to doe if he see sinne in his brother he will not suffer it to lye there Levit. 19.17 If he see any thing amisse in his brother that he sees not in himselfe he will be helpfull to him where the Spirit of grace is lively they will not suffer their brethren to rest in sinne much lesse
lye till they be dead in trespasses and sins But above all things have fervent love among your selves forsake not the fellowship you have one with another as the manner of some is Heb. 10.25 26. Love covereth a multitude of sins So as that though there was much evill in Christians before yet their very lying together doth burn out all that superfluity of naughty stuffe that hangs about the servants of God 1 Pet. 1.22 see that ye love one another with a pure heart and fervency of spirit This warmth in Christians it is found in these foure things And thus you see the properties of this life Quest You say but if this were always found in Christian men how comes it to passe then that the servants of God do many times finde their hearts so cold in their prayers and appetite so little to the word and so unprofitable under it How should a man heare so much and profit so little if a man aid digest the word and is it not a common complaint of Christians how much they hear and how little they profit Yea and will not some Christians say he profits nothing at all no not any thing And is it so many times that Christians come together and they are little edification one to another very little profit sit together and talke of matters that little edifie but rather corrupt the spirits one of another how is it then that you say where ever there is life there is heat so such as makes them more lively in Christian duties And it might be objected that Luke 24.32 Did not our hearts burn within us c. A sign that till he came to them and came into conference with them and did rub them up they were very cold hearted and dull spirited and went on their way with much darknesse of soule without life and strength of soule until he came to put life into their spirits Answ It is true many times Gods servants are very cold and benumbed and a cold spirit growes upon them exceedingly so as that they scarce feele any life breathing in their knowledge or prayers or appetites to the Word or love to their Brethren little warmth in any of these partly through want of supplying the life of Gods grace with fit nourishment whereby the heart should grow warme As naturall fire if it be not supplyed with new fewell it will goe out and partly sometimes by pouring cold water upon it which is as much as in us lyes to dampe the fire And we doe power cold water upon this life of grace when we admit of any sinfull lusts in our soules those do marvellously eate out all that life and heate of spirit that sometimes we had in our hearts and sometimes by an excessive use of worldly things which without a very spiritual mind doth clog the soule as much as if you should throw cold water upon a fire it will damp it very much so is this case men sometimes walke in worldly businesses with worldly affections and sometimes give leave to distempered lusts and sometimes neglect to put any fewell to the fire of grace but as soone as ever they find the heart well warmed with some good Sermon or a good Prayer or Conference or the like they thinke this fire wil never goe out and so they begin to neglect it and so either the fire goes quit out or else is so damped as that you can discerne no life no savour or power of Religion there And therefore such a thing may befall Gods servants they may grow dul hearted one way or other as you have heard But yet thus much let me say though this sometimes do befal the spirits of Gods people yet even then when they want burning and chafeing and stirring up there is something in them that argues some life and where is some life there is some heat so much life as there is so much heat is there so much as you take away of your Christian heat so much life you take away And therefore for these two Disciples that went to Emaius It is said when they were talking one with another they were talking of Jesus Christ and upon all the things that befell him in his passion And said Christ to them ver 17. What manner of communication is this and what is the matter that you are thus sad what was it that made them sad was it not an affection of griefe for all the evills done to their Saviour that was life of grace and some heate there was in them that their spirits should be so troubled to see their Elders and Princes and all the people to cry out so bitterly against the Lord Jesus Christ and not to leave him till they had crucified him there was some sad expression came from them upon that occasion And so though it left the outward man sad yet there was something in the heart though full of doubting through unbeleife what this Christ was and what this would come to we hoped this was he that should redeem Israel c. then Christ began to put a little warmth into them by saying ought not Christ to suffer these things v. 24 25. and so he opens to them the Scriptures spoken of himselfe and these words put new life into them and did blow up the spirit and heat of that decaying life which was overwhelmed with griefe and care their hearts was heated yet So that take you a Christian man when he is even in the most disordered framelook how much he hath lost of his spiritual heat so much of his true life if he have left to be warm so much life hath he lost and if his warmth be smoothered his life is smoothered for the present And even as life will shew it selfe in the very sad face of the heart and dejection of spirit that they fall into and sometimes in the deepe sighs and groans of the heart which in such a case it sometimes will breake forth into So a Christian soule when his heate is most damped there is a sad face in his spirit that he discerns all is not well with him his spirit is benumbed his heart in his own thoughts is frozen within him It is a burden to him and a matter of sadnesse to his spirit and therefore hee doth expresse himselfe sometimes with many sad and deep sighs and groanes about his forlorne and lost estate and yet sometimes you shall have his heart even then when his heart is most cold which is worse then the former for you shall sometimes have a Christian soule not onely not affected with sadnesse 〈◊〉 this when his life is smothered within him but vanish away in much empty carnall delights and contentments and rejoycing in those comforts which have no life at all in them A Christian man that hath his life so deaded may come not onely to have nothing left but sadnesse of heart to behold it but hee may loose his sadnesse too and even
that vanish away in outward rejoycing so as no life in his heart in a manner is left Peter when he had denyed his Master his heart was much oppressed within him he was pricked and wounded with anguish in his soul but there was some life in that But what was it with David after his committing of uncleannesse nine or ten months together he pleaseth himselfe in his pleasures and delights and contentments which his royalty put upon him and made Vriah drunke and did eate and drink himselfe liberally with him and in the end put him to death and that very sleightly and when he heares of it makes no matter of it but the sword devoures one as well as another and had not his pulse beating in him no warme breath comes from him but an empty flourish and outward joyallity as if he had sung all care away and all fear of God out of his heart As if there was no spirituall affection left in his heart of the estate of the whole Church of God whereas his poore servant could say unto him shall I goe home and sollace my self with my wife and children the case standing with the Church so as it doth he would not do so a word that one would have thought would have warmed a good mans heart but he was not warmed with it nor with any lively affection not any beating of his pulse to Christianity nothing stirring but a swounding of the whole man that he that had seen David in such a case and had never known him before he might have written in his forehead a man forsaken of God and void of all feare of his name had he seen him in this case Where was then Davids life all this while It was a fearefull condition and of all we read in the Scripture none so farre forsaken whose whole spirit was so farre benumbed as Davids then was and yet truly life there was stil in him I doubt not though all this while you shal see that either David prayed not all this while and that hath been the case sometimes of right godly men that have sometimes not of three yeares together made a private Prayer in their Closets have been content to come to duties in the Family cause others to perform duties but for their own parts further then a form of religion or shame or satisfying of conscience forces them they let all rest no affection at all to the duty they know God tooke no pleasure in such a soule while they lived in such a course and so would they lye many moneths and yeares and all that while not so much as lift up a private prayer to God and this is a far worse case then the other and yet even this sometimes befalls them when as sinfull lusts have so distempered the life of Christ in them there is still an habit of grace in the soule but yet scarce any life of Religion putting forth it selfe but still where warmth is removed so much life from holy duties is taken away And another answer to this poynt is that even as you see it is by the Almighty power of God that there may be fire and not heat as you see in the fiery Furnace whereinto the three Children was cast though it was made exceeding hot yet it had not power to hurt an haire of their heads nor to swinge a lap of their Garments the power of the sire was propended by the mighty power of God as there is this power in God concerning materiall fire so is there a marvellous hellish and Devillish power in sinne though not an Almighty power yet very like to an Almighty power that that which hath a mighty worke of God by the Almighty power of his grace in the hearts of the Servants of God the work of an Almighty power There is such a venemous power in sin as that it will susspend all acts of grace Power of sinne not so much as shew any act of grace in a Christian soule but the soule and all the graces in it shall lye as the body of a man in a swound not any breathing or sight or hearing or motion nothing to shew of any spirituall life that if he should continue so you would conclude he were dead only this kind of life of grace is there you shall have thus much life in him There is a kinde of unlistinesse and heavinesse of soule to act wickednesse with all that strength and power which sometimes a godly man while he was carnall did reach forth his heart and hand unto a kind of frame of spirit in a Christian when it is at the worst though it can solace it selfe very farre in sinne and goes on hardening its heart in its owne way most desperately and frowardly yet notwithstanding there was alwaies something in his heart that will not suffer his soule to breake out with all that strength of the spirit of wickednesse as it did when it was carnall and the reason of that is because of that speech Gal 5.17 there is flesh and spirit in that soule so as neither can the spirit doe what it would nor the flesh what it would take a Christian when he is most strong and he cannot so glorifie God nor so edifie his brethren as hee would by reason of the body of sinne there is alwaies in the best of a Christian something like the spots in the Moone some darknesse in it not a Christian man but when he is most lively in grace but he hath some darknesse in his best performances so when corruption is most strong and grace most feeble and weake as in the former corruption will weaken the best performances so here corruption cannot carry a Christian man to doe all that wickednesse which else he would breake forth into nor with that strength and vigour which else he would put forth in it though he doe rejoyce in his wickednesse Note this and beare it out yea out-face his very conscience and out-stare the very light of the graces of God within him and goe on pleasing himselfe in the hardnesse of his owne heart yet there is something in the bottome that keeps possession for God and makes him goe about it bunglingly it becomes him not he cannot set it forth with a grace David in his worst comes not off with full power of wickednesse which else his corrupt heart would willingly break forth into were it not for the Spirit of grace that moves slowly in such cases as these be so that still the case stands cleare how much life so much warmth and that warmth will expresse it selfe if any life be there at all So that take a survey of your owne estates by this meanes you would know whether you have Christ or no whether you have life or no If you have the life of grace there is some spirituall warmth in thy soule some heat in thy soule doe but consider then the knowledge that is within thee Is thy knowledge such
aboundance There are two properties more of life Where there is any life there is some kind of plyablenesse Pliablenes of spirit whereas dead carcasses are cold and stiffe and unsavoury though never so sweet before this is a certain truth the more you keep a dead corps above ground the more it stinkes and is unsavoury It shoots out at length and you may sooner breake him then bend him any way but while he is alive you may bend him which way you will now therefore consider thus much if there be any truth of grace in you you are gentle and easie to be intreated Jam. 3.17 but if not Jam. 3.17 expounded then you are of a stiffe spirit inflexible and implacable for to be gentle and easie is the true nature of life but if not then have you lost your life then either you never had life or else it is a swound and so evapoured that there is no bending or bowing of it but they are fit to be buryed as a dead carcasse Quest What is this plyablenesse and easinesse to be entreated and on the contrary this stiffenesse Answ There is Foure things in easinesse to bee intreated First Easie to be pleased 1 Pet. 3.18 any thing that you doe about them is pleasing to them that is poynt of gentlenesse and a gracious man in whom is the life and power of godlinesse he is easie to be pleased If you go about any thing with any tollerable indeavour to give him content he is not hard to be pleased and if not easie to please there is little grace or dangerous to be none at all if you have much a do to bow or bend them to comply with them that asketh and thing of them there is a dead heart in such a spirit Secondly A man that is easie to be intreated and gentle if he be offended he is easie to be intreated Rom. 1.31 It is a signe a man is of a reprobate sence when hee is implacable and stiffe when life is gone a man is stiffe not easie to be intreated Thirdly If so be that hee have offended another man he is easie to yeeld and to acknowledge that he is in a wrong Eccles 10.4 There is in a living Christian an aptnesse to yeeld when he is in a wrong If a man be in a wrong and will not see his errour will not see the evil hee hath done in Gods sight his stiffenesse is a signe of his dead-heartednesse So much stiffenesse here so much deadnesse in his heart and so much nearnesse to the chambers of death For a living Christian if he have offended he is willing to yeeld and will acknowledge himselfe a failer and promise amendment Fourthly He is willing to deny himselfe of his owne right even upon equall easie termes to prevent an offence that may grow and he stands upon equall termes least an offence should arise he yeelds and denies himselfe 1 Thes 2.6 7. So Abraham yeelded to Lot though he had not offended him yet hee condiscended to his inferiour and if any Lot shal be the chooser Gen. 13.8 This gentlenesse of spirit argues life of Christ in the holy servants of God Abraham was not stiffe but gentle and easie to be pleased when he was offended Now therefore art thou easie to be pleased easily intreated to passe by a wrong And if thou hast offended another thou wilt acknowledge it and art easily willing to deny thy selfe to prevent offence then thou art not stiffe but art living Christian but if men be stiffe in spirit hard to be pleased and froward no man can give him content as Naballs servants said of him And of we have offended hard to be intreated and will by no meanes see it or acknowledge it and by no meanes yeeld but turne our selves to endlesse devices and if we stand upon our owne ends and wee will have our owne to the utmost farthing and why should we bend then truly we are cold and little power and life breathing in us The last property of life is this So much sweetness so much life The body while it is alive is sweet and savoury but so soon as ever it begins to smell it must be buryed it cannot be kept above ground every living Christian is a sweet savour to God a Cor. 2.13 and Col. 4.4 5 6. Let your speech be savoury seasoned as with salt And the Apostle saith let no unsavoury or corrupt communication proceed out of your mouthes How then doe you finde your owne spirits doe you breath savoury and sweet and doth your conference yeeld edification and is it all wel-pleasing to God what ever you doe doth it savour wel in the nostrils of God and your brethren If the dutys you perform be so it is signe you are living in Gods sight But if your speeches be prophane conference unsavoury and carnal so much as we loose our sweetnesse so much we loose our life when a Christian carries himselfe serviceably and amiably then we live and in having life we have Christ SERMON XI 1 JOHN 5.12 He that hath the Son hath life and he that hath not the Son hath not life HAving handled an Use of Tryal of life and this depends upon our having of Christ We come now to another Use from this Doctrine Vse 2 It is to teach us the dangerous and uncomfortable estate of every such soule as hath not Christ for the Text saith he that hath not the Sonne hath not life No life in us if there bee no Christ in us Danger of being out of Christ this is that which Apostle speaks often to that we are dead in trespasses and in sins Eph. 2.1 5. This is the of estate of them all so farre as we are without Christ we are without life no Christ no life It is with the sons of men in this kinde that I may so speake as it was with the Souldiers 2 Kings 19.35 they were all dead corps truly that is the case of us all by nature every soule of us as long as we live in the world without Christ so many men so many dead corps so many unsavoury carcasses And indeede all that worke of life which you have heard opened it is no spiritual motion no feeding upon Christ no growing in grace no expelling of noysome lusts no care nor indeavour to beget others to an estate of grace in any men that are dead no motion at all to any spiritual good Heb. 9.14 al our works the best works we doe in an estate of nature they are all of them but dead workes And so are we to any spiritual motion As the Apostle tels you we none of us doe good and which is worse wee can doe no good yea and stil which is worse wee would doe no good if we could this is the estate of us all by nature The Lord looked downe from heaven to see if any of them did good but they are altogether become unprofitable not one doth
thinke a dead man is able to feed upon Christ you know what God said of the Idolatrous people in old time Esa 44.11 12. Esa 44.11 explained The same saith 〈◊〉 to every naturall man He feedeth upon what upon Christ No no upon ashes why upon ashes ashes is farre from feeding upon the living God and yet truly a man feeds upon ashes every soule that feeds not upon Christ hath some Idol for his God and so falls downe to worship it some god of profit or pleasure and this is the estate of all wicked men they feed upon ashes upon ashes it seemes to me to be a borrowed speech or similitude taken from children or some women with childe that being sometimes taken with some ill humour and distemper of stomach they have an eager desire to feed upon ashes and such like dry unsavoury meat Children will be eating coales and ashes and so will sometimes women with childe so truly it is with every naturall man he is a naturall Idolater he worships something besides Gods he feeds upon ashes some dry and unsavoury and unwholsome meat which cannot profit him in the day of wrath which gives not his soule any nourishment for the soule of man is an immortall spirit and we only feed it with profit and pleasure and credit and these be but ashes bodily food The good things of this life are no more suitable to a mans soule then ashes be to a mans body and therefore Solomon so compares the estate of all the sonnes of Nature Eccles 3.21 Who knowes the spirit of a man that goes upward and the spirit of the beast that goes downeward to the earth his meaning is this he complaining of the vanity that lyes upon the sonnes of nature he speakes not in the person of an Epicure as some conceive but his meaning is Who knowes which of all the sonnes of men considers or takes it to heart that his soule goes up to any better place then the soule of a beast which of all the sons of Nature feeds his soule upon better food then the soule of a beast is fed upon Doe they not all feed as if they all went to one place and therefore upon the dust of the earth they feed turne me out the man that is in an estate of nature considers that his soule is to live for ever and therefore takes care to feed his soule to immortality this is the wofull distemper of all the sonnes of nature that we feed not upon Christ but upon the blessings of this world so long as we are without Christ all our food is upon earthly things here below there is not any power in a man by nature not any wisedome or strength in us to deliver our soules and then is not this a false course A lying vanity is not my heart deceived with this and that he is not able to aske his heart such a question am I such a foole to forget all good to my soule thus long it would deliver his soul if hee did but consider that there was a lye in the other way and he flatters himselfe in his good estate before God and considers not the truth of the thing he thinkes hee is as faire a dealing man as any of them all but his heart deceitfull and desperately wicked and so cannot see the falsehood of his way And for growing which is a third act of spiritual life a man is dead to any growth never comes to any growth in grace but he is apt to grow in evil and sin evill men and deceivers shall wax worse and worse 2 Tim. 3.13 take you any natural man and he is ever growing worse and worse ever growing of the worse hand he growes more and more unprofitable and more loose from God and estranged from the wayes of his grace and settled in the wayes of sin And this is that which the Prophet Jeremiah complaines of chap. 9.3 they proceeded from evill to worse and this is the estate of us all without Christ we grow from prodigality to covetousnesse and from wantonnes to voluptuousnes and so goe on til we come to take pleasure in all sinne though it be but for a season This is al the growth and progresse that such men make And in the fourth place for cleansing our selves from al superfluous and noysome lusts that we doe not neither can we be freed from them O Jerusalem wash thy heart from thy wickednesse how long shall thy vaine thoughts lodge within thee Jer. 4.14 Purge out all those sinful lusts God knowes the thoughts of the hearts of men are but vaine 1 Cor. 3.18 and they being vain God would have us to wash our hearts how long shal it be that we suffer these lusts to lodge within us we never cleanse our selves from these but such woful cleansing it is that if we goe about to purge them out by the motions of the spirit of grace that he casts into our hearts we think its a troublesome worke and doth crosse the tranquility and peace of our estates we thinke they are noysome and therefore if any good motion be darted into the heart in the Ministery of the Word or in the Counsell of Christian friends we are sick of it till we have cast out all those good motions againe and what ever good affection God hath been pleased to cast into us wee are not wel til we be shut of it as was the case of Ahab he comes sadly and mourning from Eliahs sharpe reproofe 1 King 21. two last verses but he could not be well at ease til he had cast it all off with putting Naboth to death and put it off with calling a Councel about going to War and so damped all the sorrow that was in his heart Let Caine have any good motion come in his heart and he wil put it off with building of Cities His sin and punishment is great Gen. 4.13 and would he not now seek to God for mercy that his soule might live no he goes out from the presence of God and from all good company and good councel and whither goes he then Into the land of Nod and there he builds Cities and calls them by such and such names and so takes off his thoughts from any good motion and extinguishes all the motions of grace And truly so stood the case with Foelix Act. 24.25 when he trembled at Pauls Sermon he would not indure to hear him any further but when he had convenient leasure he would hear him again but he never sent for him And so you shall ever find this frame in a naturall mans heart those motions which the spirit of God casts into his heart that might induce him and lead him on by the hand to better courses we are not wel til we have cast them all off Just as Paul complaines of the Jewes Act. 13.46 since you have put it away from you loe we turne to the Gentiles we purge and cast out the
motions of Gods spirit and cannot indure that any Ordinance should bring us nearer to Christ Act. 7.51 Yee have always resisted the holy ghost expelled the blessed of God that if the holy ghost but dart any good councel into their hearts they cannot indure to hear it nor entertain any motion of it but grieve and vex the holy Spirit of God and they are not well till they quench it 1 Thess 5.19 Esa 5.3 we are alive to nothing but to run away from God alive to sinne alive to doe evill but to doe well we have no understanding Jer. 4.22 Apt to purge and cleanse our selves from all good things but wholly undisposed to doe any thing that is well this is the true estate of us all Look at us as we are by nature all of us without Christ cannot put forth one act of spirituall life not one good motion to be found in such a condition And in the first place for begetting any unto grace we rather doe the quite contrary we addict our selves to beget men to become the children of Hell worse then our selves Matth. 23.15 two-fold more the children of Hell and because that may be more proper to corrupt teachers Jeremy speakes it of all the sonnes of nature and those especially that had lived a while under the meanes and were not thereby brought on to an estate of grace those whom God had kindled some fire in their hearts and whom he would have brought on to grace even these They are all grievously revolted walking with slanders they are brasse and Iron they are all corrupters Jer. 6.28 He doth not say they are all corrupted but all corrupters that is such as are not only naught themselves but they corrupt others also they make others worse for their sakes No man that sets his face to God-ward but if he come among them he is the worse for them every man is kept off the more from goodnesse by their meanes they doe not love that men should be too forward or too precise nor to keep such a puleing nor such a praying we are all by nature corrupters Gen. 6.11 All flesh had corrupted their way even every man had done it every one is the worse for us that hath to doe with us if we see but any good disposition in them to be comming on in the waies of grace we doe as much as in us lyes to quench and damp and smother them and never rest by our good wills till we make them as ill as our selves and harden their hearts from Gods feare this is the true carriage of all those who are out of Christ He that hath not the Son he hath no life no motion of spirituall life no growing up in Christ no purging out of sinfull uncleannesse and therefore now to apply this conceive thus much First It applyes it selfe against the Church of Rome Application first who maintaine that men in the state of nature have free will to lay hold upon Christ and they conceive it is upon very faire termes but I would only demand of you this question Whether when they doe lay hold on Christ as they conceive whether they have him or they have him not they will say They have not Christ till they have received him for what hast thou that thou hast not received 1 Cor. 4.7 And till they have received him how shall they lay hold upon him and if not receive him they are dead men and when a man is dead what can he have by any benefit that is offered him Offer him never so largely and he can receive no benefit by it and if that any doe lay hold upon Christ were they not living when they so layed hold upon him so that when they doe lay hold upon Christ whether is it an action of life or no If not how shall they lay hold on Christ and without Christ no life A man in the state of nature neither doth good nor can he doe any good nor is he willing to doe good and therefore well doth the Apostle say It is God that workes in you both the will and the deed Phil. 2.12 13. Any thing that we doe that is good is wholly from the grace of Christ and this is just against the Papists Secondly It serves to teach us all to bemoane our owne estates or the estates of any of ours that we yet see in the gall of bitternesse lying in an estate of nature is it thy selfe or thy father or mother or thy children or servants whatever he be be he never so good a natured man if he be yet without Christ there is no life in him I say looke upon him as thy dead friend If thou didst look upon thy father and mother or children and see them lye dead before thee thou wouldest mourne bitterly for them you know what is said Zach. 12.10 As a man mournes for his first borne if our first borne or any that is neare to us dye we mourne bitterly for them and refuse to be comforted as was the case of Rachels mourning for her children and would not be comforted because they were not Matth. 2.18 they were all dead and therefore caused a bitter mourning it was the wounding and rending of her soule And may not this be the case of many a fruitfull mother many children and yet all of them dead in Gods sight not a soule living in the sight of God And is it not a farre more bitter death to be dead in sinne then to be dead in the body when it is a living soule in Gods sight then blessed are the dead that dye in the Lord for even so saith the Spirit that never spake words of falshood Revel 14.13 I say therefore if that our children live to God and have the life of grace in their hearts there is no danger of their death then thy children shall come againe to thy hearing at the resurrection of the just and thou shalt imbrace them with comfort and fill thy soule with unspeakable joy and fulnesse of glory if they dye in the favour and grace of God they shall rise to glory but if they be spiritually dead no goodnesse in the world in them no spirituall life at all no life of righteousnesse or holinesse which are the first fruits of the Spirit and of glory in this world then weep for these children and those friends that husband or wife or brother or sister weep for every soule that is in an estate of sinne and death they are as so many dead Corps you may sometimes see a whole house-full of dead creatures not one of them living to God not one of thy acquaintance not one of all thy brothers and sisters weep and mourne bitterly for them that are thus wounded with sinne and bleed deadly and gaspe for their last breath and it may be shall never finde grace from God in this world their present condition is fearefull and mourne thou for them in a godly manner that
many times conveys such a spirit of grace into us as gives us power to receive Christ what power had the Cripple to stand much lesse to walke Act. 3.6 7. he had no power to walke and it had been a vaine speech to him if there had not been a power in it to convey strength into him by his breath and the Lord Jesus working in it which did convey such strength into him as that presently he did walke And truly so is it with the Servants of God those that shal be saved we speake not in vaine to them the word that we speake conveyes spirit and life into them then they begin to receive life in him and are glad that they may finde Christ and for other men it leaves them without excuse if they do not use the meanes God appoints them to use And the means God prescribes to us are these Means of having Christ First as ever thou wouldest have Christ labour wisely to ponder upon and consider how dead thou art without Christ for thou shalt never find life by Christ unlesse thou find thy selfe lost without him Luke 10.10 Christ came to seek and to save that which was lost If thou seest thy self lost Christ will seek thee up be fully satisfied of this in thy judgement and mind that unlesse thou hast Christ thou hast no life and therefore mourn and pray The whole need not the Physitian but them that are sicke Matth. 9.12 13. See thy selfe a sinner and a perishing creature unlesse Christ seeke thee up Secondly Take this meanes as ever you desire to have life in Christ if thou knowest any sin by thy selfe thou art much to blame in thy selfe if thou dost not by any meanes wash thy hands of it Note this cleanse thy selfe from it There are many sins which a man lives in which he might avoid by very common gifts which would he renounce God would not be wantng to lead him on to further grace John 3.18 19. This is condemnation that light is come into the world and men love darkenesse rather then light 2 Cor. 6.17 18. touch no unclean thing meddle not with vain company and have nothing to doe with the unfruitfull workes of darkenesse and then I wil be a father to you and you shall be my Sons and Daughters if wee would but abhor that which we know to be nought God promiseth to receive us And it is the same that you read Esay 1.16 17 18. to shew you that if men do begin to learn to be better if they cease to doe evill and learn to do well if they acknowledge their sins in the sight of God God wil so sprinkle the blood of Christ upon them as that their great sins shal be forgiven them and upon the same termes men might feed upon the paschal Lamb Exo. 12.15 they must put all leaven out of their houses purge out therefore the old leaven and ye shall become a new lumpe 1 Cor. 5.7 8. purge out the old and ye shall be new creatures in Christ purge out the leaven of maliciousnesse and wickednesse and whatever is sinfull before God away with it touch no uncleane thing and Esa 55.7 Let the wicked forsake his wickednesse and the unrighteous his thoughts and then I am a God ready to pardon I will forgive all your iniquities Thirdly Seeke the Lord while he may be found call upon him while he is nigh Esa 55.7 8. Seeke him and your soule shall live God is abundantly ready to pardon c. How shall I seeke him no man hath a desire to seeke but that which he hath a desire to finde and therefore hunger and thirst after him as it is in the first verse of that Chapter desire nothing so much as thy part in Christ and besides endeavour to finde him in the meanes vers 3. Heare and your soules shall live hearken diligently to the Word of God It is a notable promise that in Prov. 8.34 Blessed is the man that heareth me watching daily at the posts of my gates for he that findeth me findeth life Consider there is no man that heares Christ but hee findes him and if he finde him he shall have life by him And therefore how much cause have men to straighten themselves a little in their worldly businesse to heare daily for who so findeth me findeth life and he that hears me findes me Heare therefore diligently and your soules shall live Shake off all drowsinesse of flesh and spirit and be desirous to receive Christ in his Word that is spoken to you and so seeke him in calling upon him ver 7 8. Call upon him while he is nigh And when is he nigh Every day if you stay longer then the present day you have no further opportunity offered you call upon God now and wrastle with him in your prayers that that which you have heard may be life and the length of your dayes Vse 4. To teach every soule that hath already found Christ and yet complaines thou hast a dead heart and a dull minde an heavie spirit heavie affections nothing lively cannot expell thy corruptions cannot beget others to God and art not active in spirituall workes then if thou finde a want or decay of life then seeke for Christ againe labour for more Christ and thou shalt have more life rest not in having a good measure of grace for thou wilt finde a world of deadnesse and weaknesse in beginnings of grace but as thou wouldest have any further measures of life so looke for further measures of Christ for Christ dispenseth himselfe to us in measure by little and little and use the same meanes to increase him as thou didst to get him at the first see thy selfe lost without him and thirst after him and heare diligently and call earnestly upon him for more strength use Christ and have Christ use grace and have grace grow up in the use of him and thou shalt grow up in the possession of him and therefore as you have received Christ so walke in him Col. 2.7 8. As if that were the way to get more rooting in Christ labour to live by faith and walke to the glory of Christ and by the rules of Christ and by that meanes you will be more built up rooted and established in him Vse 5. Of comfort to every soule that hath any part in Christ thou hast life in him and that in abundance and favour with God having him thou hast life Prov. 8.34 35. They that hate me love death if you seek not Christ you seeke death and mischiefe and destruction to your owne soules and yours vers last and therefore as you desire to finde Christ seeke him and having found him rejoyce in him that God hath given you to finde him and then walke as those that desire for ever to have him as not to change your portion by any meanes If you have Christ you have enough and if you sit loose to Christ for the enjoyment
of earthly blessings what will they advantage you but chiefly labour to get Christ and then He that hath the Son hath life and he that hath not the Son hath not life SERMON XII 1 John 5.13 These things have I written unto you that beleeve on the name of the Son of God that ye may know that ye have eternall life and that ye may beleeve on the name of the Son of God WEE are now come to enter upon the beginning of the conclusion of this whole Epistle wherein the Apostle rehearseth the intention and scope of the whole fore-past Epistle the persons and subjects to whom he writes and the end and scope of his writing These things have I written unto you To whom To you that beleeve on the name of the Sonne of God And he intends a double end First That you may know that you have eternall life Secondly That you may beleeve on the Name of the Sonne of God Now to encourage to this latter end that John aimes at beleeving on the name of the Sonne of God he propounds three motives in the 15 16 17. verses amongst which the last of them is a promise of prevailing with God for pardon and a prevention of falling into the great sinne and so propoundeth certaine incouragements to the end of the Chapter Now at this time we shall treat of the first part of this conclusion which is an expression that John here makes or a description of the persons here spoken to to them that beleeve on the name of the Son of God from the persons to whom John dedicates this Epistle to them that beleeve on the name of the Son of God observe Doct. This Epistle of John was written or directed to beleevers on the name of Iesus Christ This is evident in the text which may be gathered from the beginning of the Epistle in Chapter 1.4 he writes to such who by reading this Epistle might attaine to fulnesse of joy and those are only beleevers who are capable of that mercy and blessing you may gather the same from the three sorts of Christians to whom he writes in particular vers 12. in chap. 2. I write unto you little children because your sins are forgiven you and these little children are divided into three sorts vers 13. Fathers young men and babes so that looke at all that Iohn writes to they are such as make a faithfull acknowledgement of God the Father as chap. 4. vers 4. And looke at his second Epistle and that is to the Elect Lady and looke at his third Epistle and that is first to the beloved Gaius and he shewes you what a notable Christian he was he wishes no further prosperity to his body and outward estate then his soule had attained unto his soule was in great prosperity only his body and estate was weake for he was the Host of the whole Church of God so that looke at all Iohns writings and they are all written to them that beleeve on the name of the Son of God And in very deed looke at all the Epistles of all the rest of the Apostles and they are all written to Beleevers if you summe them all up from first to last looke at the Prothesis of every Epistle in the first second and third verses of every Epistle and they are written sometimes to Saints by calling sometimes to faithfull brethren sometimes to the Churches of Christ naturall Sons partakers of the common salvation in a word only to those that were faithfull beleevers in Christ Iesus And when our blessed Saviour himselfe writes he writes to the seven Churches of Asia all of them such as sometime had been eminent and glorious and gracious and amongst the weakest he had a few names even in Sardis that had not defiled their garments chap. 4.3 Now when a man shall consider that all the Apostles doe dedicate all their writings to beleevers and Saints it gives us just occasion of inquiry Quest Wherefore hee writes to these and to these only Answ Now for Answer to which To these he writes in regardof the speciall benefit and helpe that these writings might yeeld to beleevers both to those that then lived What help Johns Epistle yeilds to beleevers and to all other beleevers that should succeed them to the end of the world And those benefits are many and divers As first Teaching Teaching that is one benefit the Churches receive by these Epistles 2 Thes 2.15 brethren stand fast and hold the traditions which ye have been taught whither by Word or by our Epistle This was one end of the Apostles writing their Epistles to the intent they might teach the Church of God sundry things which else they had not known Admonition 2 Another benefit the Churches received from these Epistles was Admonition and putting them in remembrance of the things they had heard things which they did know before and which happily they had forgotten 2 Pet. 1.12 13. I thought it necessary to put you in remembrance Practise 3 And in verse 13. there is a third benefit of them To stir them up to do such things which though they wel knew should be done yet they were dul and slow of heart and stood in need to be stirred up to them 4 Another end of their writings was this Humiliation That sometimes they might Humble and bring low the spirits of those that wer puffed up had not repented of the sin which they had committed 2 Cor. 7.8 I was sorry at the first that I made you sorry but now I am not sorry for it was a godly sorrow so that it seemes the writings of the Apostles did much prevaile with the faithfull people of God and wrought in them such godly sorrow that it was a comfort to the Apostle that he had sometimes grieved them Confirmation in the faith 5 Another end was that so by this meanes they might be strengthened in the faith according to what you read in the words of the Text to them that did beleeve he wrote that they might beleeve meaning that they might be confirmed and established in beleeving Consolation 6 Also to the intent that they might fil the hearts of Gods people with joy in beleeving 1 Iohn 4. according to what you read was effected Act. 15.31 So that see how much help the Church of God hath had by these writings so that they have found much comfort in them And these writings have been the foundation of the faith of Gods people from that time to the worlds end they have ever yeelded matter to the Ministers of the Gospel to preach and expound to the people that by preaching they might bring on men to salvation so that the holy ghost would not have Ministers nor any other to be wise above what is written 2 Tim. 4 16 17. That when these are put into the hand of a faithful Scribe taught unto the Kingdome of God he may be able to
Gods people Mighty power in the Scriptures preached First For Preaching there is a mighty power in the Scriptures preached for he writes these things that they may be preached and to be read and to make use of them in conference and meditation and in them all there is a mighty power But first for preaching Rom. 1.16 17. The Gospell is the power of God to salvation for therein is the righteousnesse of God revealed from faith to faith By the Gospel of God preached the Righteousnesse of God is revealed from faith to faith to lead on beleevers to beleeve and not to rest growing in beleeving til they reach unto salvation it is the mighty power of God to salvation to every one that beleeves such an one while he lives shall be of the thriving hand in faith And when the Apostle prayed so earnestly night and day to come againe to the Thessalonians Doth hee not therein imply though there may be a mighty power in the word read to increase faith where it is already wrought yet his personal presence would helpe it much more whether by conference or by preaching and therefore he prayes much to see them again An evident argument though the word read may be of much use to establish us yet much more the personal persence and conference and preaching of the Gospel of Christ else that prayer of his had been something impertinent Conference And so secondly for conferring of the Scriptures you know when the two Disciples were doubtful whether that was the Christ or no Luke 24.21 our Savior doth not only reprove them for that doubtfulnesse but he begins at Moses and opened to them the things written in the Prophets till in the end their hearts glowed and burned within them and that was a furtherance of their faith for then they presently ran to Jerusalem and then they do not say we trusted this was he but they say the Lord is risen indeed In very truth without any further dissention never distrusted it more he is risen indeed so that there is a mighty power in the word confered upon in private conference and therefore they doubt no more of it So that the word opened by way of conference made their hearts to burn within them they do not call it preaching but rather a private conference an applying the Scripture to this point they stood need to be instructed in and they go away with ful resolution the Lord is risen indeed And you know the mighty power and use of the conference of Phillip with the Eunuch upon that conference the Eunuch beleeved and was baptized Acts 8.37 So that take the word preached and there is a mighty power of God in it to lead a Christian man from faith to faith And take the Gospell of God and conferre about it and it is a mighty power to increase faith that beleevers may beleeve Reading the word Thirdly And so it is for the word read another kind of dispensing this word that is a special end of it that by reading you might beleeve on the name of the Sonne of God that is the next use of the Scripture they which do read shal by reading finde their hearts confirmed and established in the faith John 20.30 31. There is a mighty power of God that accompanies the word of God read to strengthen men in the faith that such as beleeve already may beleeve more and bee established in their perswasion of the truth of God Fourthly If you shal examine the things that you have heard Examination of things heard that is another use of the Scriptures an examination of what you heare goe home and consider whether the things that have been taught were true or no whether agreeable to the holy Scriptures or no for a Preacher speaks not the expresse words of the Scripture but comments and explications of the Scriptures and therefore examine whether that which is delivered be agreeable to the Scriptures which are alledged for to prove the doctrine We must make use of the Scripture as a rule to measure all the Sermon by we heare whether it be of just length and breadth of Gods word or no as the ballance of the Sanctuary the two testaments be and when you weigh what is said then you are confirmed and established in it Now this kind of making use of the Scriptures to examine what you hear it is of special use to helpe forward the faith of such as do beleeve yea and which is more it may bring on men to beleeve which it may be never did beleeve before mightily stirred before but beleeved not til they goe home and searched the Scriptures seeing that which is spoken to be fully agreeable to the word of God they have been brought on wonderfully to beleeve famous is that of the Bereans Acts 17.11 12. they heard the word and what he spake they received it gladly they thought he spoke well but they searched daily to see whether those things which were spoken were so or no therefore see the blessing of God upon it vers 12. many of them beleeved they received the word with reverence and did not cavell at it but heard it patiently and when they came at home conferred about it and when upon examination they saw it was according to the Scriptures of the holy Prophets when they saw that what Paul preached was suitable to Moses and the Prophets the blessing of God was great upon them for the number of them that beleeved was not a few to shew you that a man that hath heard the word and hath been stirred with what he heard if he shal go home and consider and weigh well and see how one thing bears witnesse to another Note this so as that the word preached opens the word written and the word written confirmes the word preached then though before he was doubtfull as sometimes a godly mans heart may faile him in applying the word to himselfe as Jacobs heart failed and he beleeved not yet when he considered it and saw what tokens of love was sent him and laid circumstances together then his spirit revived So a man heares much and some thing pertinent to him yet his heart may faile him and may have much adoe to gather any comfort out of it but when he considers things more privately and searches the Scriptures upon examination Repetition of the word blessed many a man beleeves the word which before he was doubtful of Repetition and examination of the word is marvellously blessed by God to this end to helpe forward our faith it is of good use both to beginne and to increase faith sometimes to worke it where it was heretofore wanting much more to increase it where it was begun before and therefore as we were begotten by the immortall Word of God so no Word of God being dispensed in any Ordinance of God none of them but are of mighty use for the supplying our defects of faith
saith Matth. 26.39 He asked that which was a lawfull thing and yet because he would not trench upon that which might crosse the will of his Father he would not put forth any the least affection of his soule to the over-ruling the Counsell of God and therefore he expresseth himselfe thus Neverthelesse not my will but thy will be done So that whensoever we aske any thing that is lawfull it must be with subjection of our owne wils to the will of God But for more full clearing of this point see it thus inlarged First a man is said to pray according to Gods will either partly as his will is expressed in his Word and partly the will of God expressing the worke of the Spirit in the heart of a Childe of God for both these are effectuall in every prayer that is made according to Gods will First according to his will expressed in his Word 1. Aske things lawfull therein God requires that we should pray only for such things as are lawfull and such as therein he hath commanded us to aske that we may doe them Notable is that example in Psal 119.4 5. Thou hast commanded us to keep thy Commandements diligently and in the next verse see what is his request O that my wayes were directed to keep thy Statutes looke whatsoever God commands us to doe we have warrant to pray for that we must pray for things lawfull and only for such Secondly 2. Aske in Christs name Whatsoever we pray for we must pray in the name of Christ Iohn 16.22 23. he makes a large promise to such as so aske in his name vers 23 24. Whatsoever you shall aske the Father in my name he will give it you This God requires that we should put up all our petitions in the name of Christ Now to aske in the name of Christ doth require the exercise of two graces First He that shall aske in the name of Christ implyes the asking of it in humility 1 To aske in Christs name requireth humility whatsoever we aske in humility and lowlinesse of spirit that is to aske in the name of Christ and that will evidence and put forth it selfe in three or foure severall acts in every prayer that is made according to Gods will and put up in the name of Christ First act of humility First A prayer made in the name of Christ is made with this humility whereby we acknowledge our selves lesse then the least of all Gods mercies as Iacob doth acknowledge Gen. 32.10 He was lesse then the least of all the mercies he had already received And therefore if God should never grant him more mercy he could not but acknowledge he had done abundantly more for him already then he had deserved he prayes not in his owne name but in the name of another and no man can pray in the name of Christ but he must pray in humility he must have no confidence in his owne worth Act. 2 Secondly he must pray in the sence of his owne insufficiency so much as to thinke a good thought much lesse to make a good prayer 2 Cor. 3.5 Rom. 8.26 This is humility and selfe-deniall when a man comes before God and acknowledgeth his owne unworthinesse to aske any mercy of God and confesseth his owne unablenesse to aske any blessing according to Gods will Act. 3 Thirdly A man askes in humility when he puts up his petitions with submission to Gods will he desires not that God would satisfie him in any lust but only grant him the things that are expedient for him so farre as may stand with the good pleasure of his heavenly Father and no further Matth. 26.39 Act. 4 Fourthly There is another act of humility to bend the heart of a man to make use of no mediation in prayer but only the mediation of the Lord Jesus Christ you read of a pretended humility a voluntary humility consisting in the worship of Angels Col. 2.18 They thought themselves not worthy immediatly to rush into Christs presence but rather intreat the Angels to intercede the Father for them but it is counterfeit humility and such men are puffed up with a fleshly minde in their voluntary humility it shewes that it is a vaine pride of heart to expresse more basenesse and meannesse of spirit then God requires and is but a counterfeit humility Now to pray in the name of Christ is not only to pray in humility but also to pray in faith and these acts of faith you have in all the prayers that you put up to God according to his will First Faith directs you to pray only unto him First act of faith in prayer upon whom you have beleeved Rom. 10.14 We only beleeve on God the Father and on his Son Jesus Christ and the blessed Spirit and therefore upon the Lord Faith only directs us to call he teacheth us not to pray to our Mother as the Papists doe nor to our Brethren and Sisters as the Papists doe to the Saints and Angels but only to the Father that is the voyce of faith Gal 4.5 6. Rom. 8.15 The Spirit helps us to cry Abba father Act. 2 Secondly It is the nature and worke of faith in every prayer it doth guide the heart of a man to looke unto God with some kinde of childe-like confidence repairing to him as a Father such as by faith beleeve on the name of the Son of God they come to God in their prayers as to their Father John 20.17 And it is the nature of faith to cry out as Thomas did My Lord and my God John 20.28 So that this is another worke of faith that when ever you come into Gods presence to aske any thing at his hand you come to him as to your Father he knowes what you want better then you can aske and is more willing to grant whatever is meet for you then your selves can desire to come to God as our heavenly Father through Jesus Christ is an act of faith he is so wel acquainted with us in him that himself loves us Joh. 16.26 27. So that to pray in faith is to come to God as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and through him a Father also to us abundant in goodnesse and in truth a Father that is great in counsell and excellent in worke that hath compassion of his owne Children and wil therefore performe that which seemes good in his sight Act. 3 Thirdly Another act of faith and that is for a man to come truly cleaving to the Lord Jesus Christ not to stand upon demurs and disputes whether we had best cleave to God and whether we had best doe such or such things and so be almost Christians for if we so come we cannot receive any thing at the hands of God Iam. 1.5 6 7 8. A wavering minded man is unstable c. This is one and a principall part of the meaning of it he speakes of such a kinde of wavering faith
as whereby a man is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a heart and an heart he hath a minde to draw near to Christ and to become a servant of Christ and yet withal a mind to be hankering after some sinfull lust or other which takes up his minde and which his soule lusteth after and therefore he is unstable in all his wayes sometimes he is for God and sometimes for himselfe ever halting between God and the World but let such men thinke they shall not receive any thing at the hands of God this should have been in the second place Act. 4 Fourthly Faith hath respect unto this to beleeve that what we have asked according to Gods will he will undoubtedly give it us Mark 11.24 Beleeve that you shall receive and you shall receive it meaning so farre as you have commended your Petitions to God in the name of Christ with subjection to the will of your heavenly Father beleeve it that God hath respect to your poore estate and he will doe for you what you desire yea even in those things wherein he seemes to delay an answer but in the meane time for your part make account your prayers are heard in that very blessing you desire for God doth wisely ponder not onely the hearts of the sons of men but all the words of their lips and he knowes the meaning of the spirit in the hearts of his children And though wee must expresse our selves in words in our desire of this and that blessing yet God lookes principally at the grounds of our desires and wherefore we desire to obtain the blessing What it is that moves us to have a desire after such and such a mercy and observing well the byas of our hearts in such requests he doth in this respect constantly hearken to his servants and failes not to grant us the things we aske even when he seems to deny us Heb. 5.7 he speakes of the prayer of Christ he was heard in what he desired What was hee heard in why hee prayed that if it were possible the cup might passe from him And was he heard in this did not he drink it to the very dregs did he not taste of Gods deepest displeasure and how is he then said to be heard why the Father did consider what it was that his Sonne did desire which was principally that Gods will might be done and not his own And Gods will being done Christs desire being that Gods will might be done he was heard in the thing he desired And againe he was heard in the thing so far as it concerned himselfe as to be saved from that which hee feared that though he did drink of the cup yet he should be saved from being overwhelmed by those feares which his soule trembled at and groaned under and prest him heavily even unto the very death though not from tasting of them yet from being overwhelmed of them and he was supported in them so that Christs main end being the doing of his fathers wil and the redemption of mankind in these things he was graciously heard And so Moses he prayed that if it might be Gods will he might goe over Jordan and see that good land his end was to see that good land Well God said in displeasure he should not go over and yet in mercy he answers his request for his desire was to see that good land Now God could make him see that good land never carry him over Jordan and he shewes him all the land of Canaan all the coasts of Israel from the one end thereof to another God so strengthened his sight this way as one would not have thought it credible but that God was able to grant him his desire and strengthened him beyond what he desired so shall you observe Gods manner of dealing with his servants if we be content to pray according to the will of God and bow our spirits to aske nothing but what is lawfull and with submission to Gods will and run to God as our heavenly father in the name of Jesus Christ and look at him as one more ready to give then we to aske then make account God will ponder all the petitions of your soules and weigh well what you have said and he knowes what you aime at in asking this and that blessing and though he may seeme to deferre it he better knowes your need of it then your selves doe and when he seemes most to crosse it then doth he most abundantly answer it Moses said the Lord was angry with him and would not heare him and yet he did heare him he limited God to a means to shew him that good land but he need not appoint God a course Moses knew hot how he should see it unlesse he went over but God knew how he should see it So that even those prayers with which God seems to be angry in regard of some infirmity that God may see in our prayers yet this we are to make account of that even then when God is displeased with our poor petitions even then doth he answer them most graciously Deut. 3.23 25 26. God was wroth with me and would not heare me And he said speake no more to me of that matter It was a marvellous strange kind of expression of Gods fatherly counsell to Moses that when he is angry with some weaknesse in our prayers and some unworthinesse in us to desire or have this or that see his carriage Moses his words provoked God and therefore because he desires to go over Iordan to see that good land God was wroth and God would not have him goe and yet he should see it he should have as much as he desired but into the Land he should not goe so that come with that confidence in prayer that though our prayers be such as for which God may be angry with us yet many times God heares those prayers and answers them in mercy farre beyond what we could have thought for Moses saw as much of it as could be seene and he could not have seene so much of it if he had gone over Iordan as he did then see Consider therefore God markes the very bent of my soule and desire in every petition I put up and therefore observing what I desire he will accordingly grant either the thing I desire according to my desire or that which I ayme at in my desire and this is a glory to the name of Christ whatsoever we should aske in our owne names would be thrust out of heaven yet this magnifies the name of Christ that a Christian soule beleeving on his name and laying hold upon him and cleaving to him and shall come to God as beleeving that God is more ready and able and willing to grant then we to aske and that he will grant us the very petition that we desire this doth magnifie the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and this is to pray according to Gods will as expressed in his Word But now
yours untill he blesse Magistrates give Ministers a doore of utterance that they may speake savingly and powerfully to the soules of their Hearers so as that as it were you may weary God and prevaile with him to arise and give you your desire Wherefore is it thinke you that Christ calls prayer knocking but for this very end to manifest unto us that when we continue praying we continue knocking and we make as a loud noyse at Heaven gates as any man that knocks at your house doores and God so esteemes the nature of prayer Matth. 7.7 For to him that knocketh it shall bee opened So that if God doe but give us hearts to knock and to be instant and constant in prayer for that is knocking if we be fervent and persevering in prayer and spring from our feeling and sence of want of the blessing and what comfort it would be to us to obtaine it and give him no rest untill we receive at his hands what we aske of him to him that thus knocketh it shall be opened So did the Woman of Syrophenitia she knockt hard at our Saviours doore of mercy have pitty have mercy upon me and when at the first Christ answers her not a word she then cryes out againe Lord helpe me and when thereupon he tells her he was not sent to her but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel Did shee then leave off No she would not be put off when he then told her it was not meet to take the childrens bread and to cast it to doggs Shee said Truth Lord but yet the doggs eate the crumbs that fall from the table Why then saith our Saviour be it unto thee even as thou wilt Like as a man that is weary of a Petitioner As if he should say Why if thou beest so importunate that thou wilt have no deniall if it must be so why goe thy way and be it unto thee even as thou wilt And when God gives us so to pray as not to give over we may know for a certaine God intends to give us a gracious answer in all the desires of our soules and this is to pray according to Gods will Now to speake of the second part of the Doctrine and that is the reason why a prayer thus made is ever granted pray well and speed well Reas 1 First because in praying according to Gods will God doth but fulfill his owne will in fulfilling yours as this is the will of God that all those things that are lawfull for us to aske and expedient for us it is his will that wee should pray for them it is Gods will that we should pray with submission to Gods will that we should pray humbly and feelingly and constantly now if we have prayed according to the will of God then his will must needs be done and his will is that now our wills should be fulfilled This reason is taken from the faithfulnesse of God in the promise and from the suitablenesse of Gods will to ours when we so pray Reas 2 Secondly It is taken from the mighty power of the name of Christ whensoever we use his name in prayer not in lip labour but when we pray in sence of our owne unworthinesse and in some measure of Childe-like confidence the prayers that we now make is the prayer of Christ and him the Father heareth alwaies Jo. 11.42 Now if Christ give us to use his name looke whatever petition we put up and use his name in it it is now the prayer of Christ for looke as if any of you should send your childe or servant to any of your neighbours to desire such or such a favour from them you send them but the petition is yours they desire it in your name and if you send him and bid him use your name and then you are sure it will be granted and if he should deny your childe or servant of such a petition that he askes in your name in denying him he denies you so that God cannot deny the petition you aske in Christs name for him he heareth alwayes and all such petitions he hath promised to heare The word of promise you heard before and it is full to this purpose Joh. 16.23 Verily verily I say unto you He takes his owne truth to witnesse it as a solemne asseveration Whatsoever ye shall aske the Father in my name he will give it you And therefore Aske in my name that you may receive If therefore the Lord Jesus Christ doe but give us this encouragement that we faithfully give up our selves to become his and in sence of our owne unworthinesse to aske any thing at Gods hands And we come to the Father as being set a worke by Christ and beseech him to answer us in this and that mercy and cannot give over till he receive our prayers and reach us an answer of them then the promise stands good Aske and you shall receive Reas 3 Thirdly It is taken from Gods acceptance not only of Christ but of the Spirit the Holy Ghost also for that is much to be considered for there is no prayer that is so wrought in this sort nor any prayer thus put up in sence and feeling and breathing of the Spirit in the name of Christ but it is the prayer of the Holy Ghost himselfe and God that knowes the meaning of the Spirit he hearkens to all the requests of the Spirit Rom. 8.26 27. The Spirit it selfe makes intercession for us so that these prayers are not only received and gratified because they are put up in the name of Christ but also because the Spirit it selfe makes intercession for us according to the will of God and God knowes the meaning and voyce of his owne Spirit God knowes that without this we could never be fervent for any spirituall blessing according to the will of God our dead hearts would soone make dead worke of it if there were no spirit in our prayer but our owne if our flesh be weake we shall soone have done and therefore when God sees us pray thus feelingly are not willing to leave him til he answer us in our desires then God knowes there is a mighty power of a spirit that speaks in us and God cannot deny the intercession of his spirit And further to strengthen this point Christ himselfe tels us that he will pray in our behalves for us for the Lord Jesus Christ himselfe sits at Gods right hand making intercession for us John 16.26 At that day yee shall aske in my name and I say not unto you that I will pray the father for you for the father himselfe loveth you because you have loved me c. And the Apostle sweetly expresseth how the Lord Jesus prayes for us Rom. 8.34 Who is he that condemned it is Christ that dyed yea rather that is risen againe who is even at the right hand of God who also maketh intercession for us so that the Lord Jesus Christ takes
pour out our souls to God in any spirituall affection then we know we have this unction the Holy Ghost came and opened our mouthes and healed our lips and made us pray affectionately and feelingly and that is a great light to the hearing of our petitions for a prayer well made is never ill heard and therefore you know what is said Psalm 10.17 Thou preparest the heart to pray and thou hast heard the desire of the poor How shall a poor Christian know that his desire is heard Why thou hast prepared the heart to pray If God prepare our hearts then he will cause his eare to heare these alwaies accompany one another That is something that this unction doth it works in all our hearts to pray according to Gods will and to pray in the name of Christ and so satisfies us Secondly This Spirit of God that we receive from the holy one it is also a spirit of faith that inwardly perswades us that God hath indeed heard us and that he will doe for us whatsoever we desire and will sometimes evidently beare witnesse of it to the heart of a man Maâ— 11.24 What thing soever ye desire when ye pray beleeve that ye shall receive them and ye shall have them We must beleeve that what we have said to God he will certainly doe it and the spirit of faith will come and say to the heart God in heaven saith Amen to it he gives out a fâ—at let it be done Psal 6.8 David was in a grievous affliction both in bodily affliction and spirituall desertion as in the beginning of the Psalme He cryed out day and night God had forsaken him and his soule was sore vexed but thou O Lord how long c. And now away from me all ye mine enemies for the Lord hath heard my petition and he will accept me so that even while he is in bitter complaints and grievous mourning while he is yet speaking this unction comes and reveales to him Gods acceptance of him and therefore now he encourages himselfe and casts a defiance upon all the troubles of his soule he lookes at them all as vanishing away like snow before the Sun and now he comforts himselfe therein And this oftentimes and usuall when the soule makes use of Gods Ordinances and Priviledges which himselfe hath granted that surely God hath heard our requests he never refuseth to grant that prayer which he stands to heare for this purpose is that you read of the good woman Hannah 1 Sam. 1.15 to 18. Ely suspected she was in some distemper but saith she I have poured out my soule before the Lord. She prayed feelingly and fervently and faithfully not words but her soule before the Lord she had prayed with her whole heart and her soule did raise up it selfe heaven-ward the strength of her desire was set upon that and he then said The Lord give thee favour in his eyes and grant thy request which was as if this answer had come from heaven for God doth reveale himself in his Ordinances She looked at him as the high Priest and so a Type of the Messiah and she tooke it as a voyce from heaven and the text saith She went home and looked no more sad God hath set it on and spoken comfort to her heart so as that her faith was established she saw the voyce of God in it and went home resolved upon it and takes such encouragement to her selfe from thence as to feare no more in that kinde When Gods spirit gives us to pray affectionately and to beleeve confidently then we know we have our petitions we are perswaded of it But besides this cofident perswasion this followes there is another worke of faith and that is a constant wrastling against all discouragements that falls between our requests and the accomplishment of our petitions Famous is that story of the woman of Syrophenicia Matth. 15. from 23. to 29 you know the manifold discouragements she met with she prayes and at first God gives her no audience answers her not a word she prayes againe and then he gives her a deniall to grant her any such request and tells her plainly It is not sutable to his calling and therefore he may not apply himselfe unto her yet she is not discouraged with this which is very much but she followes him still and though yet reproached and called a dogge yet she is not discouraged but out of the word of reproach gathers some hope of comfort if she be a dogge why then let her have that which belongs to doggs let her have but the crums that fall from the childrens table Shee is not discouraged with all the difficulties that lay in her way nothing shall cut her off from importunity and when he could forbeare no longer he then tells her O woman great is thy faith be it unto thee even as thou wilt To shew you that if the Holy Ghost doe but give a Christian soule so much resolution and confidence as not to give over praying till God be pleased to give over answering It is a good signe this spirit of faith will certainly prevaile at length All things are possible to them that beleeve and not only possible but certaine Thirdly There is a third worke of this Spirit and that is this it workes as it is a spirit of hope and that moves a man to waite upon God that though God should tarry long and he should pray heartily for such and such requests to be granted in such a case as this our spirits would be sad and uncomfortable and give over and be ready to say Wherefore should I waite on the Lord any longer as that prophane Prince said 1 King 6. last having been long prest with Famine he in the end burst forth with this This evill is of the Lord why should we waite on him any longer our foolish hearts soone grow impatient and we cannot dance after attendance upon God and therefore in this case though flesh and bloud be short winded and soone weary yet the truth is this unction when it workes in us a spirit of hope it still waites upon God it sets it selfe to waite upon him and is very well contented to stay Gods leisure though he should tarry very long Psal 62.1 Psal 130.4 5. and 2 last he sets both morning and evening watch for him and he is well contented to waite for him and Psal 123.1 2 3. Our eyes waite upon the Lord our God so that when God gives us a spirit of waiting then doth he certainly seale up unto us the granting of our petitions for when a man attends at the Court for an answer upon his petition if the King bid him attend it is a good signe he meanes to grant him his request else he would have rejected it but a wise Prince if he see a man come in good sort and desire a reasonable request of him that such a thing is according to his Princely will and he bids
Arts and Sciences whence is their knowledge but from their observation of many experiences Phisitians know it and they therefore set it downe in their bookes they know it is so Things that we gather from sence and experience we are said to have the knowledge of now this experience doth not only give us confidence but knowledge for by the unction that we have received we doe know the love of God that passeth knowledge Christ dwelling in our hearts by faith we come to know the love of God towards us Eph. 3.17.19 There is not any thing that concernes the love of God towards us but the Spirit of God dwelling in our hearts by faith it comes to passe that we are able to comprehend the height and depth length and breadth of the love of God towards us This Spirit of God in our hearts gives us sensible experience and knowledge of Gods love to us of his attonement and grace to us our Consciences that had hels in them before all such darksome evils are now vanisht and scattered and we know that sensibly we had power given us to pray and to beleeve that our prayers are granted and can wait upon God and feare God and make conscience of obeying his will Now this Spirit of prayer that discovers these things plainly to our inward man the sence and experience of it makes a Christian able to know what God hath done for him and makes him able to beleeve what God hath promised him and thus now when we aske any thing according to Gods will he doth not only say It is well said but he takes a course to answer our requests we have certaine grounds to move us in what we aske and the ends of our requests are right Now God considers not alwaies so much the letter of our prayers as the grounds and ends of them the scope we ayme at and God will so accordingly answer us Vse 1. Let it be first a ground of encouragement to every Christian soule that beleeves in the name of Jesus Christ trust not in your owne good parts and good gifts if any such things increase set not your hearts upon them trust not in any worldly blessing but beleeve on the name of Christ And therefore that you may beleeve humble your soules before him in regard of your sins and pray heartily in the faith of Christ And why so The ground is in the text you shall not only be confident and assured of your salvation which is a great mercy of God to my soule and a greater then all the whole Church of Rome would grant they may goe to Rome and from thence to Jerusalem and from one place to another to have sought for pardon of sin and yet not so much comfort promised them that after all this they shall finde it but in the end to Purgatory they must goe and that is as ill as Hell fire say they save only in durance and this is all the helpe they have they might whip and scourge themselves and give all their goods away to the poore and themselves goe in sackcloth and ashes all their dayes and when all comes to all they must not be sure of any mercy or favour from God which to beleeve would be Hereticall presumption but they must notwithstanding all this rest in Hell fire till the day of Judgement unlesse they will be at cost to purchase freedome from it and which is strange though they would not suffer them to beleeve a release by Christs pardon yet upon the Popes pardon they might have hope and so they take more pains for an uncertainty then we for certainty and knowledge but you shall not only attaine certainty of salvation but certainty of the granting of all your requests no peace to the peace of a Beleever and therefore lay aside all your confidence in the world but be confident in the name of the Lord Jesus and be certaine of Gods favour and goodnesse to you in him and then here is such blessings as will keep a mans heart warme in the worst houres Vse 2. To teach such as beleeve on the name of the Lord Jesus how you may come to be confident and certaine of the hearing and granting your petitions How may wee come to that Hast thou good evidence to thy soule of thy Adoption that God is thy Father then meditate well upon this point that Christ is thy Advocate to make intercession and Attonement for thee in case thou hast displeased thy heavenly Father These two things will much prevaile they be strong helps to a weake faith and then consider what unction thou hast received and look up to God that he would give thee a spirit of prayer to pray feelingly and fervently and humbly before him and then labour for a spirit of faith which if God give thee so much faith as to perswade thee thy requests are heard and to wrastle against discouragements and that the spirit of faith doth worke in thee grace to hope and waite upon God and withall an holy feare of his name and obedience to walke obediently in doing his will and patiently to suffer his will under his hand and observe how the Spirit speakes evidently in this and that kinde and it will be a notable means to helpe thee to grow confident and certaine that all thy prayers are heard Now many a Christian soule falls short of this he considers not the Attonement of Christ in his prayer but many times thus stands the case with them there is much desolutenesse in their lives and loosenesse and fearlesnesse in their hearts before God rejoyce not with trembling God sees his Servants loose in their obedience and when disobedient they seek not to Christ for Attonement whence it is that many times they are so full of doubts Vse 3. Of much consolation to all those that beleeve on the name of the Lord Jesus and make use of these blessed meanes this is our confidence that whatsoever petitions we aske he heareth us and we know it See how comfortable a Christians estate is he growes certaine not only of his owne salvation but he is certaine of the hearing and granting of all his petitions if he can but pray well he makes account all is well let his distresses be what they will be SERMON XVI 1 JOHN 5.16 17. If any man see his brother sinne a sinne which is not unto death he shall aske and he shall give him life for them that sinne not unto death There is a sinne unto death I doe not say that he shall pray for it THese words containe a third motive to encourage us unto that duty which is the maine scope of this Epistle to wit to beleeve on the name of the Sonne of God whereto the Apostle exhorts us vers 13. and propounds first this motive to wit A blessed confidence of the hearing of all our petitions Secondly a certaine knowledge verified that he not only heares but grants our desires Now he